But as for me, Emperor, nature has not given me stature, age has marred my face, and my strength is impaired by ill health. Therefore, since these advantages fail me, I shall win your approval, as I hope, by the help of my knowledge and my writings.

Cold winds are disagreeable, hot winds enervating, moist winds unhealthy.

The stone in quarries is found to be of different and unlike qualities. In some it is soft, in others it is medium, in still others it is hard as in lava quarries. There are also numerous other kinds: for instance, in Campania, red and black tufas; in Umbria, Picenum, and Venetia, white tufa which can be cut with a toothed saw like wood.

An architect ought to be an educated man so as to leave a more lasting remembrance in his treatises.

When the juices of trees have no means of escape, they clot and rot in them, making the trees hollow and good for nothing.

As regards the efficacy of the art and the theories of it, I promise and expect that in these volumes I shall undoubtedly show myself of very considerable importance not only to builders but also to all scholars.

There will be natural propriety in using an eastern light for bedrooms and libraries, a western light in winter for baths and winter apartments, and a northern light for picture galleries and other places in which a steady light is needed; for that quarter of the sky grows neither light nor dark with the course of the sun, but remains steady and unshifting all day long.