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Architecture
Part of the title page for John James' translation of Claude Perrault's work on the Five Orders of Columns. Fine art
Detail from one of Wenceslaus Hollar's engravings of Windsor Castle. Philip Ayres (1638-1712) Emblemata Amatoria Ayres was born in Cottingham and educated at Westminster School and St John's College, Oxford. He became tutor in the family of Montagu Garrard Drake, of Agmondesham, Bucks, living in the family until his death.
The Heart, Loves Butt Ten thousand times I've
felt the cruell smart 'The Emblemata Amatoria is a very pretty and a very quaint book, though its attraction is only partially poetic, and still more partially English-poetic. It is engraved throughout, text and plates, these latter being forty-four in number, and each faced with a set of four copies of verses, Latin, English, Italian, and French, the impartiality being kept up by the imprint, at head and foot of the double page-opening, of Emblemata Amatoria, Emblems of Love, Emblèmes d'Amour, and Emblemi d'Amore. These verses, though always on the same subject, are very far from exact translations of each other, and it is quite possible that Ayres may have taken more or fewer of them from preceding writers.' George Saintsbury, Minor Poets of the Caroline Period. (1906)
Primitive, but powerful, perhaps befitting the amorous deity. Love keeps all things in
order. A must for all those in love, or about to fall in love. |
translated by Claude Perrault (1613-1688) printed by Jean Baptiste Coignard, 1673. The Ten Books of Architecture of Vitruvius is the only treatise on architecture to survive from the Roman period. It is considered to be the single most important architectural text for Western Civilisation. A copy was preserved by monks during the middle ages, and rediscovered around 1414 in the library of the Monastery of St Gall. A first printed version appeared in 1480, and the work subsequently became enormously influential amongst Renaissance architects.
Claude Perrault undertook the translation of Vitruvius at the instigation of Jean-Baptiste Colbert (minister of finance under Louis XIV and significant patron of the arts and artists). The rare first edition, illustrated with 68 superb engraved plates, appeared in 1673 and was followed by an abridged version in 1674, and a second edition in 1684.
Perrault was also architect of the eastern range of the Louvre in Paris, and one of the first members of the Académie des Sciences, publishing treatises on physics and natural science.
Jean Baptiste Coignard (1637-1686) was printer to the king and to the Académie Française. Voyage Sentimental, suivi des
Lettres d'Yorick à Eliza
Laurence Sterne : Laurent Sterne dual French and English text. printed by Gabriel Dufour: Paris
and Amsterdam
Laurence Sterne (1713-1768) It was the Life and Times of Tristram Shandy that made Sterne famous, not only in England but throughout Europe. He was praised by both Voltaire as 'clearly superior to Rabelais' and by Goethe, who called him 'the most beautiful spirit that ever lived'. The Sentimental Journey recounts events of a journey in France in a roundabout way, concentrating on those events which evoke a sentiment, thereby effectively defining the sentimental traveller, as against the plethora of travellers who travel and see only things: buildings, landscapes, rivers, bridges and so on: what did these people miss? The monk, the dead donkey, the man with the huge nose....
The engravings are by Nicholas-André Monsiau, the binding by Kaufman: the book bears the ex libris of Hans Furstenberg, who put together a definitive collection of 18th century French illustrated books.
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Amanda Swan Rare Books and Prints
The poet biographies, translations and textual notes on this site are the copyright of Adnax Publications.