A Parallel of Antient Architecture with Modern; In a Collection of Ten Principal Authors who have Written upon the Five Orders, Palladio and Scamozzi, Serlio and Vignola, D. Barbaro and Cataneo, L.B. Alberti and Viola, Bullant and De Lorme, Compared with One Another. The Three Greek Orders, Dorique, Ionique, and Corinthian, Comprise the First Part of this Treatise. And the Two Latine, Tuscan and Composita, the Latter. . With Leon Baptista Alberti's Treatise of Statues

Small folio, 13 1/2 x 8 3/4 inches (343 x 222 mm); (xxvi), 159 pp.; errata and publisher's list. 40 full-page engravings including t.p. closely follow those of the French original (1650) and are numbered on the plate to their page numbers; head- and tail-pieces, vignettes and 2 smaller engraving illustrating Alberti's work; woodcut initials. Engraved t.p. precedes letterpress t.p. with portrait of Monsieur de Noyers, in decorative frame with garlands and pediment with book title "A paralell [sic] of architecture both ancient & moderne". Contemporary speckled calf, rebacked, with original gilt label in one of spine compartments. Frontispiece with engraved portrait of Monsieur de Noyers, in decorative frame with garlands and pediment with book title; Title page with publishers device. Small tears and defects on corners to first few pages and on plates not affecting the plate (except 71 where tear enters bottom of plate for about 1cm); a few corners bent or worn but overall pages are evenly toned and supple with minimal staining, except for a curious rust stain on pages 136-137 probably from a key that was left inside the book. Provenance: Armorial book plates of John Peyto Verney, Lord Willoughy deBroke & of Robert John Verney, Lord Willoughy deBroke, pasted to inside cover; previous ink inscription also inside front cover; with the library stamp of Herbert Maynard Smith (1869-1949) and J. Outram Smith (1871-1954), on the front free endpaper. The Smiths, both Anglican clergymen, amassed a substantial collection of theology, history, philosophy, and literature. [Harris/Savage 230]. An important work on architecture which influenced both French and English architects of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. This is the first edition in English from the original French edition of 1650, a book which Evelyn had purchased shortly after its publication. With printed dedications to Charles II, and to Sir John Denham, Surveyor of the King's Works, this book was intended for an intellectual market and to demonstrate the superiority of the architecture and proportions of ancient buildings. This edition was followed by three more by 1733, attesting to the success of this book and was probably then circulated among builders and artisans. Roland Friar de Chambray (1606 - 1676) was a French writer, collector, and a theorist of architecture and the arts. Though not a practitioner himself, his two major publications, Parallèle de l'architecture antique avec la moderne (1650) and Idée de la perfection de la peinture (1662), appeared at a time when French architects were struggling to apply a new sense of discipline and order to the practice of building. He spent several years in Italy and returned there often on different projects, including casting the colossal horsemen of the Quirinal in bronze for the main entrance to the Louvre, a project never brought to fruition following the deaths of both Cardinal Richelieu and King Louis XIII. Fréart's objective when his book was first published in Paris in 1650 was to compare the treatment of the orders of architecture by such eminent writers as Palladio, Scamozzi, and Serlio, with actual examples from the surviving buildings of ancient Rome, and as such his book was highly regarded by architectural practitioners of the period in and outside France. The book was translated into English by distinguished connoisseur John Evelyn (1620 - 1706) as A parallel of the antient architecture with the modern. Evelyn writes a long and fawning dedicatory epistle to King Charles II (1630 - 1685) and adds to the original French text an essay by Leon Battista Alberti "De Statua" (original in Latin but Evelyn's translation from the Italian version by Cosimo Bartoli); pp. 145-159 with two plates and tables of ideal statuary proportions and measurements.…