Excerpt from Andrea Palladio: The Architect in His Time Preface Andrea Palladio is arguably the most influential architect the Western world has ever produced. That statement can be made more confidently now than at any time in the past fifty years, for the decline of the modern movement in architecture has led to a renewed interest in the classical style and the works of Palladio. Although he lived a life of relative obscurity Palladio never lacked for admirers and followers, nor have his buildings been neglected by scholars. From the eighteenth century, books and articles have been written about him, and in our time the stream of publications has turned into a flood. Moreover, the "Palladio industry" has created a formidable bibliography, which can seem inaccessible to all but the initiated. There are, of course, any number of books dealing with Palladio''s architecture, but they tend to focus on his villas and individual buildings or treat his oeuvre in catalog form. The only recent book conceived as an accessible survey of Palladio''s achievement is James Ackerman''s 1966 study, which remains unrivaled as a concise introduction to Palladio. But strangely there has been no other book offering a more detailed account of the subject or taking into account the developments in scholarship of the last quarter century.

This book was conceived to fill that gap. My own experience of lecturing on Palladio in London and at the Palladio Center in Vicenza has shown that there is a great general interest in Palladio''s architecture not addressed by the specialist literature of recent years. My intention has been to provide a synthesis of Palladio''s career--his achievements as architect and theoretician seen against the backdrop of his times, his patrons, and the architectural practice of the Renaissance. An important aim of the book was to give a more rounded picture of Palladio''s buildings, and a generous complement of illustrations was essential to this purpose. Abbeville Press gave me the possibility of commissioning more than one hundred new images, and the gifted photographer Paolo Marton ably translated this intention into fact. Together we have traversed the Veneto and Venice, studying buildings and establishing the best photographs to convey specific points in the text. Marton has given of his time and energies beyond the call of duty, and I am grateful to him for advice and support in the planning of this book. The result, I think, is a more integrated work on Palladio than would otherwise have been the case.

In scholarly terms my debts are nearly as long as the Palladian bibliography. In the first place I must acknowledge the advice and encouragement of the three men who are the leaders in this field: James S. Ackerman, Howard Burns, and Renato Cevese. My interest in Palladio was first stimulated by Ackerman''s Palladio, and my admiration for his book grew during the preparation of my own. My attraction to Italian Renaissance architecture was subsequently confirmed by study under Howard Burns at The Courtauld Institute of Art and later by collaborating with him and Linda Fairbairn on the Palladio exhibition held at the Hayward Gallery in London in 1975. Many of the ideas and the general approach to him in this book stem from that fruitful period of research in 1974 and 1975, and it would be difficult to acknowledge the extent of my debt to Burns. As for Renato Cevese, I first came to know him during the Palladio Summer School in Vicenza in 1973 and had the privilege of teaching with him at the Summer Schools in 1987 and 1988. His encyclopedic knowledge of Vicenza and the Vicentino are recorded in his magisterial catalog of the Vicentine villas and his guide to Vicenza.

Work on this book was begun during my time in Vicenza in 1987 and 1988. The actual writing began during a period as a Humboldt Fellow at the Kunsthistorisches Institut of the University of Bonn in 1989, where I have the advantage of discussing my work with Gunter Schweikhart and Andreas Beyer. A subsequent stay in Berlin enabled me to discuss Palladio''s architecture with Wolfgang Wolters. In London my friends Paul Davies and David Hemsoll shared their knowledge of Michele Sanmicheli and Veneto architecture, and they were always willing to listen to my ideas and criticize them. Roland Mainstone kindly read the chapter on Palladio''s bridges and made invaluable comments on its content. In Italy and elsewhere the number of people who helped me in the preparation of this book is legion, but I should like especially to thank: M. Elisa Avagnina, Alessandro Bettagno, Ursel Berger, Donatella Calabi, Tancredi Carunchio, Giorgio Ferrari, Linda Fairbairn, Sabina Ferrari, Antonio Foscari, Caterina Furlan, Filippa M. Aliberti Gaudioso, Amanda Lillie, Franca Lugato, Paola Marini, Paolo Morachiello, Stefania Mason Rinaldi, Maria Vittoria Pellizzari, John Pinto, and Elwin Robison.

Mark Magowan and Constance Herndon of Abbeville Press provided editorial advice on the book at every stage as did Gabriele Pantucci and Leslie Gardner. A special acknowledgment must go to Abigail Asher, for seeing the manuscript through the press, and to Jowl Aviron, for the flair he brought to its design. The positive reception of the first edition of this book led to frequent requests for a paperback version, more compact and available at a price within a student''s budget. Fortunately, it proved possible to create that version on a second printing, with corrections and amendments to the original text, notes, and bibliography that I am grateful to Abbeville Press for allowing me to introduce. As the book now enters its second edition, the bibliography has been expanded still further to include new works, reflecting the most significant contributions to Palladian scholarship since 1998. I often think of and Inigo Jones''s journey through Italy and 1613-14, when he traveled with a score of weighty architectural tomes. Few of us today would contemplate doing that, but at least the current user friendly version of Andrea Palladio: The Architect in His Time should fit comfortably in a suitcase or backpack for a trip to Vicenza. 2008 sees the five hundredth anniversary of the birth of Andrea Palladio, and I am happy that we can reprint this book to mark the occasion.

Bruce Boucher.