The book “Ruins of the palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia” from Robert Adam is as the title already tells, about the ruin of the palace of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. The palace is placed in Spalatro which is today Split in Croatia. Robert Adam traveled and stayed there for five weeks to study and discover the palace and published afterwards his first book about it. Robert Adam was a celebrated architect and designer in the eighteen century.
The book contains 33 pages of text, and the following 54 sheets are drawings of the palace and its details. A few of the pages are folded, because the images are too big for the pages.
The text part starts with an introduction after which follows a description of the general plan of Diocletian’s palace as restored. And the last part of the text part is that Adam explains the plates, which are in total 61 plates. The drawings contain: exterior views, floor plans, sections, detailed views of smaller segments of the palace and many more. Adam also had a focus on the different columns and their capitals and drew them very detailed. There is a big collection of them in the book. The book also contains drawings of the palace how Adam imagined it looked when it was new built and how it looked when he was there.
By publishing this book Adam showed his knowledge of antique monuments and his consequent preparedness to design commissions in the classical way.