This book is not the one I set out to write. After finishing a dissertation about Villa Madama, Raphael's paradigmatic Roman villa for the Medici popes, and in the course of writing a monograph, my analysis of proleptic poetry about the villa began expanding and leading me in new directions. The resulting book is only partly about the villa itself; it became a prismatic topic reflecting several aspects of Italian Renaissance culture, especially the nature of invention in architectural design, and shifting tensions in the relation of word and image. The resulting book focuses on the collaboration of architects and humanists in the design of architecture. The coming-into-being of Villa Madama is the case study that anchors the book, although its implications are broader. Thus, this multidisciplinary work operates at the intersection of several topics: Raphael as architect, villa culture, literary studies, and the history of humanism.

Although even students of the Renaissance might question the need for another book on Raphael, in fact studies of Raphael as architect have been quiet in the last thirty years, following the intense focus on the subject during the series of international exhibitions, conferences, and publications held in 1983–4 celebrating the quincentenary of Raphael's birth. The centerpiece of these projects was the Raffaello architetto exhibition in Rome's Palazzo dei Conservatori, the eponymous catalogue of which remains the only modern monograph on Raphael's architecture. Caroline Elam assessed the state of Raphael scholarship following those events, noting:

Her call has certainly been answered in subsequent studies, as detailed herein. This book extends the roster of collaborators to include humanists, and their role in the design of architecture. It thereby opens a new view of architectural invention, in word and image, in Renaissance Rome.