The Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius

He describes an architecture at the large scale with a coherent place in the landscape down to the particular details of construction. He advised that his readers consult the ancients to determine the best models and his writings assumed his readers had a degree of familiarity with architecture allowing him to dwell on the intricacies of its elaboration and construction. He believed that architecture was a public gesture and that the greatness of the State’s power could be demonstrated with distinguished authority in its public buildings and structures, its greatest achievement being the city.ĭe Architectura was not advocating or inventing a new architecture, but rather the continuance of existing architectural models it was a recording, preserving and perfecting of the models. Vitruvius believed in the importance of architecture as a respectable, professional, subject. Its author, Vitruvius (c.80-70BC-c.15BC), sought to create a reference or theoretical basis for an architecture that could represent the values of Caesar’s republic. The writing dates from the time of Julius Caesar (100BC-44BC) in the first century BC and is a treatise on architecture and related arts. De Architectura in the Worth Libraryĭe Architectura is the only text on Greco-Roman architecture that survives from antiquity.

Angeli Policiani in priora analytica praelectio cui titulus est Lamia (Venice, 1497), Sig. Angeli Policiani opusculum, quod Panepistemon inscribitur. Sexti Iulii Frontini De aquaeductibus liber unus. Vitruuii Pollionis De architectura libri decem. Cleonidæ Harmonicum introductorium interprete Georgio Valla Placentino. Vitruvius Pollio, Hoc in uolumine haec opera continentur. Vitruvius, De Architectura – from his dedication to Augustus, (c.20-10 BC) “I have drawn up clearly defined rules, so that by studying them closely you will be able to judge for yourself the quality of the buildings you have already created and of those to come, for in these books I have laid down all the principles of architecture”

The Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius