Thomas Jefferson's Fine Arts Library


Descriptive Catalogue Part 6: V-Z


122. . Vasari, Giorgio.

Vol. I. DELLE VITE / De' più Eccellenti / PITTORI, SCVLTORI, / ET ARCHITETTI. / Dl GIORGIO VASARI / Pittore, & Architetto, Aretino. / PARTE PRIMA, E SECONDA. / ln questa nuoua edizione diligentemente reuiste, ricoret-/te, accresciute d'alcuni Ritratti, C arricchite / di postille nel margine. / AL SERENISSIMO / FERDINANDO II. / GRAŃ DVCA / DI TOSCANA

. / IN BOLOGNA, MDCXLVIII. / Per gli Eredi di Euangelista Dozza. Con licenza de' Superiori.


4to. Half title (1 leaf ); title page (1 leaf ) ; dedication (1 leaf ); table of contents (1 leaf); editor's note (3 unnumbered pp.); poems (5 unnumbered pp. ) ; text (1-432) .

Vol. II. DELLE VITE / . . . / PARTE TERZA / Secondo Volume. / In questa nuoua edizione diligentemente corrette, accresciate d'alcuni / Ritratti, e postille nel margine, con nuoua aggianta. / IN BOLOGNA / Presso gli Heredi di Euangelista Dozza. 4to. Half title (1 leaf); title page (1 leaf); note on Vasari (3 unnumbered pp. ) ; table of contents (1 unnumbered p.) ; letter from Marcello Adriani to Vasari (18 leaves); text (1-407); license ([408]); index (66 leaves ) .

Vol. III. DELLE VITE / . . . / PARTE TERZA / Primo Volume. /
4to. Half title (1 leaf); title page ([1]); preface (3-); [new pagination: ] table of contents (54) ; text (7-543) .

The Parte Terza, Secondo Volume, is misbound in Vol. II, while the Parte Terza, Primo Volume, is misbound in Vol. III. All through the volumes there is a series of woodcut portraits of the artists at the head of each biography.

Giorgio Vasari (1511-74) studied painting in Florence with Andrea del Sarto, Baccio Bandinelli, G. B. Rosso, and Francesco Salvaiti. He went to Rome in 1531 with Cardinal Ippolito de Medici. While there he studied the works of Michelangelo and became one of his acquaintances.

Vasari decided to write Le vite in 1546 and a first edition was issued in 1550. The title above was given to the 1568 edition. The work has gone through innumerable editions in many languages during the intervening centuries.

Sowerby notes that Jefferson, in a letter of August 28, 1814, mentions Vasari in a discussion of the copies of portraits of Columbus and Vespuccius at Monticello.

This edition, which is both the one Jefferson sold to Congress and the one he ordered for the University in the section on "Gardening. Painting. Sculpture. Music" of the want list, has its dedication signed by Carlo Menolessi. There is no record of Jefferson's order for the University having been filled, but a duplicate of the set has been recently acquired, the gift of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation.


U.Va. M *N6922.V3.1648 Sowerby 4240


123a. . Vignola, Giacomo Barozzio da.

[Half title:] BIBLIOTHEQUE / PORTATIVE / D'ARCHITECTURE /ÉLÉMENTAIRE, / A L'USAGE DES ARTISTES. / Divisée en six Parties. / PREMIERE PARTIE. / CONTENANT / Les cinq Ordres d'Architecture de Vignole. [Title page: ] REGLES / DES / CINQ ORDRES / D'ARCHITECTURE. / Par JACQUES BARROZZIO DE VIGNOLE. / NOUVELLE :ÉDITION, / Traduite de l'Italien & augmentée de Remarques. / A PARIS, RUE DAUPHINE, / Chez JOMBERT, Libraire du Roi pour l'Artillerie / & le Génie, à l'Image Notre-Dame. / M. DCC. LXIV.


8vo. Half title (1 leaf ) ; engraved frontispiece ([ii] ) ; title page ([iii] ) advertisement (v-viii); preface (ix-xii) ; table of contents (xiii-xiv) ; license (xv-xvi); engraved half title (1 unnumbered p.); text (1-72); 67 engraved plates, of which 6 are folding.

The frontispiece was drawn by I. B. Corneille and engraved by I. Mariette. The plate is very worn and is certainly an earlier plate with the inscription for this new book superimposed. For the title page, see Plate CXLI.


I. B. (Jean-Baptiste) Corneille (1649 95), born in Paris, studied with his father, Michel, and Charles d'Errard (see No. 46) as well as in Rome. He married Madeleine Mariette, sister of Jean Mariette.

Jean (or I. ) Mariette ( 1660-1742), born in Paris, was the son of a family of painter-engravers. He studied with his brother-in-law, Corneille and was advised by Charles Le Brun to concentrate on engraving. His son Pierre-Jean (or I.) Mariette (1694-1774) had a greater reputation and became, as well as an engraver, a notable collector of drawings.

Giacomo Barozzio, or Barocchio, da Vignola, called Vignola (1507-73), came under the influence of Serlio (No. 113). He worked in Rome from 1530; was in France, 1541-43; returned to Bologna, 1543-50; and was in Rome again from 1550. His work both as architect and writer has had immense influence in the world of architecture.

He published his Due regole della prospettiva pratica in 1538. The first edition of the Regola delli cinqui ordini was 1562. It has had many editions, translations, and adaptations since.

In the preface Vignola says: Mon intention, cher Lecteur, est de vous exposer en peu de mots les motifs qui m'ont déterminé à composer cet Ouvrage, pour le bien public, & pour la satisfaction des personnes qui d'adonnent à l'Architecture.

Ayant exercé cet Art pendant bien des années dans les différens pays où je me suis trouvé, j'ai toujours pris plaiser à examiner soigneusement les sentiments des divers Auteurs qui ont écrit sur les proportions & les ornemens des Ordres, en les comparant entr'eux & avec les monumens qui nous restent de l'Antiquité, dans le dessin d'en tirer une regle certaine dans laquelle on puisse avoir confiance, & qui fût approuvée par les Maîtres de l'Art, sinon dans son tout, du moins en sa plus grande partie. Mon unique intention étoit alors de me faciliter la connoissance de ces proportions, pour en faire usage quand l'occasion s'en présenteroit. [p. ix]

The book, which is Part I of the Bibliothèque portative d'architecture issued by Jombert in 1764 (see No. 46), consists mostly of the study of orders, but there are many details besides. These show paving patterns, interior entablatures, pedestals extraordinaires, vaulting, and symbolic columns.

Jefferson, who had owned only Part IV of the Bibliothèque before the sale of his library to Congress, managed to obtain all four parts of the set before his death. That set was sold as lot 723 in the 1829 sale.

He ordered the complete set for the University in the section on "Architecture" of the want list, but there is no record of the library's having acquired it. The present copy of the Vignola has come into the collections recently, the gift of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation.


U.Va. M *NA2810.V55.1764


123b Vignola, Giacomo Barozzio da.

Regola delli cinque Ordini / D'ARCHITETTVRA / Di M. GIACOMO BAROZZIO DA VIGNOLA. / Con la nuova aggionta di Michel-Angelo Buonaroti. /Regel van de vüf Ordens der Architecture / Ghestelt by M. Iacob Barozzio van Vignola. / Met een nieu byvoegsel van Michel Angelo Buonaroti. / Reigle des cinq Ordres / D'ARCHITECTVRE, / De M. Iacques Barozzio de Vignole. / Avec une augmentation nouvelle de Michel Angelo Bonaroti. / Regel der funff orden von Architectur/ Ghestelt durch M. Iacob Barozzio von Vignola. / Auffs news vermehrt mit etliche herliche Gebäwen von Michel Angelo Bonaroti. / 't AMSTERDAM, / Ghedruct by Willem Ianssz, woonende op't Water by de / oude Brugghe inde gulden Sonnewyser. / Ao. M. DC. XIX.
Folio. Title page ([1]); engraved portrait ([3]); dedication (5); note to reader (7-11); text, with 42 engraved plates inserted (12-94).



For information about Vignola and the Regola, see No. l23a. See also Plates CXLII and CXLIII.

The text of this edition is in Italian, French, Dutch, and German. Jefferson sold his copy to Congress. Sowerby notes that it was bound together with Serlio (No. 113) and Scamozzi (No. llla) for Jefferson. It was not ordered for the University. The library's present copy of this edition has recently entered its collections, the gift of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation.



M *NA28l0.V552.l619 Sowerby 4177


124 Visconti, Ennio Quirino.

A LETTER / FROM THE / CHEVALIER ANTONIO CANOVA: / AND / TWO MEMOIRS / READ TO THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE / ON THE / SCULPTURES / IN THE COLLECTION / OF / THE EARL OF ELGIN; / BY THE / CHEVALIER E. Q. VISCONTI,/MEMBER OF THE CLASS OF THE FINE ARTS, AND OF THE / CLASS OF HISTORY AND ANCIENT LITERATURE; / AUTHOR OF THE ICONOGRAPHIE GREQUE, / AND OF THE MUSEO PIO-CLEMENTINO. / TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH AND ITALIAN. / LONDON: / PRINTED FOR JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET, / BY W. BULMER AND CO. CLEVELAND-ROW. / 1816. Large 8vo. Title page ( [i] ); catalogue of the Elgin marbles, vases, casts, and drawings (iii-xx ) ; Canova's letter (xxi-xxii ) ; half title: 'MEMOIR / ON THE / SCULPTURES / WHICH BELONGED TO / THE PARTHENON / AND TO SOME OTHER EDIFICES / OF / THE ACROPOLIS, / AT ATHENS. / READ AT A PUBLIC MEETING OF THE TWO CLASSES OF / THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE,/IN THE YEAR 1815.' (1 leaf); memoir (1-176); half title: 'MEMOIR / ON A / GREEK EPIGRAM WHICH / SERVED FOR AN EPITAPH ON THE TOMB /OF THE /ATHENIAN WARRIORS KILLED AT POTIDAEA. / READ TO THE CLASS OF HISTORY AND ANCIENT / LITERATURE OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, / IN 'THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER 1815'


(1 leaf); memoir (179-205); index (207-21).

Antonio Canova (1757-1822), the celebrated sculptor, was also a painter, though his paintings are not much remembered today. He was born at Possagno, near Bassano, and died at Venice. He studied with indifferent masters, from nature, and from the antique. He became a leader in neoclassicism and was twice called to Paris by Napoleon.

Thomas Bruce, seventh earl of Elgin and eleventh earl of Kincardine (1766-1841), educated at Harrow, Westminster, St. Andrews University, and in Paris, entered the army, and later the diplomatic service. In 1799 he was sent to the Ottoman Porte, where he became interested in Greek art. He sent artists to Athens in 1800 to record the monuments and in 1801 received a firman from the Porte to fix scaffolding round the antient Temple of the Idols, and to mould the ornamental sculpture and visible figures thereon in plaster and gypsum, as well as to take away any pieces of stone with old inscriptions or figures thereon.

He spent £74,000 on removing his collection and was given £35,000 in 1816 for it by the English government after an inquiry as to his ownership. Previous to that he had opened it to the public at his house in Park Lane and then in Burlington House.

Ennio Quirino Visconti (1751-1818), born in Rome, worked at the Vatican, became president of the Istituto Nazional delle Scienze e delle Arti, Rome, and after his move to France the administrator of antiquities at the Louvre. His studies of the iconography of Greece and Rome brought together for the first time all such material and examined it scientifically. He was also a great enthusiast of the Elgin marbles.

The letter from Canova is a letter of thanks to the earl of Elgin for allowing him to see the marbles. He says: I can never satisfy myself with viewing them again and again: and although my stay in this metropolis must of necessity be extremely short, I am still anxious to dedicate every leisure moment to the contemplation of these celebrated relics of ancient art. I admire in them the truth of nature combined with the choice of beautiful forms: everything about them breaths animation, with a singular truth of expression, and with a degree of skill which is the more exquisite, as it is without the least affectation of the pomp of art.[Pp. ( xxi ) -xxii]

Visconti's memoirs are a rather pompous display of erudition.

Jefferson ordered this book for the University in the section on "History-Civil-Antient" of the want list, and a copy was received before 1828, but it has not survived. The library's present copy has been recently acquired, the gift of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation.


U. Va. *NB92.E6.1816


125a. Vitruvius Pollio.

ABREGÉ:: / DES DIX LIVRES / D'ARCHITECTURE / DE / VITRUVE. / A PARIS, / Chez JEAN BAPTISTE COIGNARD, / ruë S. Jacques, à la Bible d'or. / M. DC. LXXIV. / AVEC PRIVILEGE DIçJ ROY.


12mo. Title page (1 leaf); note (1 leaf); table of contents (4 leaves); text ( 1-224) ; note ( 1 unnumbered p. ) ; 11 engraved plates with explanations; glossary (25 unnumbered pp.); license and errata (1 unnumbered p-)

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, who lived at the time of Augustus, was a Roman architect whose codification of the art of architecture is one of the earliest documents in the field to come down to us. The rediscovery of a copy of his treatise caused great excitement. It was first printed in 1486, only some thirty years after the use of movable type became known.

The translator of this edition says: On a autrefois imprimé quelques abregez de Vitruve, mais il n'y en a point où ron ait suivi le dessein que Philibert de l'Orme en a donné dans son troisième livre: Il souhaitte qu'en abregeant Vitruve, l'on mette en ordre les matieres que cet Auteur a traittées confusement, & que ce qui se trouve despersé en plusieurs endroits appartenant à un mesme sujet, soit amassé en un seul chapitre. Cette methode que la pluspart des anciens Ecrivans ont negligée, a esté suivie dans ce Traitté. [Translator's note]

A copy of either the Paris, 1674 or the Amsterdam, 1681 edition (both translated by Perrault) was in Jefferson's library at the time of his death and was sold as lot 722 in the 1829 sale. Kimball (pp. 100-101) says it was purchased in 1819 and identifies it as the Paris, 1674 edition, but there is nothing in the sale catalogue to indicate which of the duodecimo editions it actually was.

Jefferson did not order it for the University. The library's copy of the Paris, 1674 edition is a recent acquisition, the gift of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation.


M *NA25l5.V742 l674


125b. Vitruvius Pollio.

Architecture générale de Vitrave.

Amsterdam, 1681.


Not now owned by the University.

See No. 125a for information about Vitruvius and about this edition.

Jefferson did not order this book for the University.


M?


125C Vitruvius Pollio.

[First half title:] M. VITRUVII POLLIONIS / DE ARCHITECTURA / LIBRI DECEM. / TOMUS I. [Second half title: ] (M. VITRUVII POLLIONIS / DE ARCHITECTURA / LIBRI DECEM. / TOMUS II. [Title page missing: DE ARCHITECTURA LIBRI DECEM. OPE CODICIS GUELFERBYTANI, EDITIONIS PRINCIPIS, CETERORUMQUE SUBSIDIORUM RECENSUIT, ET GLOSSARIO IN QUO VOCABULA ARTIS PROPRIA GERM. ITAL. GALL. ET ANGL. EXPLICANTUR, ILLUSTRAVIT AUGUSTUS RODE.

Berlin, 1800-1801.]


4to. Half title (1 leaf); half title (1 leaf); note to reader (2 leaves); notes on Vitruvius ( leaves); table of contents (2 leaves); text (1264); [new pagination:] half title ([1]); glossary ([3]-72); geographical and historical index (73-80).

For information on Vitruvius Pollio, see No. 12sa.

This edition of Vitruvius, with its text in Latin and with no illustrations, was ordered by Jefferson for the University in the section on 'Architecture" of the want list, but was never received. The library's present copy was a gift of the Virginia Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.


U. Va. *NA2515.V5.1800


125d. Vitruvius Pollio.

LES DIX LIVRES / D'ARCHITECTURE / DE / VITRUVE / CORRIGES ET TRADVITS / nouvellement en François, avec des Notes / & des Figures. / Seconde Edition reveuë, corrigée, & augmentée. / Par M. PERRAULT de l'Academie Royalle des Sciences, Docteur en Medecine / de la Faculté de Paris.

/A PARIS, / Chez JEAN BAPTISTE COIGNARD, / Imprimeur ordinaire du Roy, ruë S. Jacques, à la Bible d'or. / M. DC. LXXXIV. / AVEC PRIVILEGE DE SA MAJESTE:.


Folio. Engraved frontispiece (1 leaf ) ; title page (1 leaf ) ; dedication (3 unnumbered pp.); note (1 unnumbered p.); preface ( leaves); text, with 67 engraved plates, of which 9 are double, inserted and with many woodcut figures ([1]-354); index, errata, and license (7 leaves).

The engravers were Gerard Edelinck, or Edelink (1640-1707), a Fleming who worked in Paris after having been called there by Colbert in 1665, eventually becoming engraver to Louis XIV and a member of the academy; Estienne Gantrel (1646-1706), born at Metz but working in Paris where he was made engraver in ordinary to the king; Jacques Grignon (ca.1640-after 1698), often called le vieux , who was perhaps an ancestor of Charles Grignon I and Charles Grignon II (see No. 23) ; Sébastien Le Clerc (Nos. 36 and 69) ; Pierre Le Pautre (see No. 36) ; I.Patiany; either Nicolas Pitau I (1632-71), the son of Jean Pitau, a silversmith and the master of Gérard Edelinck, or Nicolas Pitau II (1670-1724), a pupil of Edelinck; Gérard Scotin (1643-1715), the son of the sculptor Pierre Scotin and the father and grandfather of engravers; Jean Jacques Tournier (see No. 36); and P. Vanderbanc.

For information on Virtuvius Pollio, see No. 125a. For information of Claude Perrault, see No. 96a.


The quality of this edition may be judged by the quality of the engravers who worked on it (see Plates CXLIV and CXLV). They were mostly associated with the court, as was Perrault, and some of them were considered at the top of their profession.

Kimball (p. 100) says Jefferson had this book before 1775. Sowerby notes that a letter written by Jefferson August 13, 1813, makes a specific reference to it: "Perrault, in his edition of Virtuvius, Paris 1684. fol. Plates 61.62." He later sold his copy to Congress.

Jefferson ordered this book for the University in the section on "Architecture" of the want list, and it was in the library by 1828, but it has not survived. The library's present copy is a recent acquisition, the gift of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation.



U.Va. M *NA2517.V85.1684 Sowerby 4173


126a. Ware, Isaac.

A / COMPLETE BODY / OF / ARCHITECTURE. / ADORNED WITH / PLANS and ELEVATIONS, / FROM / ORIGINAL DESIGNS. / By ISAAC WARE, Esq. / Of His MAJESTY'S Board of Works. / In which are interspersed / Some DESIGNS of INIGO JONES, never before published.

/ LONDON: / Printed for T. OSBORNE and J. SHIPTON, in Gray's-Inn; / J. HODGES, near London-Bridge; L. DAVIS, in Fleetstreet; J. WARD, in Cornhill; / And R. BALDWIN, in Pater-NosterRow. / MDCCLVI.


Folio. Engraved frontispiece (1 leaf); two-color title page (1 leaf); preface (5 unnumbered pp.); list of plates (3 unnumbered pp.); table of contents (4 leaves); text, with 122 engraved plates, of which 4 are folding and 3 are double, inserted ([1]-748); index (2 leaves).

The engravers were R. Benning (fl.1714-56), English; Samuel Boyce (d.1775), English; Butler Clowse (d.1782), English; B. Cole (fl.1756), English; I. (or J. ) Couse; Matthew Darly (fl.1756-72), engraver and caricaturist, whose wife was also an engraver; R. Edwards (fl 1756), English; Pierre Fourdrinier (see No. 21); Charles Grignion (see No. 23); James Hill (d.1803), who was English but later worked in America;I. (or J.) Mynde (see No. 48);I. (or J.) Noual (see No.24); F. Patton (see No. 3); W. Proud (fl. 1756-60), English; Henry Roberts; and I. Ware, who was also the delineator.

Isaac Ware (d.1766) was a chimney-sweep's boy who was found sketching on the walls of Inigo Jones's Banqueting House, Whitehall. His evident talent persuaded Burlington to send him to Italy, and his subsequent career justified this gesture. By 1728 he was clerk of the works at the Tower of London; the next year he held the same post at Windsor; in 1735 he was draughtsman and clerk itinerant to the Board of Works; in 1736 he was secretary and draughtsman to the board at Windsor and at Greenwich; in 1738 he was clerk of the works to His Majesty's palace; and in 1763 he was Master of the Carpenter's Company.

He was active in the publishing field, too. He did the drawings and one or two engravings for Ripley's Houghton, 1735, and the engravings for Rookby, 1735. He published the Designs of Inigo Jones and Others in 1735(?), and again in 1743 and 1756(?); a translation of Palladio, 1738; another of Sirrigatti's Practice of Perspective, 1756; and an edition of Brook Taylor's Method of Perspective, 1766.

Ware says of his Complete Body of Architecture:

. . . We propose, in this undertaking, to collect all that is useful in the works of others, at whatsoever time they have been written, or in whatever language; and to add the several discoveries and improvements made since that time by the genius of others, or by our own industry. By this means we propose to make our work serve as a library on this subject to the gentleman and the builder; supplying the place of all other books: as it will contain whatsoever there is in them worthy regard, and, together with this, whatever we have been able to invent or obtain that is curious and useful.

Those who have studied these things, have in general considered the magnificence of building, rather than its use. Architecture has been celebrated as a noble science by many who have never regarded its benefits in common life: we have endeavoured to join these several parts of the subject, nor shall we fear to say that the art of building cannot be more grand than it is useful; nor its dignity a greater praise than its convenience. From the neglect of this consideration, those who have written to inform others of its excellence, have been too much captivated by its pomp, and have bestowed in a manner all their labour there, leaving the more serviceable part neglected. [Preface]


As might be expected from this note, the book is filled with strong, sturdy, mid-Georgian designs. The DNB gives "1735?" as the date of the first edition of this work and tends to identify it with Ware's 1735(?) edition of Designs of Inigo Jones , while giving 1756 and 1767 as the dates of subsequent editions. Kimball (p. 101), however, calls the 1767 edition the second rather than the third. An examination of the three volumes seems to corroborate Kimball, for the Designs of Inigo Jones , 1735( ? ), is a small quarto with plates from Jones's designs delineated by Ware and engraved by Pierre Fourdrinier (see No. 21) and with no text at all. A Complete Body of Architecture, while incorporating some designs of Inigo Jones, is a folio volume with an extended text and a series of folio plates (see Plates CXLVI and CXLVII). In addition, the Jones designs are supposed to have been "never before published" according to the title page of the Complete Body of Architecture, 1756.


There was a copy of either the 1756 or 1767 edition in Jefferson's private library at the time of his death. It came into his possession after 1815 (Kimball, p. 101), and it was sold as lot 721 in the 1829 sale. The copy Jefferson ordered for the University in the section on "Architecture" of the want list can be identified as either of these two editions from the title, though there is no record of the library's ever having received it. The University's present copy has been recently acquired, the gift of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation.


U.Va.? ` M? *NA2517.W3.1756


126b. Ware, Isaac.

A / COMPLETE BODY / . . .

/ LONDON: / Printed for J. RIVING TON, L. DAVIS and C. REYMERS, R. BALDWIN, / W. OWEN, H. WOOD FALL, W. STRAHAN, and B. COLLINS. / MI)CCLXVII.


Folio. Engraved frontispiece (1 leaf); two-color title page (1 leaf); preface (5 unnumbered pp.); list of plates (3 unnumbered pp.); table of contents (4 leaves); text, with 122 engraved plates, of which 11 are folding, inserted ([1]-748).

For information on Isaac Ware, see the preceding entry.

Except for the change in the arrangement in the plates, there is little difference between this edition and the preceding entry. See that entry for fuller information on it.

The library's present copy is the gift of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation.


U.Va.? M? *NA2517.W3.1767


l27a. Whately, Thomas.

OBSERVATIONS / ON / MODERN GARDENING, / ILLUSTRATED BY / DESCRIPTIONS. / Where Wealth, enthron'd in Nature's pride, / With Taste and Bounty by her side, / And holding Plenty's horn, / Sends Labour to pursue the toil, / Art to improve the happy soil, / And Beauty to adorn. F. / THE SECOND EDITION. / LONDON,

/ Printed for T. PAYNE, at the Mews-gate. / MDCCLXX.


8vo. Title page (1 leaf); table of contents (3 leaves); text ([1]-257).

Thomas Whatley (d.1772) was a politician and a student of literature. He wrote widely, especially on politics. He says about gardening in general:

GARDENING, in the perfection to which it has been lately brought in England, is entitled to a place of considerable rank among the liberal arts. It is as superior to landskip painting, as a reality to a representation: it is an exertion of fancy; a subject for taste; and being released now from the restraints of regularity, and enlarged beyond the purposes of domestic convenience, the most beautiful, the most simple, the most noble scenes of nature are all within its province: for it is no longer confined to the spots from which it borrows its name, but regulates also the disposition and embellishments of a park, a farm, or a riding; and the business of a gardener is to select and to apply whatever is great, elegant, or characteristic in any of them; to discover and to shew all the advantages of the place upon which he is employed; to supply its defects, to correct its faults, and to improve its beauties. For all these operations, the objects of nature are still his only materials. His first enquiry, therefore, must be into the means by which those effects are attained in nature, which he is to produce; and into those properties in the objects of nature, which should determine him in the choice and arrangement of them.

Nature, always simple, employs but four materials in the composition of her scenes, ground, wood, water, and rocks. The cultivation of nature has introduced a fifth species, the buildings requisite for the accommodation of men. Each of these again admits of varieties in figure, dimensions, color, and situation. Every landskip is composed of these parts only; every beauty in a landskip depends on the application of their several varieties. [Pp. ( 1)-2]

Of terror as an agreeable sensation he says:

THIS river [the Derwent] would be better suited to a scene characterised by that terror, which the combination of greatness with force inspires, and which is animating and interesting, from the exertion and anxiety attending it. The terrors of a scene in nature are like those of a dramatic representation; they give an alarm; but the sensations are agreeable, so long as they are kept to such as are allied only to terror, unmixed with any that are horrible and disgusting; art may therefore be used to heighten them, to display the objects which are distinguished by greatness, to improve the circumstances which denote force, to mark those which intimate danger, and to blend with all, here and there a cast of melancholy. [P. 106]

But disgust may stem from another characteristic:

IF regularity is not entitled to a preference in the environs or approach to a house, it will be difficult to support its pretensions to a place in any more distant parts of a park or a garden. Formal slopes of ground are ugly; right or circular lines bounding water, do not indeed change the nature of the element; it still retains some of its agreeable properties; but the shape given to it is disgusting. [P. 144]

BUT regularity can never attain to a great share of beauty, and to none of the species called picturesque ; a denomination in general expressive of excellence. [P. 146]

And he defines picturesque in the following way:

The term picturesque is therefore applicable only to such objects in nature, as, after allowing for the differences between the arts of painting and of gardening, are fit to be formed into grouped or to enter into a composition, where the several parts have a relation to each other; and in opposition to those which may be spread abroad in detail, and have no merit but as individuals. [P. 150]

The book is divided into sections on ground, wood, water, rocks, buildings, art, picturesque beauty, character, the farm, the park, the garden, the riding, and the seasons. It uses the following gardens as examples-Moor Park, Ilam, Claremont, Esher, Blenheim, Wotton, Middleton, Matlock, Bath, Dovedale, Enfield Chace, Tintern Abbey, Caversham, Leasowes, Wolvern farm, Painshill, Hagley, Stowe, Persfield.

The book had its first edition in 1770, and a second that same year. It had gone into a fourth edition by 1777, a fifth in 1793, and an expanded edition in 1801. A French translation appeared in 1771 and exerted considerable influence on later French authors.

Although Kimball (p. 101) says Jefferson had his copy of the Observations on Modern Gardening before 1783, Sowerby (4227) says his copy was bought in 1785 from the Rev. Samuel Henley. That he had a copy before March 1786 we know from a note made by Jefferson, quoted in Sowerby:

Memorandums made on a tour to some of the gardens described in England by Whatley in his book on gardening. While his descriptions in point of style are models of perfect elegance and classical correctness, they are as remarkable for their exactness. I always walked over the gardens with his book in my hand, examined with attention the particular spots he described, found them so justly characterised by him as to be easily recognised, and saw with wonder, that his fine imagination had never been able to seduce him from the truth. My enquiries were directed chiefly to such practical things as might enable me to estimate the expence of making and maintaining a garden in that style. My journey was in the months of March and April 1786.

As can be seen the importance of this book in the Jefferson canon is very great, and its influence on his feeling for garden design cannot be overestimated.

This is the edition Jefferson sold to Congress. Although he had another copy of this book at the time of his death, it is not known whether it was this edition or that of 1m. The library's present copy of the second edition has recently entered its collections, the gift of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation. It is uncertain whether it was this edition or that of 1m which was ordered for the University.


U.Va.? M *SB471.W55.1770 Sowerby 4227


127b. Whately, Thomas.

OBSERVATIONS / ON / MODERN GARDENING, / . . . / THE FOURTH EDITION. / . .

. / Printed for T. PAYNE and SON, at the Mews-Gate. / M DCC LXXVII.


8vo. Title page (1 leaf); table of contents (3 leaves); text ([1]-257).

For general information on this work and its author, see No. 127a. Although reset, this edition's material is the same as that in the 1770 edition. Jefferson did not specify in the section on "Gardening. Painting. Sculpture. Music" of the want list which edition of this book he wanted for the University, but this is the one Hilliard supplied him with, though the copy has not survived. It is perhaps also this edition that was in Jefferson's private library at the time of his death and was sold as lot 727 in the 1829 sale (see also No. 127a). The library's present copy has been recently acquired, the gift of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation.


U.Va.? M? *SB71.W55.1777


128a. Winckelmann, Johann Joachim.

Vol. I. STORIA / DELLE / ARTI DEL DISEGNO / PRESSO GLI ANTICHI / DI / GIOVANNI WINKELMANN / Tradotta dal tedesco / CON NOTE ORIGINALI DEGLI EDITORI. / TOMO PRIMO.

/ IN MILANO. MDCCLXXIX. /NELL' IMPERIALE MONISTERO DI S. AMBROGIO MAGGIORE. / CON APPROVAZIONE.


4to. Half title ( [i] ); title page ( [iii] ); dedication ( [v] ); editor's note ([vii]-xii); preface ([xiii]-xxxviii); eulogy of Winckelmann ([xxxix]liv); index (lv-lxiv); text ([1]-347); 17 engraved plates, all folding.

Vol. II. STORIA / . . . / TOMO SECONDO. / . . .
4to. Title page ([1]); text ([3]-336); table of plates (337); table of headpieces and tailpieces (338-42); index (343-55); list of subscribers (5 unnumbered pp.); 1 engraved plate.

The engravers were Domenico Aspari (1745-1831), painter and engraver after the manner of Piranesi and the father of Carlo Aspari, also an engraver; Domenico Cagnoni, who worked in Milan during the second half of the eighteenth century; and Hier-Manrelli.

Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-68) was born in Brandenburg, the son of a poor shoemaker. He was educated in Berlin, Salzwedel, and Halle, where he was a student of theology in 1738. His interest was in Greek art and literature, but he went to Jena as a medieval student. He then became a tutor and a librarian. In 1754 he was librarian to Cardinal Passionei. In 1755 he went to Rome as librarian to Cardinal Archinto and was later librarian to Cardinal Albani. He is buried at Trieste, where, on his way back from a visit to the court of Maria Teresa, he was murdered by a man named Arcangeli.

He had an unrivaled knowledge of ancient art, and his book sets forth its history and its principles. It is said that to his contemporaries it came as a revelation and exercised a profound influence on the best minds of the age. His book was first issued as Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums , 1764.

The present book is a first edition of the translation by Carlo Amoretti (1741-18??). It is the edition Jefferson sold to Congress. The library's copy is a recent acquisition, the gift of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation. Jefferson did not order it for the University.


M *N5330.W77.1779 Sowerby 4247


128b. Winckelmann, Johann Joachim.

Vol. I. STORIA / DELLE / ARTI DEL DISEGNO / PRESSO GLI ANTICHI / DI / GIOVANNI WINKELMANN / Tradotta dal Tedesco / E IN QUESTA EDIZIONE CORRETTA E AUMENTATA / DALL' ABATE / CARLO FEA / GIURECONSULTO / TOMO PRIMO. /

IN ROMO / DALLA STAMPERIA PAGLIARINI / MDCCLXXXIII. / CON LICENZA DE' SUPERIORI.


4to. Half title (1 leaf); engraved frontispiece (1 leaf); title page (1 leaf); dedication ([i]-iv); note to reader ([v]-xvi); note of Milanese monastery ([xvii]-xxii); note of Viennese editors ([xxiii]-lx); eulogy of Winckelmann ([lxi]-lxxxii); index (lxxxiii-xcvi); text, ([1]-451); license (1 unnumbered p.); 18 engraved plates.

Vol. II. STORIA /DELLE /ARTI DEL DISEGNO/ . . . / TOMO SECONDO. / . . .
to. Half title ([1]); title page ([3]); text ([5]-427); 11 engraved plates.

Vol. III. STORIA / DELLE / ARTI DEL DISEGNO / . . . / TOMO TERZO. / . . . / MDCCLXXXIV. / . . .
4to. Half title ( [i] ); title page ( [iii] ); editor's note ( [v]-xii ); preface ([1]-14); table of contents (15-16); text ([17]-514); index of monuments (515-36); index of authors (537-51); index (552-604); [new pagination:] half title for rebuttal of Carlo Fea to Onofrio Boni on Vol. III ( [1] ); text ( [3]-40); 23 engraved plates.

The engravers for Vol. I were Carlo Baroni (fl.l76l-75), who worked at Rome; Benigo Bossi (1727-ca.1793) or (probably) Giacomo Bossi (fl.l782-98), who worked at Rome; Girolamo Caretoni; L. Cunego; Alessandro Mochetti (1760-1810), who worked at Rome; Giovanni Petrini, who worked during the second half of the eighteenth century in Rome; M. di Pietro; Carmine Pignatari (fl.l760-83), who worked at Naples and Herculanum; Francesco Rastaini (b.1750), who worked at Rome; Christoforo Silvestrini (1750-ca.1813), a Roman; and Camillo Tinti (ca.1738-96), who studied with Domenico Cunego (see No. 3) and worked at Rome. The engravers for Vol. II were Benigo Bossi, Caretoni, Mochetti, and Giovanni Battista Dassori (fl.1783-92). The engravers for Vol. III were Benigo Bossi and Caretoni, or Carattoni, together with Ferdinando, Pietro, or Vincenzo Campana, and Francesco Faccendo (1750-1820), a Roman.

For information about Winckelmann and this book, see No. l28a. This new edition of the Storia delle Arti is the one Jefferson ordered for the University in the section on "Gardening. Painting. Sculpture. Music" of the want list, but there is no record of its ever having been received. The library's present copy was the gift of the Virginia State Library.


U. Va. *N5330.W77.1783


129. Wood, Robert.

THE / RUINS / OF / BALBEC, / OTHERWISE / HELIOPOLIS / IN / COELOSYRIA. /

LONDON: / PRINTED IN THE YEAR MDCCLVII.


Folio. Title page (1 leaf); text ([1]-16); explanation of plates (17-28); 46 engraved plates, of which lo are folding.

The engravers for this volume were Pierre Foudrinier (see No. 21) and Thomas Major ( No. 76) .

Robert Wood (1717?-71) was born in Riverstown Castle, county Meath. His education is a little obscure, but he traveled in the Middle East as early as 1742-43. He was in Asia Minor again in 1749-50 when he went to Palmyra and Balbec. He had met Stuart and Revett (No. 119) in Athens and helped them later with the publication of their Antiquities of Athens. Wood was under secretary of state from 1756 to 1763 and became a member of the Society of Dilettanti in 1763.


The Ruins of Balbec was first published in 1757 ( see Plate CXLVIII). A French translation came out that same year and a second English edition in 1827. Gibbon characterized this book and the Ruins of Palmyra as "the magnificent descriptions and drawings of Dawkins and Wood, who have transported into England the ruins of Palmyra and Balbec" (DNB).

Wood tells why he has published the Ruins of Balbec and the adventurous time he and Dawkins had gathering the material for it

THE Specimen of our Eastern Travels, which we have already given the publick in the RUINS of PALMYRA , has met with such a favorable reception as seems to call for the Sequel....

Having observed that descriptions of ruins, without accurate drawings, seldom preserve more of their subject than it's confusion, we shall, as in the RUINS of PALMYRA , refer our reader almost entirely to the plates; where his information will be more full and circumstantial, as well as less tedious and confused, than could be conveyed by the happiest precision of language. [P. l]

We therefore set out for Balbec March 31st. [1751] and arrived at Ersale in seven hours. The greatest part of this journey was across the barren ridge of hills called Antilibanus....

We could not avoid staying here all night; but, impatient to leave a place of so much danger, we set out early the next morning, and in five hours and a half arrived at Balbec....

This city . . . is now commanded by a person . . . who . . . was called Emir Hassein. [P. 3]

We had been advised to distrust the Emir.... New demands were every day made, which for some time we thought it adviseable to satisfy; but they were so frequently, and at last so insolently repeated, that it became necessary to give a peremptory refusal....

Frequent negociations produced by this quarrel . . . ended in an open declaration, on his side, that we should be attacked and cut to pieces in our way from Balbec. When he heard that those menaces had not the effect he expected, and that we were prepared to set out with about twenty armed servants, he sent us a civil message, desiring that we might interchange presents and part friends, and allow his people to guard us as far as mount Libanus; to which we agreed. Not long after this he was assassinated by an emissary of that rebellious brother whom we have mentioned, and who succeeded him in the government of Balbec. [P. 4]

Having now finished this Second Volume, I beg leave to separate myself a moment from my fellow-traveller, to acknowledge, as editor of this work, that I alone am accountable for the delay of it's publication.

When called from my country by other duties, my necessary absence retarded, in some measure, it's progress. Mr. Dawkins, with the same generous spirit, which had so indefatigably surmounted the various obstacles of our voyage, continued carefully to protect the fruits of those labours which he had so chearfully shared: he not only attended to the accuracy of the work, by having finished drawings made under his own eye by our draughtsman, from the sketches and measures he had taken on the spot, but had the engravings so far advanced as to be now ready for the public under our joint inspection. [P. 16]

Kimball (p. 101) says The Ruins of Balbec entered Jefferson's library between 1785 and 1789. This copy Jefferson sold to Congress.

He ordered the book for the University in the section on "Architecture" of the want list, and it was received before 1828 but has not survived. The library's present copy was the gift of G. Harris.


U.Va. M *NA335.B2W8.1757 Sowerby 4188


130. Wood, Robert.

THE / RUINS / OF / PALMYRA, / OTHERWISE / TEDMOR, / IN THE / DESART. /

LONDON: / PRINTED IN THE YEAR M DCC LIII.


Folio. Title page (1 leaf); publisher's note (2 leaves); engraved, folding plate; text, with 3 engraved plates inserted ([1]-35); explanation of plates ([36]-50); 56 engraved plates, of which 1 is folding.

The engravers were Pierre Fourdrinier (see No. 21); T. Gibson, perhaps the T. Gibson (1680-1751?) who was primarily a painter; Thomas Major (No. 76); Johann Sebastien Müller (see No. 26); and T. M. Müller, Jr., perhaps the son of Tobias and nephew of Johann Müller.

For information on Robert Wood, see No. 129. Wood tells of the inception of this book, the rigors of the journey, and the entourage necessary for it in his text.

Two gentlemen . . . thought, that a voyage . . . to the most remarkable places of antiquity, on the coast of the Mediteranean, might produce amusement and improvement to themselves, as well as some advantage to the publick.

As I had already seen most of the places they intended to visit, they did me the honour of communicating to me their thoughts upon that head, and I with great pleasure accepted their kind invitation to be of so agreeable a party.

It was agreed, that a fourth person in Italy, whose abilities, as an architect and draftsman we were acquainted with, would be absolutely necessary.

We met our ship at Naples in the spring. She brought from London a library, consisting chiefly of all the Greek historians and poets, some books of antiquities, and the best voyage writers, what mathematical instruments we thought necessary, and such things as might be proper presents for the Turkish Grandees, or others, to whom, in the course of our voyage, we should be obliged to address our selves.

We visited most of the islands of the Archipelago, part of Greece in Europe; the Asiatick and European coasts of the Hellespont, Propontis and Bosphorus, as far as the Black-sea, most of the inland parts of Asia Minor, Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine and Egypt....

Inscriptions we copied as they fell our way, and carried off the marbles whenever possible; for the avarice or superstition of the inhabitants made that task difficult and sometimes impracticable....

Architecture took up our chief attention.... All lovers of that art must be sensible that the measures of the antient buildings of Rome, by Monsieur Desgodetz [No. 36], have been of the greatest use: We imagined that by attempting to follow the same method in those countries where architecture had its origin, or at least arrived at the highest degree of perfection it has ever attained, we might do service....

How much the loss of such a person [as Mr. Bouverie] must have broke in upon the spirit of our party, may easily be supposed. Had he lived to have seen Palmyra we should, no doubt, have less occasion to beg indulgence for such inaccuracies as may be found in the following work.

. . . If anything could make us forget that Mr. BOUVERIE was dead, it was that Mr. DAWKINS was living.

If the following specimen of our joint labours should . . . rescue from oblivion the magnificence of Palmyra, it is owing entirely to this gentleman, who was so indefatigable in his attention to see every thing done accurately, that there is scarce a measure in this work which he did not take himself. [Publisher's note]

OUR account of Palmyra is confined merely to that state of decay in which we found those ruins in the year 1751. [P. 1]

We set out from Haffia the 11th of March 1751, with an escort of the Aga's best Arab horsemen, armed with guns and long pikes, and travelled in four hours to Sudud. [P. 33]

We . . . proceeded after dinner . . . to a Turkish village called Howareen (where we lay) three hours from Sudud....

We set out from Howareen the lath, and in three hours arrived at Carietein.

We left Carietin [sic], the 13th, about ten o'clock, which was much too late.... This bad management exposed us to the heat of two days, before our cattle could get either water or rest....

Our caravan was now encreased to about two hundred persons, and about the same number of beasts for carriage, consisting of an odd mixture of horses, camels, mules and asses. [P. 34]


The fourteenth about noon we arrived at the end of the plain . . . when the hills opening discovered to us, all at once, the greatest quantity of ruins we had ever seen, all of white marble, and beyond them towards the Euphrates a flat waste, as far as the eye could reach, without any object which shewed either life or motion. It is scarce possible to imagine any thing more striking than this view: So great a number of Corinthian pillars, mixed with so little wall or solid building, afforded a most romantic variety of prospect. [P. 35; see Plates CXLIX and CL]


The Ruins of Palmyra first appeared in 1753. There was a French translation that same year, and other French editions in 1819 and 1829. There was a second English edition in 1827.

Jefferson ordered the book for the University in the section on "Architecture" of the want list and it was received by 1828, but it has not survived. The library's present copy was the gift of G. Harris.


U. Va. *NA335.P2W8.1753


Return to Part 5: S-U


Table of Contents
Last Modified: Monday, 12-Feb-1996 10:02:54 EST