Vitruvius: writing the body of architecture

Abstract

Vitruvius's De architectura is only major work on architecture to survive from classical antiquity, and until eighteenth century it was text to which all other architectural treatises referred. While European classicists have focused on factual truth of text itself, English-speaking architects and architectural theorists have viewed it as a timeless source of valuable metaphors. Departing from both perspectives, Indra Kagis McEwen examines work's meaning and significance in its own time. Vitruvius dedicated De architectura to his patron Augustus Caesar, first Roman emperor, whose rise to power inspired its composition near end of first century B.C. McEwen argues that imperial project of world dominion shaped Vitruvius's purpose in writing what he calls the whole body of architecture. Specifically, Vitruvius's aim was to present his discipline as means for making emperor's body congruent with imagined body of world he would rule. Each of book's four chapters treats a different Vitruvian body. Chapter 1, The Angelic Body, deals with book as a book, in terms of contemporary events and thought, particularly Stoicism and Stoic theories of language. Chapter 2, The Herculean Body, addresses book's and its author's relation to Augustus, whose double Vitruvius means architect to be. Chapter 3, The Body Beautiful, discusses relation of proportion and geometry to architectural beauty and role of beauty in forging new world order. Finally, Chapter 4, The Body of King, explores nature and unprecedented extent of Augustan building programs. Included is an examination of famous statue of Augustus from Prima Porta, sculpted soon after appearance of De architectura.