OTTAVIO BERTOTTI SCAMOZZI (1719-1790)

Le fabbriche e I disegni di Andrea Palladio. Tomi primo- quarto. In Vicenza, per Giovanni Rossi, 1796

§ Four in-4° volumes, contemporary half calf, labelled gilt titles on spine (VIII, 128 , frontispiece and author’s portrait ; IV, 76 ;IV, 60 ; IV, 80 pp.) 210 engraved copperplates, mostly folding a fine ad well preserved copy on crisp paper.
In 1776 Bertotti Scamozzi published the first volume of Le fabbriche e i disegni di Andrea Palladio raccolti e illustrati. The idea of producing a luxurious edition of Palladio's works for an international, especially English, market began in 1770, when Pietro Edwards first discussed it with Bertotti Scamozzi, the scholar Antonio Locatelli and probably also the collector and patron John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute. The aim of the project was to clarify Palladio's ideas for his admirers and imitators, to solve problems of attribution and reconstruction of incomplete or destroyed works, and to resolve the question of the difference between Palladio's completed buildings and those shown in the plates of his treatise I quattro libri..Ref: Cicognara 599: «Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi fece cosa nobile e grandiosa nel produrre queste grandi opere palladiane, e nell'illustrarle».