Vignola - [In Folio] Vignola Illustrato - 1770

IN FOLIO - RULE AND SHOW: THE VIGNOLA ILLUSTRATED AS A THEATRE OF CLASSICAL ORDER
This refined Roman edition of 1770 of the Illustrated Vignola marks a decisive moment in the editorial fortune of the famous treatise on the five orders of architecture. The intervention of Giambattista Spampani and Carlo Antonini transforms the original text into an amplified and spectacular work, in which Vignola’s normative clarity is rendered into a rich visual apparatus. The engravings do not merely explain: they construct a true system of vision, making architecture accessible, replicable, and collectible. The volume thus becomes not only a manual, but an aesthetic object and a tool for spreading neoclassical taste.
MARKET VALUE
Complete specimens of this 1770 edition, with all plates present and in good condition, generally fetch between €1,500 and €2,000, with higher values for copies that are particularly fresh or in period bindings well preserved. Copies in blotter bindings (bare/unfinished) like the present are particularly valued on the collecting market.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Contemporary binding in pink paper boards, with defects and rebacked spine. Frontispiece engraved, mezzo-engraved portrait of the dedicatee pope Clement XIV. Complete with 57 copper-engraved plates. Copy in the original binding. Signs of use and some browning. In old books with a long history, a few imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description. Pp. (2); 12mo; 58; 28; (2).

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Il Vignola Illustrato.
Rome, at the printing shop of Marco Pagliarini, 1770.
Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
The original treatise by Vignola, published in 1562, represents one of the fundamental texts of Western architecture, offering a clear and systematic codification of the classical orders. This seventeenth-century edition fits into the context of renewed neoclassical interest in the purity of ancient forms, but introduces a new dimension: illustration as both didactic and aesthetic tool.
The copper-engraved plates amplify the text’s potential, turning rule into image and making the work accessible to a wider audience, including artists, architects, and collectors. In this sense, the volume becomes a bridge between theory and practice, between standard and interpretation, contributing to the international dissemination of the Vignolaian architectural language.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Giacomo Barozzi called Il Vignola (1507–1573) was one of the most influential architects of the Italian Renaissance. Active between Bologna and Rome, he worked for important patrons, including the Farnese family. His theoretical work, particularly the Regola delli cinque ordini d’architettura, enjoyed extraordinary diffusion and became an indispensable reference for generations of architects, due to its clarity of exposition and geometric precision.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
Since the first edition of 1562, Vignola’s treatise enjoyed widespread diffusion across Europe, with numerous reprintings and translations. The Roman edition of 1770 represents one of the most elaborate reinterpretations of the text, situating itself in the late Enlightenment climate, when architectural treatises also acquired an editorial and collecting dimension. The printing shop of Marco Pagliarini was among the most active in Rome in the production of high-prestige illustrated works.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
ICCU/OPAC SBN: IT\ICCU\RMLE\015678
Berlin Katalog, Ornamentstichsammlung, n. 2147
Fowler, Italian Architectural Treatises, p. 302
Millard, Italian and Spanish Books, I, 133
Kruft, A History of Architectural Theory, Princeton, 1994, pp. 142–150
Schlosser, La letteratura artistica, Firenze, 1964, pp. 412–418
Cicognara 847