Serlio, Libro primo (-quinto) d'architettura, Venice, 1559-1562, later half calf

Serlio, Sebastiano. Libro primo d'architettura di Sebastiano Serlio bolognese nel quale con facile et breve modo si tratta de primi principii della geometria. Con nuova aggiunta delle misure che servono a tutti gli ordini de componimenti, che vi si contengono[-Secondo libro di perspettiva] [part 2:] Il terzo libro… [part 3:] Regole generali di architettura… [part 4:] Quinto libro… Venice: Francesco Rampazetto for Giovanni Battista & Melchiorre Sessa, (1560; 1562; [1559?]; 1559)

A volume containing the first five books of Serlio; the first collected edition was issued in 1551 by Marchio Sessa, and this is the second collected edition. Each book was available separately as well as a group, and the differing dates of publication of each part probably relate to the time at which the parts of the 1551 edition became unavailable. 

Folio (348 x 243 mm), roman type. collation: A-D⁴; A-G⁴; A² B⁶ C-T⁴; AA-RR⁴ SS⁶; AAA-CCC⁴ DDD⁶: 212 leaves. Title-pages to parts 1, 3, 4, and 5, part 2 with colophon leaf at end, woodcut illustrations throughout, a few marginal annotations in two early modern hands in part 3. (Soiling and a few marginal repairs, closed tear to lower margin of SS4 in part 4 extending into plate).

binding: Modern half calf over marbled boards (355 x 260 mm), by C.A. Carpenter of Shrewburg, Mass., with his ticket, spine in compartments with blind lettering, plain edges, manuscript title along foot of textblock "Serlio de Architettura". (Extremities slightly rubbed.)

provenance: Carlo Albrizzi, inscription on title of part 3 (traces of erased ownership inscriptions on title of part 1 and colophon of part 5), and with his marginal annotations in part 3 beside diagrams of the Pantheon on B2r and B2v, beneath floorplan of St Peter's Basilica on E1v, and beside the diagram of the Theatre of Marcellus on F3v — Paul Bremen, bookseller's label on rear pastedown and some inserted correspondence between Bremen and the art historian John Bury (1917-2017) from 1996 on the conjectured separate Sessa edition of Book Three in 1562. acquisition: Purchased in 2011 from Paul Grinke, London. references: Edit16 29878; Mortimer, Harvard Italian 473 (book 5), 474 (books 1-2); Vène, Bibliographia Serliana 32, 37, 38, 31