Piazzas 
in others again there will be a much wider 
latitude for choice. The only rule is to con- 
sider all claims together from the very be- 
ginning, and to know clearly which ones, by 
reason of the habits and tastes of the owners, 
ought to be most fully met if compromise 
of any conspicuous kind is necessary. 
The claims of certain other external feat- 
ures likewise tell us not to exaggerate our 
piazzas, and to make them commodious by 
building them broad rather than long. In 
a house of the old piazza - encircled type, 
it was difficult, for instance, to emphasize 
the chief entrance which, if a house is to 
have the right home-like air, should always 
be hospitably prominent ; upper balconies, 
which are often so useful as well as pretty, 
could not be well placed above the long 
piazza roofs ; terraces were hard to treat, 
and that delightful feature, the Italian log- 
gia, was impossible, at least on the ground- 
floor. 
Of late we have begun to employ these 
other external features with the happiest re- 
sults in the way of comfort no less than in 
129 
