Vitruvius

Roman architect and engineer

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Architects rank#13
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Lived -80–-15, aged 65Italy

Italy ArchitectsArchitect

Wikipedia
80 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
-80–-15
Aged 65

Summary

Updated 2026-06-21

The only architect from antiquity whose writings survived intact. His treatise — firmness, commodity, delight — became the blueprint every Renaissance master studied, and his notes on proportion gave Leonardo the Vitruvian Man.

Biography

About

Vitruvius was a Roman architect and engineer in the 1st century BC who served as an artilleryman and army engineer, specializing in siege machinery like ballistae and scorpions, possibly under Julius Caesar's chief engineer. He wrote De architectura, a multi-volume work arguing that all buildings require firmitas, utilitas, and venustas — strength, utility, and beauty. The treatise circulated widely through the Middle Ages, then was "rediscovered" in 1414 at Saint Gall Abbey and published in print in Rome in 1486. Translations and illustrated editions followed across Europe, with the 1511 Veni…

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In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Vitruvius

Vitruvius

saidundated

An architect ought to be an educated man so as to leave a more lasting remembrance in his treatises.

— Chapter I, Sec. 4

Vitruvius

saidundated

As for philosophy, it makes an architect high-minded and not self-assuming, but rather renders him courteous, just, and honest without avariciousness.

— Chapter I, Sec. 7

Vitruvius

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Philosophy treats of physics where a more careful knowledge is required because the problems which come under this head are numerous...

— Chapter I, Sec. 7

Vitruvius

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In theatres... there are the bronze vessels in which are placed in niches under the seats in accordance with the musical intervals on mathematical principles.

— Chapter I, Sec. 9

Vitruvius

saidundated