Sebastiano Serlio · Third Book: Of Antiquities
A gate at Spello, and fragments
IN •pello, a very old Towne in Italy, there is a very olde P•rtor Gate, the worke whereof is Dorica, althou• hath neither Trigliphes, Methopes nor Guts: the two Towers on the sides thereof may bee called Moderne worke, • regard of the Ornaments aboue: which Towers are both of one fashion, although I haue lest one of them out. The Ichnographie is vnderneath the Figure, and was measured with the ancient foote: and from one Tower to the other, are 60. and 10. foote: the middle Gate is 20. foote wide: each Posterne Gate is 10. foote wide: the Pilasters betweene the 2. Ports or Gates, are 10. foote broad: the height I set not downe, but onely the iunention, because it pleased me well. The Stayres vnder the Towers, with the ground, E. are by our Author made on both sides: but according to his ground, the Stayres must come as they stand aboue the ground C. or •lse not, then the ground must bee made like D. This, and other things more (although there consisteth no great matter therein) • thought good to note, that you may know that I haue set thē downe péece by péece as I found them.
THese Cornices, Basements & Bases, are reliques of Antiquitie: and that which is marked A. a piece of the Columnes with Architraues, Fréeses & Cornices; and also with the Basement aboue, which was all of one stone: the height thereof was 11. ancient foot, proportioned in that manner, it was found without Rome by the Riuer of Tiber. The order marked B. was found in the foundation of S. Peters, and Bramant caused it to bee buried againe in the ground, in the same place: all the members also were of one piece; it was 6. ancient foot high, & proportioned thereafter. The Base marked C. is at S. Markes, very well wrought, of Corinthia worke, but not very great, it is a foot & an halfe high, and proportioned accordingly. The Basement marked D. was found in a place called Capranica, very well wrought: the height of yᵉ Base, without Plinthus, is 2. Palmes, and also proportioned thereafter. The Base marked E. was not very great: it was found among certaine rumes, and by reason of the Astragalu• which it had aboue the Thorns, therefore I estéeme it to bee Composita: and although I set downe no other proportion of all the particular measures, yet they are collected and set downe out of the great, into the small measure orderly.
Public-domain text (London, printed for Robert Peake, 1611; STC 22235). Transcribed by the Text Creation Partnership (EEBO-TCP, phase 2, no. A11922) from the Early English Books Online images of the copy reproduced there, and dedicated by the TCP to the public domain (CC0 1.0). Peake’s spelling, capitals and punctuation are kept, with u and v, i and j as printed; the long s is printed s, VV is printed W, line-end hyphens are joined, and letters or words the transcribers could not read are shown •. Serlio’s numbering of the chapters runs on from book to book, as in the original. The woodcuts are not reproduced: the labels and short captions cut in them are left out, but passages of text printed inside a woodcut are kept. The Latin inscriptions are given line by line.