Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1290

Rh 1278 VITRUVIUS. the emperor with a standard by which to judge of the buildings he had already erected, as well as of those Avhich he might afterwards erect ; which can have no meaning, unless he wished to protest against the stj'le of architecture which pre- vailed in the buildings already erected. That this was really his intention appears from several other arguments, and especially from his frequent refer- ences to the unworthy means by which architects obtained wealth and favour, with which he con- trasts his own moderation and contentment in his more obscure position. The same thing ap- pears from his praise of the pure Greek models and his complaints of the corruptions which were grow- ing up ; and also from his general silence about those of the great buildings of the age of Augustus, which, if the date assigned to him be correct, must have been erected before he wrote. This silence is perfectly intelligible if we understand those to be the very buildings, which he v/ished the emperor and his other readers to compare with his precepts, while he himself was content to fur- nish the means for the comparison, without in- curring the odium of actually making it. In a word, comparatively unsuccessful as an architect, for we have no building of his mentioned except the basilica at Fanum, he attempted, like other artists in the same predicament, to establish his reputation as a writer upon the theory of his art ; and in this he has been tolerably successful. His work is a valuable compendium of those written by numerous Greek architects, whom he mentions chiefly in the preface to his seventh book, and by some Roman writers on architecture. Its chief defects are its brevitj', of which Vitruvius himself boasts, and which he often carries so far as to be unintelligible, and the obscurity of the style, arising in part from the natural difficulty of technical lan- guage, but in part also from the author's want of •skill in writing, and sometimes from his imperfect comprehension of liis Greek authorities. His work is entitled De Arcldteetura Lihri X. In the First Book, after the dedication to the em- peror, and a general description of the science of architecture, and an account of the proper edu- cation of an architect, in which he includes most branches of science and literature, he treats of the choice of a proper site for a city, the disposition of its plan, its fortifications, and the several buildings within it. The Second Book is on the materials used in building, to his account of which he pre- fixes some remarks on the primeval condition of man and the invention and progress of the art of building, and on the views of the philosophers re- specting the origin of matter. The Third and Fourth Books are devoted to temples and the four orders of architecture employed in them, namely, the Ionic, Corinthian, Doric, and Tuscan. The Fifth Book relates to public buildings, the Siocth to private houses, and the Seventh to interior deco- rations. The Eighth is on the subject of water ; the mode of finding it ; its different kinds ; hot- springs, mineral waters, fountains, rivers, lakes, and the curious properties ascribed to certain waters ; the use of water in levelling ; and the various modes of conveying it for the supply of cities. The Ninth Book treats of various kinds of sun-dials and other instruments for measuring time ; and the Tenth of the machines used in building, and of military engines. Each book has a pre- face, upon some matter more or less connected with VITULUS. the subject ; and these prefaces are the source of most of our information about the author. The work of Vitruvius was first published, with that of Frontinus de Aquaeductibus, by Jo. Sulpitius, at Rome, without a date, but about A. n. 1486, fol, ; then at Florence, 1496, fol. ; at Venice, 1 497, fol., reprinted from the Florentine edition, which was more accurate than the Editio Princeps ; these three editions all follow the MSS. closely. A more critical recension was attempted by Jucundus of Verona, Venet. 1511, fol., with rude wood-cuts ; and another edition by the same editor, and with the same wood-cuts, but smaller and ruder, was printed by Giunta, Florent. 1513, 8vo., and re- printed in 1522 and 1523 ; the conjectural emen- dations in these editions are extremely rash. Of the numerous subsequent editions, a full account of which (up to 1801) will be found in Ernesti's edition of Fabric. Bibl. Led. vol. i. c. 17 (also pre- fixed to the Bipont edition), the most important are those of J. de Laet, Amst. 1640, fol. ; of A. Bode, in 2 vols. Berol. 1800, 4to., with a volume of plates, Berol. 1801 ; the Bipont, 1807, 8vo. ; that of J. G. Schneider, in 3 vols. Lips. 1807, 1808, 8vo., a most valuable critical edition, with a new and more rational arrangement of the chapters of each book, but without plates ; of Stratico, in 4 vols., Udine, ] 825 — 30, with plates and a Lexicon Vi- trumanum; and of Marini, in 4 vols., Rom, 1836, fol. The work has been translated into Italian by the Marquess Galiani, with the Latin text, Neapol. 1758, fol., and by Viviani, Udine, 1830 ; into German, hj D. Gualtherus and H. Rivius, Niiru- berg, 1548, fol., Basel, 1575, fol. and 1614, fol. ; and by August Bode, in 2 vols. Leipzig, 1796, 4to. ; into French, by Perrault, Paris, 1673, fol. ; 2d ed. 1684, fol. ; abridged 1674, 1681, fol.; and into English (besides the translation of Per- rault's abridgement, Lond. 1692, 8vo., often re- printed), by Robert Castell, with notes by Inigo Jones and others, 2 vols. Lond. 1730, fol. ; by W. Newton, with notes and plates, 2 vols., Lond. 1771, 1791, fol. ; by W. Wilkins, R. A., Lond. 1812, containing only the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth books, and those not complete ; and by Joseph Gwilt, 1826, 4to. There are several other translations of less importance, especially into Italian. (Bernard. Baldus, and Fabricius, as above quoted ; Schneider, Prolegomena and notes to Vitruvius ; Genelli, Eregetische Briefe ilber Vitruv. Bauhunst, Braunschweig and Berlin, 1801 — 4, 4to. ; Stie- glitz, Arch'dol. Unterhaltungen, Lips. 1 820 ; Hirt, Geschichte d, Baukunst bei den Alien, vol. ii. pp. 308, foil.) [P.S] VITULUS, the name of a family of the Ma- milia and Voconia gentes. Niebuhr supposes that Vitulus is merely another form of Italus, and re- marks that we find in the same manner in the Mamilia gens a surname Turrinus, that is, Tyr- rhenus. " It was customary, as is proved by the oldest Roman Fasti, for the great houses to take distinguishing surnames from a people Avith whom they were connected by blood, or by the ties of public hospitality." (Niebuhr, Hint of Rome, vol. i. p. 14.) The ancients, however, as we see from the coin figured below, connected the surname Vitulus with the word signifving a calf. VITULUS, MAMI'LIUS. 1. L. Mami- Lius Q. F. M. N. Vitulus, consul b. c. 265 with Q. Fabius Maximus Gurges, the year before the