Vitruvius

Vitruvius was a Roman architect and author of De architectura, the only surviving treatise on architecture from antiquity. His work describes building materials, construction, civic design, and the education of architects.

De architectura: A ten-book Latin treatise on architecture, engineering, and building practice written by Vitruvius. This is Vitruvius’s surviving work and the main source for his architectural ideas.
Firmitas, utilitas, venustas: The Latin triad of firmness, utility, and beauty used to summarize three aims of architecture. Vitruvius presents these qualities as the foundations of a successful building.
Roman Republic: The period of ancient Roman government from the establishment of the republic to the rise of the empire. Vitruvius wrote during the republic’s final decades and addressed its political elite.
Leon Battista Alberti: A Renaissance architect and humanist who wrote the architectural treatise De re aedificatoria. Alberti renewed the tradition of architectural theory modeled on Vitruvius.
Basilica of Fano: A basilica at Fano in Italy that Vitruvius describes as his own design. It is the clearest surviving example of a building Vitruvius claims to have designed.
Classical architecture: Architecture shaped by the building traditions of ancient Greece and Rome, including their orders and proportional systems. Vitruvius explains Roman building within the broader classical tradition.
Architectural proportion: The relationships of dimensions within a building, often organized through ratios and repeated measures. Vitruvius argues that coherent proportions give buildings ordered form.
Julius Caesar: A Roman general and statesman whose rule and assassination transformed the Roman Republic. Vitruvius says he served Caesar’s army as an artillery specialist.
Renaissance architecture: European architecture from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, marked by renewed study of classical forms and proportion. Renaissance architects used Vitruvius as a major source for classical design principles.
Vitruvian water screw: A water-lifting device consisting of a helical surface enclosed in a tube or trough and turned by hand. Vitruvius describes this device among the machines and engineering methods in his treatise.

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