Andrea Palladio · The Third Book
Chapter XX. Of the Basilica’s of our times, and of the designs of that of Vicenza
AS the antients made their basilica’s, that men in winter and summer might have a place to assemble, and treat about their occasions and affairs; so in our times in every city, both in Italy and out of it, some publick halls are made, which may rightly be called basilica’s, because, that near to them is the habitation of the supreme magistrate. Hence they come be part it. the word basilica properly signifies a royal house.] Here also the judges attended to administer justice to the people.
The basilica’s of our times differ in this from the antients, viz. the antient ones were upon, or even with the ground, and ours are raised upon arches, in which are shops for divers arts, and the merchandizes of the city. There the prisons are also made, and other places belonging to publick business. Besides which, the modern basilica’s have portico’sin the part within, as has been seen in the above mentioned designs; and the antient, on the contrary, either had no portico’s, or had them in the part without upon the piazza.
Or these modern halls there is a very noble one at Padua, a city illustrious for its antiquity, and celebrated for learning throughout the world, in which the gentlemen every day assemble, and it serves them as a covered piazza.
The city of Brefiia, magnificent in all her actions, has lately made one which for its largeness and ornaments is wonderful. And another is at /7Vicenza, of which only I have put the designs, because the portico’s it has round it are of my invention; and because I do not doubt but this fabrick may be compared with the antient edifices, and ranked among the most noble, and most beautiful fabricks, that have been made since the antient times; not only for its grandeur, and its ornaments, but also for the materials, which is all very hard live stone, and all the stones have been joined and banded together, with the utmost diligence. It would be unnecessary to put down the measures of every part, because they are all marked in their places, in the designs. 19. In the first plate, the plan and the elevation are designed, with the plan of the pilasters in a large form. 20. In the second is designed one part of the elevation in a larger form.
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.