Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
Architects should be educated, skillful with the pencil, instructed in geometry, know much history, have followed the philosophers with attention, understand music, have some knowledge of medicine, know the opinions of the jurists, and be acquainted with astronomy and the theory of the heavensCollection: Medicine
Architect's designs must refer to the unquestionable perfection of the body's symmetry and proportions. If a building is to create a sense of eurythmia, it is essential that it mirrors these natural laws of harmony and beautyCollection: Mirrors
Architecture depends on Order, Arrangement, Eurythmy, Symmetry , Propriety , and Economy.Collection: Order
A harmonious design requires that nothing be added or taken away.Collection: Inspirational
The architect must not only understand drawing, but music.Collection: Drawing
In fact, all kinds of men, and not merely architects, can recognize a good piece of work.Collection: Men
Proportion is that agreeable harmony between the several parts of a building, which is the result of a just and regular agreement of them with each other; the height to the width, this to the length, and each of these to the whole.Collection: Agreement
If our designs for private houses are to be correct, we must at the outset take note of the countries and climates in which they are built.Collection: Country
Geometry is of much assistance in architecture, and in particular it teaches us the use of the rule and compasses, by which especially we acquire readiness in making plans for buildings in their grounds, and rightly apply the square, the level, and the plummet. By means of optics the light in buildings can be drawn from fixed quarters of the sky. Difficult questions involving symmetry are solved by means of geometrical theories and methods.Collection: Mean
The [engineer] should be equipped with knowledge of many branches of study and varied kinds of learning, for it is by his judgement that all work done by the other arts is put to test. This knowledge is the child of practice and theory.Collection: Art
It is no secret that the moon has no light of her own, but is, as it were, a mirror, receiving brightness from the influence of the sun.Collection: Moon
An architect ought to be an educated man so as to leave a more lasting remembrance in his treatises.Collection: Men
The design of a temple depends on symmetry, the principles of which must be most carefully observed by the architect.Collection: Design
When the juices of trees have no means of escape, they clot and rot in them, making the trees hollow and good for nothing.Collection: Mean
Consistency is found in that work whose whole and detail are suitable to the occasion. It arises from circumstance, custom, and nature.Collection: Consistency
Water from clay pipes is much more wholesome than that which is conducted through lead pipes, because lead is found to be harmful for the reason that white lead is derived from it, and this is said to be hurtful to the human system.Collection: White
For not all things are practicable on identical principlesCollection: Principles
If then, at this great distance, our human vision can discern that sight, why, pray, are we to think that the divine splendor of the stars can be cast into darkness?Collection: Stars
For we must not build temples according to the same rules to all gods alike, since the performance of the sacred rites varies with the various gods.Collection: Sacred
A liberal education forms a single body. Those, therefore, who from tender years receive instruction in the various forms of learning, recognize the same stamp on all the arts, and an intercourse between all studies, and so they more readily comprehend them all.Collection: Art
All machinery is derived from nature, and is founded on the teaching and instruction of the revolution of the firmament.Collection: Teaching
Bricks will be most serviceable if made two years before using; for they cannot dry thoroughly in less time. When fresh undried bricks are used in a wall, the stucco covering stiffens and hardens into a permanent mass, but the bricks settle and the motion caused by their shrinking prevents them from adhering to it, and they are separated from their union with it. At Utica in constructing walls they use brick only if it is dry and made five years previously, and approved as such by the authority of a magistrate.Collection: Wall
In accordance with the foregoing investigations on mathematical principles, let bronze vessels be made, proportionate to the size of the theatre, and let them be so fashioned that, when touched, they may produce with one another the notes of the fourth, the fifth, and so on up the double octave.Collection: Theatre
The proper form of economy must be observed in building houses for each and every class.Collection: Building Houses
Harmony is an obscure and difficult musical science, but most difficult to those who are not acquainted with the Greek language; because it is necessary to use many Greek words to which there are none corresponding in Latin.Collection: Latin
Nothing suffers annihilation, but at dissolution there is a change, and things fall back to the essential element in which they were before.Collection: Fall
Noting all these things with the great delight which learning gives, we cannot but be stirred by these discoveries when we reflect upon the influence of them one by one.Collection: Discovery
There will be natural propriety in using an eastern light for bedrooms and libraries, a western light in winter for baths and winter apartments, and a northern light for picture galleries and other places in which a steady light is needed; for that quarter of the sky grows neither light nor dark with the course of the sun, but remains steady and unshifting all day long.Collection: Dark
Bricks should be made in Spring or Autumn so that they may dry uniformly.Collection: Spring
Altars should face the east, and should always be placed on a lower level than are the statues in the temples, so that those who are praying and sacrificing may look upwards towards the divinity.Collection: Sacrifice
There will be no propriety in the spectacle of an elegant interior approached by a low mean entrance.Collection: Mean
As for philosophy, it makes an architect high-minded and not self-assuming, but rather renders him courteous, just, and honest without avariciousness. This is very important, for no work can be rightly done without honesty and incorruptibility.Collection: Honesty
But I, Caesar, have not sought to amass wealth by the practice of my art, having been rather contented with a small fortune and reputation, than desirous of abundance accompanied by a want of reputation.Collection: Art
Dimension stone, flint, rubble, burnt or unburnt brick, use them as you find them. For it is not every neighborhood or particular locality that can have a wall built of burnt brick like that at Babylon, where there was plenty of asphalt to take the place of lime and sand, and yet possibly each may be provided with materials of equal usefulness so that out of them a faultless wall may be built to last forever.Collection: Wall
Of course, we need not be surprised if artistic excellence goes unrecognized on account of being unknown; but there should be the greatest indignation when, as often, good judges are flattered by the charm of social entertainments into an approbation which is a mere a pretence.Collection: Judging
Philosophy treats of physics where a more careful knowledge is required because the problems which come under this head are numerous... So the reader of Ctesibius or Archimedes and the other writers of treatises of the same class will not be able to appreciate them unless he has been trained in these subjects by the philosophers.Collection: Philosophy
Heat is a universal solvent, melting out of things their power of resistance, and sucking away and removing their natural strength with its fiery exhalations so that they grow soft, and hence weak, under its glow.Collection: Melting
All these soft kinds [of stone] have the advantage that they can be easily worked as soon as they have been taken from the quarries. Under cover, they play their part well; but in open and exposed situations the frost and rime make them crumble, and they go to pieces. On the seacoast, too, the salt eats away and dissolves them, nor can they stand great heat either.Collection: Taken
The thickness of the walls should be sufficient for two armed men to pass each other with ease.Collection: Wall
Now architecture consists of order, which in Greek is called taxis ... Order is the balanced adjustment of the details of the work separately, and, as to the whole, the arrangement of the proportion with a view to a symmetrical result.Collection: Views
There are also kinds of water that cause death, as they run through harmful juices in the soil and become poisonous.Collection: Running
Economy denotes the the proper management of materials and of site, as well as a thrifty balancing of cost and common sense in the construction of works. ...the architect does not demand things which cannot be found or made ready without great expense. For example: it is not everywhere that there is plenty of pitsand, rubble, fir, clear fir, and marble... Where there is no pitsand, we must use the kinds washed up by rivers or by the sea... and other problems we must solve in similar ways.Collection: Sea
As regards the efficacy of the art and the theories of it, I promise and expect that in these volumes I shall undoubtedly show myself of very considerable importance not only to builders but also to all scholars.Collection: Art
With the ripening of the fruits in Autumn the leaves begin to wither and the trees, taking up their sap from the earth through the roots, recover themselves and are restored to their former solid texture. But the strong air of winter compresses and solidifies them.Collection: Strong
Remembering that Eratosthenes of Cyrene, employing mathematical theories and geometrical methods, discovered from the course of the sun, the shadows cast by an equinoctial gnomon, and the inclination of the heaven that the circumference of the earth is two hundred and fifty-two thousand stadia, that is, thirty-one million five hundred thousand paces.Collection: Two
Burn shavings and splinters of pitch pine, and when they turn to charcoal, put them out, and pound them into mortar with size. This will make a pretty black for fresco painting.Collection: Black
It was a wise and useful provision of the ancients to transmit their thoughts to posterity by recording them in treatises, so that they should not be lost, but, being developed in succeeding generations through publications in books, should gradually attain in later times, to the highest refinement of learning.Collection: Wise
The oak has not the efficacy of the fir, nor the cypress that of the elm.Collection: Cypresses
Propriety is that perfection of style which comes when a work is authoritatively constructed on approved principles. It arises from prescription, from usage, or from nature.Collection: Perfection
There are many names for winds derived from localities or from the squalls which sweep from rivers or down mountains.Collection: Wind