book-aesthete:

Da Vinci on the Science of Painting

Vinci, Leonardo da. Traitté de la peinture de Leonardo de Vinci donné au public et traduit d’Italien en François. Paris: Jacques Langlois, 1651. Folio (41 cm, 16.1”). Add. engr. t.-p., [18], 128 pp.; illus.

Provenance: Front pastedown with armorial bookplate of the Stanley family: eagle and child with the motto “Sans changer” (probably belonging to Edward George Geoffrey Smith Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby).

First French edition of the great Trattato della Pittura, published in the same year as Langlois’s first Italian edition and very possibly having preceded that edition. The work was translated by Roland Fréart, sieur de Chambray, and is here illustrated withan added engraved title-page, a title-page vignette, two head-pieces, and 56 in-text copper engravings drawn by Charles Errard after Nicolas Poussin and engraved by René Lochon. Compiled from da Vinci’s manuscripts after his death by his pupil Francesco Melzi, this text served as Renaissance-era Europe’s primary introduction to da Vinci’s theories and principles.

via prbm