Ten Books on Architecture

parts; then accessories or ornaments: and in the principal elements, first the preparation of materials and second the disposition, which is form.

Furthermore, regarding material, it does not ill become an Architect, just as it becomes a Philosopher, to explore the properties of stones and materials: such as firs, cypresses, cedars, and similar airy plants; which, since they are by a certain natural rigor (which in a man I would call arrogance) inflexible downwards, are for that reason most suitable for uprights, columns, or similar vertical uses; and conversely, oaks and similar materials, which are robust in any position, are more suitable for crossed and transverse works, such as beams and connecting joists, as they call them. In the same manner, stones are to be considered, because some are better internally, others more suitable for bearing storms: indeed, we ought to submit ourselves to examining also sand, lime, and clay. (Concerning which Vitruvius dealt less delicately, as did most of the moderns.) Although this contemplation is liberal, nevertheless, so that I may vindicate this profession and my own work from contempt, observe that the selection and distribution of materials to the individual parts of a structure pertains more to the secondary superintendent of the lower materials, who, as I think, is called Officinator by our Author in book 6, chapter 11, and in that place is clearly distinguished from the Architect; whose glory consists more in the design and idea of the whole work; and whose ambition ought to be the fashioning of the form, which is the nobler part, and, if I may say so, triumphs over the material. And here, in passing, mention should be made of the temple of Santa Giustina in the city of Padua, constructed with singular art, whose material, being only ordinary stones without any sculpture, nevertheless raps the spectator into admiration (I know not how) due to the secret harmony of its proportions. And certainly, this is the end to which one must in some way aspire in private buildings; to which, although I hasten, let it be permitted first to collect a few less trivial cautions that pertain to the comparison of materials. Leon Battista Alberti is so curious that he wishes all material to be cut from the same forest and all stones to be quarried from the same quarry. Philibert de l'Orme, the French Architect, proceeds even further, and would want the cement to be made from the same stone that is to be placed in the structure; believing perhaps that it will coalesce better on account of a certain affinity of origin. But these concepts seem too subtle for these rudiments, although I do not produce them in jest. For certainly such sympathies can often have a prudent application to Art. It must be admitted entirely that making cement, without selection, from rejected material, as we commonly do, is an English error of no small moment in our structures. Whereas the Italians to this day, and the ancients even more so, burn the most solid stone, and indeed fragments of marble where it abounds; which, with the passage of time, again becomes almost marble, or at least of indissoluble hardness, as is apparent from the Theaters that survive. I cannot omit, while I am about this, a certain species of bricks described by Daniele Barbaro, Patriarch of Aquileia, in his most ample edition of Commentaries on Vitruvius: of triangular figure, a foot long on any side and about an inch and a half thick. He commends it for various reasons: because they are handled more conveniently, are of less expense, of a more beautiful aspect, and add greater grace and firmness to the corners of the wall, where they join gracefully in toothed work; so that I wonder that their use has not been accepted by our own people, since they are proposed by a man of great authority in this science; unless it is that all nations repudiate novelties and cling tenaciously to their own modules. Here it could be aptly doubted, as some have doubted, whether the ancient Italians fired their bricks or not; which one or two passages in Vitruvius leave ambiguous. Certainly, where natural heat is sufficiently strong to supply the artificial, it would be curious foolishness to multiply labor and expense: besides the fact that it is probable that through a mild and temperate heat they would be more beautiful, lighter, and less distorted than through violen-