Frontinus refers to "Vitruvius the architect" in his late 1st-century work De aquaeductu. He is mentioned in Pliny the Elder's table of contents for Naturalis Historia (Natural History), in the heading for mosaic techniques. Vitruvius was a military engineer ( praefectus fabrum), or a praefect architectus armamentarius of the apparitor status group (a branch of the Roman civil service). Neither association, however, is borne out by De Architectura (which Vitruvius dedicated to Augustus), nor by the little that is known of Mamurra. An inscription in Verona, which names a Lucius Vitruvius Cordo, and an inscription from Thilbilis in North Africa, which names a Marcus Vitruvius Mamurra have been suggested as evidence that Vitruvius and Mamurra (who was a military praefectus fabrum under Julius Caesar) were from the same family or were even the same individual. Marcus Cetius Faventinus writes of "Vitruvius Polio aliique auctores" this can be read as "Vitruvius Polio, and others" or, less likely, as "Vitruvius, Polio, and others". His full name is sometimes given as "Marcus Vitruvius Pollio", but both the first and last names are uncertain. Most inferences about him are extracted from his only surviving work De Architectura.
Though the original illustrations have 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. Translations followed in Italian, French, English, German, Spanish, and several other languages. The first known Latin printed edition was by Fra Giovanni Sulpitius in Rome in 1486. Leon Battista Alberti published it in his seminal treatise on architecture, De re aedificatoria (c.
Vitruvius' De architectura was widely copied in the Middle Ages and survives in many dozens of manuscripts though in 1414 it was "rediscovered" by the Florentine humanist Poggio Bracciolini in the library of Saint Gall Abbey. It is possible that Vitruvius served with Julius Caesar's chief engineer Lucius Cornelius Balbus. As an army engineer he specialized in the construction of ballista and scorpio artillery war machines for sieges. He probably served as a senior officer of artillery in charge of doctores ballistarum (artillery experts) and libratores who actually operated the machines. Little is known about Vitruvius' life, but by his own description he served as an artilleryman, the third class of arms in the Roman military offices.
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. These principles were later widely adopted in Roman architecture. He originated the idea that all buildings should have three attributes: firmitas, utilitas, and venustas ("strength", "utility", and "beauty"). 15 BC) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work entitled De architectura.
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