La cité de Carcassonne (Aude) par E. Viollet Le Duc, Paris, A. Morel, 1878

The volumes that belonged to the Demidov family currently preserved in the Uffizi include some renowned works by Viollet Le Duc, the great architect who brought medieval art back in the spotlight. He was famous for his 'in style' restorations of great French religious and civil architecture, such as the restoration of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the reconstruction of the double walls of the town of Carcassonne in the south of France. The volume presented here is entitled La cité de Carcassonne: a work by Viollet Le Duc with drawings made of his own hand, published in Paris in 1778. Its presence in the library of Villa San Donato - the princely villa owned by the Demidov family in Florence - is confirmed by the coded monogram 'AD' surmounted by a crown on the half-title page, which used to be the hallmark of Prince Anatolij Demidov but was also used by his grandson Pavel Pavlovič. The back of the front cover, on the top left corner, bears a label with the initials 'CD1', which probably refers to the location of the work in the dispersed library of the villa.

The volume entered the Library of the Uffizi Department of Prints and Drawings 'by way of the Salimbeni Library' in December 1970, after the auction of the furnishings of Villa Demidoff in Pratolino, which was arranged by the last heir of the family, Paolo Karageorgevič, in 1969.