repertoire of well-humanised forms. He translates this “customary” material with a passion and a high seriousness fitting to the continued validity that he finds it to possess; the reference to the Pantheon in the superimposed porticoes; to the thermae in the cruciform saloon; the ambiguity, profound, in both idea and form, in the equivocal conjunction of temple front and domestic block. These are charged with meaning, both for what they are and for what they signify; and their impression is poignant. The ancient house is not re-created, but there is in its place a concrete apparition of antique virtue, excellence, Imperial splendour and stoicism: Rome is there by allusion, the ideal world by geometry.