Early Life
Leoni's early life is poorly documented. He is first recorded in Düsseldorf in 1708, and arrived in England sometime before 1715. Between 1716 and 1720 he published in installments the first complete English language edition of Palladio's I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura, which Leoni entitled The Architecture of A. Palladio, in Four Books. The translation was a huge success and went into multiple editions in the following years (illustration, left) Despite Leoni's often eccentric alterations to Palladio's illustrations, his edition became a main vehicle for disseminating the essence of Palladio's style among British designers. The direct impact of Palladio's text was upon building patrons, for these expensive volumes were out of the reach of most builders, who could consult them only briefly in a gentleman's library. In 1738 Isaac Ware, with the encouragement of Richard Boyle, third Earl of Burlington, produced a more accurate translation of Palladio's work with illustrations which were faithful to the originals, but Leoni's changes and inaccuracies continued to influence Palladianism for generations.
On the frontispiece of his edition of Palladio, Leoni titled himself "Architect to his most serene Highness the Elector Palatine." This claim, however, remains unsubstantiated.
Leoni followed his Palladian volume with an English translation of Alberti's De Re Aedificatoria ("On Architecture"), the first modern book on the theories and practice of architecture.
Read more about this topic: Giacomo Leoni
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man’s training begins, its probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“In everyone there sleeps
A sense of life lived according to love.
To some it means the difference they could make
By loving others, but across most it sweeps
As all they might have done had they been loved.
That nothing cures.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)