Vignola (Giacomo Barozzi da) Regola delli Cinque Ordini d'Architettura, early issue, engraved throughout with architectural title incorporating portrait of Vignola facing right, privilege, dedication and 34 plates (numbered IIII-XXXII and 5 unnumbered of doorways and a mantel), title lightly soiled with a couple of small stains, a few spots and marginal soiling, staining to last few plates with fore-edge reinforced, plate XXVII slightly torn mostly along platemark (repaired), small adhesions to plate XXXII and first unnumbered plate where once stuck to previous plate, one or two other old repairs to inner margins, engraved bookplate of Arthur William Fitzroy Somerset of Castle Goring Sussex dated 1920, early eighteenth century mottled calf, gilt, rubbed, rebacked preserving old gilt spine and red morocco label, [Fowler 351; cf.Berlin Kat. 2578 & Millard Italian 144, both with 32 engraved leaves], folio (c.405 x 260mm.), [Rome], [late 1560s/early 1570s].

⁂ An early issue of this influential treatise on the orders in which Vignola made the first serious attempt to form a mathematical basis for each order. Alongside Serlio and Palladio, Vignola was the third great architectural theorist of the Renaissance. His treatise was first published in 1562 or 1563 with 32 engraved leaves; this copy conforms to that of Fowler 351 (also with the five additional unnumbered plates at end).