[78]. In the so-called Pisan Mountains between Pisa and Lucca. For these places and their quarries see Note on ‘Tuscan Marble Quarries,’ postea, p. 119 f.
[79]. See Note, as above, especially p. 126.
[80]. There are great quarries of this stone below Tivoli near the course of the ancient Anio, now Teverone. The station Bagni on the Roma-Tivoli railway is close to them. Those near the place called Barco were exploited by the ancient Romans, while Bernini derived the stone for the colonnades in front of St. Peter’s from the quarries called ‘Le Fosse,’ a little to the north of the former. Vitruvius, De Arch., II, vii, 2, writes of the ‘Tiburtina saxa’ as resisting all destructive agencies save that of fire, and the remark is repeated by Pliny, Hist. Nat., XXXVI, 22. Vasari’s account of its origin is correct. It is a deposit of lime in water, and the cavities in it are partly caused by plants, moss, etc., round which the deposit has formed itself and which of course have long ago decayed away. See O on the Frontispiece. The stone did not come into use at Rome until about the last century of the Republic, and it was not, like peperino, one of the old traditional building materials.
[81]. Vasari evidently refers to the remains of the Templum Sacrae Urbis behind the present church of Ss. Cosma e Damiano, to which was affixed the ancient ‘Capitoline’ plan of Rome.
[82]. See the remarks on Rusticated masonry in § 20, and Notes, postea, pp. 65 and 132.
[83]. On the ‘round temple,’ and its designer, ‘Maestro Gian,’ see Note on the subject, postea, p. 128 f.
[84]. S. Luigi dei Francesi is the national church of the French, and is situated close to the Palazzo Madama, the meeting place of the Italian Senate, near the Piazza Navona. The present edifice was built by Giacomo della Porta and consecrated in 1589. See Note, postea, p. 128 f.
[85]. For which it offers in the cavities above spoken of an excellent key.
[86]. Traces of these stucco decorations are still to be seen in the public entrance to the Colosseum next the Esquiline. They are said to have been taken as models by some of the plaster-workers of the Renaissance. See Vasari’s Life of Giovanni da Udine, Opere, VI, 553.
[87]. This is the so-called ‘Sala Regia’ which serves as a vestibule to the Sistine Chapel. Sixtus IV planned it and San Gallo enlarged it and began the adornment of the vault with plaster work, which was carried on afterwards by Perino del Vaga and Daniele da Volterra (Pistolesi, Il Vaticano Descritto, VIII, 89). It is the most richly decorated of all the Vatican apartments, but is florid and overladen. The stucco enrichment of the roof is heavy, and the figures in the same material by Daniele da Volterra that are sprawling on the tops of the doorways and on the cornices are of the extravagant later Renaissance type. The contrast between this showy hall and the exquisitely treated Appartamento Borgia of earlier date is very marked.