THE
ARCHITECTURE
OF

MARCUS  VITRUVIUS  POLLIO.
BOOK  THE  FOURTH.
INTRODUCTION.

FINDING,  O  Emperor,  that  many  persons  have  left  us
precepts  in  Architecture,  and  volumes  of  commentaries
thereon,  not  systematically  arranged,  but  mere  general
principles,  little  more  indeed  than  scattered  hints,  I  considered -
  it  a  worthy  and  useful  task,  first,  to  give  a  general
view  of  the  whole  subject,  and  then  to  dilate  in  each

book  on  the  detail.  Thus,  Cæsar,  I  treated  in  the  first
book  on  the  duties  of  an  architect,  and  the  sciences  in
which  he  should  be  skilled.  In  the  second,  I  taught  the
knowledge  of  the  different  materials  used  in  building.
The  third  contained  instructions  on  the  arrangement  of

sacred  buildings,  their  different  forms  and  species,  and
the  distributions  appropriate  to  each  sort;  confining
myself,  however,  to  the  use  of  the  lonic  order,  which,  of
the  three,  from  the  great  delicacy  of  its  proportions,
requires  the  most  attention  in  its  use.  I  shall  now,  in
this  book,  point  out  the  difference  and  properties  of  the
Doric  and  Corinthian  Orders.