OU OBSERVATIONS HISTORIQUES ET CRITIQUES Sur les plus célebres Monumens d’ Architecture Grecque et Gothique. PAR M. L. M. A LONDRES Et se trouve A PARIS Chez MUSIER, fils, Libraire. 1774.

In 8.º de 21x14 cm. Com (iv)-xvi-347-(iii) pags.

Encadernação da época inteira de pele um pouco cansada.

Ilustrado com 7 gravuras desdobráveis de monumentos de Roma, o Panteão, igreja e Basílica de S. Paulo, Templo de Santa Sofia, igreja de S. Pedro do Vaticano e o Coliseu.

 Two parts in one volume. 8vo, contemporary calf. 7 folding engraved plates. Avril subscribed, as did Laugier in his Essai sur l'Architecture (1753), to the Graeco-Gothic ideal and wrote perceptively on the Gothic church and the validity of Gothic as a structural system. The best known architect representative of this school of thought - which sought to unite the lightness and economy of Gothic construction with the mathematical precision and purity of Greek architecture - was Jacques Germain Soufflot (1713-80). Sir John Soane (1753-1837) thought so highly of Avril's book that, in 1806 the year in which was appointed Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy, he translated it in its entirety. (See RIBA Early Printed Books, I, 165). Avril's choice of buildings for illustration and analysis is surprisingly advanced and sophisticated: the 4th century BC Doric Temple of 'Jupiter' at Olympia (which we now know as the Temple of Zeus), the Pantheon, as well as of some of the great Christian churches, including St. Paul's in London - which Avril compares unfavourably with St. Peter's in Rome. Avril also discusses Santa Sophia in Constantinople - an extraordinary choice for 1774. Wolfgang Hermann (Laugier and Eighteenth-Century French Theory, London 1962) and David Watkin (The Rise of Architectural History, London, 1980) refer to the importance of Avril. Cicognara 679 Berlin Catalogue 1899.