De arte Graphica liber (Paris, 1668)

Charles-Alphonse Dufresnoy’s didactic poem on the art of painting, begun in Rome around 1635, wasn’t published until 1668, in Paris, a few months after the author’s death. The first edition, with a translation and commentary by Roger de Piles, enjoyed considerable success. It soon became a modern classic and an essential reference for art academies being founded in Europe in the eighteenth century, before lapsing into obscurity with the advent of Romanticism and modern art. For the contemporary reader, De arte graphica distils the first two centuries of the modern theory of painting – from Alberti and Leonardo da Vinci to Dolce, Lomazzo, Vasari, Armenini, and finally, to Agucchi and Dufresnoy’s friend Giovanni Pietro Bellori.