Introduction

The introduction gives the reader some sense of De architectura’s complex reception as literature and establishes the scope of the work to follow. Recent interest in technical literature has rightly stressed the need to embrace the entirety of technical works, not just “more literary” portions, such as prefaces. At the same time, the paratextual portions of works, including but not limited to their prefaces, are privileged places of transaction between author and reader. That technical authors are sometimes thought to have only dabbled in literature, moreover, means that paratextual elements—albeit not lacking scholarly attention altogether—have not been fully integrated into wider conversations about (Latin) literature. This book, as the introduction emphasizes, aims to do just that. Special emphasis is placed on the dynamism of Vitruvius’s didactic expert-persona and his characterization of De architectura as a munus.