( 1500-1505 - 1578 )
Small folio (300x210 mm). Contemporary full calf with modern slipcase. [xii], 143, [1] pp. First edition, second issue, with the errata on p. [144]. Small warmhole at bottom lower right of title page, else fine. Title with woodcut allegorical border. 169 woodcut illustrations [RIBA count], some full-page; woodcut head and tailpieces and historiated initials. Rusconi's woodcuts were begun as early as 1553 and were intended to illustrate a full translation of Vitruvius prepared by him, which was to be published by Gabriel Giolito de' Ferrari. Rusconi died in 1587, before its completion. It was not until this edition in 1590 that Giolito's sons decided to publish the woodcuts ("a new and skillful rendering of many of the Vitruvian woodcut"--Fowler 280), accompanied by an Italian text loosely based upon Vitruvius. "[Della Architettura's] importance, and its appeal, lie in the illustrations, which consist of a combination of recent Vitruvian images (as seen in the earlier sixteenth-century editions) and new designs of Rusconi's invention. The quality of the cuts is high". Cf. RIBA 2880; Fowler 280; Berlin 2602; Cicognara 640; Mortimer, 551.
