BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

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Transcribed version of the text

French

         In 1657 the bookseller/binder François Demasso from Lyon put out an edition which had only the note “Jouxte la copie imprimée A Paris, M. DC. LVII.” (Walcher-Casotti 53). A second print is published in 1658 which differs only by the date (Fowler 365), and a third in 1684, which in addition to the new date, has the note “ce vend à Lyon, chez F. Demasso, rue Mercière, à la juste Paix”. The frontispiece, signed “V. Guigou”, is an inverted copy of Michel Lasne’s original frontispiece (1632); the text and the dedication to La Vrillière are identical to Le Muet’s original edition; the illustrations are slightly reduced copies of those of 1632. For commercial reasons this edition is supposedly corrected “of several important errors which had slipped into the preceding print runs”. On the other hand it includes a new plate of a Solomonic column inspired by Vignola, commented on p. 102, which Demasso took from the French translation of Blum’s treatise that he had just published. In this, he had associated the French version to the plates (lost today) that Jean Lemaistre had engraved in 1562. This edition without a privilege is a provincial forgery entered into upon the expiration of the twenty year privilege that Melchior Tavernier had obtained and before Pierre II Mariette obtained a renewal of it on November 8, 1657. It proves the success of Le Muet’s “pocket Vignola” in the kingdom.

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

Critical bibliography

M. Walcher Casotti, “Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola : Regola delli cinque ordini d’architettura”, E. Bassi (ed.), Pietro Cataneo, Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola : trattati, Milan, il Polifilo, 1985, pp. 499-577.

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 XVII^e siècle”, Architecture et théorie. L’héritage de la Renaissance, Tours, Cesr, June 3-4, 2009/Paris, École d’architecture de Paris-Malaquais.