8

Comment on the illustration:
Fig. 6 shows the index of Barbaro's italian Vitruvius edition from 1556. This is obviously simply what we still today would expect as an index of a bool: A list of words and the pages where they appear in the text. – From Tolomei's discription and even its shortened, almost wrong interpretation by the author it shold be clear by now, that the "vocabolarii" mentioned in the programme should contain 'dichiarationi' = declarations = explanations and even images of the objects mentioned. So, this image does not explain anything – it only shows that the author misinterpreted the text.

 "The word lists represent an organisation principle and a method to systematize Vitruvius’s text."

Comment:
Of course, neither word lists in the form of the example from Barbaro in Fig. 6 nor the "vocabolarii" described by Tolomei do represent a "method to systematize Vitruvius' text." This would require a rewrite of the text, especially a re-arrangement of its parts according to new "organisation principles" imagined by the editor(s). But neither a simple word list nor a lexicon – added as an entire book to the collections proposed by the programme – does represent such a new order(ing) of the original text. [Compare it, e.g., to the Oxford Compagnon to Shakespeare and the Works of Shakespeare!]

"Based on the difficulties with understanding the text a potential reader would most likely use these word lists as an important tool to access the text."

Comment:
Is such a strategy really "based on the difficulties with understanding the text"? Or are the difficulties not rather the reason why someone would consult these "word lists"?
In addition, the "vocabularies" described by Tolomei would – of course – not be the tool to "access" the text, but rather to find explanations or helpful additional information – which might consist also in links to all the passages of the text where the specific word / notion appears. But they could also point to other sources, as was common – at least – since the publication of Perotti's Cornucopia.

"[…] This unrealised list indeed seems to correspond to Gio- vanni Battista’s efforts to name each part of the Ionic entablature and pediment in his Sulpicio-Vitruvius."

Comment:
No. Giovanni Battista's illustrations with the names of the members does not explain them ('dichiaratione') but represent his interpretations or understandings of the word. So, what Tolomei describes would rather be an illustration accompanied (or vice versa) by the explaining text based on what Vitruvius writes regarding the specific word. In the italien edition, these "word lists" would also contain – of course – many contemporary italian words in use at the building place (or in architectural theory) which do not always have a counterpart in the Vitruvian text.

"The use of word lists and its similar associate, the index, can be observed to be a central feature charac- teristic of the printed Vitruvius-editions as well. Manuscript versions of the ancient author’s text throughout the Middle Ages often contained an index over the individual chapters of Vitruvius’s text. [Endnote 32: Krinsky 1967, pp. 54-66.]"

Comment:
The following examples relate to indices only in other editions and manuscripts of Vitruvius' text, but not to "word lists" in the extensiv sense as they are described by Tolomei.

[starting on page 8] "Philandrier’s two in- [page 9:] dexes are particular comprehensive. The first is a 32 page-long alphabetical index to Vitruvius’s ten books and Philandrier’s annotations. It is followed by a four- page index over the Greek words used in Vitruvius. [Endnote 35: Guillaume Philandrier/Vitruvius, M. Vitruvii Pollionis De Architectura Libri Decem Ad Caesarem Augustum. [...] Cum Græco pariter & Latino indice locupletissimo, Lugduni apud Ioan. Tornaesium. M.D.LII.]"

Comment:
Yes, but as well as the other examples, these indices may be "word list" in the author's (mis-) interpretation of Tolomei's "vocabolarii", but they are only indices, not "lexica". Again, we should trust the authors like Tolomei or Philandrier that they do chose their words with consciousness: Therefore, Philandrier does not call his indices "word list", "lexicon" or even "vocabolario", but: "index". And that's what they are: 2 Lists of words combined  with the numbers of the pages where they are used in the Vitruvian text! NO images, no explanations, no comments, no translation … just the words!