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With 152 copper-engraved plates, including author’s portrait, mostly maps and design plans (architectural, etc.), detailed interior decoration, etc. Plus text leaves. (Folio) 18¼x12½, period marbled boards, rebacked with later terra cotta cloth.

Excellent architectural engravings of the prominent Venetian architect of the late Renaissance. Michele Sanmicheli (c.1484–1559), Italian Mannerist architect and engineer, especially noted for his original treatment of military fortifications. Sanmicheli was engaged by Pope Clement VII to examine and repair the fortifications in the northern Papal States. He was later employed by the Venetian Republic (from 1535) as a military architect and designed elaborate fortresses for Venice, Cyprus, and Crete. He also designed churches and palaces, some of them reworkings of designs of Bramante, Raphael, the Sangallo family, and Michelangelo.