Roma instaurata, Italia illustrata, Roma triumphans: Flavio Biondo's Encyclopaedic Project for a Dictionary of Antiquities
Rome restaurée, Italie illustrée, Rome triomphante, le projet encyclopédique de Flavio Biondo pour un dictionnaire des Antiquités
Résumé
In insisting in the preface to his work that all the domains of knowledge are useful for architecture, Vitruvius grants a dignity to all forms of learning and provides a universal entry into his work. 1 It is precisely in this affirmation that the principle of Roman encyclopaedism resides: in presenting learned factual information, it is truly destined for a readership comprised of those who are curious and desire to acquire information about a precise domain of knowledge. Clearly this must be the reason why Pliny and other Roman encyclopaedic authors very infrequently subjected different levels of transmitted knowledge to a hierarchical ranking. In effect, such a distinction does not correlate with the primary preoccupation of these authors, who prefer to