Vitruvius' Ten Books of Architecture was the fountainhead of architectural theory in the Italian Renaissance. Offering theoretical and practical solutions to a wide variety of architectural issues, this treatise did not, however, address all of the questions that were of concern to early modern architects. This study examines the Italian Renaissance architect's efforts to negotiate between imitation and reinvention of classicism. Through a close reading of Vitruvius and texts written during the period 1400-1600, Alina Payne identifies ornament as the central issue around which much of this debate focused.

The Rise of the Image reveals how illustrations have come to play a primary part in books on art and architecture. Italian Renaissance art is the main focus for this anthology of essays which analyse key episodes in the history of illustration from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. The authors raise new issues about the imagery in books on the visual arts by Leonardo da Vinci, Giorgio Vasari, Sebastiano Serlio, Andrea Palladio, Girolamo Teti and Andrea Pozzo. The concluding essays evaluate the roles of reproductive media, including photography, in Victorian and twentieth-century art books. Throughout, images in books are considered as vehicles for ideas rather than as transparent, passive visual forms, dependent on their accompanying texts. Thus The Rise of the Image enriches our understanding of the role of prints in books on art.

When did drawing become an integral part of architecture? Among several architects and artists who brought about this change during the Renaissance, Francesco di Giorgio Martini’s ideas on drawing recorded in his Trattati di architettura, ingegneria e arte militare (1475-1490) are significant. Francesco suggests that drawing is linked to the architect’s imagination and central in conveying images and ideas to others. Starting with the broader edges of Francesco’s written work and steadily penetrating into the fantastic world of his drawings, the book examines his singular formulation of the act of drawing and its significance in the context of the Renaissance. The book concludes with speculations on how Francesco’s work is relevant to us at the onset of another major shift in architecture caused by the proliferation of digital media.

The printed book caused an explosion of knowledge and major changes in the perception of texts. In investigating how knowledge was presented to the early modern reader, this volume treats both book-historical issues and the intersections of layout with issues of genre, content and function.

Drawing Imagining Building focuses on the history of hand-drawing practices to capture some of the most crucial and overlooked parts of the process. Using 80 black and white images to illustrate the examples, it examines architectural drawing practices to elucidate the ways drawing advances the architect’s imagination. Emmons considers drawing practices in the Renaissance and up to the first half of the twentieth century. Combining systematic analysis across time with historical explication presents the development of hand-drawing, while also grounding early modern practices in their historical milieu. Each of the illustrated chapters considers formative aspects of architectural drawing practice, such as upright elevations, flowing lines and occult lines, and drawing scales to identify their roots in an embodied approach to show how hand-drawing contributes to the architect’s productive imagination. By documenting some of the ways of thinking through practices of architectural handdrawing, it describes how practices can enrich the ethical imagination of the architect. This book would be beneficial for academics, practitioners, and students of architecture, particularly those who are interested in the history and significance of hand-drawing and technical drawing.

A collection of essays examining early editions of Vitruvius' writings and all the major Renaissance architectural treatises by authors such as Alberti, Di Giorgio, Colonna, Serlio, and Palladio. The authors look at the significance of the treaty in the Renaissance, and trace its decline in the late 17th century.

This study reveals the broad material, devotional, and cultural implications of sculpture in Renaissance Venice. Examining a wide range of sources—the era’s art-theoretical and devotional literature, guidebooks and travel diaries, and artworks in various media—Lorenzo Buonanno recovers the sculptural values permeating a city most famous for its painting. The book traces the interconnected phenomena of audience response, display and thematization of sculptural bravura, and artistic self-fashioning. It will be of interest to scholars working in art history, Renaissance history, early modern art and architecture, material culture, and Italian studies.