Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

De architectura.

Accession number
PML 19576.1
Creator
Vitruvius Pollio.
Object title

De architectura.

Published

[Rome] : [Eucharius Silber], [between 1486 and 16 August 1487]

Description

[98] leaves : illustrated (woodcut) ; 29 x 21 cm (fol.)

Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1912.
Notes
1 woodcut diagram.
CIBN records variants in quire [1].
Collation: [1⁴; 2-4⁸ 5-7⁶ 8⁸ 9⁶ 10-12⁸ 13⁶ 14⁸]: 98 leaves.
Edited by Johannes Sulpitius Verulanus.
For the terminus post quem, see Paulys Realencyclopädie, vol. IX A, 1, 1961, cols 481-83 (CIBN); the copy at Corpus Christi, Oxford was purchased at Rome on 16 Aug. 1487 (cf. BMC and Rhodes).
Paper format: Chancery folio
PML copy leaf dimensions: 28.4 x 20 cm
PML previous copy 2 (PML 76064, Mellon) was sold in the Sexton sale, 1981.
Printed in type 3:112R assigned to Silber.
Printer based on type identification. Proctor and Copinger assigned to Georgius Herolt; H. Degering, Festgabe Haebler (1919), pp.175-202 assigned to an eponymous printer, "Printer of Virtruvius," as also the Frontinus (Goff F-324) with which the Vitruvius is often bound.
Title from incipit (leaf [2]/1r): L. VICTRUVII POLLIONIS AD CESAREM AUGUSTUM DE ARCHITECTURA LIBER PRIMUS.
Binding
Modern quarter brown goatskin with paper sides over paper boards (29 x 21 cm), sewn on 5 supports by Duprez-Lahey. Plain paper pastedowns and fly leaves; plain endbands.
Inscriptions/Markings
Hand decoration: Rubrication unrealized. Annotations: Contemporary marginal notations throughout (also in Frontinus), identified as Marcus Musurus by Hoskier, and another hand. Manicules with elongated forefinger. Contemporary foliation.
Provenance
Marcus Musurus (ca. 1470-1517), marginal notations; unidentified signature, 16th/17th century(?) (front fly leaf verso); unidentified French provenance inscription, 18th century(?) (front fly leaf verso); H.C. Hoskier (1864-1938), signature, 1904 (front fly leaf); his sale, Sotheby's London, 29 June 1908, lot 27; unidentified (Martini?) sale catalogue, lot 104 for $250; Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), purchased from Giuseppe Martini, Dec. 1912.
Classification
Century
Department