Façade of a Venetian palazzo

This drawing shows the fa�ade of a Venetian palazzo that incorporates the Doric and Ionic orders. It from a book ‘Regole generali di architettura,’ published in Venice by Francesco Marcolini in 1537. The book is part of Serlio’s L’Architettura, published in instalments between 1537 and 1575, and collected in one volume in 1584. The first part to appear was actually Book IV, called Regole generali (1537), which outlined the later books, but, most significantly, codified and illustrated the five Roman Orders of architecture.

L’Architettura was an enormously important treatise, not only in terms of Renaissance theory, but because it was a useful tome for architects, essentially because of its excellent illustrations and the fact that it was in a modern language.