Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism

"Professor Wittkower's....studies of humanist architecture are masterpieces of scholarship."-Sir Kenneth Clark, Architectural Review. A fourth edition of the forty-year-old classic. Focusing on the principal architects of that time-from Alberti to Palladio-this bestselling classic explains the true significance of certain architectural forms, bringing to light the connections between the architecture and culture of the period. With publication scheduled to coincide with that of Architectonics of Humanism, this important reference is superbly reproduced in a new, large square format. The late RUDOLF WITTKOWER was a college professor and eminent scholar residing in London, England.

Rudolf Wittkower was born in Berlin in 1901. Leaving Germany when the Nazis came to power, he was one of the animators of the Warburg Institute of London. In 1941 he organized, with Fritz Saxl, the exhibition British Art and the Mediterranean, the publication of which (1948) forms an important document of the aims and methods of the Warburg Institute. A great scholar of Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, Wittkower taught at both the University of London and Columbia University. His books, all important works of scholarship, include Die Zeichnungen des Gian Lorenzo Bernini (with H. Bruer, 1931), The Drawings of the Carracci at Windsor Castle (1952), Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the Sculptor of Roman Baroque (1955), Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600–1750 (1958), Born under Saturn (with Margot Wittkower, 1963), and Divine Michelangelo: The Florentine Academy’s Homage on His Death in 1564 (with Margot Wittkower, 1964). In addition, he was a frequent contributor to the Journal of the Warbung and Courtauld Institute, the Art Bulletin, Burlington Magazine and the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, among others.