BARTOLI, Cosimo
Del modo di misurare le distantie, le superficie, i corpi, le piante, le provincie, le prospettine, & tutte le altre cose terrente, che possono occorrere a gli huomini, secondo le vere regole d’Euclide, & de gli alteri piu lodati scrittori.
Venise, Francesco Franceschi Sanese, 1589.
4to (205 x 144 mm) 145 num.ll., 3 unn.ll. (table), title within engraved architectural border. Contemporary speckled calf, spine with raised bands (expertly rebacked).
Sold
Riccardi, I, p.90, 1.2; Smith, Rara, 315; Mortimer, Italian, 45; Kat. Berlin, 1701 (édition de 1564); Vagnetti, EIIb18; J. Bryce: Cosimo Bartoli: The Career of a Florentine Polymath, in: Renaissance Quarterly, pp.422-424.

Second edition of this important work on surveying, measuring, and drawing on perspective. It is dedicated to Cosimo de Medici with his coat of arms on the illustrated title.

Richly illustrated with 163 woodcuts including a portrait of the author the book shows a great variety of measuring devices, geometrical figures etc. including the astrolabe as used by Rojas Sarmiento. Numbered leaves 105-106 with astronomical images folded in as to protext the margins from the bookbinder’s knife.

Bartoli gives a list of authors consulted for the writing of his book, including Finé, Dürer, Archimedes, Euclid, Alberti, Ptolemy, Vitruvius, and others. The engraved title, already used to illustrate the translation of Alberto given by Bartoli in 1550, is here present in a reduced an mirrored image.

Small occasional waterstain to outer margin, some headlines slightly shaved.

Provenance: old ownership inscription on title partly removed.