The Master Mason of Chartres' copy of an unrecorded, uncorrected first-state issue of the first edition.

Jacques Androuet du Cerceau (ca. 1510–1585); Macé Drouault (ca. 1550 – after 1621).

Livre d’architecture de Jaques Androuet du Cerceau, contenant les plans & dessaings de cinquante bastimens tous differens: pour instruire ceux qui desirent bastir, soient de petit, moyen, ou grand estat. Avec declaration des membres & commoditez, & nombre des toises, que contient chacun bastiment, dont l’elevation des faces est figurée sur chacun plan […].

[colophon:] Paris, Benoist Prevost, 1559.

Folio in 4s. [32] pp., with three large grotesque initials; 69 ll. with single-sided engraved illustrations. Complete.

With 7 additional plates: a folding plate mounted on the front paste-down; four plates tipped-in between the first and second front endpapers; one mounted to the verso of the second front endpaper, and one mounted to the third back endpaper. 

Numerous inscriptions and drawings in ink throughout, primarily by a single 16th-century hand identified as Macé Drouault, Master Mason of Chartres (full transcriptions available).

Contemporary calf binding with raised bands and gold-tooled floral motifs on spine and covers.
Ex-libris on back paste-down of Spanish architects Luis Cervera Vera (1914–1998) and Luis Cervera Miralles (1946–2025). Cervera Vera amassed an extensive architectural library, later auctioned in New York.

Jacques Androuet du Cerceau was "the most prominent and by far the most influential of the sixteenth-century architect-authors" (Weibenson & Baines), celebrated for his treatises that documented and profoundly influenced Renaissance architecture in France. Initially based in Orléans and later in Paris, he published his influential Livre d’Architecture (offered here), presenting fifty architectural designs illustrated by 171 figures across sixty-nine plates. These measured, scalable plans for townhouses, hôtels particuliers, and châteaux were arranged progressively by construction cost, making them accessible to a broad social audience. Unlike earlier treatises focusing on extravagant elite projects, du Cerceau emphasized economic feasibility, practical construction details, and meticulous measurement. His systematic approach continued with two subsequent volumes published in 1561 and 1582, solidifying his enduring impact.

Edition
This copy represents the previously unrecorded, uncorrected first-state issue of the first edition with French text. No bibliographical reference to this state has been found. This unique state contains numbering errors absent from both the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) French copy and the Latin edition printed in the same year by the same printer. For instance, plate XLV is mistakenly numbered XLX here, corrected to XLV in all other known copies. Additionally, several plates in this copy feature letterpress numbering above the image, while in other copies the numbers are engraved within the plates. These distinctive features confirm that this copy predates other known examples, including the Latin edition, making it both the earliest and rarest issue. 

The French edition is very rare, not appearing in the digital catalogues of the LoC, Rijksmuseum, Yale etc.

Master Mason’s Copy
The drawings and inscriptions include extensive artistic doodles and notes on the verso of the final back endpaper, featuring a floor plan, a sketch of a man's head, and foliate ornament studies. The back paste-down bears a drawing of a lion’s head, and elsewhere there is a faint full-page bust of a woman executed in red ink. A clear inscription reads: "Ce present livre appartient à moi, maistre Macé Drouault" ("This book belongs to me, Master Macé Drouault"). Macé Drouault was a Master Mason (architect) working in Chartres under the authority of King Henry IV of France, notably contributing to the fortifications of the city. A later, unidentified owner added several architectural plates dating from the 1650s, crossing out some inscriptions made by Drouault.

Condition
Binding slightly worn, recently repaired structurally (revealing medieval binder’s waste), restoration report available. Title page lacks lower half (originally blank), replaced with later paper bearing impressum added by hand in ink and pencil. Some old marginal repairs, including corners of plates XIII and XXXIX, slightly affecting the images.

Literature
Berlin Katalog. Catalogue entry 2360.
Geymüller, Henry de. Les Du Cerceau, leur vie et leur oeuvre. Paris, 1887, p. 310.
Masson, André, compiler. Catalogue of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Entry 647.
Weibenson, Dora, and Claire Baines. The Mark J. Millard Architectural Collection, French Books: Sixteenth Through Nineteenth Centuries. Millard Architectural Collection, 1993.