De Architectura - in Summary

In Summary

Probably written around 15 BC, it is the only contemporary source on classical architecture to have survived in its entirety. Divided into ten sections or "books", it covers almost every aspect of Roman architecture. The books break down as follows:

De architectura – Ten Books on Architecture

1. Town planning, architecture or Civil engineering in general, and the qualifications required of an architect or more modernly the civil engineer
2. Building materials
3. Temples and the orders of architecture;
4. continuation of book 3
5. Civil buildings
6. Domestic buildings
7. Pavements and decorative plasterwork
8. Water supplies and aqueducts
9. Sciences influencing architecture – geometry, mensuration, astronomy, sundial
10. Use and construction of machines - Roman siege engines, water mills, drainage machines, Roman technology, hoisting, pneumatics

Roman architects were skilled in engineering, art, and craftsmanship combined. Vitruvius was very much of this type, a fact reflected in De architectura. He covers a wide variety of subjects that he saw as touching on architecture. This included many aspects that may seem irrelevant to modern eyes, ranging from mathematics to astronomy, meteorology, and medicine. In the Roman conception, architecture needed to take into account everything touching on the physical and intellectual life of man and his surroundings.

Vitruvius, thus, deals with many theoretical issues concerning architecture. For instance, in Book 2 of De architectura, he advises architects working with bricks to familiarise themselves with pre-Socratic theories of matter so as to understand how their materials will behave. Book 9 relates the abstract geometry of Plato to the everyday work of the surveyor. Astrology is cited for its insights into the organisation of human life, while astronomy is required for the understanding of sundials. Likewise, Vitruvius cites Ctesibius of Alexandria and Archimedes for their inventions, Aristoxenus (Aristotle's apprentice) for music, Agatharchus for theatre, and Varro for architecture.