A Treatise of Painting..

London: Printed for J. Senex...and W. Taylor, 1721. First thus. Very Good +. First edition in English the most important treatise on art written during the Renaissance. Octavo. [xvi], [1], 2-189, [16, index], [3, ads], 16 [publisher's catalogue] pp. Collating complete with thirty-six plates (including frontispiece and four folding plates). Contemporary paneled calf tooled in blind. Rebacked to style. Small contemporary ink ownership signature to margin of title-page. Foxing to endpapers and evidence of removed bookplate to front free endpaper. A bit of marginal dampstaining to first gathering. Otherwise a very clean and fresh copy of a crucial work on (truncated) art theory.

Leonardo da Vinci's first published work, Trattato della pittura, first appeared in an Italian-language Paris edition in 1651, more than 130 years after his death. The Trattato had been drawn together from his copious notes by his pupil Francesco Melzi; a manuscript copy made for Paul Freart de Chantelou, and illustrated by Nicolas Poussin, formed the basis for the 1651 edition. The work appears in English for the first time in the present edition.

"Leonardo's most important literary contribution was his approach to painting as a natural science, grounded in geometry and direct observation of natural phenomena. Through the Trattato della Pittura...Leonardo's ideas formed the core of academic artistic instruction for three centuries in many institutional settings" (OCIL). Very Good +. (Inventory #: 7021)