De Architectura

Vitruvius Pollio · Venice, Italy: Ioannis de Tridino, also known as Tacuino, 1511

Medium

Letterpress and woodcut in black on ivory laid paper; four-piece decorative woodcut title border with scrolling foliage and dolphin motifs; full alum-tawed ornamental leather binding

Original size

32.5 × 21.6 × 3.2 cm (12 13/16 × 8 9/16 × 1 5/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Italian Renaissance

Few surviving printed works marry the authority of ancient knowledge with the visual elegance of Renaissance craft as naturally as this 1511 Venetian edition of Vitruvius's treatise on architecture. Marcus Vitruvius Pollio wrote *De Architectura* in the first century BC — the only complete ancient Roman text on architecture to survive — and this edition, prepared by the scholar Fra Giocondo and printed by Ioannis de Tridino, became one of the most influential books of the Renaissance. The title page is framed by a four-piece decorative woodcut border of scrolling foliage and dolphin motifs, printed in sharp black on ivory laid paper, with the composed gravity of a page that knows its own importance. The binding, in alum-tawed ornamental leather, speaks to the care taken in producing an object meant to endure. Fra Giocondo's 1511 edition was the first to include woodcut illustrations of Vitruvian architectural principles, and it circulated widely among architects including Raphael and Bramante. Now held in the Art Institute of Chicago, the work endures as both a scholarly artifact and a visual treasure. This hand-painted oil reproduction renders the depth of the woodcut lines, the warmth of the ivory paper, and the rhythmic detail of the decorative border with the patience and precision the original commands.