“Della architettura”, written by Giuseppe Viola Zanini, is divided into 2 “books”, which are organized into chapters. The first “book” occupies a smaller part than the second one.
Throughout the book, the text keeps the same structure. The headings are written in uppercase letters, centered and printed in a much thicker font than the main text, which is formatted as justified. According to the part of the book, there’s written either “libro primo” or “libro secondo” and the page number can be found at the top left or right. The beginning of each paragraph is characterized by a capital letter, spread over two lines. Each chapter varies in length and is sometimes completed by annotations. The font of the text alternates between italics and “straight” characters. For the layout, chapters follow one another and there aren’t page breaks.
Compared to the amount of pages, illustrations don’t occupy much space in the book. They appear more regularly at the beginning of the book. Moreover, they mostly represent geometrical forms and the few illustrations in the “libro secondo” depict more in detail the columns. There are two kinds of illustrations that appear once in the work: an architectural plan and the human body, which enables the author to describe the “simmetria humana” in the very last chapter of the book.
The images always cover an entire page and they are all framed with a black outline. They are sometimes annotated with numbers or letters which are referred to in the text. Despite the small number of images, they are of a great importance for the book as they support the explanatory texts and help the reader to understand the subject.
Referring to the table of contents, which is classified in alphabetical order in the beginning of the book, the whole organization of the book and the small quantity of illustrations in comparison to the amount of text, might suggest that this work was used as a handbook for architects. Even if the illustrations aren’t very technical, these work might has been used for academic study or as a reference.