Title: Sebastiano Serlio -- On domestic architecture
Description: A sixteenth-century Italian architect and theoretician, Sebastiano Serlio was influential in canonizing the classical orders of architecture as the author of seven books on architecture, collectively known as Tutte l'opere d'architettura.  The sixth book in the series, On Domestic Architecture, wasn't published in Serlio's lifetime but survived in manuscript form and was acquired by Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library in 1924.  Significant not only for its rarity, the sixth book is arguably the most impactful as it defines the first typology of Western domestic architecture. Serlio's designs accommodate every strata of society from the poor, to the emerging bourgeoisie, to a palace for the King.  His scheme for housing conceives a model for a new urban form -- the modern city based on an economic social construct.  The digital files presented here comprise recto, verso and selected watermarks representing 73 original plates, and provide an exceptional opportunity to view this rare manuscript in great detail. The broader Digital Serlio Project provides online access to not only  the unpublished masterwork but new research on topics as diverse as the materiality of the manuscript's paper and the creation of national typologies of domestic architecture in the form of essays contributed by a cohort of international scholars and students.  Avery's significant holdings of the published editions of Serlio's  complete works have also been newly digitized, and the entire corpus is accessible from the Project page.
Subjects: Domestic Architecture, Early works to 1800, Architecture