L'ARCHITECTURE FRANCOISE, OU RECUEIL DES PLANS, ELEVATIONS, COUPS ET PROFILS,...

  MAROT, Jean.  L'ARCHITECTURE FRANCOISE, OU RECUEIL DES PLANS, ELEVATIONS, COUPS ET PROFILS,...

Paris: Jombert, 1751. Folio. Later mottled quarter-calf, marbled papered boards. Engraved title leaf, 130 plates, of which 2 folding.

A rare edition of Marot's famous work on French architecture first published in the mid-seventeenth century.  This copy was compiled and published by Charles Antoine Jombert in 1751, and no copies show up on auction records in the last thirty-five years.  Only two copies are recorded on OCLC -- University of Illinois and the Free Library of Philadelphia.  The history of the several editions of Marot's great work are complex and vary greatly in number of volumes and plates.  Often the different editions were compiled with different sets of plates -- a not unusual practice in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  The Jombert edition was published with 260 plates. Our volume has 130 (17 x 10 3/4 inches), and is priced accordingly.  The plates represent some of the finest engravings of Marot's works -- city mansions, country chateaux, public buildings, and churches (including St. Peter's Basilica in Rome).  All the plates have wide margines; are in good condition; with no foxing.  It is sympathetically bound with finely gilt spine in eighteenth-century fashion.  Very good.

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