If we were to highlight a defining characteristic of the treatise composed by the Paduan Andrea Palladio (1508-1580), universally known for his great religious architectures and, above all, divieles that still embellish the cities of Veneto today, this would undoubtedly be that of his classicist pragmatism. In contrast to the Neoplatonism of the Quattrocento, his Aristotelian desire to adhere to reality led him to prioritize the classical ideal as the supreme reflection of a civil way of life.
In the words of Javier Rivera, historian and theorist and author of numerous studies on Spanish architecture of the Modern Age, in his prologue to this first edition, complete and illustrated, in Spanish after more than four centuries since its appearance (1570): « "Rationality and freedom are the two axes of his thought, and his architectural message through The Four Books is a proclamation of classicism, not as a style, but as a category, which continually emerges through the ages."