Page:Vitruvius the Ten Books on Architecture.djvu/210

174 barbarians, and by her strength of hand thwarts the devices of the southerners. Hence, it was the divine intelligence that set the city of the Roman people in a peerless and temperate coun­try, in order that it might acquire the right to command the whole world.

12. Now if it is a fact that countries differ from one another, and are of various classes according to climate, so that the very nations born therein naturally differ in mental and physical con­formation and qualities, we cannot hesitate to make our houses suitable in plan to the peculiarities of nations and races, since we have the expert guidance of nature herself ready to our hand.

I have now set forth the peculiar characteristics of localities, so far as I could note them, in the most summary way, and have stated how we ought to make our houses conform to the physical qualities of nations, with due regard to the course of the sun and to climate. Next I shall treat the symmetrical proportions of the different styles of houses, both as wholes and in then­separate parts.

1. There is nothing to which an architect should devote more thought than to the exact proportions of his building with refer­ence to a certain part selected as the standard. After the stand­ard of symmetry has been determined, and the proportionate di­mensions adjusted by calculations, it is next the part of wisdom to consider the nature of the site, or questions of use or beauty, and modify the plan by diminutions or additions in such a man­ner that these diminutions or additions in the symmetrical rela­tions may be seen to be made on correct principles, and without detracting at all from the effect.

2. The look of a building when seen close at hand is one thing, on a height it is another, not the same in an enclosed place, still