Aldrich, Henry; Smyth, Philip [Übers.]: The Elements Of Civil Architecture: According To Vitruvius And Other Ancients, And The Most Approved Practice Of Modern Authors, Especially Palladio (London, 1789) [Cicognara, 395]

INTRODUCTION,

xxi

for tournaments and other solemn spebtacles, In the
execution, he had to contend with a great inequality
of the area; which he so judiciousiy divided into two
planes, as to obviate the bad effebt of much difpro-
portion between length and breadth, and to bring out,
by his well distributed decorations, a fine perspebtive
view of the whole from the entrance. A detail of
this noble design may be seen in Vasari: an indis-
ferent engraving of it, by Van Schoel, in the grand
collection of prints belonging to the Corsini library
in Rome. The whole of this masterpiece was de-
formed by the erebtion of the present pontisicial li-
brary, the site of which was, by order os Pope Sex-
tus V. so fixed as to cut the magnificent theatre of
Bramante through the middle, and make of it two
courts and a private garden for the Librarian.
The repository in Belvedere, formed in niches for
the reception os those invaluable specimens of antient
st at u ary the Laocoon, Apollo, Antinous &c, was
designed by this great Architebt; as were also a va-
riety of staircases, there and in other apartments of
the Vatican, all much admired for the singular inge-
nuity and elegance os their contrivance. The grand
semicircular one, which occupied the nether end of
the great court of which we have just lamented the
deformation, was long stnce, with some others, de~
stroyed by neglebt, or removal of the materials.
The little round temple, in the middle of the
cloister of St. Pietro in Montorio, is a much ap-
plauded design of Bramante; though open to some
objebtions when examined in detail. In Rome, and
through-
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