The facade is the face of the building, and church facades of the Italian Renaissance incorporated elements such as entablatures, arches and columns and capped off with a pediment, which divided the facade. Facades of houses and other public structures were built with centrally located doors and were divided into repetitive sections that contained pilasters of different orders. Rows of arched windows are also commonly seen on domestic facades.
Renaissance architecture is based on the classical book by Vetruvius, "Ten Books on Architecture," which advocated symmetry. Order and symmetry during the Italian Renaissance resulted in many buildings that are balanced and congruent.
Arches are another feature adopted from ancient Roman ruins. Italian Renaissance architects used them in arcades and supported them with piers or columns with capitals. The previous Gothic period also made use of arches, but they had a pointed apex. Italian Renaissance architects used rounded tops.
Huge, spherical, convex structures crowned many large buildings during the Italian Renaissance. The dome especially became elemental to churches of the Italian Renaissance.
Columns are support structures consisting of a base, shaft and capital, depending on the order. Columns of the ancient Roman order including Doric, Tuscan and Ionic were used during the Italian Renaissance. However, Romans used the columns for both functional and aesthetic reasons. Italian Renaissance architects strove to use columns for functionality and integrated them with pilasters and entablatures for this reason to increase utility.