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

BOOK I.

The arts are [composed of]... From these, toward... [in] such things to the common [good]... in the middle... by their motion, but [if there is] from danger [a] work... of its own [proper] task will be... moderate measure... [of] Giocondo... is the argument... sympathy... and fifths... optikos optic... many things... must be considered. By [the] reasons... which properly... is enough... [of the] parts... and those which... [what] of these... will be... [it] was... [geometry]... these have... and effective... disciplines... [of the] disciplines... somewhat

...there were Aristarchus of Samos, Philolaus and Architas of Tarentum, Apollonius of Perga, Eratosthenes of Cyrene, Archimedes, and Scopinas of Syracuse. These men left to posterity many organic and gnomonic pertaining to sundials matters, which they discovered and explained through numerical and natural reasoning. Since such talent, derived from natural skill, is not granted to all peoples everywhere, but only to a few individuals, and since the duty of an architect must be exercised through all branches of learning, and since the reason of the work permits the scope of the matter, I ask—Caesar, and from you, and from those who will read my volumes—that if anything is explained poorly according to the rules of grammar, you might forgive it. For I am not a philosopher, nor an eloquent rhetorician, nor a grammarian trained in the highest principles of art; I am an architect who has merely been immersed in these letters, and I have endeavored to write these things. Regarding the power of the art and the reasonings contained within it, I promise—as I hope—that in these volumes I will, without doubt, provide them with the greatest authority, not only for builders but for all wise men.

On the matters from which architecture consists. Chapter II.

A decorative initial letter A featuring an interlaced knotwork design.Architecture consists of ordinatio order/arrangement, which is called taxis arrangement in Greek, and of dispositio design/composition, which they call diathesin arrangement/disposition in Greek, and of eurythmia harmonious proportion, and symmetria symmetry, and decor propriety/adornment, and distributio distribution, which is called oikonomia management/economy in Greek. Ordinatio is the moderate convenience of the members of the work, taken separately, and the comparison of the whole proportion to symmetria. This is composed of quantity, which is called posotes quantity in Greek. Quantity is the measure...