An Unrecorded Issue of Philibert Delorme's "Le premier tome de l'architecture", Annotated by Sir Henry Wotton

The rediscovered issue of Philibert Delorme's Le premier tome de l'architecture from 1603 adds to our knowledge of the history of this key treatise. The significant annotations in the volume, discussed in this article, document the continuing relevance of Delorme's book during the half-century between the well-known editions of 1576 and 1626. This particular exemplar throws unique light on the genesis of another architectural classic, Sir Henry Wotton's The Elements of Architecture (1624). The former contains a number of manuscript notes, one of which mentions Bocton Malherbe, Wotton's ancestral home. The handwriting proved to be Wotton's, when compared with authentic examples. Wotton credits Delorme as a source, and some of the notes here are first drafts of passages in The Elements. These marginal annotations, translated from the French, reappear reworded and perfected in the first English treatise on architectural theory.