Note 27 — Chapter II
Reading edition
In the perspective drawing forming the title-page, these pedestals seem to break up the base of the building too much. If seen more in front either way this effect would have been avoided. As explained above, the dimensions necessitate a projection between the top step and the face of the peristele of 5·3. This must either have been a shelf or broken up as here suggested. I cannot conceive that it was the former for many obvious reasons, while the latter seems to me not only appropriate architecturally, but to be indispensable to the display of the sculpture. They exactly fulfil the part that is performed by the buttresses in Gothic architecture.