Vitruvian Man

Abstract

This book offers a new assessment of the Roman architect Vitruvius and his treatise, On Architecture. Once reviled by scholars as a half-witted proletarian, Vitruvius emerges as well read and politically able when read alongside literary coevals through an intertextual lens. No building of Vitruvius’s name survives from antiquity, but his treatise remains a formidable literary construction that partakes of Rome’s vibrant textual culture. The book explores Vitruvius’s portrait of the ideal architect as an imposing “Vitruvian man” at the dawn of Augustus’s empire. In direct dialogue with his republican model, Cicero’s ideal orator, the architect embodies a distinctly imperial civic ethos in which technically skilled partisans supersede old elites as guarantors of Augustan authority. Vitruvius promises to shape not only the emperor’s legacy with architecture, but also the notion of a Roman citizen through the figure of the ideal architect.

Sociabilidades construídas: o uso social da arquitetura em 'Bracara Augusta'

“…Os estudos sobre a arquitetura doméstica romana, desde os finais do século XIX, tomaram como ponto de partida o tratado De Architectura, de Vitrúvio (cf. OKSANISH, 2019). O texto apresenta um vasto material, dividido em dez livros dedicados a Augusto, que abordam o desenho e a construção de edifícios, bem como a maquinaria e o planeamento de obras, e, ainda, a formação e o papel do arquiteto (architectus) na Roma de seu tempo.…”

Architecture, Engineering and Building Science: The Contemporary Relevance of Vitruvius’s De Architectura

“…Recent research covers De Architectura's standing both in the humanities and in the sciences. Further to a publication on Vitruvius as an author [21], related studies cover a contemporary reading of the opening chapter of De Architectura [22], the literary significance of the treatise [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] and its raced-gendered narrative [31], the use of building materials and construction methods as media forming the identity of the Roman Empire [32], and Vitruvius's geographical system [33] and design (e.g., linear perspective [34], Roman temples [35], the Basilica at Fano [36,37] and acoustic vessels [38]). Studies related to the last of these themes include the geological analysis of tuff and travertine in stone masonry [39][40][41], mortar [42][43][44] and concrete technology [45][46][47], notably seawater concrete [48][49][50][51][52].…”