‘Les Plans et les descriptions de deux des plus belles maisons de campagne de Pline’ is the title of the book. I’m not very good in understanding French which makes writing about this book a little bit difficult. But I understand that the title can be translated to: The plans and descriptions of two of the most beautiful country houses of Pliny.
There were two Plinys. Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger. They were both roman noblemen. First I about which of them is being talked. But then I found another version of the book with 2 added words to the title: …de Pline le consul. So it has to be Pliny the Younger who was a consul in the Roman empire.
There isn’t a list of contents you would expect in this book, where every chapter is listed with the number of the side. Instead, there is only an index in which you can look up words alphabetically and find the numbers of the sides where they are mentioned.
The book has some Illustrations. Some of them are pretty large and can be unfolded to four times the size of the book. The book itself is relatively tiny.
We don’t know much about the author. His name was Jean-François Félibien Des Avaux, he was a French architect who lived in the 17th and 18th century in France and he wrote ca. 10 books, mostly descriptions about buildings.