Up such a staircase the guest would pass, pausing on the broad landing to admire the beautifully laid out garden which graced the yard of the fine estate, and resting for a few moments upon the cushioned seat which commanded the charming view, framed as it was in a large ornamental window set in the house-wall at the head of the stairs. These Palladian windows--so-called after Andrea Palladio, an Italian architect of the sixteenth century--consist of a central opening, usually in scale with the other windows of the house, and having the same number of panes, but with an arched top, circular or elliptical, sometimes resembling a fanlight, rarely a solid segment of wood embellished with carved ornaments. Flanking this central opening are side-lights, of plain or tastefully leaded glass, and as most often in Salem houses the Palladian window is placed directly above the main entrance, the pattern of these side-lights, as also the architectural _motif_ of frame and entablature, echo those of the doorway and porch below. The original use of the Palladian window in Old Salem was an interior one--to furnish light to hallway and stairs; but later, as increasing attention was paid to the exterior appearance of the house, especially in the period when brick was mostly used in construction, it became an adjunct of front doorway and porch, continuing at the level of the second floor the structural idea which began at the first, in sympathy with the order and proportions of the rest, and repeating upon a reduced scale the columns, pilasters, and ornamentation of the major portion of the work. It is this use of the Palladian window which in many old Salem houses prevents the porch itself from appearing stubby and squat; for the window continues the idea begun in the porch itself, and leads the eye gently and unconsciously upward until it rests satisfied--the entire center of the façade, though the greater part of its height, being thus occupied by forms of grace and beauty, to which the plain character of the remainder of the structure lends itself as an agreeable foil. Interesting and handsome examples of the Palladian window abound on old Salem buildings, both public and private, and are repeated also in modern houses which are reproductions of the Colonial type.