Note 113 — Chapter III

The construction described by Vasari is evidently of the kind indicated in the accompanying drawing, Fig. 5. The pieces of the frieze are joggled one into the other so as to form a flat arch, but the construction is kept to the inner part and the face shows vertical joints between the pieces. As this passage in Vasari seems to have escaped the notice of those interested in Renaissance construction, the existence of the device he describes has remained unsuspected and nothing is known about it at the Uffizi itself. The fact is that Vasari’s system has succeeded in one way too perfectly for his purpose. Everything has remained ‘safe and sound,’ and no one of the architrave beams shows signs of failure, so that no technical examination of the fabric has been called for. On the other hand, neither the artificers nor the world at large seem to have benefitted by Vasari’s kindness, for the books do not notice his device. There is no mention of it even in the huge work on Tuscan Renaissance architecture now just completed under the editorship of Baron Henri de Geymüller, nor in Raschdorff’s Palast-Architectur, nor Durm’s Baukunst der Renaissance, though references to it may possibly occur in older books that have escaped our notice. Joggled lintels forming flat arches are of course common enough. The new Parliament Building at Stockholm shows them conspicuously with the actual joints appearing on the face of the building. Mediaeval and Renaissance fireplaces often have lintels of the kind, as in Coningsburgh Castle, Yorks, and Linlithgow Palace.