The Ten Books on Architecture

PREFACE.

In histories, which deal with subjects known to everyone and which have been treated by an infinite number of other Authors, it is difficult for Copyists to make mistakes; and if this does happen for some extraordinary reason, the faults are easier to correct.

This is why I have often been astonished by the judgment many make concerning the obscurity of Vitruvius’s writings, and the difficulty involved in translating them. Some, such as Leon Battista Alberti Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), a foundational Renaissance architect and theorist who famously complained that Vitruvius wrote as if he were a Greek to Latins and a Latin to Greeks. and Serlio Sebastiano Serlio (1475–1554), an influential Italian architect whose treatises helped spread the classical style., believe that this Author affected obscurity by design and out of malice, for fear that the Architects of his time, of whom he was jealous, might profit from his writings. This would have been a great baseness for a man who professes a spirit of generosity, and who demands it principally in an Architect. But it would have been an even greater foolishness for him to imagine that he could be obscure to those he hated without also being so to those he intended to instruct. Furthermore, the love one has for one's own works never leads to a jealousy that prevents one from wishing that their quality be known, loved, and possessed by everyone. This is why I cannot agree with those who hold that Heraclitus, Epicurus, and Aristotle were of such a humor, and that they did not want their Physics to be understood. For if the Egyptians and the alchemists original: "Chimiſtes metalliques." This refers to practitioners of alchemy, who often hid their "philosophy" behind allegories and secret symbols. have always hidden their Philosophy, it was shame rather than jealousy that compelled them to do so.

Other Writers, such as Gualterus Rivius Walther Hermann Ryff, a 16th-century German author known for his translations of Vitruvius and medical texts. who translated and commented on Vitruvius in German, and Henry Wotton Sir Henry Wotton (1568–1639), an English diplomat and author of "The Elements of Architecture" (1624). who wrote on Architecture in English, do not complain at all about Vitruvius's obscurity, but only about the difficulty they have in finding terms in their own language that can express those Vitruvius employed; and others, with more reason, place the entire difficulty in the understanding of the "barbarous" words Technical jargon or non-standard Latin terms used by Vitruvius. and manners of speaking that are peculiar to this Author. But no one blames the lack of knowledge one has regarding the things being discussed, without which it seems to me that an understanding of the terms is of little help. For example, in the description of Temple doors, even if one knew what Replum A technical term for a specific panel or molding on a door; its exact placement was a source of great debate among Renaissance scholars. signifies, one would hardly understand any better the structure of these Doors, as long as the object itself remains as obscure and as little understood as it is. And I cannot believe that what has stopped all the Scholars who have tried to understand the Catapult is the uncertainty regarding the meaning of the word Camillum A term referring to a part of the tensioning mechanism in ancient Roman siege engines. and a few other rarely used terms found in its description.

It seems to me, therefore, that the difficulty encountered in the translation of Vitruvius comes from the fact that it is not easy to find in a single person the different types of knowledge necessary to succeed in it. For a perfect understanding of what is called belles lettres The humanities or classical literature., and a diligent application to Criticism and the search for the meaning of terms—which must be gathered with great judgment from a vast number of Authors of Antiquity—are rarely found joined with that genius which, in Architecture as in all the fine Arts, is something akin to that distinct instinct that Nature alone gives to each animal, and which makes them succeed in certain things with a facility denied to those who were not born for it. For ultimately, the minds that are naturally enlightened by this beautiful light which makes...