Seite - 476 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Band 1

Chapter 9476 the principal gate of the palace [Fig. 9.51]. In this respect it is interesting that the peristylium serving as anteroom to the entries of the Imperial residence and Diocletian’s mausoleum is lined with huge arcades, in which the arches rest immediately on top of the capitals [Fig. 9.52]. This is one of the earliest ex- amples of a practice which would become more common in Late-antique and Byzantine architecture. Being undoubtedly antique, it legitimizes what could be considered a sin against Vitruvian precept. If we would know for certain that the designer of the Neugebäude knew Diocletian’s palace, his choice not to imitate this ‘sin’ would perhaps have some significance. Another correspondence is the use of polygonal towers: octagonal towers flank the entrance gates at Split, unusual hexagonal towers mark the corners of the Neugebäude’s upper garden [cf. Figs. 9.22–9.23]. The polygonal motif is repeated in Diocletian’s mausoleum, which is octagonal and surrounded by a lower exterior colonnade [Fig. 9.53]. Its interior is articulated by a double order of Corinthian and Composite columns framing alternating square and round niches; the columns are placed at some distance from the wall, to which they are united by a continuing entablature strongly projecting over the individual columns, stressing the vertical element [Fig. 9.54]. Certainly the mausoleum made some impression in the sixteenth century: it was the subject of a detailed measured drawing by an as yet unidentified draughtsman from the middle of the sixteenth century [Fig. 9.53]. Likewise the interior of the hexagonal towers at the Neugebäude was articu- lated by columns placed in front of the wall, though here the distance was suf- ficient to create some form of ambulatorium, according to a description from 1708: ‘[These towers] are three stories high, and present on every floor a round Figures 9.51–9.52 Robert Adam, views of the Porta Aurea and of the peristyle of Diocletian’s palace in Split.