Everything about Vitruvius totally explained
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (born c. 80–70 BC, died after c. 15 BC) was a
Roman writer,
architect and
engineer (possibly
praefectus fabrum during military service or
praefect architectus armamentarius of the
apparitor status group), active in the
1st century BC. By his own description Vitruvius served as a Ballista (artilleryman), the third class of arms in the military offices. He likely served as chief of the ballista (senior officer of artillery) in charge of doctores ballistarum (artillery experts) and libratores who actually operated the machines.
Biography
Little is known about Vitruvius' life. His first name
Marcus and his
cognomen Pollio are uncertain. Cetius Faventinus speaks of "Vitruvius Polio aliique auctores" in his epitome; it's possible that the cognomen derives from this mention by Cetius, meaning Vitruvius, Polio, and others. Most inferences about his life are extracted from his only surviving work
De Architectura, though he's mentioned by
Pliny the Elder and
Frontinus.
Born a free Roman citizen, by his own account Vitruvius served the
Roman army alongside
Marcus Antonius,
Publius Minidius, and
Gnaeus Cornelius, under
Julius Caesar. Service likely included
Hispania,
Gaul,
Aquitaine, and
Pontus, due to descriptions of these
foreign tribes building construction methods. As an
army engineer he specialized in the construction of
ballista and
scorpio artillery war machines for
sieges. In Hispania during
Caesar's civil war the
Siege of Massilia 49BC involved many
siege tactics. Although Vitruvius mentions Massilia several times and the siege in Book X, like all other place descriptions given throughout De Architectura, he doesn't say he was present. In Gaul the decisive
Battle of Alesia 52 BC, the
Battle of Gergovia 52 BC, the siege of
Avaricum 52 BC, and the siege of
Uxellodunum 51 BC, all centered around sieges of large Gallic cities. During this same time period a Roman military officer
Mamurra also served as
praefectus fabrum in
Hispania,
Gaul and
Pontus under Julius Caesar. Vitruvius has the recurrent theme of politics outweighing skill throughout the ten books of
De Architectura, possibly in reference to Mamurra. In later years the emperor
Augustus, through his sister
Octavia Minor, sponsored Vitruvius, entitling him with a
pension to guarantee financial independence.
Mainly known for his writings, Vitruvius was himself an architect, in Roman times a title including the modern fields of
architecture,
construction management,
construction engineering,
chemical engineering,
civil engineering,
materials engineering,
mechanical engineering,
military engineering and
urban planning.
Frontinus mentions him in connection with the standard sizes of
pipes. The only building, however, that we know Vitruvius to have worked on is, as he himself tells us, a
basilica completed in 19 BC, today know as "Basilica di Fano", at Fanum Fortunae, now the modern town of
Fano. The early Christian practice of converting Roman basilica (public buildings) into cathedrals implies the basilica may be incorporated into the
cathedral located in Fano. The basilica has disappeared so completely that its very site is a matter of conjecture.
The date of his death is unknown.
De Architectura
Vitruvius is the author of
De architectura, known today as
The Ten Books on Architecture, a treatise written of
Latin and
Greek on
architecture, dedicated to the emperor Augustus. This work is the only surviving major book on architecture from classical antiquity.
Vitruvius is famous for asserting in his book
De architectura that a structure must exhibit the three qualities of
firmitas, utilitas, venustas — that is, it must be strong or durable, useful, and beautiful. 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 ancient Greek invented the architectural orders:
Doric,
Ionic and
Corinthian. 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 magnificently by
Leonardo da Vinci: the human body inscribed in the circle and the square (the fundamental geometric patterns of the cosmic order).
Vitruvius is sometimes loosely referred to as the first architect, but it's more accurate to describe him as 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. It should also be noted that Vitruvius had a much wider scope than modern architects.
Roman architects practised a wide variety of disciplines; in modern terms, they could be described as being
engineers, architects,
landscape architects,
artists, and
craftsmen combined. Etymologically the word architect derives from Greek words meaning 'master' and 'builder'. The first of the Ten Books deals with many subjects which now come within the scope of
landscape architecture.
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
water mills at
Barbegal in
France.
Machines
The work is important for its descriptions of the many different machines used for engineering structures such as
hoists,
cranes and
pulleys, as well as war machines such as
catapaults and
ballistae, and
siege engines. 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.
Aqueducts
His description of
aqueduct construction includes the way they're surveyed, and the careful choice of materials needed, although
Frontinus writing a century later gives much more detail of the practical problems involved in their construction and maintenance. He was writing in the first 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. His book would have been of great assistance to
Frontinus, a general who was appointed in the late first century AD to administer the many aqueducts of
Rome. He discovered a discrepancy between the intake and supply of water caused by illegal pipes inserted into the channels to divert the water.
Materials
He describes many different
construction materials used for a wide variety of different structures, as well as such details as
stucco painting.
Cement and
lime receive in-depth descriptions, the longevity of many Roman structures being mute testimony to their skill in building materials and design.
It is worth noting that Vitruvius advises that
lead shouldn't be used to conduct drinking water, recommending clay pipes or masonry channels. He comes to this conclusion in Book VIII of De Architectura after empirical observation of the apparent
laborer illnesses in the
plumbum foundries of his time. In 1986 the United States banned the use of lead in plumbing due to
lead poisoning's neurological damage.
Vitruvius gives us the famous story about
Archimedes and his detection of adulterated
gold in a royal crown. When Archimedes realised that the volume of the crown could be measured exactly by the displacement created in a bath of water, he ran into the street with the cry of
Eureka!, and the discovery enabled him to compare the density of the crown with pure gold. He showed that the crown had been alloyed with silver, and the king defrauded.
Dewatering machines
He describes the construction of
Archimedes' screw in Chapter X, although doesn't mention Archimedes by name. It was a device widely used for raising water to irrigate fields and dewater mines. Other lifting machines he mentions include the endless chain of buckets and the
reverse overshot water-wheel, a spectacular example of a sequence of such wheels being shown above. Remains of the water wheels used for lifting water have been discovered in old mines such as those at
Rio Tinto in
Spain and
Dolaucothi in west
Wales. The former now is shown in the
British Museum, and the latter in the
National Museum of Wales. The remains were discovered when these mines were re-opened in modern mining attempts.
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, a device using
plumb lines. They were essential in all building operations, but especially in aqueduct construction, where a uniform gradient was important to provision of a regular supply of water without damage to the walls of the channel.
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
public baths and
villas. 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 doesn't suggest it himself, it's likely that his dewatering devices such as the
reverse overshot water-wheel was used in the larger baths to lift water to header tanks at the top of the larger
thermae, such as the
Baths of Diocletian and the
Baths of Caracalla.
Rediscovery
His book
De architectura was rediscovered in 1414 by the Florentine humanist
Poggio Bracciolini. To
Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) falls the honour of making this work widely known in his seminal treatise on architecture
De re aedificatoria (ca. 1450). The first known edition of Vitruvius was in Rome by Fra Giovanni Sulpitius in 1486. Translations followed in Italian (Como, 1521), French (Jean Martin, 1547, English, German (Walter H. Ryff, 1543) and Spanish and several other languages. The original illustrations had been lost. New woodcut illustrations, based on descriptions in the text, were added in the 16th century, probably by
Fra Giovanni Giocondo in Venice in 1511.
The surviving ruins of Roman antiquity, the
Roman Forum, temples, theatres, triumphal arches and their reliefs and statues gave ample visual examples of the descriptions in the Vitruvian text. This book then quickly became a major inspiration for
Renaissance,
Baroque and
Neoclassical architecture.
Brunelleschi, for example, invented a new type of
hoist to lift the large stones for the dome of the cathedral in
Florence and was prompted by De Architectura as well as viewing the many surviving Roman monuments like the
Pantheon (Rome) and the
Baths of Diocletian in
Rome.
Lists of names given in Book VII Introduction
In book seven's introduction Vitruvius goes through great lengths to present his credentials for writing
De Architectura. Similar in concept to a modern day reference section, the author's position as one who is knowledgeable and educated is established. The topics listed range across many fields of expertise reflecting that in Roman times as today construction is a diverse field. It is apparent that many ancient
lost works and their authors are known only because they're referred to by other authors whose works have survived. Vitruvius makes the further point that the work of some of the most talented is unknown, while many who are of lesser talent but greater political position are famous. This theme runs through Vitruvius’s ten books repeatedly and here in the introduction to Chapter 7, he illustrates this by naming (in addition to some very well known names), some of the most talented individuals in history, known only because their name appears in book seven's introduction:
List of philosophers Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Epicurus
List of kings Croesus, Alexander the Great, Darius
On plagiarism Aristophanes, Ptolemy I Soter, Attalus
On abusing dead authors Zoilus (Homeromastix), Ptolemy I Soter, Philadelphus
On divergence of the visual rays Agatharchus, Aeschylus, Democritus, Anaxagoras
List of writers on temples Silenus, Theodorus, Chersiphron and Metagenes, Ictinus and Carpion, Theodorus the Phocian, Hermogenes, Arcesius, Satyrus and Pytheos
List of Artists Leochares, Bryaxis, Scopas, Praxiteles, Timotheus (Timotheos)
List of writers on laws of symmetry Nexaris, Theocydes, Demophilus, Pollis, Leonidas, Silanion, Melampus, Sarnacus, Euphranor
List of writers on machinery Diades of Pella, Archytas, Archimedes, Ctesibius, Nymphodorus, Philo of Byzantium, Diphilus, Democles, Charias, Polyidus of Thessaly, Pyrrus, Agesistratus, Abdaraxus
List of writers on architecture Fuficius, Terentius Varro, Publius Septimius
List of architects Antistates, Callaeschrus, Antimachides, Pormus, Cossutius
List of greatest temple architects Chersiphron of Gnosus, Metagenes, Demetrius, Paeonius the Milesian, Ephesian Daphnis, Ictinus, (Philo) Philon, Cossutius, Gaius Mucius
Trivia
A small lunar crater has been named after Vitruvius and also an elongated lunar mountain Mons Vitruvius close-by. This crater was near the valley that served as the landing site of the Apollo 17 mission.
Further Information
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