Author and Audience in Vitruvius' De architecturaVitruvius' 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. |
Contents
Greek Knowledge and the Roman World | 23 |
The SelfFashioning of Scribes | 42 |
House and Man | 83 |
Art Display and Strategies of Persuasion | 130 |
The Vermilion Walls of Faberius Scriba | 163 |
Epilogue | 180 |
| 195 | |
| 224 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Alabanda ancient apparitores appears architect argues that Vitruvius Aristippus Atticus audience Augustan Augustus authorial persona Boscoreale Boscotrecase building Carm Cato Cato the Elder Cato's Catullus Chapter character characterisation Cicero claims Coarelli colour conception connotations construction contemporary context Cornelius Nepos decor Dinocrates discussion domestic architecture echea ecphrasis elegantia elite Elsner example Faberius first-century Fögen frescoed interior Greek Gros Horace and Vitruvius Horace's ignotus imperial ingenuus ingenuus pudor invective Julius Caesar Krostenko late Republic Latin literary luxury Lykinos Maecenas magnificentia Mamurra Masterson 2004 Milnor moral Mostellaria Nepos Oksanish ORF4 passage patron peristyles Philolaches pigments Plautus Pliny Pliny the Elder poem political Pompeii praefectus fabrum preface to Book private architecture provides Purcell quod readers refers relationship rhetorical Roman authors Roman culture Roman house Rome scriba second century BCE self-fashioning social status suggests sunt tablinum Theopropides treatise Varro vermilion villa Vitr Vitruvian Vitruvius wall painting wealth