quantity of materials and labour, or what amounts to the same thing, the
performance of any given work with the least possible quantity of
materials and labour, must accompany that of construction and solidity.
The habit of noticing in every case how far it has been observed, and
where it has failed, will greatly strengthen the judgment on this
subject; but we must always remember, that the formation of a less
beautiful or less durable building by smaller means, is not economy, but
parsimony.
An architect should not be a mere artist; he ought to have some tincture
both of literature and science, and also some knowledge of history. Not
to draw from it irrelevant fables, as Vitruvius tells us, but to enrich
the mind and strengthen the understanding. In every work of art, and I
may be forgiven for repeating the sentiment, the highest value is in the
impression of the mind of the artist; and how can that deserve
admiration which is the product of feebleness or fatuity?
These previous reflections, on what a student ought to know before he
travels, will pretty well point out to us what he has to do while in
foreign countries. I shall not attempt to indicate the particular
edifices which deserve his attention; but I would rather recommend him
to study whatever strikes him most. He will get on faster, and probably
farther, by carefully improving his natural taste, than in endeavouring
to form to himself another. And let him never forget that the object of
his study is to trace out beauties, not to enumerate defects, and
congratulate himself on his own superiority, or on that of his country:
he is to hunt out what is excellent, and to separate the gold from the
dross; and if in buildings generally praised, he cannot find any thing
to admire, he may be pretty confident that there is some defect in
himself. Their merits perhaps may consist in particulars to which he is
less sensible than many other people, and he may think such particulars
more highly valued than they deserve, and he may possibly be right in so
thinking; yet if he be not capable of seeing those merits, it must be
attributed to his want of eyesight.
Many students in architecture seem to employ themselves wholly in
measuring different buildings, ancient or modern, and imagine that while
so doing, their time is necessarily well employed. To a certain degree
this is a desirable occupation, and it fills the portfolio, and makes a
great display of industry; yet it is possible to be more industrious,
and more usefully so, and have less to shew. No artist has the notion of
ever following any of these buildings minutely in his own productions.
Who would ever think of copying the Pantheon in its precise dimensions,
and in its details, or what employer either public or private could ever
require it? and if it were to be done, have we not engravings which
would be sufficiently exact? In a length of 144 feet, it is impossible
to consider an inch or two more or less, as of any importance. Nor is
the wish to return with a great number of laborious drawings a
reasonable motive. After the first month or two they are neglected, and
as they have little beauty in themselves, and are not wanted for
imitation, they sleep perhaps for ever in the portfolio. The real motive
for measuring any building is to understand it better. The student’s
attention is forced in succession on each individual part; he gets it as
it were by heart, and what he possesses on paper is of little value
compared with that which he fixes in his mind, and indeed the principal
merit of the first is, that it recals the latter, which among so many
objects might be forgotten.
What the student has to do then, is to see every ancient building, and
every modern building of consequence. To remark whatever pleases him,
and to note it on paper, either in writing, or by sketches, or rather by
both. To consider what are the circumstances to which the effect which
he admires is owing; whether in the general distribution of the masses,
in the disposition of the orders, or in the minuter details; and to take
such dimensions, and make such drawings, as would enable him upon
occasion to produce a similar effect; and this mental process is to be
applied, not merely to the beauty, but also to the solidity,
convenience, and economy of the edifice. This will form his principal
employment; but besides this he will find it advantageous to notice,
whatever either in plan, or in ornament, gives character to one edifice,
or to one style of architecture; to copy in detail a few of the most
beautiful ornaments, whether of friezes or of capitals, or of any other
part; and to go completely through, in plans, sections, &c., one or two
ancient, and one or two modern buildings, till he makes himself quite
master of the feeling of the artist. As for the time employed, it is by
no means of consequence that every one should see every thing. One may
visit the South of France, which another may neglect. Some may repair to
one city of Italy, and others to another. One may pass over slightly,
what another studies with the greatest care; but every one should see
Rome and Vicenza. I may add Pæstum, and out of Italy, Athens. No person
can form a just idea of any style of architecture, without seeing its
best examples. Prints may recal what we have seen, but they give a very
imperfect notion of the degree of excellence of what we have not seen.
We must study the Corinthian at Rome, the Doric, in its more solid and
massy form at Pæstum; in its more graceful proportions at Athens; if
there were any Ionic building remaining tolerably perfect in Asia Minor,
I should send him to that country, but this I am afraid is not the case.
Rome will be his head quarters, because it is convenient to fix oneself
principally in one place, and Rome, from the multitude of its objects
both ancient and modern, and from the society obtained among artists of
all nations, who resort thither, is far preferable to any other city.
Here, if he stay two years, including one summer at Tivoli and
Palestrina, and another at Terni, Assisi, &c., he will not find it too
much. Eight months would do for all the North of Italy, and three more
for Naples and Pæstum, provided he do not go to Sicily, which I do not
consider as necessary; there is no Doric edifice in that island equal to
the great temple at Pæstum. Considering the inconvenient travelling, and
the quarantine, he ought to allow at least a year for Greece, half of
which should be spent at Athens. And these, with the time of going and
returning, will occupy somewhat more than four years; and if Sicily or
the South of France be added, something may be taken from other objects
to bring it within four years and a half: it is probably better that the
student should set out with the prospect of an earlier return, for four
years and a half seems a long while, both to a young man and to his
parents; and the former may perhaps relax in his efforts, when he sees
the time before him, more clearly than the employments which are to fill
it up.
LETTER XLII.
SPECULATIONS AT ROME.
_Rome, August, 1817._
SUETONIUS, in the life of Augustus, tells us, that that emperor boasted
that he had found Rome of brick, and left it of marble. We must, I
conceive, not take this expression too literally, but merely as a
description of increased magnificence. The words attributed to him by
Dion, that he had found it of earth, and left it of stone, are nearer
the truth, if we suppose the term stone to be applied to all materials
of a durable nature, as that of _earth_ would certainly imply what was
soft and easily perishing. I have frequently heard the expression of
Suetonius contended for as the literal description of a fact; but of the
monuments remaining, known to be prior to the time of Augustus, not one
is of brick: while on the contrary, from his time downwards, brick was
evidently used in the greatest abundance. Vitruvius, who certainly did
not publish his work before the time of Augustus, is diffuse in his
account of unburnt bricks, but says nothing about the formation of burnt
bricks, which seems to prove that they were not then in common use at
Rome. He proceeds to state, that very good and durable buildings may be
made of burnt bricks, and cites as examples, several buildings in old
Greece, and in Magna Græcia. Another circumstance, which indicates that
bricks were little used at that period, is found in his account of
pozzolana, _pulvis puteolana_, which he describes as an excellent
material for building, and as found about Baia and mount Vesuvius, while
in fact this substance is very abundant about Rome, and nearly, if not
quite universal, in the ancient brick and rubble-work there.
If however there are no brick monuments remaining, which date
_certainly_ before the time of Augustus, there are many such, which have
been _supposed_ to be of republican times. The Circus maximus is
attributed to Romulus, and some brickwork may be observed among the
trifling fragments which are shewn as its ruins, but as no one can
believe that these are of the time of Romulus, we may as well suppose
them after, as before, that of Augustus; especially as the work is of
the same nature as that of the palace of the Cæsars just behind it. The
earliest aqueducts were of the time of the republic, but these form a
curious lesson against the early use of brickwork; although sometimes
quoted in its favour. The temple of Saturn is also said to be ancient;
but whether the lofty brick wall, just by the arch of Constantine, be a
part of the temple, and whether if it be so, the temple was not rebuilt
under the emperors, are both disputable points. It exhibits an abuse of
the use of arches, which in this example occur in the solid of the wall,
when there are no openings below, or none which at all correspond with
the upper arches. Such an abuse does not seem likely to have been
introduced very early, yet we find something of it in the Pantheon, as
has been already noticed. Another edifice which pretends to an early
date, is that usually called the temple of Rediculus, built to
commemorate the retreat of Hannibal. But Hannibal, according to the
antiquaries, approached Rome, not in this quarter, but in the
neighbourhood of the Porta Salaria, and such a temple would probably
have been built near the spot where he advanced nearest to the walls.
The present building is in a valley far from the old circuit of the
city, and not at all suited to a reconnoitring position, and the
character of the work does not announce an early period of the art of
building or of brickmaking.
The stone buildings supposed to be prior to the time of Augustus are,
the Cloaca maxima, and some portions of the aqueducts, of which as much
use has not been made in the history of architecture as might be.
Without them, the Cloaca maxima stands the single example of the use of
the arch, from the foundation of Rome to the government of the Cæsars;
these at least form stepping-stones in that long interval, though still
few and far apart. Some portions of the bridges also are considered as
republican, but I think only of the piers; and there are vestiges of the
temple of Æsculapius, and of the temple of Filial Piety. We may add to
these the Tabularium, and a few other fragments about the Capitol, the
Mamertine prisons, the sepulchre of Caius Poplicus Bibulus, the temple
of Fortuna virilis, seven columns of the temple of Pudicitia patricia,
and the temple of Vesta, or, if you like it better, the temple of
Hercules vincitor, for I have a book to demonstrate that this latter is
the true appellation. A circular temple of this name was built somewhere
hereabouts in the year 480 of Rome, but the author of the book is
willing to suppose that it was rebuilt by some of the first emperors. I
have before stated some reasons which incline me to think this edifice
earlier than the emperors, though it may perhaps have been considerably
repaired and restored by them; but I am not at all willing to believe it
so early as 480 A. U. C. In fact, whether it be the temple of Vesta, of
Hercules vincitor, or of any other god or goddess, we have only
supposition as to the date of its existing remains. The tomb of the
Scipios is of peperino; the brickwork found in it is of posterior
erection. The fragment called the temple of Concord is placed by Milizia
among the edifices of the republic, but it has no claim to such
antiquity.
Of the time of the Emperors, we have six or eight fragments of temples,
entirely of stone; but all the great ruins, the baths, the Coliseum, the
temple of Peace, are in great measure of brick. In the temple of Jupiter
Stator, the foundations which supported the walls and columns were of
stone, but all the intermediate spaces were filled with rubble, so as to
form a solid mass of masonry. The rubble and brick were perhaps cased
with marble, or the exposed parts were of travertine; and perhaps both
this and peperino would come under the term _marmor_, among the Latins,
as they are now frequently included in the _marmi_ of the Italians.
In the history of ornamental architecture, we may observe that the
Composite order was not introduced so early as the time of Augustus, but
we have not materials to determine the precise date of its invention. It
seems to be the order of a people who loved richness of effect, but had
not patience or skill to attain the delicacy of the Corinthian: yet
there are some examples highly beautiful in design, and exquisitely
finished. The remains in the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedim form an
example of this, and the capital which adorns the entrance of the
baptistery of Constantine is another not less beautiful, but it differs
so much in the arrangement of its parts, that if we consider such little
particulars as essential characters, it could hardly be considered as
the same order. Among the fragments at Rome, we have hundreds of
specimens, equally, or more anomalous, but in general of far inferior
workmanship, and it would be more convenient to class all these much
ornamented capitals as varieties of the Corinthian. The earliest
Corinthian entablature was without modillions, and in no wise different
from the Ionic. Modillions were probably introduced about the time of
Augustus, and the dentils were diminished to make room for them, and
even at times omitted; but this fashion does not seem to have lasted.
The dentils came in again, but reduced in size, or at least in length;
perhaps not in width, for they are proportionally much wider and farther
apart, but frequently connected at top, the dentil-band being only cut
partially, or else some little ornament was introduced on the upper part
of the interval: this indeed occurs in some monuments of the Augustan
age. In the same manner the eggs became wider and farther apart, and the
little processes between them, which at first were mere points, became
arrow-heads. In the temple of Jupiter tonans, each ovolo is laid in the
hollow of a leaf, and is itself carved on the surface; and at the same
time that the leaves of the capital became more united with the solid
which they surround, the ovoli were executed so as to stand more
detached from the back ground. This process continued to the time of
Dioclesian. The capitals of his baths are not of contemptible
workmanship, nor is the entablature bad, though very much inferior in
every respect to those of the age of Augustus, and even of Septimius
Severus. In the short interval between Dioclesian and Constantine, the
builders seem to have forgotten everything; between the reign of
Constantine and the death of Honorius, a period of above one hundred
years, I have seen no building of any consequence. Some fragments may
exist, but as we neither know the history of their erection, nor find
any distinguishing peculiarities in the objects themselves, they can
furnish us with no assistance in tracing the progress, or rather the
downfal of architecture. We may perhaps attribute to this period, the
church or basilica of San Lorenzo. The columns and capitals of any
edifice then erected at Rome, were probably always taken from older
buildings, and the entablature frequently made out of the fragments of
former entablatures; but in the portico of that church there is an
entablature made for the building, with a high frieze in mosaic, and the
mouldings of the cornice are composed of lines nearly straight, and with
ornaments of little relief. Of buildings erected during the government
of the empress Placidia, and afterwards under the reign of Theodoric,
that is, from 425 to 450, and again in the first half of the sixth
century, there are seven churches, a baptistery, and two mausolea,
existing at Ravenna, which I have already described. In the time of
Dioclesian, and before that period, when arches and columns were used
together, the arches sprung from the top of the entablature; in
Constantine’s time, the practice was to spring them from the capitals of
the columns; and in some countries we find this practice existing to a
comparatively recent period, especially in cloisters. But the northern
nations, in their attempt to copy Roman architecture, imitated rather
that of the time of Dioclesian, than of a later date. They however,
diminished very much the entablature, and ultimately reduced it to a
mere slab over the capital, on which some of the appropriate ornaments
of the ancient entablature might still be traced. On the other hand, the
architects employed by Theodoric introduced a solid block under the
springing, which is evidently derived from the construction of a stone
arch, and not from that of a wooden entablature. The same arrangement
occurs at St. Mark’s at Venice. This peculiarity forms one striking
point of difference between the architecture of the age of Constantine,
and of that of Theodoric; another is in the use of corbels: the small
columns of the latter age frequently standing upon them; and the impost
of the arch is sometimes lengthened out into a corbel, and supported by
a column, which is not placed under its extremity; the impost continuing
beyond its support, and sustaining a wall, considerably advanced before
the face of the columns. Something of this sort occurs in Dioclesian’s
palace at Spalatro, but I have not observed it in any of Constantine’s
buildings.
A third distinctive mark may be found in the ornaments, and especially
in the capitals; in point of execution there is not much difference, but
the design in Theodoric’s time is much inferior. The artists no longer
endeavoured to imitate the antique, but introduced badly imagined
fancies of their own. Theodoric was educated at Constantinople, and
probably procured his artists from that city. At a later period we know
the church of St. Mark at Venice to have been built under the direction
of a Greek architect, and though an interval of several centuries
occurred between these erections, we yet observe many points of
resemblance; and may reasonably consider some of these peculiarities to
arise from the Greek school of art in the later ages. We meet
occasionally in other places with traces of the employment of Greek
artists, quite enough to shew, that though they combined with the
western and northern nations in the degradation of architecture, each
nation however, following a road in some degree peculiar to itself, yet
that they had nothing to do with the new, and very different style,
which arose out of that degradation, and which we now call Gothic.
There was little good architecture out of Rome, at least in Italy: there
is an arch at Rimini which is attributed to Augustus, and probably with
justice, though the inscription on which it principally depends does not
seem to occupy its original situation; and we see at Ancona an arch
dedicated to Trajan. The latter is of simple form and pleasing
proportion, but the details of both are bad.
You ask me what I think of the Italians, and reproach me with forgetting
that there are inhabitants in the palaces I describe, and worshippers in
the churches. The buildings are always before me, but what means have I,
while thus hastily rambling from place to place, of entering into the
character of the people? Yet not to appear rebellious to your authority,
I will give you such a sketch as I can, but I fear it will be like those
half dozen strokes which a smatterer in drawing sometimes calls a view
from nature, but which nobody can understand but himself. In the first
place the character of the people in the various states in Italy is
considerably different. The Milanese is not like the inhabitant of
Venice, nor is either like the Tuscan. The Tuscan peasantry are among
the best of the class in Europe. They are cleanly in their houses and
persons; they might not perhaps be considered so in Flanders, but they
certainly must in Italy; civil and courteous to strangers, and I believe
just and honest in their dealings: and add to this, they have a very
remarkable felicity of expression in their beautiful language, though
they abuse it a little in the pronunciation. They seem to hit naturally
upon the very best words possible, and their grammar is almost always
correct. The inhabitants of Perugia and Assisi partake with them in
their civility and appearance of kindness towards strangers; but this is
not the general character of the Roman states, where they are reserved,
and sometimes almost sullen, especially in the Campagna. I can fancy
that I see in the Romans traces of their ancient character, but perhaps
with more of their ferocity under the emperors, and during the middle
ages, than of the independence of their early history. Yet there seems
to be something of that also. Their ferocity will give way to
instruction, and a better religion, if that be permitted them: it is
perhaps of all others the quality most unfavourable to liberty. If it
had shown itself in the secession to Mons Sacer, the republic must have
been destroyed, and Rome could have risen no more. The Roman is proud;
the Tuscan is vain; so is the Neapolitan, but in a very different way;
the latter is the French vanity exaggerated; the former, that of the
Welsh rendered more reasonable; but in all these varieties, I think you
rate the Italian character far too low. The germ of many excellences is
there; nay, they are half-developed, but an oppressive religion, and a
depressive government, hinder their expansion.
There is a curious division of employments at Rome, according to the
places whence the persons come. The Romagnuoli, from the north of the
Apennines, arrive to cultivate the land in October, and return in
February. The Marcheggiani come from the Mark of Ancona, in January or
February, for a similar purpose. About half of these return at Easter,
the rest remain till the end of June, and the corn is sometimes reaped
by them, but they leave the neighbourhood of Rome immediately
afterwards, and the labours are continued by the subjects of Naples,
principally from the Abruzzi. Men from Genoa and Lucca labour in the
olive-grounds. People from Amatrici dig and transport the earth; and
this also forms the occupation of some of those from Aquila. Other
labourers from Aquila cut wood upon the mountains, but those who cut it
on the shore are from another district. The Amatriciani are also porters
in the squares and markets, but those on the Ripa are Genoese.
House-porters are Grisons, or from the Valtellina. Bakers are from
Friuli. Men from Norcia employ themselves in curing hogsflesh in various
ways, and in making sausages. Butchers, shoemakers, workers in wool,
hackney-coachmen, and a large portion of the domestic servants, are
Romans. The people of the Abruzzi generally consider Rome as their
capital, and it is said that about one third of the students in the
Roman colleges are from that country. One third are Corsicans, and the
remainder Romans.