NRLF 
 
 
 T-- /'<'i ,.. 
 
J7?<^^//y^?7/'/J ^^ /P^^^y^r- 
 
Mi IM ^'l^^lV^'Cf^ LOtCWiimmry 
 
 A^ITfllUVIUS' ACCOUNT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 GEEEK STAGE 
 
 LOUIS DYEE 
 
 REPRINTED FROM THE 
 
 JOUENAL OF HELLENIC STUDIES, VOL. XIL 
 
 1891 
 
356' 
 
 ^ITi^UVtUS' ACCOUNT OF THE GREEK STAGE. 
 
 OO' 
 
 b"^ 
 
 VITRUVIUS' ACCOUNT OF THE GREEK STAGE. 
 
 An interesting contrast may be drawn between the results obtained 
 from the study of Vitnivius in the early years of the sixteenth century and 
 tlie exposition of his meaning and text by the scholars of to-day. This con- 
 trast is almost always to the advantage of the latter-day scholars. Archaeo- 
 logy has done everything in recent times to clear up by consideration of 
 existing monuments a host of difficulties not dreamed of in the days of the 
 Renaissance, and archaeologists — so far as they are agreed as to the testi- 
 mony of recent discoveries— have little or nothing to learn from remote 
 predecessors. But a serious disagreement exists nmong them in reo-ard to 
 tlie stage of the Greek theatre. This want of agreement is retlecLcd iu the 
 current interpretations of a difficult passage in Vitruvius. About this very 
 passage the scholars of the early Renaissance were agreed, and since their 
 explanation of it differs in some material respects from any now offered, it 
 may be of some use to us to-day. 
 
 The Florentine Leo Battista Alberti^ reproduced the meaning of 
 Vitruvius, without undertaking to construe his text, then very corrupt. In 
 1511 was printed the text of Vitruvius which, in spite of many subsequent 
 labours, has bravely held its own up to the present day. This text we owe 
 to Fra Giocondo,'-^ a Franciscan friar Avho was equally great as an inspiring 
 teacher, a painstaking scholar, and a daring and original architect.^ The 
 condition of the text in the three first editions was lamentable, as appears in 
 the passage describing the Greek theatre which especially concerns the 
 present inquiry. The second (1496) and the third (1497) both reproduce an 
 absurd and confusing printer's blunder made in the first (1484-1492), and all 
 
 ' Si'c his Dc re cu'Alifir.atoria, posthumonsly 
 piiblislietl, Florence 148.1, passim. 
 
 * M. Vitruvius per locunJum solito casti- 
 ffatior factus num figuris ct tabula ut iam legi 
 et intelligi possit...Impressum Venetiis ac 
 magis (j unquam alio tempore cinendatura : 
 sxiiuptu mira q diligentia loaunis de Tridino 
 alias Tacuino. Auno Domini. M.D.XI. Die. xxii. 
 Mail Regnante inclyto Duce Leonardo Laure- 
 dano. Dedicated to Pope Julius II. 
 
 ^ On his teaching see note (17) below. His 
 scholarship is known by his editio princeps of 
 
 Pliny's Letters, by his remarkable elucidations of 
 Caesar's Commentaries, published at Venice 
 (1517), reprinted by Giunta (l.")20) at Basle 
 (1521) and finally in a sumptuous folio, Paris 
 (1543.) See for his pains in collecting MSS. the 
 dedication of this work to Giuliano de' Medici. 
 Also he there speaks of a meeting of scholars 
 at Venice where his text was discussed in detail. 
 His architectural abilities caused him to be 
 employed by the Emperor Maximilian, Louis 
 XII. of France, Pope Leo X. and the Venetian 
 Repnblic. 
 
 r\ 
 
 ¥■ 
 
 X' 
 
VITRUVIUS' ACCOTJNT OF THE GREEK STAGE. 
 
 /l//)2--7%' 
 
 357 J 
 /^^ W 
 
 three leave uncorrected the copyist's blunder which defaces the MSS. and must 
 be discussed below. These confusions, added to its real difficulty, made this 
 passage a byword from the first. Bud6 * refers to Vitruvius on the theatre, 
 and then, not without a touch of grim humour, he adds : " But not every 
 man can go to Corinth, the proverb says." 
 
 The diagram and sketch-plan now redrawn by the kindness of 
 Mr. K. W. Schultz and published on a slightly reduced scale will be found 
 in the folio edition of Vitruvius, Venice 1511, on pp. 52 verso and 58 redo. 
 The same reappear much reduced in size in the octavo reprint (1523)^ of 
 the Florentine revision published by Giunta in ISIS.*' 
 
 a.cuneus 
 b./iniilra 
 
 c . dextra 
 
 d. centrum 
 0./1ni£iop)6 
 /cenn. 
 
 g./rons.scffi 
 nae, 
 
 h.orche/?n-a 
 \ profceniu 
 
 scena. 
 
 Diagram. 
 
 On the diagram the two arcs drawn in black are Fra Giocondo's, and will 
 be explained later on. For the present I substitute for them a continuation 
 which is shown in the black-dotted lines onf and o rf (o = the centre, n 
 
 * See his Aniiotatione.s in Pandectas, under 
 the rubric "ex lege Athletas." 
 
 ^ M. Vitruvii de arcbitectura libri decern, 
 sunima diligentia recogniti atq : excusi. This 
 is a reprint of the 1513 octavo, both being 
 dedicated in identical terms to Guiliano de' 
 Medici. But the plan and diagram for the 
 Greek theatre is taken in the 1523 edition, not 
 
 from its exemplar of 1513, but from tlie 1511 
 edition. 
 
 " Vitruvius iterum et Frontinus a lucundo 
 revisi repurgatique quantum ex collatione 
 liciiit. In this edition there is a re\'ision of 
 the marginal key to Fra Giocondo's diagram 
 of 1511 which was abandoned in the latest 
 edition (1523). 
 
 BB 2 
 
 /< i 01 GQ 
 
358 VITRUVIUS' ACCiOUNT OF THE GREEK 8TAGE. 
 
 and r = intersections with ec'"). These are required alike by tlie sketch- 
 plan and the diagram of Fra Giocondo, as well as by his text of Vitruvius. 
 
 The use of paraphrase and digression in explaining this passage is 
 clearly justified, but might not be necessary in the present case if Fra 
 Giocondo himself had explained his plan and diagram instead of leaving them 
 simply confronted by the Vitruvian text which runs as follows : — 
 
 In Graecorum theatris non omnia iisdem rationibus sunt facienda, cpod 
 primum in ima circinatioue, ut in Latino trigonorum iiii, in eo quadratoruni 
 trium anguli circinationis lineam tangunt, et cuius quadrati latus est proxi- 
 mum scaenae praeciditque curvaturam circinationis ea regione designatur 
 finitio proscaenii. et ab ea regione ad extiemam circinationem curvaturae 
 parallelos linea designatur, in (|ua constituitur frons scaenae, per centruinque 
 orchestrae a proscaenii regione parallelos linea describit'ur et qua secat cir- 
 cinationis lineas dextra ac sinistra in cornibus hemicyclii centra signantur, ct 
 circino conlocato in dextro ab intervallo sinistro circumasfitur circinatio ad 
 proscaenii dextram partem, item centro conlocato in sinistro cornu ab inter- 
 vallo dextro circumagitur ad proscaenii sinistram partem, ita tribus centris 
 hac descriptione ampliorem habent orchestram Graeci et scaenam recessiorem 
 minoreque latitudine pulpitum, quod \oyelov appellant, ideo quod eo 
 tragici ac comici actores in scaena peragunt, reliqui autem artifices suas per 
 orchestram praestant actiones itaque ex eo scaenici et thymelici graece 
 separatim nominantur, eius logei altitude non minus debet esse pedum x., 
 non plus duodecim, Dc Architectura, V. viii. 
 
 The explanation of the above suggested by Fra Giocondo's diagram and 
 sketch-plan is indeed unavoidably complicated to-day by what seems to me 
 its misconception in the Vitruvian commentaries that have appeared since 
 1511-1523. Having fixed upon the situation of the sceua, ((/ g' in the 
 diagram,/ in the sketch-plan), we are required to describe a circumference, as 
 shown in the diagram. Then we must inscribe three squares, — only one of 
 which concerns the present inquiry, — and let e c' the side lying next the 
 scena,'' — Green-room building it may be called, — be t\iQ finitio 2)rosccnii. By 
 this is meant the forward boundary line ending the proscenium space, marked 
 ff on the diagram. 
 
 The sense attached by Fra Giocondo to proscenium here is given by 
 his townsman and enthusiastic pupit^ as follows : — 
 
 ' That space on either side of the pulpitum reaching to the forward wall 
 of the scena (ad extremam sccnam) which was left vacant was called by the 
 Greeks Proscenium. Let no man opine that here were the sides of the scena.' 
 
 7 <TKr)vi\ or scena had various meanings. Utod lie between avacant space (as in Fra Giocondo's 
 
 strictly, in a context where the other parts of diagram). See Dr. J. Somnierl)rodt, De 
 
 the stiige-building are explained, it has usually Acschyli re scenica, part II. (1851) and III. 
 
 the most primitive of its meanings as here. (1858). See also his ,S'm<'»ic(« co/Zec^n', 1876. 
 Tile stricter and earlier meaning of itpoffKiiviov, ^ .lulii Caesaris Scaligeri, ' Y)*i Coinoedia ac 
 
 or proscrninm, corresponded to this meaning of 'Pragoedia ' in vol. iii. of Gronovius' Thcsaums 
 
 scena, and designated a mask which screened (lOOO). 
 the scena from view. There might or might not 
 
VITRUVIUS' ACCOUNT Ob' THE GREEK STAGE. 359 
 
 But the Jinitio proscenii was a part of the proscenium, and was far more im- 
 portant than the useless space behind it. To this Jinitio proscenii, without 
 reference to Scahger's vacant space^ applies Perrault's definition : * Le 
 Proscenium estoit la face de la scene c^ui estoit ornee de colonnes.''' Fra 
 Giocondo's Greek proscenium, then, was a narrow unused space in front of 
 the scena, bounded by a row of columns which stood on the line marked 
 jinitio lyroscenii on his diagram. To this Jinitio j^roscenii would apply, I 
 think, the definition of the Greek proscenium sometimes given on the 
 authority of Dr. Dorpfeld to-day.^° But there is a difference, for Fra Giocondo 
 interrupts this line of columns by the forward projection of the pulpituui 
 (Xoyetov). Moreover, for reasons to be entered into below, he indicates in 
 front of the Jinitio proscenii a second proscenium which is clearly that of 
 the Roman tlieatre and need not here be taken into account. It may be 
 added that the forward projecting stage (Xoyelov) is spoken of by Bulengerus 
 and by Scaliger as a part of the orchestra. Their plain meaning is that it 
 projected into the orchestra from the forward line oi the 2yi'0sceuiiciii. Scaliger 
 also says that this stage was always of wood and removable. 
 
 Returning now to Vitruvius, the second line wliich he requires to be 
 drawn is g g' tangent to the circle and parallel to the Jinitio proscenii just 
 drawn. This line is the froiis sccnac, and separates the scena from the unused 
 space in front, Vitruvius next requires us to draw a third line parallel to 
 tlie two others, which shall pass through the centre of the orchestra. This 
 third line is a diameter, as all now agree, for schemes like Rode's second, 
 Schoenborn's and Albert Mueller's first'^ have been finally condemned. 
 Vitruvius now requires us to use two new centres, h on the spectators' left, 
 and c on the right. Put your compass, Vitruvius says, at c (on the play- 
 goer's right), measure off the radius toward his left, and then describe the 
 arc n cutting e e" n, the right hand portion of the proscenium — cul proscenii 
 dextram partem. 
 
 ^ Abrege dcs dix livrcs d' Architecture de poses, Avas cod fused by Vitruvius with tlicAo^eroi' 
 
 Vitruvc, Paris, 1674, and 1681. An Italian pure and simple. Dr. Dorpfeld thinks that 
 
 translation appeared in 1747, and English Vitruvius gives a correct plan with the right 
 
 ones in 1692, 1703 and 1729. Perrault makes names attached to its component parts, but is 
 
 nowhere any attempt to reconcile this definition led into the confusion above noted by mis- 
 
 wilh his very ditierent account of the Greek understanding the way in which plays had been 
 
 proscenium in his two translations, Paris, 1673 represented. The Greek authors at his com- 
 
 and 1684. mand took for granted the distinction between 
 
 ^" If I rightly understand Dr. Dorpfeld's \ofeiov and QeoKoyelov, and therefore did not 
 
 view, which he has kindly communicated to me, explain it, Dr. Dorpfeld thinks, 
 
 he regards the /jtiYio 2)''oscc?iu as the forward " See Rode's A'fyj/br ~!t Vitruv'szchn. Biichcr 
 
 line of the jyrosceniiim, then the proscenii picl- &c. Berlin 1801, Schoenborn's is in the Zcii- 
 
 pitum— oil this phrase see note (16) below — is schriftfiir AUcrthums Wisscnschaft 1853 (Nos. 
 
 the Koye'iov built in front of this line. So far 40 and 41), Albert Mueller's first is in thu 
 
 he agrees substantially with Fra Giocondo. Philologiis (1863) vol. xxiii. The commou 
 
 But, according to Dr. Dorpfeld, the proscenixim feature of them all is their attempt to distin- 
 
 was at the same time the mask-front or facade guish between the ccntrxim orchcstrae and the 
 
 of the scena, and also— because of the interval centre of the circle originally drawn. This, as 
 
 between it and the masked scena— a second A. Slueller has himself shown, contradicts the 
 
 KoyeToy, i.e. the eioKoyf'iov. This last, he sup- plain meaning of Vitruvius. 
 
360 VITKUVIUS' ACCOUNT OF THE GREEK STAGE. 
 
 Here following Mariui's text of 1836, Rose and Mueller-Struebing correct 
 all the MSS, and read sinistram for dextram. Fra Giocondo, whose readino- 
 I have italicized, gives with all the MSS. derdram. 
 
 Put your compass now, Vitruvius proceeds, at h on the playgoer's left, 
 measure off the radius toward his right, and then describe the arc cr to 
 r e e' ', the left hand portion of the proscenium — ad ■proscenii sinistram jJartchi. 
 
 Here Fra Giocondo makes the correction which Marini and Rose think 
 should be made above. They of course leave the MS. reading dextram un- 
 corrected in this place. All admit that correction must be made in one place 
 or the other. There is nothing in any MS. to justify either correction as 
 against the other. The decisive reason which led Fra Giocondo to correct the 
 second rather than the first dextram was plainly his understanding of the 
 general architectural context, and he is the only great architect who was also a 
 great scholar by whom this question has been debated. Rose and Marini 
 on the other hand decided to change the first dextram and leave the second, 
 because there had been much trouble in making any sense out of Fra 
 Giocondo's text. This difficulty connected itself with controversial questions 
 about right and left.^- This will become clear by an examination of Rode's 
 and Schoenborn's and Albert Mueller's plans already alluded to. The relief 
 afforded by Rose's text, published in 1867, encouraged Wecklein to offer a 
 new explanation, and Albert Mueller very soon recanted his first explanation 
 and substituted a new one.^^ Indeed a very strong case might be made out 
 in favour of Marini's text, if its adoption in Germany, which has been 
 very general, had resulted" in any explanation which commanded universal 
 or even general assent. Unhappily the reverse is the case, as may be seen 
 in the three last German Handbooks. In Hermann's Zehrhuch (1888), 
 Baumeister's Denlcmaehr (1888), and Iwan Mueller's Handhucli (1890), will 
 be found three diagrams to fit this passage of Vitruvius. In each of these 
 the arcs drawn from the right and left centres of Vitruvius produce results in 
 regard to stage and orchestra not favoured by the other two. 
 
 The fact is that no one since Fra Giocondo has been able to make plain 
 why Vitruvius attached so much importance to the drawing of the last two 
 circles and Claude Perrault's criticism ^^ applies to all subsequent attempts, in- 
 cluding his own, at understanding their function. One exception should however 
 be made in favour of Schneider.^^ Of these two circles then the first one drawn 
 
 1- See Marini's note on the passage, foiio his own. Fra Giocondo had no difficulty wliat- 
 
 edition, Rome, 1836. ' At. . . . iu sibimetipsis ever in dealing with right and left, 
 
 contradiccntes pro dextero cornu intollexerunt '^ For Wccklein's diagram see the Philologies 
 
 prius dexteram mamim spectatorum, dcinde 1871, p. 435 IF. of vol. xxxi. A. Mueller's first 
 
 dexteram proscenii partem declaraverunt appeared in 1873, and is reproduced in 
 
 spectatorum sinistram. Non est credibile lldrmann's Lrhrbuok. 
 
 Vitruvium considerare voluisse eamdem rem '■» Perrault— the well-known architect of 
 
 ineodemlocosub duidiciaspcctu. Non secunda Colbert and Louis XIV.— says in a note to his 
 
 vox dexteram sed prima mutetur in sinislram.' translation : ' Le mystfere de ces trois ccrelcs est 
 
 For some of the accounts, like those of Gallianus una chose bien ol)scure ou bien inutile.' 
 
 and Polenus to whicli Marini alludes, see Lc- ^■' G. K. W. Schneider's plan is in his 
 
 monius' dissertation, St. Tctersburg, 1850. He ' Attisches Tiicalerwesen ' 1835. It must be 
 
 there criticizes five diagrams and gives a sixth of admitted that his stage has a most ridiculous 
 
VITRUVIUS' ACCOUNT OF THE GREEK STAGE. 361 
 
 brings us, at its intersection with tlie Jinitio prosccnii, to the right hand 
 h'mit of the pulpitum, while the second brings us to the left hand limit of 
 the same. 
 
 Returnino- now to the text, after thus drawing the circles with Fra 
 Giocondo and Schneider, we find Vitruvius saying: 'Thus the Greeks obtain, 
 by using three centres an orchestra that is roomier {ampliorcm) , a sceua 
 that lies fiirther back (recessiorem), and iximlpitiim or logciou, as the Greeks call 
 it, which is narrower {minorc latitudine). 
 
 Vitruvius thus requires us to refer to the Roman theatre and stage, and the 
 comparison is made easy because the Roman stage is well understood to-day 
 through existing remains. If comparison be made according to the require- 
 ments of Vitruvius the differences which he enumerates will all appear 
 Only we must use the Roman stage as we know it rather than the Roman 
 stage as Vitruvius describes it. This is because Vitruvius insists upon a 
 feature in the Roman stage which he really borrows from the Greeks, namely 
 the imlpitum proscenii. This is apparently an invention of Vitruvius, one 
 of those 'refinements in practice not observed by his predecessors nor fol- 
 lowed by his successors.'^*' The Roman Theatre was after all only a modified 
 type of the Greek theatre changed to suit the New Comedy and thus adapted to 
 the plays of Terence and Plautus. Applied to this type of theatre the words 
 scena and proscenium have anew meaning. Scena takes the place of jwc^- 
 sce'Jiium, and proscenium is applied to the pulpitum. Hence the comparison 
 required by Vitruvius is between the pulpitum of the Greek and the pulpi- 
 tum-proscenium, not the proscenii pulpitum, of the Roman theatre. The 
 only thing which the p)rosccnii pulpiitum of Vitruvius can mean is a small 
 temporary stage built on the centre of the larger and permanent proscenium - 
 stage. And this is what Scaliger and Fra Giocondo make it out to be. 
 
 The closing words of Vitruvius on the Greek theatre sum up the results 
 of the comparison just made. Just these differences, says our author, were 
 forced on the Greeks because only their tragedians and comedians performed 
 on the stage, whereas the others, the artifices, went through with their per- 
 formance up and down the orchestra {per orchestram). This circumstance in 
 fact leads the Greeks to distinguish the former as sccnici from the latter whom 
 they call thymelici. The height of the raised stage occupied by these tragici 
 and comici must be, says Vitruvius, ten feet at least and twelve feet at 
 most. And here ends that part of Vitruvius' account of the Greek theatre 
 which concerns the stage. If we take the temporary wooden pioljiihim, (e) on 
 Fra Giacondo's sketch-plan, to have been ten or twelve feet above the 
 orchestra-level, the difficulties are insurmountable. Accordingly we must 
 either suppose with Dr. Dorpfeld that Vitruvius confused the Xoyeiov with 
 
 shape,— like that of a ship's prow,— but he uses le Quoted from a review of Wilkins' Vitruvius 
 
 the two circles last drawn to determine the in a MS. note to a Bodleian Vitruvius, Douce V. 
 
 position of the stage (\oye7ov), and so far subt. 2. Compare on the prosceriii jmlpUum 
 
 agrees with Fra Giocondo: but Schneider is Perrault's shrewd remark tliat the phrase 
 
 too much hampered by the words of Vitruvius applies rather to the Greek than to the Roman 
 
 and his details therefore are impracticable. theatre. 
 
362 VITRUVIUS' ACCOUNT OF THE GREEK STAGE. 
 
 the deoXoyeiov, but only so far as the dimensioa of height was concerned, or 
 we must believe ^'' that our author had in mind such a theatre as that of 
 Cuiculum (Djemila) where the level of the orchestra was considerably below 
 that of the scena-Q.ooY. See Amable Ravoisie, Exploration Scientijiqm dc 
 I'Algdrie. This last would not be a Greek theatre, but a transitional type, 
 between the earlier Greek and the later or Roman theatre. 
 
 And now some account must be given first of the arcs o nf and o rf which 
 I have added in Fra Giocondo's diagram, second of the double proscenium 
 which he provides, the Greek proscenium //, and the Roman proscenium i. 
 I have regarded the departure of Fra Giocondo from Vitruvius' literal direc- 
 tions for drawing the second and third circles as a device for greater clearness 
 in teaching.i^ In practice he found it less confusing to accomplish what 
 Vitruvius had in mind by a method of his own : ' I will simplify the matter,' 
 we can almost hear him say, when liis pupils were dazed by the Vitruvian 
 directions about a centre to the left, a radius to the right and an arc to the 
 left, ' Take your centre at h to the left, measure off your radius toward the 
 left y , and from there describe your arc until you cut the frons, scenae on the 
 Uft qX fl Similarly take your other centre at c, on the H^A^, measure off 
 your radius toward c on the right, and describe your arc until it touches the 
 frons scenae at/, on the right. Produce both these arcs until they intersect 
 Vi\Q fmitio proscenii cc"e'c"', — the matter is a simple one and I need not 
 draw the arcs further. Now these two points (r and n) of intersection 
 with e" e , are the limits to the right and left of the forward projecting 
 pulpitum shown at e on my sketch-plan.' 
 
 My reason for thinking that Fra Giocondo's arcs were thus produced in 
 thought by him is that the limits of the indpitum are determined on his 
 sketch-plan in the manner just described. If any doubter should object, then 
 I should appeal to Vitruvius and, neglecting Fra Giocondo's arcs entirely, 
 I should should draw o nf and o rf according to the letter of Vitruvius' 
 instructions. After that I should proceed as Fra Giocondo has done m his 
 sketch-plan. 
 
 As for the introduction into his diagram of the Roman proscenium i in 
 front of the finitio j^i'oscenii, behind Avhich lies the Greek proscenium /, that 
 can also be explained as a teacher's device to make plain the difference be- 
 
 '7 Possibly these two waj's of accounting for and refers especially to Vitruvius : ' I bad the 
 the error of Vitruvius' mistake should be com- i^^ood fortune to get, while reading that book, 
 bined. He makes no mention of the eeoKoye'iou, tlie help of a most rare preceptor, Jucundus 
 and probably did not know its function. Find- the Friar, then king's architect, a nnin of con- 
 ing his authorities giving its height at ten or summate antiquarian lore. Not only by speech 
 twelve feet, he might refer for better under- but with his pencil (grapliidi) did he explain 
 standing to existing theatres of the Cuiculum what we were seeking to understand. Those 
 type. There the \oye7oy was of the lieight in were the times when I emended my Vitruvius 
 question and so he was justified in a confusion at my ease. '...For the testimony of Scaligcr and 
 between it and the e(o\oye'iov. others on this same point, see tiie SiipplemeiUiDti 
 
 ^' In his commentary on the Pand('cts, ml Scriptores Irium urdinum S. Fmiicisci. 
 
 fol. cii. rr.rfio in the 1532 edition, 15ude Kec. laicas Waddingers. Home, 1806. 
 gives a sketch of the teaching by Fra Giocondo, 
 
VITRUVIUS' ACCOUNT OF THE GREEK STAGE. 
 
 363 
 
 tween the earlier and the later sense of proscenium. It is also possible that 
 Fra Giocondo may have had two minds about the matter, though this is 
 unlikely. Fra Giocondo would in fact have belied the times in which he 
 lived if he had not kept the Roman theatre and the Roman stage before 
 his pupils even when he was discoursing about the Greek stage. In 
 
 a. porticus 
 theatri ^ 
 
 b. cunei 
 
 c. orchestra 
 
 ^ppnoDQ^ a 
 
 d.pro/ceniii 
 e.pulpitum 
 f. icena " 
 O ^.hofpitalia- 
 
 p o o o 
 
 o o o A 
 
 6 O O O O O O 
 
 6' 
 
 6 
 
 U.-- i. 
 
 J- -J 
 
 Sketch-Plan. 
 
 those days the centre of interest was in things Roman far more than it is 
 now. Perhaps for that reason Vitruvius was easier of approach, and could 
 more readily be explained in those days than in these. It is at least certain 
 that, like the pupils of Fra Giocondo and like Bulengerus {Be Theatro, 
 1603), Vitruvius was primarily concerned with things Roman. This is 
 true iu spite of a certain pedantry which inclined Vitruvius to suggest Greek 
 
364 VITRUVIUS' ACCOUNT OF THE GREEK STAGE. 
 
 iniprovemeuts, — as in the case of his Roman proscenii puipitum. One of 
 his very earliest and most competent critics, Politian's friend the Florentine 
 architect Leo Battista Alberti, cleverly summed up the matter in 1485 by 
 complaining that Vitruvius was Greek to the Romans and Roman to the 
 Greeks. The one building of which we know Vitruvius to have been 
 architect was in fact a Roman basilica. In the forties nearly twenty years 
 after Friar Giocondo's death the Vitruvian academy at Rome went about 
 with the most ambitious plans, and one thing which may be traced back 
 to their schemes is undoubtedly the last building planned by Palladio, Fra 
 Giocondo's townsman, — I mean the Roman stage begun at Verona three 
 months before the great architect died in August 1580, and finished by his 
 son in 1584. It stands to-day a monument of the study of Vitruvius in 
 the 16th century.^^ 
 
 What very different results the latest study of Vitruvius has brought 
 about, we have already seen. Instead of borrowing from contact with great 
 jsublic works, like those of Fra Giocondo at Paris, Rome, and in the Veneto, 
 a broad and practised power of insight, recent expounders of this passage have 
 too often cavilled about the words of Vitruvius, His use of the most 
 innocent and everyday terms like intervallum^^ sinistram, dcriram, centrum, 
 and Icditudo, has been tormented, discussed, and strained first this way and 
 then that w^ay until their meaning has been fairly driven out of them. 
 Geppert, Lemomus, Scl^i^orn, Wecklein and Albert Mueller were too busy 
 with one or the oth^P^liese wAis to heed the one plan which, so far as 
 the stage is concerned, simply followed the straightforward meaning of 
 Vitruvius' -words. Schneider's plan is mentioned by no one with respect. 
 Geppert laughed at it and Sclioenborn lost his temper over it, but it remains 
 for all that the most neaily faithful presentation of the Greek stage as 
 Vitruvius described it Avhich has appeared since the year 1523.^^ 
 
 The total inability of all others to agree in one interpretation of this 
 passage in our author has meanwhile led to a feeling that it cannot be 
 understood. Geppert began to despair of it, Lemonius also gives it up, and 
 
 '» Le fabbi'iclie di Andrea Palladio, Ott. the two segiuents which he found convenient. 
 
 Bertozzi Scamozziin Vicenza 1796. Now comes Fabricius and selects two others 
 
 -" It is discouraging to find in the last number which suit his view. Oeniichen may well be 
 
 of WvQ Rhcbiischcs M^iacuvi {\o\. xlvi. Heft 3) left in the field against all these over-ingunuitics. 
 
 a new attempt to conjure with the word inter- His objections have not been and cannot be 
 
 vallum. Schonborn was certain that it meant answered. 
 
 Piirodos. Albert Miiller could not believe this, -' Fra Giocondo's plans were reproduced,— 
 but agreed that something very uncommon was unaccompanied however by the necessary mar- 
 to be got out of the word. So he consulted a ginal keys, and with no lettering whatever upon 
 mathematical expert, who revealed to him that them— in the French translation of Jean 
 its meaning at the end of the accountof the Jlartin (1547). They were completely sup- 
 Greek stage must be determined by the context planted in 1556 by that prepared by Daniele 
 in which it last occurred,— at the beginning of Barbaro under advice from ralladio. Perrault 
 Vitruvius' account of the Roman stage. So followed Barbaro, and began the modern con- 
 thcy two agreed that it must mean one of the troversies where no account is ever taken of 
 twelve equal segments into which tlie circle was Giocondo's plans, 
 divided by its inscribed squares. Miiller selected 
 
VITRUVIUS' ACCOUNT OF THE GREEK STAGE. 365 
 
 Dunion, in 1888, convicts Vitruvius, — at least so far as the Greek stage 
 is concerned, — of ignorance, carelessness, and stupidity. 
 
 Therefore I maintain that it is time for us to break away from these 
 tangles of German controversialists and to begin again, following the lead of 
 Fra Giocondo as far as it will go with us. Since the task of bringing the 
 statements about the Greek stage in Vitruvius to bear upon what we know 
 of existing monuments is before us, we cannot perhaps do better than follow 
 the example which that same Friar loannes, described as aniini liuriianiiutc 
 vcTC locundiis, has set before us. His method is briefly given by himself in 
 the dedication of his Vitruvius to Giiiliano della Jlovcrc. Pope Julius II. 
 'Take now, my ever blessed father, with favouring countenance,' he writcsj 
 ' these my accomplished labours, — Vitruvius, restored to the light rule of his 
 original speech. But think not the toil has been slight. For in seeking to 
 understand him I have compared his words and his meaning with the remnants 
 of ruins and the fabrics of the ancients, and this not once only but often 
 and many times again, — not without great exhaustion and abundant per- 
 spiration.' 
 
 • LoLUS DvKi;. 
 
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