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For the benefit of those who might have wished to have a bilingual edition, the plates and text are keyed to the Hoepli facsimile of editio princeps. The new translation, therefore heartily welcome, is admirable in accuracy no less than in kindness words that call for special attention are accompanied by their Italian counterparts, and a thoughtful 40-page glossary is appended. Hard as it may be to believe, the only edition in English until now was a Dover reprint of Isaac Ware's 1738 translation. Through its dissemination Europeans and Americans acquired the principles of classical architecture, and to many far away from the Veneto Palladio was the Palladio of The Four Books.

Thanks to its succinct text and its many clear and accurate illustrations, it appealed to practical builders as well as to their erudite patrons it remained for centuries in wide use and continued admiration. Andrea Palladio's seminal treatise (Venice, 1570) is undoubtedly the most influential book in Western architecture.