The book „les édifices antiques de Rome“ by Antoine Babuty Desgodets is concerned with the Architecture of specific buildings in Rome. He claims to measure and draw them as they were standing originally and not to reconstruct them. In 1674 A.B Desgodets was sent to Rome to measure and draw the antique buildings. Collectively he has measured fourty-eight pieces of architecture, in the book he describes a total of twenty-five antique edifice which verify in their functionality. First he starts with the Panthéon in Rome followed by eleven temples which were also situated around Rome. The last thirteen chapters are about different buildings such as La place de Nerva, Portique de Septimus, the colloseum in Rome, the amphitheater in Verona, the Therme de Diocétien, the bains de Paul Aemile and more. The book is quite focused on exemplifying ground views, views and the arrangement of columns. Furthermore there are a lot of drawings of capitals.
„Les édifices antiques de Rome” starts with a preface in which the author talks about his intensions. The rest of the book is structured in Chapters, each example of architecture has it’s own chapter.
The book has 416 pages and 137 images of plates (a part of it fold, part double pages). The Books quite massive, the whole length measures 44 centimeters, closed the thickness of it is about 4.5 centimeters.