Four Books of architecture - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

the Four Books of architecture ( I Quattro Libri dell' Architettura ) are a Traité of architecture, published in Venice in 1570 in four sections known as “books” and written and abundantly illustrated plans, cuts, rises and details of elements of architecture by the architect Andrea Palladio.

The Book

The object

They are the physical characteristics of the edition known as “Princeps” of 1570 at Franceschi in Venice. Venice is at that time a great center of edition and the Venetian editors hold the technology of the illustration by means of engravings. Those will be done initially on wood. The illustrations of the work are carried out starting from engravings of this type. The format chosen for the original edition is In-octavo (21 X approximately 15 cm), with little thing close the format of two average bricks (21 X 12 X 6 cm).

The work makes more than 400 numbered pages, approximately 319 pages and more than 200 boards of illustration. It is organized in four unequal parts known as “Delivers” each one paginated separately.

Volume comprises many illustrations obtained starting from impression of engravings on wood:

a frontispiece which finds also at the head books II, III and IV;

of the boards of architecture representing the buildings and of the details in plan, cut and rise 216;

of the letters speaking or reference letters at the head about chapter;

a fourth of cover.

Each Book organizes in an identical way: the frontispiece, the foreword with the reader and the development of the subject. There is no foreword with Book II, the author in informed the reader in the foreword of Book I.

The work contains the projects that Palladio wants to make known, by the theory and the practice, the purity and the simplicity of the Classical architecture and is illustrated proper drawings of Andrea Palladio. The work is written in vulgar language as it is of tradition among humanistic Europeans of this period. Moreover, it is always difficult to express modern technologies in old languages which inevitably did not know the described techniques. There exists besides at that time of many works treating of these difficulties, Palladio is made of it the echo in Book III when it proposes its translation of an extract of the Commentaires of Jules César. Thanks to this linguistic choice the work, although technique, is of a great clearness. This clearness of the matter is due to the perfect control of the subject tackled by Palladio like, probably, with the assiduous frequentation of a grammairien such as Trissino. The many people named in the work allow to have an idea of the relations which maintained Palladio with the patricians, the artists and the engineers of his time. Palladio is very attached to the teaching aspect of the work which is conceived like a hyphen between Vitruve and the contemporaries of the architect. He repeats it several times in the treaty and in particular in chapter XVI of Book II where Palladio is expressed thus “… having intention only explaining well Vitruve, I will not have fun point-here to seek what Pline into known as…” the work carries on the techniques and the good taste that Palladio deduced from its practical and theoretical studies. This treaty pursues several goals of which that to rationalize the architectural production and to show the supremacy of the former Romans as regards construction.

The work is a success local and international considerable, it is the subject of regular republications until our days.

It quickly is translated and published into English, French and Dutch and is used, for their projects, by many architects.

In this treaty, the systematic rules as regards construction are indicated. The presentation of examples of projects is hitherto new in this type of work. The more so as the technique of printing works of engraving is a new technology of the time and Venice is one of the capitals of its diffusion. Palladio as a good architect is interested in it particulèrement and this technique of engraving, just like its ancient architecture, will inspire the large illustrator of architecture Piranese.

The single style of the villa palladienne is based on the application to a structural system built out of brick. Palladio presents two guns to which according to him an originator must conform in the construction industries: rules of project, based on the aspect and rules of construction, based on the logic of the construction of the villa.

The treaty is subdivided in four principal volumes said books and the “princeps” edition comprises moreover two dedications:

the 1st Book comprises the first dedication and a foreword common to the first and second books. In this foreword Palladio indicates its leading and teaching choice. The book first draft of the “toolbox” of the architect: choice of materials, manner of building, rules of proportion, elements architectonic, manner of laying out them and of assembling them;

the 2nd Book presents several projects of Palladio in plan and rise ( iconographia and spelled ) with a descriptive note in the characteristics in the project. This book shows “practical works” of application of the rules contained in Book I.

Chapters XIII, XIV and XV treat country houses and although no mention is made by the author it is interesting to compare the plan of these houses and the description of their garden with that described by Erasme in the Religious Banquet (1522) or the plan of the Villa of the Rammers discovered with Herculanum. In doesn't the chapter XX heading Of the abuses Palladio denounces some practical, in particular that consisting in carrying out pediments cut while specifying that the architect must keep his free will as regards “good taste”, present a pediment cut in frontispiece?

the 3rd Book describes the manner of building the public edifices, such as streets, bridges, places. It presents at the same time projects of Palladio as well as archaeological reconstitutions of ancient works. It is made there many allusions to the literary and technical sources of Palladio. In addition to Vitruve, Palladio quotes in this book Tacite, Plutarque, Jules César of which it gives broad extracted the Commentaires in connection with the construction of the bridge on the Rhine and the archaeological reconstitution that in fact Palladio. It also quotes in connection with the bridges of frame Alexandre Picholino of Mirandole which makes authority as a naval architect of the arsenal of Venice and an author of a treaty of naval frame;

the 4th Book accompanied by a cosmological foreword, milked temples built by old and present one of the archaeological reconstitutions of the ruins of Rome.

First Italian editions until the 17th century

The pincipales known Italian editions are:

the edition known as “Princeps” of 1570 at Franceschi to Venice,

the edition of 1581 in Venice

republications of 1601 and 1616 at Bartolomeo Carampello in Venice,

the edition of 1642 at Marc' Antonio Brogiollo in Venice (the fronstispice presented in illustration is drawn from this work).

International diffusion and translations

First French editions

Into France, the book is translated into two times. The architect the Dumb man makes a first translation of the book first. Roland Fréart de Chambray translates since 1641 and publishes in his entirety in 1650 at Edme Martin the totality of the work. This translation is resulting from a ordering of the cardinal of Richelieu which wanted “to give architecture in the right way”. The French translation presents some characteristics, the foreword is replaced by the dedication of Roland Fréart de Chambray, it seems that the foreword of the book four was self-censorship by the translator. The translator had received from Venice the wood of engraving originals and noted that it was in possession of 219 engravings. He chose to publish a translation in conformity with the original and to increase it by three engravings with a comment. Finally Roland Fréart de Chambray publishes in the end of the work a glossary. This translation can be regarded as a reference book in French language. As of its publication, it is analyzed by the royal Académie of architecture chaired by François Blondel and is the subject of comparative detailed and meticulous with the original. The Academy concludes with excellence from work from Roland Fréart de Chambray in spite of some points from detail which it raises.

Diffusion in the Anglo-Saxon world

The architect Inigo Jones is probably the first to use from a professional point of view I Quattro libri . He has a specimen of the Princeps edition which he annotated regularly. This specimen is preserved in the United Kingdom at the library of the Worcester College of Oxford.

The first translation in English language is rather late. Until the end of the 17th century the languages most read and spoken by the high society about the United Kingdom are French and Italian. The English editions go back to 1663,1715,1736,1738.

The Architecture off A. Palladio in 1715 by Giacomo Leoni would be the first integral edition in English language of the I Quattro libri dell' will architettura .

Thomas Jefferson, president of the the United States enthusiastic admiror of Palladio qualified this book of “Bible of architecture”; it, moreover, largely took as a starting point the plans of the Cornaro Villa for the design of its residence with Monticello.

References

F. Rigon. Lettere initiali “parlanti” nell' edizione dei " Quatro libri dell'Architectura" of 1642 - article published in Annali di Architectura 1998-99
the French translation of Roland Fréart de Chambray (1641), transcribed in modern French, is available at Flammarion (1980 and 1997) ISBN 2080102184.
the language of the classical architecture - John Summerson - Collection Tests - Editions the Square Paris 1981 - 1980 Thames years Hudson Ltd London - 1963 Sir John Summerson and BBC ISBN 2-86425-017-9
the Religious Banquet - Erasme - (1522) - the epicurean and other banquets Éditions marine ink, library hedonist 2004 ISBN 2-909422-80-1

External bonds

I Quattro Libri dell' Architettura
French Translation of Roland Fréart de Chambray (1650), exemplary ENSBA.

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