Author and Audience in Vitruvius' De architectura

The first study in English of Vitruvius' De architectura to take the work seriously as a literary and cultural product.

Marden Fitzpatrick Nichols (Author)

9781108969253, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 17 December 2020

264 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.527 kg

'Nichols has produced an exceptional book that will inevitably shape the scholarly conversation about Vitruvius the author for some time to come. That it is a book of such high quality in so many respects - including production - is fortunate indeed.' John Matthew Oksanish, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Vitruvius' De architectura is the only extant classical text on architecture, and its impact on Renaissance masters including Leonardo da Vinci is well-known. But what was the text's purpose in its own time (ca. 20s BCE)? In this book, Marden Fitzpatrick Nichols reveals how Vitruvius pitched the Greek discipline of architecture to his Roman readers, most of whom were undoubtedly laymen. The inaccuracy of Vitruvius' architectural rules, when compared with surviving ancient buildings, has knocked Vitruvius off his pedestal. Nichols argues that the author never intended to provide an accurate view of contemporary buildings. Instead, Vitruvius crafted his authorial persona and remarks on architecture to appeal to elites (and would-be elites) eager to secure their positions within an expanding empire. In this major new analysis of De architectura from archaeological and literary perspectives, Vitruvius emerges as a knowing critic of a social landscape in which the house made the man.

Introduction
1. Greek knowledge and the Roman world
2. The self-fashioning of scribes
3. House and man
4. Art display and strategies of persuasion
5. The vermilion walls of Faberius Scriba
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], History of architecture [AMX], History of art: ancient & classical art,BCE to c 500 CE [ACG]