HISTORY, SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY 78 “No Architecture Book Has Ever Had Wider Influence” Second edition in English of Palladio’s enormously important treatise on architecture, including essays on building materials, the classical orders and decorative ornaments, with frontispiece portrait and allegorical title page, 218 magnificent copper-engraved plates (15 double-page) on 203 sheets, and 12 in-text engravings—all after drawings by Giacomo Leoni. Although the first part of Palladio’s monumental work had been translated into English in the 1600s, it was not until Giacomo Leoni’s 1715 first edition in English that the complete work was published. Leoni’s edition ignited the great Palladian revival in England and its American colonies. Thomas Jefferson, for example, had many copies in his library and used Palladio as a basis for his design of Monticello. When ordering the capitals for the Pavilions at the University of Virginia from Italy, Jefferson specified that they be carved after particular plates in this 1721 edition. “Palladio is the Bible,” he told a friend whom he urged to get a copy of the treatise, “and stick close to it” (Randall, 151). “No architecture book has ever had wider influence, more especially in England. It was swiftly translated into other languages and went through numerous editions. There can be no major city in Europe that does not contain a building influenced by Palladio” (Great Books and Book Collectors, 175, 186). With copper-engraved allegorical frontispiece and full-page portrait of Palladio by Picart. Harris 684. Fowler 224. Neat repair to Plate V in Volume II, Book IV; remaining plates and text clean and fine. A handsomely bound copy in excellent condition, with a nice provenance. 86PALLADIO, Andrea. The Architecture of A. Palladio; In Four Books. London, 1721. Two volumes. Tall folio, period-style three-quarter calf gilt. $18,000
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