Vitruvius was the chief authority studied by architects, and in every point his precepts were accepted as final. In some cases a failure to understand his meaning led to curious results; for example, the medieval custom, not uncommon in England, of placing rows of earthenware jars under the floor of the stalls in church choirs, appears to have been an attempt to follow out suggestions raised by Vitruvius as to the advantages of placing bronze vases round the auditorium of theatres. Bramante, Michelangelo, Palladio, Vignola and earlier architects were careful students of the work of Vitruvius, which through them has largely influenced the architecture of almost all European countries.
Bk. i. opens with a dedication to Augustus. C. 1 is on the science of architecture generally, and the branches of knowledge with which the trained architect ought to be acquainted, viz. grammar, music, painting, sculpture, medicine, geometry, mathematics and optics; c. 2 is on the general principles of architectural design; c. 3 on the considerations which determine a design, such as strength, utility, beauty; c. 4 on the nature of different sorts of ground for sites; c. 5 on walls of fortification; c. 6 on aspects towards the north, south and other points; c. 7 on the proper situations of temples dedicated to the various deities.
Bk. ii. relates to materials (preface about Dinocrates, architect to Alexander the Great). C. 1 is on the earliest dwellings of man; c. 2 on systems of Thales, Heraclitus, Democritus, &c.; c. 3 on bricks; c. 4 on sand; c. 5 on lime; c. 6 on pozzolana; c. 7 on kinds of stone for building; c. 8 on methods of constructing walls in stone, brick, concrete and marble, and on the materials for stucco; c. 9 on timber, time for felling it, seasoning, &c.; and c. 10 on the fir trees of the Apennines.
Bk. iii., on styles, has a preface on ancient Greek writers. C. 1 is on symmetry and proportion; c. 2 on various forms of Greek temples, e.g. in antis, prostyle, peripteral, dipteral, hypaethral;[1] c. 3 on inter-calumniation—pycnostyle, systyle, eustyle, &c.; c. 4 on foundations, steps and stylobates; c. 5 on the Ionic order, its form and details.
Bk. iv., on styles and orders, has a preface to Augustus on the scope of the work. The subjects of its nine chapters are—(1) the Corinthian, Ionic and Doric orders; (2) the ornaments of capitals, &c.; (3) the Doric order; (4) proportions of the cella and pronaos; (5) sites of temples; (6) doorways of temples and their architraves; (7) the Etruscan or Tuscan order of temples; (8) circular temples; (9) altars.
Bk. v., on public buildings, has a preface on the theories of Pythagoras, &c. Its twelve chapters treat—(l) of fora and basilicae, with a description of his own basilica at Fanum; (2) of the adjuncts of a forum (aerarium, prison and curia); (3) of theatres, their site and construction; (4) of laws of harmonics; (5) of the arrangement of tuned bronze vases in theatres for acoustic purposes; (6) of Roman theatres; (7) of Greek theatres; (8) of the selection of sites of theatres according to acoustic principles; (9) of porticus and covered walks; (10) of baths, their floors, hypocausts, the construction and use of various parts; (11) of palaestrae, xysti and other Greek buildings for the exercise of athletes; (12) of harbours and quays.
Bk. vi. is on sites and planning, and the preface treats of various Greek authors. C. 1 is on selection of sites; c. 2 on the planning of buildings to suit different sites; c. 3 on private houses, their construction and styles, the names of the different apartments; c. 4 on the aspects suited for the various rooms; c. 5 on buildings fitted for special positions; c. 6 on farms and country houses; c. 7 on Greek houses and the names of various parts; c. 8 on construction of houses in wood, stone, brick or concrete.
Bk. vii., mostly on methods of decoration, has a preface (as usual) on the opinions of ancient Greek writers, with lists of Greek sculptors, architects and writers on architecture, and of Roman architects. C. 1 has for its subject pavements and roads, their construction, mosaic floors; c. 2 is on white stucco for walls (opus albarium); c. 3 on concrete vaults, gypsum mouldings, stucco prepared for painting; c. 4 on building of hollow walls to keep out the damp, wall decoration by various processes; c. 5 on methods and styles of wall painting, the debased taste of his time; c. 6 on fine stucco made of pounded marble—three coats to receive wall paintings; c. 7 on colours used for mural decoration; c. 8 on red lead (minium) and mercury, and how to use the latter to extract the gold from worn-out pieces of stuff or embroidery; c. 9 on the preparation of red lead and the method of encaustic painting with hot wax, finished by friction; cc. 10-14 on artificial colours—black, blue, purple; c. 10 white lead and ostrum, i.e. murex purple and imitations of murex dye.
Bk. viii. is on hydraulic engineering, and the preface on theories of the ancients. C. 1 treats of the finding of good water; c. 2 of rainwater and rivers—rivers in various countries; c. 3 of hot springs, mineral waters, with an account of the chief medicinal springs of the world; c. 4 of selection of water by observation and experiment; c. 5 of instruments for levelling used by aqueduct engineers; c. 6 of construction of aqueducts, pipes of lead, clay, &c., and other matter on the subject of water-supply.
Bk. ix. is on astronomy. The preface treats of Greek sciences, geometry, the discovery of specific gravity by Archimedes, and other discoveries of the Greeks, and of Romans of his time who have vied with the Greeks—Lucretius in his poem De Rerum Natura, Cicero in rhetoric, and Varro in philology, as shown by his De Lingua Latina.[2] The subjects of the eight chapters are—(1) the signs of the zodiac and the seven planets; (2) the phases of the moon; (3) the passage of the sun through the zodiac; (4) and (5) various constellations; (6) the relation of astrological influences to nature; (7) the mathematical divisions of the gnomon; (8) various kinds of sundials and their inventors.
Bk. x. is on machinery, with a preface concerning a law at ancient Ephesus compelling an architect to complete any public building he had undertaken; this, he says, would be useful among the Romans of his time.[3] The chapters are—(1) on various machines, such as scaling-ladders, windmills, &c.; (2) on windlasses, axles, pulleys and cranes for moving heavy weights, such as those used by Chersiphron in building the great temple of Diana at Ephesus, and on the discovery by a shepherd of a quarry of marble required to build the same temple; (3) on dynamics; (4) on machines for drawing water; (5) on wheels for irrigation worked by a river; (6) on raising water by a revolving spiral tube; (7) on the machine of Ctesibius for raising water to a height; (8) on a very complicated water engine, the description of which is not intelligible, though Vitruvius remarks that he has tried to make the matter clear; (9) on machines with wheels to register the distance travelled, either by land or water; (10) on the construction of scorpiones for hurling stones, (11) and (12) on balistae and catapults; (13) on battering-rams and other machines for the attack of a fortress; (14) on shields (testudines) to enable soldiers to fill up the enemy's ditches; (15) on other kinds of testudines; (16) on machines for defence, and examples of their use in ancient times. (J. H. M.)
The best edition is by Rose (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1899); see also Nohl, Index Vitruvianus (1876); Jolles, Vitruvs Aesthetik (1906); Sontheimer, Vitruv und seine Zeit (1908). There is a good translation by Gwilt (1826; reprinted, 1874).
The name of Vitruvius has been given to several works on modern architecture, such as Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus (London, 1715–71), a series of illustrations of the chief buildings of the 18th century in England, including many works of the brothers Adam; one of these brothers, William Adam, produced a similar work illustrating the buildings which he had designed for Scotland, under the title of Vitruvius Scoticus (Edinburgh, 1790). Thurah, Le Vitruve danois (Copenhagen, 1746–49), is a similar collection of modern buildings in Denmark.
VITRY-LE-FRANÇOIS, a town of north-eastern France, capital of the department of Marne, on the right bank of the Marne, 20 m. S.E. of Châlons, on the railway from Paris to Strassburg. Pop. (1906) 7985. The Marne-Rhine canal, the Haute-Marne canal, and the lateral canal of the Marne unite at Vitry. Its church of Notre-Dame is a 17th-century building with fine 18th-century monuments. A convent of the Récollets now contains the town hall, the court-house, a library and a small museum. There is a bronze statue of P. P. Royer-Collard (1763–1845), the politician and philosopher, a native of the district. The industrial establishments include important cement works and the manufacture of faïence is carried on. The present town was built in 1545 on a uniform plan by Francis I. to replace the older one of Vitry-en-Perthois, 212 m. to the north-east, burned in the previous year by Charles V.
VITTEL, a watering-place of north-eastern France, in the department of Vosges, 31 m. W. of Epinal by rail. Pop. (1906) 1954. The waters resemble those of Contrexéville, but are lighter in character; they are bottled and exported in large quantities. They are prescribed in cases of gravel, gout, &c. Vittel has been considerably developed in recent years, and is well supplied with hotels, a fine casino and park, &c.
VITTORIA, a town of Sicily in the province of Syracuse, 95 m. W.S.W. of Syracuse by rail (42 m. direct), founded in 1605 by Giovanni Alphonso Henriquez, who named it after his mother, the famous Vittoria Colonna. It is a prosperous town
- ↑ The excavations made in 1887 have shown that Vitruvius was right in describing the great temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens as being octastyle. The previously almost universal opinion that it was decastyle had led to the needless theory that the passage containing this statement was corrupt.
- ↑ Vitruvius names Cicero and Lucretius as post nostram memoriam nascentes.
- ↑ The architect being at that time also the contractor.
