[39]. On entering the porch or narthex of St. Peter’s by the central archway, the visitor may note on each side of the external opening a column of breccia, or strictly speaking of ‘pavonazzetto brecciato,’ over twenty-five feet in height. They are worn, patched, and discoloured, and evidently come from some earlier building. It can be reasonably conjectured that these are the two columns to which Vasari refers, and that they were originally in the old basilica which was being replaced in Vasari’s time by the existing structure. Vasari would see them in their original position forming part of the colonnade between nave and aisles, for the entrance part of the old Constantinian basilica was still standing in the sixteenth century, and the columns were only removed to their present position when Paul V constructed the existing façade at the beginning of the century following.
[40]. The familiar red Verona marble is not a true breccia, but a fossil marble.
[41]. ‘Granite’ is from the Italian ‘granito,’ which means the ‘grained’ stone.
[42]. The ‘grandissimi vasi de’ bagni,’ to which Vasari here refers, are those vast granite bath-shaped urns, some twenty feet long, of which the best known is probably the specimen that stands by the obelisk in the centre of the amphitheatre of the Boboli Gardens at Florence. This, with a fellow urn, that stands not far off in the Piazzale della Meridiana, came from the Villa Medici at Rome, and they may have been seen in Rome by Vasari before they were placed in that collection. No such urns are now to be found in or about any of the three churches at Rome here mentioned by Vasari. Documents however, recently published in the first volume of Lanciani’s Storia degli Scavi, pp. 3–5, show that there stood formerly in the Piazza S. Salvatore in Lauro, north west from the Piazza Navona, a ‘conca maximae capacitatis,’ to which Vasari no doubt refers. Two other such conchae were found in the Thermae of Agrippa, and one was placed by Paul II, 1464–71, in the Piazza di S. Marco, which was then called ‘Piazza della Conca di S. Marco,’ while the other was located by Paul III (Farnese), 1534–49, in front of his palace. Cardinal Odoardo Farnese afterwards united the two and formed with them the two fountains now in the Piazza Farnese. Lanciani also mentions a ‘conca di bigio in S. Pietro in Vinculis.’ There is a fine specimen, which may be one of those Vasari has mentioned, in front of the little church of S. Stefano at the back of St. Peter’s. We wish cordially to thank Signor Cornish, of the Royal Palace, Florence, for information kindly given about the Boboli monuments.
[43]. The quarries opened by the Romans in Elba are now practically abandoned. The Catalogue to the Italian Section of the London International Exhibition of 1862 speaks of the granites of Elba as ‘but little used, although blocks and columns of almost any size may be had.’ In the late mediaeval and Renaissance period however, the quarries of Elba were worked, and the granite columns of the Baptistry of Pisa were cut there in the twelfth century, while Cosimo I extracted thence the granite block out of which he cut the tazza of the Boboli Gardens mentioned by Vasari a few sentences further on. Jervis, I Tesori Sotterranei dell’ Italia, Torino, 1889, p. 315, speaks of the remains of Roman quarrying works to be seen on the Island. He believes that the grey columns of the Pantheon (see Note infra) are Elban, and Cellini (Scultura, ch. vi) claims an Elban origin for the granite column of S. Trinità, Florence, which is certainly antique and of Roman provenance, see postea, p. 110 f.
[44]. The portico of the Pantheon is now supported by sixteen monoliths of granite nearly 40 ft. high. Seven of these in the foremost row are of grey granite, the eighth (that at the north-east angle) and all those behind are of red granite. The present portico is a reconstruction by Hadrian in octostyle form of the original decastyle portico built by Agrippa. Agrippa’s portico had columns of a grey granite called ‘granito del foro,’ because it is the same kind that is used for the columns of the Forum of Trajan (Basilica Ulpia). This according to Corsi, Delle Pietre Antiche, Roma, 1845, is Egyptian from Syene, the Lapis Psaronius of Pliny, and Professor Lanciani, who has kindly written in reply to our question on the subject, endorses this opinion, though Jervis, see above, thinks the grey Pantheon columns are Elban. When Hadrian reconstructed the portico, he added columns of red granite, which are admitted by all to be Egyptian. The two columns at the east of the present portico were brought in in the year 1666 to fill gaps caused by the fall of the two Hadrianic ones. They came from the Baths of Nero and were found near S. Luigi dei Francesi. See postea, p. 128 f.
[45]. See Note 4, ante, p. [26].
[46]. The form of the pick Vasari seems to have in his mind is given in the sketch, C, Fig. 2, postea, p. 48. Among other tools figured in the illustration, A and B are some that are employed at this day in Egypt for the working of hard stones.
[47]. This tazza is still in evidence and serves as the basin of the great fountain in the ‘island’ lake in the western part of the Boboli Gardens. It is said that Duke Cosimo extracted a second tazza larger than this one from the Elban quarry but it was unfortunately broken. Signor Cornish says the fragments are still to be seen. The sculptor Tribolo was sent to Elba to obtain the basins. Of the ‘tavola’ or table nothing is known.
[48]. In this apparently innocent section Vasari has mixed up notices of some half-dozen different kinds of stone, on most of which his ideas are somewhat vague. Hence a separate Note is required, and this will be found at the end of the ‘Introduction’ to Architecture, postea, p. 117 (‘Paragon and other Stones associated with it by Vasari’). The letters (a), (b), etc., are referred to in the Note.