2i6 
THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 
227. — OLD SECTIONAL FIGURE OF THE PALACE. 
in which pairs of columns carry the winding vault, leads up to the principal floor. At the top 
it is covered by a dome. These circular stairs have been much admired and imitated, but 
the later Renaissance architects, bv applying to them the rigid lines of the Orders, introduced 
an element of confusion and contradiction which has never been successfullv assimilated with 
the natural form of the structure. It is one of those things which the earlier men had 
done better, as we see at Blois, by an instinctive grasp of the poetry of its involuted 
development. The great rooms are noble and spacious, but the frescoes and decorations 
are not speciallv interesting, and the artists seem hardly to have risen to the greatness of 
the occasion. The pattern brick floors, in red and yellow, are characteristic and interesting, 
228. — THE ASCENT TO THE ENTRANCE. 
