Lot 166: VITRUVIUS POLLIO, Marcus. Architettura. Vetruvio in volgar lingua . Translated by Giovanni Battista Caporali (ca 1475-1555). Perugia: Giano Bigazzini, 1536.

VITRUVIUS POLLIO, Marcus. Architettura. Vetruvio in volgar lingua. Translated by Giovanni Battista Caporali (ca 1475-1555). Perugia: Giano Bigazzini, 1536.

2o (284 x 210 mm). Woodcut architectural title, with title cut on the block and the portrait and coat of arms of the translator in the border, woodcut portrait of the printer on A2r, 81 woodcut illustrations in the text (including two repetitions). (Title-page lightly soiled, some intermittent browning and a few pale stains.) Modern vellum, leather clasps. Provenance: W. Gedney Beatty (1869-1941), American architect (gifted to): The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Department of Prints (bookplate recording the bequest, cancelled).

FIRST EDITION OF CAPORALI'S TRANSLATION, comprising the first five of the ten books of Vitruvius. The woodcuts are free copies (reduced or enlarged) of the Cesariano's Como, 1521 edition, with 8 subjects added. The woodcuts of the Milan cathedral were not copied. 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. Berlin Kat. 1805; Brunet V:1330; Cicognara 706; Fowler 400; Harvard/Mortimer Italian 546; Millard Italian 159.

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. 5 December 2008 . New York, Rockefeller Plaza