BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

Consult in image mode

Transcribed version of the text

French

     There is little documentation on Veit Eck. A native of Überlingen on Lake Constance, he was active from 1579 until his death in 1604, in Strasbourg, as a cabinetmaker (“Schreiner”), as well as author of this book with Jakob Gukeisen (if one can believe the title page). He was also known as an engraver, co-author with Johann Jakob Ebelman of a book on columns, SeilenBuch darinnen derselben Grunt, Theilung, Zieradt vnd Gantze Volkomenheit vorgebildetwirdt (1598, 1600), which takes up again Hans Blum’s five orders and then proposes very ornate versions and of a collection of ornaments (Schweyf Buoch, 1599 et 1600). As for Ebelman in 1600 published the Architectura Lehr und Kunstbuch allerhant Portalen, Reisbetten und Epitaphien. This circle seems to have been brought together by Johann Bussemacher, engraver, publisher and merchant, active in Cologne between 1580 and 1613, very much committed to Counter-Reform propoganda, who published all these books.
     All these works are very similar ; like the Architectura by Wendel Dietterlin, they have models of doors, altars and altarpieces, fireplace mantels according to the architectural orders, completed with various ornamental motifs, all of which are esthetically characteristic of Germany in the 1600s, very complex and heavy, more appropriate no doubt to cabinetry than to architecture itself. Serlio’s influence appears in fireplace mantel number 18, where the anthropomorphic jambs are inspired by an Ionic mantel in Quarto libro (f. 46).

Yves Pauwels – 2016
(Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours)

Critical bibliography

E. Forssman, Saüle und Ornament. Studien zur Problem des Manierismus in den nordischen Säulenbücher und Vorlageblättern des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, Stockholm, Almqvist & Wiskell, 1956.

G. Irmscher, Kölner Architektur- und Säulenbucher um 1600, Bonn, Bouvier, 1999.

B. Schöller, Kölner Druckgraphik der Gegenreformation : ein Beitrag zur Geschichte religliöser Bildpropaganda
zur Zeit der Glaubenskämpfe mit einem Katalog der Einblattdrucke des Verlages Johann Bussenmacher, Cologne, Kölnisches Stadtmuseum, 1992.