The Four Books of Architecture consists of a series of flow-texts, as well as illustrations. The margins of each page are quite wide, which makes the book itself appear bigger that it already is. The text throughout the book varies in size, probably depending on the importance of the text or words. The headings of each chapter are remarkably bigger than the flow-text. However, even the headings vary in sizes and thickness. This again, underlines the use of structure to emphasize the importance of the book’s contents. The text appears to be written in Times New Romans, which makes the texts clear and comprehensible for the reader.
Throughout the book, many different illustrations can be found. For instance, at the beginning of the first part of each chapter, a large illustration, which matches the amount of space that is filled with text throughout the book, can be found. The illustrations show what appears to be a temple of some sort surrounded by women. In the middle of the temple there is a plaque with references to the chapter. Aside from these illustrations, many more can be found in the second half of each chapter. These parts consist of only architectural illustrations varying from vertical section drawings, detailed illustrations of the inside of buildings, in addition to their external features, as well as bridges. These illustrations are labelled with letters. At the beginning of the book, a list of references, arranged in alphabetical order can be found for each illustration.
It is evident that the illustrations in this book have a significant meaning, as they about equal the amount of text throughout the book. The combination of descriptive text and their corresponding images leads one to believe that the book is meant to be an academic study or a reference, due to the descriptive text as well as the explanatory illustrations. The size of the book also contributes to this opinion, as it is quite big and heavy, which makes it difficult to move or carry around easily, instead making it suitable for a library of some sort.