The book “Perspectiva pictorum et architectorum” is written in Latin and Italian.
The title means translated: Perspectives for painter and architects. The author Andrea Pozzo (1642-1709) himself was a painter and architect and well-known for his work.
In the book the author talks about different perspectives in which one can portray an object or a building. After a small prologue the book has a clear structure: It’s segmented in 113 “figuras” (like chapters) and every chapter contains a double page: one side with a latin and Italian text and one side with an illustration. After translating one of those figuras I realized that it is like a schoolbook. The author explains step by step how to draw the special perspective. In the text he references to the illustrations by using letters, which you can also find on the illustration. Another clue that the book is an instruction book is that sometimes someone has drawn into the book, as if he read it and tried to follow and recreate the steps given by the author. One can as well find bigger sketches at the backside of the book cover.
The illustrations have always the same structure: an object in the centre and then the same object drawn in different perspectives.
The book is rather big due to the very detailed illustrations. With over 200 pages and half of it illustrations, I can’t imagine how big the expenditure was to create this book.
The book and its topic seem timeless and could still be useful today to learn everything about perspectives.