Cesare Cesariano

A 1521 Italian edition of Vitruvius' De architectura, translated and illustrated by Cesare Cesariano.

Cesare di Lorenzo Cesariano was a late 15th-early 16th century architect and architectural theorist in Milan, known to Donato Bramante ca. 1474, according to Bramante's vita by Giorgio Vasari, who says of the young, as yet untried Bramante:

"Determined to see at least one notable thing, he preceded to Milan to visit the Duomo, where there happened to be one Cesare Cesariano, reputed a good geometer and architect, who had written a commentary on Vitruvius. Enraged at not having received the reward which he had expected, Cesare refused to work any more, and, becoming eccentric, he died more like a beast than a man."

"Vitruvian Man", illustration in the edition of Vitruvius' De Architectura by Cesare Cesariano (1521)

Cesariano is chiefly remembered as the first translator of Vitruvius' treatise De Architectura into a modern language (Italian), with his added commentary. It was published, with copious woodcut illustrations, at Como, 1521. It contained 360 pages and was printed in 1300 copies. It was soon plagiarized in editions published at Venice, but all were superseded by Daniele Barbaro's edition, with illustrations by Andrea Palladio, 1556.

Vitruvius' technical language is fraught with difficulties. Leone Battista Alberti was of the mind that the Latins thought Vitruvius was writing Greek and the Greeks, Latin. The impenetrable Latin and the lack of illustrations gave freedom to the Renaissance designers, who were able to interpret antique architecture in their own image, all' antica. Cesariano's Vitruvius gives us a clear picture of the Renaissance perception of the architecture of Classical Antiquity. Indeed the spirit of Milan's Late Gothic Duomo can be recognized in some of Cesariano's woodcuts [1]. Among his illustrations is an attempt at rendering Vitruvius' precepts on the ideally proportioned man, successfully rendered by Leonardo, but attempted by many 15th century theorists [2]

Cesariano's illustrations, though not as influential as Sebastiano Serlio's, had some influence in the picturesque and classicizing vocabulary of the Northern Antwerp Mannerism

References

• Vitruvius (Cesare Cesariano, Como 1521),

Cesariano's De architectura on line *[3]

• Cesariano's illustrations of the kinds of temples, from Vitruvius, Book III.2
• Yves Pauwels, Université de Lille, 2005. "Cesariano, Sagredo and the Language of Architectural Ornament in the Low Countries from 1530 Onwards": Antwerp Conference (abstract)