Lucae Paeti ... de mensuris, et ponderibus Romanis, et Graecis

a most learned man and expert in antiquities, along with many other epitaphs and inscriptions gathered together): whom the younger ones have also followed; the diagram of whose sepulcher I have thought fit to append at the end of the work, so that it may appear that the sculptor's intention was not to demonstrate the exact measure of a foot, just as it was not to demonstrate the compasses, nor the level, nor the hammer, but only to show of what profession the man was whose ashes were kept therein. And so this Colotian foot provided a handle for searching for the legitimate foot, rather than being the legitimate one itself. With this measure of the Colotian foot, William Philander, who flourished in Rome about thirty years ago, in his annotations on Vitruvius, book 3, chapter 3, testifies that another marble foot agrees, found in its own time from the Janiculum on another marble base of the sepulcher of T. Statilius Vol. Apr., a surveyor of buildings in Rome, and transported to the Vatican papal gardens; with which this Statilian foot indeed agrees with little difference, having the digits and inches distinguished quite clearly, of which that Colotian one is entirely devoid. But many years ago, a bronze foot was brought to me, having been dug up just then from the earth and rust, blunt, and wrapped, found in the ruins of ancient rubble moved from the city in ancient times and thrown near and outside the Nomentan Gate. In which place a great abundance of chrysolites and other precious gems were then found, with bits of lead and coals, bronze keys, locks, and bracelets, and other similar things at that time, so much so that that entire place, which was planted with vines, was overturned and sifted by a sieve by those searching. But this foot is divided into palms, inches, and digits, and is foldable, which, when it is unfolded, is inserted with a small plate made of the same bronze, having a small ring, fixed with a nail in one part of it, and two nails fixed in the other part. And it is closed in such a way that, unless that small plate is removed, it cannot be folded. On the surface of which, on the other side, some letters marked with dots are seen, which, however, due to their antiquity and the thinness of the material, we were unable to read or interpret; for it is square, of such thickness as a chicken's feather from the wing is accustomed to be, if a square form were substituted for its roundness. This bronze foot, compared to the two mentioned marble ones, is shorter by the seventh part of an inch, or three scripula of an inch, and two halves of a scripulum sextula. But when I had hesitated for a long time, and had searched in vain for that porphyry column,