Vitruvius' Account of the Greek Stage

Abstract

An interesting contrast may be drawn between the results obtained from the study of Vitruvius in the early years of the sixteenth century and the exposition of his meaning and text by the scholars of to-day. This contrast is almost always to the advantage of the latter-day scholars. Archaeology has done everything in recent times to clear up by consideration of existing monuments a host of difficulties not dreamed of in the days of the Renaissance, and archaeologists—so far as they are agreed as to the testimony of recent discoveries—have little or nothing to learn from remote predecessors. But a serious disagreement exists among them in regard to the stage of the Greek theatre. This want of agreement is reflected in the current interpretations of a difficult passage in Vitruvius. About this very passage the scholars of the early Renaissance were agreed, and since their explanation of it differs in some material respects from any now offered, it may be of some use to us to-day.The Florentine Leo Battista Alberti reproduced the meaning of Vitruvius, without undertaking to construe his text, then very corrupt. In 1511 was printed the text of Vitruvius which, in spite of many subsequent labours, has bravely held its own up to the present day. This text we owe to Fra Giocondo, a Franciscan friar who was equally great as an inspiring teacher, a painstaking scholar, and a daring and original architect. The condition of the text in the three first editions was lamentable, as appears in the passage describing the Greek theatre which especially concerns the present inquiry.