The books title, which translates from Italian to « Practical institution of civil architecture for the decoration of public and private buildings: preceded by an article on geometry in practice for the use of designers and craftsmen » already reveals a lot about the books content. It is about the decoration of public and private buildings, and it is meant to be read and used by designers and craftsmen.
The books content is structured as follows: An introduction, an article and 6 chapters. The first chapter is the definition of geometry and the last “the private building”, thus it gets more specific. That is about 250 pages of the book. Then about 300 pages of illustrations follow, thus the illustrations are actually more important. There are hundreds of geometrical illustrations. Many of them have inscriptions, to teach something. Some of them show small details others for example a whole entrance. Most of the illustrations show columns.The size of the book is in directly related to the illustrations. It is a large and a thick book, this is important because the illustrations are meant to be used in practice by designers and craftsman and hence, they have to be clearly readable and precise.
The book is written by Paolo Federico Bianchi, a Milanese architect.The monastery square of Einsiedeln Monastery was built from 1745 to 1747 according to his plans in its present form. As an architect he wanted to pass on his knowledge and that is why he wrote this book and attached so many illustrations.