Chapter VI. Of the Corinthian Atrio

THE following fabrick is of the convent de la Caria where are regular canons at Venice. Plate I have endeavoured to make this house like those of the antients; and therefore I have made a Corinthian Atrio to it, whose length is the diagonal line of the square of its breadth. The wings are one part of three and a half, or two sevenths of its length. The columns are of the Composite order, three foot and a half thick, and five and thirty foot long. The uncovered part in the middle is the third part of the breadth of the Atrio. Over the columns there is an uncovered terrace level with the floors of the third order of the cloister where the Friar's cells are. The sacristy is on one side near the Atrio, compassed with a Dorick cornice, which supports the vaults. The columns there seen, support that part of the wall in the cloister, which in the part above, divides the chambers or cells from the loggia's. This sacristy serves for a tablino (so they called the place where they lodged the images of their ancestors) tho’ for conveniency, I have placed it on one side of the Atrio. On the other side is the place for the chapter, which answers to the sacristy. In the part near the church there is an oval stair-case, void in the middle, which is very convenient and pleasant. From the Atrio one enters into the cloister, which has three orders of columns, one over the other. The first is Dorick, and the columns project from the pilasters more than one half. The second is Ionick; the columns are one fifth part less than those of the first. The third is Corinthian, and the columns are a fifth part less than those of the second. In this order, instead of pilasters, there is the continued wall; and directly over the arches of the inferior orders, there are windows which give light to the entrance into the cells, the vaults of which are made with reeds, that they may not overcharge the walls, Opposite to the Atrio and cloister, beyond the stairs, one finds the refedtory, which is two squares long, and as high as the floor of the third order of the cloister: It has loggia on each side, and underneath cellar made in the same manner as cisterns are, that the water may not get in. At one end it has the kitchen, ovens, a yard for poultry, a place for wood, a place to wall: clothes in, and a very agreeable garden; and at the other end, other kind of places.

There are in this fabrick, besides places for strangers, and others that serve for different purposes, forty four rooms, and forty six cells, Or the designs that follow, the first is of part of this Atrio in a larger form, and the second Plate of part of the cloister,