Vitruvius Pollio, Marcus (fl. later C1 bc). Roman architect, engineer, and architectural theorist, author of the only substantial Antique treatise on architecture to survive. Entitled simply De Architectura, it was dedicated to Emperor Augustus (reigned 27 bc–AD 14), and is subdivided into ten ‘books’ or main sections. Although known and copied in manuscript form during the Middle Ages, from 1414, when Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459) publicized the existence of the fine manuscript in the Abbey of St Gallen, Switzerland, De Architectura began to be taken very seriously, and was the basis for Alberti's important treatise. The first printed edition (by Fra Giovanni Sulpitius) came out in 1486–92, an influential illustrated version by Fra Giovanni Giocondo (1435–1515) appeared in 1511, and Italian translations were published from the 1520s, starting with the important edition of 1521 with copious illustrations and notes by Cesare di Lorenzo Cesariano (1483–1543). Daniele Barbaro's (1514–70) edition of 1556 had plates by Palladio. Since C15, Vitruvius' text has been published in many forms and translations (e.g. the Nuremberg German version of 1528 and Philander's annotated edition of 1544). It is still an authoritative source for Classicism, and while the precise meanings of some of its terms and phrases are disputed, it has acquired a wholly unwarranted reputation for dullness and obfuscation. Vitruvius' work, on the contrary, is a mine of information about Greek and Roman art and architecture, and has been enormously influential since the Renaissance. One of the most important and encylopedic editions of Vitruvius was that by Perrault (1673). The first English version of the first five books of De Architectura was that of William Newton (1735–90), published in 1771, and in 1791 all ten books appeared in English, translated by Newton and edited by his brother, James Newton (1748–c.1804). However, a potted Vitruvius in English had been published in 1692, but it was so abridged that its usefulness was limited. Newton's edition was superseded by that of Gwilt in 1826, although William Wilkins had published The Civil Architecture of Vitruvius in 1812, with commentaries, but it was incomplete.

As an architect, Vitruvius designed (c.27 bc) a basilica (destroyed) for Colonia Iulia Fanestris (modern Fano), a new town for army veterans.

Bibliography

E. Harris (1990);
Knell & Wessenberg (eds.) (1984);
W. MacD (1965–86);
McEwen (2003);
Placzek (ed.) (1982);
T. Smith (2004);
Jane Turner (1996);
Vitruvius Pollio (1567, 1960);
Ward-Perkins (1981)