Architettura con diversi ornamenti cavati dell’antico by Giovanni Battista is a book dominated by diagrams of ornaments of the five orders of the Antiquity. The organisation, which is described closely later on in this text, indicates that this book was used as a reference for fellow architects, as a treatise, describing the five orders, as it was common during the 16th and 17th century.
The illustrations are very neat drawings of the typical elements of the five orders . Some of them explaining aswell the proportions. Since the book is containing more Illustrations rather then text, it is easier to tell how the text is organised, not the images. The images are sometimes full-page images, sometimes rather a few small drawings gathered than a whole Illustration and the text is organised around these images. Often there is only a small paragraph with text, sometimes underlining the Illustration, sometimes embeded nicely within the Illustration/Illustrations, which covers most of the page. This kind of text is a form of description and explanation to the Illustrations. On the first pages of the book however, there are longer paragraphs written, which shorten as the Illustrations become more and more important. These texts are, in the first place, introductions to the book in general and explanations of the proportions of the columns.
Rarely headings can be found, often the page is initiated and dominated with the Illustration. They can be found however, when a new order is being treated. Then, said order is written unobtrusive on top of the page. Twice, Giovanni Battista Montano uses a listing in form of a column, to describe the different parts of a column. The rest of the time, when the text isn’t embeded in the illustration, text is organized in sections under or above the Illustration.
The 41 Illustrations are numbered, unfortunately not all of them are preserved.
Therefore one could say that it is a matter of an explanatory copy, in which Giovanni Battista Montano passes on architectural knowledge about the five orders.