The following is an excursus on Plato, Vitruvius, and preceding traditions of thought and craftsmanship going back to Anaximander and architects of the Archaic period. In addressing possible alternative justifications for the existence of ichnography before the Late Classical period, the analysis here supplements the exploration of buildings in Chapter 1. In setting buildings aside for philosophical texts and architectural theory, one may thoroughly enter into the premise at hand: That an interest in drawing among educated architects as intellectuals might have arisen in a literary background from abstract thought, and not just the practical requirements of planning. Along with a subsequent return to visual material in Chapter 2, this evaluation will elicit a nuanced view of connections between craftsmanship, intellectual traditions, and the production of knowledge in the Classical period. As the chapters of the main text elaborate, the genesis of ichnography, linear perspective, and characteristically Greek understandings of order in nature appear to owe a great deal to the design process of Greek architects in the craft of building, particularly in regards to the role of drawing in the creation of individual features at 1:1 scale that preceded reduced-scale drawing.

In carefully examining texts, furthermore, an encounter with additional concerns expressed in intellectual traditions changes the nature of questions asked in relation to the material evidence. Like the ideai that embody the principles of which architectura consists for Vitruvius, for Plato they connect unexpectedly to vision and the related graphic role of nature through representations of cosmic mechanism.