Page - 361 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

36�Projects for Emperor Ferdinand i of the arches they carry. Moreover, the very fact that the arches were carried on single columns instead of on piers or pilasters was by this time considered incorrect in Italy.36 The Stallburg is one of the earliest—if not the very first—of such courtyards in the region that does demonstrate a grasp of such rules [Figs. 6.29 and 6.31]. In the first place it should be noted that here the arcades are not carried on columns, but on square piers. To articulate the façade, an order of flat pilasters has been superimposed on these piers, in the manner that was best known from and was authorized by the facade of the Colosseum in Rome, such as it was illustrated, for instance, in Serlio’s Third Book [Fig. 6.30]. The Colosseum, however, is a quite monumental, almost sculptural building, where the applied impressive top frieze and cornice in the courtyard probably only dates from after 1584; cf. Rieger 1962, p. 105. 36 Vitruvius does not even mention arcades—in his view, columns should carry architraves. In De Re Aedificatoria Leon Battista Alberti likewise argues that for structural reasons arches should be carried by square piers or pilasters, rather than by round columns. Late-Roman architecture deviates from this rule, as does early-Renaissance and Mannerist architecture. Certainly this critique does not imply that the Porcia Schloss is not a very satisfying, even exciting building when considered on its own terms—merely that it does not conform to the rules of Vitruvian architecture that had by this time become predominant in Italy. Figure 6.�9 The Stallburg, courtyard.