Review: Becoming an Architect in Renaissance Italy: Art, Science, and the Career of Baldassarre Peruzzi, by Ann C. Huppert

Elusive, enigmatic, and engaging, Baldassarre Peruzzi (1481–1536) was among the most compelling artists of the Italian Renaissance. He was responsible for some of the greatest architectural achievements of the sixteenth century and was a pioneering antiquarian and draftsman. In Rome, he was a close collaborator with Raphael, Donato Bramante, and the Sangallo family architects, and in his native Siena, a skilled fortification architect and a knowledgeable designer of hydraulic works. In recent decades, his prolific graphic output and masterful constructions have rightfully been the subjects of a significant body of scholarship. Yet where much has been written in Italian and German, comparatively little has been published in English....