Alberti’s design, on the other hand, is unqualifiably an adaptation of Roman style, except in the case of the dome, which is supported by pendentives and raised on a drum. But the latter assumes the classical form of a peristyle of columns surmounted by an entablature. The roof of the nave is barrel vaulted and coffered in the Roman manner and springs directly from the entablature, which rests on piers that are decorated with engaged pilasters of the Corinthian order. The façade of the porch supplies the motive of the whole design, being an adaptation of the Roman triumphal arch in Mantua. Accordingly, it is composed of four Corinthian engaged columns, mounted on pedestals in the Roman manner, supporting an entablature and pediment. The three intervening spaces are occupied by doors, over each of the side ones being a window above a window, while the central door is flanked by two columns, which support a cornice and arch that frame a lunette. If the student will compare it with the main portal of some Gothic or Romanesque church, he will discover an instructive difference. =Il Gesu--S. Giorgio Maggiore.=--Here is a further comparison of Renaissance church-façades:--the Jesuit Church in Rome, =Il Gesu= (1568) and =S. Giorgio Maggiore= in Venice (1560). The former is by Vignola; the latter was erected by Scamozzi, the pupil of Palladio. But Palladio designed the rest of the church and, since the façade was built during his lifetime, may have had more or less to do with its design. It is at any rate in the Palladian manner. Both Palladio and Vignola were pronounced classicalists, and yet they contributed to the decadence of the Renaissance style. It is true that Palladio’s own style was characterised by a marked severity; note the present façade which presents a severely formal application of columns, entablatures, and pediments. But it involves a feature that readily lent itself to extravagant exploitation; namely, the emphasis upon colossal columns. Vignola’s design, on the other hand, is characterised by a multiplication and elaboration of features, which his sense of classic propriety has kept within ordered bounds but which a less refined taste might easily degrade into exuberant pretentiousness. And indeed a certain pretentiousness marks both these façades. They make claim to being imposed by methods that are actually a pretence. For neither design has grown out of the necessities and circumstances of the building. Each represents the arbitrary importation of alien ingredients, pieced together to conform to the principles of a style that was evolved for other purposes and conditions. Each design is false in motive and specious in its application of principles; and, since lies breed lies, it must share responsibility for the flagrancy of specious and pretentious shams that in time ensued from it.