THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY builder Andrea Palladio of Vicenza was to become one of the most influential architects of all time. His famous and beautiful villas, built in the mainland territories of the Venetian Republic, provided his contemporaries and successors with a model for interpreting antique architecture through complex yet graceful proportion and simple, sometimes even stark, ornament. He illustrated his buildings and explained his working methods in his Four Books on Architecture, which went through many editions and translations; it had enormous influence, particularly in the English-speaking world. The Palladian Ideal lavishly presents several of Palladio's most important country villas, as well as later, internationally famous works that continue the Palladian tradition, including Colen Campbell's Mereworth Castle and Lord Burlington's Chiswick House in England, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux's La Saline in France, Karl von Fischer's Prinz-Carl-Palais in Germany, and Thomas Jefferson's Rotunda at the University of Virginia. Also featured are two of Palladio's antique sources, the Roman Forum and Pantheon. Twenty-one magnificent buildings are splendidly captured here in rich full-color and evocative black-and-white photography by Roberto Schezen. Renowned architectural historian Joseph Rykwert provides an introduction and commentary on each of the featured buildings.
來源: Google Book