Comprehensibility
The entire book seems to be very honest with its purpose, to convey knowledge of architecture. It informs the reader with the necessary elements; text, equations, and illustrations. Since it is a book, it is no surprise that literature is the most prominent one. It seems to be well put together and thus describes the discussed topics precisely. Complimentary to the text you can find illustrations in the book. The images and the text interact very well with references used to associate the correct illustration with the corresponding passage. You will often find single letters that are linked to some of the drawings at the end of the book. These are key to visualize the subject to the reader.
In addition to that there some mathematical equations as well. These add to the text to make the topic as comprehensible as possible. The equations are kept simple and occasionally include some of the references as variables.
These elements are constructed in a way that compliments the comprehensibility of the book. They work together to convey the information on different levels. This allows the reader to correctly grasp the shared knowledge.
All of this is done very precisely. Everything seems to be in the right place the illustrations highlight this common theme of the book. The beautiful drawings also inspire to create.
I think correctly transferring your knowledge to other architects is the most challenging part of these books. The goal is of course to improve the architecture in the future by educating architects. A lot of things can go wrong, the content poorly composed, misunderstood, or falsely interpreted. I believe that Pini was able to ensure the correctness of this whole process by giving them information on different levels.
The right mixture of information is tremendously important as well. The limited amount of math is enough to better understand the content but not too much to irritate or confuse a reader who is not very well educated in mathematics. I think this book does a great job of limiting the information to the necessary, however, I personally would have preferred more illustrations as it helps me to visualize the matter.
In conclusion, the book Dell’architettura by Ermenegildo Pini does exactly what it should – it educates the reader. Through the correct implementation of text, images, and equations, the content is presented precisely. The depth of the information is coherrent and well balanced.
Keywords: Precision, Correctness, Beauty