Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/53

Rh which would be stunted and clumsy; lie therefore determined to turn small arches over the angles from one ressault to the other, showing that there was wanting in him that soundness of judgment in design, which, as is clearly evident, can only be the result of practice added to knowledge; each must be aided by the other, for the judgment can never become perfect unless the knowledge acquired be carried into operation, and the guidance of experience be attained by means of practice.

It is said that the same architect produced the design for the palace and gardens erected by the Rucellai family in the Via della Scala, ' an edifice constructed with much judgment, and which is therefore exceedingly commodious. Besides many other convenient arrangements, there are two galleries or loggie, one towards the south, the other to the west, both very beautiful, and raised upon the columns without arches; which method is the true and proper one, according to the ancients, because the architraves, which are placed immediately upon the capitals of the columns, stand level, while a rectangular body, such as is the arch turned into a vault in the upper part, cannot stand on a round column, without having the angles out of square or awry; this considered, the best mode of construction requires that the architraves should be placed upon the columns, or that, when it is resolved to construct arches, the master should employ pillars instead of columns.

For the same family of Rucellai, and in a similar manner, Leon Batista erected a chapel in the church of San Brancazio, which rests on large architraves, supported on the side where the wall of the church opens into the chapel by two columns and two pilasters. This is a very difficult mode of proceeding, but gives great security, and is accordingly among the best works produced by this architect. In the centre of this chapel.is an oblong tomb in marble of an oval form, and similar, according to an inscription engraved on the tomb itself, to the sepulchre of Christ at Jerusalem.