Andrea Palladio: The Architect in His Time

Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) is known as the architect who has guided Western design philosophy for half a millennium, creating forms that have been studied and reproduced from age to age and around the world. For architects and the public alike, his buildings have become enduring testaments to his architectural genius as creator of a timeless classicism. When Abbeville Press first published Andrea Palladio in 1994, it was selected by Choice Magazine as "Outstanding Academic Book 1994," while The World of Interiors called it "undoubtedly one of the most important architectural books to be published for some time." Now Abbeville is pleased to release the revised concise edition of this essential resource.

Featuring a newly updated bibliography, this handsome volume spans the entire career of Palladio, illuminating his work in the context of his historical era and his own extraordinary life. It invites us to view Palladio's masterpieces through the lens of Paolo Marton, moving across the thresholds of myriad villas, churches, and public edifices to illustrate the elegant proportions, crisp lines, and integrated geometries that are the hallmarks of Palladio's vision. From the immortal Villa Rotonda to the Venetian churches of the Redentore and San Giorgio Maggiore, from the city halls to the bridges, each masterpiece is described using plans, maps, and contemporary drawings and etchings along with brilliant photography.

Combining modern scholarship with intriguing narrative, Palladio will educate and enlighten, helping readers understand the passion, joy, and beauty of one of the world's most fascinating ages of architecture.

Bruce Boucher, an architectural historian and museum curator, who has divided his career between education, scholarship and museum administration, became the director of the University of Virginia Art Museum on March 1, 2009. He was formerly the curator of European sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago, a position he held since 2002.

Boucher is the author of numerous books, among them Andrea Palladio: The Architect in His Time, and he lectures widely on Palladio as well as Italian artists such as Donatello, Tintoretto and others, with a focus on the artists working in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. He was chief curator of the exhibition, Earth and Fire: Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova, which was shown at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2001-2002. He also co-authored the exhibition catalog.

Boucher earned his B.A., magna cum laude in Classics and English from Harvard University and a B.A., M.A., in English Language and Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. Before entering Oxford, he traveled to Italy and fell in love with the art and architecture. This event led him to change his course of research. After Oxford he went on to earn a M.A. with distinction at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, and then a Ph.D. there with a thesis on the Venetian sculpture of the architect Jacopo Sansovino.

Boucher serves on numerous professional organizations and advisory committees. He has received various honors, including a fellowship at the prestigious Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies at the Villa I Tatti, the Alexander von Humbolt Fellowship, and the Salimbeni Prize for his monograph, The Sculpture of Jacopo Sansovino. He also was a guest scholar at the J. Paul Getty Museum and served as guest curator on the research department of the Victoria and Albert Museum from 2000 to 2002.

Paolo Marton, from Treviso, was for many years at the helm of the homonymous historical library of Treviso. His entry into the world of photography could happen thanks to his own profession as a bookseller, when a couple of publishers of Ivrea, who were specialized in photographic volumes, gave him the job, along with a friend, to do a volume on Veneto. Since then, it was 1977, Marton started his career as a professional photographer, producing books, first self-financed, then produced on board, a publisher of international importance. "Rome, Mirror of the Centuries" (1983) was the first of these books, which represented definitely a great success that made Paolo Marton appreciated also abroad.

Since then followed even more important and challenging works, dedicated to the great architectural cycles and art-town, as a "Civilization of the Venetian Villas", the most known of all, followed by the "Venetian Palaces", "Verona", "Florence", and "Canova, sculptor, painter and architect in Possagno" (Citadel 1995) and many more, all published many times. Marton made complex photographic research on behalf of direct foreign publishers for European countries, publishing many books, including the monumental "Castles of Germany" (Monaco 1995) and the "Palladio architect and his times" (New York 1994) and "Palladio" Taschen, recently republished.

Marca Nobilissima (Treviso 1995), reprinted more times is one of the last works of the photographer and is a remake of one of the first subject (among the more beloved) of his books, best seller for many year and still published.