In De architectura (c.40 BC), Vitruvius discusses in ten encyclopedic chapters aspects of Roman architecture, engineering and city planning. Vitruvius also included a section on human proportions. Because it is the only antique treatise on architecture to have survived, De architectura has been an invaluable source of information for scholars. The rediscovery of Vitruvius during the Renaissance greatly fuelled the revival of classicism during that and subsequent periods. Numerous architectural treatises were based in part or inspired by Vitruvius, beginning with Leon Battista Alberti's De re aedificatoria (1485).

The writings of the architect and engineer Vitruvius (c. 90-c. 20 BC) provide a fascinating picture of how the Romans planned and built their great structures and cities.

About the Author

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (late 1st century B.C.), was a Roman military architect and engineer, and an expert in ballistic machines in particular.

Robert Tavernor studied architecture in London, Rome and Cambridge and practices as a consultant architect. He was professor of Architecture at the universities of Edinburgh and Bath, and is currently Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

Richard Schofield read Classics at Oxford in the late 1960s, then architectural history at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. After working at the University of Nottingham for many years, he moved to the Istituto universitario di architettura di Venezia in 1997, where he is the Professor of the History of Architecture.

Book Information
ISBN 9780141441689
Author Vitruvius
Format Paperback
Page Count 496
Imprint Penguin Classics
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 340g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 21mm