VITRUVIUS. 
154 
CHAPTER I. 
Of Pavements. 
WE will first begin with pavements; which hold the chief place in the finishing. The 
utmost care must be taken that they may remain solid, and if they be laid on the ground, 
it must be examined whether the soil is intirely firm, and if so, it must be levelled, and 
covered with a rough statumen; but if the whole or part of the spot should be of an infirm 
texture, it must with great care be rendered solid by piling. In contignations (floors) it must 
be attentively observed that no walls be built under the pavement so as to touch it, but that 
they be detached, the boarding being suspended over them; for when it is made solid, the 
contignation drying or settling, and the wall remaining immoveable, necessarily causes frac¬ 
tures on either side: it is to be observed also not to unite planks of the esculus with those of 
the oak; for as soon as oak receives any moisture, it warps, and thereby causes fissures in 
the pavement; but if boards of the esculus be not to be procured, and those of oak are 
obliged to be used, they should be cut very thin, that, having less force, they may be more 
easily confined by the nails ; then on every joist the sides of the boards are to be fixed by 
two nails, that the edges may not rise by their warping in any part: as for the cerrus, 
fagus or farnus, they cannot endure long. The planking being done, fern, if it can be 
had, if not, straw is to be strewed over, to defend the wood from the corrosion of the lime, 
and then the statumen is to be laid, consisting of stones not less than such as will fill the 
hand; the statumen being done, it is to be covered with the rudus, which if new, three 
parts thereof is to be mixed with one part of lime, but if from old materials, five parts with 
(1*) I have mentioned this tree, and the cerrus, fagus 
and farnus, a little below, by the Latin names, on account 
ot the uncertainty of their significations. See chapter 9. 
book 2. 
(2*) The rudus is explained by an anonymous antient 
author (published by the marquis Poleni in his Exercita¬ 
tiones Vitruvianae, p. 198), to consist of larger stones 
pounded and mixed with lime; rudus est majores lapides 
contisi cum calce misti. The words of the text indicate it 
to be composed of refuse pieces of stones or bricks, &c. 
which we fhould call rubble, and which may be either 
trom new materials, or from such as have been used in a 
former building; in which latter case Vitruvius directs 
more lime to be mixed, on account of the matter being 
drier, and it is then called rudus redivivum, being called 
rudus novum in the former case. 
Perrault (as Galiani has observed) has mistaken the 
statumen and the rudus to be the same thing, which error 
he has probably been led into by the words statuminatione 
facta, immediately following the description of the rudus: 
but it is evident that Vitruvius inserts these words to shew 
that the statumen, as he has before described it, is to be 
laid first, and the rudus laid upon it; for he has just 
before mentioned the necessity of defending the boards 
from the lime, and it cannot therefore be supposed that 
he would now direct the rudus, which is composed of lime. 
to be laid immediately upon them.