Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 3.djvu/400

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He determined to occupy all the space to be found between the canal of the slaughter-houses of the Rialto and the smaller canal of the corn magazines, taking all the ground between the two in such a manner as to form a perfect square. He proposed, that is to say, that the length to be given to the entire front of the edifice should be equal to the space which we now find in walking from the debouchure of one of these waters into the G-rand Canal to that of the other: and furthermore, he proposed that these two streams should be furnished with an outlet on the other side, by means of a canal common to both, and by which each could pass into the other: by this means the new building would stand entirely surrounded by water, having the Grand Canal on one side, the two smaller canals before-mentioned on two others, and the new one that was to be made on the fourth.

It was also the intention of Fra Giocondo that between the water and the edifice, entirely around the whole square that is, there should be formed, or should remain a tolerably broad shore or quay, to be used as a market, wherein might be sold, in their due localities, the vegetables, fruits, fish, and other merchandize which were brought from various quarters to the city. Fra Giocondo was also of opinion that shops exclusively serving for the sale of eatables should be constructed around the exterior of the square, and looking into the piazza, and in all the four sides of the square he proposed to have four principal entrances, one placed in the the centre of each side that is to say, and immediately opposite each other. But before attaining to the central piazza, at the entrance, by whichsoever side it was made, there would thus have been found a street, both to the right hand and to the left, the which, running entirely around the square, presented shops on each side of it, with fine workshops above them, and magazines for the use of the said shops, all of which were to be devoted to the traders in woven fabrics or drapery; cloths of fine wool that is to say, or of silk, which are both among the principal manufacturing arts practised in that city: here, in short, were to be established all those shops called the Tuscans’ and silk dealers’.

From these double ranges of shops, which were to have their outlets by the four principal gates, the spectator was to enter upon the centre of the building, into a very large piazza