Friends with an old book Lars Niklas Ludes 21-948-492
The first page of the Book with the full Title summarizes the content of the book in a short but complete way.
“Vitruvius Britannicus or The British Architect
Containing The Plans, Elevations and Sections of the Regular Buildings both
Public and Private
In
Great Britain
With Variety of New Designs in 200 large Folio Plates, Engrave by the best Hands, and Drawn either from the Buildings themselves, or the Original Designs of the Architects:
In II Volumes
Vol I. by Colen Cambell Efq.r “
As you could already see from the first page, the following book is the first volume of a total of 2 books. This (The first) volume contains 200 large folio plates about architectural buildings. As you can see from the title, it is particularly referred to British architecture.
The second Page of the Book includes a dedication to King George in whish is:
“To his most sacred Majesty
King George
Vitruvius Britannicus
Or The
British Architect
Is most humbly Inscribed By
May it please your Majesty
May this most faithful & obedient Subject
Golen Gampbell”
Here we learn for the first time about the author of the book, who is the famous Scottish architect and co-founder of the Georgian style. His name is Golen Campbell
After these two first pages, the introduction of the book starts, in which the author explains the importance of teaching and knowing of the topic of British architecture. He idolized the ancient and the old Italian (Roman) architecture and the Gothic being called Barbarian.
After the Introduction follows a general list of the content of the book, each section refers to a topic or a picture of the following pages and gives short information about the pages which they refer to.
It is like an extended table of contents or register.
Furthermore, follows a list of the content in the first Volume.
The following pages include pictures, drawings of different buildings shown as a frontal perspective, or with a general floor Plans of by the ancient inspired British architecture.
The Book is huge, and this is because the pictures and instructions, floor plans are given and shown.
Most of the content of the Book are Pictures.