The great Renaissance townhouses had to be semi-fortified because of the violent and unstable political climate of the time. The ground floor was a heavily defended yard, surrounded by guardrooms, quarters for men at arms, and stabling. The family and household proper lived on the first and upper floors. The few windows on the ground floor are high and heavily barred. Alberti here used the Roman Orders in very Colosseum, with the Doric on the ground floor, the curious form of Ionic on the first, and the Corinthian on the second.