BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

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Transcribed version of the text

French

     The copy of the Premier livre d’architecture by Francart at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, one of the rare copies kept in France, is the second edition of the book. We attribute it to Hubert Anthoine (156? -1630) ; it was printed the same year in 1617. The plates are strictly identical, but the frontispiece with the title was obviously reengraved : the capitals are surmounted by a frieze with five rudented glyphs compared with four undecorated ones in the original edition. The frieze continues on in the interior with eight rudented glyphs instead of six. The title has a few graphic modifications (“coeux” instead of “ceux”  in the original edition, “&” for “et”, and “escriniers” for “escreiniers”. The note “avec privilege de Leurs Altesses Ser.mes” was deleted, as was the engraver’s name, Michel Lasne. Hubert Anthoine added his address between the two pedestals.
Only the title page of the Parisian copy is reproduced here, for alas, the copy is incomplete ; the address to the trilingual reader is missing, the leaf with Porte IX on the front side and on the back side the commentary on plate X facing it, is missing, and leaf XXI with the four cartouches (the fifth is blank) is also missing.

Frédérique Lemerle (Centre national de la recherche scientifique,
Centre d'études supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours) – 2011

Critical bibliography

A. De Vos, "Le Premier livre d’architecture de Jacques Francart, à Bruxelles en 1617", S. Deswarte-Rosa (ed.), Sebastiano Serlio à Lyon. Architecture et imprimerie, Lyon, Mémoire active, 2004, pp. 487-489.

A. De Vos, Jacques Francart, Premier livre d’architecture. Studie van een Zuidnederlands modelboek met poortgebouwen uit de 17 de eeuw, Brussels, Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, 1998.

K. Ottenheym, "Architectura Moderna. The Systemization of Architectural Ornament around 1600", K. De Jonge & K. Ottenheym (ed.), Unity and Disunity. Architectural Relationships between the Southern and Northern Low Countries (1530-1700) (Architectura Moderna, 5), Turnhout, Brepols, 2007, pp. 111-136.