Ispirandosi alla logica che aveva guidato Palladio nel "Secondo" dei suoi "Quattro libri dell'Architettura", in questo volume i curatori hanno voluto la parola scritta ridotta all'essenziale, per lasciare spazio alle oltre 250 fotografie scattate da Pino Guidolotti. Un vero e proprio ritratto dell'opera palladiana allo scadere del secolo, attraverso il quale sono state censite tutte le 66 opere autografe, o presunte tali da una tradizione consolidata.

Andrea Palladio (1508-1589) was one of the most creative architects the world has ever known; many consider his villas, palaces, and churches the epitome of Renaissance ideals. Though his buildings have often been photographed and numerous specialized studies have been written about his career, never before have Palladio's life and times been brought together in a narrative as incisive as this one. Richly illustrated with specially commissioned photographs as well as period plans and drawings, this volume defines Palladio's remarkable career against the backdrop of the dramatic events and personalities of the age, while the buildings are discussed in terms of their importance in art history.

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Andrea Palladio (1508�-1580), one of the most famous architects of all time, published two enormously popular guides to the churches and antiquities of Rome in 1554. Striving to be both scholarly and popular, Palladio invited his Renaissance readers to discover the charm of Rome’s ancient and medieval wonders, and to follow pilgrimage routes leading from one church to the next. He also described ancient Roman rituals of birth, marriage, and death. Here translated into English and joined in a single volume for the first time, Palladio’s guidebooks allow modern visitors to enjoy Rome exactly as their predecessors did 450 years ago. Like the originals, this new edition is pocket-sized and therefore easily read on site. Enhanced with illustrations and commentary, the book also includes the first full English translation of Raphael’s famous letter to Pope Leo X on the monuments of ancient Rome. For architectural historians, tourists, and armchair travelers, this book offers fresh and surprising insights into the antiquarian and ecclesiastical preoccupations of one of the greatest of the Renaissance architectural masters.

From "one of our most original, accessible, and stimulating writers on architecture" ("Library Journal") comes a captivating account of the life and work of Andrea Palladio, the father of domestic architecture.

"Any attempt to sum up Andrea Palladio's creative achievements is invariably distorted by the fact that some of the greatest projects of his mature years were never built. For the most part, these unfinished works were in Venice. They include the patriarchal Church of San Pietro di Castello, the reorganisation of the Rialto district at the commercial and financial heart of the city, a church that would have overlooked the Grand Canal and, lastly, the monumental complex of the monastery for the Lateran Canons, the Convento della Carità. Antonio Foscari has now restored the balance by charting the course of Andrea Palladio's remarkable life and prodigious oeuvre in a way that sheds new light on all his works while also recognising a number of previously unclassified drawings. The books culminates with an attempt, unprecedented in over four hundred years of Palladian studies, to reconstruct the project that Palladio, in the autumn of his life, held to be the supreme testimonial of his creativity: the rebuilding of the Doge's Palace in Venice."--P. [4] of cover.

Drawing on Palladio's original published legacy of approximately 40 designs, the authors attempt to reveal the rigorous geometric rules by which Palladio conceived these structures. Using a computer, they test each rule in every possible application.