16 What is Architectural History?
Documentation versus advocacy
De architectura illustrates a way of writing about architec-
ture that mixes documentation and advocacy. By imitating
this ancient example, architectural treatises written from the
3 Sebastiano Serlio, studies of architectural details from the
Pantheon, in Book III ‘On Antiquities’, Tutte l’opere d’architettura
et prospetiva, 2nd edn, 1544.