BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

 

Author(s)

Viator, Jean Pélerin called
Martellange, Étienne
Jousse, Mathurin
Title
La perspective positive de Viator Traduite de latin en françois Augmentée, & illustrée, par Maistre Estienne Martelange...
Imprint La Flèche, [Georges Griveau], 1626
Localisation
Angers, Archives départementales de Maine-et-Loir, 150 J, Collection particulière
Subject Perspective
Consult in image mode

French

     Étienne Martellange published an enlarged illustrated translation of Viator’s Perspective in La Flèche at the presses of Georges Griveau. The plates were engraved by Jousse after Martellange’s drawings. The only known copy of this edition is in Angers in the Departmental archives. It is all the more precious since it comes from the Collège in La Flèche where Martellange and Jousse worked. The opuscule consists of the French translation (pp. 3-14) preceded by Jousse’s dedication to Martellange (“To very devout and god-fearing, Master Estienne Martellange of the Society of Jesus”, pp. 1-2). All the illustrations were taken up again by Jousse for his edition of Viator published in 1635, at La Flèche again at the presses of Georges Griveau. The title page from 1626 preceded the illustrations, but he took up the handwritten manuscript (Paris, BnF, ms. fr. 19065, ff. 1-14) again, (probably attributed wrongly to Martellange by Pierre Moisy) which is different from the version printed in 1626.

Frédérique Lemerle (Centre national de la recherche scientifique,
Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours) – 2013


Critical bibliography


L. Brion-Guerry, Jean Pélerin Viator, sa place dans l’histoire de la Perspective, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1962, pp. 159-253.

F. Le Bœuf, “Mathurin Jousse, maître serrurier à La Flèche et théoricien d’architecture (vers 1575-1645)”, In situ, 1, 2001.

P. Le Bœuf, “La Bibliothèque de Mathurin Jousse: une tentative de reconstitution”, In situ, 1, 2001.

P. Moisy, Les églises des Jésuites de l’ancienne assistance de France, Rome, Institutum historicum S. J., 1958, p. 73 sq.

E. Pasquier & V. Dauphin, Imprimeurs et libraires de l’Anjou, Angers, Société anonyme des éditions de l’Ouest, 1932, pp. 311-326.

R.-A. Weigert, Inventaire du Fonds Français. Graveurs du XVIIe siècle..., Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, V, 1968, “Jousse (Mathurin)”, pp. 615-617.