De architectura libri decim, the oldest extant treatise on Architecture in the Greco-Latin tradition, has historically constituted the archetype of architectural discourse, if its specific content would now seem largely irrelevant. And yet to the extent that we still distinguish theoretical activity and practice, we remain de-limited by the essential terms of the Vitruvian text, and the rational order which they prescribe, an order of the logos. But within the prescription itself we find the traces of a diversity and richness largely repressed, traces of an other logos, another understanding of the traditional world of artifice--including the artifice of writing--that undermines the structure and space of the logos which Vitruvius has attempted to erect, and which we still inhabit. If Architecture is The Ten Books ..., it is also a writing, a multiple, palimpsestic writing in which the play of artifice will leave its trace in the stratification of the inscription.

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Vitruvius dedicated his, the only work on architecture to have survived from classical antiquity, to Augustus Caesar, the first Roman emperor, and claimed repeatedly that he was "writing the body of architecture (corpus architecturae)." A detailed examination of meaning of this claim, read in the specific imperial context that brought De architectura to light in ca. 25 B.C., is the principal focus of this study, which has been undertaken less as an effort to come to positive terms with the relevance (or irrelevance) of Vitruvius' normative prescriptions for Roman building practice than in the attempt to try to understand what he was trying to say about architecture and why. / The exegesis is developed in four parts. The first deals with the corporeal identity of the book itself: a ten-scroll "angelic" messenger, whose written form proves to be as significant an index of its meaning as its content. The second part assesses Vitruvius' presentation of his treatise to Augustus in the preface to Book 2 of his treatise as the emperor's Herculean body: at once the agent and proof of Roman conquest and, like Hercules, the philanthropic purveyor of the benefits of civilisation to conquered peoples. The third unravels what Vitruvius meant when he said that buildings, temples especially, were to be put together in the same way that nature puts together the bodies of beautiful men. The fourth part concludes that the beautiful body, in question is the body of the king: that of the emperor himself, whose body---corpus imperii---was, at that historical juncture, imagined as congruent with the body of the Roman world. For Vitruvius, through architecture---as architecture---this kingly body was to be the chief agent of the empire's enduring coherence. / That the project of Roman world dominion so consistently shaped this first self-conscious attempt to give a comprehensive account of architecture raises troubling questions about the discipline itself. It is in raising such questions that Vitruvius' De architectura acquires more than antiquarian interest.

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As the "Revolution" threatened Rome during the final decades of the Republic, the many landscapes of the city — built, intellectual, social and natural — became inextricably linked within a confused cultural matrix. Vitruvius was not simply observing a set of places; he was living within spaces that, while having lost many of their explicit meanings over time, contained within them implicit, albeit unclear, cultural codes for him to ponder. Vitruvius in fact was not describing Roman architecture as it was; he was describing it as he wished it to be. There are a host of reasons to question the physical exactitude of his examples and subsequent models: The vantage point of a single individual living within a specific place at a particular moment in time was, and continues to be, limited at best. There are geographical and architectural inaccuracies that leave the reader wondering if Vitruvius actually saw much of what was inserted within the treatise. And Vitruvius would have generalized in order to arrive at the broad sets of tenets contained in the books. The "looseness" characterizing the tenets of Vitruvius is precisely what has enabled imaginative interpretations over the centuries. By including drawings within translations, the classical imagination has become fused with memories of what monuments should look like. Linked to this, translated versions of Vitruvius' treatise can be usurped in order to connect ruins more closely to Roman architectural ideals than they may have been in the first place. The translation and annotation project of Jean Gardet and Dominique Bertin in the 1550s is an example of how the treatise of Vitruvius was attached, inextricably, to the antiquities of southern France. The habit of turning to the De Architectura in order to produce a body of archaeological knowledge and in turn to provide "proof for the architectural reconstruction of classical monuments has persisted. In the end, the monument can serve as confirmation for the translated text, and the text re-confirms the monument. In Orange, the use of the treatise by architects has been retraced to show that the reconstructed theater does not correspond, in its rebuilt state, to that which would have stood in its place. Eventually, the habit of turning to Vitruvius was adapted to such an extent that it practically became invisible, with architects and archaeologists turning to it with little thought as to its contextual validity. This is probably why we see so few explicit references to its use in the literature documenting the re-building of monuments; it is only by retracing field notes that the extent to which it was used, even relatively lately, can be assessed. At the same time, classical archaeology has — and continues to — direct its attention to deblayage, remaniements, consolidations and in time, la sauvegarde. The present-day impetus for these activities is closely connected to history, heritage and ultimately, the notion of patrimoine. The difficulty today is that the more we re-build, whether it be for basic cultural consumption or within grander state agendas, the recourse to producing related bodies of knowledge to justify architectural plans has the potential to increase significantly. The understanding of classical architecture within the context of history and heritage must be met by a corresponding comprehension of its temporal, formal and social nature; Vitruvius' words, as I have stressed, do not necessarily depict a material architecture. Vitruvius' architect lived within an urban setting that was highly dynamic and not necessarily readily interpreted. And while Republican spaces derived from a need for function, efficiency, beauty and representation, they were not necessarily or completely redesigned each time they were reused; they were often modified to suit. Notions related to specific and ideal spaces were most probably stored within the minds of the multifaceted designers to be shaped according to particular sets of pre-existing cultural and built conditions as well as geographical settings. And to these, the craftspeople would have added personal interpretations. Today the problems arise when architects and archaeologists, eager to convince themselves and others of their theoretic, forget that we simply do not know what memories resided in the mind of Roman architects.

As the "Revolution" threatened Rome during the final decades of the Republic, the many landscapes of the city — built, intellectual, social and natural — became inextricably linked within a confused cultural matrix. Vitruvius was not simply observing a set of places; he was living within spaces that, while having lost many of their explicit meanings over time, contained within them implicit, albeit unclear, cultural codes for him to ponder. Vitruvius in fact was not describing Roman architecture as it was; he was describing it as he wished it to be. There are a host of reasons to question the physical exactitude of his examples and subsequent models: The vantage point of a single individual living within a specific place at a particular moment in time was, and continues to be, limited at best. There are geographical and architectural inaccuracies that leave the reader wondering if Vitruvius actually saw much of what was inserted within the treatise. And Vitruvius would have generalized in order to arrive at the broad sets of tenets contained in the books. The "looseness" characterizing the tenets of Vitruvius is precisely what has enabled imaginative interpretations over the centuries. By including drawings within translations, the classical imagination has become fused with memories of what monuments should look like. Linked to this, translated versions of Vitruvius' treatise can be usurped in order to connect ruins more closely to Roman architectural ideals than they may have been in the first place. The translation and annotation project of Jean Gardet and Dominique Bertin in the 1550s is an example of how the treatise of Vitruvius was attached, inextricably, to the antiquities of southern France. The habit of turning to the De Architectura in order to produce a body of archaeological knowledge and in turn to provide "proof for the architectural reconstruction of classical monuments has persisted. In the end, the monument can serve as confirmation for the translated text, and the text re-confirms the monument. In Orange, the use of the treatise by architects has been retraced to show that the reconstructed theater does not correspond, in its rebuilt state, to that which would have stood in its place. Eventually, the habit of turning to Vitruvius was adapted to such an extent that it practically became invisible, with architects and archaeologists turning to it with little thought as to its contextual validity. This is probably why we see so few explicit references to its use in the literature documenting the re-building of monuments; it is only by retracing field notes that the extent to which it was used, even relatively lately, can be assessed. At the same time, classical archaeology has — and continues to — direct its attention to deblayage, remaniements, consolidations and in time, la sauvegarde. The present-day impetus for these activities is closely connected to history, heritage and ultimately, the notion of patrimoine. The difficulty today is that the more we re-build, whether it be for basic cultural consumption or within grander state agendas, the recourse to producing related bodies of knowledge to justify architectural plans has the potential to increase significantly. The understanding of classical architecture within the context of history and heritage must be met by a corresponding comprehension of its temporal, formal and social nature; Vitruvius' words, as I have stressed, do not necessarily depict a material architecture. Vitruvius' architect lived within an urban setting that was highly dynamic and not necessarily readily interpreted. And while Republican spaces derived from a need for function, efficiency, beauty and representation, they were not necessarily or completely redesigned each time they were reused; they were often modified to suit. Notions related to specific and ideal spaces were most probably stored within the minds of the multifaceted designers to be shaped according to particular sets of pre-existing cultural and built conditions as well as geographical settings. And to these, the craftspeople would have added personal interpretations. Today the problems arise when architects and archaeologists, eager to convince themselves and others of their theoretic, forget that we simply do not know what memories resided in the mind of Roman architects. / Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies / Graduate