Page "Chiswick House" Paragraph 71

The Lower Tribune was essentially a waiting room ( an ‘ inner court ’ or ‘ vestibule ’) for associates wishing to meet with Lord Burlington.

The room is an octagon with eight Tuscan columns positioned around its perimeter.

The architect Andrea Palladio made it clear that the Tuscan order of architecture, being the simplest of the five Roman orders, should only ever be used on the ground floor of a building as they were suitable for prisons, fortifications and amphitheatres.

The eight pillars placed in a circular formation within on octagon are derived from the Baptistery of Constantine, ( also known as the Baptistery of St John Lateran ), a building reconstructed by Palladio in his I quattro libri dell ' architettura in 1570.

In this room today are twelve oil paintings of Chiswick House and gardens from the 1930s by Joseph William Topham Vinall.

These paintings are of great interest as they show views that no longer exist with several showing the now lost interiors of the two Devonshire wing buildings.