Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/973

 VILLAS IN VARIOUS STYLES. 949 Fig. 1653 is a vertical profile, showing the connection of the buildings with the roads, walks, and scenery ; Ln which a is the principal approach ; h, an entrance to the lower part of the porter's tower ; c, entrance for servants to the basement story ; d, private entrance to the staircase in the tower ; e, cai-riage road, serving as a private approach to the garden front, and forming, at the same time, part of a drive through the estate ; /, carriage road to the museum j g, walks leading to the flower-garden, h ; i, stable court ; k, back entrance to the hot-houses ; I, m, walk connecting the kitchen with the stable court ; n, walk descending a steep bank, forming a private entrance to the museum ; o, sloping surface, forming part of the park ; and p, steep wooded banks, connecting the park with rising hills. 1916. Construction. All the walls may be of brick, covered with cement, and the roof may be covered with Italian or Grecian tiles. The building may be rendered fire- proof by brick arches, abutting on cast-iron girders ; or by joists of timber, with floors of large slates or tiles laid in cement, and covered with mastic (a cement fonned of powdered stone, mixed with oxide of lead and oils) ; the slates or mastic may be painted either in imitation of mosaic pavement, of oak or other timber, or of carpetino'. In Italy,, fire-proof floors are often formed of what is called composto (composition), in the foUowing manner : — The joists of the floor are first covered with coarse boards, and afterwards with a layer of straw, though the boards are frequently omitted, more espe- cially when reeds can be substituted for the straw. .On the straw is spread a layer of common mortar, and on this a stratum of from one to three inches in thickness of ter- razza (terrass, a compound of powdered brick and lime). The terrass is well beaten • afterwards rolled smooth with a heav' roller, and, finally, polished with sandstone. A'hen it is desired to imitate a marble floor, fragments of marble of different colours, and all reduced to equal sizes, that is, about the sixteenth of an inch in diameter, are spread on the terrass before it is dry, in regular patterns, by the same process as that employed in stencOling, and these are first beaten down, afterwards rolled, next polished, and finally lines are drawn round the different forms, and filled in with lampblack and oil. The residt, when properly done, is a very successful imitation of different-coloured 1655 1657 marbles. Such floors are common in Genoa and Venice. (See Quatremere de Quincy Dictionnaire Historique d' Architecture, ait. Composto ; and Bffrgms, Traitd Elementairedc