The library of the Genovese Juan Luis de Musante (1587), royal master builder of Philip II

Abstract

Juan Luis de Musante, a Genoese who lived in Spain since the 70s of the sixteenth century, he worked for the King Philip II in the last quarter of the century in various royal buildings as royal master builder of Navarre, being in charge of the direction of the building of the citadel of Pamplona (c. 1575-1587). This architect possessed one of the most numerous and voluminous libraries of his time, in regard to artists working outside the scope of the Court, as revealed by this study. The publication of the inventory of the 114 printed volumes that comprised his library contributes to a better understanding of the acquisition and use of of artistic treatises by the architects in the sixteenth century, along with other materials related to construction such as mathematics, geometry, arithmetic, perspective or fortification, as well as other historical, philosophical and scientific disciplines, in short, what were the visual and literary sources of our artists, the most widely read books and treatises managed by the architects of the sixteenth century.