Vitruvius iterum et Frontinus à Iocundo revisi repurgatique quantum ex collatione licuit

...tormenta siege engines. I was present, and with them, I received benefits; these, which you first bestowed upon me, you preserved upon the recommendation of your sister. Since, therefore, I was bound by that benefit so that I would have no fear of poverty to the end of my life, I began to write these things for you, for I observed that you have built much, and are now building, and will have care for both public and private buildings in the future, in accordance with the scale of your achievements, so that they may be handed down to the memory of posterity.

I have written down concluded prescriptions so that, by attending to them, you might be able to know through yourself what the works done and those to be done are like, for in these volumes I have opened up all the principles of the discipline.

What architecture is, and concerning the education of architects.
Chapter I.

An ornate, woodcut drop-cap letter 'A' features floral and foliate motifs.Architecture is a science adorned with many disciplines and various kinds of learning, by whose judgment all works performed by other arts are approved. It is born from practice and reasoning. Practice is the continuous and repeated exercise of use, which is carried out by the hands from material of any kind as the work requires for the intended design. Reasoning, however, is that which can demonstrate and explain the crafted objects by skill and the logic of proportion. Therefore, architects who have contended without learning, having only exercised their hands, could not achieve authority for their labors. Those, however, who trusted in reasoning and literature alone...