I quattro libri dell'architettura di Andrea Palladio. Ne'quale dopo un breue trattato de' cinque ordini

Andrea Palladio

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The palazzi, villas, and churches of Andrea Palladio are among the unforgettable monuments of Venice and the Veneto, but it was his Quattro libri that earned the man and his architecture international renown. First published in 1570, Palladio's books use classical antiquity as a guide for the construction of buildings. The Quattro libri can be distinguished from earlier architectural treatises by the prominent discussion of Palladio's own works and by the use of terms familiar to contemporary architects and artisans. His clear, concise prose is enhanced by extensive woodcut illustrations that include plans and elevations of the buildings discussed as well as cross-sections and images of details. Figures and scales are used to indicate proportions and to provide a sense of the absolute dimensions of each building, giving the reader a new visual ability to comprehend each work. As one of the last great architects of the High Renaissance, Palladio translated the language of classical antiquity into a flexible and distinctive vocabulary that was used internationally by architects well into the nineteenth century.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art