Other important works relating to French Renaissance Architecture in Special Collections

(Click on the call number to view the digital facsimile of the book.)

Typ 1499 .C65 - Colonna, Francesco. Hypnerotomachia Poliphili... Venice : Aldus Manutius, Romanus, Dec. 1499.

       This is one of the most famous of early illustrated books, because of its elegant typeface and woodcut illustrations, and is the first PRINTED illustrated book related to architecture. In Colonna’s curious Hypnerotomachia Poliphilii, the hero, Poliphilo, pursues his beloved Polia through a dream landscape of antique architecture (temples, arches, gardens and more). Those structures are “but pale reflections,” according to Vaughan Hart, of the divine proportions embodied by Polia. (Vaughan Hart, Paper Palaces, p. 24. Full reference cited below)

Gordon 1546 .C65 - Colonna, Francesco. Hypnerotomachie, ou Discours du songe de Poliphile, deduisant comme amour le combat a l'occasion de Polia. : Soubz la fiction de quoy l'aucteur monstrant que toutes choses terrestres ne sont que vanité, traicte de plusieurs matieres profitables, & dignes de memoire. / Nouuellement traduict de langage Italien en Francois. A Paris : Pour Iaques Keruer ..., 1546. Edited by Jean Martin.

       Woodcuts are based on those designed for the 1st Italian edition, but redrawn with more lavish detail according to French tastes by the elder Jean Cousin or Jean Goujon.

NA2515 .V5 1567 - Vitruvius, Pollio. M. Vitrvvii Pollionis De architectvra libri decem / cvm commentariis Danielis Barbari, electi patriarchae aqvileiensis: mvltis aedificiorvm, horologiorvm, et machinarvm descriptionibvs, & figuris, unà cum indicibus copiosis, auctis & illustratis. Venetiis : apud Franciscum Franciscium Senensem, & Ioan. Crugher Germanum., M.D.LXVII.

NA2517 .D4 1567 - L'Orme, Philibert de. Le premier tome de l'architectvre de Philibert de l'Orme conseillier et avmosnier ordinaire du roy & abbé de S. Serge lez Angiers. Paris : Federic Morel, 1567.

NA2517 .D4 1576 - L'Orme, Philibert de. Novvelles inventions povr bien bastir et a petits fraiz, trovvees n'Agveres ... Paris : Hierosme de Marnes & Guillaume Cauellat, 1576.

NA2515 .P25 1581 - Palladio. I qvattro libri dell'architettvra di Andrea Palladio. Venetia : Apresso Bartolomeo Carampello, 1581. (1581 reprint of 1570 Venetian edition)

Gordon 1650 .P3 no.1- Palladio. Les quatre liures de l'architecture d'André Palladio : mis en françois : dans lesquels, aprés vn petit traitté des cinq ordres... il parle de la construction des maisons particulieres, des grands chemins, des ponts, des places publiques, des xystes, des basiliques, & des temples. Paris : De l' imprimerie d'Edme Martin ..., 1650.

          "First edition of book I-IV in French. The woodcuts are from the original blocks used in the 1570 Italian edition"--Fowler.

 Further Reading

Guillaume, Jean, ed. Les traités d’architecture de la Renaissance. Paris : Picard : Publié avec l'aide du J. Paul Getty Trust, 1988.

Hart, Vaughan, and Peter Hicks, eds. Paper Palaces: The Rise of the Renaissance Architectural Treatise. New Haven, CT: Yale UP , 1998

Lefaivre, Liane. Leon Battista Alberti's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: Eros, Furore, and Humanism in the Early Italian Renaissance. The MIT Press, 1997. (Important recent study of the HP, attributing authorship to Alberti, rather than to Colonna.)

Pauwels, Yves. L’architecture au temps de la Pléiade. Paris: Gérard Monfort, 2002.

Internet Resources

Architectura: Architecture, Textes et Images XVIe - XVIIe siècles. Site created by the Centre d'Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, presenting high quality digital facsimiles and transcriptions of architectural treatises of the Renaissance, along with valuable commentary and bibliographies.

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili:

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: Website of MIT press, in collaboration with the Design Knowledge Systems Group at the Technical University of Delft -- provides access to complete digital facsimile of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, along with information about the printing and illustration of the work.

A reading list of material pertaining to the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, including material bibliography and secondary sources, by William Barker, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili - Feb. 2004 "Book of the Month" exhibit at Glasgow University Library Special Collections Department.