PERRONET,, Jean Rodolphe (1708--1794)
[Description des projets. 1782--1783]
Description des projets et de la construction des ponts de Neuilly, de Mantes, d'Orléans & autres; du projet du canal de Bourgogne, pour la communication des deux mers par Dijon; et de celui de la conduite des eaux de l'Yvette et de Bièvre à Paris, en soixante-sept planches. ... Par M. Perronet, ... Tome premier. (second.)
A Paris (Place), de l'Imprimerie royale,, 1782. (1783.)
2 vols ; 55.1 cm. (2°)
I: [12], 112 p., engr. frontis. port., XXX pl. (5 fold.)
II: [6], 24, [2], 25--154, [2] p., [37] pl. (7 fold.)

Soane met Perronet, a leading civil engineer and designer of bridges, during his brief stay in Paris in March 1778 on his way to Rome. See Gillian Darley, John Soane: an accidental Romantic (New Haven & London 1999), pp. 22--23; David Watkin, Sir John Soane: Enlightenment thought and the Royal Academy lectures (Cambridge 1996), pp. 346--347. The plates in vol. II are numbered XXXI - XXXIX, XXXIX bis - LXVI in continuation of those in vol. I. Apart from the folded plates there are twenty-one double-page plates, including pl. IV, XXXV, XXXVI, & LVI which are sometimes folded - as in the copy in the British Architectural Library - but here are cropped to the plate-mark instead. The letterpress pages are set within a decorative typographical border. A supplement to this sumptuous work was published in 1789 (q.v.). BAL, Early printed books, no. 2501.

Binding C19th half diced russia, borders, corners and raised bands ruled in gilt, spine direct-lettered in gilt, marbled-paper boards and fore-edges.

Reference Number 3002