Vitruvius Pollio, Marcus (1st century b.c.e.): De architectura (German)
Des allernamhafftigisten und hocherfahrnesten römischen Architecti und kunstreichen Werck oder Bawmeisters Marci Vitruvii Pollionis Zehen Bücher von der Architectur und künstlichem Bawen / erstmals verteutscht ... durch D. Gualtherum H. Rivium. – jetzt aber an vilen Orten verbessert. – Basel : Sebastian Henricpetri, 1614 . – [32], 613, [3] p : ill., woodblock print ; 2°. Number: 7158 (Inv. no.: 11498)
The main point of interest for this book is that it is the only professional work on architecture known from antiquity. Its author, Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (c. 80-70 b.c.e.-after 15 b.c.e.), was a military engineer and architect who lived during the times of Julius Caesar and Augustus. He wrote the work we are recommending, entitled De Architectura libri decem or Ten Books on Architecture, when he was in his older years and dedicated it to Augustus. In it, he systematized the methods of Classical architecture as well as the architectural terms and norms of antiquity. The book is not simply a work on architecture, but is also a technical handbook. The treatise broken up into 10 sections: the first book is on architectural elements; the second is on construction materials; the third is on temples; the fourth describes the classical orders; the fifth is on public buildings (forums, basilicas, treasuries, jails, town halls, theaters, baths, and harbors); the sixth is on domestic buildings; the seventh is on the decoration of buildings (surface treatments, floors, plasterwork, vaulting, and mural painting); the eighth focuses on the “fundamental element of all things,” water, its utility and variety as well as its analysis and the methods of conducting it through walled channels, lead pipes or fired tile conduits; the ninth is on the making of sundials; and the tenth is on machines. Vitruvius originally illustrated his work with drawings, and he mentions ten of them in the introduction. Perhaps he made one drawing for each of the books, but none of these illustrations is known today, unfortunately.
The survival of the work is thanks to the libraries of medieval monasteries. The first manuscript was discovered in 1416 at the Benedictine abbey of Saint Gall, one of the world’s richest medieval collections. The content of this work survived in manuscript form, and had degenerated greatly as a result of the process of repeated copying, which has caused numerous difficulties in interpretation. However, the Humanist and Renaissance scholars that rediscovered Vitruvius’s work employed critical textual examinations as well as their scientific knowledge to bring it back to life.
The first printed version of it was in Latin and was published in Rome in 1486 with one illustration and a diagram presenting a wind rose. The first publication in Italian is linked to the architect Caesare Cesariano in Milan, who provided it with his own illustrations.
The doctor and mathematician from Nuremberg Walter Ryff (1500?-1548) (or in Latin, Gualtherus Rivius) published Vitruvius’s work in the German-speaking territories, first in 1543 in Latin and then in 1548 in German. The popularity of the book is shown by the fact that it was republished in Basel in 1575, in 1582 and then in 1614. Ryff was a genuine Renaissance scholar who knew the languages of antiquity, was familiar with the study of medicine, mathematics, philosophy, philology and archaeology, and in addition considered publication in the vernacular to be important. He published nearly 200 works as an author, editor and translator during his lifetime. He was quite familiar with the Renaissance literature on architectural theory, which is shown by his publication of an extensive volume entitled Der furnebsten, notwendigsten, der gantzten Architectur angehörigen Matematischen und Mechanischen Künst, eygentlicher Bericht… (Nuremberg, 1547) prior to translating Vitruvius. Ryff did not only translate Vitruvius’s work, but also provided it with extensive commentary using his knowledge of the period. The book contains 193 woodblock prints, the majority of which Ryff took from the Cesarino publication.
The example found in our library is the 1614 German-language publication of Vitruvius, which was produced in the workshop of the period’s famous Petri printing family that had operated in Basel since 1475/80 (under the Henripetri name from 1556). The decorative and distinctive printer’s mark of this publishing house that specialized in medical science, cultural history, and art history can be found at the end of the book on a blank page in the last section of pages.
The book has survived in its original 17th century binding with wood boards covered in white pigskin that has an embossed decoration. It was closed by two curved clasps made of blued and polished iron along the main axis, one of which is missing. The binding technique of the book contains German Renaissance and Baroque elements. The decoration of the boards on the front and back is the same, characterized by increasingly small, centrally arranged frames that contain three kinds of scroll patterns. Female figural symbols of the virtues, such as Spes, Iust, Fide, and Caritas appear on these blind-stamped frames.
Habent sua fata libelli, that is “books have their own destiny,” is also true about the volume we are presenting here. There is a gilded supralibros or superexlibris with a monogram and a crest (which has blackened over time) in the middle of the central decoration of the cover. The supralibros, just like the exlibris, served to designate ownership, and these were used beginning in the 16th century on the cover binding of the books. After deciphering the crest and the W[enceslai] A[dalberti] C[omitis] D[e] S[ternberg] monogram, the 17th century owner of the book is revealed to be the Bohemian nobleman Wenzel Adalbert von Sternberg (1643-1708). The eight-pointed star (representing the star of Bethlehem) in the count’s family crest is surrounded by a laurel wreath. According to the handwritten note on the cover board, the count purchased the volume in Prague in 1692, presumably for his renowned library there.
The volume later may have come into the possession of Ernst Korb, who placed his ownership stamp on the title page of the book. The handwritten inscription on the inner side of the front cover indicates that the 19th century owner of the book was the architect Albert Körösi (Kőrössy) (1869-1955). He received it as a gift on Christmas of 1892 from his uncle, József Kőrössy, one of the most influential Hungarian actuaries of the second half of the 19th century. “Albert Kálmán Kőrössy was an outstanding master of Art Nouveau, one of the most original artists of the turn of the century. Not only do the defining Neo-Baroque forms appear from his years spent in the office of Alajos Hauszmann, but also those of one of the European trends in Art Nouveau, early Judendstil as well. […] Between 1906 and 1908, he worked together with Ödön Lechner, whose unique range of motifs appears on numerous works by Albert Kőrössy. Starting from the 1910s […] his works are characterized by geometric forms as well as archaicized Egyptian-style decorations […]. Albert Kőrössy did not continue his career after World War I, instead working in the service of the city [Budapest] as a municipal official. Despite this, the works he dreamt up are amongst the most imposing buildings of our country.” (In: Eszter Baldavári, Kőrössy Albert Kálmán, Budapest, Holnap, 2021. p. 7.)
The book came into the possession of the library of the predecessor institution of the Monument Protection Documentation Center in 1953. Its rarity is shown by the fact that there are only two known copies in Hungary outside our library, which in two other public collections.
We thank the conservator Zsuzsanna Tóth for her professional assistance in the writing of this article.
Andrea Papp
Photographs: Zsófia Nyirkos
Bibliography:
Baldavári, Eszter: Kőrössy Albert Kálmán: A szecesszió mestere [Albert Kálmán Kőrössy: The Master of Art Nouveau]. Bp.: Terc, 2015. p. 318-353.
Kruft, Hanno-Walter: Geschichte der Architekturtheorie. München: Beck, 1986.
Petz, Vilmos: Ókori lexikon [Encyclopedia of Antiquity]. Bp.: Franklin, 1902-1904. 2. köt.
Simon, Melinda: Vizuális reklámstratégiák. Historizálás 19–20. századi európai és amerikai kiadók jelvényeiben [Visual Advertising Strategies. Historicization in 19th-20th Century European and American Publishers’ Insignia]. In: Bölcsészműhely 2008. Szeged: JatePress, 2010. p. 111–127.
Provenio: Virtuální rekonstrukce rozptýlených provenienčně bohemikálních knižních celků: https://provenio.net/records/d163fa70-f8d8-4fec-aaf4-11c6550a4050
Vitruvius: Tíz könyv az építészetről [Ten Books on Architecture]. Előszó (foreword): Hajnóczi Gábor, ford. (translation): Gulyás Dénes. Budapest: Képzőművészeti K., 1988.
