Lagopoulos Semiotics of A Vitruvian City

The semiotics of the Vitruvian city*
ALEXANDROS PH. LAGOPOULOS
Abstract
The Vitruvian city in De architectura is founded on an eight-part windrose.

Vitruvius describes how to trace the direction of the eight winds astronomi-
cally and relates the tracing of the street network of the city to the form of
the windrose, but his description is extremely laconic. Ever since the Re-
naissance, the customary interpretation is that the form of the proposed
city is radial-concentric, a pattern that exercised a powerful influence on
the Renaissance model city. However, a close reading of the text shows
that the Vitruvian city has a grid plan, following the general Roman model.
But the city also has a symbolic significance for Vitruvius. This has
escaped the great majority of scholars, because they isolate Vitruvius’s de-
scription of the city’s form and orientation from its immediate context, that
is, his general urban discourse, and further from the entirety of his work.
Interpretation has focused on the practical dimension of the city, since Vi-
truvius pleads for a salubrious city with a specific relation to the direction of
the winds. But the winds have strong connotations, since they correspond to
one of the four cosmic elements, and these elements are such an essential
part of Vitruvian planning theory that they even define the site to be chosen
for a city. I argue that the Vitruvian windrose, in addition to being an aes-
thetic device, is an abridged cosmogram. The windrose is founded on num-
bers considered perfect, and the city emerges from the perfect geometrical
figure of the circle and the marked qualities of the square. Since the geo-
metrical complex of the windrose-cum-city almost coincides with Vitru-
vius’s geometry of the human body, the city also has an anthropomorphic
connotation.
Keywords: Vitruvius; semiotics of space; history of urban planning; sym-

bolic anthropology.
Semiotica 175–1/4 (2009), 193–251 0037–1998/09/0175–0193

DOI 10.1515/semi.2009.047 6 Walter de Gruyter
194 A. Ph. Lagopoulos
1. De architectura
There is no doubt that Vitruvius’s De architectura represents the actual

zero point of Western architectural theory.1 There is also no doubt that
his text could not have been written without the earlier written works of
a whole series of Greek architects, which have unfortunately all been lost.
Vitruvius makes repeated references to their names and uses their ideas,
although he seems to know their works from secondary sources (Fleury
1990: XLI); he also makes abundant use of Greek technical terminology.
In his discussion of urban planning, he proposes a city founded on salu-
brity, to be achieved through the avoidance of the prevailing winds, and it
is the salubrity factor that until recently has attracted the almost exclusive
interest of the scholars who have commented upon the Vitruvian city. I
shall try to show, however, that this factor, of the order of the material,
cannot for Vitruvius be detached from two other crucial components, this
time belonging to the order of the symbolic: the cosmic and the aesthetic
codes.
Vitruvius was a professional architect who lived in the first century BC.
It is generally assumed that he dedicated his work to Octavian, at a date
that is uncertain. Philippe Fleury, applying the concept of stratification to
the redaction of the text, observes that, on the basis of the textual evi-
dence, the work is composed of di¤erent, not clearly distinguishable but
interpenetrating strata, and concludes that the text was written over a pe-
riod of time from the end of the Republic to the very beginning of the
Empire (the date of this transition is 31 BC), more specifically between
35 and 25 BC According to Fleury, the dedication of the book is not
prior to 29 BC and most likely took place in 25 BC or immediately after
(Fleury 1990: XVI–XXIV).
However, even if De architectura springs from Greek architectural
knowledge, that is, even if Vitruvius may be considered as the end of the
line of late Classical and Hellenistic theoretical thought on architecture,
transmitted to him through vulgarized manuals (Gros 1988: 50, 53), his
book is not a copy of a Greek model. Vitruvius states that he is the first
to have written an integrated work on architecture, and Fleury subscribes
to his view and the originality of the book; it seems that the Greek au-
thors were limited to the writing of case studies. Vitruvius, using the logic
of classification, attempts to integrate in a single work the whole of the
architectural knowledge of his times, the Classical and Hellenistic Greek
tradition as well as the Roman and Italian. This synthesis is, according to
Fleury, of a specific nature: he believes that Vitruvius primarily addresses
the public or private architectural client, o¤ering a knowledge that,
though it would not elevate the client to the level of a professional archi-
Semiotics of the Vitruvian city 195
tect, nevertheless would allow him to understand the operations of the ar-
chitect and even on occasion to guide the workers. For Fleury, though
the book is original, its conception of architecture is inscribed within the
Hellenistic current of architectural thought; the architect — the architec-
tus of the beginnings of the Empire — is simultaneously what we today
mean by an architect, and also a civil engineer and a military engineer,
with a domain of competence including matters such as hydraulics, horol-
ogy (related to astronomy), and mechanics. The book is thus also related
to a certain Latin tradition of technical literature (Fleury 1990: XXXI–
XXXIX; see also Callebat and Fleury 1986: XIII–XVI).
2. The theory of architecture in De architectura
De architectura is a normative work, composed of ten books. Architec-

tural theory is treated with respect to volumes, plans, and architectural
elements in Books I, III, IV, V, and VI, and with respect to building ma-
terials and colors in Books II and VII. The core of architectural theory
is discussed in chapters II and III of Book I. Urban planning theory is
included in chapters IV to VII of the same Book, chapter VI being the
pivotal chapter. It is this chapter around which the present discussion
will revolve, but in order to illuminate the meaning of the Vitruvian city
it is necessary to draw on clues from the whole of De architectura. A key
to this understanding is chapter II of Book I, presenting the fundamental
concepts of architecture, to which I shall now turn.
Vitruvius (I.I: 1, 3, 15, and 16) opens his analysis of architecture by
stating that the knowledge of the architect derives from practice ( fabrica)
and theory (ratiocinatio). We conclude that the aim of architectural prac-
tice is the realization of the architectural project, which falls exclusively
within the competence of the architect; the same holds for every other
art. The project is one of the two aspects found in all arts and especially
in architecture, namely ‘‘that which is signified’’ (quod significatur). The
other aspect involves theory, which is common to all arts, and it is ‘‘that
which signifies’’ (quod significat). Theory is a demonstration according
to systematic principles, allowing the interpretation of practical realiza-
tions (for a discussion of these concepts and their later interpretations,
see Rykwert and Hui 1998: 1330–1333). Carl Watzinger (1909: 205, 207)
relates this di¤erentiation to rhetoric and the distinction between form
and content. However, semiotically speaking, quod significatur refers to
the project and quod significat is the metalanguage used for this project
(cf. Gros 1982: 670). Still in the context of semiotics, we may consider
the second term as comparable to ‘‘competence’’ and the first as compa-

rable to ‘‘performance.’’
Continuing, Vitruvius writes in chapter II that architecture consists of
ordering (ordinatio — he refers to the Greek word táxiv), disposition (dis-
,
positio — he refers to diáyesiv), eurythmia (he transliterates euruymía),
symmetria (from summetría),
, appropriateness (decor) and distribution (dis-
tributio — he refers to oi konomía). He defines ordering as: a. the right ad-
justment of the measures of the individual members of the work — which
for Fleury (1990: 106, n. 2) is inseparable from the proportions between
the measures of the members of the work — and b. when applied to the
whole work, as the establishment of proportions resulting in symmetria
(see also Watzinger 1909: 210–211; Frézouls 1968: 445). It is constituted
by quantity (quantitas — he refers to the Greek posóthv), which is the
choice of modules based on the whole work and the harmonious realiza-
tion of the whole work due to the di¤erent parts of its members (cf. Falus
1979: 257).
Disposition is: a. the right placing of the elements of a work and b. the
tasteful realization of a work of quality that results from this. The refer-
ence here is to the process of drawing of the future building, in plan and
front elevation — both in scale — and in perspective. Watzinger (1909:
212–213, 214; see also Falus 1979: 258) points out that this right placing
corresponds to the right adjustment in ordering, and that both the former
and its consequence, tasteful realization, are activities. For Vitruvius, the
aim, but also the e¤ect, of disposition as an activity is eurythmia, since
disposition is accompanied by quality (versus quantity); eurythmia should
be related to the e¤ect of the architectural composition on the eye of the
viewer. Edmond Frézouls (1968: 445), on the other hand, argues that pro-
portion is the foundation of the plans included in disposition. However,
Vitruvius uses the concept of disposition to indicate, not only the arrange-
ment of the elements of an architectural whole in such a manner that it is
rightly done, thus leading to a tasteful result, but also the positioning,
consciously chosen by the poets, of a word in a poem with the same aim
(see also Kessissoglu 1993: 55).
Eurythmia implies: a. a graceful semblance (venusta species) and b. a
proportionate appearance, residing in the composition of the members.
It is achieved when the relations between the height, the width and the
length of the members are right, and in the whole when all elements cor-
respond to the proper symmetria. Vitruvius further defines eurythmia —
which as here presented may be misleading — in Book VI (II: 1–5).
There he explains that the eyes do not achieve accurate results, and he
gives as examples the optical illusions created by paintings of stage set-
tings and the oars of ships in the water (in the latter case, owing to the
transparent thinness of water, the oars send back images that, floating at
the topmost level of the water, are disturbed and produce in the eyes of
the beholder the broken appearance of the oars). In the case of architec-
ture, attention must be given to its appearance, this is why we must adapt
the form to the nature of the site, since appearance is di¤erent if some-
thing is near, if it is elevated, if it is in a confined or an open site.
Vitruvius follows a very similar reasoning in Book III (V: 8–9), when
writing on architraves. I shall not deal with the contradiction that marks
the relations he presents between the heights of the architraves and the
dimensions of the columns (see on this contradiction, Gros 1990: 177–
179, n. 4). The weight of the discussion is given to the formulation of the
height of the architrave as a proportion of the height of the column, in
such a manner that the proportion increases as a function of a denomina-
tor that decreases with the increase of the height of the column. The inter-
pretation he gives for this regularity is di¤erent from that for the oars.
The higher, he writes, the ray issuing from the eye is raised, the more dif-
ficulty it has in piercing the dense layers of the air; because of the distance
the ray has to travel upwards, it is dispersed and loses its power. The re-
sult is that it reports to the senses imprecise information relative to the
existing symmetria.
According to the passage in Book VI, since certain things appear to the
eye as other than what they really are, the architect must make (subtle)
adjustments, i.e., add to or subtract from the symmetria of the building
(cf. III.III.11) according to the nature or requirements of the site. When
discussing architraves, Vitruvius generalizes his argument: for all mem-
bers obeying the proportional system, we must add to the proportion
one supplementary element in cases when the member is either situated
at a very great height or is itself of large dimensions (see also III.III.13).
In Book VI, the operation of adding or subtracting leads, according to
Vitruvius, to a balanced appearance, and presupposes not only theory
but also a fine judgment: first we define the symmetria and then, on
its basis, the modifications are correctly deduced. In this manner, he
writes, eurythmia will be convincing to the viewer. We note that in a few
cases eurythmia abandons proportions2 (see also Frézouls 1968: 443–444,
445).
Pierre Gros (1990: 120, n. 3, and 179, n. 8.4 and n. 9.1) believes that the
initial project of Vitruvius referred solely to symmetria and the treatment
of eurythmia is foreign to this project. Undoubtedly this view is related to
his conclusion that the examples of optical illusions Vitruvius gives are
heterogeneous and of a level not beyond that of the school (Gros 1982:
672). What seems clear is that the close, and forced, bridging of these
two incompatible approaches is possible if eurythmia is understood as a
symmetrical property (I.II.4). Eurythmia, for Vitruvius, compensates for

the apparent deficiencies, due to the eye and the action of the air
(III.III.11), of an otherwise perfect symmetria (see also Gros 1990: 121,
n. 4). It corrects by increasing when there is a false appearance of reduc-
tion (cf. III.III.13) and vice versa. Thus, it leads to the restitution of true
symmetria (VI.III.11 — see also Gros 1990: LVII, n. 139 and 120, n. 2).
Eurythmia is thus founded on and deduced from symmetria.3 Now, if
we compare chapter II of Book I and chapter I (1, 3, 4, and 9) of Book
III, symmetria is conceived: a. as the commensurability of each member
of a work — that is, of its dimensions — to the whole work, whence (see
Gros 1990: 60, n. 4) b. the commensurability between the members (see
also Watzinger 1909: 211). We understand that these two kinds of rela-
tion, that are considered as established by nature, or by art which imitates
nature, are the foundations of beauty (Frézouls 1968: 442, 443, 445–446).
Symmetria is founded on proportio — Vitruvius gives the Greek term
,
analogía — and is linked to the definition of a common unit of measure-
ment, a module. Thus, symmetria is a system of proportions4 (see also
Falus 1979: 256, 259, 260, 262, n. 23, 264). A closely related term is com-
positio (III.I.1) — probably from the Greek súnyesiv — which refers to
the system established between the components of a building, a system
founded on symmetria (Gros 1990: 55–56, n. 1). In Book I, Vitruvius
gives examples of objects showing symmetria. The symmetrical property
of eurythmia is found in the human body, deriving from the small parts
of the body such as the forearm (cubit), the foot, the palm and the finger
(digit). A system of symmetria is to be found in all buildings and first in
sacred buildings, in the ballister, based on (the diameter of ) a hole, or in
ships, based on the interval between two oarlocks.
According to Watzinger (1909: 210–212), each of the two parts of the
definition of symmetria corresponds to a part of the definition of ordering.
He observes that symmetria corresponds to an e¤ect, that it is the aim and
e¤ect of ordering and quantity, these two being the activities leading to
this e¤ect; proportion, which accompanies symmetria, also corresponds
to quantity. The di¤erence between ordering and symmetria is compara-
ble to that between dispositio and eurythmia.
Appropriateness is generally the carefully worked-out aspect of a work
of art of high quality realized with approved elements (members follow-
ing the principle of symmetria? — see Fleury 1990: 116, n. 3). It is
achieved by rule or by custom, or through adjustment to nature. In the
first case, the type of a temple is adjusted to the nature of the god adored
therein, and in general a building is adjusted to the status of its owner
(VI.V.3). In the second case, the parts of a building must fit together and
thus, on the one hand we should create elegant vestibules to go with mag-
nificent interiors, on the other we should not mix elements of di¤erent

orders, i.e., we should respect tradition. The last case concerns the use of
salubrious orientations for specific functions and the selection of appro-
priate sites, due to their resources, for the location of temples. These three
cases show us that appropriateness is based on matching, including the
matching of architectural elements with architectural elements, of natural
elements with the natural element in which an architectural whole (the
temple) will be located, and of architectural elements or the whole build-
ing with a natural element (sun) or the status of the owner of a building
(see also Pollitt 1974: 68–69). According to Frank E. Brown (1963: 106),
appropriateness manifests the morality of architecture, a domain ruled by
the ethics of the universe. In his discussion of the above cases, Watzinger
points out the relation of appropriateness with dignity (auctoritas) and
that of the latter with the classical, understood as something with inherent
value and generally appreciated, as well as its closeness to prépon in rhet-
oric (Watzinger 1909: 215–217; see also Brown 1963: 106–107).
Distribution is: a. the suitable use of materials and the plot, and b. the
wise equilibrium of expenses for the work: use must be made of local ma-
terials. Thus, it follows from Vitruvius (see also VI.V) that distributing
also includes the architectural response to the needs of the owners, their
fortune, profession, and social status, their personality, the uses required,
the geographical character of the site (urban versus rural ) and the status
of public buildings — factors that are combined in di¤erent manners.
This response concerns the arrangement of the building and its zones,
the uses planned, the location of rooms, the ampleness of the building
and the size of its rooms, and the splendor of the building and its rooms.
According to Watzinger (1909: 217–219, 220), the adjustment of the type
of a temple to the kind of god it is dedicated to formulated in the context
of appropriateness corresponds to the present response to the needs of the
owner, with the di¤erence that the first seems to be more aesthetic (it is
considered by McKay (1978: 19, 54, 55) as ‘‘formal functionalism’’),
while the second is practical (see also Gros 1989: 127). Watzinger believes
that there is in general a close relation between distribution and appropri-
ateness and that they are related as activity to its e¤ect.
We see that Watzinger proposes the following organization by pairs of
the six concepts that Vitruvius discusses: ordering-symmetria, disposition-
eurythmia, and distribution-appropriateness (Schlikker (1940: 72) ex-
presses objections in respect to the last pair). He classifies this organiza-
tion as two sets of concepts, the one grouping the first term of each pair
and the other the second term. For him, these sets represent two identical
architectural wholes, with the only di¤erence that they correspond to
two di¤erent viewpoints: the first sees architecture as a professional
activity, while the second as a state that is the aim and e¤ect of this activ-
ity (Watzinger 1909: 211–212, 214, 220; see also Scranton 1974).
There are overlappings between Vitruvius’s concepts (see also Frézouls
1968: 445; Knell 1985: 30), but Watzinger attempts with his above pro-
posal to discover their correspondence and coherence. I find his proposal
generally convincing, though not perhaps throughout; for example, while
the nature of appropriateness corresponds to a state, the suggested man-
ners of achieving it are processual. On the other hand, the order accord-
ing to which Vitruvius presents the six concepts founding ‘‘his’’ theory of
architecture poses another problem. Heiner Knell (1985: 34, 168), while
believing that the concepts belong to a holistic conception, does not try
to explain Vitruvius’s sequence. Robert L. Scranton (1974: 499) proposes
a logical sequence, but it is not convincing.5
Vitruvius’s theory of architecture has been approached from four dif-
ferent perspectives: as a loose whole; as an integrated whole; as a whole
composed of two repetitive (sub-) wholes, corresponding to di¤erent
viewpoints, since they are considered to be related as processual cause
to desired e¤ect; and as composed of concepts that may be organized in
a significant sequence, di¤erent, however, from the one proposed by
Vitruvius himself. It is reasonable to think that Vitruvius, in his attempt
to systematize architectural theory, would have a tendency to harmonize
the concepts used. This integration would certainly imply some intellec-
tual acrobatics, given that the three pairs discussed by Watzinger are re-
lated to di¤erent Greek schools of thought, with a di¤erent origin and
historical development (see Schlikker 1940: 55–112; Pollitt 1974: for
example, 24–31, 67–70). However, in spite of the eclectic nature and the
triple aesthetics of De architectura, and without discounting the insights
of other scholars, I believe we may assume that the actual order of pre-
sentation of the concepts is in accordance with the following rationale.
Appropriateness and distribution, two ‘‘lateral’’ concepts according to
Frézouls (1968: 45), share the common characteristic, which also di¤eren-
tiates them from the other four concepts, that they involve factors exter-
nal to architecture, which are heterogeneous, or otherwise external con-
straints that influence the architectural project. Distribution covers only
such factors, appropriateness mainly such factors, with the addition of the
matching of architectural elements with architectural elements. We may
thus agree with Watzinger that the two concepts are closely akin. Further-
more, the fact that Vitruvius presents them sequentially and puts them at
the end of the discussion of his fundamental concepts perhaps gives us a
clue as to the logic underlying the whole sequence of the concepts.
In fact, in architectural practice the architect has to start with the con-
straints, which o¤er a context within the limits of which it is then possible
to elaborate the proposal. If Vitruvius is presenting his concepts on the

basis of practice, then he should have started with the above two. On the
other hand, if he has adopted a theoretical viewpoint, he could start with
the internal factors, which correspond to architectural composition, and
conclude with the constraints, considered as determinant but secondary
to the previous main work of the architect. This is the case with the actual
sequence he gives us.
If we assume on this basis that Vitruvius had a theoretical order in
mind, we may give a possible explanation of the sequence of the other
concepts as well. Vitruvius starts with the two activities, ordering and dis-
position, covering what is for him the essential part of the whole of archi-
tectural practice, which stretches from conception to drawing. He next
presents the desired e¤ects of architectural practice, eurythmia and sym-
metria. He rightly starts with ordering, because it is the activity leading
to the crucial symmetria. What seems awkward is the discussion of eu-
rythmia before symmetria, since the former cannot be understood without
the latter. Maybe this logical reversal is due to a desire to focus first on
the final result of the design. Finally, there is another reversal if Vitruvius
thought of the relation between distribution and appropriateness as one
between activity and e¤ect, because in this case the e¤ect is presented be-
fore the activity. A possible explanation would be that the aesthetic con-
siderations included in appropriateness attached it to symmetria.
There are two related overriding ideas in Vitruvius’s theory of architec-
ture, the one explicit, the other implicit. The explicit one is proportion,
starting with symmetria, i.e., the subordination of the members of a build-
ing, their relations, their relations to the whole and of the whole to nu-
merical proportions, providing the objective quality of architecture. But
also, symmetria is a principle of quantitative matching, starting from a
common measure and e¤ected at di¤erent levels of a work. Eurythmia
would also be a quantitative and proportional — though only on paper
(see Gros 1990: 124, n. 4 and 179–180, n. 4) — intervention on symme-
tria, an intervention that has as its goal the perception of the viewer, dif-
fers according to the situation, and provides the ‘‘subjectivizing’’ quality
of architecture. In this case, there is a qualitative matching between the
quantitative conversion of symmetria e¤ected by eurythmia and the spe-
cifics of the situation. Finally, the adaptation of the building to the client
and the environment are other cases of qualitative matching. We deduce
that the implicit principle of the Vitruvian theory is matching, the group-
ing and tight correspondence of things that ‘‘go together.’’
After the discussion of the six concepts in chapter II of Book I, Vitru-
vius introduces three more concepts in the following chapter. They fol-
low a reference to the three branches composing architecture and a brief
presentation of the two subdivisions of one of these branches, building

(see below). They correspond to the triple aim an architect must have
when building and are strength ( firmitas), utility (utilitas), and beauty
(venustas) — see also III.III.6. The last term is later complemented by
dignity, auctoritas (III.III: 6, 8, and 9). Strength relates to the solid foun-
dation of a work and the use of materials without parsimony. Utility re-
fers to the appropriate distribution and functional organization, as well as
orientation. As to the complement of beauty, dignity, in the later phase of
the redaction of his work Vitruvius came to relate dignity to the increase
in size, more particularly height, of a building and to an e¤ect of relief.
This concept is related to the visual impression created by a building, an
extroverted factor, as opposed to the introverted factor of its canonical
organization. Dignity complements grace with prestige and majesty. In
addition, dignity is accompanied by the meanings of power, sovereignty,
royalty, and submission of the citizen (Gros 1989 and 1990: 114, n. 6).
In sum, Vitruvius’s theory of architecture covers a wide range of the
factors involved in architectural design. They are not, however, all
equally represented. For example, the functional factor is present, but
there is no theory on uses and their location. As Frézouls notes, the dis-
cussion of the functional is limited and does not refer to fundamental
issues. The emphasis of the above group of nine concepts is on beauty,
i.e., aesthetics — which, for Vitruvius as for the Greeks, was not an inde-
pendent realm as it is today. Frézouls observes that, while symmetria is
restricted to the same level as the other concepts, in reality it rules them,
as is attested by its omnipresence in De architectura. The appearance of
beauty is eurythmia, but the essence of it is symmetria (see Frézouls
1968: 444–445). In the last instance, the rule, symmetria, is legitimized
through its foundation in nature and function, or to put it otherwise, ne-
cessity (Gros 1982: 679–680). Symmetria is, as it were, objective beauty.
There is beauty when we give to the work a pleasing and elegant aspect,
and correctly calculate the relations of the measures of the parts of the
work according to symmetria. Subjective beauty, the beauty that relates
to the eye of the beholder, is eurythmia, which results from the combina-
tion of the rules of symmetria with visual corrections (see also Gros 1990:
120, n. 2, 123, n. 3 and 125, n. 6).
The principle of symmetria was the nuclear concept of the classical
Greek worldview. For Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, numbers and
their relations are the essence of all things, indeed of the universe
(kósmov), and through them the order of the latter is constituted. In this
manner, numbers in Pythagorean philosophy acquire an ontological sta-
tus and a sacred nature. The equivalent of this philosophical cosmic order
in the domain of the arts was symmetria, namely the commensurability of
the parts of a work to each other and to the whole (Pollitt 1974: 15–16,
17, 26, 162, 167; Grassi 1962: 49–53; Raven 1951: 147–148). Symmetria
is an aesthetic (or rather quasi-aesthetic) and cosmic principle, through
which the work of art is imbued with and participates in the cosmic har-
mony. As we shall see, the concept is used by Vitruvius in exactly the
same sense (see also Gros 1990: LVI–LVII and 57, n. 2); indeed, this is
not the only case in which Vitruvius’s thought shows Pythagorean influ-
ences (Kessissoglu 1993: 89–90, 100). Symmetria is the nuclear concept
of De architectura (see also Gros 2001: 16, 22) and, as I shall try to
show, of the Vitruvian city.
3. The windrose and urban planning theory
The city proposed by Vitruvius is related to a windrose. He starts by stat-

ing that according to certain authors there are four winds: solanus blow-
ing from the equinoxial sunrise, auster from the south, favonius from the
equinoxial sunset, and septentrio from the north. But, he says, those who
have studied the subject more profoundly teach that the winds are eight,
and he gives as example the octagonal ‘‘Tower of the Winds,’’ as it is
called today, in Athens. Vitruvius also presents a windrose with twenty-
four winds, which is unique in ancient literature (I.VI: 4–5, 10; see also
Nielsen 1945: 95; Fleury 1990: 182, n. 16; Paulys Realencyclopädie 1958:
Winde, 2372–2373) and perhaps was related to the hours of the day
(Hamberg 1965: 114), but he focuses on the eight-part windrose.6
The directions of the eight winds, according to Vitruvius (I.VI), are
found in the following manner. A horizontal marble slate is placed in the
middle of the city (it can be replaced by a well-prepared and leveled
ground). In the middle of it is placed a bronze gnomon — an instrument
consisting of a vertical rod on a horizontal base (Figure 1). About the
fifth hour before midday the extreme point of its shadow is marked, and
then a circle is traced through a compass with the position of the gnomon
as center and the distance between it and the above point as radius. A sec-
ond point is marked when after midday the extremity of the shadow
again touches the circle, this shadow being equal in size with the morning
shadow. With these two points as centers, two intersecting arcs are traced,
and the straight line passing through their intersection and the center, and
extending to the opposite part of the circle, gives the N-S direction. In this
manner, Vitruvius locates true north and the meridian line.
Vitruvius then asks us to take the 1/16 of the circumference of the cir-
cle and, with as centers the two intersections of the meridian line with the
circumference, make marks on the latter both to the right and to the left
Figure 1. The gnomon on the levelled marble slate (according to Fleury 1990, reprinted by
permission of Les Belles Lettres)
of this line — he manifestly means for us to take as radius the chord cor-
responding to the above arc, but he does not clarify how to perform this
operation7 (Plommer 1971: 161). Two diameters should unite these points
by twos and thus the two eighths corresponding to the south (auster) and
the north (septentrio) wind will be defined. The remaining parts of the cir-
cumference should be divided in equal parts, three to the right and three
to the left, and with the tracing of the appropriate diameters the equal
divisions of the eight winds will be obtained. The remaining winds (and
sectors) are solanus (E), eurus (SE) coming from the winter (solsticial)
sunrise, favonius (W), africus (SW) from the winter sunset, caurus (NW)
and aquilo (NE) — Figure 2. The number of the winds (eight), writes
Vitruvius, is related to both their names and the orientations from where
they blow (I.VI: 6–7, 12–13).
This analytical description of the tracing of the eight-part windrose is
linked, as we shall see, to a tantalizingly laconic description of the tracing
of the street network of the city — manifestly a new city (see also Fleury
1990: XCVI). But let us start from the beginning. In the chapters on
urban planning theory (I: IV–VII) — the most complete left to us from
antiquity and to which the tracing of the windrose belongs — Vitruvius
opens the discussion with the walls of the city and begins with the selec-
tion of the site, which must be ‘‘very healthy.’’ The site must be elevated
(which does not necessarily mean on a summit), free from fog and frost,
exposed to a temperate orientation, neither hot nor cold, and must not be
next to marshland, since in this case the morning breezes which reach the
city at sunrise will be conjoined with fog and thus the bodies of the inhab-
Figure 2. The eight-part windrose of Vitruvius according to the most ancient extant manu-
script of his work, Harleianus 2767. Three manuscripts of his text include a figure of the
eight-part windrose. If this figure were derived from the original text, it would be the only one
extant among his figures (reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of the
Loeb Classical Library from Vitruvius: vol. I, Loeb Classical Library8 volume 251, translated
by Frank Granger, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, copyright : 1931 by the Pres-
ident and Fellows of Harvard College. The Loeb Classical Library8 is a registered trademark
of the President and Fellows of Harvard College)
itants will receive the poisonous exhalations of the beasts of the marsh.
Vitruvius continues with the orientation of the walls; he is against orien-
tation towards two of the cardinal directions, south and west, on the
grounds that they involve too much heat.8 Alternation of heat and cold
damages bodies and inanimate objects.
Organisms are constituted, as Vitruvius writes (I.IV: 5–8), by the ele-
ments, the ðstoiweĩaÞ of the Greeks, which are heat, humidity (water),
earth, and air, and the qualities of living beings are determined, according
to their species, by mixtures of these elements naturally proportioned.
, We
recognize here the Pythagorean principle of isonomia ðisonomíaÞ, that is,
the right proportion and equilibrium of the opposing elements of the

body. Isonomia was for the Greeks the manifestation of the cosmic order
in the domain of biology and closely akin to symmetria (see Raven 1951:
150). It is clear from the very nature of the elements that they are cosmic
also for Vitruvius. Much later in his work (VIII. Praef.: 1–2) he is explicit
on this point. Another term used there for the elements is ‘‘principles’’:
they are the principles of all things and, not only are all things born
from them, but they are also nourished, grow and are preserved by their
power. Too much or too little of one of them seems to destroy, for Vitru-
vius, the necessary equilibrium of the four elements.
Francesco Pellati stresses the existence of a strong, though not direct,
impact of Empedoclean theory on the views of Vitruvius concerning the
elements, while also indicating the Pythagorean influence on both. Pellati
observes that part of the Empedoclean theory is founded on mathemati-
cal proportions, that this approach is due to the early Pythagoreans and
that proportional relationships are clear in the case of the salubrity of
sites, where Vitruvius refers to the theory of the four elements. Pellati
rightly writes that for Vitruvius sites are composed solely of the four ele-
ments and are related to their various combinations (Pellati 1951: 243–
244, 245, 254, n. 1, 256, 258, 259; cf. Steckner 1984: 264).
In fact, the four elements are introduced from the very beginning of Vi-
truvius’s planning theory: he refers, as we saw, to the topography of the
site (earth), fog, frost and marshes (water), temperature (fire), and breezes
(air). He then first discusses heat in connection to orientation. Still in the
context of the salubrious site, after the theory of the elements (I.IV: 9–12)
he passes to the quality of water, and pasture (earth), which he proposes
to study through the inspection of entrails according to the Ancients (this
kind of procedure was used by the Etruscans); then follows a discussion
of the combined conditions under which the establishment of the walls
on a marsh is acceptable, one of which is its being in contact with the
sea.9
After discussing the positive and negative characteristics of sites, and
the orientation of the city walls, Vitruvius turns to the construction of
the walls and to their towers, passing thus from salubrity to the military
factor (I.V), but he returns to salubrity with the next and crucial chapter.
Operating from the outside inwards, he refers to ‘‘the division into lots . . .
and the orientation of the avenues ( platearum) and the alleys (angiport-
uum)’’ — elsewhere he also uses the term vicus. These — and here we
have the reference to the street network and its relation to the winds —
‘‘will be rightly oriented if we plan not to let the winds blow through the
alleys’’ (I.VI.1); the winds can be cold, hot or humid. Thus, after the dis-
cussion of the salubrity of the site in respect to three of the four elements
— and that of the military factor — Vitruvius comes now to the last ele-
ment, air. Protection from the winds allows a site and an organism to be
healthy. This protection is achieved if the tracing of the avenues and
alleys is not oriented in the direction of the winds, but follows the ‘‘angles
[he means the vertices] formed between two directions of the winds’’
(I.VI.7). Thus, we shall be able to protect the dwellings and public streets
from the violence of the winds, which break on the angles of the buildings
and are dissipated. Otherwise, the rush of the winds coming from the
open spaces of the sky and their abundant blowing constrained in the nar-
row alleys lead to their circulating with violence.
Vitruvius closes his urban planning theory (I.VII: 1–2) with what we
would call today ‘‘location theory’’ applied to the urban level (the selec-
tion of the site is also related to location theory, but on the regional level).
He writes that, after the creation of the network of alleys and avenues,
what must be studied is the choice of the locations for the sacred build-
ings, the forum and the other public places, thus concentrating on what
he manifestly considers as the main unitary elements of the city (see also
Tosi 1984: 427). These constructions, together with the walls and their ac-
companying towers and gates, constitute the public spaces of the city,
which are one part of ‘‘building’’ — itself one of the three parts of archi-
tecture together with horology and mechanics — the other being private
building (I.III.1 — the above items are the subjects of Vitruvius’s books).
If the wall is on the sea, the forum must be near the port, otherwise it must
be located in the center of the city — the typical location of the forum in
Roman cities. He prescribes that the capitolian triad, Jupiter, Juno, and
Minerva, must be located at the highest place — in this manner, the
gods can see and thus protect, and can be seen and thus addressed; the
elevation of the Capitolium is also typically Roman. He then proceeds to
location prescriptions for temples of other gods, which follow the Etrus-
can tradition but not the practices of his times.
4. The Vitruvian city: A radial-concentric plan
Before analyzing the deeper meaning of the Vitruvian city, we need to

examine its pattern. On this point, Vitruvius is laconic in the extreme.
We just saw above that the streets are oriented to the ‘‘angles’’ between
two directions; these are the points marked on the circumference of the
windrose, which according to Vitruvius are also the vertices of an octa-
gon. He adds one more piece of information: in order to orient the net-
work of the alleys, one should place the gnomon ‘‘between the vertices
of the octagon’’ (inter angulos octagoni) (I.VI.13); he adds a drawing
showing, as he says, the way to avoid the harmful winds by moving the
alignments of the avenues and the alleys out of their course — unfortu-
nately, the drawing has been lost.
Fleury (1990: 186, n. 2) poses two crucial questions in respect to this
puzzling description of the tracing of the street network: what is the in-
strument called a ‘‘gnomon’’ and what does ‘‘between the vertices’’
mean, that is, to what kind of operation does this expression refer? There
have been di¤erent interpretations concerning these questions. As to the
first, Fleury’s interpretation of the gnomon in this expression is literal: a
gnomon is a right angle. How then is this angle used? And finally, what
is the pattern of the street network?
The customary interpretation of Vitruvius’s description goes back to
the Renaissance. Alberti, the well-known theoretician of architecture of
the quattrocento, in his De re aedificatoria is well aware of Vitruvius’s
work. I have argued elsewhere (Lagopoulos 1993: 128–132, 1998: 388–
397) that, although Françoise Choay (Choay 1980: 12, 15, 16, 107–108)
maintains that Alberti in this work does not have recourse to an urban
model, he actually does propose such a model, a radial-concentric one,
exemplified by the city of the tyrant. I based my reconstruction of this
plan (Figure 3) on information given by Alberti himself in di¤erent parts
of his ten books, starting from his description of the tyrant’s city with its
emphatic concentricity. I proposed that he introduces the radial pattern
both because he knew it from urban reality and because he was inspired
by Plato’s cosmic ideal city-state in the Laws. Finally, I suggested that his
proposal integrates both the Roman tradition of the cross-shaped cosmic
complex of the cardo and decumanus, the two principal streets of the
Roman city, and the Christian cosmic city, the heavenly Jerusalem. We
should add to this many-layered intertext Alberti’s interpretation of the
Vitruvian city, since the circular contour and the radial form of the street
network may be derived from Vitruvius: the first from Vitruvius’s state-
ment that ‘‘cities are not to be planned square, nor with projecting angles,
but curvilinear, so that the enemy may be seen from several sides’’
(I.V.2), and the second as an interpretation of the expression ‘‘inter angu-
los’’ in the passage discussed above.
Alberti’s proposals were fundamental for the establishment of the Re-
naissance model city; though other architects of the quattrocento, such as
Filarete and Martini, also contributed, both followed Alberti’s work and
all of them were influenced by Vitruvius (Lavedan 1959: 12, 14, 23). Mar-
tini proposes an ideal octagonal city with four gates situated in the middle
of four sides of the octagon and on the extremities of the two main streets
of the city, which cross at right angles. There are eight towers at the ver-
tices of the octagon. The radial street network also includes two axes bi-
Figure 3. Reconstruction of the city of the tyrant as proposed by Alberti (according to Lago-
poulos 1998)
secting the right angles of the two main streets. The resulting eight streets
converge on a central octagonal square; between this square and the city
walls three octagonal rows of blocks and three narrower octagonal streets
are situated, the whole plan thus consisting of a set of three consecutive
octagonal rows of buildings, embedded the one within the other. Four
secondary squares are situated between the blocks forming the rows and
on the secondary radial streets (Figure 4). It is clear that we are again
Figure 4. The ideal octagonal radial-concentric city of Martini (from Lavedan 1959, re-
printed by permission of Éditions Jacques Lenore)
dealing with an interpretation of the Vitruvian city: the street network is

radial, as is the case with Alberti, and the founding and repeated form is
the octagon, the figure attached to Vitruvius’s windrose. It is to be noted
that each side of the octagonal streets is perpendicular to one of the eight
radial streets, showing that Martini conceived of the angiporti as perpen-
dicular to the plateae, manifestly a compromise with the ancient Roman
grid plan; also, that the orientation of all the streets goes against Vitru-
vius’s prescriptions.
The radial-concentric interpretation of the Vitruvian city is not limited
to Alberti, Filarete, and Martini. It was promulgated by the group known
as the ‘‘Vitruvians,’’ most of whom belonged to the circle of Bramante
and his disciples, active towards the end of the fifteenth and the begin-
nings of the sixteenth centuries (see Lavedan 1959: 23–25). The interpre-
tation continued through the following centuries and is still alive today.
To give some examples, Fra Giocondo, who had relations with Bramante
and published an edition of Vitruvius in 1511, designed an ideal city sur-
rounded by two concentric walls and having at its center a large monu-
ment, also circular; radial streets, probably twelve, extend from the cen-
tral monument to an equal number of gates (Figure 5). Galiani, who
published his edition of Vitruvius in 1758, proposes placing the vertex of
the right-angled gnomon in the center of the windrose and its sides be-
tween the center and the vertices of the octagon, but this operation does
not follow the precept ‘‘between the vertices’’ (cf. Fleury 1990: 186, n. 2).
Figure 5. The ideal circular radial-concentric city of Fra Giocondo (from Lavedan 1959, re-
printed by permission of Éditions Jacques Lenore)
Figure 6. Galiani’s reconstruction of the Vitruvian city as an octagonal radial-concentric city

(from Portoghesi 1969)
His reconstitution of the Vitruvian city is shown in Figure 6. The plan is

strongly influenced by Martini’s proposal, with the main di¤erence that
the radial streets unite the center with the vertices, and not the middle of
Figure 7. The reconstruction of the Vitruvian city as octagonal and radial-concentric

(reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library
from Vitruvius: Vol. I, Loeb Classical Library8 volume 251, translated by Frank Granger,
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, copyright : 1931 by the President and Fellows of
Harvard College. The Loeb Classical Library8 is a registered trademark of the President and
Fellows of Harvard College)
the sides, of the octagon. In the middle of the central octagonal square is
a circular element, and there is a set of four consecutive octagonal rows of
buildings, embedded the one within the other; eight secondary squares
are situated between the blocks and on the bisectors of the street angles.
This plan gives the main, radial streets the right orientation according to
Vitruvius, but it fails to do so for the secondary ones, because the latter
are not perpendicular (and parallel) to the former. Frank Granger, in his
1931 translation of De architectura, gives the octagonal plan reproduced
in Figure 7, a close variant of the Galiani plan, which also fails to accord
with Vitruvius in the case of the secondary streets.
5. The Vitruvian city: A grid plan
If we assume that Vitruvius instructs us to put the vertex of the gnomon in

the center of the windrose, thus paraphrasing ‘‘between the vertices’’
to mean ‘‘between the center and the vertices,’’ then we come up with a
radial plan. Admittedly, the temptation to do so and to arrive at a radial
plan is strong, since the circle, its center and the symmetrically disposed
diameters are the elements of the Vitruvian windrose. Put another way,
the pressure of the text pushes us towards the radial plan. The fact, how-
ever, that this reading violates the literal text prompts us to seek for
another reading, which, as we shall see, is not only literal, but also in
line with the external environment of the text, that is, the urban ideas
and realizations, preceding or surrounding it, that were known to or
could have been known to Vitruvius. Let me first briefly present this
environment.
Among the ancient Greeks, there had never been any newly created
city with a radial plan. However, there existed a semiotic urban model
composed of a center, the agora, and its circumference, on which all citi-
zens are ideally supposed to be located; all citizens should be located at
an equal distance from the agora because of the democratic — here polit-
ical — principle of isonomia, equality of political rights. Thus this model,
which is not only political but also cosmic, essentially emerges from an
unspecified number of radii. The model is a sub-model of a wider model
consisting of concentric circles and covering urban and regional space up
to the confines of the earth (cf. Lagopoulos 1978: 109–110). This kind
of isonomia is the political equivalent of the biological isonomia, and
they both derive from the cosmic order, from which symmetria was also
derived.
Both the above and the Platonic radial-concentric model were, how-
ever, purely theoretical models, while the actual model, realized in a great
number of cases, was the Hippodamian grid plan. The grid plan was also
the Roman urban model. It has the advantage of a quick and easy divi-
sion of the land, and is convenient for infrastructures. But for the
Romans, as for the Greeks, it was also filled with cosmic connotations.
When constructing a new settlement during the empire, the Roman sur-
veyors, the agrimensores, would trace two perpendicular axes, the decu-
manus (W-E) and the cardo (N-S), intersecting in the middle of the future
settlement (Figure 8). The decumanus connoted the course of the sun and
the cardo the axis of the universe. Facing east, they called the region to
their right regio dextrata (DD: dextra decumanum) and that to the left re-
gio sinistrata (SD: sinistra decumanum). The region in front of the cardo
was regio ultrata (VK: ultra k[c]ardinem) and that to the back regio
citrata (KK: kitra k[c]ardinem). Streets parallel to both axes were then
traced and each section of the perpendicular streets was labeled according
to the quadrant in which it was located and its relative distance from each
axis.
The point of intersection of the two axes, DMKM (decumanus maxi-
mus - kardo maximus), was considered to be the center and the navel of
Figure 8. The geometrical system of the Roman surveyors for the tracing of the street net-
work and the blocks of a settlement (according to Müller 1961)
the quadripartite universe. This is the point where the groma, the instru-
ment with the help of which the two axes were traced, was placed; at and
around this point were located the mundus (the sacrificial center of the
settlement, created during the foundation rite), the forum and the capito-
lium. This point was considered as the origin of the settlement: as Hygi-
nus Gromaticus writes, ‘‘ab uno umbilico in quattuor partes omnis centur-
iarum ordo componitur’’ (from a navel into four parts follows all the order
of the blocks — for the above, see Müller 1961: 11–27, 33).
The grid plan was the pattern used universally and for centuries by the
Roman surveyors and it is utterly improbable that an architect-engineer
like Vitruvius, who also addresses himself to clients of architects and tries
to communicate an operational knowledge, would propose an urban plan
totally independent from this practice and tradition. But if, for some rea-
son contradicting all of his work, Vitruvius had indeed decided to do so,
he would surely have had to be — and he certainly would have been in
his text — explicit about his unorthodox proposal, while simultaneously
Figure 9. The gnomon and the operation e¤ected with it
trying to legitimize it. It is precisely the absence of any insistence on the

description of the plan that indicates that it is so predictable that no com-
ment is necessary (cf. Hesberg 1989: 134–135). Is there, then, some read-
ing of ‘‘between the vertices’’ which could lead to a grid plan? We are
thus confronted once more with the question already posed: how is the
gnomon, the right angle, used?
Fleury (1990: 186–187, n. 2) is firm that Vitruvius proposes a grid plan
and thus agrees with the position of Schlikker (1940: 42-43, n. 26). He
concludes that the vertex of the gnomon is placed on a vertex of the octa-
gon; the result is that each of the sides of the gnomon will pass below the
next vertex of the octagon and through the second vertex (Figure 9). On
the basis of this operation, Fleury traces a grid plan (Figure 10) that also
establishes, in the spirit of Vitruvius, a hierarchy between the streets, in-
cluding two types, the main streets or plateae and the secondary angiporti,
and gives the latter an orientation perpendicular to the former.10
Of course, this is the case only if the gnomon has sides of equal length,
since it is possible to inscribe within the circle a gnomon with unequal
Figure 10. The grid plan as traced after this operation (both according to Fleury 1990, re-
printed by permission of Les Belles Lettres)
sides, the one side passing through two consecutive vertices and the other
below the two next vertices and through the third. But only the first case
is consistent with the requirement that the streets should be oriented be-
tween the directions of the winds, because the orientation of the street it
prescribes coincides in fact with that of a pair of perpendicular diameters
of the windrose. In the second case, on the contrary, the orientation of
each pair of sides is towards either the cardinal points or the intermediary
points, which goes against the Vitruvian prescription.
Fleury’s proposal is aligned with the views of Per Gustaf Hamberg.
Starting from the idea that the use of two di¤erent terms for the streets
correspond to a specific and known type of plan, Hamberg argues that
Vitruvius cannot be referring to the ‘‘typical’’ Roman plan (cf. Figure 8).
This plan is seen, for example, in Aosta (Augusta Praetoria), in which the
streets, intersecting at right angles, have an approximately equal width
(the streets uniting opposite gates are slightly larger, according to Ham-
berg) and the blocks are almost square. For Hamberg, in this model there
Figure 11. Knell’s (1985) proposal for the Vitruvian city (reprinted by permission of WBG)
is no essential distinction between two di¤erent types of streets (Hamberg

1965: 106–107, 112). Fleury disagrees with Knell (1985: 40–41) on the
same issue. Describing the steps Vitruvius would follow from the wind-
rose to the street pattern, Knell concludes that a square is inscribed within
the octagon, and then he fills the latter with a grid plan having streets of
equal width and equal square blocks (Figure 11), acknowledging that this
last point is an addition of his own. Fleury also makes reference to the
plan of Thourioi, where he follows Georges Vallet (1976: 1031–1032) in
believing that there was a di¤erentiation between large avenues
ðplateĩaiÞ and alleys ðstenopoíÞ, the latter being located in the interior
of the areas bordered by the avenues. He observes, however, that Vitru-
vius does not seem to have had this plan in mind, because his plan should
be interpreted as involving large avenues all following the same direction
(but he does not substantiate his argument) — Fleury 1990: C–CII and
146–149, n. 2).
Fleury also agrees with Hamberg that Vitruvius was inspired by the
planning principles presiding over the Greek colony of Naples. The urban
model of this city is labeled by Hamberg ‘‘per strigas.’’ Its street plan
seems to date from the second half of the fifth century BC and includes
three principal avenues at equal distances, traditionally called plateae,
which are intersected at right angles by about twenty lanes, also at equal
distances; the proportion of the sides of the insulae is 5:1 (Figure 12).
Hamberg thinks that the model per strigas is the typical Greek form for
a regular city, and that the plan of Naples was the application of this at
the time quite modern model. The plan would belong to the period when
Figure 12. The plan per strigas of Naples (from Lavedan and Hugueney 1966, reprinted by
permission of Éditions Jacques Lenore)
Greek urban planning, under the influence of philosophy and medicine,

begun to concern itself with practical problems. The plan is also ‘‘scien-
tific’’ — in the sense that it takes into account astronomical and meteoro-
logical orientation. The issue concerning orientation presupposes a theo-
retical background. Thus, Vitruvius would have been inspired by a now
lost early classical Greek treatise concerning urban planning, climate,
and orientation, a treatise that could be contemporary with the planning
of Naples and would have expressed ideas similar to, but also di¤erent
from, those (already current) of Hippodamus of Miletus, but that would
not have been written by any personality known to us (Hamberg 1965:
108–109, 112, 113, 116, 122).
If the ‘‘between the vertices’’ operation is meant to define orientation,
then it is theoretically superfluous, because the directions arrived at
through it are already present in the two pairs of perpendicular diameters
of the windrose. We should, thus, conclude that its aim is the delimitation
of a perimeter. There are then two possibilities: either it takes place just
once, as we may deduce from a scholastic interpretation of Vitruvius, in
which case only the two sides of a square perimeter are defined (cf. Figure
9); or at most it is e¤ected twice, in a symmetrical manner, so as to com-
plete the square (cf. Figure 10) — a non-symmetrical repetition would be
non-sense. There is an increasing and thus rewarding visualization of the
pattern of the city from the first case to the second, because this square
together with the two axes makes four squares, a configuration rendering
with fidelity the grid pattern. It is not possible to know if Vitruvius filled
the internal space of this perimeter with a finer grid plan — as Knell does
— but, if he did so, then he would have drawn a complete Roman city
with its cardo and decumanus, one, however, contradicting his view about
the avoidance of the square contour.
In the first case, the two sides would reveal the will to relate them to a
virtual square and focus on a unitary block of the city. In the second, the
pattern of the city is given and the square form emphasized by repetition.
Both cases show that the Naples model was combined with the pattern of
equal square blocks, a pattern proposed by both Fleury and Knell. That
in the case of the square we should exclude a reference to the perimeter of
the city seems clear, since Vitruvius is explicitly against square cities and in
favor of curvilinear ones. At the same time, this last view of his could per-
haps allow a slight bridge between the two interpretations of the Vitruvian
city, the grid and the radial-concentric pattern: we could hypothesize that
the circumference of the windrose is an allusion to, not a precise
geometrical model of, the suggested contour of the city (cf. Knell 1985: 41).
The two interpretations given to Vitruvius’s city led, thus, to two dif-
ferent city plans: a radial-concentric and a grid plan (see also Lavedan
1959: 23). This oscillation may even appear in the views of one and the
same person. I already made reference to Fra Giocondo’s ideal radial-
concentric city. However, as Fleury (1990: CI) reminds us, the very same
Fra Giocondo included in his drawings an ideal plan close to that of
Naples — where he had worked between 1489 and 1495 — accompanied
by meteorological orientations derived from Vitruvius (Figure 12); the
similarity of this plan to Vitruvius’s city was already noted by Hamberg
(1965: 124–125). But we shall not oscillate here; we shall close the Vitru-
vian case with a verdict for the grid plan, the traditional Roman cosmic
plan, with special emphasis on the cosmic, as I shall try to show.
In addition to oscillations, there have been unconvincing compromises
of di¤erent sorts. I already referred to the first kind of compromise, which
is early and is exemplified by Martini and Galiani, as well as Vasari the
Younger (1598), who attempted to reconcile in one plan with an octago-
nal contour the two opposed plans (see Lavedan 1959: 25–26) — Figure
14. Two recent compromises are due to Hugh Plommer (1971: 160, n. 4
and 161–162, n. 2) and T. Kurent (1972). The first gives a variant of
Galiani’s plan (Figure 15), which has the triple advantage that it follows
Figure 13. The ideal square grid city of Fra Giocondo (from Hamberg 1965, reprinted by
permission of Blackwell Publishing)
Figure 14. The compromise of Vasari the Younger between the radial-concentric and the grid
plan (from Lavedan 1959, reprinted by permission of Éditions Jacques Lenore).
Figure 15. Plommer’s (1971) compromise proposal for the Vitruvian city (reprinted by per-
mission of Cambridge University Press).
only the orientations prescribed by Vitruvius — indeed all of them — has

the angiporti perpendicular to the plateae, and is in accordance with the
observation on the breaking of the winds, but nevertheless it is still a ra-
dial plan. Kurent, on the other hand, believes that the Roman surveyors
had a secret knowledge of proportions, derived from an ‘‘octagram’’ or
eight-pointed star (created by the four rectangles that can be traced on
the basis of the four pairs of the diametrically opposite sides of a regular
octagon), but would not use the encircling octagonal figure. Vitruvius,
who would not have been privy to this knowledge, would incline hesi-
tantly to the octagonal form. The only settlement which to some extent
follows Vitruvius’s octagonal plan would be Calleva Atrebatum (Silches-
ter), which however also follows the logic of the octagram, implanted by
the surveyor who was in charge of the tracing. Kurent attempts, in the
name of Vitruvius, to reconcile a by-product of the radial plan, the octa-
gon, with the grid plan, by using as his example Silchester, which, how-
ever, is almost precisely oriented to the cardinal points (Figure 16).
Both the operation with the gnomon that Fleury reconstructs and the
diameters of the octagon define the orientation of the city plan. They
can only lead to two di¤erent pairs of orientation: one E/NE-W/SW
and N/NW-S/SE, and another E/SE-W/NW and N/NE-S/SW. Each
of these two pairs is related to two perpendicular axes, which derive
from the rotation, clockwise or anticlockwise, by 22.5 degrees of the me-
ridian line with the E-W axis; this angle is due to the fact that the axes
coincide with the bisectors of the angles formed by the cardinal and the
intermediary directions (see also Hamberg 1965: 116; Paulys Realencyclo-
pädie 1958: Winde, 2366). If, on the other hand, the plan proposed by
Vitruvius was radial, the street network would follow simultaneously all
eight orientations.
Granger (1931: 63, n. 1) observes that at Dougga (Thugga) in Tunis
there is a large windrose — about 9 m. in diameter — with twelve winds,
which agree closely with those given by Vitruvius. During about eighty
years of the second century, a monumental forum was built in this Afri-
can city. Toward the end of this period, during the reign of Commodus in
the last quarter of the second century, the Pacuvii family was responsible
for the construction of an extension of the forum, a complex including the
rebuilding of an older market, a temple of Mercury and a porticoed
square between them (Figure 17). On the white pavement of this square,
the above windrose was inscribed in the beginning of the third century
(Gros and Torelli 1988: 261; Poinssot 1958: 12, 32–33; Golfetto 1961:
20, 36). The two axes of the circular windrose are oriented to the cardinal
points with a divergence of about 6 degrees (clockwise, i.e., from the east
southward).
These axes are diameters of three concentric circles (Figure 18). The
narrow zone between the two outer circles is divided, by lines following
the radii, into 24 equal parts. These parts are grouped by pairs so that
12 equal groupings are obtained; the four central groupings are divided
into two equal parts by the axes of the windrose. The names of 12 winds
are inscribed on the groupings. These names are from north clockwise as
follows: Septentrio, Aquilo, Euraquilo, (Vul)Turnus, Eurus, Leuconotus,
Figure 16. The compromise of Kurent (1972) between the octagon and the grid plan (re-
printed by permission of Živa Antika)
Auster, Libonotus, Africus, Fa(v)oni(us), Argestes, Circius (Poinssot

1958: 33; Golfetto 1961: 15, 36; Khanoussi and Maurin 2000: 102).
Though there are di¤erences between this windrose and that by Vitruvius,
Figure 17. The forum, the Windrose square and the market of Dougga (from Poinssot 1958,
reprinted by permission of the General Director of the Institut National du Patrimoine, Minis-
tère de la Culture et de la Sauvegarde du Patrimoine, Republic of Tunisia)
the two have six winds in common whose regions overlap. Both Arthur
Golfetto (1961: 36) and Heiner Knell (1985: 43, n. 126) observe that the
Dougga windrose is in accordance with the Vitruvian windrose, though
Knell is not certain that it has its origins in Vitruvius. Before Knell, R.
Böker (Paulys Realencyclopädie 1958: Winde, 2355–2356) had expressed
the opinion that the Dougga windrose has its origins in the twelve-part
windrose of Timosthenes (see also Khanoussi and Maurin 2000: 101).
The Windrose square and the market are later than the forum, together
with which they form an L-shaped whole. The southern side of the square
is exactly parallel to the southern side of the forum and we may thus con-
sider that their direction corresponds to the intended W-E axis. The west-
ern side of the market is exactly perpendicular to this axis and thus its di-
rection should correspond to the N-S axis. The two axes are actually
oriented E/NE-W/SW and N/NW-S/SE and diverge from the cardinal
points by 15 degrees, but from the axes of the windrose, by 21 degrees,
which according to Knell (1985: 43) represents a very good approxima-
tion to the Vitruvian prescription.
Figure 18. The Dougga windrose (Khanoussi and Maurin 2000, reprinted by permission of
Ausonius)
What conclusions can we draw from the above data? From the view-
point of the names and locations of the winds, the Dougga windrose is
close to both the eight-part (and the 24-part) Vitruvian and the Timosthe-
nian windroses, in fact closer to the former. On the other hand, from the
geometrical viewpoint, it is identical to the latter. However, beyond these
formal comparisons, it is reasonable to assume that an urban windrose in
a Roman city of the Imperial period should be related to Vitruvius, what-
ever its specific form and organization. It should also be noted that the
Dougga windrose is connected to Vitruvius, not only through its form
and organization, but also through its use. The Dougga windrose is at-
tached to (open) spaces and not streets, but manifestly the former should
obey the health factor as much as the latter. Given this, the 21 degrees di-
vergence of the axes of the complex and the forum from those of the
windrose could in fact be a reference to Vitruvius. I shall come back im-
mediately to this point. But their divergence from the actual cardinal
points is of 15 degrees, and it is quite improbable that the Roman sur-
veyors would have made a mistake of 7.5 degrees, as would be the case
if they had wanted to achieve the Vitruvian divergence of 22.5 degrees.
We must assume that they deliberately sought to achieve a divergence
like the one actualized. We can show that this divergence is absolutely
compatible with the Vitruvian modus operandi.
The windrose is not operational, but commemorative and decorative,
since it was constructed some years after the construction of the complex
and about a century after the construction of the forum, which both had
its own orientation and dictated that of the complex. What is remarkable
about a twelve-part windrose is that the ‘‘between the vertices’’ operation
allows for the use of three di¤erent types of gnomon. In the case of the
first type, one side of the gnomon passes through two consecutive vertices
and the other below the next four vertices and through the fifth vertex. In
the second case, one side passes below the next and through the second
vertex, and the other below the next three vertices and through the fourth
(see acb, Figure 19). And in the third case, each side passes below two
vertices and through the third, the sides of the gnomon being equal (ac’b,
Figure 19). The sides of this last isosceles gnomon correspond, depending
on the position of the gnomon, to three di¤erent pairs of perpendicular
axes, which in all cases pass through the middle of the arcs of the winds
and thus do not follow the prescriptions of the windrose (the position ac’b
of the gnomon exemplifies one of the three possible cases of orientation).
Exactly the same observation is valid for the first type of gnomon (which
is not shown in Figure 19). Only the three pairs of perpendicular axes to
which correspond the sides of the second type of gnomon are in accor-
dance with the directions dictated by the windrose (the position acb of
the gnomon shows one of the three possible cases). Thus, this it the type
of gnomon, which is suitable for the Vitruvian prescription in the case of
the twelve-part windrose, and this type does not generate square city
blocks.
On the basis of a twelve-part windrose, the E-W axis of urban space
has three possible orientations with reference to the east. In the first case,
it diverges from the east by 15 degrees to the north (which gives for the
perpendicular axis a divergence of 15 degrees from the north towards the
NW); in the second case, it diverges by 45 degrees to the north or south
(both leading to the same pair of perpendicular axes); and in the third, it
diverges by 15 degrees to the south (which gives for the perpendicular axis
Figure 19. Diagram of the twelve-wind and 24-part Dougga windrose. n: The windrose’s
north. N: Real north. AA-BB: Main axes of the windrose. XX-YY: Orientation of the axes of
the forum and the whole central complex. acb and ac’b: two possible results of the ‘‘between
the vertices’’ operation; the first case corresponds to the actual operation
a divergence of 15 degrees from the north towards the NE). It follows

that the dominant divergence of the urban axes from the cardinal direc-
tions prescribed by the twelve-part windrose is of 15 degrees. But 15 de-
grees is the actual divergence (from east to north — cf. acb, Figure 19) of
the axes of the complex and the forum from the cardinal points. This fact
would lead us to the hypothesis that already at the time when the forum
was built, a twelve-part windrose was used as a guide to its orientation.
This hypothesis becomes all the more plausible if we take into account
that the ratio between the sides of the ideal block generated by the perti-
nent gnomon is about 0.57, which is almost exactly the same ratio (about
0.53) as that between the sides of the internal, open-air square of the mar-
ket; incidentally, this ratio simultaneously corroborates Fleury’s interpre-
tation of ‘‘between the vertices.’’ The commemorative windrose would
thus be a repetition of an earlier, operational windrose. The last point
that remains to be explained is why the correspondence between the ur-
ban axes and the earlier windrose was deliberately obscured with the false
cardinal points of the new, commemorative windrose — and I use these
expressions because an involuntary mistake of 6 degrees is unthinkable.
A probable answer is that, through a clockwise turn by 7.5 degrees of
the axes of the windrose in respect to the cardinal points (which was not
achieved perfectly, since it was limited to 6), it was possible to accomplish
a double aim: to preserve the initial guide to urban orientation and at the
same time to hint at the Master’s orientation of 22.5 degrees.
In Naples, the orientation of the three plateae is E/NE-W/SW and
diverges by 24 degrees to the north from the W-E axis — and the same
orientation is shown by Alexandria. In each of the Vitruvian pairs of ori-
entations, the plateae may theoretically follow either the meridian or the
solar course. In Naples, and Alexandria, they follow the latter, and, as
we saw, Fleury believes that this is also the orientation recommended by
Vitruvius (on the above, see also Fleury 1990: 173, n. 5). Both Fleury’s
interpretation and the hypothesis concerning Naples converge in a solar
direction for the plateae, and the latter is in accordance with the fact that,
while earlier the cardo was the main axis of the Roman settlement, in the
imperial period priority was given to the decumanus (see Müller 1961: 15–
16). We observe that in Dougga also, the main element of the center, the
forum, has a solar direction — while the market is perpendicular to it.
6. The cosmic man and the cosmic site

According to Empedocles, the four elements form three di¤erent struc-
tures. In the first structure, fire as the dominant element — located at the
center of the universe — is opposed to the three remaining elements. In
the second, fire and air, which correspond to light, are opposed to earth
and water, darkness. The third structure is not a simple dualistic one,
but dualistic and ternary: there are two opposite poles, fire (day) and
water (night), and a middle term, air and earth (in-between gradations
— Bollack 1965: 238–239). As we already saw, when first referring to
the elements, Vitruvius grouped them as fire and water, and earth and
air. In the preface of Book VIII, he starts with a brief historical account
of the theories on the original element or elements and his reference to the
elements follows the sequence water-fire-air-earth (also present in II.II.1).
This sequence is comparable to his original grouping. Then he presents
the elements in the order air-fire-earth-water, which is totally di¤erent
from the above (elsewhere the sequence is again di¤erent). This order is
comparable to the grouping of the elements in the second Empedoclean
structure, but it is itself unstructured. Vitruvius’s first grouping of the ele-
ments could also be considered as related to the third structure of Empe-
docles: the relation would be that in both cases earth and air compose one
group, and Vitruvius’s grouping of fire and water would unite in a single
group the two opposite poles of Empedocles (cf. Fleury 1990: 129–130,
n. 2); however, no easy justification exists for this latter conjunction of
two opposite poles. We may conclude, then, that even though Vitruvius
is well acquainted with the Greek theory of the elements, he is not aware
of their qualitative structural bonds.
Living organisms in general and man in particular constitute for Vitru-
vius, as for the Greeks, mixtures of the four elements. These mixtures
have specific and di¤erent proportions for birds (cf. the element air), fish
(cf. water), and terrestrial animals (cf. earth), proportions, which secure
their equilibrium and thus their good health. We may conclude that, since
man is a composition of the four cosmic elements, he is a microcosm. The
condition of this microcosm is dependent for Vitruvius on two kinds of
orientation, each of which represents a relation to a cosmic element. The
first element is fire, attached to the heat of the sun; when out of propor-
tion, heat destroys the equilibrium of the elements. The second is air,
which acts in a similar way: the winds must be well proportioned, that
is, not violent but sweet. The tracing of the windrose and the street net-
work, and that of the walls in respect to the sun, are, then, the urban
planning devices through which one can regulate the right dose of the cor-
responding element and thus maintain the cosmic equilibrium in man.
Man-as-microcosm also depends on the other two cosmic elements.
For Vitruvius, humidity may fill the pores of the body and destroy equi-
librium, because the other elements are altered by the liquid element
and end up diluted and thus the qualities derived from their correct pro-
portion are dissolved. Exposure to the humidity of the winds may be
damaging to the organism. But also the natural proportion of earth in the
latter may be excessively increased, due to an excess of food, or de-
creased, and then the other elements are weakened. In general, organisms
su¤er or are dissolved by excess or defect of the elements.
Thus, the cosmic equilibrium of the substance of man-as-microcosm is
secured by the elements and, in relation to them, by the orientation and
form of the city. But the site in which the city is located is also of the same
nature as man. For Vitruvius (I.IV.4), there are healthy and unhealthy
sites, and even in the former organisms become weak from the heat in sum-
mer, while even the very unhealthy sites become healthy in winter, because
cold strengthens. Fleury (1990: 127, n. 4.1) observes this shift from organ-
ism to site and considers that there may have been an omission in the text
of a second reference to the organism, because for him it is not literally
sites that become solid from cold, but men living in them. But it is quite
possible that there is no word missing and the shift is due to the close
analogy for Vitruvius between sites and organisms. Such an analogy
appears in respect to the winds, since Vitruvius (I.VI.3) writes that protec-
tion from them renders a site healthy for organisms in good health.
Sites, like organisms, are in fact discussed by Vitruvius in relation to
the four elements. As we saw in the beginning of this essay, a site is a
function of:
– Earth, because it must be elevated and provided with good quality
pasture.
– Water, because it must be free from fog and frost, far from marshes
(except if certain conditions are fulfilled, including contact with the
sea), and provided with good quality water.
– Fire, because it must be exposed to a temperate orientation, neither
hot nor cold.
– Air, because, when the city is located near marshes, the morning
breezes bring to the city the poisonous exhalations of the beasts of
the marshes, and because if the winds are cold they wound, if hot
they infect, and if humid they are injurious.
We see that the site is in its substance homologous to the organism,
since it is composed by the very same four elements and each element
must show specific properties. Not only man is a microcosm, but also
the site on which the city will be founded.
7. The cosmic windrose and the cosmic city

In chapter VI on the windrose and the street network, Vitruvius inserts a
passage on the calculation of the circumference of the earth. He writes
that Eratosthenes of Cyrene, using the gnomon, found that the circumfer-
ence of the earth is 252,000 stades, that is, 31,500,000 paces, and thus the
eighth part occupied by each wind is 3,937,500 paces. We may deduce
that the circumference of the windrose stands for that of the earth, and
its eight-part division figures the distribution of the winds on earth. We
also saw that for Vitruvius the winds and the orientations from which
they originate constitute an inseparable whole (see also Fleury 1990: 168,
n. 8). These orientations are related to celestial phenomena and mainly
the course of the sun; the origins of four winds, solanus and favonius,
and eurus and africus, are explicitly related to the sunrise and the sunset.
We also note that aquilo (the NE wind) is symmetrical to eurus (SE) with
respect to the east and, since eurus is associated (very approximately) with
the winter sunrise, aquilo was surely associated with the summer solsticial
sunrise. For similar reasons, caurus should have been associated with the
summer sunset. The remaining two winds, auster and septentrio, are both
associated with the meridian line, traced in function of the course of the
sun (but north was also the direction of the pole star).
In Book VI (I.5), Vitruvius gives an image of the universe, according to
which the upper and lower parts of the universe meet on a circumference
located on the plane which also includes the horizontal section of the
earth (and passes through its center); this circumference is the celestial ho-
rizon (see also Gros 2001: 22). The horizon extends as a circle between
east and west and is naturally level. We may deduce that the trajectory
of the sun touches this horizon, the sunrises and the sunsets being points
on it. After the reference to these two cardinal points, Vitruvius traces
a straight line from north to south. The fact that the circumference of
the earth is concentric to the celestial horizon, and the similarity between
the windrose and the circle of the horizon including the cardinal points,
lead to the conclusion that the windrose also connotes the horizontal sec-
tion of the universe, that is, it is an abridged cosmogram. It is on this cir-
cumference that the origins of the winds and the trajectory of the sun
meet.
Describing the windrose, Vitruvius uses the right versus left opposition.
After the definition of the eighths of the south and of the north on the
windrose, the rest of its circumference is divided into three equal parts to
the right and then three to the left. When referring to the 24-wind wind-
rose, he also uses the same opposition in order to define the positions of
the new winds he adds. In the case of the eight-wind rose, if Figure 1 was
drawn by Vitruvius himself (which is however debatable; see Gros 1988:
58), and since north is above, the eastern part corresponds to the right
and the western to the left. In the case of the 24-wind rose, he is looking
from the periphery towards the center and, using as reference the eight
directions, he relates to each one of them two winds, always starting with
the one to the right (see also Fleury 1990: 178, n. 1). In both cases, there
is a middle term between right and left, the meridian in the first case,
one of the eight winds in the second. In this latter case, he starts from
the south, as he also does with the tracing of the parts of his windrose,
and proceeds clockwise, both in his general movement and in the partial
right-to-left movements. He follows the same movement in his descrip-
tion of the four winds, only that here he starts from the east; and a neigh-
boring starting point together with the clockwise direction are used in
his description of the four intermediary winds that leads to the eight
winds.
According to Frontinus and Hyginus, the Etruscan augurs, the haru-
spices, divided earth into a right northern part and a left southern part;
thus, we can deduce that the dividing line, the E-W axis, corresponded
to the apparent course of the sun (see Fleury 1990: 160, n. 4). According
to Pliny the Elder, the Etruscans divided the celestial circle into sixteen
parts — i.e., an eight-part division subdivided into equal halves —
arranged around two main axes orientated N-S and E-W, the former
being the principal one; the angles of the sectors are equal to 22.5 degrees.
The line of view was from north to south, and there was a left, eastern
and favorable part and a right, western and unfavorable one (Figure 20).
The same north-to-south direction, or one towards the east, was used
by the Roman priests during the foundation rite of a settlement, when
they projected the celestial templum on earth, as well as by the surveyors
(Müller 1961: 26, 38–45).
Figure 20. The Etruscan division of the celestial circle: 1: Left, eastern and favorable part. 2:
Right, western and unfavorable part
If we compare Vitruvius’s windrose with the above, we see that:

a. The Vitruvian windrose is geometrically close to the Etruscan celes-
tial circle as described by Pliny, and the divergence of 22.5 degrees
from the cardinal directions for the streets that derives from his wind-
rose corresponds to divisions of this circle, that is, the directions he
prescribes are in a manner related to tradition (see also Paulys Real-
encyclopädie 1958: Winde, 2 373).
b. The clockwise movement accompanying this and the other windroses
can be associated with this Etruscan circle, because it coincides with
the apparent movement of the sun. However, the tracing of the moat
dug around the Roman and probably the Etruscan settlement (sulcus
primigenius) followed an anticlockwise direction (sinistratio).
c. The emphasis on south, and generally in his windroses on south or
east, is comparable to that on south or east by the Etruscans and the
Romans.
d. His right-left opposition, while in its general form the same as the one
of the Etruscan circle, seems to valorize semantically the right,11
while the Etruscans valorized the left. However, in both cases, the val-
orized part is the eastern part, provided Figure 1 is due to Vitruvius
or at least corresponds to his own figure.
The similarity of the Vitruvian windrose with the Etruscan celestial cir-
cle, on the one hand adds new evidence for its cosmic nature, and on the
other shows its integration into the Etruscan and Roman tradition. Si-
multaneously, this integration reveals the continuity between his windrose
and the Italian urban planning tradition. In fact, during the traditional
foundation rite of a settlement, the augur was seeking to project the celes-
tial templum on earth. To do that, he would sit on a stone, which was
thought of as attached to the center of the universe. The form of the
earthly templum, the projection on earth of the celestial templum, in-
cluded two perpendicular oriented axes, symbolically identical with those
of the celestial circle. The templum was one of the elements linking the
settlement to the universe. The Roman foundation rite was in all proba-
bility the continuation of the Etruscan rite. It was composed of three
parts: inauguratio, limitatio, and consecratio, and the creation of the tem-
plum was the nucleus of inauguratio. The cardo and the decumanus of the
settlement followed the axes of the templum. Given the contiguity of the
forum with the intersection of these main streets of the settlement, the
templum was linked to the forum (see, for example, Müller 1961: 17–21,
24–35, 39–45; Rykwert 1976: 46–50, 90–91).
It becomes, I believe, clear that not only the form of the windrose,
but also its function derive from the templum tradition. The windrose
represents Vitruvius’s reinterpretation and rationalization of a long tradi-

tion, a kind of technocratic view on tradition. It is intended to replace the
traditional templum with a new one, having a similar form, the same
function — to guide the orientation of the street network — and the
same location in relation to the forum, as the example of Dougga indi-
cates. The templum was intended to bring the order of the universe down
to the earth, and into the street network and the settlement. The cosmic
windrose of Vitruvius should have the same aim, with the di¤erence that
it is explicit about a practical matter, the salubrity of the city, and leaves
in the background the symbolic matters and the cosmic code. In the same
way as the traditional settlement emerges from the cosmic templum, his
grid-plan city — but even if it was radial-concentric the case would be
the same — emerges from the cosmic windrose. This city then is cosmic,
and ought to be so, because, as we saw, the Roman city was cosmic.
8. The laws of nature: The cosmic and the aesthetic
Vitruvius’s windrose intends to show the distribution of the winds and

this was also the interpretation of its commentators. I have tried to show
that this denotative ‘‘aeolian’’ code was the product and the vehicle of a
connotative cosmic code, a relation mediated by orientation, which is
mainly related to one astral subcode of the cosmic code, the solar code.
Hence, we may restate the nature of his windrose: it shows the dynamic
structuring in the universe of the element air, in close connection with
the movement of the sun. Before dealing with another crucial connotative
code of the windrose, the aesthetic code, I shall try to show the indissolu-
ble link between the cosmic and the aesthetic, by having recourse as a
privileged standpoint to the conception of the laws of nature in Vitru-
vius’s work.
Following the Greeks, Vitruvius explains the nature and the birth of
the wind (I.VI.2). Wind is a flux of air and air has waves (VIII.II: 1 and
2). Wind rises when heat strikes the humid element and this pressure pro-
duces a violent current. Vitruvius refers us for verification to spherical
(see Fleury 1990: 154, n. 6) Aeoluses of bronze. These Aeoluses represent,
as Vitruvius writes, the divine reality of the secret laws of the celestial sys-
tem, the great natural causalities, which regulate the skies and the winds.
Vitruvius here elaborates on the relation between the cosmic elements: the
movement of the air is produced by an internal dynamics of the couple of
fire and water. We also see once more that the dynamics of the wind is
coextensive with the universe; it is ruled, together with the skies, by the
laws of the universe.
From the sphere to the cube. Vitruvius (V.Praef.: 3–5) writes that
Pythagoras and his sect formulated their rules in texts, which were related
to a cube. He defines the cube as a body with all its edges equal and its
faces square, which, when it is thrown, remains stable and immobile
whatever face it rests on. For our author, the Pythagoreans related the
length of a written work to a cube: the work should have no more than
three cubes, the cube equaling 216 lines. This number of lines makes the
memory stable in the manner of the stability of the cube. These things, he
writes, have been observed by our forefathers in the order of nature. The
latter term thus refers to a geometrical figure and its properties, as well as
to a number attached to the cube.
After the above preface, Vitruvius (V.I: 1–3) describes the forum. In It-
aly, he writes, the forum is used for gladiatorial shows and is surrounded
by colonnades, and balconies on the upper floors. The upper columns
must be a quarter less than the lower ones, because the latter bear more
weight. Writing on the foundation of buildings (III.IV.1), he states that
we must seek if possible to reach solid soil. Above the ground, we build
walls and on these columns. These walls must be thicker by one-half
than the columns, because they receive a greater load. Both these pre-
scriptions aim at solidity and this latter is legitimized with a metaphor
from nature (Gros 1990: 128, n. 6). Thus, in the first passage Vitruvius
explains that the change in the diameter of the columns imitates the natu-
ral growth of trees and, if the higher part of a thing is narrower than the
lower, it is rightly arranged both as to height and thickness. According to
J.J. Pollitt (1974: 69–70), Vitruvius holds in general that art must seek its
prototypes in nature, and this idea is a corollary of the Hellenistic decor
theory, which he applied to architecture.
The solidity of a building, then, transfers to the building a regularity
found in trees, and thus we are dealing with the imitation of a natural
model. According to Vitruvius, this model is thicker at the roots and
then gradually diminishes towards the summit. Not only is thickness a
function of height, a fully formulated qualitative proportional rule, but
also in the modeled object this rule takes on a quantitative expression.
The regularity embodied by the tree is not vague, but it is a rule of a spe-
cific kind, which can then be applied to a building using mathematical
proportions: it has all the necessary characteristics with which Vitruvius
would define a law of nature.
From the trees to the animal world. We saw that the good health of the
various kinds of leaving creatures is due to the specific proportions in
each of them of the four cosmic elements. Thus, the cosmic interplay of
the elements, active in the universe, is transferred into the individual or-
ganisms, including man, and acquires in each case a di¤erent structure.
We may speak about structural variants and transformations. The organ-

ism is the field of a specific structuring of the cosmic elements: the laws of
nature are integrated into the laws of the universe, as was also the case
with the wind. Similarly, as I tried to show, the site is a composition of
the four elements and thus it is governed by the same laws.
The cosmic order is manifested in man in its aspect of isonomia. Man is
also the vehicle of symmetria. We read in chapter I (1–4) of Book III that
a temple cannot but follow symmetria, which characterizes the members
of a rightly shaped man. Nature has shaped the human body according
to certain norms. The navel is the center of the body. If a man lies on his
back with hands and legs spread diagonally, and we consider his navel as
the center of a circle, the circumference will pass from the extremities of
his fingers and toes. As Gros observes (1990: 66, n. 3 and 2001: 22), the
inscription within a circle or a sphere demonstrates the accomplishment
and perfection of a composition. But also, writes Vitruvius, we discover
a square: the height from the soles of the feet to the top of the head is
equal to the width of the outstretched hands (III.I: 3–4). Gros (1990: 67,
n. 4) notes here that Vitruvius establishes an implicit relation of equiva-
lence between the two geometrical figures, but does not specify any kind
of geometrical relation between them; Gros comments that their relation,
i.e., the squaring of the circle, is one of the obsessional themes of ancient
geometry.
The conclusion that Vitruvius draws from the presentation of the rules
that the body obeys is twofold: first, that nature has composed the body
in such a manner that its individual members hold proportional relations
to its total form; and second, that this is why the Ancients established the
principle that there must be a perfect proportional correspondence be-
tween the members and the whole of a work (see also III.I.9). Gros
(1990: 70, n. 3) also points out that Vitruvius’s views on the circle and
the square add meaning to the concept of the totality of a work; the in-
scription of a facade or volume within a simple geometrical form reveals
to the eyes of the observer the value and harmony of symmetria.
To come back to the main line of the argument, nature shaped the
human body according to symmetria, and buildings, especially temples,
must imitate the body by following the principle of symmetria (see also
Gros 2001: 17). The laws of nature thus have an aspect, which is quanti-
tative and proportional. They give to the body the symmetrical property
of eurythmia, that is, a graceful semblance, and lay the foundations for
the beauty of buildings: (quasi-) aesthetics derives from the laws of nature
(see also Brown 1963: 106).
From the body and the building to the machine. For Vitruvius (X.I.4),
every machine originates in nature and its principle is based on the rota-
tion of the universe. The observation of the planets shows that their rota-
tion is regulated by mechanical laws. The forefathers imitated the prece-
dents of nature and were inspired by the divine works, developing useful
applications. We thus learn that the laws of the universe are of a mechan-
ical nature and they are incorporated into machines. Let us examine these
machines more closely.
Writing about the machines of traction, that is, for raising loads, Vitru-
vius (X.III.1) states that the principles of their motion are two di¤erent
and cooperating principles: the straight line and the circle. Louis Callebat
and Philippe Fleury (1986: 114–115, n. 3 and 115, n. 1) note that these
two concepts are not used here in their dynamic sense, but the straight
line coincides with the axis of rotation and the circle with a circumfer-
ence. If we relate the line-axis to the universe, we recognize in the line
the cardo, the (immobile) axis of rotation of the universe, the one extrem-
ity of which is in the north, in the highest point of the universe relative to
the earth and beyond even the stars of the Great Bear, and the opposite
extremity under the earth in the south (VI.I: 5 and 6, and IX.I: 2–4) — cf.
Soubiran 1969: 75–76, n. 8 and 10. But then we may relate the circle to
the rotation of the universe and the planets. For Vitruvius, the universe
is the supreme container of everything that belongs to nature and is coin-
cidental with the spherical heavens (cf. Soubiran 1969: 74–75, n. 6 and 7).
The two poles of the cardo were placed as centers by the power of nature.
Nature also installed the (immobile) earth — and the sea — in the central
place of the universe, and placed a wide circular zone, transversal to the
cardo, equidistant from the poles and inclined towards the south, which is
constituted by the twelve signs (of the zodiac), that is, the distribution of
the stars into twelve equal parts. The movement of these signs is subject
to the immutable laws of the rotation of the heavens.
The inventions, which protect against danger are the scorpions and the
ballistae (X: X and XI). They are both regulated by symmetria. Concern-
ing the scorpions — which throw arrows — all their dimensions are cal-
culated on the basis of the length of the arrow used: the ninth of it defines
the diameter of each of the four openings in the frame of the scorpion —
in front and above the ground — in which twisted cords are stretched.
This diameter is in turn the unit for all the measurements of the scorpion.
The same logic is applied to the ballistae: their measurements are again
referred to a unit that is the diameter of holes, this diameter depending
now on the weight of the stone to be thrown. Vitruvius adds that the nec-
essary calculations cannot be done by just anybody, but only by those
who have a sound knowledge of the geometrical treatment of numbers
and their multiples. In his very first book, he had already stated the
same presupposition, there accomplished through music: the architect
must know music in order to be familiar with mathematical relations and

be able to adjust the ballistae, catapults, and scorpions (I.I.8).12 As in the
case of architecture, where symmetria is complemented by eurythmia, the
system of symmetria for the scorpions is complemented by a similar prin-
ciple of adaptation, allowing for corrections through addition or subtrac-
tion.
The discussion above leads to the following conclusions concerning the
universal laws of nature:
a. The laws of nature are the laws regulating the skies and the universe,
which have a divine origin.
b. They are attached to the four cosmic elements.
c. Dynamically, they are natural causalities and of a mechanical nature.
d. Statically, they consist in: i. Proportional relations, quantitative and
qualitative; ii. numbers with characteristic properties; iii. geometrical
figures and qualities.
e. More specifically, they regulate the rotation of the planets and the
stars, the winds and the sites, the animal world and the trees, and
the health and form of man
f. They must be imitated by the works of man: buildings and machines.
g. They cause the beauty of the human body and by extension of build-
ings, which imitate it. (see also Gros 1990: LIII)
The conclusion is that, exactly as for the Pythagoreans, so for Vitruvius
there is a cosmic order connected to the four elements and founded on
number and proportion, of which symmetria is the (quasi-) aesthetic as-
pect; quasi-aesthetic, because this is not a pure aesthetics but a cosmic
aesthetics: objective beauty is not a subjectively pleasing quality, but the
result of the application of the laws governing the cosmos. Vitruvius’s
city, as a work of man and as a cosmic city, cannot but incorporate the
laws of nature and symmetria, and as a model for built space it should
have the attribute of beauty. The model for this city, the windrose, since
it shows the dynamic structuring of the cosmic element air, should also
show symmetria (cf. Steckner 1984: 269). I shall examine these matters in
the next and last section.
9. The aesthetic city and the aesthetic windrose
It is common knowledge in semiotics that a text delivers its complete

meaning only when it is read within its context. The isolation of the urban
planning theory of Vitruvius from the rest of his work, understandable as
it is due to the specialized interests of the scholars working on this matter,
has led to a partial — to say the least — understanding of the meaning,

the layers of signification that envelop his proposed city. The cosmic rich-
ness of the latter has with very few exceptions passed unnoticed, and the
same is true of its aesthetics. For example, the excellent French historian
of urban planning Pierre Lavedan (Lavedan and Hugueney 1966: 362–
363) retains only the obvious, the salubrity factor, in Vitruvius’s urban
proposal and the resulting orientation of the streets; as for aesthetics, he
finds it only in the rules of proportion and symmetria for individual build-
ings. Fleury himself writes (1990: CIII) that aesthetic considerations are
totally absent from the Vitruvian city — and the interests of Caesar and
Octavian in the renovation of Rome ignored — and he tries to justify this
presumed lack by stating that the description of the city is in an abridged
form, and the intended readers of the work were not architects, but
clients.
There have been some attempts to define Vitruvius’s urban aesthetics,
but they do not refer to his proposed city. In an unpublished paper,
Gros, based on the description Vitruvius gives (II.VIII: 11 and 13) of the
site and arrangement of the city of Halicarnassus, concludes that this al-
lows us to form an idea of how Vitruvius conceives the beautiful urban
landscape (see Fleury 1990: XCIV, n. 60). And Fleury (1990: 151, n. 5)
adds to the brief catalogue of scholarship on Vitruvius’s conception of
urban beauty by referring to the opinion of Vitruvius (I.VI.1) that the
town of Mytilene on the island of Lesvos is built with magnificence and
elegance.
We may, however, have a more concrete and deeper grasp of Vitru-
vius’s urban aesthetics by a contextual work on his urban proposal. As
we saw, his city is implicitly or explicitly connected to a square. The
square had two major and interrelated qualities. First, it was considered
as one of the fundamental geometrical figures and a constituent of the
cube. Second, it had attracted attention that the ratio of any two sides of
a square is equal to one, the first integral number. The importance of
these qualities makes it plausible that they are consciously incorporated
in Vitruvius’s urban square. If this is so, his proposal must be integrally
related to proportion and to the aesthetics of the square. The square is
also the unitary, generative and constantly repeated element of the city.13
The possibility that this square is semantized with an aesthetic code in-
creases further from its inscription within a circle. For the Pythagoreans,
beauty derives from simplicity, regularity, and order. This frequently im-
plies reference to a center and uniformity around it, a pattern, which at-
tains perfection with the circle and the sphere (Schlikker 1940: 67). For
Vitruvius also, not only is the circle as such perfect, but the combination
of the circle and the square marks his aesthetics of the body.
In fact, the geometrical complex of the windrose-cum-city is almost the

same as the geometry accompanying the human body (cf. Gros 1990: 172,
n. 2). The geometry of the windrose is based on a center, the combination
of a circle and a square, the perpendicular axes of the former and of the
latter, and radii (identified with the semi-axes). These same elements, in a
less rigid geometrical form, accompany the human body: the navel as
center, the circle and the square, the perpendicular axes of the circle
formed by the diagonally spread members, which also correspond to
radii, and the perpendicular axes of the square, formed by the height of
the body and the outstretched hands (though the four parts of these axes
are not all equal).
With the windrose Vitruvius gives a specific geometrical relation be-
tween the two figures of circle and square,14 as he did not do in their en-
counter when delimiting the extremities of man. We get the impression
that the windrose allowed Vitruvius to formulate a perfect geometrical
complex, to which he also assimilates the body, although the constraints
of the latter forced him to a looser conceptualization. The aesthetic per-
fection surrounding the urban competes with that of the body. The above
inscription of the urban leading to a coherent combination of two perfect
geometrical figures crowns, to use Gros’s observation on the circle, its
meaning as a totality incorporating symmetria and reveals its beauty.
But there is even more symmetria in the windrose.
Vitruvius (III.I: 5–9), wanting to found the units of measurement on
nature, makes reference to the perfect number of the Greeks, the number
ten; this number he considers perfect because it follows from the number
of the fingers of the two hands. Let us recall here that ten was the perfect
number for the Pythagoreans (called also ‘‘memory’’) and is also the
number of the books of Vitruvius’s own work. Concerning this last point,
Alexander Kessissoglu argues that Vitruvius in the organization of his
work followed the Pythagoreans, who used to divide the elaboration of a
subject into ten parts, and when they could not attain this number with
the pertinent material they did so with borrowings from adjacent subjects.
The latter would be the case, according to Kessissoglu, with Vitruvius,
since of his ten books only the first seven concern architecture in the nar-
row sense, as Vitruvius himself testifies (Kessissoglu 1993: 100, 101–102,
114). But, on the other hand, Vitruvius is explicit that architecture is com-
posed of three parts: building (see Books I–VII), horology (Book IX) and
mechanics (Book X) — see I.III.1. Of course, horology and mechanics
mainly concern engineers, but as we saw there was no strict division in
antiquity between engineers and architects. Now, Book VIII revolves
around hydrology and hydraulics. A limited part of it, concerning aque-
ducts and similar matters, is related to building, but its major part, a trea-
tise on water, is in fact very loosely related to it (Callebat 1973: VII–X;

see also Fleury 1990: 121–122, n. 1). Given the above, Kessissoglu’s
view on the number of books is sound, but his argument concerning the
artificial completion of this number in Vitruvius’s work is rather weak.
On the matter of the perfection of the number ten, Vitruvius also men-
tions Plato and contrasts his view with that of the ‘‘Mathematicians’’ —
the neo-Pythagoreans and the Euclideans as distinguished from the Py-
thagoreans — for whom the perfect number was six (see also Gros 1976:
689–700, 1990: 73, n. 1 and 2001: 18). Both numbers influenced his wind-
rose, as I shall argue immediately below. Vitruvius goes on to present dif-
ferent numerical qualities of six; one of these is that if one-third of six is
added to this number we get eight. According to Gros (1990: 74, n. 5),
Vitruvius may here be misunderstanding the Greeks, mistaking numbers
for relations; he points out, however, that Vitruvius’s source was reliable.
Six would be perfect also because it is found in the human body: the foot
is one-sixth of the height, and the cubit consists of six palms or twenty-
four fingers (III.1: 5–7). Vitruvius knew that six was the foundation of
the principle, which he attributes to the Pythagoreans, that a text should
be no more than three cubes long, because the number of 216 lines of the
cube corresponds to the volume of a cube with an edge having a length of
six ð216 ¼ 6 3 Þ; this cube was called by the Pythagoreans sjairikóv
,
(spherical), because 216 ends with six, and apokatastatikóv, because,
since each edge of it equals six units, it shows everywhere the same perfec-
tion (see Kessissoglu 1993: 103).
Later, as Vitruvius explains, the ancestors combined these two perfect
numbers into one ‘‘most perfect’’ number, sixteen. It originates from the
foot, because the foot equals sixteen fingers (III.1.8).15 We see that the
foot is the common locus of the perfection of six and sixteen. The body,
through the unit (and sub-units) of measurement it provides and the pro-
portions within and between its parts and between them and the whole,
which are related to this unit, delivers the perfect numbers and articulates
the system of measurement and symmetria (cf. III.1.9; see also Gros 1990:
65, n. 7). We should recall here the Etruscan division of the celestial circle
into sixteen parts. On this basis, the number sixteen would not only be
derived from the body, but also from the universe. We may conclude
that Vitruvius’s eight-part and octagonal windrose was considered by
him to be related to the most perfect number, sixteen, both because of
the numerical relation between eight and sixteen (16:2 ¼ 8), and because
he arrives at its form through a notional sixteen-sided polygon. Thus, the
windrose seems to incorporate sixteen in an indirect manner, and it also
probably incorporates indirectly the number six, in the form of the
,
epítritov (6 þ 1/3 6 ¼ 8).
Thus, we conclude that the Vitruvian windrose is founded on perfect

numbers, just as are the body and the universe. As in the case of the
body, it articulates them with a geometry including a unit of measure-
ment and symmetria. The unit is the radius of the circle. The symmetria
is that there are eight parts (delimited on each side by the unit), all parts
are equal and each part is an eighth of the whole. The special value of the
number eighth for Vitruvius is not only attested by the windrose. Speak-
ing about the tracing of the volute of the Ionic capital (III.V.6), Vitruvius
uses the term tetrans. According to Gros (1990: 162, n. 4), it refers to each
of the four equal segments of two perpendicular axes dividing a circle or a
square into four equal parts. In this interpretation, Gros follows Bur-
khardt Wesenberg (1983: 135–137). He compares, after him, this passage
with X.VI.1, which concerns one of the machines for raising water. A
wooden beam is rounded by a compass. At the two extremities, the cir-
cumference will be divided by a compass into eight sectors through tet-
rantes and octantes. According to Wesenberg, the four octants are the
segments of two perpendicular axes at a 45-degree angle to two initial
perpendicular axes, which form the four tetrantes. Callebat and Fleury
(1986: 155, n. 4) accept the interpretation that these terms indicate arcs
of a circle. In either case, the existence of these terms shows the marked
character, for Vitruvius, of divisions in four and then eight parts.
Vitruvius was undoubtedly conscious of the relation between the geo-
metrical complexes of the city and the body. A building, for him, follows
the same rules as the body, being regulated by the laws of the universe. A
theatre must follow acoustic principles and these are related to the music
of the universe (see also Brown 1963: 105). Would it ever be possible that
the city, built space just as the building (see also Knell 1985: 37), should
not follow the same imperatives? This geometrical homology between the
urban-in-context (the windrose), the body-in-context (the circle and the
square), and the cosmic, in the context of which the two first obey the
laws of the third (cf. Gros 2001: 18), is to be compared to the homology
in substance between site and organism deriving from the structure of the
cosmic elements. To conclude, the Vitruvian city is isomorphic to the
structure of an anthropomorphic code and depends on two major sym-
bolic codes: a cosmic and a (quasi-) aesthetic code (see also Lagopoulos
2000).
An important recent text by Gros investigates precisely the relationship
established by Vitruvius between the body on the one hand, and the cos-
mic and the aesthetic on the other. Gros argues that Vitruvius relates the
body to two purely abstract geometrical figures considered as perfect (an
operation he opposes to the reality of the living, three-dimensional body),
which follow from and complement the numerical symmetria; the concep-
tion of these figures as perfect would be due to the influence of texts of

Platonic inspiration. Just as the architectural work before its material
manifestation seems to take shape, for Vitruvius, in architectural draw-
ings incorporating abstract ideas, so the abstract geometry of the body
follows from the speculative domain. According to Gros, Vitruvius in or-
der to legitimize architecture has recourse to the Platonic creator and cos-
mogony. The cosmic elements are symbolized in Timaeus by regular pol-
yhedrons, among which are the cube (earth) and the dodecahedron
(universe), the closest to the sphere. For Gros, in the Platonic tradition
the phases of the polyhedrons are considered as standing for the whole
of the latter, and the square was assimilated to the earth and the circle to
the sky. Thus, if the number six for Vitruvius relates the body to the cube,
allowing in this manner for the transition from numbers to geometry, the
same relationship is also achieved by the square, while the circle relates
the body to the sphere: the perfect man partakes of both the earth and
the sky. This conception, which for Gros represents the high point of
Vitruvius’s speculation, shows the coherence that exists in the work of
Vitruvius between the body and the cosmic and aesthetic dimensions
(Gros 2001: 15, 17–21).
It seems to me that, with very few exceptions, almost all modern schol-
ars who have discussed the Vitruvian city read too narrowly the account
of Vitruvius, concentrating exclusively on the text (I. VI) or on its narrow
context (I: IV–VII), at the expense of the wider context, and on the literal
at the expense of the symbolic, i.e., connotation. In fact, there are two
consecutive contexts for the city plan of Vitruvius: the narrow one, which
is the rest of his planning theory, and the wider, his whole work. The
combination of the lack of the wider context with a literal reading leads
to a reading imprisoned in Vitruvius’s denotative urban discourse and the
conclusion that his proposed city responds to practical preoccupations
concerning first salubrity and then defense. Such a reading is guided by
rational thought, the rediscovery of the Renaissance. But modern rational
thought is a tool wide open to Eurocentric extrapolations and interpreta-
tions.
Among the very few exceptions to the rationalist interpretation of
Vitruvius, in addition to the above-mentioned article by Gros, is an excel-
lent article by Paolo Marconi (1972). Marconi observes that during the
Renaissance, particularly in the architectural treatises of the quattro-
cento, cosmography influenced the form of the city. He shows the intense
interest of the Renaissance in the figure of the homo ad circulum, repre-
senting man as a microcosm, and argues that it o¤ered the model for
the circular city extending around a sacred navel. It is this man-as-
microcosm, according to Marconi, which inspired the four-part cities,
organized around a cross and having a marked center. This figure is also
behind the cosmogram composed of two crosses with a common center,
turned by 45 degrees to each other and accompanied by the squares of
which they are the diagonals. A square inscribed diagonally within a cir-
cle, its diagonals forming a cross, is a cosmogram, and the same holds for
the city plans incorporating a sixteen-part division of the horizon. In the
above context Marconi analyzes the urban proposals of Alberti, Filarete,
Martini and Fra Giocondo, to whom I also made reference earlier. He
also discusses the case of Cesare Cesariano. For Marconi, Cesariano
establishes a close connection between the homo ad circulum (combined
with the homo ad quadratum), who has his navel as center and articulates
a two-cross and two-square composition inscribed within a circle, and
cosmograms based on Vitruvius’s first Book; it is from there that Cesaria-
no’s radial city emanates, with its eight main sectors, sixteen sub-sectors
and twenty-four directions.
Marconi argues that these ideas, figures, and city plans are derived
from Vitruvius’s views. In fact, on the one hand he takes the position
that the man-as-microcosm theory of classical antiquity, also present in
Plato’s Timaeus, passed into the Middle Ages and then the Renaissance,
and observes that Vitruvius’s version was influential during the latter. On
the other, he points out that the idea of the relation between cosmogra-
phy — itself inseparable from the man-as-microcosm concept — and the
city, as well as the plan of the city, were inherited by the Middle Ages and
the Renaissance from Vitruvius.
I cannot but agree with Marconi that the influence of Vitruvius on Re-
naissance urban planning was major. And in fact his ideas, figures and
city plan were a major — but not the only — source of inspiration for
the Renaissance. Marconi finds a continuity between the sacred center of
the Rome of Romulus, its mundus, which was the umbilicus urbis, and the
navel of Vitruvius’s figure of the homo ad circulum; he also identifies the
circle surrounding homo with the horizon, without however extending on
this argument. Concerning the comparable figure of the windrose, Mar-
coni stresses in its construction the circle, the pattern of the inscribed
square and the divisions of the windrose into eight and sixteen parts. He
considers that the square within a circle is the preeminent cosmological
diagram of the first Book and that the importance given to the orienta-
tion of the city parallels that given to the relation between the city and
cosmography. The comparison between the homo ad circulum and the
windrose leads Marconi to conclude that Vitruvius applies to the city the
theory of the microcosm.
What I feel is missing from Marconi’s argumentation is the systematic
evidence from Vitruvius’s work that would support it. This is what I have
attempted with the present essay. I have tried, through a semiotic analy-
sis, to articulate the text of Vitruvius on the city plan with its contexts and
his concern for the symbolic level. My conclusion is that behind Vitru-
vius’s urban text and his literal urban discourse there is a subtext — or
rather a super-text — a worldview, as Gros puts it (2001: 22), and a con-
notative discourse; and behind the codes of salubrity and defense there
are the connotative cosmic and aesthetic codes and a connection to the
anthropomorphic code. These codes are closely related to each other and
unified by the laws of the universe and the sacredness attached to it. Their
shared quality of symmetria o¤ers Vitruvius an ontological anchoring for
building and the city (see also Grassi 1962: 163). Thus, the above codes
are not simple additions to, nor peripheral extensions or decorations
of, the urban text. They are, in Vitruvius’s discourse, the hidden prime
movers of the urban, and structure the nucleus of his (borrowed) ideology
on built space.
Notes
* I should like to express my warm thanks to Professor Pierre Gros, who had the pa-
tience to read my text carefully more than once and whose penetrating observations
were of great help to me.
1. This study represents a much-expanded version of a paper delivered at the 1998 Urbino
colloquium of the International Association for the Semiotics of Space (see Lagopoulos
2000).
2. Lise Bek (1985) develops interesting ideas on the actualization of eurythmia in Roman
architecture and urban planning. According to Bek, eurythmia was a principle already
used in the Hellenistic period for temples and in urban planning, where it took the form
of the panoramic view. However, the form that eurythmia was given in the work of Vi-
truvius (or maybe earlier) was that of the stricter ‘‘view planning.’’ The latter may be
observed and is predominant in domestic architecture, and derives from the use of ‘‘op-
tical axiality,’’ that is, the determination of a visual axis depending on the viewer. For
Bek, the descriptions of the Roman authors — from which she drew her above conclu-
sion — refer to the visual impression created by a building in its environment, a gar-
den, the interior of a building or the sight from inside outwards, an impression accom-
panied by semantic oppositions. She believes that this approach is similar to the
conception with which these buildings were realized. View planning was a purely aes-
thetic principle referring to the ‘‘elevation’’ (by which she means the visual image) and
was not restricted to isolated buildings, but also extended to building complexes, more
specifically the forum.
Bek opposes this emphasis on the viewer to the interest in the strict geometrical or-
ganization of the ground plan, related to symmetria. According to her, in the monu-
mental architecture of the imperial period the two coexist, but optical axiality tends to
coincide with the geometrical axis of the ground plan. Bek reminds us that Vitruvius
states that in the temples, erected for the eternal gods, symmetria must be observed as
closely as possible. She rightly thinks that eurythmia did not influence the Roman city
plan; according to her, the latter was a sacred ground ruled by symmetria (which is
true, but for the Greek city) as Vitruvius defines it, through the partition into streets,
squares and insulae.
The building complexes in the cityscape, ruled by eurythmia, should be considered as
a visualization of the city plan, and thus the harmony of symmetria would be percepti-
ble to the viewer; view planning would correspond to the visual expression of the sa-
credness of the city. Thus, the city would be situated mid-way between the sacred tem-
ple ruled by symmetria and profane domestic architecture ruled by eurythmia, being
both the sacred ground of eternity and the setting for daily life.
3. Friedrich Wilhelm Schlikker (1940: 74–77) believes that eurythmia cannot be identified
with the visual correction of symmetria and that such correction is just one case of
eurythmia. However, Vitruvius seems to generally hold this view; Schlikker apparently
extrapolates (see also 1940: 70–71) from the Peripatetics to Vitruvius.
4. In a perceptive article, Gros (1976: for example, 672, 673, 675, 685, 690–692, 693–694,
695) reminds us that Vitruvius uses simple numerical relations — and these in fact cor-
respond to the original meaning of symmetria. However, Gros shows that some of
them are simplifications corresponding to an earlier use of irrational numbers. He at-
tributes the tendency to use irrational numbers as numerical relations to Vitruvius’s
lack of familiarity with irrational numbers, which are related to geometrical construc-
tions. According to Schlikker (1940: 66), this latter relation was discovered in Greece at
the end of the fifth century BC and this aspect of geometry opposes it to symmetria.
But, following him, during the next century relations including irrational numbers
were integrated into symmetria.
Herman Geertman disagrees with the conclusion of Gros concerning Vitruvius’s un-
familiarity with irrational numbers. Geertman agrees with Gros that in the three cases
he comments upon — which refer to elements of columns — Vitruvius translates geo-
metrical procedures to numerical relations and concedes that the latter occasionally
show a lack of comprehension of geometrical construction. Discussing generally the
use of geometry in architecture by the Greeks and the Romans, Geertman makes a dis-
tinction between the direct application of geometrical figures, that is, the initial tracing
of a building by using a geometrical figure, and a conception in terms of geometrical
figures which is, however, materialized with numerical means. He relates the numerical
approach to geometry to persons like Plato and Eudoxus and he argues that in archi-
tecture the numerical system is found together with the geometrical system in five
houses from Pompeii and three temples in Asia Minor, all from the third century BC.
He concludes that the use of a numerical system derived from geometry was then cur-
rent practice; the numerical equivalents of geometrical proportions would be derived
on the basis of fixed rules.
Now, according to Geertman, Vitruvius considered geometry too complex to use as
a guide and felt that numerical relations o¤er a clearer picture. Geertman concedes
that, compared to the above Hellenistic system, the numerical relations Vitruvius for-
mulates present gaps and fail to represent adequately the original geometrical system,
depriving it of its structure. He believes, nevertheless, that the same comparison shows
that Vitruvius’s relations are derived from geometry. In this case, Vitruvius would not
himself perform forced simplifications of a pure Hellenistic geometrical system, but he
would be following Hellenistic numerical constructions; he did not introduce a new sys-
tem, but oversimplified traditional knowledge. Geertman also concludes that Vitruvius
was familiar with the architectural systems based on the direct application of geometry
(Geertman 1984a: 33, 52 and 1984b: 54, 57–58).
Despite his very thorough study of ancient architecture, I do not think that Geert-
man’s disagreement with Gros is convincing. We can infer from Gros that Vitruvius
was aware of the issue of geometry and the irrational numbers, but what Gros argues
is that he was not in a position to handle it. Gros complements this position with an-
other one: Vitruvius would believe that only numerical relations deliver the pure laws
of architecture (Gros 1988: 55–56). While Geertman compares the numerical relations
presented by Vitruvius to his convincingly inferred Hellenistic system and concludes
that they do not correspond well to the original geometrical system, he nevertheless be-
lieves that Vitruvius was familiar with the latter. But even if Vitruvius’s sources in-
cluded such a system — and we do not know in this case to what degree a geometrical
system might have been present in those sources — his data, with the drawbacks that
Geertman himself notes, do not allow us to conclude that, beyond the numerical sys-
tem, Vitruvius had mastered geometry and irrational numbers.
5. Knell’s representation of what he considers to be Vitruvius’s holistic conception places
symmetria in the center and sees eurythmia as the integrator of the system. Between
these two, one group evolves from symmetria to ordering and disposition, on the
grounds that symmetria refers to the former and makes possible the latter; and another
group evolves from the same starting point to appropriateness, through its relation to
symmetria, and distribution, which he understands as part of appropriateness. As for
Scranton, he starts from Watzinger’s observation about the division of the six concepts
into two groups, the one referring to activities and the other to qualities, and proposes
the sequence symmetria, eurythmia, and appropriateness, followed by disposition,
ordering, and distribution.
6. In his excellent study on ancient Greek and Roman winds, Karl Nielsen argues that
from the first century BC we find in antiquity two competing windrose systems: the
twelve-part windrose of Timosthenes, the admiral of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, and the
eight-part windrose of an unknown author. The first is a developed form of Aristotles’s
windrose and fully geometrical, that is, divided in equal parts, without introducing ir-
regularities due to the points of the solstices. The second is equally geometrical, derived
from the equal division of four quadrants and thus related to a regular octagon. It is
this second, Hellenistic, windrose, which was borrowed by Vitruvius (Nielsen 1945:
41–42, 46–49, 74–75).
The twenty-four winds are for Vitruvius produced by the eight main winds, through
their variations in the very large space where they blow, caused by changes in direction
and leaps. Based on Vitruvius’s description of the twenty-four winds and his logic con-
cerning the eight winds, there is no doubt that the former are arranged symmetrically
as to the two main axes N-S and E-W.
7. Fleury (1990: 171–172, n. 1) rightly suggests the chord as the radius. He also indicates
that the sixteenth of the circumference is defined geometrically through three successive
divisions: that of the circumference through two perpendicular diameters, that of one
of its four equal parts by tracing the bisector of the right angle, and that of one of the
eighths thus arrived at by tracing the bisector of the angle corresponding to it.
8. Fleury (1990: XCVI–XCVII and 126, n. 6) deduces that Vitruvius inclines towards an
orientation of the site to the east. On the other hand, Vitruvius recommends the avoid-
ance of the orientation towards the course of the sun for granaries, which must be ori-
ented to the north or northeast (VI.VI.4), and the use of the orientation to the north
for covered cellars. Also, the openings of bedrooms and libraries must be orientated
to the rising sun, baths and winter apartments to the winter sunset, picture galleries
and apartments that need a steady light to the north (I.II.7).
9. Another one is that the walls should be oriented towards the north or northeast.
10. The principle of this proposal is entirely convincing, however, not all arguments in
favor of the grid plan are equally well founded. H. von Hesberg (1989: 135), for exam-
ple, maintains that Vitruvius’s observation concerning the breaking of the winds on the
angles of the buildings suggests streets crossing at right angles. But there is no neces-
sary relation between the breaking of the winds on the angles and the grid plan.
If Vitruvius’s proposes a grid plan — and he does — then there is such a breaking, but
the sole fact of breaking does not necessarily lead to a grid, since a radial-concentric
plan may have the same result (as is clear from Hugh Plommer’s proposal presented
below).
11. The valorization of the right is general in the Roman tradition. Thus, for example,
according to Vitruvius (III.IV.4) the number of steps leading up to the temples must
be odd, so that, as we start ascending with the right foot, the same foot will also be
set on top (for this access dextro pede, see also Fleury 1990: 93, n. 11.1; Gros 1990:
135, n. 2).
12. Music has in common with astronomy the discussion of the harmony of stars and
musical chords (I.I.16).
13. The aesthetic quality of the ratio 1:1 is attested in a quite di¤erent context. In III.V.11,
Vitruvius writes that the projection of the cornice, dentil included, must be equal to the
height from the frieze to the top of the cymatium of the cornice. He then generalizes
this prescription by writing that all projections are more graceful when they project as
much as their height. Gros (1990: 187, n. 5) notes that this rule is for Vitruvius one of
the essential conditions of beauty, and beauty in this case is visual harmony founded on
a simple rational fact.
14. The same inscription of a square within a circle, this time the eye of the volute of the
Ionic capital, allows the tracing of the rest of the volute (III.V.6; see also Gros 1990:
160–164, n. 3 and 4). The same inscription also leads to the determination of the hol-
low of the flutes of the Doric columns (IV.III.9).
15. Knell (1985: 66) observes that it is naive to add the two perfect numbers. He notes,
however, that this operation shows the importance of the numerical system based on
the foot for architecture.
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Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos (b. 1939) is Professor Emeritus at Aristotle University of

Thessaloniki 3phaidon@arch.auth.gr4. His research interests include urban planning, social
semiotics, anthropology of space, and semiotic spatial models of precapitalist and contempo-
rary societies. His publications include The City and the sign: An introduction to urban semi-
otics (co-edited with Mark Gottdiener, 1986); Meaning and geography: The social conception
of the region in Northern Greece (with Karin Boklund-Lagopoulou, 1992); Urbanisme et
sémiotique dans les sociétés préindustrielles (1995); Heaven on Earth: Sanctification rituals of
the Greek traditional settlement and their origin (in Greek, 2002).

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The semiotics of the Vitruvian city*

ALEXANDROS PH. LAGOPOULOS

The Vitruvian city in De architectura is founded on an eight-part windrose.

Keywords: Vitruvius; semiotics of space; history of urban planning; sym-

Semiotica 175–1/4 (2009), 193–251 0037–1998/09/0175–0193

There is no doubt that Vitruvius’s De architectura represents the actual

2. The theory of architecture in De architectura

De architectura is a normative work, composed of ten books. Architec-

the second term as comparable to ‘‘competence’’ and the ﬁrst as compa-

symmetrical property (I.II.4). Eurythmia, for Vitruvius, compensates for

niﬁcent interiors, on the other we should not mix elements of di¤erent

to elaborate the proposal. If Vitruvius is presenting his concepts on the

presentation of the two subdivisions of one of these branches, building

3. The windrose and urban planning theory

The city proposed by Vitruvius is related to a windrose. He starts by stat-

the right proportion and equilibrium of the opposing elements of the

4. The Vitruvian city: A radial-concentric plan

Before analyzing the deeper meaning of the Vitruvian city, we need to

dealing with an interpretation of the Vitruvian city: the street network is

Figure 6. Galiani’s reconstruction of the Vitruvian city as an octagonal radial-concentric city

His reconstitution of the Vitruvian city is shown in Figure 6. The plan is

Figure 7. The reconstruction of the Vitruvian city as octagonal and radial-concentric

5. The Vitruvian city: A grid plan

If we assume that Vitruvius instructs us to put the vertex of the gnomon in

Figure 9. The gnomon and the operation e¤ected with it

trying to legitimize it. It is precisely the absence of any insistence on the

is no essential distinction between two di¤erent types of streets (Hamberg

Greek urban planning, under the inﬂuence of philosophy and medicine,

only the orientations prescribed by Vitruvius — indeed all of them — has

Auster, Libonotus, Africus, Fa(v)oni(us), Argestes, Circius (Poinssot

a divergence of 15 degrees from the north towards the NE). It follows

6. The cosmic man and the cosmic site

7. The cosmic windrose and the cosmic city

If we compare Vitruvius’s windrose with the above, we see that:

represents Vitruvius’s reinterpretation and rationalization of a long tradi-

8. The laws of nature: The cosmic and the aesthetic

Vitruvius’s windrose intends to show the distribution of the winds and

We may speak about structural variants and transformations. The organ-

must know music in order to be familiar with mathematical relations and

9. The aesthetic city and the aesthetic windrose

It is common knowledge in semiotics that a text delivers its complete

has led to a partial — to say the least — understanding of the meaning,

In fact, the geometrical complex of the windrose-cum-city is almost the

tise on water, is in fact very loosely related to it (Callebat 1973: VII–X;

Thus, we conclude that the Vitruvian windrose is founded on perfect

tion of these ﬁgures as perfect would be due to the inﬂuence of texts of

Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos (b. 1939) is Professor Emeritus at Aristotle University of

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