1. Gros (1990), xxx, points out that Vitruvius uses symmetria, proportio, commodulatio, etc. without any systematic distinction. On the importance of the principle in general, see McEwen (2003), 195f.

2. On equating house with man in the Republic and the early Empire, especially its concomitant social and moralizing implications, cf. Nichols (2017), 83–129.

3. Examples are given in Wesenberg (2002), 358f., 363f., and Zöllner (2009), 147, 149. Interestingly, McEwen (2003), 157, states: ‘Vitruvian man can hardly be called a how-to description: the text at the beginning of the third book is not meant to supply directions for putting together a male body.’ As will be shown, however, this statement is only in part correct.

4. The term ‘vividness’ is, of course, tightly connected to the rhetorical tradition and the ancient concept of enargeia (on which see Manieri [1998], Otto [2009], Webb [2009], Zanker [1981]). However, the term is used here in a broader sense to describe the effect of immediate comprehension or easy understandability of a passage.

5. For a general overview see Fingerhut, Hufendiek, and Wild (2013), 43–64, and Kukkonen and Caracciolo (2014) on the so-called ‘first’ and ‘second generation’ of cognitive studies.

6. On ‘4E cognition’, cf. Fingerhut, Hufendiek, and Wild (2013), 83–91, Troscianko (2013), 182–6, and (2014), 22–9, and Noë (2004), 1–32, 36.

7. Merleau-Ponty (2012) [orig. 1945], 100f., emphasis in the original.

8. Merleau-Ponty (2012) [orig. 1945], 102f.

9. Merleau-Ponty (2012) [orig. 1945], 102, distinguished between ‘positional’ and ‘situational spatiality’.

10. Vitruvius’ text seems to have a general penchant for information that is implicitly given. The mastery of sensorimotor skills has some overlaps with the idea of ‘tacit knowledge’ which Cuomo (2016), 125–8, 139–43, traces in Vitruvius: both appear to come about automatically, the preconditions of both are difficult to express in words, and both seem to silently bridge gaps in a written text. In contrast to sensorimotor skills, however, the skills and knowledge Cuomo talks about (even though they are not clearly defined) appear to refer mostly to technical knowledge, its social implications, and its transmission.

11. Cave (2016), 28.

12. Troscianko (2013), 186. For another example see Grethlein and Huitink (2017), 4: ‘… when we look, for example, at a hammer, we do not so much perceive the object in all its details as rather perceive how we could use it, if we picked it up; and when we have visually assessed the hammer in terms of how it can serve our pragmatic intentions, we feel we have a complete “picture” of it, even if in reality we do not’; cf. also Huitink (2020), 192.

13. Grünbaum (2007), 300–3. Grünbaum (2007), 304, gives an example for a summarizing, general active verb (‘Dares won the fight against Entellus’) and for a detailed account of a bodily movement (‘Entellus’ right arm moved towards his left side in the direction of Dares’ right ear’). In comparison, the phrase ‘Entellus punched Dares’ contains a simple and immediately comprehensible bodily movement. The three categories obviously differ by degree; however, they are a useful tool to distinguish more or less vivid descriptions.

14. Grethlein and Huitink (2017), 6.

15. Cf. for example Grünbaum (2007); Bolens (2012); Troscianko (2013) and (2014); Cave (2016); Grethlein and Huitink (2017); Winter (2019); Grethlein (2021).

16. Grünbaum (2007), 309f.; Bolens (2012), 11–16, 37f.; Kuzmičová (2012), 29; Grethlein and Huitink (2017), 6.

17. Grethlein and Huitink (2017), 3 n.16, emphasis in the original.

18. Cave (2016), 28–30.

19. Grethlein (2021), 57, points out that elements drawing the reader's attention to the text itself (such as very rare expressions or self-referential remarks) would disturb the text's immediacy; therefore, transparency is a vital means of evoking vividness and producing an immersive effect on the reader.

20. This is why it is more appropriate to talk about the ‘illustrative quality’ and ‘immediate comprehensibility’ of these texts rather than about ‘immersion’.

21. The Latin text is taken from Gros's Budé edition (1990), and the translation is adapted from Granger's Loeb (1931).

22. On the reading manus pansa instead of the transmitted manus palma, see Gros (1990), 63.

23. On the addition of a medio pectore, see Gros (1990), 64.

24. Gros (1990), 60. On Roman measurement styles, cf. also Riggsby (2016), 283–5.

25. Johnson (2007), 136–46; cf. also Wege (2013), 92–8, 118–22.

26. Johnson (2007), 136. Johnson's aim is, of course, to transfer such schemas—like metaphors—to other realms and to analyze the conceptual metaphors resulting from this transfer (Lakoff and Johnson [2003] [orig. 1980], 3–21, 272). But, as the definition shows, ‘image schemas’ are grounded in everyday experience and rely on the interaction between body and mind and the mind's ongoing engagement with the (spatial) surroundings. In the case of the homo bene figuratus, they are applied to space and a body, not transferred to the realm of metaphor.

27. Johnson (2007), 142; cf. also Wege (2013), 127.

28. On prepositions as inconspicuous means of conveying spatial orientation and meaning, cf. Winter (2019), 403.

29. On the activating force of such a pattern, cf. Johnson (2007), 142. On imperatives in technical descriptions, cf. Roby (2016), 192–209; on Vitruvius, see especially 207f.

30. Grünbaum (2007), 308–10. Cf. on the first- or third-person perspective also Bolens (2012), 37–9; Kuzmičová (2012), 29; Grethlein and Huitink (2017), 6 (especially n.34).

31. Scholars have felt the need to comment on his transition from human bodies to works of art: McEwen (2003), 196, points out that the ‘canonic proportions’ offered at the opening of book 3 are usually related to the Greek sculptor Polykleitos but the text does not mention any artist or artwork; rather, ‘Vitruvius is not referring to a statue; he is referring to a man—one who is well-shaped (bene figuratus)’ (for the reference to Polykleitos and other Hellenistic predecessors, see also Di Pasquale [2016], 52f.; Gros [1990], 61f.; and Anderson in this issue). As Gros (1990), 61, explains, this explicit reference to a man, instead of his representation in art, may possibly serve to justify architecture as ‘natural’.

32. OLD s.v. compono 1 and 7.

33. A phenomenon similar to what is called ‘manageable size’ here is found in the basic unit of the modulus: ‘Not only is the modulus normally (perhaps always) a concrete thing, it is a thing of a particular kind of size. It is never the smallest unit of a construction and rarely is it the largest … This is a practical unit of measure’ (Riggsby [2016], 288, emphasis in the original). Of course, componere can also be used with units of larger size but this would have to be indicated by an object or a more specific context.

34. The description of the figure and the analogy between temples and the human body is also concluded again with the act of componere in Vitr. 3.1.4 (ergo si ita natura composuit corpus hominis …, ‘Therefore if Nature has planned the human body so …’).

35. The phrase circumagendo rotundationem is difficult to translate. Granger (1931) renders the object rotundationem more concretely as ‘when the circle is turned around’, which omits the haptic quality conveyed in rotundatio (see below).

36. As McEwen (2003), 157, points out, Renaissance images always show the man standing.

37. Different drawings from the Renaissance illustrate this: Zöllner (2009), 149. Cf. also Gros (1990), 66f.

38. It does not matter much whether we are talking about modern compasses or, for example, a nail with a string: though the affordances of different types of compasses are different, the appeal to the way they are used is equally strong.

39. OLD s.v. circumago 1 and 2a.

40. McEwen (2003), 157. Riggsby (2016), 292–6, explains a similar phenomenon in his discussion of ‘allometry’ and the problem of transferring measurements from one realm to another. He refers to Vitr. 10.16.5, where Vitruvius states that it is possible to make a hole of an inch with a drill, but impossible to make a hole of half a foot—this ‘would not even be conceivable’ (ne cogitandum quidem uidetur omnino): Riggsby (2016), 295.

41. Cf. McEwen (2003), 157, 160. The subsequent use of the square employs the same strategies as displayed above (Vitr. 3.1.3): nam si a pedibus imis ad summum caput mensum erit eaque mensura relata fuerit ad manus pansas, inuenietur eadem latitudo uti altitudo (‘For if we measure from the sole of the foot to the top of the head, and apply the measure to the outstretched hands, the breadth will be found equal to the height’). Here, the ‘source-path-goal-schema’ (‘from the sole of the foot to the top of the head’) does not enumerate single constituents but, like the encirclement, captures the whole to which all constituent parts are related.

42. As Gros (1990), 61, points out, Vitruvius uses these references to nature to legitimize architecture.