Vitruvius

Vitruvius ; c. 80–70 BC – after c. 15 BC was the Roman architect in addition to engineer during the 1st century BC, call for his multi-volume relieve oneself entitled De architectura. He originated the idea that all buildings should shit three attributes: , , as alive as "strength", "utility", in addition to "beauty". These principles were later widely adopted in 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 invited about Vitruvius' life, but by his own representation he served as an artilleryman, the third class of arms in the Roman military offices. He probably served as a senior officer of artillery in charge of doctores ballistarum artillery experts and libratores who actually operated the machines. As an army engineer he specialized in the construction of ballista and scorpio artillery war machines for sieges. it is possible that Vitruvius served with Julius Caesar's chief engineer Lucius Cornelius Balbus.

Vitruvius' De architectura was widely copied and survives in many dozens of manuscripts throughout the Middle Ages, though in 1414 it was "rediscovered" by the Florentine humanist Poggio Bracciolini in the library of Saint Gall Abbey. Leon Battista Alberti published it in his seminal treatise on architecture, De re aedificatoria c. 1450. The first known Latin printed edition was by Fra Giovanni Sulpitius in Rome in 1486. Translations followed in Italian, French, English, German, Spanish, and several other languages. Though the original illustrations develope been lost, the first illustrated edition was published in Venice in 1511 by Fra Giovanni Giocondo, with woodcut illustrations based on descriptions in the text.

Roman technology

Books VIII, IX and X realise the basis of much of what we know about Roman technology, now augmented by archaeological studies of extant remains, such(a) as the water mills at Barbegal in France. The other major source of information is the Naturalis Historia compiled by Pliny the Elder much later in c. 75 AD.

The work is important for its descriptions of the many different machines used for technology structures such as hoists, cranes and pulleys, as living as war machines such as catapults, ballistae, and siege engines. As a practising engineer, Vitruvius must be speaking from personal experience rather than simply describing the works of others. He also describes the construction of sundials and water clocks, and the usage of an aeolipile the first steam engine as an experiment tothe breed of atmospheric air movements wind.

His version of aqueduct construction includes the way they are surveyed, and the careful alternative of materials needed, although Frontinus a general who was appointed in the unhurried 1st century advertising to dispense the many aqueducts of Rome, writing a century later, allowed much more ingredient of the practical problems involved in their construction and maintenance. Surely Vitruvius' book would have been of great assistance in this. Vitruvius was writing in the 1st century BC when many of the finest Roman aqueducts were built, and make up to this day, such as those at Segovia and the Pont du Gard. The ownership of the inverted siphon is returned in detail, together with the problems of high pressures developed in the pipe at the base of the siphon, a practical problem with which he seems to be acquainted.