The title of the book is “Memoirs on the Most Important Objects of Architecture” (original in French: Mémoires sur les objets les plus importants de l’architecture). It is obvious to see that the book is a memoir or a collection of elements that played or are still playing very important roles in the world of architecture. Just reading the title, I don’t think that it would be too deep and abstruse to read and be used just for professional searching. So, one can assume that the object will be all who would like to learn something about architecture or who is interested in it.
The book does not have a table of contents, but as I scrolled through a couple of pages, I found out that the book is still divided into different chapters, although it is written without a catalogue. It contains some main topics such as city construction, proportion and edifices. However, there is an epistle in the very beginning, and it could be the preface of the book.
Most of the pages are filled with words, but still, there are many images in between. They are mostly detailed illustrations of constructions, for example, the structure of some capitals, or the detail of the entrance from the Louvre are very well shown in the book. It is worth mentioning that some illustrations must be folded because they are too big for the format of the book.
It is a relatively big and thick book, and it has a hard cover. It could reflect the thickness and stability of architectural construction and history.
The author is Pierre Patte (1723–1814), a French architect and the assistant of the great French teacher of architecture, Jacques-François Blondel. He has been credited for having been the first to illustrate a city street plan with buildings and sewer system shown in a section view, and it is somehow shown in this book, too. His purpose of writing this book may be to summarize all he learned from Blondel, add his thought into it and, at the end, bring it to other people and let them know more about the beauty of architecture.
There are some annotations not only below the main text, but also beside the illustrations, or even directly on them. Some are quotations of other literature; some are maybe to clarify some details. I think it is helpful for readers to understand the content or to look up other references, and it helps make the book more structured and ordered.