The book Traité des manières de dessiner les ordres de l’architecture antique en toutes leurs parties was published by Abraham Bosse in 1684. Its long title already reveals a lot about the content. In it you will find detailed analysis of antique architecture with a strong focus on geometry and calculations. The book has a total number of 93 pages. On almost every page you will find one or multiple careful and detailed illustrations. I forgot to count the exact number, but there are far more of them than paragraphs of written text. The book is not strictly divided into chapters, but while looking through it you will notice that Bosse was focusing on five major subjects. The first part contains a lot of information about antique columns, the classical order. Bosse quotes the work of Andrea Palladio and presents countless graphics of ionique, corinthien, dorique, toscan or composé columns. He goes quite into detail with accurate calculations and measurements. In the second part Bosse writes about the art of decorating staircases with ornaments that don’t interrupt the rules of parallelism and regularity. Part three looks pretty complicated. Numerous pages that embody almost a dozen of geometrical graphics each. He treats the topic of viewing angles and such. This part is followed by a one page intermezzo in which he presents a comparison of Palladio’s and Vignola’s theories on columns. Part four then contains further analysis of the classical order and another focus on geometry. He gives a few personal comments and finishes again with geometrical details. The fifth and last part seems to focus again on geometry as well as doors and entrances. What I found lovely is that he’s addressing the book to the „curieux et practiciens de l’architecture“. The height of the book is 2.5 cm. It’s about 29.5 cm wide and 43 cm long. When opened, it spreads over almost 60 cm. That corresponds to „Folio“ format.
