ABSTRACT
Guided by a natural inclination, I gave myself up in my most early years to the study of architecture: and as it was always my opinion, that the ancient Romans, as in many other things, so in building well, vastly excelled all those who have been since their time, I proposed to myself Vitruvius for my master and guide, who is the only ancient writer of this art, and set myself to search into the reliques of all the ancient edifices, that, in spite of time and the cruelty of the Barbarians, yet remain; and finding them much more worthy of observation, than at first I had imagined, I began very minutely with the utmost diligence to measure everyone of their parts; of which I grew at last so solicitous an examiner (not finding any thing which was not done with reason and beautiful proportion) that I have very frequently not only travelled in different parts of Italy, but also out of it, that I might entirely, from them, comprehend what the whole had been, and reduce it into design. Whereupon perceiving how much this common use of building was different from the observations I had made upon the laid edifices, and from what I had read in Vitruvius, Leon Battista Alberti, and in other excellent writers who have been since Vitruvius, and from those also which by me have lately been practised with the utmost satisfaction and applause of those who have made use of my works; it seemed to me a thing worthy of a man, who ought not to be born for himself only, but also for the utility of others, to publish the designs of those edifices (in collecting which, I have employed so much time, and exposed myself to so many dangers) and concisely to jot down whatever in them appeared to be more worthy of consideration; and moreover, those rules which I have observed, and now observe, in building; that they who shall read these my books, may be able to make use of
whatever will be good therein, and supply those things in which (as many perhaps there may be) I shall have failed; that one may learn, by little and little, to lay aside the strange abuses, the barbarous inventions, the superfluous expense, and (what is of greater consequence) avoid the various and continual ruins that have been seen in many buildings. [. . .] I shall therefore first treat of private houses, and afterwards of public edifices. [. . .] And in all these books I shall avoid the superfluity of words, and simply give those directions that seem to me most necessary, and shall make use of those terms which at this time are most commonly in use among artificers.
