67. Vasari gives a notice of Giovanni da Nola, whose surname was Merliano, in the Lives of Alfonso Lombardi and other sculptors. See Opere, ed. Milanesi, V, 94 f. He there describes the tomb mentioned above, which was to have been transported to Spain, but owing to the death of the viceroy, Don Pietro, Marquis of Villafranca, it has remained in S. Giacomo at Naples.
68. Some of the tools of sculptors and masons referred to by Vasari are shown in Fig. 2, E-J, above.
69. A worker in stones at Settignano knew of drills of the weight of about twelve pounds each, and thought twenty pounds conceivable, for very large work.
70. Vasari seems to refer to the common greyish marble popularly called ‘Sicilian.’ There are finer kinds of veined marble called ‘fioriti,’ ‘flowered,’ including ‘marmi fioriti’ and ‘bardigli fioriti,’ the last in two shades of grey.
71. i.e., the breccias noticed in § 5.
72. ‘Cipollino’ marble, a very familiar material, receives its name from ‘cipolla,’ an onion, but there is a curious divergence of opinion as to the reason of the appellation. (1) The onion colour the marble shows in many specimens; (2) the onion-like shape of the large bossy markings which occur in the marble; (3) the fact that it is disposed to scale away under the influence of the weather like the coats of an onion; and (4) the concentric curves in which the edges of these coats are seen to lie in a section across the grain, have all been adduced as explanatory of the name. Herrmann in his Steinbruchindustrie, Berlin, 1899, p. 68, pronounces for the third, and this is also the opinion of Corsi, who says, Pietre Antiche, p. 97, ‘gli scarpellini lo conoscono sotto il nome di cipollino, per la ragione che, trovandosi fra la sostanza calcare di tel marmo lunghi e spessi strati di mica, facilmente su tali strati si divide a somiglianza della cipolla.’ Zirkel however, in his Lehrbuch der Petrographie, Leipzig, 1894, III, 452, pronounces for the fourth, which seems on the whole the one to be preferred. There are two cipollino columns standing in the Roman Forum a little to the east of the temple of Antoninus and Faustina, famous for its monoliths of this same marble, that in the concentric wavy lines marking the alternate layers in the stone remind us curiously of an onion cut in half. See for a specimen H on the Frontispiece.
73. Vasari explains the name ‘saligno’ as ‘salt-like.’ The term is not recognized at Carrara, nor in the Florentine manufactory of Mosaics.
74. The term ‘campanino’ for a kind of marble is not known now in the Carrara district.
75. About 10 miles south east of Carrara.
76. Near Pietrasanta in the Apuan Alps.
77. On the promontory of Piombino, opposite Elba.
78. In the so-called Pisan Mountains between Pisa and Lucca. For these places and their quarries see Note on ‘Tuscan Marble Quarries,’ postea, p. 119 f.
79. See Note, as above, especially p. 126.
80. There are great quarries of this stone below Tivoli near the course of the ancient Anio, now Teverone. The station Bagni on the Roma-Tivoli railway is close to them. Those near the place called Barco were exploited by the ancient Romans, while Bernini derived the stone for the colonnades in front of St. Peter’s from the quarries called ‘Le Fosse,’ a little to the north of the former. Vitruvius, De Arch., II, vii, 2, writes of the ‘Tiburtina saxa’ as resisting all destructive agencies save that of fire, and the remark is repeated by Pliny, Hist. Nat., XXXVI, 22. Vasari’s account of its origin is correct. It is a deposit of lime in water, and the cavities in it are partly caused by plants, moss, etc., round which the deposit has formed itself and which of course have long ago decayed away. See O on the Frontispiece. The stone did not come into use at Rome until about the last century of the Republic, and it was not, like peperino, one of the old traditional building materials.
81. Vasari evidently refers to the remains of the Templum Sacrae Urbis behind the present church of Ss. Cosma e Damiano, to which was affixed the ancient ‘Capitoline’ plan of Rome.
82. See the remarks on Rusticated masonry in § 20, and Notes, postea, pp. 65 and 132.
83. On the ‘round temple,’ and its designer, ‘Maestro Gian,’ see Note on the subject, postea, p. 128 f.
84. S. Luigi dei Francesi is the national church of the French, and is situated close to the Palazzo Madama, the meeting place of the Italian Senate, near the Piazza Navona. The present edifice was built by Giacomo della Porta and consecrated in 1589. See Note, postea, p. 128 f.
85. For which it offers in the cavities above spoken of an excellent key.
86. Traces of these stucco decorations are still to be seen in the public entrance to the Colosseum next the Esquiline. They are said to have been taken as models by some of the plaster-workers of the Renaissance. See Vasari’s Life of Giovanni da Udine, Opere, VI, 553.
87. This is the so-called ‘Sala Regia’ which serves as a vestibule to the Sistine Chapel. Sixtus IV planned it and San Gallo enlarged it and began the adornment of the vault with plaster work, which was carried on afterwards by Perino del Vaga and Daniele da Volterra (Pistolesi, Il Vaticano Descritto, VIII, 89). It is the most richly decorated of all the Vatican apartments, but is florid and overladen. The stucco enrichment of the roof is heavy, and the figures in the same material by Daniele da Volterra that are sprawling on the tops of the doorways and on the cornices are of the extravagant later Renaissance type. The contrast between this showy hall and the exquisitely treated Appartamento Borgia of earlier date is very marked.
88. The Farnese Palace is in the main the work of Antonio da San Gallo, the younger, who at his death in 1546 had carried up the façade nearly to the cornice and completed the ground story and half the second story of the cortile. Michelangelo finished the second or middle story of the cortile, as far as the architecture went, according to San Gallo’s design, and added the third story from his own. His are also the enrichments of the frieze of the second order in the cortile, and he has the chief credit for the noble external cornice, of which Vasari writes in this section. It is now rather the fashion to criticize severely Michelangelo’s architectural forms, and G. Clausse, Les San Gallo, Paris, 1901, condemns his third story of the cortile and says of his frieze (p. 85), ‘Michelange fit ajouter dans la frise ces guirlandes et ces mascarons en stuc qui enlèvent à ce beau portique le caractère de grandeur simple et d’harmonieuse majesté dû à ses proportions mêmes.’ It will not escape notice that Vasari regards these ornaments as not in stucco but in the travertine itself. On the question thus raised Monseigneur Duchesne, the distinguished Director of the French School at Rome which is housed in the Farnese, has had the kindness in reply to our inquiry to say that so far as can be ascertained without the use of scaffolding the ornaments of the frieze are in stucco, with the exception of the Fleur-de-lys which occur in the position of key-stones above the centre of each window arch. These are in travertine, as are the ornaments (trophies of arms etc.) carved on the metopes of the frieze of the order of the ground story in the cortile. The point has some interest in connection with the travertine carvings by the French artist at S. Luigi dei Francesi (see postea, p. 131), and the suggestion of M. Marcel Reymond (loc. cit.) that the Italians of the first half of the fifteenth century were not accustomed, as the French were, to execute decorative carvings in soft stone.
89. The exterior of St. Peter’s is built of travertine, and a walk round it gives an opportunity for a study of the fine effect of the stone when used on a vast scale. The details of construction in the interior, which are lauded by Vasari, are now concealed under the decoration that covers all the interior surfaces.
90. Lavagna is on the coast about half way between Genoa and Spezzia. The slate of the district is pronounced by Mr Brindley to be of poor quality and liable to bleach to a dirty ochre colour like that of brown paper. In the Official Catalogue of the Italian section of the International Exhibition of 1862 it is stated that in modern times also ‘large jars or reservoirs for containing oil, made of this slate, are employed in Liguria, as well as in the principal maritime dépôts of the oil trade.’
91. Peperino is a volcanic product in origin quite distinct from travertine. It consists of ashes and fragments of different materials compacted together and is called ‘pepper stone’ from the black grains that occur in it. It was one of the two old traditional building stones at Rome before the introduction of travertine from the quarries by Tibur, the other being the coarser and commoner tufa of which the wall of Servius Tullius was built. The most interesting monument in the material is the sarcophagus of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus in the Vatican, dating from the third century B.C. A characteristic piece, with the black ‘pepper’ marks, is shown as Q on the Frontispiece.
92. Istrian stone is a fine-grained limestone of a warm yellowish grey tint; it is capable of taking a polish, and is obtainable in large pieces. It is broken at various points of the coast from Merlera near Pola to the island of Lesina off the coast by Spalato, and was largely used in the buildings of Venice, and generally in north-eastern Italy. A considerable amount has been recently employed in the monumental buildings of the Ring at Vienna. See L on the Frontispiece.
93. ‘The Doric edifice of the Panattiera’ sounds a very curious description of Sansovino’s famous and magnificent Library of S. Marco, the finest late Renaissance building in Italy, but this seems to be what Vasari had in his mind. Dr Robertson of Venice has been kind enough to explain in a letter the history of the site which he has ascertained from the archives. The ground where the Library now stands was occupied up to 1537 by a government grain and bread store, the ‘Panattiera’ (or more properly ‘Panatteria’). The shops for the sale of bread were then removed and grouped round the base of the Campanile, where they were replaced a little later by Sansovino’s Loggetta. Vasari visited Venice in 1542, and at that time if the shops and store had themselves been removed their name would still cling to the place and explain his words. We should hardly call the Library a ‘Doric edifice,’ as only the lower Order is ‘Doric,’ but we must remember that it was only this lower Order that would be completed at the date of Vasari’s visit.
94. The Tuscan Zecca. The original Zecca or mint was at the Rialto, and it was afterwards transferred to the Piazzetta, where Sansovino in 1535 erected for it the present edifice, in the rusticated or Tuscan style. The situation of it is between the Library and the quay. The façade shows an arcaded lowest story in rusticated masonry, with two stories above, one in the Doric the other in the Ionic Order, and the columns in both cases are themselves rusticated; that is to say they have projecting horizontal courses of stone that appear to mark them with a series of bands or bars.
95. ‘Macigno’ is a green grey sandstone of the lower tertiary formation in Italy.
96. Pietra Serena is a very fine sedimentary sandstone, and Vasari does not say too much in its praise. Baldinucci in his Vocabolario repeats much of what Vasari has said, but mentions also a ‘pietra bigia’ or grey stone, which lies outside the ‘serena,’ and is inferior to it.
The quarries of pietra serena are abundant along the southern slopes of Monte Ceceri, to the south east of Fiesole, overhanging Majano. The blue colour Vasari ascribes to it is the cause of its name, the epithet ‘sereno’ being specially applicable to the clear blue sky. See G on the Frontispiece. Vasari’s account of the stones dealt with in §§ 16, 17, is not very clear, as he returns to the epithet ‘serena’ at the close of § 16 for a stone that he makes to differ essentially from the ‘serena’ of the beginning of the section in that it is weather-resisting. Cellini in his second Treatise, Della Scultura, ed. Milanesi, 1893, p. 201, is clearer. He distinguishes three kinds, (1) ‘pietra serena,’ azure in hue and only good for work in interiors; (2) a stone of a brownish hue (tanè) that he calls ‘pietra morta.’ The lexicographers fight shy of this term, but it seems to mean a stone without any lime in it and therefore unchangeable by the action of fire, while a limestone would be ‘pietra viva.’ See Cellini, loc. cit., p. 187. This is suitable for figure carving, and it resists ‘wind and rain and all violence of the weather.’ It is evidently the stone Vasari writes of as the material of Donatello’s ‘Dovizia.’ (3) The third kind is the pietra forte, also brownish in hue, and useful for decorative carvings on exteriors. Cellini notes as Vasari does that it is only found in small pieces.
97. Pietra del fossato. Signor Cellerini, of the Opera del Duomo, Florence, says that the name ‘pietra del fossataccio’ is still used among practical stone workers. It is stone gained by excavation.
98. The colour of the stone in the Library and New Sacristy of S. Lorenzo is a brownish grey rather than ‘bluish.’ It tells as warm in hue against the white walls, which are of marble in the Sacristy and in the Library of plaster.
99. Dr A. Gherardi, Director of the State Archives at Florence, has been so kind as to make researches in the documents under his charge for the purpose of discovering Vasari’s authority for this statement. These investigations have so far however proved without result. Among the ‘Leggi e Bandi’ of the sixteenth century in Tuscany collected by Cantini in the first volume of his Legislazione Toscana there are various regulations about trades, prohibitions against cutting timber on the hills, measures facilitating the import of building materials into certain localities, and the like, which show that an edict such as Vasari refers to was quite possible in the early days of the Grand Ducal régime. The nearest approach to it that we have been able to discover are certain edicts of the end of the sixteenth century, published by Mariotti, La Legislazione delle Belle Arti, Roma, 1892, p. 246 f., that prohibit the exportation from the state of ‘pietre mischie dure’ (agates, jaspers, and the like) of which the Grand Duke had need for a certain chapel he was building, evidently the ‘Cappella dei Principi’ at S. Lorenzo.
100. This is of course the well known ‘Uffizi,’ erected by Vasari between 1560 and 1574 for the accommodation of various state departments. The expression ‘strada’ or ‘street’ has reference to the scheme of the building, which is erected along the two sides and one end of a very elongated, and indeed street-like, court, from which the various entrances into the building open. In documents relating to its construction it is sometimes referred to as ‘Via dei Magistrati.’ A little later Vasari gives an interesting note on the scheme of construction he employed in the lower order of the edifice. See postea, p. 72 f.
101. The Mercato Vecchio at Florence was an open square that occupied the northern portion of the site now covered by the new Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele. On the side next the Via Calimara a granite column was erected in 1431, and on this column was set up the statue by Donatello representing ‘Abundance’ (‘Dovizia’). This stood till October 20, 1721, when in consequence of damage due to time and exposure it fell to the ground and was dashed into pieces. In the following year, 1722, Giov. Batt. Foggini carved another figure representing the same allegorical personage, and this remained till our own time; and may be seen in situ in one of Alinari’s photographs. It is now in the museum of S. Marco with other fragments from the demolitions in the ‘Centro.’ See Guido Carocci, Il Mercato Vecchio di Firenze, Firenze, 1884.
102. On ‘Pietra Forte,’ the Official Catalogue of the Italian Section of the International Exhibition of 1862 reports, p. 62, as follows. ‘The rock called Pietraforte ... is very largely used in Florence; it is very durable, as may be seen in the older palaces of the city. In composition it is an arenaceous limestone, which is very hard and unalterable, as its name implies.’ It has been extensively quarried by Fiesole and to the north of Majano, and Monte Ripaldi, above the valley of the Ema to the south of Florence, furnishes large supplies of it. See M, N, on the Frontispiece.
103. The blocks used for the façade of the Pitti have been remarked on for their great size, one of them, an exceptional one it is true, measures 28 ft. in length.
104. On this use of the word ‘Goth’ or ‘Gothic’ in the sense of ‘mediaeval,’ see Note on ‘Vasari’s Opinion on Mediaeval Architecture,’ postea, p. 133 f.
105. Or San Michele, as every visitor to Florence knows, is the church occupying the lower story of a lofty building in the Via Calzaiuoli. Constructively speaking the upper part is supported on the ground story by piers between which are round headed arches, three on the north and south sides and two on the east and west. The heads of these are in every case filled with florid late Gothic tracery with intersecting arches and rich cusping, and on all sides but the west the openings below the heads are walled in. On the west the arches contain the doorways of entrance, and the tracery above the doors, about which Vasari is writing, is richer than on the other sides of the building. It is curious to find Vasari calling this work ‘truly admirable,’ whereas a page or two later we shall find him inveighing against the ‘Goths’ (the mediaeval builders) and all their works and ways.
106. Coats of arms. These ‘stemmi,’ as they are often called, are very familiar objects on the exterior of Tuscan palaces, and the arms of the Medici, six round balls or pellets, are constantly in evidence. In the view of the Fortress in Fig. 3 a ‘stemma’ of the Medici is to be seen displayed on the face of the wall. It is referred to by Vasari, Opere, ed. Milanesi, IV, 544. Mariotti, La Legislazione delle Belle Arti, Roma, 1892, p. 245, has printed an interesting edict of the year 1571, in Tuscany, designed to protect these memorials of the ancient Florentine families. The memory of those who built the houses, it says, ‘is preserved and perpetuated by their Arms, Insignia, Titles, Inscriptions, which are affixed or painted or carved or suspended over the doors, arches, windows, projecting angles or other places where they are conspicuously to be seen,’ and the edict, re-enacting older regulations, reminds the citizens that no one who purchases or becomes possessed of an old house on which there are insignia of the kind is allowed to remove or in any way deface them. No new owner is to presume to add his own arms or other memorial by the side of the old ones of the founder and constructor of the house. Only in cases where these are absent may the new owner put up his own insignia. This regulation shows a historical sense and a care for the tangible memorials of a city’s past which have been too often lacking in more modern times. No doubt it is due to its enforcement that so many of these ‘stemmi’ are left to add interest to the somewhat modernized streets of the Florence of to-day.
107. ‘In the times of the Goths;’ ‘German work.’ See Note on ‘Vasari’s Opinion on Mediaeval Architecture,’ postea, p. 133 f.
108. It will be seen that in this section Vasari combines two quite distinct things, the so-called ‘Tuscan,’ or as he calls it, the ‘Rustic’ Order, and rusticated masonry, which has nothing to do with the Orders of Architecture, but is a method of treating wall-surfaces. On this see the Note on ‘Rusticated Masonry,’ postea, p. 132. The reason why the ‘Tuscan’ is called the ‘Rustic’ Order, is that, being the simplest and, so to say, rudest of the Orders, it is most suitably employed in connection with walling of a rough and bossy appearance. The shafts of columns are sometimes rusticated to correspond with the walling, as at the Venetian ‘Zecca,’ mentioned ante, p. 56, but the expedient is of doubtful advantage, as the clear upright appearance of the column is thereby sacrificed.
109. Vasari says here that the ‘Rustic’ or Tuscan column is six ‘heads’ high. What does he mean by this? There is evidently in his mind the familiar comparison of different columns to human figures of different proportions, a conceit found in Vitruvius (IV, i, 6 f.) and in writers of the Renaissance (see Alberti, De Re Aedificatoria, Lib. IX, c. 7), and so he measures by ‘heads,’ which would apply to a figure but not to a column. ‘Testa,’ ‘head,’ cannot, as the context shows, mean the height of the capital of the column. It really means here the lower diameter of the column. It is this lower diameter (or sometimes half the lower diameter) that is the normal unit of measurement for the proportions of a column. Thus the height of the Tuscan column is given by Vitruvius and by Palladio and other moderns as six times the lower diameter. Though ‘head’ may seem a very curious word with which to describe this, there is no doubt that such is the meaning of it. Alberti, in his tract on the Orders and their proportions, uses the lower diameter as his measure but applies to it this very term ‘testa.’ There is a certain letter from Vasari to Duke Cosimo that deals with the measurements of a column of granite presented to him by the Pope and afterwards conveyed from Rome and set up in the Piazza di S. Trinità, where it carries the porphyry statue by Francesco del Tadda (postea, p. 111). Vasari gives the diameter of the ‘head’ of this column, but notes afterwards that the shaft diminishes from the ‘head’ upwards towards the necking (collarino). Hence there is no doubt about the interpretation of the word in question. See the letter in Opere, ed. Milanesi, VIII, 352.
110. The Citadel of Florence. This is not the ‘Belvedere’ fortress on the hill behind the Palazzo Pitti, but the so-called ‘Fortezza da Basso’ to the north of the town, now used as barracks, which the railway skirts just before entering the station near S. Maria Novella. It dates from 1534, and was built by Alessandro dei Medici with the intention of overawing the citizens. It occupied the site of the Faenza gate, and was partly within and partly outside the enceinte of the city. The ‘principal façade’ of which Vasari writes, is still well preserved in the middle of the southern face, opposite the town, and a sketch of it is shown in Fig. 3, but nothing else of interest is said to remain from the Renaissance period.
The masonry of the façade is an excellent example of elaborate rustication, and is very carefully executed in pietra forte. The illustration, Fig. 4, bears out Vasari’s description, and exhibits in alternation round bosses 18 in. in diameter and 4 in. in salience, and oblong diamonds about 3 ft. by 1 ft. 6 in. There are worked borders about 1 in. in width round all the lines of juncture, and the scheme is worth noticing.
111. Vitruvius in his first book (I, ii, 5) gives directions as to the Orders suitable for temples to different deities. Thus Minerva, Mars, and Hercules are to have temples in the Doric style, etc.; while in the eighteenth century Sir William Chambers, transferring the same idea to modern times, says that Doric ‘may be employed in the houses of generals, or other martial men, in mausoleums erected to their memory, or in triumphal bridges and arches built to celebrate their victories.’ The modern architect is disposed to smile at these restrictions, but there underlies them a sound appreciation of the aesthetic significance of architectural forms.
113. The construction described by Vasari is evidently of the kind indicated in the accompanying drawing, Fig. 5. The pieces of the frieze are joggled one into the other so as to form a flat arch, but the construction is kept to the inner part and the face shows vertical joints between the pieces. As this passage in Vasari seems to have escaped the notice of those interested in Renaissance construction, the existence of the device he describes has remained unsuspected and nothing is known about it at the Uffizi itself. The fact is that Vasari’s system has succeeded in one way too perfectly for his purpose. Everything has remained ‘safe and sound,’ and no one of the architrave beams shows signs of failure, so that no technical examination of the fabric has been called for. On the other hand, neither the artificers nor the world at large seem to have benefitted by Vasari’s kindness, for the books do not notice his device. There is no mention of it even in the huge work on Tuscan Renaissance architecture now just completed under the editorship of Baron Henri de Geymüller, nor in Raschdorff’s Palast-Architectur, nor Durm’s Baukunst der Renaissance, though references to it may possibly occur in older books that have escaped our notice. Joggled lintels forming flat arches are of course common enough. The new Parliament Building at Stockholm shows them conspicuously with the actual joints appearing on the face of the building. Mediaeval and Renaissance fireplaces often have lintels of the kind, as in Coningsburgh Castle, Yorks, and Linlithgow Palace.
114. i.e. width on the soffit, or, as it might be expressed, in depth from the outer face inwards.
115. ‘Sopra la colonna.’ This does not mean strictly the piece vertically above the column, which is the die (dado quadro) already mentioned. It is equivalent to the expression just below ‘sopra le colonne,’ and means simply ‘in the upper part.’ The piece referred to is A, A, in Fig. 5, the ‘pezzo del mezzo’ of the text as quoted below.
116. ‘Cosi si faccia sopra la colonna, che il pezzo del mezzo di detto fregio stringa di dentro, e sia intaccato a quartabuono infino a mezzo; l’altra mezza sia squadrata e diritta e messa a cassetta, perchè stringa a uso d’arco mostrando di fuori essere murata diritta.’ The sense of this sentence seems to be indicated by the drawing Fig. 5. The centre pieces A, A, will slip down into their places and in a fashion key the flat arch. There is the same construction in the cornice, see below.
117. The dimension here implied is not the width on the face from right to left, but the soffit-width, or depth from the outer face inwards. The dies and the cornice-pieces are of the same soffit-width as the architrave, but the frieze pieces are so much narrower as to allow space behind them for a flat arch of brick abutting at each end on that part of the die that exceeds in soffit-width the frieze. See plan, Fig. 5 (4), and section, Fig. 5 (5). The plan is at the level x, y.
118. ‘Sopra il dado del fregio’ see note on ‘Sopra la colonna.’ The middle piece which goes ‘a cassetta,’ i.e. spanning a void, is at the centre of the intercolumniation, not vertically over the die above the column.
119. Fig. 5 (4) and (5) show the nature of the construction across from the façade inwards. The corridor is spanned with a barrel vault that conceals the back of the entablature. It starts from the top of the architrave.
120. For this use of iron ties, which Vasari regards here as normal, see the illustration on p. 25 of Professor Durm’s Baukunst der Renaissance in Italien, in the Handbuch der Architectur, Stuttgart, 1903.
121. The expression is a little awkward, but the meaning evidently is that the pedestal is half as high again as it is wide. There is some doubt whether the clause ‘then above are placed’ to ‘as Vitruvius directs’ refers to the pedestal or the column itself. In the case of all the other Orders Vasari mentions the upper and lower mouldings of the pedestal, and it would be most natural to imagine him doing so here, but the ‘torus and two fillets (bastone e due piani) as Vitruvius directs’ sounds more like the ‘Attic’ base of the column, and the reference to Vitruvius should be conclusive that it is not the pedestal of which there is question, for the good reason that Vitruvius knows nothing of the pedestal under the single column of any of the Orders. Such a feature does occur in classical work, as in the temple at Assisi, but it is not a normal classical form, and architectural purists in modern times reject it. Vitruvius is however again referred to by Vasari in this connection, in § 25, and Giorgio may have in his mind the sentence in Vitruvius, III, iv, 5, in which there is a reference to the mouldings on the continuous podium that serves as the substructure of the Roman temple, and forms one difference between it and the Greek temple. The single pedestal was often used in Renaissance work, and Vasari regards it as a matter of course.
122. The metopes; these are always set back a little behind the face of the triglyphs, which are here termed the projections. The metope offers a suitable field for carved ornaments.
123. Vasari merely has in mind the familiar difference in form between the Doric and Ionic flutes, the former being much shallower than the latter, and not showing the plain strip or fillet which in the Ionic column comes between every two of the flutes.
124. The reference probably is to the portion of the ancient Basilica Aemilia, which in Vasari’s time still stood erect where recent excavations have revealed the plan and part of the architectural members of this famous structure. We must bear in mind that what Vasari and his contemporaries called the ‘Forum Boarium’ was not the part between the Capitol and the Palatine, near the ‘Bocca della Verità’ which was the ancient Cattle Market and now has resumed its antique name, but the Forum proper, which used even in the memory of those now living to be called ‘Campo Vaccino.’ It seems to have derived the name ‘Forum Boarium’ from this very fragment of the Basilica Aemilia which Vasari has in his mind in this passage. The fragment was figured by Giuliano da San Gallo in a drawing in the Barberini Library, which is reproduced in Monumenti dell’ Istituto, XII, T. 11, 12, and from this, by the kind permission of the Imperial German Archaeological Institute, has been taken Fig. 6. The destruction of this most interesting fragment, which stood over against the arch of Septimius Severus, is one of the many almost inconceivable acts of vandalism of which the men of the later Renaissance period were guilty. The richness of which Vasari speaks can be seen in the illustration.
125. Here again Renaissance and modern topographical nomenclature do not agree. What Vasari knew as the ‘Tullianum’ was not the familiar ‘Carcer Mamertinus’ above the Forum on the way up to S. Maria in Araceli, but certain antique structures under the church of S. Nicola in Carcere, near the Piazza Montanara. These were the ‘favissae’ or cells within the structure of the podium or platform of one of several ancient Roman temples on this site, which was formerly the ‘Forum Olitorium.’ These substructures are now accessible, and the worthy sacristan of the church who shows them is still of opinion that he has in charge the prison of the Tullianum. One of the travertine columns of one of these temples is to be seen within the church, and this though Doric is extremely simple, even rude, in its outline. Dr Huelsen has however in a recent paper (Mitteilungen d. k. deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, XXI, 169 f.) shown that this column was originally finished with stucco, in which somewhat elaborate mouldings were worked. It was drawn by several of the Renaissance architects, and Peruzzi notes it as being ‘in carcere Tulliano.’ Huelsen has drawn out a scheme of the mouldings in profile and this is reproduced by permission in Fig. 7. It will be seen that Vasari’s remark about its richness in membering is quite justified.
126. Vasari probably refers to the great Corinthian column which was still to be seen in his time in the interior of the Basilica of Constantine (formerly called the Temple of Peace). The column was placed early in the seventeenth century in the Piazza in front of S. Maria Maggiore, where it is still in evidence.
127. ‘Largo’ is the word in the text, but it must be merely a clerical error for ‘alto.’
130. On Michelangelo’s use of architectural details M. Garnier had some rather severe remarks in the Gazette des Beaux Arts for Jan. 1, 1876. He denied to him an understanding of the grammar of the use of such forms. It is generally admitted that for the details of the Farnese cornice, the fittings and decoration of the Library of S. Lorenzo, and other such works to which his name attaches, he was indebted to professional architects, such as Vignola, whom he employed. We must never forget however that we owe to Michelangelo the dome of St. Peter’s, one of the greatest architectural creations of its kind in the world. In mentioning the ‘siti storti’ (sites that were irregular or out of the straight), Vasari probably had in view the design for laying out the Capitol, which is another of Michelangelo’s acknowledged successes. Here the existing Palazzo dei Conservatori stood somewhat askew and the site was regularized to correspond with the line of its façade. All this about Michelangelo was added for the second edition, after Vasari had himself worked at his master’s staircase at S. Lorenzo.
131. See Note on ‘Vasari’s Opinion on Mediaeval Architecture’ at the close of the ‘Introduction’ to Architecture, postea, p. 133 f. The phrase ‘this manner was the invention of the Goths,’ etc., is historically important as the first introduction into literature of the familiar architectural term ‘Gothic.’
132. Vasari makes no provision for binding together the vault in stucco and that in brick. Each is apparently independent of the other, though they are in contact, and no keys are formed in the upper surface of the stucco for the purpose of tieing it to the brickwork above.
133. This same subject is treated in the sixth chapter of the ‘Introduction’ to Sculpture and the thirteenth of that to Painting. In connection with it see Note on ‘Stucco Grotesques’ at the close of the ‘Introduction’ to Painting, postea, p. 299.
134. The ‘Tuscan work’ referred to here is the same thing as the ‘lavoro chiamato rustico’ of which Vasari writes at the beginning of the third chapter (§ 20). The so-called Tuscan Order was the simplest and heaviest of all, and so most suited for work that partook of the rough and unpolished character of natural rock. For the same reason, as was seen above, ante, p. 65, the Tuscan Order lends itself best to association with bossy or ‘rusticated’ masonry.