Beschreibung:

PALLADIO, Andrea (1508-1580). I quattro libri dell' architettura . Venice: Domenico de' Franceschi, 1570 [but Venice: Pasquali, c.1767].
PALLADIO, Andrea (1508-1580). I quattro libri dell' architettura . Venice: Domenico de' Franceschi, 1570 [but Venice: Pasquali, c.1767]. 2° (338 x 243 mm). Title and three section titles, each within copper-engraved architectural border, printer's device on colophon. Numerous cooper-engraved illustrations, some full or double-page. (Short marginal tear with old paper repair to L2, occasional very faint spotting.) Later limp pasteboard binding, lettered in ink on spine (lightly soiled and rubbed). Provenance : evidence of bookplate removed and inscription in lower margin of title obscured by paper overslip. CRISP, CLEAN COPY of Giambattista Pasquali’s 18th-century facsimile edition, based on the first edition of 1570. The original woodcuts are here reproduced in copperplate, and the text has been reset. RIBA suggests that this edition was intended by Joseph Smith (1682-1770), British Consul at Venice, to be published alongside Tomasso Temanza’s biography of Palladio. However, although the plates had been engraved by 1761, Smith’s financial situation had deteriorated to such an extent that Temanza’s biography was published unaccompanied in 1762, and the present work was not published until at least five years afterwards. Fowler 232; RIBA 2390.