Allan Braham, Peter Smith
François Mansart.
London: A. Zwemmer Ltd, 1973. Studies in Architecture, Volume XIII. 0302022511 xi/314 pages plus 563 illustrations on plates.
Each volume of this two-volume set, measuring approximately 9.25" x 12.25", and bound in dark blue cloth, with stamped gilt lettering to spine, is in fine condition. Bindings are firm. Interiors are clean and bright. Dust jackets show wear at edges, with small (closed) tears and very minor loss. Jackets are preserved in mylar cover. Text volume has a well-preserved fold-out genealogical table opposite page 190. Text of appendices appears in double columns.
"Partly based on two theses submitted at the Courtauld Institute--François Mansart as a designer of hotels (1965) by Peter Smith, and François Mansart's drawings for the Louvre (1967) by Allan Braham."
"François Mansart is considered by many to have been the greatest French architect, venerated in his native country as Sir Christopher Wren is in England. A generation younger than Wren, his life spanned those years of the seventeenth century that witnessed the works of so many of Europe's greatest artists: Rembrandt, Velazquez, the Frenchmen Poussin and Claude, and the Italians Bernini and Borromini.
Mansart was chiefly responsible for setting the standard of French "Classical" architecture, a style which, in the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was to rival and supplant the influence of Italy in northern Europe. Visually sophisticated and ingenious, the work of Mansart transformed the style of traditional building in France to suit the practical needs and tastes of northern architects and patrons: in so doing, he drew much upon the work of such predecessors as Philibert de l'Orme and Salomon de Brosse.
Although a most demanding and difficult architect to employ, by the time of his death, Mansart was the most admired architect in France, though it was left to his great-nephew who took Mansart's  name as his own and with whom, consequently, he is often confused, to extend his reputation by exploiting so many of his ideas.
This monography is the first full-length study of Mansart and his architectture. The first volume contains a discussion of his social and architectural background, together wiht an analysis of all his major works, including several , like the projects for the Louvre, which have been relatively neglected in the past. The catalogue which follows the main text covers Mansart's entire oeuvre, and contains many hitherto unpublished documents. The principal early sources relating to him are reproduced in full, and there is a detailed biographical study. The second volume contains 563 plates, illustrating all Mansart's surviving buildings and drawings, and much related material, including many reconstructions of lost or altered buildings, drawn especially for the book by Peter Smith."