Chapter XIX. Of the antient Basilica’s

FORMERLY those places were called basilica’s, in which the judges fat under cover to administer justice, and where sometimes great and important affairs were debated. Hence we read, that the tribunes of the people caused a column to be taken away, which obstructed their seats, from the Basilica Portia (in which justice was administer'd) that stood near the temple of Romulus and Remus at Rome, and which now is the church of San. Cosmo ¢ Damiano. Of all the antient basilica’s, that of Pavrus Almilius was very much celebrated, and reckoned among the marvels of the city. }It stood between the temple of Saturn and that of Faustina, on which he spent one thousand five hundred talents, given him by Cmsar, which amount, by computation, to about nine hundred thousand crowns. They ought to he made adjoining to the piazze, as was observed in the abovesaid, which were both in the Forum Romanum and facing the warmest region of the heaven, that the merchants, and those that had law-suits, might in wintertime, without being incommoded by the bad weather, go and remain there without inconvenine. They ought not to be made narrower than one third part, nor wider than the half of the length, if the nature of the place does not hinder it, or if one is not compelled to alter the measure of this compartment.

Or this kind of edifice there is not the least antient vestigium remaining; wherefore, according to what Vitruvius mentions in the above-cited place, I have made the following designs; in which the basilica, in the space in the middle, that is, within the columns, is two squares long.

The portico's that are on the sides, and in the part where the entrance is, are in breadth the third part of the space in the middle. Their columns are as long as they are broad, and may be made of any order one pleases. I have not made a portico in the part opposite to the entrance, because a large nich seems to me to suit there very well, made of a segment of a circle less than a semicircle, in which the tribunal of the praetor, or of the judges, may be, if they are many, to which there must be an ascent by steps, that it may have the greater majesty and grandeur. I do not deny, nevertheless, but that portico’s may also be made all round them, as I have done in the basilica’s represented in the designs of the piazze. Through the portico’s one goes to the stairs that are on the sides of the said nich, which lead to the upper portico’s. These upper portico's have their columns the fourth part less than those below. The poggio, or the pedestal, that is between the upper and lower columns, ought to be made in height one fourth part less than the length of the columns above, that those that walk the upper portico’s, may not be seen by those that do business in the basilica. A basilica at Fano, was ordered by Vitruvius, with other compartments, which by the measures which he gives the said place, one may comprehend to have been an edifice of very great dignity and beauty. I would have inserted the designs of it here, if they had not been done, with the utmost diligence, by the most reverend Barb in his Vitruvius.

Or the following designs, the first is the plan, the second is part of the elevation.

Parts of the plan,’ Parts of the elevation, H, Is the poggio, in height a fourth part less than the columns of the upper portico,

1, The columns of the said upper portico's.