Andrea Palladio · The Second Book
Chapter I. Of the decorum or conveniency that ought to be observed in private fabricks
I HAVE explained in the foregoing book all those things, that to me seemed most worthy of consideration for the building of public edifices, and private houses, that the work might be beautiful, graceful and durable: I have there also mentioned some things belonging to the conveniency of private houses, to which this other book shall chiefly be applied: for that house only ought to be called convenient, which is suitable to the quality of him that is to dwell in it, and whose parts correspond to the whole and to each other.
But the architect ought above all to observe, that (as VITRUVIUS says in the first and sixth book) for great men, and particularly those in a republic, the houses are required with loggia’s and spacious halls adorned, that in such places those may be amused with pleasure, who (hall wait for the master to salute, or ask him some favour: and for gentlemen of a meaner station, the fabricks ought also to be less, of less expence, and have fewer ornaments. For judges and advocates, they ought likewise to be so built, that in their houses there may be handsome and well adorned places to walk in, that their clients may remain there without inconvenience.
Merchants houses ought to have places facing the north, where their merchandizes may be lodged; and to be so disposed, that the master may not be in fear of thieves.
Decorum is also to be observed in regard to the work, if the parts so answer to the whole, as that in great edifices there may be great members, in the little, small, and mid-ding in the middle-sized: for what a disagreeable and unseemly thing wou'd it be, if in a very large fabric there should be fall halls and rooms; and, on the contrary, in a little one, there should be two or three rooms that took up the whole.
As much as possible, one ought therefore, as has been said, to have a regard to those who are inclined to build; and not so much to mind what they can afford to lay out as the quality of the building that is proper for them: when that is settled, the parts are to be so disposed, that they may be suitable to the whole, and to each other, and such ornaments are tobe applied as shall seem most proper. But an architect is very often obliged, to conform more to the will of those who are at the expence, than to that which ought to be observed.
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: i i 28 SECOND B O OK.
Public-domain text (London, published by Isaac Ware, 1738). Read from the Internet Archive’s scan (gri_33125011569684) of the copy in the Getty Research Institute, by way of Wikimedia Commons, where it is marked public domain. That scan’s text layer had lost the ends of the lines on every left-hand page, so the pages were read again from the scan’s images, the two readings compared word by word, and the text cleaned: the long s (ſ) is printed s and the ct and st ligatures as plain letters, words broken at the ends of lines are joined, and running heads, page numbers, signatures and catchwords are removed. Ware’s spelling, capitals and punctuation are otherwise kept (shew, publick, antient, compleat). Chapter titles and words the OCR misread were corrected against the page images. Some misreadings will remain, most of them in the italic prefaces and the Latin of Book III. Ware’s dedication, the list of subscribers, his table of terms, the errata and the bookseller’s advertisement are not reproduced. Nor are the 212 engraved plates, their inscriptions, or the keys to the letters on them that Ware prints in the text: where Palladio writes “as in the design” the figure is in the printed book.