Italian officials on Monday hailed the discovery of a more than 2,000-year-old public building attributed to Vitruvius, the ancient Roman architect and engineer known as the "father of architecture." "It is a sensational finding ... something that our grandchildren will be talking about," Italian Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli told a press conference.
Vitruvius, who lived in the 1st century BC, is celebrated for having written "De architectura," or The Ten Books on Architecture, the oldest surviving treatise on the subject. His teachings on the classical proportions of buildings have inspired artists over centuries, including Leonardo da Vinci, whose famous drawing of the human body is known as the "Vitruvian Man."
