Parallel of Ancient & Modern Architecture, Roland Fréart, | Five Orders, Greek and Roman Architecture, 4th Edition, 1733

"A Parallel of the Ancient Architecture with the Modern" by Roland Fréart, translated into English by John Evelyn, 1733, Fourth Edition. London: printed by T. W. for J. Walthoe, et al. A substantial folio (8.75" x 14"), this important comparative study examines the five classical architectural orders—Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, and Composite—and compares their treatment by ten influential architectural writers, including Palladio, Serlio, and Vignola.

This fourth edition, made English “for the benefit of builders” by John Evelyn, also includes architectural terminology, Leon Battista Alberti’s treatise on statues, and Sir Henry Wotton’s Elements of Architecture. The volume is richly illustrated with 40 architectural measured engravings, many full-page, along with numerous in-text illustrations, elaborate headers and footers, and decorative initial letters.

Contemporary mottled brown calf features double gilt rules to the boards, six gilt-bordered raised bands, and speckled red edges. The red-and-black title page includes an engraved vignette. The front pastedown bears two distinguished armorial bookplates, those of Sir Hew Dalrymple of Northberwick and Sir Dalrymple Hamilton of North Berwick Bargany. A separate leaf featuring a portrait and biography of Sir Christopher Wren is tipped to the first free endpaper. Condition notes include edgewear, bumped and rubbed corners with small tip losses, a small area of leather missing from the rear board, and minor marginal dampstaining to several preliminary leaves; otherwise relatively clean. ESTC T117369.