Non-Profit Orientation. The authors have produced the Students' Guide to Italian Renaissance Architecture at their own expense. They wanted to see what could be accomplished if profit was not the goal and a deadline did not limit the scope and the development of explanatory graphics. This ebook is freely available for personal and educational use. Commercial use or the production of derivative products are prohibited.

Origin of the Project. The project originated with classroom efforts to improve student understanding and stimulate interest in architecture by creating pictorial explanations. Using an ebook format made it possible to create a complete cultural context by providing links to explanatory text and graphics. The result combines qualities of both a chronological survey and a series of reference books.

Authors. The Students’ Guide to Italian Renaissance Architecture was produced over the past two decades through a collaboration between an art historian, Margaret Herke, and a computer programmer, John Herke, who are married to each other. Margaret completed an M.A. from Florida State University's College of Visual Arts, Theater and Dance and course work for a Ph.D. with an Art History core in FSU's Interrelated Humanities program. She taught art history and humanities in the Residential College program at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro and the North Carolina University of the Arts in Winston-Salem.

Production. The ebook was initially produced by John Herke using Microsoft's Multimedia Viewer authoring software. Conversion to XHTML, a universal platform, and administration of the website were performed by Tom Armstrong, Senior Consultant of TECH Genesis Co., Inc., using EC-Software's Help and Manual authoring program, along with other editing tools. Current maintenance and additional features will be accomplished using Help and Manual.

Credits. The authors are especially grateful to Dr. Karen Lloyd and Dr. Lisa Tice for assistance in correcting errors and editing. Lisa also contributed many photographs of architectural monuments, and Karen also wrote much of the material on women as patrons. Thanks also to Dr. Kandice Rawlings, who edited part of the Reference section. Special thanks are due Dr. Constance Moffatt for contributing photographs taken of the Vigevano piazza, providing student feedback, and noting errors. Special thanks are also due Dr. Nicholas Adams for suggestions about content and a completion strategy and for permission to use many of his photographs of Italian fortifications. Thanks are due to Dr. Simon Pepper for permission to use many drawings of fortifications that he prepared. The authors also wish to thank Dr. Maia Gahtan for taking many of the photographs, reading early versions, and supplying preliminary notes for several of the Reference sections. We wish to thank the members of the CAA and the SAH who responded to our ads offering CD discs of the program when we were attempting to achieve a peer review to determine whether to convert the software to a universal platform. The authors also wish to thank our friends and family members who contributed pictures to the project. We also wish to thank Peggy Armstrong for advice on text formatting. Thanks are also due to Statler Gilfillen for introducing us to the world of Online book acquisition, which enabled us to expand our original file of public-domain images scanned from books owned by local university libraries.

Illustrations. Pictures have been selected from (1) digitized images purchased from Corel Corporation and Planet Art, (2) photographs taken by the authors, their agents, and others who traveled in Italy, and (3) illustrations in the public domain that have been scanned by the authors from folios and books purchased by them or borrowed from university libraries. Because many of the photographs belong to picture suppliers, the pictures may not be used for any purpose. ©2014, Margaret and John Herke, High Rock Interactive, LLC

 ©2012, Margaret and John Herke