Italy Finds Public Building Believed to be Designed by Vitruvius
The basilica's remains, matching Vitruvius' detailed architectural treatise, end a 500-year search and highlight his lasting influence on Western architecture.
- Archaeologists in Fano unearthed remains of a late 1st century BC basilica, believed to have been designed by Vitruvius, during a rescue excavation beneath Piazza Andrea Costa.
- Following long-running searches spanning over 500 years, scholars and researchers had been seeking the basilica, with prior digs inconclusive and officials saying the rediscovery ends centuries of speculation.
- Excavators uncovered a rectangular plan with column bases about five feet in diameter and surviving architectural elements suggesting an approximate height of fifteen feet, matching Vitruvius and his descriptions in De Architectura.
- A technical committee will be established by Fano officials as teams stabilize remains while seeking funds for excavation and research, with ongoing work to assess further discoveries and public access.
- Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli said, `Today we have discovered the spatial configuration theorized by Pythagoras, realized and canonized by Vitruvius,` highlighting the find's long-term scholarly impact.
43 Articles
43 Articles
The authorities confirm that the columns found in the city of Fano correspond to the building described by the Roman architect.
Remains of Vitruvius Basilica Identified in Italy - Archaeology Magazine
Remnants of column in Vitruvius basilica, Fano, Italy FANO, ITALY—La Brújula Verde reports that a structure discovered in 2023 in eastern Italy’s city of Fano has been identified as a basilica designed by the Roman architect and engineer Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, who wrote the treatise De Architectura in the first century B.C. The building matches a description in Book V of the work, with its rectangular plan surrounded by a peristyle of columns.…
Roman Basilica designed by Vitruvius found in central Italy
A Roman basilica designed by Vitruvius, a leading architect of classical architecture during antiquity, was unearthed in central Italy. Dating to the late 1st century BC, the basilica is thought to be the only building known to have been explicitly designed and supervised by Vitruvius himself. Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman architect and military engineer famous for his treatise De Architectura and the earliest extant comprehensive work on …
After centuries of speculation and debate, the famous Basilica of the Vitruv has been discovered in Fano during excavations. Italy's Minister of Culture speaks of a find that will write history.
The land of Fano , province of Pesaro and Urbino, in the region of Las Marcas, kept a secret under its cobblestones. It had kept it safe for twenty centuries, sealed under layers of history, buried by the passage of emperors, barbarians, popes and tourists. Now, that secret has come to the surface in the form of sandstone: four monumental columns , of meter and a half diameter and fifteen meters of original height, which have put an end to five …
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