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n Renaissance’s painting the landscapes depicting urban agglomerations are numerous . But are those painted cities the fruit of utopian imagination or of reality’s observation? The city represents and divulges a new culture, in the same way that the new culture promotes a particular city image. But it remains that the urban framework, real and concrete, as much as cultural, is very present in Italy, firmly established upon the Greek and then Roman tradition of the "city". It is sometimes complicated to make the difference between real and imaginary cities, heritage and innovation, Middle Ages’contributions and renewal of the Renaissance. The mainly Roman heritage, conveyed by the works of Vitruve and others, is now re-discovered and applied with a new awareness.
M.L.Vitruvio Pollione

M.L.Vitruvio Pollione
De architectura traducto di latino in vulgare dal vero exemplare, ...
Stampata in Venetia : in le cale de Iane Antonio et Piero Fratelli da Sabio, MDXXIIII (1524).
In-folio (31 cm)
Réserve EP. (H1 28)
Note on the specimen: inside the cardinal Albani seal testifies that this volume was sent from Rome
to Paris by Monge. Red seal : "Ecole royale polytechnique". Quoted in Documents relatifs aux origines de la bibliothèque de l'École polytechnique : works sent from Rome by Monge, "5 pluviose an 9".
M.L.Vitruvio Pollione
 
Source : Ecole Polytechnique