Albrecht Durer on Human Proportions. 1st Italian edition of 1591

The first Italian edition (1591) of Albrecht Durer's Four Books on Human Proportions, here titled Della Simmetria de i Corpi Humani, Libri Quattro. Also, the Italian translator/editor added a fifth chapter, adding context to the work.

Regarding Durer's work, edited from Wikipedia:

The first book was mainly composed by 1512/13 and completed by 1523, showing five differently constructed types of both male and female figures, all parts of the body expressed in fractions of the total height. Durer based these constructions on both Vitruvius and empirical observations of "two to three hundred living persons", in his own words.

The second book includes eight further types, broken down not into fractions but an Albertian system, which Durer probably learned from Francesco di Giorgio's De harmonica mundi totius of 1525.

In the third book, Durer gives principles by which the proportions of the figures can be modified, including the mathematical simulation of convex and concave mirrors; here Durer also deals with human physiognomy.

The fourth book is devoted to the theory of movement. Appended to the last book, however, is a self-contained essay on aesthetics, which Durer worked on between 1512 and 1528, and it is here that we learn of his theories concerning 'ideal beauty'.

Regarding Gallucci:

"While Durer’s treatise had been translated earlier in the sixteenth-century into French and Latin, it was Gallucci’s Italian translation that endured in popularity as the most cited version of the text in later Baroque treatises, covering topics that were seen as central to arts education, connoisseurship, patronage, and the wider appreciation of the studia humanitatis in general." (1st paragraph of abstract, James Hutson, Gallucci's Commentary on Durer's Four Books no Human Proportion, 2020)

And regarding the fifth chapter, authored by Gallucci -

"Serving as an epilogue for the encyclopedic treatment on human proportion theory, this last book contextualizes the preceding sections, relating them to other disciplines, and providing a philosophical framework within which to interpret them. The Fifth Book also importantly expands on Dürer’s nascent interest in the proportions of the diversity of types of humans and extends this interest in diversity to elaborate systems of physiognomy and humoral readings." (p.3, Hutson, 2020)

Bibliographic Details -

Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC) number 827846, not rare, found in many of the world's finest libraries (Vatican, BL, Cambridge, All Souls, Bodleian, The Morgan, etc)

Physical Attributes -

Measures approx. 32 x 22 x 3 cm. Folio, signed in 6. Vellum binding. Illustrated throughout. Printer's mark on title page and colophon.

Pages - xii (six unpaginated leaves of introductory), 1-143 (leaves paginated as one page), [1] - colophon leaf

Collation - Cross6, A-Z6, three foldout leaves

Collates complete

Condition -

See pictures. Vellum binding slightly splayed (opening at fore-edge, but just slightly). Very clean binding, with little to no dust on top edge; likely kept in closed bookcase. Front and rear endpapers with graphite bookseller notes on collation (complete) and references. Front endpaper with several small worm tracks but they do not extend into the text block.

Text block fairly clean. Some occasional thumbing throughout, with a fox spot here and there. Wide margins.

Title page with heavy thumbing, erased graphite underlining and circling (and bookseller price in upper corner), still some non-erased underlining. At bottom of title page ink gall signature that left galling at end point through first two leaves (small, bottom margin, no text affected). Also, unreadable library impression at bottom margin of title page.

Leaf A3 with ink smudge/mark in fore-edge margin. Last foldout with deckled edge at upper corner. Last gathering (last six leaves) with moisture drop mark in bottom margin.