Vitruvius

Vitruvius (active c. 90-20 bc), Roman architect and engineer, whose treatise, De Architectura, has been valued as a treatise of Classical architecture from the Renaissance onward. De Architectura, in ten books, is the oldest surviving work on the subject; it consists of dissertations on a wide variety of subjects relating to architecture, engineering, sanitation, practical hydraulics, acoustics, and the like. Much material appears to have been taken from earlier treatises by Greek architects, which have not survived.

Vitruvius was probably born in Formiae (now Formie), Italy, and is said to have served as a soldier under Gaius Julius Caesar before turning to the study of architecture. De Architectura was written during the reign of Augustus (and dedicated to him), by which time Vitruvius had acquired a modest reputation as a practising architect.

For Vitruvius, the essential qualities in any building were utilitas, firmitas, and venustas—generally translated as “utility, firmness, and delight”. Building was, for Vitruvius, a rational activity founded in the immutable laws of nature. Man should build in harmony with nature: the specific qualities of sites could not be detached from the issues of design. Architecture, Vitruvius suggested, could be codified and provided with a set of rules. The essential components of architecture were the Classical orders: Vitruvius identified four (Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan) and ascribed to each one a hierarchical position and an appropriateness of its own. Vitruvius also identified the principal types of building—temple and basilica, for example—and set out a theory of “decorum”, which laid down the necessary characteristics of each. He also enumerated the talents, both practical and theoretical, that an architect should possess and stressed the importance of drawing.

Although the writings of Vitruvius were known during the Middle Ages, it was the rediscovery by the humanist Poggio Braciolini of a superior text of De Architectura in the monastic library of St Gall, Switzerland, that rekindled interest in his work. Vitruvius’s theories of ideal form, derived from Plato and comparing architectural perfection to the perfection of the human form, were highly influential during the Renaissance. The first printed edition of his works appeared between 1486 and 1492, and the first illustrated edition in 1511. By 1520 the text had been translated into Italian and translations subsequently appeared in all the major European languages. The first authoritative English edition appeared in 1715 and was widely used in Britain and America. Vitruvius was an inspiration to Alberti, Serlio, and Palladio, all of whom tried to move beyond the obscure, sometimes quasi-mystical depths of his prose to provide a comprehensible rationale for Classical building. However, the very obscurity of Vitruvius made him a potent quarry for architectural theorists over the centuries. At the same time, Vitruvius was equally a sourcebook for practitioners. Inigo Jones looked to him for the Tuscan order, as used on the church of St Paul, Covent Garden, in London. Vitruvius continues to inspire a large number of architects who see themselves as working within the Classical tradition.