SERLIO, Sebastiano

(1475-1554)

   Born in Bologna, Sebastiano Serlio worked in Rome for the architect Baldassare Peruzzi until the city was sacked in 1527 by the army of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. He then relocated in Venice, where he began writing a series of influential treatises on architecture. The first published volume, called Regole generali d'architettura, was printed in 1537 and was meant to be the fourth volume of a series of seven books on architecture. A total of five books were ultimately published, with a sixth book just recently identified and published along with the original series. In the first two books, Serlio provided information on geometry and perspective, while Book 3 comprises an overview of Ancient Roman architecture. Book 4 is focused on the adaptation of classical rules to more modern architectural elements not found in Ancient Rome, such as fireplaces. Book 5 provides a discussion of the classical column orders, and here Serlio added the Tuscan order, a fusion of the Doric and Ionic, to the canon first established by Vitruvius and elaborated upon by Leon Battista Alberti. Serlio then illustrates 12 temple designs using these orders. What is innovative about Serlio's architectural treatise is the way in which he was able to combine tradition and invention, or invenzione, which allowed for greater flexibility in the use of the classical architectural vocabulary. This more varied use of classicism is consistent with Serlio's training in Mannerism.

   These books attracted the attention of King François I, and in 1540 Serlio, together with several other Italian Renaissance and Mannerist artists, was invited to the royal court at Fontainebleau. There they introduced Italian Mannerism to France and helped to reinvigorate French Renaissance artistic culture. At Fontainebleau, Serlio oversaw the construction and decoration of the château; while in France he received several other commissions for country palace designs. His greatest contribution, however, was the dissemination of his treatise to architects such as Andrea Palladio, who illustrated his I quattro libri dell'architettura, published in 1570, with the same lavish detail as Serlio, and across Europe, where architects did not necessarily have access to Roman models and therefore could not always study classicism firsthand. The high-quality images therefore served as important models for instruction across northern Europe and inspired subsequent architects such as Christopher Wren in the establishment of classicism in English Baroque architecture.