Eyn schön nutzlich büchlin und underweisung der kunst des Messens, mit dem Zirckel, Richt scheidt oder Linial. Simmern, Hieronymus Rodler,
RODLER, (Hieronymus)
Title in red and black with large woodcut showing a painter, an embroiderer and goldsmiths at work; 57 woodcut illustrations and diagrams, many of them full-page and some with red lines added, large printer's device at end.
Sm. folio 1531
First edition of this important work on perspective and of the earliest books to be printed in Simmern; this private press was set up in 1530 by Rodler for Johann II of Pfalz Simmern for whom he worked as a secretary, and ceased in about 1554.
In his preface, Rodler tells the reader that Dürer's work on perspective, which had appeared in 1525, was too difficult for most people to understand, although he acknowledges the great merits of the work. Rodler therefore wrote a shorter and more practical treatise on the art of perspective for the benefit of painters, sculptors, goldsmiths, embroiderers, masons and carpenters which would help them to a better understanding of the larger work. Many of the full-page illustrations are views of the grounds and castle of Simmern, while the title woodcut appears to show the workshop. Some of the woodcuts show room interiors and contain illustrations which include a student's desk with a calculation sheet and counters, a shelf with bound volumes, a man playing a viola da gamba at a convivial gathering, an artist at work in a room with a grid iron window which permits an easy transfer of the landscape seen through it on a drawing board. Another illustration shows men at work on the construction of a building, surrounded by their various tools.
Fairfax Murray believed that the woodcuts were by the artist H.H. whose signature occurs in Rüxner's Thurnierbuch also published by Rodler (Nagler no. 1039), but it has also been suggested that they are by Rodler's employer Johan II. Elspeth Bonnerman showed that he had been trained in the art of woodcutting by Conrad Faber von Creuznach in about 1530; stylistically, the illustrations are in the tradition of the Augsburg artists Max Wirsung and Hans Burgkmair. According to Joseph Meder's famous work Die Handzeichnung which quotes from Rodler's work several times, this is the first description of a perspective, interior and exterior, calculated on the focus of two eyes. Also of great interest is the description in chapter three of the technique of pen-and-charcoal drawing.
Armorial bookplate of the artist Thomas Beckwith.
Title-page soiled, some discolouration of many leaves mostly affecting margins, lightly washed throughout.
Adams R652. Fairfax Murray no. 367. Berlinkatalog 4682. Elspeth Bonnerman, Die presse des Hieronymus Rodler in Simmern, Leipzig, 1933.
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