BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

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Transcribed version of the text

French

     Philibert De l’Orme died in 1570, three years after his Premier tome appeared. In 1576 the booksellers Jérôme de Marnef and Guillaume Cavellat (whose interest in architecture was guaranteed by the publication in 1564 and 1568 of Jean Bullant’s Reigle) came out with a new edition of this work, with a new title (L’architecture) justified by the obvious fact that there would not be a second volume. This title was to be repeated in all the subsequent editions. The work presents only one modification, that of the addition of an engraved portrait of Philibert on the back of the title page. The introductory notes are the same ; missing at the end is the "Avertissement au lecteur" with the errata, which were not corrected, but it does not appear in all the 1567 copies.
The Cesr copy was enlarged, between the dedication to Catherine de’Medici and the table of contents, by a text taken from a work by the astronomer Jean Hevel published in 1654 and therefore totally foreign to Philibert De l’Orme’s undertaking. It consists of four leaves with a table for calculating the eclipses of the sun with comments in Latin, dedicated to Pierre Gassendi and Ismaël Bulliaud.

Yves Pauwels (Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours) – 2006

Critical bibliography

J.-M. Pérouse de Montclos, Introduction to Philibert De l’Orme, Traités d’architecture, Paris, Laget, 1988, pp. 14-15.

J.-M. Pérouse de Montclos, Philibert De l’Orme Architecte du roi (1514-1570), Paris, Mengès, 2000.

P. Renouard, Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVI^e siècle, Fascicule Cavellat, Marnef et Cavellat, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, 1986, n° 337.