ABSTRACT
In the fifth book of his theoretical treatise De Architectura the Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius informs us about the stage in Antiquity. His work is now believed to be from around 25 b.c. under the Emperor Augustus and about stage scenery he states in the sixth chapter:
There are three styles of scenery: one which is called tragic; a second, comic; the third satyric. Now the subject of these differ severally one from another. The tragic are designed with columns, pediments and statues and other royal surroundings; the comic have the appearance of private buildings and balconies and projections with windows made to imitate reality, after the fashion of ordinary buildings; the satyric settings are painted with trees, caves, mountains and other country features, designed to imitate landscape. 1
