Notwithstanding the magnificence of the Grecian and Roman architecture,
which we still admire in those ruins that remain as monuments of the
talents and genius of the ancient builders, it is very doubtful whether
their common dwelling-houses had chimneys, that is, passages or funnels
formed in the walls for conveying away the smoke from the fire-place
or stoves through the different stories to the summit of the edifice;
conveniences which are not wanting in the meanest of our houses at
present, and in the smallest of our villages. This question some have
pretended to determine without much labour or research. How can we
suppose, say they, that the Romans, our masters in the art of building,
should not have devised and invented some means to keep free from
smoke their elegant habitations, which were furnished and ornamented
in a splendid and costly manner? How is it possible that a people who
purchased ease and convenience at the greatest expense, should suffer
their apartments to be filled with smoke, which must have allowed them
to enjoy scarcely a moment of pleasure? And how could their cooks
dress in smoky kitchens the various sumptuous dishes with which the
most refined voluptuaries covered their tables? One must however be
very little acquainted with the history of inventions and manners, to
consider such bare conjectures as decisive proofs. It is undoubtedly
certain, that many of our common necessaries were for many centuries
unknown to the most enlightened nations, and that they are in part
still wanting in some countries at present. Besides, it is probable
that before the invention of chimneys, other means, now forgotten, were
employed to remove smoke.
The ancient mason-work still to be found in Italy does not determine
the question. Of the walls of towns, temples, amphitheatres, baths,
aqueducts and bridges, there are some though very imperfect remains, in
which chimneys cannot be expected; but of common dwelling-houses none
are to be seen, except at Herculaneum, and there no traces of chimneys
have been discovered[904]. The paintings and pieces of sculpture which
are preserved, afford us as little information; for nothing can be
perceived in them that bears the smallest resemblance to a modern
chimney. If the writings of the ancients are to be referred to, we must
collect from the works of the Greek and Roman authors whatever seems
allusive to the subject. This indeed has been already done by various
men of learning[905]; but the greater part of them seem to deduce more
from the passages they quote than can be admitted by those who read
and examine them without prejudice. I shall here present them to my
readers, that they may have an opportunity of judging for themselves.
We are told by Homer, that Ulysses, when in the grotto of Calypso,
wished that he might see the smoke ascending from Ithaca, that is, he
wished to be in sight of the island[906]. Montfaucon is of opinion
that this wish is unintelligible unless it be allowed that the houses
of Ithaca had chimneys. But cannot smoke be seen to rise also when
it makes its way through doors and windows? When navigators at sea
observe smoke arising, they conclude that they are in the neighbourhood
of inhabited land; but no one undoubtedly will thence infer, that the
habitations of the people have chimneys.
Herodotus[907] relates that a king of Lebæa, when one of his servants
asked for his wages, offered him in jest the sun, which at that time
shone into the house through the chimney, as some have translated the
original; but it appears that what is here called chimney, was nothing
more than an opening in the roof, under which, perhaps, the fire was
made in the middle of the edifice. Through a high chimney, of the same
form as those used at present, the sun certainly could not throw his
rays on the floor of any apartment.
In the Vespæ of Aristophanes[908], old Philocleon wishes to escape
through the kitchen. Some one asks, “What is that which makes a
noise in the chimney?” “I am the smoke,” replies the old man, “and
am endeavouring to get out at the chimney.” This passage, however,
which, according to the usual translation, seems to allude to a
common chimney, can, in my opinion, especially when we consider the
illustration of the scholiasts, be explained also by a simple hole in
the roof, as Reiske has determined; and indeed this appears to be more
probable, as we find mention made of a top or covering with which the
hole was closed.
In a passage of the poet Alexis, who lived in the time of Alexander
the Great, quoted by Athenæus[909], some one asks, “Boy, is there
a kitchen? Has it a chimney?” “Yes, but it is a bad one--the eyes
will suffer.” The question here alludes without doubt to a passage
for carrying off smoke; but information is not given us sufficient
to determine its form and construction. Athenæus has preserved also
a passage of the poet Diphilus[910], in which a parasite says, when
he is invited to the house of a rich man, he does not look at the
magnificence of the building or the elegance of the furniture, but
to the smoke of the kitchen. “If I see it,” adds he, “rising up in
abundance, quick and in a straight column, my heart is rejoiced, for
I expect a good supper.” In this passage, however, which according
to Maternus is clearly in favour of chimneys, I can find as little
proof as in the words of the poet Sosipater, quoted likewise by
Athenæus[911], who reckons the art of determining which way the wind
blows to be a part of the knowledge requisite in a perfect cook. “He
must know,” says he, “to discover from what quarter it comes, for when
the smoke is driven about it spoils many kinds of dishes.” Instead of
agreeing with Ferrarius that this quotation seems to show that the
houses of the ancients were provided with chimneys, I conclude rather
from it, that they were not; for, had there been chimneys in their
kitchens, the cooks must have left the smoke to make its way through
them without giving themselves any trouble; but if they were destitute
of these conveniences, it would be necessary for them to afford it some
other passage; it would consequently be the business of the cook to
consider on what side it would be most advantageous to open a door or a
window; and in this he would undoubtedly be guided by the direction of
the wind. That this really was the case, appears from a Greek epigram,
which by an ingenious thought, gives us an idea of the passage of smoke
through a window[912].
These, as far as I know, are all the passages which have been collected
from Greek authors respecting this question. But instead of proving
that the houses of the ancients were built with chimneys, they seem
much rather to show the contrary: especially when we consider what the
Roman writers have said on the same subject; for the information of
the latter, taken together, affords good grounds to believe that no
chimneys were to be found in the houses at Rome, at least at the time
when these authors wrote; and this certainly would not have been the
case had the Romans ever seen chimneys among the Greeks. I shall now
lay before my readers those passages which appear on the first view to
refute my conjecture.
When the triumviri, says Appian[913], caused those who had been
proscribed by them to be sought out by the military, some of them, to
avoid the bloody hands of their persecutors, hid themselves in wells,
and others, as Ferrarius translates the words, “in fumaria sub tecto,
qua scilicet fumus e tecto evolvitur.” The true translation however is
“fumosa cænacula.” The principal persons of Rome endeavoured to conceal
themselves in the smoky apartments of the upper story under the roof,
which in general were inhabited only by poor people; and this seems
to be confirmed by what Juvenal[914] expressly says, “Rarus venit in
cænacula miles.”
Those passages of the ancients which speak of smoke rising up from
houses have with equal impropriety been supposed to allude to chimneys,
as if the smoke could not make its way through doors and windows.
Seneca[915] writes, “Last evening I had some friends with me, and on
that account a stronger smoke was raised; not such a smoke however
as bursts forth from the kitchens of the great, and which alarms
the watchmen, but such a one as signifies that guests are arrived.”
Those whose judgements are not already warped by prejudice, will
undoubtedly find the true sense of these words to be, that the smoke
forced its way through the kitchen windows. Had the houses been built
with chimney-funnels, one cannot conceive why the watchmen should have
been alarmed when they observed a stronger smoke than usual arising
from them; but as the kitchens had no conveniences of that kind, an
apprehension of fire, when extraordinary entertainments were to be
provided in the houses of the rich for large companies, seems to have
been well-founded; and on such occasions people appointed for that
purpose were stationed in the neighbourhood to be constantly on the
watch, and to be ready to extinguish the flames in case a fire should
happen[916]. There are many other passages to be found in Roman authors
of the like kind, which it is hardly necessary to mention, such as that
of Virgil[917]:
Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant.
and the following words of Plautus[918] descriptive of a miser:
Quin divûm atque hominum clamat continuo fidem,
Suam rem periisse, seque eradicarier,
De suo tigillo fumus si qua exit foras.
If there were no funnels in the houses of the ancients to carry off
the smoke, the directions given by Columella to make kitchens so high
that the roof should not catch fire, was of the utmost importance[919].
An accident of the kind, which that author seems to have apprehended,
had almost happened at Beneventum, when the landlord who entertained
Mæcenas and his company was making a strong fire in order to get some
birds sooner roasted:
... ubi sedulus hospes
Pæne arsit, macros dum turdos versat in igne;
Nam vaga per veterem dilapso flamma culinam
Vulcano summum properabat lambere tectum[920].
Had there been chimneys in the Roman houses, Vitruvius certainly would
not have failed to describe their construction, which is sometimes
attended with considerable difficulties, and which is intimately
connected with the regulation of the plan of the whole edifice. He
does not, however, say a word on this subject; neither does Julius
Pollux, who has collected with great care the Greek names of every part
of a dwelling-house; and Grapaldus, who in later times made a like
collection of the Latin terms, has not given a Latin word expressive of
a modern chimney[921]
I shall here answer an objection which may be made, that the word
_caminus_ means a chimney; and I shall also explain what methods the
ancients, and particularly the Romans, employed without chimneys to
warm their apartments. _Caminus_ signified, as far as I have been able
to learn, first a chemical or metallurgic furnace, in which a crucible
was placed for melting and refining metals. It signified also a smith’s
forge[922]. It signified likewise, without doubt, a hearth, or as we
talk at present, a fire-place, which served for warming the apartment
in which it was constructed; and for that purpose portable stoves or
fire-pans were also employed. These were either filled with burning
coals, or wood was lighted in them, and, when burned to coal, was
carried into the apartment. In all these however there appears no trace
of a chimney.
The complaints often made by the ancients respecting smoke serve also
to confirm the opinion that they had no chimneys. Vitruvius[923],
where he speaks of ornamenting and fitting up apartments, says
expressly, that there ought to be no carved work or mouldings, but
plain cornices, in rooms where fire is made and many lights burned,
because they will soon be covered with soot, and therefore will require
to be often cleaned. On the other hand, he allows carving in summer
apartments, where the effects of smoke are not to be apprehended. The
moderns, however, who use chimneys, ornament the borders of them with
carving, painting and gilding, nor are they injured by the smoke; but
we find that among the ancients, furniture of every kind, ceilings and
walls were soon covered over with soot; and from this even the images
of their ancestors, _imagines majorum_, were not secure, which, though
they were to be found only in the houses of the great, and stood in
niches in the _atrium_[924] or hall, became black with smoke, and on
that account were justly named _fumosæ_[925]. The smoke therefore must
have been blown very much about, and carried into every apartment. In
the houses of the opulent, care in all probability was employed to keep
them clean; but the habitations of families who did not belong to the
common or poorest classes, are represented as smoky and black; and we
are told that their walls and ceilings were full of soot. They were
therefore called black houses, as in Russia the huts of the common
people, which are furnished with paltry stoves, and which are blackened
in the same manner by the smoke of the fir-wood used in them for fuel,
are called black huts[926].
As the houses of the ancients were so smoky, it may be easily
comprehended how, by means of smoke, they could dry and harden, not
only various articles used as food, but also different pieces of timber
employed for making all sorts of large and small implements. In this
manner was prepared the wood destined for ploughs, waggons, and ships,
and particularly that of which rudders were formed[927]. For this
reason pantries for flesh and wine, and also coops to hold fowls, which
were said to thrive by smoke, were constructed near the kitchen, where
it always abounded[928]; and on the other hand, it was necessary to
remove to a distance from kitchens, apartments destined for the purpose
of preserving such articles as were liable to be spoiled by smoke[929]:
but among us the case is widely different, for we often have neat and
elegant apartments in the neighbourhood of the kitchen.
From what has been said it will readily appear why the ancients kept
by them such quantities of hard wood, which, when burning, does not
occasion smoke. The same kind is even sought after at present, and
on this account we value that of the white and common willow, _Salix
alba_ and _triandra_; because when burned in our chimneys, it makes
little smoke, and throws out fewest sparks. The great trouble, however,
which was taken in old times to procure wood that would not smoke,
clearly proves that this was much more necessary in those periods than
at present. It was customary to peel off the bark from the wood, to
let it lie afterwards a long time in water, and then to suffer it to
dry[930]. This process must undoubtedly have proved of great service,
for we know that wood which has been conveyed by water, in floats,
kindles more readily, burns brisker, and throws out less smoke than
that which has been transported from the forest in waggons. Another
method, much employed, of rendering wood less apt to smoke, was to
soak it in oil or oil-lees, or to pour oil over it[931]. With the like
view, wood, before it was used, was hardened or scorched over the fire,
until it lost the greater part of its moisture, without being entirely
reduced to charcoal. This method is still employed with advantage in
glass-houses and porcelain manufactories, where there are stoves made
on purpose to dry wood. Such scorched wood appears to be that to which
the ancients gave the name of _ligna cocta_ or _coctilia_[932]. It was
sold in particular warehouses at Rome, called _tabernæ coctiliariæ_,
and the preparing as well as the selling of it formed an employment
followed by the common people, and which, as we are told, was carried
on by the father of the emperor Pertinax[933]. When it was necessary to
kindle fire without wood prepared in that manner, an article probably
too expensive for indigent families, we find complaints of smoke which
brought on a watering of the eyes; and this was the case with Horace at
a paltry inn where he happened to stop when on a journey[934].
The information which can be collected from the Greek and Roman
authors respecting the manner in which the ancients warmed their
apartments, however imperfect, nevertheless shows that they commonly
used for that purpose a large fire-pan or portable stove, in which
they kindled wood, and, when the wood was well-lighted, carried it
into the room, or which they filled with burning coals. When Alexander
the Great was entertained by a friend in winter, as the weather was
cold and raw, a small fire-bason was brought into the apartment to
warm it. The prince, observing the size of the vessel, and that it
contained only a few coals, desired his host, in a jeering manner, to
bring more wood or frankincense, giving him thus to understand that
the fire was fitter for burning perfumes than to produce heat[935].
Anacharsis, the Scythian philosopher, though displeased with many of
the Grecian customs, praised the Greeks, however, because they shut
out the smoke and brought only fire into their houses[936]. We are
informed by Lampridius, that the extravagant Heliogabalus caused to be
burned in these stoves, instead of wood, Indian spiceries and costly
perfumes[937]. It is also worthy of notice, that coals were found in
some of the apartments of Herculaneum, as we are told by Winkelmann,
but neither stoves nor chimneys. As in Persia and other countries of
the East no stoves made in the European manner are used at present, and
as it is certain that the manners, customs and furniture of the early
ages have been retained there almost without variation, we have reason
to suppose that the methods employed by the inhabitants for warming
themselves are the same as those used by the ancients. They agree
perfectly with the descriptions given by the Greek and Roman authors,
and serve in some measure to illustrate them. I shall therefore here
insert the account given by De la Valle, as it is the clearest and most
to the purpose.
“The Persians,” says he, “make fires in their apartments, not in
fire-places as we do, but in stoves in the earth, which they call
_tennor_. These stoves consist of a square or round hole, two spans
or a little more in depth, and in shape not unlike an Italian cask.
That this hole may throw out heat sooner, and with more strength,
there is placed in it an iron vessel of the same size, which is either
filled with burning coals, or a fire of wood and other inflammable
substances is made in it. When this is done, they place over the hole
or stove a wooden top, like a small low table, and spread above it a
large coverlet quilted with cotton, which hangs down on all sides to
the floor. This covering condenses the heat, and causes it to warm
the whole apartment. The people who eat or converse there, and some
who sleep in it, lie down on the floor above the carpet, and lean,
with their shoulders against the wall, on square cushions, upon which
they sometimes also sit; for the _tennor_ is constructed in a place
equally distant from the walls on both sides. Those who are not very
cold, only put their feet under the table or covering; but those who
require more heat can put their hands under it, or creep under it
altogether. By these means the stove diffuses over the whole body,
without causing uneasiness to the head, so penetrating and agreeable
a warmth, that I never in winter experienced anything more pleasant.
Those, however, who require less heat let the coverlet hang down on
their side to the floor, and enjoy without any inconvenience from the
stove the moderately heated air of the apartment. They have a method
also of stirring up or blowing the fire when necessary, by means of
a small pipe united with the _tennor_ or stove under the earth, and
made to project above the floor as high as one chooses, so that the
wind, when a person blows into it, because it has no other vent, acts
immediately upon the fire like a pair of bellows. When there is no
longer occasion to use this stove, both holes are closed up, that is to
say, the mouth of the stove and that of the pipe which conveys the air
to it, by a flat stone made for that purpose. Scarcely any appearance
of them is then to be perceived, nor do they occasion inconvenience,
especially in a country where it is always customary to cover the floor
with a carpet, and where the walls are plastered. In many parts these
stoves are used to cook victuals, by placing kettles over them. They
are employed also to bake bread, and for this purpose they are covered
with a large broad metal plate, on which the cake is laid; but if
the bread is thick and requires more heat, it is put into the stove
itself[938].” I shall here remark, that the Jews used such stoves in
their houses, and the priests had them also in the temple[939].
Those who have employed their talents on this subject before me, have
collected a great many passages from the Greek and Roman writers which
speak of fires made for the purpose of affording warmth; but as they
contain nothing certain or decisive, I shall not here enlarge upon
them[940]. Though one or more expressions may appear to allude to a
chimney, and even if we should conclude from them, with Montfaucon,
that the ancients were acquainted with the art of constructing in
mason-work elevated funnels for conveying off the smoke, it must
be allowed, when we consider the many proofs which we find to the
contrary, that they were at any rate extremely rare. As they are
so convenient and useful, and can be easily constructed upon most
occasions, it is impossible, had they been well known, that they should
have ever been forgotten. Montfaucon says, from _caminus_ is derived
_chiminea_ of the Spaniards; _camino_ of the Italians; _cheminée_ of
the French; and _kamin_ of the Germans; and it seems, adds he, beyond
a doubt, that the name, with the thing signified, has been transmitted
to us from the ancients. Though this derivation be just, the conclusion
drawn from it is false. The ancient name of a thing is often given
to a new invention that performs the same service. The words _mill_
and _moulin_ came from _mola_; and yet our mills were unknown to the
ancients. Guys relates, that a Greek woman, seeing an European lady
covered with a warm cloak, said, “That woman carries her _tennor_ about
with her.”
Besides the methods already mentioned, of warming apartments, the
ancients had another still more ingenious, which was invented and
introduced about the time of Seneca[941]. A large stove or several
smaller ones were constructed in the earth under the edifice; and these
being filled with burning coals, the heat was conveyed from them into
dining-rooms, bed-chambers, or other apartments which one wished to
warm[942] by means of pipes inclosed in the walls. The upper end of
these hot-air pipes was often ornamented with the representation of a
lion’s or a dolphin’s head, or any other figure according to fancy, and
could be opened or shut at pleasure. It appears that this apparatus
was first constructed in the baths, and became extended afterwards
to common use. These pipes sometimes were conducted around the whole
edifice[943], as I have seen in our theatres. Palladius advises a
branch of such pipes to be conveyed under the floor of an oil-cellar,
in order that it may be heated without contracting soot[944]. Such a
mode of warming apartments, which approaches very near to that employed
in our German stoves, would have been impossible, had the houses been
without windows; and it is worthy of remark, that transparent windows,
at the time Seneca lived, were entirely new. These pipes, like those
of our stoves, could not fail in the course of time to become filled
with soot; and as they were likely to catch fire by being overheated,
laws were made forbidding them to be brought too near to the wall of
a neighbouring house[945], though there were other reasons also for
this regulation. As what is here said will be better elucidated by a
description of the still existing ruins of some ancient baths, I shall
transcribe the following passage from Winkelmann:--
“Of chimneys in apartments,” says this author, “no traces are to
be seen. Charcoal was found in some of the rooms in the city of
Herculaneum, from which we may conclude that the inhabitants used only
charcoal fires for warming themselves. In the houses of the common
citizens at Naples, there are no chimneys at present; and people of
rank there as well as at Rome, who strictly adhere to the rules laid
down by physicians for preserving health, live in apartments without
chimneys, and which are never heated by coal-fires. In the villas,
however, which were situated without Rome, on eminences where the air
was purer and colder, the ancients had _hypocausta_ or stoves, which
were more common perhaps than in the city. Stoves were found in the
apartments of a ruined villa, when the ground was dug up to form a
foundation for the buildings erected there at present. Below these
apartments there were subterraneous chambers, about the height of a
table, two and two under each apartment, and close on all sides. The
flat top of these chambers consisted of very large tiles, and was
supported by two pillars, which, as well as the tiles, were joined
together, not with lime but some kind of cement, that they might not be
separated by the heat. In the roofs of these chambers there were square
pipes made of clay, which hung half-way down into each, and the mouths
of them were conveyed into the apartment above. Pipes of the like kind,
built into the wall of this lower apartment, rose into another in the
second story, where their mouths were ornamented with the figure of a
lion’s head, formed of burned clay. A narrow passage, of about two feet
in breadth, conducted to the subterranean chambers, into which coals
were thrown through a square hole, and the heat was conveyed from them
by means of the before-mentioned pipes into the apartment immediately
above, the floor of which was composed of coarse mosaic-work, and the
walls were incrusted with marble. This was the sweating-apartment
(_sudatorium_). The heat of this apartment was conveyed into that on
the second story by the clay pipes enclosed in the wall, which had
mouths opening into the former, as well as the latter, to collect
and afford a passage to the heat, which was moderated in the upper
apartment, and could be increased or lessened at pleasure.” Such a
complex apparatus would have been unnecessary had the Romans been
acquainted with our stoves[946].
I have, as yet, made no mention of a passage of the emperor Julian,
which is too remarkable to be entirely omitted; though, at the same
time, it is so corrupted that little can be collected from it[947].
Julian relates, that during his residence at Paris the winter was
uncommonly severe; but that he would not allow the house in which he
lived to be heated, though it had the same apparatus for that purpose
as the other houses of the city. His reason for this was, that he
wished to inure himself to the climate; and he was apprehensive also,
that the walls by being heated might become moist and throw out a
damp vapour. He suffered, therefore, burning coals only to be brought
into his apartment, which, however, occasioned pains in his head,
and other disagreeable symptoms. What apparatus the houses of Paris
then had for producing heat, no one can conjecture from the passage
alluded to. In my opinion, they were furnished with the above-described
subterranean stoves: but even if these should not be here meant, I
cannot help thinking that the emperor’s relation confirms that they had
not chimneys like ours; for, had the case been otherwise, the cautious
prince would not have exposed himself to the vapour of charcoal, the
noxious quality and effects of which could not be unknown to him.
Though the great antiquity of chimneys is not disputed, too little
information has been collected to enable us to determine, with any
degree of certainty, the period when they first came into use. If it
be true, as Du Cange, Vossius, and others affirm, that apartments
called _caminatæ_ were apartments with chimneys, these must, indeed, be
very old; for that word occurs as early as the year 1069, and perhaps
earlier[948]; but it is always found connected in such a manner as
contradicts entirely the above signification. Papias the grammarian,
who wrote about 1051, explains the word _fumarium_ by _caminus per
quem exit fumus_; and Johannes de Janua, a monk, who about 1268 wrote
his Catholicon, printed at Venice, says “Epicaustorium, instrumentum
quod fit super ignem caussa emittendi fumum.” But these _fumaria_
and _epicaustoria_ may have been pipes by which the smoke, as is the
case in our vent-furnaces, was conveyed through the nearest wall or
window: at any rate, this expression, with its explanations, can
afford no certain proof that chimneys are so old[949]; especially as
later writers give us reason to believe the contrary. Riccobaldus
de Ferrara[950], Galvano Fiamma or Flamma, a Dominican monk from
Milan[951], who died in 1344 professor at Pavia, and Giovanni de
Mussis, who about 1388 wrote his Chronicon Placentinum[952], and
all the writers of the fourteenth century, seem either to have been
unacquainted with chimneys, or to have considered them as the newest
invention of luxury.
That there were no chimneys in the tenth, twelfth, and thirteenth
centuries, seems to be proved by the so-called _ignitegium_, or
_pyritegium_, the curfew-bell of the English, and _couvre-feu_ of the
French. In the middle ages, as they are termed, people made fires in
their houses in a hole or pit in the centre of the floor, under an
opening formed in the roof; and when the fire was burnt out, or the
family went to bed at night, the hole was shut by a cover of wood.
In those periods a law was almost everywhere established, that the
fire should be extinguished at a certain time in the evening; that
the cover should be put over the fire-place; and that all the family
should retire to rest, or at least be at home[953]. The time when
this ought to be done was signified by the ringing of a bell. William
the Conqueror introduced this law into England in the year 1068, and
fixed the _ignitegium_ at seven in the evening, in order to prevent
nocturnal assemblies[954]; but this law was abolished by Henry I., in
1100. From this ancient practice has arisen, in my opinion, a custom
in Lower Saxony of saying, when people wish to go home sooner than the
company choose, that they hear the _Bürgerglocke_, burghers’ bell. The
ringing of the curfew-bell gave rise also to the prayer-bell, as it was
called, which has still been retained in some protestant countries.
Pope John XXIII., with a view to avert certain apprehended misfortunes,
which rendered his life uncomfortable, gave orders that every person,
on hearing the _ignitegium_, should repeat the _Ave Maria_ three
times[955]. When the appearance of a comet and a dread of the Turks
afterwards alarmed all Christendom, Pope Calixtus III. increased these
periodical times of prayer by ordering the prayer-bell to be rung also
at noon[956].
The oldest certain account of chimneys with which I am acquainted,
occurs in the year 1347; for an inscription which is still existing
or did exist at Venice, relates that at the above period a great many
chimneys (_molti camini_) were thrown down by an earthquake[957]. This
circumstance is confirmed by John Villani, the historian, who died at
Florence in 1348, and who calls the chimneys _fumajuoli_[958]. Galeazzo
Gataro, who in the Dictionary of Learned Men is named De Gataris, and
who died of the plague in 1405, says in his History of Padua, which was
afterwards improved and published by his son Andrew, that Francesco da
Carraro, lord of Padua, came to Rome in the year 1368, and finding no
chimneys in the hotel where he lodged, because at that time fire was
kindled in a hole in the middle of the floor, he caused two chimneys,
like those which had been long used at Padua, to be constructed, and
arched by masons and carpenters whom he had brought along with him.
Over these chimneys, the first ever seen at Rome, he affixed his arms,
which were still remaining in the time of Gataro[959].
While chimneys continued to be built in so simple a manner, and of
such a width as they are still observed to be in old houses, they were
so easily cleaned that this service could be performed by a servant
with a wisp of straw, or a little brushwood fastened to a rope; but
after the flues, in order to save room, were made narrower, or when
several flues were united together, the cleaning of them became so
difficult, that they required boys, or people of small size, accustomed
to that employment. The first chimney-sweepers in Germany came from
Savoy, Piedmont, and the neighbouring territories[960]. These for
a long time were the only countries where the cleaning of chimneys
was followed as a trade; and I am thence inclined to conjecture that
chimneys were invented in Italy[961], rather than that the Savoyards
learned the art of climbing from the marmots or mountain-rats, as
some have asserted[962]. These needy but industrious people chose
and appropriated to themselves, perhaps, this occupation, because
they could find no other so profitable. The Lotharingians, however,
undertook this business also, and on that account the duke of
Lotharingia was styled the Imperial Fire-master. The first Germans
who condescended to clean chimneys appear to have been miners; and
our chimney-sweepers still procure boys from the Hartz forest, who
may be easily discovered by their language. The greater part of the
chimney-sweepers (_ramoneurs de cheminées_) in Paris, at present, are
Savoyards; and one may see there everywhere in the streets large groups
of their boys[963], many of whom are not above eight years of age, and
who, clad in linen frocks, will, when called upon, scramble up at the
hazard of their lives, with their besoms and other instruments, through
a narrow funnel often fifty feet in length, filled with soot and smoke,
and in which they cannot breathe till they arrive at the top, in order
to gain five sous; and even of this small pittance they are obliged to
pay a part to their avaricious masters[964].