The Villas of Pliny from Antiquity to Posterity

About this book

Pierre de la Ruffinire du Prey traces the influence of Pliny the Younger as a continuous theme throughout the history of architecture. First he looks at what Pliny considered to be the essential qualities of a villa. He then discusses the many buildings Pliny inspired: from the Renaissance estates of the Medici to papal summer residences near Rome to Thomas Jeffersons Monticello and the home of former Canadian prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Equally important to du Preys study are the many designs by architects past and present that remain on paper. These imaginary restitutions of Plinys villas each representative of its own epoch trace in microcosm the evolution of the classical tradition in domestic architecture. In analyzing each project du Prey illuminates the work of such great masters as Michelozzo Raphael Palladio and Schinkel as well as such well-known modern architects as Lon Krier Jean-Pierre Adam and Thomas Gordon Smith.