Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/190

 162 Sloan's Architectural Review and Builders' Journal. [Sept., try ; but to little avail, for they are ex- taut, drawn and explained by himself, in the second and third books of his "Architecture." His preface shows him to have been both genial and patriotic — equally proud of Vicenza, as Vicenza of him — for he speaks of his native place, as a city " which, though not very extensive, is " sufficiently rich ; and full of inhabi- tants of the brightest capacities;" and mentions by name, ' his preceptor, John George Trissino, and quite a num- ber of other distinguished Vicentines, as scientific noblemen, gentlemen, paint- ers, poets, architects, and universal scholars. He flourished, in action, through rather more than two-fifths of the sixteenth century ; and died in the year 1580. Not impossibly there yet remain — amongst the vast stores of inedited manuscripts, in the public and private libraries of Italy — some unpublished drawings and writings of this grand old Vicenzan. If so, may they soon ap- pear, for both the literary and the ar- chitectural worlds would hail them with unwonted zest. "~The Palladian, then, with its con- gener, the Soanean — and its legitimate derivatives, the Anglo-Italian, and the Americo- Italian — along with the Italian as modified by the climatic exigencies of all countries, wherein any consider- able part of domestic life passes with wide-flung doors and raised sashes, or in the open ah - — must predominate in modern architecture. As adapted to palaces, or public buildings, the Palladian proper is dis- tinguished throughout most of its greater forms by its adherence to Greek principles. The important lines of the edifice strike horizontally ; the columns and pilasters are light and graceful and conform to settled orders ; the colonnades are roofed on lintels, instead of arches ; the doors and windows are parallelo- grams with conformable mouldings ; or, if the.y have pediments, these are either of a very obtuse angle or of a low arc ; the roofs are low and hidden by the pediments and statue-bases, pedestals, or acroteria of the facades and the balustrades of the eaves, so that neither roofs nor gutters are perceptible from any position below the apex of the pile ; and thus squareness, with its attendant power, is preserved in composition. Classic statues adorn the prominent points of the roof and also of the at- tached approaches and covered galleries. The chief apartments are on the second floor, thus admitting magnificent ap- proaches, in ample stairways and land- ings ; and allowing different chaste methods of presenting the ashlar of the lower story. The ground floor contains the more important apartments for rou- tine business. The lesser offices are in separate buildings, connected with the pile itself by low-covered galleries, with, it may be, an additional promenade upon the roofs. The chief Roman fea- ture, the dome, whether depressed or exalted, is kept elliptical, in its upward sweep from the cornice of the tholobate, and is often terminated by a colonnaded lantern with a dome roof; the general ornamentation, neat, severe and perma- nent, is not extraneous, but grows im- mediately from the subject. Solidly based and heavy stone balustrades, with vases, statues and heraldic figures, well- flagged pavements and classic fountains, diversify the greensward and the shrub- bery of the grounds. In favorable situ- ations, successive parterred terraces carry the downward slope fairly to the edges of the sharp and deep declivity ; miradors and belvideres afford the in- mates every facility for enjoying the prospect; and euhance the external charms of the place. In the case of a villa, or of a country mansion, as many of these points are preserved as comport with the wealth, dignity and taste of the owner. This style admits of balconies, either supported upon the earth, through pil- lars or pilasters, or from the building,