BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

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French

         This edition, unlisted in specialized catalogues, is not well known (Lemerle, Pauwels 2013, p. 88). Nevertheless it concludes the long history of Le Muet’s “petit Vignole”. In fact it was the last time that Tavernier’s plates were used. In 1644 Tavernier had sold his stock to Pierre I Mariette and François Langlois. The heirs and successors had the advantage of being able to reprint the engraved works, including the text, with minimum modifications until the copperplates showed extreme wear and tear. Madeleine de Collemont, Langlois’s widow, remarried Pierre II Mariette (1634-1716) in 1655. His father Pierre I had sold his own stock to him in 1657 and it was thus that Tavernier’s copperplates had gone to Pierre II Mariette before passing on to his stepson Nicolas Langlois (1640-1703) after the death of Madeleine. Langlois printed an edition in his own name. Consequently Jean Mariette (1660-1742), Madeleine’s son, inherited the stock.
The copperplates were clearly worn out and some plates were reworked. The edition includes the plate of the five orders that Nicolas Langlois had previously introduced in his own reprint as a replacement for the dedication to La Vrillière, from then on obsolete.
But at the beginning of the 18^th century, Le Muet’s Vignola was no longer a reference book. In particular it was eclipsed by the Cours d’architecture, whose center is the Regola by Augustin d’Aviler (1691). This publication, which rapidly met up with international success, would be the new vector for the Vignolesque treatise.

Frédérique Lemerle (Centre national de la recherche scientifique,
Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours) – 2014

Critical bibliography

F. Lemerle, “Les versions françaises de la Regola de Vignole au XVII^e siècle”, In Monte Artium (Journal of the Royal Library of Belgium), 1, 2008, pp. 101-120.

F. Lemerle, “Vitruve, Vignole, Palladio et les autres: traductions, abrégés et augmentations au XVIIe siècle”, Architecture et théorie. L'héritage de la Renaissance, Tours, Cesr, June 3-4, 2009/Paris, École d'architecture de Paris-Malaquais, June 5, 2009.

F. Lemerle & Y. Pauwels, Architectures de papier. La France et l’Europe, suivi d’une bibliographie des livres d’architecture (XVI^e-XVII^e siècles), Turnhout, Brepols, 2013, p. 88.