VITRUVIUS, ml. POLLIO, a very distinguished writer on architecture, is supposed to have flourished in the times ofJulins Cesar and Augustus. Of his parentage, and place of nativity, nothing certain is known : Verona and Plaisanee both claim him ; but the pretensions of Formhe, now Mola de Gaeta, are more generally: allowed. Of his liberal edu cation, at.d his travels fbr inflirtnation and improvement, there can be no doubt. By the exercise of his profession he had acquired some property, though perhaps not very consider able; for he says, he did not, like the generality of archi tects. solicit employment. Under Augustus, or perhaps one of the succeeding emperors, to whom lie dedicated his works, he occupied the post of Inspector of Military Engines. But as Pliny the Elder mentions his name among other authors, in his Xatural History, composed in the reign of Vespasian, his work must have been published before that period. Of planned or constructed by him, one only is mentioned by himself, which was a basilica at Nano. Ills work was discovered in MS. by Poggio, in the fifteenth century, and it has ever since been held in high estimation. The ten books, into Nybicb it is distributed, not only treat on every thing belonging to buildings public and private, their site, materials, forms, ornaments, conveniences, and the like; but include much of what would be termed engineering, civil and military ; and even digress to geometrical problems and astronomical inventions. Besides the insouction that may be
derived from it, it has afforded much important matter to the antiquary relative to the state of art and science, as well as the detail of private life, among the IZomans.
Some of the most esteemed editions of Vitruvins are by Dan. Barbari, 1507 ; J. de Laet, -bast. fol. 1049 ; Galiani, Xeap. Cd. 1755, with au Italian translation and notes. Claude Perrault has given a good French translation, Paris. fol. 1651; and we have an English one by .Mr. New ton, London, 1791. A magnificent edition of the civil archi tecture of Vitruvius, in two parts, royal quarto, has been also published by W. Wilkins, Jun., A.M., F.IZ.S., &e. During the reign of Augustus, it does not appear that the IZomans had one architect, sculptor, painter, or musician, except Vit•uvius, who has given Aristoxenus's system in Latin; but he was obliged to retain the Greek technira, as he was the first Roman writer on the subject of music, and used Greek technical words as we do Italian. Vitruvius has described the theatrical vases used by the Greeks for the and continuation of sound, and has given a description of the organ of the ancients worked by the fall of water.