Lot 3486: Fischer von Erlach, Johann Bernhard (1656-1723). , Entwurff einer historischen Architektur, in Abbildung unterscheidener berühmten Gebaüde, des Alterthums, und fremder Völcker. Vienna, 1721

5 parts in one volume, oblong folio (416 x 599mm.), [60]; [22]; [4]; [2]pp., parallel text in French and German, illustration : engraved title-page, dedication leaf, 5 divisional title-pages, 86 plates, woodcut tail-pieces, binding : contemporary speckled calf, spine gilt in compartments, a few short tears in margins of title-page, crease in last 2 plates, joints partly split, sides rubbed

Berlin Catalogue 2105; cf. BAL RIBA 1066 (1725 edition)

first edition. A major work by the Austrian baroque architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, with contributions from the Swedish antiquary Carl Gustav Heraeus. The first three parts show imaginative reconstructions of the monuments of classical antiquity, the Middle East and the Orient. The fourth part serves as an advertisement for Fischer von Erlach's own projects in Vienna, Salzburg and Prague (for example the Karlskirche and the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna); and the fifth illustrates classical vases. A second edition was published posthumously at Leipzig in 1725, with French text only. English editions were published in 1730 (see following lot) and 1737.