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Palladio.Quattro Libri..,1570,Burlington copy

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4 parts in 1, first edition, woodcut architectural titles and numerous woodcut illustrations, many full-page, a few double-page, with blank leaf at end of part 2 & part 4 and 'Il Fine...' leaf at end of part 3, Lord Burlington's copy with his signature dated 1732 at head of title, contemporary ink annotation at foot of 4I3, some light spotting or soiling but generally a very clean copy, slightly cropped, Osterley Park bookplate on front pastedown, signature of Reginald Blomfield in pencil on front free endpaper, nineteenth century calf, boards with triple gilt-ruled border, rubbed, corners a little worn, rebacked preserving old gilt spine, new label, [Adams P101; Berlin Kat.2592; Fowler 212; PMM 92], folio, Venice, Domenico de Franceschi, 1570.

***A superb association copy of one of the most important architectural books. Lord Burlington was an ardent admirer of Palladio, having studied his buildings in Vicenza in great detail, and was primarily responsible for the Neo-Palladian style of architecture becoming predominant in England in the eighteenth century, particularly for country houses. He is known to have owned four copies of Palladio's 1570 Quattro Libri in his library at Chiswick House, itself an almost exact copy of Palladio's Villa Rotonda at Vicenza. This book's descent to Reginald Blomfield via the Robert Adam-designed Osterley Park reflects a fascinating course through two hundred years of British country house architecture. Provenance: Richard Boyle (1695-1753, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork), architectural patron and instigator of Neo-Palladianism as a style of architecture in Britain. Victor Albert George Child Villiers (1845-1915), 7th Earl Jersey, 10th Viscount Grandison), colonial governor. In 1885, in order to pay off debts incurred at the races, he sold the library of Osterley Park, Isleworth, raising œ13,000.Sir Reginald Blomfield (1856-1942), architect and architectural historian, editor of the Architectural Review. He was the architect of the Menin Gate war memorial at Ypres and the restoration of Chequers, country residence of the Prime Minister. "Blomfield's designs recall English and French architecture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He had a special fondness for bull's-eye windows and carved swags or festoons". DNB.

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