Les Edifices Antiques de Rome, Mesurés et Dessinés Tres-Exactement sur les Lieux par Feu M. Desgodetz, Architecte du Roi. Nouvelle Edition
Desgodetz, Antoine
Paris. Chez Claude-Antoine Jombert. 1779
Sold
A beautifully annotated copy with a large amount of additional illustration and correction by hand.
The extensive annotations and illuminations are the work of the two architects Jacques-Guillaume Legrand and Jacques Molinos who travelled together in Italy with this copy of Desgodetz. The annotations, largely in red ink, correct any errors in Desgodetz' text and illustration but go further, clarifying and adding to the original material. The title has the additional manuscript legend 'Comparée et rectifiée sur les monuments par J. G. Legrand et J. Molinos, architectes, en 1785' and the following pages of the book contain extensive manuscript detail, likely the work of both architects. It is probable that both architects had their own copy of the book although the precise ownership of this copy is indefinable: the legend on the title makes it clear that their work was collaborative.
Legrand and Molinos' additional material consists of extensive annotation, both illustrative and textual, to the majority of the plates (133 plates are annotated as well as 30 leaves of text), correcting details of measurement, draughtsmanship and reproduction, providing additional commentary and context not already in Desgodetz and updating elements that had changed in the time since the original was published; the table of contents has been extensively annotated and updated to reflect the additional detail supplied. This copy also contains additional pencil annotations, inscribed at a later date, in the hand of Molinos. One (in the margin of plate IV, Elevation du Flanc du Panthéon à Rome) makes reference to Achille Leclère's highly regarded suite of drawings of the Pantheon (' ... j'ai rectifié cette mesure d'après les dessins de M. Leclère ... '). The body of additional material is vast and highly detailed and, in the context of the architectural delineation of Rome in the late eighteenth-century, worthy of further study.
Jacques-Guillaume Legrand (1743 - 1808) and Jacques Molinos (1743 - 1831) studied architecture in Paris under Blondel. They travelled to Italy with this copy of Desgodetz in hand (and presumably a second copy) with a view to publishing a corrected edition (Desgodetz was first published in 1682). The original aim of Desgodetz was to record the measurements of ancient buildings but in achieving this he demonstrated errors in earlier writers such as Serlio and Palladio. Desgodetz was highly influential in the eighteenth century - hence the urge to review his original work - particularly on those such as Robert Adam and Stuart and Revett who sought to catalogue their own interests in similar detail.
'This work gives the first really accurate representation of ancient Roman architecture and is the beginning of that long series of measured drawings which are one of the great traditions of French architecture. It is remarkable that the drawings for this work were made when the author was about twenty-two and the book was published before he was thirty. Besides describing the plates, the text is largely devoted to exposing hte many errors of Serlio, Palladio and Freart.' (Fowler, who also notes that Thomas Jefferson owned a copy of this - i.e. the Paris 1779 - edition).
Molinos' library was dispersed at auction in 1831 in Paris in 412 lots; two annotated copies of Desgodetz were offered, the present example and another, now missing andpresumed lost. (see 'Catalogue des tableaux et dessins de l'école moderne ... composant le cabinet de feu M. J. Molinos ... suivi du catalogue des livres composant sa bibliothèque' in Lugt 'Répertoire des catalogues de ventes publiques').
[see Lugt, Répertoire des catalogues de ventes publiques 12670, pg. 20, lot 153; Brunet II, 625; RIBA 859; see Fowler 102 for the first edition; see Cicognara 3700 for the first edition; Berlin 1863 for the first edition].
The extensive annotations and illuminations are the work of the two architects Jacques-Guillaume Legrand and Jacques Molinos who travelled together in Italy with this copy of Desgodetz. The annotations, largely in red ink, correct any errors in Desgodetz' text and illustration but go further, clarifying and adding to the original material. The title has the additional manuscript legend 'Comparée et rectifiée sur les monuments par J. G. Legrand et J. Molinos, architectes, en 1785' and the following pages of the book contain extensive manuscript detail, likely the work of both architects. It is probable that both architects had their own copy of the book although the precise ownership of this copy is indefinable: the legend on the title makes it clear that their work was collaborative.
Legrand and Molinos' additional material consists of extensive annotation, both illustrative and textual, to the majority of the plates (133 plates are annotated as well as 30 leaves of text), correcting details of measurement, draughtsmanship and reproduction, providing additional commentary and context not already in Desgodetz and updating elements that had changed in the time since the original was published; the table of contents has been extensively annotated and updated to reflect the additional detail supplied. This copy also contains additional pencil annotations, inscribed at a later date, in the hand of Molinos. One (in the margin of plate IV, Elevation du Flanc du Panthéon à Rome) makes reference to Achille Leclère's highly regarded suite of drawings of the Pantheon (' ... j'ai rectifié cette mesure d'après les dessins de M. Leclère ... '). The body of additional material is vast and highly detailed and, in the context of the architectural delineation of Rome in the late eighteenth-century, worthy of further study.
Jacques-Guillaume Legrand (1743 - 1808) and Jacques Molinos (1743 - 1831) studied architecture in Paris under Blondel. They travelled to Italy with this copy of Desgodetz in hand (and presumably a second copy) with a view to publishing a corrected edition (Desgodetz was first published in 1682). The original aim of Desgodetz was to record the measurements of ancient buildings but in achieving this he demonstrated errors in earlier writers such as Serlio and Palladio. Desgodetz was highly influential in the eighteenth century - hence the urge to review his original work - particularly on those such as Robert Adam and Stuart and Revett who sought to catalogue their own interests in similar detail.
'This work gives the first really accurate representation of ancient Roman architecture and is the beginning of that long series of measured drawings which are one of the great traditions of French architecture. It is remarkable that the drawings for this work were made when the author was about twenty-two and the book was published before he was thirty. Besides describing the plates, the text is largely devoted to exposing hte many errors of Serlio, Palladio and Freart.' (Fowler, who also notes that Thomas Jefferson owned a copy of this - i.e. the Paris 1779 - edition).
Molinos' library was dispersed at auction in 1831 in Paris in 412 lots; two annotated copies of Desgodetz were offered, the present example and another, now missing andpresumed lost. (see 'Catalogue des tableaux et dessins de l'école moderne ... composant le cabinet de feu M. J. Molinos ... suivi du catalogue des livres composant sa bibliothèque' in Lugt 'Répertoire des catalogues de ventes publiques').
[see Lugt, Répertoire des catalogues de ventes publiques 12670, pg. 20, lot 153; Brunet II, 625; RIBA 859; see Fowler 102 for the first edition; see Cicognara 3700 for the first edition; Berlin 1863 for the first edition].
Folio. (458 x 308 mm). Engraved title bound as frontispiece, printed title with publisher's vignette and 137 engraved plates (21 folding), additional double-page plate of the Arch of Trajan bound between plates 79 and 80, one plate with additional manuscript overslip pasted in at lower marging, one (small) tipped-in leaf with additional manuscript detail, thirteen additional views by Mariette and others pasted in as vignette tail-pieces throughout. The majority of plates and several text leaves with additional manuscript notes and sketches in red ink, occasional additional marginalia in pencil (see below). Contemporary calf-backed marbled boards, gilt decorative tooling to spine, title gilt to spine, edges stained red.
#41848
