ABSTRACT
Renaissance urbanism was the product of the overlaying of many influences of which one can readily identifies three significant strands: the development of linear perspective, desire to describe the ideal, and interpretation of antiquity. The political rivalries which underscored this period of great change would appear not to have impeded the development of coherent Renaissance aesthetic values. Perception in perspective consists of two elements which alternate as the prime focus of the construction. In addition the identification of renaissance rulers through claimed descent from, or emulation of, ancient heroes suggested both the scale of operation and the classical dress in which new urban commissions were imagined. Above all the piazza epitomises how the cultured renaissance ruler was to be presented to his people, in control of the city state through the authority of his image or name and represented by his architectural works. Antiquity was seen as providing the model both for architectural languages and the successful society.
