Published in conjunction with a major exhibition at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, this volume of essays presents civil and religious masterworks by the paragons of the Italian Renaissance, Brunelleschi, Alberti, Michelangelo and Bramante. The contributors consider architecture, architectural modelling and urban planning in late medieval and Renaissance Italy, reaching as far back as ancient Rome to uncover the roots of this great tradition. The works are analyzed from the viewpoints both of humanistic Renaissance theories and of modern critical appraisals. The essays cover French and German Renaissance architecture, as well as stage designs, and consider architecture relationship with other arts. Numerous designs, projects and manuscripts, some as yet unpublished, are reproduced and described.