Ten Books on Architecture

...long-standing The transcription begins with the end of the word longa (long-standing) from the previous page. evidence concerning you. And since I have not been known to you until now, may it not displease your Excellency original: claritatem tuam to know me through these first efforts. For since, through my care, you will have an accurate, useful, and even delightful reading of this author The Roman author Vitruvius, whose work on architecture Giocondo had painstakingly edited for this edition.—whose like you will find very rarely elsewhere—you will find no small harvest of Latin and Greek terms pertaining to architecture, which have even been adopted by our own people. You will also find knowledge of ancient buildings, which includes gnomonics gnomonics: the science of designing and constructing sundials and mechanics machination: in this context, the engineering and construction of machines. In these matters, you will find a wealth of information unparalleled by any other source.

If you examine this work more diligently, you will not only learn the rules of architecture, but you will also emerge thoroughly learned in several other disciplines as well. This will allow you to understand the skill of every craftsman in their own profession, and to see how much the liberal studies The "liberal arts" (grammar, rhetoric, logic, etc.) were seen as the intellectual foundation for the "mechanical" or practical arts. contribute to the mechanical arts, which are to the body like a living spirit.

Therefore, my Giuliano, as an old and somewhat bold man, I ask your pardon for what I have said and for what I might say even more freely. I am fully persuaded that you are a man of great virtue and even greater spirit; however, because the strength of virtues usually grows through praise, and they are more ardently embraced by those whom the virtues themselves embrace, I respectfully advise you of this: as the brother of such a great Pope and easily the leading citizen of the Florentine Republic, conduct yourself with everyone so that you are considered the "delight of our age," just as it is read that the famous Titus A reference to the Roman Emperor Titus, whom the historian Suetonius called "the delight and darling of the human race" (amor ac deliciae generis humani). was in his own time. Emulate the justice and piety of the Antonines—both the Pious and the Philosopher The Roman Emperors Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, the latter often called "the Philosopher.".

Although you have, as I said, your father, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers as examples to imitate—all famous for every kind of virtue—I do not think it inappropriate to take examples from those ancient figures as well, especially since they have been praised for such a vast span of time. In this way, from many various and fragrant flowers, you may place a woven and perpetual crown upon your head. You now seem to be born not for yourself alone, but for many others; by favoring their progress, show yourself to them as you would wish each of them to show themselves to you, if fortune or virtue had placed them in the rank you now hold.

Be happy, and fare well, mindful of old Giovanni Giocondo.