De architectura (
Latin: "On architecture") is a treatise on
architecture written by the
Roman architect Vitruvius and dedicated to his patron, the emperor
Caesar Augustus.
In summary
Probably written between
27 and
23 BC, it is the only contemporary source on classical architecture to have survived. Divided into ten sections or "books", it covers almost every aspect of Roman architecture. The books break down as follows:
- Town planning, architecture or Civil engineering in general, and the qualifications required of an architect or more modernly the civil engineer
- Building materials
- Temples and the orders of architecture;
- continuation of book 3
- Civil buildings
- Domestic buildings
- Pavements and decorative plasterwork
- Water supplies
- Sciences influencing architecture - geometry, mensuration, astronomy, sundial
- Use and construction of machines - Roman siege engines, Roman technology, hoisting, pneumatics
Roman architects were significantly different from their modern counterparts, acting as engineers, architects, artists, and craftsmen combined. Vitruvius was very much of this type, a fact reflected in
De architectura. He covers a wide variety of subjects which he saw as touching on architecture. This included many aspects which would seem non-obvious to modern eyes, ranging from mathematics to astronomy, to meteorology and medicine. In the Roman conception, architecture needed to take into account everything touching on the physical and intellectual life of man and his surroundings.
Vitruvius thus deals with many theoretical issues concerning architecture. For instance, in Book 2 of
De architectura, he advises architects working with
bricks to familiarise themselves with pre-Socratic theories of matter so as to understand how their materials will behave. Book 9 relates the abstract
geometry of
Plato to the everyday work of the
surveyor, while the
mathematics.
Astrology is cited for its insights into the organisation of human life, while
astronomy is required for the understanding of
sundials. Similarly, Vitruvius cites
Ctesibius of Alexandria and
Archimedes for their inventions,
Aristoxenus (
Aristotle's apprentice) for
music,
Agatharchus for
theatre, and
Varro for architecture.
He sought to address the ethos of architecture, declaring that quality depends on the social relevance of the
artist's work, not on the form or workmanship of the work itself. Perhaps the most famous declaration from
De architectura is one still quoted by architects: "Well building hath three conditions: firmness, commodity, and delight." This quote is taken from Sir
Henry Wotton's version of
1624, and is a plain and accurate translation of the passage in Vitruvius
(I.iii.2): but English has changed since then, especially in regard to the word "commodity", and the tag is usually misunderstood.
Vitruvius also studied human proportions (Book 3) and his
canones were later encoded in a very famous drawing by
Leonardo da Vinci (
Homo Vitruvianus, "
Vitruvian Man").
Vitruvius ranges so widely that
De architectura is almost a primer on classical science. Indeed, much detail of early classical science (especially that of
ancient Greece) is known only from Vitruvius. The famous story of Archimedes discovering the law of
buoyancy in his bathtub comes from Book 9 of
De architectura.
Book V Chapter IV paraphases the writings of
Aristoxenus on
music.
Survival and rediscovery
Vitruvius' work is one of many examples of Latin texts that owe their survival to the palace
scriptorium of
Charlemagne in the early
9th century. (This activity of finding and recopying classical
manuscripts is part of what is called the
Carolingian Renaissance.) Many of the surviving manuscripts of Vitruvius' work derive from an existing manuscript that was written there,
British Library manuscript Harley 2767. These texts were not just copied but also were known at the court of Charlemagne, since his historian, the bishop Einhard, asked for explanations of some technical terms at the visiting English churchman Alcuin.
Fifty-five copies of
De architectura did exist in manuscript form during the
Middle Ages but appear to have received little attention. Vitrivius' work was "rediscovered" in
1414 by the
Florentine humanist Poggio Bracciolini, who found it in the Abbey of
St Gallen,
Switzerland. He publicised the manuscript to a receptive audience of
Renaissance thinkers, just as interest in the classical cultural and scientific heritage was reviving.
The first printed edition, an
incunabula version, was published by the
Veronese scholar Fra Giovanni Sulpitius in
1486. The
Dominican friar Fra Giovanni Giocondo produced the first version illustrated with
woodcuts in
Venice in
1511. It had a thorough philosophical approach and superb illustrations. Translations into
Italian were in circulation by the
1520s, such as the translation by
Cesare Cesariano in
Como in 1521. It was rapidly translated into other European languages – the first
German version was published in
1528 – though, curiously, English-speakers had to wait until
1771 for a full translation of the first five volumes and
1791 for the whole thing. Sir
Henry Wotton's 1624 version,
The Elements of Architecture, was more of a free adaptation than a literal translation, while a
1692 translation was much abbreviated.
Impact
The rediscovery of Vitruvius' work had a profound influence on architects of the
Renaissance, prompting the rise of the
Neo-Classical style. Renaissance architects, such as
Niccoli,
Brunelleschi and
Leon Battista Alberti, found in "De Architectura" their rationale for raising their branch of knowledge to a scientific discipline instead of an artisanal discipline.
The English architect
Inigo Jones and the Frenchman
Salomon De Caus were among the first to re-evaluate and implement those disciplines that Vitruvius considered a necessary element of architecture: arts and
sciences based upon number and
proportion (architecture). The
16th century architect
Palladio considered Vitrivius his master and guide, and made some drawings based on Vitruvius' work before conceiving his own architectural precepts.
Reference works
Translated in 1914 as "Ten Books on Architecture" by Morris H. Morgan, Ph.D, LL.D. Late Professor of Classical Philology in
Harvard University. The full text of this translation is available from the
Project Gutenberg, see external links
- B. Baldwin: The Date, Identity, and Career of Vitruvius. In: Latomus 49 (1990), 425-34
- D. Rowland - T.N. Howe: Vitruvius. Ten Books on Architecture. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1999, ISBN 0-521-00292-3
External links
Latin}}}
Official status
Official language of: Vatican City
Used for official purposes, but not spoken in everyday speech
Regulated by: Opus Fundatum Latinitas
Roman Catholic Church
Language codes
ISO 639-1: la
ISO 639-2: lat
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Architecture is the art and science of designing buildings and structures. A wider definition often includes the design of the total built environment: from the macrolevel of town planning, urban design, and landscape architecture to the microlevel of construction details and,
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Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula circa the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea.
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An architect is a person who is involved in the planning, designing and oversight of a building's construction. The word "architect" (Latin: architectus) derives from the Greek arkhitekton (arkhi (chief) + tekton (builder))")[1]
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Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (born ca. 80/70 BC?; died ca. 25 BC) was a Roman writer, architect and engineer (possibly praefectus fabrum or architectus armamentarius of the apparitor status group), active in the 1st century BC.
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Augustus Caesar
Emperor of the Roman Empire
Reign January 16 27 BC – August 19 AD 14
Full name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus
Born September 23, 63 BC
Rome, Roman Republic
Died August 19, AD 14 (age 76)
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1st century BC - 1st century
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30 BC 29 BC 28 BC - 27 BC - 26 BC 25 BC 24 BC
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1st century BC - 1st century
50s BC 40s BC 30s BC - 20s BC - 10s BC 0s BC 0s
26 BC 25 BC 24 BC - 23 BC - 22 BC 21 BC 20 BC
Politics
State leaders - Sovereign states
Birth and death categories
-
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Urban, city, or town planning is the discipline of land use planning which explores several aspects of the built and social environments of municipalities and communities.
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Architecture is the art and science of designing buildings and structures. A wider definition often includes the design of the total built environment: from the macrolevel of town planning, urban design, and landscape architecture to the microlevel of construction details and,
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Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design and construction of the physical and natural built environment, including works such as bridges, roads, canals, dams and buildings.
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An architect is a person who is involved in the planning, designing and oversight of a building's construction. The word "architect" (Latin: architectus) derives from the Greek arkhitekton (arkhi (chief) + tekton (builder))")[1]
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A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering, one of the many engineering professions. Originally a civil engineer worked on public works projects and was contrasted with the military engineer, who worked on armaments and defenses.
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Building material is any material which is used for a construction purpose. Just about every type of available material has been used at one time or another for creating various human and animal homes, structures, and technologies.
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The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter.
Please help [ improve the introduction] to meet Wikipedia's layout standards.
..... Click the link for more information. classical order is one of the ancient styles of building design in the Classical tradition, distinguished by their proportions and their characteristic profiles and details, but most quickly recognizable by the type of column and capital employed.
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Architecture of Ancient Rome adopted the external language of classical Greek architecture for their own purposes, which were so different from Greek buildings as to create a new architectural style. The two styles are often considered one body of classical architecture.
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- For general context, see villa.
A
Roman villa is a villa that was built or lived in during the Roman Empire. The Empire contained many kinds of villas.
..... Click the link for more information. A pavement in architecture is a stone or tile structure which can serve as a floor or an external feature. Pavements can be made of flagstones which are used for things like paving gardens, tiles also there were mosaics which were commonly used by the Romans.
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plaster used in spray fireproofing in a low-rise industrial building in Vancouver, British Columbia.]]
Plaster of Paris, or simply plaster, is a type of building material based on calcium sulfate hemihydrate, nominally CaSO4·0.5H2O.
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aqueducts (Latin aquaeductūs, sing. aquaeductus) to supply water to cities and industrial sites. These aqueducts were among the greatest engineering feats of the ancient world, and set a standard not equaled for over a thousand years after the fall of Rome.
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Geometry (Greek γεωμετρία; geo = earth, metria = measure) is a part of mathematics concerned with questions of size, shape, and relative position of figures and with properties of space. Geometry is one of the oldest sciences.
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Measurement is the estimation of the magnitude of some attribute of an object, such as its length or weight, relative to a unit of measuremnt. Measurement usually involves using a measuring instrument, such as a ruler or scale, which is calibrated to compare the object to some
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Astronomy is the scientific study of celestial objects (such as stars, planets, comets, and galaxies) and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere (such as the cosmic background radiation).
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sundial is a device that measures time by the position of the Sun. The most commonly seen designs, such as the 'ordinary' or standard garden sundial, cast a shadow on a flat surface marked with the hours of the day.
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machine (derived from the latin machina) is any device that transmits or modifies . In common usage, the meaning is restricted to devices having rigid moving parts that perform or assist in performing some work.
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Roman siege engines were, for the most part, adapted from Hellenistic siege technology. Relatively little was done on their part to develop the technology, however the Romans brought an unrelentingly aggressive style to siege warfare (Goldsworthy 2000: 144).
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Rome technology is a set of artifacts and customs which supported Roman civilization and made the expansion of Roman commerce and Roman military possible over nearly a thousand years.
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crane is a mechanical lifting device equipped with a winder, wire ropes and sheaves that can be used both to lift and lower materials and to move them horizontally. It uses one or more simple machines to create mechanical advantage and thus move loads beyond the normal capability
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Pneumatics is the use of pressurized air to effect mechanical motion. Pneumatics is employed in a variety of settings. In dentistry applications, pneumatic drills are lighter, faster, and simpler than an electric drill of the same power rating (because the prime mover, the compressor, is
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