Aviler (Augustin Charles d') Cours d'Architecture...; Explication des Termes d’Architecture..., 2 vol., first edition, engraved additional pictorial titles, vol.1 with 31 double-page and/or folding plates and 84 full-page illustrations, contemporary ink signature of Martin Bowes to front pastedowns, contemporary sprinkled calf, spines gilt, rubbed, spine ends and corners a little worn, short split to head of upper joint of vol.1 and small hole to upper joint of vol.2, [BAL 155; Berlin Kat 2389; Fowler 32; cf.Millard, French 14, 1738 edtion], small 4to, Paris, Nicolas Langlois, 1691.

⁂ Comprehensive architectural text-book issued in many editions up to the 1760s. This copy is interesting bibliographically because it contains the title to a second part as the main title in vol.1 (rather than the usual general title) and shows that volume 1 was originally intended to be issued in 2 parts with separate title-pages, the break being after p.244 (as found in the Gibson copy sold in these rooms on 20th October 2022 lot 9). The 'Explication des Termes...' presumably then proved to be too bulky to add on to the rest of the first volume as a second part and was given a volume of its own, although the pagination is continuous. A general title was then printed but this copy must have been issued prior to that and is presumably an early issue.

Martin Bowes F.R.S. (1670-1726), lawyer in Bury St.Edmunds, Suffolk.