Full text: Vitruvius: The architecture of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, in ten books

140 
he who caréfully attends to these rules, to the nature of 
the voice, and to the taste of the audience, will easily learn 
the method of designing theâtres with the greatest per- 
fection. Some one may perchance urge, that many 
theatres are yearly built in Rome, without any regard 
to these matters. But let him not be herein mistaken, 
inasmuch as all public theatres which are constructed 
of wood, have many floors, which are necessarily con- 
ductors of sound. This circumstance may be illus¬ 
trated, by consideration of the practice of those that sing 
to the harp, who when they wish to produce a loud ef- 
fect, turn themselves to the doors of the scene, by the 
aid of which their voice is thrown out. But when thea¬ 
tres are constructed of solid materials, that is of rubble, 
squared stones or marble, which are not conductors of 
sound, it is necessary to build them according to the 
rules in question. If it be asked what theatre in Rome 
çan be referred to as an example of their utility, we can¬ 
not produce one, but such may be seen in some of 
the provinces of Italy, and many in the Grecian States. 
We moreover know that L. Mummius on the destruction 
of the theatre at Corinth, brought to Rome some of its 
brazen vases, and dedicated them as spoils at the temple 
of Luna. Many clever architects who have built theatres 
in small cities, from the want of other, have made use of 
earthen vessels, yielding the proper tones, and have 
introduced them with considerable advantage.
	        
Waiting...

Note to user

Dear user,

In response to current developments in the web technology used by the Goobi viewer, the software no longer supports your browser.

Please use one of the following browsers to display this page correctly.

Thank you.

powered by Goobi viewer