The second edition of the book „la prospettiva pratica“ by Bernardino Contino is stored in the Library Werner Oechslin in Einsiedeln.
General subject and organization of the book:
The book is about different geometrical bodies and how you draw them in perspective. For each covered topic there’s an explaining text passage and an illustration in which he shows how to construct the body in perspective.
The book is parted in twenty-eight chapters. The chapters are in a chronological order: the content is always based on the previous chapter.
The chapters 1 to 13 are about two dimensional geometric objects (e.g. squares, triangles, circles and polygons). The following chapters explain the construction of three dimensional bodies. With each further chapter, the bodies get more complex. So what starts with something simple as a cube ends with a drawing in perspective of a whole transept.
Size and condition of the book:
The book isn’t in best conditions. It looks very used and old, the pages are discolored and the edges are in bad condition. While looking through the book you feel like it’s falling apart. The book has a plain, brown cover.
The height of the book 390 mm, the width is around 260 mm and the breadth is 7mm. So the size category of the book is “Folio”.
Number of pages and illustrations :
The book has 48 pages and a total of 28 illustrations (1 illustration per chapter)
