First printing of the most ambitious Spanish architectural treatise (also dealing with painting, sculpture, perspective, etc.) to date, a provocative work in which the author argues the superiority of “oblique” architecture to “straight” (Vitruvian) architecture, and famously censures Bernini’s designs for the colonnade around St. Peter’s Square and staircase (Scala Regia) in the Vatican, and equestrian statue of the Emperor Constantine. Printed at the author’s private press in Vigevano, the book is the earliest of eight publications issued under the imprint “En la Emprenta Obispal por Camillo Corrado” (Typis Episcopalibus apud Camillum Conradam) at the Italian town of Vigevano, where Caramuel was bishop from 1673 until the end of his life. It is notably difficult to obtain “complete” and in good condition, and its absence from collections of architectural books developed over many years, such as the RIBA/British Architectural Library, Fowler Collection of Early Architectural Books at Johns Hopkins University Library, and Canadian Centre for Architecture, is telling evidence of the difficulty of procuring a copy.
This is a fine copy in a contemporary English binding, and with an important provenance, the Macclesfield Library.
Caramuel’s obsession with geometry and optical distortion was treated as madness by some contemporaries; others, such as the architect and theoretician Guarino Guarini, ‘who carried on with Caramuel intensive discussions as he did with no other theorist’, took him very seriously. Intended for Spanish readers, the treatise had greatest impact in Catalonia and in the New World, where Caramuel’s ideas were spread by theologians and mathematicians, and examples of ‘architectura obliqua’ are numerous (David Manuel Vilaplana Zurita, ‘Influencias del tratado de Caramuel en la arquitectura de la Colegiata de Xàtiva’ in Archivo de arte valenciano 66 (1985), pp.61–63; Carlos Chafón Olmos, ‘Los tratadistas Simón García y Juan Caramuel: su proyección en la arquitectura novohispana’ in Mensaje de las imágenes, edited by J.A. Terán Bonilla (Mexico 1998), pp.33–54. The application of Caramuel’s theories can be detected also in projects built in Italy, by Filippo Juvarra (staircase of Palazzo Madama in Turin) and Luigi Vanvitelli (planning of Palazzo Reale at Caserta; see The Dictionary of Art, 5, p.701).
This is an early issue published before completion of an engraved title-page (lettered Templvm Salomonis rectam et obliqvam architectvram exhibens Inventore et Auctore D. Ioanne Caramuel An. m.dc.lxxviii), and portrait plates of the author (lettered D. Ioannes Caramuel Episcopus Viglevanensis. Io Fran.cus Bugattus Mediolanens. sculp. anno 1679) and dedicatee, Don Juan José de Austria (lettered D. Ioannes Austriacvs Serenissimvs Princeps | Jo. Fran.cus Bugattus sculp).
Provenance: Earls of Macclesfield, Shirburn Castle, embossed stamp on first three leaves, bookplate on front pastedown of the famous South Library, dated 1860 and inscribed with shelfmark 114 G 17 (earlier shelfmark iii 2.3 inscribed in ink on pastedown); Sotheby’s, ‘The Library of the Earls of Macclesfield, Part Ten: Applied arts and science’, London, 30 October 2007, lot 3396.
Caramuel:
The astonishing range and sheer volume of Caramuel’s writings (he is author of at least seventy published works) together with the fact that the only constructions he completed were the square and façade of the cathedral at Vigevano, have impeded recognition of the originality of his theoretical contribution to architecture. According to the author’s own account, he mastered architectural techniques with Cistercian monks as a young novice at the Monasterio de la Santa Espina (Valladolid), began writing this treatise in 1624, and in 1635 commenced production of the 161 copper matrices eventually used for its illustration.
The book is the first of eight issued under the imprint ‘En la Emprenta Obispal por Camillo Corrado’ (or ‘Typis Episcopalibus apud Camillum Conradam’) at the Italian town of Vigevano, where Caramuel was bishop from 1673 until the end of his life. In his previous diocese (Campagna and Satriano), Caramuel had also instituted a private press, operated by Sebastiano Alecci under the imprint ‘Ex typographia episcopali Satrianensi’ (or version thereof). Corrado and Alecci were in no sense diocesan printers; both worked exclusively for Caramuel, and their publications are truly private-press books. Like many such books, they were not widely distributed, and today are of notable rarity.
The work:
The long-gestated Architectura civil recta, y obliqua begins with a ‘Tratado proemial’ on the Temple of Jerusalem as an example of ‘oblique’ architecture. Elsewhere, Caramuel digresses into a history of world architecture encompassing the pyramids, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, and indigenous architecture from the New World (including Hochelaga, an Iroquoian fortified village on the site of pre sent-day Montréal, Quebec), and concludes that the first architects (‘Los primeros Maestros de obras’) built oblique architecture exclusively. He pronounces Juan de Herrera’s Escorial the supreme modern embodiment of oblique architecture,6 the indisputable peak of architectural wisdom, and eighth ‘wonder’ of the modern world (in the 1681 Latin edition, aimed at an international audience, this hispanophilism was toned down markedly).
The character of the architect and all the knowledge he must possess in order to design a building, particularly mathematics (including the application of logarithms in architecture, comparing Napier’s, Brigg’s, and the author’s own systems), is set forth in Books i–iv ; in Book v, ‘architectura recta’, or architecture built according to the authority of the learned, is introduced; and finally, in Book vi, commences the important part of the work, the discussion of ‘architectura obliqua’, or architecture according to what is dictated by (mathematical) reason, regardless of convention, in which Caramuel challenges the authority of the ancients and critiques modern architects.
Book vii is devoted to painting, sculpture, physiognomy, perspective, fortification, and music (the last recommended to students of architecture, but not one of the sciences ‘precisamente necessarias’); Book viii to ‘architectura practica’, with further discussion of buildings in Rome; and the concluding and hastily-redacted Book ix provides glosses and commentaries to the plates.
The illustrations are grouped together and organised in four parts: eight plates show the Temple of Jerusalem (Villalpando’s model is rejected in favour of the asymmetrical reconstruction of Jacob Juda León); forty-nine plates accompany the discussion of the sciences useful to architects; fifty-nine plates illustrate either ‘architectura recta’ or Caramuel’s improvements (he presents eleven different orders of columns);9 and forty-one plates explicate the laws of ‘architectura obliqua’, including a series showing how to determine the optical distortions of sculptures (a reclining figure and a sphinx) and two plates censuring Fernando de Valenzuela’s placement (1676–1677) of Philip iv’s equestrian statue by Pietro Tacca – originally planned for a garden – on top of the main façade of Madrid Alcazar.
The majority of the engravings are by anonymous printmakers: one print is signed by the Roman engraver Bernard Balliu (part 4, pl.6), five by the Milanese engraver Giovanni Francesco Bugatti (fl. 1670–1695), seven by Cesare Laurentio (fl. 1657–1689), and eleven by the Milanese printmaker Simone Durello (1641–1719). With the exception of a few plates of architectural inscriptions, the forty-nine plates illustrating part 2 are re-struck from matrices used for Caramuel’s Mathesis biceps, vetus, et nova, printed at Campagna ‘in Officina Episcopali’, in two volumes, 1667–1670; woodcut initials and ornaments made for that book are also reused. The four engraved part-titles organising the plates are struck from a single matrice, also used for the Mathesis nova, here adapted by deleting the original title, imprint and dedicatee’s insignia, and substituting Corradi’s imprint, Caramuel’s own heraldic insignia, adding the title (now by letterpress), and altering the date.
Variations between copies signify different issues within the edition. An engraved vignette (platemark 132 × 184 mm) displaying the heraldic insignia of the dedicatee, the Spanish illegitimate prince Don Juan José de Austria, occurs on the verso of the title-page (part 1) in our copy (and also the British Library copy); in all other copies we have examined, the page is blank. It seems that only copies without the vignette contain a portrait of Caramuel by Bugatti, dated 1679, among the preliminaries of part 1; this portrait must have been a late addition, and the copies containing it therefore represent a subsequent issue of the edition. The date of first issue is uncertain: it could be 1678, which is the date printed on the title and sub-titles; or 1679; or even later, since a list of the author’s ‘Libros impressos’ (printed among the preliminaries of part 1, folio A2 verso) includes two works published in the later year (nos.38/39 and 40/42, ‘imprime este mismo año de 1679 en la Ciudad de Vegeven’).
Two other plates can occur among the preliminaries in part 1: an engraved frontispiece, representing a simplified version of Bernini’s ‘Baldacchino’ of St. Peter’s in Rome, lettered Templvm Salomonis rectam et obliqvam architectvram exhibens Inventore et Auctore D. Ioanne Caramuel An. m.dc.lxxviii; and a portrait of the dedicatee, Don Juan José de Austria (d. 17 September 1679). Neither plate was ever present in our copy, nor apparently in the British Library copy (rebound in recent years); however, until additional copies have been examined, it is impossible to say whether the absence of these two plates should be regarded as an imperfection or as an issue point.
The book is very rare institutionally in the United States, we can only locate 5 copies held institutionally, and 19 others held in libraries in Spain and Italy – this book is famously difficult to obtain ‘complete’ and in good condition, and its absence from collections of architectural books developed over many years, such as the riba /British Architectural Library, Fowler Collection of Early Architectural Books at Johns Hopkins University Library, and Canadian Centre for Architecture, is telling evidence of the difficulty of procuring a copy (for example no copy in the Hispanic Society of America, according to Clara L. Penney, Printed Books, 1468–1700 in The Hispanic Society of America (New York 1965). The two ‘copies’ reported at Yale University and University of California – Davis are in fact photocopies produced from microfilm.
Also extremely rare in the market, to our knowledge, only one other copy has appeared in auction sale rooms in the last seventy years (Sotheby’s, ‘Livres et manuscrits, incluant les archives K éditeur’, Paris, 9 June 2004, lot 9, €28,800). A few small fragments have appeared sporadically: Christie’s, ‘Important printed books and an illuminated manuscript’ [Stirling-Maxwell library], London, 20 May 1958, lot 140 (part 3 only, sold £22 to Nico Israel); Sotheby’s, ‘Catalogue of printed books’, London, 23 October 1979, lot 518 (part 3 only); Bloomsbury Auctions, ‘Catalogue of printed books’, London 20 July 2007, lot 497 (part 1 only, without portrait of Caramuel); Reiss & Sohn, ‘Auktion 118: Wertvolle Bücher’, 22 April 2008, lot 1804 (part 3 only).
We can locate the following institutional copies:
Full collation:
Three parts bound in one volume:
i: (146) ff. signed *4 **4 A4 (blank A4) A–C4 A–G4 H2 (blank H2)A–I4 a–d4 e6 A–H4 I2 and paginated (24) 1–24, 1–58 (2), 1–71 (1), (44), 1–68. contents folio *1 recto title-page, verso engraved vignette (arms of dedicatee); *2 recto dedication to Don Juan José de Austria, verso ‘Refierese en general lo que se contiene en este libro’; *3 recto –**4 verso ‘Orden de los tratados, articulos y secciones en que estos dos tomos se dividen’; A1 recto –A3 verso ‘Catalogo de los Libros que tiene impressos o esta actualmente imprimiendo el Ill. y Rev. S. don Iuan Caramuel [compiled by Domenico Piatti]’; A4 blank; A1 recto and verso ‘Libros que ha de procurar tener en su Bibliotheca un Architecto’; A2 recto–C4 verso ‘Discurso Mathematico de D. Ioseph Chafrion’; A1 recto–H3 verso ‘Tratado proemial’; H4 blank; A1 recto–I4 recto ‘Tratado i [–iii]’; a1 recto–e6 verso ‘Tablas Mathematicas’; A1 recto–I2 verso ‘Tratado iv’. Large woodcut ornaments, including a putto with a compass (title-page), a representation of the Virgin in Glory (folio A3 verso), and the author’s armorial insignia (D2 recto, G3 recto repeated H2 verso); initials from several alphabets, including a large D featuring a portrait of the author (2A1 recto).
ii: (150) ff. signed π2 A–L4 A–I4 K2 L4 M2 A–N4 O2 P4 Q2 (blank Q2) and paginated (4) 1–88, 1–77 (11), 1–109 (11). contents folio π1 recto title-page ‘Tomo ii’, verso blank; π2 recto and verso dedication to Don Juan José Austria; A1 recto–L3 verso ‘Tratado v’; L4 recto ‘Chilias Logarithmorum musicorum’ verso ‘Scala Musica’; A1 recto–E4 recto ‘Tratado vi’; E4 verso–L1 recto ‘Tratado vii’; L1 verso–M2 verso ‘Indice General’; A1 recto–H3 recto‘Tratado viii’; H3 verso–P1 recto ‘Tratado ix’; P1 verso–Q1 verso ‘Tabula Segunda de las Cosas Notables’; Q2 blank. Large woodcut ornaments, including a putto with a plumb-line (title-page), and initials from several alphabets, one of which features the Virgin of Montserrat (folio π2 recto, 2E4 verso, 3A1 recto).
iii: (4) ff. letterpress signed π4, not foliated or paginated; plus 161 engraved plates. contents (letterpress): folio π1 recto title-page ‘Tomo iii ’, verso blank; π2 recto and verso dedication to Don Juan José de Austria; π3 recto–π4 verso ‘Tabla general’. Contents (plates): engraved part-title ‘Parte i. En que se ponen las Orthographias de los Edificios, Altares y Vasos del Templo de Ierusalem’ and eight engraved plates designated ‘Lamina A’ [–H]; engraved part-title ‘Parte ii. En que se contienen las Figuras que conciernen a la Calographia, Arithmetica, Geometria, &c’ and forty-nine engraved plates designated ‘Lamina i’ [–ii, iii prior, iii posterior, iv–xlviii]; engraved part-title ‘Parte iii. En que con sus verdaderas medidas, se dibujan y pintan, no solo los Ordenes Antiguos de Colunas, que en la Architectura Recta labraron los mejores Ingenieros de Grecia’ and fifty-nine plates designated ‘Lamina i’ [ii/iii/iv, v/vi, vii/viii, ix, x/xi/xii, xiii–xxvii, xviii prior, xxviii posterior, xxix–lxiiii]; engraved part title ‘Parte iv. En que con curiosidad se describen y miden las Prostaphereses y Parallaxes con que la Architectura Obliqua’ and forty-one plates designated ‘Lamina i’ [–xli]. Woodcut ornament of a putto with a square and insignia of the dedicatee (folio π2 verso).
References
Architectural theory: from the Renaissance to the present: 89 essays on 117 treatises with a preface by Bernd Evers and an introduction by Christof Thoenes; in cooperation with the Kunstbibliothek der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin (Cologne & London 2003), pp.386–397 (eleven plates reproduced).
Antonio Bonet Correa, Bibliografía de arquitectura, ingeniería y urbanismo en España (1498–1880) (Madrid & Vaduz 1980), no. 317
El Libro de arte en España, catalogue of an exhibition held in the Hospital Real de Granada, xxiii Congreso Internacional de Historia del Art, 3–8 September 1973 ([Granada] [1975?]), pp.64–65 no. 94 (copy described in ‘Biblioteca Nacional’, apparently r/24887)
Florentino Zamora Lucas, Bibliografía española de arquitectura (1526–1850), Publicaciones de la Asociación de Libreros y Amigos del Libro, 3 (Madrid 1947), pp.78–79 no. 69 (copy described in ‘Biblioteca Nacional’, apparently r/24887)
Alfredo Serrai, Phoenix Europae. Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz in prospettiva bibliografica(Milan 2005), pp.266–268, no. 78
Jacob Schmutz, Bibliographia caramueliana: Inventaire général des oeuvres de Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz (1606–82) et bibliographie critique (2005), no. 50 (online resource: http://pagesperso-range.fr/caramuel/index.html)
Luigi Vagnetti, De naturali et artificiali perspectiva: bibliografia ragionata delle fonti teoriche e delle ricerche di storia della prospettiva (Florence 1979), p.415 no. EIII–B67.
Bibliotheca Artis. Tesoros de la Biblioteca del Museo del Prado, catalogue of an exhibition held at Museo del Prado, Madrid, 5 October 2010–30 January 2011, edited by Javier Docampo (Madrid 2010), p.73 no. 23.
