196 Report of the Labours of 
kind of ornament by Serlio, Palladioand Desgodetz, a barentiess 
which agrees badly with the richness of the general appearance. 
Piranesi is the only person who of late years has suspected that 
those niches were formerly covered with marble. -M. Leclerc, 
pushing his observations further, has ascertained by the arrange- 
ment of the holes of the rivetings perceptible in the bricks, that 
not only were they covered with marble throughout their whole 
circumference, but also that they had an impost, which received 
a fillet or archivolt of marble also which stretched around the 
ceinture of the niche. 
4. He is also the first who remarked, above the interior cor- 
nices of the portico, the chases cut for receiving the bronze 
arches which cover the three nayes of the portico: an observa- 
tion which, added to the authority of Serlio, Pietro Ligorio and 
Palladio, has afforded him the means of restoring in its primitive 
form that part of the portico the magnificence of which exceeded 
all idea. 
5. The three cornices, which begird at different heights the 
external circumference of the temple, had mot been drawn exactly 
either by Desgodetz or Piranesi. M. Leclere has ascertained 
the true profile, as well as the stucco ornaments of which he has 
discovered the remains: so that we may regard as_new the de- 
tails which he gives of those three cornices. 
6. He has also examined with care the upper part of the 
creeping cornice of the front, in order to ascertain if there had 
been at the extremities pedestals for supporting statues, as 
Serlio, Palladio, Desgodetz and Piranesi have drawn them ; and 
he has ascertained that there were pedestals on the pediment 
only, and not at the angles. 
7. This inquiry, for which he was compelled to remove the 
tiles which cover this part, led him to perceive a range of holes 
extending above the whole of the creeping cornice of the front: 
a certain proof that the front was surmounted by a frieze of 
ornaments cut in marble or bronze, and which he has conse- 
quently thought himself entitled to give in his drawing. 
8. Not content with having developed, in a particular elevation: 
and section, the ornaments and all the details of construction of 
this frontispiece, from the first course of the foundations to the 
summit of the pediment, M. Leclerc formed the happy idea of 
bringing together, on the same paper and on the same scale, the. 
details of the construction of other antique frontispieces which 
time has respected. Such are the Doric frontispieees of the 
small Temple of Pestum and that of Hercules at Cori, the Ionic 
frontispiece of the Temples of Fortuna Virilis and of Concord 
at Rome, and the Corinthian frontispiece of the portico of Oc- 
tavius at Rome. In short, this is a drawing as novel as it is in- 
structive, 
