| Title: |
Bibliotheca Radcliviana: or, a Short Description of the Radcliffe Library, at Oxford. Containing its Several Plans, Uprights, Sections, and Ornaments, on Twenty Three Copper Plates, Neatly Engraved, with the Explanation of each Plate. |
| Description: |
Printed for the Author. 1747. Folio, 12pp., engraved portraits of John Radcliffe and James Gibbs by Fourdrinier after Kneller, 21 fine engraved elevations, sections and interior details etc., text and portraits show some light damp staining (plates unaffected), later cloth-backed marbled boards, morocco label lettered in gilt on upper cover. The Radcliffe Library, better known as the Radcliffe Camera, begun in 1737 and completed in 1749, has been described as ‘England’s most accomplished domed building and Gibbs’s masterpiece’ (Pevsner). Gibbs’s account of it names the more important craftsmen employed - the masons were Townsend of Oxford and Smith of Warwick, Artari did the plasterwork and Rysbrack the sculpture - and the plates show elevations, sections and interior details. |
