Palladio and Vitruvius: composition, style, and vocabulary of the "Quattro libri".

After a short preamble on the history of the text of Vitruvius during the Renaissance and Palladio's encounter with it, this paper assesses the Vitruvian legacy in Palladio's treatise, in focusing more particularly on its composition, style, and vocabulary and leaving other aspects of this Vitruvianism, such as his architectural theory and the five canonical orders, for consideration in subsequent publications. The discussion on composition concerns Palladio's probable plans to complete ten books, as an explicit reference to Vitruvius' treatise. As regards style, the article highlights Palladio's intention to produce an illustrated treatise like those of Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Sebastiano Serlio, and Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola (whereas the treatise of Vitruvius was probably almost unillustrated), and Palladio's Vitruvian stress on brevity. Palladio is shown to have preferred vernacular technical terminology to the Vitruvian Greco-Latn vocabulary, except in Book IV of the "Quattro libri" in connection with ancient Roman temples. The composition, style, and vocabulary of the "Quattro libri" are important issues which contribute to an assessment of the extent of Palladio's adherence to the Vitruvian prototype in an age of imitation of classical literary models.