Lucius Vitruvius Cerdo
Lucius Vitruvius Cerdo was an ancient Roman architect in the 1st century.
Lucius Vitruvius Cerdo is still known today from two inscriptions on the inside of the Gavier arch in Verona . Both identical inscriptions name Lucius Vitruvius Cerdo as the architect of the arch and as the freedman of a Lucius. The name has given rise to the assumption that it was the famous ancient Roman architect Vitruvius . That is why it was assumed that Verona was the city of birth. After the architectural historian and humanist Sebastiano Serlio criticized this assumption in the early 16th century, the assumption changed to the fact that Lucius Vitruvius Cerdo could be a freedman of Vitruvius or his family. This would also clarify the question of its previously unknown prenomen . This assumption is strengthened by the dating of the arch on the basis of its ornaments to the second or third decade of the first century, which could be roughly reconciled with the life of Vitruvius, who was probably around 15 BC. Chr. Died. In addition, Lucius Vitruvius Cerdo put the classicist ideas of Vitruvius into practice. The inscription reads:
"C (aio) Gavio C (ai) f (ilio) / Straboni // M (arco) Gavio C (ai) f (ilio) / Macro // Gaviae M (arci) f (iliae) // L (ucius) Vitruvius L (uci) l (ibertus) Cerdo / architectus // L (ucius) Vitruvius L (uci) l (ibertus) Cerdo / architectus ”
It is possible that Lucius Vitruvius Cerdo is identical to the military architect of the same name mentioned in Vitruvius. Then he and Marcus Aurelius , Gnaeus Cornelius and Publius Minidius would have been responsible for the construction of the Roman war machines in Augustan times .
literature
- Michael Donderer : The Architects of the Late Roman Republic and the Imperial Era. Epigraphic evidence (= Erlanger research. Series A, Geisteswissenschaften, Volume 69). University Library, Erlangen 1996, ISBN 3-930357-08-9 , p. 270 f.
- Thomas Ganschow : Vitruvius Cerdo, L. In: Rainer Vollkommer (editor): Künstlerlexikon der Antike . Over 3800 artists from three millennia. Nikol, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-937872-53-7 , p. 945.
Remarks
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Vitruvius Cerdo, Lucius |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Cerdo, Lucius Vitruvius |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | ancient roman architect |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1st century BC BC or 1st century |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1st century |