Architettura con il suo commento et figure Vetruvio in volgar lingua raportato

and also aquatic [animals]. And therefore Vitruvius has spoken of the common life, that is, to those who live according to common usage through different provinces and regions of the world, and not only of the usage of food and clothing, but according to their ordered laws and municipal constitutions. Just as it had been for others the constitution of the living of the Roman Republic, which above the others was fitting for the Emperor more than any other Magistrate, neither Consul, nor Praetor, nor Aedile should have the sum and most diligent care. Constitution signifies law, decree, edict, institute, or rather ordinance that we wish to say of things of the university and public, which is that which the King or the Emperor constitutes in writing, or says and makes outside of writing; similarly, constitutions are made by the supreme Pontiffs and some ecclesiastical and religious congregations. And also of the opportunity of public buildings: In so much that opportunity is a certain desired and necessary convenience. Vitruvius demonstrates how it is a necessary thing for an Emperor to have care of public and also private buildings to conserve persons of every sort. But how public and private buildings are, this Vitruvius will demonstrate in these his books: and what will be [of] Castles, Lands, and Cities, the walls that close them around; of these public ones, he will speak until the sixth book; then of the private and common ones: whence we will not manifest them otherwise in the present place. So that the City, that is, he understands Rome, of which Dionysius of Halicarnassus writes amply, how its origin was, which then by excellence is called City or rather urbs. But in what way these nominations are different among them, in part we will distinguish by saying, urbs which, as some wish, is said ab urvo from the curvature of the plow, because the ancients, from the custom of the Etruscans joining the oxen, that is, a bull and a cow, and plowing, made a furrow in a circuit, inside of which they built the City; and this they did by reason of religion on the happiest day which they took in building so that the City would be fortified by ditches and walls. But from where they dug the earth, they called it a ditch, and from the inside part they made the wall. And these civil buildings, which have been called Cities, Lands, and Castles, were made to live in free quiet, and without any prince and Lord: just as in the present we can see many republics in our Italy, such as the Venetians, Florentines, and other peoples who live in liberty. Because the ancients lived in those separated buildings by reason of friendship that was joined naturally among a multitude of dispersed men; and for this, so that they would not suffer damages from any enemies, or rapacious beasts, serpents, and other such things, they built the walls, inside of which with their riches they first rendered themselves safe, as we will say in its place. And although Rome later was called City solely by excellence because of the four diversions made: nonetheless Varro said that urbs, which first the plowman surrounded, was not called from the curvature of the plow, but ab orbe from roundness, that is, roundness and rotundity; yet in whatever way it is said, Valerius Maximus holds that the City is not a joyousness and happiness, but a misery; because in the 7th book he says that Solon, when he saw one of his friends grieving heavily, led him to the Fortress and prayed him to look around at the other parts of the lower buildings, which as the effect showed, he said, "Think among yourself how many tears under these roofs once were and today are and in the following centuries will be: whence you will leave your weeping, comforting yourself [with] the other many incommodities of mortals." By which consoled observation, he showed the City to be a great misery of mortals. It is also customary to seek from curious writers who was the first to build a City? And Pliny in the 7th refers to it being Cecrops, who as Trogus Pompeius says in the second, was before the times of Deucalion, and called it Cecropia from his name, and this [fortress] was later the Fortress of Athens. Others say Argos was the first, that is, Pelasgic, made by King Phoroneus; some give this primacy to Sicyon. But the Egyptians say there were [cities] before Diospolis, nonetheless it is manifest as Josephus writes that the City was [from] at the beginning of the world: because Cain, son of Adam, our first parent, made a Castle which, from Enoch his elder son, he called Enoch. Of this name urbs it is said enough. At the present, let us say what a City is. We will say the City is a multitude of men, a bond of company joined concordantly by one same reason in living: and for this reason, buildings do not make the City, but the inhabitants, the customs, and the arts. But if from these things it seems the City is made, therefore it is not urbs, but a union of civil men. And by what mode Cities should be made, and Citizens and suburbanites should dwell, and other inhabitants through the lands and surrounding places, this you will have not only from the public laws, but from Aristotle in the books of the Ethics, of the Economics, and of the Politics. "Not only so that [it] might be increased through provinces, etc." Provinces: here is demonstrated the mode of the dilatations and long distances and divisions of the world through great dominations, and properly of the major divisions of all the body of the Earth, and Rivers and Mountains and Seas of the world. But provinces are properly called Regions, either of Europe, or of Asia, or of Africa, but always outside of Italy, and therefore they are called a procul vincendo from conquering afar, because the Romans, when they had overcome these parts, divided them into prefectures, such as Lesser Asia, or in Spain or in France, and in other places, and sent there their Proconsuls and Praetors according to the dignity of those Provinces that were made Tributary to them. And M. Tullius [Cicero] in the fourth against Verres demonstrates that Sicily was the first province of the Romans because they did not want Italy to be called a province, but divided it into Regions, such as Liguria, that is, the Riviera of Genoa; Tuscany; Gallia Cisalpina, that is, Lombardy; Gallia Togata or Cispadana, that is, Romagna; Umbria, that is, the Spoleto Duchy; Picenum, that is, the March of Ancona; and Latium, that is, the Campagna of Rome; Campania, that is, Terra di Lavoro; Lucania, that is, the Principality; and also Puglia, and Calabria, and all the other regions of Italy. But see also that which Pliny writes in the Geography of his Natural History, and especially of Gallia Narbonensis, to whom I remit you.