Treatise on Architecture

(Trattato di architettura)

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robably written at the court of Federico da Montefeltro in Urbino about 1480, the Treatise on Architecture by Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439 - 1501), the famous painter, sculptor and architect from Sienna, is one of the milestones of the architectural theory of the Italian Renaissance.

Along its twofold features - civil and military architecture - this work, which is reproduced for the first time in facsimile, is an organic collection of notes and drawings presented thematically, which so much appealed to Leonardo da Vinci.

Not by chance, the precious manuscript known as Codex Ashburnham 361, now preserved in the Laurentian Library (no. 282), belonged to Leonardo, quite possibly given to him by Francesco di Giorgio himself in Milan in 1490.

This is in fact the only known book to have come down to us directly from Leonardo’s own library, and as such it is, of course, an extraordinary bibliographical unicum in that it contains Leonardo’s own marginal notes and sketches made about 1506.

Fifteen years after the first edition (preceded by a preface by Luigi Firpo and including an introduction, a translation and notes by Pietro C. Marani) the Treatise is again being published together with four pages recently discovered and preserved in the Biblioteca Municipale of Reggio Emilia.

The "Fogli Reggiani", illustrated with 44 ink drawings, contain the chapter on ancient and modern military machines, which follows the final paragraph of the Ashburnham Codex 361, without a break.

The volume in which they are published contains an introductory text, the critical transcription and notes by Massimo Mussini.

A slip case (size 268 x 395 x 70 mm) holds the three hand bound volumes with gold stamping: the facsimile of the codex; the volume containing the transcription and comments (XXVIII - 136 pages); and the volume containing the facsimile reproduction of the 4 "Fogli Reggiani" with relative transcription, comprising 40 pages in all.

The Facsimile is limited to 998 numbered copies world-wide.

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