VITRUVIUS, ON THE ART OF BUILDING
In 30 BCE, during the reign of Caesar Augustus, the Roman architect Marcus Vitruvius Pollio wrote De Architectura, The Ten Books on Architecture. This architectural treatise would be used by future Roman architects to design and construct temples and other buildings throughout their Empire. (2)
Vitruvius states in his treatise “Architecture depends on Order, Arrangement, Eurythmy, Symmetry…”
“Order gives due measure to the members of a work considered separately, and symmetrical agreement to the proportions as a whole…Arrangement includes the putting of things in their proper places and the elegance of effect which is due to adjustments appropriate to the character of the work. Its forms of expression are the ground plan, elevation, and perspective.”
“Eurythmy is beauty and fitness in the adjustments of the members. This is found when the members of a work are of a height suited to their breadth, of a breadth suited to their length, and in a word, when they all correspond symmetrically.” (Here he is speaking not only of two dimensional planes, but, three dimensional forms as well.)
“Symmetry is a proper agreement between the members of the work itself, and relation between the different parts, and the whole general scheme, in accordance with a certain part selected as standard (canon). Thus, in the human body there is a kind of symmetrical harmony between forearm, foot, palm, finger, and other small parts; and so it is with perfect buildings. In the case of temples, symmetry may be calculated from the thickness of a column, from a triglyph, or even from a module.”
From, “On Symmetry: In Temples and in the Human Body”, Vitruvius goes on to say, “in the members of a temple there ought to be the greatest harmony in the symmetrical relations of the different parts to the general magnitude of the whole.”
Then again, “in the human body the central part is naturally the navel. For if a man be placed on his back, with his hands and feet extended, and a pair of compasses centered at his navel, the fingers and toes of his two hands and feet will touch the circumference of a circle described there from.”(3)
“And just as the human body yields a circular outline, so too, a square figure can be found from it. For if we measure the distance from the soles of the feet to the top of the head, and then apply that measure to the outstretched arms, the breadth will be found to be the same as the height, as in the case of plane surfaces which are perfectly square.”
“Therefore, since nature has designed the human body so that its members are duly proportioned to the frame as a whole, it appears that the ancients had good reason for their rule, that perfect buildings must be in exact symmetrical relations to the whole general scheme. Hence, while transmitting to us the proper arrangements for buildings of all kinds, they were particularly careful to do so in the case of temples of the gods, buildings in which merits and faults usually last forever.”
“Further, it was from the members of the body that they derived the fundamental ideas of the measures which are obviously necessary in all works, as the finger, palm, foot and cubit. These they apportioned so as to form the perfect number, and as the perfect number the ancients fixed upon ten. For it is from the number of the fingers of the hand that the palm is found, and the foot from the palm. Again, while ten is naturally perfect, as being made up by the fingers of two palms, Plato also held that this number was perfect because ten is composed of the individual units.”