had extended as far as North America. Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States, was a keen admirer of Palladio and once referred to the book as "the Bible". The Four Books was used to inform his own work as the architect of Monticello and the University of Virginia and also architect William Buckland's at the 1774 Hammond-Harwood House in Annapolis, Maryland. Palladio drew inspiration from surviving Roman buildings, Roman authors (especially the architect Vitruvius) and Italian Renaissance architects. However, The Four Books of Architecture provided systematic rules and plans for buildings which were creative and unique. Palladio's villa style is based on details applied to a structural system built of bricks. He offers two types of general rules in the corpus: design rules (those based on appearance) and construction rules (those based on the logic of villa construction). Here rules of the two types are identified in sets from which subsets of identifiers and rules can be written. Each of the nine rule-sets contains many sub-identities of components and procedures for physical construction. A rule-set such as “Walls”, that identifies five sub-rules based on wall thickness, only needs construction rules; there is no need for rules based on style. In contrast, rules for “Frames” are based on a geometric style of curves and shape proportions. The results will yield clear identities for a shape grammar composition that can be based on physical construction and visual style. Rule-sets These identities are taken from the first book of architecture and a survey of built villas. These are the nine rule-sets that define identity: Walls — parametric formula Ceilings — parametric formula Stairs — parametric formula Columns — parametric object Doors — parametric formula Windows — parametric formula Frames — parametric object Roof — parametric formula Details — parametric object and formula See also Palladian villas of the Veneto De architectura (10 books on architecture) References Sources External links I quattro libri dell'architettura, ne' quali, dopo un breue trattato de' cinque ordini, & di quelli auertimenti, che sono piu necessarii nel fabricare; si tratta delle case private, delle vie, de i ponti, delle piazze, de i xisti, et de' tempij. — downloadable pdf first edition from the Library of Congress I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura — facsimile of the book at rarebookroom.org "Complete bibliography for the 16th and 17th centuries Architectural history Architectural treatises Works by Andrea Palladio