BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

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Transcribed version of the text

French

     Six years after Philibert De l’Orme’s death, the booksellers Jérôme de Marnef and Guillaume Cavellat reprinted the Nouvelles inventions at the same time as the Premier tome, which they renamed L’architecture. The text is similar to that of Frédéric Morel’s original edition (1561), apart from a few tiny details (for example, in the dedication, "qui disait n’être rien plus vitupérable à un prince" in 1561, becomes "qui disait rien n’être plus vitupérable à un prince" in 1576). However, the presentation is somewhat modified. The title page is now decorated with the same very elaborate architectural frame that Marnef and Cavellat had used for their reprint of Jean Martin’s Vitruve in 1572; the original decorative vignettes have been replaced by those of the 1567 Premier tome, with Philibert’s coat of arms and "horoscope". The text has been reformatted, more tightly (98 pages for 62 folios in 1561); the epistle to the reader and the chapter titles are no longer in italics, but in roman type. As in the Architecture, Philibert’s portrait appears after the introductory parts. On the other hand, the pages are now numbered, which Marnef and Cavellat did not do in reprinting the Premier tome.

Yves Pauwels (Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours) – 2008

Critical bibliography

J.-M. Pérouse de Montclos, "Les éditions des traités de Philibert De L’Orme au XVII^e siècle", J. Guillaume (ed.), Les traités d’architecture à la Renaissance, Paris, Picard, 1988, pp. 355-365.

J.-M. Pérouse de Montclos, Introduction à Philibert De l’Orme, Traités d’architecture, Paris, Laget, 1988, pp. 15-17, 45-46.

P. Renouard, Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVI^e siècle, Fascicule Cavellat, Marnef et Cavellat, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, 1986, p. 162 sq.