Tag: Palladio

What on earth is Palladio’s “Le terme dei Romani”?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

When I started this little series on the Baths of Constantine, one of my references (from Wikipedia) was “Palladio, Le Terme, pl.XIV”.  A quick search revealed that this was Le terme dei Romani disegnate da Andrea Palladio e ripubblicate con la giunta di alcune osservazioni da Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi giusta l’esemplare del lord co. di Burlingthon impresso in Londra l’anno 1732, Vicenza: Francesco Modena, 1785; or a reprint thereof.

The 1785 edition can be viewed online here, but not downloaded.  This example is a double volume, first in Italian and then in French, with the plates at the end.  A version scanned by the Getty – the plates were done badly – may be found at Archive.org here.  Some useful notes on the volume are at the Soane Collection here.

But Palladio lived in the 16th century.  One web page suggested that his plan of the baths should be dated “after 1570”.  He certainly wasn’t publishing material in 1785.  So what on earth was this volume?  Was it really Palladio’s material?

To add confusion, this volume is also sometimes listed as “volume 5” of Le fabbriche e i designi di Andrea Palladio, as for instance in this 1843 edition at Archive.org here.

So what do we have here?

 Palladio based himself in the Venice area, so he did not live in Rome.  Instead he made visits at various points in his career to sketch monuments.  He produced ground plans, and also reconstructed elevations and sections.  The latter are not archaeologically accurate.  The buildings were in ruins, and his reconstructions are just that.  The plans vary.  While many are based on Palladio’s own survey of the remains, at least some are based on previous drawings, earlier sources that Palladio studied and copied in the studio.[1]

Palladio himself worked in three stages.  Firstly he sketched the building freehand on the site, with measurements.  Secondly the field sketch was transcribed back in the studio to produce a clean copy.  Finally this preparatory drawing was translated into a reconstructed plan of the complex.  Alterations could take place at each stage, as Palladio studied what he had.  Not all of these stages are preserved.  The freehand sketch of the Baths of Constantine has not survived, for instance.

The sketches, plans, elevations and sections of the Roman baths were something that Palladio worked on throughout his career, with the intention of publishing.  But he never did.  A four volume set of works on architecture did appear, the I Quattro Libri dell’Achitettura (Venice, 1570).  These were translated into English and French, and did much to help those who wanted to build in the classical style.  Interestingly he had little influence in Germany; a translation into German only completed two volumes before being abandoned.[2]

Meanwhile unpublished material by Palladio still circulated.  In 1613 architect-to-be Inigo Jones visited Italy for several months, carrying with him a 1601 reprint of Palladio’s book.  During the tour, he acquired a large number of drawings by Palladio.  Some he acquired from Palladio’s pupil, Vincenzo Scammozzi, others from Palladio’s surviving son Silla.   These passed through a series of hands until they were purchased by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington in 1721 as part of a purchase of drawings and books for which he paid £170.

But Burlington had already gone to Venice himself in 1719, when he acquired a group of drawings by Palladio from someone.  These came, directly or otherwise, from Barnardo Trevisan, who owned the Villa Barbaro at Maser, believed to be the place where Palladio died.

Burlington then pasted these into seventeen albums.  When he died in 1753 they passed by marriage into the family of the Dukes of Devonshire.  In 1892 the 8th Duke lent them to the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), and in 1894 converted that to a gift in trust.  Curiously the deed specified that, if the RIBA ceased to exist within 25 years of the death of the last surviving great-grandchild of Queen Victoria, then the drawings should revert to the Devonshire family.  The last descendant, born in 1916, turned out to be Count Carl Johan Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg, who died in 2012.

A few drawings were overlooked and still remain at Chatsworth.  Another drawing from the Inigo Jones set, which Burlington accidentally did not purchase, has been in the library of Westminster Abbey since 1939.  The Burlington volume are held by the RIBA, who number the drawings using a Roman number for the volume and an Arabic number for the drawing within that volume.  I was unable to find a list of the drawings with their numbers, however.[3]

Burlington did more than just collect the drawings.  He published them.  The volume bears the title, Fabbriche antiche, disegnate da Andrea Palladio Vicentino; e date in luce da Riccardo Conte’ di Burlington (London, 1730), with an Italian preface by his lordship.  An excellent scanned copy can be downloaded in PDF from the ETH-Bibliotek in Switzerland here.[4]  The Baths of Constantine are on p.41-42 of the PDF.

The volume bears the date 1730, but it is unclear when it actually appeared, or how many copies were produced.  The Soane Collection suggest that it was privately printed in 1735 and copies from a print run of 20-100 copies were given as gifts by Lord Burlington.[5]

What the volume did NOT contain were any notes by Palladio, any explanation of the items, any key to the letters that Palladio had placed on the drawings.  These seem to be lost.

The next stage of the creation of Le Terme was taken by a Scottish adventurer and occasional charlatan named Charles Cameron.  In 1772 he self-published a handsome volume entitled The baths of the Romans explained and illustrated. With the restorations of Palladio corrected and improved. To which is prefixed, an introductory preface, pointing out the nature of the work. And a dissertation upon the state of the arts during the different periods of the Roman empire.  This may be found at Archive.org here. This reprinted only 25 of the plates of Lord Burlington’s volume, as well as much other material, and added text in English and French, giving a key for Palladio’s annotations.[6]  The volume was not a commercial success, but it did establish Cameron’s reputation as an architect – he had been refused admittance to the Architects Club in London because of his dodgy financial dealings -, and he ended up building perfectly good, if cold, Palladian buildings in the colder Russian climate for Catherine the Great.

During the same period, between 1776-1783, an Italian neo-Palladian named Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi – he took the last name as a condition of a legacy left by Palladio’s pupil of that name – was issuing a “rationalised” version of Palladio in four volumes.[7]  It was he who created the “fifth volume”, our book Le Terme, in 1785.  He seems to have used Burlington’s book for the plates – the elevations are printed the same way round.  He refers a lot to “Signor Chameron”, gives the French title of his book, and Bertotti Scammozi’s key to the plan of the Baths of Constantine is a translation of Cameron’s.

And there we have it.  Bertotti’s 1785 book is where we started, with its curious title, and its curious contents.  The plates are indeed from Palladio; the text is guesswork two centuries later.

There is one further question that I came across, while reading, which I will mention here.  How accurate are Palladio’s drawings?

The study by La Follette that I have footnoted already states that his measurements are very accurate.  But there is an interesting article at the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art which discussed ways in which Palladio’s drawings fell short.  Calder Loth, “Can we Trust Palladio? Antoine Desgodetz Details Palladio’s Inaccuracies”, here, details the way in which a subsequent architect, Antoine Desgodetz, demonstrated that not all of Palladio’s drawings of column capitals were exact – in some cases he gave a standard form while the monument itself deviated from the norm.  Loth suggests that perhaps the use of assistants is to blame, and ends up by recommending the use of Desgodetz instead.   I did come across an article somewhere which recounts that similar criticism was levelled at Desgodetz by those who came after!  But I think we can leave that question to others.

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  1. [1]For this and much else I am indebted to Laetitia La Follette, “A contribution of Andrea Palladio to the study of Roman thermae”, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 52 (1993), 189-198.  JSTOR.↩
  2. [2]Many more details of editions and translations  and adaptations may be found in Deborah Howard, “Four centuries of literature on Palladio”, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 39 (1980), 224-241.↩
  3. [3]These details I owe to the fascinating preface, “Provenance of the Palladio drawings in the British Architectural Library of the Royal Institute of British Architects” in Charles Hind & Irena Murray (ed.), Palladio and His Legacy: A Transatlantic Journey, an English translation from the Italian (2010), ISBN 978-88-317-0652.  Parts online here.↩
  4. [4]I only came across this copy while writing this very article.  The scanned copy accessible to me earlier, which has a letter at the front, is at the Hathi site here.  Sadly that scan comes from the Getty and once again the plates have been done badly.↩
  5. [5]See notes to the Soane Collection copy of the 1730 volume here.↩
  6. [6]See the Soane collection’s notes on its copy of Cameron here.↩
  7. [7]See Howard, “Four centuries”, 231.↩

Palladio and the Baths of Constantine

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The next item in our little series on the now-vanished Baths of Constantine in Rome is by none other than Palladio.  Andrea Palladio was a 16th century Italian architecture who became very famous for his 4-volume handbook on how to do Roman architecture.  This contained illustrations of many standing monuments, giving a plan, elevation and notes.  He also left unpublished drawings of the Roman baths, and one of these is of the Baths of Constantine, perhaps made around 1570.

The publication history of this is complex, and I will defer it to a separate blog post.  So these I give from an 1810 reprint of a 1785 volume: Andrea Palladio & Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi [Editor], Le terme dei Romani: disegnate da Andrea Palladio e ripubblicate con l’aggiunta di alcune osservazioni da Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi giusta l’esemplare del Lord Conte di Burlingthon impresso in Londra l’anno 1732, Vicenza, 1810.  This is available online at the Digital Library at Heidelberg here.  The plates (“tavola”) are at the end.  The text in the book is NOT by Palladio, but by the unfortunate Bertotti (who added himself the surname of Scammozi, taken from one of the Palladio’s pupils).

Plate 14 is the plan of the baths (from here).

Plate 15 is the elevation, a reconstruction (from here):

The notes and the measurements are original.  The unit of measurement is probably something called the Vicentian foot, which is about two metres, I believe.  Note that the section at the bottom of the elevation is the other way round to the plan – the big hall is at the right in the plan, the pool and arches to the left.

Scammozi did add a key, much of it his own guesswork or referring to an earlier volume by the Scottish adventurer, Charles Cameron, who published in London in 1772 his The baths of the Romans explained and illustrated. With the restorations of Palladio corrected and improved.  This can be downloaded from Archive.org here.  On p.64 (p.79 of the PDF) may be found Cameron’s comments on the Baths of Constantine, followed by his key to the plan.  The plan is on p.245-6 of the PDF, the elevation (printed backwards) is p.249-50 of the PDF.  Here is his key:

A. The Theatre.
B. A large circular building, which contained the baths for the wrestlers.
C. The Apodyterium.
D. Exedrae for the Philosophers.
EEE. The Tepidarium, Caldarium, and Laconicum : invariably placed in all the Thermae to the south west, according to the direction of Vitruvius.
F. The Frigidarium. It appears from Fabricius, that the buildings in this quarter were very lofty, as well as the furnaces, to which there was an ascent of one hundred steps.  “Aedificia quaedam Quadrata, auaedam rotunda altissimis fornicibus extant, quoroum unum per centum fere gradus ascendimus”.
G. The Xystus, with the margins I I round it.
HH. Atrium, and piscina [swimming pool].
KK. Porticos, for those to deposit their clothes who bathed in the piscina.
LL. Vacant area for admitting light to the different apartments.
MM. Conisterium and Elethoseum.
NN. Rooms where the spectators could see those who exercised in the Xystus without being incommoded. These rooms likewise served for libraries.
OO. &c. Rooms for the use of the wrestlers.
PP. Rooms for those who had the care of the baths.
QQ. Cold Baths for those who did not choose to exercise in the Xystus.
RR. Rooms for the candidates to withdraw in, who exercised in the open air.

Bertoti repeats the key of Cameron, but prefixes it with some comments on the plan of the baths which, unlike Cameron, he has examined.  He comments that he can’t understand the use of the arches around a semi-circular area at one end, with the label HH in it.[1]  He frankly confesses that he could make no sense of the measurements on the elevation.[2]

This is all very detailed, and naturally has been used by subsequent model makers.  The elevations must be largely reconstruction, even though they have measurements on them.

But how reliable is all of this?  How much is the imagination of Palladio, or borrowed from other baths?  I do not know.

I notice that the floor plan differs quite a bit from that of Bufalini, posted here.  Bufalini shows no semi-circular piscina, nor any blank space in which it could be.

These sorts of questions I will have to leave to the specialists.  For specialists there are!  There are articles devoted to elucidating all sorts of questions around each drawing by Palladio, it seems.[3]  But this is a rabbit hole that is outside the scope of this post.

In my next post, I will discuss exactly what we are looking at here.  These drawings have a history of their own!

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  1. [1]Trovo una Piazza, semicircolare cinta da Archi dei quali non so comprendere l’uso: questi Archi sono alti una larghezza e poco meno di due terzi, ed il pieno trammezzo eccedo la metà del loro lume.↩
  2. [2]Non potei determinare le proporzioni delle altre parti, perchè alcune sono segnate con numeri ; in altre è necessario adoprare la scala de’piedi, la quale rare volte corrisponde ai numeri medesimi; difetto da me riscontrato in tutti i Disegni di queste Terme.↩
  3. [3]See for instance Laetitia La Follette, “A contribution of Andrea Palladio to the study of Roman thermae”, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 52 (1993), 189-198.  JSTOR.↩

Peruzzi’s drawing shows the real arrangement of the stairs at Aurelian’s temple of the sun / Serapis on the Quirinal

Posted on by Roger Pearse

At the back of the great temple on the Quirinal – often thought to be Aurelian’s Temple of the Sun, sometimes Caracalla’s Temple of Serapis – a great staircase ran down the hill to the plain.  Portions of the sides of this still remain; but the actual arrangement of this is unclear.  The steps themselves vanished in the 14th century, so even 16th century drawings must be treated with care.

Yesterday I found a 16th century drawing of this temple and staircase by Sallustio Peruzzi (Click to enlarge).

Plan and elevation (Sallustio Peruzzi)

It is entirely consistent with Palladio’s plan, which leaves the disposition of the staircase unclear.

However Palladio also gives a nonsense reconstruction of the stairs, which is not consistent with his own plan:

Aurelian’s Temple of the Sun – staircases, as given by Palladio in 1570

It has misled the authors of the recent Atlas of Ancient Rome, whose diagram shows a block:

As I remarked earlier, the slope of the hill is gentle, and this enormous construction is simply unnecessary, and unevidenced.

Peruzzi is almost certainly right, I believe.  His view is also consistent with this drawing of the stair side-walls from the period.

So… unless any further evidence is forthcoming, that’s how I think it should be seen.  Palladio’s block is just an architect’s fantasy, and should not be considered.

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The stairs at the back of Aurelian’s Temple of the Sun

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Relaxing in the bath after completing my last post, I had a sudden realisation.  I think that I know how the stair-complex worked at the back of the Temple of the Sun (or Temple of Serapis, as some think), on the Quirinal Hill in Rome.

The key to this is to think of the Spanish steps.  The height is about the same.  There’s no need for some complicated building.  All you have to do is to have the flights of steps on the hillside, going to and fro.

I’m no artist, but I hope this scribble will convey the idea:

Steps for “Aurelian’s Temple of the Sun” / “Temple of Serapis”, Quirinal Hill, Rome.

The steps start in the street at the foot of the hill.  Then they zigzag up the hillside, in pairs.  At the top, they go through the wall that ran behind the temple and encircled it.  On either side, the stairs are protected by two enormous walls, with arched openings in them to catch the breezes on a hot day.  There may not have been any roof.

If we look at the following image from the 16th century, we see very much what I have drawn above:

The source of this drawing is not known to me, but I was sent a photograph of it by a correspondent, who I believe saw it in the Colonna gardens.

Note how gentle the hill slope is!  There’s no need for some blocky building, such as this in the recent Atlas of Ancient Rome:

It’s just not that high a hill!  We don’t need all that superstructure.  (The little temple is imaginary).

This is where the artist has probably been misled by Palladio’s diagram:

This looks like a chunky building, with stair case above staircase.  But in reality we should think of these stairs as lying flat against the hill.  Because why wouldn’t you do that?

In fact this is what the Spanish Steps do, today:

This is, of course, only my suggestion.  But we do need to remember the slope is low, and gentle, and the walls alongside were long.  The squareish block-shape is contradicted by Palladio’s plan, and by common-sense.

Let’s refresh our memory with Palladio’s plan.

This seems baffling, especially when compared to Palladio’s diagram of the stairs.  But it does confirm the length of the stair building.

It’s a thought, anyway.  Probably an ignorant one, but certainly worth considering.

PS: Is “P129” perhaps “129 paces”?  If so, does that make the stairs 129 paces long?  And the temple building 203?  Is this plan actually foreshortened?

UPDATE: While searching for 16th century drawings, I found a new plan of the staircase by Sallustio Peruzzi.  This supports Palladio’s plan, and contradicts the picture of zigzag staircases utterly.  It is here.  I draw together the real picture here.

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Palladio and the “Temple of the Sun” in Rome

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I am not aware of any directory of sources for old prints and descriptions of Rome as it was in the 15-16th century.  This means that I discover such sources more or less by accident.  Earlier this week I came across another.

Palladio published in 1570 his book, I quattro libri, on architecture.  What I had not realised was that book 4 contains descriptions, with plans and measurements, of monuments in Rome.  This French site has downloads of the book, and also of a French translation.  The downloads are of inferior quality to the online images, for some strange reason.  Fortunately a later edition is accessible in high resolution at the Bavarian State Library.

The monuments of interest here are the so-called “Temple of the Sun” (often called the Temple of Serapis) on the Quirinal hill; and also the Baths of Constantine, next to them.  These were both standing to some extent in Palladio’s day.

The material on the Temple of the Sun is in book 4, starting on p.41.

Here is Palladio’s plan of the temple:The key appears on the preceding page.  As my French is better than my Italian, I shall translate that:

At Monte-Cavallo (formerly known as the Quirinal Hill), the remains of the next building are seen, near the palace of the noble Colonna family, which is known as the “Frontispiece of Nero”.  Some are of the opinion that this was the tower of Maecenas, and that from here Nero took pleasure in watching the city of Rome burning. But they are deceiving themselves, because the tower of Maecenas was on the Esquiline Hill, close to the Baths of Diocletian. Others have thought that it was the house of the Cornelii.  Myself I believe that it must have been a temple of Jupiter: because when I found myself formerly at Rome, I saw the foundations of this edifice being excavated, where some capitals of the Ionic order were discovered, which no doubt were used inside the temple; and it was even remarked that these were those of the corners of the colonnades, because the middle part, in my opinion, was still to be discovered. The appearance of this temple was that which Vitruvius calls Pseudodipteros, that is, with false wings: its manner Pycnostylos, with thick columns: the columns of the portico on the outside, of Corinthian order.  The architrave, frieze, and cornice made up a quarter of the height of the columns. The mouldings of the architrave were of a very fine invention. On two sides the frieze was full of foliage; but on the face, although nothing could be made out, it was nevertheless visible that it had carried some inscription.  The modillions[1] of the cornice are quatriform, and there is one exactly in the middle of each column.  The modillions of the cornice of the frontispiece are all vertical, and thus they must be made like that.  Inside the temple there were porticoes, as I depict in my illustration.  Around this temple there was a great courtyard adorned with columns and statues: and on the facade were these two great horses, one by the hand of Phidias, and the other by Praxiteles, which have given the name to the place where they are presently, which is called Monte Cavallo.  One ascends by very convenient steps to this temple, which, in my opinion, must be the largest and richest edifice that there was in Rome.

I have made six plates of it.  In the first is the map of the whole edifice, with the back part where were the stairs, which ascending from one to the other led into the courtyard of the temple.  The elevation of this manner of stairs, with the plan, is at the end of my first book, where I deal with various kinds of stairs.  In the second, is the side of the temple from outside.  In the third, is half of the facade of the temple from the outside.  In the fourth, is part of the inside: and in both these plates, a small portion of the ornaments of the courtyard is seen.  In the fifth, is the side of part of it, from the inside.  In the sixth, are the ornaments.

A.  Is the architrave, frieze, and cornice.

C.  Is the base.

E.  The capital of the columns of the portico.

D.  The base of the pilasters corresponding to the columns.

B.  The cornice that is around the courtyard.

F.  Is the acroterion.[2][3]

The depiction of the stairs is to be found in book 1, page 66, and looks like this:

Aurelian’s Temple of the Sun – staircases, as given by Palladio in 1570

Palladio’s text for this picture is:

In the same city, those of the Holy Apostles Church, near Monte Caval, are still very magnificent: these staircases were double, and they have been an example to several who have since imitated them: they led to a temple at the top of the mountain, as we shall see in my book treating of the Temples. And this is the last design of the stairs in this manner.[4]

This is a monster staircase indeed.  How much of it actually still existed in 1570 we cannot say, but of course portions of the walls are extant, nearly indestructible, even now.

UPDATE: In my next post, I discussed how this arrangement of zigzag stairs might really have looked.  It’s not consistent with Palladio’s own plan, after all.  But while searching for 16th century drawings, I found a new plan of the staircase by Sallustio Peruzzi.  This supports Palladio’s plan, and contradicts the picture of zigzag staircases utterly.  It is here.  I draw together the real picture here.

I will give a PDF with the other 5 plates that Palladio gives, in case you want ready access.  They are not exciting; and of course they are reconstructions.  How much was to be seen at that date we may wonder.

I must look further at Palladio.  One thing that I have not been able to work out is his measurements.  In an early plate these appear as “M” or “MO”.  What that might be, I do not know.

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  1. [1]A projecting bracket under the corona of a cornice in the Corinthian and other orders – RP↩
  2. [2]An acroterion or acroterium or akroteria is an architectural ornament placed on a flat base called the acroter or plinth, and mounted at the apex of the pediment of a building in the classical style. – So Google.↩
  3. [3]Slightly modernised, the French reads: “A Monte-Cavallo (anciennement appelle le Mont-Quirinal) on void les vestiges de l’edifice suivant, vers le palais des seigneurs Colonnes, lequel se nomme le Frontispice de Néron. Quelques-uns sont d’opinion que c’etait la tour de Mecenas, & que de là Néron prit plaisir à voir brûler la ville de Rome: mais ils s’abusent, parce que la tour de Mecenas etait au mont Esquilin, allez prés des Thermes de Diocletian: d’autres ont cru que c’etait la maison des Cornelies. Pour moi j’estime que c’aura eté un temple de Jupiter: car me trouvant autrefois à Rome, je vis fouiller dans les fondemens de cét édifice, 0u l’on découvrit quelques chapiteaux d’ordre Ionique, qui servaient sans doute au dedans du temple; & memes on remarquait que c’etaient ceux des angles des loges, parce que la partie du milieu, à mon avis, devait etre découverte. L’aspect de ce temple etait celui que Vitruve nomme Pseudodipteros, c’est à dire, à fausses ailles: sa maniéré Pycnostylos, ou de colonnes pressées: & les colonnes du portique par le dehors, d’ordre Corinthien. Les architrave, frieze & corniche faisaient une quatrième partie de la hauteur des colonnes. La cymaise de l’architrave etait d’une tres-belle invention. Aux deux cotez la frieze etait pleine de feuillages; mais à la face, bien qu’il ne s’y vit plus rien d’entier, on remarquait neanmoins qu’elle avait porté quelque inscription. Les modillons de la corniche sont quarrez, & il s’en rencontre un justement sur le milieu de chaque colonne. Les modillons de la corniche du frontispice sont tous droits à plomb, & c’est ainsi que l’on les doit faire. Au dedans du temple il y avait des portiques, comme je fais voir en mon dessein. Autour de ce temple il y avait un grand cortil orné de colonnes, & de statues: & à la façade etaient ces deux grands chevaux, l’un de la main de Phidias, & l’autre de Praxiteles, lesquels ont donné le nom au lieu où ils sont presentement, qu’on appelle Monte-Cavallo. On montait par des degrez tres-commodes à ce temple, qui, à mon avis, devait etre le plus grand & le plus riche édifice qui fut dans Rome. L’en ai fait six planches.
    Dans la première, est le plan de tout l’edifice, avec la partie de derrière où etaient les escaliers, qui montant de l’un à l’autre conduisaient dans les cortils des costez du temple. L’élevation de cette maniéré d’escaliers, avec le plan, est sur la fin de mon premier livre, où je traitte des diverses sortes d’escaliers.
    Dans la seconde, est le flanc du temple par dehors.
    Dans la troisiéme, est la moitié de la façade du temple par le dehors.
    Dans la quatrième, est la partie du dedans : & en toutes ces deux planches on void une petite partie des ornemens du cortil.
    Dans la cinquième, est le flanc de la partie du dedans.
    Dans la sixiéme, sont les ornemens.
    A. Est l’architrave ,frize, & corniche.
    C. Est la base.
    E. Le chapiteau des colonnes du portique.
    D. La base des pilastres qui respondent aux colonnes.
    B. La corniche qui est autour des cortils.
    F. Est l’acrotere.↩
  4. [4]En la meme Ville, ceux de l’Eglise Sto Apostolo,vers Monte-Caval, sont encore tres-magnifiques: ces escaliers etaient doubles, & ils ont serui d’exemple à plusieurs qui les ont depuis imitez: ils conduisaient a un temple sis au haut du mont, comme on verra en mon livre traittant des Temples. Et c’eft ici le dernier dessein des escaliers de cette maniéré.↩