Vitruvius ( ; ; –70 BC – after ) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work titled De architectura.[Kruft, Hanno-Walter. A History of Architectural Theory from Vitruvius to the Present (New York, Princeton Architectural Press: 1994).] It is not clear to what extent his contemporaries regarded his book as original or important.
He states that all buildings should have three attributes: firmitas, utilitas, and venustas ("strength", "utility", and "beauty"),
Little is known about Vitruvius' life, but by his own description[De Arch. Book 1, preface. section 2.] he served as an artilleryman, the third class of arms in the Roman military offices. He probably served as a senior officer of artillery in charge of doctores ballistarum (artillery experts) and libratores who actually operated the machines.[Yann Le Bohec, "The Imperial Roman Army", Routledge, p. 49, 2000, .] As an army engineer he specialized in the construction of ballista and scorpio artillery war machines for . It is possible that Vitruvius served with Julius Caesar's chief engineer Lucius Cornelius Balbus.
Vitruvius' De architectura was well-known and widely copied in the Middle Ages and survives in many dozens of manuscripts,
Life and career
Little is known about Vitruvius' life. Most inferences about him are extracted from his only surviving work
De Architectura. His full name is sometimes given as "Marcus Vitruvius Pollio", but both the first and last names are uncertain.
[John Oksanish, Vitruvian Man: Rome under Construction, Oxford UP (2019), p. 33] Marcus Cetius Faventinus writes of "Vitruvius Polio aliique auctores"; this can be read as "Vitruvius Polio, and others" or, less likely, as "Vitruvius, Polio, and others". An inscription in Verona, which names a
Lucius Vitruvius Cordo, and an inscription from
Numidia in North Africa, which names a
Marcus Vitruvius Mamurra have been suggested as evidence that Vitruvius and
Mamurra (who was a military
praefectus fabrum under
Julius Caesar) were from the same family;
[Pais, E. Ricerche sulla storia e sul diritto publico di Roma (Rome, 1916).] or were even the same individual. Neither association, however, is borne out by De Architectura (which Vitruvius dedicated to
Augustus), nor by the little that is known of Mamurra.
Vitruvius was a military engineer ( praefectus fabrum), or a praefect architectus armamentarius of the apparitor status group (a branch of the Roman civil service). He is mentioned in Pliny the Elder's table of contents for Naturalis Historia (Natural History), in the heading for mosaic techniques.
Likely born a free Roman citizen, by his own account Vitruvius served in the Roman army under Caesar with the otherwise poorly identified Marcus Aurelius, Publius Minidius, and Gnaeus Cornelius. These names vary depending on the edition of De architectura. Publius Minidius is also written as Publius Numidicus and Publius Numidius, speculated as the same Publius Numisius inscribed on the Roman Theatre at Heraclea.[Niccolò Marcello Venuti Description of the First Discoveries of the Ancient City of Heraclea, Found Near Portici A Country Palace Belonging to the King of the Two Sicilies published by R. Baldwin, translated by Wickes Skurray, 1750. p62 [2]]
As an army engineer he specialized in the construction of ballista and scorpio artillery war machines for . It is speculated that Vitruvius served with Caesar's chief engineer Lucius Cornelius Balbus.
The locations where he served can be reconstructed from, for example, descriptions of the building methods of various "foreign tribes". Although he describes places throughout De Architectura, he does not say he was present. His service likely included Africa Province, Hispania, Gaul (including Gallia Aquitania), and Pontus.
To place the role of Vitruvius the military engineer in context, a description of "The Prefect of the camp" or army engineer is quoted here as given by Flavius Vegetius Renatus in The Military Institutions of the Romans:
At various locations described by Vitruvius,
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The siege and massacre of the 40,000 residents at Avaricum in 52 BC. Vercingetorix commented that "the Romans did not conquer by valour nor in the field, but by a kind of art and skill in assault, with which they Gauls themselves were unacquainted."
[Julius Caesar, De bello Gallico 7.29 ]
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The broken siege at Gergovia in 52 BC.
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The circumvallation and Battle of Alesia in 52 BC. The women and children of the encircled city were evicted to conserve food, and then starved to death between the opposing walls of the defenders and besiegers.
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The siege of Uxellodunum in 51 BC.
These are all sieges of large Gallic
oppida. Of the sites involved in Caesar's civil war, we find the Siege of Massilia in 49 BC (modern France),
[Vitruvius mentions Massilia several times, and the siege itself in Book X.] the Battle of Dyrrhachium of 48 BC (modern Albania), the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC (Hellas – Greece), the Battle of Zela of 47 BC (modern Turkey), and the Battle of Thapsus in 46 BC in Caesar's
Africa Province campaign.
A
Roman legion that fits the same sequence of locations is the Legio VI Ferrata, of which
ballista would be an auxiliary unit.
Mainly known for his writings, Vitruvius was himself an architect. In Roman times architecture was a broader subject than at present including the modern fields of architecture, construction management, construction engineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering, materials engineering, mechanical engineering, military engineering and urban planning;[ The "Vitruvius Project". Carnegie Mellon University, Computer Science Department. Retrieved 2008.] architectural engineers consider him the first of their discipline, a specialization previously known as technical architecture.
In his work describing the construction of military installations, he also commented on the miasma theory – the idea that unhealthy air from wetlands was the cause of illness, saying:
Frontinus mentions Vitruvius in connection with the standard sizes of pipes:[ De Aquis, I.25 ebook of work also known as De aquaeductu, accessed August 2008] probably the role for which he was most widely respected in Roman times. He is often credited as father of architectural acoustics for describing the technique of placement in theaters.[ De Arch., Book V.i.6) but with link to English translation, accessed August 2008] a basilica completed in 19 BC.[Fausto Pugnaloni and Paolo Clini. "Vitruvius Basilica in Fano, Italy, journey through the virtual space of the reconstructed memory". GISdevelopment.net last accessed 3 August 2008] It was built at Fanum Fortunae, now the modern town of Fano. The Basilica di Fano (to give the building its Italian name) has disappeared so completely that its very site is a matter of conjecture, although various attempts have been made to visualise it.
In later years the emperor Augustus, through his sister Octavia Minor, sponsored Vitruvius, entitling him with what may have been a pension to guarantee financial independence.
Whether De architectura was written by one author or is a compilation completed by subsequent librarians and copyists, remains an open question. The date of his death is unknown, which suggests that he had enjoyed only a little popularity during his lifetime.
Gerolamo Cardano, in his 1552 book De subtilitate rerum, ranks Vitruvius as one of the 12 persons whom he supposes to have excelled all men in the force of genius and invention; and might have given him first place if it was clear that he had set down his own discoveries.[Charles Hutton (1795), Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary ]
James Anderson's "The Constitutions of the Free-Masons" (1734), reprinted by Benjamin Franklin, describes Vitruvius as "the Father of all true Architects to this Day."
De architectura
Vitruvius is the author of
De architectura, libri decem, known today as
The Ten Books on Architecture,
[Vitruvius, Pollio (transl. Morris Hicky Morgan, 1960), The Ten Books on Architecture. Courier Dover Publications. .] a treatise written in
Latin on architecture, dedicated to the emperor Augustus. In the preface of Book I, Vitruvius dedicates his writings to giving personal knowledge of the quality of buildings to the emperor. Likely Vitruvius is referring to Marcus Agrippa's campaign of public repairs and improvements. This work is the only surviving major book on architecture from classical antiquity. According to Petri Liukkonen, this text "influenced deeply from the Early Renaissance onwards artists, thinkers, and architects, among them Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), and
Michelangelo (1475–1564)."
The next major book on architecture, Alberti's reformulation of
Ten Books, was not written until 1452.
However, we know there was a significant body of writing about architecture in Greek, where "architects habitually wrote books about their work", including two we know of about the Parthenon alone. To A. W. Lawrence, Vitruvius "has recorded a most elaborate set of rules taken from Greek authors, who must have compiled them gradually in the course of the preceding centuries".[Lawrence, A. W., Greek Architecture, p. 169, 1957, Penguin, Pelican history of art]
Vitruvius is famous for asserting in his book De architectura that a structure must exhibit the three qualities of firmitatis, utilitatis, venustatis – that is, stability, utility, and beauty. These are sometimes termed the Vitruvian virtues or the Vitruvian Triad. According to Vitruvius, architecture is an imitation of nature. As birds and bees built their nests, so humans constructed housing from natural materials, that gave them shelter against the elements. When perfecting this art of building, the Greeks invented the architectural orders: Doric order, Ionic order and Corinthian order. It gave them a sense of proportion, culminating in understanding the proportions of the greatest work of art: the human body. This led Vitruvius in defining his Vitruvian Man, as drawn later by Leonardo da Vinci: the human body inscribed in the circle and the square (the fundamental geometric patterns of the cosmic order). In this book series, Vitruvius also wrote about climate in relation to housing architecture and how to choose locations for cities.
Scope
Vitruvius is the first Roman architect to have written surviving records of his field. He himself cites older but less complete works. He was less an original thinker or creative intellect than a codifier of existing architectural practice. Roman architects practised a wide variety of disciplines; in modern terms they would also be described as landscape architects, civil engineers, military engineers, structural engineers, surveyors, artists, and
Artisan combined. Etymologically the word architect derives from Greek words meaning 'master' and 'builder'. The first of the
Ten Books deals with many subjects which are now within the scope of landscape architecture.
In Book I, Chapter 1, titled The Education of the Architect, Vitruvius instructs...
He goes on to say that the architect should be versed in drawing, geometry, optics (lighting), history, philosophy, music, theatre, medicine, and law.
In Book I, Chapter 3 ( The Departments of Architecture), Vitruvius divides architecture into three branches, namely: building; the construction of and water clocks;[Turner, A. J., in Folkrets, M., and Lorch, R., (Editors), "Sic itur ad astra", Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften – Festschrift für den Arabisten Paul Kunitzsch zum 70, Harrassowitz Verlag, 2000, p.563 ff.] and the design and use of machines in construction and warfare.[Long, Pamela O., in Galison, Peter, and Thompson, Emily (Editors), The Architecture of Science, The MIT Press, 1999, p. 81][Borys, Ann Marie, Vincenzo Scamozzi and the Chorography of Early Modern Architecture, Routledge, 2014, pp. 85, 179] He further divides building into public and private. Public building includes city planning, public security structures such as walls, gates and towers; the convenient placing of public facilities such as theatres, forums and markets, baths, roads and pavings; and the construction and position of shrines and temples for religious use.
Proportions of man
In Book III, Chapter 1, Paragraph 3, Vitruvius writes about the proportions of man:
It was upon these writings that Renaissance engineers, architects and artists like Taccola, Pellegrino Prisciani and Francesco di Giorgio Martini and finally Leonardo da Vinci based the illustration of the Vitruvian Man.
Vitruvius described the human figure as being the principal source of proportion.
The drawing itself is often used as an implied symbol of the essential symmetry of the human body, and by extension, of the universe as a whole.
Lists of names given in Book VII Introduction
In the introduction to book seven, Vitruvius goes to great lengths to present why he is qualified to write De Architectura. This is the only location in the work where Vitruvius specifically addresses his personal breadth of knowledge. Similar to a modern reference section, the author's position as one who is knowledgeable and educated is established. The topics range across many fields of expertise reflecting that in Roman times as today construction is a diverse field. Vitruvius is clearly a well-read man.
In addition to providing his qualification, Vitruvius summarizes a recurring theme throughout the 10 books, a non-trivial and core contribution of his treatise beyond simply being a construction book. Vitruvius makes the point that the work of some of the most talented is unknown, while many of those of lesser talent but greater political position are famous.
Vitruvius illustrates this point by naming what he considers the most talented individuals in history.
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List of physicists: Thales, Democritus, Anaxagoras, Xenophanes
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List of philosophers: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Epicurus
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List of kings: Croesus, Alexander the Great, Darius
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On plagiarism: Aristophanes, Ptolemy I Soter, a person named Attalus
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On abusing dead authors: Zoilus, Ptolemy II Philadelphus
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On divergence of the visual rays: Agatharchus, Aeschylus, Democritus, Anaxagoras
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List of writers on temples: Silenus, Theodorus, Chersiphron and Metagenes, Ictinus and Carpion, Theodorus the Phocian, Hermogenes, Arcesius, Satyros and a person named Pytheos
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List of artists: Leochares, Bryaxis, Scopas, Praxiteles, Timotheos
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List of writers on laws of symmetry: Nexaris, Theocydes, a person named Demophilus, Pollis, a person named Leonidas, Silanion, Melampus, Sarnacus, Euphranor
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List of writers on machinery: Diades of Pella, Archytas, Archimedes, Ctesibius, Nymphodorus, Philo of Byzantium, Diphilus, Democles, Charias, Polyidus of Thessaly, Pyrrus, Agesistratus
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List of writers on architecture: Fuficius, Terentius Varro, Publius Septimius (writer)
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List of architects: Antistates, Callaeschrus, Antimachides, Pormus, Cossutius
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List of greatest temple architects: Chersiphron of Gnosus, Metagenes, Demetrius, Paeonius the Milesian, Ephesian Daphnis, Ictinus, Philon, Cossutius, Gaius Mucianus
Rediscovery
Vitruvius'
De architectura was "rediscovered" in 1414 by the Florentine humanist Poggio Bracciolini in the library of Saint Gall Abbey. Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) publicised it in his seminal treatise on architecture, De re aedificatoria (). The first known Latin printed edition was by Fra Giovanni Sulpitius in Rome, 1486.
Translations followed in Italian (
Cesare Cesariano, 1521), French (Jean Martin, 1547
[ Architectura – Les livres d'Architecture ]), English, German (
Walther H. Ryff, 1543) and Spanish and several other languages. The original illustrations had been lost and the first illustrated edition was published in
Venice in 1511 by Fra Giovanni Giocondo, with
woodcut illustrations based on descriptions in the text.
Later in the 16th-century
Andrea Palladio provided illustrations for
Daniele Barbaro's commentary on Vitruvius, published in Italian and Latin versions. The most famous illustration is probably Da Vinci's
Vitruvian Man.
The surviving ruins of Roman antiquity, the Roman Forum, temples, theatres, triumphal arches and their reliefs and statues offered visual examples of the descriptions in the Vitruvian text. Printed and illustrated editions of De Architectura inspired Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical architecture. Filippo Brunelleschi, for example, invented a new type of hoist to lift the large stones for the dome of the cathedral in Florence and was inspired by De Architectura as well as surviving Roman monuments such as the Pantheon and the Baths of Diocletian.
Notable editions
Latin
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1495–1496
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1543
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1800 Augustus Rode, Berlin
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1857 Teubner Edition by Valentin Rose
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1899 Teubner Edition
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1912 Teubner edition at The Latin Library
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Bill Thayer, transcription of the 1912 Teubner Edition
Italian
French
English
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Henry Wotton, 1624
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Joseph Gwilt, 1826
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Bill Thayer transcription of the Gwilt 1826 Edition
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Morris H. Morgan, with illustrations prepared by Herbert Langford Warren, 1914, Harvard University Press
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Frank Granger, Loeb Edition, 1931
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Ingrid Rowland, 2001
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Thomas Gordon Smith, The Monacelli Press (5 January 2004)
Roman technology
Books VIII, IX and X form the basis of much of what we know about Roman technology, now augmented by archaeological studies of extant remains, such as the
at
Barbegal in France. The other major source of information is the Naturalis Historia compiled by Pliny the Elder much later in .
Machines
The work is important for its descriptions of the many different machines used for engineering structures such as hoists, cranes and
, as well as war machines such as
,
ballistae, and
. As a practising engineer, Vitruvius must be speaking from personal experience rather than simply describing the works of others. He also describes the construction of
sundials and
water clocks, and the use of an
aeolipile (the first
steam engine) as an experiment to demonstrate the nature of atmospheric air movements (wind).
Aqueducts
His description of aqueduct construction includes the way they are surveyed, and the careful choice of materials needed, although
Frontinus (a general who was appointed in the late 1st century AD to administer the many aqueducts of Rome), writing a century later, gives much more detail of the practical problems involved in their construction and maintenance. Surely Vitruvius' book would have been of great assistance in this. Vitruvius was writing in the 1st century BC when many of the finest
Roman aqueducts were built, and survive to this day, such as those at
Segovia and the Pont du Gard. The use of the
inverted siphon is described in detail, together with the problems of high pressures developed in the pipe at the base of the siphon, a practical problem with which he seems to be acquainted.
Materials
He describes many different construction materials used for a wide variety of different structures, as well as such details as
stucco painting. Concrete and lime receive in-depth descriptions.
Vitruvius is cited as one of the earliest sources to connect lead mining and manufacture, its use in drinking water pipes, and its adverse effects on health. For this reason, he recommended the use of clay pipes and masonry channels in the provision of piped drinking-water.
Vitruvius is the source for the anecdote that credits Archimedes with the discovery of the mass-to-volume ratio while relaxing in his bath. Having been asked to investigate the suspected adulteration of the gold used to make a crown, Archimedes realised that the crown's volume could be measured exactly by its displacement of water, and ran into the street with the cry of Eureka!
Dewatering machines
He describes the construction of Archimedes' screw in Chapter X (without mentioning Archimedes by name). It was a device widely used for raising water to irrigate fields and drain mines. Other lifting machines he mentions include the endless chain of buckets and the reverse overshot water-wheel. Remains of the water wheels used for lifting water were discovered when old mines were re-opened at Rio Tinto in Spain,
Rosia Montana in Romania and
Dolaucothi in west
Wales. The Rio Tinto wheel is now shown in the
British Museum, and the Dolaucothi specimen in the National Museum of Wales.
Surveying instruments
That he must have been well practised in surveying is shown by his descriptions of surveying instruments, especially the water level or
chorobates, which he compares favourably with the
Groma surveying, a device using
. They were essential in all building operations, but especially in aqueduct construction, where a uniform gradient was important to the provision of a regular supply of water without damage to the walls of the channel. He also developed one of the first
, consisting of a wheel of known circumference that dropped a pebble into a container on every rotation.
Central heating
He describes the many innovations made in building design to improve the living conditions of the inhabitants. Foremost among them is the development of the
hypocaust, a type of
central heating where hot air developed by a fire was channelled under the floor and inside the walls of
and
. He gives explicit instructions how to design such buildings so that
fuel efficiency is maximised, so that for example, the
caldarium is next to the
tepidarium followed by the
frigidarium. He also advises on using a type of regulator to control the heat in the hot rooms, a
bronze disc set into the roof under a circular aperture which could be raised or lowered by a
pulley to adjust the ventilation. Although he does not suggest it himself, it is likely that his dewatering devices such as the reverse overshot water-wheel were used in the larger baths to lift water to header tanks at the top of the larger
thermae, such as the Baths of Diocletian. The one which was used in Bath of Caracalla for grinding flour.
Legacy
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Vitruvian Man – a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci
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Vitruvius Britannicus – 18th century work on British architecture named after Vitruvius.
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Den Danske Vitruvius – 18th century work on Danish architecture – inspired by Vitruvius Britannicus.
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The American Vitruvius – 20th century work on civil architecture by Werner Hegemann
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William Vitruvius Morrison (1794–1838), the son of Irish architect Sir Richard Morrison and himself a noted architect of great houses, bridges, court houses and prisons.
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A small lunar crater has been named after Vitruvius and also an elongated lunar mountain Mons Vitruvius close by.
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The Design Quality Indicator (DQI) tool for buildings uses Vitruvius's principles.
See also
Sources
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Indra Kagis McEwen, Vitruvius: Writing the Body of Architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004.
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B. Baldwin, "The Date, Identity, and Career of Vitruvius". In Latomus 49 (1990), 425–34.
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Kai Brodersen & Christiane Brodersen: Cetius Faventinus. Das römische Eigenheim / De architectura privata, Latin and German. Wiesbaden: Marix 2015,
Further reading
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Clarke, Georgia. 2002. "Vitruvian Paradigms". Papers of the British School at Rome 70:319–346.
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De Angelis, Francesco. 2015. "Greek and Roman Specialized Writing on Art and Architecture". In The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Art and Architecture. Edited by Clemente Marconi, 41–69. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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König, Alice. 2009. "From Architect to Imperator: Vitruvius and his Addressee in the De Architectura". In Authorial Voices in Greco-Roman Technical Writing. Edited by Liba Chaia Taub and Aude Doody, 31–52. Trier, Germany: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.
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Milnor, Kristina L. 2005. "Other Men's Wives". In Gender, Domesticity and the Age of Augustus: Inventing Private Life. By Kristina Milnor, 94–139. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Nichols, Marden Fitzpatrick. 2017".Author and Audience in Vitruvius’ De Architectura". Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Rowland, Ingrid D. 2014. "Vitruvius and His Influence". In A Companion to Roman Architecture. Edited by Roger B. Ulrich and Caroline K. Quenemoen, 412–425. Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell.
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Sear, Frank B. 1990. "Vitruvius and Roman Theater Design". American Journal of Archaeology 94.2: 249–258.
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Smith, Thomas Gordon. 2004. Vitruvius on Architecture. New York: Monacelli Press.
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Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew. 1994. "The Articulation of the House". In Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum. By Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, 38–61. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew. 2008. "Vitruvius: Building Roman Identity". In Rome's Cultural Revolution. By Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, 144–210. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
External links
