Sciences influencing architecture – geometry, measurement, astronomy, sundial.

Temples and the orders of architecture (includes the section on body proportions that led to da Vinci's drawing).

Town planning, architecture or civil engineering in general, and the qualifications required of an architect or the civil engineer.

The ten books or scrolls are organized as follows:ĭe architectura – Ten Books on Architecture

The Roman author gives advice on the qualifications of an architect (Book I) and on types of architectural drawing. Derived partially from Latin rhetoric (through Cicero and Varro), Vitruvian terms for order, arrangement, proportion, and fitness for intended purposes have guided architects for centuries, and continue to do so. Though often cited for his famous 'triad' of characteristics associated with architecture – utilitas, firmitas and venustas (utility, strength and beauty) – the aesthetic principles that influenced later treatise writers were outlined in Book III. Vitruvius cites many authorities throughout the text, often praising Greek architects for their development of temple building and the orders ( Doric, Ionic and Corinthian), and providing key accounts of the origins of building in the primitive hut. Probably written between 30-20 BC, it combines the knowledge and views of many antique writers, Greek and Roman, on architecture, the arts, natural history and building technology. Since Vitruvius published before the development of cross vaulting, domes, concrete, and other innovations associated with Imperial Roman architecture, his ten books give no information on these hallmarks of Roman building design and technology. It contains a variety of information on Greek and Roman buildings, as well as prescriptions for the planning and design of military camps, cities, and structures both large (aqueducts, buildings, baths, harbours) and small (machines, measuring devices, instruments).

As the only treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity, it has been regarded since the Renaissance as the first book on architectural theory, as well as a major source on the canon of classical architecture. Manuscript of Vitruvius parchment dating from about 1390ĭe architectura ( On architecture, published as Ten Books on Architecture) is a treatise on architecture written by the Roman architect and military engineer Marcus Vitruvius Pollio and dedicated to his patron, the emperor Caesar Augustus, as a guide for building projects.

The ten books on architecture