MARCUS VITRUVIUS POLLIO (late 1st century B.C.)
Fra Giovanni Giocondo da Verona (1433-1515)
[De Architectura libri decem].

M. Vitruvius per Iocundum solito castigatior factus cum figuris et tabula ut iam legi et intelligi possit.

(Venezia: Giovanni Tacuino, 22 May 1511.)

Folio (299x292mm). [4], 110, [9] ll. (without the last blank). Title within a large woodcut border, 136 woodcuts in the text, initials and printer’s device.

18th century mottled calf, back with bands, compartmernts gilt with fleurons, red resp. green morocco labels for the title resp. imprint year.

Extremeties slightly chafed, lower corners somewhat worn. A small stain in the inner margin of the first 22 leaves, closed tear in the lower margin of leaf 22. – Front endpaper with a bibliographical note of the 18th century.

Fra Giovanni Giocondo of Verona was a Dominican friar, humanist and architecture theoretician. As a prolific architect and engineer, he worked in Verona, Venice, Naples, Paris and Rome where he took part with Raphael and Giuliano da Sangallo in the erection of the new St. Peter’s Basilica. While building the Notre-Dame bridge in Paris, he used hydraulic machines inspired by Vitruvius and a diopter or theodolite of his own invention.

The first printed edition of Vitruvius edited by Giovanni Sulpicio of Veroli (c. 1483-1490) followed by three other editions (Venice, 1495; Florence, 1496; Venice, 1497) were seen as being unacceptably corrupt.

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