Vitruvius

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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Vitruvius

 

Roman architect and engineer of the second half of the first century B.C.

Vitruvius is known from his work Ten Books on Architecture, the only ancient monograph on architecture that has come down to us in full. In this monograph he examines problems of urban construction, engineering and technology, and the arts and summarizes the theoretical and practical experience accumulated by the architecture of Hellenistic Greece and Rome. His ideas about the unity of the technical, functional, and aesthetic aspects of architecture and his demand for “strength, usefulness, and beauty” of structures are of great value. Nearly forgotten in the Middle Ages, Vitruvius’ treatise has been studied very carefully since the 15th century, was translated into many languages, and played an important role in the 17th and 18th centuries in the development of the canonical forms of the architectural orders.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
Arkhitektura v 10 knigakh. Translated by V. Bazhenov and F. Karzhavin. St. Petersburg, 1790-97.
Desiat’ knig ob arkhitekture, vol. 1. Translated by F. A. Petrovskii. Moscow, 1936.

REFERENCE

Mikhailov, B. P. Vitruvii i Ellada. Moscow, 1967.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.