An Abridgment of the Architecture of Vitruvius

This is a 1692 English abridgment of the ten books on architecture by the Roman writer Vitruvius, first prepared in French by Perrault of the Academy of Paris and then put into English with additions. Copper plates illustrate it, and this edition adds an account of where the terms of architecture come from.

The material falls into two parts: the architecture the author's age shares with the ancients, and the architecture particular to the ancients. The first treats stone, brick, timber, lime, foundations, walls, sites and proportion, then the five orders: Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Compound. The second turns to fortresses, temples, theatres, baths, and the courts and halls of private houses.

Rules are given in exact measure, and each order is broken into its base, shaft and capital. The spelling keeps seventeenth century habits, including a doubled v for w. It serves readers of classical building, architectural history and early technical writing.