De L'Orme, Nouvelles inventions pour bien bastir, Paris, 1561, contemporary limp vellum

DE L'ORME, PHILIBERT. Nouvelles inventions pour bien bastir et a petits fraiz, trouvées n'agueres par Philibert de L'orme Lyonnois, Architecte, Conseiller & Aulmonier ordinaire du feu Roy Henry, & Abbé de S. Eloy lez Noyon. Paris: Fédéric Morel, 1561

FIRST EDITION. Philibert de L'Orme (1515-1570) was an influential renaissance architect who worked for Henri II, Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de' Medici. Nouvelles inventions was the first work he published, a practical treatise on new roofing methods, intended to result in lower production costs as less wood was required. De L'Orme's ideas were not put widely into practice until after 1750, but certainly influenced the eighteenth-century dome of the Halle au Blé in Paris, designed by Jacques-Guillaume Legrand and Jacques Molinos.

The work is a planned component of his next publication, Le premier tome de l'architecture but was only added to the publication in 1626. 

Folio (325 x 224 mm). Roman type, 42 lines plus headline. Collation: A-K⁶ L-M⁴: 68 leaves (with final blank). Woodcut device on title-page, woodcut initials and head-pieces, 34 woodcut illustrations, of which 23 are full-page. (Some dampstaining).

Binding: Contemporary limp vellum (322 x 232 mm), stubs from 2 pairs of ties, later manuscript title to spine. (Textblock becoming detached from vellum at top of spine, some loss to head of spine)

Provenance: Sixteenth-century inscription on front free endpaper “Petrus du Pont Insulanus" [i.e. Lille?] — Jesuits of Ghent, inscription at head of title and ink stamp of the Belgian Jesuit Province — Thomas Willement (1786-1871, stained glass artist), inscription to upper pastedown and front free-endpaper, dated Brussels, 1845, his sale Replica Shoes ’s, 22 June 1865, part of lot 293 — bookplate of interlaced B’s with motto “Bonne foy bon droit” and no. 84. Acquisition: Purchased in 1989 from E.P. Goldschmidt. References: BAL RIBA 1954; Mortimer, Harvard French 354