This classic work presents a survey of Italian Renaissance architecture in the Cinquecento. It discusses the work of Bramante, Giulio Romano, Michelangelo, and Palladio, among others, as well as the various centers of architectural activity throughout Italy. This book was first published in 1974 as part two of a volume entitled Architecture in Italy, 1400-1600. Part one, by Ludwig Heydenreich, is being reissued as a separate volume. Lotz`s text is now accompanied by a critical introduction and updated bibliography by Deborah Howard, who assesses Lotz`s standing as an architectural historian and surveys the developments in the discipline and the new material published since the first edition.

Wolfgang Lotz was director of the Bibliotheca Hertziana at the Max-Planck Institut in Rome. Deborah Howard is a fellow of St John`s College Cambridge and librarian of the Faculty of Architecture and History of Art, University of Cambridge.