Trattato della Pittura di Lionardo da Vinci. [Leonardo da Vinci].

DA VINCI, Leonardo.

$16,000.00

Item Number: 130267

Paris: Jacques Langlois, 1651.

Rare first edition of this classic treatise of da Vinci’s work on painting, two parts in one volume. Folio, bound in full contemporary calf, gilt titles, engraved portrait of da Vinci in each part, engraved vignette on title, engraved initials, head and tail pieces, engraved text illustrations. In very good condition, marginalia, rebacked. Compiled from his original notes by his pupil Francesco Melzi. First editions are rare.

“Leonardo's writings and notes long remained in manuscript. Shortly after his death an industrious compiler brought together those passages from his posthumous papers dealing with painting and combined them into a Treatise of Painting (Trattato della pittura); but this important manuscript, which also preserves much that is no longer to be found in Leonardo's own notes, was only edited and published in the 17th century in France" (E.H. Gombrich, The Literature of Art).