The Rotunda is elliptical in plan, with the longer diam eter or axis in a line with the approach from the main stair way. Directly in front of this is a recess and door to the Tapestry Room. On the shorter diameter or axis are two larger recesses, beyond which on the left is the door to the Chinese and Japanese Galleries and on the right that to the Egyptian Galleries. The walls between the entrance from the stairway and the recesses and between the re cesses themselves form four wide piers with a pilaster at each corner. There are niches in the two piers opposite the stairway; in that on the left is a cast of the Venus of the Capitoline Museum at Rome; on the right a cast of the Minerva Giustiniani of the Vatican. In each of the recesses are two Ionic columns and over them the main cornice which is carried around the entire Rotunda. Over the cornice in the recesses is a balustrade with pedestals; that in the smaller recess is surmounted by a vase with a griffin on each side. Each of the two pedestals in the larger re cesses support a vase of Greek form.

The surface of the dome itself is pierced over the en trance from the stairway and also over each recess by a semicircular penetration, or opening, and at the top by an opening elliptical in shape through which come both the natural and artificial light of the Rotunda.

The four piers are extended, or carried up, from the top of the cornice to a band around the ceiling opening in a form which was known in the development of the work as ribbed panels, formed by a centre surface bounded by a rib on each side, which are connected over the semicircular openings by a band or surface about corresponding in width and technically known as an archivolt.

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