The building, which first inspired him with admiration for the Italian style, was the Farnese Palace. The principal front he greatly admired; he considered that the “imposing effect of its vast mass was greatly enhanced by the unbroken lines of the entablature and string-courses, the number and relative smallness of the windows, the complete subordination of all horizontal divisions to the crowning cornice, and the consequent full effect of the entire height.” The rear front seemed to him to be spoilt by the centre, which did not harmonize with the rest, and (by “a most unwarrantable wickedness”) broke the general entablature, and moreover outraged his feelings by the superposition of three orders (Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian). The interior courtyard he liked less still; and, among other criticisms, he noticed here what seemed to him at all times offensive, the solidity of the upper story, resting on two arcaded courses below. The Florentine palaces, especially the Strozzi, confirmed the general impression made by the Farnese, “and from this time a grand cornice, without an order, became his beau-ideal of a street front;” but he noticed that few façades had the feature, which he thought all but necessary, an important basement, to serve as a kind of pedestal and “balance” the great cornice. The Strozzi Palace, “vast and imposing” as it was, was, however, rather a study than an example; its enormous height and masses of solid wall between the tiers of windows were unfit for use in England; and the characteristic windows, with their central mullions, he thought inconvenient for use, and perhaps inadmissible in pure Italian architecture. Two of Bramante’s palaces at Rome, the Cancelleria and the Palazzo dei Rei d’Inghilterra, at first pleased him much by their general character of solidity and breadth, and in the former case he noticed with delight the delicacy both of design and execution in the ornaments, and the perfect finish of every detail. There appeared, however, a want of boldness in the low relief of the great fronts, which seemed tame after the Farnese. “But his great objection was to the use of two orders, even when they were in low relief, and when the unity of the height was preserved by the importance of the upper cornice. The best examples of North Italy could not reconcile him to this ‘piling of house upon house.’ In later days the beauties of the Banqueting-house at Whitehall so prevailed with him, that he frequently used order upon order in his own designs: but hardly ever without breaking the entablatures. By the continuous vertical lines so produced the two stories were united, and his love of unity satisfied. But at Rome this expedient would have shocked him as barbarous.”