Andrea Palladio · The Fourth Book
Chapter XIV. Of the temple of Vesta
FOLLOWING the bank along the Tyber, near the said temple is found another round temple, which is at present called St. Stefano. They say that it was built by Numa Pormrivrius, and dedicated to the goddess Vesta; and he would have it of a round form, in resemblance of the element of the earth, by which human generation is subsisted, and of which they say that Vesta was the goddess.
This temple is of the Corinthian order. The intercolumniations are of one diameter and an half. The columns with the base and capital, are eleven teste in length. (By a teste is understood the diameter of the foot of the column, as has been said elsewhere.) The bases are without zoccolo or dado; but the step whereon they rest, serves for it, which was done by the architect who ordered it, that the entrance into the portico might be less incumbered, the manner being thick of columns,
The cella, computing also the thickness of the walls, has as much in diameter as the columns are long.
The capitals are carved in the manner of olive leaves. The cornice is not to be seen, but it has been added by me in the design. Under the soffit of the portico there are very beautiful compartments.” The door and the windows have very beautiful and plain ornaments. Under the portico, and in the inward part of the temple, there are cimacia’s that support the windows, and go quite round, affording the aspect of a basement, upon which the wall 1s founded, and upon which rests the tribuna. This wall in the outward part, I that
FOURTH BOOK, 95 that is, under the portico, is distinguished from the cornice by squares up to the soffit; and in the inward part it is polished, and has a cornice even with that of the portico’s, which support the tribuna,
Or this temple T have made three plates,
In the first is designed the plan. Plate In the second the elevation, as well of the part without, as of that within. Plate In the third are the particular members. Plate A, is the base of the columns. F, the outside little cornice round the cella, B, is the capital. Srom which the squares begin.
cornice. the slid's of the windows.
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.