I dieci libri dell'architettura di M. Vitruvio tradutti et commentati da monsignor Barbaro eletto Patriarca d'Aquileggia. Con due tavole, l'una di tutto quello si contiene per i capi dell'opera, l'altra per dechiaratione di tutte le cose d'importanza.

Folio (392x267 mm.). 274 [i.e. 284], [18] pp. Collation: A⁸ B⁶ C⁶ [χ]¹ D-G⁸, H⁶ I⁸ K⁸⁺¹ L⁸ ²[χ]¹ M-Q⁸ R⁶ S-T⁸ V⁴. The register on leaf V4r records irregularities and pasted extensions as “quinterni alterati”. Leaf M4 missigned L4, corrected by stamping. Leaves K3 and L6 are double and irregularly paged (133, 133, 133, 134, between 132 and 135; 155, 156, 156, 157 between 1544 and 157 misnumbered 167; each counted as two leaves in collation). Two leaves inserted between the original I4 and I5 are signed I4 and I5 and numbered with roman numerals CXXV-CXXVIII between pp. 124 and 125. Architectural title-page, with the title set in the upper part of an arch between personifications of Poetry, Music, Geometry, and Astronomy, and above a figure of Architecture standing below and flanked by allegorical figures. Imprint set below the block. On the verso of leaf A2 is a full-page woodcut of two men among the ruins of buildings and examples of instruments and machinery described by Vitruvius. One of the men may be Daniello Barbaro. The block includes a cartouche at the head and Barbaro's coat of arms. The cartouche is blank in this first appearance, but the block is repeated on leaf V4r with the register set into this space. 131 woodcuts in the ten books, 25x36 mm. to 424 x 500 mm. (with pasted extension). There are 8 double-page blocks. 15 blocks are printed as plates, recto and verso of leaves E7, E8, Hs, I2, M4-M5 (one double-page and two single-page), R5, and R6. Illustrations on leaves C6r, E7r, E8r, F3v, ²I4r, and ²I5r have pasted extensions. A small cut on leaf Q2v has a movable part. The wrong block was printed on leaf B3r, and it was corrected with two different methods. Some copies have a full-page pasted cancel, including head-line and signature mark. Other copies, like the present one, have cancel leaves B3 and B4, with the same block as on the pasted cancel but here inverted, and with B4v completely reset. The first line of B4v begins “LE…” in the original, “Le…” in the cancel; there are numerous variants in capitalization, but the only text correction is the change from “saranno … situati” to “sarà … situato” in line 36. The inner forme is a double-page illustration; the position of the page numbers indicates that it was also reimposed. The B3r block reappears at leaf F1r in the position it has on the cancel page, not the cancel leaf. There are also pasted cancel illustrations for leaves E8v and F7r. There are variant settings for the caption of the single-page block on the recto of the first half of double leaf K3. Some copies have line 1 ending, “lettera” and the signature mark in italics. Other copies, like the present one, have line 1 ending, “con” and the signature mark in roman. At the end of book 10 (l. T3v) is a Barbaro device of two candles with the motto, “Devs adivvat volentes”. Added at the end of the volume are three more illustrations -a full-page Ionic capital on leaf V2r, and on leaves V2v and V3r a repetition of the blocks of plans of the theaters of Curio from book 5, leaves L5v and L8v. The blocks are repeated to demonstrate how the theaters could be turned to form one amphitheater; the two blocks are printed on the facing pages and the same blocks reprinted as volvelle parts are attached to the pages, but are here missing. Astronomical table on leaves P7r-Q2r, printed with grotesque and arabesque head-pieces; other tables in books 3 and 9. Music on leaves K8r and L2v, printed by the single-impression method. Arabesque head ornaments. Large initials with city views, historiated initials in two sizes. The second initial on leaf T3r is a wrong C and was later corrected from C to I as it can be seen in other copies. Large Marcolini's device of Truth as the daughter of Time on leaf V4v, printed with the colophon within a scrollwork border. Text in roman letter, alternating with Barbaro's commentary in italic. Errata on leaf V1r for the text and on leaf V3v for the table in book 9. The extra leaf in signature C repeats the paging 39-40 of C6 and contains chapter 7 of book I and a table of contents for an unpublished work on fortification by Giovanni Giacomo Leonardi. Contemporary vellum over boards (rebacked, one corner repaired). Title page slightly soiled and stained with tiny worm holes only marginally affecting the text, some light marginal staining, a few quires slightly browned, last page a bit soiled, all a in all a very good, genuine copy. COMPLETE WITH ALL THE EXTENSIONS AND MOVEABLE PARTS BUT FOR THE TWO FINAL VOLVELLS OF THE CURIO'S THEATER.

First edition of Daniele Barbaro's translation, illustrations, and commentary of Vitruvius, by him dedicated to Ippolito d'Este, cardinal of Ferrara.

At the end of book one, Barbaro states that the designs of the more important illustrations are the work of Andrea Palladio. There are other references to Palladio throughout Barbaro's annotations. Palladio built the Villa Maser near Asolo for Barbaro and included his plan for the villa in his Quattro libri dell'architettura of 1570. These Vitruvius woodcuts are frequently described as cut by Salviati (Giuseppe Porta) after Palladio, but the specific blocks assigned to Salviati are heavily shaded and entirely different in character from those assigned to Palladio by comparison with the Quattro libri. Casali (Marcolini, p. 268-269) cites blocks on A2v, S8v, and T1r as Salviati's and the Martini catalogue description adds A6v, A7r, C2v, R5r, and R6r (Giuseppe Martini cat., pt. 2, 1935, no. 201). Salviati did other work for Marcolini, and dedicated to Barbaro his Regola di far perfettamente col compasso la voluta printed by Marcolini in 1552. Barbaro mentions Salviati, “Nobile pittore”, in his appended note on the Ionic capital (leaf V1v). Reduced copies of the 1556 blocks were made by Giovanni Chrieger for the Franceschi-Chrieger editions of 1567.

“The 1556 Venice Vitruvius by Daniele Barbaro is widely considered to be the most significant Italian edition of the treatise. This translation and commentary authoritatively renewed the Italian contribution to Vitruvian critical studies, expanded by Spanish, French, and German commentators in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, while the illustrations provided by Andrea Palladio, among others, are the most persuasive architectural illustrations associated with

the Vitruvian text.

Daniele Barbaro, born in Venice in 1514, is the most distinguished Italian translator and commentator of Vitruvius in the sixteenth century. Member of a conspicuous Venetian patrician family, he probably studied in Verona and then at the University in Padua, where his teachers included the classicist Benedetto Lampridio, the mathematician and astronomer Federico Delfino, the physician Giambattista Montano, and the philosopher Vincenzo Maggi. Barbaro had an extensive social and intellectual network among Renaissance humanists. Among his friends at the university were Giovanni della Casa and Benedetto Varchi; he frequented social and intellectual circles, such as the notable meetings hosted by Beatrice degli Obizi, where he met Sperone Speroni and Pietro Bembo, among others. He was a founder of the Paduan Accademia degli Infiammati in 1540 and a protector of the poet Bernardo Tasso. In his first letter, in what became an extensive and ambiguous correspondence with Pietro Aretino, Barbaro declares himself convinced of the moral value of Aretino's writings. He was also linked to Alvise Cornaro, the Venetian aristocrat whose influential writings and commissions were focused on architecture.

Barbaro enjoyed numerous and influential public positions. In 1545 he was appointed by the Venetian government to direct the construction of the botanical garden in Padua, a project meant to develop experimental materials for medical research and comparable to similar gardens founded contemporaneously in Pisa and Rome. In 1548 he was appointed Venetian ambassador to England; of his diplomatic correspondence, only his debriefing relazione has survived, where he astutely notes the weakened position of a changeable religion in the lives of the inhabitants. Despite accusations of heterodoxy leveled at him after his ambassadorship, Barbaro was appointed patriarch of Aquileia in 1550. What might have been a very distinguished position in the Venetian church was complicated by the presence of Giovanni Grimani, the patriarch who had chosen Barbaro as his successor, but who kept significant prerogatives that prevented Barbarous rise to the cardinalate, and who eventually survived Barbaro. Between 1561 and 1563, Barbaro participated actively in the last sessions of the Council of Trent, where he intervened on the subjects of censorship, the reform of the church calendar, and the residence requirements for the offices of high prelates.

But Barbarous life was dedicated principally to the cultural activities of Italian humanism, which in his case took the form of publications on a wide range of subjects, and the patronage of artists and architects. Manuscripts pertaining to his published works are preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice. His publications include editions of works by his uncle Ermolao Barbaro, a treatise on eloquence, and a treatise on perspective.

His most significant literary contributions are the Italian edition of Vitruvius' Ten Books on Architecture of 1556 and the slightly altered Latin and Italian editions of Vitruvius of 1567. He comments on the Vitruvian text in a medieval manner, glossing each sentence, but succeeds in presenting the work as a systematic composition, based on logical Aristotelian principles and leavened by concepts derived from Pythagoras and Euclid. Barbaro attributes great importance to mathematical laws, which he sees as fundamental for architecture. His mathematical cosmology, already presented in the treatise on eloquence, presupposes a numerical order implicit in the organization of the world from which he derives his concept of eurhythmy as the fundamental principle of all the arts, best realized in architecture. His close involvement with artists and architects prevented his writings from becoming mere academic exercises.

Superseding previous editions, his commentary on Vitruvius was an unqualified success; reprinted in various editions until the seventeenth century, it was only replaced by the commentary of the French physician and architect Claude Perrault.

Barbaro was an important patron of painters and architects. His portrait was painted by Paolo Veronese and twice by Titian. Palladio designed for him, and for his brother Marc'Antonio, the splendid villa at Maser, decorated with sculpture by Alessandro Vittoria and with wall paintings by Veronese -the fullest attempt to recreate Vitruvius' prescription for villa wall painting.

Palladio also assisted Barbaro in preparing the illustrations for the two Vitruvius editions. In preparation for the completion of this ambitious enterprise, Barbaro and Palladio traveled to Rome together, where they studied and drew the remains of Roman antiquities. Barbaro mentions in the body of the Vitruvian treatise that he started work on the commentary in 1547 after the trip to Rome with Palladio, but the translation of the text probably was begun after his return from England in 1550. He thanks Palladio not only for making the most important illustrations, but also for his help in interpreting the most difficult technical passages.

It has been suggested that Barbaro may also have had help from Giuseppe Porta (Salviati) and from Giovanni Antonio Rusconi; both were talented painters, and Rusconi was also preparing an edition of Vitruvius, sidetracked by Barbaro's more erudite work and published only posthumously-

The title page of the 1556 edition is a great Corinthian triumphal arch that surrounds the heroic allegorical figure of maidenly Architecture. She is very large and raised on a tall pedestal that appears to stand in front of the arch, rather than within its enclosure. In the attic stand female allegorical representations of Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astrology, the four subjects of the quadrivium. Theory and History occupy niches in the side bays of the triumphal arch. An even more famous illustration, on the verso of the title page, shows an old architect (perhaps Vitruvius) surrounded by architectural fragments, pulleys, scientific instruments, solar clocks, and ancient Roman war equipment. The title page and plates in this edition, which illustrate buildings in orthogonal plan, section, and elevation, isolating them on the white page, share a luminous beauty and clarity that have been likened to Raphael's drawings.

In the ninth and tenth books, Barbaro concentrates on his favored subjects of astronomy and geometry, including a self-standing chapter on the construction of solar clocks. For this chapter Barbaro and Palladio seem to have relied on Porta's 1552 treatise on the subject, which the author dedicated to Barbaro. For Barbaro this edition of the Vitruvius text is an offering to his patrician compatriots, so that they could better build their own palaces and villas, and he assumes that Vitruvius wrote for a similar audience rather than for other architects. In Barbaro's interpretation, Vitruvius is an instrument toward universal scientific knowledge.

Despite the splendid typographic production provided by the publisher, Francesco Marcolini, there were errors and pentimenti -directly corrected in the printed page- erroneous pagination, and many single plates. Marcolini, from Forlì, was active in Venice from 1535 until 1559. During this time, being friends with Titian, Tintoretto, Aretino, and Doni, he was among the most outstanding figures in Venetian artistic and cultural circles. The problems of the 1556 edition were largely made good in the 1567 Italian edition, and in the Latin text of the same year, published by Francesco de' Franceschi with the recut plates by Giovanni Chriegher.

The Latin edition contains a plan of Venice and a description of Venice's arsenal, as well as praise for the Senate's work in the environmental protection of the city from the encroachments of land and sea into the lagoon. The 1567 Italian edition was more widely circulated, perhaps because of its more practical format and larger print run. Vincenzo Scamozzi's copy, amply annotated and now in the Vatican Library, was part of the 1567 edition. Franceschi reissued the 1567 Italian version of Barbaro's Vitruvius in 1584; additional Venetian reprints were published in 1629, 1641, and 1854. Marcolini and Franceschi were also Serlio's publishers, as well as Porta's and Barbaro's.

Barbaro dedicated the 1556 and the 1567 Italian editions of Vitruvius to Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, the dedicatee of Serlio's ‘Extraordinary Book of Architecture', and owner of the Grand Ferrare manor house at Fontainebleau designed by Serlio. The cardinal was a distinguished patron of architecture, best known for the stupendous building and gardens at his villa in Tivoli, designed for him by the renowned antiquarian architect Pirro Ligorio. Barbaro and Palladio were apparently the guests of the cardinal at Tivoli during their Roman sojourn, and the projects for the extensive hydraulic works in the garden may have inspired the nymphaeum of the Barbaro's villa at Maser. The publishers of the 1567 Latin edition were the well-known Franceschi and his German partner, Chriegher, the latter also known as a cartographer from Piedmont, and the dedicatee was Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, also a former student at the University of Padua. For the Latin edition, Barbaro relied on the text published by Philander (Lyon, 1552) and by Fra Giocondo. In the 1567 edition there were more illustrations, though of lower quality than those of the first edition and executed by Chriegher, some of which were published in Andrea Palladio's Quattro libri in 1570. The Latin version of the 1567 edition contains a plan of the house of the ancient Greeks, which Palladio used in chapter IX of his book 2.

Barbaro's celebrated translation overshadowed all preceding editions. But did he succeed in creating a new Italian architectural language, in the sense of early linguistic contributions of the humanists Bembo and Baldassare Castiglione? (The creation of an architectural language was the intention behind translating Vitruvius into Italian.) What he doubtlessly accomplished was the refinement of the distinct tools available to architects for the representation of buildings. Barbaro clarified the fraught questions of ichnographia, orthographia, and scenographia, extensively and inconclusively discussed by Vitruvius. By altering the last to read sciagraphia, he proposed the orthogonal plan, section, and elevation as the principal means through which an architect could accurately illustrate the design of buildings. He thus eliminated perspective from the acceptable means of representation, showing that, by being linked to optical perception rather than logical abstraction, it belonged to an epistemologic domain different from those of the plan, section, and elevation (The Mark J. Millard Architectural Collection, Volume IV: Italian and Spanish Books, Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, Washington DC-New York, 2000, pp. 499-501).

Edit16, CNCE28623; Mortimer, pp. 765-766, no. 547; Casali, Marcolini, pp. 265-260, no. 109; Cicognara, vol. 1, no. 713; Fowler, no. 407; Ricardi, pt. 1, vol. 2, col. 614; Millard, p. 484, no. 160.

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