Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman architect and engineer who lived during the last century before the common era, likely born in the town of Formiae in the Roman province of Campania. He is often recognized for his seminal work, *De architectura*, which is the earliest known treatise on architecture from ancient Rome. Although limited biographical information exists, it is believed that Vitruvius served in the Roman army under Julius Caesar and later found employment with Emperor Augustus, contributing to various architectural and engineering projects of the time. His treatise outlines the three essential qualities of architecture: durability, utility, and beauty, emphasizing the importance of proportion and the natural forms in design.
Vitruvius's work remained largely unknown until the early 15th century when it was rediscovered by the humanist Poggio Bracciolini. This revival sparked interest among Renaissance architects, influencing figures such as Leon Battista Alberti. His ideas and principles, notably the concept of harmony and proportion linked to the human form, were later illustrated by artists like Leonardo da Vinci in works such as the *Vitruvian Man*. Vitruvius's contributions laid foundational concepts that informed architectural practices in subsequent historical periods, including the Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassical eras.
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Subject Terms
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
Architect
- Born: fl. first century b.c.e.
- Birthplace: Probably Formiae, Compania, Roman empire (now in Italy)
Biography
Little substantive material exists detailing the life and architectural career of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, the noted Roman architect who lived in the last century before the common era. Vitruvius was a native of the Roman province of Compania, some hundred miles south of Rome, probably having been born in the ancient Roman town of Formiae. It is known that he was a free Roman citizen.
Vitruvius is thought to have served in the Roman army in Spain and Gaul under the command of Julius Caesar. He was likely an engineer in the army designing and constructing large war machines used to launch projectiles against Rome’s enemies on the battlefield. Despite the dearth of biographical detail about Vitruvius, some such information has been gleaned from his extant book, De architectura, suggesting that after Julius Caesar died and was succeeded by Augustus Caesar as emperor, Vitruvius found employment with Augustus, probably as an architect, who, in that age, would have been involved in engineering, landscaping, and general craftsmanship, as well as in designing edifices.
A man of many talents, Vitruvius was relatively unknown until the early fifteenth century when the Florentine humanist Poggio Bracciolini stumbled upon his lost treatise, De architectura, in 1414. Once he discovered this remarkable book, Bracciolini made others aware of it, one of whom, Leon Battista Alberti, cited it extensively in his De re ædificatoria (c. 1450). In 1486, Fra Giovanni Sulpitius published an edition of De architectura, which found receptive a audience. Before 1600, translations of it had been made into Italian (c. 1520), French (Jacques Martin, c. 1547), and German (Walter H. Rivius, 1575) as well as into English, Spanish, and other languages.
Vitruvius has been called the first architect of ancient Rome, but this designation overlooks the fact that excellent architectural feats had been performed by the Romans for half a millennium before Vitruvius lived. It is true, however, that he was the first ancient Roman known to have written about architecture. Although De architectura was thought originally to have contained many sketches, these were never recovered. In 1511, however, the Venetian Fra Giovanni Giocondo made a series of woodcuts based upon descriptions in the extant volume that Bracciolini had unearthed.
Vetruvius contended that sound buildings must have three qualities to assure their architectural and aesthetic integrity: durability, utility, and beauty. He modeled much of his own architecture on natural forms, paying close attention to proportion. He considered the greatest example of perfect art to be the human form, illustrating this by fitting a human form into a circle within a square, using the two most basic geometrical forms to show how perfectly proportioned the human form is. Leonardo da Vinci was familiar with Vetruvius’s work, as is evidenced by his famed sketch titled “Vetruvian Man.” Once Vetruvius’s work became known in the fifteenth century, it had a pronounced influence upon architects of the Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassical periods.