Rudolf Wittkower (22 June 1901 – 11 October 1971) was a British art historian specializing in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture, who spent much of his career in London, but was educated in Germany, and later moved to the United States.

[3] Rudolf Wittkower moved to London in 1933 with his wife Margot Holzmann because they were both Jewish and were fleeing Nazi Germany.

[1] This introduced an in depth analysis of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio and his relation to sixteenth century music theory.

Part Four specifically deals with how and why Palladio adapted harmonic musical ratios and incorporated them into the physical proportions of his buildings.

Although this theory of Palladian proportions was universally accepted after the book's release, recent works in art history have made it the subject of much controversy.