Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 08 (of 10): Bastiano to Taddeo ZuccheroVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 08 (of 10): Bastiano to Taddeo Zucchero
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
great hall on the ground floor, eighty palms long and forty broad. This
hall is wrought in stucco and painted with stories of Jove--namely, his
birth, his being nursed by the Goat Amaltheia, and her coronation, with
two other stories on either side of the last-named, showing her being
placed in the heavens among the forty-eight Heavenly Signs, and another
similar story of the same Goat, which alludes, as also do the others, to
the name of Caprarola. On the walls of this hall are perspective-views
of buildings drawn by Vignuola and coloured by his son-in-law, which are
very beautiful and make the room seem larger than it is. Beside this
hall is a smaller hall of forty palms, which comes exactly at the next
corner, and in it, besides the works in stucco, are painted things that
are all significant of Spring. Continuing from this little hall towards
the other angle (that is, towards the point of the pentagon, where a
tower has been begun), one goes into three chambers, each forty palms
broad and thirty long. In the first of these are various inventions
executed in stucco and painting, representing Summer, to which season
this first chamber is dedicated. In that which follows there is painted
and wrought in the same manner the season of Autumn; and in the last,
which is sheltered from the north, and decorated likewise in the same
manner, there is represented in a similar kind of work the season of
Winter.
So far we have spoken (with regard to the floor that is over the
underground rooms of the basement, cut out of the tufa, where there are
rooms for the servants, kitchens, larders, and wine-cellars) of the half
of this pentagonal edifice--namely, of the part on the right hand.
Opposite to that part, on the left hand, there are rooms exactly equal
in number and of the same size. Within the five angles of the pentagon
Vignuola has made a circular court, into which all the apartments of the
edifice open with their doors; which doors, I mean, all open into the
circular loggia surrounding the court, which is eighteen palms in
breadth, while the diameter of the remaining space in the court is
ninety-five palms and five inches. The pilasters of the loggia (which is
divided up by niches), supporting the arches and the vaulting, are in
couples, with a niche in the centre, and twenty in number; and each
couple covers a breadth of fifteen palms, which is also the breadth of
the space of the arches. Around the loggia, at the angles that form the
shape of the round, are four spiral staircases, which lead from the
basement of the palace up to the top, for the convenience of the edifice
and of the rooms. And there are reservoirs that collect the rain-water,
which feed a very large and beautiful cistern in the centre; to say
nothing of the windows and innumerable other conveniences, which make
this building appear to be, as indeed it is, a rare and most beautiful
fabric. And, besides having the site and form of a fortress, it is
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account