News: Call for Papers | International Conference

The Words of Vitruvius: Between Archaeological Findings and Vulgarizations

Fano, Centro Studi Vitruviani, Thursday, October 16th – Friday, October 17th, 2025

Scientific Committee

Francesco Benelli, Filippo Camerota, Cristina Cuneo, Francesco Paolo Di Teodoro, Oscar Mei

Scientific Secretariat

Sara Bova, Marco Di Salvo, Laura Invernizzi

Supporting Institutionsi

Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, Department of the Arts (DAR)
Centro Studi Vitruviani di Fano
Museo Galileo, Florence
Politecnico di Torino, Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning (DIST)
Università di Urbino Carlo Bo, Department of Communication Sciences, Humanities and International Studies (DISCUI)

Besides representing a testimony of extraordinary relevance for the knowledge of construction techniques and theoretical principles of the art of building according to the Romans and Greeks, Vitruvius' De Architectura contains a lexical repertoire of notable extent and complexity, fundamental for the reconstruction of the ancient architectural vocabulary and for the investigating the link between language, building practices and the transmission of knowledge. But how did these relations evolve over time? And how has the degree of understanding of Vitruvian terms changed, affecting their transcription, translation and interpretation?

The conference moves from the purpose of exploring these questions from an interdisciplinary perspective, sifting the Vitruvian lexicon in its multiple articulations: as a reflection of archaeological pre-existences, as an object of philological analysis and as an aspect of its cultural fortune.

 The Conference program will be divided into three thematic sections:

1. The Words and Ancient Buildings: remarks on the Vitruvian architectural lexicon in comparison with the material findings of pre-Hellenistic, Hellenistic and Roman architecture, in a close dialogue between text and archaeological context.
2. The Words and the Text: philological contributions addressing issues related to manuscript tradition, textual criticism, translations, and treatise interpretations, with particular attention to processes of vulgarization.
3. The Words and their Visual and Conceptual Reception: investigations into the fortune of the Vitruvian lexicon in linguistic, architectural and iconographic contexts as a source for the representation and reinterpretation of architecture.

 The Conference is aimed at archaeologists, philologists, architectural historians, art historians, linguists and scholars of the reception of antiquity interested in examining the Vitruvian text from an integrated perspective.

 Applications, containing the title and abstract of the paper, and accompanied by a brief scientific profile, should be sent by Tuesday 3 June 2025, to the e-mail address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

 The Conference proceedings will be published. Written contributions may be submitted in Italian, English, French, Spanish, or German.

APPLICATION DETAILS

Proposal: title, 200-word abstract (1000 characters ca.)

Brief Curriculum Vitae: 100 words (500 characters ca.)

Interventions Duration: 20 minutes each

Languages admitted for the papers’ presentation: Italian, English

Proposal Submission Deadline: June 3rd, 2025, UTC+1