The relation of the architect to architecture is elusive, since documentation can be scarce and the cult of the individual architect as a hero has allowed less well-recorded individuals to disappear from the narrative. The collaborative nature of building throughout history has been lost to historians. The paper considers the problems of attribution and the efforts of historians to discover architects, as well as those of architects to rewrite history to their advantage. We cannot take for granted the architect as he or she moves through history.