De architectura

Marcus Pollio Vitruvius

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A volume containing 93 vellum manuscript leaves inscribed with Latin text upon both sides of each leaf in brownish black ink upon ruled lines. The text is written in double columns, with 39 lines to a page. Decorated capitals and other small scrollwork elements are painted in blue and red. An additional leaf (folio 94) is ruled but contains no text. The vellum binding is modern and bears a 19th century bookplate of the Gloddaeth Library.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art