Vitruvius Pollio (Marcus) L'Architettura, edited and translated by Berardo Galiani, engraved allegorical frontispiece, title vignette, head-piece & initial, text in Latin and Italian, 25 engraved plates, woodcut illustrations, wide margins, some browning, bookplate of George Wilbraham, contemporary vellum, rubbed, joints cracked, spine repaired at head, [BAL 3501; Berlin Kat. 1820; Cicognara 733; Fowler 424; Millard, Italian 162], folio, Naples, Stamperia Simoniana, 1758.

⁂ First edition of this substantial edition and translation of Vitruvius by the Neapolitan aristocrat Berardo Galiani (1724-1774), intended as a replacement for Perrault's edition which in its version of 1684 had long been thought of as the most reliable one for use and reading by architects and scholars. Galiani also commissioned an entirely new series of accompanying plates and these served as the model for illustrations in subsequent editions by other hands until well into the nineteenth century.
George Wilbraham (1741-1813), a wealthy Cheshire landowner, visited Italy, including Sicily and presumably also Naples, while on the Grand Tour in the mid 1760s, and was elected a member of the Society of Dilettanti in 1770.