ELEMENTARY

ARCHITECTURE

PART ONE.

IN ARCHITECTURE, as in other practical Arts, the end must direct the operation. The end, however, is to build well.

Good building has three conditions: commodity, firmness, and delight. This division is common among the professors of this Art, although—by what pact I know not—it is somewhat dislocated in Vitruvius himself, book 1, chapter 3, whom I prefer to follow as a teacher of Symmetry rather than of Method. But in order to attain this end, the entire subject must be considered under two headings: station or situation, and the work itself. Wherefore, first concerning situation. The precepts that pertain to this regard either the universal placement (if I may so speak) or the arrangement of the individual parts. Of these, the first, although it is commonly taught by Architects as a part of their own profession, is nevertheless in reality borrowed from other disciplines; because between Arts and sciences, not otherwise than between men, there is a certain society and communication of principles. For you will discover that some of them are purely physiological, as far as it concerns the quality and temperament of the air. Since this is a continuum that surrounds and enters us, and the defects of which in individual dwellings (which I especially intend) cannot be corrected, it therefore requires greater caution: that it be neither too thick, nor too subtle and penetrating; not subject to noxious mists or neighboring marshy and muddy places; or to mineral exhalations from the very soil; not indigestible due to a lack of Sun, or unexercised due to a lack of wind; which is to live as if in a marsh or stagnant pool of air, as Albertus Florentinus, the Architect, ingeniously compares it. Some appear more Astrological, such as when they advise guarding against places of malignant influence; where earthquakes, contagions, monstrous births, and similar things occur more frequently without an evident cause; the consideration of which is perhaps not entirely vain. Some are plainly economic. Namely, that the place should abound in water and food; that it should not be too steep, and difficult of access both for friends and for those of the household. That it should not be too remote from some navigable river or bay of the sea, so that provisions may be more easily transported. And other domestic observations of the same sort. Some again can be called optical; which, clearly, pertain to a properly chosen prospect, which I am pleased to call the regality of vision. For just as there is a lordship (if I may so speak) of the feet, by which the Master is most delighted when he traverses the boundaries of his possession; so too is there a lordship of the eyes or of vision; which, since it is an imperious sense, and, if I may so speak, a usurper, cannot bear a narrow circumscription, but wishes to be nourished by extension as well as by variety. I find, however, to the contrary, that vast and indefinite prospects are disapproved by good authors, as they extinguish all apprehension of the extreme objects, as if by this pact a good part of the delight, of which we treat, would perish. Finally, I recall a particular caution, which I do not know to what I should refer, unless I perhaps call it Political. Namely, that one should not build entirely next to a powerful neighbor; for that would in truth be to be as unhappily located on earth as Mercury is in the heavens, who as pluri-