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

force of demonstrating than the things drawn in full. And therefore the acting Architect is the one who demonstrates, because Aristotle in the first book of the Poetics says this: "We use examples in teaching so that what is said may be understood more easily." But the patient is the thing that is demonstrated, or which must be demonstrated. Consimilarly, the doctrine is signified from one man to another according to the operations that the disciple has from the master. And therefore, when his thinking is gathered with reason from the proposed thing, then it can be signified and demonstrated. 3 4 Because it seems in the one and in the other part he who makes profession of Architect must be exercised, that is, he needs to have for his thinking the cognition of science, and the experience with the practice of building or operating for his needs. And thus he needs to be ingenious, and apt for science, that is, to be like Daedalus, the Architect and most acute operator and prompt in knowing how to vary the things of the arts, and clearly demonstrate: this is truly the true demonstrator of the perfect and learned ones of whatever science and rule there may be in the world, as Aristotle says. "The sign of the wise man is to be able to teach"; he also said, "The artificer is wiser than the expert, and the architect than the manual artificer, because he knows the causes of the subjects." He also said: "To the wise man it belongs to know everything for utility, and to know difficult things, and to have a science more certain than others, and to know how to render the reason of those things that are, and to have the science which is only his, and not the cause of another, and to have the science which orders the others that they must serve it," etc. Therefore, it is to be considered that those who ingeniously make to demonstrate, go thinking like the blind, and like the non-wise they remain without effects ridiculously. See therefore, candid reader, that knowledge belongs to him who truly understands, and thus science seems to be in him who knows how to make the demonstration. Regarding these demonstrations of the sciences, see Strabo in the first book where he speaks of the deeds of Poets, as Valerius Maximus, Pliny, and other most famous Writers. 5 And so that he may be literate, etc. In this institution, Vitruvius intends to demonstrate the doctrines that belong to adorning and arming those who want to be true Architects of many necessary sciences. And first he says how it is necessary that he be literate, then successively proceed orderly to the other regular sciences as we will have from Vitruvius himself beyond this exposition, so that the poor unlearned can instruct themselves by reading and become good. A thing that it does not seem the laws of the whole world want other than that we be taught to operate well if it is possible for our health. This instruction of being literate is of great importance, as Vitruvius has said in the sixth preface: Non potest esse probata vita sine litteratura, that is, "Life cannot be proven without letters," and as you will see in the ninth preface and in chapter 13. Therefore, this being the origin and foundation of all the universal sciences and letters of the good disciplinable studies, it appears certainly that no science can be known without literature, nor can men succeed in the higher things, nor make them most high, neither of Philosophy, nor of law, nor of civil negotiations and contractory, or other annotations, mediocre nor minimal, without the help of letters as will be necessarily said in the seventh preface. Therefore, it is easy to believe that there cannot be a perfect life without letters, nor could the things done and said before be so commodiously known if this element of letters had not existed. Because the reason of past things does illumine the intellect and the soul. Therefore, it is necessary that these be those which, whether by ourselves or by whom our animated intelligence is instructed, that the more we will know, the more optimally like divines we will be. 6 He needs to be learned in GRAPHIDA. This word γραφὴ writing/drawing in Latin signifies not only to write, but also to paint and at times to sculpt. Therefore, it is necessary for the Architect to know how to read and write, and to design or to figure, as one uses to paint, because, as we have said, if we had all the necessary sciences and did not know how to demonstrate them, they would seem like nothing, because we would come to achieve the shadow of the thing obscurely or doubtfully, and not the effect. And therefore sometimes it is better to know how to signify the thing than to say it. But for such purpose, it is to be known how the Greeks, in their instructions, proposed that they wanted the free children, and not the Libertines—that is, born of servile blood—to learn before all other sciences the science of Antigraphida, that is, painting; and this was so that they had the cognition of universal things to know how to express them, and similarly that they, being free, could always be better in honesty of body and soul. And therefore this was taught in the game of letters, as we will say of many most famous ones in the subjoined readings. And thus, being instructed in this, which was placed in the first degree of the liberal arts, because it judged and represented then with most easy comprehension or more the other liberal and manual sciences. Whence for this it has happened that those Greeks, who were founded in the good sciences, have appeared as Gods among the most learned men, nor are their works left to successors witnesses to it. Therefore, this science of Architecture has always been honor and of greatest price while it has been in the hands of the Free and most diligent students. But afterwards, just as at present in the greatest quantity, for having been taught to servants and most vile people, the good professors are disgraced by the Idiots and ignorant who are almost reputed worse than the manual operators or builders of walls; whence no one shows themselves anymore who wants to acquire it with true study as many most famous ones did, not only Philosophers but primary Romans and Emperors, if we are to believe Pliny and Valerius Maximus.

Learned in Geometry. And because all the things of the world universally and generally are figured and comprised in surfaces and in bodies, and the things by lines of different qualities and proportional quantity, Vitruvius adds to Graphida, this science.

Learned in Geometry, and not ignorant of Perspective, instructed also in Arithmetic; and that he has understood many Histories; that he has diligently heard the Philosophers; that he may know Music; that he may not be ignorant of medicine; that he may have cognition of