Andrea Palladio · The Fourth Book
Chapter XVI. Of the Baptisterium of Constantine
THE designs that follow are of the Baptijlerium of Constantine, which is at Sz.
Giovanni Laterans. ‘This temple, in my opinion, is modern work, made of the ruins of antient edifices; but because it is a beautiful invention, and has the ornaments well carv’d, and with various manners of intaglia’s, of which an architect may upon several occasions make use; it appeared to me fit to be placed among the antient, and the rather, because it isby every body esteemed to be so.
The columns are of porphyry, and of the Composite order. The base is composed of Attick and of the Ionick; having two bastone of Attick, and the two cavetto of the Ionick. But instead of two astragals or tondino’s, which are made between the cavetto’s in the Ionick, this has only one, which occupies that space which the two should take up.
All these members are beautifully wrought, and have most beautiful intaglia’s. Upon the bases of the loggia there are foliages, that support the hafts of the columns; which are worthy of notice, And the judgment of that architect is to be praised, who understood so well to accommodate them the shafts of the columns not having as much length as was requite) without taking from the work any part of its beauty and majesty.
I have also made ule of this invention in the columns that I have put for an ornament to the door of the church of 8. Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, which did not hold out in length as far as was requisite; and are of so beautiful marble, that they could not well be left out of the work. The capital, are composed of the lonick and Corinthian, the method of which has been mentioned in the first book, and they have acanthus’ leaves.
. R. Lo.
The architrave is beautifully carved. Its cimacium has, instead of the gola reversa, a fulaiolo, and over it a half ovolo.
1 HE frize is plain. The cornice has two gola diritta’s, the one upon the other, a thing very seldom seen, that is, that two members of the same sort should be placed the on upon the other, without any other member between except the listello or gradetto: Over these gola’s there 1s a dentello, and then the gocciolatoio with the intavolato; and last of all, the gola diritta: so that in this cornice the architect observed not to make modiglions, by making dentils in it.
Or this temple I have made two plates.
In the first is designed the plan and the elevation, as well of the part without, as that Plate within, In the second are the particular members, Plate
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.