In the search of books related to the “Manière de bastir pour touttes sortes de personnes” of the French architect Pierre Le Muet I tried initially to use as search inputs the name of the book and the author. These two keywords didn’t bring to many results. Therefore, I tried to find something related to the content of the book.
Since the book presents different building typologies, I searched for books regarding this topic. At first, I searched in the “Architecture Library” and in the “Alberti and Vitruvius Library” but didn’t find many relevant books.
I then adopted the “brain” of Xenotheka Library and one of the books I found was “Elements of architecture” by the Durch architect Rem Koolhaas. In his book he analyses different architectural elements, going from facades to windows, from balconies to stairs, and many other building details. The book provides many examples and is, like Le Muet’s book, a sort of manual to give people building examples and a better understanding of architecture.
Since the book I was assigned can be considered a sort of manual for people interested in architecture, I searched in the engine the keywords “architecture manual”. The second book on the list was “Eighteen Century Architecture” edited by Caroline Van Eck and Sigrid de Jong. The book describes the development of architecture in the period when La Muet was operating as an architect and a writer of architectural essays and books. According to the analysis conducted in the book, in the XIIX Century architectural handbooks, following the example of Vignola’s “Regola dei cinque ordini di architettura”, were spreading all over Europe and expanding the general knowledge on architecture. This fact matches what we know from Le Muet, who as a matter of fact did the same thing by writing a reference book on different building types that were common in his period for those interested or working in fields related to architecture.