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Vitruvius Rufus
Vitruvius ( ; ; –70 BC – after ) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work titled . As the only treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity, it has been regarded since the Renaissance as the first book on architectural theory, as well as a major source on the canon of classical architecture. It is not clear to what extent his contemporaries regarded his book as original or important. He states that all buildings should have three attributes: , , and ("strength", "utility", and "beauty"), principles reflected in much Ancient Roman architecture. His discussion of perfect proportion in architecture and the human body led to the famous Renaissance drawing of the ''Vitruvian Man'' by Leonardo da Vinci. Little is known about Vitruvius' life, but by his own descriptionDe Arch. Book 1, preface. section 2. he served as an artilleryman, the third class of arms in the Roman military offices. He probably served as a senior of ...
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Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( ) was the era of Ancient Rome, classical Roman civilisation beginning with Overthrow of the Roman monarchy, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establishment of the Roman Empire following the War of Actium. During this period, Rome's control expanded from the city's immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean world. Roman society at the time was primarily a cultural mix of Latins (Italic tribe), Latin and Etruscan civilization, Etruscan societies, as well as of Sabine, Oscan, and Greek cultural elements, which is especially visible in the Ancient Roman religion and List of Roman deities, its pantheon. Its political organisation developed at around the same time as direct democracy in Ancient Greece, with collective and annual magistracies, overseen by Roman Senate, a senate. There were annual elections, but the republican system was an elective olig ...
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Lucius Cornelius Balbus (major)
Lucius Cornelius Balbus ( 1st century BC) was born in Gades early in the first century BC. Lucius Cornelius Balbus was a wealthy Roman politician and businessman of Punic origin and a native of Gades in Hispania, who played a significant role in the emergence of the Principate at Rome. He was a prominent supporter of Julius Caesar and a close advisor to the emperor Augustus. Biography He served in Hispania under Pompey and Metellus Pius against Sertorius. For his services against Sertorius, Roman citizenship was conferred upon him and his family by Pompey. He accompanied Pompey on his return to Rome in 71 BC, and was for a long time one of his most intimate friends. He also gained the friendship of Julius Caesar, who placed great confidence in him. Balbus' personal friendships with Pompey and Caesar were instrumental in the formation of the First Triumvirate. He was a chief financier in Rome. Balbus served under Caesar as chief engineer (''praefectus fabrum'') when Caesar was ...
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Marcus Cetius Faventinus
Marcus Cetius Faventinus was a Roman author on architecture active in the late 3rd or early 4th century AD. He wrote a handbook based mainly on earlier authors, especially Vitruvius. It was intended mainly for private builders. Its original title was ''Artis architectonicae privatis usibus adbreviatus liber'' ('abridged book of the art of architecture for private uses'), but is now more commonly known as ''De diversis fabricis architectonicae''. It was used by the agricultural writer Palladius and by the encyclopaedist Isidore of Seville. It was also known by Sidonius Apollinaris Gaius Sollius Modestus Apollinaris Sidonius, better known as Sidonius Apollinaris (5 November, 430 – 481/490 AD), was a poet, diplomat, and bishop. Born into the Gallo-Roman aristocracy, he was son-in-law to Emperor Avitus and was appointed Urb .... There is a modern English translation with a facing Latin edition. Notes Bibliography * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cetius Faventinus, Marcus 3rd-century R ...
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De Architectura
(''On architecture'', published as ''Ten Books on Architecture'') is a treatise on architecture written by the Ancient Rome, Roman architect and military engineer Vitruvius, Marcus Vitruvius Pollio and dedicated to his patron, the emperor Caesar Augustus, as a guide for Caesar Augustus#Building projects, building projects. As the only treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity, it has been regarded since the Renaissance as the first known book on architectural theory, as well as a major source on the canon of classical architecture. It contains a variety of information on Greek and Roman buildings, as well as prescriptions for the planning and design of military camps, cities, and structures both large (aqueducts, buildings, baths, harbours) and small (machines, measuring devices, instruments). Since Vitruvius wrote early in the Roman architectural revolution that saw the full development of cross vaulting, domes, Roman concrete, concrete, and other innovations associa ...
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Giacomo Barozzi Da Vignola
Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola ( , , ; 1 October 15077 July 1573), often simply called Vignola, was one of the great Italian architects of 16th century Mannerism. His two great masterpieces are the Villa Farnese at Caprarola and the Jesuits' Church of the Gesù in Rome. The three architects who spread the Italian Renaissance style throughout Western Europe are Vignola, Serlio and Palladio. He is often considered the most important architect in Rome in the Mannerist era. Biography Jacopo Barozzi was born at Vignola, near Modena (Emilia-Romagna). He began his career as an architect in Bologna, supporting himself by painting and making perspective templates for inlay craftsmen. He made his first trip to Rome in 1536 to make measured drawings of Roman temples, with a thought to publish an illustrated Vitruvius. Then François I called him to Fontainebleau, where he spent the years 1541–1543. Here he probably met his fellow Bolognese, the architect Sebastiano Serlio and the ...
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Andrea Palladio
Andrea Palladio ( , ; ; 30 November 1508 – 19 August 1580) was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be one of the most influential individuals in the history of architecture. While he designed churches and palaces, he was best known for country houses and villas. His teachings, summarized in the architectural treatise, '' The Four Books of Architecture'', gained him wide recognition. The city of Vicenza, with its 23 buildings designed by Palladio, and his 24 villas in the Veneto are listed by UNESCO as part of a World Heritage Site named City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto. The churches of Palladio are to be found within the "Venice and its Lagoon" UNESCO World Heritage Site. Biography and major works Palladio was born on 30 November 1508 in Padua and was given the name Andrea di Pietro della Gondola (). His father, Pie ...
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Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6March 147518February 1564), known mononymously as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspired by models from classical antiquity and had a lasting influence on Western art. Michelangelo's creative abilities and mastery in a range of artistic arenas define him as an archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and elder contemporary, Leonardo da Vinci. Given the sheer volume of surviving correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences, Michelangelo is one of the best-documented artists of the 16th century. He was lauded by contemporary biographers as the most accomplished artist of his era. Michelangelo achieved fame early. Two of his best-known works, the ''Pietà (Michelangelo), Pietà'' and ''David (Michelangelo), David'', were sculpted before the age of 30. Although he did not consider himself a painter, Michelangelo created ...
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Donato Bramante
Donato Bramante (1444 – 11 April 1514), born as Donato di Pascuccio d'Antonio and also known as Bramante Lazzari, was an Italian architect and painter. He introduced Renaissance architecture to Milan and the High Renaissance style to Rome, where his plan for St. Peter's Basilica formed the basis of the design executed by Michelangelo. His Tempietto (San Pietro in Montorio) marked the beginning of the High Renaissance in Rome (1502) when Pope Julius II appointed him to build a sanctuary over the spot where Peter was martyred. Life Urbino Bramante was born under the name Donato d'Augnolo, Donato di Pascuccio d'Antonio, or Donato Pascuccio d'Antonio in Fermignano near Urbino. Here, in 1467, Luciano Laurana was adding to the Palazzo Ducale an arcaded courtyard and other Renaissance features to Federico da Montefeltro's ducal palace. Bramante's architecture has eclipsed his painting skills: he knew the painters Melozzo da Forlì and Piero della Francesca well, who were ...
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Woodcut
Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that the artist cuts away carry no ink, while characters or images at surface level carry the ink to produce the print. The block is cut along the wood grain (unlike wood engraving, where the block is cut in the end-grain). The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller ( brayer), leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas. Multiple colours can be printed by keying the paper to a frame around the woodblocks (using a different block for each colour). The art of carving the woodcut can be called ''xylography'', but this is rarely used in English for images alone, although that term and ''xylographic'' are used in connection with block books, which are small books containing text ...
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Fra Giovanni Giocondo
Giovanni Giocondo, O.F.M., (c. 1433 – 1515) was an Italian Franciscan friar, architect, antiquary, archaeologist, and classical scholar. Biography Giovanni Giocondo was born in Verona around 1433. He joined the Dominican Order at the age of eighteen. Afterward, however, he left the Dominicans and entered the Franciscan Order. Giocondo began his career as a teacher of Latin and Greek in Verona, where Julius Caesar Scaliger was one of his pupils. As a young priest, Giocondo was an archaeologist and draughtsman. He visited Rome, sketched its ancient buildings, wrote the story of its great monuments, and recorded, deciphered and explained many defaced inscriptions. He stimulated the revival of classical learning by making transcriptions of ancient manuscripts, one of which, completed in 1492, he presented to Lorenzo de' Medici. Giocondo soon returned to his native town where he built bridges and planned fortifications for Treviso, acting as architect engineer, and head-b ...
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Venice
Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are linked by 438 bridges. The islands are in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay lying between the mouths of the Po River, Po and the Piave River, Piave rivers (more exactly between the Brenta (river), Brenta and the Sile (river), Sile). As of 2025, 249,466 people resided in greater Venice or the Comune of Venice, of whom about 51,000 live in the historical island city of Venice (''centro storico'') and the rest on the mainland (''terraferma''). Together with the cities of Padua, Italy, Padua and Treviso, Italy, Treviso, Venice is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), which is considered a statistical metropolitan area, with a total population of 2.6 million. The name is derived from the ancient Adr ...
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De Re Aedificatoria
(''On the Art of Building'') is a classic architectural treatise written by Leon Battista Alberti between 1443 and 1452. Although largely dependent on Vitruvius's , it was the first theoretical book on the subject written in the Italian Renaissance, and in 1485 it became the first printed book on architecture. It was followed in 1486 with the first printed edition of Vitruvius. Book Alberti's ''Ten Books'' consciously echoes Vitruvius's writing, but Alberti also adopts a critical attitude toward his predecessor. In his discussion, Alberti includes a wide variety of literary sources, including Plato and Aristotle, presenting a concise version of the sociology of architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi .... is subdivided into ten books and includes: * Boo ...
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