The book “Progymnasmata Architonica, oder Vor-Ubungen in beyderley Bau-Kunst” is written in german. It uses a font called “Fraktur”, which has its origins in the 16th century and was very popular for many decades. The book has one column of text per page, which is pushed almost all the way to the center of the book, leaving a 4th of the page blank on the outer rim of the book.
The book is divided into many “Ubungen”. Each of these “Ubungen” consists of several “Aufgaben”. On the top of each page is written, which Ubung is dealt with on this page. The titles of the chapters are usually written in the same font, but bigger, and are in the center of the page. Most of the book consists of text, and sometimes there are charts with measurements.
There are 51 Illustrations in the book. These Illustrations are located at the very end of the book. They are linked with numbers to specific chapters in the book and are presented as full-page, foldout spreads. The illustrations are extremely detailed. They show different things, for example columns of different orders, with all the necessary measurements of the details and proportions. But there are also drawings of windows, railings, floor plans and different types of forts and buildings. All those drawings are precisely drawn and neatly labelled and measured.
Even though there aren’t many images in the book compared to the number of pages (51 images on ca. 630 pages) their level of detail suggests that they are rather important.
Between the illustrations and the main body of text, there is a table of contents. In this table of contents, there are all the important subjects of the book listed in alphabetical order, just like in an encyclopedia. This is a clear hint that this book is not entertainment literature, but instead serves as a reference book for students and craftsmen, as stated in the extended title of the book.