De architectūra (Latin: "On architecture") was a treatise on architecture written by the Roman architect Vitruvius and dedicated to his patron, the emperor Caesar Augustus. Latin is the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Architecture (in Greek αρχή = first and τέχνη = craftsmanship) is the art and science of designing buildings and structures. ... Ancient Rome was a civilization that existed in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East between 753 BC and its downfall in AD 476. ... Architect at his drawing board, 1893 An architect is a person involved in the art of planning, designing and overseeing the construction of buildings, or more generally, the designer of a scheme or plan. ... Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman writer, architect and engineer, active in the 1st century BC. He was the author of De Architectura, known today as The Ten Books of Architecture, a treatise in Latin on architecture, and perhaps the first work about this discipline. ... Bust of Augustus Caesar Imperator Caesar Augustus (Latin: IMP·CAESAR·DIVI·F·AVGVSTVS)¹ (23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), known earlier in his life as Gaius Octavius. ...

De architectūra 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: Centuries: 2nd century BC - 1st century BC - 1st century Decades: 70s BC 60s BC 50s BC 40s BC 30s BC - 20s BC - 10s BC 0s 10s 20s 30s Years: 32 BC 31 BC 30 BC 29 BC 28 BC 27 BC 26 BC 25 BC 24 BC 23 BC 22... Centuries: 2nd century BC - 1st century BC - 1st century Decades: 70s BC 60s BC 50s BC 40s BC 30s BC - 20s BC - 10s BC 0s 10s 20s 30s Years: 28 BC 27 BC 26 BC 25 BC 24 BC 23 BC 22 BC 21 BC 20 BC 19 BC 18...

1. Town planning, architecture in general, and the qualifications required of an architect
2. Building materials
3. Temples and the orders of architecture;
4. continuation of book 3
5. Civil buildings
6. Domestic buildings
7. Pavements and decorative plasterwork
8. Water supplies
9. Sciences influencing architecture - geometry, mensuration, astronomy etc.
10. Use and construction of machines

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 architectūra. He covers a wide variety of subjects which he saw as touching on architecture. This included many aspects which would seem non-obvious to mdern 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. The numbers and architecture of Roman temples reflect the citys receptivity to all the religions of the world. ... A refined canonic version of the Orders engraved for the Encyclopédie, vol. ...

Vitruvius thus deals with many theoretical issues concerning architecture. For instance, in Book 2 of De architectūra, 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 Terentius Varro for architecture. A weathered brick wall. ... Geometry (from the Greek words Ge = earth and metro = measure) is the branch of mathematics first introduced by Thales (circa 624-547 BC) dealing with spatial relationships. ... Statue of a philosopher, presumely Plato, in Delphi. ... Surveying is concerned with the application of mathematics and physics in obtaining accurate measurements for the determination of the position of points on the Earths surface. ... Mathematics is the study of quantity, structure, space and change. ... An astrological chart (or horoscope) - Y2K Chart — This particular chart is calculated for January 1, 2000 at 12:01:00 A.M. Eastern Standard Time in New York City, New York, USA. (Longitude: 074W0023 - Latitude: 40N4251) Astrology (from Greek: αστρολογία = άστρον, astron, star + λόγος, logos, word) is any... Astronomy is one of the few sciences where amateurs can still play an active role, especially in the discovery and monitoring of transient phenomena. ... Wall sundial Wall sundial in Warsaws Old Town A sundial measures time by the position of the sun. ... Ctesibius (working 285 - 222 BC) of Alexandria was second only to Archimedes as an inventor and mathematician. ... Archimedes (Greek: ΑΡΧΙΜΗΔΗΣ, Arkhimêas) ((287 BCE – 212 BCE) was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, physicist and engineer born in the Greek seaport colony of Syracuse. ... Aristoxenus of Tarentum (4th century BC) was a Greek peripatetic philosopher, and writer on music and rhythm. ... Aristotle (sculpture) Aristotle (Greek: Αριστοτέλης Aristotelēs) (384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher. ... Wikibooks Wikiversity has more about this subject: School of Music Look up Music in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Wikicities has a wiki about Music: Music Music City : a collaborative music database All Music Guide: includes a comprehensive and flexible Genre and Style system MusicWiki: A Collaborative Music-related encyclopedia Science... Agatharchus was an Athenian painter of the 5th century BC. He is said by Vitruvius to have been the first to paint a scene for the acting of tragedies. ... Theatre is that branch of the performing arts concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinations of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound and spectacle — indeed any one or more elements of the other performing arts. ... Varro was a Roman cognomen carried by: Caius Terentius Varro, the consul Marcus Terentius Varro (known as Varro Reatinus), the scholar Publius Terentius Varro (known as Varro Atacinus), the poet This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

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 architectūra 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) (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Vitruvius/1*.html#3.2): but English has changed since then, especially in regard to the word "commodity", and the tag is usually misunderstood. An artist is someone who employs creative talent to produce works of art. ... Sir Henry Wotton (1568 - December, 1639) was an English author and diplomat. ... Events January 24 - Alfonso Mendez, appointed by Pope Gregory XV as Prelate of Ethiopia, arrives at Massawa from Goa. ...

Vitruvian Man: Leonardo da Vinci

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"). Download high resolution version (894x1250, 147 KB)Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci. ... Download high resolution version (894x1250, 147 KB)Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci. ... Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian Renaissance architect, musician, anatomist, inventor, engineer, sculptor, geometer, and painter. ...

Vitruvius ranges so widely that De architectūra 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 architectūra. Ancient Greece is the term used to describe the Greek-speaking world in ancient times. ... In physics, buoyancy is an upward force on an object immersed in a fluid (i. ...

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. A Scriptorium was a room or building, usually within a Christian monastery where, during medieval times, manuscripts were written. ... A Frankish king, like Charlemagne, (center) depicted in the Sacramentary of Charles the Bald (about 870) Charlemagne (c. ... ( 8th century - 9th century - 10th century - other centuries) Events Beowulf might have been written down in this century, though it could also have been in the 8th century Reign of Charlemagne, and concurrent (and controversially labeled) Carolingian Renaissance in western Europe Viking attacks on Europe begin Oseberg ship burial The... A manuscript (Latin manu scriptus, written by hand), strictly speaking, is any written document that is put down by hand, in contrast to being printed or reproduced some other way. ... The Carolingian Renaissance refers to the often-rejected but just as frequently resuscitated idea that a flowering of literature, the arts, architecture, jurisprudence, liturgical and scriptural studies occurred during and shortly after the reign of Charlemagne, that this flowering was consciously nurtured by the court, and that this flowering was... British Library main building, London The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the worlds largest research libraries, holding over 150 million items and adding some 3 million every year. ...

Copies of De architectūra 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 Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... Events Council of Constance begins. ... Location within Italy Giglio di Firenze - symbol of the city Florence (Italian, Firenze) is a city in the center of Tuscany, in central Italy at 43°46′ N 11°15′ E. The city on the Arno River has a population of around 400,000, plus a suburban population in excess... Humanism is a system of thought that defines a socio-political doctrine (-ism) whose bounds exceed those of locally developed cultures, to include all of humanity and all issues common to human beings. ... This article or section should be merged with Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini Gianfrancesco (or Giovanni Francesco) Poggio Bracciolini (February 11, 1380 - October 10, 1459) was one of the most important Italian Renaissance humanists. ... The view on the city from the nearby hills. ... By Region: Italian Renaissance Northern Renaissance -French Renaissance -German Renaissance -English Renaissance The Renaissance was an influential cultural movement which brought about a period of scientific revolution and artistic transformation, at the dawn of modern European history. ...

The first printed edition was published by Fra Giovanni Sulpitius in 1486. Fra Giovanni Giocondo produced an illustrated version in 1511 and translations into Italian were in circulation by the 1520s. 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. Events Tízoc, Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan dies of poisoning. ... Fra Giovanni Giocondo (c. ... Events Diego Velázquez and Hernán Cortés conquer Cuba; Velázquez appointed Governor. ... Events January 18 - King Christian II of Denmark and Norway defeats the Swedes at Lake Asunde. ... Events June 19 - Battle of Landriano - A French army in Italy under Marshal St. ... 1771 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... 1791 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Events February 13 - Massacre of Glencoe March 1 - The Salem witch trials begin in Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony with the charging of three women with witchcraft. ...

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. 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. The rediscovery of Vitruvius' work had a profound influence on architects of the Renaissance, prompting the rise of the Neo-Classical style. Inigo Jones, by Sir Anthony van Dyck Inigo Jones (July 15, 1573 - June 21, 1652) is regarded as the first significant English architect. ... What is science? There are different theories of what science is. ... (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ... Illustration from a 1736 English edition of I Quattro Libri dellArchitettura. ... By Region: Italian Renaissance Northern Renaissance -French Renaissance -German Renaissance -English Renaissance The Renaissance was an influential cultural movement which brought about a period of scientific revolution and artistic transformation, at the dawn of modern European history. ... Neoclassicism (sometimes rendered as Neo-Classicism or Neo-classicism) is the name given to quite distinct movements in the visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture. ...

External links

• The "Ten Books of Architecture" online: cross-linked Latin text and English translation (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Vitruvius/home.html)
• Latin text, version 2 (http://www.fh-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lsante01/Vitruvius/vit_ar01.html)en:De architectura