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

fication. The ancient philosophers, having acquired the things necessary for life, then began to philosophize.

Vitruvius, considering the very great gravity of this science, which the unlearned, being far removed from the cognition of truth, do not seek out. As Aristotle says in the first of the Elenchi: these, therefore, not being able to know the truth of the thing, do not approach it to discern it. And although this still cannot be done without science, it is necessary therefore that we operate this cognition of the sciences, as Aristotle in the first of the Physics also says. Because certainly, to know and to understand intervenes regarding all the sciences of which the causes and the elements are the principles of the cognition of all. He also said in the fifth of the Politics: so the principle, for being the middle or truly more than the middle of the whole. And in the fourth of the Metaphysics he says: the first principle in every science must be most known in it and most firm. Therefore, for this, Vitruvius has striven with great instruction to aid those who wish to build. And because he has known that all the arts are used with certain common terms, as in the first of the Posterior [Analytics] we have: each science has its own questions and answers and disputations, and the first principle in each generation is the necessary and demonstrable proposition, and the science of which it is a principle, and especially because this science is like Geometry, which does not oppose itself to false things. And if this will be in us, then we will judge we know everything when we will know the cause and the principles. And therefore it is necessary, if we wish to arrive at this cognition, that the way of knowing from common things to particular things be natural in us. Because we have in libris prior prior books: to know simply is—that is, it is impossible for it to be otherwise—because to know is to understand through demonstration. Therefore, Vitruvius here has opened the way of the science of Architecture with the present ordination, and so that the soul to the coming orations will be, he will have for a preface of the Problems. And because it seems in the things of the principles, as Aristotle himself in the [Ethics] says: to the beginner there is no reason—that is, ordinary distinction. And therefore in this institution it seems he wants the fatigue to understand all the work from the beginning ordinarily, with these first orders, which if they will not be sent to the memory, the effects to produce them will do little or nothing, just as if the student will not understand the truth that the master proposes. Because Aristotle says in the third of the Ethics: the desire of the student needs to be according to the will of the master. Vitruvius, most ornate of all things, serves in this most worthy work everything that is convenient. For having prepared the reader with the most elegant preface, wanting to enter into the institution of the art, he begins from the definition so that it may be understood that which one has to treat. But one must know there are many species of definition (as Aristotle and M. Tullius write in the Topics). For some are proper, others improper; one is proper to the philosophers, which from the Greeks is called συντατιν definition and ουσις essence, and so it is defined: A definition is a proper, clear, and briefly comprised enunciation of the proposed thing. And this is of genus, species, differences, and properties. As one defines man, we will say: man is a rational, mortal, and laughable animal. Because animal is genus; the other parts make it differ from irrational brutes and from immortal angels; and "laughable" is proper to man, as "neighing" is to the horse. Other definitions are called descriptions, when not by the substantial but by the accidental one knows the existence of the thing, as one says: man is a sociable animal of two feet, or truly, a house is a habitation composed of foundations, walls, rooms, and roofs. And this is done in many ways and is much in use by our human writers, like the present one, with which the Author demonstrates the excellence of this science of Architecture. And here its genus is science; the others pertain to differences and properties. Then he divides it into two parts, whence he has taken the origin: that is, from the fabrica construction and ratiocinatione reasoning, which is a discourse of reason. And he wants both the one and the other to be necessary to the architect: that is, that he knows how to reason and discuss and also to operate. Because practice is worth much in every art, and those that have had the one and not the other have not been perfect, whence Vitruvius says so.

WHAT ARCHITECTURE IS AND THE INSTRUCTIONS THAT ARCHITECTS MUST HAVE. CHAPTER ONE.

A woodcut depicts a large decorative initial 'L' containing a floral pattern.ARCHITECTURE is a science, adorned with many doctrines and varied instructions, by the judgment of which all the works that are finished by other arts are approved. And it is born from fabrica construction and from ratiocinatione reasoning. The fabrica construction is a continuous thinking of preparation for use...

ARCHITECTURE is a science adorned with many doctrines and varied instructions. And thus, by consequence, the Architect must be instructed in more doctrines and varied disciplines, or arts, as we wish to call them. Since the rational science is of the number of goods and honorable things, as Aristotle says in the first of the Soul, one science is said to be better than another. And therefore Averroes in the second of the Metaphysics says this: The science from God causes the things, but ours is caused by the things. Being, therefore, that which moves the intellect as an investigator and dominator of the natural essences, it has moved every natural sense to acquire that, because science is nothing other than proper truth, as much of the good as of the bad. And therefore the divine mind, which is like...