Andrea Palladio

The sixteenth-century Italian architect Andrea Palladio, one of the great masters of Renaissance culture, has had an enduring influence on American architecture. 

His theories were introduced to America in the mid 18th century at such pioneering monuments as Drayton Hall in South Carolina and Mount Airy in Virginia. 

Later, architects including Peter Harrison, William Buckland, John Trumbull, and Thomas Jefferson began to incorporate into their buildings forms and motifs inspired by Palladio's great opus, Four Books on Architecture.