The 'Annotations' by Guillaume Philandrier on Vitruvius' 'De Architectura'. Edited by Frédérique Lemerle. Paris, 2000

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro

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The Annotations by Guillaume Philandrier 

on Vitruvius' De Architectura

Books I to IV

Edited by Frédérique Lemerle

Paris, Piccard, 2000

The front-cover of the edition of  Lyon (1552)
Source: http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/vitruvius1552

[N.B. On Vitruvius see in this blog also: Francesca Salatin, An Introduction to Fra Giocondo's Vitruvius (1511); Vitruvius, On Architecture, Edited by Pierre Gros. Translation and Commentary by Antonio Corso and Elisa Romano. Essays by Maria Losito, Turin, Einaudi, 1997; Giovanni Mazzaferro, Rare Books and a Great Discovery: a Specimen of Vitruvius' De Architectura Annotated by Cosimo Bartoli; El Greco. The miracle of naturalness. The artistic thought of El Greco through the margin notes to Vitruvius and Vasari. Edited by Fernando Marías and José Riello, Rome, Castelvecchi, 2017; The Annotations by Guillaume Philandrier on Vitruvius' De Architectura. Books I to IV. Edited by Frédérique Lemerle, Paris, Piccard, 2000; Marco Vitruvio Pollione's Architecture, translated and commented by the Marquis Berardo Galiani. Foreword by Alessandro Pierattini (unabriged reprint of Naples edition, 1790), Rome, Editrice Librerie Dedalo, 2005; Claude Perrault, Les Dix Livres d’Architecture de Vitruve, Corrigez et traduitz nouvellement en françois avec des notes et des figures, Paris, Jean Baptiste Coignard, 1673; Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture. The Corsini Incunabulum with the annotations and autograph drawings of Giovanni Battista da Sangallo. Edited by Ingrid D. Rowland, Edizioni dell’Elefante, 2003; Massimo Mussini, Francesco di Giorgio e Vitruvio. Le traduzioni del 'De architectura' nei codici Zichy, Spencer 129 e Magliabechiano II.I.141, Leo S. Olschki, 2003; Francesco di Giorgio Martini, La traduzione del De Architectura di Vitruvio. A cura di Marco Biffi, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, 2002; Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Il "Vitruvio Magliabechiano". A cura di Gustina Scaglia, Gonnelli editore, 1985.]

[1] Text of the inside flap:

"Guillaume Philandrier (Châtillon-sur-Seine in 1505 - Toulouse 1565) would have probably remained an obscure humanist, and simply the editor of Quintilian, if he had not become the lector of the bishop of Rodez, Georges d'Armagnac. He accompanied the young prelate - who had been appointed Ambassador in Venice (1536-1539) and then in Rome (1540-1545) thanks to the protection by Marguerite de Navarre - to Italy. The direct knowledge of the ruins and the attendance of the greatest Italian architects, especially Serlio and Sangallo, allowed Philandrier to produce a unique synthesis of philological knowledge and practical experience of architecture, in his Annotations on Vitruvius, published in Rome in 1544. 

A second trip to Rome (1547-1550) and new archaeological experiences with his friend Ligorio, led him to publish in Lyon an expanded version of his Vitruvian commentary in 1552, in which he championed a Vitruvian orthodoxy, already undermined by the latest audacious creations by Michelangelo at Palazzo Farnese. More generally, the Annotations, drafted between Serlio’s writings and the Treaty of Vignola, are a crucial step in the progress towards a theoretical formalization of architecture. 

Back in France, Philandrier commuted between Rodez and Toulouse. Canon of the cathedral, he planned its completion, an early version of a church facade in the Counter-Reformation age. In Toulouse, he found again d’Armagnac, who had become archbishop of the city, and his friend P. Paschal, the historian of Henry II. 

Although written in Latin, the Annotations on Vitruvius had a significant impact. Regularly cited by Vitruvius’ commentators, from Barbaro to Perrault, and read by architects from all over Europe, they now deserve to be rediscovered by architectural historians as well as by archaeologists and specialists of humanism."

Portrait of Guillaime Philandrier from the edition of Lyon (1552)
Source: http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/vitruvius1552

[2] Frédérique Lemerle presents the French translation with the commentary of the Annotations relating to the first four books of the De Architectura by Vitruvius. The work is based on the issue printed in Lyon in 1552 (for more details see below), whose facsimile reproduction is also proposed (the used specimen is kept at the municipal library of Lyon, with signature Rés. 104 203).

[3] There is no doubt that the Italian experience, first in Venice and then in Rome on two different occasions, plays a fundamental role in the education of Philandrier. Venice means above all acquaintance and attendance with Sebastiano Serlio, who published the first five books of his Architettura civile (Civil Architecture) in that city, in 1537; Rome means the deep knowledge he acquired in the field of ancient ruins, his inclusion in that Vitruvian Academy which since 1542 has been pursuing ambitious objectives with the intent to give new impetus to the Vitruvian studies (see the letter of Claudio Tolomei to Augustine de' Landi of November 14, 1542), and the attendance of Sangallo (Antonio the Younger was planning a translation of De Architectura, of which only the Proemio was probably written) and the cultural elite in the city in those years. It is this sedimentation of knowledge that gives life to the Annotations, and justifies the fact that eight years after the first edition (Rome, 1544), a second one appears, considerably increased, in Lyon (1552). But first things first.

[4] The first edition of the Annotations is printed, as mentioned, in Rome in 1544. The publisher is Andrea Dossena, to whom we owe the preface, followed by the index of the cited authors (certainly, not very common at the time), the dedication to Francis I, King of France, and a brief biography of Vitruvius personally drafted by Philandrier. The illustrations are of modest quality. On the following year, a new edition appears, this time in Paris, where the financial burden is supported jointly by Jacob Kerver and Michel Fezandat. A new publication follows in Strasbourg in 1550, but the real breakthrough is made by printing the new edition of Lyon (1552), with the publisher Jean de Tournes. The Lyon version "presents a completely revised text, increased by a third,... and new illustrations... Philandrier is not satisfied to simply amend his text, he enriches it with original examples, and multiplies references, whether they mention new authors or new quotations from authors already quoted in the first edition; above all, he takes advantage of his second stay in Rome and of all the discoveries he could do it" (p. 24). "In the 1544 and 1552 Annotations, the text of Vitruvius appears in two forms. First of all, as extracts preceding the annotations. On the other hand, when Philandrier considers the text of an extract as inaccurate, he offers a correction (castigatio) inside the annotation, which provides a new version" (ibid). Lemerle believes that the text on which Philandrier conducted his philological examination is the so-called third Giocondina edition, edited by Fra Giocondo, published posthumously in Florence in 1522 (see Luigi Vagnetti and Laura Marcucci, Per una coscienza vitruviana. Regesto cronologico e critico delle edizioni, delle traduzioni e delle ricerche più importanti sul trattato latino De Architectura Libri X di Marco Vitruvio Pollione - For a Vitruvian conscience. Chronological and critical register of editions, translations and most important research on the Latin treatise De Architectura by Book X of Vitruvius). The Annotations printed in Lyon also differ from those in Rome because the complete text of the De Architectura is displayed at the end of the work. Honestly, it is not clear whether this text is that of the above-mentioned third Giocondina (Florence, 1522), or the second Giocondina (which was also published in Florence, but in 1513), as claimed by Vagnetti and Marcucci. However, one thing is certain: this is not a new lesson, also resulting from a philological intervention by Philandrier.

A page from the edition of Lyon (1552)
Source: http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/vitruvius1552

[5] We have deliberately left out the most interesting aspect of the Annotations, both in their version of 1544 and in that of 1552: it is the feature which allows us to consider them to not as a sheer (and still fundamental) text of philological erudition, but to elevate them to a survey of great importance for the theoretical treatises of the sixteenth century. Inside the Book III of De Architectura, actually just before Chapter III, Philandrier inserts a "Digression on the orders". Starting from Serlio’s assumptions (and his description of the architectural orders contained in Book IV of the Civil Architecture), the digression permits to clarify and develop - through a systematic observation of ancient monuments – the fundamental aspects of the thinking of the Bolognese artist (see p. 38). Those aspects were widely accepted in Europe through the Regola (Rule) by Vignola, that had made these assumptions his own. So, when we talk about the fortune of the Annotations, actually we should distinguish two aspects: on the one hand the strictly philological one, on the other hand the theoretical one, of which the Digression is the highest moment.

A page from the edition of Lyon (1552)
Source: http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/vitruvius1552

[6] Digression and Annotations were widely read in the following years and quoted in one way or another by different authors. In Italy, those who were most probably debtors to Philandrier were Barbaro, from a philological point of view, and Vignola under a theoretical aspect; in France they ranged from Jean Martin to Perrault and Blondel; in Germany, it is obligatory to make reference to Walter Ryff, not only for his first German translation of Vitruvius (1548), but also for the Unterrichtung zu rechtem verstandt der lehr Vitruuij (Lesson on the right understanding of Vitruv’s doctrine); and yet we must remember John Shute, the author of the first English treatise on architecture (The First and Chief Groundes of Architecture, London 1563). Therefore, Philandrier has a far greater influence than it is usually believed, and we hope that this can now be finally recognized. 

[7] It remains to mention what Leopoldo Cicognara wrote under n. 712 of his Catalogo ragionato (catalogue raisonné) (Volume I) concerning the edition of Lyon of 1552: "A highly esteemed edition, for the correction of the text and the accurate interventions of the author, who greatly augmented the notes, compared to the edition he had made in Rome in 1544, separately from the text. The woodcuts are not without elegance and taste. Mr Poleni  believes this edition is so valuable to place it immediately after the one by Sulpizio."