ABSTRACT
Sir Henry Wotton drew for Elements of Architecture on contemporary and earlier works in an extensive architectural library, formed when he was English ambassador to the Venetian Republic during the early years of the 17th century. He was two years old when Palladio’s Quattro Libri del’ Architettura was published, a book that he owned with the 1556 Barbaro translation of Vitruvius, and an almost contemporary treatise by Philbert de l’Orme, one of the first books to discuss a key issue in quality-how a client may distinguish between a wise and a foolish architect.
