A Parallel of the antient Architecture
42
CHAP. XVI.
The Perspective Elevation of a Profile drawn from the
Baths of Dioclesian at Rome.
Would needs make an Elevation in Perstective of this Profile, that so I might add
some variety to my designs, and for that likewise it is an advantageous means to
represent the Idea of an Order, and the effect which it produces being put in Work, for
their sakes who are not much practis d in the Mystery. This piece stood in the Baths
of Dioclesian at the angle or coinage of a return of a Wall, as I have found out by a
Design of mine very antient and of a good hand, where the Proportions as well of
the Plan as of the Prosile are exactly noted, even to the least particulars. I have reduced -
and accommodated them to the division of my ordinary Model, as you may
perceive them on the Profile which is under the Perspective Entablature.
The height of the whole Order, from the Base to the top of the Cornice, amounts
to ten Diameters and a fourth; which, according to our manner of measuring contains -
twenty Models and an half; which being divided 'twixt the Column and the Entablature -
takes up seventeen, and the three Models and half remaining make up the
height of the Entablature: Now though there be a considerable difference in the altitude -
of our first lonique Example, and this bere, it rather yet consists in the total
quantity of the Order, then in the proportion of their parts; for I find here that the
Entablature compared to its Column has also the same relation of two ninths; which
is to say, that the height of the Column divided into nine parts, that of the Entablature
comprehends two of them; which is a Symnmetrie particularly affected to this Order,
as I have elsewhere shewed.
The Voluta s of the Capital were tourn d with the Compaß, after the manner I shall
hereaster describe in a Page by its self, and with which I shall conclude this Order.
