The Mark J. Millard Architectural Collection. Volume 1. French books, sixteenth through nineteenth centuries : introduction and catalogue.

Cloth, 4to, 32 cm, xxv, 512 pp, plates, ills. 172 entries. From the blurb - "This volume presents the books published in France from the Mark J. Millard Architectural Collection of illustrated books on Western European architectural design and theory. This extraordinary collection, housed at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, provides a rare opportunity to explore the work and theories of four centuries of French architects and designers, as well as the fundamental treatises that influenced them. Included here are the volumes that served as the primary guides for centuries of French architects, such as Alberti's Libri de re aedificatoria, as well as the works of Serlio, translated into French. Other volumes, designed for public consumption, record the property and building activity of the royal families, and document the authority of the monarch. Early nineteenth-century sketchbooks of medieval architecture reveal the emergence and flowering of the Gothic Revival in France. The sketchhooks of such painters as Vien and Ponce bear witness to the discovery of the voyage pittoresque during the same century, and to a romance with Italy that began some three hundred years earlier. Each architectural book has been carefully descrihed and illustrated; a catalogue entry provides a full history of' each." Top edge spotted, otherwise Near Fine in Near Fine dustwrapper.…