UNCOMMON FIRST ITALIAN TRANSLATION OF THE FAMOUS TREATISE BY ALBRECHT DURER [VIER BUCHER VON MENSCHLICHER PROPORTION], A FUNDAMENTAL WORK IN ANATOMY PICTORIAL HISTORY

Durer, Albrecht. Di Alberto Durero [...] Della simmetria de i corpi humani, libri quattro. Nuouamente tradotti dalla lingua latina nella italiana, da M. Gio. Paolo Gallucci salodiano et accresciuti del quinto libro, nel quale si tratta, con quai modi possano i pittori, & scoltori mostrare la diuersità  della natura de gli huomini, & donne, & con quali le passioni, che sentono per li diuersi accidenti, che li occorrono. Hora di nuouo stampati [...]. In Venetia: presso Domenico Nicolini, 1591 (In Venetia: appresso Domenico Nicolini, 1591).

Folio (324x216 mm), modern half vellum binding, with decorated paper at boards, lettering in black types at spine; pp. [6], 143 [i.e. 141], [1] leaf, [3] leaves of folding plates.

Nicolini's device on title and colophon leaf. One folding woodcut plate and 3 double-page woodcut plates on 3 leaves (one inserted at quire Q), woodcut illustrations throughout (folding plate repaired on verso). Xyl. historiated initials.
Some mistakes in page numbering.

First edition in Italian, translated from Latin by Gallucci with the addition of a fifth book with considerations about art and poetry. The woodcuts are copied from the first edition, posthumously published at Nuremberg in 1528.
This famous Durer's work was the synthesis of his belief that beauty was related to mathematical proportion. He makes the height of the human body the basic measurement of form.
Books I and II treat of the mathematical and geometrical construction of forms; books III and IV consider the problems of variation and movement, leading to difficult and intricate considerations of spatial geometry, and finally the construction of his famous 'cube man'.

Provenance: Handwritten inscription at bottom of title-page (Libro di Domenico Falia ...) and at last leaf verso (Addi, 21. Febraro 1651 ...).
Armorial ex-libris on a label glued at front paste-down (Ugo Sissa).

References: IT\ICCU\BVEE\002937 and IT\ICCU\PARE\067808. CNCE 17841. OCLC, 8386627.

Beautiful copy with restorations of small worm-holes on the bottom margins of some leaves, other little holes not restored; some little tears well repaired. Presence of occasional brownings, ink-spots and water-stains, but overall good copy, complete.