Ten Books on Architecture (De Architectura)

Many had praise for this illustrious labor, and admirers too, but also not a few detractors and critics. For Leo Battista Alberti, on the threshold of the sixth book, attempts to diminish his dignity with these words: original: "Namque dolebant quidam, ait, tam multa tamque praeclarissima scriptorum monumenta interiisse, temporum hominumque iniuria, ut vix unum ex tanto naufragio Vitruvium superstitem haberemus, scriptorem procul dubio instructissimum, sed ita affectum tempestate atque lacerum, ut multis locis multa desint, & multis plurima desideres. Accedebat, quod ista tradidisset non culta. Sic enim loquebatur, ut Latini, Graecum videri voluisse, Graeci, locutum Latine, vaticinentur: res autem ipsa in sesse porrigenda, neque Latinum, neque Graecum fuisse testetur, ut par sit, non scripsisse hunc nobis, qui ita scripserit, ut non intelligamus." Translation: "For some grieved, he says, that so many and such excellent monuments of writers had perished, through the injury of times and men, that we barely had one survivor, Vitruvius, from such a shipwreck—a writer undoubtedly most instructed, but so affected by the storm and mangled, that in many places many things are missing, and in many [others] you desire very many things. It was added that he had handed these things down unpolished. For he spoke in such a way that the Latins guessed he wished to seem Greek, and the Greeks guessed he spoke Latin: but the matter itself being offered as it is, testifies that it was neither Latin nor Greek, so that it is fitting to say that he who wrote in such a way that we do not understand [him] did not write for us." So far he, and quite immodestly. But most immodestly of all is Hieronymus Mercurialis in his book on gymnastics; for he speaks thus: original: "Vitruvii auctoritatem nunquam multi faciendam existimavi, nempe quem παραδοξολόγον teller of paradoxes/nonsense, & sua aetate minime aestimatum puto. Quod enim ab Augusto nullis egregiis fabricis, nisi solis ballistis, praefectus fuerit, quando scilicet in urbe, & extra urbem magnifica aedificia extruebantur, quod etiam a nullo fere posteriore auctore nominatus inveniatur, praeterquam in capitum Plinii librorum catalogo, qui ab aliquibus minime Plinianus, vel saltem adulteratus putatur, magnam certe ipsius existimationis suspicionem merito parit." Translation: "I never considered the authority of Vitruvius to be of much value, for I consider him a teller of paradoxes, and one who was not esteemed at all in his own age. Because he was placed by Augustus in charge of no excellent buildings, only ballistae, at a time when magnificent buildings were being constructed in the city and outside the city, and because he is found named by almost no later author, except in the catalogue of chapters in the books of Pliny, which some think is not Plinian at all, or at least adulterated, it certainly justly gives rise to a great suspicion of his reputation." This from Mercurialis. Too bitterly against an upright, candid author, who deserved no such thing. Furthermore, whether Pliny's catalogue is corrupted, I do not care, since it is sufficiently clear to readers that Pliny drew very many things from this Vitruvian store, and not only Pliny, but also Palladius and other good authors received [knowledge] from him, in those things that pertain to architecture.