The title already tells us a lot about the content of the book. Translated from Italian it means: All works of architecture and perspective.
It is a lexicon of geometry, forms, perspectives and important buildings. That’s why it’s so thick. The table of contents is extremely long, but at least alphabetically arranged. The book provides answers to many questions. For example, how something was built or how it should be illustrated. For an architect or an architecture enthusiast the book is very appealing. It has many drawings that help to understand the texts. Sometimes those are also necessary. For example, he explains the casting shape of a dome and then illustrates it. At the beginning, geometric shapes are explained and named. Like the title says, the book really includes almost all works of architecture.
It’s a very beautiful book. The cover is very colourful and a beautiful font was used for the texts. It is not very large and therefore quite handy. However, as already mentioned, it is very thick.
Sebastian Serlio is the author of the original book. He himself was an architect and an architectural historian. He has written several books on architecture. He describes and explains how something can be built or designed. He is also familiar with different styles and he even wrote a book in French during his time in France.
He probably found the joy of perspective and architecture at the beginning of his career when he was still working as an artist.
Already at his time, his books were translated into French, German and Spanish, making him one of the most influential architects in the world.