Leonardo Benevolo
The Architecture of the Renaissance.
London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978. Translation by Judith Landy of "Storia dell'Architettura del Rinascimento" (Giuseppe Laterza & Figli, 1973), from the second, revised Italian edition. 0710080360 viii/1077 pages.
Two-volume edition. Each volume, measuring approximately 8" x 10", is bound in black cloth, with stamped gilt lettering to spine. Books and dust jackets are in fine condition. Text appears in double columns. This edition includes bibliographical references and index. Profusely illustrated.
"This extensively illustrated study opens with an account of the movement's founders: Brunelleschi, arbiter of Florence's building problems, and Alberti, who supplied the new architecture with a suitable theoretical foundation. The editor considers the general effect of the new artistic culture on the changes that took place first in fifteenth-century Italian cities and then throughout Europe. The relationship between the development of architecture and that of other related fields, especially the great advances in painting and sculpture, receives special attention. Also considered are the effects of the beginnings of modern science and the general economic and social changes of the age. This study takes the reader to the point where the history of modern architecture begins".