Measuring Up: The Greek Analogies Behind Vitruvius' Geometry of the Body

Vitruvius’ book is chock full of bodies. It is by means of his oiled body that Dinocrates gains an audience with Alexander (2.praef.1), and by means of his naked one, and the equivalent body of water that it displaces, that Archimedes solves his well-known quandary (9.praef.9f.). The body is a living, vital thing (7.praef.2f.), even as it is a book, a body of work (7.praef.10), arising from a body of education (1.1.12). Most important of all, Vitruvius outlines a ‘body of architecture’ (corpus architecturae, 6.praef.7) to propagate and extend the reach of the deified Augustus, commander-in-chief (1.praef.1), and this idea arguably gives rise to that of the ‘body politic’ (corpus imperii). Vitruvius’ text has been interpreted in terms of these bodies in important studies by Indra Kagis McEwen and John Oksanish; both authors treat the body as replete with meaning, the site of contact between architecture and the political, between text and author. This chapter adds to our understanding of the repertoire of bodies in Vitruvius by looking at those earlier incarnations of circular and square bodies which Vitruvius inherits, and in terms of which he construes the human body as a site of ideal proportions.