Ten Books on Architecture (De Architectura)

He brings forward from a Veronese stone 1 this inscription: L. VICTRUVIUS L. L. CERDO ARCHITECTUS Lucius Victruvius Cerdo, freedman of Lucius, Architect. The same man, he says, Cerdo is the same as Pellio. But that Vitruvius Pellio, whom Alciatus foists upon us instead of Pollio, is rightly exploded by Philander, by Barthius in Adversaria Book I, ch. 10, and by Petro Burmanno in his preface to Vol. IX, Part VI of the Treasury of Italian Affairs. Maffaeus, in Verona Illustrata, finds it probable that this Vitruvius Cerdo was a freedman of the architect Vitruvius. Concerning the epitaph of M. Vitruvius, which they say King Alphonso inspected near Formia, mention is also made by Panormitanus in Concerning the Learned Men of Alphonso I, 47, in Aeneas Sylvius, p. 476, Opp. That Vitruvius profited from the sacred scriptures, and—though he conceals it—drew architectural precepts from Moses (as Villalpandus wishes in Vol. II on Ezekiel, p. 45), seems no more probable to me than the idea that the true image of the Jerusalem temple, however beautiful and splendid it may be, is explained to us by Villalpandus from Vitruvian precepts, whereas the sons of the Hebrews exhibit to us one that is far different. Concerning the plebeian nature of the Latin language, which learned men have observed in Vitruvius, some notes exist in Pihlmann's Roman Bilingual, or a dissertation published at Uppsala in 8vo, on the difference between the plebeian and rustic language in the time of Augustus and the more refined speech of the city-dwelling men. See the Trevoltine Memoirs, year 1711, p. 914, and also Io. Nicolaus Funccius, On the Manly Age of the Latin Language, second part, p. 299 sqq. Many have written the life of Vitruvius in the past: Daniel Barbarus, Philander, and Bernardinus Baldus. Polenus added Baldus's life to his book on the editions of Vitruvius, along with his own erudite notes. Maffaeus illustrated the affairs of Vitruvius most diligently in Verona Illustrata Part II.

There exist his 10 books On Architecture to Emperor Augustus, written in his mature age 2. The figures or σχήματα diagrams, which he from time to time placed at the bottom of individual books...

1 At Verona, among the learned Veronese, Vitruvius holds the first place on the main facade of the Curia, according to Onuphrius Panvinius in Antiquities of Verona, book VI, p. 147, who nevertheless does not deny that he considers this Veronese architect L. Vitruvius Cerdo, freedman of Lucius, to be different from the writer

M. Vitruvius Pollio, a Roman freeborn citizen.

2 Vitruvius, lib. II, preface: "To me, Emperor, nature did not grant stature, age deformed my face, and ill health took away my strength." In book VIII, chapter 4, he reports that he used as his guest C. Julius, son of Masinissa, who served with his father Caesar Julius.