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Paris: L'Anglois, 1647?1651. Quarto (27.8 ? 21 cm). Eighteenth-century leather bindings, each with two colored spine labels and gilt ornaments and fillets to spines and boards; 2 blank leaves, [49] pp., 172 [recte 173] numbered leaves and [36] pp. interspersed between the seven parts, [11] pp., 4 blank leaves; 4 blank leaves, [23] pp., 123 numbered leaves and [8] pp. interspersed between the five parts, [13] pp., [Collation of the bound-in supplements see below], 41 blank leaves; 2 blank leaves, [39] pp., 156 [recte 166] numbered leaves and [44] pp. interspersed between the five parts, [14] pp., 8 blank leaves. The three volumes with a total of 462 full-page copperplate engravings (of which 3 are folded and double-paged, one of them a duplicate), 3 engraved title pp., and numerous engraved vignettes and initials. The Macclesfield copy, with the armorial bookplate to all three volumes. The pagination of the leaves and engravings skips back and forth several times (see Millard for a detailed list); with wide margins, noticeably larger than the one recorded by Millard; in the second volume, corrections were made by the printer or binder via pasting over: copper plate 12 and 4 leaves of the plate register; bindings with age-typical signs of use; joints barely noticeably, professionally restored; slightly toned in places; only a few leaves sporadically faintly stained; title pages with blind-stamped owner's stamps; else very good. This art-historically significant and extensive practical introduction to perspective not only marks the beginning of the so-called ?perspective war? in France, but also influenced the development of Baroque illusionistic painting ? a practice that would become formative for seventeenth- and eighteenth-century architecture, above all through Andrea Pozzo, who was also a member of the Jesuit order. Dubreuil's "work on perspective is probably the most influential ever published expressly for the use of a lay audience" (Millard). Available here is a compilation of different editions: The first volume in the second, expanded edition, the other two volumes and the appendices in the first edition (same composition as Millard). In recent times, Dubreuil's work, which was explicitly aimed at artists, sculptors, architects and all other artisans, has not only become the focus of research into the French ?war of perspective? The art historian Andrew Horn has worked out, among other things, that ?the essential principles and techniques upon which Pozzo constructed many, if not most of his widely varying projects can be found in Dubreuil's work? (Andrew Horn, Ritual, Scenography and Illusion: Andrea Pozzo and the Religious Theatre of the Seventeenth, Edinburgh 2016, p. 75). The creation of the illusion for three-dimensional architecture rising into the sky, of domes and lantern towers, of celestial choirs and assemblies of saints from a strong under-view on flat surfaces are foreshadowed in Dubreuil's practical instructions on the use of perspective. The Jesuit architect is intensively concerned with changing the perception of space through different locations, viewing angles, and the effects of light and shadow. In addition, he explores architectural structures and openings overhead, including rectangular, round, and irregular shapes viewed from both centered and off-center perspectives. Furthermore, Dubreuil deals with the perception of domes, with the projection of images onto vaults, as well as with anamorphic images. Andrew Horn also refers to Jesuit theatre practice, which in the Baroque period was an essential part of the Counter-Reformation?s missionary and educational work. What characterized Jesuit theatre was not merely the use of music, ballet, and pyrotechnic effects to simulate explosions, fire-breathing dragons, lightning, and thunder. By the mid-seventeenth century, a specifically Jesuit art of stage design had developed, aimed at creating illusions of vast spatial depth. Accordingly, "La perspective.
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