Readers of Architecture, Design and Society in the Early Modern Period will be reminded that the study of Renaissance architecture has often played a prominent role in shaping contemporary architectural practice and pedagogy. This relationship forms a thread connecting the essays collected in this curious and somewhat problematic volume. Published with parallel English and Spanish versions of each article, many of the translations from Spanish into English are awkward, to say the least. Two of the most substantive articles were previously published. Despite its shortcomings, however, this volume may yet represent a pathway for broadening and thus deepening the study of Renaissance architecture by reengaging it with contemporary design theory and practice. Its editor, Guido Cimadomo, and several of its contributors are practicing architects as well as academics, teaching in schools of architecture in Spain. Three of the authors are architectural historians in a more conventional sense. The book concludes with illustrations of design projects by students in an architectural history class at the University of Málaga, directed by Cimadomo.

In many ways this book is a throwback to an earlier generation of publications. From the mid-twentieth-century writings of Colin Rowe, Manfredo Tafuri, and even Robert Venturi, it is clear that the postmodern critique of the modern movement in architecture was motivated, in part, by a renewed interest in the study of Italian Renaissance architecture. The effects of this confluence of history, theory, criticism, and practice can be seen in the proliferation of new degree programs in schools of architecture and of journals and edited volumes that brought together architectural history, theory, criticism, and pedagogy, especially in the 1980s. Although the critical and theoretical perspectives of this trend continued to reshape the discipline of architectural history in subsequent years, interest in the Renaissance has waned in schools of architecture. Cimadomo's collection of essays resurrects both the 1980s-era attempt to make history relevant for the design studio and its focus on Renaissance architecture as a seminal resource. Although some of the essays replay well-trodden scholarship, others align with more recent trends expanding the field of early modern studies in architecture in its subject matter, geography, and methodology.

The subjects treated in the book's seven essays are familiar ones, including the role of mathematics and geometry in architectural practice and theory, the concept of architectural space, and the significance of the central plan. Although questions about the nature of architectural design are considered by multiple authors, very little is said about society, as one might have expected from the book's title. Amanda Wunder's lead essay “Remnants of the Past in the Construction of Imperial Seville” explores the distinctive and somewhat contradictory ways that humanist scholars and craftsmen employed historical sources and practices to construct a civic image for that early modern city. Giulia Ceriani Sebregondi examines varied uses of arithmetic in the analytical drawings of Baldassarre Peruzzi, Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, and Michelangelo, revealing new insights into the development of the profession. Elizabeth Merrill, likewise, addresses the rise of the professional architect as she considers the role of copy drawing as it relates to the development of the illustrated treatise.

Hampered by an inadequate English translation and overly ambitious scope, José María Cabeza Lainez's essay on mathematics, geometry, and light in Baroque architecture is intriguing for its cross-cultural connections, especially in the author's reconstruction of the eighteenth-century Jesuit cathedral of Nantang in Beijing. In the book's final essay, Rodrigo Almonacid reconsiders the place of Renaissance and Baroque architectural history in the “Genealogy of the Modern Movement” by rehearsing the contributions of Sigfried Giedion, Rudolf Wittkower, and Colin Rowe. Although much has been written about the work and influence of these historians on the theory and practice of architecture, Almonacid offers a few fresh insights. More importantly, he and the other authors in this collection offer hope that yet more research and reflection can be given to understanding the role played by historians of early modern architecture in the shaping of both the modern movement and its postmodern critique. Today's historians might notice that this influence has not been unidirectional: the study of early modern architecture itself has been shaped by modernist presuppositions.