§ 1 The Author’s Object in the Discussion of Architecture
How great is the utility of Architecture it does not fall to me to tell, since the subject has been treated at length and most carefully by many writers. For this reason, leaving on one side the limes, sands, wood, iron armatures, mode of preparing the foundations, as well as everything else that is used in a building; disregarding also the questions of water and localities and sites, already enlarged on by Vitruvius3 and by our own Leon Battista Alberti,4 I shall only discuss, for the use of our artificers and for whoever likes to know, the essential qualities of buildings, and in what proportions they should be put together and of what parts composed in order to obtain that graceful beauty that is desired. In short, I shall collect all that seems to me necessary for the purpose in view.