Vitruvius, Pollio (Vitruve)
Gordon 1572 .V58 (Click on the call number to view the digital facsimile.)
Architecture ou, Art de bien bastir
Paris: Hierosme de Marnef & Guillaume Cavellat, 1572.
Vitruvius was the Roman author of the
only comprehensive architectural treaty to survive
from antiquity. His De Architectura Libri Decem
was rediscovered in the Renaissance and published
in Italian and French translations that brought to
Early Modern readers the theoretical principles of
classical architecture.
Jean
Martin, translator and editor of this volume (reprinted
in 1572 from the Paris 1547 edition), sought to produce
a book of use to practitioners as well as of interest
to his fellow humanists. Detailed illustrations, including
many by Jean Goujon, accompany technical and historical
explanations of the orders of classical architecture,
and its emphasis on the proportional relationship
between man, his buildings, and the cosmos.
The anthropomorphic model
defined by Vitruvius appealed to sixteenth-century
French humanists. Familiar with the Platonic notion
of man as microcosm, embodying the harmony of the
planets (the macrocosm), Renaissance humanists readily
adopted the human body as the model for order and
beauty in architecture.
Vitruvius described a man with arms
and legs outstretched, whose body thus conforms to
the geometry of a circle and of a square. No illustration
of this image has survived from antiquity, but the
famous drawing of “Vitruvian man” by Leonardo
DaVinci represented a popular illustration in Renaissance
architectural treaties.
In this French edition, prepared by Jean Martin,
woodcuts illustrate the human figure inside the geometric
forms on page 55 and page 56. (Note Jean Goujon’s
remarks on these figures at the end of the volume,
on p. 351.)
The anthropomorphic ideal emerges in the opening
pages of the treatise, where Vitruvius describes the
extensive encyclopedic knowledge required of those
who would become architects. (According to Vitruvius,
in a passage that calls to mind humanist models of
education, the perfect architect must be well-versed
in “lettres,” drawing, geometry,
perspective, arithmetic, history, law and astronomy.)
Vitruvius observes that “la science encyclopedique
est en effet composée de ces membres comme
un corps unique.”
By elaborating on the role of both fabrique
(knowledge and experience of construction materials
and techniques) and discours (ability
to use language to communicate effectively with
masons and other builders), Vitruvius laid the
foundation for our notion of the architect as
designer, rather than builder.
In keeping with Vitruvius’s emphasis on communication
between architect and tradesmen, Jean Martin notes,
in his “Advertissement aux Lecteurs,”
that he added the glossary at the end of the volume
for the sake of the ouvriers, with whom he was having
trouble communicating concerning Vitruvian principles
of design.
-- Karen James, University of Virginia (2005)
Also in Special Collections at the University of Virginia Library:
NA2515 .V5 1567. Vitruvius, Pollio. M. Vitrvvii Pollionis De architectvra libri decem / cvm commentariis Danielis Barbari, electi patriarchae aqvileiensis: mvltis aedificiorvm, horologiorvm, et machinarvm descriptionibvs, & figuris, unà cum indicibus copiosis, auctis & illustratis. Venetiis : apud Franciscum Franciscium Senensem, & Ioan. Crugher Germanum., M.D.LXVII.
Internet Resources
http://www.cesr.univ-tours.fr/architectura/Traite/Auteur/Vitruve.asp
Includes a digital facsimile and transcription of the 1547 edition, as well as a bibliography and introduction in French to these and other French editions of Vitruvius.
A reproduction based the microfilm of the 1547 Paris edition (Jacques Gazeau) is also available online at http://gallica.bnf.fr.
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