Chapter XVI. Of the Villa’s of the antients

I HAVE hitherto put the designs of many fabricks, for villa’s done by my direction. It remains that I shou'd also put the design of a house for a villa, which, as Vitruvius says, the antients used to make; because all the places belonging to the habitation, and to the uses of the villa, may be seen in it exposed to that region of the heaven which is suitable for them. Nor shall I expatiate in referring to what Pliny says upon this subject; because my chief intent at this time, is only to shew how Vitruvius ought to be understood in ‘this place. The principal front is turned to the south, and has a loggia, from which one goes into the Plate kitchen through a passage, which receives its light from above the places adjacent, and has chimney in the middle. On the left there are the stables for oxen, whose mangers are turned to the fire, and to the east. The baths are also on the same part, which, for the rooms that these require, are at a distance from the kitchen, even with the loggia. On the right hand is the press, and other places for the oil, answerable to the places for the baths, and front the east, south, and west. Backwards there are the cellars, which receive their light from the north, and are far from noise, and from the heat of the sun, Over the colors are the granaries, which receive their light from the same part of the heaven. On the right and left part of the court, there are the stables for horses, sheep, and other animals; the hay-lofts, the places for straw, and the bake-houses; all which ought to be far from the fire. Backwards one sees the matter’s habitation, the principal front of which is opposite to the front of the house for the uses of the villa: so that in these houses, built out of the city, the atrio’s were the back part. In this are observed all those considerations of which mention has been made before, when the design of the antient private house was given; and therefore we have now only considered what regards the villa.

I have made the frontispiece in the forefront in all the fabricks for villa’s, and also in some for the city, in which are the principal gates; because such frontispieces shew the entrance of the house, and add very much to the grandeur and magnificence of the work. Besides, the fore-part being thus made more eminent than the rest, is very commodious for placing the ensigns or arms of the owners, which are commonly put in the mid-de of the front. antients also made use of them in their fabricks, as is seen in the remains of the temples, and other publick edifices; from which, as have said in the preface to the first book, it is very likely that they took the invention, and the reasons for private edifices or houses. Vitruvius, in the last chapter of his third book, teaches how they are to be made.