Sebastiano Serlio

Born Sept. 6, 1475, in Bologna: died 1554 in Fontainebleau. Italian architectural theorist.

During the first stage of his career, from 1511 to 1514, Serlio was a master of perspective painting. He studied architecture under B. Peruzzi in Rome from 1514 to approximately 1527 and also worked in Pesaro and Venice and, beginning in 1541, in France. Serlio wrote a treatise on geometry, perspective, and classical and modern buildings and columns. The work, published serially from 1537 to 1575, became well known throughout Europe. The separate books were brought together in a Venetian edition entitled Architecture (1584). Serlio’s treatise influenced the development of Renaissance and early classical architecture in France, the Netherlands, and Germany.