ABSTRACT
I have no doubt that my undertaking herein will appear a very rash one: to set out to discuss a topic on which the most learned Architects have already worked and which they appear to have entirely exhausted. And I undertake to do so only with the greatest of reluctance, having some difficulty in convincing myself that I can add something to the excellent Volumes that Palladio, Serlio and Labacco have handed down to us concerning the Edifices of the Ancients and what Monsieur de Chambray has noted in his Parallel Study of Ancient and Modern Architecture. For the veneration that my Masters have inspired in me for the writings of those great Personages has ever led me to read them with respect, and therefore I have never had the thought that anything could be found in them that was not supported by persuasive reasons and I presumed that if any of their arguments was not in accord with that of which the common population is capable, those Authors had others in mind that are unknown to us and on which all our capacities would give us no other right than to guess at them, if we can, in order to derive advantage therefrom.
