Andrea Palladio · The Second Book
Chapter VII. Of the Atrio Testugginato, and of the private houses of the antient Romans
BESIDES the abovesaid different manners of Atrio’s, there was another very much in use among the antients, by them called Testugginato: and because this part is very difficult, from the obscurity of Vitruvius, and worthy of a particular regard, I shall mention what I think of it, adjoining thereto the disposition of the Oeci, or small halls, Cancellarie, Tinelli, baths, and other places; so that in the following design there will be all the parts of Plate the private bouse set in their proper places according to Vitruvius. The Atrio is as long as the diagonal of the square of the breadth, and as high as it is broad, up to the limitary beam. The rooms on the side thereof, are six foot less in height; and upon the walls, which divide them from the Atrio, there are some pilasters that support the Testudine, or covering of the Atrio; and through the distances between them it receives light; and the rooms have an open terrace over them. Opposite to the entrance is the Tablino, which is one part of two and a half, or two fifths of the breadth of the Atrio; and those places served, as I before said, to place the images and statues of their ancestors in, Farther cz, is the Peristilio, which has portico’s round it, as broad as the columns are long. The rooms are of the same breadth, and are as high to the impost of the vaults as they are broad, and the vaults are in height a third part of the breadth.
Several sorts of Oeci are described by Vitruvius (it was these halls, or Salotte, in which they made their festivals and entertainments, and where the women worked) that is, Tetrastili; so called, because there were four columns; the Corinthian, which had semi-columns round them; the Egyptian, which over the first columns were inclosed with a wall with semi-columns directly over the first, and one fourth part less. In the inter-columne-tion there were windows, from which the part in the middle received light, The height of the loggia's that were round them, did not pass the first columns, and over that it was uncovered, and encompass'd with a corridor or balcony. ‘The designs of each of these shall be separately set down. The square Oeci were places to be in the cool in the summer: and looked upon gardens and other green places. There were also other Oeci made, which they called Ciziceni, which also proved for the conveniencies abovesaid. The Cancellarie,
y) p and libraries were in proper places towards the east; and also the Triclini, which were places where they did eat. There were also baths for the men and women, which I have designed in the farthest part of the house.
B, Tablino. G, places for summer. Plate 25. The following design is of this same Atrio in a larger form.
D, Atrio. L, rooms round the Atrio.
F, door of the Tablino. N, beam of limitation, or frize of the H, portico of the Cortile. O, part of the Corinthian hall. 1, Loggia before the Atrio, P, uncovered place, over which the light
K, Cortile. comes into the Atrio.
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.