Encyclopedia of the Renaissance and the Reformation

Vitruvius Pollio (active c. 50–26 BCE) Roman military
engineer
Vitruvius is important as the author of De architectura, the
only treatise on the subject surviving from the ancient
world (see ARCHITECTURE). Copies of the work were
known in Italy in the Middle Ages, but interest in it only
escalated with Poggio BRACCIOLINI’s discovery of a su-
perior manuscript of this notoriously problematical text.
It was avidly studied by ALBERTIand PALLADIO, among oth-
ers, and it provided the basis for a theory of architecture
in conscious opposition to Gothic practice, as well as pro-
viding models for buildings such as THEATERSfor which
there was no medieval equivalent.
Vitruvius’s text, edited by Joannes Sulpitius, was first
printed in Rome in an undated edition at the end of the
15th century. The edition by Fra Giovanni GIOCONDO
(Venice, 1511) was the first to contain illustrations other
than diagrams. The first version in Italian, a translation by
Cesare Cesariano, was a magnificently produced edition
(Como, 1521) containing, among numerous full-page
woodcuts, plans of Milan cathedral that were probably the
earliest printed plans representing a Gothic building.
However, it was the editions by Daniele BARBARO—
his own Italian translation (1556) reprinted along with

his edition of the Latin text (1566)—that became the

standard versions. The first French edition appeared in

1547 with an appendix on sculpture by Jean GOUJON, and

Walter Rivius’s Vitruvius Teutsch was published the fol-

lowing year, with woodcuts by Virgil SOLIS. A modern

English translation is Ten Books on Architecture, trans-

lated by Ingrid Rowland, with commentary and illustra-

tions by Thomas Noble Howe (Cambridge University

Press, 1999).

Vitry, Philippe de (1291–1361) French music theorist,

poet, and composer

Vitry studied at the Sorbonne, was a canon at the cathe-

drals of Cambrai, Clermont, and Verdun among others,

and became bishop of Meaux in 1351. For much of his life

he was active in the French court as secretary to Charles

IV, Philip VI, and John II. Vitry was recognized in his day

as a leading intellectual; his famous treatise, Ars nova mu-

sicae (c. 1320), is a fundamental source of information on

rhythmic notation in which Vitry developed the mensural

system of notation (see ARS NOVA). Of Vitry’s compositions

only motets survive; these are often lyrical in quality and

demonstrate the use of isorhythm and the hocket.

44996 6 VViittrruuvviiuuss PPoolllliioo

Visconti Family

Matteo I

(d. 1322)

Galeazzo I

(d. 1328)

Lucchino

(d. 1349)

Stefano

(d. 1327)

Giovanni

Archibishop of

Milan (d. 1354)

Marco

(d. 1329)

Matteo II

(d. 1355)

Galeazzo II m.

(d. 1378)

Blanche

of Savoy

Bernabò

(d. 1385)

Azzo

(d. 1339)

Violante m. Lionel,

Duke of

Clarence

Isabelle of

Valois (1)

m. Giangaleazzo

(d. 1402)

m. Caterina

(2)

Valentina m. Louis of

Valois, Duke

of Orleans

Filippo Maria

(d. 1447)

Bianca Maria m. Francesco

Sforza

Giovanni Maria

(d. 1412)

Lords of Milan are shown in bold; the first Visconti to hold the title “duke” was Giangaleazzo. The direct male line of Visconti rulers

of Milan died out with Duke Filippo Maria, but the dynastic marriages of the previous 80 years had raised Milan to the status of a

European power. It was through Valentina’s marriage to Louis of Orleans that the French royal house made their claim to Milan.