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

decomposed by another, then the production: also as it would be of a triple or quadruple and so of all the simple ones: when then they have come into a great multiplication, sub-duplicated, sesquialterally, they can after also arrive at the other greater ones, sub-multiplied above the particular of their species, and of so many varieties are there in their compositions that not only can they arrive from the deductions of the multiplied proportions of the portions, as is the root of the root of numbers which we say on page 13, letter B, but also above the particulars of the proportions up to the infinite. Just as the 9 would extend the normal Pythagorean surfaces, and the Platonic considerations, what distances of angle they will conclude, the lines which are composed between the quadratures of those trigonals can make their sides produce to infinity. Therefore, the knowledge of the proportions of Eurythmic music can also make not only the stature of each great edifice, each of its particular principal members, but subsequently, he will know how to then place in them all the other smaller members, made by that distribution and communicating measure, and also to adorn them: because the mobile faculties, when a place is small, it is not permitted to place a thing that occupies and impedes that, but you must know that it is of no less importance to know how to occupy the air and terrestrial surface, and know for health and for comfortable expedition and utility, when the distances are proportionable from one voice to another of the Harmony, placed and annotated: that even those minimal and semiminimal voices that appear fragments of the proportions, if they were not well embraced in the order of a song, one could not well have the enjoyable concinnity harmonious connection or elegant arrangement of the Harmony: Thus, therefore, our daily faculties put in a house for our human use, if they are not proportionate in the measure of Harmony to our motive effect, there would be little or no beauty: so you see then how in every respect it is good for the Architect to know music, as we will treat in another way in the fifth book on page 112.

¶ That he not be ignorant of medicine. This commandment also is very necessary: because although it may not be necessary for the Architect to know how to know the celestial aspects and their regions as we will have from Vitruvius on page 27, nevertheless the doctrine of Physics demonstrates how to temper not only the contrarieties of the elements, but also of the celestial influences, etc. This artistic science is said to have been found by Apollo according to the Greek writers, then passed to his son Aesculapius, who with the laudable and operative experiences expanded it and placed it in great estimation, such that he was called the God of medicine: who later was killed not by a thunderbolt as some have written fabulously, but by his natural death: this art is said to have been interdicted and as if forgotten by the world for about five hundred years, for it seemed that with the author, the art vanished: Then Artaxerxes seems to have brought it to light for Hippocrates, that is, the son of Heraclides and Phenarete, who is said to have been of the blood of Hercules and of Aesculapius, as Soranus, a worthy historian, writes. But see Pliny in the seventh book, chapter 56, which says thus: The Egyptians claim to have found medicine: Others claim it was found by Arabus, son of Apollo and of Babylon. But the herbs and medicaments by Chiron, son of Saturn and of Phillyra: But Creote of Agrigento in Sicily found the empiric, that is, medicine by experience, as Pliny writes in the thirtieth, because Cornelius Celsus in the proemium of the first divides Medicine into three species, that is dietetics study of diet, pharmacopeia the use of potions and syrups, and surgery the art of the surgeon. Hippocrates ordered the Clinical, that is, to visit and treat systematically. Pliny also in book 7, chapter 5, the Lydian of Scythia found how to melt copper and temper it, and according to Theophrastus, the manufacture of copper [was found] by that of Phrygia; some attribute it to the Calybes, some to the Cyclopes. Hesiod to those who in Crete were called the Idaean Dactyls; the plow was found by Ericthonius the Athenian and according to others by Cephico. Cadmus found gold and how to melt it, on Mount Pangaeum: Others say Thoas and Eaclis in Panchaia, or truly the Sun, son of the Ocean, to whom Gellius also attributes the invention of medicine, and of honey, etc. Therefore, it will be of great benefit to the Architect, and for himself and for others, when he knows how to know the quality of the terrestrial situations, and the species of the air and of the water, and the celestial climates, as similarly Vitruvius will say, the property of the grazing animals for the fruits that the earth and the waters generate in those places: and for what causes they create infirmity and health by natural temperament, and so many other things that we leave out so as not to prolong too much, since they are manifested in the Vitruvian lectures.

¶ That he have knowledge of civil law. This commandment will be of great utility: because not only will he know the practice of the ordered civil offices of those Citizens which, where there is need, the Architect for himself can operate in the occurring terms of Architecture, as much for buildings as also for the limitations from neighbor to neighbor, and both of civil as of rustic [matters] and of Fields: or for the conduits of water for the possessions, or for the civil republics, or truly of castles, or even of an island, and also of a riverbed, etc. Which things the first commentator of Vitruvius says happened to him in the year 1518, being in the city of Asti in the company of the most illustrious doctors, Alberto Bruno, Hieronymo Buzo, and the lieutenant of Messer Iouanne di Verasiis, doctor: and they divided the alluvion given by the river Tanaro already many years past, and they opened those geometric projections, and terminated what the terrestrial figure impressed showed most, which was almost circular, which had joined the first properties of the hospital of the republic, and of many other gentlemen: Finally, that of the noble doctor Giovanni di Verasiis. For which divisions of Geometry, diligently between the plain and the woods and meadows, they planted the straight poles: to the line, to the muse of the brass compass within which compass, looking through the long and very subtle holes as the figure has demonstrated in the 8th book, chapter 56, with the chorobate an ancient leveling instrument, the sign of which has the letter A above it, and so being all those to whom they trusted the parts of that alluvion that unjustly was divided by their will and not by reason. Therefore, see of how much clarity and peace is the Architect who knows how to know the rules of law and the answers given to those who have...

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