VITRUVIUS 'TEN BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE': a New English Translation with Commentary and Illustrations. - Brief Article - Review - book review

Architectural Review, The, Dec, 1999 by Robert Tavernor

By Thomas Noble Howe and lngrid D. Rowland, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1999. [pounds]50

For better and worse, architects owe their existence to Vitruvius. His De Architectura, arranged in ten chapters, or 'books', has been upheld for centuries as the architect's Bible. It has determined what architecture is, and consequently how architects should be educated to perform their role in society. Yet Vitruvius has achieved such influence, not because of his elegance as a writer, or his excellence as a thinker and designer (it has usually been held that he was none of these), but because his is the only surviving guide to antique buildings - that is how classical architecture was conceived and built.

Like the Bible, Vitruvius's treatise has been translated into every major language. Inevitably, some versions are preferred over others -- for their lucid and edifying interpretation of the Latin original, and their visual appeal. In fact, no illustrations by Vitruvius have survived, though representations of his descriptions have influenced the course of architecture. Sixteenth-century editions by Fra Giocondo, Cesare Cesariano, and Daniele Barbaro - the latter containing illustrations by Palladio - demonstrate the scholarship and sheer beauty of what Vitruvius has inspired. They are treasured.

Conversely, the English version most widely used this century - translated by Morris Hicky Morgan and first published in 1914 - has been criticized for inaccuracies, an overly grand literary style and poor illustrations. A replacement English edition by a major publisher has therefore been long awaited.

Ingrid Rowland has provided a translation for our time, stripped bare of ornament and mystique, which deliberately avoids Morgan's stately turn-of-the-century English. Her thorough and informative introduction sets the scene, and the main text has been untangled to read straightforwardly: though some key passages are rendered in a manner that will surely raise scholarly eyebrows. The text is followed by Howe's exemplary commentary that makes Vitruvius's time, and his design process, transparent and intelligible. However, this is let down by the basic and whimsical sketches that illustrate it. They do not belong to a work of such huge cultural significance, and are more suited to a building manual than the hook that have successfully promoted building as an art.