A new, illustrated edition of a foundational work on architecture, engineering, and urban planning
The only treatise on architecture to have survived from Roman times, Vitruvius' "On Architecture" provides a fascinating picture of how the Romans planned and built their great structures and cities. Dedicated to Augustus, it sets out all the information an architect of the time needed-from plans for temples, public baths, government buildings, and private homes to the best materials and techniques for building-and introduces longstanding principles of architecture, from the use of nature's harmonies in design to the ideal modular proportions of the human body, which later inspired Leonardo da Vinci. This new translation, accompanied by 100 black-and-white images, captures the clear, pragmatic tone of Vitruvius' writings, showing why the ancient architect and engineer's theories have remained influential for two millennia.

The Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio was one of the most influential figures that the field of architecture has ever produced. For classical architects, the term Palladian stands for a vocabulary of architectural forms embodying perfection and beauty. Of even greater significance than Palladio's buildings is his treatise I quattro libri dell'architettura (The Four Books On Architecture), the most successful architectural treatise of the Renaissance and one of the two or three most important books in the literature of architecture. First published in Italian in 1570, it has been translated into every major Western language.This is the first English translation of Palladio in over 250 years, making it the only translation available in modern English. Until now, English-language readers have had to rely mostly on a facsimile of Isaac Ware's 1738 translation and the eighteenth-century engravings prepared for that text. This new translation by Robert Tavernor and Richard Schofield contains Palladio's original woodcuts, reproduced in facsimile and positioned correctly, adjacent to the text. The book also contains a glossary that explains technical terms in their original context, a bibliography of recent Palladio research, and an introduction to Palladio and his times.The First Book discusses building materials and techniques, as well as the five orders of architecture: Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite. Palladio describes the characteristics of each order and illustrates them. The Second Book discusses private town houses and country estates, almost all designed by Palladio. The Third Book discusses streets, bridges, piazzas, and basilicas, most of ancient Roman origin. The Fourth Book discusses ancient Roman temples, including the Pantheon.

Andrea Palladio, probably the most famous architect of the Western world, stands at the beginning of the movement called Palladianism. For the landed gentry of sixteenth-century Venice he evolved a version of Renaissance architecture, combining classical authority, dignity and comfort, which he made available to the whole of Europe in his book, the Quattro libri dell'architettura. So successful was the Palladian formula that it was consciously revived in other countries and in other times: by Inigo Jones at the court of Charles I in the early seventeenth century, by Colen Campbell and Lord Burlington in the early eighteenth century, and by Thomas Jefferson and others in the New World. In each case, what was appealing about Palladianism was more than a matter of style: it was the fact that it expressed a way of life and a humanist moral philosophy, deriving ultimately from ancient Rome but enriched by the thinkers of the Renaissance and the Augustan age.