Lot 139: ALBERTI, LEON BATTISTA (1404-1472).

De re aedificatoria (edited by Angelo Poliziano). Florence: Nicolaus Laurentii, Alamanus, 29 December 1485

Condition Note: Chancery folio (239 x 180mm.), 204 leaves, 34 lines, Roman letter, 6- and 7-line initial spaces with printed guides, binding : eighteenth-century vellum-backed boards, early annotations in books I and II, first quire damaged and repaired, damp-staining at foot of gutter in first half of book

HC 419; GW 579; BMC vi 630; BAL RIBA 46; Goff A215

first edition of one of the most important architectural treatises of the Renaissance, and perhaps the first printed treatise on architecture. Alberti's text, completed in 1452, was based on a study of Vitruvius. The manuscript used by the printer may well have been the one owned by Lorenzo de' Medici, patron of Poliziano and the dedicatee of this printed edition.