Di Architettura

Venice: Niccolo Zoppino, 1535. Boards. Very Good. Vitruvius. Edited by F.L. Durantino. Venice: Niccolo Zoppino, March 1535. Tall 4to (290 x 200 mm). Title within an elaborate historiated woodcut border and printed in red and black, 136 woodcut illustrations and diagrams, figured initials. (Some pale marginal staining and light worming at end.) Early Italian boards, sewn (upper cover fragile but still firmly holding). "Duplicate" bookplate from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Department of Prints) at the front pastedown. Second Durantino edition. The title border shows figures in battle array, among them Augustus Caesar, Julius Caesar, and Alexander the Great. The figures are labelled with initials. At the head of a border in a central medallion is a figure of Cicero. The 136 woodcuts "are close copies of the full set of blocks from the Giocondo edition of 1511 printed at Venice by Giovanni Tacuino. The copies were made for the first Duarntino edition (Venice, 1524) -- "Zoppino secured all of the 1524 blocks except one; that on leaf N1r is a recutting with the heads of the figures strangely enlarged" (Mortimer).