Architectura Recreationis… [and] Architectura Civilis…. [and] Architectura Privata

First and third works: Augsburg: Durch Johann Schultes, 1640 and 1641. Second work: Ulm: Durch Jonam Saurn, 1628. FIRST EDITIONS OF ALL THREE WORKS. Hardcover. Fine. A sammelband of three of Furttenbach's major architectural treatises. With 3 engraved frontispieces, printed titles in red and black, and a total of 89 folding plates of various sizes (the largest of them 370 x 300 mm.) showing residences, civic structures, palaces, churches, elaborate gardens and grottoes, pavilions, and theaters. All works with elaborate decorative woodcut head- and tail-pieces and decorative initials, German text in Gothic type throughout. The plates by various engravers, (truncated) largely after Furttenbach himself. Exceptional copies, complete with all plates, the text and plates on the whole bright and crisp. Bound in contemporary full vellum (lightly soiled, minor wear to extremities) with a decorative title label (gilt-tooled with citron wash.) All plates are folding, having been tipped in on guards at the time of binding so that they might fold out easily, avoiding tears. A few plate edges are a bit curled and dust soiled where they extend outside of the text block; there is scattered light foxing in the upper margins and a few small stains; a few plates have discoloration along the fold. The only other blemishes are on the two final plates of the third work, each of which is lightly browned along one fold and has one small hole, within the plate but not affecting the image.

Provenance: 1. With the engraved armorial bookplate, “Bibliotheca Velseriana”, possibly that of Carolus Velser (1635-1697). 2. Later stamp (Lugt 1114) of “G. W. Günther, Nuremberg” at foot of titles and on binding and with his signature on rear paste-down (Lugt 1115). 3. Bookplate of Emily, Marchioness of Landsdowne (1819-1895).

The practicing architect Joseph Furttenbach (1591-1667), “author of the lone series of architectural textbooks to appear in Germany during the Thirty Years' War”, was heavily influenced by Italian architecture, which he studied during his 10-year sojourn in that country. Upon his return to his native Ulm, he adapted Italian principles to his designs for German buildings, including his own townhouse (which he described in his “Architectura Privata”), with its famous garden and private museum-library.

“Furttenbach is a fascinating figure. He left Germany at the age of sixteen for a ten-year stay in Italy, where he studied— among other things—stage design under Giulio Parigi in Florence. While in Italy he decided to become an architect and merchant, and he brought both interests back to his native Ulm in 1621. Ten years later he became a municipal architect; in 1636 he became a senator. In addition to practicing architecture he was also active as a garden designer, pyrotechnician, and military engineer. All of these pursuits found an outlet in his numerous books, which began in 1626 with a description of his Italian travels and appeared regularly until the 166os.”(Millard)

I. Architectura Civilis (1628):

“Furttenbach’s ‘Architectura civilis’ (1628) is his most significant contribution to architectural theory. The preface starts with a lengthy history of this ‘noble art of architecture,’ which, after a review of classical traditions, focuses upon ‘Italians of noble Roman descent.’ His architectural preferences are also clearly apparent, as ‘it is well known that in Italy the most exquisite, the most artistically rich and satisfying, and the strongest buildings are to be found than in any other place in the whole of Europe.’ From this thesis, Furttenbach goes on to consider architecture under three rubrics: palaces, pleasure pavilions, and gardens; churches and chapels; and hospitals…. His goal is to bring the principles of symmetry and correct proportion to the North. Like many of his sixteenth-century predecessors, Furttenbach saw his task as one of continuing the line of the humanist Renaissance tradition.”(Millard)

II. Architectura Recreationis (1640): Rebuilding after War

In this remarkable book on civil architecture and advanced theater design, Furttenbach presents house and garden designs for various tiers of society. Book I: designs for the merchant class. Book II, for the nobility. Book III. palaces for princes (it is here that the designs for private theaters are described.) Book IV. civic buildings (a town hall, a customs house, and a workhouse.) The gardens, with their elaborate grottoes, intricate water features and geometrically-planned garden beds, are far more elaborate than those described in his “Architectura Civilis”. Depicted are elaborate mazes, small kitchen gardens, walled gardens and parterres, and grottoes outfitted with water features.

The title reflects the societal vision that undergirds his architectural program. “[Furttenbach’s] repeated remarks on the pressing task of ‘recreation’ – in the double sense of recovery and reconstruction – are to be understood as clear reactions to the wartime and post-wartime situation in Ulm, Swabia, and the Empire in general. In a letter to the founders of the Zürich Citizen’s Library, he advertises his 1640 text ‘Architectura recreationis’ as ‘instruction for properly rebuilding the demolished, devastated, and burned civilian buildings, after the imminent peace.’

At the beginning of the book, he writes “In the conviction that the structures and images which follow here… will provide the still-living but scared half-to-death people with a guide to recreation and the return of cheerful spirits (in particular, however, a guide for rebuilding the houses, castles, palaces, gardens and everything else necessary for sheltering and mending the people that were inauspiciously destroyed by the tempestuous Mars).”(Hole Rößler, Technologies of Theater, p. 370)

An important aspect of “Architectura Recreationis” is Furttenbach’s in-depth discussion of the construction of modern theaters, skills that he had mastered while studying at the private academy of master stage designer Giulio Parigi in Florence in 1617. During his time in Italy, Furttenbach worked as a theatre architect, stage engineer, and scenographer. He brought all of this practical knowledge to bear upon his return to Germany.

The modern Italian theater employed not only trompe-l’oeil perspective sets and movable stage machinery, but also a complex stage that could be rotated to change the entire setting of a scene. Furttenbach constructed such a theater in the Binderhof in Ulm, and this is described in his book. As part of the treatise on theaters, Furttenbach includes a discussion of theater lighting, the first such treatise printed north of the Alps.

III. Architectura Privata (1641):

In “Architectura Privata” Furttenbach describes and illustrates his own upscale, well-furnished townhouse and gardens in Ulm, every aspect of which he designed himself. The house, with its Italian-style façade, and gardens were tragically destroyed in 1944.

Furttenbach believed that a garden was an essential feature for a city dwelling, a refuge for secluded relaxation and contemplation of nature. An arcade led from Furttenbach’s house to a small grotto with a central water feature, and then on to the garden hall. The engravings include images of the gardens and grotto, and the geometrically patterned garden beds, where Furttenbach planted carefully chosen exotic flowers. Furttenbach also describes his Kunstkamer, his private museum on the fourth floor of the house, where weapons, architectural and technical models, special natural objects, and prints and paintings were exhibited. The fame of Furttenbach's house, with its garden and art chamber, reached far beyond Ulm, and attracted foreign visitors.

Full collations: I. Architectura Recreationis: π1, 4, 4, 4, A-P4. Plus engraved frontis. and 35 plates. II. Architectura Civilis: π1, 4, 6, A-I4, K3 (-blank leaf K4). Plus engraved frontis. and 40 plates. III. Architectura Privata: π1, 6, A-I4, K3 (-blank leaf K4). Plus engraved frontis. and 14 plates. The engraved frontis with an instruction to the binder that it be bound at p. 15; the other fourteen are numbered 1-14 in the plate. (Inventory #: 5007)