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preserved, so it has been much visited and has been important in forming the architectural taste of – for example – the grand tourists of the 18th century. The arrangement is typical for a Roman temple. The single room of the interior would have housed the cult statue, which would have been able to look (as it were) through the open door to the outdoor altar where sacrifices would be made on feast days, as a public spectacle. This room (the cella) is raised quite high above the surrounding street level – about 4 m (12 feet) – and it is reached by way of a flight of steps at one end of the building. At the top of the flight of steps is a row of fully modelled columns, which support the roof above. They follow the ‘Corinthian’ pattern, so their capitals have an arrangement of conventionalized acanthus leaves, making a showy decorative top to the column. This was a typical Roman choice for a prestigious building, but the columns are unusual for Roman work in being fluted – most Roman columns were built up from cylindrical sections, which were quicker and easier to carve than those with the vertical striations that followed the admired Greek models. Round most of the building the walls support the roof, and there are decorative half-columns which have no functional significance, but which maintain the visual rhythm of the Greek type of temple. Many Roman temples had plain sides, and the expenditure involved in carving these columns gives an idea of the extravagance and prestige of the project.

One point to make here is that Jefferson chose to follow the sense of taste and decorum in Palladio’s work, and to consider the building with reference to ideas of proportion and balance, rather than try to pile up an exuberant display of pomp and ornament in the Baroque manner. The house is characterized by its simplicity, and it has an air of repose about it that contrasts with the agitation of some Baroque interiors (such as the Wieskirche, Figure 11, or the Brighton Pavilion, Figure 3, which is not normally classified as Baroque, but since it uses all the same devices – combinations of architecture, sculpture, and illusionistic painting – and has much the same effect, I am inclined to think that it is Baroque in a way, even though the architectural detail is a Western idea of the Chinese). Monticello is not copied from a single Italian or English building, but has absorbed the general idea of Palladio’s villas and, working with the underlying principles, Jefferson designed a rather original building suited to his own needs, but clearly belonging to the Palladian tradition. In fact what happened is that Jefferson first designed and built an ‘English Palladian’ house, and then over many years, and after he had travelled (particularly in France) it was adapted with French refinements and elegancies, such as the dome. He had seen this arrangement at a grand house in Paris (the Hôtel de Salm) and adapted it for his own use.

14. The Pantheon, Rome, Italy (AD 118–25); architect: anonymous, but worked under the direction of the Emperor Hadrian. The Pantheon was not a typical Roman temple, but was unique in its design, though it drew on traditional models. Its entrance front for example is not unusual in its conception, though it is larger and more magnificent than an ‘ordinary’ temple would have been. Like the Parthenon (Figure 7) it had eight columns across the front instead of the more usual six (octastyle instead of hexastyle). The entrance doorway itself is flanked by two niches that once held statues, and remarkably the ancient bronze doors that close off the interior are still in position. The interior is unexpected and spectacular: a circular domed space, with a great coffered ceiling, illuminated from a circular hole in the roof (the oculus) that has no covering. The dome is a triumph of Roman engineering achievement, built in concrete and covering a vast expanse. No dome larger than this would be built for well over a thousand years, when Brunelleschi’s dome at the cathedral in Florence was made – begun in 1420. Originally