Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/289

Rh V I T V I T 265 The following are some of the more important treatises and references : Williams, An Account of some Remarkable Ancient Ruins; A. Fraser Tytlcr, Ed in. Phil. Trans., vol. ii. ; Sir George Mackenzie, Observations on Vitrified Forts; Hibbert, Arch. Scot., vol. iv. ; MacCulloch, Highlands and Western Islands, vol. i. ; Miller, Rambles of a Geologist, chap. ix. ; Wilson, Archxology, and Prehistoric Annals, vol. ii. ; J. II. Burton, History of Scotland, vol. i. ; R. Angus Smith, Loch Etive and the Sons of Uisncach ; Anderson, Scotland in Pagan Times; C. MacLagan, The Hill Forts of Ancient Scotland ; Thomas Aitken, Trans. Inverness Scientific Soc., vol. i. ; Charles Proctor, Chemical Analysis of Vitrified Stones from Tap o Noth and Dunideer (Huntly Field Club); various papers in published Proceedings of Soc. Antiq. Scot. and Proceedings of Royal Irish Academy ; Leonhard, Archiv fur Mincralogie, vol. i. ; Virchow, Ztschr. fur Ethnologic, vols. iii. and iv. ; Schaaffhausen, Vcrhandlungcn dcr deutsch. anthrop. Gcsellschaft (1881); Kohl, Verhand. d. deutsch. anthrop. Gcscll- schaft (1883); Thuot, La Fortcrcssc vitrifiee du Puy de Gaudy, &amp;lt;L-c. ; De Nadaillac, Lcs Premiers Homines, vol. i. ; Memoircs de la Soc. Antiq. de France, vol. xxxviii. ; and Hildebrand, De forhistoriska folkcn i Europa (Stockliolm, 1880). (R. MU.) VITRIOL, a name formerly and sometimes still given to sulphuric acid and to certain sulphates (see SULPHUR, vol. xxii. p. 636). Oil of vitriol is concentrated sulphuric acid. Blue vitriol is sulphate of copper ; green vitriol, sulphate of iron (copperas, ferrous sulphate): and white vitriol, sulphate of zinc. VIT11UVIUS, 1 a Roman architect and engineer, whose full name was MARCUS VITRUVIUS POLLIO, the author of a very celebrated work on architecture. Nothing is known about his personal history, except what can be gathered from incidental remarks in his own writings. Owing to the discovery of a number of inscriptions relating to the Gens Vitruvia at Formias in Campania (Mola di Gaeta), it has been suggested that he was a native of that city, and he has been less reasonably connected with Yerona on the strength of an existing arch of the 3d century, which is inscribed with the name of a later architect of the same family name &quot; Lucius Vitruvius Cerdo, a freedman of Lucius.&quot; From Vitruvius himself we learn that he was appointed, in the reign of Augustus, together with three others, a superintendent of lalistse, and other military engines, a post which, he says, he owed to the friendly influence of the emperor s sister, probably Octavia (De Architedura, i. pref.). In another passage (v. 1) he describes a basilica and adjacent sedes Augusti, of which he was the architect. From viii. 3 it has been supposed that he had served in Africa in the time of Julius Caesar, probably as a military engineer, but the words will hardly bear this interpretation. He speaks of himself as being low in stature, and at the time of his writing bowed down by age and ill-health (ii. pref.). He appears to have enjoyed no great reputation as an architect, and, with philosophic contentment, records that he possessed but little fortune. Though a great student of Greek philosophy and science, he was unpractised in literature, and his style is very involved and obscure. To a great extent the theoretical and historical parts of his work are compiled from earlier Greek authors, of whom he gives a list at i. 1 and viii. 3. The practical portions, on the contrary, are evidently the result of his own professional experience, and are written with much sagacity, and in a far clearer style than the more pedantic chapters, in which he gives the somewhat fanciful theories of the Greeks. Some sections of the latter, especially those on the connexion between music and architecture, the scale of harmonic proportions, and the Greek use of bronze vases to reverberate and strengthen the actors voices in the theatre, are now almost wholly unintelligible. The De Architedura is divided into ten books, each with a preface, in which occur most of the personal facts about himself. It is dedicated to Augustus, and that fact is 1 The references in this article follow the divisions into books and chapters adopted iu the more recent German editions. really all that is known with regard to the date at which Vitruvius lived, though many attempts have been made to gather more minute indications from the internal evidence of his writings : for example, the omission of any mention of the Pantheon in Rome has been taken as an argument to show that he wrote before it was built in 27 B.C. This, however, and other arguments of the same kind are obviously of but little weight. Vitruvius s name is men tioned by Frontinus in his work on the aqueducts of Rome; and most of what Pliny says (H.N., xxxv. and xxxvi.) about methods of wall-painting, the preparation of the stucco surface, and other practical details in building is taken almost word for word from Vitruvius, especially from vi. 1, though without any acknowledgment of the source. From the early Renaissance down to a comparatively recent time the influence of Vitruvius s treatise has been remarkably great. Throughout the period of the classical revival Vitruvius was the chief authority studied by all architects, and in every point his precepts were accepted as final. In some cases a failure to understand his meaning led to curious results ; for example, the mediaeval custom, not uncommon in England, of placing rows of earthenware jars under the floor of the stalls in church choirs appears to have been an attempt to follow out Vitruvius s remarks about the advantages of placing bronze vases round the auditorium of theatres. Bramante, Michelangelo, Palladio, Vignola, and earlier architects were careful students of Vitruvius s work, which through them has largely influenced the architecture of almost all European countries down to the present century, a very remarkable instance of the success and influence of a book being actively redeveloped a very long time about fifteen centuries after its author s lifetime. There is no reason to suppose that the book was either popular or influential among the ancient Romans, and yet in more modern times its influence has been un bounded. Its archaeological value is very great, as without it we should find it very difficult to understand the uses of the various parts of such houses as those at Pompeii, and many interesting details with regard both to construction and design would have remained unintelligible. Bk. i. opens with a dedication to Augustus. C. 1 is on the science of architecture generally, and the many different branches of knowledge with which the trained architect ought to be acquainted, viz., grammar, music, painting, sculpture, medicine, geometry, mathematics, and optics ; c. 2 is on the general principles of architectural design ; c. 3 on the considerations which determine a design, such as strength, utility, beauty, and the like ; c. 4 on the nature of different sorts of ground for sites ; c. 5 on walls of fortification ; c. 6 on aspects towards the north, south, and other points ; c. 7 on the proper situations of temples dedicated to the various deities. Bk. ii. relates to materials (preface about Dinocrates, architect to Alexander the Great). C. 1 is on the earliest dwellings of man ; c. 2 on systems of Thales, Heraclitus, Democritus, &c. ; c. 3 on bricks ; c. 4 on sand ; c. 5 on lime ; c. 6 on pozzolana ; c. 7 on kinds of stone for building ; c. 8 on methods of constructing walls in stone, brick, concrete, and marble, and on the materials for stucco ; c. 9 on timber, time for felling it, season ing, &c. ; and c. 10 on the fir trees of the Apennines. Bk. iii., on styles, has a preface on ancient Greek writers. C. 1 is on symmetry and proportion ; c. 2 on various forms of Greek temples, e.g., in antis, prostyle, peripteral, dipteral, hyprethral ; 2 c. 3 on inter- columniation pycnostyle, systyle, custyle, &c. ; c. 4 on founda tions, steps, and stylobates ; c. 5 on the Ionic order, its form and details. Bk. iv. , on styles and orders, has a preface to Augustm on the scope of the work. The subjects of its nine chapters are (1) the Corinthian, Ionic, and Doric orders ; (2) the, ornaments of capitals, &c. ; (3) the Doric order ; (4) proportions of the cella and pronaos ; (5) sites of temples ; (G) doorways of temples and their architraves; (7) the Etruscan or Tuscan order of temples; (8) circu lar temples ; (9) altars. Bk. v., on public, buildings, has a preface on the theories of Pythagoras, &c. Its twelve chapters treat (1) of fora and basilica;, with a description of his own basilica at Fanum ; - The excavations made in 18S7 have shown that Vitruvius was right in describing the great temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens as being octastyle. The previously almost universal opinion that it was decastyle had led to the needless theory that the passage containing this statement was corrupt. XXIV. 34