FRÉART DE CHAMBRAY’S BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED STUDY OF ARCHITECTURE, 1650 FIRST EDITION, WITH 40 FOLIO PLATES

FRÉART DE CHAMBRAY, Roland. Parallele de l'Architecture Antique et de la Moderne. Avec un Recueil des Dix Principaux Autheurs Qui Ont Écrit des Cinq Ordres. Paris: Edmé Martin, 1650. Folio, 19th-century half brown calf gilt, marbled boards and endpapers. $3200.

First edition, beautifully illustrated with an engraved title page and 40 fine full-page copperplate engravings by Charles Errard, depicting facades, columns and lintels, and decorative details.

"A beautifully printed and designed volume" (Fowler 127), this comparative study by Fréart de Chambray "launched the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns in architectural theory. His commentary… identified sizable differences among the 'modern' orders, despite the fact that all the Renaissance authors professed to follow the inviolable proportions of antiquity… Leaving his faith in the divine nature of proportion unquestioned, he attacked modern inventions and called for a return to the untainted forms of Greek classicism" (Avery 78). With lovely title page vignette, head- and tailpieces and initials. Brunet I, 1762. Fowler 127. See also Harris, 196.

Very minor marginal wormholing, occasional marginal dampstaining, plates overall very clean. 19th-century calf and boards rubbed.