Andrea Palladio: The Architect in His Time

This comprehensive volume on the most influential architects in Western history is meant to be, in the words of its author, "user-friendly." Bruce Boucher suggests that Andrea Palladio might "fit comfortably into a suitcase or a backpack for a trip to Vicenza," the city west of Venice where the 16th-century architect Palladio lived and where most of his villas stand.

For art historians and architects, Boucher effectively synthesizes the more than 30 years of research that has been accomplished since James Ackerman's seminal 1966 work on Palladio. Boucher's style is balanced and highly readable. In discussing the architect's bridges, he paraphrases Palladio's advice that "an even number of piers should be used because nature endows every creature with an even number of legs to support its weight." "This last observation," Boucher writes, "is typically Palladian in its appeal to the natural world as a justification of what was simply an aesthetic preference."

Thanks to the extraordinary photographs of Paolo Marton, you will find yourself dreaming of an Italian vacation even before you begin reading Boucher's text. Marton's pictures make the exteriors of Palladio's villas, churches, bridges, and palaces look as if they were appearing before us, bathed in fresh spring light and set against a startlingly blue sky. His interior exposures are minutely sensitive to shadow as well as to light, and Marton precisely captures the soaring, airy volumes of Palladio's incomparable spaces.

This perfectly designed book also includes photographs of the original floor plans and elevations, as well as several helpful addenda, such as maps showing the locations of Palladio's buildings, a glossary, and a chronology.