De architectura, libri decem. Ex fide librorum scriptorum recensuit, emendavit, suisque et virorum doctorum annotationibus illustravit Io. G

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (c. 80–15 BC) was a Roman architect and military engineer who built siege machines for Julius Caesar's armies. In later life, with a pension from the emperor Augustus, he wrote a treatise on everything he knew about building, the only complete work on architecture to survive from antiquity.

The Ten Books on Architecture cover materials, temples, houses, water, machines and city planning, and teach that good buildings must be strong, useful and beautiful. Rediscovered in the fifteenth century, the book shaped Renaissance architecture and inspired Leonardo da Vinci.