First and only edition of six Italian essays on painting and sculpture by the many-sided Italian writer Anton Francesco Doni. Before the essays he gives a list of the painters and sculptors he discusses in the book and after them the texts of his letters to Italian painters, sculptors and other notable persons. The extensive index that concludes the work includes the various subjects discussed. The first five essays concern the principles and practices of sculpture and painting as art, also discussing details of techniques and materials, such as the manner of achieving the brightest colours in the mixing of oil paints. But the sixth gives advice on dealing with patronage, though also discussing the relation between sculpture and painting and the proportions of the human head. It has been suggested that this last essay may have been written by Doni's friend Baccio Bandinelli (1493-1560).
Book and binding in very good condition, with only some minor and mostly marginal spotting. First and only edition of a 1549 Italian series of essays on sculpture and painting, mixing theory with practical information on techniques and materials. Besterman, Old art books (1975), p. 31; Landau-Parshall (1994), p. 293; Ricottini Marsili-Libelli, Anton Francesco Doni ... bibliografia (1960), 19.