Lot 74: VITRUVIUS POLLIO, Marcus (70-23 BC). Architettura , translated by Giovanni Battista Caporali (1475-c. 1555). Perugia: Conte Giano Bigazzini, 1 April 1536.

VITRUVIUS POLLIO, Marcus (70-23 BC). Architettura , translated by Giovanni Battista Caporali (1475-c. 1555). Perugia: Conte Giano Bigazzini, 1 April 1536. 2° (282 x 200mm). Roman and Greek types. Woodcut architectural title-page with the portrait and arms of Caporali in the border, woodcut portrait of Bigazzini (the dedicatee) on dedication. 81 woodcut illustrations, 7 full-page, one large woodcut initial with a perspective architectural view, other woodcut initials from 2 sets. (Some light spotting, marking, and browning, occasional small damp-marks, a few leaves trimmed touching headline, title trimmed and remargined at head, unobtrusive worming in quire A, skillfully repaired on title, small paper-flaws on H1, L8, N2, and P4-5, skillfully reinforced on L8, and P4-5.) 20th-century semi-flexible vellum, spine titled in manuscript (a few light marks). Provenance : early, partially-erased inscriptions on title -- traces of bookplate on A1v margin -- [?]Bonaventura Vittorio (marginal inscription on A3r) -- occasional marginal annotations and underlinings in an early Italian hand. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION OF CAPORALI'S TRANSLATION OF VITRUVIUS, the second translation of Vitruvius into Italian, and the fourth edition of Vitruvius in Italian. The text and illustrations of Caporali's translation of the first five books follow the structure of the first edition of Cesare Cesariano's translation published in Como in 1521 (the first translation of Vitruvius into both Italian and a living language). The artist Caporali was a follower of Perugino, and undertook a number of ecclesiastical commissions for frescos in Rome and Perugia, in addition to architectural commissions (including a villa near Cortona, 'Il Palazzone', for Cardinal Silvio Passerini), and he also trained the architect Galeazzo Alessi. Caporali's translation was printed at Bigazzini's private press in Perugia with the collaboration of Caporali himself, Vittorio Muzio, the typesetter, and Jean de Né, the typographer; it is the only work known to have been printed by Bigazzini. Cicognara 706; Brunet V, 1330; Harvard Italian 546; Sander 7700.

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