Transcriber’s Note
When italics were used in the original book, the corresponding text has
been surrounded by _underscores_. Superscripts have been indicated by
preceding the superscripted letters with ^. When more than one character
in a row is superscripted, the letters have been surrounded with {}.
Ditto marks have been replaced by the text they represent. Some
corrections have been made to the printed text. These are listed in a
second transcriber’s note at the end of the text.
[Illustration: ELEVATION OF FAÇADE OF COLOGNE CATHEDRAL.]
A
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
IN ALL COUNTRIES,
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY.
BY JAMES FERGUSSON, D.C.L., F.R.S., M.R.A.S.,
FELLOW ROYAL INST. BRIT. ARCHITECTS,
_&c. &c. &c._
[Illustration: Section of the Parthenon, showing the Author’s views as
to the admission of light.]
IN FIVE VOLUMES.—VOL. I.
_THIRD EDITION._
EDITED BY R. PHENÉ SPIERS, F.S.A.,
FELLOW ROYAL INST. BRITISH ARCHITECTS.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET,
1893.
_The right of Translation is reserved._
FERGUSSON’S ARCHITECTURE.
--------------
_Third Edition, with 330 Illustrations, 2 vols., medium 8vo_, 31s. 6d.
A HISTORY CF THE MODERN STYLES OF ARCHITECTURE.
By the late JAMES FERGUSSON, F.R.S.
A New Edition, Revised and Enlarged. With a Special Account of the
Architecture of America.
By ROBERT KERR, Professor of Architecture at King’s College, London.
--------------
BY THE SAME.
_New and Cheaper Edition, with 400 Illustrations, medium 8vo._, 31s. 6d.
A HISTORY OF INDIAN AND EASTERN ARCHITECTURE.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
EDITOR’S PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
A sketch of the life of the late Mr. James Fergusson, and an article by
Prof. Kerr on the peculiar qualifications with which he was endowed for
the position he took as an architectural historian, having appeared in
the preface of the third edition of the “History of the Modern Styles of
Architecture,” published in 1891, it is not necessary to do more than
refer to them. A brief summary, however, of the several works he
published on the History of the Architectural Styles may possibly be of
some interest here as a record.
Mr. Fergusson’s first work dealing with the History of the Styles of
Architecture was a large octavo volume, published in 1849, under the
title of “An Historical Enquiry into the True Principles of Beauty in
Art, more especially with reference to Architecture.” About one-third of
the volume was devoted to an introduction, to which Mr. Fergusson
attached so much importance that, in his preface he stated he considered
it to be the text, and the rest of the work (viz., the description of
the various styles) merely the illustration of what was there stated.
The pith of this introduction was subsequently published in his later
works, and a valuable chapter added to it on “Ethnography as Applied to
Architecture.” The work contained only the history of the Early Styles
from Egyptian to Roman, but it had been the intention of its author to
treat of the Christian, Pagan, and Modern Styles of Architecture in
subsequent volumes.
This intention was never carried out, but the book formed the basis of
another work published in 1855, entitled, “The Handbook of
Architecture,” which included the history of the Indian, Chinese,
Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Sassanian, and Saracenic Styles, in
the first volume, and of Christian Art in the second. A second edition,
a reprint only of this, appeared in 1859, and shortly afterwards, in
1862, a third volume was published, dealing with the History of the
Modern Styles. On the revision and expansion of the work in 1873, this
third volume became the fourth as hereinafter explained.
In 1865 and 1867 the materials of the “Handbook” were rearranged to form
an historical sequence, instead of a topographical one, and a new work
was published under the title of the “History of Architecture”; the
first part devoted to Ancient Architecture from Egyptian to Roman; the
second to Christian; and the third part to Pagan Architecture, including
Saracenic, Indian, Chinese, and Mexican.
In 1874 a second edition of this work appeared (from which the whole of
the Indian and Chinese sections were omitted and published separately in
1876 as a third volume, under the title of “Indian and Eastern
Architecture”), and many additions were made to the Assyrian and
Byzantine chapters.
In the present edition (1893), which constitutes _the third edition_ of
the “History of Architecture,” the editor has endeavoured to the best of
his ability to follow the course which Mr. Fergusson himself adopted in
publishing new editions, viz., to rewrite those portions which
subsequent discoveries had proved to be either incorrect or doubtful.
For instance, in Egyptian Architecture the accurate measurements of the
pyramids made by Mr. Flinders Petrie, and his correction of Lepsius’s
theories as regards the Labyrinth, have placed information at the
editor’s disposal which was unknown to Mr. Fergusson. Corrections of
this kind are inserted in the text. On the other hand, absolutely
nothing new has appeared on Assyrian Architecture, and, therefore, Mr.
Fergusson’s theories respecting the restoration of the Assyrian palaces
have been retained; the tendency of the opinion of archæologists having,
however, developed rather in the direction of vaulted roofs to the
principal halls, footnotes have been appended giving the views of
foreign archæologists on the subject, between which and Mr. Fergusson’s
views the student is left to judge.
In Persian work the accuracy of Mr. Fergusson’s views respecting the
arrangement of the plans of the Persian palaces, which were first
promulgated in 1855, has been confirmed by later explorations at
Persepolis, Susa, and Pasargadæ, and footnotes giving the records of the
same are appended.
The results of recent discoveries in Greece and Italy have been
recorded, sometimes in the text, sometimes in footnotes; and changes
have been made in the chapter on Parthian and Sassanian Architecture, M.
Dieulafoy’s photographs having enabled the editor to correct some of the
woodcuts copied from Coste’s illustrations.
Important changes have been made in the Second Part, devoted to
Christian Architecture; the Byzantine style has been placed first, not
only for chronological reasons as the first perfected Christian style,
but from the impossibility of otherwise following the development of the
Early Christian styles in Italy during the fifth and following
centuries.
The Romanesque, or Early Christian, style in Italy has been included in
Book II., together with the later developments of style in that country;
this has enabled the editor to bring the description of St. Mark’s,
Venice, into the first chapter under Italy, to which chronologically it
belongs, instead of placing it after the Pointed Italian Gothic style.
The Italian Byzantine chapter has been omitted, and the two or three
buildings described under it transferred to the Byzantine-Romanesque
chapter. By the new arrangement it is possible now to follow almost
chronologically the various phases of style in Italy.
In the Book on the Byzantine style, some of the examples in Jerusalem
ascribed to Constantine have been transferred to Justinian’s time; but
this has naturally followed another very important change—the
description of the so-called Mosque of Omar, the Dome of the Rock, has
been transferred to the Saracenic style. It is well known that Mr.
Fergusson had few supporters in his theories respecting the builders of
this structure, and Prof. Hayter Lewis’s work has now removed all doubt
as to its having been the work of the Caliph Abd el Melik and his
followers. This change has necessitated a complete revision of the
description of the Holy Sepulchre, for which Prof. Willis’s and Prof.
Hayter Lewis’s works have furnished the chief authorities.
Various corrections have been made in the dates ascribed to the Mosques
in Cairo, and the French Expedition in Tunis has enabled the editor to
add a plan and view of the great Mosque of Kerouan, the most sacred
Mahomedan edifice after that of Mecca, and the one great early example
of which scarcely anything was known.
About forty woodcuts have been specially prepared for this new edition,
half of which are of subjects not before illustrated, the remainder
replacing those which were defective or absolutely incorrect. In
addition to these, various alterations where required have been made to
other woodcuts.
The several authorities consulted have been acknowledged in the course
of the work, but the editor desires here to express his obligations to
Mr. Fitzroy Doll, Mr. G. H. Birch, and Mr. Arthur Hill for advice on the
German, English, and Irish sections respectively.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
During the period that has elapsed since the first edition of this work
was published,[1] no important work on the History of Architecture has
appeared which throws any new light on either the theory or practice of
the art, and, except in India, no new buildings have been discovered and
no monographs published that materially add to our general stores of
knowledge.
The truth of the matter appears to be that the architectural productions
of all the countries mentioned in these two volumes have been examined
and described to a sufficient extent for the purposes of the general
historian. A great deal of course remains to be done before all the
information required for the student of any particular style can be
supplied, but nothing of any great importance probably remains to be
discovered in the countries of the Old World, nor anything that is at
all likely to alter any views or theories founded on what we at present
know.
The one exception to this satisfactory state of things is our knowledge,
or rather want of knowledge, regarding the history of the ancient
architecture of the New World, treated of in the last few pages of this
work. No important addition has lately been made to the little we knew
before, and it is now to be feared that Mr. Squier’s long-expected work
on the Antiquities of Peru may never see the light, at least not under
the auspices of its author, and the Count de Waldeck’s work adds very
little, if anything, to what we knew before. What is really wanted is
that some one should make himself personally acquainted with all the
various styles existing between the upper waters of the Colorado and the
desert of Atacama to such an extent as to be able to establish the
relative sequence of their dates and to detect affinities where they
exist, or to point out differences that escape the casual observer.
Photography may in the next few years do something towards enabling
stay-at-home travellers to do a good deal towards this, but photography
will never do all, and local knowledge is indispensable for the exact
determination of many now obscure questions. The problem is in fact
identical with that presented to Indian antiquaries some thirty years
ago. At that time we knew less of the history of Indian architecture
than we now know of American, but at the present day the date of every
building and every cave in India can be determined with almost absolute
certainty to within fifty, or at the outside one hundred, years; the
sequence is everywhere certain, and all can be referred to the race and
religion that practised that peculiar style. In America there are the
same strongly marked local peculiarities of style as in India,
accompanied by equally easily detected affinities or differences, and
what has been done for India could, I am convinced, easily be
accomplished for America, and with even more satisfactory and more
important results to the history and ethnography of that great country.
The subject is well worthy of the attention of any one who may undertake
it, as it is the only means we now know of by which the ancient history
of the country can be recovered from the darkness that now enshrouds it
and the connexion of the Old world with the New—if any existed—can be
traced, but it is practically the only chapter in the history of
architecture which remains to be written.
Notwithstanding this paucity of new material, the completion of M.
Place’s great work on Khorsabad, Wood’s explorations at Ephesus, Dr.
Tristram’s travels in Moab, with other minor works, and new photographs
of other places, have furnished some twenty or thirty woodcuts to this
work, either of new examples or in substitution for less perfect
illustrations. More than this, the experience gained in the interval
from reading, and personal familiarity with buildings not before
visited, especially in Italy, have enabled me to add considerably to the
text and to correct or modify impressions based on less perfect
information. These, with a careful revision of the text throughout,
will, it is hoped, be found to render this edition an improvement to a
considerable extent over that which preceded it.
As mentioned in the preface to the volume containing the History of the
Modern Styles of Architecture, the scheme of the present edition is that
the two volumes now published shall contain a description of all the
ancient styles of architecture known to exist either in the Old or New
world, except India.
In the first edition the Indian styles occupied about 300 pages, and
were illustrated by 200 woodcuts. In the present one it is proposed to
double the extent of the text and to add such further illustrations as
may be found requisite fully to illustrate the subject. When this is
done it will form a separate volume, either the third of the general
History of Architecture, or a complete and independent work by itself,
and sold separately. If nothing unforeseen occurs to prevent it, it is
expected that the work will be published before the end of next year
(1875).
The History of the Modern Styles of Architecture, published last year,
will then form the fourth and concluding volume of the work, or may be
considered as a complete and independent treatise, and, like the volume
containing the History of Indian Architecture, will be sold separately.
As stated in the preface to the first edition, it was originally
intended that chapters should be added on what were then known as Celtic
or Druidical remains. When, however, the subject came to be carefully
looked into for that purpose, it was found that the whole was such a
confused mass of conflicting theories and dreams, that no facts or dates
were so established that they could be treated as historical. The
consequence was that the materials collected for the purpose were, in
1872, published in a separate volume, entitled ‘Rude Stone Monuments,’
in the form rather of an argument than of a history.
As was to be expected, a work of that nature, and which attacked the
established faith in the Druids, has been exposed to a considerable
amount of hostile criticism, but nothing has yet appeared that at all
touches the marrow of the question, or invalidates any of the more
important conclusions therein arrived at. On the other hand, everything
that has since come to light has tended to confirm them in a most
satisfactory manner. Colonel Brunon’s researches, for instance, at and
around the Madras’en, in Algeria, have proved that the tumuli in that
cemetery belong to Roman times.[2] In India sculptured and inscribed
dolmens have been dug up and photographed, so that their age is no
longer doubtful, and others, as archaic in form as any, are found
belonging to reigning families of chiefs, and still used by them. Last,
not least, Dr. Schliemann’s explorations at Hissarlik have deprived the
prehistoric advocates of one of their most plausible arguments. At a
depth of 8½ metres from the surface he found the remains of a walled
city, with paved streets, and rich in gold, silver, and copper, with
their alloys electron and bronze, and every sign of a high civilization.
Above this, through four or five metres of successive deposits,
indicating probably a duration of twice as many centuries, no trace of
metal was found, but, as he expresses, an “ungeheure menge,” and, in
another place, a “kolossale menge,” an unlimited number of rude stone
implements of every sort. Above this again, the remains of the Greek
city of Ilium Novum.
If this were the case in Asia Minor in historic times, it is in vain to
argue that, when the imported civilization of the Romans passed away,
the Britons may not have returned to their old faith and old practices,
and adhered to them till a new conquest and a new faith led to their
being finally abandoned. It may, or it may not, have been so, but till
some better argument than has yet been brought forward is adduced to
prove that it was not so, the _à priori_ argument of improbability will
not now avail much. Whenever the facts, as stated in the ‘Rude Stone
Monuments,’ are admitted, or any better set of conclusions substituted
for them, their history may be added as a fifth volume to this work.
Till then, people must be content with the hazy nihilism of the
prehistoric myth.
FROM THE PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
Although the present work may in some respects be considered as only a
new edition of the ‘Handbook of Architecture,’ still the alterations,
both in substance and in form, have been so extensive as to render the
adoption of a new title almost indispensable. The topographical
arrangement, which was the basis of the ‘Handbook,’ has been abandoned,
and a historical sequence introduced in its place. This has entirely
altered the argument of the book, and, with the changes and additions
which it has involved, has rendered it practically a new work;
containing, it is true, all that was included in the previous
publication, but with a great deal that is new and little that retains
its original form.
The logical reasons for these changes will be set forth in their proper
place in the body of the work; but meanwhile, as the Preface is that
part of it which should properly include all personal explanations, I
trust I may not be considered as laying myself open to a charge of
egotism, if I avail myself of this conventional licence in explaining
the steps by which this work attained its present form.
It was my good fortune to be able to devote many years of my life to the
study of Architecture—as a fine art—under singularly favourable
circumstances: not only was I able to extend my personal observations to
the examples found in almost all the countries between China and the
Atlantic shore, but I lived familiarly among a people who were still
practising their traditional art on the same principles as those which
guided the architects of the Middle Ages in the production of similar
but scarcely more beautiful or more original works. With these
antecedents, I found myself in possession of a considerable amount of
information regarding buildings which had not previously been described,
and—what I considered of more value—of an insight into the theory of the
art, which was certainly even more novel.
Believing this knowledge and these principles to be of sufficient
importance to justify me in so doing, I resolved on publishing a work in
which they should be embodied; and, in furtherance of this idea, sixteen
years ago I wrote a book entitled ‘The True Principles of Beauty in
Art.’ The work was not—nor was it intended to be—popular in its form. It
was an attempt of a young author to do what he thought right and best,
without consulting the wishes of the public on the subject, and the
first result, as might have been—and indeed was—anticipated, was that no
publisher would undertake it. In consequence of this, only the first
volume was published by Longmans in 1849, and that at my own expense and
risk. The event proved that the booksellers were right. The book did not
sell, and it became a question whether it was worth my while to waste my
time and spend my money on a work which the public did not want, or
whether it would not be wiser to abandon it, and wait for some more
favourable opportunity. Various circumstances of no public interest
induced me at the time to adopt the latter course, and I felt I could do
so without any breach of faith, as the work, as then published, was
complete in itself, though it had been intended to add two more volumes
to the one already published.
Some years afterwards a proposal was made to me by Mr. Murray to utilise
the materials collected for the more ambitious work in the more popular
form of a Handbook of Architecture. The work was written in a very much
more popular manner than that I had previously adopted, or than I then
liked, or now think worthy of the subject; but the result proved that it
was a style much better suited to the public demand, for this time the
work was successful. Since its publication in 1855 a large number of
copies have been sold; the work has now for some years been out of
print, and a new edition is demanded. Under these circumstances the
question arose, whether it would be better to republish the Handbook in
its original form, with such additions and emendations as its
arrangement admitted of, or whether it would not be better to revert to
a form nearly approaching that adopted in the ‘True Principles,’ rather
than that followed in the composition of the Handbook, as one more
worthy of the subject, and better capable of developing its importance.
The immense advantages of the historical over the topographical method
are too self-evident to require being pointed out, whenever the object
is to give a general view of the whole of such a subject as that treated
of in these volumes, or an attempt is made to trace the connexion of the
various parts to one another. If the intention is only to describe
particular styles or separate buildings, the topographical arrangement
may be found more convenient: but where anything beyond this is
attempted, the historical method is the only one which enables it to be
done. Believing that the architectural public do now desire something
more than mere dry information with regard to the age and shape of
buildings, it has been determined to remodel the work and to adopt the
historical arrangement.
In the present instance there does not seem to be the usual objection to
such a rearrangement—that it would break the thread of continuity
between the old and the new publication—inasmuch as, whichever method
were adopted, the present work must practically be a new book. The mass
of information obtained during the last ten years has been so great that
even in the present volume a considerable portion of it had to be
rewritten, and a great deal added. In the second volume the alterations
will be even more extensive. The publication of the great national work
on Spanish antiquities,[3] of Parcerisa’s ‘Beauties, &c., of Spain,’[4]
and, above all, Mr. Street’s work,[5] have rendered Spanish architecture
as intelligible as that of any other country, though ten years ago it
was a mystery and a puzzle. Schulz’s[6] work has rendered the same
service for Southern Italy, while the publications of De Vogüé[7] and
Texier[8] will necessitate an entirely new treatment of the early
history of Byzantine art. The French have been busily occupied during
the last ten years in editing their national monuments; so have the
Germans. So that in Europe little of importance remains to be described.
In Asia, too, great progress has been made. Photography has rendered us
familiar with many buildings we only knew before by description, and
both the Hindu and Mahomedan remains of India are now generally
accessible to the public. Colonel Yule’s[9] work on Burmah and M.
Mouhot’s[10] on Siam have made us acquainted with the form of the
buildings of those countries, and China too has been opened to the
architectural student. When the Handbook was written there were many
places and buildings regarding which no authentic information was
available. That can hardly be said to be the case now as respects any
really important building, and the time, therefore, seems to have
arrived when their affiliation can be pointed out, if it ever can be,
and the study of architecture may be raised from dry details of
measurements to the dignity of an historical science.
In the present work it is intended that the first two volumes shall
cover the same extent of ground as was comprised in the two volumes of
the ‘Handbook,’ as originally published, with such enlargement as is
requisite to incorporate all recent additions to our knowledge; and
chapters will be added on Celtic—or, as they are vulgarly called,
Druidical—remains omitted in the ‘Handbook.’ The ‘History of Modern
Architecture’ will thus form the third volume of the work; and when—if
ever—it comes to be reprinted, it is intended to add a Glossary of
architectural terms, and other matters necessary to complete the book.
When all this is done, the work will be increased from 1500 pages, which
is the number comprised in the three volumes as at present published, to
more than 2000 pages, and the illustrations will be augmented in at
least an equal ratio.[11] Notwithstanding all this, it is too evident
that even then the work can only be considered as an introduction to the
subject, and it would require a work at least ten times as large to do
full justice even to our present knowledge of the history of
architecture. Any one at all familiar with the literature of the subject
can see at once why this is so. Viollet le Duc, for instance, is now
publishing a dictionary of French architecture from the eleventh to the
sixteenth century. The work will consist, when complete, of ten volumes,
and probably 5000 illustrations. Yet even this will by no means exhaust
the history of the style in one country of Europe during the five
centuries indicated. It would require at least as many volumes to
illustrate, even imperfectly, the architectural history of England
during the same period. Germany would fill an equal number; and the
mediæval architecture of Italy and Spain could not be described in less
space.
In other words, fifty volumes and 20,000 woodcuts would barely suffice
to complete what must in the present work be compressed into 500 pages,
with a like number of illustrations.
Under these circumstances it will be easily understood that this book is
far from pretending to be a complete or exhaustive history of the art.
It is neither an atlas nor a gazetteer, but simply a general map of the
architectural world, and—if I may be allowed the small joke—on
Mercator’s projection. It might with propriety be called an abridgment,
if there existed any larger history from which it could be supposed to
be abridged. At one time I intended to designate it ‘An Historical
Introduction to the Study of Architecture, considered as a Fine Art;’
but though such a title might describe correctly enough the general
scope of the work, its length is objectionable, and, like every
periphrasis, it is liable to misconstruction.
The simple title of ‘History’ has therefore been adopted, under the
impression that it is entitled to such a denomination until at least
some narrative more worthy of the subject takes its place. Considering
the limits it thus became necessary to impose on the extent of the work,
it must be obvious that the great difficulty of its composition was in
the first place to compress so vast a subject into so small a compass;
and next, to determine what buildings to select for illustration, and
what to reject. It would have been infinitely easier to explain what was
necessary to be said, had the number of woodcuts been doubled. Had the
text been increased in the same ratio a great many things might have
been made clear to all, which will now, I fear, demand a certain amount
of previous knowledge on the part of my readers. To have done this,
however, would have defeated some of the great objects of the present
publication, which is intended to convey a general view of the history
and philosophy of the subject, without extending the work so as to make
it inconveniently large, or increasing the price so as to render it
inaccessible to a large number of readers. The principle consequently
that has been adopted in the selection of the illustrations is, first,
that none of the really important typical specimens of the art shall be
passed over without some such illustrations as shall render them
intelligible; and, after this, those examples are chosen which are
remarkable either for their own intrinsic merit, or for their direct
bearing in elucidation of the progress or affinities of the style under
discussion; all others being sternly rejected as irrelevant,
notwithstanding the almost irresistible temptation at times to adorn my
pages with fascinating illustrations. The reader who desires information
not bearing on the general thread of the narrative must thus have
recourse to monographs, or other special works, which alone can supply
his wants in a satisfactory manner.
It may tend to explain some things which appear open to remark in the
following pages, if I allude here to a difference of opinion which has
frequently been pointed out as existing between the views I have
expressed and those generally received regarding several points of
ancient history or ethnology. I always have been aware that this
discrepancy exists; but it has appeared to me an almost inevitable
consequence of the different modes of investigation pursued. Almost all
those who have hitherto written on these subjects have derived their
information from Greek and Roman written texts; but, if I am not very
much mistaken, these do not suffice. The classic authors were very
imperfectly informed as to the history of the nations who preceded or
surrounded them; they knew very little of the archæology of their own
countries, and less of their ethnography. So long, therefore, as our
researches are confined to what they had written, many important
problems remain unsolved, and must ever remain as unsolvable as they
have hitherto proved.
My conviction is, that the lithic mode of investigation is not only
capable of supplementing to a very great extent the deficiencies of the
graphic method, and of yielding new and useful results, but that the
information obtained by its means is much more trustworthy than anything
that can be elaborated from the books of that early age. It does not
therefore terrify me in the least to be told that such men as Niebuhr,
Cornewall Lewis, or Grote, have arrived at conclusions different from
those I have ventured to express in the following pages. Their
information is derived wholly from what is written, and it does not seem
ever to have occurred to them, or to any of our best scholars, that
there was either history or ethnography built into the architectural
remains of antiquity.
While they were looking steadily at one side of the shield, I fancy I
have caught a glimpse of the other.
It has been the accident of my life—I do not claim it as a merit—that I
have wandered all over the Old World. I have seen much that they never
saw, and I have had access to sources of information of which they do
not suspect the existence. While they were trying to reconcile what the
Greek or Roman authors said about nations who never wrote books, and
with regard to whom they consequently had little information, I was
trying to read the history which these very people had recorded in
stone, in characters as clear and far more indelible than those written
in ink. If, consequently, we arrived at different conclusions, it may
possibly be owing more to the sources from which the information is
derived than to any difference between the individuals who announce it.
Since the invention of printing, I am quite prepared to admit that the
“litera scripta” may suffice. In an age like the present, when
nine-tenths of the population can read, and every man who has anything
to say rushes into print, or makes a speech which is printed next
morning, every feeling and every information regarding a people may be
dug out of its books. But it certainly was not so in the Middle Ages,
nor in the early ages of Greek or Roman history. Still less was this so
in Egypt, nor is it the case in India, or in many other countries; and
to apply our English nineteenth century experience to all these seems to
me to be a mistake. In those countries and times, men who had a
hankering after immortality were forced to build their aspirations into
the walls of their tombs or of their temples. Those who had poetry in
their souls, in nine cases out of ten expressed it by the more familiar
vehicle of sculpture or painting rather than in writing. To me it
appears that to neglect these in trying to understand the manners and
customs, or the history of an ancient people, is to throw away one-half,
and generally the most valuable half, in some cases the whole, of the
evidence bearing on the subject. So long as learned men persist in
believing that all that can be known of the ancient world is to be found
in their books, and resolutely ignore the evidence of architecture and
of art, we have little in common. I consequently feel neither abashed
nor ashamed at being told that men of the most extensive book-learning
have arrived at different conclusions from myself—on the contrary, if it
should happen that we agreed in some point to which their contemporary
works did not extend, I should rather be inclined to suspect some
mistake, and hesitate to put it down.
There is one other point in which I fancy misconception exists, of a
nature that may probably be more easily removed by personal explanation
than by any other means. It is very generally objected to my writings
that I neither understand nor appreciate the beauties of Gothic
architecture, and consequently criticise it with undue severity. I
regret that such a feeling should prevail, partly because it is
prejudicial to the dissemination of the views I am anxious to
promulgate, but more because at a time when in this country the
admiration of Gothic art is so nearly universal, it alienates from me
the best class of men who love the art, and prevents their co-operating
with me in the improvement of our architecture, which is the great
object which we all have at heart.
If I cannot now speak of Gothic architecture with the same enthusiasm as
others, this certainly was not the case in the early part of my career
as a student of art. Long after I turned my attention to the subject, I
knew and believed in none but the mediæval styles, and was as much
astonished as the most devoted admirer of Gothic architecture could be,
when any one suggested that any other forms could be compared with it.
If I did not learn to understand it then, it was not for want of earnest
attention and study. I got so far into its spirit that I thought I saw
then how better things could be done in Gothic art than had been done
either in the Middle Ages or since; and I think so now. But if it is to
be done, it must be by free thought, not by servile copying.
My faith in the exclusive pre-eminence of mediæval art was first shaken
when I became familiar with the splendid remains of the Mogul and Pathan
emperors of Agra and Delhi, and saw how many beauties of even the
pointed style had been missed in Europe in the Middle Ages. My
confidence was still further weakened when I saw what richness and
variety the Hindu had elaborated not only without pointed arches, but
indeed without any arches at all. And I was cured when, after a personal
inspection of the ruins of Thebes and Athens, I perceived that at least
equal beauty could be obtained by processes diametrically opposed to
those employed by the mediæval architects.
After so extended a survey, it was easy to perceive that beauty in
architecture did not reside in pointed or in round arches, in bracket
capitals or horizontal architraves, but in thoughtful appropriateness of
design and intellectual elegance of detail. I became convinced that no
form is in itself better than any other, and that in all instances those
are best which are most appropriate to the purposes to which they are
applied.
So self-evident do these principles—which are the basis of the reasoning
employed in this book—appear to me, that I feel convinced that there are
very few indeed even of the most exclusive admirers of mediæval art who
would not admit them, if they had gone through the same course of
education as has fallen to my lot. My own conviction is, that the great
difference which seems to exist between my views and those of the
parties opposed to them arises almost entirely from this accident of
education.
In addition to this, however, we must not overlook the fact that for
three centuries all the architects in Europe concurred in believing that
the whole of their art began and ended in copying classical forms and
details. When a reaction came, it was not, unfortunately, in the
direction of freedom; but towards a more servile imitation of another
style, which—whether better or worse in itself—was not a style of our
age, nor suited to our wants or feelings.
It is perhaps not to be wondered at, that after three centuries of
perseverance in one particular groove, men should have ceased to have
any faith in the possibility of reason or originality being employed in
architectural design. As, however, I can adduce in favour of my views
3000 years of perfect success in all countries and under all
circumstances, against 300 years of absolute failure in consequence of
the copying system, though under circumstances the most favourable to
success in other respects, there seems at least an _à priori_
probability that I may be right and that the copyists may be mistaken.
I may be deceiving myself, but I cannot help fancying that I perceive
signs of a reaction. Some men are becoming aware of the fact that
“archæology is not architecture,” and would willingly see something done
more reasonable than an attempt to reproduce the Middle Ages. The
misfortune is, that their enlightenment is more apt to lead to
despondency than to hope. “If,” they ask, “we cannot find what we are
looking for in our own national style, where are we to look for it?” The
obvious answer, that it is to be found in the exercise of common sense,
where all the rest of the world have found it, seems to them beside the
mark. Architecture with most people is a mystery—something different
from all other arts; and they do not see that it is and must be subject
to the same rules as they all are, and must be practised in the same
manner, if it is to be successful.
Whether the nation will or will not soon awaken to the importance of
this prosaic anti-climax, one thing at least seems certain and most
hopeful. Men are not satisfied with what is doing; a restless, inquiring
spirit is abroad, and if people can only be induced to think seriously
about it, I feel convinced that they will be as much astonished at their
present admiration of Gothic town-halls and Hyde Park Albert Memorials,
as we are now at the Gothic fancies of Horace Walpole and the men of his
day.
NOTE.
Although every possible care has been taken in selecting the best
authorities for the statements in the text of the work, as well as the
subjects for illustration, still no one acquainted with the state of the
literature of architecture will need to be told that in many branches
few materials exist for a correct description of the style, and that the
drawings which are available are frequently so inexact, and with scales
so carelessly applied, that it is impossible at times to avoid error.
The plans throughout the book are on too small a scale to render any
minute errors apparent, but being drawn to a uniform scale of 100 feet
to 1 inch, or 1/1200 of the real size, they are quite sufficient as a
means of comparison, even when not mathematically correct. They suffice
to enable the reader to judge of the relative size of two buildings by a
mere inspection of the plans, as correctly as he could by seeing the
buildings themselves, without actually measuring them in all their
details.
As a general rule, the sections or elevations of buildings, throughout
the book, are drawn to a scale double that of the plans, viz., 50 feet
to 1 inch, or 1/600 of the real dimensions; but, owing to the great size
of many of them, it has been found impossible to carry out this in all
instances: where it has not been effected the departure from the rule is
always noted, either below the woodcut or in the text.
No lineal dimensions are quoted in the text except such as it is
believed can be relied upon, and in all instances these are reduced to
English feet. The superficial measures also in the text, like the plans,
are quite sufficient for comparison, though not to be relied upon as
absolutely correct. One great source of uncertainty as regards them is
the difficulty of knowing at times what should be included in the
building referred to. Should, for instance, the Lady Chapel at Ely be
considered an integral part of the Cathedral, or the Chapter-house at
Wells? Should the sacristies attached to Continental cathedrals be
considered as part of the church? or such semi-detached towers as the
south-western one at Bourges? What constitutes the temple at Karnac, and
how much of this belongs to the Hypostyle Hall? These and fifty other
questions occur in almost every instance which may lead two persons to
very different conclusions regarding the superficial dimensions of a
building, even without the errors inherent in imperfect materials.
When either the drawing from which the woodcut is taken was without a
scale, or the scale given could not be depended upon, “No scale” has
been put under the woodcut, to warn the reader of the fact. When the
woodcut was either too large for the page, or too small to be distinct
if reduced to the usual scale, a scale of feet has been added under it,
to show that it is an exception to the rule.
Capitals, windows, and details which are meant to illustrate forms or
construction, and not particular buildings, are drawn to any scale that
seemed best to express the purpose for which they are inserted; when
they are remarkable for size, or as individual examples, a scale has
been added; but this is the exception, not the rule.
Every pain has been taken to secure the greatest possible amount of
accuracy, and in all instances the sources from which the woodcuts have
been taken are indicated. Many of the illustrations are from original
drawings, and of buildings never before published.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
INTRODUCTION.
PAGE
PART I.—SECTION I. INTRODUCTORY.—II. BEAUTY IN ART.—III. 3
DEFINITION OF ARCHITECTURE.—IV. MASS.—V. STABILITY.—VI.
DURABILITY.—VII. MATERIALS.—VIII. CONSTRUCTION.—IX. FORMS.—X.
PROPORTION.—XI. CARVED ORNAMENT.—XII. DECORATIVE COLOUR.—XIII.
SCULPTURE AND PAINTING.—XIV. UNIFORMITY—XV. IMITATION OF NATURE.—
XVI. ASSOCIATION.—XVII. NEW STYLE.—XVIII. PROSPECTS
PART II.—ETHNOGRAPHY AS APPLIED TO ARCHITECTURAL ART.
I. INTRODUCTORY 52
II. TURANIAN RACES—Religion, Government, Morals, Literature, Arts, 55
and Sciences
III. SEMITIC RACES—Religion, Government, Morals, Literature, Arts, 64
and Sciences
IV. CELTIC RACES—Religion, Government Morals, Literature Arts, and 70
Sciences
V. ARYAN RACES—Religion, Government, Morals, Literature, Arts, and 75
Sciences
VI. CONCLUSION 83
PART I.—ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE.
INTRODUCTORY 87
OUTLINE OF EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY 90
BOOK I.—EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE.
I. INTRODUCTORY 91
II. THE PYRAMIDS AND CONTEMPORARY MONUMENTS—Tombs—Temples 97
III. FIRST THEBAN KINGDOM—The Labyrinth—Tombs—Shepherds 110
IV. PHARAONIC KINGDOM—Thebes—Rock-cut Tombs and Temples—Mammeisi— 118
Tombs—Obelisks—Domestic Architecture
V. GREEK AND ROMAN PERIOD—Decline of art—Temples at Denderah— 139
Kalábsheh—Philæ
VI. ETHIOPIA—Kingdom of Meroë—Pyramids 147
BOOK II.—ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE.
I. INTRODUCTORY 151
II. CHALDEAN TEMPLES 157
III. ASSYRIAN PALACES—Wurka—Nineveh—Nimroud—Khorsabad—Palace of 168
Sennacherib, Koyunjik—Palace of Esarhaddon—Temples and Tombs
IV. PERSIA—Pasargadæ—Persepolis—Susa—Fire Temples—Tombs 194
V. INVENTION OF THE ARCH 214
VI. JUDEA—Temple of Jerusalem 219
VII. ASIA MINOR—Historical notice—Tombs at Smyrna—Doganlu—Lycian 229
Tombs
BOOK III.—GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE.
I. GREECE—Historical notice—Pelasgic art—Tomb of Atreus—Other 240
remains
II. HELLENIC GREECE—HISTORY OF THE ORDERS—Doric Temples in Greece— 251
Doric Temples in Sicily—Ionic Temples—Corinthian Temples—
Dimensions of Greek Temples—Doric order—Ionic order—Corinthian
order—Caryatides—Forms of temples—Mode of lighting temples—Temple
of Diana at Ephesus—Municipal architecture—Theatres—Tombs—Cyrene
BOOK IV.—ETRUSCAN, ROMAN, PARTHIAN AND SASSANIAN ARCHITECTURE.
I. ETRURIA—Historical notice—Temples—Rock-cut tombs—Tombs at 289
Castel d’Asso—Tumuli—The arch
II. ROME—INTRODUCTION 302
III. ROMAN ARCHITECTURE—Origin of style—The arch—Orders: Doric, 305
Ionic, Corinthian, Composite—Temples—The Pantheon—Roman Temple at
Athens—at Baalbec
IV. BASILICAS, THEATRES AND BATHS—Basilicas of Trajan and 327
Maxentius—Provincial basilicas—Theatre at Orange—Colosseum—
Provincial amphitheatres—Baths of Diocletian
V. TRIUMPHAL ARCHES, TOMBS, AND OTHER BUILDINGS—Arches at Rome; in 347
France—Arches at Trèves—Pillars of Victory—Tombs—Minerva Medica—
Provincial tombs—Eastern tombs—Domestic Architecture—Spalato—
Pompeii—Bridges—Aqueducts
VI. PARTHIAN AND SASSANIAN ARCHITECTURE—Historical notice—Palaces 389
of Al Hadhr and Diarbekr—Domes—Serbistan—Firouzabad—Tâk Kesra—
Palaces at Mashita—Rabbath Ammon, etc.
PART II.—CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE.
BOOK I.—BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE.
I. INTRODUCTORY 415
II. BASILICAS—Churches at Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Thessalonica— 419
Rectangular churches in Syria and Asia Minor, with wooden roofs
and with stone vaults
III. CIRCULAR OR DOMICAL BUILDINGS—Circular churches with wooden 432
roofs and with true domes in Syria and Thessalonica—Churches of
SS. Sergius and Bacchus and Sta. Sophia, Constantinople—Civic
Architecture—Tombs
IV. NEO-BYZANTINE STYLE—Sta. Irene, Constantinople—Churches at 453
Ancyra, Trabala, and Constantinople—Churches at Thessalonica and
in Greece—Domestic Architecture
V. ARMENIA—Churches at Dighour, Usunlar, Pitzounda, Bedochwinta, 466
Mokwi, Etchmiasdin, and Kouthais—Churches at Ani and Samthawis—
Details
VI. ROCK-CUT CHURCHES—Churches at Tchekerman, Inkerman, and 481
Sebastopol—Excavations at Kieghart and Vardzie
VII. MEDIÆVAL ARCHITECTURE OF RUSSIA—Churches at Kief—Novogorod— 484
Moscow—Towers
BOOK II.—ITALY.
I. INTRODUCTORY—Division and Classification of the Mediæval Styles 500
of Architecture in Italy
II. EARLY CHRISTIAN STYLE—Basilicas at Rome—Basilica of St. Peter— 504
St. Paul’s—Basilicas at Ravenna—St. Mark’s, Venice—Dalmatia and
Istria—Torcello
III. CIRCULAR ROMANESQUE CHURCHES—Circular Churches—Tomb of Sta. 542
Costanza—Churches at Perugia, Nocera, Ravenna, Milan—Secular
buildings
IV. LOMBARD AND ROUND-ARCHED GOTHIC—Chapel at Friuli—Churches at 558
Piacenza, Asti, and Novara—St. Michele, Pavia—St. Ambrogio, Milan—
Cathedral, Piacenza—Churches at Verona—Churches at Toscanella—
Circular Churches—Towers
V. BYZANTINE-ROMANESQUE—Cathedral of Naples—San Miniato, Florence— 582
Cathedrals of Pisa and Zara—Cathedrals of Troja, Bari, Bittonto—
San Nicole, Bari—Cloisters of St. John Lateran—Baptistery of Mont
St. Angelo—San Donato, Zara—Towers—Civic Architecture
VI. POINTED ITALIAN GOTHIC—Fresco paintings—Churches at Vercelli, 607
Asti, Verona, and Lucca—Cathedral at Siena—Sta. Maria, Florence—
Church at Chiaravalle—St. Petronio, Bologna—Cathedral at Milan—
Certosa, near Pavia—Duomo at Ferrara
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
NO. PAGE
_Frontispiece._—Elevation of Façade of
Cologne Cathedral.
_Vignette to Title-page._—Section of the
Parthenon, showing the Author’s views as to
the admission of light.
1-6. Diagrams (technical) 8-34
7. Section of Great Pyramid 98
8. Section of King’s Chamber and of Passage in 101
Great Pyramid
9, 10. Pyramid of Sakkara 103
11. Doorway in Tomb at the Pyramids 106
12. Sarcophagus of Mycerinus 106
13. Plan of Temple near the Sphinx 107
14. Plans of houses, Kahun 113
15. Tomb at Beni-Hasan 114
16. Proto-Doric Pillar at Beni-Hasan 115
17. Reed Pillar from Beni-Hasan 115
18. Lotus Pier, Zawyet-el-Mayyitûr 115
19. Rameseum at Thebes 120
20. Central pillar, from Rameseum 121
21. Section of Palace of Thothmes III., Thebes 123
22. Plan of Hypostyle Hall at Karnac 124
23. Section of central portion of same 124
24. Caryatide Pillar, from the Great Court at 125
Medeenet-Habû
25. South Temple of Karnac 126
26. Section through Hall of Columns of same 126
27. Pillar, from Sedinga 127
28. Plan of smaller Temple, Abydus 128
29. Plan of Temple of Abydus 128
30. Plan and Section of Rock-cut Temple at 130
Abû-Simbel
31. Mammeisi at Elephantine 132
32. Plan and Section of Tomb of Meneptah at 134
Thebes
33. Lateran obelisk 135
34. Pavilion at Medeenet-Habû 137
35. View of Pavilion at Medeenet-Habû 137
36. Elevation of an Egyptian House 138
37. Plan of Temple at Edfû 140
38. View of Temple at Edfû 141
39. Bas-relief at Tel el Amarna 142
40. Façade of Temple at Denderah 142
41. Pillar, from the Portico at Denderah 143
42. Plan of Temple at Kalábsheh 143
43. Section of Temple at Kalábsheh 144
44. View of Temple at Philæ 145
45. Plan of Temple at Philæ 145
46. Pyramids at Meroë 148
47. Obelisks at Axum 150
48. Diagram of elevation of Temple at Mugheyr 159
49. Plan of Temple at Mugheyr 159
50. Diagram elevation of Birs Nimroud 160
51. Diagram plan of Birs Nimroud 160
52. Observatory at Khorsabad 162
53. Plan of Observatory, Khorsabad 162
54. Representation of a Temple, Koyunjik 164
55. Elevation of a portion of the external Wall 165
of Wuswus, at Wurka
56. Plan of portion of Wuswus 165
57. Elevation of Wall at Wurka 166
58. Plan of North-West Palace at Nimroud 170
59. Plan of Palace at Khorsabad 171
60. Terrace Wall at Khorsabad 173
61. Plan of the Palace at Khorsabad 174
62. Existing remains of Propylæa at Khorsabad 175
63. Enlarged plan of the three principal Rooms 176
at Khorsabad
64. Restored section of principal Rooms at 177
Khorsabad
65. Restoration of Northern Angle of Palace 178
Court, Khorsabad
66. City Gateways, Khorsabad 180
67. City Gateway at Khorsabad 181
68. Interior of a Yezidi House at Bukra, in the 182
Sinjar
69. Hall of South-West Palace, Nimroud 184
70. Central Palace, Koyunjik 185
71. Pavement Slab from the Central Palace, 186
Koyunjik
72. Pavilion, from the Sculptures at Khorsabad 187
73. Assyrian Temple, North Palace, Koyunjik 188
74. Bas-relief, representing façade of Assyrian 188
Palace
75. Exterior of a Palace, from a Bas-relief at 189
Koyunjik
76. King’s Tent (Koyunjik) 190
77. Horse tent (Nimroud) 190
78. Stylobate of Temple, Khorsabad 191
79. Section of same 191
80. Sacred Symbolic Tree of the Assyrians 192
81. Obelisk of Divanubara 192
82. Plan of Platform at Pasargadæ 195
83. Elevation of same 195
84. Tomb of Cyrus, Pasargadæ 196
85. Plan of Tomb of Cyrus 197
86. Section of Tomb of Cyrus 198
87. View from top of Great Stairs at Persepolis 199
88. Stairs to Palace of Xerxes 200
89. Propylæa at Persepolis 202
90. Palace of Darius 202
91. Façade of Palace of Darius at Persepolis 203
92. Tomb of Darius at Naksh-i-Rustam 204
93. Palace of Xerxes, Persepolis 205
94. Restored Plan of Great Hall of Xerxes at 206
Persepolis
95. Pillar of Western Portico 207
96. Pillar of Northern Portico 207
97. Restored Section of Hall of Xerxes 208
98. Restored Elevation of Capital at Susa 209
99. Frieze of Archers at Susa 210
100. Khabah at Istakr 212
101. Section of Tomb near the Pyramids of Gizeh 215
102. Vaulted Drain beneath the South-East Palace 215
at Nimroud
103. Arch at Dêr-el-Bahree 216
104. Arch of the Cloaca Maxima, Rome 216
105. Arches in the Pyramids at Meroë 217
106. Diagram plan of Solomon’s Palace 220
107. Diagram sections of the House of the Cedars 221
of Lebanon
108. The Tabernacle, showing one half ground plan 222
and one half as covered by the curtains
109. South-East View of the Tabernacle, as 223
restored by the Author
110. Plan of Solomon’s Temple, showing the 224
disposition of the chambers in two storeys
111. Plan of Temple at Jerusalem, as rebuilt by 225
Herod
112. View of the Temple from the East, as it 226
appeared at the time of the Crucifixion
113. Elevation of Tumulus at Tantalais 230
114. Plan and Section of Chamber in Tumulus at 230
Tantalais
115. Section of Tomb of Alyattes 230
116. Rock-cut Frontispiece at Doganlu 233
117. Lycian Tomb 234
118, 119, Rock-cut Lycian Tombs 235, 236, 236
120.
121. Ionic Lycian Tomb 237
122. Elevation of the Monument and Section of the 239
Tomb at Amrith
123. West View of the Acropolis restored 240
124. Section and Plan of Tomb of Atreus at Mycenæ 243
125. Fragment of Pillar of same 244
126. Gateway at Thoricus 245
127. Arch at Delos 245
128. Wall in Peloponnesus 246
129. Gateway at Assos 246
130. Doorway at Missolonghi 247
131. Gate of Lions, Mycenæ 247
132. Plan of Palace at Tiryns 248
133. Plan of the Acropolis at Athens 251
134. Temple at Ægina restored 252
135. Ancient Corinthian Capital 258
136, 137, Doric Column of the Temple at Delos, the 260
138. Parthenon at Athens, and the Temple at
Corinth
139. The Parthenon, Athens 262
140. Ionic order of Erechtheium 264
141. Ionic order in Temple of Apollo at Bassæ 265
142. Section of Capital of same 265
143. Order of the Choragic Monument of 266
Lysicrates, Athens
144. Order of the Tower of the Winds 267
145. Caryatide Figure in the British Museum 268
146. Caryatide Figure from the Erechtheium 268
147. Telamones at Agrigentum 269
148. Small Temple at Rhamnus 269
149. Plan of Temple of Apollo at Bassæ 270
150. Plan of Parthenon at Athens 270
151. Plan of the Great Temple at Selinus 270
152. Plan of Great Temple at Agrigentum 271
153. Section of the Parthenon 273
154. Part Section, part Elevation, of Great 273
Temple at Agrigentum
155. Plan of Erechtheium 274
156. Elevation of West End of Erechtheium 274
157. View of Erechtheium 275
158. Restored plan of Erechtheium 276
159. Plan of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus 277
160. Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, Athens 279
161. Plan of Theatre at Dramyssus 280
162. View of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, as 282
restored by the Author
163. Plan of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, from 283
a drawing by the Author
164. Lion Tomb at Cnidus 284
165. Rock-cut and Structural Tombs at Cyrene 286
166. Tombs at Cyrene 287
167. Plan and Elevation of an Etruscan Temple 292
168. Tombs at Castel d’Asso 295
169. Mouldings from Tombs at same 295
170. Plan of Regulini Galeassi Tomb 296
171. Sections of same 297
172. Section of a Tomb at Cervetri 298
173. View of principal Chamber in the Regulini 298
Galeassi Tomb
174. Plan of Cocumella, Vulci 299
175. View of same 299
176. Tomb of Aruns, Albano 300
177. Gateway at Arpino 301
178. Aqueduct at Tusculum 301
179. Doric Order 308
180. Ionic Order 309
181. Corinthian Order 310
182. Composite Order 312
183. Corinthian Base, found in Church of St. 312
Praxede in Rome
184. Doric Arcade 313
185. View in Courtyard of Palace at Spalato 314
186. Temple of Mars Ultor 316
187. Plan of Maison Carrée at Nîmes 317
188. Plan of Temple of Diana at Nîmes 317
189. View of the Interior of same 318
190. Plan of Pantheon at Rome 319
191. Half Elevation, half Section, of the 320
Pantheon at Rome
192. Plan of Temple at Tivoli 322
193. Restored Elevation of Temple at Tivoli 322
194. Plan and elevation of Temple in Diocletian’s 323
Palace at Spalato
195. Ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Olympius at 324
Athens
196. Plan of same 324
197. Plan of Small Temple at Baalbec 325
198. Elevation of same 325
199. Plan of Trajan’s Basilica at Rome 328
200. Restored Section of Trajan’s Basilica 328
201. Plan of Basilica of Maxentius 330
202. Longitudinal Section of same 330
203. Transverse Section of same 330
204. Pillar of Maxentian Basilica 331
205. Plan of the Basilica at Trèves 332
206. Internal View of same 332
207. External View of same 333
208. Plan of Basilica at Pompeii 333
209. Plan of the Theatre at Orange 335
210. View of same 336
211. Elevation and Section of part of the Flavian 338
Amphitheatre, at Rome
212. Quarter-plan of the Seats and quarter-plan 338
of the Basement of the Flavian Amphitheatre
213. Elevation of Amphitheatre at Verona 341
214. Baths of Caracalla, as restored by A. Blouet 344
215. Arch of Trajan at Beneventum 347
216. Arch of Titus at Rome 348
217. Arch of Septimius Severus 348
218. Porte St. André at Autun 349
219. Plan of Porta Nigra at Trèves 350
220. View of same 350
221. Bridge at Chamas 351
222. Column at Cussi 354
223. Capital of Column at Cussi 354
224. Tomb of Cæcilia Metella 355
225. Columbarium near the Gate of St. Sebastian, 356
Rome
226. Section of Sepulchre at San Vito 357
227. Section and Elevation of Tomb of Sta. 358
Helena, Rome
228. Plan of Minerva Medica at Rome 360
229. Section of Minerva Medica 360
230. Rib of Roof of Minerva Medica 360
231. Tomb at St. Rémi 361
232. Monument at Igel, near Trèves 362
233. Khasné, Petra 364
234. Section of Tomb at Khasné 365
235. Corinthian Tomb, Petra 366
236. Rock-cut interior at Petra 367
237. Façade of Herod’s Tombs 368
238. So-called “Tomb of Zechariah” 368
239. The so-called Tomb of Absalom 369
240. Angle of Tomb of Absalom 369
241. Façade of the Tomb of the Judges 370
242. Tomb at Mylassa 371
243. Tomb at Dugga 372
244. Plan of the Kubr Roumeïa 373
245. View of the Madracen 373
246. Palace of Diocletian at Spalato 377
247. Golden Gateway at Spalato 379
248. House of Pansa at Pompeii 381
249. Wall Decoration at Pompeii 383
250. Aqueduct of Segovia 386
251. Aqueduct of Tarragona 386
252. Bridge of Trajan, Alcantara, Spain 387
253. Plan of Palace at Al Hadhr 390
254. Elevation of part of the Palace of Al Hadhr 391
255. Plan of the Mosque at Diarbekr 392
256. Façade of South Palace at Diarbekr 393
257. View in the Court showing North Palace 394
258. Plan of Palace at Serbistan 396
259. Section of Palace at Serbistan 396
260. Plan of Palace at Firouzabad 397
261. Doorway at Firouzabad 397
262. Part of External Wall, Firouzabad 398
263. Plan of Tâk Kesra at Ctesiphon 399
264. Elevation of Great Arch of same 399
265. Sketch Plan of Palace at Mashita 400
266. Interior of ruined Triapsal Hall of Palace 402
of same
267. One compartment of Western Octagon Tower of 403
the Persian Palace at Mashita
268. Part of West Wing Wall of External Façade of 404
Palace at Mashita
269. Elevation of External Façade of the Palace 405
at Mashita, as restored by the Author
270. Plan of Palace at Rabbath Ammon in Moab 407
271. Section of Palace at same 407
272. Arch of Chosroes at Takt-i-Bostan 408
273. Plan of Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem 419
274. Plan of Eski Djuma, Thessalonica 420
275. Plan of St. Demetrius, Thessalonica 421
276. Arches in St. Demetrius at Thessalonica, 421
A.D. 500 to 520.
277. Pillar in Church of St. John, Constantinople 422
278. Plan of Church in Baquoza 423
279. Section of Church at Baquoza 423
280. Plan of Church and Part of Monastic 423
Buildings at Kalat Sema’n
281. Plan of Church at Roueiha 424
282. Section of Church at Roueiha 424
283. Plan of Church at Qalb Louzeh 425
284. Apse of Church at Qalb Louzeh 425
285. Plan of Chapel at Babouda 426
286. Elevation of Chapel at Babouda 426
287. Façade of Church at Tourmanin 427
288. Plan of Church at Pergamus 428
289. Section of Church at Tafkha 429
290. Plan of Church at Tafkha 429
291. Section on C D of same 429
292. Half Front Elevation, Tafkha 429
293. Plan of Great Church at Hierapolis 430
294. Plan of Church at Hierapolis 430
295. Section of same. With monogram found on its 431
walls
296. Plan of Church on Mount Gerizim 432
297. Plan of Cathedral at Bosra 432
298. Section of Double Church at Kalat Sema’n 433
299. Plan of Church, Kalat Sema’n 433
300. Diagram of Byzantine Arrangement 434
301. Diagram of Byzantine Pendentives 434
302. Interior of Tomb of Galla Placidia, Ravenna 435
303. Interior of Chapel in Archiepiscopal Palace, 435
Ravenna
304. Plan of the Church of St. George at 435
Thessalonica
305. Section of same 436
306. View of same 436
307. Plan of Kalybe at Omm-es-Zeitoun 437
308. View of same 437
309. Plan of Church at Ezra 438
310. Section of Church at Ezra 438
311. Plan of Church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus 439
312. Section of Church of S. Sergius 439
313. Capital from Church of same 439
314. Entablature from same 439
315. Plan of Sta. Sophia. Upper Storey and Ground 441
Floor
316. Elevation of Façade of same 442
317. Section of Sta. Sophia from E. to W. 443
318. Lower Order of Sta. Sophia 445
319. Upper Order of Sta. Sophia 446
320. Elevation of House at Refadi 448
321. Plan of House at Moudjeleia 448
322. Window at Chaqqa 448
323. Interior of the Golden Gateway 449
324. Golden Gateway (West side) 450
325. Roof of one of the Compartments of the Gate 450
Huldah
326. Tomb at Hass 451
327. Half Section, half Elevation of Dome of Sta. 453
Irene at Constantinople
328. Church of St. Clement, Ancyra 455
329. Plan of St. Clement, Ancyra 455
330. Plan of Church at Trabala 456
331. Church of Moné tés Choras 456
332. Plan of the Theotokos 457
333. Elevation of Church of Theotokos 457
334. Apse of Church of the Apostles, Thessalonica 458
335. Plan of Catholicon: Dochiariu 459
336. Plan of Panagia Lycodemo 460
337. Church of Panagia Lycodemo 460
338. Cathedral at Athens 461
339. Plan of the Church at Mistra 462
340. Church at Mistra 462
341. Apse from Mistra 463
342. Palace of the Hebdomon, Constantinople 464
343. View of Church at Dighour 467
344. Plan of Church at Dighour 468
345. Section of Dome at Dighour 468
346. Plan of Church at Usunlar 469
347. West Elevation of same 469
348. Plan of Church at Pitzounda 469
349. Section of Church at Pitzounda 470
350. View of Church at Pitzounda 470
351. Plan of Church at Bedochwinta 471
352. Plan of Church at Mokwi 471
353. Plan of Church at Etchmiasdin 472
354. Plan of Church of Kouthais 472
355. Window at Kouthais 472
356. Plan of Cathedral at Ani 473
357. Section of Cathedral at Ani 473
358. Side Elevation of same 474
359. East Elevation of Chapel at Samthawis 475
360. Niche at Samthawis 475
361. Plan of Tomb at Ani 475
362. Tomb at Ani 475
363. Tomb at Varzahan 476
364. Capital at Ani 477
365. Capital at Gelathi 477
366. Window in small Church at Ish Khan, Tortoom, 478
Armenia
367. Window in same 478
368. Jamb of Doorway at same 479
369. Cave of Inkerman 482
370. Rock-cut Church at Inkerman 482
371. View in Church Cave, near Sebastopol 482
372. Plan of Church of St. Basil, Kief 486
373. Plan of St. Irene, Kief 486
374. Plan of Cathedral at Kief 486
375. East End of the Church at Novogorod 487
376. Cathedral at Tchernigow 488
377. Village Church near Novogorod 489
378. Village Church near Tzarskoe Selo 490
379. Interior of Church at Kostroma 491
380. Interior of Church near Kostroma 492
381. Doorway of the Troitzka Monastery, near 493
Moscow
382. Plan of the Church of the Assumption, Moscow 493
383. Plan of the Church of St. Basil (Vassili 493
Blanskenoy), Moscow
384. View of the same 494
385. View of Church at Kurtea d’Argyisch 495
386. Plan of same 495
387. Tower of Ivan Veliki, Moscow, with the 496
Cathedrals of the Assumption and the
Archangel Gabriel
388. Tower of Boris, Kremlin, Moscow 497
389. Sacred Gate, Kremlin, Moscow 498
390. Plan of Church at Djemla 509
391. Plan of Church at Announa 509
392. Plan of Church at Ibrim in Nubia 510
393. Plan of Basilica at Orleansville 510
394. Plan of White Convent near Siout 511
395. Plan of the Church of San Clemente at Rome 513
396. Plan of the original Basilica of St. Peter 516
at Rome
397. Basilica of St. Peter, before its 518
destruction
398. View of the Interior of St. Paul’s at Rome, 520
before the fire
399. Plan of Sta. Maria Maggiore 521
400. View of Sta. Maria Maggiore 522
401. Plan of Sta. Agnese 522
402. Section of Sta. Agnese 522
403. Plan of St. Lorenzo, Fuori le Mura, Rome 523
404. Interior view of same 524
405. Plan of Sta. Pudentiana 525
406. Section of Sta. Pudentiana 525
407. Capital of Sta. Pudentiana 525
408. Half Section, half Elevation, of the Church 526
of San Vincenzo alle Tre Fontane, Rome
409. Plan of St. Apollinare in Classe 528
410. Arches in Church of St. Apollinare Nuovo 528
411. Part of Apse in St. Apollinare in Classe, 529
Ravenna
412. View of Exterior of same 529
413. Plan of St. Mark’s, Venice 531
414. Capital in Apse of same 532
415. View of St. Mark’s, Venice 533
416. Section of St. Mark’s, Venice 534
417. Plan of St. Antonio, Padua 536
418. Church at Parenzo in Istria 537
419. Capital of Pillar at Parenzo 538
420. Plan of Church at Torcello 539
421. Apse of Basilica at Torcello 540
422. Plan of Baptistery of Constantine 544
423. Plan of Tomb of Sta. Costanza, Rome 544
424. Plan of San Stefano Rotondo 545
425. Plan of Sti. Angeli, Perugia 545
426. Section of Sti. Angeli, Perugia 546
427. Plan of Baptistery at Nocera dei Pagani 546
428. Section of same 547
429. Plan of St. Vitale, Ravenna 548
430. Section of St. Vitale, Ravenna 548
431. Capital from same 549
431_a_. Capital from same 550
432. Plan of S. Lorenzo at Milan 551
433. Half-section, half-elevation of the 552
Baptistery at Novara
434. Plan of Tomb of Galla Placidia, Ravenna 553
435. Capital of shafts forming peristyle round 554
Theodoric’s Tomb, Ravenna
436. Plan of Tomb of Theodoric 554
437. Elevation of Tomb of Theodoric 554
438. Palazzo delle Torre, Turin 556
439. Chapel at Friuli 559
440. Plan of San Antonio, Piacenza 560
440a. Section of same 561
441. Plan and Section of Baptistery at Asti 561
442. Plan of the Cathedral at Novara 562
443. Elevation and Section of same 563
444. Section of San Michele, Pavia 564
445. View of the Apse of same 565
446. Plan of San Ambrogio, Milan 566
447. Atrium of San Ambrogio, Milan 567
448. Façade of the Cathedral at Piacenza 568
449. Apse of the Cathedral, Verona 570
450. Façade of San Zenone, Verona 571
451. Plan of Sta. Maria, Toscanella 573
452. View of the Interior of same 573
453. Elevation of the Exterior of same 574
454. Plan of the Duomo, Brescia 575
455. Elevation of Duomo at Brescia 575
456. Section of Duomo at Brescia 576
457. Plan of San Tomaso in Limine 576
458. Section of San Tomaso 576
459. Tower of Sta. Maria-in-Cosmedin 578
460. Plan of the Old and New Cathedrals at Naples 583
461. Plan of San Miniato, Florence 584
462. Section of same 584
463. Elevation of same 585
464. Transverse section of same 586
465. View of the Cathedral at Pisa 587
466. Plan of Zara Cathedral 588
467. View of Zara Cathedral 589
468. Façade of Cathedral at Troja 591
469. Plan of Cathedral at Bari 591
470. East End of Cathedral at Bari 592
471. Apse of San Pellino 592
472. Church at Caserta Vecchia 592
473. West Front of Bittonto Cathedral 593
474. West Front of the Church of San Nicolo in 594
Bari
475. View of the Interior of San Nicolo, Bari 595
476. Plan of Crypt at Otranto 596
477. View in Crypt at Otranto 596
478. Window in the South side of the Cathedral 597
Church in Matera
479. Doorway of Church of Pappacoda, Naples 598
480. Cloister of St. John Lateran 599
481. Plan of Church at Molfetta 600
482. Section of Church at Molfetta 600
483. Section of Baptistery, Mont St. Angelo 601
484. Plan of same 601
485. Tomb of Bohemund at Canosa 601
486. Plans of San Donato, Zara 603
487. Section of San Donato, Zara 603
488. Leaning Tower at Pisa 604
489. Tower of Gaeta 604
490. Plan of Castel del Monte 606
491. Part Section, part Elevation, of Castel del 606
Monte
492. Plan of the Church at Vercelli 610
493. Church at Asti 611
494. Plan of Sta. Anastasia, Verona 612
495. One Bay of Sta. Anastasia, Verona 612
496. One Bay, externally and internally, of the 613
Church of San Martino, Lucca
497. Plan of Cathedral at Siena 614
498. Façade of the Cathedral at Siena 615
499. Plan of the Cathedral at Florence 617
500. Section of Dome and part of Nave of the 618
Cathedral at Florence
501. Part of the Flank of Cathedral at Florence 619
502. Dome at Chiaravalle, near Milan 620
503. Section of Eastern portion of Church at 621
Chiaravalle
504. Plan of the part executed of St. Petronio, 623
Bologna
505. Section of San Petronio, Bologna 624
506. Plan of the Cathedral of Milan 625
507. Section of Cathedral of Milan 627
508. View of the Interior of same 628
509. Plan of designed Façade of same 629
510. View of the Certosa, near Pavia 630
511. Duomo at Ferrara 632
512. View of St. Francesco, Brescia 633
------------------------------------------------------------------------
HISTORY
OF
ARCHITECTURE.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INTRODUCTION.
PART I.
SECTION I.
Like every other object of human inquiry, Architecture may be studied
from two distinct points of view. Either it may be regarded statically,
and described scientifically as a thing existing, without any reference
to the manner in which it was invented; or it may be treated
historically, tracing every form from its origin and noting the
influence one style has had upon another in the progress of time.
The first of these methods is more technical, and demands on the part of
the student very considerable previous knowledge before it can be
successfully prosecuted. The other, besides being more popular and
easily followed, has the advantage of separating the objects of study
into natural groups, and tracing more readily their connection and
relation to one another. The great superiority, however, of the
historical mode of study arises from the fact that, when so treated,
Architecture ceases to be a mere art, interesting only to the artist or
his employer, but becomes one of the most important adjuncts of history,
filling up many gaps in the written record and giving life and reality
to much that without its presence could with difficulty be realised.
A still more important use of architecture, when followed as a history,
is found in its ethnographic value. Every different race of men had
their own peculiar forms in using the productions of this art, and their
own mode of expressing their feelings or aspirations by its means. When
properly studied, it consequently affords a means as important as
language for discriminating between the different races of mankind—often
more so, and one always more trustworthy and more easily understood.
In consequence of these advantages, the historical mode is that which
will be followed in this work. But before entering upon the narrative,
it will be well if a correct definition of what Architecture really is
can be obtained. Without some clear views on the technical position of
the art, much that follows will be unintelligible and the meaning of
what is said may be mistaken.
A great deal of the confusion of ideas existing on the subject of
Architecture arises from the fact that writers have been in the habit of
speaking of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture as three similar fine
arts, practised on the same principles. This error arose in the 16th
century, when in a fatal hour painters and sculptors undertook also the
practice of architecture, and builders ceased to be architects. This
confusion of ideas has been perpetuated to the present hour, and much of
the degraded position of the art at this day is owing to the mistake
then made. It cannot therefore be too strongly insisted upon that there
is no essential connection between painting and sculpture on the one
hand and architecture on the other.
The two former rank among what are called Phonetic arts. Their business
is to express by colour or form ideas that could be—generally have been—
expressed by words. With the Egyptians their hieroglyphical paintings
were their only means of recording their ideas. With us, such a series
of pictures as Hogarth’s ‘Mariage à la Mode’ or ‘The Rake’s Progress’
are novels written with the brush; and many of our Mediæval cathedrals
possess whole Bibles carved in stone. Poetry, Painting, and Sculpture
are three branches of one form of art, refined from Prose, Colour, and
Carving, and form a group apart, interchanging ideas and modes of
expression, but always dealing with the same class of images and
appealing to the same class of feelings.
Distinct and separate from these Phonetic arts is another group,
generally known as the Technic arts, comprising all those which minister
to the primary wants of mankind under such various heads as food,
clothing, and shelter. Between these two groups is a third called the
Æsthetic arts, forming, as it were, a flux between the Technic and
Phonetic arts, fusing the whole into one homogeneous mass. They take
their rise from the fact that to every want which the technic arts are
designed to supply, Nature has attached a gratification which is capable
of refining all the useful arts into fine arts. Thus the Technic art of
agriculture is capable of supplying food in its simple form; but by the
refinements of cookery and of wine-making, simple meats and drinks are
capable of affording endless gratification to the senses. Simple
clothing to keep out the cold requires little art, but embroidery,
dyeing, lace-making, and fifty other arts employ the hands of millions,
and the gratification afforded by their use, the thoughts of as many
more. Shelter, too, is easily provided, but ornamental and ornamented
shelter, or in other words architecture, is one of the most prominent of
the fine arts. Music, though hardly known as a useful art, is the most
typical of the Æsthetic arts, and, “married to immortal verse,” steps
upwards into the region of the Phonetic arts, just as building, when
used for ornament, is raised out of the domain of the Technic arts.
Like music, colour and form may be so arranged as to afford infinite
pleasure to the senses without their having any phonetic value; but when
used, as sculpture and paintings are and have been in all ages, to tell
a tale or to express emotion, they rank high among the Phonetic arts;
and though able to express certain impressions even more vividly than
can be done by words, they cannot rise to the high intellectual position
that can be attained either by Poetry or Eloquence when expressed only
in that verbal language which is the highest gift of God to man.
II.—BEAUTY IN ART.
The term Beauty in Art is little else than a synonym for Perfection, but
perfection in these three classes of arts is far from being the same
thing, or of anything like the same value, as an intellectual
expression. The beauty of a machine, however complicated, arises mainly
from its adaptability to use; while a mosaic of exquisite colours, or an
elevated piece of instrumental music, raises emotions of a far higher
class: and a painting or a poem may appeal to all that is great or noble
in human nature.
If, for instance, we take a dozen arts at random, and divide them into
twelve equal component parts, as they belong to each of the three
divisions, Technic, Æsthetic, or Phonetic. If we further assign one as
the relative intellectual value of the Technic element, two as that due
to the Æsthetic, and three as the proportionate importance of the
Phonetic, we obtain the index number in the fourth column of the table
below, which is probably not far from expressing the true relative value
of each. Of course there are adventitious circumstances which may raise
the proportionate value of any art very considerably, and, on the other
hand, neglect of cultivation may depress others below their true value;
but the principles on which the table is formed are probably those by
which a correct estimate may be most easily obtained.
Technic. Æsthetic. Phonetic.
Heating, Ventilation, &c. 11 1 — = 13
Turnery, Joinery, &c. 9 3 — = 15
Gastronomy 7 5 — = 17
Jewellery 7 4 1 = 18
Clothing 5 6 1 = 20
Ceramique 5 5 2 = 21
Gardening 4 6 2 = 22
Architecture 4 4 4 = 24
Music 2 6 4 = 26
Painting and Sculpture 3 3 6 = 27
Drama 2 2 8 = 30
Epic — 2 10 = 34
Eloquence — 1 11 = 35
The first three arts enumerated in the above table are evidently utterly
incapable of Phonetic expression, and the first hardly even can be
raised to the second class, though air combined with warmth does afford
pleasure to the senses. Joinery may convey an idea of perfection from
the mode in which it is designed or executed; while gastronomy, as above
mentioned, does really afford important gratification to the senses,
approaching nearly in importance to the plain food-supplying art of
cookery. Jewellery may combine extreme mechanical beauty of execution
with the most harmonious arrangement of colour, and may also be made to
express a meaning, though only to a very limited extent. Clothing
depends on both colour and form for its perfection more than even beauty
of material, and may be made to express gaiety or sorrow, though perhaps
more from association than from any inherent qualities. The arts of the
potter can exhibit not only perfection in execution, but practically
depend both in colour and form, especially the latter, to raise their
products out of the category of mere Technic arts; while the paintings
on them, which are indispensable to the highest class of ceramique,
render them capable of taking their place among those objects which
affect a Phonetic mode of utterance. As mentioned above, floriculture
and landscape gardening may, besides their use, afford infinite pleasure
to the senses and even express gaiety or gloom, and, from mere
prettiness, may rise towards something like sublimity in expression.
Architecture is, however, the central art of the group, which in its
highest form combines all the three classes in nearly equal proportions,
but not always necessarily so. The Pyramids of Egypt, for instance,
though Technically the most wonderful buildings in the world, have very
little Æsthetic, and hardly more than one of Phonetic, value. The great
temple at Baalbec,—and in fact all the Roman temples, may be classed as
containing six parts of Technic value for mechanical excellence of size
and construction, four for beauty of form and detail, but certainly not
more than two parts for any expression of religion or intellect they may
exhibit, making up twenty for the index of their artistic value. Cologne
cathedral takes very nearly the same position in the scale, but Rheims,
Bourges, and the more perfect Gothic cathedrals may be classed higher,
as five Technic, three Æsthetic, and four Phonetic, making twenty-three
altogether as their index; and they are only surpassed by such a
building as the Parthenon at Athens, which, though not so large and
imposing as some others, is, so far as we know, the most perfect
building yet erected by man. It owes this perfection mainly to the equal
balance of parts. There is nothing so difficult or startling in its
construction as there is in most Gothic cathedrals; but what there is is
mechanically perfect, both in design and execution. Its form is nearly
perfect, combining stability with simplicity and at the same time
avoiding monotony or any appearance of greater strength than is
absolutely necessary. Its details are all as exquisite in form as the
Temple itself, and it was at one time coloured to an extent we can
hardly now realise, but which must, when complete, have made it one of
the most perfect examples of Æsthetic art. The walls of the cella were
almost certainly covered with Phonetic paintings similar to those in the
Lesche at Delphi; and the pediment, the metopes, the friezes, were all
sculptured to such an extent as to render the Phonetic expression of the
building at least equal to either its Technic or its Æsthetic
excellence. It is easy to conceive a building, such as a trophy or a
mausoleum, in which painting and sculpture shall be relatively more
important than they are in this instance, and in which consequently the
index may be raised above twenty-four; but if this were so, it ought
probably to be classed among works of sculpture or painting rather than
as an object of architecture.
In music the Æsthetic element naturally prevails over the other two, but
Technic cleverness of execution often affords to some as much pleasure
as the harmony of the sounds produced; and, on the other hand, in its
power of expressing joy or sorrow and of exciting varied emotions at
will, it rivals frequently the more distinct and permanent power of
words themselves, when unaccompanied by Æsthetic forms of art. It is of
course, however, in the outpourings of his imagination or in the logical
products of his reason that man rises highest, and stands most
distinctly apart from the rest of created beings; and though all may not
be capable of appreciating it, it is when both Technic and Æsthetic
adjuncts are laid aside, and man listens only to the voice of reason,
that he reaches what, as far as we can now see, is the highest form of
his artistic development.
Of course there are many other forms in which this might be expressed,
and many will be inclined to dispute the correctness of the figures
assigned to each art. They are, in fact, only approximations, and as a
first attempt can hardly be expected to meet all the conditions of the
problem. The truth of the matter is, it would have been better to use
algebraic symbols and to allow every one to translate them into numbers
according to his own fancy, but in the present state of matters such an
attempt would have savoured of affectation. The art of criticism is not
sufficiently advanced for this, but if two or three would follow up what
is here indicated it might be placed on a basis from which to proceed
higher. Meanwhile, perhaps the annexed diagram may serve to explain the
relation of the three classes of art to one another, and the way in
which they overlap and mix together so as to make up a perfect art. Like
the preceding table, it will require several editions, the work of
several minds, before it can be perfected, but it probably is not far
from representing the truth as at present known.
There is still another relation of these arts to one another which must
not be overlooked before proceeding further, as a knowledge of it is
indispensable in forming a correct judgment of their respective merits.
Like the Sciences, the Technic Arts hardly depend, after the first steps
have been taken, on individual prowess for their advancement. An
astronomer, a chemist, or a natural historian, now starts from the
highest point reached by any of his predecessors, and he has only to
observe and calculate, to analyse and put together again, in order to
advance our knowledge. A giant may of course make a rapid stride in
advance, but a hundred dwarfs will, if they persevere steadily in the
right path, not only overtake him, but probably advance far beyond
anything the most gigantic intellect can accomplish in science. So it is
also in the mechanical arts. The immense strides that have of late years
been made in improving all the machines employed in manufactures have
not been made by the greatest intellects, but by thousands of men
suggesting new contrivances and acquiring skill by steady improvement in
manipulation. In ship-building, for instance, one of the most complex of
the useful arts, no one can tell who the men were who converted the rude
galleys in which our forefathers sailed to Crecy and Agincourt into the
gigantic commercial steamers and war-ships of the present day. It was
the result of thousands of intellects working steadily towards a
well-defined aim, and accomplishing a triumph by a process which must
always be successful in the Technic arts when persevered in long enough.
[Illustration: Diagram No. 1.]
The case is somewhat different with the Æsthetic arts. Some men are
insensible to the harmony of colour and are not offended by the crudest
contrasts. Others do not perceive concords in music, and the most
violent discords give them no pain; others, on the contrary, are endowed
with the utmost sensibility on these points, and are consequently not
only able to appreciate the beauty of the arts arising out of colour or
sound, but of advancing what to those who cannot understand them is an
inexplicable mystery.
When from the Æsthetic Arts we turn to the Sciences and Technic Arts, we
find, as just pointed out, that the individual becomes much less
important and the process everything. Every astronomer now knows more
than Newton; every chemist than John Dalton. Any ordinary mechanic can
start from a higher point than was reached by a Watt or an Arkwright or
a Stephenson, and can surpass them. But no man can mount on the
shoulders of such men as Handel or Mozart or Beethoven, and surpass
them; and the higher we ascend in the scale of arts the more important
does the individual become and the less so the process. A Phidias, a
Raphael, a Shakespeare, are yet unsurpassed, and possibly never may be.
All men may be taught to carve, to colour, and to write mechanically,
and may even be instructed to practise these processes so as to afford
pleasure to themselves and others; but when from this we rise to
Phonetic painting, sculpture, or poetry, and the still higher region of
philosophy, the individual becomes all in all, and his special genius
there stamps the true value on the production.
In this respect, again, Architecture is singularly happy as a means of
study. As a Technic art it is practised in the same progressive
principles as all its sister arts, irrespective of individuality. As an
Æsthetic art it is hardly so individual as music, because its forms and
colours are permanent and capable of being repeated with such
improvements as each experiment suggests in every subsequent building;
but when it attempts Phonetic forms of utterance, these are seldom so
absolutely integral that they cannot be separated from the building and
judged of apart. A Greek Temple or a Mediæval cathedral without painting
and sculpture may be poor and inanimate, but still so beautiful in its
form, so grand from its mass, and so imposing from its durability, that
in its Technic-Æsthetic form alone it may command our admiration, more
perhaps than any other work of human hands, except of course, as said
before, the highest intellectual forms of Phonetic art. Architecture
thus combines in itself the steady progressive perfectibility of a
Technic art quite independent of the intellectual capabilities of the
architect, combined with the Æsthetic appreciation of form and colour
which is mostly universal, and can at all events be generally inculcated
and learned. But its greatest glory is that it can enlist in its service
the higher branches of Phonetic sculpture and painting, which can be
exercised only by specially gifted individuals. It is difficult to
conceive all these qualities being equally combined in the person of any
one architect, and in practice it is by no means necessary for success
that it should be so, though, if possible, the combination would no
doubt be advantageous. In criticising, on the contrary, it is always
necessary to separate and distinguish between the mechanical, the
sensuous, and the intellectual part of a design. Without this an
intelligent appreciation of its merits or defects can hardly be
obtained.
Notwithstanding all that has been pointed out already, and the
advantages of its central position among the sister arts, combined with
its own intrinsic merits, Architecture would never have attained to the
high position it now occupies had it not been fitted with an aim which
raised it far above all utilitarian feelings. In all ages, though
certainly not among all nations, Architecture has been employed as one
of the principal forms of worship. The desire to erect a temple to their
Gods worthy to be their dwelling-place has exalted even the rude arts of
savages into something worthy of admiration, and when such a nation as
the Egyptians were inspired with the same desire, they produced, even in
the earliest ages, temples which still excite feelings of admiration and
of awe. Had the practice of architecture been restricted to supplying
only the ordinary wants of mortals, it never would have risen to be the
noble art it now is. Neither the palaces of the greatest kings, nor the
wants of the proudest municipalities, nor the emporia of the richest
commerce would have supplied that lofty aim which is indispensable for
any great intellectual effort. But when, freed from all trammels of use
or expense, the object is to erect a casket worthy to enshrine the
sacred image of a god whom men feared but adored, the aspiration
elevates the work far beyond its useful purpose. It is when men seek to
erect a hall in which worshippers may meet to render that homage which
is their greatest privilege and their highest aspiration, when all that
man can conceive that is great and beautiful is enlisted to create
something worthy of the purpose, that temples have been erected which
rank among the most successful works man has yet produced. Had any
exigencies of use or economy controlled the design of the Parthenon, or
of any of our Mediæval cathedrals, they must have taken a much lower
place in the scale than they now occupy. Their architects were, however,
in fact as free from any utilitarian influences as the poets who
composed the ‘Iliad’ or ‘Paradise Lost.’
III.—DEFINITION OF ARCHITECTURE.
If what has just been said above is understood, it may be sufficient to
make it possible to give a more definite answer than has usually been
done to two questions to which hitherto no satisfactory reply has been
accorded in modern times. “_What_,” it is frequently asked, _“is the
true definition of the word Architecture, or of the Art to which it
applies?” “What are the principles which ought to guide us in designing
or criticising Architectural objects?”_
Fifty years ago the answers to these questions generally were, that
Architecture consisted in the closest possible imitation of the forms
and orders employed by the Romans; that a church was well designed
exactly in the proportion in which it resembled a heathen temple; and
that the merit of a civic building was to be measured by its imitation,
more or less perfect, of some palace or amphitheatre of classic times.
In the beginning of this century these answers were somewhat modified by
the publication of Stuart’s works on Athens; the word Grecian was
substituted for Roman in all criticisms, and the few forms that remain
to us of Grecian art were repeated _ad nauseam_ in buildings of the most
heterogeneous class and character.
At the present day churches have been entirely removed from the domain
of classic art, and their merit is made to depend on their being correct
reproductions of mediæval designs. Museums and town halls still
generally adhere to classic forms, alternating between Greek and Roman.
In some of our public buildings an attempt has recently been made to
reproduce the Middle Ages, while in our palaces and clubhouses that
compromise between classicality and common sense which is called Italian
is generally adhered to. These, it is evident, are the mere changing
fashions of art. There is nothing real or essential in this Babel of
styles, and we must go deeper below the surface to enable us to obtain a
true definition of the art or of its purposes. Before attempting this,
however, it is essential to bear in mind that two wholly different
systems of architecture have been followed at different periods in the
world’s history.
The first is that which prevailed since the art first dawned, in Egypt,
in Greece, in Rome, in Asia, and in all Europe, during the Middle Ages,
and generally in all countries of the world down to the time of the
Reformation in the 16th century, and still predominates in remote
corners of the globe wherever European civilisation or its influences
have not yet penetrated. The other being that which was introduced with
the revival of classic literature contemporaneously with the reformation
of religion, and still pervades all Europe and wherever European
influence has established itself.
In the first period the art of architecture consisted in designing a
building so as to be most suitable and convenient for the purposes
required, in arranging the parts so as to produce the most stately and
ornamental effect consistent with its uses, and in applying to it such
ornament as should express and harmonise with the construction, and be
appropriate to the purposes of the building; while at the same time the
architects took care that the ornament should be the most elegant in
itself which it was in their power to design.
Following this system, not only the Egyptian, the Greek, and the Gothic
architects, but even the indolent and half-civilised inhabitants of
India, the stolid Tartars of Thibet and China, and the savage Mexicans,
succeeded in erecting great and beautiful buildings. No race, however
rude or remote, has failed, when working on this system, to produce
buildings which are admired by all who behold them, and are well worthy
of the most attentive consideration. Indeed, it is almost impossible to
indicate one single building in any part of the world, designed during
the prevalence of this true form of art, which was not thought
beautiful, not alone by those who erected it, but which does not remain
a permanent object of admiration and of study even for strangers in all
future ages.
The result of the other system is widely different from this. It has now
been practised in Europe for more than three centuries, and by people
who have more knowledge of architectural forms, more constructive skill,
and more power of combining science and art in effecting a great object,
than any people who ever existed before. Notwithstanding this, from the
building of St. Peter’s at Rome to that of our own Parliament Houses,
not one building has been produced that is admitted to be entirely
satisfactory, or which permanently retains a hold on general admiration.
Many are large and stately to an extent almost unknown before, and many
are ornamented with a profuseness of which no previous examples exist;
but with all this, though they conform with the passing fashions of the
day, they soon become antiquated and out of date, and men wonder how
such a style could ever have been thought beautiful, just as we wonder
how any one could have admired the female costumes of the last century
which captivated the hearts of our grandfathers.
It does not require us to go very deeply into the philosophy of the
subject to find out why this should be the case; the fact simply being
that no sham was ever permanently successful, either in morals or in
art, and no falsehood ever remained long without being found out, or
which, when detected, inevitably did not cease to please. It is
literally impossible that we should reproduce either the circumstances
or the feelings which gave rise to classical art and made it a reality;
and though Gothic art was a thing of our country and of our own race, it
belongs to a state of society so totally different from anything that
now exists, that any attempt at reproduction now must at best be a
masquerade, and never can be a real or earnest form of art. The
designers of the Eglinton Tournament carried the system to a perfectly
legitimate conclusion when they sought to reproduce the costumes and
warlike exercises of our ancestors; and the pre-Raphaelite painters were
equally justified in attempting to do in painting that which was done
every day in architecture. Both attempts failed signally, because we had
progressed in the arts of war and painting, and could easily detect the
absurdity of these practices. It is in architecture alone of all the
arts that the false system remains, and we do not yet perceive the
impossibility of its leading to any satisfactory result.
[Illustration: No. 2.]
Bearing all this in mind, let us try if we can come to a clearer
definition of what this art really is, and in what its merits consist.
Let us suppose the Diagram (Woodcut No. 2) to represent an ordinary
house, such as is found in many of our London streets. The first
division, A, is the most prosaic form of building, no more thought being
bestowed on it than if it were a garden wall. The second division, B, is
better; the cornices and string-course indicate the levels of the
several floors into which the building is divided; the quoins of the
door and windows are emphasized by the use of a better or different
coloured brick, and the arched forms given to door and window on ground
floor suggest increased strength. In the third division, C, this has
been carried still further; the rustication of the stonework on the
lower storey gives an appearance of greater solidity, and the importance
given to the cornices, the addition of architrave mouldings round
windows, with pediments to those of the first floor, and the decoration
of the parapet carry the house out of the domain of building into that
of architecture. The fourth division carries this still farther; the
whole design is here divided into three stages—the ground floor being
treated as a podium or base to the two floors above, the whole being
crowned by an attic storey; greater importance is given to the front by
the slight projection of two wings; the entrance doorway is emphasized,
and by means of cornices, quoins, and pilasters, a play of light and
shade is given to an elevation which virtually lies in one plane. In
this instance not only is a greater amount of ornament applied, but the
parts are so disposed as in themselves to produce a more agreeable
effect; and although the height of the floors remains the same, and the
amount of light introduced very nearly so, still the slight grouping of
the parts is such as to produce a better class of architecture than
could be done by the mere application of any amount of ornament. The
diagram deals with one phase of the subject, “a town house,” and with
the elevation only, the style being that generally known as Italian; if
it is admitted that the last division is an object of architecture,
which the first is not, it follows from this analysis that architecture
commences when some embellishment is added to the building which was not
strictly a structural necessity. The value of the embellishment, from an
architectural point of view, depends on—the extent to which, in its
application, the structural features have been recognised,—the
appropriateness of the ornament,—the careful study of proportion and
balance of the several parts, and,—in a certain measure, the extent to
which some known precedent has been followed.
Recurring, for instance, to the Parthenon, to illustrate this principle
farther. The proportions of length to breadth, and of height to both
these, are instances of carefully-studied proportion and balance; and
still more so is the arrangement of the porticoes and the disposition of
the peristyle. If all the pillars were plain square piers, and all the
mouldings square and flat, still the Parthenon could not fail, from the
mere disposition of its parts, to be a pleasing and imposing building.
So it is with a Gothic cathedral. The proportion of length to breadth,
the projection of the transepts, the different height of the central and
side aisles, the disposition and proportion of the towers, are all
instances of proportion and balance, and beautiful even if without
ornament. Many of the older abbeys, especially those of the Cistercians,
are as devoid of ornament as a modern barn; but from the mere
disposition of their parts they are always pleasing and, if large, are
imposing objects of architecture. Stonehenge is an instance of
ornamental construction wholly without ornament, yet it is almost as
imposing an architectural object as any of the same dimensions in any
part of the world. It is, however, when ornament is added to this, and
when that ornament is elegant itself and appropriate to the construction
and to the purposes of the building, that the temple or the cathedral
ranks among the highest objects of the art and becomes one of the
noblest works of man.
Even without structural decoration, a building may, by mere dint of
ornament, become an architectural object, though it is far more
difficult to attain good architecture by this means, and in true styles
it has seldom been attempted. Still, such a building as the town hall at
Louvain, which if stripped of its ornaments would be little better than
a factory, by richness and appropriateness of ornament alone has become
a very pleasing specimen of the art. In modern times it is too much the
fashion to attempt to produce architectural effects not only without
attending to ornamental construction, but often in defiance of, and in
concealing that which exists. When this is done, the result must be bad
art; but nevertheless it is architecture, however execrable it may be.
If these premises are correct, the art of the builder consists in merely
putting materials together so as to attain the desired end in the
speediest and simplest fashion. The art of the civil or military
engineer consists in selecting the best and most appropriate materials
for the object he has in view, and using these in the most scientific
manner, so as to ensure an economical but satisfactory result. Where the
engineer leaves off, the art of the architect begins. His object is to
arrange the materials of the engineer, not so much with regard to
economical as to artistic effects, and by light and shade, and outline,
to produce a form that in itself shall be permanently beautiful. He then
adds ornament, which by its meaning doubles the effect of the
disposition he has just made, and by its elegance throws a charm over
the whole composition.
Viewed in this light, it is evident that there are no objects that are
usually delegated to the civil engineer which may not be brought within
the province of the architect. A bridge, an aqueduct, the embankment of
a lake, or the roof of a station, are all as legitimate subjects for
architectural ornament as a temple or a palace. They were all so treated
by the Romans and in the Middle Ages, and are so treated up to the
present day in the remote parts of India, and wherever true art
prevails.
It is not essential that the engineer should know anything of
architecture, though it is certainly desirable he should do so; but, on
the other hand, it is indispensably necessary that the architect should
understand construction. Without that knowledge he cannot design; and
although it has been conceived by some that it would be better to
delegate the mechanical task to the engineer, and so restrict himself
entirely to the artistic arrangement and ornamentation of his design,
such a course would be fatal to the development of architectural style.
It is true that in some of the works above stated, it is generally
thought desirable to confide them to engineers; but in the few cases in
which architects have been called in to co-operate with them, as in the
roofs of the Great Western and Midland Railway Stations, the result has
been so satisfactory as to suggest the advantage of such combination. In
the Great Exhibition of 1851, the happiest feature, the semicircular
roof of the transept, was suggested by the late Sir Charles Barry, and
the developments of that form in the nave and transepts of the Crystal
Palace constitute still the most beautiful features of that building. In
works of a monumental character, such as town-halls, museums, or public
galleries, which are designed to last for centuries, the strict economy
of material, which is sometimes deemed necessary in engineering works,
is not advisable, because mass, stability, and durability—three elements
into which we enter later on—are of the very essence of their
architectural character. In these and other works of a simple character,
such as private houses, the calculations are not of so elaborate a
nature as to be outside the architect’s knowledge; and although of late
years the use of iron girders, stanchions, and columns has introduced a
new factor among building materials which occasionally may call for the
assistance of an expert to substantiate the architect’s calculations, it
has hitherto been the custom to conceal these features, so that they
have not entered the phase of architectural design. In course of time,
when an increased knowledge of the properties of iron is acquired, we
may hope to see a great development in its artistic treatment, so that
it may eventually rise to the dignity and assume the character, which in
the architectural styles of bygone times, all other materials have
reached.
In addition, however, to the convenient arrangement and artistic
treatment of a building, and its proper and sound construction, there is
still a third element which requires the special endowment of an artist
for its exercise. No architectural object can be considered as complete,
or as having attained the highest excellence till it is endowed with a
voice through the aid of phonetic sculpture and painting.
In a few words, therefore, a perfect building may be defined as one that
combines:—
1st, as Technic principles:
Convenience of general arrangements,
Proper distribution of materials and sound construction.
2nd, as Æsthetic principles of design:
Artistic conception combined with
Ornamented construction, and
3rd, for Phonetic adjuncts:
Sculpture, or
Painting, employed as voices to tell the story of the building,
and explain the purposes for which it was designed, or those
to which it is dedicated.
Besides these, however, which are the principal theoretic
characteristics of architecture, there are several minor technical
principles which it may be convenient to enumerate before proceeding
farther.
It may also be well to give such examples as shall make what has just
been indicated theoretically, clearer than can be done by the mere
enunciation of abstract principles.
IV.—MASS.
The first and most obvious element of architectural grandeur is size—a
large edifice being always more imposing than a small one; and when the
art displayed in two buildings is equal, their effect is almost in the
direct ratio of their dimensions. In other words, if one temple or
church is twice or three times as large as another, it is twice or three
times as grand or as effective. The Temple of Theseus differs very
little, except in dimensions, from the Parthenon, and, except in that
respect, hardly differed at all from the Temple of Jupiter at Elis; but
because of its smaller size it must rank lower than the greater
examples. In our own country many of our smaller abbeys or parish
churches display as great beauty of design or detail as our noblest
cathedrals, but, from their dimensions alone, they are insignificant in
comparison, and the traveller passes them by, while he stands awe-struck
before the portals or under the vault of the larger edifices.
The pyramids of Egypt, the topes of the Buddhists, the mounds of the
Etruscans, depend almost wholly for their effect on their dimensions.
The Romans understood to perfection the value of this element, and used
it in its most unsophisticated simplicity to obtain the effect they
desired. In the Middle Ages the architects not only aspired to the
erection of colossal edifices, but they learnt how they might greatly
increase the apparent dimensions of a building by a scientific
disposition of the parts and a skilful arrangement of ornament, thereby
making it look very much larger than it really was. It is, in fact, the
most obvious and most certain, though it must be confessed perhaps the
most vulgar, means of obtaining architectural grandeur; but a true and
perfect example can never be produced by dependence on this alone, and
it is only when size is combined with beauty of proportion and elegance
of ornament that perfection in architectural art is attained.
V.—STABILITY.
Next to size the most important element is stability. By this is meant,
not merely the strength required to support the roof or to resist the
various thrusts and pressures, but that excess of strength over mere
mechanical requirement which is necessary thoroughly to satisfy the
mind, and to give to the building a monumental character, with an
appearance that it could resist the shocks of time or the violence of
man for ages yet to come.
No people understood the value of this so well as the Egyptians. The
form of the Pyramids is designed wholly with reference to stability, and
even the Hypostyle Hall at Karnac excites admiration far more by its
massiveness and strength, and its apparent eternity of duration, than by
any other element of design. In the Hall all utilitarian exigencies and
many other obvious means of effect are sacrificed to these, and with
such success that after more than 3000 years’ duration still enough
remains to excite the admiration which even the most unpoetical
spectators cannot withhold from its beauties.
In a more refined style much of the beauty of the Parthenon arises from
this cause. The area of each of the pillars in the portico of the
Pantheon at Rome is under 20 feet, that of those of the Parthenon is
over 33 feet, and, considering how much taller the former are than the
latter, it may be said that the pillars at Athens are twice as massive
as those of the Roman temple, yet the latter have sufficed not only for
the mechanical, but for many points of artistic stability; but the
strength and solidity of the porticos of the Parthenon, without taking
into consideration its other points of superiority, must always render
it more beautiful than the other.
The massiveness which the Normans and other early Gothic builders
imparted to their edifices arose more from clumsiness and want of
constructive skill than from design; but, though arising from so ignoble
a cause, its effect is always grand, and the rude Norman nave often
surpasses in grandeur the airy and elegant choir which was afterwards
added to it. In our own country no building is more entirely
satisfactory than the nave at Winchester, where the width of the pillars
exceeds that of the aisles, and the whole is Norman in outline, though
Gothic in detail. On the other hand no building of its dimensions and
beauty of detail can well be so unsatisfactory as the choir at Beauvais.
Though it has stood the test of centuries, it looks so frail, requires
so many props to keep it up, and is so evidently an overstrained
exercise of mechanical cleverness, that though it may excite wonder as
an architectural _tour de force_, it never can satisfy the mind of the
true artist, or please to the same extent as less ambitious examples.
Even when we descend to the lowest walks of architecture we find this
principle prevailing. It would require an immense amount of design and
good taste to make the thin walls and thinner roof of a brick and slated
cottage look as picturesque or so well as one built of rubble-stone, or
even with mud walls, and a thatched roof: the thickness and solidity of
the one must always be more satisfactory than the apparent flimsiness of
the other. Here, as in most cases, necessity controls the architect; but
when fettered by no utilitarian exigencies, there is no safer or readier
means of obtaining an effect than this, and when effect alone is sought
it is almost impossible for an architect to err in giving too much
solidity to his building. Size and stability are alone sufficient to
produce grandeur in architectural design, and, where sublimity is aimed
at, they are the two elements most essential to its production, and are
indeed the two without which it cannot possibly be attained.
VI.—DURABILITY.
As the complement to stability, the length of time during which
architectural objects are calculated to endure confers on them an
impress of durability which can hardly be attained by any of the sister
arts. Sculpture may endure as long, and some of the Egyptian examples of
that art found near the Pyramids are as old as anything in that country,
but it is not their age that impresses us so much as the story they have
to tell. The Pyramids, on the other hand, in the majesty of their simple
Technic grandeur, do challenge a quasi-eternity of duration with a
distinctness that is most impressive, and which there, as elsewhere, is
one of the most powerful elements of architectural expression.
When Horace sang—
“Vixêre fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi, sed omnes illacrimabiles
Urgentur ignotique longâ
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro,”
he overlooked the fact that long before Troy was dreamt of, Egyptian
kings had raised pyramids which endure to the present day, and the
Pharaohs of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth dynasties had filled the
valley of the Upper Nile with temples and palaces and tombs which tell
us not only the names of their founders, but reveal to us their thoughts
and aspirations with a distinctness that no sacred poet could as well
convey. From that time onward the architects have covered the world with
monuments that still remain on the spot where they were erected, and
tell all, who are sufficiently instructed to read their riddles aright,
what nations once occupied these spots, what degree of civilisation they
had reached, and how, in erecting these monuments on which we now gaze,
they had attained that quasi-immortality after which they hankered.
Sculpture and painting, when allied with architecture, may endure as
long, but their aim is not to convey to the mind the impression of
durability which is so strongly felt in the presence of the more massive
works of architectural art. Even when ruined and in decay the buildings
are almost equally impressive, while ruined sculptures or paintings are
generally far from being pleasing objects, and, whatever their other
merits may be, certainly miss that impression obtained from the
durability of architectural objects.
VII.—MATERIALS.
Another very obvious mode of obtaining architectural effect is by the
largeness or costliness of the materials employed. A terrace, or even a
wall, if composed of large stones, is in itself an object of
considerable grandeur, while one of the same lineal dimensions and of
the same design, if composed of brick or rubble, may appear a very
contemptible object.
Like all the more obvious means of architectural effect, the Egyptians
seized on this and carried it to its utmost legitimate extent. All their
buildings, as well as their colossi and obelisks, owe much of their
grandeur to the magnitude of the materials employed in their
construction. The works called Cyclopean found in Italy and Greece have
no other element of grandeur than the size of the stones or rather
masses of rock which the builders of that age were in the habit of
using. In Jerusalem nothing was so much insisted upon by the old
writers, or is so much admired now, as the largeness of the stones
employed in the building of the Temple and its substructions.
We can well believe how much value was attached to this when we find
that in the neighbouring city of Baalbec stones were used of between 60
and 70 ft. in length, weighing as much as the tubes of the Britannia
Bridge, for the mere bonding course of a terrace wall. Even in a more
refined style of architecture, a pillar, the shaft of which is of a
single stone, or a lintel or architrave of one block, is always a
grander and more beautiful object than if composed of a number of
smaller parts. Among modern buildings, the poverty-stricken design of
the church of St. Isaac at St. Petersburg is redeemed by the grandeur of
its monolithic columns, whilst the beautiful design of the Madeleine at
Paris is destroyed by the smallness of the materials in which it is
expressed. It is easy to see that this arises from the same feeling to
which massiveness and stability address themselves. It is the expression
of giant power and the apparent eternity of duration which they convey;
and in whatever form that may be presented to the human mind, it always
produces a sentiment tending towards sublimity, which is the highest
effect at which architecture or any other art can aim.
The Gothic architects ignored this element of grandeur altogether, and
sought to replace it by the display of constructive skill in the
employment of the smaller materials they used, but it is extremely
questionable whether in so doing they did not miss one of the most
obvious and most important principles of architectural design.
Besides these, value in the mere material is a great element in
architectural effect. We all, for instance, admire an ornament of pure
gold more than one that is only silver gilt, though few can detect the
difference. Persons will travel hundreds of miles to see a great diamond
or wonderful pearl, who would not go as many yards to see paste models
of them, though if the two were laid together on the table very few
indeed could distinguish the real from the counterfeit.
When we come to consider such buildings as the cathedral at Milan or the
Taje Mehal at Agra, there can be no doubt but that the beauty of the
material of which they are composed adds very much to the admiration
they excite. In the latter case the precious stones with which the
ornamental parts of the design are inlaid, convey an impression of
grandeur almost as directly as their beauty of outline.
It is, generally speaking, because of its greater preciousness that we
admire a marble building more than one of stone, though the colour of
the latter may be really as beautiful and the material at least as
durable. In the same manner a stone edifice is preferred to one of
brick, and brick to wood and plaster; but even these conditions may be
reversed by the mere question of value. If, for instance, a brick and a
stone edifice stand close together, the design of both being equally
appropriate to the material employed, our judgment may be reversed if
the bricks are so beautifully moulded, or made of such precious clay, or
so carefully laid, that the brick edifice costs twice as much as the
other; in that case we should look with more respect and admiration on
the artificial than on the natural material. From the same reason many
elaborately carved wooden buildings, notwithstanding the smallness of
their parts and their perishable nature, are more to be admired than
larger and more monumental structures, and this merely in consequence of
the evidence of labour and consequent cost that have been bestowed upon
them.
Irrespective of these considerations, many building materials are
invaluable from their own intrinsic merits. Granite is one of the best
known, from its hardness and durability, marble from the exquisite
polish it takes, and for its colour, which for internal decoration is a
property that can hardly be over-estimated. Stone is valuable on account
of the largeness of the blocks that can be obtained and because it
easily receives a polish sufficient for external purposes. Bricks are
excellent for their cheapness and the facility with which they can be
used, and they may also be moulded into forms of great elegance, so that
beauty may be easily attained; but sublimity is nearly impossible in
brickwork, without at least such dimensions as have rarely been
accomplished by man. The smallness of the material is such a manifest
incongruity with largeness of the parts, that even the Romans, though
they tried hard, could never quite overcome the difficulty.
Plaster is another artificial material. Except in monumental erections
it is superior to stone for internal purposes, and always better than
brick from the uniformity and smoothness of its surface, the facility
with which it is moulded, and its capability of receiving painted or
other decorations to any extent.
Wood should be used externally only on the smallest and least monumental
class of buildings, and even internally is generally inferior to
plaster. It is dark in colour, liable to warp and split, and
combustible, which are all serious objections to its use, except for
flooring, doors, and such purposes as it is now generally applied to.
Cast iron is another material rarely brought into use, though more
precious than any of those above enumerated, and possessing more
strength, though probably less durability. Where lightness combined with
strength is required, it is invaluable, but though it can be moulded
into any form of beauty that may be designed, it has hardly yet ever
been so used as to allow of its architectural qualities being
appreciated.
All these materials are nearly equally good when used honestly each for
the purpose for which it is best adapted; they all become bad either
when employed for a purpose for which they are not appropriate, or when
one material is substituted in the place of or to imitate another.
Grandeur and sublimity can only be reached by the more durable and more
massive class of materials, but beauty and elegance are attainable in
all, and the range of architectural design is so extensive that it is
absurd to limit it to one class either of natural or of artificial
materials, or to attempt to prescribe the use of some and to insist on
that of others, for purposes to which they are manifestly inapplicable.
VIII.—CONSTRUCTION.
Construction has been shown to be the chief aim and object of the
engineer; with him it is all in all, and to construct scientifically and
at the same time economically is the beginning and end of his
endeavours. It is far otherwise with the architect. Construction ought
to be his handmaid, useful to assist him in carrying out his design, but
never his mistress, controlling him in the execution of that which he
would otherwise think expedient. An architect ought always to allow
himself such a margin of strength that he may disregard or play with his
construction, and in nine cases out of ten the money spent in obtaining
this solidity will be more effective architecturally than twice the
amount expended on ornament, however elegant or appropriate that may be.
So convinced were the Egyptians and Greeks of this principle, that they
never used any other constructive expedient than a perpendicular wall or
prop, supporting a horizontal beam; and half the satisfactory effect of
their buildings arises from their adhering to this simple though
expensive mode of construction. They were perfectly acquainted with the
use of the arch and its properties, but they knew that its employment
would introduce complexity and confusion into their designs, and
therefore they wisely rejected it. Even to the present day the Hindus
refuse to use the arch, though it has long been employed in their
country by the Mahometans. As they quaintly express it, “An arch never
sleeps;” and it is true that by its thrust and pressure it is always
tending to tear a building to pieces; in spite of all counterpoises,
whenever the smallest damage is done, it hastens the ruin of a building,
which, if more simply constructed, might last for ages.
The Romans were the first who introduced a more complicated style. They
wanted larger and more complex buildings than had been before required,
and they employed brick and concrete to a great extent even in their
temples and most monumental buildings. They obtained both space and
variety by these means, with comparatively little trouble or expense;
but we miss in all their works that repose and harmony which is the
great charm that pervades the buildings of their predecessors.
The Gothic architects went even beyond the Romans in this respect. They
prided themselves on their constructive skill, and paraded it on all
occasions, and often to an extent very destructive of true architectural
design. The lower storey of a French cathedral is generally very
satisfactory; the walls are thick and solid, and the buttresses, when
not choked up with chapels, just sufficient for shadow and relief; but
the architects of that country were seized with a mania for clerestories
of gigantic height, which should appear internally mere walls of painted
glass divided by mullions. This could only be effected either by
encumbering the floor of the church with piers of inconvenient thickness
or by a system of buttressing outside. The latter was the expedient
adopted; but notwithstanding the ingenuity with which it was carried
out, and the elegance of many of the forms and ornaments used, it was
singularly destructive of true architectural effect. It not only
produces confusion of outline and a total want of repose, but it is
eminently suggestive of weakness, and one cannot help feeling that if
one of these props were removed, the whole would tumble down like a
house of cards.
This was hardly ever the case in England: the less ambitious dimensions
employed in this country enabled the architects to dispense in a great
measure with these adjuncts, and when flying buttresses are used, they
look more as if employed to suggest the idea of perfect security than as
necessary to stability. Owing to this cause the French have never been
able to construct a satisfactory vault: in consequence of the weakness
of their supports they were forced to stilt, twist, and dome them to a
most unpleasing extent, and to attend to constructive instead of
artistic necessities. With the English architects this never was the
case; they were always able to design their vaults in such forms as they
thought would be most beautiful artistically, and, owing to the greater
solidity of their supports, to carry them out as at first designed.[12]
It was left for the Germans to carry this system to its acme of
absurdity. Half the merit of the old Round arched Gothic cathedrals on
the Rhine consists in their solidity and the repose they display in
every part. Their walls and other essential parts are always in
themselves sufficient to support the roofs and vaults, and no
constructive contrivance is seen anywhere; but when the Germans adopted
the pointed style, their builders—they can hardly be called architects—
seemed to think that the whole art consisted in supporting the widest
possible vaults on the thinnest possible pillars and in constructing the
tallest windows with the most attenuated mullions. The consequence is,
that though their constructive skill still excites the wonder of the
mason or the engineer, the artist or the architect turns from the cold
vaults and lean piers of their later cathedrals with a painful feeling
of unsatisfied expectation, and wonders why such dimensions and such
details should produce a result so utterly unsatisfactory.
So many circumstances require to be taken into consideration, that it is
impossible to prescribe any general rules in such a subject as this, but
the following table will explain to a certain extent the ratio of the
area to the points of support in sixteen of the principal buildings of
the world.[13] As far as it goes, it tends to prove that the
satisfactory architectural effect of a building is nearly in the inverse
ratio to the mechanical cleverness displayed in its construction.
----------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------------------
| | |Ratio in| Nearest
| Area. | Solids.|Decimals| Vulgar Fractions.
----------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------------------
| Feet. | Feet. | |
Hypostyle Hall, Karnac| 63,070 | 18,681 | .296 | Three-tenths.
St. Peter’s, Rome |227,000 | 59,308 | .261 | One-fourth.
Spires Cathedral | 56,737 | 12,076 | .216 | One-fifth.
Sta. Maria, Florence | 81,802 | 17,056 | .201 | One-fifth.
Bourges Cathedral | 61,590 | 11,091 | .181 | One-sixth.
St. Paul’s, London | 84,311 | 11,311 | .171 | One-sixth.
Ste. Geneviève, Paris | 60,287 | 9,269 | .154 | One-sixth.
Parthenon, Athens | 23,140 | 4,430 | .148 | One-seventh.
Chartres Cathedral | 68,261 | 8,886 | .130 | One-eighth.
Salisbury Cathedral | 55,853 | 7,012 | .125 | One-eighth.
Paris, Notre Dame | 61,108 | 7,852 | .122 | One-eighth.
Temple of Peace | 68,000 | 7,600 | .101 | One-ninth.
Milan Cathedral |108,277 | 11,601 | .107 | One-tenth.
Cologne Cathedral | 91,164 | 9,554 | .104 | One-tenth.
York Cathedral | 72,860 | 7,376 | .101 | One-tenth.
St. Ouen, Rouen | 47,107 | 4,637 | .097 | One-tenth.
----------------------+--------+--------+--------+--------------------
At the head of the list stands the Hypostyle Hall, and next to it
practically is the Parthenon, which being the only wooden-roofed
building in the list, its ratio of support in proportion to the work
required is nearly as great as that of the Temple at Karnac. Spires only
wants better details to be one of the grandest edifices in Europe, and
Bourges, Paris, Chartres, and Salisbury are among the most satisfactory
Gothic cathedrals we possess. St. Ouen, notwithstanding all its beauty
of detail and design, fails in this one point, and is certainly
deficient in solidity. Cologne and Milan would both be very much
improved by greater massiveness: and at York the lightness of the
supports is carried so far that it never can be completed with the
vaulted roof originally designed, for the nave at least.
The four great Renaissance cathedrals, at Rome, Florence, London, and
Paris, enumerated in this list, have quite sufficient strength for
architectural effect, but the value of this is lost from concealed
construction, and because the supports are generally grouped into a few
great masses, the dimensions of which cannot be estimated by the eye. A
Gothic architect would have divided these masses into twice or three
times the number of the piers used in these churches, and by employing
ornament designed to display and accentuate the construction, would have
rendered these buildings far more satisfactory than they are.
In this respect the great art of the architect consists in obtaining the
greatest possible amount of unencumbered space internally, consistent in
the first place with the requisite amount of permanent mechanical
stability, and next with such an appearance of superfluity of strength
as shall satisfy the mind that the building is perfectly secure and
calculated to last for ages.
IX.—FORMS.
It is extremely difficult to lay down any general rules as to the forms
best adapted to architectural purposes, as the value of a form in
architecture depends wholly on the position in which it is placed and
the use to which it is applied. There is in consequence no prescribed
form, however ugly it may appear at present, that may not one day be
found to be the very best for a given purpose; and, in like manner, none
of those most admired which may not become absolutely offensive when
used in a manner for which they are unsuited. In itself no simple form
seems to have any inherent value of its own, and it is only by
combination of one with another that they become effective. If, for
instance, we take a series of twenty or thirty figures, placing a cube
at one end as the most solid of angular and a sphere at the other as the
most perfect of round shapes, it would be easy to cut off the angles of
the cube in successive gradations till it became a polygon of so many
sides as to be nearly curvilinear. On the other hand by modifying the
sphere through all the gradations of conic sections, it might meet the
other series in the centre without there being any abrupt distinction
between them. Such a series might be compared to the notes of a piano.
We cannot say that any one of the base or treble notes is in itself more
beautiful than the others. It is only by a combination of several notes
that harmony is produced, and gentle or brilliant melodies by their
fading into one another, or by strongly marked contrasts. So it is with
forms: the square and angular are expressive of strength and power;
curves of softness and elegance; and beauty is produced by effective
combination of the right-lined with the curvilinear. It is always thus
in nature. Rocks and all the harder substances are rough and angular,
and marked by strong contrasts and deep lines. Among trees, the oak is
rugged, and its branches are at right angles to its stem, or to one
another. The lines of the willow are rounded, and flowing. The forms of
children and women are round and full, and free from violent contrasts;
those of men are abrupt, hard, and angular in proportion to the vigour
and strength of their frame.
In consequence of these properties, as a general rule the square or
angular parts ought always to be placed below, where strength is wanted,
and the rounded above. If, for instance, a tower is to be built, the
lower storey should not only be square, but should be marked by
buttresses, or other strong lines, and the masonry rusticated, so as to
convey even a greater appearance of strength. Above this, if the square
form is still retained, it may be with more elegance and less
accentuation. The form may then change to an octagon, that to a polygon
of sixteen sides, and then be surmounted by a circular form of any sort.
These conditions are not absolute, but the reverse arrangement would be
manifestly absurd. A tower with a circular base and a square upper
storey is what almost no art could render tolerable, while the other
pleases by its innate fitness without any extraordinary effort of
design.
On the other hand, round pillars are more pleasing as supports for a
square architrave, not so much from any inherent fitness for the purpose
as from the effect of contrast, and flat friezes are preferable to
curved ones of the late Roman styles from the same cause. The angular
mouldings introduced among the circular shafts of a Gothic coupled
pillar, add immensely to the brilliancy of effect. Where everything is
square and rugged, as in a Druidical trilithon, the effect may be
sublime, but it cannot be elegant; where everything is rounded, as in
the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, the perfection of elegance may be
attained, but never sublimity. Perfection, as usual, lies between these
extremes.
X—PROPORTION.
The properties above enumerated may be characterised as the mechanical
principles of design. Size, stability, construction, material, and many
such, are elements at the command of the engineer or mason, as well as
of the architect, and a building remarkable for these properties only,
cannot be said to rise above the lowest grade of architectural
excellence. They are invaluable adjuncts in the hands of the true
artist, but ought never to be the principal elements of design.
After these, the two most important resources at the command of the
architect are Proportion and Ornament; the former enabling him to
construct ornamentally, the latter to ornament his construction; both
require knowledge and thought, and can only be properly applied by one
thoroughly imbued with the true principles of architectural design.
As proportion, to be good, must be modified by every varying exigence of
a design, it is of course impossible to lay down any general rules which
shall hold good in all cases; but a few of its principles are obvious
enough, and can be defined so as to enable us to judge how far they have
been successfully carried out in the various buildings enumerated in the
following pages.
To take first the simplest form of the proposition, let us suppose a
room built, which shall be an exact cube—of say 20 feet each way—such a
proportion must be bad and inartistic; and besides, the height is too
great for the other dimensions, apparently because it is impossible to
get far enough away to embrace the whole wall at one view, or to see the
springing of the roof, without throwing the head back and looking
upwards. If the height were exaggerated to thirty or forty feet, the
disproportion would be so striking, that no art could render it
agreeable. As a general rule, a room square in plan is never pleasing.
It is always better that one side should be longer than the other, so as
to give a little variety to the design. Once and a half the width has
often been recommended, and with every increase of length an increase of
height is not only allowable, but indispensable. Some such rule as the
following seems to meet most cases:—“The height of a room ought to be
equal to half its width, plus the square root of its length.” Thus a
room 20 feet square ought to be between 14 and 15 feet high; if its
length be increased to 40 feet, its height must be at least 16½; if 100,
certainly not less than 20. If we proceed further, and make the height
actually exceed the width, the effect is that of making it look narrow.
As a general rule, and especially in all extreme cases, by adding to one
dimension, we take away in appearance from the others. Thus, if we take
a room 20 feet wide and 30 or 40 feet in height, we make it narrow; if
40 wide and 20 high, we make a low room. By increasing the length, we
diminish the other two dimensions.
This, however, is merely speaking of plain rooms with plain walls, and
an architect may be forced to construct rooms of all sorts of unpleasing
dimensions, but it is here that his art comes to his aid, and he must be
very little of an artist if he cannot conceal, even when unable entirely
to counteract, the defects of his dimensions. A room, for instance, that
is a perfect cube of 20 feet may be made to look as low as one only 15
feet high, by using a strongly marked horizontal decoration, by breaking
the wall into different heights, by marking strongly the horizontal
proportions, and obliterating as far as possible all vertical lines. The
reverse process will make a room only 10 feet high look as lofty as one
of 15.
Even the same wall-paper (if of strongly marked lines) if pasted on the
sides of two rooms exactly similar in dimensions, but with the lines
vertical in the one case, in the other horizontal, will alter the
apparent dimensions of them by several feet. If a room is too high, it
is easy to correct this by carrying a bold cornice to the height
required, and stopping there the vertical lines of the wall, and above
this coving the roof, or using some device which shall mark a
distinction from the walls, and the defect may become a beauty. In like
manner, if a room is too long for its other dimensions, this is easily
remedied either by breaks in the walls where these can be obtained, or
by screens of columns across its width, or by only breaking the height
of the roof. Anything which will divide the length into compartments
will effect this. The width, if in excess, is easily remedied by
dividing it, as the Gothic architects did, into aisles. Thus a room 50
feet wide and 30 high, may easily be restored to proportion by cutting
off 10 or 12 feet on each side, and lowering the roofs of the side
compartments, to say 20 feet. If great stability is not required, this
can be done without encumbering the floor with many points of support.
The greater the number used the more easily the effect is obtained, but
it can be done almost without them.
Externally it is easier to remedy defects of proportion than it is
internally. It is easier than on the inside to increase the apparent
height by strongly marked vertical lines, or to bring it down by the
employment of a horizontal decoration.
[Illustration: No. 3.]
If the length of a building is too great, this is easily remedied by
projections, or by breaking up the length into square divisions. Thus, A
A is a long building, but B B is a square one, or practically (owing to
the perspective) less than a square in length, in any direction at right
angles to the line of vision; or, in other words, to a spectator at A’
the building would look as if shorter in the direction of B B than in
that of A A, owing to the largeness and importance of the part nearest
the eye. If 100 feet in length by 50 feet high is a pleasing dimension
for a certain design, and it is required that the building should be 500
feet long, it is only necessary to break it into five parts, and throw
three back and two forward, or the contrary, and the proportion becomes
as before.
The Egyptians hardly studied the science of proportion at all; they
gained their effects by simpler and more obvious means. The Greeks were
masters in this as in everything else, but they used the resources of
the art with extreme sobriety—externally at least—dreading to disturb
that simplicity which is so essential to sublimity in architecture. But
internally, where sublimity was not attainable with the dimensions they
employed, they divided the cells of their temples into three aisles, and
the height into two, by placing two ranges of columns one above the
other. By these means they were enabled to use such a number of small
parts as to increase the apparent size most considerably, and at the
same time to give greater apparent magnitude to the statue, which was
the principal object for which the temple was erected.
The Romans do not seem to have troubled themselves with the science of
proportion in the designs of their buildings, though nothing can well be
more exquisite than the harmony that exists between the parts in their
orders, and generally in their details. During the Middle Ages, however,
we find, from first to last, the most earnest attention paid to it, and
half the beauty of the buildings of that age is owing to the successful
results to which the architects carried their experiments in balancing
the parts of their structures the one against the other, so as to
produce that harmony we so much admire in them.
[Illustration: No. 4.]
The first great invention of the Gothic architects (though of Greek
origin) was that of dividing the breadth of the building internally into
three aisles, and making the central one higher and wider than those on
each side. By this means height and length were obtained at the expense
of width: this latter, however, is never a valuable property
artistically, though it may be indispensable for the utilitarian
exigencies of the building. They next sought to increase still further
the height of the central aisle by dividing its sides into three equal
portions which by contrast added very much to the effect: but the
monotony of this arrangement was soon apparent: besides, it was
perceived that the side aisles were so low as not to come into direct
comparison with the central nave. To remedy this they gradually
increased its dimensions, and at last hit on something very like the
following proportions. They made the height of the side aisle half that
of the central (the width being also in the same proportion); the
remaining portions they divided into three, making the triforium
one-third, the clerestory two-thirds of the whole. Thus the three
divisions are in the proportion of 1, 2, and 3, each giving value to the
other, and the whole adding very considerably to all the apparent
dimensions of the interior. It would have been easy to have carried the
system further and, by increasing the number of the pillars
longitudinally and the number of divisions vertically, to have added
considerably to even this appearance of size; but it would then have
been at the expense of simplicity and grandeur: and though the building
might have looked larger, the beauty of the design would have been
destroyed.
One of the most striking exemplifications of the perfection of the
Gothic architects in this department of their art is shown in their
employment of towers and spires. As a general rule, placing a tall
building in juxtaposition with a low one exaggerates the height of the
one and the lowness of the other; and as it was by no means the object
of the architects to sacrifice their churches for their towers, it
required all their art to raise noble spires without doing this. In the
best designs they effected it by bold buttresses below, and the moment
the tower got free of the building, by changing it to an octagon and
cutting it up by pinnacles, and lastly by changing its form into that of
a spire, using generally smaller parts than are found in the church. By
these devices they prevented the spire from competing in any way with
the church. On the contrary, a spire or group of spires gave dignity and
height to the whole design, without deducting from any of its
dimensions.
The city of Paris contains an instructive exemplification of these
doctrines—the façade of the Cathedral of Notre Dame (exclusive of the
upper storey of the towers), and the Arc de l’Etoile being two buildings
of exactly the same dimensions; yet any one who is not aware of this
fact would certainly estimate the dimensions of the cathedral as at
least a third, if not a half, in excess of the other. It may be said
that the arch gains in sublimity and grandeur what it loses in apparent
dimensions by the simplicity of its parts. The façade of the cathedral,
though far from one of the best in France, is by no means deficient in
grandeur; and had it been as free from the trammels of utilitarianism as
the arch, might easily have been made as simple and as grand, without
losing its apparent size. In the other case, by employing in the arch
the principles which the Gothic architects elaborated with such pains,
the apparent dimensions might have been increased without detracting
from its solidity, and it might thus have been rendered one of the
sublimest buildings in the world.
The interior of St. Peter’s at Rome is an example of the neglect of
these principles. Its great nave is divided into only four bays, and the
proportions and ornaments of these, borrowed generally from external
architecture, are so gigantic, that it is difficult to realise the true
dimensions of the church, except by the study of the plan; and it is not
too much to assert, that had a cathedral of these dimensions been built
in the true Gothic style, during the 13th or 14th century, it would have
appeared as if from one-third to one-half larger, and might have been
the most sublime, whereas St. Peter’s is now only the largest temple
ever erected.
It would be easy to multiply examples to show to what perfection the
science of proportion was carried by the experimental processes above
described during the existence of the true styles of architecture, and
how satisfactory the result is, even upon those who are not aware of the
cause; and, on the other hand, how miserable are the failures that
result either from the ignorance or neglect of its rules. Enough, it is
hoped, has been said to show that not only are the apparent proportions
of a building very much under the control of an architect independent of
its lineal dimensions, but also that he has it in his power so to
proportion every part as to give value to all those around it, thus
producing that harmony which in architecture, as well as in music or in
painting, is the very essence of a true or satisfactory utterance.
XI.—CARVED ORNAMENT.
Architectural ornament is of two kinds, _constructive_ and _decorative_.
By the former is meant all those contrivances, such as capitals,
brackets, vaulting shafts, and the like, which serve to explain or give
expression to the construction; by the latter, such as mouldings, frets,
foliage, &c., which give grace and life either to the actual
constructive forms, or to the constructive decoration.
In mere building or engineering, the construction being all in all, it
is left to tell its own tale in its own prosaic nakedness; but in true
architecture construction is always subordinate, and as architectural
buildings ought always to possess an excess of strength it need not show
itself unless desired; but even in an artistic point of view it always
is expedient to express it. The vault, for instance, of a Gothic
cathedral might just as easily spring from a bracket or a corbel as from
a shaft, and in early experiments this was often tried; but the effect
was unsatisfactory, and a vaulting shaft was carried down first to the
capital of the pillar, and afterwards to the floor: by this means the
eye was satisfied, the thin reed-like shafts being sufficient to explain
that the vault rested on the solid ground, and an apparent propriety and
stability were given to the whole. These shafts not being necessary
constructively, the artist could make them of any form or size he
thought most proper, and consequently, instead of one he generally used
three small shafts tied together at various intervals. Afterwards merely
a group of graceful mouldings was employed, which satisfied not only the
exigencies of ornamental construction, but became a real and essential
decorative feature of the building.
In like manner it was good architecture to use flying buttresses, even
where they were not essential to stability. They explained externally
that the building was vaulted, and that its thrusts were abutted and
stability secured. The mistake in their employment was where they became
so essential to security, that the constructive necessities controlled
the artistic propriety of the design, and the architect found himself
compelled to employ either a greater number, or buttresses of greater
strength than he would have desired had he been able to dispense with
them.
The architecture of the Greeks was so simple, that they required few
artifices to explain their construction; but in their triglyphs their
mutules, the form of their cornices and other devices, they took pains
to explain, not only that these parts had originally been of wood but
that the temple still retained its wooden roof. Had they ever adopted a
vault, they would have employed a totally different system of
decoration. Having no constructive use whatever, these parts were wholly
under the control of the architects, and they consequently became the
beautiful things we now so much admire.
With their more complicated style the Romans introduced many new modes
of constructive decoration. They were the first to employ vaulting
shafts. In all the great halls of their Baths, or of their vaulted
Basilicas, they applied a Corinthian pillar as a vaulting shaft to the
front of the pier from which the arch appears to spring, though the
latter really supported the vault. All the pillars have now been
removed, but without at all interfering with the stability of the
vaults; they were mere decorative features to explain the construction,
but indispensable for that purpose. The Romans also suggested most of
the other decorative inventions of the Middle Ages, but their
architecture never reached beyond the stage of transition. It was left
for the Gothic architects freely to elaborate this mode of architectural
effect, and they carried it to an extent never dreamt of before; but it
is to this that their buildings owe at least half the beauty they
possess.
The same system of course applies to dwelling-houses, and to the meanest
objects of architectural art. The string-course that marks externally
the floor-line of the different storeys is as legitimate and
indispensable an ornament as a vaulting shaft, and it would also be well
that the windows should be grouped so as to indicate the size of the
rooms, and at least a plain space left where a partition wall abuts, or
better still a pilaster or buttress, or line of some sort, ought to mark
externally that feature of internal construction.
The cornice is as indispensable a termination of the wall as the capital
is of a pillar; and suggests not only an appropriate support for the
roof, but eaves to throw the rain off the wall. The same is true with
regard to pediments or caps over windows: they suggest a means of
protecting an opening from the wet; and porches over doorways are
equally obvious contrivances. Everything, in short, which is actually
constructive, or which suggests what was or may be a constructive
expedient, is a legitimate object of decoration, and affords the
architect unlimited scope for the display of taste and skill, without
going out of his way to seek it.
The difficulty in applying ornaments borrowed from other styles is, that
although they all suggest construction, it is not _the_ construction of
the buildings to which they are applied. To use Pugin’s clever
antithesis, “they are constructed ornament, not ornamented
construction,” and as such can never satisfy the mind. However beautiful
in themselves, they are out of place, there is no real or apparent use
for their being there; and, in an art so essentially founded on
utilitarian principles and common sense as architecture is, any offence
against constructive propriety is utterly intolerable.
The other class, or decorative ornaments, are forms invented for the
purpose, either mere lithic forms, or copied from the vegetable kingdom,
and applied so as to give elegance or brilliancy to the constructive
decoration just described.
The first and most obvious of these are mere mouldings, known to
architects as Scotias, Cavettos, Ogees, Toruses, Rolls, &c.—curves
which, used in various proportions either horizontally or vertically,
produce when artistically combined, the most pleasing effect.
In conjunction with these, it is usual to employ a purely conventional
class of ornament, such as frets, scrolls, or those known as the bead
and reel, or egg and dart mouldings; or in Gothic architecture the
billet or dog-tooth or all the thousand and one forms that were invented
during the Middle Ages.
In certain styles of art, vegetable forms are employed even more
frequently than those last described. Among these, perhaps the most
beautiful and perfect ever invented was that known as the honeysuckle
ornament, which the Greeks borrowed from the Assyrians, but made so
peculiarly their own. It has all the conventional character of a purely
lithic, with all the grace of a vegetable form; and, as used with the
Ionic order, is more nearly perfect than any other known.
The Romans made a step further towards a more direct imitation of nature
in their employment of the acanthus leaf. As applied to a capital, or
where the constructive form of the bell beneath it is still distinctly
seen, it is not only unobjectionable, but productive of the most
pleasing effect. Indeed it is doubtful if anything of its class has yet
been invented so entirely satisfactory as the Roman Corinthian order, as
found, for instance, in the so-called Temple of Jupiter Stator at Rome.
The proportions of the order have never yet been excelled, and there is
just that balance between imitation of nature and conventionality which
is indispensable. It is not so pure or perfect as a Grecian order, but
as an example of rich decoration applied to an architectural order it is
unsurpassed.
With their disregard of precedent and untrammelled wildness of
imagination, the Gothic architects tried every form of vegetable
ornament, from the purest conventionalism, where the vegetable form can
hardly be recognised, to the most literal imitation of nature.
While confining himself to purely lithic forms, an architect can never
sin against good taste, though he may miss many beauties; with the
latter class of ornament he is always in danger of offence, and few have
ever employed it without falling into mistakes. In the first place,
because it is impossible to imitate perfectly foliage and flowers in
stone; and secondly, because if the pliant forms of plants are made to
support, or do the work of, hard stone, the incongruity is immediately
apparent, and the more perfect the imitation the greater the mistake.
[Illustration: No. 5.]
[Illustration: No. 6.]
In the instance (Woodcut No. 5), any amount of literal imitation that
the sculptor thought proper may be indulged in, because in it the stone
construction is so apparent everywhere, that the vegetable form is the
merest supplement conceivable; or in a hollow moulding round a doorway,
a vine may be sculptured with any degree of imitation that can be
employed; for as it has no more work to do than the object represented
would have in the same situation, it is a mere adjunct, a statue of a
plant placed in a niche, as we might use the statue of a man: but if in
the woodcut (No. 6) imitations of real leaves were used to support the
upper moulding, the effect would not be so satisfactory; indeed it is
questionable if in both these last examples a little more
conventionality would not be desirable.
In too many instances, even in the best Gothic architecture, the
construction is so overlaid by imitative vegetable forms as to be
concealed, and the work is apparently done by leaves or twigs, but in
the earliest and purest style this is almost never the case. As a
general rule it may be asserted that the best lithic ornaments are those
which approach nearest to the grace and pliancy of plants, and that the
best vegetable forms are those which most resemble the regularity and
symmetry of such as are purely conventional.
Although the Greeks in one or two instances employed human figures to
support entablatures or beams, the good taste of such an arrangement is
more than questionable. They borrowed it, with the Ionic order, from the
Assyrians, with whom the employment of caryatides and animal forms was
the rule, not the exception, in contradistinction from the Egyptians,
who never adopted this practice.[14] Even the Romans avoided this
mistake, and the Gothic architects also as a general rule kept quite
clear of it. Whenever they did employ ornamented figures for
architectural purposes, they were either monsters, as in gargoyles or
griffons; or sometimes, in a spirit of caricature, they used dwarfs or
deformities of various sorts; but their sculpture, properly so called,
was always provided with a niche or pedestal, where it might have been
placed after the building was complete, or from which it might be
removed without interfering with the architecture.
XII.—DECORATIVE COLOUR.
Colour is one of the most invaluable elements placed at the command of
the architect to enable him to give grace or finish to his designs. From
its nature it is of course only an accessory, or mere ornament; but
there is nothing that enables him to express his meaning so cheaply and
easily, and at the same time with such brilliancy and effect. For an
interior it is absolutely indispensable; and no apartment can be said to
be complete till it has received its finishing touches from the hand of
the painter. Whether exteriors ought or ought not to be similarly
treated admits of more doubt.
Internally the architect has complete command of the situation: he can
suit his design to his colours, or his colours to his design. Walls,
roof, floor, furniture, are all at his disposal, and he can shut out any
discordant element that would interfere with the desired effect.
Externally this is seldom, if ever the case. A façade that looks
brilliant and well in noonday sun may be utterly out of harmony with a
cold grey sky, or with the warm glow of a setting sun full upon it: and
unless all other buildings and objects are toned into accordance with
it, the effect can seldom be harmonious.
There can be now no reasonable doubt that the Greeks painted their
temples both internally and externally, but as a general rule they
always placed them on heights where they could only be seen relieved
against the sky; and they could depend on an atmosphere of almost
uniform, unvarying brightness. Had their temples been placed in groves
or valleys, they would probably have given up the attempt, and certainly
never would have ventured upon it in such a climate as ours.
Except in such countries as Egypt and Greece, it must always be a
mistake to apply colour by merely painting the surface of the building
externally; but there are other modes of effecting this which are
perfectly legitimate. Coloured ornaments may be inlaid in the stone of
the wall without interfering with the construction, and so placed may be
made more effective and brilliant than the same ornaments would be if
carved in relief. Again, string-courses and mouldings of various
coloured stones or marbles might frequently be employed with better
effect than can be obtained in some situations by depth of cutting and
boldness of projection. Such a mode of decoration can, however, only be
partial; if the whole building is to be coloured, it must be done
constructively, by using different coloured materials, or the effect
will never be satisfactory.
In the Middle Ages the Italians carried this mode of decoration to a
considerable extent; but in almost all instances it is so evidently a
veneer overlying the construction that it fails to please; and a
decoration which internally, where construction is of less importance,
would excite general admiration, is without meaning on the outside of
the same wall.
At the same time it is easy to conceive how polychromy might be carried
out successfully, if, for instance, a building were erected, the pillars
of which were of red granite or porphyry, the cornices or string-courses
of dark coloured marbles, and the plain surfaces of lighter kinds, or
even of stone. A design so carried out would be infinitely more
effective than a similar one executed in materials of only one colour,
and depending for relief only on varying shadows of daylight. There is
in fact just the same difficulty in lighting monochromatic buildings as
there is with sculpture. A coloured painting, on the other hand,
requires merely sufficient light, and with that expresses its form and
meaning far more clearly and easily than when only one colour is
employed. The task, however, is difficult; so much so, indeed, that
there is hardly one single instance known of a complete polychromatic
design being successfully carried out anywhere, though often attempted.
The other mode of merely inlaying the ornaments in colour instead of
relieving them by carving as seldom fails.
Notwithstanding this, an architect should never neglect to select the
colour of his materials with reference to the situation in which his
building is to stand. A red brick building may look remarkably well if
nestling among green trees, while the same building would be hideous if
situated on a sandy plain, and relieved only by the warm glow of a
setting sun. A building of white stone or white brick is as
inappropriate among the trees, and may look bright and cheerful in the
other situation.
In towns colours might be used of very great brilliancy, and if done
constructively, there could be no greater improvement to our
architecture; but its application is so difficult that no satisfactory
result has yet been attained, and it may be questioned whether it will
be ever successfully accomplished.
With regard to interiors there can be no doubt. All architects in all
countries of the world resorted to this expedient to harmonise and to
give brilliancy to their compositions, and have depended on it for their
most important effects.
The Gothic architects carried this a step further by the introduction of
painted glass, which was a mode of colouring more brilliant than had
been ever before attempted. This went beyond all previous efforts,
inasmuch as it coloured not only the objects themselves, but also the
light in which they were seen. So enamoured were they of its beauties,
that they sacrificed much of the constructive propriety of their
buildings to admit of its display, and paid more attention to it than to
any other part of their designs. Perhaps they carried this predilection
a little beyond the limits of good taste; but colour is in itself so
exquisite a thing, and so admirable a vehicle for the expression of
architectural as well as of æsthetic beauty, that it is difficult to
find fault even with the abuse of what is in its essence so legitimate
and so beautiful.
XIII.—SCULPTURE AND PAINTING.
Carved ornament and decorative colour come within the especial province
of the architect. In some styles, such as the Saracenic, and in many
buildings, they form the Alpha and the Omega of the decoration. But, as
mentioned above, one of the great merits of architecture as an art is
that it affords room for the display of the works of the sculptor and
the painter, not only in such a manner as not to interfere with its own
decorative construction, but so as to add meaning and value to the
whole. No Greek temple and no Gothic cathedral can indeed be said to be
perfect or complete without these adjuncts; and one of the principal
objects of the architects in Greece or in the Middle Ages was to design
places and devise means by which these could be displayed to advantage,
without interfering either with the construction or constructive
decoration. This was perhaps effected more successfully in the Parthenon
than in any other building we are acquainted with. The pediments at
either end were noble frames for the exhibition of sculpture, and the
metopes were equally appropriate for the purpose; while the plain walls
of the cella were admirably adapted for paintings below and for a
sculptured frieze above.
The deeply recessed portals of our Gothic cathedrals, their galleries,
their niches and pinnacles, were equally appropriate for the exuberant
display of this class of sculpture in a less refined or fastidious age;
while the mullion-framed windows were admirably adapted for the
exhibition of a mode of coloured decoration, somewhat barbarous, it must
be confessed, but wonderfully brilliant.
The system was carried further in India than in any other country except
perhaps Egypt. Probably no Hindu temple was ever erected without being
at least intended to be adorned with Phonetic sculpture, and many of
them are covered with it from the plinth to the eaves, in strong
contrast with the Mahomedan buildings that stand side by side with them,
and which are wholly devoid of any attempt at this kind of decoration.
The taste of these Hindu sculptures may be questionable, but such as
they are they are so used as never to interfere with the architectural
effect of the building on which they are employed, but always so as to
aid the design irrespective of the story they have to tell. There is
probably no instance in which their removal or their absence would not
be felt as an injury from an architectural point of view.
It is difficult now to ascertain whether Phonetic painting was used to
the same extent as sculpture in ancient times. From its nature it is
infinitely more perishable, and a bucket of whitewash will in half an
hour obliterate the work of years, and, strange to say, there are ages,
both in the East and the west, where men’s minds are so attuned that
they consider whitewash a more fitting decoration than coloured
paintings of the most elaborate and artistic character. While this is so
we need hardly wonder that our means of forming a distinct opinion on
this subject are somewhat limited.
Be this as it may, it is still one of the special privileges of
architecture that she is able to attract to herself these phonetic arts,
and one of the greatest merits a building can possess is its affording
appropriate places for their display without interfering in any way with
the special department of the architect. But it is always necessary to
distinguish carefully between what belongs to the province of each art
separately. The work of the architect ought to be complete and perfect
without either sculpture or painting, and must be judged as if they were
absent; but he will not have been entirely successful unless he has
provided the means by which the value of his design may be doubled by
their introduction. It is only by the combination of the Phonetic
utterance with the Technic and Æsthetic elements that a perfect work of
art has been produced, and that architecture can be said to have reached
the highest point of perfection to which it can aspire.
XIV.—UNIFORMITY.
Considerable confusion has been introduced into the reasoning on the
subject of architectural Uniformity from the assumption that the two
great schools of art—the classical and the mediæval—adopted contrary
conclusions regarding it, Formality being supposed to be the
characteristic of the former, Irregularity of the latter. The Greeks, of
course, when building a temple or monument, which was only one room or
one object, made it exactly symmetrical in all its parts; but so did the
Gothic architects when building a church or chapel or hall, or any
single object: in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, a line drawn
down the centre divides it into two equal and symmetrical halves; and
when an exception to this occurs, there is some obvious motive for it.
But where several buildings of different classes were to be grouped, or
even two temples placed near one another, the Greeks took the utmost
care to prevent their appearing parts of one design or one whole; and
when, as in the instance of the Erechtheium,[15] three temples are
placed together, no Gothic architect ever took such pains to secure for
each its separate individuality as the Grecian architect did. What has
given rise to the error is, that all the smaller objects of Grecian art
have perished, leaving us only the great monuments without their
adjuncts.
If we can conceive the task assigned to a Grecian architect of erecting
a building like one of our collegiate institutions, he would without
doubt have distinguished the chapel from the refectory, and that from
the library, and he would have made them of a totally different design
from the principal’s lodge, or the chambers of the fellows and students;
but it is more than probable that, while carefully distinguishing each
part from the other, he would have arranged them with some regard to
symmetry, placing the chapel in the centre, the library and refectory as
pendants to one another, though dissimilar, and the residences so as to
connect and fill up the whole design. The truth seems to be that no
great amount of dignity can be obtained without a certain degree of
regularity; and there can be little doubt that artistically it is better
that mere utilitarian convenience should give way to the exigencies of
architectural design than that the latter should be constrained to yield
to the mere prosaic requirements of the building. The chance-medley
manner in which many such buildings were grouped together in the Middle
Ages tells the story as clearly, and may be productive of great
picturesqueness of effect, but not of the same nobility as might have
been obtained by more regularity. The highest class of design will never
be reached by these means.
It is not difficult to discover, at least to a certain extent, that the
cause of this is that no number of separate units will suffice to make
one whole. A number of pebbles will not make a great stone, nor a number
of rose-bushes an oak; nor will any number of dwarfs make up a giant. To
obtain a great whole there must be unity, to which all the parts must
contribute, or they will remain separate particles. The effect of unity
is materially heightened when to it is added uniformity: the mind then
instantly and easily grasps the whole, knows it to be one, and
recognises the ruling idea that governed and moulded the whole together.
It seems only to be by the introduction of uniformity that sufficient
simplicity for greatness can be obtained, and the evidence of design
made so manifest that the mind is satisfied that the building is no mere
accumulation of separate objects, but the production of a master-mind.
In a palace irregularity seems unpardonable. The architect has there
practically unlimited command of funds and of his arrangements, and he
can easily design his suites of rooms so as to produce any amount of
uniformity he may require: the different heights of the different
storeys and the amount of ornament on them, with the employment of wings
for offices, is sufficient to mark the various purposes of the various
parts; but where the system is carried so far in great public buildings,
that great halls, libraries, committee-rooms, and subordinate residences
are all squeezed into one perfectly uniform design, the building loses
all meaning, and fails from the opposite error.
The rule seems to be, that every building or every part of one ought
most distinctly and clearly to express not only its constructive
exigencies, but also the uses for which it is destined; on the other
hand, that mere utility, in all instances where architectural effect is
aimed at, ought to give way to artistic requirements; and that an
architect is consequently justified, in so far as his means will admit,
in producing that amount of uniformity and regularity which seems
indispensable for anything like grandeur of effect. In villas and small
buildings all we look for is picturesqueness and meaning combined with
elegance; but in larger and more monumental erections we expect
something more; and this can hardly be obtained without the introduction
of some new element which shall tell, in the first place, that artistic
excellence was the ruling idea of the design, and in the next should
give it that perfect balance and symmetry which seems to be as inherent
a quality of the higher works of nature as of true art.
XV.—IMITATION OF NATURE.
The subject of the imitation of Nature is one intimately connected with
those mooted in the preceding paragraphs, and regarding which
considerable misunderstanding seems to prevail. It is generally assumed
that in architecture we ought to copy natural objects as we see them,
whereas the truth seems to be that we ought always to copy the
processes, never the forms of Nature. The error apparently has arisen
from confounding together the imitative arts of painting and sculpture
with the constructive art of architecture. The former have no other mode
of expression than by copying, more or less literally, the forms of
Nature; the latter, as explained above, depends wholly on a different
class of elements for its effect; but at the same time no architect can
either study too intently, or copy too closely, the methods and
processes by which Nature accomplishes her ends; and the most perfect
building will be that in which these have been most closely and
literally followed.
To take one prominent instance:—So far as we can judge, the human body
is the most perfect of Nature’s works; in it the groundwork of skeleton
is never seen, and though it can hardly be said to be anywhere
concealed, it is only displayed at the joints or more prominent points
of support, where the action of the frame would be otherwise
unintelligible. The muscles are disposed not only where they are most
useful, but so as to form groups gracefully rounded in outline. The
softness and elegance of these are further aided by the deposition of
adipose matter, and the whole is covered with a skin which with its
beautiful texture conceals the more utilitarian construction of the
internal parts. In the trunk of the body the viscera are disposed wholly
without symmetry or reference to beauty of any sort—the heart on one
side, the liver on the other, and the other parts exactly in those
positions and in those forms by which they may most directly and easily
perform the essential functions for which they are designed. But the
whole is concealed in a perfectly symmetrical sheath of the most
exquisitely beautiful outline. It may be safely asserted that a building
is beautiful and perfect exactly in the ratio in which the same amount
of concealment and the same amount of display of construction is
preserved, where the same symmetry is shown as between the right and
left sides of the human body—the same difference as between the legs and
arms, where the parts are applied to different purposes, and where the
same amount of ornament is added, to adorn without interfering with what
is useful. In short, there is no principle involved in the structure of
man which may not be taken as the most absolute standard of excellence
in architecture.
It is in Nature’s highest works that we find the symmetry of proportion
most prominent. When we descend to the lower types of animals we lose it
to a great extent, and among trees and vegetables generally find it only
in a far less degree, and sometimes miss it altogether. In the mineral
kingdom among rocks and stones it is altogether absent. So universal is
this principle in Nature that we may safely apply it to our criticism on
art, and say that a building is perfect as a whole in proportion to its
motived regularity, and departs from the highest type in the ratio in
which symmetrical arrangement is neglected. It may, however, be
incorrect to say that an oak-tree is a less perfect work of creation
than a human being, but it is certain that it is lower in the scale of
created beings. So it may be said that a picturesque group of Gothic
buildings may be as perfect as the stately regularity of an Egyptian or
classic temple; but if it is so, it is equally certain that it belongs
to a lower and inferior class of design.
This analogy, however, we may leave for the present. The one point which
it is indispensable to insist on here is, that man can progress or tend
towards success only by following the principles and copying, so far as
he can understand them, the processes which Nature employs in her works;
but he can never succeed in anything by copying forms without reference
to principles. If we could find Nature making trees like stones, or
animals like trees, or birds like fishes, or fishes like mammalia, or
using any parts taken from one kingdom for purposes belonging to
another, it would then be perfectly legitimate for us to use man’s
stature as the modulus for a Doric, or woman’s as that of an Ionic
column—to build cathedrals like groves, and make windows like leaves, or
to estimate their beauty by their resemblance to such objects; but all
such comparisons proceed on an entire mistake of what imitation of
Nature really means.
It is the merest and most absolute negation of reason to apply to one
purpose things that were designed for another, or to imitate them when
they have no appropriateness; but it is our highest privilege to
understand the processes of Nature. To apply these to our own wants and
purposes is the noblest use of human intellect and the perfection of
human wisdom.
So instinctively, but so literally, has this correct process of
imitating Nature been followed in all true styles of architecture, that
we can always reason regarding them as we do with reference to natural
objects. Thus, if an architect finds in any quarter of the globe a Doric
or Corinthian capital with a few traces of a foundation, he can, at a
glance, tell the age of the temple or building to which it belonged. He
knows who the people were who erected it, to what purpose it was
dedicated, and proceeds at once to restore its porticos, and without
much uncertainty can reproduce the whole fabric. Or if he finds a few
Gothic bases in situ, with a few mouldings or frusta of columns, by the
same process he traces the age, the size, and the purposes of the
building before him. A Cuvier or an Owen can restore the form and
predicate the habits of an extinct animal from a few fragments of bone,
or even from a print of a foot. In the same manner an architect may,
from a few fragments of a building, if of a true style of architecture,
restore the whole of its pristine forms, and with almost the same amount
of certainty. This arises wholly because the architects of former days
had correct ideas of what was meant by imitation of Nature. They added
nothing to their buildings which was not essential; there was no detail
which had not its use, and no ornament which was not an elaboration or
heightening of some essential part, and hence it is that a true building
is as like to a work of Nature as any production of man’s hands can be
to the creations of his Maker.
XVI.—ASSOCIATION.
There is one property inherent in the productions of architectural art,
which, while it frequently lends to them half their charm, at the same
time tends more than anything else to warp and distort our critical
judgments regarding them. We seldom can look at a building of any age
without associating with it such historical memories as may cling to its
walls; and our predilections for any peculiar style of architecture are
more often due to educational or devotional associations than to purely
artistic judgments. A man must be singularly ignorant or strangely
passionless who can stand among the fallen columns of a Grecian temple,
or wander through the corridors of a Roman amphitheatre, or the aisles
of a ruined Gothic abbey, and not feel his heart stirred by emotions of
a totally different class from those suggested by the beauty of the
mouldings or the artistic arrangement of the building he is
contemplating.
The enthusiasm which burst forth in the 15th century for the classical
style of art, and then proved fatal to the Gothic, was not so much an
architectural as a literary movement. It arose from the re-discovery—if
it may be so called—of the poems of Homer and Virgil, of the histories
of Thucydides and Tacitus, of the Philosophy of Aristotle and the
eloquence of Cicero. It was a vast reaction against the darkness and
literary degradation of the Middle Ages, and carried the educated
classes of Europe with it for the next three centuries. So long as
classical literature only was taught in our schools, and classical
models followed in our literature, classical architecture could alone be
tolerated in our buildings, and this generally without the least
reference either to its own peculiar beauties, or its appropriateness
for the purposes to which it was applied.
A second reaction has now taken place against this state of affairs. The
revival of the rites and ceremonies of the mediæval Church, our reverent
love of our own national antiquities, and our admiration for the rude
but vigorous manhood of the Middle Ages,—all have combined to repress
the classical element both in our literature and our art, and to exalt
in their place Gothic feelings and Gothic art, to an extent which cannot
be justified on any grounds of reasonable criticism.
Unless the art-critic can free himself from the influence of these
adventitious associations, his judgments lose half their value; but, on
the other hand, to the historian of art they are of the utmost
importance. It is because architecture so fully and so clearly expresses
the feelings of the people who practised it that it becomes frequently a
better vehicle of history than the written page; and it is these very
associations that give life and meaning to blocks of stone and mounds of
brick, and bring so vividly before our eyes the feelings and the
aspirations of the long-forgotten past.
The importance of association in giving value to the objects of
architectural art can hardly be overrated either by the student or
historian. What has to be guarded against is that unreasoning enthusiasm
which mistakes the shadow for the reality, and would force us to admire
a rude piece of clumsy barbarism erected yesterday, and to which no
history consequently attaches, because something like it was done in
some long past age. Its reality, its antiquity, and its weather stains
may render its prototype extremely interesting, even if not beautiful;
while its copy is only an antiquarian toy, as ugly as it is absurd.
XVII.—NEW STYLE.
There is still one other point of view from which it is necessary to
look at this question of architectural design before any just conclusion
can be arrived at regarding it. It is in fact necessary to answer two
other questions, nearly as often asked as those proposed at the
beginning of Section III. “Can any one invent a new style?”—“Can we ever
again have a new and original style of architecture?” Reasoning from
experience alone, it is easy to answer these questions. No individual
has, so far as we know, ever invented a new style in any part of the
world. No one can even be named who during the prevalence of a true
style of art materially advanced its progress, or by his individual
exertion did much to help it forward; and we may safely answer, that as
this has never happened before, it is hardly probable that it will ever
occur now.
If this one question must be answered in the negative, the other may as
certainly be answered in the affirmative, inasmuch as no nation in any
age or in any part of the globe has failed to invent for itself a true
and appropriate style of architecture whenever it chose to set about it
in the right way, and there certainly can be no great difficulty in our
doing now what has been so often done before, if we only set to work in
a proper spirit, and are prepared to follow the same process which
others have followed to obtain this result.
What that process is, may perhaps be best explained by such an example
as that of ship-building before alluded to, which, though totally
distinct, is still so nearly allied to architecture, as to make a
comparison between the two easy and intelligible.
Let us, for instance, take a series of ships, beginning with those in
which William the Conqueror invaded our shores, or the fleet with which
Edward III. crossed over to France. Next take the vessels which
transported Henry VIII. to his meeting with Francis I., and then pass on
to the time of the Spanish Armada and the sea fights of Van Tromp and De
Ruyter, and on to the times of William III., and then through the
familiar examples till we come to such ships as the ‘Wellington’ and
‘Marlborough’ of yesterday, and the ‘Warrior’ or ‘Minotaur’ of to-day.
In all this long list of examples we have a gradual, steady, forward
progress without one check or break. Each century is in advance of the
one before it, and the result is as near perfection as we can well
conceive.
But if we ask who effected these improvements, or who invented any part
of the last-named wonderful fabrics, we must search deep indeed into the
annals of the navy to find out. But no one has inquired and no one cares
to know, for the simple reason that, like architecture in the Middle
Ages, it is a true and living art, and the improvements were not
effected by individuals, but by all classes—owners, sailors,
shipwrights, and men of science, all working together through centuries,
each lending the aid of his experience or of his reasoning.
If we place alongside of this series of ships a list of churches or
cathedrals, commencing with Charlemagne and ending with Charles V., we
find the same steady and assured progress obtained by the same identical
means. In this instance, princes, priests, masons, and mathematicians,
all worked steadily together for the whole period, striving to obtain a
well-defined result.
In the ship the most suitable materials only are employed in every part,
and neither below nor aloft is there one single timber nor spar nor one
rope which is superfluous. Nor in the cathedral was any material ever
used that was not believed to be the most suitable for its purpose; nor
any form of construction adopted which did not seem the best to those
who employed it; nor any detail added which did not appear necessary for
the purpose it was designed to express? the result being, that we can
look on and contemplate both with the same unmitigated satisfaction.
The one point where this comparison seems to halt is, that ship-building
never became a purely fine art, which architecture really is. The
difference is only one of aim, which it would be as easy to apply to the
one art as it has been to the other. Had architecture never progressed
beyond its one strictly legitimate object of house-building, it would
never have been more near a fine art than merchant ship-building, and
palaces would only have been magnified dwelling-places. Castles and
men-of-war advanced both one stage further towards a fine art. Size and
power were impressed on both, and in this respect they stand precisely
equal to one another. Here ship-building halted, and has not progressed
beyond, while architecture has been invested with a higher aim. In all
ages men have sought to erect houses more dignified and stately than
those designed for their personal use. They attempted the erection of
dwelling-places for their Gods, or temples worthy of the worship of
Supreme Beings; and it was only when this strictly useful art threw
aside all shadow of utilitarianism, and launched boldly forth in search
of the beautiful and the sublime, that it became a truly fine art, and
took the elevated position which it now holds above all other useful
arts. It would have been easy to supply the same motive to
ship-building. If we could imagine any nation ever to construct ships of
God, or to worship on the bosom of the ocean, ships might easily be made
such objects of beauty that the cathedral could hardly compete with
them.
It is not, however, only in architecture or in ship-building that this
progress is essential, for the progress of every art and every science
that is worthy of the name is owing to the same simple process of the
aggregation of experiences; whether we look to metallurgy or mechanics,
cotton-spinning or coining, their perfection is due to the same cause.
So also the sciences—astronomy, chemistry, geology—are all cultivated by
the same means. When the art or science is new, great men stand forth
and make great strides; but when once it reaches maturity, and becomes
the property of the nation, the individual is lost in the mass, and a
thousand inferior brains follow out steadily and surely the path which
the one great intellect has pointed out, but which no single mind,
however great, could carry to its legitimate conclusion.
So far as any reason or experience yet known can be applied to this
subject, it seems clear that no art or science ever has been or can be
now advanced by going backwards, and copying earlier forms, or those
applicable to other times or other circumstances; and that progress
towards perfection can only be obtained by the united efforts of many
steadily pursuing a well-defined object. Whenever this is done, success
appears to be inevitable, or at all events every age is perfectly
satisfied with its own productions. Where forward progress is the law,
it is certain that the next age will surpass the present; but the living
cannot conceive anything more perfect than what they are doing, or they
would apply it. Everything in any true art is thoroughly up to the
highest standard of its period, and instead of the dissatisfied
uncertainty in which we are wandering in all matters concerning
architecture, we should be exulting in our own productions, and proud in
leaving to our posterity the progress we have made, feeling assured that
we have paved the way for them to advance to a still higher standard of
perfection.
As soon as the public are aware of the importance of this rule, and of
its applicability to architecture, a new style must be the inevitable
result; and if our civilisation is what we believe it to be, that style
will not only be perfectly suited to all our wants and desires, but also
more beautiful and more perfect than any that has ever existed before.
XVIII.—PROSPECTS.
If we turn from these speculations to ask what prospect there is of the
public appreciating correctly this view of the matter, or setting
earnestly about carrying it out, the answer can hardly be deemed
satisfactory; in fact, if it were left to the public, very little
progress, except from an utilitarian point of view, would probably be
made.
The study of the classical languages, to which so much importance is
attached in our public schools, and in our own and most foreign
universities, tended at one time in another way to draw attention from
the formation of a true style of architecture by fixing it exclusively
on Greek and Roman models. The Renaissance in the 15th century, as
pointed out above, arose much more from admiration of classic literature
than from any feeling for the remains of buildings which had been
neglected for centuries, and were far surpassed by those which succeeded
them. The same feelings perpetuated by early association are the great
cause of the hold that classic art still has on the educated classes in
Europe.
On the other hand, the revival of the Gothic style fifty years ago
enlisted the sympathy of the clergy, not only in England, but on the
continent of Europe, when they arrived at the conclusion that the Gothic
style was the one most suited for church-building purposes; and
attempted to establish a point that no deviation from Gothic models
should be tolerated.
Beyond these there was another class of men who had but little sympathy
with Greece or Rome, and still less with mediæval monasticism or
feudalism, but who in their own strong sense were inclined to take a
more reasonable view of the matter, and these men have for years been
erecting in London, Manchester, Leeds, and in other cities of England a
series of warehouses and other buildings designed wholly with reference
to their uses, and ornamented only in their construction, and which
consequently are—as far as their utilitarian purposes will allow—as
satisfactory as anything of former days.
In addition to these, and within the last fifteen to twenty years, a
very great progress has taken place in domestic architecture, not only
in London and its suburbs, but throughout England, where buildings have
been erected of a new and an original type, peculiarly applicable to the
requirements of English domestic life, and of great variety and
picturesque design; and these remarks apply not only to mansions, but to
the residences of a much humbler and more simple kind.
In civil engineering, the lowest and most prosaic branch of
architectural art, our progress has been brilliant and rapid. Of this no
better example can be given than the four great bridges erected over the
Thames. The old bridges of Westminster and Blackfriars, and those of
Waterloo and London, were erected at nearly equal intervals during one
century, and the steady progress which they exhibit is greater than that
of almost any similar branch of art during any equal period of time.
In this department our progress is so undeniable that we saw old London
Bridge removed without regret, though it was a work of the same age and
of the same men who built all our greatest and best cathedrals, and in
its own line was quite as perfect and as beautiful as they. But it had
outlived its age, and we knew we could replace it by a better—so its
destruction was inevitable; and if we had made the same progress in the
higher that we have in the lower branches of the building art, we should
see a Gothic cathedral pulled down with the same indifference, content
to know that we could easily replace it by one far nobler and more
worthy of our age and intelligence. No architect during the Middle Ages
ever hesitated to pull down any part of a cathedral that was old and
going to decay, and to replace it with something in the style of the
day, however incongruous that might be; and if we were progressing as
they were, we should have as little compunction in following the same
course.
In the confusion of ideas and of styles which now prevails, it is
satisfactory to be able to contemplate, in the Crystal Palace at
Sydenham, at least one great building carried out wholly on the
principles of Gothic or of any true style of art. No material is used in
it which is not the best for its purpose, no constructive expedient
employed which was not absolutely essential, and it depends wholly for
its effect on the arrangement of its parts and the display of its
construction. So essentially is its principle the same which, as we have
seen, animated Gothic architecture, that we hardly know even now how
much of the design belongs to Sir Joseph Paxton, how much to the
contractors, or how much to the subordinate officers employed by the
Company. Here, as in a cathedral, every man was set to work in that
department which it was supposed he was best qualified to superintend.
There was room for every art and for every intellect, and clashing and
interference were impossible. This, however, was only the second of the
series. The third was entrusted to an Engineer officer, who had no
architectural education, and who had never thought twice on the subject
before he was set to carry out his very inchoate design for the 1862
Exhibition. He failed of course, for architecture is not a Phonetic art
depending on inspiration, but a technic art based on experience. As
re-erected on Muswell Hill the building was immensely improved, and far
superior to its predecessor, but was burnt down before the public had
time to realise its form. As being rebuilt, it probably will be still
one step further in advance, and if the series were carried to a
hundred, with more leisure and a higher aim, we might perhaps learn to
despise many things we now so servilely copy, and might create a style
surpassing anything that ever went before. We have certainly more
wealth, more constructive skill, and more knowledge than our
forefathers; and, living in the same climate and being of the same race,
there seems no insuperable difficulty in our doing at least as much if
not more than they accomplished.
Art, however, will not be regenerated by buildings so ephemeral as
Crystal Palaces or so prosaic as Manchester warehouses, nor by anything
so essentially utilitarian as the works of our engineers. The one hope
is that having commenced at the bottom, the true system may extend
upwards, and come at last to be applied to our palaces and even to
churches, and that the whole nation may lend its aid to work out the
great problem. The prospect of this being done may seem distant, but as
soon as the general significance of the problem is fully appreciated by
the public, the result seems inevitable; and with the means of diffusing
knowledge which we now possess, we may perhaps be permitted to fancy
that the dawn is at hand, and that after our long wanderings in the
dark, daylight may again enlighten our path and gladden our hearts with
the vision of brighter and better things in art than a false system has
hitherto enabled us to attain.
These remarks might easily be extended to any desired length, and in
fact this part of the work ought to be enlarged till it equalled the
narrative part, if it had any pretension to be a complete treatise on
the Art of Architecture. In that case, the static or descriptive part of
a treatise on any art is equally important with the dynamic or narrative
part. In most instances more so; but in this respect architecture is
exceptional, and the narrative form is by far the more important of the
two divisions into which the subject naturally divides itself.
If, for instance, any one were writing a treatise on Naval Architecture,
it is more than probable that he would not allude to any vessel not
afloat at the time of his writing. If he mentioned the triremes of the
Romans or the galleys of the Venetians, it would be in an introductory
chapter intended for the amusement, not the instruction, of his readers.
In like manner, if an engineer undertakes to write on the art of
bridge-building, harbour-making, or on roads or canals, he is only
careful to cite the best existing examples in use, and would be
considered pedantic if he wasted his time, or that of his readers, in
recounting what was done in these departments by the Romans or the
Chinese. If the fine art architecture was with us as well up to the mark
of the intelligence of the day as these more utilitarian branches of the
profession, the same course would be the proper one to pursue in writing
with regard to it. Unfortunately, however, we have no architecture of
our own, and it is impossible to make the various styles in practice
either intelligible or interesting, except by tracing them back to their
origin, and explaining the steps by which they reached perfection.
If architecture was practised by us on the same principles that guided
either the Classic or Gothic architects in their designs, a static
treatise on it would not only be the most instructive but the most
pleasing form of teaching its elements. Owing, however, to the system of
copying which is now the basis of all designs, this is no longer the
case, and the consequently abnormal position of the art renders the
study of its principles almost impossible, and memory must supply the
place of pure reason for their elucidation, thus giving to the narrative
branch of the subject a somewhat exaggerated importance, even when
looked at from a merely technic point of view.
Besides this, however, the narrative form as applied to Architecture has
advantages of its own greater than those of any other art of the same
class, inasmuch as it is a great stone book in which most of the nations
of the earth have recorded their annals, and written their thoughts, and
even expressed their feelings in clearer and truer language than by any
other form of utterance. The pyramids and temples of Egypt are a truer
expression of the feelings and aspirations of their builders than we can
obtain from any other source. The Parthenon at Athens brings the age of
Pericles more clearly before our eyes in all its perfection of art than
any written page. The Flavian Amphitheatre and the Baths of Caracalla
enable us to realise imperial Rome more vividly than even the glowing
pages of Tacitus. Our Mediæval cathedrals are a living record of the
faith and feelings of peoples, who have left, besides these, but few
materials by which one could judge of their aspirations or of their
civilisation; while, if we wish to know in what India differed from
Europe in those ages, and in what respect she still resembled it, it is
to her contemporary temples that we must turn, and they tell us in a
language not to be mistaken wherein lay the differences, and still how
nearly alike the civilisations at one time were. All this, and
infinitely more, we may learn from a record, which, though often ruined
and nearly obliterated, never deceives. Where it first was placed, there
it still remains to tell to future generations what at that spot, at
some previous time, men thought and felt; what their state of
civilisation enabled them to accomplish, and to what stage they had
attained in their conception of a God.
Besides, however, the advantages to be obtained in an artistic point of
view from treating architecture in a narrative rather than in a static
form, there is, as pointed out above, still another, which, though of
minor importance, still adds immensely to the interest of the subject.
It is that, when so treated, the art affords one of the clearest and
most certain tests known of the ethnographic relations of people one to
another. It may, therefore, be as well, before proceeding further, to
explain as briefly as is consistent with intelligibility what is meant
by Architectural Ethnography.
PART II.
I.—ETHNOGRAPHY AS APPLIED TO ARCHITECTURAL ART.
Ethnology, though one of the youngest, is perhaps neither the least
beautiful nor the least attractive of that fair sisterhood of sciences
whose birth has rewarded the patient industry and inflexible love of
truth which characterises the philosophy of the present day. It takes up
the history of the world at the point where it is left by its elder
sister Geology, and, following the same line of argument, strives to
reduce to the same scientific mode of expression the apparent chaos of
facts which have hitherto been looked upon as inexplicable by the
general observer.
It is only within the limits of the present century that Geology was
rescued from the dreams of cataclysms and convulsions which formed the
staple of the science in the last century; and that step by step, by
slow degrees, rocks have been classified and phenomena explained. All
that picturesque wildness with which the materials seemed at first sight
to be distributed over the world’s surface has been reduced to order,
and they now lie arranged as clearly, and as certainly in the mind of a
geologist, as if they had been squared by the tool of a mason and placed
in order by the hand of a mechanic. So it is with Ethnology. Race has
succeeded race;—all have been disturbed, some obliterated—many
contorted—and sometimes the older, apparently, superimposed upon the
newer. All at first sight is chaos and confusion, and it seems almost
hopeless to attempt to unravel the mysteries of the long-forgotten past.
It is true nevertheless, in Ethnology, as in the sister science, that no
change on the world’s surface has taken place without leaving its mark.
A race may be obliterated, or only crop up at the edge of some great
basin of population; but it has left its traces either as fossil remains
in the shape of buildings or works, or as impressions on language or on
the arts of those who supplanted the perishing race. When these are
read,—when all the phenomena are gathered together and classified, we
find the same perfection of Order, the same beautiful simplicity of law
pervading the same complex variety of results, which characterise all
the phenomena of nature, and the knowledge of which is the highest
reward of intellectual exertion.
Language has hitherto been the great implement of analysis which has
been employed to elucidate the affiliation of races; and the present
state of the science may be said to be almost entirely due to the acumen
and industry of learned linguists. Physiology has lent her aid; but the
objects offered for her examination are so few, especially in remote
ages, and the individual differences are so small, as compared with the
general resemblance, that, in the present state of that science, its aid
has not been of the importance which it may fairly be expected hereafter
to assume. In both sciences History plays an important part: in Geology,
by furnishing analogies without which it would be hardly possible to
interpret the facts; in Ethnology, by pointing out the direction in
which inquiries should be made, and by guiding and controlling the
conclusions which may have been arrived at. With the assistance of these
sciences, Ethnologists have accomplished a great deal, and may do more;
but Ethnology, based merely on Language[16] and Physiology, is like
Geology based only on Mineralogy and Chemistry. Without Palæontology,
that science would never have assumed the importance or reached the
perfection to which it has now attained; and Ethnology will never take
the place which it is really entitled to, till its results are checked,
and its conclusions elucidated, by the science of Archæology.
Without the aid and vivifying influence derived from the study of fossil
remains, Geology would lose half its value and more than half its
interest. It may be interesting to the man of science to know what rock
is superimposed upon another, and how and in what relative periods these
changes occurred; but it is far more interesting to watch the dawn of
life on this globe, and to trace its development into the present
teeming stage of existence. So it will be when, with the aid of
Archæology, Ethnologists are able to identify the various strata in
which mankind have been distributed; to fix identities of race from
similarities of Art; and to read the history of the past from the
unconscious testimony of material remains. When properly studied and
understood, there is no language so clear, or whose testimony is so
undoubted, as that of those petrified thoughts and feelings which men
have left engraved on the walls of their temples, or buried with them in
the chambers of their tombs. Unconsciously expressed, but imperishably
written, they are there to this hour. Any one who likes may read, and no
one who can translate them can for one moment doubt but that they are
the best, and frequently the only, records that remain of bygone races.
It is not difficult to explain why ethnographers have not hitherto
considered Archæology of that importance to their researches to which it
is undoubtedly entitled. We live in an age when all Art is a chaos of
copying and confusion; we are daily masquerading in the costume of every
nation of the earth, ancient and modern, and are unable to realise that
these dresses in which we deck ourselves were once realities. Because
Architecture, since the Reformation in the sixteenth century, has in
Europe been a mere _hortus siccus_ of dried specimens of the art of all
countries and of all ages, we cannot feel that, before that time, Art
was earnest and progressive; and that men then did what they felt to be
best and most appropriate, by the same processes by which Nature works.
We do not therefore perceive that, though in an infinitely lower grade,
we may reason of the works of man before a given date, with the same
certainty with which we can reason of those of Nature. When this great
fact is once recognised—and it is indisputable—Archæology and
Palæontology take their places side by side, as the guiding and
vivifying elements in the sister sciences of Ethnology and Geology; and
give to each of these a value they could never otherwise attain.
As may well be expected, however, when Archæology is employed to aid in
these researches, results are frequently arrived at, which at first
sight are discrepant from those to which the study of language alone has
hitherto led scientific men. But this is no proof either of the truth or
falsehood of the conclusions arrived at, or of the value or
worthlessness of the processes employed. Both are essential to the
question of knowledge, and it is by a skilful balancing of both classes
of evidence that truth is ultimately arrived at.
It would be out of place to attempt in an introduction like the present
anything approaching to a complete investigation of this subject. Nor is
it necessary. The various ethnographic relations of one style to another
will be pointed out as they arise in the course of the narrative, and
their influence traced to such an extent as may be necessary to render
them intelligible. But for the same reasons which made it expedient to
try, in the preceding pages, to define the meaning of the term
architecture and to point out its position and limits, it is believed
that it will add to the clearness of what follows if the typical
characteristics of the principal races[17] of mankind with whom the
narrative deals, are first defined as clearly, though as succinctly as
possible.
As the object of introducing the subject here is not to write an essay
on Ethnology, but to render the history of Architecture interesting and
intelligible, it may be expedient to avoid all speculation as to the
origin of mankind, or the mode in which the various races diverged from
one another and became so markedly distinct. Stretch the history of
Architecture as we will, we cannot get beyond the epoch of the Pyramid
builders (3500 B.C.), and when these were erected the various races of
mankind had acquired those distinctive characteristics which mark them
now. Not long afterwards, when the tombs at Beni Hassan were painted
(2500 B.C.), these distinctions were so marked and so well understood,
that these pictures might serve for the illustration of a book on
Ethnography at the present day. Nor will it be necessary in this
preliminary sketch to attempt more than to point out the typical
features of the four great building races of mankind. The Turanian, the
Semitic, the Celtic, and the Aryan. Even with regard to these, all that
will be necessary will be to point out the typical characteristics
without even attempting to define too accurately their boundaries, and
leaving the minuter gradations to be developed in the sequel.
The one great fact which it is essential to insist on here is, that if
we do not take into account its connexion with Ethnography, the History
of Architecture is a mere dry, hard recapitulation of uninteresting
facts and terms; but when its relation to the world’s history is
understood,—when we read in their buildings the feelings and aspirations
of the people who erected them, and above all through their arts we can
trace their relationship to, and their descent from one another, the
study becomes one of the most interesting, as well as one of the most
useful which can be presented to an inquiring mind.
II.—TURANIAN.
The result of recent researches has enabled the ethnographer to divide
and arrange prehistoric man into three great groups or periods, which in
Europe at least seem to have succeeded to one another; though at what
time has not yet been determined even approximately; nor is it known how
long any of the three subsisted before it was superseded by the next,
nor how far the one overlapped the other, or indeed, whether, as was
almost certainly the case, at some time all three may not have subsisted
together.
The first is called the Stone age, from the rude race who then peopled
Europe having no knowledge of the use of metals. All the cutting parts
of their implements were formed of flint or other hard stones, probably
fitted with wooden or bone handles, and used as tools of these
materials.
These were succeeded by a people having a knowledge of the use of copper
and tin, with the possession of gold, and perhaps silver. Their
principal weapons and tools were formed of a compound of the two
first-named metals; and their age has consequently been called the age
of Bronze.
Both these were superseded, perhaps in historic times, by a people
having a knowledge of the properties and use of Iron. Hence their epoch
came to be distinguished by the name of that metal.
There seems no doubt but that the people of the Stone age were
generally, if not exclusively, of that great family which we now know as
the Turanian.
The race who introduced bronze seem to have been the ancestors of the
Celtic races who afterwards peopled so large a portion of Europe.
The Aryans were those who introduced the use of iron, and with it
dominated over and expelled the older races.
If any prehistoric traces of the Semitic races are to be found, they
must be looked for in Western Asia or in Africa; they certainly had no
settlements in Europe.
Further researches may perhaps at some future time enable us to fix
approximative dates to these various migrations. At present we know that
men using flint implements lived in the valleys of the Garonne and
Dordogne when the climate of the south of France was as cold as that of
Lapland, or perhaps Greenland; when the reindeer was their principal
domestic animal, and the larger animals of the country belonged to
species many of which had ceased to inhabit those regions before the
dawn of history. On the other hand, we may assert with certainty that
the climate of Egypt has not varied since the age of the Pyramid
builders; and there is nothing in the history of either Greece or Italy
that would lead us to believe that any remarkable alteration in the
climate of these countries has taken place in historic times.
These questions, however, hardly come within the scope of the present
work. The men of the Stone age have left nothing which can be styled
architecture, unless we include in that term the rude tumuli of earth
with which they covered the remains of their dead. It is also extremely
uncertain if we can identify any building of stone as belonging
certainly to the age of Bronze. All the rude cromlechs, dolmens,
menhirs, &c., which usher in the early dawn of civilisation in Europe,
belong, it is true to the earlier races, but seem to have been erected
by them at a time when the Aryan races had taught them the use of iron,
and they had learnt to appreciate the value of stone as a monumental
record. This, however, was at a period long subsequent to the use of
iron in Egypt and the East, and long after architecture had attained
maturity; and its history became easily and distinctly legible in the
Valley of the Nile.[18]
The great feature in the history of the Turanian races is that they were
the first to people the whole world beyond the limits of the original
cradle of mankind. Like the primitive unstratified rocks of geologists,
they form the substructure of the whole world, frequently rising into
the highest and most prominent peaks, sometimes overflowing whole
districts and occupying a vast portion of the world’s surface;—
everywhere underlying all the others, and affording their disintegrated
materials to form the more recent strata that now overlie and frequently
obliterate them,—in appearance at least.
In the old world the typical Turanians were the Egyptians; in the modern
the Chinese and Japanese; and to these we are perhaps justified in
adding the Mexicans. If this last adscription stands good, we have at
three nearly equidistant points (120 degrees apart) on the earth’s
surface, and under the tropic of Cancer, the three great culminating
points of this form of civilisation. The outlying strata in Asia are the
Tamuls, who now occupy the whole of the south of India, and all the
races now existing in the countries between India and China. The
Turanians existed in the Valley of the Euphrates before the Semitic or
Aryan races came there. The Tunguses in the north are Turanians, and so
are the Mongols, the Turks, and all those tribes generally described as
Tartars.
In Europe the oldest people of this family we are acquainted with are
the Pelasgi and Etruscans, but the race also crops up in the Magyars,
the Finns, the Lapps, and in odd broken fragments here and there, but
everywhere overpowered by the more civilised Aryans, who succeeded and
have driven them into the remotest corners of the continent.
In Africa they have been almost as completely overpowered by the Semitic
race, and in America are now being everywhere as entirely overwhelmed as
they were in Europe by the Aryan races, and in all probability must
eventually disappear altogether.
Even if the linguist should hesitate to affirm that all their languages
can be traced to a common root, or present sufficient affinities for a
classification, the general features of the races enumerated above are
so alike the one to the other, that, for all real ethnographic purposes,
they may certainly be considered as belonging to one great group.
Whether nearly obliterated, as they are in most parts of Europe, or
whether they still retain their nationality, as in the eastern parts of
Asia, they always appear as the earliest of races, and everywhere
present peculiarities of feeling and civilisation easily recognised, and
which distinguish them from all the other races of mankind.
If they do not all speak cognate languages, or if we cannot now trace
their linguistic affinities, we must not too readily assume that
therefore they are distinct the one from the other. It must be more
philosophical to believe, what probably is the case, that the one
instrument of analysis we have hitherto used is not sufficient for the
purpose, and we ought consequently to welcome every other process which
will throw further light on the subject.
RELIGION OF THE TURANIANS.
It is perhaps not too much to assert that no Turanian race ever rose to
the idea of a God external to the world. All their gods were men who had
lived with them on the face of the earth. In the old world they were
kings,—men who had acquired fame from the extent of their power, or
greatness from their wisdom. The Buddhist reform taught the Turanian
races that virtue, not power, was true greatness, and that the humblest
as well as the highest might attain beatitude through the practice of
piety.
All the Turanians have a distinct idea of rewards and punishments after
death, and generally also of a preparatory purgatory by transmigration
through the bodies of animals, clean or unclean according to the actions
of the defunct spirit, but always ending in another world. With some
races transmigration becomes nearly all in all; in others it is nearly
evanescent, and Heaven and Hell take its place; but the two are
essentially doctrines of this race.
From the fact of their gods having been only ordinary mortals, and all
men being able to aspire to the godhead, their form of worship was
essentially anthropic and ancestral; their temples were palaces, where
the gods sat on thrones and received petitions and dispensed justice as
in life, and where men paid that homage to the image of the dead which
they would have paid to the living king. They were in fact the
idolators, _par excellence_. Their tombs were even more sacred than
their temples, and their reverence was more frequently directed to the
remains of their ancestors than to the images of their gods. Hence arose
that reverence for relics which formed so marked a feature in their
ritual in all ages, and which still prevails among many races almost in
the direct ratio in which Turanian blood can be traced in their veins.
Unable to rise above humanity in their conceptions of the deity, they
worshipped all material things. Trees with them in all times were
objects of veneration, and of especial worship in particular localities.
The mysterious serpent was with them a god, and the bull in most
Turanian countries a being to be worshipped. The sun, the moon, the
stars, all filled niches in their Pantheon; in fact, whatever they saw
they believed in, whatever they could not comprehend they worshipped.
They cared not to inquire beyond the evidence of their senses, and were
incapable of abstracting their conceptions. To the Turanians also is due
that peculiar reverence for localities made celebrated by great
historical events, or rendered sacred by being the scene of great
religious events, and hence to them must be ascribed the origin of
pilgrimages, and all their concomitant adjuncts and ceremonies.
It is to this race also that we owe the existence of human sacrifices.
Always fatalists, always and everywhere indifferent of life, and never
fearing death, these sacrifices never were to them so terrible as they
appear to more highly-organised races. Thus a child, a relative, or a
friend, was the most precious, and consequently the most acceptable
offering a man could bring to appease the wrath or propitiate the favour
of a god who had been human, and who was supposed to have retained all
the feelings of humanity for ever afterwards.
It is easy to trace their Tree and Serpent worship in every corner of
the old world from Anuradhapura in Ceylon, to Upsala in Sweden. Their
tombs and tumuli exist everywhere. Their ancestral worship is the
foundation at the present day of half the popular creeds of the world,
and the planets have hardly ceased to be worshipped at the present hour.
Most of the more salient peculiarities of this faith were softened down
by the great Buddhist reform in the sixth century B.C., and that
refinement of their rude primitive belief has been adopted by most of
the Turanian people of the modern world, and is now almost exclusively
the appanage of people having Turanian blood in their veins. Even,
however, through the gloss of their Buddhist refinements we can still
discern most of the old forms of faith, and even its most devoted
votaries are yet hardly more than half converted.
GOVERNMENT.
The only form of government ever adopted by any people of Turanian race
was that of absolute despotism,—with a tribe, a chief,—in a kingdom, a
despot. In highly civilised communities, like those of Egypt and China,
their despotism was tempered by bureaucratic forms, but the chief was
always as absolute as a Timour or an Attila, though not always strong
enough to use his power as terribly as they did. Their laws were real or
traditional edicts of their kings, seldom written, and never
administered according to any fixed form of procedure.
As a consequence or a cause of this, the Turanian race are absolutely
casteless; no hereditary nobility, no caste of priests ever existed
among them; between the ruler and the people there could be nothing, and
every one might aspire equally to all the honours of the State, or to
the highest dignity of the priesthood. “La carrière ouverte aux talens,”
is essentially the motto of these races or of those allied to them, and
whether it was the slave of a Pharaoh, or the pipe-bearer of a Turkish
sultan, every office except the throne is and always was open to the
ambitious. No republic, no limited monarchy, ever arose among them.
Despotism pure and simple is all they ever knew, or are even now capable
of appreciating.
MORALS.
Woman among the Turanian races was never regarded otherwise than as the
helpmate of the poor and the plaything of the rich; born to work for the
lower classes and to administer to the gratification of the higher. No
equality of rights or position was ever dreamt of, and the consequence
was polyandry where people were poor and women scarce, and polygamy
where wealth and luxury prevailed; and with these it need hardly be
added, a loss of half those feelings which ennoble man or make life
valuable.
Neither loving nor beloved in the bosom of his own family,—too much of a
fatalist to care for the future,—neither enjoying life nor fearing
death,—the Turanian is generally free from those vices which contaminate
more active minds; he remains sober, temperate, truthful, and kindly in
all the relations of life. If, however, he has few vices, he has fewer
virtues, and both are far more passive than active in their nature,—in
fact, approach more nearly to the instincts of the lower animals than to
the intellectual responsibilities of the highest class of minds.
LITERATURE.
No Turanian race ever distinguished itself in literature, properly so
called. They all possessed annals, because they loved to record the
names, the dates, and the descent of their ancestors; but these never
rose to the dignity of history even in its simplest form. Prose they
could hardly write, because none of the greater groups ever appreciated
the value of an alphabet. Hieroglyphics, signs, symbols, anything
sufficed for their simple intellectual wants, and they preferred
trusting to memory to remember what a sign stood for, rather than
exercise their intellect to compound or analyse a complex alphabetical
arrangement. Their system of poetry helped them, to some extent, over
the difficulty; and, with a knowledge of the metre, a few suggestive
signs enabled the reader to remember at least a lyric composition. But
without a complex grammar to express and an alphabet to record their
conceptions it is hopeless to expect that either Epic or Dramatic Poetry
could flourish, still less that a prose narrative of any extent could be
remembered; and philosophy, beyond the use of proverbs, was out of the
question.
In their most advanced stages they have, like the Chinese, invented
syllabaria of hideous complexity, and have even borrowed alphabets from
their more advanced neighbours. By some it is supposed that they have
even invented them; but though they have thus got over the mechanical
difficulties of the case, their intellectual condition remains the same,
and they have never advanced beyond the merest rudiments of a
literature, and have never mastered even the elements of any scientific
philosophy.
ARTS.
If so singularly deficient in the phonetic modes of literary expression,
the Turanian races made up for it to a great extent in the excellence
they attained in most of the branches of æsthetic art. As architects
they were unsurpassed, and in Egypt alone have left monuments which are
still the world’s wonder. The Tamul race in Southern, the Moguls in
Northern India, in Burmah, in China, and in Mexico, wherever these races
are found, they have raised monuments of dimensions unsurpassed; and,
considering the low state of civilisation in which they often existed,
displaying a degree of taste and skill as remarkable as it is
unexpected.
In consequence of the circumstance above mentioned of their gods having
been kings, and after death still only considered as watching over and
influencing the destiny of mankind, their temples were only exaggerated
palaces, containing halls, and chambers, and thrones, and all the
appurtenances required by the living, but on a scale befitting the
celestial character now acquired. So much is this the case in Egypt that
we hardly know by which name to designate them, and the same remark
applies to all.
Even more sacred, however, than their temples were their tombs. Wherever
a Turanian race exists or existed, there their tombs remain; and from
the Pyramids of Egypt to the mausoleum of Hyder Ali, the last Tartar
king in India, they form the most remarkable series of monuments the
world possesses, and all were built by people of Turanian race. No
Semite and no Aryan ever built a tomb that could last a century or was
worthy to remain so long.
The Buddhist reform altered the funereal tumulus into a relic shrine,
modifying this, as it did most of the Turanian forms of utterance, from
a literal to a somewhat more spiritual form of expression, but leaving
the meaning the same,—the Tope being still essentially a Tomb.
Combined with that wonderful appreciation of form which characterises
all the architectural works of the Turanians, they possessed an
extraordinary passion for coloured decoration and an instinctive
knowledge of the harmony of colours. They used throughout the primitive
colours in all their elemental crudeness; and though always brilliant,
are never vulgar, and are guiltless of any mistake in harmony. From the
first dawn of painting in Egypt to the last signboard in Constantinople
or Canton, it is always the same,—the same brilliancy and harmony
produced by the simplest means.
In sculpture they were not so fortunate. Having no explanatory
literature to which to refer, it was necessary that their statues should
tell their whole tale themselves; and sculpture does not lend itself to
this so readily as painting. With them it is not sufficient that a god
should be colossal, he must be symbolical; he must have more arms and
legs or more heads than common men; he must have wings and attributes of
power, or must combine the strength of a lion or a bull with the
intellect of humanity. The statue must, in short, tell the whole story
itself; and where this is attempted the result can only be pleasing to
the narrow faith of the unreflecting devotee. So far from being able to
express more than humanity, sculpture must attempt even less if it would
be successful; but this of course rendered it useless for the purposes
to which the Turanians wished to apply it.
The same remarks apply to painting, properly so called. This never can
attain its highest development except when it is the exponent of
phonetic utterances. In Greece the painter strove only to give form and
substance to the more purely intellectual creation of the poet, and
could consequently dispense with all but the highest elements of his
art. In Egypt the picture was all in all; it had no text to refer to,
and must tell the whole tale with all its adjuncts, in simple
intelligible prose, or be illegible, and the consequence is that the
story is told with a clearness that charms us even now. It is however,
only a story; and, like everything else Turanian, however great or
wonderful, its greatness and its wonder are of a lower class and less
intellectual than the utterances of the other great divisions of the
human family.
We have scarcely the means of knowing whether any Turanian race ever
successfully cultivated music to any extent. It is more than probable
that all their families can and always could appreciate the harmony of
musical intervals, and might be charmed with simple cadences; but it is
nearly certain that a people who did not possess phonetic poetry could
never rise to that higher class of music which is now carried to such a
pitch of perfection, that harmonic combinations almost supply the place
of phonetic expression and influence the feelings and passions to almost
the same extent.
There is also this further peculiarity about their arts, that they seem
always more instinctive than intellectual, and consequently are
incapable of that progress which distinguishes most of the works of man.
At the first dawn of art in Egypt, in the age of the Pyramid builders,
all the arts were as perfect and as complete as they were when the
country fell under the domination of the Romans. The earliest works in
China are as perfect—in some respects more so—as those of to-day; and in
Mexico, so soon as a race of red savages peopled a country so densely as
to require art and to appreciate magnificence, the arts sprung up among
them with as much perfection, we may fairly assume, as they would have
attained had they been practised for thousands of years under the same
circumstances and uninfluenced by foreigners. It is even more startling
to find that the arts of the savages who inhabited the south of France,
on the skirts of the glacial period, are identical with those of the
Esquimaux of the present day, and even at that early time attained a
degree of perfection which is startling, and could hardly be surpassed
by any people in the same condition of life at the present day.
SCIENCES.
There is no reason to suppose that any people occupying so low a
position in the intellectual scale could ever cultivate anything
approaching to abstract science, and there is no proof of it existing.
Living, however, as they did, on the verge of the tropics, in the most
beautiful climates of the world, and where the sky is generally serene
and unclouded, it was impossible but that they should become to some
extent astronomers.
It is not known that any of them ever formed any theory to account for
the phenomena they observed, but they seem to have watched the paths of
the planets, to have recorded eclipses, and generally to have noted
times and events with such correctness as enabled them to predict their
return with very considerable precision; but here their science stopped,
and it is not known that they ever attempted any other of the
multifarious branches of modern knowledge.
We have only very imperfect means of knowing what their agriculture was;
but it seems always to have been careful when once they passed from the
shepherd state, though whether scientific or not it is not easy to say.
On the point of artificial irrigation the Turanians have always been
singularly expert. Wherever you follow their traces, the existence of a
tunnel is almost as certain an indication of their pre-existence as that
of a tomb. It is amusing, as it is instructive, to see at this hour an
Arab Pacha breaking down in his attempts to restore the irrigation works
of the old Pharaohs, or an English Engineer officer blundering in his
endeavours to copy the works instinctively performed by a Mogul, or a
Spaniard trying to drain the lakes of Mexico. Building and irrigation
were the special instincts of this old people, and the practical
intellect of the higher races seems hardly yet to have come up to the
point where these arts were left by the early Turanian races, while the
perfection they attained in them is the more singular from the contrast
it affords to what they did, or rather, did not do, in other branches of
art or science.
III.—SEMITIC RACES.
From the extraordinary influence the Semitic races have had in the
religious development of mankind, we are apt to consider them as
politically more important than they really ever were. At no period of
their history do they seem to have numbered more than twenty or thirty
millions of souls. The principal locality in which they developed
themselves was the small tract of country between the Tigris, the
Mediterranean and the Red Sea; but they also existed as a separate race
in Abyssinia, and extended their colonies along the northern coast of
Africa. Their intellectual development has been in all ages so superior
to that of the Turanian races, that they have subdued them mentally
wherever they came in contact with them; and notwithstanding their
limited geographical extension, they have influenced the intellect of
the Aryan tribes to a greater extent than almost any of their own
congeners.
If anything were required to justify the ethnographer in treating the
various families of mankind as distinct and separate varieties, it would
be the study of the history of the Semitic race. What they were in the
time of Abraham, that they are at the present day. A large section of
them sojourned in Egypt, among people of a different race, and they came
out as unmixed as oil would do that is floated on water. For the last
two thousand years they have dwelt dispersed among the Gentiles, without
a nationality, almost without a common language, yet they remain the
same in feature, the same in intellectual development and feeling, they
exhibit the same undying repugnance to all except those of their own
blood, which characterised the Arab and the Jew when we first recognise
their names in history. So unchangeable are they in this respect, that
it seems in vain to try to calculate how long this people must have
lived by themselves, separated from other races, that they should have
thus acquired that distinctive fixity of character nothing can alter or
obliterate, and which is perhaps even more wonderful intellectually than
are the woolly hair and physical characteristics of the negro, though
not so obvious to the superficial observer.
RELIGION.
From the circumstance of our possessing a complete series of the
religious literature of the Semitic race, extending over the two
thousand years which elapsed between Moses and Mahomet, we are enabled
to speak on this point with more precision than we can regarding the
doctrines of almost any other people.
The great and distinguishing tenet of this race when pure is and always
seems to have been the unity of God, and his not being born of man.
Unlike the gods of the Turanians, their Deity never was man, never
reigned or lived on earth, but was the Creator and Preserver of the
universe, living before all time, and extending beyond all space; though
it must be confessed they have not always expressed this idea with the
purity and distinctness which might be desired.
It is uncertain how far they adhered to this purity of belief in
Assyria, where they were more mixed up with other races than they have
ever been before or since. In Syria, where they were superimposed upon
and mixed with a people of Turanian origin, they occasionally worshipped
stones and groves, serpents, and even bulls; but they inevitably
oscillated back to the true faith and retained it to the last. In
Arabia, after they became dominant, they cast off their Turanian
idolatries, and rallied as one man to the watchword of their race,
“There is no God but God,” expressed with a clearness that nothing can
obscure, and clung to it with a tenacity that nothing could shake or
change. Since then they have never represented God as man, and hardly
ever looked upon Him as actuated by the feelings of humanity.
The channel of communication between God and man has always been, with
all the Semitic races, by means of prophecy. Prophets are sent, or are
inspired, by God, to communicate His will to man, to propound His laws,
and sometimes to foretell events; but in all instances without losing
their character as men, or becoming more than messengers for the special
service for which they are sent.
With the Jews, but with them only, does there seem to have been a priest
caste set aside for the special service of God; not selected from all
the people, as would have been the case with the casteless Turanians,
but deriving their sanctity from descent, as would have been the case
with the Aryans; still they differed from the Aryan institution inasmuch
as the Levites always retained the characteristics of a tribe, and never
approached the form of an aristocracy. They may therefore be considered
ethnographically as an intermediate institution, partaking of the
characteristics of the other two races.
The one point in which the Semitic form of religion seems to come in
contact with the Turanian is that of sacrifice—human, in early times
perhaps, even till the time of Abraham, but afterwards only of oxen and
sheep and goats in hecatombs; and this apparently not among the Arabs,
but only with the Jews and the less pure Phœnicians.
From their having no human gods they avoided all the palatial temples or
ceremonial forms of idolatrous worship. Strictly speaking, they have no
temples. There was one holy place in the old world, the Hill of Zion at
Jerusalem, and one in the new dispensation, the Kaaba at Mecca. Solomon,
it is true, adorned the first to an extent but little consonant with the
true feeling of his race, but the Kaaba remains in its primitive
insignificance; and neither of these temples, either then or now, derive
their sanctity from the buildings. They are the spots where God’s
prophets stood and communicated His will to man. It is true that in
after ages a Roman Tetrarch and a Turkish Sultan surrounded these two
Semitic cells with courts and cloisters, which made them wonders of
magnificence in the cities where they existed; but this does not affect
the conclusion that no Semitic race ever erected a durable building, or
even thought of possessing more than one temple at a time, or cared to
emulate the splendour of the temple-palaces of the Turanians.
GOVERNMENT.
Although no Semitic race was ever quite republican, which is a purely
Aryan characteristic, they never sank under such an unmitigated
despotism as is generally found among the Turanians. When in small
nuclei, their form of government is what is generally called
patriarchal, the chief being neither necessarily hereditary, nor
necessarily elective, but attaining his headship partly by the influence
due to age and wisdom, or to virtue, partly to the merits of his
connexions, and sometimes of his ancestors; but never wholly to the
latter without some reference at least to the former.
In larger aggregations the difficulty of selection made the chiefship
more generally hereditary; but even then the power of the King was
always controlled by the authority of the written law, and never sank
into the pure despotism of the Turanians. With the Jews, too, the sacred
caste of the Levites always had considerable influence in checking any
excesses of kingly power; but more was due in this respect to their
peculiar institution of prophets, who, protected by the sacredness of
their office, at all times dared to act the part of tribunes of the
people, and to rebuke with authority any attempt on the part of the King
to step beyond the limits of the constitution.
MORALS.
One of the most striking characteristics in the morals of the Semitic
races is the improvement in the position of woman, and the attempt to
elevate her in the scale of existence. If not absolutely monogamic,
there is among the Jews, and among the Arabic races where they are pure,
a strong tendency in this direction; and but for the example of those
nations among whom they were placed, they might have gone further in
this direction, and the dignity of mankind have been proportionately
improved.
Their worst faults arise from their segregation from the rest of
mankind. With them war against all but those of their own race is an
obligation and a pleasure, and it is carried on with a relentless
cruelty which knows no pity. To smite root and branch, to murder men,
women, and children, is a duty which admits of no hesitation, and has
stained the character of the Semites in all ages. Against this must be
placed the fact that they are patriotic beyond all other races, and
steadfast in their faith as no other people have ever been; and among
themselves they have been tempered to kindness and charity by the
sufferings they have had to bear because of their uncompromising hatred
and repugnance to all their fellow-men.
This isolation has had the further effect of making them singularly
apathetic to all that most interests the other nations of the earth.
What their God has revealed to them through His prophets suffices for
them. “God is great,” is a sufficient explanation with them for all the
wonders of science. “God wills it,” solves all the complex problems of
the moral government of the world. If not such absolute fatalists as the
Turanians, they equally shrink from the responsibility of thinking for
themselves, or of applying their independent reason to the great
problems of human knowledge. They may escape by this from many
aberrations that trouble more active minds, but their virtues at best
can be but negative, and their vices unredeemed by the higher
aspirations that sometimes half ennoble even crime.
LITERATURE.
In this again we have an immense advance above all the Turanian races.
No Semitic people ever used a hieroglyph or mere symbol, or were content
to trust to memory only. Everywhere and at all times—so far as we know—
they used an alphabet of more or less complicated form. Whether they
invented this mode of notation or not is still unknown, but its use by
them is certain; and the consequence is that they possess, if not the
oldest, at least one of the very oldest literatures of the world.
History with them is no longer a mere record of names and titles, but a
chronicle of events, and with the moral generally elicited. The story
and the rhapsody take their places side by side, the preaching and the
parable are used to convey their lessons to the world. If they had not
the Epos and the Drama, they had lyric poetry of a beauty and a pathos
which has hardly ever been surpassed.
It was this possession of an alphabet, conjoined with the sublimity of
their monotheistic creed, that gave these races the only superiority to
which they have attained. It is this which has enabled them to keep
themselves pure and undefiled in all the catastrophes to which they have
been exposed, and that still enables their literature and their creed to
exert an influence over almost all the nations of the earth, even in
times when the people themselves have been held in most supreme
contempt.
ARTS.
It may have been partly in consequence of their love of phonetic
literature, and partly in order to keep themselves distinct from those
great builders the Turanians, that the Semitic races never erected a
building worthy of the name; neither at Jerusalem, nor at Tyre or Sidon,
nor at Carthage, is there any vestige of Semitic Architectural Art. Not
that these have perished, but because they never existed. When Solomon
proposed to build a temple at Jerusalem, though plain externally, and
hardly so large as an ordinary parish church, he was forced to have
recourse to some Turanian people to do it for him, and by a display of
gold and silver and brass ornaments to make up for the architectural
forms he knew not how to apply.
In Assyria we have palaces of dynasties more or less purely Semitic,
splendid enough, but of wood and sunburnt bricks, and only preserved to
our knowledge from the accident of their having been so clumsily built
as to bury themselves and their wainscot slabs in their own ruins.
Though half the people were probably of Turanian origin, their temples
seem to have been external and unimportant till Sennacherib and others
learnt the art of using stone from the Egyptians, as the Syrians did
afterwards from the Romans. During the domination of the last-named
people, we have the temples of Palmyra and Baalbec, of Jerusalem and
Petra: everywhere an art of the utmost splendour, but with no trace of
Semitic feeling or Semitic taste in any part, or in any detail.
The Jewish worship being neither ancestral, nor the bodies of their dead
being held in special reverence, they had no tombs worthy of the name.
They buried the bodies of their patriarchs and kings with care, and knew
where they were laid; but not until after the return from the Babylonish
captivity did they either worship there, or mark the spot with any
architectural forms, though after that epoch we find abundant traces of
a tendency towards that especial form of Turanian idolatry. But even
then the adornment of their tombs with architectural magnificence cannot
be traced back to an earlier period than the time of the Romans; and all
that we find marked with splendour of this class was the work of that
people, and stamped with their peculiar forms of Art.
Painting and sculpture were absolutely forbidden to the Jews because
they were Turanian arts, and because their practice might lead the
people to idolatry, so that these nowhere existed: though we cannot
understand a people with any mixture of Turanian blood who had not an
eye for colour, and a feeling for beauty of form, in detail at least.
Music alone was therefore the one æsthetic art of the Semitic races,
and, wedded to the lyric verse, seems to have influenced their feelings
and excited their passions to an extent unknown to other nations; but to
posterity it cannot supply the place of the more permanent arts, whose
absence is so much felt in attempting to realise the feelings or
aspirations of a people like this.[19]
As regards the useful arts, the Semites were always more pastoral than
agricultural, and have not left in the countries they inhabited any
traces of such hydraulic works as the earlier races executed; but in
commerce they excelled all nations. The Jews—from their inland
situation, cut off from all access to the sea—could not do much in
foreign trade; but they always kept up their intercourse with Assyria.
The Phœnicians traded backwards and forwards with every part of the
Mediterranean, and first opened out a knowledge of the Atlantic; and the
Arabs first commenced, and for long afterwards alone carried on, the
trade with India. From the earliest dawn of history to the present hour,
commerce has been the art which the Semitic nations have cultivated with
the greatest assiduity, and in which they consequently have attained the
greatest, and an unsurpassed success.
In Asia and in Africa at the present day, all the native trade is
carried on by Arabs; and it need hardly be remarked that the monetary
transactions of the rest of the world are practically managed by the
descendants of those who, one thousand years before Christ, traded from
Eziongeber to Ophir.
SCIENCES.
Although, as before mentioned, Astronomy was cultivated with
considerable success both in Egypt and Chaldæa, among the more
contemplative Turanians, nothing can be more unsatisfactory than the
references to celestial events, either in the Bible or the Koran, both
betraying an entire ignorance of even the elements of astronomical
science; and we have no proof that the Phœnicians were at all wiser than
their neighbours in this respect.
The Semitic races seem always to have been of too poetical a temperament
to excel in mathematics or the mechanical sciences. If there is one
branch of scientific knowledge which they may be suspected of having
cultivated with success, it is the group of natural sciences. A love of
nature seems always to have prevailed with them, and they may have known
“the trees, from the cedar which is in Lebanon to the hyssop that
springeth out of the wall, and the names of all the beasts, and the
fowls, and the creeping things, and the fishes;” but beyond this we know
of nothing that can be dignified by the name of science among the
Semitic races. They more than made up however for their deficient
knowledge of the exact sciences by the depth of their insight into the
springs of human action, and the sagacity of their proverbial
philosophy; and, more than even this, by that wonderful system of
Theology before which all the Aryan races of the world and many of the
Turanian bow at the present hour, and acknowledge it the basis of their
faith and the source of all their religious aspirations.
IV.—CELTIC.
It is extremely difficult to write anything very precise or very
satisfactory regarding the Celtic races, for the simple reason that,
within the limits of our historic knowledge, they never lived
sufficiently long apart from other races to develop a distinct form of
nationality, or to create either a literature or a polity by which they
could be certainly recognised. In this respect they form the most marked
contrast with the Semitic races. Instead of wrapping themselves up
within the bounds of the most narrow exclusiveness, the Celt everywhere
mixed freely with the people among whom he settled, and adopted their
manners and customs with a carelessness that is startling; while at the
same time he retained the principal characteristics of his race through
every change of circumstance and clime.
Almost the only thing that can be predicated of them with certainty is,
that they were either the last wave of the Turanians, or, if another
nomenclature is preferred, the first wave of the Aryans, who, migrating
westward from their parent seat in Asia, displaced the original and more
purely Turanian tribes who occupied Europe before the dawn of history.
But, in doing this, they seem to have mixed themselves so completely
with the races they were supplanting, that it is extremely difficult to
say now where one begins or where the other ends.
We find their remains in Asia Minor, whence Ethnologists fancy that they
can trace a southern migration along the northern coast of Africa,
across the Straits of Gibraltar, into Spain, and thence to Ireland. A
more certain and more important migration, however, crossed the
Bosphorus, and following the valley of the Danube, threw one branch into
Italy, where they penetrated as far south as Rome; while the main body
settled in and occupied Gaul and Belgium, whence they peopled Britain,
and may have met the southern colonists in the Celtic Island of the
west. From this they are now migrating, still following the course of
the sun, to carry to the New World the same brilliant thoughtlessness
which has so thoroughly leavened all those parts of the Old in which
they have settled, and which so sorely puzzles the purer but more
matter-of-fact Aryan tribes with which they have come in contact.
RELIGION.
It may appear like a hard saying, but it seems nevertheless to be true,
to assert that no purely Celtic race ever rose to a perfect conception
of the unity of the Godhead. It may be that they only borrowed this from
the Turanians who preceded them; but whether imitative or innate, their
Theology admits of Kings and Queens of Heaven who were mortals on earth.
They possess hosts of saints and angels, and a whole hierarchy of
heavenly powers of various degrees, to whom the Celt turns with as
confiding hope and as earnest prayer as ever Turanian did to the gods of
his Pantheon. If he does not reverence the bodies of the departed as the
Egyptian or Chinese, he at least adopts the Buddhist veneration for
relics, and attaches far more importance to funereal rites than was ever
done by any tribe of Aryans.
The Celt is as completely the slave of a casteless priesthood as ever
Turanian Buddhist was, and loves to separate it from the rest of
mankind, as representing on earth the hierarchy in heaven, to which,
according to the Celtic creed, all may hope to succeed by practice of
their peculiar virtues.
To this may be added, that his temples are as splendid, his ceremonials
as gorgeous, and the formula as unmeaning as any that ever graced the
banks of the Nile, or astonished the wanderer in the valleys of Thibet
or on the shores of the Eastern Ocean.
GOVERNMENT.
It is still more difficult to speak of the Celtic form of government, as
no kingdom of this people ever existed by itself for any length of time;
and none, indeed, it may be suspected, could long hold together. It may,
however, be safely asserted, that no republican forms are possible with
a Celtic people, and no municipal institutions ever flourished among
them. The only form, therefore, we know of as peculiarly theirs, is
despotism; not necessarily personal, but rendered systematic by
centralised bureaucratic organisations, and tempered by laws in those
States which have reached any degree of stability or civilisation.
Nothing but a strong centralised despotism can long co-exist with a
people too impatient to submit to the sacrifices and self-denial
inherent in all attempts at self-government, and too excitable to be
controlled, except by the will of the strongest, though it may also be
the least scrupulous among them.
When in small bodies they are always governed by a chief, generally
hereditary, but always absolute; who is looked up to with awe, and
obeyed with a reverence that is unintelligible to the more independent
races of mankind.
With such institutions, of course a real aristocracy is impossible; and
the restraints of caste must always have been felt to be intolerable.
“La carrière ouverte aux talens” is their boast; though not to the same
extent as with the Turanians; and the selfish gratification of
individual ambition is consequently always preferred with them to the
more sober benefit of the general advancement of the community.
MORALS.
If the Celts never were either polygamic or polyandric, they certainly
always retained very lax ideas with regard to the marriage-vow, and
never looked on woman’s mission as anything higher than to minister to
their sensual gratification. With them the woman that fulfils this
quality best always commands their admiration most. Beauty can do no
wrong—but without beauty woman can hardly rise above the level of the
common herd.
The ruling passion in the mind of the Celt is war. Not like the
exclusive, intolerant Semite, a war of extermination or of proselytism,
but war from pure “gaieté de cœur” and love of glory. No Celt fears to
die if his death can gain fame or add to the stock of his country’s
glory; nor in a private fight does he fear death or feel the pain of a
broken head, if he has had a chance of shooting through the heart or
cracking the skull of his best friend at the same time. The Celt’s love
of excitement leads him frequently into excesses, and to a disregard of
truth and the virtues belonging to daily life, which are what really
dignify mankind; but his love of glory and of his country often go far
to redeem these deficiencies, and spread a halo over even his worst
faults, which renders it frequently difficult to blame what we feel in
soberness we ought to condemn.
LITERATURE.
If love and war are the parents of song, the bard and the troubadour
ought to have left us a legacy of verse that would have filled the
libraries of Europe; and so they probably would had not the original
Celt been too illiterate to care to record the expressions of his
feelings. As it is, nine-tenths of the lyric literature of Europe is of
Celtic origin. The Epos and the Drama may belong to the Aryan; but in
the art of wedding music to immortal verse, and pouring forth a
passionate utterance in a few but beautiful words, the Celtic is only
equalled by the Semitic race.
Their remaining literature is of such modern growth, and was so
specially copied from what had preceded it, or so influenced by the
contemporary effusions of other people, that it is impossible accurately
to discriminate what is due to race and what to circumstances. All that
can safely be said is, that Celtic literature is always more
epigrammatic, more brilliant, and more daring than that of the sober
Aryan; but its coruscations neither light to so great a depth, nor last
so long as less dazzling productions might do. They may be the most
brilliant, but they certainly do not belong to the highest class of
literary effort; nor is their effect on the destiny of man likely to be
so permanent.
ARTS.
The true glory of the Celt in Europe is his artistic eminence. It is
perhaps not too much to assert that without his intervention we should
not have possessed in modern times a church worthy of admiration, or a
picture or a statue we could look at without shame.
In their arts, too,—either from their higher status, or from their
admixture with Aryans,—we escape the instinctive fixity which makes the
arts of the pure Turanian as unprogressive as the works of birds or of
beavers. Restless intellectual progress characterises everything they
perform; and had their arts not been nipped in the bud by circumstances
over which they had no control, we might have seen something that would
have shamed even Greece and wholly eclipsed the arts of Rome.
They have not, it is true, that instinctive knowledge of colour which
distinguishes the Turanian, nor have they been able to give to music
that intellectual culture which has been elaborated by the Aryans: but
in the middle path between the two they excel both. They are far better
musicians than the former, and far better colourists than the last-named
races; but in modern Europe Architecture is practically their own. Where
their influence was strongest, there Architecture was most perfect; as
they decayed, or as the Aryan influence prevailed, the art first
languished, and then died.
Their quasi-Turanian theology required Temples almost as grand as those
of the Copts or Tamuls; and, like them, they sought to honour those who
had been mortals by splendour which mortals are assumed to be pleased
with; and the pomp of their worship always surpassed that with which
they honoured their Kings. Even more remarkable than this is the fact
that they could and did build Tombs such as a Turanian might have
envied, not for their size but for their art, and even now can adorn
their cemeteries with monuments which are not ridiculous.
When a people are so mixed up with other races as the Celts are in
Europe,—frequently so fused as to be undistinguishable,—it is almost
impossible to speak with precision with regard either to their arts or
influence. It must in consequence be safer to assert that where no
Celtic blood existed there no real art is found; though it is perhaps
equally true to assert that not only Architecture, but Painting and
Sculpture, have been patronised, and have flourished in the exact ratio
in which Celtic blood is found prevailing in any people in Europe; and
has died out as Aryan influence prevails, in spite of their methodical
efforts to indoctrinate themselves with what must be the spontaneous
impulse of genius, if it is to be of any value.
SCIENCES.
Of their sciences we know nothing till they were so steeped in the
civilisation of older races that originality was hopeless. Still, in the
stages through which the intellect of Europe has yet passed, they have
played their part with brilliancy. But now that knowledge is assuming a
higher and more prosaic phase, it is doubtful whether the deductive
brilliancy of the Celtic mind can avail anything against the inductive
sobriety of the Aryan. So long as metaphysics were science, and science
was theory, the peculiar form of the Celtic mind was singularly well
adapted to see through sophistry and to guess the direction in which
truth might lie. But now that we have only to question Nature, to
classify her answers, and patiently to record results, its mission seems
to have passed away. Truth in all its majesty, and Nature in all her
greatness, must now take the place of speculation, with its cleverness,
and man’s ideas of what might or should be, must be supplanted by the
knowledge of God’s works as they exist and the contemplation of the
eternal grandeur of the universe which we see around us.
Though these are the highest, they are at the same time the most sober
functions of the human mind; and while conferring the greatest and most
lasting benefit, not only on the individual who practises them, but also
on the human race, they are neither calculated to gratify personal
vanity, nor to reward individual ambition.
Such pursuits are not, therefore, of a nature to attract or interest the
Celtic races, but must be left to those who are content to sink their
personality in seeking the advantage of the common weal.
V.—ARYAN.
According to their own chronology, it seems to have been about the year
3101 B.C. that the Aryans crossed the Indus and settled themselves in
the country between that river and the Jumna, since known among
themselves as Arya Varta, or the Country of the Just, for all succeeding
ages.
More than a thousand years afterwards we find them, in the age of the
Ramayana, occupying all the country north of the Vindya range, and
attempting the conquest of the southern country,—then, as now, occupied
by Turanians,—and penetrating as far as Ceylon.
Eight hundred years later we see them in the Mahabharata, having lost
much of their purity of blood, and adopting many of the customs and much
of the faith of the people they were settled amongst; and three
centuries before Christ we find they had so far degenerated as to
accept, almost without a struggle, the religion of Buddha; which, though
no doubt a reform, and an important one, on the Anthropic doctrines of
the pure Turanians, was still essentially a faith of a Turanian people;
congenial to them, and to them only.
Ten centuries after Christ, when the Moslems came in contact with India,
the Aryan was a myth. The religion of the earlier people was everywhere
supreme, and with only a nominal thread of Aryanism running through the
whole, just sufficient to bear testimony to the prior existence of a
purer faith, but not sufficient to leaven the mass to any appreciable
extent.
The fate of the western Aryans differed essentially from that of those
who wandered eastward. Theoretically we ought to assume, from their less
complex language and less pure faith, that they were an earlier
offshoot; but it may be that in the forests of Europe they lost for a
while the civilised forms which the happier climate of Arya Varta
enabled the others to retain; or it may be that the contact with the
more nearly equal Celtic races had mixed the language and the faith of
the western races, before they had the opportunity or the leisure to
record the knowledge they brought with them.
Be this as it may, they first appear prominently in the western world in
Greece, where, by a fortunate union with the Pelasgi, a people
apparently of Turanian race, they produced a civilisation not purely
Aryan, and somewhat evanescent in its character, but more brilliant,
while it lasted, than anything the world had seen before, and in certain
respects more beautiful than anything that has illumined it since their
time.
They next sprang forth in Rome, mixed with the Turanian Etruscans and
the powerful Celtic tribes of Italy; and lastly in Northern Europe,
where they are now working out their destiny, but to what issue the
future only can declare.
The essential difference between the eastern and western migration is
this—that in India the Aryans have sunk gradually into the arms of a
Turanian people till they have lost their identity, and with it all that
ennobled them when they went there, or could enable them now to
influence the world again.
In Europe they found the country cleared of Turanians by the earlier
Celts; and mingling their blood with these more nearly allied races,
they have raised themselves to a position half way between the two.
Where they found the country unoccupied they have remained so pure that,
as their number multiplies, they may perhaps regain something of the
position they had temporarily abandoned, and something of that science
which, it may be fancied, mankind only knew in their primeval seats.
RELIGION.
What then was the creed of the primitive Aryans? So far as we can now
see, it was the belief in one great ineffable God,—so great that no
human intellect could measure His greatness,—so wonderful that no human
language could express His qualities,—pervading everything that was
made,—ruling all created things,—a spirit, around, beyond the universe,
and within every individual particle of it. A creed so ethereal could
not long remain the faith of the multitude, and we early find fire,—the
most ethereal of the elements,—looked to as an emblem of the Deity. The
heavens too received a name, and became an entity:—so did our mother
earth. To these succeeded the sun, the stars, the elements,—but never
among the pure Aryans as gods, or as influencing the destiny of man, but
as manifestations of His power, and reverenced because they were visible
manifestations of a Being too abstract for an ordinary mind to grasp.
Below this the Aryans never seem to have sunk.
With a faith so elevated of course no temple could be wanted; no human
ceremonial could be supposed capable of doing honour to a Deity so
conceived; nor any sacrifice acceptable to Him to whom all things
belonged. With the Aryans worship was a purely domestic institution;
prayer the solitary act of each individual man, standing alone in the
presence of an omniscient Deity. All that was required was that man
should acknowledge the greatness of God, and his own comparative
insignificance; should express his absolute trust and faith in the
beneficence and justice of his God, and a hope that he might be enabled
to live so pure, and so free from sin, as to deserve such happiness as
this world can afford, and be enabled to do as much good to others as it
is vouchsafed to man to perform.
A few insignificant formulæ served to mark the modes in which these
subjects should recur. The recitation of a time-honoured hymn refreshed
the attention of the worshipper, and the reading of a few sacred texts
recalled the duties it was expected he should perform. With these simple
ceremonies the worship of the Aryans seems to have begun and ended.
Even in later times, when their blood has become less pure, and their
feelings were influenced by association with those among whom they
resided, the religion of the Aryans always retained its intellectual
character. No dogma was ever admitted that would not bear the test of
reason, and no article of faith was ever assented to which seemed to
militate against the supremacy of intellect over all feelings and
passions. In all their wanderings they were always prepared to admit the
immeasurable greatness of the one incorporeal Deity, and the
impossibility of the human intellect approaching or forming any adequate
conception of His majesty.
When they abandoned the domestic form of worship, they adopted the
congregational, and then not so much with the idea that it was pleasing
to God, as in order to remind each other of their duties, to regulate
and govern the spiritual wants of the community, and to inculcate piety
towards God and charity towards each other.
It need hardly be added that superstition is impossible with minds so
constituted, and that science must always be the surest and the best
ally of a religion so pure and exalted, which is based on a knowledge of
God’s works, a consequent appreciation of their greatness, and an ardent
aspiration towards that power and goodness which the finite intellect of
man can never hope to reach.
GOVERNMENT.
The most marked characteristic of the Aryans is their innate passion for
self-government. If not absolutely republican, the tendency of all their
institutions, at all times, has been towards that form, and in almost
the exact ratio to the purity of the blood do they adopt this form of
autocracy. If kingly power was ever introduced among them, it was always
in the form of a limited monarchy; never the uncontrolled despotism of
the other races; and every conceivable check was devised to prevent
encroachments of the crown, even if such were possible among a people so
organised as the Aryans always have been.
With them every town was a municipality, every village a little
republic, and every trade a separate self-governing guild. Many of these
institutions have died out, or else fallen into neglect, in those
communities where equal rights and absolute laws have rendered each
individual a king in his own person, and every family a republic in
itself.
The village system which the Aryans introduced into India is still the
most remarkable of its institutions. These little republican organisms
have survived the revolutions of fifty centuries. Neither the
devastations of war nor the indolence of peace seems to have affected
them. Under Brahmin, Buddhist, or Moslem, they remain the same unchanged
and unchangeable institutions, and neither despotism nor anarchy has
been able to alter them. They alone have saved India from sinking into a
state of savage imbecility, under the various hordes of conquerors who
have at times overrun her; and they, with the Vedas and the laws
afterwards embodied by Menu, alone remain as records of the old Aryan
possessors of the Indian peninsula.
Municipalities, which are merely an enlargement of the Indian village
system, exist wherever the Romans were settled, or where the Aryan races
exist in Europe; and though guilds are fast losing their significance,
it was the Teutonic guilds that alone checked and ultimately supplanted
the feudal despotisms of the Celts.
Caste is another institution of these races, which has always more or
less influenced all their actions. Where their blood has become so
impure as it is in India, caste has degenerated into an abuse; but where
it is a living institution, it is perhaps as conducive to the proper
regulation of society as any with which we are acquainted. The one thing
over which no man can have any control is the accident of his birth; but
it is an immense gain to him that he should be satisfied with the
station in which he finds himself, and content to do his duty in the
sphere in which he was born. Caste, properly understood, never
interferes with the accumulation of wealth or power within the limits of
the class, and only recognises the inevitable accident of birth: while
the fear of losing caste is one of the most salutary checks which has
been devised to restrain men from acts unworthy of their social
position. It is an enormous gain to society that each man should know
his station and be prepared to perform the duties belonging to it,
without the restless craving of a selfish ambition that would sacrifice
everything for the sake of the personal aggrandisement of the
individual. It is far better to acknowledge that there is no sphere in
life in which man may not become as like unto the gods as in any other
sphere; and it is everywhere better to respect the public good rather
than to seek to gratify personal ambition.
The populations of modern Europe have become so mixed that neither caste
nor any other Aryan institution now exists in its pristine purity; but
in the ratio in which a people is Aryan do they possess an aristocracy
and municipal institutions; and, what is almost of more importance, in
that ratio are the people prepared to respect the gradations of caste in
society, and to sacrifice their individual ambition to the less
brilliant task of doing all the good that is possible in the spheres in
which they have been placed.
It is true, and so has been found, that an uncontrolled despotism is a
sharper, a quicker, and a better tool for warlike purposes, or where
national vanity is to be gratified by conquest or the display of power;
but the complicated, and it may be clumsy, institutions of the Aryans,
are far more lasting and more conducive to individual self-respect, and
far more likely to add to the sum of human happiness, and tend more
clearly to the real greatness and moral elevation of mankind, than any
human institution we are yet acquainted with.
So far as our experience now goes, the division of human society into
classes or castes is not only the most natural concomitant of the
division of labour, but is also the most beneficent of the institutions
of man; while the organisation of a nation into self-governing
municipalities is not only singularly conducive to individual
well-being, but renders it practically indestructible by conquest, and
even imperishable through lapse of time. These two are the most
essentially characteristic institutions of the Aryans.
MORALS.
In morals the Aryans were always monogamic, and with them alone does
woman always assume a perfect equality of position: mistress of her own
actions till marriage; when married, in theory at least, the equal
sharer in the property and in the duties of the household. Were it
possible to carry out these doctrines absolutely in practice, they would
probably be more conducive to human happiness than any of those
enumerated above; but even a tendency towards them is an enormous gain.
Their institutions for self-government, enumerated above, have probably
done more to elevate the Aryan race than can well be appreciated. When
every man takes, or may take, his share in governing the commonwealth—
when every man must govern himself, and respect the independence of his
neighbour—men cease to be tools, and become independent reasoning
beings. They are taught self-respect, and with this comes love of truth—
of those qualities which command the respect of their fellow-men; and
they are likewise taught that control of their passions which renders
them averse to war; while the more sober occupations of life prevent the
necessity of their seeking, in the wildness of excitement, that relief
from monotony which so frequently drives other races into those excesses
the world has had so often to deplore. The existence of caste, even in
its most modified form, prevents individual ambition from having that
unlimited career which among other races has so often sacrificed the
public weal to the ambition of an individual.
LITERATURE.
The Aryan races employed an alphabet at so early a period of their
history that we cannot now tell when or how it was introduced among
them; and it was, even when we first become acquainted with it, a far
more perfect alphabet than that of the Semitic races, though apparently
formed on its basis. Nothing in it was dependent on memory. It possessed
vowels, and all that was necessary to enunciate sounds with perfect and
absolute precision. In consequence of this, and of the perfect structure
of their language, they were enabled to indulge in philosophical
speculation, to write treatises on grammar and logic, and generally to
assume a literary position which other races never attained to.
History with them was not a mere record of dates or collection of
genealogical tables, but an essay on the polity of mankind, to which the
narrative afforded the illustration; while their poetry had always a
tendency to assume more a didactic than a lyric form. It is among the
Aryans that the Epos first rose to eminence and the Drama was elevated
above a mere spectacle; but even in these the highest merit sought to be
attained was that they should represent vividly events which might have
taken place, even if they never did happen among men; while the Celts
and the Semites delight in wild imaginings which never could have
existed except in the brain of the poet. When the blood of the Aryan has
been mixed with that of other races, they have produced a literature
eminently imaginative and poetic; but in proportion to their purity has
been their tendency towards a more prosaic style of composition. The aim
of the race has always been the attainment of practical common sense,
and the possession of this quality is their pride and boast, and justly
so; but it is unfortunately antagonistic to the existence of an
imaginative literature, and we must look to them more for eminence in
works on history and philosophy than in those which require imagination
or creative power.
ART.
These remarks apply with more than double force to the Fine Arts than to
verbal literature. In the first place a people possessing such a power
of phonetic utterance never could look on a picture or statue as more
than a mere subsidiary illustration of the written text. A painting may
represent vividly one view of what took place at one moment of time, but
a written narrative can deal with all the circumstances and link it to
its antecedents and effects. A statue of a man cannot tell one-tenth of
what a short biography will make plain: and an ideal statue or ideal
painting may be a pretty Celtic plaything, but it is not what Aryans
hanker after.
With Architecture the case is even worse. Convenience is the first thing
which the practical common sense of the Aryan seeks, and then to gain
what he desires by the readiest and the easiest means. This done, why
should he do more? If, induced by a desire to emulate others, he has to
make his building ornamental, he is willing to copy what experience has
proved to be successful in former works, willing to spend his money and
to submit to some inconvenience; but in his heart he thinks it useless,
and he neither will waste his time in thinking on the subject, nor apply
those energies of his mind to its elaboration, without which nothing
great or good was ever done in Art.
In addition to this, the immaterial nature of their faith has always
deprived the Aryan races of the principal incentive to architectural
magnificence.[20] The Turanian and Celtic races always have the most
implicit faith in ceremonial worship and in the necessity of
architectural splendour as its indispensable accompaniment. On the other
hand, the more practical Aryan can never be brought to understand that
prayer is either more sincere or is more acceptable in one form of house
than in any other. He does not feel that virtue can be increased or vice
exterminated by the number of bricks or stones that may be heaped on one
another, or the form in which they may be placed; nor will his
conception of the Deity admit of supposing that He can be propitiated by
palaces or halls erected in honour of Him, or that a building in the
Middle Pointed Gothic is more acceptable than one in the Classic or any
other style.
This want of faith may be reasonable, but it is fatal to poetry in Art,
and, it is feared, will prevent the Aryans from attaining more
excellence in Architectural Art at the present time than they have done
in former ages.
It is also true that the people are singularly deficient in their
appreciation of colours. Not that actual colour-blindness is more common
with them than with other races, but the harmony of tints is unknown to
them. Some may learn, but none feel it; it is a matter of memory and an
exercise of intellect, but no more. So, too, with form. Other—even
savage—races cannot go wrong in this respect. If the Aryan is successful
in art, it is generally in consequence of education, not from feeling;
and, like all that is not innate in man, it yields only a secondary
gratification, and fails to impress his brother man, or to be a real
work of Art.
From these causes the ancient Aryans never erected a single building in
India when they were pure, nor in that part of India which they
colonised even after their blood became mixed; and we do not now know
what their style was or is, though the whole of that part of the
peninsula occupied by the Turanians, or to which their influence ever
extended, is, and always was, covered by buildings, vast in extent and
wonderful from their elaboration. This, probably, also is the true cause
of the decline of Architecture and other arts in Europe and in the rest
of the modern world. Wherever the Aryans appear Art flies before them,
and where their influence extends utilitarian practical common sense is
assumed to be all that man should aim at. It may be so, but it is sad to
think that beauty cannot be combined with sense.
Music alone, as being the most phonetic of the fine arts, has received
among the Aryans a degree of culture denied to the others; but even here
the tendency has been rather to develop scientific excellence than to
appeal to the responsive chords of the human heart. Notwithstanding
this, its power is more felt and greater excellence is attained in this
science than in any other. It also has escaped the slovenly process of
copying, with which the unartistic mind of the Aryans has been content
to fancy it was creating Art in other branches.
If, however, these races have been so deficient in the fine arts, they
have been as excellent in all the useful ones. Agriculture,
manufactures, commerce, ship-building, and road-making, all that tends
to accumulate wealth or to advance material prosperity, has been
developed to an extent as great as it is unprecedented, and promises to
produce results which as yet can only be dimly guessed at. A great, and,
so far as we can see, an inevitable revolution, is pervading the whole
world through the devotion of the Aryan races to these arts. We have no
reason for supposing it will be otherwise than beneficial, however much
we may feel inclined to regret that the beautiful could not be allowed
to share a little of that worship so lavishly bestowed on the useful.
SCIENCES.
It follows, as a matter of course, that, with minds so constituted, the
Aryans should have cultivated science with earnestness and success. The
only beauty they, in fact, appreciated was the beauty of scientific
truth; the only harmony they ever really felt was that of the laws of
nature; and the only art they ever cared to cultivate was that which
grouped these truths and their harmonies into forms which enabled them
to be easily grasped and appreciated. Mathematics always had especial
charms to the Aryan mind; and, more even than this, astronomy was always
captivating. So, also, were the mechanical, and so, too, the natural
sciences. It is to the Aryans that Induction owes its birth, and they
probably alone have the patience and the sobriety to work it to its
legitimate conclusions.
The true mission of the Aryan races appears to be to pervade the world
with the useful and industrial arts, and so tend to reproduce that unity
which has long been lost, to raise man, not by magnifying his individual
cleverness, but by accumulating a knowledge of the works of God, so
tending to make him a greater and wiser, and at the same time a humbler
and a more religious servant of his Creator.
CONCLUSION.
When Auguste Comte proposed that classification which made the fortune
of his philosophy,—when he said that all mankind passed through the
theological state in childhood, the metaphysical in youth, and the
philosophical or positive in manhood,—and ventured to extend this
discovery to nations, he had a glimpse, as others have had before him,
of the beauty of the great harmony which pervades all created things.
But he had not philosophy enough to see that the one great law is so
vast and so remote, that no human intellect can grasp it, and that it is
only the little fragments of that great scheme which are found
everywhere which man is permitted to understand.
Had he known as much of ethnographical as he did of mathematical
science, he would have perceived that there is no warrant for this
daring generalisation; but that nations, in the states which he calls
the theological, the metaphysical, and the philosophical, exist now and
coexisted through all the ages of the world to which our historical
knowledge extends.
What the Egyptians were when they first appeared on the scene they were
when they perished under the Greek and Roman sway;—what the Chinese
always were they now are;—the Jews and Arabs are unchanged to this day;—
the Celts are as daringly speculative and as blindly superstitious now
as we always found them;—and the Aryans of the Vedas or of Tacitus were
very much the same sober, reasoning, unimaginative, and unartistic
people as they are at this hour. Progress among men, as among the
animals, seems to be achieved not so much by advances made within the
limits of the group, as by the supercession of the less finely organised
beings by those of a higher class;—and this, so far as our knowledge
extends, is accomplished neither by successive creations, nor by the
gradual development of one species out of another, but by the successive
prominent appearances of previously developed, though partially dormant
creations.
Ethnographers have already worked out this problem to a great extent,
and arrived at a very considerable degree of certainty, through the
researches of patient linguistic investigators. But language is in
itself too impalpable ever to give the science that tangible, local
reality which is necessary to its success; and it is here that
Archæology comes so opportunely to its aid. What men dug or built
remains where it was first placed, and probably retains the first
impressions it received: and so fixes the era and standing of those who
called it into existence; so that even those who cannot appreciate the
evidence derived from grammar or from words, may generally see at a
glance what the facts of the case really are.
It is even more important that such a science as Ethnology should have
two or more methods of investigation at its command. Certainty can
hardly ever be attained by only one process, unless checked and
elucidated by others, and nothing can therefore be more fortunate than
the possession of so important a sister science as that of Archæology to
aid in the search after scientific truth.
If Ethnology may thus be so largely indebted to Archæology, the converse
is also true; and she may pay back the debt with interest. As Archæology
and Architecture have hitherto been studied, they, but more especially
the latter, have been little more than a dry record of facts and
measurements, interesting to the antiquary, to the professional
architect, or to the tourist, who finds it necessary to get up a certain
amount of knowledge on the subject; but the utmost that has hitherto
been sought to be attained is a certain knowledge of the forms of the
art, while the study of it, as that of one of the most important and
most instructive of the sciences connected with the history of man, has
been as a rule neglected.
Without this the study of Architecture is a mere record of bricks and
stones, and of the modes in which they were heaped together for man’s
use. Considered in the light of an historical record, it acquires not
only the dignity of a science, but especial interest as being one of
those sciences which are most closely connected with man’s interests and
feelings, and the one which more distinctly expresses and more clearly
records what man did and felt in previous ages, than any other study we
are acquainted with.
From this point of view, not only every tomb and every temple, but even
the rude monoliths and mounds of savages, acquire a dignity and interest
to which they have otherwise no title; and man’s works become not only
man’s most imperishable record, but one of the best means we possess of
studying his history, or of understanding his nature or his aspirations.
Rightly understood, Archæology is as useful as any other branch of
science or of art, in enabling us to catch such glimpses as are
vouchsafed to man of the great laws that govern all things; and the
knowledge that this class of man’s works is guided and governed by those
very laws, and not by the chance efforts of unmeaning minds, elevates
the study of it to as high a position as that of any other branch of
human knowledge.
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
PART I.—ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE.
INTRODUCTORY.
So long as the geographer confines himself to mapping out the different
countries of the world, or smaller portions of the earth’s surface, he
finds no difficulty in making a projection which shall correctly
represent the exact relative position of all the various features of the
land or sea. But when he attempts to portray a continent, some
distortion necessarily results; and when he undertakes a hemisphere,
both distortion and exaggeration become inevitable. It has consequently
been found necessary to resort to some conventional means of portraying
the larger surfaces of the globe. These avowedly do not represent
correctly the forms of the countries portrayed, but they enable the
geographer to ascertain what their distances or relative positions are
by the application of certain rules and formulæ of no great complexity.
The same thing is true of history. So long as the narrative is confined
to individual countries or provinces, it may be perfectly consecutive
and uninterrupted; but when two or three nations are grouped together,
frequent interruptions and recapitulations become necessary; and when
universal history is attempted, it seems impossible to arrange the
narrative so as to prevent these from assuming very considerable
importance. The utmost that can be done is to devise some scheme which
shall prevent the repetition from leading to tediousness, and enable the
student to follow the thread of any portion of the narrative without
confusion or the assumption of any special previous knowledge on his
part.
Bearing these difficulties in mind, it will probably be found convenient
to divide the whole history of Architecture into four great divisions or
parts.
The first, which may be called “Ancient or Heathen Art,” to comprehend
all those styles which prevailed in the old world from the dawn of
history in Egypt till the disruption of the Roman Empire by the removal
of the capital from Rome to Constantinople in the 4th century.
The second to be called either “Mediæval,” or more properly “Christian
Art.” This again subdivides itself into three easily-understood
divisions. 1. The Byzantine or Eastern Christian style; 2. The
Romanesque or transitional style which prevailed between the Roman and
the Gothic styles; and 3. The Gothic or western Christian style. The
Byzantine style comes first because its development was so rapid that
already in the 6th century it had reached its culminating period, and
throughout the Middle Ages it exercised considerable influence in
various parts of Italy and France; an influence the extent of which it
is only possible to follow after its study. It is difficult, for
instance, to understand the churches in Ravenna or St. Mark’s in Venice,
or the churches at Périgueux, and in the Charente, until the churches of
Sta. Sophia and of St. Sergius, Constantinople, and of St. Demetrius,
Thessalonica, have been studied; and although it is advisable when
describing the style to carry it through its later developments in
Greece, in Russia, and in the East, these variations and developments
are not of a nature to distract the reader or cause him to lose sight of
the leading characteristics of the style. There is some difficulty in
knowing where to draw the line between the Romanesque and the Gothic
style; as generally accepted now, the term Romanesque includes all the
round-arched Gothic styles, and although many of the leading principles
of Gothic work are to be found entering into buildings constructed prior
to the introduction of the pointed arch into transverse and diagonal
ribbed arch vaulting, it was this latter which led to the great
development of the Gothic style in France, England, and elsewhere in the
12th and 13th centuries.
The third great division of the subject I would suggest might
conveniently be denominated “Pagan.”[21] It would comprise all those
minor miscellaneous styles not included in the two previous divisions.
Commencing with the Saracenic, it would include the Buddhist, Hindu, and
Chinese styles, the Mexican and Peruvian, and lastly that mysterious
group which for want of a better name I have elsewhere designated as
“Rude Stone Monuments.”[22] No very consecutive arrangement can be
formed for these styles. They generally have little connection with each
other, and are so much less important than the others that their mode of
treatment is of far less consequence. Nor is it necessary to attempt any
exact classification of these at present, as, owing to the convenience
of publication, it has been determined to form the Indian and allied
Eastern styles into a separate volume, which will include not only the
Buddhist and Hindu styles, but the Indian Saracenic, which, in a
strictly logical arrangement, ought to be classified with the western
style bearing the same name.
The styles of the New world, having as yet no acknowledged connection
with those of the Old, may be for the present treated of anywhere.
The fourth and last great division, forming the fourth volume of the
present work, is that of the “Modern or Copying Styles of Architecture,”
meaning thereby those which are the products of the renaissance of the
classical styles that marked the epoch of the cinquecento period. These
have since that time prevailed generally in Europe to the present day,
and are now making the tour of the world. Within the limits of the
present century it is true that the copying of the classical styles to
some extent were superseded by a more servile imitation of those of
mediæval art. The forms consequently changed, but the principles
remained the same.
It would of course be easy to point out minor objections to this or to
any scheme, but on the whole it will be found to meet the exigencies of
the case as we now know it, as well or perhaps better than any other.
The greatest difficulty in carrying it out is to ascertain how far the
geographical arrangement should be made to supersede the chronological
and ethnographical. Whether, for instance, Italy should be considered as
a whole, or if the buildings of the eastern coast should not be
described as belonging to the Byzantine, and those of the western coast
to the Gothic kingdom? Whether the description of the Temple at
Jerusalem should stop short with the rebuilding by Zorobabel, or be
continued till its final completion under Herod? If the former course is
pursued, we cut in two a perfectly consecutive narrative; if the latter,
we get far in advance of our chronological sequence.
In both of these instances, as in many others, it is a choice of
difficulties, and where frequently the least strictly logical mode of
proceeding may be found the most convenient.
After all, the real difficulty lies not so much in arranging the
materials as in weighing the relative importance to be assigned to each
division. In wandering over so vast a field it is difficult to prevent
personal predilection from interfering with purely logical criticism.
Although architecture is the most mechanical of the fine arts, and
consequently the most amenable to scientific treatment, still as a fine
art it must be felt to be appreciated, and when the feelings come into
play the reason is sometimes in danger. Though strict impartiality has
been aimed at in assigning the true limits to each of the divisions
above pointed out, few probably will be of the same opinion as to the
degree of success which has been achieved in the attempt.
OUTLINE OF EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY.
ACCORDING TO MANETHO AND THE MONUMENTS.
OLD KINGDOM OF PYRAMID BUILDERS.
Years. B.C.
1st dynasty Thinite 252 Accession of Menes, 1st king. 3906
2nd dynasty Thinite 302
3rd dynasty Memphite 214 Ten dynasties of kings, reigning
4th dynasty Memphite 284 sometimes contemporaneously in
5th dynasty Elephantine 248 Upper and in Lower Egypt; at other
6th dynasty Memphite 203 times both divisions were united
7th dynasty Memphite 70 days? under one king.
8th dynasty Memphite 146 The total duration of their
9th dynasty Heracleapolite 100? reigns, as nearly as can be
10th dynasty Heracleapolite 185 estimated, was 1335 years.
FIRST THEBAN KINGDOM.
11th dynasty Thebans 43 Commenced 2571
12th dynasty Thebans 246 over Upper, 188 over Lower Egypt.
SHEPHERD INVASION. 2340
13th dynasty Diospolites 453 Five dynasties of Shepherd or
14th dynasty Xoite 484 native kings reigning or existing
15th dynasty Shepherds 284 contemporaneously in four series
16th dynasty Hellenes 518 in different parts of Egypt during
17th dynasty Shepherds 151 511 years.
---
435
GREAT THEBAN KINGDOM.
18th dynasty Theban 393 Over all Egypt 1829
19th dynasty Theban 194 1436
Exode of Jews, 1312.
20th dynasty Theban 135 1242
21st dynasty Tanite 130 1107
22nd dynasty Bubastite 120 977
Temple of Jerusalem plundered, 972.
23rd dynasty Tanite 89 857
24th dynasty Saïte 44 768
25th dynasty Ethiopian 44 724
26th dynasty Saïte 155 680
Persian Invasion under Cambyses 526[23]
BOOK I.
EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
In any consecutive narrative of the architectural undertakings of
mankind the description of what was done in Egypt necessarily commences
the series, not only because the records of authentic history are found
in the Valley of the Nile long before the traditions of other nations
had assumed anything like tangible consistency, but because, from the
earliest dawn down to the time when Christianity struck down the old
idolatry, the inhabitants of that mysterious land were essentially and
pre-eminently a building race. Were it not for this we should be left
with the dry bones of the skeleton of her history, which is all that is
left us of the dynasties of Manetho; or with the fables in which
ignorant and credulous European travellers expressed their wonder at a
civilisation they could not comprehend.
As the case now stands, the monuments of Egypt give life and reality to
their whole history. It is impossible for any educated man capable of
judging of the value of evidence to wander among the Pyramids and tombs
of Memphis, the Temples of Thebes, or the vast structures erected by the
Ptolemys or Cæsars, and not to feel that he has before him a chapter of
history more authentic than we possess of any nation at all approaching
it in antiquity, and a picture of men and manners more vivid and more
ample than remains to us of any other people who have passed away.
As we wander among the tombs or temples of Egypt we see the very
chisel-marks of the mason, and the actual colours of the painter which
were ordered by a Khufu, or a Rameses, and we stand face to face with
works the progress of which they watched, and which they designed in
order to convey to posterity what their thoughts and feelings were, and
what they desired to record for the instruction of future generations.
All is there now, and all who care may learn what these old kings
intended should be known by their remotest posterity.
Immense progress has been made in unravelling the intricacies of
Egyptian history since the time when Champollion, profiting by the
discovery of Young, first translated the hieroglyphical inscriptions
that cover the walls of Egyptian buildings. Of late years it has been
too frequently assumed that his works, with those of Rosellini, of
Wilkinson, and Lepsius, and the numerous other authors who have applied
themselves to Egyptology, had told us all we are ever likely to know of
her history. In so far as the epochs of the great Pharaonic dynasties of
Thebes are concerned this may be partially true, but it is only since M.
Mariette undertook the systematic exploration of the great Necropolis of
Memphis that we have been enabled to realise the importance of the older
dynasties, and become aware of the completeness of the records they have
left behind them. Much as we have learned during the last fifty years,
the recent explorations of Maspero, W. M. Flinders Petrie and others
have taught us that the soil of Egypt is not half exhausted yet; and
every day our knowledge is assuming a consistency and completeness as
satisfactory as it is wonderful.
Although there are still minor differences of opinion with regard to the
details of Egyptian chronology, still the divergences between the
various systems proposed are gradually narrowing in extent. The sequence
of events is certain, and accepted by all. The initial date, and the
adjustments depending on it, are alone in dispute. The truth is that
every subsequent step in the investigation has tended more and more to
prove the correctness of the data furnished by the lists of Manetho, and
the only important question is, “what is Manetho?” His work is lost. The
only real extracts we have from the original are those in ‘Josephus
contra Apion.’ The lists in Eusebius and Syncellus or Africanus have
avowedly been adjusted to suit preconceived theories of Biblical
chronology; but on the whole a great preponderance of evidence seems in
favour of assuming that he really intended to fix the year 3906 as the
initial year of the reign of Menes,[24] or some year within a very short
distance of that date. Some years ago this would have seemed to suffice,
but so many new monuments have been disinterred of late, so many new
names of kings added to our lists, that the tendency is now rather to
extend than to contract this limit of duration.
Be this as it may, what we really do know absolutely is that there was
an old kingdom of pyramid-builders, comprising the first ten dynasties
of Manetho, who reigned at Memphis. These, after a period of decadence,
were superseded by kings of a different race coming from the south; and
that these, after a short period of glory, were conquered by an Asiatic
race of hated Shepherd kings.
After five centuries of foreign domination, the Shepherds in their turn
were driven out, and the new kingdom founded. This, after witnessing the
glories of the 18th and 19th dynasties, declined during the next seven
dynasties till they were struck down by the Persian Cambyses.
A third period of architectural magnificence arose with the Ptolemys,
and was continued by the Cæsars on nearly the same scale of magnificence
as the second kingdom; but wanting its exuberant nationality, and far
below the quiet grandeur of the earlier epoch.
In counting backwards the dates of these dynasties, the first authentic
synchronism we meet with is that of Shishak, the first king of the 22nd
dynasty, contemporary with Rehoboam, about 970 B.C.
The next is the Exode of the Jews, which took place 1312 B.C., under the
reign of Meneptah II., the fourth king of the 19th dynasty of Manetho.
Many would place it earlier, but none probably would bring that event
down to a more modern date.
From this date Josephus tells us that Manetho counted 518 years to the
expulsion of the Shepherds, and 511 for the duration of their sojourn in
Egypt,[25] we thus get back to 2340 for the first year of Salatis. There
then remain only fifteen centuries and a half, in which we have to
arrange the two great Theban dynasties (the 11th and 12th), which
reigned for more than two centuries over the whole of Egypt; while the
12th seems to have extended some distance into the period occupied by
the Shepherds. We are thus left with little more than 1300 years over
which to spread the ten first dynasties, notwithstanding that some 60 or
70 of their royal sepulchral pyramids still adorn the banks of the Nile;
and we have many names to which no tombs can be attached, and many
pyramids may have perished during the 5000 years which have elapsed
since the greater number of them were erected.
Long as these periods may to some appear, they are certainly the
shortest that any one familiar with the recent progress of Egyptian
research would be willing to assign to them. But in whatever light they
may be viewed, they sink into utter insignificance when compared with
the periods that must have elapsed before Egypt could have reached that
stage of civilisation in which we find her when her existence first
dawns upon us. If one point in Egyptian history is proved with more
certainty than another, it is that the great Pyramids of Gizeh were
erected by the kings of the 4th dynasty: and it seems impossible to find
room for the now ascertained facts of Egyptian chronology, unless we
place their erection between 3000 and 3500 years before the Christian
era.
No one can possibly examine the interior of the Great Pyramid without
being struck with astonishment at the wonderful mechanical skill
displayed in its construction. The immense blocks of granite brought
from Syene—a distance of 500 miles—polished like glass, and so fitted
that the joints can hardly be detected. Nothing can be more wonderful
than the extraordinary amount of knowledge displayed in the construction
of the discharging chambers over the roof of the principal apartment, in
the alignment of the sloping galleries, in the provision of ventilating
shafts, and in all the wonderful contrivances of the structure. All
these, too, are carried out with such precision, that, notwithstanding
the immense superincumbent weight, no settlement in any part can be
detected to the extent of an appreciable fraction of an inch. Nothing
more perfect, mechanically, has ever been erected since that time; and
we ask ourselves in vain, how long it must have taken before men
acquired such experience and such skill, or were so perfectly organised,
as to contemplate and complete such undertakings.
Around the base of the pyramid are found numerous structural tombs,
whose walls bear the cartouche of the same king—Khufu—whose name was
found by Colonel Howard Vyse in one of the previously unopened chambers
of the Great Pyramid.[26] These are adorned with paintings so numerous
and so complete, as to enable us to realise with singular completeness
the state of Egyptian society at that early period.
On their walls the owner of the tomb is usually represented seated,
offering first fruits on a simple table-altar to an unseen god. He is
generally accompanied by his wife, and surrounded by his stewards and
servants, who enumerate his wealth in horned cattle, in asses, in sheep
and goats, in geese and ducks. In other pictures some are ploughing and
sowing, some reaping or thrashing out the corn, while others are tending
his tame monkeys or cranes, and other domesticated pets. Music and
dancing add to the circle of domestic enjoyments, and fowling and
fishing occupy his days of leisure. No sign of soldiers or of warlike
strife appears in any of these pictures; no arms, no chariots or horses.
No camels suggest foreign travel. Everything there represented speaks of
peace at home and abroad,[27] of agricultural wealth and consequent
content. In all these pictures the men are represented with an ethnic
and artistic truth that enables us easily to recognise their race and
station. The animals are not only easily distinguishable, but the
characteristic peculiarities of each species are seized with a power of
generalisation seldom if ever surpassed; and the hieroglyphic system
which forms the legend and explains the whole, was as complete and
perfect then as at any future period.
More striking than even the paintings are the portrait-statues which
have recently been discovered in the secret recesses of these tombs;
nothing more wonderfully truthful and realistic has been done since that
time, till the invention of photography, and even that can hardly
represent a man with such unflattering truthfulness as these old
coloured terra-cotta portraits of the sleek rich men of the pyramid
period.
Wonderful as all this maturity of art may be when found at so early a
period, the problem becomes still more perplexing when we again ask
ourselves how long a people must have lived and recorded their
experience before they came to realise and aspire to an eternity such as
the building of these pyramids shows that they sacrificed everything to
attain. One of their great aims was to preserve the body intact for 3000
years, in order that the soul might again be united with it when the day
of judgment arrived. But what taught them to contemplate such periods of
time with confidence, and, stranger still, how did they learn to realise
so daring an aspiration?
Nor is our wonder less when we ask ourselves how it happened that such a
people became so thoroughly organised at that early age as to be willing
to undertake the greatest architectural works the world has since seen
in honour of one man from among themselves? A king without an army, and
with no claim, so far as we can see, to such an honour beyond the common
consent of all, which could hardly have been obtained except by the
title of long inherited services acknowledged by the community at large.
It would be difficult to find any other example which so fully
illustrates the value of architecture as a mode of writing history as
this. It is possible there may have been nations as old and as early
civilised as the Egyptians: but they were not builders, and their memory
is lost. It is to their architecture alone that we owe the preservation
of what we know of this old people. And it is the knowledge so obtained
that adds such interest to the study of their art.
In the present state of our knowledge it may seem an idle speculation to
suggest that the Egyptian and Chinese are two fragments of one great
primordial race, widely separated now by the irruption of other Turanian
and Aryan races between them; but this at least is certain, that in
manners and customs, in arts and polity, in religion and civilisation,
these two peoples more closely resemble one another than any other two
nations which have existed since, even when avowedly of similar race and
living in proximity to one another.
At the earliest period at which Chinese history opens upon us, we find
the same amount of civilisation maintaining itself utterly
unprogressively to the present day. The same peaceful industry and
agricultural wealth accompanied by the same outwardly pleasing domestic
relations and apparent content. The same exceptional mode of writing.
The same want of power to assimilate with surrounding nations. Both
hating war, but reverencing their kings, and counting their chronology
by dynasties exactly as the Egyptians have always done. Their religions
seem wonderfully alike, and both are characterised by the same
fearlessness of death, and the same calm enjoyment in the contemplation
of its advent.[28]
In fact there is no peculiarity in the old kingdom of Egypt that has not
its counterpart in China at the present day, though more or less
modified, perhaps, by local circumstances; and there is nothing in the
older system which we cannot understand by using proper illustrations,
derived from what we see passing under our immediate observation in the
far East. The great lesson we learn from the study of the history of
China as bearing on that of Egypt is, that all idea of the impossibility
of the recorded events in the latter country is taken away by reference
to the other. Neither the duration of the Egyptian dynasties, nor the
early perfection of her civilisation, or its strange persistency, can be
objected to as improbable. What we know has happened in Asia in modern
times may certainly have taken place in Africa, though at an earlier
period.
CHAPTER II.
THE PYRAMIDS AND CONTEMPORARY MONUMENTS.
Leaving these speculations to be developed more fully in the sequel, let
us now turn to the pyramids—the oldest, largest, and most mysterious of
all the monuments of man’s art now existing. All those in Egypt are
situated on the left bank of the Nile, just beyond the cultivated
ground, and on the edge of the desert, and all the principal examples
within what may fairly be called the Necropolis of Memphis. Sixty or
seventy of these have been discovered and explored, all which appear to
be royal sepulchres. This alone, if true would suffice to justify us in
assigning a duration of 1000 years at least to the dynasties of the
pyramid builders, and this is about the date we acquire from other
sources.
The three great pyramids of Gizeh are the most remarkable and the best
known of all those of Egypt. Of these the first, erected by Cheops, or,
as he is now more correctly named, Khufu, is the largest; but the next,
by Chephren (Khafra), his successor, is scarcely inferior in dimensions;
the third, that of Mycerinus (Menkaura), is very much smaller, but
excelled the two others in this, that it had a coating of beautiful red
granite from Syene, while the other two were revêted only with the
beautiful limestone of the country. Part of this coating still remains
near the top of the second; and Colonel Vyse[29] was fortunate enough to
discover some of the coping-stones of the Great Pyramid buried in the
rubbish at its base. These are sufficient to indicate the nature and
extent of the whole, and to show that it was commenced from the bottom
and carried upwards; not at the top, as it has sometimes been
thoughtlessly asserted.[30]
[Illustration: No. 7. Section of Great Pyramid.]
Since Colonel Vyse’s discovery, however, further casing-stones have been
found in situ by Mr. Flinders Petrie, whose measurements, taken in
1880-82, and published in the following year,[31] are the most accurate
yet made. The dimensions hitherto given have shown a difference of as
much as eighteen inches in the length of the sides, which, if the
pyramid had been set out on a perfectly clear level ground, would have
detracted from the perfection which has been claimed for its setting
out. This difference, however, it appears now, was due to the fact that
the various observers had measured from angle to angle of the corner
sockets, and had “assumed that the faces of the stones placed in them
rose up vertically from the edge of the bottom until they reached the
pavement (whatever level that might be), from which the sloping face
started upwards.” This, however, was not the case; the sloping sides of
the Pyramid continued down to the rock surface, and the base was
eventually partially covered over by a level pavement or platform;[32]
the parts covered over varying in extent according to the depth they
were carried down. Mr. Petrie utilized the angle sockets for the purpose
of obtaining the true diagonals of the casing, and having computed a
square which passed through the points of casing found on each side, and
having also its corners lying on the diagonals of the sockets, obtained
the dimensions of the original base of the Great Pyramid casing on the
artificial platform or pavement, which was as follows:—
Sq. In. Ft. In.
North side 9069·4 or 755 9·4
East side 9067·7 or 755 7·7
South side 9069·5 or 755 8·6
West side 9068·6 or 755 8·8
The mean being 755 ft. 8·8 in., and the extreme difference being 1·7 of
an inch only.
The actual height of the Great Pyramid from level of platform was 481
ft. 4 in., and the angle of casing 51° 52ʺ.
In the Second Pyramid, the bottom corner of casing (which was in
granite) had a vertical base 10 or 12 in. high, against which the
pavement was laid; and the following were the dimensions obtained:—
Sq. In. Ft. In.
North side 8471·9 or 705 11·9
East side 8475·2 or 706 3·2
South side 8476·9 or 706 4·9
West side 8475·5 or 706 3·5
The mean being 706 ft. 2·9 in., and the extreme difference in the length
of side 5 in.
The height was 472 ft., and the angle of casing 53° 10ʹ.
The Third Pyramid was never quite finished, and there is some difficulty
in determining the exact level of platform. The mean length of the sides
was calculated by Mr. Petrie as 346 ft. 1·6 in., its height 215 ft., and
the angle of its casing 51° 10ʹ.
From this it will be seen that the area of the Great Pyramid (more than
13 acres) is more than twice the extent of that of St. Peter’s at Rome,
or of any other building in the world.[33] Its height is equal to the
highest spire of any cathedral in Europe; for, though it has been
attempted to erect higher buildings, in no instance has this yet been
successfully achieved. Even the Third Pyramid covers more ground than
any Gothic cathedral, and the mass of materials it contains far
surpasses that of any erection we possess in Europe.
All the pyramids (with one exception) face exactly north, and have their
entrance on that side—a circumstance the more remarkable, as the later
builders of Thebes appear to have had no notion of orientation, but to
have placed their buildings and tombs so as to avoid regularity, and
facing in every conceivable direction. Instead of the entrances to the
pyramids being level, they all slope downwards—generally at angles of
about 26° to the horizon—a circumstance which has led to an infinity of
speculation, as to whether they were not observatories, and meant for
the observation of the pole-star, &c.[34] All these theories, however,
have failed, for a variety of reasons it is needless now to discuss; but
among others it may be mentioned that the angles are not the same in any
two pyramids, though erected within a few years of one another, and in
the twenty which were measured by Colonel Vyse they vary from 22° 35ʹ to
34° 5ʹ. The angle of the inclination of the side of the pyramid to the
horizon is more constant, varying only from 51° 10ʹ to 52° 32ʹ, and in
the Gizeh pyramid it would appear that the angle of the passage was
intended to have been about one-half of this.
Mr. Petrie gives a synopsis of the various theories connected with the
Great Pyramid, which applies not only to the outside form but to the
several chambers and passages in the interior. “There are three great
lines of theory,” he says,[35] “throughout the Pyramid, each of which
must stand or fall as a whole, they are scarcely contradictory, and may
almost subsist together;” these are (1) the Egyptian cubit (20·62 in.)
theory; (2) the π proportion or radius and circumference theory; (3) the
theory of areas, squares of lengths and diagonals.
Of the two first, and applying these only to the exterior by the cubit
theory, the outside form of pyramid is 280 cubits high and 440 cubits
length of side, or 7 in height to 11 of width. This is confirmed by the
π theory, where we get the very common proportion that the height is to
the circumference as the radius is to the circumference of a circle
inscribed within its base; thus taking the mean height of 481 ft. 4 in.,
we have 481·33 × 2 × 3·1416 = 3024, whilst the side 755·75 × 4 = 3023,
so near a coincidence that it can hardly be accidental, and if it was
intended, all the other external proportions follow as a matter of
course.
Even if this theory should not be accepted as the true one, it has at
least the merit of being nearer the truth than any other yet proposed. I
confess it appears to me so likely that I would hardly care to go
further, especially as all the astronomical theories have signally
failed, and it seems as if it were only to some numerical fancy that we
must look for a solution of the puzzle.
Be this as it may, the small residuum we get from all these pyramid
discussions is, that they were built by the kings of the early dynasties
of the old kingdom of Egypt as their tombs. The leading idea that
governed their forms was that of durability—a quasi-eternity of duration
is what they aimed at. The entrances were meant to be concealed, and the
angle of the passages was the limit of rest at which heavy bodies could
be moved while obtaining the necessary strength where they opened at the
outside, and the necessary difficulty for protection inside, without
trenching on impossibility. By concealment of the entrance, the
difficulties of the passages, and the complicated but most ingenious
arrangement of portcullises, these ancient kings hoped to be allowed to
rest in undisturbed security for at least 3000 years. Perhaps they were
successful, though their tombs have since been so shamefully profaned.
To the principal dimensions of the Great Pyramid given above, it may be
added that the entrance is 55 ft. 8 in. above the base, on the 19th
course, which is deeper than the 11 to 14 courses above and below; at
present there remain 203 courses, to which must be added 12 to 14
missing. Their average height is nearly 2 ft. 6 in., but they diminish
in height—generally speaking, but not uniformly—towards the top. The
summit now consists of a platform 32 ft. 8 in. square; so that about 27
ft. is wanting, the present actual height being 454 ft. It contains two
chambers above-ground, and one cut in the rock at a considerable depth
below the foundations.
The passages and chambers are worthy of the mass; all are lined with
polished granite; and the ingenuity and pains that have been taken to
render them solid and secure, and to prevent their being crushed by the
superincumbent mass, raise our idea of Egyptian science higher than even
the bulk of the building itself could do.
[Illustration:
Fig. 1.
Fig 2.
No. 8. Section of King’s Chamber and of Passage in
Great Pyramid. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.
]
Towards the exterior, where the pressure is not great, the roof is flat,
though it is probable that even there the weight is throughout
discharged by 2 stones, sloping up at a certain angle to where they
meet, as at the entrance. Towards the centre of the pyramid, however,
the passage becomes 28 feet high, the 7 upper courses of stone
overhanging one another as shown in the annexed section (fig. 1), so as
to reduce the bearing of the covering stone. Nowhere, however, is this
ingenuity more shown than in the royal chamber, which measures 17 ft. 1
in. by 34 ft. 3 in., and 19 ft. in height. The walls are lined and the
roof is formed of splendid slabs of Syenite, but above the roof 4
successive chambers, as shown in the annexed section (fig. 2), have been
formed, each divided from the other by slabs of granite, polished on
their lower surfaces, but left rough on the upper, and above these a 5th
chamber is formed of 2 sloping blocks to discharge the weight of the
whole. The first of these chambers has long been known; the upper four
were discovered and first entered by Colonel Vyse, and it was in one of
these that he discovered the name of the founder. This was not engraved
as a record, but scribbled in red paint on the stones, apparently as a
quarrymark, or as an address to the king, and accompanied by something
like directions for their position in the building. The interest that
attaches to these inscriptions consists in the certainty of their being
contemporary records, in their proving that Khufu was the founder of the
Great Pyramid, and consequently fixing its relative date beyond all
possibility of cavil. This is the only really virgin discovery in the
pyramids, as they have all been opened either in the time of the Greeks
or Romans, or by the Mahometans, and an unrifled tomb of this age is
still a desideratum. Until such is hit upon we must remain in ignorance
of the real mode of sepulture in those days, and of the purpose of many
of the arrangements in these mysterious buildings.
The portcullises which invariably close the entrances of the sepulchral
chamber in the pyramids are among the most curious and ingenious of the
arrangements of these buildings. Generally they consist of great cubical
masses of granite, measuring 8 or 10 ft. each way, and consequently
weighing 50 or 60 tons, and even more. These were fitted into chambers
prepared during the construction of the building, but raised into the
upper parts, and, being lowered after the body was deposited, closed the
entrance so effectually that in some instances it has been found
necessary either to break them in pieces, or to cut a passage round
them, to gain admission to the chambers. They generally slide in grooves
in the wall, to which they fit exactly, and altogether show a degree of
ingenuity and forethought very remarkable, considering the early age at
which they were executed.
In the Second Pyramid one chamber has been discovered partly
above-ground, partly cut in the rock. In the Third the chambers are
numerous, all excavated in the rock; and from the tunnels that have been
driven by explorers through the superstructures of these two, it is very
doubtful whether anything is to be found above-ground.[36]
All the old pyramids do not follow the simple outline of those at Gizeh.
That at Dahshur, for instance, rises to half the height, with a slope of
54° to the horizon, but is finished at the angle of 45°, giving it a
very exceptional appearance. The pyramids of Sakkara and Medum are of
the class known as mastaba pyramids, the term mastaba (Arabic for bench)
being given to the sloping-sided tombs of about 76° angle and from 10 to
20 ft. high.
No. 9.
[Illustration: No. 10. Pyramid of Sakkara. (From Colonel Vyse’s work.)
Scale 100 ft to 1 in.]
The annexed plan and section of Sakkara (Woodcut Nos. 9 and 10), both to
the scale of 100 ft. to 1 in., show the peculiar nature of their
construction, which seems to have been cumulative; that is to say, they
have been enlarged in successive periods, the original casing of the
earlier portions having been traced. Mr. Petrie says: “Both of these
structures have been several times finished, each time with a
close-jointed polished casing of the finest white limestone, and then,
after each completion, it has been again enlarged by another coat of
rough masonry and another line casing outside.”
These two pyramids are the only two genuine stepped pyramids, all the
others having had an uniform casing on one slope (excepting Dahshur, as
above mentioned). The Pyramid of Sakkara is the only pyramid that does
not face exactly north and south. It is nearly of the same general
dimensions as the Third Pyramid, that of Mycerinus; but its outline, the
disposition of its chambers, and the hieroglyphics found in its
interior, all would seem to point it out as an imitation of the older
form of mausolea by some king of a far more modern date.
MEDUM.
Mr. Flinders Petrie’s discoveries in 1891 determined the age and the
construction of the Pyramid of Medum,[37] erected by Seneferu, a king of
the third dynasty, being therefore the oldest pyramid known. Its
construction resembles that of the small pyramid of Rikheh and the
oblong step pyramid of Sakkara, that is to say, it is a cumulative
mastaba, the primal mastaba being about 150 ft. square, and from 37 to
45 ft. high. The outer coatings added were seven in number, and the
original mass was carried up and heightened as the circuit was
increased, and lastly an outer casing covered over all the steps which
had resulted during the construction. The average length of the base was
473 ft. 6 in., the total height being 301 ft. 7 in. According to Mr.
Petrie, the Pyramid of Medum, as those of Sakkara and Rikheh, were of a
transitional form, in which the original mastaba had been greatly
enlarged and subsequently covered over with a casing of pyramidal
outline. “That type once arrived at, there was no need for subsequent
kings to retain the mastaba form internally, and Khufu and his
successors laid out their pyramids of full size at first and built them
up at an angle of 51°, and not at 75°, that which is found in the
ordinary mastabas.” Mr. Petrie also discovered the temple of the pyramid
in the middle of its east side, and almost uninjured. It consisted of a
passage entered at the south end of east front, then a small chamber and
a courtyard adjoining the side of the pyramid, containing two steles and
one altar between them.
In the sepulchral pit of Rahotep, near the pyramid, Mr. Petrie found two
arches thrown across a passage to relieve the thrust of the overlapping
sides, which carries the use of that feature back to the 4th dynasty.
TOMBS.
Around the Pyramids from Abouraash, north of Gizeh to Medum, south of
Sakkara, a distance of over 15 miles, forming the Necropolis of Memphis,
numberless smaller sepulchres are found, which appear to have been
appropriated to private individuals, as the pyramids were—so far as we
can ascertain—reserved for kings, or, at all events, for persons of
royal blood. These tombs are now known under the term of mastabas, to
which we have already referred. The mastaba is a rectangular building
varying in size from 15 to 150 ft. in width and length, and from 10 to
80 ft. in height. Their general form is that of a truncated pyramid with
an angle of 75° to the horizon, low, and looking exceedingly like a
house with sloping walls, with only one door leading to the interior,
though they may contain several apartments, and no attempt is made to
conceal the entrance. The chambers consist (1) of reception rooms and
(2) of serdabs, which are closed cells containing the terra-cotta
statuettes which represent the Ka’s or doubles of the deceased. These
chambers occupy a part only of the mastaba, the remainder being solid
masonry or brickwork. The body seems to have been hidden from
profanation by being hid in a pit sunk in the rock, the entrance to
which was concealed, and could be approached only through the solid core
of the mastaba.
Unlike the pyramids, the walls are covered with the paintings above
alluded to, and everything in this “eternal dwelling”[38] of the dead is
made to resemble the abodes of the living; as was afterwards the case
with the Etruscans. It is owing to this circumstance that we are able
not only to realise so perfectly the civil life of the Egyptians at this
period, but to fix the dates of the whole series by identifying the
names of the kings who built the pyramids with those on the walls of the
tombs that surround them.[39]
Like all early architecture, that of these tombs shows evident symptoms
of having been borrowed from a wooden original. The lintels of the
doorways are generally rounded, and the walls mere square posts, grooved
and jointed together, every part of it being as unlike a stone
architecture as can possibly be conceived. Yet the pyramids themselves,
and those tombs which are found outside them, are generally far removed
from the forms employed in timber structures; and it is only when we
find the Egyptians indulging in decorative art that we trace this more
primitive style. There are two doorways of this class in the British
Museum and many in that of Berlin. One engraved in Lepsius’s work
(Woodcut No. 11) gives a fair idea of this style of decorative art, in
the most elaborate form in which we now know it. It is possible that
some of its forms may have been derived from brick architecture, but the
lintel certainly was of wood, and so it may be suspected were the
majority of its features. It certainly is a transitional form, and
though we only find it in stone, none of its peculiarities were derived
from lithic arts. Perhaps one of the best illustrations of the
architectural forms of that day was the sarcophagus of Mycerinus,
unfortunately lost on its way to England. It represented a palace, with
all the peculiarities found on a larger scale in the buildings which
surround the pyramid, and with that peculiar cornice and still more
singular roll or ligature on the angles, most evidently a carpentry
form, but which the style retained to its latest day.
[Illustration: 11. Doorway in Tomb at the Pyramids. (From Lepsius.)]
[Illustration: 12. Sarcophagus of Mycerinus, found in Third Pyramid.]
In many of these tombs square piers are found supporting the roofs
sometimes, but rarely, with an abacus, and generally without any carved
work, though it is more than probable they were originally painted with
some device, upon which they depended for their ornament. In most
instances they look more like fragments of a wall, of which the
intervening spaces had been cut away, than pillars in the sense in which
we usually understand the word; and in every case in the early ages they
must be looked upon more as utilitarian expedients than as parts of an
ornamental style of architecture.
TEMPLES.
Till recently no temples had been discovered which could with certainty
be ascribed to the age of the pyramid builders; one, however, was
excavated in 1853, from the sand close beside the great Sphinx, with
which it was thought at one time to have been connected. Mr. Petrie,
however, found the remains of a causeway 15 ft. wide and over a quarter
of a mile long, leading to a second temple in front of the pyramid of
Khafra; as also the traces of other temples in front of the Great
Pyramid and of that of Menkaura. Further temples have been discovered at
Abouseer, Dahshur and other pyramids, so that, as Mr. Petrie says, p.
209, “to understand the purpose of the erection of the Pyramids it
should be observed that each has a temple on the eastern side of it. Of
the temples of the second and third Pyramids the ruins still remain; and
of the temple of the Great Pyramid the basalt pavement and numerous
blocks of granite show its site.” “The worship of the deified king was
carried on in the temple, looking toward the Pyramid which stood on the
west of it; just as private individuals worshipped their ancestors in
the family tombs” (already referred to) “looking towards the false
doors[40] which are placed in the west side of the tomb, and which
represent the entrances to the hidden sepulchres.”
[Illustration: 13. Plan of Temple near the Sphinx.]
The temple of the Sphinx,[41] (or, as it is now called, the granite
temple,) though at present almost buried, was apparently a free-standing
building, a mass of masonry, the outer surfaces of which were built in
limestone, and carved with long grooves, horizontal and vertical,
skilfully crossed, resembling therefore the carved fronts of many tombs
at Sakkara and Gizeh and the sarcophagus of Mycerinus (Woodcut No. 12).
The temple measured 140 ft. in each direction, and the walls were 40 ft.
high. It was arranged in two storeys, the upper one being an open court.
In the lower storey were: A, a hall 55 ft. long by 33 ft. wide and 18
ft. 6 in. high, with two rows of massive granite piers supporting beams
of the same material to carry the stone roof: B, a second hall into
which the first hall opened, and at right angles to it, measuring 81 ft.
long by 22 ft. wide and 19 ft. high, with one row of granite piers down
the centre; both of these being lighted by narrow slits just below the
granite roof:[42] C, a side chamber with six loculi, in two levels, each
19 ft. long: D, a sloping passage lined with granite and oriental
alabaster, leading to the causeway which placed it in communication with
the Second Pyramid, and: E, a hall 60 ft. long by 12 ft. wide and 30 ft.
high (rising therefore above the pavement of the upper court), with a
large recess at each end containing a statue. These recesses were high
above doors which led to smaller chambers also containing statues.
The internal walls were lined with immense blocks of granite from Syene
and of alabaster beautifully polished, but with sloping joints and
uneven beds, a form of masonry not unknown in that age. No sculpture or
inscription of any sort is found on the walls of the temple,[43] or
ornament or symbol in the sanctuary. Statues and tablets of Khafra, the
builder of the Second Pyramid, were found in the well, and this, and the
fact that the causeway extended to the temple in front of his pyramid,
shows clearly that it belonged to his time.[44]
In the present transitional state of our knowledge of the architectural
art of the pyramid builders, it is difficult to form any distinct
judgment as to its merits. The early Egyptians built neither for beauty
nor for use, but for eternity, and to this last they sacrificed every
other feeling. In itself nothing can be less artistic than a pyramid. A
tower, either round or square, or of any other form, and of the same
dimensions, would have been far more imposing, and if of sufficient
height—the mass being the same—might almost have attained sublimity; but
a pyramid never looks so large as it is, and not till you almost touch
it can you realise its vast dimensions. This is owing principally to all
its parts sloping away from the eye instead of boldly challenging
observation; but, on the other hand, no form is so stable, none so
capable of resisting the injuries of time or force, and none,
consequently, so well calculated to attain the object for which the
pyramids were erected. As examples of technic art, they are unrivalled
among the works of men, but they rank low if judged by the æsthetic
rules of architectural art.
The same may be said of the tombs around them: they are low and solid,
but possess neither beauty of form nor any architectural feature worthy
of attention or admiration, but they have lasted nearly uninjured from
the remotest antiquity, and thus have attained the object their builders
had principally in view in designing them.
Their temple architecture, on the other hand, may induce us to modify
considerably these opinions. The one described above—which is the only
one I personally have any knowledge of—is perhaps the simplest and least
adorned temple in the world. All its parts are plain—straight and
square, without a single moulding of any sort, but they are perfectly
proportioned to the work they have to do. They are pleasingly and
effectively arranged, and they have all that lithic grandeur which is
inherent in large masses of precious materials.
Such a temple as that near the Sphinx cannot compete either in richness
or magnificence with the great temples of Thebes, with their sculptured
capitals and storied walls, but there is a beauty of repose and an
elegance of simplicity about the older example which goes far to redeem
its other deficiencies, and when we have more examples before us they
may rise still higher in our estimation.
Whatever opinion we may ultimately form regarding their architecture,
there can be little doubt as to the rank to be assigned to their
painting and sculpture. In these two arts the Egyptians early attained a
mastery which they never surpassed. Judged by the rules of classic or of
modern art, it appears formal and conventional to such an extent as to
render it difficult for us now to appreciate its merits. But as a purely
Phonetic form of art—as used merely to enunciate those ideas which we
now so much more easily express by alphabetic writings—it is clear and
precise beyond any picture-writings the world has since seen. Judged by
its own rules, it is marvellous to what perfection the Egyptians had
attained at that early period, and if we look on their minor edifices as
mere vehicles for the display of this pictorial expression, we must
modify to some extent the judgment we would pass on them as mere objects
of architectural art.
CHAPTER III.
FIRST THEBAN KINGDOM.
XITH AND XIITH DYNASTY OF MANETHO.
B.C. 2528?
Sankhkara reigned 46 years.
Amenemhat reigned 38 years.
Osirtasen reigned 48 years.
Amenemhat III. (Lampares) reigned 8 years.
(Builder of Labyrinth.)
His successors reigned 42 years.
B.C. 2340?
The great culminating period of the old kingdom of Egypt is that
belonging to the 4th and 5th dynasties. Nine-tenths of the monuments of
the pyramid-builders which have come down to our time belong to the five
centuries during which these two dynasties ruled over Egypt (B.C.
3500-3000).
The 6th dynasty was of a southern and more purely African origin. On the
tablets of Apap[45] (Apophis), its most famous monarch, we find the
worship of Khem and other deities of the Theban period wholly unknown to
the pyramid kings. The next four dynasties are of _fainéant_ kings, of
whom we know little, not “Carent quia vate sacro,” but because they were
not builders, and their memory is lost. The 11th and 12th usher in a new
state of affairs. The old Memphite pyramid-building kingdom had passed,
with its peaceful contentment, and had given place to a warlike
idolatrous race of Theban kings, far more purely African, the prototypes
of the great monarchy of the 18th and 19th dynasties, and having no
affinity with anything we know of as existing in Asia in those times.
Their empire lasted apparently for more than 300 years in Upper Egypt;
but for the latter portion of that period they do not seem to have
reigned over the whole country, having been superseded in Lower Egypt by
the invasion of the hated Hyksos, or Shepherd kings, about the year 2300
B.C., and by whom they also were finally totally overthrown.
When we turn from the contemplation of the pyramids, and the monuments
contemporary with them, to examine those of the 12th dynasty, we become
at once aware of the change which has taken place. Instead of the
pyramids, all of which are situated on the western side of the Nile, we
have obelisks, which, without a single exception, are found on its
eastern side towards the rising sun, apparently in contradistinction to
the valley of the dead, which was towards the side on which he set. The
earliest and one of the finest of these obelisks is that still standing
at Heliopolis, inscribed with the name of Osirtasen, one of the first
and greatest kings of this dynasty. It is 67 ft. 4 in. in height,
without the pyramidion which crowns it, and is a splendid block of
granite, weighing 217 tons. It must have required immense skill to
quarry it, to transport it from Syene, and finally, after finishing it,
to erect it where it now stands and has stood for 4500 years.
We find the sculptures of the same king at Wady Halfah, near the second
cataract, in Nubia; and at Sarabout el Kadem, in the Sinaitic Peninsula.
He also commenced the great temple of Karnac at Thebes, which in the
hands of his successors became the most splendid in Egypt, and perhaps
it is not too much to say the greatest architectural monument in the
whole world.
As might be expected, from our knowledge of the fact that the Hyksos
invasion took place so soon after his reign, none of his structural
buildings now remain entire in which we might read the story of his
conquests, and learn to which gods of the Pantheon he especially devoted
himself. We must therefore fall back on Manetho for an account of his
“conquering all Asia in the space of nine years, and Europe as far as
Thrace.”[46] While there is nothing to contradict this statement, there
is much that renders it extremely probable.
THE LABYRINTH.
It is to this dynasty also that we owe the erection of the Labyrinth,
one of the most remarkable, as well as one of the most mysterious
monuments of Egypt. All Manetho tells us of this is, that Lampares, or
Mœris, “built it as a sepulchre for himself;” and the information we
derive from the Greeks on this subject is so contradictory and so full
of the wonderful, that it is extremely difficult to make out either the
plan or the purpose of the building. As long ago as 1843, the whole site
was excavated and thoroughly explored by the officers of the Prussian
expedition under Lepsius; but, like most of the information obtained by
that ill-conditioned party, such data as have been given are of the most
unsatisfactory and fragmentary form. The position which Lepsius claimed
for the Labyrinth has been found by Mr. Petrie[47] to be incorrect; the
remains supposed to be those of the walls and chambers are of much later
date, being only the houses and tombs of the population which destroyed
the great structure. The village thus created was established on the
outer portion of the site when the destruction of the buildings was
first commenced. Mr. Petrie calculates that the Labyrinth was
symmetrical with the pyramid, and had the same axis: that it occupied a
site of about 1000 feet wide by 800 ft. deep; thus covering an area
sufficiently large to accommodate all the Theban temples on the east
bank, and in addition one of the largest on the west bank. The essential
difference between the Labyrinth and all other temples was that it
consisted of a series of eighteen large peristylar courts with
sanctuaries and other chambers. Of these, according to Herodotus, there
were six, side by side, facing north; six others, opposite, facing
south, and a wall surrounding the whole. Herodotus, however, was allowed
to see portions only of the Labyrinth, probably those nearest to the
entrance. Beyond this, on the north side, Mr. Petrie suggests the
existence of a third series of peristylar courts (described by Strabo),
with sanctuaries and other chambers, and south of these, halls of
columns, and smaller halls, through which Strabo entered. In the hall of
twenty-seven columns, mentioned by Strabo, Mr. Petrie places the columns
in one row to form a vestibule to the entrances to the courts similar to
the temple of Abydos. The whole disposition of the plan, the style of
the courts and their peristyles must be conjectural, as no remains of
blocks of stone or columns in sufficient preservation have been found on
which to base a restoration. On some architrave blocks were found
inscriptions of Amenemhat III. and Sebekneferu. The last remains were
taken away within our own time by the engineers of the new railway, and
apparently with the consent of the officials of the Boulak Museum, who
reported that they had been quarried from the native rock.
PYRAMIDS.
The Hawara Pyramid, on the north of the Labyrinth, and erected by the
same King Amenemhat III., has been examined by Mr. Petrie and described
by him.[48] As the rock on which it was built was little more than
hardened sand, a pit was excavated, into which a monolithic chamber of
granite, brought from Upper Egypt, and weighing 100 tons, was lowered.
The sarcophagus and two other coffins having been placed in it, the
chamber was covered over with three granite beams, 4 feet thick, one of
which was raised in a hollow chamber, and supported there till after the
King’s death and the deposit of his body in the sarcophagus. Round the
granite monolith were built walls which carried two courses of stone
blocks, the lower horizontal, the upper courses sloping one against the
other, as in the Great Pyramid. The rest of the pyramid was constructed
in brick, and to prevent the brickwork settling down and splitting on
the pointed roof-stones, an arch of five courses of brick, measuring 3
feet deep, was thrown across, resting on bricks laid in mud between the
arch and the stonework. The brickwork above the arch was laid in sand,
and the whole pyramid covered with a casing of limestone. The size of
the pyramid Mr. Petrie calculates to have been about 334 ft. wide and
191 ft. high.
A second pyramid belonging to this dynasty, and erected by Osirtasen
II., has also been examined and described by Mr. Petrie.[49] This
pyramid (Illahun) is of peculiar construction, being partly composed of
the natural rock dressed into form to a height of 40 feet, above which
rose the built portion, which was different from that of any other
pyramid, being built with a framing of cross walls. The walls ran right
through the diagonals up to the top of the building, and had offset
walls at right angles to the sides, the walls being of stone in the
lower part, and brick above; the filling-in between the walls was of mud
and brick, and the whole pyramid, brick, stone, and rock, was covered
with a casing of limestone.
AN EGYPTIAN TOWN.
[Illustration: 14. Plans of Houses, Kahun.]
The most remarkable discovery made by Mr. Petrie in the Fayum[50] was
the finding of the plan, more or less complete, of the town or village
of Kahun, which was built for the workmen and overseers of the Illahun
pyramid, and deserted shortly after its completion. The plan would seem
to have been laid out from one design, and consisted: of an acropolis or
raised space, where the house of the chief controller of the works was
placed, and which might have been occupied by the King when he came to
inspect the works: a series of large houses (Woodcut No. 14), arranged
very much in the same way as those of Pompeii, and containing a great
number of halls, courts, and rooms; and many streets of workmen’s
dwellings of two or three rooms each. The walls were all built in crude
brick, the rooms being covered over with roofs formed of beams of wood,
on which poles were placed, and to these bundles of straw and reeds
lashed down, the whole being covered inside and outside with mud. In
those rooms, which exceeded 8 or 9 ft. in width, columns of stone or
wood were employed to assist in carrying the roof; such columns being
octagonal or with sixteen sides, fluted or ribbed like the reed or lotus
column at Beni-Hasan. The lower portion of a fluted column in wood was
found, existing still in situ on its base, which shows that description
of column to have had a wooden origin.
TOMBS.
The most interesting series of monuments of this dynasty which have come
down to our time are the tombs of Beni-Hasan, in Middle Egypt. They are
situated on the eastern side of the Nile, as are also those of
Tel-el-Amarna, Sheykh-Said, Kôm-el-ahman, and others. The character of
the sculptures which adorn their walls approaches that found in the
tombs surrounding the pyramids, but the architecture differs widely.
They are all cheerful-looking halls, open to the light of day, many of
them with pillared porches, and all possessing pretensions to
architectural ornament, either internal or external.
[Illustration: 15. Tomb at Beni-Hasan.]
One of the most interesting of the tombs has in front of it a
portico-in-antis of two columns, in architecture so like the order
afterwards employed by the Greeks, as to have been frequently described
as the Proto-Doric order.[51] The same class of column is also used
internally, supporting a plain architrave beam, from which spring
curvilinear roofs of segmented form, which there is no doubt are
imitations of constructive arch forms.
[Illustration: 16. Proto-Doric Pillar at Beni-Hasan.]
[Illustration: 17. Reed Pillar from Beni-Hasan.]
[Illustration: 18. Lotus pier, Zawyet-el-Mayyitûr. (From Lepsius.)]
There is another form of pillar used at Beni-Hasan at that early age[52]
which is still further removed from stone than even the Proto-Doric. It
imitates a bundle of four reeds or lotus-stalks bound together near the
top, and bulging above the ligature so as to form a capital. Such a pier
must evidently have been originally employed in wooden architecture
only, and the roof which it supports is in this instance of light wooden
construction, having the slight slope requisite in the dry climate of
Egypt. In after ages this form of pillar became a great favourite with
the Egyptian architects, and was employed in all their great monuments,
but with a far more substantial lithic form than we find here, and in
conjunction with the hollow—or, as we should call it, Corinthian—formed
capital, of which no example is found earlier than the 18th dynasty.
These are meagre records, it must be confessed, of so great a kingdom;
but when we come to consider the remoteness of the period, and that the
dynasty was overthrown by the Shepherds, whose rule was of considerable
duration, it is perhaps in vain to expect that much can remain to be
disinterred which would enable us to realise more fully the
architectural art of this age.
SHEPHERDS.
Till very recently our knowledge of the Shepherd kings was almost
entirely derived from what was said of them by Manetho, in the extracts
from his writings so fortunately preserved by Josephus, in his answer to
Apion. Recent explorations have however raised a hope that even their
monuments may be so far recovered as to enable us to realise to some
extent at least who they were and what their aspirations.
Manetho tells us they came from the East, but fearing the then rising
power of the Assyrians, they fortified Avaris as a bulwark against them,
and used it during their sojourn in Egypt to keep up their
communications with their original seat. Recent explorations have
enabled M. Mariette to identify San, Zoan, or Tanis, a well-known site
on the Bubastite branch of the Nile, with this Avaris. And already he
has disinterred a sphinx and two seated statues which certainly belong
to the reign of the Shepherd king Apophis.[53]
The character of these differs widely from anything hitherto found in
Egypt. They present a physiognomy strongly marked with an Asiatic type—
an arched nose, rude bushy hair, and great muscular development;
altogether something wholly different from everything else found in
Egypt either before or afterwards.
This is not much, but it is an earnest that more remains to be
discovered, and adds another to the proofs that are daily accumulating,
how implicitly Manetho may be relied upon when we only read him
correctly, and how satisfactory it is to find that every discovery that
is made confirms the conclusions we had hesitatingly been adopting.
It appears from such fragmentary evidence as has hitherto been gleaned
from the monuments, that the Shepherds’ invasion was neither sudden nor
at once completely successful, if indeed it ever was so, for it is
certain that Theban and Xoite dynasties co-existed with the Shepherds
during the whole period of their stay, either from policy, like the
protected princes under our sway in India, or because their conquest was
not so complete as to enable them to suppress the national dynasties
altogether.
Like the Tartars in China they seem to have governed the country by
means of the original inhabitants, but for their own purposes;
tolerating their religion and institutions, but ruling by the superior
energy of their race the peace-loving semi-Semitic inhabitants of the
Delta, till they were in their turn overthrown and expelled by the more
warlike but more purely African races of the southern division of the
Egyptian valley.
CHAPTER IV.
PHARAONIC KINGDOM.
PRINCIPAL KINGS OF THE GREAT THEBAN PERIOD.
XVIIITH DYNASTY. B.C. 1830
Amenhotep I. reigned 25 years.
Thothmes I. reigned 13 years.
Amenhotep II. reigned 20 years.
Hatshepsu (Queen) reigned 21 years.
Thothmes II. reigned 12 years.
Thothmes III. reigned 26 years.
Thothmes IV. reigned 10 years.
Amenhotep III. reigned 21 years.
Interregnum of Sun-worshipping Kings.
Horemheb (Horus) reigned 36 years.
XIXTH DYNASTY.
Rameses I. reigned 12 years.
Meneptah I. reigned 32 years.
Rameses II. reigned 68 years.
Meneptah II. reigned 5 years.
Exode B.C. 1312
XXTH DYNASTY.
Rhampsinitus-Rameses reigned 55 years.
Ramessidæ reigned 66 years.
Amenophis reigned 20 years.
The five centuries[54] which elapsed between the expulsion of the
Shepherds and Exode of the Jews comprise the culminating period of the
greatness and greatest artistic development of the Egyptians. It is
practically within this period that all the great buildings of the
“Hundred pyloned city of Thebes” were erected. Memphis was adorned
within its limits with buildings as magnificent as those of the southern
capital, though subsequently less fortunate in escaping the hand of the
spoiler; and in every city of the Delta wherever an obelisk or
sculptured stone is found, there we find almost invariably the name of
one of the kings of the 18th or 19th dynasties. In Arabia, too, and
above the cataracts of the far-off Meroë, everywhere their works and
names are found. At Arban,[55] on the Khabour, we find the name of the
third Thothmes; and there seems little doubt but that the Naharaina or
Mesopotamia was one of the provinces conquered by them, and that all
Western Asia was more or less subject to their sway.
Whoever the conquering Thebans may have been, their buildings are
sufficient to prove, as above mentioned, that they belonged to a race
differing in many essential respects from that of the Memphite kingdom
they had superseded.
The pyramid has disappeared as a form of royal sepulchre, to be replaced
by a long gloomy corridor cut in the rock; its walls covered with wild
and fetish pictures of death and judgment: a sort of magic hall, crowded
with mysterious symbols the most monstrous and complicated that any
system of human superstition has yet invented.
Instead of the precise orientation and careful masonry of the old
kingdom, the buildings of the new race are placed anywhere, facing in
any direction, and generally affected with a symmetriphobia that it is
difficult to understand. The pylons are seldom in the axis of the
temples; the courts seldom square; the angles frequently not right
angles, and one court succeeding another without the least reference to
symmetry.
The masonry, too, is frequently of the rudest and clumsiest sort, and
would long ago have perished but for its massiveness: and there is in
all their works an appearance of haste and want of care that sometimes
goes far to mar the value of their grandest conceptions.
In their manners, too, there seems an almost equal degree of
discrepancy. War was the occupation of the kings, and foreign conquest
seems to have been the passion of the people. The pylons and the walls
of the temples are covered with battle-scenes, or with the enumeration
of the conquests made, or the tribute brought by the subjected races.
While not engaged in this, the monarch’s time seems to have been devoted
to practising the rites of the most complicated and least rational form
of idolatry that has yet been known to exist among any body of men in
the slightest degree civilised.
If the monuments of Memphis had come down to our times as perfect as
those of Thebes, some of these differences might be found less striking.
On the other hand, others might be still more apparent; but judging from
such data as we possess—and they are tolerably extensive and complete—we
are justified in assuming a most marked distinction; and it is
indispensably necessary to bear it in mind in attempting to understand
the architecture of the valley of the Nile, and equally important in any
attempt to trace the affinities of the Egyptian with any other races of
mankind. So far as we can now see, it may be possible to trace some
affinities with the pyramid builders in Assyria or in Western Asia; but
if any can be dimly predicated of the southern Egyptian race, it is in
India and the farther east; and the line of communication was not the
Isthmus of Suez, but the Straits of Babelmandeb and the Indian Ocean.
THEBES.
Although, as already mentioned, numerous buildings of the great
Pharaonic dynasties are to be found scattered all along the banks of the
Nile, it is at Thebes only that the temples are so complete as to enable
us to study them with advantage, or to arrive at a just appreciation of
their greatness. That city was practically the capital of Egypt during
the whole of the 18th and 19th dynasties, and has been fortunate in
having had no great city built near it since it fell into decay; unlike
Memphis in this respect, which has been used as a quarry during the last
14 or 15 centuries. It has also had the advantage of a barrier of rocky
hills on its western limits, which has prevented the sand of the desert
from burying its remains, as has been the case at Abydus and elsewhere.
The ruins that still remain are found scattered over an area extending
about 2¼ miles north and south, and 3½ miles east and west. The
principal group is at Karnac, on the eastern bank of the Nile,
consisting of one great temple 1200 feet long, and five or six smaller
temples grouped unsymmetrically around it. About two miles farther south
is the temple at Luxor 820 feet long, and without any dependencies.
[Illustration: 19. Rameseum at Thebes. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
On the other side of the river is the great temple of Medeenet-Habû,
built by the first king of the 19th dynasty, 520 feet in length; the
Rameseum, 570 feet long, and the temple at Koorneh, of which only the
sanctuary and the foundations of the Propyla now exist. Of the great
temple of Thothmes and Amenophis very little remains above ground—it
having been situated within the limits of the inundation—except the two
celebrated colossi, one of which was known to the Greeks as the vocal
Memnon. When complete it probably was, next after Karnac, the most
extensive of Theban temples. There are several others, situated at the
foot of the Libyan hills, which would be considered as magnificent
elsewhere, but sink into insignificance when compared with those just
enumerated.
[Illustration: 20. Central Pillar, from Rameseum, Thebes.]
Most of these, like our mediæval cathedrals, are the work of successive
kings, who added to the works of their ancestors without much reference
to congruity of plan; but one, the Rameseum, was built wholly by the
great Rameses in the 15th century B.C., and though the inner sanctuary
is so ruined that it can hardly be restored, still the general
arrangement, as shown in the annexed woodcut, is so easily made out that
it may be considered as a typical example of what an Egyptian temple of
this age was intended to have been. Its façade is formed by two great
pylons, or pyramidal masses of masonry, which, like the two western
towers of a Gothic cathedral, are the appropriate and most imposing part
of the structure externally. Between these is the entrance doorway,
leading, as is almost invariably the case, into a great square
courtyard, with porticoes always on two, and sometimes on three, sides.
This leads to an inner court, smaller, but far more splendid than the
first. On the two sides of this court, through which the central passage
leads, are square piers with colossi in front, and on the right and left
are double ranges of circular columns, which are continued also behind
the square piers fronting the entrance. Passing through this, we come to
a hypostyle hall of great beauty, formed by two ranges of larger columns
in the centre, and three rows of smaller ones on each side. These
hypostyle halls almost always accompany the larger Egyptian temples of
the great age. They derive their name from having, over the lateral
columns, what in Gothic architecture would be called a _clerestory_,
through which the light is admitted to the central portion of the hall.
Although some are more extensive than this, the arrangement of all is
nearly similar. They all possess two ranges of columns in the centre, so
tall as to equal the height of the side columns together with that of
the attic which is placed on them. They are generally of different
orders; the central pillars having a bell-shaped capital, the under side
of which was perfectly illuminated from the mode in which the light was
introduced; while in the side pillars the capital was narrower at the
top than at the bottom, apparently for the sake of allowing its
ornaments to be seen.
Beyond this are always several smaller apartments, in this instance
supposed to be nine in number, but they are so ruined that it is
difficult to be quite certain what their arrangement was. These seem to
have been rather suited to the residences of the king or priests than to
the purposes of a temple, as we understand the word. Indeed,
Palace-Temple, or Temple-Palace, would be a more appropriate term for
these buildings than to call them simply Temples. They do not seem to
have been appropriated to the worship of any particular god, but rather
for the great ceremonials of royalty—of kingly sacrifice to the gods for
the people, and of worship of the king himself by the people, who seems
to have been regarded, if not as a god, at least as the representative
of the gods on earth.
Though the Rameseum is so grand from its dimensions, and so beautiful
from its design, it is far surpassed in every respect by the
palace-temple at Karnac, which is perhaps the noblest effort of
architectural magnificence ever produced by the hand of man.
Its principal dimensions are 1200 ft. in length, by about 360 in width,
and it covers therefore about 430,000 square ft., or nearly twice the
area of St. Peter’s at Rome, and more than four times that of any
mediæval cathedral existing. This, however, is not a fair way of
estimating its dimensions, for our churches are buildings entirely under
one roof; but at Karnac a considerable portion of the area was uncovered
by any buildings, so that no comparison is just. The great hypostyle
hall, however, is internally 330 ft. by 170, and, with its two pylons,
it covers more than 85,000 square feet—nearly as large as Cologne, one
of the largest of our northern cathedrals; and when we consider that
this is only a part of a great whole, we may fairly assert that the
entire structure is among the largest, as it undoubtedly is one of the
most beautiful, buildings in the world.
The original part of this great group was, as before mentioned, the
sanctuary or temple built by Osirtasen, the great monarch of the 12th
dynasty, before the Shepherd invasion. It is the only thing that seems
to have been allowed to stand during the five centuries of Shepherd
domination, though it is by no means clear that it had not been pulled
down by the Shepherds, and reinstated by the first kings of the 18th
dynasty, an operation easily performed with the beautiful polished
granite masonry of the sanctuary. Be this as it may, Amenhotep, the
first king of the restored race, enclosed this in a temple about 120 ft.
square. Thothmes I. built in front of it a splendid hall, surrounded by
colossi, backed by piers; and Thothmes III. erected behind it a palace
or temple, which is one of the most singular buildings in Egypt. The
hall is 140 ft. long by 55 in width internally, the roof is supported by
two rows of massive square columns, and two of circular pillars of most
exceptional form, the capitals of which are reversed, and somewhat
resembling the form usually found in Assyria, but nowhere else in Egypt.
Like almost all Egyptian halls, it was lighted from the roof in the
manner shown in the section. With all these additions, the temple was a
complete whole, 540 ft. in length by 280 in width, at the time when the
Sun-worshippers broke in upon the regular succession of the great 18th
dynasty.
[Illustration: 21. Section of Palace of Thothmes III., Thebes.]
When the original line was resumed, Meneptah commenced the building of
the great hall, which he nearly completed. Rameses, the first king of
the 19th dynasty, built the small temple in front; and the so-called
Bubastite kings of the 22nd dynasty added the great court in front,
completing the building to the extent we now find it. We have thus, as
in some of our mediæval cathedrals, in this one temple a complete
history of the style during the whole of its most flourishing period;
and, either for interest or for beauty, it forms such a series as no
other country, and no other age, can produce. Besides those buildings
mentioned above, there are other temples to the north, to the east, and
more especially to the south, and pylons connecting these, and avenues
of sphinxes extending for miles, and enclosing-walls, and tanks, and
embankments—making up such a group as no city ever possessed before or
since. St. Peter’s, with its colonnades, and the Vatican, make up an
immense mass, but as insignificant in extent as in style when compared
with this glory of ancient Thebes and its surrounding temples.
[Illustration: 22. Plan of Hypostyle Hall at Karnac. Scale 100 ft. to 1
in.]
[Illustration: 23. Section of central portion of Hypostyle Hall at
Karnac. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
The culminating point and climax of all this group of building is the
hypostyle hall of Meneptah. The plan and section of its central portion
on the next page, both to the usual scale, will explain its general
arrangement; but no language can convey an idea of its beauty, and no
artist has yet been able to reproduce its form so as to convey to those
who have not seen it an idea of its grandeur. The mass of its central
piers, illumined by a flood of light from the clerestory, and the
smaller pillars of the wings gradually fading into obscurity, are so
arranged and lighted as to convey an idea of infinite space; at the same
time, the beauty and massiveness of the forms, and the brilliancy of
their coloured decorations, all combine to stamp this as the greatest of
man’s architectural works; but such a one as it would be impossible to
reproduce, except in such a climate and in that individual style in
which, and for which, it was created.
[Illustration: 24. Caryatide Pillar, from the Great Court at
Medeenet-Habû.]
On the same side of the Nile, and probably at one time connected with it
by an avenue of sphinxes, stands the temple of Luxor, hardly inferior in
some respects to its great rival at Karnac; but either it was never
finished, or, owing to its proximity to the Nile, it has been ruined,
and the materials carried away. The length is about 830 ft., its breadth
ranging from 100 to 200 ft. Its general arrangement comprised, first, a
great court at a different angle from the rest, being turned so as to
face Karnac. In front of this stand two colossi of Rameses the Great,
its founder, and two obelisks were once also there, one of which is now
in Paris. Behind this was once a great hypostyle hall, but only the two
central ranges of columns are now standing. Still further back were
smaller halls and numerous apartments, evidently meant for the king’s
residence, rather than for a temple or place exclusively devoted to
worship.
The palace at Luxor is further remarkable as a striking instance of how
regardless the Egyptians were of regularity and symmetry in their plans.
Not only is there a considerable angle in the direction of the axis of
the building, but the angles of the courtyards are in scarcely any
instance right angles; the pillars are variously spaced, and pains seem
to have been gratuitously taken to make it as irregular as possible in
nearly every respect. All the portion at the southern end was erected by
Amenhotep III., the northern part completed by Rameses the Great, the
same who built the Rameseum already described as situated on the other
bank of the Nile.
Besides these there stood on the western side of the Nile the Memnonium,
or great temple of Amenhotep III., now almost entirely ruined. It was
placed on the alluvial plain, within the limits of the inundation, which
has tended on the one hand to bury it, and on the other to facilitate
the removal of its materials. Nearly the only remains of it now apparent
are the two great seated colossi of its founder, one of which, when
broken, became in Greek, or rather Roman times, the vocal Memnon, whose
plaintive wail to the rising sun, over its own and its country’s
desolation, forms so prominent an incident in the Roman accounts of
Thebes.[56]
[Illustration: 25. South Temple of Karnac. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 26. Section through Hall of Columns, South Temple of
Karnac. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
Not far from this stands the great temple known as that of
Medeenet-Habû, built by the first king of the 19th dynasty. Its
dimensions are only slightly inferior to those of the Rameseum, being
520 ft. from front to rear, and its propylon 107 ft. wide. Its two great
courts are, however, inferior in size to those of that building. The
inner one is adorned by a series of Caryatide figures (Woodcut No. 24),
which are inferior both in conception and execution to those of the
previous reigns; and indeed throughout the whole building there is an
absence of style, and an exaggeration of detail, which shows only too
clearly that the great age was passing away when it was erected. The
roof of its hypostyle hall, and of the chambers beyond it, is occupied
by an Arab village, which would require to be cleared away before it
could be excavated; much as this might be desired, the details of its
courts would not lead us to expect anything either very beautiful or new
from its disinterment. Further down the river, as already mentioned,
stood another temple, that of Koorneh, built by the same Meneptah who
erected the great hall of Karnac. It is, however, only a fragment, or
what may be called the residential part of a temple. The hypostyle hall
never was erected, and only the foundations of two successive pylons can
be traced in front of it. In its present condition, therefore, it is one
of the least interesting of the temples of Thebes, though elsewhere it
would no doubt be regarded with wonder.
Another building of this age, attached to the southern side of the great
temple of Karnac, deserves especial attention as being a perfectly
regular building, erected at one time, and according to the original
design, and strictly a temple, without anything about it that could
justify the supposition of its being a palace.
It was erected by the first king of the 19th dynasty, and consists of
two pylons, approached through an avenue of sphinxes. Within this is an
hypæthral court, and beyond that a small hypostyle hall, lighted from
above, as shown in the section (Woodcut No. 26). Within this is the
cell, surrounded by a passage, and with a smaller hall beyond, all
apparently dark, or very imperfectly lighted. The gateway in front of
the avenue was erected by the Ptolemys, and, like many Egyptian
buildings, is placed at a different angle to the direction of the
building itself. Besides its intrinsic beauty, this temple is
interesting as being far more like the temples erected afterwards under
the Greek and Roman domination than anything else belonging to that
early age.
At Tanis, or Zoan, near the mouth of the Nile, the remains of a temple
and of 13 obelisks can still be traced. At Soleb, on the borders of
Nubia, a temple now stands of the Third Amenhotep, scarcely inferior in
beauty or magnificence to those of the capital.
[Illustration: 27. Pillar, from Sedinga.]
At Sedinga, not far below the third cataract, are the remains of temples
erected by Amenhotep III. of the 18th dynasty, which are interesting as
introducing in a completed form a class of pillar that afterwards became
a great favourite with Egyptian architects (Woodcut No. 27). Before this
time we find these Isis heads either painted or carved on the face of
square piers, but so as not to interfere with the lines of the pillars.
Gradually they became more important, so as to form a double capital, as
in this instance. In the Roman times, as at Denderah (Woodcut No. 41, p.
143), all the four faces of the pier were so adorned, though it must be
admitted in very questionable taste.
It would be tedious to attempt to enumerate without illustrating all the
fragments that remain of temples of this age. Some are so ruined that it
is difficult to make out their plan. Others, like those of Memphis or
Tanis, so entirely destroyed, that only their site, or at most only
their leading dimensions, can be made out. Their loss is of course to be
regretted; but those enumerated above are sufficient to enable us to
judge both of the style and the magnificence of the great building
epoch.
[Illustration: 28. Smaller Temple at Abydus.]
[Illustration: 29. Plan of Temple of Abydus.]
At Abydus the remains of two great temples have been found; one of
Rameses II., with great court surrounded by piers with osireide figures
on them; two halls of columns, a sanctuary, and other small chambers in
the rear. The other, completed only and decorated with sculpture by
Rameses II., the temple having been built by his father, Sethi I. This
second temple differs in the arrangement of its plan from other examples
(Woodcut No. 29); it was preceded by two great courts; at the further
end of the second court was a peristyle with twelve piers, from which,
through three doors, a hall of twenty-four columns was reached; the
columns here were so arranged as to suggest seven avenues, beyond which
were seven doors leading to a second hall with thirty-six columns,
similarly disposed to those in the first hall. These avenues led to
seven sanctuaries, the roofs of which were segmental, the arched form of
vault being cut out of solid blocks of stone (Woodcut No. 29A). Beyond
the sepulchral destination, which roofs of these sanctuaries suggest,
nothing is known from inscriptions as to their precise use. Through one
of the sanctuaries other halls of columns and chambers were reached
which lie in the rear of the building, and on the south side, and
approached from the second great hall of columns, many other halls,
chambers, and staircases leading to the roof. The special interest to
the Egyptologist, however, of this temple lies in the fact that it was
on the walls of one of these that the so-called tablet of Abydus was
discovered—now in the British Museum—which first gave a connected list
of kings, the predecessors of Rameses, and sufficiently extensive to
confirm the lists of Manetho in a manner satisfactory to the ordinary
inquirer. A second list, far more complete, has recently been brought to
light in the same locality, and contains the names of 76 kings,
ancestors of Meneptah, the father of Rameses. It begins, as all lists
do, with Menes; but even this list is only a selection, omitting many
names found in Manetho, but inserting others which are not in his
lists.[57] Before the discovery of this perfect list, the longest known
were that of the chamber of the ancestors of Thothmes III., at Karnac,
containing when perfect 61 names, of which, however, nearly one-third
are obliterated; and that recently found at Saccara, containing 58 names
originally, but of which several are now illegible.
It is the existence of these lists which gives such interest and such
reality to the study of Architecture in Egypt. Fortunately there is
hardly a building in that country which is not adorned with the name of
the king in whose reign it was erected. In royal buildings they are
found on every wall and every pillar. The older cartouches are simple
and easily remembered; and when we find the buildings thus dated by the
builders themselves, and their succession recorded by subsequent kings
on the walls of their temples, we feel perfectly certain of our
sequence, and nearly so of the actual dates of the buildings; they are,
moreover, such a series as no other country in the world can match
either for historic interest or Architectural magnificence.
ROCK-CUT TOMBS AND TEMPLES.
But in Egypt Proper and in Nubia the Egyptians were in the habit of
excavating monuments from the living rock, but with this curious
distinction, that, with scarcely an exception, all the excavations in
Egypt Proper are tombs, and no important example of a rock-cut temple
has yet been discovered. In Nubia, on the other hand, all the
excavations are temples, and no tombs of importance are to be found
anywhere. This distinction may hereafter lead to important historical
deductions, inasmuch as on the western side of India there are an
infinite number of rock-cut temples, but no tombs of any sort. Every
circumstance seems to point to the fact that, if there was any
connection between Africa and India, it was with the provinces in the
upper part of the Valley of the Nile, and not with Egypt Proper. This,
however, is a subject that can hardly be entered on here, though it may
be useful to bear in mind the analogy alluded to.
[Illustration: 30. Plan and Section of Rock-cut Temple at Abû Simbel.
Scale for plan 100 ft. to 1 in.; section 50 ft. to 1 in.]
Like all rock-cut examples all over the world, these Nubian temples are
copies of structural buildings only more or less modified to suit the
exigencies of their situation, which did not admit of any very great
development inside, as light and air could only be introduced from the
one opening of the doorway.
The two principal examples of this class of monument are the two at Abû
Simbel, the larger of which is the finest of its class known to exist
anywhere. Its total depth from the face of the rock is 150 ft., divided
into 2 large halls and 3 cells, with passages connecting them.
Externally the façade is about 100 ft. in height, and adorned by 4 of
the most magnificent colossi in Egypt, each 70 ft. in height, and
representing the king, Rameses II., who caused the excavation to be
made. It may be because they are more perfect than any others now found
in that country, but certainly nothing can exceed their calm majesty and
beauty, or be more entirely free from the vulgarity and exaggeration
which is generally a characteristic of colossal works of this sort.
The smaller temple at the same place has six standing figures of deities
countersunk in the rock, and is carved with exceeding richness. It is of
the same age with the large temple, but will not admit of comparison
with it owing to the inferiority of the design.
Besides these, there is a very beautiful though small example at
Kalabsheh (known as the Bayt el Wellee, “the house of the saint”),
likewise belonging to the age of Rameses II., and remarkable for the
beauty of its sculptural bas-reliefs, as well as for the bold
Proto-Doric columns which adorn its vestibule. There are also smaller
ones at Dêrr and Balagne, at the upper end of the valley. At Wâdy Saboua
and Gerf Hussên, the cells of the temple have been excavated from the
rock, but their courts and propylons are structural buildings added in
front—a combination only found once in Egypt, at Thebes (Dêr-el-Bahree),
and very rare anywhere else, although meeting the difficulties of the
case better than any other arrangement, inasmuch as the sanctuary has
thus all the imperishability and mystery of a cave, and the temple at
the same time has the space and external appearance of a building
standing in the open air.
This last arrangement is found also as a characteristic of the temples
of Gebel Barkal, in the kingdom of Meroë, showing how far the
rock-cutting practice prevailed in the Upper Valley of the Nile.
The plan on which the Temple of Dêr-el-Bahree is constructed is curious,
and differs entirely from that of any other in Egypt. It is built in
stages up a slope at the foot of the mountain, flights of steps leading
from one court to the other. The temple was built by Queen Hatshepsu or
Amen-noo-het, the sister of Thothmes II. and Thothmes III., and
consisted of three courts rising in terraces one above the other; at the
back of these were two ranges of porticoes, the upper one set back
behind the lower and built into the vertical face of the rock with which
the sanctuary and antechambers were cut. As all the temples above
mentioned are contemporary with the great structures in Egypt, it seems
strange that the eternity of a rock-cut example did not recommend this
form of temple to the attention of the Egyptians themselves. But with
the exception of Dêr-el-Bahree and a small grotto, called the Speos
Artemidos, near Beni-Hasan, and two small caves at Silsilis, near the
Cataract, the Egyptians seem never to have attempted it, trusting
apparently to the solidity of their masonic structures for that eternity
of duration they aspired to.
MAMMEISI.
[Illustration: 31. Mammeisi at Elephantine.]
In addition to the temples above described, which are all more or less
complex in plan, and all made up of various independent parts, there
exists in Egypt a class of temples called _mammeisi_, dedicated to the
mysterious accouchement of the mother of the gods. Small temples of this
form are common to all ages, and belong as well to the 18th dynasty as
to the time of the Ptolemys. One of them, built by Amenhotep III. at
Elephantine, is represented in plan and elevation in the annexed cut. It
is of a simple peristylar form, with columns in front and rear, the
latter being now built into a wall, and seven square piers on each
flank. These temples are all small, and, like the Typhonia, which
somewhat resemble them, were used as detached chapels or cells,
dependent on the larger temples. What renders them more than usually
interesting to us is the fact that they were undoubtedly the originals
of the Greek peristylar forms, that people having borrowed nearly every
peculiarity of their architecture from the banks of the Nile. We possess
tangible evidence of peristylar temples and Proto-Doric pillars erected
in Egypt centuries before the oldest known specimen in Greece. We need
therefore hardly hesitate to award the palm of invention of these things
to the Egyptians, as we should probably be forced to do for most of the
arts and sciences of the Greeks if we had only knowledge sufficient to
enable us to trace the connecting links which once joined them together,
but which are now in most instances lost, or at least difficult to find.
TOMBS.
Of the first 10 dynasties of Egyptian kings little now remains but their
tombs—the everlasting pyramids—and of the people they governed, only the
structures and rock-cut excavations which they prepared for their final
resting-places.
The Theban kings and their subjects erected no pyramids, and none of
their tombs are structural—all are excavated from the living rock; and
from Beni-Hasan to the Cataract the plain of the Nile is everywhere
fringed with these singular monuments, which, if taken in the aggregate,
perhaps required a greater amount of labour to excavate and to adorn
than did even all the edifices of the plain. Certain it is that there is
far more to be learnt of the arts, of the habits, and of the history of
Egypt from these tombs than from all the other monuments. No tomb of any
Theban king has yet been discovered anterior to the 18th dynasty; but
all the tombs of that and of the subsequent dynasty have been found, or
are known to exist, in the Valley of Bibán-el-Molook, on the western
side of the plain of Thebes.
It appears to have been the custom with these kings, so soon as they
ascended the throne, to begin preparing their final resting-place. The
excavation seems to have gone on uninterruptedly year by year, the
painting and adornment being finished as it progressed, till the hand of
death ended the king’s reign, and simultaneously the works of his tomb.
All was then left unfinished; the cartoon of the painter and the rough
work of the mason and plasterer were suddenly broken off, as if the hour
of the king’s demise called them, too, irrevocably from their labours.
The tomb thus became an index of the length of a king’s reign as well as
of his magnificence. Of those in the Valley of the Kings the most
splendid is that opened by Belzoni, and now known as that of Meneptah,
the builder of the hypostyle hall at Karnac. It descends, in a sloping
direction, for about 350 ft. into the mountain, the upper half of it
being tolerably regular in plan and direction; but after progressing as
far as the unfinished hall with two pillars, the direction changes, and
the works begin again on a lower level, probably because they came in
contact with some other tomb, or in consequence of meeting some flaw in
the rock. It now terminates in a large and splendid chamber with a coved
roof, in which stood, when opened by Belzoni, the rifled
sarcophagus;[58] but a drift-way has been excavated beyond this, as if
it had been intended to carry the tomb still further had the king
continued to reign.
[Illustration: 32. Plan and Section of Tomb of Meneptah at Thebes. Scale
for plan 100 ft. to 1 in.; section 50 ft. to 1 in.]
The tomb of Rameses Maiamoun, the first king of the 19th dynasty, is
more regular, and in some respects as magnificent as this, and that of
Amenhotep III. is also an excavation of great beauty, and is adorned
with paintings of the very best age. Like all the tombs, however, they
depend for their magnificence more on the paintings that cover the walls
than on anything which can strictly be called architecture, so that they
hardly come properly within the scope of the present work: the same may
be said of private tombs. Except those of Beni-Hasan, already
illustrated by Woodcuts Nos. 16 to 18, these tombs are all mere chambers
or corridors, without architectural ornament, but their walls are
covered with paintings and hieroglyphics of singular interest and
beauty. Generally speaking, it is assumed that the entrances of these
tombs were meant to be concealed and hidden from the knowledge of the
people after the king’s death. It is hardly conceivable, however, that
so much pains should have been taken, and so much money lavished, on
what was designed never again to testify to the magnificence of its
founder. It is also very unlike the sagacity of the Egyptians to attempt
what was so nearly impossible; for though the entrance of a pyramid
might be so built up as to be unrecognisable, a cutting in the rock can
never be repaired or disguised, and can only be temporarily concealed by
heaping rubbish over it. Supposing it to have been intended to conceal
the entrances, such an expedient was as clumsy and unlikely to have been
resorted to by so ingenious a people as it has proved futile, for all
the royal tombs in the valley of Bibán-el-Molook have been opened and
rifled in a past age, and their sites and numbers were matters of public
notoriety in the times of the Greeks and Romans. Many of the private
tombs have architectural façades, and certainly never were meant to be
concealed, so that it is not fair to assume that hiding their tombs’
entrances was ever a peculiarity of the Thebans, though it certainly was
of the earlier Memphite kings.
OBELISKS.
Another class of monuments, almost exclusively Egyptian, are the
obelisks, which form such striking objects in front of almost all the
old temples of the country.
Small models of obelisks are found in the tombs of the age of the
pyramid builders, and represented in their hieroglyphics; but the oldest
public monument of the class known to exist is that at Heliopolis,
erected by Osirtasen, the great king of the 12th dynasty. It is, like
all the others, a single block of beautiful red granite of Syene, cut
with all the precision of the age, tapering slightly towards the summit,
and of about the average proportion, being about 10 diameters in height;
exclusive of the top it is 67 ft. 4 in.
The two finest known to exist are, that now in the piazza of the
Lateran, originally set up by Thothmes III., 105 ft. in height, and that
still existing at Karnac, attributed to Thothmes II., 107 ft. in height.
Both are now ascribed to Queen Hatshepsu their sister, who is recorded
to have boasted that they were quarried, transported, and set up within
the short space of seven months. Those of Luxor, erected by Rameses the
Great, one of which is now in Paris, are above 77 ft. in height; and
there are two others in Rome, each above 80 ft.
Rome, indeed, has 12 of these monuments within her walls—a greater
number than exist, erect at least, in the country whence they came;
though judging from the number that are found adorning single temples,
it is difficult to calculate how many must once have existed in Egypt.
Their use seems to have been wholly that of monumental pillars,
recording the style and title of the king who erected them, his piety,
and the proof he gave of it in dedicating these monoliths to the deity
whom he especially wished to honour.
[Illustration: 33. Lateran Obelisk. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in., for
comparison with scale of other buildings.]
It has been already remarked that, with scarcely an exception, all the
pyramids are on the west side of the Nile, all the obelisks on the east;
with regard to the former class of monument, this probably arose from a
law of their existence, the western side of the Nile being in all ages
preferred for sepulture, but with regard to the latter it seems to be
accidental. Memphis doubtless possessed many monuments of this class,
and there is reason to believe that the western temples of Thebes were
also similarly adorned. They are, however, monuments easily broken; and,
from their form, so singularly useful for many building purposes, that
it is not to be wondered at if many of them have disappeared during the
centuries that have elapsed since the greater number of them were
erected.
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.
Except one small royal pavilion at Medeenet Habû, no structure now
remains in Egypt that can fairly be classed as a specimen of the
domestic architecture of the ancient Egyptians; but at the same time we
possess, in paintings and sculptures, so many illustrations of their
domestic habits, so many plans, elevations, and views, and even models
of their dwellings of every class, that we have no difficulty in forming
a correct judgment not only of the style, but of the details, of their
domestic architecture.
Although their houses exhibited nothing of the solidity and monumental
character which distinguished their temples and palaces, they seem in
their own way to have been scarcely less beautiful. They were of course
on a smaller scale, and built of more perishable materials, but they
appear to have been as carefully finished, and decorated with equal
taste to that displayed in the greater works. We know also, from the
tombs that remain to us, that, although the government of Egypt was a
despotism of the strictest class, still the wealth of the land was
pretty equally diffused among all classes, and that luxury and splendour
were by no means confined either to the royal family or within the
precincts of the palace. There is thus every reason to believe that the
cities which have passed away were worthy of the temples that adorned
them, and that the streets were as splendid and as tasteful as the
public buildings themselves, and displayed, though in a more ephemeral
form, the same wealth and power which still astonish us in the great
monuments that remain.
Mr. Maspero, in his work on Egyptian archæology, translated by Miss
Amelia B. Edwards[59] devotes a chapter to the description of the
existing remains of private dwellings and military architecture. The
examples of the former are of comparatively small buildings, and were
invariably built in crude or unburnt brick; in the neighbourhood of
Memphis Mr. Maspero found walls still standing, from 30 to 40 ft. in
height. The plans which are delineated on the walls of the tombs of the
18th dynasty enable us to judge of the extent and magnificence of the
more important examples. These as a rule would seem to have features
which are evidently derived from temple architecture, that is to say,
the palaces are preceded by pylons and the courts enclosed and
surrounded with porticoes. Of military architecture the oldest
fortresses are those at Abydos, El Kab, and Semneh; at Abydos the
earliest example consists of a parallelogram of crude brickwork
measuring 410 ft. by 223 ft. The walls, which now stand from 24 to 36
ft. high, have lost somewhat of their original height: they are about 6
ft. thick at the top and were not built in uniform layers, but in huge
vertical panels easily distinguished by the nature of the brickwork. In
one division the course of the bricks is strictly horizontal, in the
next it is slightly concave, and forms a very flat reversed arch, of
which the extrados rests on the ground. The alternation of these two
methods is regularly repeated. The object of this arrangement was
possibly to resist earthquake shocks.
[Illustration: 34. Pavilion at Medeenet Habû. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 35. View of Pavilion at Medeenet Habû.]
No building can form a greater contrast with the temple behind it than
does the little pavilion erected at Medeenet Habû by Rameses, the first
king of the 19th dynasty. As will be seen by the annexed plan (Woodcut
No. 34), it is singularly broken and varied in its outline, surrounding
a small court in the shape of a cross. It is 3 storeys in height, and,
properly speaking, consists of only 3 rooms on each floor, connected
together by long winding passages. There is reason, however, to believe
that this is only a fragment of the building, and foundations exist
which render it probable that the whole was originally a square of the
width of the front, and had other chambers, probably only in wood or
brick, besides those we now find. This would hardly detract from the
playful character of the design, and when coloured, as it originally
was, and with its battlements or ornaments complete, it must have formed
a composition as pleasing as it is unlike our usual conceptions of
Egyptian art.
The other illustration represents in the Egyptians’ own quaint style a
three-storeyed dwelling, the upper storey apparently being, like those
of the Assyrians, an open gallery supported by dwarf columns. The lower
windows are closed by shutters. In the centre is a staircase leading to
the upper storey, and on the left hand an awning supported on wooden
pillars, which seems to have been an indispensable part of all the
better class of dwellings. Generally speaking, these houses are shown as
situated in gardens laid out in a quaint, formal style, with pavilions,
and fishponds, and all the other accompaniments of gardens in the East
at the present day.
[Illustration: 36. Elevation of a House. From an Egyptian Painting.]
In all the conveniences and elegances of building they seem to have
anticipated all that has been done in those countries down to the
present day. Indeed, in all probability the ancient Egyptians surpassed
the modern in those respects as much as they did in the more important
forms of architecture.
CHAPTER V
GREEK AND ROMAN PERIOD.
CONTENTS.
Decline of art—Temples at Denderah—Kalábsheh—Philæ.
The third stage of Egyptian art is as exceptional as the two which
preceded it, and as unlike anything else which has occurred in any other
lands.
From the time of the 19th dynasty, with a slight revival under the
Bubastite kings of the 22nd dynasty, Egypt sank through a long period of
decay, till her misfortunes were consummated by the invasion of the
Persians under Cambyses, 525 B.C. From that time she served in a bondage
more destructive, if not so galling, as that of the Shepherd domination,
till relieved by the more enlightened policy of the Ptolemys. Under them
she enjoyed as great material prosperity as under her own Pharaohs; and
her architecture and her arts too revived, not, it is true, with the
greatness or the purity of the great national era, but still with much
richness and material splendour.
This was continued under the Roman domination, and, judging from what we
find in other countries, we would naturally expect to find traces of the
influence of Greek and Roman art in the buildings of this age. So
little, however, is this the case, that before the discovery of the
reading of the hieroglyphic signs, the learned of Europe placed the
Ptolemaic and Roman temples of Denderah and Kalábsheh before those of
Thebes in order of date; and could not detect a single moulding in the
architectural details, nor a single feature in the sculpture and
painting which adorned their walls, which gave them a hint of the truth.
Even Cleopatra the beautiful is represented on these walls with
distinctly Egyptian features, and in the same tight garments and
conventional forms as were used in the portrait of Nophre Ari, Queen of
Rameses, or in those of the wives of the possessors of tombs in the age
of the pyramids, 3000 years before. Egypt in fact conquered her
conquerors, and forced them to adopt her customs and her arts, and to
follow in the groove she had so long marked out for herself, and
followed with such strange pertinacity.
Some of the temples of this age are, as far as dimensions and richness
of decorations are concerned, quite worthy of the great age, though
their plans and arrangements differ to a considerable extent. There is
no longer any hesitation as to whether they should be called temples or
palaces, for they all are exclusively devoted to worship,—and to the
worship of a heavenly God, not of a deified king.
What these arrangements are will be well understood from the annexed
plan of that of Edfû (Woodcut No. 37), which, though not the largest, is
the most complete of those remaining. It is 450 ft. in length and 155 in
width, and covers upwards of 70,000 ft.; its dimensions may be said to
be equal to those of the largest of our mediæval cathedrals (Cologne or
Amiens, for instance). Parts only—viz., the court C, and areas M M M—of
the whole structure are roofed, and therefore it can scarcely be
compared with buildings entirely under one roof.
[Illustration: 37. Plan of Temple at Edfû, Apollinopolis Magna. Scale
100 ft. to 1 in.]
In front of the temple are two large and splendid pylons, with the
gateway in the centre, making up a façade 225 ft. in extent. Although
this example has lost its crowning cornice, its sculptures and ornaments
are still very perfect, and it may altogether be considered as a fair
specimen of its class, though inferior in dimensions to many of those of
the Pharaonic age. Within these is a court, 140 ft. by 161, surrounded
by a colonnade on three sides, and on the fourth side the porch or
portico which, in Ptolemaic temples, takes the place of the great
hypostyle halls of the Pharaohs. It is lighted from the front over low
screens placed between each of the pillars, a peculiarity scarcely ever
found in temples of earlier date, though apparently common in domestic
edifices, or those formed of wood, certainly as early as the middle of
the 18th dynasty, as may be seen from the annexed woodcut (No. 39),
taken from a tomb of one of the sun-worshipping kings, who reigned
between Amenhotep III. and Horus. From this we pass into an inner and
smaller porch, and again through two passages to a dark and mysterious
sanctuary, surrounded by darker passages and chambers, well calculated
to mystify and strike with awe any worshipper or neophyte who might be
admitted to their gloomy precincts.
[Illustration: 38. View of Temple at Edfû as it was, before it was
cleared out and the dwellings on the roof removed.]
The celebrated temple at Denderah is similar to this, and slightly
larger, but it has no fore-court, no propylons, and no enclosing outer
walls. Its façade is given in the woodcut (No. 40). Its Isis-headed
columns are not equal to those of Edfû in taste or grace; but it has the
advantage of situation, and this temple is not encumbered either by sand
or huts, which still disfigure so many Egyptian temples. Its effect,
consequently, on travellers is always more striking.
The Roman temple at Kalábsheh (Woodcuts Nos. 42 and 43), above the
Cataract, is a fair specimen of these temples on a smaller scale. The
section (Woodcut No. 43) shows one of the modes by which a scanty light
was introduced into the inner cells, and their gradation in height. The
position, too, of its propylons is a striking instance of the
irregularity which distinguishes all the later Egyptian styles from that
of the rigid, proportion-loving pyramid builders of Memphis.
[Illustration: 39. Bas-relief at Tel el Amarna.]
[Illustration: 40. Façade of Temple at Denderah. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
This irregularity of plan was nowhere carried to such an extent as in
the Ptolemaic temple on the island of Philæ (Woodcut No. 45). Here no
two buildings, scarcely any two walls, are on the same axis or parallel
to one another. No Gothic architect in his wildest moments ever played
so freely with his lines or dimensions, and none, it must be added, ever
produced anything so beautifully picturesque as this. It contains all
the play of light and shade, all the variety, of Gothic art, with the
massiveness and grandeur of the Egyptian style; and as it is still
tolerably entire, and retains much of its colour, there is no building
out of Thebes that gives so favourable an impression of Egyptian art as
this. It is true it is far less sublime than many, but hardly one can be
quoted as more beautiful.
Notwithstanding its irregularity, this temple has the advantage of being
nearly all of the same age, and erected according to one plan, while the
greater buildings at Thebes are often aggregations of parts of different
ages; and though each is beautiful in itself, the result is often not
quite so harmonious as might be desired. In this respect the Ptolemaic
temples certainly have the advantage, inasmuch as they are all of one
age, and all completed according to the plan on which they were
designed; a circumstance which, to some extent at least, compensates for
their marked inferiority in size and style, and the littleness of all
the ornaments and details as compared with those of the Pharaonic
period. It must at the same time be admitted that this inferiority is
more apparent in the sculpture of the Ptolemaic age than in its
architecture. The general design of the buildings is frequently grand
and imposing, but the details are always inferior; and the sculpture and
painting, which in the great age add so much to the beauty of the whole,
are in the Ptolemaic age always frittered away, ill-arranged, unmeaning,
and injurious to the general effect instead of heightening and improving
it.
[Illustration: 41. Pillar, from the Porticocat Denderah.]
[Illustration: 42. Plan of Temple at Kalábsheh. Scale 100 ft. 1 in.]
On the east side of the island is the very beautiful structure known as
“Pharaoh’s bed” (n). It is an oblong rectangular building of late date,
surrounded by an intercolumnar screen with 18 columns. It was roofed
with stone slabs supported on wooden beams, the sockets to receive which
still exist. There is a doorway on the west wall, and another on the
east wall opening on to a stone terrace or quay. Similar structures are
believed to have existed at Thebes, close to the river, and connected by
causeways with the temples; they may therefore have served as halls from
which the processions started after disembarking from the boats on the
river.
Strange as it may at first sight appear, we know less of the manners and
customs of the Egyptian people during the Greek and Roman domination,
than we do of them during the earlier dynasties. All the buildings
erected after the time of Alexander which have come down to our time are
essentially temples. Nothing that can be called a palace or pavilion has
survived, and no tombs, except some of Roman date at Alexandria, are
known to exist. We have consequently no pictures of gardens, with their
villas and fish-ponds; no farms, with their cattle; no farmyards, with
their geese and ducks; no ploughing or sowing; no representations of the
mechanical arts; no dancing or amusements; no arms or campaigns.
Nothing, in short, but worship in its most material and least
intellectual form.
[Illustration: 43. Section of Temple at Kalábsheh. 50 ft. to 1 in.]
It is a curious inversion of the usually received dogmata on this
subject, but as we read the history of Egypt as written on her
monuments, we find her first wholly occupied with the arts of peace,
agricultural and industrious, avoiding war and priestcraft, and
eminently practical in all her undertakings. In the middle period we
find her half political, half religious; sunk from her early happy
position to a state of affairs such as existed in Europe in the Middle
Ages. In her third and last stage we find her fallen under the absolute
influence of the most degrading superstition. We know from her masters
that she had no political freedom and no external influence at this
time; but we hardly expected to find her sinking deeper and deeper into
superstition, at a time when the world was advancing forward with such
rapid strides in the march of civilisation, as was the case between the
ages of Alexander and that of Constantine. It probably was in
consequence of this retrograde course that her civilisation perished so
absolutely and entirely under the influence of the rising star of
Christianity; and that, long before the Arab conquest, not a trace of it
was left in any form. What had stood the vicissitudes of 3000 years, and
was complete and stable under Hadrian, had vanished when Constantine
ascended the throne.
[Illustration: 44. View of Temple at Philæ.]
[Illustration: 45. Plan of Temple at Philæ. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
If, however, their civilisation passed so suddenly away, their buildings
remain to the present day; and taken altogether, we may perhaps safely
assert that the Egyptians were the most essentially a building people of
all those we are acquainted with, and the most generally successful in
all they attempted in this way. The Greeks, it is true, surpassed them
in refinement and beauty of detail, and in the class of sculpture with
which they ornamented their buildings, while the Gothic architects far
excelled them in constructive cleverness; but with these exceptions no
other styles can be put in competition with them. At the same time,
neither Grecian nor Gothic architects understood more perfectly all the
gradations of art, and the exact character that should be given to every
form and every detail. Whether it was the plain flat-sided pyramid, the
crowded and massive hypostyle hall, the playful pavilion, or the
luxurious dwelling—in all these the Egyptians understood perfectly both
how to make the general design express exactly what was wanted, and to
make every detail, and all the various materials, contribute to the
general effect. They understood, also, better than any other nation, how
to use sculpture in combination with architecture, and to make their
colossi and avenues of sphinxes group themselves into parts of one great
design, and at the same time to use historical paintings, fading by
insensible degrees into hieroglyphics on the one hand, and into
sculpture on the other—linking the whole together with the highest class
of phonetic utterance. With the most brilliant colouring, they thus
harmonised all these arts into one great whole, unsurpassed by anything
the world has seen during the thirty centuries of struggle and
aspiration that have elapsed since the brilliant days of the great
kingdom of the Pharaohs.
SERAPEUM AND APIS MAUSOLEUM.
The remains of the Serapeum and the burial-places of the sacred bulls
(who, when alive, were worshipped at Memphis), were discovered by M.
Mariette in 1860-61. Of the former, sufficient traces were found to show
that it resembled in its arrangement the ordinary Egyptian temple, viz.,
with pylons, preceded by an avenue of sphinxes, and an enclosed space
behind, with halls and chambers, in one of which was the opening to the
inclined passage leading to the subterranean galleries. The earlier
tombs of the 18th, 19th, and 20th dynasties were hewn in the rocky
platform. From the 22nd to the 25th dynasty the bulls were buried in a
subterranean gallery. The same system was adopted from the 26th dynasty
till the time of the later Ptolemies (_circa_ 50 B.C.), but the
galleries were of greater size and magnificence, having an extent of 400
yards, and the bulls were interred in immense granite sarcophagi placed
in niches, on both sides of the galleries, but never opposite to one
another. The chief historical value of the discovery rests in the
steles, or inscribed tablets, some 500 in number, placed there as
ex-votos by pious visitors, the principal examples of which are now in
the Gizeh Museum or in the Louvre.
CHAPTER VI.
ETHIOPIA.
CONTENTS.
Kingdom of Meroë—Pyramids.
It was long a question with the learned whether civilisation ascended or
descended the Nile—whether it was a fact, as the Greeks evidently
believed, that Meroë was the parent State whence the Egyptians had
migrated to the north, bringing with them the religion and the arts
which afterwards flourished at Thebes and Memphis—or whether these had
been elaborated in the fertile plains of Egypt, and only in later times
had extended to the Upper Nile.
Recent discoveries have rendered it nearly certain that the latter is
the correct statement of the facts—within historic times at least—that
the fertile and easily cultivated Delta was first occupied and
civilised; then Thebes, and afterwards Meroë. At the same time it is by
no means improbable that the Ethiopians were of the same stock as the
Thebans, though differing essentially from the Memphites, and that the
former may have regarded these remote kindred with respect, perhaps even
with a degree of half-superstitious reverence due to their remote
situation in the centre of a thinly-peopled continent, and have in
consequence invented those fables which the Greeks interpreted too
literally.
If any such earlier civilisation existed in these lands, its records and
its monuments have perished. No building is now found in Meroë whose
date extends beyond the time of the great king Tirhakah, of the 25th
Egyptian dynasty, B.C. 724 to 680, unless it be those bearing the name
of one king, Amoum Gori, who was connected with the intruding race of
sun-worshippers, which broke in upon the continuous succession of the
kings of the 18th dynasty. Their monuments were all purposely destroyed
by their successors; and almost the only records we have of them are the
grottoes of Tel el Amarna, covered with their sculptures, which bear, it
must be confessed, considerable resemblance in style to those found in
Ethiopia. Even this indication is too slight to be of much value; and we
must wait for some further confirmation before founding any reasoning
upon it.
The principal monuments of Tirhakah are two temples at Gibel Barkal, a
singular isolated mount near the great southern bend of the river. One
is a large first-class temple, of purely Egyptian form and design, about
500 ft. in length by 120 or 140 in width, consisting of two great
courts, with their propylons, and with internal halls and sanctuaries
arranged much like those of the Rameseum at Thebes (Woodcut No. 19), and
so nearly also on the same scale as to make it probable that the one is
a copy of the other.
The other temple placed near this, but as usual unsymmetrically,
consists of an outer hall, internally about 50 ft. by 60, the roof of
which is supported by four ranges of columns, all with capitals
representing figures of Typhon or busts of Isis. This leads to an inner
cell or sanctuary, cut in the rock.[60]
[Illustration:
46. Pyramids at Meroë. (From Hoskins’s ‘Travels in Ethiopia.’)
FIG. 1.—Plan of Principal Group. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.
FIG. 2.—Section and Elevation of that marked A. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.
]
There are smaller remains strewed about, indicating the existence of a
city on the spot, but nothing of architectural importance.
The most remarkable monuments of the Ethiopian kingdom are the pyramids,
of which three great groups have been discovered and described. The
principal group is at a place called Dankelah, the assumed site of the
ancient Meroë, in latitude 17° north. Another is at Gibel Barkal; the
third at Nourri, a few miles lower down than the last named, but
probably only another necropolis of the same city.
Compared with the great Memphite examples, these pyramids are most
insignificant in size—the largest at Nourri being only 110 ft. by 100;
at Gibel Barkal the largest is only 88 ft. square; at Meroë none exceed
60 ft. each way. They differ also in form from those of Egypt, being
much steeper, as their height is generally equal to the width of the
base. They also all possess the roll-moulding on their angles, and all
have a little porch or pronaos attached to one side, generally
ornamented with sculpture, and forming either a chapel, or more probably
the place where the coffin of the deceased was placed. We know from the
Greeks that, so far from concealing the bodies of their dead, the
Ethiopians had a manner of preserving them in some transparent
substance, which rendered them permanently visible after death.[61]
To those familiar with the rigid orientation of those of Lower Egypt,
perhaps the most striking peculiarity of the pyramids is the more than
Theban irregularity with which they were arranged, no two being ever
placed, except by accident, at the same angle to the meridian, but the
whole being grouped with the most picturesque diversity, as chance
appears to have dictated.
Among their constructive peculiarities it may be mentioned that they
seem all to have been first built in successive terraces, each less in
dimensions than that below it, something like the great pyramid at
Sakkara (Woodcut No. 9), these being afterwards smoothed over by the
external straight-lined coating.
Like the temples of Gibel Barkal, all these buildings appear to belong
to the Tirhakah epoch of the Ethiopian kingdom. It is extremely
improbable that any of them are as old as the time of Solomon, or that
any are later than the age of Cambyses, every indication seeming to
point to a date between these two great epochs, and to the connection of
African history with that of Asia.
The ruins at Wady-el-Ooatib, a little further up the Nile than Meroë,
should perhaps be also mentioned here, if only from the importance given
to them by Heeren, who thought he had discovered in them the ruins of
the temple of Jupiter Ammon. They are, however, all in the debased style
of the worst age of Ptolemaic or Roman art in that country. They are
wholly devoid of hieroglyphics, or any indication of sanctity or
importance, and there can be little doubt that they are the remains of a
caravansera on the great commercial route between Egypt and Axum, along
which the greater part of the trade of the East arrived at Alexandria in
the days of its magnificence.
Although widely differing in date from the monuments just described—
except the last—this may be the place to mention a group of the most
exceptional monuments of the world—the obelisks of Axum. It is said they
were originally 55 in number, four of them equal to that shown in the
annexed woodcut, which represents the only one now standing; but there
are fragments of several of these lying about, and some of the smaller
ones still standing, all of the same class and very similar in design to
the large one. Its height, according to Lord Valentia, is 60 ft., its
width at base nearly 10, and it is of one stone. The idea is evidently
Egyptian, but the details are Indian. It is, in fact, an Indian
nine-storeyed pagoda, translated in Egyptian in the first century of the
Christian era!
[Illustration: 47. Obelisks at Axum. (From Lord Valentia’s ‘Travels.’)]
The temple most like it in India is probably that at Budh Gya. That, in
its present form, is undoubtedly more modern, but probably retains many
of its original features. It also resembles the tower at Chittore,[62]
but towers are from their form such frail structures, that certainly
nine-tenths of those that once existed have perished; and it is only
because they are so frequent still in China and other Buddhist countries
that we are sure that the accounts are true which represent them as once
as frequent as in the country of their birth. Be this as it may, this
exceptional monolith exactly represents that curious marriage of Indian
with Egyptian art which we would expect to find in the spot where the
two people came in contact, and enlisted architecture to symbolise their
commercial union.
BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE.
INTRODUCTORY.
It is by no means impossible that the rich alluvial plain of Shinar may
have been inhabited by man as early as the Valley of the Nile; but if
this were so, it is certain that the early dwellers in the land have
left no trace of their sojourn which has as yet rewarded the research of
modern investigators. So far indeed our knowledge at present extends, we
have proof of the existence of the primitive races of mankind in the
valleys of France and England at a far earlier period than we trace
their remains on the banks of either the Euphrates or the Nile. It is
true these European vestiges of prehistoric man are not architectural,
and have consequently no place here, except in so far as they free us
from the trammels of a chronology now admitted to be too limited in
duration, but which has hitherto prevented us from grasping, as we might
have done, the significance of architectural history in its earliest
dawn.
Unfortunately for our investigation of Chaldean antiquity, the works of
Berosus, the only native historian we know of, have come down to us in
even a more fragmentary state than the lists of Manetho, and the
monuments have not yet enabled us to supply those deficiencies so
completely, though there is every prospect of their eventually doing so
to a considerable extent. In the meanwhile the most successful attempt
to restore the text which has been made, is that of Herr Gutschmid,[63]
and it is probable that the dates he assigns are very near the truth.
Rejecting the 1st dynasty of 86 Chaldeans and their 34,080 years as
mythical, or as merely expressing the belief of the historian that the
country was inhabited by a Chaldean race for a long time before the
Median invasion, he places that event 2458 B.C. His table of dynasties
then runs thus.—
Years. B.C.
II. 8 Medes 224 commencing 2458
III. 11 Chaldeans 258 2234
IV. 49 Chaldeans 458 1976
V. 9 Arabians 245 1518
VI. 45 Assyrians 526 1273
VII. 8 Assyrians 122 747
VIII. 6 Chaldeans 87 625
Persian conquest 538
As every advance that has been made, either in deciphering the
inscriptions or in exploring the ruins since this reading was proposed,
have tended to confirm its correctness, it may fairly be assumed to
represent very nearly the true chronology of the country from Nimrod to
Cyrus. Assuming this to be so, it is interesting to observe that the
conquest of Babylonia by the Medes only slightly preceded the invasion
of Egypt by the Hyksos, and that the fortification of Avaris “against
the Assyrians”[64] was synchronous with the rise of the great Chaldean
dynasty, most probably under Nimrod, B.C. 2234. If this is so, the whole
of the old civilisation of Egypt under the pyramid-building kings had
passed away before the dawn of history in Babylonia. The Theban kings of
the 12th dynasty had spread their conquests into Asia, and thus it seems
brought back the reaction of the Scythic invasion on their own hitherto
inviolate land, and by these great interminglings of the nations Asia
was first raised to a sense of her greatness.
What we learn from this table seems to be that a foreign invasion of
Medes—whoever they may have been—disturbed the hitherto peaceful tenor
of the Chaldean kingdom some twenty-five centuries before the Christian
era.
They, in their turn, were driven out to make place for the Chaldean
dynasties, which we have every reason to suppose were those founded by
Nimrod about the year 2235 B.C.
This kingdom seems to have lasted about seven centuries without any
noticeable interruption, and then to have been overthrown by an invasion
from the west about the year 1518 B.C. Can this mean the Egyptian
conquest under the kings of the great 18th dynasty?
The depression of the Chaldeans enabled the Assyrians to raise their
heads and found the great kingdom afterwards known as that of Nineveh,
about the year 1273. For six centuries and a half they were the great
people of Asia, and during the latter half of that period built all
those palaces which have so recently been disinterred.
They were struck down in their turn by the kings of Babylonia, who
established the second Chaldean kingdom about the year 625, but only to
give place to the Persians under Cyrus in the year 538, after little
more than a century of duration.
As in the Valley of the Nile, the first kingdom was established near the
mouths of the Euphrates, and flourished there for centuries before it
was superseded by the kingdom of Nineveh, in the same manner as Thebes
had succeeded to the earlier seat of power in the neighbourhood of
Memphis.
Owing to the fortunate employment of sculptured alabaster slabs to line
the walls of the palaces during the great period of Assyrian prosperity,
we are enabled to restore the plan of the royal palaces of that period
with perfect certainty, and in consequence of the still more fortunate
introduction of stone masonry during the Persian period—after they had
come into contact with the Greeks—we can understand the construction of
these buildings, and restore the form of many parts which, being
originally of wood, have perished. The Plains of Shinar possessed no
natural building material of a durable nature, and even wood or fuel of
any kind seems to have been so scarce that the architects were content
too frequently to resort to the use of bricks only dried in the sun. The
consequence is that the buildings of the early Chaldeans are now
generally shapeless masses, the plans of which it is often extremely
difficult to follow, and in no instance has any edifice been discovered
so complete that we can feel quite sure we really know all about it.
Fortunately, however, the temples at Wurka and Mugheyr become
intelligible by comparison with the Birs Nimroud and the so-called tomb
of Cyrus, and the palaces of Nineveh and Khorsabad from the
corresponding ones at Susa and Persepolis. Consequently, if we attempt
to study the architecture of Chaldea, of Assyria, or of Persia, as
separate styles, we find them so fragmentary, owing to the imperfection
of the materials in which they were carried out, that it is difficult to
understand their forms. But taken as the successive developments of one
great style, the whole becomes easily intelligible; and had the southern
excavations been conducted with a little more care, there is perhaps no
feature that would have been capable of satisfactory explanation. Even
as it is, however, the explorations of the last fifteen years have
enabled us to take a very comprehensive view of what the architecture of
the valley of the Euphrates was during the 2000 years it remained a
great independent monarchy. It is a chapter in the history of the art
which is entirely new to us, and which may lead to the most important
results in clearing our ideas as to the origin of styles. Unfortunately,
it is only in a scientific sense that this is true. Except the buildings
at Persepolis, everything is buried or heaped together in such confusion
that the passing traveller sees nothing. It is only by study and
comparison that the mind eventually realises the greatness and the
beauty of the most gorgeous of Eastern monarchies, or that any one can
be made to feel that he actually sees the sculptures which a
Sardanapalus set up, or the tablets which a Nebuchadnezzar caused to be
engraved.
Owing to the fragmentary nature of the materials, it must perhaps be
admitted that the study of the ancient architecture of Central Asia is
more difficult and less attractive than that of other countries and more
familiar forms. On the other hand, it is an immense triumph to the
philosophical student of art to have penetrated so far back towards the
root of Asiatic civilisation. It is besides as great a gain to the
student of history to have come actually into contact with the works of
kings whose names have been familiar to him as household words, but of
whose existence he had until lately no tangible proof.
In addition to this it must be admitted that the Assyrian exploration
commenced in 1843 by M. Botta, at Khorsabad, and brought to a temporary
close by the breaking out of the war in 1855, have added an entirely new
chapter to our history of architecture; and, with the exception of that
of Egypt, probably the most ancient we can ever now hope to obtain. It
does not, it is true, rival that of Egypt in antiquity, as the Pyramids
still maintain a pre-eminence of 1000 years beyond anything that has yet
been discovered in the valley of the Euphrates, and we now know,
approximately at least, what we may expect to find on the banks of that
celebrated river. There is nothing certainly in India that nearly
approaches these monuments in antiquity, nor in China or the rest of
Asia; and in Europe, whatever may be maintained regarding primæval man,
we can hardly expect to find any building of a date prior to the Trojan
war. All our histories must therefore begin with Egypt and Assyria—
beyond them all is speculation, and new fields of discovery can hardly
be hoped for.
The Assyrian discoveries are also most important in supplying data which
enable us to understand what follows, especially in the architectural
history of Greece. No one now probably doubts that the Dorian Greeks
borrowed the idea of their Doric order from the pillars of Beni-Hasan
(Woodcuts Nos. 15 and 16) or Nubia—or rather perhaps from the rubble or
brick piers of Memphis or Naucratis,[65] from which these rock-cut
examples were themselves imitated. But the origin of the Ionic element
was always a mystery. We knew indeed that the Greeks practised it
principally in Asia Minor—hence its name; but we never knew how
essentially Asiatic it was till the architecture of Nineveh was revealed
to us, and till, by studying it through the medium of the buildings at
Persepolis, we were made to feel how completely the Ionic order was a
Grecian refinement on the wooden and somewhat Barbaric orders of the
Euphrates valley.
It is equally, or perhaps almost more, important to know that in Chaldea
we are able to trace the origin of those Buddhist styles of art which
afterwards pervaded the whole of Eastern Asia, and it may be also the
germs of the architecture of Southern India.[66] These affinities,
however, have not yet been worked out, hardly even hinted at; but they
certainly will one day become most important in tracing the origin of
the religious development of the further East.
In these researches neither the literature nor the language of the
country avail us much. If the affinities are ever traced, it will be
through the architecture, and that alone; but there is every prospect of
its proving sufficient for the purpose when properly explored.
It will hardly be necessary even to allude to the decipherment of the
mysterious written characters of the Chaldeans. There is probably no one
now living, who has followed up the course of the inquiry with anything
like a proper degree of study, who has any doubt regarding the general
correctness of the interpretation of the arrow-headed inscriptions.
Singularly enough, the great difficulty is with regard to proper names,
which as a rule were not spelt phonetically, but were made up of
symbols. This is provoking, as these names afford the readiest means of
comparing the monuments with our histories; and the uncertainty as to
their pronunciation has induced many to fancy that the foundation of the
whole system is unstable. But all this is becoming daily less and less
important as the history itself is being made out from the monuments
themselves. It may also be true that, when it is attempted to translate
literally metaphysical or astrological treatises, there may still be
differences of opinion as to the true meaning of a given passage; but
plain historical narratives can be read with nearly as much certainty as
a chapter of Herodotus or of Plutarch; and every day is adding to the
facility with which they can be deciphered, and to the stock of
materials and facts with which the readings may be checked or rectified.
From the materials already collected, combined with the chronology above
sketched out, we are enabled to divide the architectural history of the
Middle Asiatic countries during the period of their ancient greatness
into three distinct and well-defined epochs.
1st. The ancient Babylonian or Chaldean period, ranging from B.C. 2234
to 1520, comprising the ruins at Wurka, Mugheyr, Abu Shahrein, Niffer,
Kaleh Sherghat, &c. Temples, tombs, and private dwellings, all typical
of a Turanian or Scythic race.
2nd. The Assyrian and second Chaldean kingdoms, founded about 1290 B.C.,
and extending down to the destruction of Babylon by Cyrus, 538 B.C.,
comprising all the buildings of Nimroud, Koyunjik, Khorsabad, and those
of the second Babylon. An architecture essentially palatial, without
tombs, and few temples, betokening the existence of a Semitic race.
3rd. The Persian, commencing with Cyrus, 538 B.C., and ending with
Alexander, B.C. 333, comprising Pasargadæ, Susa, and Persepolis. An
architecture copied from the preceding: palatial, with rock tombs and
small temples. Aryan it may be, but of so strangely mixed a character
that it is almost impossible to distinguish it from its sister styles.
Either it seems to be that Cyrus and his descendants were of Turanian
blood, governing an Aryan people, or that they were Aryan, but that
there was so strong an infusion of Turanians among their subjects that
they were forced to follow their fashions. Perhaps a little of both: but
taking the evidence as it now stands, it seems as if the first
hypothesis is that nearest the truth. These rock-cut tombs, and the
splendour of their sepulchral arrangements generally, savour strongly of
Scythic blood; and their gorgeous palaces, their love of art, the
splendour of their state and ceremonial, all point to feelings far more
prevalent among the Turanians than to anything ever found among kings or
people of an Aryan race.
None of these styles, however, are perfectly pure, or distinct one from
the other. The three races always inhabited the country as they do now.
And as at this hour the Turkish governor issues his edicts in Turkish,
Arabic, and Persian, so did Darius write the history of his reign on the
rocks at Behistun in Persian, Assyrian, and the old Scythic or Median
tongue. The same three races occupied the country then as they do now.
But each race was supreme in the order just given, and the style of each
predominated during the period of their sway, though impregnated with
the feelings and peculiarities of the other two. It is this, indeed,
which gives the architecture of the country in that age its peculiar
value to the archæologist. The three great styles of the world are here
placed in such close juxtaposition, that they can be considered as a
whole, illustrating and supplementing each other, but still sufficiently
distinct never to lose their most marked characteristics. The materials
are still, it must be confessed, somewhat scanty to make all this clear;
but every day is adding to them, and, even now, no one familiar with
architectural analysis can be mistaken in recognising the leading
features of the investigation.
CHAPTER II.
CHALDEAN TEMPLES.
CHRONOLOGY.
DATES.
Nimrod B.C. 2234 ?
Urukh. Bowariyeh, Wurka 2093
Ilgi 2070
Chedorlaomer 1976
Ismi Dagon 1850
Shamas Vul. Kaleh Sherghat 1800
Sin Shada. Wuswus? 1700
Sur Sin 1660
Purna Puryas 1600
Arab conquerors 1500 ?[67]
Already the names of fifteen or sixteen kings belonging to these old
dynasties have been recovered, and the remains of some ten or twelve
temples have been identified as founded by them; but unfortunately none
of these are in a sufficiently perfect state to afford any certainty as
to their being entirely of this age, and all are in such a state of ruin
that, making use of all the information we possess, we cannot yet
properly restore a temple of the old Chaldean epoch.
Notwithstanding this, it is a great gain to the history of architecture
to have obtained so much knowledge as we have of temples which were only
known to us before from the vague descriptions of the Greeks, and which
are the earliest forms of a type of temples found afterwards continually
cropping up in the East.
It would be contrary to all experience to suppose that a people of
Turanian origin should be without temples of some sort, but, except the
description by the Greeks of the temple or tomb of Belus, we have
nothing to guide us. We have now a fair idea what the general outline of
their temples was, and even if we cannot trace their origin, we can at
least follow their descendants. There seems now no doubt but that many,
perhaps most, of the Buddhist forms of architecture in India and further
eastward, were derived from the banks of the Euphrates. Many of the
links are still wanting; but it is something to know that the Birs
Nimroud is the type which two thousand years afterwards was copied at
Pagahn in Burmah, and Boro Buddor in Java; and that the descent from
these can easily be traced in those countries and in China to the
present day.
The principal reason why it is so difficult to form a distinct idea of
this old form of temple is, that the material most employed in their
construction was either crude, sun-dried, or very imperfectly-burnt
bricks; or when a better class of bricks was employed, as was probably
the case in Babylon, they have been quarried and used in the
construction of succeeding capitals. A good deal also is owing to the
circumstance that those who have explored them have in many cases not
been architects, or were persons not accustomed to architectural
researches, and who consequently have failed to seize the peculiarities
of the building they were exploring.
Under these circumstances, it is fortunate that the Persians did for
these temples exactly what they accomplished for the palace forms of
Assyria. They repeated in stone in Persia what had been built in the
valley of the Euphrates and Tigris with wood or with crude bricks. It
thus happens that the so-called tomb of Cyrus in Pasargadæ enables us to
verify and to supply much that is wanting in the buildings at Babylon,
and to realise much that would be otherwise indistinct in their forms.
The oldest temple we know of at present is the Bowariyeh at Wurka
(Erek), erected by Urukh, at least 2000 years B.C.; but now so utterly
ruined, that it is difficult to make out what it originally was like. It
seems, however, to have consisted of two storeys at least: the lowest
about 200 feet square, of sun-dried bricks; the upper is faced with
burnt bricks, apparently of a more modern date. The height of the two
storeys taken together is now about 100 feet, and it is nearly certain
that a third or chamber storey existed above the parts that are now
apparent.[68]
The Mugheyr Temple[69] is somewhat better preserved, but in this case it
is only the lower storey that can be considered old. The cylinders found
in the angles of the upper part belong to Nabonidus, the last king of
the later Babylonian kingdom; and the third storey only exists in
tradition. Still, from such information as we have, we gather that its
plan was originally a rectangle 198 feet by 133, with nine buttresses in
the longer and six in the shorter faces. The walls slope inwards in the
ratio of 1 in 10. Above them was a second storey 119 feet by 75, placed
as is usual nearer one end of the lower storey, so as to admit of a
staircase being added at the other. It is 47 feet distant from the
south-eastern end, and only 28 or 30 from the other; but whether the
whole of this was occupied by a flight of steps or not is by no means
clear. Taken altogether, the plan and probable appearance of the
building when complete may have been something like that represented in
Woodcuts Nos. 48 and 49, though there are too many elements of
uncertainty to make it a restoration which can altogether be depended
upon.
[Illustration: 48. Diagram of Elevation of Temple at Mugheyr. 100 ft. to
1 in.]
[Illustration: 49. Plan of Temple at Mugheyr. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
The typical example of this class of temples is the Birs Nimroud,[70]
near Babylon. It is true that as it now stands every brick bears the
stamp of Nebochadnassar, by whom it was repaired, perhaps nearly
rebuilt; but there is no reason for supposing that he changed the
original plan, or that the sacred form of these temples had altered in
the interval. It owes its more perfect preservation to the fact of the
upper storey having been vitrified, after erection, by some process we
do not quite understand. This now forms a mass of slag, which has to a
great extent protected the lower storeys from atmospheric influences.
In so far as it has been explored, the lower storey forms a perfect
square, 272 feet each way. Above this are six storeys, each 42 feet less
in horizontal dimensions. These are not placed concentrically on those
below them, but at a distance of only 12 feet from the south-eastern
edge, and consequently 30 feet from the N.W., and 21 feet from the two
other sides.
[Illustration: 50. Diagram Elevation of Birs Nimroud. Scale 100 ft. to 4
in.]
[Illustration: 51. Diagram Plan of Birs Nimroud. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
The height of the three upper storeys seems to have been ascertained
with sufficient correctness to be 15 feet each, or 45 feet together.
Unfortunately no excavation was undertaken to ascertain the height of
the lowest and most important storey. Sir Henry Rawlinson assumes it at
26; and I have ventured to make it 45, from the analogy of the tomb of
Cyrus and the temple at Mugheyr. The height of the two intermediate
storeys, instead of being 22 feet 6 inches, as we might expect, was 26,
which seems to have resulted from some adjustment due to the chambers
which ranged along their walls on two sides. The exact form and
dimensions of these chambers were not ascertained, which is very much to
be regretted, as they seem the counterpart of those which surrounded
Solomon’s Temple and the Viharas in India, and are consequently among
the most interesting peculiarities of this building.
No attempt was made to investigate the design of the upper storey,
though it does not seem that it would be difficult to do so, as
fragments of its vaulted roof are strewed about the base of the
tower-like fragment that remains, from which a restoration might be
effected by any one accustomed to such investigations.[71] What we do
know is that it was the cella or sanctuary of the temple.[72] There
probably also was a shrine on the third platform.
This temple, as we know from the decipherment of the cylinders which
were found on its angles, was dedicated to the seven planets or heavenly
spheres, and we find it consequently adorned with the colours of each.
The lower, which was also richly panelled, was black, the colour of
Saturn; the next, orange, the colour of Jupiter; the third, red,
emblematic of Mars; the fourth, yellow, belonging to the sun; the fifth
and sixth, green and blue respectively, as dedicated to Venus and
Mercury; and the upper probably white, that being the colour belonging
to the Moon, whose place in the Chaldean system would be uppermost.
Access to each of these storeys was obtained by stairs, probably
arranged as shown in the plan; these have crumbled away or been removed,
though probably traces of them might still have been found if the
explorations had been more complete.
Another temple of the same class was exhumed at Khorsabad about twenty
years ago by M. Place. It consisted, like the one at Borsippa, of seven
storeys, but, in this instance, each was placed concentrically on the
one below it: and instead of stairs on the sloping face, a ramp wound
round the tower, as we are told was the case with the temple of Belus at
Babylon. The four lower storeys are still perfect: each of them is
richly panelled and coloured as above mentioned, and in some parts even
the parapet of the ramp still remains _in situ_. The three upper storeys
are gone, but may be easily restored from those below, as was done by M.
Place, as shown in the annexed woodcut. According to him, it was an
observatory, and had no cella on its summit. If this was the case it was
a Semitic temple, and belongs to a quite different religion from that
whose temples we have been describing. But unfortunately there is no
direct evidence to determine whether it had such a chamber or not. My
own impressions on the subject are decidedly at variance with those of
M. Place, but until some bas-reliefs are discovered containing
representations of these temples and of their cells, we shall probably
hardly ever know exactly what the form of the crowning member really
was. From the imitations in modern times we seem to see dimly that it
was conical, and possibly curvilinear. The dimensions of this tower at
Khorsabad were, 150 feet square at the base and 135 high from the
pavement to the platform on its summit. Its base, however, was at a
considerable elevation above the plain, so that when seen from below it
must have been an imposing object.
[Illustration: 52. Observatory at Khorsabad, from Places ‘Ninive et
l’Assyrie.’ Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 53. Plan of Observatory, Khorsabad. Scale 100 ft. to 1
in.]
The inscriptions at Borsippa and elsewhere mention other temples of the
same class, and no doubt those of Babylon were more magnificent than any
we have yet found; but they must always have been such prominent
objects, and the materials of which they were composed so easily
removed, that it is doubtful if anything more perfect will now be found.
The Mujelibé, described by Rich, and afterwards explored without success
by Layard, is probably the base of the great temple of Belus described
by the Greeks; but even its dimensions can now hardly be ascertained, so
completely is it ruined. It seems, however, to be a parallelogram of
about 600 feet square,[73] and rising to a height of about 140 feet; but
no trace of the upper storeys exist, nor indeed anything which would
enable us to speak with certainty of the form of the basement itself. If
this is the height of the basement, however, analogy would lead us to
infer that the six storeys rose to a height of about 450 feet; and with
the ziggurah or sikra on their summit, the whole height may very well
have been the stadium mentioned by Strabo.[74]
As before mentioned, p. 158, we have fortunately in the tomb of Cyrus at
Pasargadæ (Woodcuts Nos. 84-86) a stone copy of these temples; in this
instance, however, so small that it can hardly be considered as more
than a model, but not the less instructive on that account. Like the
Birs Nimroud, the pyramid consists of six storeys: the three upper of
equal height, in this instance 23½ inches; the next two are equal to
each other, and, as in the Birs Nimroud, in the ratio of 26 to 15, or 41
inches. The basement is equal to the three upper put together, or 5 ft.
9 in., making a total of 18 ft. 4 in.[75] The height of the cella is
equal to the height of the basement, but this may be owing to the small
size of the whole edifice, it being necessary to provide a chamber of a
given dimension for the sepulchre. In the larger temples, it may be
surmised that the height was divided into four nearly equal parts; one
being given to the basement, one to the two next storeys, one to the
three upper storeys, and the fourth to the chamber on the summit.
There is one other source from which we may hope to obtain information
regarding these temples, and that is, the bas-reliefs on the walls of
the Assyrian palaces. They drew architecture, however, so badly, that it
is necessary to be very guarded in considering such representations as
more than suggestions; but the annexed woodcut (No. 54) does seem to
represent a four-storeyed temple, placed on a mound, with very tolerable
correctness, and if the upper storey had not been broken away the
drawing might have given us a valuable hint as to the form and purposes
of the cella, which was the principal object of the erection. Its
colouring, too, is gone; but the certain remains of symbolical colours
at Borsippa and Khorsabad confirm so completely the Greek accounts of
the seven-coloured walls of Ecbatana that with the other indications of
the same sort extant that branch of the inquiry may be considered as
complete.
[Illustration: 54. Representation of a Temple. (From a Bas-relief from
Koyunjik.)]
It is to be hoped that now that the thread is caught, it will be
followed up till this form of temple is thoroughly investigated; for to
the philosophical student of architectural history few recent
discoveries are of more interest. There hardly seems a doubt but that
many temples found further eastward are the direct lineal descendants of
these Babylonian forms, though we as yet can only pick up here and there
the missing links of the chain of evidence which connects the one with
the other. We know, however, that Buddhism is essentially the religion
of a Turanian people, and it has long been suspected that there was some
connection between the Magi of Central Asia and the priests of that
religion, and that some of its forms at least were elaborated in the
valley of the Euphrates. If the architectural investigation is fully
carried out, I feel convinced we shall be able to trace back to their
source many things which hitherto have been unexplained mysteries, and
to complete the history of this form of temple and of the religion to
which it belonged, from the Bowariyeh at Wurka, built 2000 years B.C.,
to the Temple of Heaven erected in the city of Pekin within the limits
of the present century.
[Illustration: 55. Elevation of a portion of the external Wall of Wuswus
at Wurka (From Loftus.)]
[Illustration: 56. Plan of portion of Wuswus.]
The only exception to the class of temple mounds found in Chaldea is the
ruin of Wuswus, at Wurka,[76] which seems to partake of the character of
a palace. Whether it is or not is by no means clear, as the interior is
too much ruined for its plan to be traced with certainty, and its date
cannot be fixed from any internal evidence. Some of the bricks used in
its construction bear the name of Sin Shada 1700 B.C., but it is
suspected they may have been brought from an older edifice. The same
sort of panelling was used by Sargon at Khorsabad 1000 years after the
assumed date; and panelling very like it is used even in the age of the
Pyramids (Woodcuts Nos. 11 and 12), 1000 years at least before that
time. With more knowledge we may recognise minor features which may
enable us to discriminate more exactly, but at present we only know that
this class of panelling was used for the adornment of external walls
from the earliest ages down at least to the destruction of Babylon. It
was probably used with well-marked characteristics in progression of
style; but these we have yet to ascertain. Externally the Wuswus is a
parallelogram 256 ft. by 173. Like almost every building in the
Euphrates valley in those ancient times, instead of the sides facing the
cardinal points of the compass, as was the case in Egypt in the Pyramid
age, the angles point towards them. In this case the entrance is in the
north-east face. The centre apparently was occupied by a court; and
opposite the entrance were two larger and several smaller apartments,
the larger being 57 ft. by 30. The great interest of the building lies
in the mode in which the external walls were ornamented (Woodcuts Nos.
56 and 57). These were plastered and covered by an elaborate series of
reedings and square sinkings, forming a beautiful and very appropriate
mode of adorning the wall of a building that had no external openings.
[Illustration: 57. Elevation of Wall at Wurka (From the Report of the
Assyrian Excavation Fund.)]
This system is carried still further in a fragment of a wall in the same
city, but of uncertain date. In this instance these reedings—there are
no panels in the smaller fragment—and the plain surfaces are ornamented
by an elaborate mosaic of small cones about 3 or 3½ in. long. The butt
or thicker end of these is dipped in colour, and they are then built up
into patterns as shown in the woodcut No. 58. It is probable that the
walls of the Wuswus were adorned with similar patterns in colours, but
being executed in less durable materials, have perished. Indeed, from
the accounts which we have, as well as from the remains, we are
justified in asserting that this style of architecture depended for its
effect on colour as much, at least, if not more, than on form. Could
colour be made as permanent this might frequently be wise, but too great
dependence on it has deprived us of half the knowledge we might
otherwise possess of the architectural effects of other times.
CHAPTER III.
ASSYRIAN PALACES.
CHRONOLOGY.
DATES.
Shalmaneser I. founded Nimroud B.C. 1290
Tiglathi Nin, his son (Ninus?) 1270
Tiglath Pileser 1150
Asshur-bani-pal (north-west palace, Nimroud) 886
Shalmaneser II. (central palace, do.) 859
Shamas Iva 822
Iva Lush IV 810
Interregnum.
Tiglath Pileser II. (south-eastern palace, Nimroud) 744
Shalmaneser IV 726
Sargon (palace, Khorsabad) 721
Sennacherib (palace, Koyunjik) 704
Esarhaddon (south-western palace, Nimroud) 680
Sardanapalus (central palace, Koyunjik) 667
Destruction of Nineveh 625
All the knowledge which we in reality possess regarding the ancient
palatial architecture of the Euphrates valley[77] is derived from the
exploration of the palaces erected by the great Assyrian dynasty of
Nineveh during the two centuries and a half of its greatest prosperity.
Fortunately it is a period regarding the chronology of which there is no
doubt, since the discovery of the Assyrian Canon by Sir Henry
Rawlinson,[78] extending up to the year 900 B.C.: this, combined with
Ptolemy’s Canon, fixes the date of every king’s reign with almost
absolute certainty. It is also a period regarding which we feel more
real interest than almost any other in the history of Asia. Almost all
the kings of that dynasty carried their conquering arms into Syria, and
their names are familiar to us as household words, from the record of
their wars in the Bible. It is singularly interesting not only to find
these records so completely confirmed, but to be able to study the
actual works of these very kings, and to analyse their feelings and
aspirations from the pictures of their actions and pursuits which they
have left on the walls of their palaces.
From the accounts left us by the Greeks we are led to suppose that the
palaces of Babylon were superior in beauty and magnificence to those of
Nineveh; and, judging from the extent and size of the mounds still
remaining there, it is quite possible that such may have been the case;
but they are so completely ruined, and have been so long used as
quarries, that it is impossible to restore, even in imagination, these
now formless masses.
One thing seems nearly certain, which is, that no stone was used in
their construction. If, consequently, their portals were adorned with
winged bulls or lions, they must have been in stucco. If their walls
were covered with scenes of war or the chase, as those of Nineveh, they
must have been painted on plaster; so that, though their dimensions may
have been most imposing and their splendour dazzling, they must have
wanted the solidity and permanent character so essential to true
architectural effect.
It is the employment of stone which alone has enabled us to understand
the arrangements of the Assyrian palaces. Had not their portals been
marked by their colossal genii, we should hardly have known where to
look for them; and if the walls of their apartments had not been
wainscoted with alabaster slabs, we should never have been able to trace
their form with anything like certainty. Practically, all we know of
Assyrian art is due to the fact of their having so suitable a material
as alabaster close at hand, and to the skill with which they knew how to
employ it. Had their walls only been plastered, the mounds of Khorsabad
and Nimroud would have remained as mysterious now as they were before
Layard and Botta revealed to us their splendours.
NINEVEH.
Notwithstanding the wonderful results that were achieved in the ten or
twelve years during which the Assyrian explorations were pursued with
activity, it is by no means impossible but that much more still remains
to reward an energetic and skilful research in these mounds. Still,
seven palaces have been more or less perfectly exhumed; four at Nimroud,
two at Koyunjik, and one at Khorsabad. Among these we have the palaces
of Sennacherib and Sardanapalus, of Esarhaddon, Sargon, Shalmaneser, and
probably of Tiglath Pileser. Consequently the palaces of all the great
kings, whose names are so familiar to us, are laid bare. Beyond these,
the palace of Asshur-bani-pal worthily commences the series before the
kings of Assyria came into contact with the inhabitants of Syria, and
consequently before their Biblical record begins. It may be that other
works of the same kings may be discovered, or the buildings of some less
celebrated monarch, but if we do not know all that is to be known, we
may rest assured that we already have acquired the greater part of the
knowledge that is to be obtained from these explorations.
NIMROUD.
[Illustration: 58. North-West Palace at. Nimroud.[79] Scale 100 ft. to 1
in.]
The oldest of the buildings hitherto excavated in Assyria is the
North-West Palace at Nimroud, built by Asshur-bani-pal, about the year
884 B.C. Though not the largest, it more than makes up for this
deficiency by the beauty of its sculptures and the general elegance of
its ornaments. As will be seen by the annexed woodcut (No. 58), the
excavated portion of the palace is nearly a square, about 330 ft. each
way. The principal entrance was on the north, at the head of a noble
flight of steps leading from the river to the level of the terrace on
which the palace stood. From this, two entrances, adorned with winged
bulls, led to a great hall, 152 ft. in length by 32 in width, at the
upper end of which was situated the throne, and at the lower a smaller
apartment or vestibule opened on the terrace that overlooked the river.
Within the great hall was one of smaller dimensions, opening into the
central court of the palace, the entrance of which was so arranged as to
ensure privacy, proving that it partook of the nature of the private
apartment or hareem of the palace. To the eastward of this was a suite
of apartments, three deep, decreasing in width as they receded from the
light, but so arranged that the inner apartments must have been entirely
dark had the walls been carried to the ceiling. As will, however, be
presently explained in describing Khorsabad, it is more than probable
that the walls extended to only half the height of the rooms, and formed
terraces with dwarf pillars on their summits, between which light was
introduced, and they in fact formed the upper storey of the building. To
the south was a double suite, apparently the banqueting halls of the
palace; and to the westward a fourth suite, more ruined, however, than
the rest, owing to its being situated so near the edge of the terrace.
As far as can be made out, the rooms on this face seem to have been
arranged three deep: the outer opening on the terrace by three portals,
the central one of which had winged bulls, but the lateral seem to have
been without these ornaments; the whole façade being about 330 ft. in
extent, north and south.
[Illustration: 59. Plan of Palace at Khorsabad, showing the excavations
as they were left by M. Botta. No scale.]
All these apartments were lined with sculptured slabs, representing
mostly either the regal state of the sovereign, his prowess in war, or
amusements during peace, but many of them were wholly devoted to
religious subjects. Beyond these apartments were many others, covering
at least an equal extent of ground, but their walls having been only
plastered and painted, the sun-burnt bricks of which they were built
have crumbled again to their original mud. It is evident, however, that
they were inferior to those already described, both in form and size,
and applied to inferior purposes.
The mound at Nimroud was so much extended after this palace was built,
and so covered by subsequent buildings, that it is now impossible to
ascertain either the extent or form of this, which is the only palace of
the older dynasty known. It will therefore perhaps be as well to turn at
once to Khorsabad, which, being built wholly by one king, and not
altered afterwards, will give a clearer idea of the position and
arrangements of an Assyrian palace than we can obtain from any one on
the Nimroud mound. It has besides this the advantage of being the only
one so complete and so completely excavated as to enable us to form a
correct idea of what an Assyrian palace really was and of all its
arrangements.
KHORSABAD.[80]
The city of Khorsabad was situated about fifteen miles from Nineveh, in
a northerly direction, and was nearly square in plan, measuring about an
English mile each way. Nearly in the centre of the north-western wall
was a gap, in which was situated the mound on which the palace stood. It
seems to have been a peculiarity common to all Assyrian palaces to be so
situated. Their builders wisely objected to being surrounded on all
sides by houses and walls, and at the same time sought the protection of
a walled enclosure to cover the gateways and entrances to their palaces.
At Koyunjik and Nimroud the outer face of the palace was covered and
protected by the river Tigris; and here the small brook Kausser flows
past the fort, and, though now an insignificant stream, it is by no
means improbable that it was dammed up so as to form a lake in front of
the palace when inhabited. This piece of water may have been further
deepened by excavating from it the earth necessary to raise the mound on
which the palace stood.
[Illustration: 60. Terrace wall at Khorsabad.]
That part of the mound in this instance which projected between the
walls was a square of about 650 ft. each way, raised about 30 ft. above
the level of the plain, and protected on every side by a supporting wall
cased with stone of very beautiful masonry (Woodcut No. 60). Behind
this, and inside the city, was a somewhat lower mound, about 300 ft. in
width and 1300 or 1400 ft. in length, on which were situated the great
portals of the palace, together with the stables and offices, and,
outside the walls of the palace properly so called, the hareem.
All the principal apartments of the palace properly so called were
revêted with sculptural slabs of alabaster, generally about 9 ft. in
height, like those at Nimroud; these either represent the wars or the
peaceful amusements of King Sargon, commemorate his magnificence, or
express his religious feelings.
The great portals that gave access to the palace of Khorsabad from the
city were among the most magnificent of those yet discovered. The façade
in which they stood presented a frontage of 330 ft., in which were three
portals; the central one flanked by great human-headed bulls 19 ft. in
height, and on each side two other bulls 15 ft. high, with a giant
strangling a lion between them, as shown in the woodcut (No. 62),
representing what still remained of them when uncovered by M. Botta, and
now forming one of the principal ornaments of the British Museum. These
portals were reached from the city by a flight of steps, now entirely
destroyed, but which there can be little difficulty in restoring from
what we find at Persepolis and elsewhere.
[Illustration: 61. Plan of Palace at Khorsabad, as completely excavated
by M. Place. The parts tinted were actually found. Those in outline are
conjectural.]
These portals led to the great outer court of the palace, measuring 315
ft. by 280 between the buttresses with which it was adorned all round.
On the right hand were six or seven smaller courts surrounded by the
stables and outhouses of the palace, which were approached by a ramp on
the outside, at the head of which was a block of buildings containing
the cellarage, and generally the stores of eatables. On the left hand of
this court were the metal stores, each room having been appropriated to
iron, copper, or other such materials, and behind them, outside the
palace, was the hareem.[81]
In the northern angle, a rather insignificant passage formed a means of
communication between this great outer court and the next, which was 360
ft. long by 200 wide, and probably open to the country, at least in
front of the great portals. On the inner side of this second court a
magnificent portal opened into what appears to have been the residential
portion of the palace, measuring nearly 300 by 500 ft. over all.
[Illustration: 62. Existing Remains of Propylæa at Khorsabad.]
The proper entrance to this court was by the ramp before alluded to,
which was indeed the only access to the palace for chariots and
horsemen. From the second court, through the only vaulted passage in the
palace, access was obtained to the state apartments looking over the
country. The three principal of these are shown to a larger scale in the
woodcut (No. 63), with their dimensions figured upon them. The next
woodcut (No. 64) is a restored section of these apartments, showing what
their arrangement was, and the mode in which it is conceived they were
roofed, according to the information gathered on the spot, and what we
find afterwards practised at Persepolis and elsewhere.[82]
[Illustration: 63. Enlarged Plan of the Three Principal Rooms at
Khorsabad. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
It will be observed that the area covered by the walls is of nearly the
same extent as that of the rooms themselves, so that the galleries
formed in fact an upper storey to the palace; and thus, in the heat of
the day, the thickness of the walls kept the inner apartments free from
heat and glare, while in the evenings and mornings the galleries formed
airy and light apartments, affording a view over the country, and open
on every side to the breezes that at times blow so refreshingly over the
plains. It will also be observed that by this arrangement the direct
rays of the sun could never penetrate into the halls themselves, and
that rain, or even damp, could easily be excluded by means of curtains
or screens.
[Illustration: 64. Restored Section of Principal Rooms at Khorsabad. 152
ft.]
[Illustration: 65. Restoration of Northern Angle of Palace Court,
Khorsabad. (From a Drawing by the Author.)]
The whole of these state-rooms were revêted with sculptured alabaster
slabs, as shown in the section; above which the walls were decorated
with conventional designs painted on stucco, remains of which were found
among the débris.
The external face of this suite, as seen from the north-eastern court,
was probably something very like what is shown in the woodcut (No. 66),
though there are less materials for restoring the exterior than there
are for the internal parts of the palace. The arched entrance to the
court, shown on the left, is certain: so also, I conceive, is the mode
in which the light was introduced into the apartments. The details of
the pillars are not so certain, though not admitting of much latitude of
doubt.
As before mentioned, outside the palace stood the hareem, of a somewhat
irregular form, but measuring 400 ft. by 280, (on left of plan, woodcut
No. 61). The whole of its external walls are adorned with reeded
pilasters and panels like those of the Wuswus at Wurka (Woodcut No. 61),
which is not the case with any other part of the palace. It has only one
small external opening from the terrace, and another, which may be
called a concealed one, from the great outer court. Internally its
arrangements are very remarkable. First there is an outer court into
which these two entrances open, and within that two other courts, on
whose side are extended what may be called three complete suites of
apartments, very similar to each other in arrangement, though varied in
dimensions. It looks as if each was appropriated to a queen, and that
their relative magnificence accorded with the dignity of the person to
whom it was assigned. But are we justified in assuming that Sargon had
three queens, and only that number of legitimate wives? Assuming this,
however, there is still room in this hareem for any number of concubines
and their attendants.
The central court of the hareem is one of the richest discoveries that
rewarded M. Place’s industry. It was adorned with six free-standing
statues—the smaller court with two—and the walls were wainscoted with
enamelled tile representing the king, his vizier, lions, eagles, vines
and fruits, and other objects in a bright yellow colour on a blue
ground. The whole is, in fact, one of the most curious and interesting
discoveries yet made in these palaces.
As it can hardly admit of a doubt that this was really the hareem of the
palace, it is curious that such a building as the observatory described
above (p. 162), should have been erected in its immediate proximity.
Every one ascending the ramp or standing on its summit must have looked
into its courts, unless they were covered with awnings or roofs in some
manner we do not quite understand; and we can hardly assume that such a
tower was intended as the praying place of the king and the king only.
The fact is undoubted, however we may explain it.
[Illustration: 66. City Gateways, Khorsabad. (From M. Place.)]
From the above description it will be observed that in every case the
principal part, the great mass, of the palace was the terrace on which
it stood, which was raised by artificial means to a height of 30 ft. and
more, and, as shown in the illustration (Woodcut No. 60), carefully
revêted with stone. On this stood the palace, consisting principally of
one great block of private apartments situated around an inner square
court. From this central mass two or three suites of apartments
projected as wings, so arranged as to be open to the air on three sides,
and to give great variety to the outline of the palace as seen from
below, and great play of light and shade in every aspect under which the
building could be surveyed. So far also as we can judge, the whole
arrangements were admirably adapted to the climate, and the ornaments
not only elegant in themselves, but singularly expressive and
appropriate to the situations in which they are found.
Another most important discovery of M. Place is that of the great arched
gates of the city. These were apparently always constructed in pairs—one
for the use of foot-passengers, the other for wheeled carriages, as
shown by the marks of wheels worn into the pavement in the one case,
while it is perfectly smooth in the other.
Those appropriated to carriages had plain jambs rising perpendicularly
12 or 15 ft. These supported a semicircular arch, 18 ft. in diameter,
adorned on its face with an archivolt of great beauty, formed of blue
enamelled bricks, with a pattern of figures and stars of a warm yellow
colour, relieved upon it.
[Illustration: 67. City Gateway at Khorsabad. (From M. Place.)]
The gateways for foot-passengers were nearly of the same dimensions,
about 14 or 15 ft. broad, but they were ornamented by winged bulls with
human heads, between which stood giants strangling lions. In the example
illustrated in the annexed woodcut (No. 67), the arch sprang directly
from the backs of the bulls, and was ornamented by an archivolt similar
to that over the carriage entrances, and which is perhaps as beautiful a
mode of ornamenting an arch as is to be found anywhere.
Other arches have been found in these Assyrian excavations, but none of
such extent as these, and none which show more completely how well the
Assyrians in the time of Sargon (721 B.C.) understood not only the
construction of the arch, but also its use as a decorative architectural
feature.[83]
[Illustration: 68. Interior of a Yezidi House at Bukra, in the Sinjar.]
There must always be many points, even in royal residences, which would
be more easily understood if we knew the domestic manners and usages
prevalent among the common people of the same era and country. This
knowledge we actually can supply in the present case, to a great extent,
from modern Eastern residences. Such a mode of illustration in the West
would be out of the question; but in the East, manners and customs,
processes of manufacture and forms of building, have existed unchanged
from the earliest times to the present day. This immutability is the
greatest charm of the East, and frequently enables us to understand what
in our own land would have utterly faded away and been obliterated. In
the Yezidi house, for instance, borrowed from Mr. Layard’s work, we see
an exact reproduction, in every essential respect, of the style of
building in the days of Sennacherib. Here we have the wooden pillars
with bracket capitals, supporting a mass of timber intended to be
covered with a thickness of earth sufficient to prevent the rain or heat
from penetrating to the dwelling. There is no reason to doubt that the
houses of the humbler classes were in former times similar to that here
represented; and this very form amplified into a palace, and the walls
and pillars ornamented and carved, would exactly correspond with the
principal features of the palace of the great Assyrian king.
PALACE OF SENNACHERIB, KOYUNJIK.
Having said so much of Khorsabad, it will not be necessary to say much
about the palace at Koyunjik, built by Sennacherib, the son of the
Khorsabad king.
As the great metropolitan palace of Nineveh, it was of course of far
greater extent and far more magnificent than the suburban palace of his
father. The mound itself on which it stands is about 1½ mile in
circumference (7800 ft.); and, as the whole was raised artificially to
the height of not less than 30 ft., it is in itself a work of no mean
magnitude.
The principal palace stood at the south-western angle of this mound, and
as far as the excavation has been carried seems to have formed a square
of about 600 ft. each way—double the lineal dimensions of that at
Nimroud. Its general arrangements were very similar to those at
Khorsabad, but on a larger scale. It enclosed within itself two or three
great internal courts, surrounded with sixty or seventy apartments, some
of great extent. The principal façade, facing the east, surpassed any of
those of Khorsabad, both in size and magnificence, being adorned by ten
winged bulls of the largest dimensions, with a giant between each of the
two principal external ones, in the manner shown in the woodcut (No.
62), besides smaller sculptures—the whole extending to a length of not
less than 350 ft. The principal façade at Khorsabad, as above mentioned,
extended 330 ft., but the bulls and the portals there were to those at
Koyunjik in the proportion of 30 to 40, which nearly indeed expresses
the relative magnificence of the two palaces. Inside the great portal at
Koyunjik was a hall, 180 ft. in length by 42 in width, with a recess at
each end, through which access was obtained to two courtyards, one on
the right and one on the left; and beyond these to the other and
apparently the more private apartments of the palace, which overlooked
the country and the river Tigris, flowing to the westward of the palace—
the principal entrance, as at Khorsabad, being from the city.[84]
It is impossible, of course, to say how much further the palace
extended, though it is probable that nearly all the apartments which
were revêted with sculptures have been laid open; but what has been
excavated occupies so small a portion of the mound that it is impossible
to be unimpressed with the conviction that it forms but a very small
fraction of the imperial palace of Nineveh. Judging even from what has
as yet been uncovered, it is, of all the buildings of antiquity, alone
surpassed in magnitude by the great palace-temple at Karnac; and when we
consider the vastness of the mound on which it was raised, and the
richness of the ornaments with which it was adorned, a doubt arises
whether it was not as great, or at least as expensive, a work as the
great palace-temples of Thebes. The latter, however, were built with far
higher motives, and designed to last through ages, while the palace at
Nineveh was built only to gratify the barbaric pride of a wealthy and
sensual monarch, and perished with the ephemeral dynasty to which he
belonged.
PALACE OF ESARHADDON.
Another Assyrian palace, of which considerable remains still exist, is
that of Esarhaddon, commonly known as the South-west Palace at Nimroud.
Like the others, this too has been destroyed by fire, and the only part
that remains sufficiently entire to be described is the entrance or
southern hall. Its general dimensions are 165 ft. in length by 62 ft. in
width, and it consequently is the largest hall yet found in Assyria. The
architects, however, either from constructive necessities or for
purposes of state, divided it down the centre by a wall supporting dwarf
columns,[85] forming a central gallery, to which access was had by
bridge galleries at both ends, a mode of arrangement capable of great
variety and picturesqueness of effect, and of which there is little
doubt that the builders availed themselves to the fullest extent. This
led into a courtyard of considerable dimensions, surrounded by
apartments, but they are all too much destroyed by fire to be
intelligible.
[Illustration: 69. Hall of South-West Palace. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
Another great palace, built, as appears from the inscriptions, by a son
of Esarhaddon, has been discovered nearly in the centre of the mound at
Koyunjik. Its terrace-wall has been explored for nearly 300 ft. in two
directions from the angle near which the principal entrance is placed.
This is on a level 20 ft. lower than the palace itself, which is reached
by an inclined passage nearly 200 ft. in length, adorned with sculpture
on both sides. The palace itself, as far as its exploration has been
carried, appears similar in its arrangements to those already described;
but the sculptures with which it is adorned are more minute and
delicate, and show a more perfect imitation of nature, than the earlier
examples, though inferior to them in grandeur of conception and breadth
of design.
[Illustration: 70. Central Palace, Koyunjik. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
The architectural details also display a degree of elegance and an
amount of elaborate finish not usually found in the earlier examples, as
is well illustrated by the Woodcut No. 71, representing one of the
pavement slabs of the palace. It is of the same design, and similarly
ornamented, but the finish is better, and the execution more elaborate,
than in any of the more ancient examples we are acquainted with.
Besides these, there were on the mound at Nimroud a central palace built
by Tiglath Pileser, and one at the south-eastern angle of the mound,
built by a grandson of Esarhaddon; but both are too much ruined for its
being feasible to trace either their form or extent. Around the great
pyramid, at the north-west angle of the mound, were buildings more
resembling temples than any others on it—all the sculptures upon them
pointing apparently to devotional purposes, though in form they differed
but little from the palaces. At the same time there is certainly nothing
in them to indicate that the mound at the base of which they were
situated was appropriated to the dead, or to funereal purposes. Between
the north-west and south-west palaces there was also raised a terrace
higher than the rest, on which were situated some chambers, the use of
which it is not easy to determine.
[Illustration: 71. Pavement Slab from the Central Palace, Koyunjik.]
Notwithstanding the impossibility that now exists of making out all the
details of the buildings situated on the great mounds of Nimroud and
Koyunjik, it is evident that these great groups of buildings must have
ranked among the most splendid monuments of antiquity, surrounded as
they were by stone-faced terraces, and approached on every side by noble
flights of stairs. When all the palaces with their towers and temples
were seen gay with colour, and crowded with all the state and splendour
of an Eastern monarch, they must have formed a scene of such dazzling
magnificence that one can easily comprehend how the inhabitants of the
little cities of Greece or Judea were betrayed into such extravagant
hyperbole when speaking of the size and splendour of the great cities of
Assyria.
[Illustration: 72. Pavilion, from the Sculptures at Khorsabad.]
The worst feature of all this splendour was its ephemeral character—
though perhaps it is owing to this very fact that we now know so much
about it—for, like the reed that bends to the storm and recovers its
elasticity, while the oak is snapped by its violence, these relics of a
past age have retained to some extent their pristine beauty. Had these
buildings been constructed like those of the Egyptians, their remains
would probably have been applied to other purposes long ago; but having
been overwhelmed so early and forgotten, they have been preserved to our
day; nor is it difficult to see how this has occurred. The pillars that
supported the roof being of wood, probably of cedar, and the beams on
the under side of the roof being of the same material, nothing was
easier than to set fire to them. The fall of the roofs, which were
probably composed, as at the present day, of five or six feet of earth,
and which is requisite to keep out heat as well as wet, would alone
suffice to bury the building up to the height of the sculptures. The
gradual crumbling of the thick walls consequent on their unprotected
exposure to the atmosphere would add three or four feet to this: so that
it is hardly too much to suppose that green grass might have been
growing over the buried palaces of Nineveh before two or three years had
elapsed from the time of their destruction and desertion. When once this
had taken place, the mounds afforded far too tempting positions not to
be speedily occupied by the villages of the natives; and a few centuries
of mud-hut building would complete the process of entombment so
completely as to protect the hidden remains perfectly for the centuries
during which they have lain buried. These have now been recovered to
such an extent as enables us to restore their form almost as certainly
as we can those of the temples of Greece or Rome, or of any of the great
nations of antiquity.
[Illustration: 73. Assyrian Temple, North Palace, Koyunjik. (From
Rawlinson.)]
[Illustration: 74. Bas-relief, representing façade of Assyrian Palace.
(From British Museum.)]
It is by no means improbable that at some future period we may be able
to restore much that is now unintelligible, from the representations of
buildings on the sculptures, and to complete our account of their style
of architecture from illustrations drawn by the Assyrians themselves.
One or two of these have already been published. The annexed woodcut,
for instance (No. 72), of a bas-relief representing a little
fishing-pavilion on the water’s edge, exhibits in a rude manner all the
parts of an Assyrian order with its entablature, and the capital only
requires to be slightly elongated to make it similar to those found at
Persepolis.
Another from the North Palace, Koyunjik, repeats the same arrangement,
with pillars which must be considered as early examples of the
Corinthian order, and, if we may trust the drawing, it likewise
represents an aqueduct with horizontally constructed arches of pointed
form.
A third representation (No. 74) from the same palace seems intended to
portray a complete palace façade, with its winged bulls in the entrance
and its colossal lions on the front. Above these animals, but not
apparently meant to be represented as resting on them, are pillars in
antis, as in the two previous illustrations.[86] Unfortunately the
cornice is broken away, and the whole is more carelessly executed than
is usual in these sculptures.
[Illustration: 75. Exterior of a Palace, from a Bas-relief at Koyunjik.]
Another curious representation (Woodcut No. 75) is that of a palace of
two storeys, from a bas-relief at Koyunjik, showing a range of openings
under the roof in both storeys, each opening being divided into three
parts by two Ionic columns between square piers, and are probably meant
to represent such an arrangement as that shown in Woodcuts Nos. 72 and
73. On the right the upper storey is a correct representation of the
panelled style of ornamentation above alluded to as recently discovered
at Khorsabad and elsewhere, and which we know from recent discoveries to
have been so favourite a mode of decorating walls in that age.
The most remarkable fact, however, that we gather from all these
illustrations is, that the favourite arrangement was a group of pillars
“distyle in antis,” as it is technically termed, viz., two circular
pillars between two square piers. It is frequently found elsewhere in
the façade of tombs, but here it seems to have been repeated over and
over again to make up a complete design. For a temple such an
arrangement would have been inadmissible: for a palace it seems
singularly appropriate and elegant.
[Illustration: 76. King’s Tent. (From Bas-relief, British Museum.)]
Further comparisons will no doubt do much to complete the subject; and
when the names written over these bas-reliefs are definitively
deciphered, we may find that we really possess contemporary
representations, if not of Jerusalem, at least of Lachish, of Susa, and
other cities familiar to us both from ancient and from modern history.
[Illustration: 77. Horse-Tent (Nimroud).]
We have no representation of the dwellings of private individuals so
complete as to enable us to understand them, but there are several of
royal camps which are interesting. Among the most curious of these are
the representations of the tents of the king and his nobles. One of
these is shown in Woodcut No. 76, though how it was constructed is by no
means clear. It seems to have been open in the centre to the air, but
covered at either end by a sort of hood so arranged as to catch the
passing breeze, and afford protection from rain at the same time. The
annexed woodcut (No. 77), representing the front and one side of the
royal horse-tent, gives a good idea of the luxury and elegance that was
carried into the detail even of subordinate structures.
TEMPLES AND TOMBS.
Except the Chaldean-formed temples, which have been described in the
previous chapter, there are no religious edifices sufficiently complete
to enable us to form a distinct idea of what the architectural
arrangements of these temples were. As belonging to a Semitic people we
should expect them to be few and insignificant.
So little remains of the temple at Khorsabad, that it is difficult to
say what its original form may have been; the terrace, however, which
supported it is interesting, as it shows almost the only instance of a
perfect Assyrian moulding or cornice betraying a similarity to the forms
of Egyptian architecture which we do not find elsewhere. The curve,
however, is not exactly that of an Egyptian cornice, being continued
beyond the vertical tangent; but this may have arisen from the terrace
being only six feet in height, which placed the curve below the line of
sight, and so required a different treatment from one placed so high
above it as is usually the case in Egypt.
[Illustration: 78. Elevation of Stylobate of temple.]
[Illustration: 79. Section of Stylobate of Temple.]
The bas-relief on the next page is perhaps the best sculptured
representation that exists of what we might fancy an Assyrian temple to
have been. The emblem so enshrined is probably the Asheerah, or grove,
to the worship of which the Israelites at all times showed such a
tendency to relapse, and is one of the most frequent objects of
adoration among the Assyrians.
As a Semitic people we should hardly expect to find any tombs among
them, and indeed, unless the pyramid at the north-west angle of the
Nimroud mound is the tomb of Sardanapalus, mentioned by the Greeks,[87]
it is not clear that a single Assyrian sepulchre has yet been
discovered. Those that crowd and choke the ruins of Wurka and Mugheyr
and other cities of Babylonia are the remains of a Turanian people who
always respected their dead, and paid especial attention to the
preservation of their bodies. The pyramid at Nimroud seems to have been
explored with sufficient care to enable us to affirm that no stairs or
inclined plane led to its summit, and without these it certainly was not
one of those observatory temples before alluded to. Still, it is so
singular to have one monument, and one only, of its class, that it is
difficult to form a satisfactory opinion on the subject.
It stands at the north-west angle of the mound, and measures 167 ft.
each way; its base, 30 ft. in height, is composed of beautiful stone
masonry, ornamented by buttresses and offsets, above which the wall was
continued perpendicularly in brickwork. In the centre of the building,
and on the level of the base or terrace, a long vaulted gallery or
tunnel was discovered, but it contained no clue to the destination of
the building.
[Illustration: 80. Sacred Symbolic Tree of the Assyrians. (From Lord
Aberdeen’s Black Stone.)]
[Illustration: 81. Obelisk of Divanubara. (From Layard’s ‘Nineveh.’)]
The whole now rises to a height of about 120 ft. from the plain, and is
composed of sun-dried bricks, with courses of kiln-burnt bricks between
them, at certain intervals towards the summit, which render it probable
that it originally was not a pyramid in the usual sense of the term, but
a square tower, rising in three or four storeys, each less than the
lower one, as in the traditional temple of Belus at Babylon, or like the
summit of the obelisk represented in the woodcut (No. 81), which most
probably is a monolithic reproduction of such a sepulchral tower as
this, rather than an obelisk like those of Egypt.
Other obelisks have since been discovered, some of which look even more
like miniature models of structural buildings than this one does.
Till further information is obtained, it will hardly be possible to say
much that is satisfactory with regard to either the tombs, temples, or
minor antiquities of the Assyrian people. Their architecture was
essentially Palatial—as that of the Greeks was Templar—and to that alone
our remarks might almost be confined. Fortunately, however, sculpture
was another art to which they were specially addicted, and to their
passion for this we owe most of our knowledge of their manners and
customs. To this art also we are indebted for our ability to restore
many details of their palaces and buildings, which without its aid would
have been altogether unintelligible.
Judged by the same rules of criticism which we apply to Classic or
Mediæval art, the architecture of the Assyrians must, it is feared, rank
very low. But for gorgeous Barbaric splendour of effect it seems
difficult to imagine anything that could well have been grander or more
imposing than the palaces of Nineveh must have been when entire and
filled with the state and magnificence of the monarchs of the Assyrian
empire.
CHAPTER IV.
PERSIA.
CHRONOLOGY.
DATES.
Cyrus founds Pasargadæ B.C. 560
Cambyses’ buildings at ditto 525
Darius builds palace at Persepolis 521
Xerxes builds halls at Persepolis and Susa 485
Artaxerxes Longimanus 465
Darius Nothus 424
Artaxerxes Mnemon repairs buildings at Persepolis and Susa 405
Destruction of Persian Empire by Alexander 331
There still remains a third chapter to write before the survey of the
architecture of the central region of Asia is complete—before indeed a
great deal which has just been assumed can become capable of proof. By a
fortunate accident the Persians used stone where the Assyrians used only
wood, and consequently many details of their architecture have come down
to our day which would otherwise have passed away had the more
perishable materials of their predecessors been made use of.
Whatever else the ancient world may owe to the learning of the
Egyptians, it seems certain that they were the first to make use of
stone as a constructive building material. As before mentioned, the
Egyptians used a stone Proto-Doric pillar at least 1000 years before the
Greeks or the Etruscans, or any other ancient people we know of, dreamt
of such a thing. The Babylonians and Assyrians never seem to have used
stone constructively, except as the revêtement of a terrace wall; and it
was not till after the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses that we find any
Asiatic nations using a pillar of stone in architecture, or doing more
than building a wall, or heaping mass on mass of this material without
any constructive contrivance. The Indians first learned this art from
the Bactrian Greeks, and many civilised Asiatic nations still prefer
wood for their palaces and temples, as the Assyrians did, and only use
stone as “a heap.” It must have been difficult, however, for any
intelligent people to visit the wonderful stone temples of Thebes and
Memphis without being struck by their superior magnificence and
durability; and we consequently find the Persians on their return,
though reproducing their old forms, adopting the new material, which,
fortunately for them and for our history, was found in abundance in the
neighbourhood of their capitals.
Even, however, on the most cursory inspection, it is easy to see how
little the arts of the Assyrians were changed by their successors. The
winged lions and bulls that adorn the portals at Persepolis are
practically identical with those of Nineveh. The representations of the
king on his throne with his attendants are so similar, that but for the
locality it would require considerable knowledge to discriminate between
Sennacherib and Xerxes. The long procession of tribute bearers—the
symbolical animals slain by the king; the whole ornamentation, in fact,
is so slightly altered from what existed in Assyria, that we are
startled to find how little change in these sculptures the new dynasty
had introduced; and if this is the case with them, and their position
and arrangement are nearly identical, we may feel very certain that the
architecture was also the same.
It appears at first sight to have been otherwise; but on closer
examination it appears quite certain that this even is due more to the
material employed than to any alteration in form. Something may be due
to the fact that the buildings we now find on the platform at Persepolis
may have been dedicated to somewhat different purposes than were those
of Nineveh; but even this is not quite clear. If the great square courts
of the Ninevite palaces were roofed over, as Layard suggested—and as
probably was the case—they would exactly represent the square halls of
Persepolis. But as all the intermediate buildings of sun-dried brick
have been washed off the bare rock by the winter rains of Persia, we can
only speculate on what they might have been, without daring to lay too
much stress on our convictions.
PASARGADÆ.
In their present state the remains at Pasargadæ are, perhaps, more
interesting to the antiquary than to the architect, the palaces on the
plain being so ruined that their architectural arrangements cannot be
understood or restored.
[Illustration: 82. Plan of Platform at Pasargadæ.]
[Illustration: 83. Elevation of Platform at Pasargadæ.]
On the side of a hill overlooking the plain is a platform of masonry
(Woodcut No. 82) which originally supported either a temple or
fire-altar, but this has now entirely disappeared, and the structure is
only remarkable for the beauty of its masonry and the large dimensions
of the stones with which it is built. These are drafted (Woodcut No.
83), not only at their joints but often on their faces, with the same
flat sinking as is found in all the Jewish works at Jerusalem, and
sometimes in Greek buildings of the best age. Thus an ornament of great
beauty and elegance is formed out of what would otherwise be merely a
plain mass of masonry.
The tomb of Cyrus has already been referred to (p. 164) as a copy in
stone of one of the ziggurats or terrace-temples. But it must be borne
in mind that the most celebrated example of this form is as often called
the tomb, as the temple of Belus;[88] and among a Turanian people the
tomb and the temple may be considered as one and the same thing. The
tomb is surrounded on three sides[89] by a portico of columns standing
14 feet apart: no stone capitals have been found, but it is probable
that the columns carried wooden bracket-capitals to diminish the bearing
of the wooden architrave or beam which supported the roof. Beyond the
portico there are the traces of a second enclosure 25 feet wide, which,
from its width, was probably an open court.
[Illustration: 84. Tomb of Cyrus. (From Texier’s ‘Arménie et la
Perse.’)]
On the plain are the remains of buildings, three of which were palaces,
and one the ruin of a tomb. The plan of one of them, called the palace
of Cyrus, has been measured and published by M. Texier, MM. Flandin &
Coste, and M. Dieulafoy, and although the restoration given by the
latter goes somewhat farther than the remains will account for, there
are certain features in which they all agree, and which show that it
contained at least two porches or porticoes and a great hall of columns
not dissimilar from the examples found at Persepolis. The angle piers or
responds of two porticoes still exist in situ; on one of them in the
upper stone is cut the socket in which the architrave of the portico
rested, the form of this socket having a peculiar value, as it shows
more clearly than the socket in the respond of the portico of the palace
of Darius, that the Persian architrave was composed of two or more beams
placed one over the other, and overhanging, as in the tomb of Darius. A
second pier has an inscription which enables us to ascribe its erection
to Cyrus. A column, 34 feet high, of the great hall still remains, which
shows that at all events in this case the central hall rose above the
porticoes, deriving its light therefore through clerestory windows. No
capitals have been found,[90] and it is possible therefore they were in
wood, as we have suggested may have been the case in the portico of the
tomb of Cyrus.
[Illustration: 85. Plan of Tomb of Cyrus, Pasargadæ. (From Texier.)]
[Illustration: 86. Section of Tomb of Cyrus. (From Texier.)]
To the east of this palace, and distant about 170 yards, are the remains
of a second palace with a hall of columns, and measuring 124 by 49 ft.,
and on the west side of it is the stone jamb of a doorway similar to
those at Persepolis, and carved with the well-known bas-relief of Cyrus.
The third palace has been excavated by Mr. Weld Blundell, and the
foundations of its walls traced, measuring 187 by 131 ft., with a hall
of 24 columns.
PERSEPOLIS.
At Nineveh, as we have seen, all the pillars, the roofs, and the
constructive parts of the building, which were of wood,[91] have
disappeared, and left nothing but the massive walls, which, falling and
being heaped the one on the other, have buried themselves and their
ornaments till the present day. At Persepolis, on the contrary, the
brick walls, being thinner and exposed on the bare surface of the naked
rock, have been washed away by the storms and rains of 2000 years,
leaving only the skeletons of the buildings. In the rocky country of
Persia, however, the architect fortunately used stone; and we have thus
at Persepolis, if the expression may be used, all the bones of the
building, but without the flesh; and at Nineveh, the flesh, but without
the bones that gave it form and substance.
[Illustration: 87. View from top of Great Stairs at Persepolis.]
The general appearance of the ruins, as they at present stand, will be
seen from the woodcut (No. 87).[92] The principal mass in the foreground
on the left is the Propylæa of Xerxes, and behind that and to the right
stand the pillars of the Chehil Minar, or Great Hall of Xerxes. Between
these are seen in the distance the remains of the smaller halls of
Darius and Xerxes.
[Illustration: 88. Stairs to Palace of Xerxes.]
The most striking features in this view are the staircases that led from
the plain to the platform, and from the lower level to that on which the
great hall stood. Indeed, among these ruins, nothing is more remarkable
than these great flights of steps. The builders of those days were, so
far as we know, the only people who really understood the value of this
feature. The Egyptians seem wholly to have neglected it, and the Greeks
to have cared little about it; but it was not so at Nineveh, where, so
far as we can understand from the indistinct traces left, the stairs
must have been one of the most important parts of the design. But they
were so situated that they were not buried when the buildings were
ruined, and consequently have been removed. At Jerusalem, too, we read
that when the Queen of Sheba saw “the ascent by which Solomon went up to
the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her.” Indeed, in all
the ancient temples and palaces of this district, more attention is paid
to this feature than to almost any other; and from their favourable
situation on artificial terraces, the builders were enabled to apply
their stairs with far more effect than any others in ancient or in
modern times.
The lower or great staircase at Persepolis is plain, and without any
sculpture, but is built of the most massive Cyclopean masonry, and of
great width and very easy acclivity. That in front of the great hall is
ornamented with sculpture, in three tiers, representing the people of
the land bringing presents and the subject nations tribute, to lay at
the feet of the monarch, combined with mythological representations; the
whole bearing a very considerable resemblance to the sculptures on the
walls of the Assyrian palaces, though the position is different. The
arrangement of these stairs, too, is peculiar, none of them being at
right angles to the buildings they approach, but all being double,
apparently to permit of processions passing the throne, situated in the
porches at their summit, without interruption, and without altering the
line of march.
One of these flights, leading to the platform of Xerxes’ palace, is
shown in the woodcut (No. 88). In arrangement it is like the stairs
leading to the great terrace, but very much smaller, and is profusely
adorned with sculpture.
The principal apartment in all the buildings situated on the platform is
a central square hall, the floor of which is studded with pillars placed
equidistant the one from the other. The smallest have 4 pillars, the
next 16, then 36, and one has 100 pillars on its floor; but to avoid
inventing new names, we may call these respectively, distyle,
tetrastyle, hexastyle, and decastyle halls, from their having 2, 4, 6,
or 10 pillars on each face of the phalanx, and because that is the
number of the pillars in their porticoes when they have any.
The building at the head of the great stairs is a distyle hall, having 4
pillars supporting its roof. On each side of the first public entrance
stands a human-headed winged bull, so nearly identical with those found
in Assyrian palaces as to leave no doubt of their having the same
origin. At the opposite entrance are two bulls without wings, but drawn
with the same bold, massive proportions which distinguish all the
sculptured animals in the palaces of Assyria and Persia. The other, or
palace entrance, is destroyed, the foundation only remaining; but this,
with the foundations of the walls, leaves no room to doubt that the
annexed woodcut (No. 89) is a true representation of its
ground-plan.[93] Nor can it be doubted that this is one of those
buildings so frequently mentioned in the Bible as a “gate,” not the door
of a city or buildings, but a gate of justice, such as that where
Mordecai sat at Susa—where Abraham bought his field—where Ruth’s
marriage was judged of—and, indeed, where public business was generally
transacted.
[Illustration: 89. Propylæa. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
There are three other distyle halls or gates on the platform: one to the
westward of this, very much ruined; one in the centre of the whole
group, which seems to have had external porticoes; and a third on the
platform in front of the palace of Xerxes.
[Illustration: 90. Palace of Darius. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
There are two tetrastyle halls, one of which, erected by Darius (woodcut
No. 90), is the most interesting of the smaller buildings on the
terrace. It is the only building that faces the south, and is approached
by a flight of steps, represented with the whole façade of the palace as
it now stands in the woodcut (No. 91). These steps led to a tetrastyle
porch, two ranges in depth, which opened into the central hall with its
16 columns, around which were arranged smaller rooms or cells, either
for the occupation of the king, if it was a palace, or of the priests if
a temple. In the western side a staircase and doorway were added,
somewhat unsymmetrically, by Artaxerxes.
These remains would hardly suffice to enable us to restore the external
appearance of the palace; but fortunately the same king who built the
palace for his use on this mound, repeated it in the rock as an “eternal
dwelling” for himself after death. The tomb known as that of Darius at
Naksh-i-Rustam (woodcut No. 92), is an exact reproduction, not only of
the architectural features of the palace, but to the same scale, and in
every respect so similar, that it seems impossible to doubt but that the
one was intended as a literal copy of the other. Assuming it to be so,
we learn what kind of cornice rested on the double bull capitals. And
what is still more interesting, we obtain a representation of a prayer
platform, which we have described elsewhere as a Talar,[94] but the
meaning of which we should hardly know but for this representation.
The other tetrastyle hall is similar to this, but plainer and somewhat
smaller.
[Illustration: 91. Façade of Palace of Darius at Persepolis. Scale of 20
ft. to 1 in.]
Turning from these to the hexastyle halls, the smallest but most perfect
(Woodcut No. 91) is that standing on the southern edge of the upper
platform, the inscriptions on which certainly prove it to have been
built by Xerxes.
[Illustration: 92. Tomb of Darius at Naksh-i-Rustam, representing the
façade of his Palace surmounted by a Talar.]
The platform on which it stands is approached by two flights of steps,
that on the east being the one represented in the woodcut No. 84,—there
are also indications of a tetrastyle hall or gate having existed on its
summit,—while that to the west is much simpler. The hall itself had a
portico of 12 columns, and on each side a range of smaller apartments,
the two principal of which had their roof supported by 4 pillars each.
[Illustration: 93. Palace of Xerxes. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
The building is one of great beauty in itself, but its greatest value is
that it enables us to understand the arrangement of the great hall of
Xerxes—the Chehil Minar—the most splendid building of which any remains
exist in this part of the world. From the annexed plan (Woodcut No. 94)
it will be seen that the arrangement of the whole central part is
identical with that of the building just described. There can be no
possible doubt about this, as the bases of all the 72 columns still
exist in situ, as well as the jambs of the two principal doorways, which
are shaded darker in the plan. The side and rear walls only are restored
from the preceding illustration. The only difference is, that instead of
the two distyle halls on either side, this had hexastyle porticoes of 12
pillars each, similar to that in front; the angles between which were in
all probability filled up with rooms or buildings, as suggested in the
plan.[95]
[Illustration: 94. Restored Plan of Great Hall of Xerxes at Persepolis.
Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
Two orders of pillars were employed to support the roof of this splendid
building; one, represented in Woodcut No. 91, with double bull capitals,
like those of the porch of Darius’s palace. They are 67 ft. 4 in. in
height from the floor to the back of the bull’s neck, or 64 ft. to the
under side of the beam that lay between the bulls. The other order, with
the Ionic volutes (woodcut No. 96), was also that employed in the
northern portico, and generally in the interior throughout this
building, and is nearly identical, as far as the base and shaft are
concerned, except in the height of the latter. The capital, however,
differs widely, and is 16 ft. 6 in. in height, making an order
altogether 9 ft. 7 in. less than that used externally, the difference
being made up by brackets of wood, which supported the beams of the
roof, internally at least, though externally the double bull capital
probably surmounted these Ionic-like scrolls.
There is no reason to doubt that these halls also had platforms or
talars like the smaller halls, which would also serve to shelter any
opening in the roof, though in the present instance it seems very
doubtful if any such openings or skylights existed or were indeed
required.
Thus arranged, the section of the buildings would be as shown in the
woodcut (No. 97); and presuming this structure to have been sculptured
and painted as richly as others of its age and class, which it no doubt
was, it must have been not only one of the largest, but one of the most
splendid buildings of antiquity. In plan it was a rectangle of about 300
ft. by 350, and consequently covered 105,000 square ft.; it was thus
larger than the hypostyle hall at Karnac, or any of the largest temples
of Greece or Rome. It is larger, too, than any mediæval cathedral except
that of Milan; and although it has neither the stone roof of a
cathedral, nor the massiveness of an Egyptian building, still its size
and proportions, combined with the lightness of its architecture and the
beauty of its decorations, must have made it one of the most beautiful
buildings ever erected. Both in design and proportion it far surpassed
those of Assyria, and though possessing much of detail or ornament that
was almost identical, its arrangement and proportions were so superior
in every respect that no similar building in Nineveh can be compared
with this, the great architectural creation of the Persian Empire.
[Illustration: 95. Pillar of Western Portico.]
[Illustration: 96. Pillar of Northern Portico.]
There is no octastyle hall at Persepolis, and only one decastyle. In
this instance the hall itself measured about 225 ft. each way, and had
100 pillars on its floor; still, it was low in proportion, devoid of
lateral porticoes, and consequently by no means so magnificent a
building as the great hall of Xerxes. The portico in front was two
ranges in depth, and flanked by gigantic bulls; but as the whole height
was barely 25 ft., it could not have been a remarkable or pleasing
object. The sculptures on the jambs of the doorways are the most
interesting part of this building; these represent the king on his
throne, and various mythological subjects, on a more extensive scale
than those similarly situated in the other buildings of the platform.
Indeed, it is probable that in the other palaces these subjects were
painted on the internal walls, as was done in those Assyrian halls which
were not revêted with slabs. With an appropriateness that cannot be too
much praised, sculpture seems always to have been used in parts of the
building exposed to atmospheric injury, and, because of the exposure, to
have been employed there in preference to painting.
[Illustration: 97. Restored Section of Hall of Xerxes. Scale 100 ft. to
1 in.]
Besides these buildings on the platform there are the remains of several
others on the plain, and within the precincts of the town of Istakr is a
building still called the Hareem of Jemsheed, and which may in reality
have been the residence of the Achæmenian kings. It certainly belongs to
their age, and from the irregularity of its form, and its general
proportions, looks very much more like a residence, properly so called,
than any of the monumental erections on the neighbouring platform of
Persepolis.
Looked at from an architectural point of view the principal defect of
the interior arrangement, especially of the smaller Persepolitan halls,
is that their floor is unnecessarily crowded with pillars. As these had
to support only a wooden roof, some might have been dispensed with, or a
more artistic arrangement have been adopted. This would no doubt have
been done but for the influence of the Assyrian style, in which frequent
pillars were indispensable to support the heavy flat roofs, and as they
were of timber a greater number were required than would have been the
case if of stone. Those of wood also looked less cumbersome and less in
the way than those made of more durable materials.
It is also a defect that the capitals of the pillars retain at
Persepolis so much of the form of their wooden prototypes. In wood such
capitals as those depicted (Woodcuts No. 96 or No. 98) would not be
offensive. In stone they are clumsy; and the Greeks showed their usual
discrimination when they cut away all the volutes but one pair and
adopted a stone construction for the entablature.
Notwithstanding these defects, there is a grandeur of conception about
the Persepolitan halls which entitles them to our admiration. Their
greatest point of interest to the architectural student consists
probably in their being examples of a transition from a wooden to a
stone style of art, and in their enabling us to complete and understand
that art which had been elaborated in the valley of the Euphrates during
previous centuries; but which, owing to the perishable nature of the
materials employed, has almost wholly passed away, without leaving
sufficient traces to enable all its characteristics to be understood or
restored.
SUSA.
The explorations of Mr. Loftus at Susa in 1850 laid bare the foundations
of a palace almost identical both in plan and dimensions with the Chehil
Minar at Persepolis. It was, however, much more completely ruined, the
place having long been used as a quarry by the inhabitants of the
neighbouring plains, so that now only the bases of the pillars remain in
situ, with fragments of the shafts and capitals strewed everywhere
about, but no walls or doorways, or other architectural members to
enable us to supply what is wanting at Persepolis.
[Illustration: 98. Restored Elevation of Capital at Susa. (From
Loftus.)]
The bases seem to be of the same form and style as those at Persepolis,
but rather more richly carved. The capitals are also more elaborate, but
more essentially wooden in their form, and betray their origin not only
in the exuberance of their carving but also in the disproportion of the
capital to the shaft. In wood so large a capital does not look
disproportioned to so slender a shaft; in stone the effect is most
disagreeable, and was to a certain extent remedied at Persepolis so soon
as the result was perceived. Whether the Persians would ever have been
able to shake off entirely the wooden original is not quite clear, but
the Greeks, being bound by no such association, cut the knot at once,
and saved them the trouble.
[Illustration: 99. Frieze of Archers.]
In 1885, M. Marcel Dieulafoy turned his attention to the excavations as
left by Loftus, and conceiving the idea that the principal entrance
should be sought for on the south side of the palace, he cut his
trenches in a north-east direction and discovered the traces of the
walls enclosing the court in front of the palace. These walls were faced
with enamelled beton blocks. Portions of these enamels had disappeared,
but sufficient remained, as the walls had fallen on their faces, to
allow of their being placed in their relative positions. From these
fragments M. Dieulafoy was able to put together a frieze of lions not
dissimilar to those found in the palace of Sargon at Khorsabad, with
decorative borders above and below, the whole crowned by a battlement,
also in enamelled colours. The lower portion of the wall was covered
with unglazed bricks of two colours, red and white, arranged in diaper
patterns. Continuing the trench, M. Dieulafoy discovered the great
staircase placed at the south side of the tumulus, a staircase of even
greater dimensions than the well-known example of Persepolis. Mr.
Loftus’s researches had already proved that the palace consisted of a
central hall of thirty-six columns, with three porticoes of twelve
columns, similar, therefore, to the great hall of Xerxes. M. Dieulafoy’s
discoveries have shown that the central hall was enclosed with a wall,
thus confirming the late Mr. Fergusson’s theory as to the restoration of
the palace of Xerxes (see p. 206). On the east side leading to the royal
entrance of the great hall, M. Dieulafoy discovered the remains of the
great frieze of archers (Woodcut No. 99), now in the Louvre; these were
executed in bright enamelled colours on beton bricks. The figures, which
are about 5 ft. in height, are modelled in low relief, arrayed in
processional order, each man grasping a lance in his hand and carrying,
slung on his shoulder, a bow and quiver full of arrows. The shape of
each man’s dress is the same, but the colours and patterns alternate; in
one case the dress is studded with rosettes, in the other with squares
containing the earliest heraldic device known, a representation of three
towers on a hill.
These enamels, as also those of the lions and of fragments of the
crenelated staircase, are now all in the Louvre, and retain sufficient
of their pristine effect to suggest a scheme of colour and of decorative
treatment of the greatest beauty.[96] The inscriptions round the bases
of the pillars had already informed us that the hall was erected by
Darius and Xerxes, but repaired and restored by Artaxerxes Mnemon, who
added the inscriptions. This has been confirmed by another inscription
under the lions on the pylons; these M. Dieulafoy attributes to Xerxes,
as fragments of enamelled bricks of burnt clay, and not beton, and
therefore of an earlier building, have been utilised as a filling-in. In
all probability the hall of this palace is the identical hall in which
the scenes described in the Book of Esther took place. The foundations
of other parts of this palace might be no doubt laid bare by further
excavations; but the ruin of the place has been so complete, that little
of interest in an architectural point of view can be looked for. Below
these Persian ruins are probably buried the remains of long-preceding
dynasties, which deeper excavations would lay bare, and which would in
all probability afford a rich harvest to the historical explorer.
FIRE TEMPLES.
Near the town of Istakr, and opposite the tombs of Naksh-i-Rustam,
stands a small tower-like building, represented in Woodcut No. 100. The
lower part is solid; the upper contains a small square apartment, roofed
by two great flat slabs of stone. Access to this chamber is obtained by
a doorway situated at some distance from the ground.
Both the traditions of the place and the knowledge we have of their
religious practices point to this as one of the fire temples of the
ancient Persians. Its roof is internally still black, probably with the
smoke of ancient fires, and though simple and insignificant as an
architectural monument, it is interesting as the only form of a temple
apart from regal state which the ancient Persians possessed.
[Illustration: 100. Khabah at Istakr. No scale.]
Another, almost identical in form, is found at Pasargadæ,[97] and a
third exists (according to Stolze) near Maubandajan, at the foot of the
Kuh Pir-i-mard, eleven miles to east of Fasa. Perrot suggests it may
have been the tomb of Hytaspes, father of Darius. The celebrated Kaabah
at Mecca, to which all the Moslem world now bow in prayer, is probably a
fourth, while the temple represented in Woodcut No. 81, from Lord
Aberdeen’s Black Stone, may be a representation of such a structure as
these, with its curtains and paraphernalia complete. It is too evident,
however, that the Persians were not a temple-building people,[98] and
the examples that have come down to our time are too few and too
insignificant on which to found any theory.
TOMBS.
Little requires to be said of the tombs of the Persians; that of Darius
is represented in plan and elevation in Woodcut No. 92, and, as before
remarked, it is a literal copy on the rock of the façade of his palace.
Internally, three small cells contained the remains of the king, with
those of the persons, probably his favourite wife or wives for whom he
had destined that honour. Close by this, at Naksh-i-Rustam, are four
others, and in the rock behind Persepolis are three more tombs of the
Achæmenian kings, identical with these in all essential respects; but
still with such a difference in workmanship and detail as would enable a
careful architectural student easily to detect a sequence, and so affix
to each, approximately at least, the name of the king whose sepulchre it
is. Unfortunately, that of Darius only is inscribed; but his position in
the dynasty is so well known, that, starting from that point, it would
be easy to assign each of these tombs to the king who excavated it for
his own resting-place.
Although these tombs of the Achæmenians are not remarkable for their
magnificence, they are interesting in an architectural point of view,
inasmuch as—as pointed out above—they enable us to restore their
structural buildings in a manner we would hardly be able to do without
their assistance. They are also interesting ethnographically as
indicating that these kings of Persia were far from being the pure
Aryans the language of their inscriptions would lead us to suspect they
might be. There are not, so far as is yet known, any series of rock-cut
sepulchres belonging to any dynasty of pure Aryan blood. Nor would any
king of Semitic race attempt anything of the sort. Their evidence,
therefore, as far as it goes—and it is tolerably distinct—seems to prove
that the Achæmenian kings were of Turanian race. They only, and not any
of their subjects in Persia, seem to have adopted this style of
grandeur, which, as we shall presently see, was common in Asia Minor,
and other countries subject to their sway, but who were of a different
race altogether.
CHAPTER V.
INVENTION OF THE ARCH.
Before leaving this early section of architecture, it may be as well
briefly to refer to the invention of the true arch, regarding which
considerable misconception still exists.
It is generally supposed that the Egyptians were ignorant of the true
principles of the arch, and only employed two stones meeting one another
at a certain angle in the centre when they wished to cover a larger
space than could conveniently be done by a single block. This, however,
seems to be a mistake, as many of the tombs and chambers around the
pyramids and the temples at Thebes are roofed by stone and brick arches
of a semicircular form, and perfect in every respect as far as the
principles of the arch are concerned.
Several of these have been drawn by Lepsius, and are engraved in his
work; but, as no text accompanies them, and the drawings are not on a
sufficient scale to make out the hieroglyphics, where any exist, their
date cannot now be ascertained. Consequently, these examples cannot yet
be used as the foundation of any argument on the subject, though the
curved form of the roofs in the Third Pyramid would alone be sufficient
to render it more than probable that during the period of the 4th
dynasty the Egyptians were familiar with this expedient.[99]
At Beni-Hasan, during the time of the 12th dynasty, curvilinear forms
reappear in the roofs (Woodcut No. 16), used in such a manner as to
render it almost certain that they are copied from roofs of arcuate
construction. Behind the Rameseum at Thebes there are a series of arches
in brick, which seem undoubtedly to belong to the same age as the
building itself; and Sir G. Wilkinson mentions a tomb at Thebes, the
roof of which is vaulted with bricks, and still bears the name of
Amenoph I., of the 18th dynasty.[100]
The temple at Abydus, erected by Rameses II., shows the same peculiarity
as the tombs at Beni-Hasan, of a flat segmental arch thrown across
between the stone architraves. In this instance it is also a copy in
stone, but such as must have been originally copied from one of brick
construction. There is also every reason to believe that the apartments
of the little pavilion at Medeenet Habû (Woodcuts Nos. 32 and 33) were
covered with semicircular vaults, though these have now
disappeared.[101]
In Ethiopia Mr. Hoskins found stone arches vaulting the roofs of the
porches to the pyramids, perfect in construction, and, what is still
more singular, showing both circular and pointed forms (Woodcut No.
105). These, as before remarked, are probably of the time of Tirhakah,
or at all events not earlier than the age of Solomon, nor later than
that of Cambyses.
[Illustration: 101. Section of Tomb near the Pyramids of Gizeh.]
In the age of Psammeticus we have several stone arches in the
neighbourhood of the pyramids; one, in a tomb at Sakkara, has been
frequently drawn; but one of the most instructive is that in a tomb
discovered by Colonel Campbell (Woodcut No. 101), showing a very
primitive form of an arch composed of 3 stones only, and above which is
another arch of regular construction of 4 courses. In his researches at
Nimroud, Layard discovered vaulted drains and chambers below the
north-west and south-east edifices, which were consequently as old as
the 8th or 9th century before our era, and contemporary with those in
the pyramids of Meroë. They were of both circular and pointed forms, and
built apparently with great care and attention to the principles of the
arch (Woodcut No. 102).
[Illustration: 102. Vaulted Drain beneath the South-East Palace at
Nimroud.]
The great discovery of this class is that of the city gates at
Khorsabad, which, as mentioned at p. 181, were spanned by arches of
semicircular form, so perfect both in construction and in the mode in
which they were ornamented, as to prove that in the time of Sargon the
arch was a usual and well-understood building expedient, and one
consequently which we may fairly assume to have been long in use.
[Illustration: 103. Arch at Dêr-el-Bahree. (Lepsius.)]
On the other hand, we have in the temple at Dêr-el-Bahree in Thebes,
built by Thothmes III., a curious example of the retention of the old
form, when at first sight it would appear as though the true arch would
have been a more correct expedient. In this example, the lower arch is
composed of stones bracketing forward horizontally, though the form of
the arch is semicircular; and above this is a discharging arch of two
stones used as in the Pyramids. The upper arch is so arranged as to
relieve the crown of the lower—which is its weakest part—of all weight,
and at the same time to throw the whole pressure on the outer ends of
the arch stones, exactly where it is wanted. The whole thus becomes
constructively perfect, though it is a more expensive way of attaining
the end desired than by an arch.
The truth seems to be, the Egyptians had not at this age invented
voussoirs deeper in the direction of the radii of the arch than in that
of its perimeter; and the arch with them was consequently not generally
an appropriate mode of roofing. It was the Romans with their tiles who
first really understood the true employment of the arch.
So far as we can now understand from the discoveries that have been
made, it seems that the Assyrians used the pointed arch for tunnels,
aqueducts, and generally for underground work where they feared great
superincumbent pressure on the apex, and the round arch above-ground
where that was not to be dreaded; and in this they probably showed more
science and discrimination than we do in such works.
[Illustration: 104. Arch of the Cloaca Maxima, Rome. Scale 50 ft. to 1
in.]
In Europe the oldest arch is probably that of Cloaca Maxima at Rome,
constructed under the early kings. It is of stone in 3 rims, and shows
as perfect a knowledge of the principle as any subsequent example. Its
lasting uninjured to the present day proves how well the art was then
understood, and, by inference, how long it must have been practised
before reaching that degree of perfection.
From all this it becomes almost certain that the arch was used as early
as the times of the pyramid-builders of the 4th dynasty, and was copied
in the tombs of Beni-Hasan in the 12th; though it may be that the
earliest existing example cannot be dated further back than the first
kings of the 18th dynasty; from that time, however, there can be no
doubt that it was currently used, not only in Egypt, but also in
Ethiopia and Assyria.
It would, indeed, be more difficult to account for the fact of such
perfect builders as the Egyptians being ignorant of the arch if such
were the case; though, at the same time, it is easy to understand why
they should use it so sparingly, as they did in their monumental
erections.
Even in the simplest arch, that formed of only two stones, such as is
frequently found in the pyramids, and over the highest chamber (Woodcut
No. 8), it will be evident that any weight placed on the apex has a
tendency to lower the summit, and press the lower ends of the stones
outwards. Where there was the whole mass of the pyramid to abut against,
this was of no consequence, but in a slighter building it would have
thrust the walls apart, and brought on inevitable ruin.
The introduction of a third stone, as in the arch (Woodcut No. 101),
hardly remedied this at all, the central stone acting like a wedge to
thrust the two others apart; and even the introduction of 2 more stones,
making 5, as in Woodcut No. 105, only distributed the pressure without
remedying the defect; and without the most perfect masonry every
additional joint was only an additional source of weakness.
[Illustration: 105. Arches in the Pyramids at Meroë. (From Hoskins.)]
This has been felt by the architects of all ages and in all countries:
still, the advantage of being able to cover large spaces with small
stones or bricks is so great, that many have been willing to run the
risk; and all the ingenuity of the Gothic architects of the Middle Ages
was applied to overcoming the difficulty. But even the best of their
buildings are unstable from this cause, and require constant care and
attention to keep them from falling.
The Indian architects have fallen into the other extreme, refusing to
use the arch under any circumstances, and preferring the smallest
dimensions and the most crowded interiors, to adopting what they
consider so destructive an expedient. As mentioned in the Introduction
(page 22), their theory is that “an arch never sleeps,” and is
constantly tending to tear a building to pieces: and, where aided by
earthquakes and the roots of trees, there is only too much truth in
their belief.
The Egyptians seem to have followed a middle course, using arches either
in tombs, where the rock formed an immovable abutment; or in pyramids
and buildings, where the mass immensely overpowered the thrust; or
underground, where the superincumbent earth prevented movement.
They seem also to have used flat segmental arches of brickwork between
the rows of massive architraves which they placed on their pillars; and
as all these abutted one another, like the arches of a bridge, except
the external ones, which were sufficiently supported by the massive
walls, the mode of construction was a sound one. This is exactly that
which we have re-introduced during the last 30 years, in consequence of
the application of cast-iron beams, between which flat segmental arches
of brick are thrown, when we desire to introduce a more solid and
fire-proof construction than is possible with wood only.
In their use of the arch, as in everything else, the building science of
the Egyptians seems to have been governed by the soundest principles and
the most perfect knowledge of what was judicious and expedient, and what
should be avoided. Many of their smaller edifices have no doubt perished
from the scarcity of wood forcing the builders to employ brick arches,
but they wisely avoided the use of these in all their larger monuments—
in all, in fact, which they wished should endure to the latest
posterity.
CHAPTER VI.
JUDEA.
CHRONOLOGICAL MEMORANDA CONNECTED WITH ARCHITECTURE.
DATES.
Moses B.C. 1312
Solomon 1013
Ezekiel 573
Zerubbabel 520
Herod 20
Titus A.D. 70
The Jews, like the other Semitic races, were not a building people, and
never aspired to monumental magnificence as a mode of perpetuating the
memory of their greatness. The palace of Solomon was wholly of cedar
wood, and must have perished of natural decay in a few centuries, if it
escaped fire and other accidents incident to such temporary structures.
Their first temple was a tent, their second depended almost entirely on
its metallic ornaments for its splendour, and it was not till the Greeks
and Romans taught them how to apply stone and stone carving for this
purpose that we have anything that can be called architecture in the
true sense of the term.
This deficiency of monuments is, however, by no means peculiar to the
Jewish people. As before observed, we should know hardly anything of the
architecture of Assyria but for the existence of the wainscot slabs of
their palaces, though they were nearly a purely Semitic people, but
their art rested on a Turanian basis. Neither Tyre nor Sidon have left
us a single monument; nor Utica nor Carthage one vestige that dates
anterior to the Roman period. What is found at Jerusalem, at Baalbec, at
Palmyra, or Petra, even in the countries beyond the Jordan, is all
Roman. What little traces of Phœnician art are picked up in the
countries bordering on the Mediterranean are copies, with Egyptian or
Grecian details, badly and unintelligently copied, and showing a want of
appreciation of the first principles of art that is remarkable in that
age. It is therefore an immense gain if by our knowledge of Assyrian art
we are enabled, even in a moderate degree, to realise the form of
buildings which have long ceased to exist, and are only known to us from
verbal descriptions.
[Illustration: 106. Diagram Plan of Solomon’s Palace. Scale of 100 ft.
to 1 in.]
The most celebrated secular building of the Jews was the palace which
Solomon was occupied in building during the thirteen years which
followed his completion of the Temple. As not one vestige of this
celebrated building remains, and even its site is a matter of dispute,
the annexed plan must be taken only as an attempt to apply the knowledge
we have acquired in Assyria and Judea to the elucidation of the
descriptions of the Bible and Josephus,[102] and as such may be
considered of sufficient interest to deserve a place in the History of
Architecture.
The principal apartment here, as in all Eastern palaces, was the great
audience hall, in this instance 150 feet in length by 75 in width; the
roof composed of cedar, and, like the Ninevite palaces, supported by
rows of cedar pillars on the floor. According to Josephus, who, however,
never saw it, and had evidently the Roman Stoa Basilica of the Temple in
his eye, the section would probably have been as shown in diagram A. But
the contemporary Bible narrative, which is the real authority, would
almost certainly point to something more like the Diagram B in the
annexed woodcut.
[Illustration: 107. Diagram Sections of the House of the Cedars of
Lebanon.]
Next in importance to this was the Porch, which was the audience or
reception hall, attached to the private apartments; these two being the
Dewanni Aum and Dewanni Khas of Eastern palaces, at this day. The Hall
of Judgment we may venture to restore with confidence, from what we find
at Persepolis and Khorsabad; and the courts are arranged in the diagram
as they were found in Ninevite palaces. They are proportioned, so far as
we can now judge, to those parts of which the dimensions are given by
the authorities, and to the best estimate we can now make of what would
be most suitable to Solomon’s state, and to such a capital as Jerusalem
was at that time.
From Josephus we learn that Solomon built the walls of this palace “with
stones 10 cubits in length, and wainscoted them with stones that were
sawed and were of great value, such as are dug out of the earth for the
ornaments of temples and the adornment of palaces.”[103] These were
ornamented with sculptures in three rows, but the fourth or upper row
was the most remarkable, being covered with foliage in relief, of the
most exquisite workmanship; above this the walls were plastered and
ornamented with paintings in colour: all of which is the exact
counterpart of what we find at Nineveh.
From the knowledge we now possess of Assyrian palaces it might indeed be
possible to restore this building with fairly approximate correctness,
but it would hardly be worth while to attempt this except in a work
especially devoted to Jewish art. For the present it must suffice to
know that the affinities of the architecture of Solomon’s age were
certainly Assyrian; and from our knowledge of the one we may pretty
accurately realise the form of the other.
TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM.
Although not one stone remains upon another of the celebrated Temple of
Jerusalem, still, the descriptions in the Bible and Josephus are so
precise, that now that we are able to interpret them by the light of
other buildings, its history can be written with very tolerable
certainty.
The earliest temple of the Jews was the Tabernacle, the plan of which
they always considered as divinely revealed to them through Moses in the
desert of Sinai, and from which they consequently never departed in any
subsequent erections. Its dimensions were for the cella, or Holy of
Holies, 10 cubits or 15 ft. cube; for the outer temple, two such cubes
or 15 ft. by 30. These were covered by the sloping roofs of the tent,
which extended 5 cubits in every direction beyond the temple itself,
making the whole 40 cubits or 60 ft. in length by 20 cubits or 30 ft. in
width. These stood within an enclosure 100 cubits long by 50 cubits
wide.[104]
[Illustration: 108. The Tabernacle, showing one half ground plan and one
half as covered by the curtains.]
When Solomon (B.C. 1015) built the Temple, he did not alter the
disposition in any manner, but adopted it literally, only doubling every
dimension. Thus the Holy of Holies became a cube of 20 cubits; the Holy
place, 20 by 40; the porch and the chambers which surrounded it 10
cubits each, making a total of 80 cubits or 120 ft. by 40 cubits or 60
ft., with a height of 30 as compared with 15, which was the height of
the ridge of the Tabernacle, and it was surrounded by a court the
dimensions of which were 200 cubits in length by 100 in width.
Even with these increased dimensions the Temple was a very insignificant
building in size: the truth being that, like the temples of Semitic
nations, it was more in the character of a shrine or of a treasury
intended to contain certain precious works in metal.
[Illustration: 109. South-East View of the Tabernacle, as restored by
the Author.]
The principal ornaments of its façade were two brazen pillars, Jachin
and Boaz, which seem to have been wonders of metal work, and regarding
which more has been written, and it may be added, more nonsense, than
regarding almost any other known architectural objects. The truth of the
matter appears to be that the translators of our Bibles in no instance
were architects, and none of the architects who have attempted the
restoration were learned as Hebrew scholars; and consequently the truth
has fallen to the ground between the two. A brazen pillar, however, 18
cubits high and 12 cubits in circumference—6 ft. in diameter—is an
absurdity that no brass-founder ever could have perpetrated. In the
Hebrew, the 15th verse reads: “He cast two pillars of brass, 18 cubits
was the height of the one pillar, and a line of 12 cubits encompassed
the other pillar.”[105] The truth of the matter seems to be that what
Solomon erected was a screen (chapiter) consisting of two parts, one 4
cubits, the other 5 cubits in height, and supported by two pillars of
metal, certainly not more than 1 cubit in diameter, and standing 12
cubits apart: nor does it seem difficult to perceive what purpose this
screen was designed to effect. As will be observed, in the restoration
of the Tabernacle (Woodcut No. 109), the whole of the light to the
interior is admitted from the front. In the Temple the only light that
could penetrate to the Holy of Holies was from the front also; and
though the Holy place was partially lighted from the sides, its
principal source of light must have been through the eastern façade. In
consequence of this there must have been a large opening or window in
this front, and as a window was a thing that they had not yet learned to
make an ornamental feature in architectural design, they took this mode
of screening and partially, at least, hiding it.
It becomes almost absolutely certain that this is the true solution of
the riddle, when we find that when Herod rebuilt the Temple in the first
century B.C., he erected a similar screen for the same purpose in front
of his Temple. Its dimensions, however, were one-third larger. It was 40
cubits high, and 20 cubits across, and it supported five beams instead
of two;[106] not to display the chequer-work and pomegranates of
Solomon’s screen, but to carry the Golden Vine, which was the principal
ornament of the façade of the Temple in its latest form.[107]
[Illustration: 110. Plan of Solomon’s Temple, showing the disposition of
the chambers in two storeys.]
Although it is easy to understand how it was quite possible in metal
work to introduce all the ornaments enumerated in the Bible, and with
gilding and colour to make these objects of wonder, we have no examples
with which we can compare them, and any restoration must consequently be
somewhat fanciful. Still, we must recollect that this was the “bronze
age” of architecture. Homer tells us of the brazen house of Priam, and
the brazen palace of Alcinous; the Treasuries at Mycenæ were covered
internally with bronze plates; and in Etruscan tombs of this age metal
was far more essentially the material of decoration than carving in
stone, or any of the modes afterwards so frequently adopted. The altar
of the Temple was of brass. The molten sea, supported by twelve brazen
oxen; the bases, the lavers, and all the other objects in metal work,
were in reality what made the Temple so celebrated; and very little was
due to the mere masonry by which we should judge of a Christian church
or any modern building.
No pillars are mentioned as supporting the roof, but every analogy
derived from Persian architecture, as well as the constructive
necessities of the case, would lead us to suppose they must have
existed, four in the sanctuary and eight in the pronaos.
[Illustration: 111. Plan of Temple at Jerusalem, as rebuilt by Herod.
Scale 200 ft. to 1 in.]
The temple which Ezekiel saw in a vision on the banks of the Chebar was
identical in dimensions with that of Solomon, in so far as naos and
pronaos were concerned. But a passage round the naos was introduced,
giving access to the chambers, which added 10 cubits to its dimensions
every way, making it 100 cubits by 60. The principal court, which
contained the Altar and the Temple properly so called, had the same
dimensions as in Solomon’s Temple; but he added, in imagination at
least, four courts, each 100 cubits or 150 ft. square. That on the east
certainly existed, and seems to have been the new court of Solomon’s
Temple,[108] and is what in that of Herod became the court of the
Gentiles. The north and south courts were never apparently carried out.
They did not exist in Solomon’s Temple, and there is evidence to show
that they were not found in Zerubbabel’s.[109] That on the north-west
angle was the citadel of the Temple, where the treasures were kept, and
which was afterwards replaced by the Tower Antonia.
[Illustration: 112. View of the Temple from the East, as it appeared at
the time of the Crucifixion. (From a drawing by the Author.)]
When the Jews returned from the Captivity they rebuilt the Temple
exactly as it had been described by Ezekiel, in so far as dimensions are
concerned, except that, as just mentioned, they do not seem to have been
able to accomplish the northern and southern courts.
The materials, however, were probably inferior to the original Temple;
and we hear nothing of brazen pillars in the porch, nor of the splendid
vessels and furniture which made the glory of Solomon’s Temple, so that
the Jews were probably justified in mourning over its comparative
insignificance.[110]
In the last Temple we have a perfect illustration of the mode in which
the architectural enterprises of that country were carried out. The
priests restored the Temple itself, not venturing to alter a single one
of its sacred dimensions, only adding wings to the façade so as to make
it 100 cubits wide, and it is said 100 cubits high, while the length
remained 100 cubits as before.[111] At this period, however, Judea was
under the sway of the Romans and under the influence of their ideas, and
the outer courts were added with a magnificence of which former builders
had no conception, but bore strongly the impress of the architectural
magnificence of the Romans.
An area measuring 600 feet each way was enclosed by terraced walls of
the utmost lithic grandeur. On these were erected porticoes unsurpassed
by any we know of. One, the Stoa Basilica, had a section equal to that
of our largest cathedrals, and surpassed them all in length, and within
this colonnaded enclosure were ten great gateways, two of which were of
surpassing magnificence: the whole making up a rich and varied pile
worthy of the Roman love of architectural display, but in singular
contrast with the modest aspirations of a purely Semitic people.
It is always extremely difficult to restore any building from mere
verbal description, and still more so when erected by a people of whose
architecture we know so little as we do of that of the Jews. Still, the
woodcut on the opposite page is probably not very far from representing
the Temple as it was after the last restoration by Herod, barring of
course the screen bearing the Vine mentioned above, which is omitted.
Without attempting to justify every detail, it seems such a mixture of
Roman with Phœnician forms as might be expected and is warranted by
Josephus’s description. There is no feature for which authority could
not be quoted, but the difficulty is to know whether or not the example
adduced is the right one, or the one which bears most directly on the
subject. After all, perhaps, its principal defect is that it does not
(how can a modern restoration?) do justice to the grandeur and beauty of
the whole.
As it has been necessary to anticipate the chronological sequence of
events in order not to separate the temples of the Jews from one
another, it may be as well before proceeding further to allude to
several temples similarly situated which apparently were originally
Semitic shrines but rebuilt in Roman times. That at Palmyra, for
instance, is a building very closely resembling that at Jerusalem, in so
far at least as the outer enclosure is concerned.[112] It consists of a
cloistered enclosure of somewhat larger dimensions, measuring externally
730 ft. by 715, with a small temple of an anomalous form in the centre.
It wants, however, all the inner enclosures and curious substructures of
the Jewish fane; but this may have arisen from its having been rebuilt
in late Roman times, and consequently shorn of these peculiarities. It
is so similar, however, that it must be regarded as a cognate temple to
that at Jerusalem, though re-erected by a people of another race.
A third temple, apparently very similar to these, is that of Kangovar in
Persia.[113] Only a portion now remains of the great court in which it
stood, and which was nearly of the same dimensions as those of Jerusalem
and Palmyra, being 660 ft. by 568. In the centre are the vestiges of a
small temple. At Aizaini in Asia Minor[114] is a fourth, with a similar
court; but here the temple is more important, and assumes more
distinctly the forms of a regular Roman peristylar temple of the usual
form, though still small and insignificant for so considerable an
enclosure.
The mosque of Damascus was once one of these great square
temple-enclosures, with a small temple, properly so called, in the
centre. It may have been as magnificent, perhaps more so, than any of
these just enumerated, but it has been so altered by Christian and
Moslem rebuildings, that it is almost impossible now to make out what
its original form may have been.
None of these are original buildings, but still, when put together and
compared the one with the other, and, above all, when examined by the
light which discoveries farther east have enabled us to throw on the
subject, they enable us to restore this style in something like its
pristine form. At present, it is true, they are but the scattered
fragments of an art of which it is feared no original specimens now
remain, and which can only therefore be recovered by induction from
similar cognate examples of other, though allied, styles of art.
CHAPTER VII.
ASIA MINOR.
CONTENTS.
Historical notice—Tombs at Smyrna—Doganlu—Lycian tombs.
It is now perhaps in vain to expect that any monuments of the most
ancient times, of great extent or of great architectural importance,
remain to be discovered in Asia Minor; still, it is a storehouse from
which much information may yet be gleaned, and whence we may expect the
solution of many dark historical problems, if ever they are to be solved
at all.
Situated as that country is, in the very centre of the old world,
surrounded on three sides by navigable seas opening all the regions of
the world to her commerce, possessing splendid harbours, a rich soil,
and the finest climate of the whole earth, it must not only have been
inhabited at the earliest period of history, but must have risen to a
pitch of civilisation at a time preceding any written histories that we
possess. We may recollect that, in the time of Psammeticus, Phrygia
contended with Egypt for the palm of antiquity, and from the monuments
of the 18th dynasty we know what rich spoil, what beautiful vases of
gold, and other tributes of a rich and luxurious people, the Pout and
Roteno and other inhabitants of Asia Minor brought and laid at the feet
of Thothmes and other early kings eighteen centuries at least before the
Christian era.
At a later period (716 to 547 B.C.) the Lydian empire was one of the
richest and most powerful in Asia; and contemporary with this and for a
long period subsequent to it, the Ionian colonies of Greece surpassed
the mother country in wealth and refinement, and almost rivalled her in
literature and art. Few cities of the ancient world surpassed Ephesus,
Sardis, or Halicarnassus in splendour; and Troy, Tarsus, and Trebisond
mark three great epochs in the history of Asia Minor which are
unsurpassed in interest and political importance by the retrospect of
any cities of the world. Excepting, however, the remains of the Greek
and Roman periods—the great temples of the first, and the great theatres
of the latter period—little that is architectural remains in this once
favoured land. It happens also unfortunately that there was no great
capital city—no central point—where we can look for monuments of
importance. The defect in the physical geography of the country is that
it has no great river running through it—no vast central plain capable
of supporting a population sufficiently great to overpower the rest and
to give unity to the whole.
[Illustration: 113. Elevation of Tumulus at Tantalais. (From Texier’s
‘Asie Mineure.’) 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 114. Plan and Section of Chamber in Tumulus at
Tantalais.]
So far as our researches yet reach, it would seem that the oldest
remains still found in Asia Minor are the tumuli of Tantalais, on the
northern shore of the Gulf of Smyrna. They seem as if left there most
opportunely to authenticate the tradition of the Etruscans having sailed
from this port for Italy. One of these is represented in Woodcuts Nos.
113 and 114. Though these tumuli are built wholly of stone, no one
familiar with architectural resemblances can fail to see in them a
common origin with those of Etruria. The stylobate, the sloping sides,
the inner chamber, with its pointed roof, all the arrangements, indeed,
are the same, and the whole character of the necropolis at Tantalais
would be as appropriate at Tarquinii or Cæræ as at Smyrna.
[Illustration: 115. Section of Tomb of Alyattes. (From Spiegelthal.) No
scale.]
Another tumulus of equal interest historically is that of Alyattes, near
Sardis, described with such care by Herodotus,[115] and which was
explored 35 years ago by Spiegelthal, the Prussian consul at
Smyrna.[116] According to the measurements of Herodotus, it was either
3800 or 4100 ft. in circumference; at present it is found to be 1180 ft.
in diameter, and consequently about 3700 ft. in circumference at the top
of the basement, though of course considerably more below. It is
situated on the edge of a rocky ridge, which is made level on one side
by a terrace-wall of large stones, 60 ft. in height; above this the
mound rises to the height of 142 ft.: the total height above the plain
being 228 ft. The upper part of the mound is composed of alternate
layers of clay, loam, and a kind of rubble concrete. These support a
mass of brickwork, surmounted by a platform of masonry; on this one of
the steles described by Herodotus still lies, and one of the smaller
ones was found close by.
The funereal chamber was discovered resting on the rock at about 160 ft.
from the centre of the mound. Its dimensions were 11 ft. by 7 ft. 9 in.,
and 7 ft. high; the roof flat and composed of large stones, on which
rested a layer of charcoal and ashes, 2 ft. in thickness, evidently the
remains of the offerings which had been made after the chamber was
closed, but before the mound had been raised over it.
There are in the same locality an immense number of tumuli of various
dimensions, among which Herr Spiegelthal fancies he can discriminate
three classes, belonging to three distinct ages; that of Alyattes
belonging to the most modern. This is extremely probable, as at this
time (B.C. 561) the fashion of erecting tumuli as monuments was dying
out in this part of the world, though it continued in less civilised
parts of Europe till long after the Christian era.
The tumuli that still adorn the Plain of Troy are probably contemporary
with the oldest of the three groups of those around the Gygean Lake.
Indeed, there does not seem much reason for doubting that they were
really raised over the ashes of the heroes who took part in that
memorable struggle, and whose names they still bear.
The recent explorations of these mounds do not seem to have thrown much
light on the subject, but if we can trust the account Chevalier gives of
his researches at the end of the last century, the case is clear enough,
and there can be very little doubt but that the Dios Tepe on the Sigæan
promontory is really the tomb of Achilles.[117] Intensely interesting
though they are in other respects, Schliemann’s discoveries on the site
of Troy have done very little to increase our knowledge of the
architecture of the period. This may partly be owing to his ignorance of
the art, and to his having no architect with him, but it does not appear
that any architectural mouldings were discovered earlier than those of
“Ilium Novum,” two or three centuries before Christ. The so-called
Temple of Minerva was without pillars or mouldings of any sort, and the
walls and gates of the old city were equally devoid of ornament. What
was found seems to confirm the idea that the Trojans were a
Turanian-Pelasgic people burying their dead in mounds, and revelling in
barbaric splendour, but not having reached that degree of civilisation
which would induce them to seek to perpetuate their forms of art in more
permanent materials than earth and metals.[118]
It is not clear whether any other great groups of tumuli exist in Asia
Minor, but it seems more than probable that in the earliest times the
whole of this country was inhabited by a Pelasgic race, who were the
first known occupants of Greece, and who built the so-called Treasuries
of Mycenæ and Orchomenos, and who sent forth the Etruscans to civilise
Italy. If this be so, it accounts for the absence of architectural
remains, for they would have left behind them no buildings but the
sepulchres of their departed great ones; and if their history is to be
recovered, it must be sought for in the bowels of the earth, and not in
anything existing above-ground.
Next to these in point of age and style comes a curious group of
rock-cut monuments, found in the centre of the land at Doganlu. They are
placed on the rocky side of a narrow valley, and are unconnected
apparently with any great city or centre of population. Generally they
are called tombs, but there are no chambers nor anything about them to
indicate a funereal purpose, and the inscriptions which accompany them
are not on the monuments themselves, nor do they refer to such a
destination. Altogether they are certainly among the most mysterious
remains of antiquity, and, beyond a certain similarity to the rock-cut
tombs around Persepolis, present no features that afford even a remote
analogy to other monuments which might guide us in our conjectures as to
the purpose for which they were designed. They are of a style of art
clearly indicating a wooden origin, and consist of a square
frontispiece, either carved into certain geometric shapes, or apparently
prepared for painting; at each side is a flat pilaster, and above a
pediment terminating in two scrolls. Some—apparently the more modern—
have pillars of a rude Doric order, and all indeed are much more
singular than beautiful. When more of the same class are discovered,
they may help us to some historic data: all that we can now advance is,
that, judging from the inscriptions on them and the traditions in
Herodotus, they would appear to belong to some race from Thessaly, or
thereabouts, who at some remote period crossed the Hellespont and
settled in their neighbourhood; they may be dated as far back as 1000,
and most probably 700 years at least before the Christian Era.
[Illustration: 116. Rock-cut Frontispiece at Doganlu. (From Texier’s
‘Asie Mineure.’)]
There are other rock-cut sculptures farther east, at Pterium and
elsewhere; but all these are figure sculptures, without architectural
form or details, and therefore hardly coming within the limits of this
work.
The only remaining important architectural group in Asia Minor is that
of Lycia, made known in this country since the year 1838, by the
investigations of Sir Charles Fellows and others. Interesting though
they certainly are, they are extremely disheartening to any one looking
for earlier remains in this land,—inasmuch as all of them, and more
especially the older ones, indicate distinctly a wooden origin—more
strongly perhaps than any architectural remains in the Western world.
The oldest of them cannot well be carried farther back than the Persian
conquest of Cyrus and Harpagus. In other words, it seems perfectly
evident that up to that period the Lycians used only wood for their
buildings, and that it was only at that time, and probably from the
Greeks or Egyptians, that they, like the Persians themselves, first
learnt to substitute for their frail and perishable structures others of
a more durable material.
[Illustration: 117. Lycian Tomb. (From British Museum.)]
As already observed, the same process can be traced in Egypt in the
earliest ages. In Central Asia the change was effected by the Persians.
In India between the 2nd and 3rd centuries B.C. In Greece—in what was
not borrowed from the Egyptians—the change took place a little earlier
than in Lycia, or say in the 7th century B.C. What is important to
observe here is that, wherever the process can be detected, it is in
vain to look for earlier buildings. It is only in the infancy of stone
architecture that men adhere to wooden forms; and as soon as habit gives
them familiarity with the new material they abandon the incongruities of
the style, and we lose all trace of the original form, which never
reappears at an after age.
All the original buildings of Lycia are tombs or monumental erections of
some kind, and generally may be classed under two heads, those having
curvilinear and those having rectilinear roofs, of both which classes
examples are found structural—or standing alone—as well as rock-cut. The
woodcut (No. 117) represents a perfectly constructed tomb. It consists
first of a double podium, which may have been in all cases, or at least
generally, of stone. Above this is a rectangular chest or sarcophagus,
certainly copied from a wooden form; all the mortises and framing, even
to the pins that held them together, being literally rendered in the
stonework. Above this is a curvilinear roof of pointed form, which also
is in all its parts a copy of an original in wood.
The staves or bearers of the lower portion of the chest or sarcophagus
would suggest that the original feature was a portable ark, the upper
portion of which was framed in bamboo or some pliable wood tied together
by cross timbers or purlins which are carved on the principal front. A
somewhat similar scheme of construction is shown in the Chaityas of the
Buddhist temples, which are supposed to have been copies of wooden
structures not dissimilar to the Toda Mant huts which are built by the
Hindus down to the present day.[119]
[Illustration: 118. Rock-cut Lycian Tomb. (From Forbes and Spratt’s
‘Lycia.’)]
[Illustration: 119. Rock-cut Lycian Tomb. (From Sir Charles Fellows’s
work.)]
[Illustration: 120. Rock-cut Lycian Tomb. (From Texier’s ‘Asie
Mineure.’)]
When these forms are repeated in the rock the stylobate is omitted, and
only the upper part represented, as shown in the annexed woodcut (No.
118).
When the curvilinear roof is omitted, a flat one is substituted, nearly
similar to those common in the country at the present day, consisting of
beams of unsquared timber, laid side by side as close as they can be
laid, and over this a mass of concrete or clay, sufficiently thick to
prevent the rain from penetrating through. Sometimes this is surmounted
by a low pediment, and sometimes the lower framing also stands out from
the rock, so as to give the entrance of the tomb something of a
porchlike form. Both these forms are illustrated in the two woodcuts
(Nos. 119 and 120), and numerous varieties of them are shown in the
works of Sir Charles Fellows and others, all containing the same
elements, and betraying most distinctly the wooden origin from which
they were derived.
[Illustration: 121. Ionic Lycian Tomb. (From Texier’s ‘Asie Mineure.’)]
The last form that these buildings took was in the substitution of an
Ionic façade for these carpentry forms: this was not done apparently at
once, for, though the Ionic form was evidently borrowed from the
neighbouring Greek cities, it was only adopted by degrees, and even then
betrayed more strongly the wooden forms from which its entablature was
derived than is usually found in other or more purely Grecian examples.
As soon as it had fairly gained a footing, the wooden style was
abandoned, and a masonry one substituted in its stead. The whole change
took place in this country probably within a century; but this is not a
fair test of the time such a process usually takes, as here it was
evidently done under foreign influence and with the spur given by the
example of a stone-building people. We have no knowledge of how long it
took in Egypt to effect the transformation. In India, where the form and
construction of the older Buddhist temples resemble so singularly these
examples in Lycia, the process can be traced through five or six
centuries; and in Persia it took perhaps nearly as long to convert the
wooden designs of the Assyrians into even the imperfect stone
architecture of the Achæmenians. Even in their best and most perfect
buildings, however, much remained to be done before the carpentry types
were fairly got rid of and the style became entitled to rank among the
masonic arts of the world.
The remaining ancient buildings of Asia Minor were all built by the
Greeks and Romans, each in their own style, so that their classification
and description belong properly to the chapters treating of the
architectural history of those nations, from which they cannot properly
be separated, although it is at the same time undoubtedly true that the
purely European forms of the art were considerably modified by the
influence on them of local Asiatic forms and feelings. The Ionic order,
for instance, which arose in the Grecian colonies on the coast, is only
the native style of this country Doricised, if the expression may be
used. In other words, the local method of building had become so
modified and altered by the Greeks in adapting it to the Doric, which
had become the typical style with them, as to cause the loss of almost
all its original Asiatic forms. It thus became essentially a stone
architecture with external columns, instead of a style indulging only in
wooden pillars, and those used internally, as there is every reason to
suppose was the earlier form of the art. The Ionic style, thus composed
of two elements, took the arrangement of the temples from the Doric, and
their details from the Asiatic original. The Roman temples, on the
contrary, which have been erected in this part of the world, in their
columns and other details exactly follow the buildings at Rome itself:
while, as in the instances above quoted of Jerusalem, Palmyra, Kangovar,
and others, the essential forms and arrangements are all local and
Asiatic. The former are Greek temples with Asiatic details, the latter
Asiatic temples with only Roman masonic forms. The Greeks, in fact, were
colonists, the Romans only conquerors; and hence the striking difference
in the style of Asiatic art executed under their respective influence.
We shall have frequent occasion in the sequel to refer to this
difference.
Though not strictly within the geographical limits of this chapter,
there is a group of tombs at Amrith—the ancient Marathos, on the coast
of Syria—which are too interesting to be passed over; but so exceptional
in the present state of our knowledge, that it is difficult to assign
them their proper place anywhere.
The principal monument, represented in woodcut No. 122, is 31 ft. 8 in.
in height, composed of very large blocks of stone and situated over a
sepulchral cavern. There is no inscription or indication to enable us to
fix its date with certainty.[120] The details of its architecture might
be called Assyrian; but we know of nothing in that country that at all
resembles it. On the other hand there is a moulding on its base, which,
if correctly drawn, would appear to be of Roman origin; and there is a
look about the lions that would lead us to suspect they were carved
under Greek influence—after the age of Alexander at least.
[Illustration: 122. Elevation of the Monument and Section of the Tomb at
Amrith. (From Renan.[121])]
The interest consists in its being almost the only perfect survivor of a
class of monuments at one time probably very common; but which we are
led to believe from the style of ornamentation were generally in brick.
It is also suggestive, from its close resemblance to the Buddhist topes
in Afghanistan and India; the tall form of those, especially in the
first-named country, and their universally domical outline, point
unmistakably to some such original as this: and lastly, were I asked to
point out the building in the old world which most resembled the stele
which Herod erected over the Tombs of the Kings at Jerusalem, in
expiation of his desecration of their sanctity,[122] this is the
monument to which I should unhesitatingly refer.
[Illustration: 123. West View of the Acropolis restored. (From
Wordsworth’s ‘Athens.’[123])]
BOOK III.
CHAPTER I.
GREECE.
CONTENTS.
Historical notice—Pelasgic art—Tomb of Atreus—Other remains—Hellenic
Greece—History of the orders—Doric order—the Parthenon—Ionic order—
Corinthian order—Caryatides—Forms of temples—Mode of lighting—
Municipal architecture—Theatres.
CHRONOLOGICAL MEMORANDA.
DATES.
Atridæ at Mycenæ, from B.C. 1207 to 1104
Return of the Heraclidæ to Peloponnese 1104
Olympiads commence 776
Cypselidæ at Corinth—Building of temple at 655 to 581
Corinth, from
Selinus founded, and first temple commenced 626
Ascendency of Ægina—Building of temple at Ægina, 508 to 499
from
Battle of Marathon 490
Battle of Salamis 480
Theron at Agrigentum. Commences great temple 480
Cimon at Athens. Temple of Theseus built 469
Pericles at Athens. Parthenon finished 438
Temple of Jupiter at Olympia finished 436
Propylæa at Athens built, from 437 to 432
Selinus destroyed by Carthaginians 410
Erechtheium at Athens finished 409
Monument of Lysicrates at Athens 335
Death of Alexander the Great 324
Till within a very recent period the histories of Greece and Rome have
been considered as the ancient histories of the world; and even now, in
our universities and public schools, it is scarcely acknowledged that a
more ancient record has been read on the monuments of Egypt and dug out
of the bowels of the earth in Assyria.
It is nevertheless true that the decipherment of the hieroglyphics on
the one hand, and the reading of the arrow-headed characters on the
other, have disclosed to us two forms of civilisation anterior to that
which reappeared in Greece in the 8th century before Christ. Based on
those that preceded it, the Hellenic form developed itself there with a
degree of perfection never before seen, nor has it, in its own peculiar
department, ever been since surpassed.
These discoveries have been of the utmost importance, not only in
correcting our hitherto narrow views of ancient history, but in
assisting to explain much that was obscure, or utterly unintelligible,
in those histories with which we were more immediately familiar. We now,
for the first time, comprehend whence the Greeks obtained many of their
arts and much of their civilisation, and to what extent the character of
these was affected by the sources from which they were derived.
Having already described the artistic forms of Egypt and Assyria, it is
not difficult to discover the origin of almost every idea, and of every
architectural feature, that was afterwards found in Greece. But even
with this assistance we should not be able to understand the phenomena
which Greek art presents to us, were it not that the monuments reveal to
us the existence of two distinct and separate races existing
contemporaneously in Greece. If the Greeks were as purely Aryan as their
language would lead us to believe, all our ethnographic theories are at
fault. But this is precisely one of those cases where archæology steps
in to supplement what philology tells us and to elucidate what that
science fails to reveal. That the language of the Greeks, with the
smallest possible admixture from other sources, is pure Aryan, no one
will dispute: but their arts, their religion, and frequently their
institutions, tend to ascribe to them an altogether different origin.
Fortunately the ruins at Mycenæ and Orchomenos are sufficient to afford
us a key to the mystery. From them we learn that at the time of the war
of Troy a people were supreme in Greece who were not Hellenes, but who
were closely allied to the Etruscans and other tomb-building, art-loving
races. Whether they were purely Turanian, or merely ultra-Celtic, may be
questioned; but one thing seems clear, that this people were then known
to the ancients under the name of Pelasgi, and it is their presence in
Greece, mixed up with the more purely Dorian races, which explains what
would otherwise be unintelligible in Grecian civilisation.
Except from our knowledge of the existence of a strong infusion of
Turanian blood into the veins of the Grecian people, it would be
impossible to understand how a people so purely Aryan in appearance came
to adopt a religion so essentially Anthropic and Ancestral. Their belief
in oracles, their worship of trees,[124] and many minor peculiarities,
were altogether abhorrent to the Aryan mind.
The existence of these two antagonistic elements satisfactorily explains
how it was that while art was unknown in the purely Dorian city of
Sparta, it flourished so exuberantly in the quasi-Pelasgic city of
Athens; why the Dorians borrowed their architectural order from Egypt,
and hardly changed its form during the long period they employed it; and
how it came to pass that the eastern art of the Persians was brought
into Greece, and how it was there modified so essentially that we hardly
recognise the original in its altered and more perfect form. It
explains, too, how the different States of Greece were artistic or
matter-of-fact in the exact proportion in which either of the two
elements predominated in the people.
Thus the poetry of Arcadia was unknown in the neighbouring State of
Sparta; but the Doric race there remained true to their institutions and
spread their colonies and their power farther than any other of the
little principalities of Greece. The institutions of Lycurgus could
never have been maintained in Athens; but, on the other hand, the
Parthenon was as impossible in the Lacedemonian State. Even in Athens
art would not have been the wonder that it became without that happy
admixture of the two races which then prevailed, mingling the common
sense of the one with the artistic feeling of the other, which tended to
produce the most brilliant intellectual development which has yet
dazzled the world with its splendour.
The contemporary presence of these two races perhaps also explains how
Greek civilisation, though so wonderfully brilliant, passed so quickly
away. Had either race been pure, the Dorian institutions might have
lasted as long as the village-systems of India or the arts of Egypt or
China; but where two dissimilar races mix, the tendency is inevitably to
revert to the type of one, and, though the intermixture may produce a
stock more brilliant than either parent, the type is less permanent and
soon passes away. So soon was it the case, in this instance, that the
whole of the great history of Greece may be said to be comprehended in
the period ranging between the battle of Marathon (B.C. 490) and the
peace concluded with Philip of Macedon by the Athenians (B.C. 346): so
that the son of a man who was born before the first event may have been
a party to the second. All those wonders of patriotism, of poetry, and
art, for which Greece was famous, crowded into the short space of a
century and a half, is a phenomenon the like of which the world has not
seen before, and is not likely to witness again.
PELASGIC ART.
As might be expected, from the length of time that has elapsed since the
Pelasgic races ruled in Greece, and owing to the numerous changes that
have taken place in that country since their day, their architectural
remains are few, and comparatively insignificant. It has thus come to
pass that, were it not for their tombs, their city walls, and their
works of civil engineering, such as bridges and tunnels—in which they
were pre-eminent—we should hardly now possess any material remains to
prove their existence or mark the degree of civilisation to which they
had reached.
[Illustration: 124. Section and Plan of Tomb of Atreus at Mycenæ. Scale
of plan 100 ft. to 1 in.]
The most remarkable of these remains are the tombs of the kings of
Mycenæ, a city which in Homeric times had a fair title to be considered
the capital of Greece, or at all events to be considered one of the most
important of her cities. The Dorians described these as treasuries, from
the number of precious objects found in them, as in the tombs of the
Etruscans, and because they looked upon such halls as far more than
sufficient for the narrow dwellings of the dead. The most perfect and
the largest of them now existing is known as the Treasury or Tomb of
Atreus at Mycenæ, shown in plan and section in the annexed woodcut. The
principal chamber is 48 ft. 6 in. in diameter, and is, or was when
perfect, of the shape of a regular equilateral pointed arch, a form well
adapted to the mode of construction, which is that of horizontal layers
of stones, projecting the one beyond the other, till one small stone
closed the whole, and made the vault complete.
As will be explained further on, this was the form of dome adopted by
the Jaina architects in India. It prevailed also in Italy and Asia Minor
wherever a Pelasgic race is traced, down to the time when the pointed
form again came into use in the Middle Ages, though it was not then used
as a horizontal, but as a radiating arch.
On one side of this hall is a chamber cut in the rock, the true
sepulchre apparently, and externally is a long passage leading to a
doorway, which, judging from the fragments that remain (Woodcut No.
125), must have been of a purely Asiatic form of art, and very unlike
anything found subsequent to this period in Greece.
[Illustration: 125. Fragment of Pillar in front of Tomb of Atreus at
Mycenæ.]
To all appearance the dome was lined internally with plates of brass or
bronze, some nails of which metals are now found there; and the holes in
which the nails were inserted are still to be seen all over the place. A
second tomb or treasury of smaller dimensions was discovered by Dr.
Schliemann in 1878. Another of these tombs, erected by Minyas at
Orchomenos, described by Pausanias as one of the wonders of Greece,[125]
seems from the remains still existing to have been at least 20 ft. wider
than this one, and proportionably larger in every respect. All these
were covered with earth, and some are probably still hidden which a
diligent search might reveal. In fact Dr. Schliemann’s discoveries in
the Acropolis of Mycenæ and in the Troad prove that it is still possible
to discover an unrifled tomb even in Greece.
As domes constructed on the horizontal principle, these three are the
largest of which we have any knowledge, though there does not appear to
be any reasonable limit to the extent to which such a form of building
might be carried. When backed by earth,[126] as these were, it is
evident, from the mode of construction, that they cannot be destroyed by
any equable pressure exerted from the exterior.
The only danger to be feared is, what is technically called a rising of
the haunches; and to avoid this it might be necessary, where large domes
were attempted, to adopt a form more nearly conical than that used at
Mycenæ. This might be a less pleasing architectural feature, but it is
constructively a better one than the form of the radiating domes we
generally employ.
It is certainly to be regretted that more of the decorative features of
this early style have not been discovered. They differ so entirely from
anything else in Greece, and are so purely Asiatic in form, that it
would be exceedingly interesting to be able to restore a complete
decoration of any sort. In all the parts hitherto brought to light, an
Ionic-like scroll is repeated in every part and over every detail,
rather rudely executed, but probably originally heightened by colour.
Its counterparts are found in Assyria and at Persepolis, but nowhere
else in Greece.[127]
[Illustration: 126. Gateway at Thoricus. (From Dodwell’s ‘Greece.’)]
The Pelasgic races soon learnt to adopt for their doorways the more
pleasing curvilinear form with which they were already familiar from
their interiors. The annexed illustration (Woodcut No. 126) from a
gateway at Thoricus, in Attica, serves to show its simplest and earliest
form; and the illustration (Woodcut No. 129) from Assos, in Asia Minor,
of a far more modern date, shows the most complicated form it took in
ancient times. In this last instance it is merely a discharging arch,
and so little fitted for the purpose to which it is applied, that we can
only suppose that its adoption arose from a strong predilection for this
shape.
Another illustration of Pelasgic masonry is found at Delos (Woodcut No.
127), consisting of a roof formed by two arch stones, at a certain angle
to one another, similar to the plan adopted in Egypt, and is further
interesting as being associated with capitals of pillars formed of the
front part of bulls, as in Assyria, pointing again to the intimate
connection that existed between Greece and Asia at this early period of
the former’s history.
[Illustration: 127. Arch at Delos. (From Stuart’s ‘Athens.’)]
In all these instances it does not seem to have been so much want of
knowledge that led these early builders to adopt the horizontal in
preference to the radiating principle, as a conviction of its greater
durability, as well, perhaps, as a certain predilection for an ancient
mode.
In the construction of their walls they adhered, as a mere matter of
taste, to forms which they must have known to be inferior to others. In
the example, for instance, of a wall in the Peloponnesus (woodcut No.
128), we find the polygonal masonry of an earlier age actually placed
upon as perfect a specimen built in regular courses, or what is
technically called _ashlar_ work, as any to be found in Greece; and on
the other side of the gateway at Assos (Woodcut No. 129) there exists a
semicircular arch, shown by the dotted lines, which is constructed
horizontally, and could only have been copied from a radiating arch.
[Illustration: 128. Wall in Peloponnesus. (From Blouet’s ‘Voyage en
Grèce.’)]
Their city walls are chiefly remarkable for the size of the blocks of
stone used and for the beauty with which their irregular joints and
courses are fitted into one another. Like most fortifications, they are
generally devoid of ornament, the only architectural features being the
openings. These are interesting, as showing the steps by which a
peculiar form of masonry was perfected, and which, in after ages, led to
important architectural results.
[Illustration: 129. Gateway at Assos. (From Texier’s ‘Asie Mineure.’)]
One of the most primitive of these buildings is a nameless ruin existing
near Missolonghi (Woodcut No. 130). In it the sides of the opening are
straight for the whole height, and, though making a very stable form of
opening, it is one to which it is extremely difficult to fit doors, or
to close by any known means. It was this difficulty that led to the next
expedient adopted of inserting a lintel at a certain height, and making
the jambs more perpendicular below, and more sloping above. This method
is already exemplified in the tomb of Atreus (Woodcut No. 124), and in
the Gate of the Lions at Mycenæ (Woodcut No. 131); but it is by no means
clear whether the pediments were always filled up with sculpture, as in
this instance, or left open. In the walls of a town they were probably
always closed, but left open in a chamber. In the gate at Mycenæ the two
lions stand against an altar[128] shaped like a pillar, of a form found
only in Lycia, in which the round ends of the timbers of the roof are
shown as if projecting into the frieze.
[Illustration: 130. Doorway at Missolonghi. (From Dodwell.)]
[Illustration: 131. Gate of Lions, Mycenæ.]
These are slight remains, it must be confessed, from which to
reconstruct an art which had so much influence on the civilisation of
Greece; but they are sufficient for the archæologist, as the existence
of a few fossil fragments of the bones of an elephant or a tortoise
suffice to prove the pre-existence of those animals wherever they have
been found, and enable the palæontologist to reason upon them with
almost as much certainty as if he saw them in a menagerie. Nor is it
difficult to see why the remnants are so few. When Homer describes the
imaginary dwelling of Alcinous—which he meant to be typical of a perfect
palace in his day—he does not speak of its construction or solidity, nor
tell us how symmetrically it was arranged; but he is lavish of his
praise of its brazen walls, its golden doors with their silver posts and
lintels—just as the writers of the Books of Kings and Chronicles praise
the contemporary temple or palace of Solomon for similar metallic
splendour.
The palace of Menelaus is described by the same author as full of brass
and gold, silver and ivory. It was resplendent as the sun and moon, and
appeared to the eye of Telemachus like the mansion of Jupiter himself.
[Illustration: 132. Plan of Palace at Tiryns.]
On the architecture of the early Greek palaces considerable light has
been thrown through the researches of the late Dr. Schliemann at Tiryns,
on his second visit in 1884, when he was accompanied by Dr. Dörpfield,
who measured and drew out the plan which is here reproduced (Woodcut No.
132). The palace at Tiryns is assumed by Dr. Schliemann to have been
destroyed by fire in the 11th century B.C. It was built in the upper
citadel and faced the south. The citadel was entered through a propylæum
with outer and inner portico, both in antis. A second propylæum of
smaller dimensions on the south of the entrance court gave access to the
chief court of the palace; this court was surrounded by porticoes on
three sides, and on the fourth or south side, a vestibule consisting of
a portico-in-antis leading to an ante-chamber, and the megaron or men’s
hall. The ante-chamber was separated from the portico by three
folding-doors, hung on solid timber framing; a single door, probably
closed by a curtain only, led from the ante-chamber to the men’s hall,
measuring 48 ft. by 33 ft., the roof of which was supported on four
pillars or columns; a circle in the centre of these indicated probably
the hearth. There are various chambers on the west side, one of which,
the bath-room, measuring 13 ft. by 10 ft., had a floor consisting of a
gigantic block of limestone 2 ft. thick and weighing 14 to 15 tons. On
the east side of the men’s hall was a second court with vestibule or
south side leading to the women’s hall (thalamos), 24 ft. by 17 ft., and
various other rooms on the west side of it. To the south of the women’s
court was a third court which may be considered to be the court of
service, with a passage leading direct to the entrance propylon of the
citadel.
The walls were built in rubble masonry and clay mortar (clay mixed with
straw or hay); the foundations were carried from 6 ft. to 8 ft. below
the ground. The walls were protected externally; first by a layer of
clay of various thicknesses and then with a plaster of lime about half
an inch thick. The upper portions of the walls generally consisted of
sun-dried bricks, and in order to give greater strength to the walls,
beams laid on thin slabs of stone (to give a horizontal bed) were built
into the outer surface. Blocks of hard limestone or breccia were used
for all the steps and door cills. The exposed angles of the walls and
the responds or antæ[129] of the columns were built of stone in the
lower part and wood above (in Troy they were always in wood with a stone
base). Opinions differ as to the lighting of the halls; the smaller
chambers were probably lighted through the door, as in Pompeii; but the
men’s and women’s halls must either have received their light through
openings at the side under the roof, or by a raised lantern over the
hearth before referred to.
No temples are mentioned by Homer, nor by any early writer; but the
funereal rites celebrated in honour of Patroclus, as described in the
XXIII. Book of the Iliad, and the mounds still existing on the Plains of
Troy, testify to the character of the people whose manners and customs
he was describing, and would alone be sufficient to convince us that,
except in their tombs, we should find little to commemorate their
previous existence.
The subject is interesting, and deserves far more attention than has
hitherto been bestowed upon it, and more space than can be devoted to it
here. Not only is this art the art of people who warred before Troy, but
our knowledge of it reveals to us a secret which otherwise might for
ever have remained a mystery. The religion of the Homeric poems is
essentially Anthropic and Ancestral—in other words, of Turanian origin,
with hardly a trace of Aryan feeling running through it. When we know
that the same was the case with the arts of those days, we feel that it
could not well be otherwise; but what most excites our wonder is the
power of the poet, whose song, describing the manners and feelings of an
extinct race, was so beautiful as to cause its adoption as a gospel by a
people of another race, tincturing their religion to the latest hour of
their existence.
We have very little means of knowing how long this style of art lasted
in Greece. The treasury built by Myron king of Sicyon at Olympia about
650 B.C. seems to have been of this style, in so far as we can judge of
it by the description of Pausanias.[130] It consisted of two chambers,
one ornamented in the Doric, one in the Ionic style, not apparently with
pillars, but with that kind of decoration which appears at that period
to have been recognised as peculiar to each. But the entire decorations
seem to have been of brass, the weight of metal employed being recorded
in an inscription on the building. The earliest example of a Doric
temple that we know of—that of Corinth—would appear to belong to very
nearly the same age, so that the 7th century B.C. may probably be taken
as the period when the old Turanian form of Pelasgic art gave way before
the sterner and more perfect creations of a purer Hellenic design.
Perhaps it might be more correct to say that the Hellenic history of
Greece commenced with the Olympiads (B.C. 776), but before that kingdom
bloomed into perfection an older civilisation had passed away, leaving
little beyond a few tombs and works of public utility as records of its
prior existence. It left, however, an undying influence which can be
traced through every subsequent stage of Grecian history, which gave
form to that wonderful artistic development of art, the principal if not
the only cause of the unrivalled degree of perfection to which it
subsequently attained.
[Illustration:
133. Plan of the Acropolis at Athens.
A. Propylæa. B. Temple of Niké Apteros. C. Parthenon. D. Erechtheium.
E. Foundations of old Temple of Athena, sixth century B.C.
]
CHAPTER II.
HELLENIC GREECE.
HISTORY OF THE ORDERS.
The culminating period of the Pelasgic civilisation of Greece was at the
time of the war with Troy—the last great military event of that age, and
the one which seems to have closed the long and intimate connection of
the Greek Pelasgians with their cognate races in Asia.
Sixty years later the irruption of the Thessalians, and twenty years
after that event the return of the Heracleidæ, closed, in a political
sense, that chapter in history, and gave rise to what may be styled the
Hellenic civilisation, which proved the great and true glory of Greece.
Four centuries, however, elapsed, which may appropriately be called the
dark ages of Greece, before the new seed bore fruit, at least in so far
as art is concerned. These ages produced, it is true, the laws of
Lycurgus, a characteristic effort of a truly Aryan race, conferring as
they did on the people who made them that power of self-government, and
capacity for republican institutions, which gave them such stability at
home and so much power abroad, but which were as inimical to the softer
glories of the fine arts in Sparta as they have proved elsewhere.
When, after this long night, architectural art reappeared, it was at
Corinth, under the Cypselidæ, a race of strongly-marked Asiatic
tendencies; but it had in the meantime undergone so great a
transformation as to well-nigh bewilder us. On its reappearance it was
no longer characterised by the elegant and ornate art of Mycenæ and the
cognate forms of Asiatic growth, but had assumed the rude, bold
proportions of Egyptian art, and with almost more than Egyptian
massiveness.
DORIC TEMPLES IN GREECE.
The age of the Doric temple at Corinth is not, it is true,
satisfactorily determined; but the balance of evidence would lead us to
believe that it belongs to the age of Cypselus, or about 650 B.C. The
pillars are less than four diameters in height, and the architrave—the
only part of the superstructure that now remains—is proportionately
heavy. It is, indeed, one of the most massive specimens of architecture
existing, more so than even the rock-cut prototype at Beni Hasan. As a
work of art, it fails from excess of strength, a fault common to most of
the efforts of a rude people, ignorant of the true resources of art, and
striving, by the expression of physical power alone, to attain its
objects.
Next in age to this is the little temple at Ægina.[131] Its date, too,
is unknown, though, judging from the character of its sculpture, it
probably belongs to the middle of the sixth century before Christ.
[Illustration: 134. Temple at Ægina restored. No scale.]
We know that Athens had a great temple on the Acropolis, contemporary
with these, and the frusta of its columns still remain, which, after its
destruction by the Persians, were built into the walls of the citadel.
It is more than probable that all the principal cities of Greece had
temples commensurate with their dignity before the Persian War. Many of
these were destroyed during that struggle; but it also happened then, as
in France and England in the 12th and 13th centuries, that the old
temples were thought unworthy of the national greatness, and of that
feeling of exaltation arising from the successful result of the greatest
of their wars, so that almost all those which remained were pulled down
or rebuilt. The consequence is, that nearly all the great temples now
found in Greece were built in the forty or fifty years which succeeded
the defeat of the Persians at Salamis and Platæa.
One of the oldest temples of this class is that best known as the
Theseion or Temple of Theseus at Athens, now recognised as the Temple of
Hephaistos mentioned in the “Attica” of Pausanias. By an analysis of the
architectural character of the Temple Dr. Dorpfield contends that it is
posterior to the Parthenon and not anterior, as is generally supposed.
Of all the great temples, the best and most celebrated is the Parthenon,
the only octastyle Doric Temple in Greece, and in its own class
undoubtedly the most beautiful building in the world. It is true it has
neither the dimensions nor the wondrous expression of power and eternity
inherent in Egyptian temples, nor has it the variety and poetry of the
Gothic Cathedral; but for intellectual beauty, for perfection of
proportion, for beauty of detail, and for the exquisite perception of
the highest and most recondite principles of art ever applied to
architecture, it stands utterly and entirely alone and unrivalled—the
glory of Greece and a reproach to the rest of the world.
Next in size and in beauty to this was the great hexastyle temple of
Jupiter at Olympia, finished two years later than the Parthenon. Its
dimensions were nearly the same, but having only six pillars in front
instead of eight, as in the Parthenon, the proportions were different,
this temple being 95 ft. by 230, the Parthenon 101 ft. by 227.
The excavations at Olympia, undertaken at the cost of the German
Government in 1876, not only laid bare the site of the Temple of
Jupiter, of which the lower frusta of half the column, the lower
portions of the walls of cella and nearly the whole of the pavement was
found in situ; but led to the recovery of a great portion of the
sculptures which decorated the metopes and filled the pediments, so that
it is not only possible to restore the complete design of the temple
itself but to obtain a distinct idea of its sculptural decoration. The
foundations of other Doric temples were found; of the Temple of Hera,
which seems originally to have been a wooden structure, the wood being
gradually replaced by stone when from its decay it required
renewal.[132] This temple was coeval if not more ancient than that of
Zeus; the interior of the cella would seem to have been subdivided into
bays or niches inside, similar to those of the Temple at Bassæ; a third
hexastyle Doric temple, the Metroum, was also discovered, and many
buildings dating from the Roman occupation.
To the same age belongs the exquisite little Temple of Apollo Epicurius
at Bassæ (47 ft. by 125), the Temple of Minerva at Sunium, the greater
temple at Rhamnus, the Propylæa at Athens, and indeed all that is
greatest and most beautiful in the architecture of Greece. The temple of
Ceres at Eleusis also was founded and designed at this period, but its
execution belongs to a later date.
The temple at Assos, though not of any great size, is interesting on
account of its having had the outer face of the architrave sculptured in
relief, requiring therefore an architectural frame which was obtained by
leaving a raised fillet along the bottom. The temple was
hexastyle-peristyle with pronaos but no posticum. The date is assumed to
be about 470 B.C., or shortly after the battle of Mycale.[133]
DORIC TEMPLES IN SICILY.
Owing probably to some local peculiarity, which we have not now the
means of explaining, the Dorian colonies of Sicily and Magna Græcia seem
to have possessed, in the days of their prosperity, a greater number of
temples, and certainly retain the traces of many more, than were or are
to be found in any of the great cities of the mother country. The one
city of Selinus alone possesses six, in two groups,—three in the citadel
and three in the city. Of these the oldest is the central one of the
first-named group. Its sculptures, first discovered by Messrs. Angell
and Harris, indicate an age only slightly subsequent to the foundation
of the colony, B.C. 636, and therefore probably nearly contemporary with
the example above mentioned at Corinth. The most modern is the great
octastyle temple, which seems to have been left unfinished at the time
of the destruction of the city by the Carthaginians, B.C. 410. It
measured 375 ft. by 166, and was consequently very much larger than any
temple of its class in Greece. The remaining four range between these
dates, and therefore form a tolerably perfect chronometric series at
that time when the arts of Greece itself fail us. The inferiority,
however, of provincial art, as compared with that of Greece itself,
prevents us from applying such a test with too much confidence to the
real history of the art, though it is undoubtedly valuable as a
secondary illustration.
At Agrigentum there are three Doric temples, two small hexastyles, whose
age may be about 500 to 480 B.C., and one great exceptional example,
differing in its arrangements from all the Grecian temples of the age.
Its dimensions are 360 ft. long by 173 broad, and consequently very
nearly the same as those of the great Temple of Selinus just alluded to.
Its date is perfectly known, as it was commenced by Theron, B.C. 480,
and left unfinished seventy-five years afterwards, when the city was
destroyed by the Carthaginians.
At Syracuse there still exist the ruins of a very beautiful temple of
this age; and at Segesta are remains of another in a much more perfect
state.
Pæstum, in Magna Græcia, boasts of the most magnificent group of temples
after that at Agrigentum. One is a very beautiful hexastyle, belonging
probably to the middle of the fifth century B.C., built in a bold and
very pure style of Doric architecture, and still retains the greater
part of its internal columnar arrangement.
The other two are more modern, and are far less pure both in plan and in
detail, one having nine columns at each end, the central pillars of
which are meant to correspond with an internal range of pillars,
supporting the ridge of the roof. The other, though of a regular form,
is so modified by local peculiarities, so corrupt, in fact, as hardly to
deserve being ranked with the beautiful order which it most resembles.
IONIC TEMPLES.
We have even fewer materials for the history of the Ionic order in
Greece than we have for that of the Doric. The recent discoveries in
Assyria have proved beyond a doubt that the Ionic was even more
essentially an introduction from Asia[134] than the Doric was from
Egypt: the only question is, when it was brought into Greece. My own
impression is, that it existed there in one form or another from the
earliest ages, but owing to its slenderer proportions, and the greater
quantity of wood used in its construction, the examples may have
perished, so that nothing is now known to exist which can lay claim to
even so great an antiquity as the Persian War.
The oldest example, probably, was the temple on the Ilissus, now
destroyed, dating from about 484 B.C.; next to this is the little gem of
a temple dedicated to Niké Apteros, or the Wingless Victory, built about
fifteen years later, in front of the Propylæa at Athens. The last and
most perfect of all the examples of this order is the Erechtheium, on
the Acropolis; its date is apparently about 420 B.C., the great epoch of
Athenian art. Nowhere did the exquisite taste and skill of the Athenians
show themselves to greater advantage than here; for though every detail
of the order may be traced back to Nineveh or Persepolis, all are so
purified, so imbued with purely Grecian taste and feeling, that they
have become essential parts of a far more beautiful order than ever
existed in the land in which they had their origin.
The largest, and perhaps the finest, of Grecian Ionic temples was that
built about a century afterwards at Tegea, in Arcadia—a regular
peripteral temple of considerable dimensions, but the existence of which
is now known only from the description of Pausanias.[135]
As in the case, however, of the Doric order, it is not in Greece itself
that we find either the greatest number of Ionic temples or those most
remarkable for size, but in the colonies in Asia Minor, and more
especially in Ionia, whence the order most properly takes its name.
That an Ionic order existed in Asia Minor before the Persian War is
quite certain, but all examples perished in that memorable struggle; and
when it subsequently reappeared, the order had lost much of its purely
Asiatic character, and assumed certain forms and tendencies borrowed
from the simpler and purer Doric style.
If any temple in the Asiatic Greek colonies escaped destruction in the
Persian wars, it was that of Juno at Samos. It is said to have been
built by Polycrates, and appears to have been of the Doric order. The
ruins now found there are of the Ionic order, 346 ft. by 190 ft., and
must have succeeded the first mentioned. The apparent archaisms in the
form of the bases, &c., which have misled antiquarians, are merely
Eastern forms retained in spite of Grecian influence.
More remarkable even than this was the celebrated Temple of Diana at
Ephesus, said by Pliny to have been 425 ft. long by 220 ft. wide. Recent
excavations on the site, however, carried out by Mr. T. Wood, prove that
these dimensions apply only to the platform on which it stood. The
temple itself, measured from the outside of the angle pillars, was only
348 ft. by 164, making the area 57,072 ft., or about the average
dimensions of our mediæval cathedrals.
Besides these, there was a splendid decastyle temple, dedicated to
Apollo Didymæus, at Miletus, 156 ft. wide by 295 ft. in length; an
octastyle at Sardis, 261 ft. by 144 ft.; an exquisitely beautiful,
though small hexastyle, at Priene, 122 ft. by 64 ft.; and another at
Teos, and smaller examples elsewhere, besides many others which have no
doubt perished.
German explorations in Pergamon have brought to light the remains of the
Augustæum, a building consisting of two detached wings with columns of
the Ionic order resting on a lofty podium enriched with sculpture and
connected one with the other by a magnificent flight of steps, the whole
block measuring 125 ft. by 114 ft.[136]
CORINTHIAN TEMPLES.
The Corinthian order is as essentially borrowed from the bell-shaped
capitals of Egypt as the Doric is from their oldest pillars. Like
everything they touched, the Greeks soon rendered it their own by the
freedom and elegance with which they treated it. The acanthus-leaf with
which they adorned it is essentially Grecian, and we must suppose that
it had been used by them as an ornament, either in their metal or wood
work, long before they adopted it in stone as an architectural feature.
As in everything else, however, the Greeks could not help betraying in
this also the Asiatic origin of their art, and the Egyptian order with
them was soon wedded to the Ionic, whose volutes became an essential
though subdued part of this order. It is in fact a composite order, made
up of the bell-shaped capitals of the Egyptians and the spiral of the
Assyrians, and adopted by the Greeks at a time when national
distinctions were rapidly disappearing, and when true and severer art
was giving place to love of variety. At that time also mere ornament and
carving were supplanting the purer class of forms and the higher
aspirations of sculpture with which the Greeks ornamented their temples
in their best days.
In Greece the order does not appear to have been introduced, or at least
generally used, before the age of Alexander the Great; the oldest
authentic example, and also one of the most beautiful, being the
Choragic Monument of Lysicrates (B.C. 335), which, notwithstanding the
smallness of its dimensions, is one of the most beautiful works of art
of the merely ornamental class to be found in any part of the world. A
simpler example, but by no means so beautiful, is that of the porticoes
of the small octagonal building commonly called the Tower of the Winds
at Athens. The largest example in Greece of the Corinthian order is the
Temple of Jupiter Olympius at Athens. This, however, may almost be
called a Roman building, though on Grecian soil—having been commenced in
its present form under Antiochus Epiphanes, in the second century B.C.
by the Roman architect Cossutius, and only finished by Hadrian, to whom
probably we may ascribe the greatest part of what now remains. Its
dimensions are 135 ft. by 354 ft., and from the number of its columns,
their size and their beauty, it must have been when complete the most
beautiful Corinthian temple of the ancient world.
[Illustration: 135. Ancient Corinthian Capital. (From Branchidæ.)]
Judging, however, from some fragments found among the Ionic temples of
Asia Minor, it appears that the Corinthian order was introduced there
before we find any trace of it in Greece Proper. Indeed, _à priori_, we
might expect that its introduction into Greece was part of that reaction
which the elegant and luxurious Asiatics exercised on the severer and
more manly inhabitants of European Greece, and which was in fact the
main cause of their subjection, first to the Macedonians, and finally
beneath the iron yoke of Rome. As used by the Asiatics, it seems to have
arisen from the introduction of the bell-shaped capital of the
Egyptians, to which they applied the acanthus-leaf, sometimes in
conjunction with the honeysuckle ornament of the time, as in Woodcut No.
135, and on other and later occasions together with the volutes of the
same order, the latter combination being the one which ultimately
prevailed and became the typical form of the Corinthian capital.
DIMENSIONS OF GREEK TEMPLES.
Although differing so essentially in plan, the general dimensions of the
larger temples of the Greeks were very similar to those of the mediæval
cathedrals, and although they never reached the altitude of their modern
rivals, their cubic dimensions were probably in about the same ratio of
proportion.
The following table gives the approximate dimensions, rejecting
fractions, of the eight largest and best known examples:—
Juno, at Samos 346 feet long 190 feet wide = 65,740 feet.
Jupiter, at Agrigentum 360 feet long 173 feet wide = 62,280 feet.
Apollo, at Branchidæ 362 feet long 168 feet wide = 60,816 feet.
Diana, at Ephesus 348 feet long 164 feet wide = 57,072 feet.
Jupiter, at Athens 354 feet long 135 feet wide = 47,790 feet.
Didymæus, at Miletus 295 feet long 156 feet wide = 45,020 feet.
Cybele, at Sardis 261 feet long 144 feet wide = 37,884 feet.
Parthenon, at Athens 228 feet long 101 feet wide = 23,028 feet.
There may be some slight discrepancies in this table from the figures
quoted elsewhere, and incorrectness arising from some of the temples
being measured on the lowest step and others, as the Parthenon, on the
highest; but it is sufficient for comparison, which is all that is
attempted in its compilation.
DORIC ORDER.
The Doric was the order which the Greeks especially loved and cultivated
so as to make it most exclusively their own; and, as used in the
Parthenon, it certainly is as complete and as perfect an architectural
feature as any style can boast of. When first introduced from Egypt, it,
as before stated, partook of even more than Egyptian solidity, but by
degrees became attenuated to the weak and lean form of the Roman order
of the same name. Woodcuts No. 136, 137, 138 illustrate the three stages
of progress from the oldest example at Corinth to the order as used in
the time of Philip at Delos, the intermediate being the culminating
point in the age of Pericles: the first is 4·47 diameters in height, the
next 6·025, the last 7·015; and if the table were filled up with all the
other examples, the gradual attenuation of the shaft would very nearly
give the relative date of the example. This fact is in itself sufficient
to refute the idea of the pillar being copied from a wooden post, as in
that case it would have been slenderer at first, and would gradually
have departed from the wooden form as the style advanced.[137] This is
the case in all carpentry styles. With the Doric order the contrary
takes place. The earlier the example the more unlike it is to any wooden
original. As the masons advanced in skill and power over their stone
material, it came more and more to resemble posts or pillars of wood.
The fact appears to be that, either in Egypt or in early Greece, the
pillar was originally a pier of brickwork, or of rubble masonry,
supporting a wooden roof, of which the architraves, the triglyphs, and
the various parts of the cornice, all bore traces down to the latest
period.
Even as ordinarily represented, or as copied in this country, there is a
degree of solidity combined with elegance in this order, and an
exquisite proportion of the parts to one another and to the work they
have to perform, that command the admiration of every person of taste;
but, as used in Greece, its beauty was very much enhanced by a number of
refinements whose existence was not suspected till lately, and even now
cannot be detected but by the most practised eye.
[Illustration: 136. Temple at Delos.]
[Illustration: 137. Parthenon at Athens.]
[Illustration: 138. Temple at Corinth.]
The columns were at first assumed to be bounded by straight lines. It is
now found that they have an _entasis_, or convex profile, in the
Parthenon to the extent of 1/550 of the whole height, and are outlined
by a very delicate hyperbolic curve; it is true this can hardly be
detected by the eye in ordinary positions, but the want of it gives that
rigidity and poverty to the column which is observable in modern
examples.[138]
In like manner, the architrave in all temples was carried upwards so as
to form a very flat arch, just sufficient to correct the optical
delusion arising from the interference of the sloping lines of the
pediment. This, I believe, was common to all temples, but in the
Parthenon the curve was applied to the sides also, though from what
motive it is not so easy to detect.
Another refinement was making all the columns slope slightly inwards, so
as to give an idea of strength and support to the whole. Add to this,
that all the curved lines used were either hyperbolas or parabolas. With
one exception only, no circular line was employed, nor even an ellipse.
Every part of the temple was also arranged with the most unbounded care
and accuracy, and every detail of the masonry was carried out with a
precision and beauty of execution which is almost unrivalled, and it may
be added that the material of the whole was the purest and best white
marble. All these delicate adjustments, this exquisite finish and
attention to even the smallest details, are well bestowed on a design in
itself simple, beautiful, and appropriate. They combine to render this
order, as found in the best Greek temples, as nearly faultless as any
work of art can possibly be, and such as we may dwell upon with the most
unmixed and unvarying satisfaction.
The system of definite proportion which the Greeks employed in the
design of their temples, was another cause of the effect they produce
even on uneducated minds. It was not with them merely that the height
was equal to the width, or the length about twice the breadth; but every
part was proportioned to all those parts with which it was related, in
some such ratio as 1 to 6, 2 to 7, 3 to 8, 4 to 9, or 5 to 10, &c. As
the scheme advances these numbers become undesirably high. In this case
they reverted to some such simple ratios as 4 to 5, 5 to 6, 6 to 7, and
so on.
We do not yet quite understand the process of reasoning by which the
Greeks arrived at the laws which guided their practice in this respect;
but they evidently attached the utmost importance to it, and when the
ratio was determined upon, they set it out with such accuracy, that even
now the calculated and the measured dimensions seldom vary beyond such
minute fractions as can only be expressed in hundredths of an inch.
Though the existence of such a system of ratios has long been suspected,
it is only recently that any measurements of Greek temples have been
made with sufficient accuracy to enable the matter to be properly
investigated and their existence proved.[139]
The ratios are in some instances so recondite, and the correlation of
the parts at first sight so apparently remote, that many would be
inclined to believe they were more fanciful than real.[140] It would,
however, be as reasonable in a person with no ear, or no musical
education, to object to the enjoyment of a complicated concerted piece
of music experienced by those differently situated, or to declare that
the pain musicians feel from a false note was mere affectation. The eyes
of the Greeks were as perfectly educated as our ears. They could
appreciate harmonies which are lost in us, and were offended at false
quantities which our duller senses fail to perceive. But in spite of
ourselves, we do feel the beauty of these harmonic relations, though we
hardly know why; and if educated to them, we might acquire what might
almost be considered a new sense. But be this as it may, there can be no
doubt but that a great deal of the beauty which all feel in
contemplating the architectural productions of the Greeks, arises from
causes such as these, which we are only now beginning to appreciate.
[Illustration: 139. The Parthenon. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
To understand, however, the Doric order, we must not regard it as a
merely masonic form. Sculpture was always used, or intended to be used,
with it. The Metopes between the triglyphs, the pediments of the
porticoes, and the acroteria or pedestals on the roof, are all unmeaning
and useless unless filled or surmounted with sculptured figures.
Sculpture is, indeed, as essential a part of this order as the
acanthus-leaves and ornaments of the cornice are to the capitals and
entablature of the Corinthian order; and without it, or without its
place being supplied by painting, we are merely looking at the dead
skeleton, the mere framework of the order, without the flesh and blood
that gave it life and purpose.
It is when all these parts are combined together, as in the portico of
the Parthenon (Woodcut No. 139), that we can understand this order in
all its perfection; for though each part was beautiful in itself, their
full value can be appreciated only as parts of a great whole.
Another essential part of the order, too often overlooked, is the
colour, which was as integral a part of it as its form. Till very
lately, it was denied that Greek temples were, or could be, painted: the
unmistakable remains of colour, however, that have been discovered in
almost all temples, and the greater knowledge of the value and use of it
which now prevails, have altered public opinion very much on the matter,
and most people now admit that some colour was used, though few are
agreed as to the extent to which it was carried.
It cannot now be questioned that colour was used everywhere internally,
and on every object. Externally too it is generally admitted that the
sculpture was painted and relieved by strongly coloured backgrounds; the
lacunaria, or recesses of the roof, were also certainly painted; and all
the architectural mouldings, which at a later period were carved in
relief, have been found to retain traces of their painted ornaments.
It is disputed whether the echinus or carved moulding of the capital was
so ornamented. There seems little doubt but that it was; and that the
walls of the cells were also coloured throughout and covered with
paintings illustrative of the legends and attributes of the divinity to
whom the temple was dedicated or of the purposes for which it was
erected. The plane face of the architrave was probably left white, or
merely ornamented with metal shields or inscriptions, and the shafts of
the columns appear also to have been left plain, or merely slightly
stained to tone down the crudeness of the white marble. Generally
speaking, all those parts which from their form or position were in any
degree protected from the rain or atmospheric influences seem to have
been coloured; those particularly exposed, to have been left plain. To
whatever extent, however, painting may have been carried, these coloured
ornaments were as essential a part of the Doric order as the carved
ornaments were of the Corinthian, and made it, when perfect, a richer
and more ornamental, as it was a more solid and stable, order than the
latter. The colour nowhere interfered with the beauty of its forms, but
gave it that richness and amount of ornamentation which is indispensable
in all except the most colossal buildings, and a most valuable adjunct
even to them.
IONIC ORDER.
The Ionic order, as we now find it, is not without some decided
advantages over the Doric. It is more complete in itself and less
dependent on sculpture. Its frieze was too small for much display of
human life and action, and was probably usually ornamented with lines of
animals,[141] like the friezes at Persepolis. But the frieze of the
little temple of Nikè Apteros is brilliantly ornamented in the same
style as those of the Doric order. It also happened that those details
and ornaments which were only painted in the Doric, were carved in the
Ionic order, and remain therefore visible to the present day, which
gives to this order a completeness in our eyes which the other cannot
boast of. Add to this a certain degree of Asiatic elegance and grace,
and the whole when put together makes up a singularly pleasing
architectural object. But notwithstanding these advantages, the Doric
order will probably always be admitted to be superior, as belonging to a
higher class of art, and because all its forms and details are better
and more adapted to their purpose than those of the Ionic.
[Illustration: 140. Ionic order of Erechtheium at Athens.]
The principal characteristic of the Ionic order is the Pelasgic or
Asiatic spiral, here called a volute, which, notwithstanding its
elegance, forms at best but an awkward capital. The Assyrian honeysuckle
below this, carved as it is with the exquisite feeling and taste which a
Greek alone knew how to impart to such an object, forms as elegant an
architectural detail as is anywhere to be found; and whether used as the
necking of a column, or on the crowning member of a cornice, or on other
parts of the order, is everywhere the most beautiful ornament connected
with it. Comparing this order with that at Persepolis (Woodcut No. 96),
the only truly Asiatic prototype we have of it, we see how much the
Doric feeling of the Greeks had done to sober it down, by abbreviating
the capital and omitting the greater part of the base. This process was
carried much farther when the order was used in conjunction with the
Doric, as in the Propylæa, than when used by itself, as in the
Erechtheium; still in every case all the parts found in the Asiatic
style are found in the Greek. The same form and feelings pervade both;
and, except in beauty of execution and detail, it is not quite clear how
far even the Greek order is an improvement on the Eastern one. The
Persepolitan base is certainly the more beautiful of the two; so are
many parts of the capital. The perfection of the whole, however, depends
on the mode in which it is employed; and it is perfectly evident that
the Persian order could not be combined with the Doric, nor applied with
much propriety as an external order, which was the essential use of all
the Grecian forms of pillars.
[Illustration: 141. Ionic order in Temple of Apollo at Bassæ.]
[Illustration: 142. Section of half of the Ionic Capital at Bassæ, taken
through the volute.]
When used between antæ or square piers, as seems usually to have been
the case in Assyria, the two-fronted form of the Ionic capital was
appropriate and elegant; but when it was employed, as in the
Erechtheium, as an angle column, it presented a difficulty which even
Grecian skill and ingenuity could not quite conquer. When the Persians
wanted the capital to face four ways they turned the side outwards, as
at Persepolis (Woodcut No. 96), and put the volutes in the angles—which
was at best but an awkward mode of getting over the difficulty.
The instance in which these difficulties have been most successfully met
is in the internal order at Bassæ. There the three sides are equal, and
are equally seen—the fourth is attached to the wall—and the junction of
the faces is formed with an elegance that has never been surpassed. It
has not the richness of the order of the Erechtheium, but it excels it
in elegance. Its widely spreading base still retains traces of the
wooden origin of the order, and carries us back towards the times when a
shoe was necessary to support wooden posts on the floor of an Assyrian
hall.
Notwithstanding the amount of carving which the Ionic order displays,
there can be little doubt of its having been also ornamented with colour
to a considerable extent, but probably in a different manner from the
Doric. My own impression is, that the carved parts were gilt, or picked
out with gold, relieved by coloured grounds, varied according to the
situation in which they were found. The existing remains prove that
colours were used in juxtaposition, to relieve and heighten the
architectural effect of the carved ornaments of this order.
In the Ionic temples at Athens the same exquisite masonry was used as in
the Doric; the same mathematical precision and care is bestowed on the
entasis of the columns, the drawing of the volutes, and the execution of
even the minutest details; and much of its beauty and effect are no
doubt owing to this circumstance, which we miss so painfully in nearly
all modern examples.
CORINTHIAN ORDER.
As before mentioned, the Corinthian order was only introduced into
Greece on the decline of art, and never rose during the purely Grecian
age to the dignity of a temple order. It most probably, however, was
used in the more ornate specimens of domestic architecture, and in
smaller works of art, long before any of those examples of it were
executed which we now find in Greece.
[Illustration: 143. Order of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates.]
The most typical specimen we now know is that of the Choragic Monument
of Lysicrates (Woodcut No. 143), which, notwithstanding all its elegance
of detail and execution, can hardly be pronounced to be perfect, the
Egyptian and Asiatic features being only very indifferently united to
one another. The foliaged part is rich and full, but is not carried up
into the upper or Ionic portion, which is, in comparison, lean and poor;
and though separately the two parts are irreproachable, it was left to
the Romans so to blend the two together as to make a perfectly
satisfactory whole out of them.
In this example, as now existing, the junction of the column with the
capital is left a plain sinking, and so it is generally copied in modern
times; but there can be little doubt that this was originally filled by
a bronze wreath, which was probably gilt. Accordingly this is so
represented in the woodcut as being essential to the completion of the
order. The base and shaft have, like the upper part of the capital, more
Ionic feeling in them than the order was afterwards allowed to retain;
and altogether it is, as here practised, far more elegant, though less
complete, than the Roman form which superseded it.
[Illustration: 144. Order of the Tower of the Winds, Athens.]
The other Athenian example, that of the Tower of the winds (Woodcut No.
144), is remarkable as being almost purely Egyptian in its types, with
no Ionic admixture. The columns have no bases, the capitals no volutes,
and the water-leaf clings as closely to the bell as it does in the
Egyptian examples. The result altogether wants richness, and, though
appropriate on so small a scale, would hardly be pleasing on a larger.
The great example of the Temple of Jupiter Olympius differs in no
essential part from the Roman order, except that the corners of the
abacus are not cut off; and that, being executed in Athens, there is a
degree of taste and art displayed in its execution which we do not find
in any Roman examples. Strictly speaking, however, it belongs to that
school, and should be enumerated as a Roman, and not as a Grecian,
example.
CARYATIDES.
[Illustration: 145. Caryatide Figure in the British Museum.]
It has been already explained that the Egyptians never used caryatide
figures, properly so called, to support the entablatures of their
architecture, their figures being always attached to the front of the
columns or piers, which were the real bearing mass. At Persepolis, and
elsewhere in the East, we find figures everywhere employed supporting
the throne or the platform of the palaces of the kings; not, indeed, on
their heads, as the Greeks used them, but rather in their uplifted
hands.
The name, however, as well as their being only used in conjunction with
the Ionic order and with Ionic details, all point to an Asiatic origin
for this very questionable form of art. As employed in the little
Portico attached to the Erechtheium, these figures are used with so much
taste, and all the ornaments are so elegant, that it is difficult to
criticise or find fault; but it is nevertheless certain that it was a
mistake which even the art of the Greeks could hardly conceal. To use
human figures to support a cornice is unpardonable, unless it is done as
a mere secondary adjunct to a building. In the Erechtheium it is a
little too prominent for this, though used with as much discretion as
was perhaps possible under the circumstances. Another example of the
sort is shown in Woodcut No. 146, which, by employing a taller cap,
avoids some of the objections to the other; but the figure itself, on
the other hand, is less architectural, and so errs on the other side.
[Illustration: 146. Caryatide Figure from the Erechtheium.]
[Illustration: 147. Telamones at Agrigentum.]
Another form of this class of support is that of the Giants or
_Telamones_, instances of which are found supporting the roof of the
great Temple at Agrigentum, and in the baths of the semi-Greek city of
Pompeii. As they do not actually bear the entablature, but only seem to
relieve the masonry behind them, their employment is less objectionable
than that of the female figures above described; but even they hardly
fulfil the conditions of true art, and their place might be better
filled by some more strictly architectural feature.
FORMS OF TEMPLES.
The arrangements of Grecian Doric temples show almost less variety than
the forms of the pillars, and no materials exist for tracing their
gradual development in an historical point of view. The temples at
Corinth, and the oldest at Selinus, are both perfect examples of the
hexastyle arrangement to which the Greeks adhered in all ages; and
though there can be little doubt that the peripteral form, as well as
the order itself, was borrowed from Egypt, it still was so much modified
before it appeared in Greece, that it would be interesting, if it could
be done, to trace the several steps by which the change was effected.
In an architectural point of view this is by no means difficult. The
simplest Greek temples were mere cells, or small square apartments
suited to contain an image—the front being what is technically called
_distyle in antis_, or with two pillars between _antæ_, or square
pilaster like piers terminating the side walls. Hence the interior
enclosure of Grecian temples is called the cell or cella, however large
and splendid it may be.
[Illustration: 148. Small temple at Rhamnus.]
The next change was to separate the interior into a cell and porch by a
wall with a large doorway in it, as in the small temple at Rhamnus
(Woodcut No. 148), where the opening however can scarcely be called a
doorway, as it extends to the roof. A third change was to put a porch of
4 pillars in front of the last arrangement, or, as appears to have been
more usual, to bring forward the screen to the positions of the pillars
as in the last example, and to place the 4 pillars in front of this.
None of these plans admitted of a peristyle, or pillars on the flanks.
To obtain this it was necessary to increase the number of pillars of the
portico to 6, or, as it is termed, to make it hexastyle, the 2 outer
pillars being the first of a range of 13 or 15 columns, extended along
each side of the temple. The cell in this arrangement was a complete
temple in itself—distyle in antis, most frequently made so at both ends,
and the whole enclosed in its envelope of columns, as in Woodcut No.
149. Sometimes the cell was tetrastyle or with four pillars in front.
[Illustration: 149. Plan of Temple of Apollo at Bassæ. Scale 100 ft. to
1 in.]
[Illustration: 150. Plan of Parthenon at Athens. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 151. Plan of the great Temple at Selinus. (From Hittorff,
‘Arch. Antique en Sicile.’) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
In this form the Greek temple may be said to be complete, very few
exceptions occurring to the rule, though the Parthenon itself is one of
these few. It has an inner hexastyle portico at each end of the cell;
beyond these outwardly are octastyle porticoes, with 17 columns on each
flank.
The great Temple at Selinus is also octastyle, but it is neither so
simple nor so beautiful in its arrangement; and, from the decline of
style in the art when it was built, is altogether an inferior example;
still, as one of the largest of Greek Doric temples, its plan is worthy
of being quoted as an illustration of the varying forms of these
temples.
Another great exception is the great temple at Agrigentum (Woodcuts Nos.
152 and 154), where the architect attempted an order on so gigantic a
scale that he was unable to construct the pillars with their architraves
standing free. The interstices of the columns are therefore built up
with walls pierced with windows, and altogether the architecture is so
bad, that even its colossal dimensions must have failed to render it at
any time a pleasing or satisfactory work of art.
A fourth exception is the double temple at Pæstum, with 9 pillars in
front, a clumsy expedient, but which arose from its having a range of
columns down the centre to support the ridge of the roof by a simpler
mode than the triangular truss usually employed for carrying the roof
between two ranges of column.
[Illustration: 152. Plan of Great Temple at Agrigentum. Scale 100 ft. to
1 in.]
With the exception of the temple at Agrigentum, all these were
peristylar, or had ranges of columns all around them, enclosing the cell
as it were in a case, an arrangement so apparently devoid of purpose,
that it is not at first sight easy to account for its universality. It
will not suffice to say that it was adopted merely because it was
beautiful, for the forms of Egyptian temples, which had no pillars
externally, were as perfect, and in the hands of the Greeks would have
become as beautiful, as the one they adopted. Besides, it is natural to
suppose they would rather have copied the larger than the smaller
temples, if no motive existed for their preference of the latter. The
peristyle, too, was ill suited for an ambulatory, or place for
processions to circulate round the temple; it was too narrow for this,
and too high to protect the procession from the rain. Indeed, I know of
no suggestion except that it may have been adopted to protect the
paintings on the walls of the cells from the inclemency of the weather.
It hardly admits of a doubt that the walls were painted, and that
without protection of some sort this would very soon have been
obliterated. It seems also very evident that the peristyle was not only
practically, but artistically, most admirably adapted for this purpose.
The paintings of the Greeks were, like those of the Egyptians, composed
of numerous detached groups, connected only by the story, and it almost
required the intervention of pillars, or some means of dividing into
compartments the surface to be so painted, to separate these groups from
one another, and to prevent the whole sequence from being seen at once;
while, on the other hand, nothing can have been more beautiful than the
white marble columns relieved against a richly coloured plane surface.
The one appears so necessary to the other, that it seems hardly to be
doubted that this was the cause, or that the effect must have been most
surpassingly beautiful.
MODE OF LIGHTING TEMPLES.
The arrangement of the interior of Grecian temples necessarily depended
on the mode in which they were lighted. No one will, I believe, now
contend, as was once done, that it was by lamplight alone that the
beauty of their interiors could be seen; and as light certainly was not
introduced through the side walls, nor could be in sufficient quantities
through the doorways, it is only from the roof that it could be
admitted. At the same time it could not have been by a large horizontal
opening in the roof, as has been supposed, as that would have admitted
the rain and snow as well as the light; and the only alternative seems
to be one I suggested some years ago—of a clerestory,[142] similar
internally to that found in all the great Egyptian temples,[143] but
externally requiring such a change of arrangement as was necessary to
adapt it to a sloping instead of a flat roof. This could have been
effected by countersinking it into the roof, so as to make it in fact 3
ridges in those parts where the light was admitted, though the regular
slope of the roof was retained between these openings, so that neither
the ridge nor the continuity of the lines of the roof was interfered
with. This would effect all that was required, and in the most beautiful
manner; it moreover agrees with all the remains of Greek temples that
now exist, as well as with all the descriptions that have been handed
down to us from antiquity.
[Illustration: 153. Section of the Parthenon. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in]
[Illustration: 154. Part Section, part Elevation, of Great Temple at
Agrigentum. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
This arrangement will be understood from the section of the Parthenon
(Woodcut No. 153), restored in accordance with the above explanation,
which agrees perfectly with all that remains on the spot, as well as
with all the accounts we have of that celebrated temple. The same system
applies even more easily to the great hexastyle at Pæstum and to the
beautiful little Temple of Apollo at Bassæ, in Phigaleia (Woodcut No.
149), and in fact to all regular Greek temples. Indeed, it seems
impossible to account for the peculiarities of that temple except on
some such theory as this. Any one who studies the plan (Woodcut No. 149)
will see at once what pains were taken to bring the internal columns
exactly into the spaces between those of the external peristyle. The
effect inside is clumsy, and never would have been attempted were it not
that practically their position was seen from the outside, and this
could hardly have been so on any other hypothesis than that now
proposed. An equally important point in the examination of this theory
is that it applies equally to the exceptional ones. The side aisles, for
instance, of the great temple at Agrigentum were, as before mentioned,
lighted by side windows; the central one could only be lighted from the
roof, and it is easy to see how this could be effected by introducing
openings between the telamones, as shown in Woodcut No. 154.
In the great Temple of Jupiter Olympius (Woodcut No. 196), as described
by Vitruvius,[144] the nave had two storeys of columns all round, and
the middle was open to the sky. It is suggested, however, by Dr.
Dorpfield that the temple in Vitruvius’s time was incomplete, and that
subsequently when Hadrian erected the great chryselephantine statue in
it the nave may have lost its hypæthral source of light. (In that case
its light may have been introduced through the court or hypæthron in
front of the cell, such as is shown on the plan in Woodcut No. 196.)
The Ionic temples of Asia are all too much ruined to enable us to say
exactly in what manner, and to what extent, this mode of lighting was
applied to them, though there seems no doubt that the method there
adopted was very similar in all its main features.
[Illustration: 155. Plan of Erechtheium. (From Stuart.) Scale 100 ft. to
1 in.]
[Illustration: 156. Elevation of West End of Erechtheium. Scale 50 ft.
to 1 in.]
The little Temple of Nikè Apteros and the temple on the Ilissus, were
both too small to require any complicated arrangement of the sort, but
the Ionic temple of Pandrosus was lighted by windows which still remain
at the west end, so that it is possible the same expedient may have been
adopted to at least some extent in the Asiatic examples. The latter,
however, is, with one exception, the sole instance of windows in any
European-Greek temple, the only other example being in the very
exceptional temple at Agrigentum. It is valuable, besides, as showing
how little the Greeks were bound by rules or by any fancied laws of
symmetry.
As is shown in the plan, elevation, and view (Woodcuts Nos. 155, 156,
157), the Erechtheium consisted, properly speaking, of 3 temples grouped
together; and it is astonishing what pains the architect took to prevent
their being mistaken for one. The porticoes of two of them are on
different levels, and the third or caryatide porch is of a different
height and different style. Every one of these features is perfectly
symmetrical in itself, and the group is beautifully balanced and
arranged; and yet no Gothic architect in his wildest moments could have
conceived anything more picturesquely irregular than the whole becomes.
Indeed, there can be no greater mistake than to suppose that Greek
architecture was fettered by any fixed laws of formal symmetry: each
detail, every feature, every object, such as a hall or temple, which
could be considered as one complete and separate whole, was perfectly
symmetrical and regular; but no two buildings—no two apartments—if for
different purposes, were made to look like one. On the contrary, it is
quite curious to observe what pains they took to arrange their buildings
so as to produce variety and contrast, instead of formality or
singleness of effect. Temples, when near one another, were never placed
parallel, nor were even their propylæa and adjuncts ever so arranged as
to be seen together or in one line. The Egyptians, as before remarked,
had the same feeling, but carried it into even the details of the same
building, which the Greeks did not. In this, indeed, as in almost every
other artistic mode of expression, they seem to have hit exactly the
happy medium, so as to produce the greatest harmony with the greatest
variety, and to satisfy the minutest scrutiny and the most refined
taste, while their buildings produced an immediate and striking effect
on even the most careless and casual beholders.
[Illustration: 157. View of Erechtheium. (From Inwood.)]
Owing to the Erechtheium having been converted into a Byzantine church
during the Middle Ages, almost all traces of its original internal
arrangements have been obliterated, and this, with the peculiar
combination of three temples in one, makes it more than usually
difficult to restore. The annexed plan, however, meets all the
requirements of the case in so far as they are known. To the east was a
portico of 6 columns, between two of which stood an altar to Dione,
mentioned in the inscription enumerating the repairs in 409 B.C.;[145]
inside, according to Pausanias,[146] were three altars, the principal
dedicated to Poseidon, the others to Butes and Hephaistos. From its
form, it is evident the roof must have been supported by pillars, and
they probably also bore a clerestory, by which, I believe, with rare
exceptions, all Greek temples were lighted.
[Illustration:
158. Restored Plan of Erechtheium. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.
The dark parts remain; the shaded are restorations.
]
The Temple of Pandrosus was on a lower level, and was approached by a
flight of steps, corresponding with which was a chamber, containing the
well of salt water, and which apparently was the abode of the
serpent-god Erechthonios, mentioned by Herodotus.[147] The central cell
was lighted by the very exceptional expedient of 3 windows in the
western wall, which looked directly into it. Beyond this, on the south,
was the beautiful caryatide porch, where, if anywhere within the temple,
grew the olive sacred to Minerva. Unfortunately, our principal guide,
Pausanias, does not give us a hint where the olive-tree grew, and on the
whole I am inclined to believe it was in the enclosure outside the
western wall of the temple,[148] and to which a doorway leads directly
from the Temple of Pandrosus, as well as one under the north portico,
the use of which it is impossible to explain unless we assume that this
enclosure was really of exceptional importance.
TEMPLE OF DIANA AT EPHESUS.
A history of Grecian architecture can hardly be considered as complete
without some mention of the great Ephesian temple, which was one of the
largest and most gorgeous of all those erected by the Greeks, and
considered by them as one of the seven wonders of the world. Strange to
say, till very recently even its situation was utterly unknown; and even
now that it has been revealed to us by the energy and intelligence of
Mr. Wood, scarcely enough remains to enable him to restore the plan with
anything like certainty. This is the more remarkable, as it was found
buried under 17 to 20 feet of mud, which must have been the accumulation
of centuries, and might, one would have thought, have preserved
considerable portions of it from the hand of the spoiler.
[Illustration: 159. Plan of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, embodying
Mr. T. Wood’s discoveries. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
The annexed plan compiled from Mr. Wood’s researches embodies all the
information he has been able to obtain. The dimensions of the double
peristyle, and the number and position of its 96 columns, are quite
certain. So are the positions of the north, south, and west walls of the
cella; so that the only points of uncertainty are the positions of the
four columns necessary to make up the 100 mentioned by Pliny,[149] and
the internal arrangement of the cella itself and of the opisthodomus.
With regard to the first there seems very little latitude for choice.
Two must have stood between the antæ. The position of the other two must
be determined either by bringing forward the wall enclosing the stairs,
so as to admit of the intercolumniation east and west being the same as
that of the other columns, or of spacing them so as to divide the inner
roof of the pronaos into equal squares. I have preferred the latter as
that which appears to me the most probable.[150]
The west wall of the cella and the position of the statue having been
found, the arrangement of the pillars surrounding this apartment does
not admit of much latitude. Fragments of these pillars were found, but
not _in situ_, showing that they were in two heights and supported a
gallery. I have spaced them intermediately between the external pillars,
as in the Temple of Apollo at Bassæ (Woodcut No. 149), because I do not
know of any other mode by which this temple could be lighted, except by
an opaion, as suggested for that temple; and if this is so they must
have been so spaced. Carrying out this system it leaves an opisthodomus
which is an exact square, which is so likely a form for that apartment
that it affords considerable confirmation to the correctness of this
restoration that it should be so. The four pillars it probably contained
are so spaced as to divide it into nine equal squares.
Restored in this manner the temple appears considerably less in
dimensions than might have been supposed from Pliny’s text. His
measurements apply only to the lower step of the platform, which is
found to be 421 ft. by 238. But the temple itself, from angle to angle
of the peristyles, is only 342 ft. by 164, instead of 425 ft. by 220 of
Pliny.
Assuming this restoration to be correct there can be very little doubt
as to the position of the thirty-six columnæ cælatæ, of which several
specimens have been recovered by Mr. Wood, and are now in the British
Museum. They must have been the sixteen at either end and the four in
the pronaos, shown darker in the woodcut.
From the temple standing on a platform so much larger than appears
necessary, it is probable that pedestals with statues stood in front of
each column, and if this were so, the sculptures, with the columnæ
cælatæ and the noble architecture of the temple itself, must have made
up a combination of technic, æsthetic, and phonetic art such as hardly
existed anywhere else, and which consequently the ancients were quite
justified in considering as one of the wonders of the world.
MUNICIPAL ARCHITECTURE.
Very little now remains of all the various classes of municipal and
domestic buildings which must once have covered the land of Greece, and
from what we know of the exquisite feelings for art that pervaded that
people, they were certainly not less beautiful, though more ephemeral,
than the sacred buildings whose ruins still remain to us.
There are, however, two buildings in Athens which, though small, give us
most exalted ideas of their taste in such matters. The first, already
alluded to, usually known as the Tower of the Winds, is a plain
octagonal building about 45 ft. in height by 24 in width, ornamented by
2 small porches of 2 pillars each, of the Corinthian order, the capitals
of which are represented in Woodcut No. 141. Its roof, like the rest of
the building, is of white marble, and of simple but very elegant design,
and below this is a frieze of 8 large figures, symbolical of the 8
winds, from which the tower takes its name, they in fact being the
principal objects and ornaments of the building, the most important use
of which appears to have been to contain a clepsydra or water-clock.
[Illustration: 160. Choragic Monument of Lysicrates. No scale.]
The other building, though smaller, is still more beautiful. It is known
as the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, and consists of a square base 12
ft. high by 9 ft. wide, on which stands a circular temple adorned by 6
Corinthian columns, which, with their entablature and the roof and
pedestal they support, make up 22 ft. more, so that the whole height of
the monument is only 34 ft. Notwithstanding these insignificant
dimensions, the beauty of its columns (Woodcut No. 143) and of their
entablature—above all, the beauty of the roof and of the finial
ornament, which crowns the whole and is unrivalled for elegance even in
Greek art—make up a composition so perfect that nothing in any other
style or age can be said to surpass it.[151] If this is a fair index of
the art that was lavished on the smaller objects, the temples hardly
give a just idea of all that have perished.
THEATRES.
In extreme contrast with the buildings last described, which were among
the smallest, came the theatres, which were the largest, of the
monuments the Greeks seem ever to have attempted.
[Illustration: 161. Plan of Theatre at Dramyssus. Scale 100 ft. to 1
in.]
The annexed plan of one at Dramyssus, the ancient Dodona, will give an
idea of their forms and arrangements. Its dimensions may be said to be
gigantic, being 443 ft. across; but even this, though perhaps the
largest in Greece, is far surpassed by many in Asia Minor. What remains
of it, however, is merely the auditorium, and consists only of ranges of
seats arranged in a semicircle, but without architectural ornament. In
all the examples in Europe, the proscenium,[152] which was the only part
architecturally ornamented, has perished, so that, till we can restore
this with something like certainty, the theatres hardly come within the
class of Architecture as a fine art.
The theatre of Dionysus at Athens, which was excavated and laid bare in
1862-63, measures only 165 ft. in its greatest width. Built on the south
side of the Acropolis, the natural slope forming the rising ground was
utilised for the foundations of the tiers of seats which, in some cases,
and particularly at the back, were hewn in the rock; so that they were
carried back 294 ft. from the centre of the orchestra. In the theatre of
Epidaurus, which, according to Pausanias, was the most beautiful theatre
in the world, the lines of the seats are continued on each side of the
orchestra so as to form a horse-shoe on plan; the foundations of the
stage, the projecting side wings with staircases on each side, and other
buildings belonging to the stage are still preserved.
In Asia Minor some of the theatres have their proscenia adorned with
niches and columns, and friezes of great richness; but all these belong
to the Roman period, and, though probably copies of the mode in which
the Greeks ornamented theirs, are so corrupt in style as to prevent
their being used with safety in attempting to restore the earlier
examples.
Many circumstances would indeed induce us to believe that the proscenia
of the earlier theatres may have been of wood or bronze, or both
combined, and heightened by painting and carving to a great degree of
richness. This, though appropriate and consonant with the origin and
history of the drama, would be fatal to the expectation of anything
being found to illustrate its earliest forms.
TOMBS.
Like the other Aryan races, the Greeks never were tomb-builders, and
nothing of any importance of this class is found in Greece, except the
tombs of the early Pelasgic races, which were either tumuli, or
treasuries, as they are popularly called. There are, it is true, some
headstones and small pillars of great beauty, but they are monolithic,
and belong rather to the department of Sculpture than of Architecture.
In Asia Minor there are some important tombs, some built and others cut
in the rock. Some of the latter have been described before in speaking
of the tombs of the Lycians. The built examples which remain almost all
belong to the Roman period, though the typical and by far the most
splendid example of Greek tombs was that erected by Artemisia to the
memory of her husband Mausolus at Halicarnassus. We scarcely know enough
of the ethnic relations of the Carians to be able to understand what
induced them to adopt so exceptional a mode of doing honour to their
dead. With pure Greeks it must have been impossible, but the inhabitants
of these coasts were of a different race, and had a different mode of
expressing their feelings.
[Illustration: 162. View of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, as restored
by the Author.]
Till Sir Charles Newton’s visit to Halicarnassus in 1856 the very site
of this seventh wonder of the world was a matter of dispute. We now know
enough to be able to restore the principal parts with absolute
certainty, and to ascertain its dimensions and general appearance within
very insignificant limits of error.[153]
The dimensions quoted by Pliny[154] are evidently extracted from a
larger work, said to have been written by the architect who erected it,
and which existed at his time. Every one of them has been confirmed in
the most satisfactory manner by recent discoveries, and enable us to put
the whole together without much hesitation.
[Illustration: 163. Plan of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, from a
Drawing by the Author. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
Sufficient remains of the quadriga, which crowned the monument, have
been brought home to give its dimensions absolutely. All the parts of
the Ionic order are complete. The steps of the pyramid have been found
and portions of the three friezes, and these, with Pliny’s dimensions
and description, are all that are required to assure us that its aspect
must have been very similar to the form represented in Woodcut No. 162.
There can be little doubt with regard to the upper storey, but in order
to work out to the dimensions given by Pliny (411 ft. in circumference)
and those found cut out in the rock (462 ft.), the lower storey must be
spread out beyond the upper to that extent, and most probably something
after the manner shown in the woodcut.
The building consisted internally of two chambers superimposed the one
on the other, each 52 ft. 6 in. by 42 ft.—the lower one being the
vestibule to the tomb beyond—the upper was surrounded by a peristyle of
36 columns. Externally the height was divided into three equal portions
of 37 ft. 6 in. each (25 cubits), one of which was allotted to the base—
one to the pyramid with its meta—and one to the order between them.
These with 14 ft., the height of the quadriga, and the same dimension
belonging to the lower entablature, made up the height of 140 Greek
feet[155] given it by Pliny.
[Illustration: 164. Lion Tomb at Cnidus. (From Newton.)]
Though its height was unusually great for a Greek building, its other
dimensions were small. It covered only 13,230 ft. The admiration
therefore which the Greeks expressed regarding it must have arisen,
first, from the unusual nature of its design and of the purpose to which
it was applied, or perhaps more still from the extent and richness of
its sculptured decorations, of the beauty of which we are now enabled to
judge, and can fully share with them in admiring.
Another, but very much smaller, tomb of about the same age was found by
Mr. Newton at Cnidus, and known as the Lion Tomb, from the figure of
that animal, now in the British Museum, which crowned its summit. Like
many other tombs found in Asia and in Africa, it follows the type of the
Mausoleum in its more important features. It possesses a base—a
peristyle—a pyramid of steps—and, lastly, an acroterion or pedestal
meant to support a quadriga or statue, or some other crowning object,
which appropriately terminated the design upwards.
Several examples erected during the Roman period will be illustrated
when speaking of the architecture of that people, all bearing the
impress of the influence the Mausoleum had on the tomb architecture of
that age; but unfortunately we cannot yet go backwards and point out the
type from which the design of the Mausoleum itself was elaborated. The
tombs of Babylon and Passargadæ are remote both geographically and
artistically, though not without certain essential resemblances. Perhaps
the missing links may some day reward the industry of some scientific
explorer.
CYRENE.
At Cyrene there is a large group of tombs of Grecian date and with
Grecian details, but all cut in the rock, and consequently differing
widely in their form from those just described. It is not clear whether
the circumstance of this city possessing such a necropolis arose from
its proximity to Egypt, and consequently from a mere desire to imitate
that people, or from some ethnic peculiarity. Most probably the latter,
though we know so little about them that it is difficult to speak with
precision on such a subject.[156]
These tombs are chiefly interesting from many of the details of the
architecture still retaining the colour with which they were originally
adorned. The triglyphs of the Doric order are still painted blue,[157]
as appears to have been the universal practice, and the pillars are
outlined by red lines. The metopes are darker, and are adorned with
painted groups of figures, the whole making up one of the most perfect
examples of Grecian coloured decoration which still remain.
[Illustration: 165. Rock-cut and structural Tombs at Cyrene. (From
Hamilton’s ‘Wanderings in North Africa.’)]
There is another tomb at the same place—this time structural—which is
interesting not so much for any architectural beauty it possesses as
from its belonging to an exceptional type. It consists now only of a
circular basement—the upper part is gone—and is erected over an
excavated rock-cut tomb. There seem to be several others of the same
class in the necropolis, and they are the only examples known except
those at Marathos, one of which is illustrated above (Woodcut No. 122).
As before hinted, the Syrian example does not appear to be very ancient,
but we want further information before speaking positively on this
subject. No one on the spot has attempted to fix with precision the age
of the Cyrenean examples; nor have they been drawn in such detail as is
requisite for others to ascertain the fact. They may be as late as the
time of the Romans, but can hardly be dated as prior to the age of
Alexander the Great.
[Illustration: 166. Tombs at Cyrene. (From Hamilton’s ‘North Africa.’)]
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.
We have nothing left but imperfect verbal descriptions of the domestic,
and even of the palatial architecture of Greece, and, consequently, can
only judge imperfectly of its forms. Unfortunately, too, Pompeii, though
but half a Greek city, belongs to too late and too corrupt an age to
enable us to use it even as an illustration; but we may rest assured
that in this, as in everything else, the Greeks displayed the same
exquisite taste which pervades not only their monumental architecture,
but all their works in metal or clay, down to the meanest object, which
have been preserved to our times.
It is probable that the forms of their houses were much more irregular
and picturesque than we are in the habit of supposing them to have been.
They seem to have taken such pains in their temples—in the Erechtheium,
for instance, and at Eleusis—to make every part tell its own tale, that
anything like forced regularity must have been offensive to them, and
they would probably make every apartment exactly of the dimensions
required, and group them so that no one should under any circumstances
be confounded with another.
This, however, with all the details of their domestic arts, must now
remain to us as mere speculation, and the architectural history of
Greece must be confined to her temples and monumental erections. These
suffice to explain the nature and forms of the art, and to assign to it
the rank of the purest and most intellectual of all the styles which
have yet been invented or practised in any part of the world.
BOOK IV.
ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.
CHAPTER I.
ETRURIA.
CONTENTS.
Historical notice—Temples—Rock-cut Tombs—Tombs at Castel d’Asso—Tumuli.
CHRONOLOGICAL MEMORANDA.
Migration from Asia Minor about 12th cent. B.C.
Tomb of Porsenna about B.C. 500
Etruria becomes subject to Rome about B.C. 330
The ethnographical history of art in Italy is in all its essential
features similar to that of Greece, though arriving at widely different
results from causes the influence of which it is easy to trace. Both are
examples of an Aryan development based on a Turanian civilisation which
it has superseded. In Greece—as already remarked—the traces of the
earlier people are indistinct and difficult to seize. In Italy their
features are drawn with a coarser hand, and extend down into a more
essentially historic age. It thus happens that we have no doubt as to
the existence of the Etruscan people—we know very nearly who they were,
and cannot be mistaken as to the amount and kind of influence they
exercised on the institutions and arts of the Romans.
The more striking differences appear to have arisen from the fact, that
Greece had some four or five centuries of comparative repose during
which to form herself and her institutions after the Pelasgic
civilisation was struck down at the time of the Dorian occupation of the
Peloponnesus. During that period she was undisturbed by foreign
invasion, and was not tempted by successful conquests to forsake the
gentler social arts for the more vulgar objects of national ambition.
Rome’s history, on the other hand, from the earliest aggregation of a
robber horde on the banks of the Tiber till she became the arbiter of
the destinies of the ancient world, is little beyond the record of
continuous wars. From the possession of the seven hills, Rome gradually
carried her sway at the edge of the sword to the dominion of the whole
of Italy and of all the then known world, destroying everything that
stood in the way of her ambition, and seeking only the acquisition of
wealth and power.
Greece, in the midst of her successful cultivation of the arts of
commerce and of peace, stimulated by the wholesome rivalry of the
different States of which she was composed, was awakened by the Persian
invasion to a struggle for existence. The result was one of the most
brilliant passages in the world’s history, and no nation was ever more
justified in the jubilant outburst of enthusiastic patriotism that
followed the repulse of the invader, than was Greece in that with which
she commenced her short but brilliant career. A triumph so gained by a
people so constituted led to results at which we still wonder, though
they cause us no surprise. If Greece attained her manhood on the
battle-fields of Marathon and Salamis, Rome equally reached the maturity
of her career when she cruelly and criminally destroyed Corinth and
Carthage, and the sequel was such as might be expected from such a
difference of education. Rome had no time for the cultivation of the
arts of peace, and as little sympathy for their gentler influences.
Conquest, wealth, and consequent power, were the objects of her
ambition—for these she sacrificed everything, and by their means she
attained a pinnacle of greatness that no nation had reached before or
has since. Her arts have all the impress of this greatness, and are
characterised by the same vulgar grandeur which marks everything she
did. Very different they are from the intellectual beauty found in the
works of the Greeks, but in some respects they are as interesting to
those who can read the character of nations in their artistic
productions.
In the earlier part of her career Rome was an Etruscan city under
Etruscan kings and institutions. After she had emancipated herself from
their yoke, Etruria long remained her equal and her rival in political
power, and her instructress in religion and the arts of peace. This
continued so long, and the architectural remains of that people are so
numerous, and have been so thoroughly investigated, that we have no
difficulty in ascertaining the extent of influence the older nation had
on the nascent empire. It is more difficult to ascertain exactly who the
Etruscans themselves were, or whence they came. But on the whole there
seems every reason to believe they migrated from Asia Minor some twelve
or thirteen centuries before the Christian era, and fixed themselves in
Italy, most probably among the Umbrians, or some people of cognate race,
who had settled there before—so long before, perhaps, as to entitle them
to be considered among the aboriginal inhabitants.
It would have been only natural that the expatriated Trojans should have
sought refuge among such a kindred people, though we have nothing but
the vaguest tradition to warrant a belief that this was the case. They
may too from time to time have received other accessions to their
strength; but they were a foreign people in a strange land, and scarcely
seem ever to have become naturalised in the country of their adoption.
But what stood still more in their way was the fact that they were an
old Turanian people in presence of a young and ambitious community of
Aryan origin, and, as has always been the case when this has happened,
they were destined to disappear. Before doing so, however, they left
their impress on the institutions and the arts of their conquerors to
such an extent as to be still traceable in every form. It may have been
that there was as much Pelasgic blood in the veins of the Greeks as
there was Etruscan in those of the Romans; but the civilisation of the
former had passed away before Greece had developed herself. Etruria, on
the other hand, was long contemporary with Rome: in early times her
equal, and sometimes her mistress, and consequently in a position to
force her arts upon her to an extent that was never effected on the
opposite shore of the Adriatic.
TEMPLES.
Nothing can prove more clearly the Turanian origin of the Etruscans than
the fact that all we know of them is derived from their tombs. These
exist in hundreds—it may almost be said in thousands—at the gates of
every city; but no vestige of a temple has come down to our days. Had
any Semitic blood flowed in their veins, as has been sometimes
suspected, they could not have been so essentially sepulchral as they
were, or so fond of contemplating death, as is proved by the fact that a
purely Semitic tomb is still a desideratum among antiquaries, not one
having as yet been discovered. What we should like to find in Etruria
would be a square pyramidal mound with external steps leading to a cella
on its summit; but no trace of any such has yet been detected. Their
other temples—using the word in the sense in which we usually understand
it—were, as might be expected, insignificant and ephemeral. So much so,
indeed, that except from one passage in Vitruvius,[158] and our being
able to detect the influence of the Etruscan style in the buildings of
Imperial Rome, we should hardly be aware of their existence. The truth
seems to be that the religion of the Etruscans, like that of most of
their congeners, was essentially ancestral, and their worship took the
form of respect for the remains of the dead and reverence for their
memory. Tombs consequently, and not temples, were the objects on which
they lavished their architectural resources. They certainly were not
idolaters, in the sense in which we usually understand the term. They
had no distinct or privileged priesthood, and consequently had no motive
for erecting temples which by their magnificence should be pleasing to
their gods or tend to the glorification of their kings or priests. Still
less were they required for congregational purposes by the people at
large.
The only individual temple of Etruscan origin of which we have any
knowledge, is that of Capitoline Jupiter at Rome.[159] Originally small,
it was repaired and rebuilt till it became under the Empire a splendid
fane. But not one vestige of it now remains, nor any description from
which we could restore its appearance with anything like certainty.
From the chapter of the work of Vitruvius just alluded to, we learn that
the Etruscans had two classes of temples: one circular, like their
structural tombs, and dedicated to one deity; the other class
rectangular, but these, always possessing three cells, were devoted to
the worship of three gods.
[Illustration: 167. Plan and Elevation of an Etruscan Temple.]
The general arrangement of the plan, as described by Vitruvius, was that
shown on the plan above (Fig. 1), and is generally assented to by all
those who have attempted the restoration. In larger temples in Roman
times the number of pillars in front may have been doubled, and they
would thus be arranged like those of the portico of the Pantheon, which
is essentially an Etruscan arrangement. The restoration of the elevation
is more difficult, and the argument too long to be entered upon
here;[160] but its construction and proportions seem to have been very
much like those drawn in the above diagram (Fig. 2). Of course, as
wooden structures, they were richly and elaborately carved, and the
effect heightened by colours, but it is in vain to attempt to restore
them. Without a single example to guide us, and with very little
collateral evidence which can at all be depended upon, it is hardly
possible that any satisfactory restoration could now be made. Moreover,
their importance in the history of art is so insignificant, that the
labour such an attempt must involve would hardly be repaid by the
result.
The original Etruscan circular temple seems to have been a mere circular
cell with a porch. The Romans surrounded it with a peristyle, which
probably did not exist in the original style. They magnified it
afterwards into the most characteristic and splendid of all their
temples, the Pantheon, whose portico is Etruscan in arrangement and
design, and whose cell still more distinctly belongs to that order; nor
can there be any doubt that the simpler Roman temples of circular form
are derived from Etruscan originals.[161] It would therefore be of great
importance if we could illustrate the later buildings from existing
remains of the older: but the fact is that such deductions as we may
draw from the copies are our only source of information respecting the
originals.
We know little of any of the civil buildings with which the cities of
Etruria were adorned, beyond the knowledge obtained from the remains of
their theatres and amphitheatres. The form of the latter was essentially
Etruscan, and was adopted by the Romans, with whom it became their most
characteristic and grandest architectural object. Of the amphitheatres
of ancient Etruria only one now remains in so perfect a state as to
enable us to judge of their forms. It is that at Sutrium, which,
however, being entirely cut in the rock, neither affords information as
to the mode of construction nor enables us to determine its age. The
general dimensions are 295 ft. in its greatest length by 265 in breadth,
and it is consequently much nearer a circular form than the Romans
generally adopted: but in other respects the arrangements are such as
appear to have usually prevailed in after times.
Besides these, we have numerous works of utility, but these belong more
strictly to engineering than to architectural science. The city walls of
the Etruscans surpass those of any other ancient nation in extent and
beauty of workmanship. Their drainage works and their bridges, as well
as those of the kindred Pelasgians in Greece, still remain monuments of
their industrial science and skill, which their successors never
surpassed.
On the whole, perhaps we are justified in asserting that the Etruscans
were not an architectural people, and had no temples or palaces worthy
of attention. It at least seems certain that nothing of the sort is now
to be found, even in ruins, and were it not that the study of Etruscan
art is a necessary introduction to that of Roman, it would hardly be
worth while trying to gather together and illustrate the few fragments
and notices of it that remain.
TOMBS.
The tombs of the Etruscans now found may be divided into two classes—
first, those cut in the rock, and resembling dwelling-houses; secondly,
the circular tumuli, which latter are by far the most numerous and
important class.
Each of these may be again subdivided into two kinds. The rock-cut tombs
include, firstly, those with only a façade on the face of the rock and a
sepulchral chamber within; secondly, those cut quite out of the rock and
standing free all round. To this class probably once belonged an immense
number of tombs built in the ordinary way; but all these have totally
disappeared, and consequently the class, as now under consideration,
consists entirely of excavated examples.
The second class may be divided into those tumuli erected over chambers
cut in the tufaceous rock which is found all over Etruria, and those
which have chambers built above-ground.
In the present state of our knowledge it is impossible to say which of
these classes is the older. We know that the Egyptians buried in caves
long before the Etruscans landed in Italy, and at the same time raised
pyramids over rock-cut and built chambers. We know too that Abraham was
buried in the Cave of Machpelah in Syria. On the other hand, the tombs
at Smyrna (Woodcut No. 113), the treasuries of Mycenæ (Woodcut No. 124),
the sepulchre of Alyattes (Woodcut No. 115), and many others, are proofs
of the antiquity of the tumuli, which are found all over Europe and
Asia, and appear to have existed from the earliest ages.
The comparative antiquity of the different kinds of tombs being thus
doubtful, it will be sufficient for the purposes of the present work to
classify them architecturally. It may probably be assumed, with safety,
that all the modes which have been enumerated were practised by the
Etruscans at a period very slightly subsequent to their migration into
Italy.
Of the first class of the rock-cut tombs—those with merely a façade
externally—the most remarkable group is that at Castel d’Asso. At this
place there is a perpendicular cliff with hundreds of these tombs ranged
along its face, like houses in a street. A similar arrangement is found
in Egypt at Benihasan, at Petra, and Cyrene, and around all the more
ancient cities of Asia Minor.
In Etruria they generally consist of one chamber lighted by the doorway
only. Their internal arrangement appears to be an imitation of a
dwelling chamber, with furniture, like the apartment itself, cut out of
the rock. Externally they have little or no pretension to architectural
decoration. It is true that some tombs are found adorned with
frontispieces of a debased Doric or Ionic order; but these were executed
at a much later period and under Roman domination, and cannot therefore
be taken as specimens of Etruscan art, but rather of that corruption of
style sure to arise from a conquered people trying to imitate the arts
of their rulers.
[Illustration: 168. Tombs at Castel d’Asso. (From the ‘Annale del
Instituto.’)]
The general appearance of the second class of rock-cut tombs will be
understood from the woodcut (No. 168), representing two monuments at
Castel d’Asso. Unfortunately neither is complete, nor is there any
complete example known to exist of this class. Perhaps the apex was
added structurally and that these, like all such things in Etruria, have
perished. Possibly, if cut in the rock, the terminals were slender
carved ornaments, and therefore liable to injury. They are usually
restored by antiquaries in the shape of rectilinear pyramids, but so far
as I know, there is no authority for this. On the contrary, it is more
in accordance with what we know of the style and its affinities to
suppose that the termination of these monuments, even if added in
masonry, was curvilinear.
[Illustration: 169. Mouldings from Tombs at Castel d’Asso.]
One remarkable thing about the rock-cut tombs is the form of their
mouldings, which differ from any found elsewhere in Europe. Two of these
are shown in the annexed woodcut (No. 169). They are very numerous and
in great variety, but do not in any instance show the slightest trace of
a cornice, nor of any tendency towards one. On the contrary, in place of
this, we find nothing but a reverse moulding. It is probable that
similar forms may be found in Asia Minor, while something resembling
them actually occurs at Persepolis and elsewhere. It is remarkable that
this feature did not penetrate to Rome, and that no trace of its
influence is found there, as might have been expected.[162]
TUMULI.
The simplest, and therefore perhaps the earliest, monument which can be
erected over the graves of the dead, by a people who reverence their
departed relatives, is a mound of earth or a cairn of stones, and such
seems to have been the form adopted by the Turanian or Tartar races of
mankind from the earliest days to the present hour. It is scarcely
necessary to remark how universal such monuments were among the ruder
tribes of Northern Europe. The Etruscans improved upon this by
surrounding the base with a _podium_, or supporting wall of masonry.
This not only defined its limits and gave it dignity, but enabled
entrances to be made in it, and otherwise converted it from a mere
hillock into a monumental structure. It is usually supposed that this
basement was an invariable part of all Etruscan tumuli, and when it is
not found, it is assumed that it has been removed, or that it is buried
in the rubbish of the mound. No doubt such a stone basement may easily
have been removed by the peasantry, or buried, but it is by no means
clear that this was invariably the case. It seems that the enclosure was
frequently a circle of stones or monumental steles, in the centre of
which the tumulus stood. The monuments have hitherto been so carelessly
examined and restored, that it is difficult to arrive at anything like
certainty with regard to the details of their structure. Nor can we draw
any certain conclusion from a comparison with other tumuli of cognate
races. The description by Herodotus of the tomb of Alyattes at Sardis
(Woodcut No. 115), those described by Pausanias as existing in the
Peloponnesus, and the appearances of those at Mycenæ and Orchomenos,
might be interpreted either way; but those at Smyrna (Woodcut No. 113),
and a great number at least of those in Etruria, have a structural
circle of stone as a supporting base to the mound.
[Illustration: 170. Plan of the Regulini Galeassi Tomb. Scale 100 ft. to
1 in.]
These tumuli are found existing in immense numbers in every necropolis
of the Etruscans. A large space was generally set apart for the purpose
outside the walls of all their great cities. In these cemeteries the
tumuli are arranged in rows, like houses in streets. Even now we can
count them by hundreds, and in the neighbourhood of the largest cities—
at Vulci, for instance—almost by thousands.
Most of them are now worn down by the effect of time to nearly the level
of the ground, though some of the larger ones still retain an imposing
appearance. Nearly all have been rifled at some early period, though the
treasures still discovered almost daily in some places show how vast
their extent was, and how much even now remains to be done before this
vast mine of antiquity can be said to be exhausted.
One of the most remarkable among those that have been opened in modern
times is at Cervetri, the ancient Cære, known as the Regulini Galeassi
tomb, from the names of its discoverers.
[Illustration: 171. Sections of the Regulini Galeassi Tomb. (From
Canina’s ‘Etruria Antica.’) Scale for large section, 50 ft. to 1 in.]
Like a Nubian pyramid or Buddhist tope, it consists of an inner and
older tumulus, around and over which another has been added. In the
outer mound are five tombs either of dependent or inferior personages.
These were rifled long ago; but the outer pyramid having effectually
concealed the entrance to the principal tomb, it remained untouched till
very lately, when it yielded to its discoverers a richer collection of
ornaments and utensils in gold and bronze than has ever been found in
one place before.
The dimensions and arrangements of this tumulus will be understood from
Woodcuts Nos. 170, 171, and from the two sections of the principal tomb
which are annexed to them. These last display an irregularity of
construction very unusual in such cases, for which no cause can be
assigned. The usual section is perfectly regular, as in the annexed
woodcut (No. 172), taken from another tomb at the same place.
These chambers, like all those of the early Etruscans, are vaulted on
the horizontal principle, like the tombs at Mycenæ and Orchomenos,
though none are found in Italy at all equal to those of Greece in
dimensions or beauty of construction.
[Illustration: 172. Section of a Tomb at Cervetri. No scale.]
Woodcut No. 173 is a perspective view of the principal chamber in the
Regulini Galeassi tomb, showing the position of the furniture found in
it when first opened, consisting of biers or bedsteads, shields, arrows,
and vessels of various sorts. A number of vases are hung in a curious
recess in the roof, the form of which would be inexplicable but for the
utensils found in it. With this clue to its meaning we can scarcely
doubt that it represents a place for hanging such vessels in the houses
of the living.
All the treasures found in this tomb are in the oldest style of Etruscan
art, and are so similar to the bronzes and ornaments brought by Layard
from Assyria as to lead to the belief that they had a common origin. The
tomb, with its contents, probably dates from the 9th or 10th century
before the Christian era.
The largest tomb hitherto discovered in Etruria is now known as the
Cocumella, in the necropolis at Vulci. It is rather more than 240 ft. in
diameter, and originally could not have been less than 115 or 120 ft. in
height, though now it only rises to 50 ft.
[Illustration: 173. View of principal Chamber in the Regulini Galeassi
Tomb.]
Near its centre are the remains of two solid towers, one circular, the
other square, neither of them actually central, nor are they placed in
such a way that we can understand how they can have formed a part of any
symmetrical design. A plan and a view of the present appearance of this
monument are given in Woodcuts 174 and 175.
[Illustration: 174. Plan of Cocumella, Vulci. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 175. View of Cocumella, Vulci.]
This tumulus, with its principal remaining features thus standing on one
side of the centre, may possibly assist us to understand the curious
description found in Pliny[163] of the tomb of Porsenna. This
description is quoted from Varro, being evidently regarded by Pliny
himself as not a little apocryphal. According to this account it
consisted of a square basement 300 ft. each way, from which arose five
pyramids, united at the summit by a bronze circle or cupola. This was
again surmounted by four other pyramids, the summits of which were again
united at a height of 300 ft. from the ground. From this point rose
still five more pyramids, whose height Varro (from modesty, as Pliny
surmises) omits to state, but which was estimated in Etruscan traditions
at the same height as the rest of the monument. This last statement,
which does not rest on any real authority, may well be regarded as
exaggerated; but if we take the total height as about 400 ft., it is
easy to understand that in the age of Pliny, when all the buildings were
low, such a structure, as high as the steeple at Salisbury, would appear
fabulous; but the vast piles that have been erected by tomb-building
races in other parts of the earth render it by no means improbable that
Varro was justified in what he asserted.[164]
Near the gate of Albano is found a small tomb of five pyramidal pillars
rising from a square base, exactly corresponding with Varro’s
description of the lower part of the tomb of Porsenna. It is called by
tradition the tomb of Aruns, the son of Porsenna, though the character
of the mouldings with which it is adorned would lead us to assign to it
a more modern date. It consists of a lofty podium, on which are placed
five pyramids, a large one in the centre and four smaller ones at the
angles. Its present appearance is shown in the annexed woodcut (No.
176).
[Illustration: Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.
Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.
176. Tomb of Aruns, Albano.]
There are not in Etruria any features sufficiently marked to
characterise a style of architecture, nor any pillars with their
accessories which can be considered to constitute an order. It is true
that in some of the rock-cut tombs square piers support the roof; and in
one or two instances rounded pillars are found, but these are either
without mouldings or ornamented only with Roman details, betraying the
lateness of their execution. The absence of built examples of the class
of tombs found in the rock prevents us from recognising any of those
peculiarities of construction which sometimes are as characteristic of
the style and as worthy of attention as the more purely ornamental
parts.
From their city gates, their aqueducts and bridges, we know that the
Etruscans used the radiating arch at an early age, with deep voussoirs
and elegant mouldings, giving it that character of strength which the
Romans afterwards imparted to their works of the same class. The Cloaca
Maxima of Rome (Woodcut No. 104) must be considered as a work executed
under Etruscan superintendence, and a very perfect specimen of the
class.
At the same time the Etruscans used the pointed arch, constructed
horizontally, and seem to have had the same predilection for it which
characterised the cognate Pelasgian race in Greece. A gateway at Arpino
(Woodcut No. 177) is almost identical with that at Thoricus (Woodcut No.
126), but larger and more elegant; and there are many specimens of the
same class found in Italy. The portion of an aqueduct at Tusculum, shown
in Woodcut No. 178, is a curious transition specimen, where the two
stones meeting at the apex (usually called the Egyptian form, being the
first step towards the true arch) are combined with a substructure of
horizontal converging masonry.
In either of these instances the horizontal arch is a legitimate mode of
construction, and may have been used long after the principle of the
radiating arch was known. The great convenience of the latter, as
enabling large spaces to be spanned even with brick or the smallest
stones, and thus dispensing with the necessity for stones of very large
dimensions, led ultimately to its universal adoption. Subsequently, when
the pointed form of the radiating arch was introduced, no motive
remained for the retention of the horizontal method, and it was entirely
abandoned.
[Illustration: 177. Gateway at Arpino.]
[Illustration: 178. Aqueduct at Tusculum.]
CHAPTER II.
ROME.
INTRODUCTION.
We now approach the last revolution that completed and closed the great
cycle of the arts and civilisation of the ancient world. We have seen
Art spring Minerva-like, perfect from the head of her great parent, in
Egypt. We have admired it in Assyria, rich, varied, but unstable; aiming
at everything, but never attaining maturity or perfection. We have tried
to trace the threads of early Pelasgic art in Asia, Greece, and Etruria,
spreading their influence over the world, and laying the foundation of
other arts which the Pelasgi were incapable of developing. We have seen
all these elements gathered together in Greece, the essence extracted
from each, and the whole forming the most perfect and beautiful
combinations of intellectual power that the world has yet witnessed. We
have now only to contemplate the last act in the great drama, the
gorgeous but melancholy catastrophe by which all these styles of
architecture were collected in wild confusion in Rome, and there
perished beneath the luxury and crimes of that mighty people, who for a
while made Rome the capital of Europe.
View them as we will, the arts of Rome were never an indigenous or
natural production of the soil or people, but an aggregation of foreign
styles in a state of transition from the old and time-honoured forms of
Pagan antiquity to the new development introduced by Christianity. We
cannot of course suppose that the Romans foresaw the result to which
their amalgamation of previous styles was tending; still they advanced
as steadily towards that result as if a prophetic spirit had guided them
to a well-defined conception of what was to be. It was not however
permitted to the Romans to complete this task. Long before the ancient
methods and ideas had been completely moulded into the new, the power of
Rome sank beneath her corruption, and a long pause took place, during
which the Christian arts did not advance in Western Europe beyond the
point they had reached in the age of Constantine. Indeed, in many
respects, they receded from it during the dark ages. When they
reappeared in the 10th and 11th centuries it was in an entirely new garb
and with scarcely a trace of their origin—so distinct indeed that it
appears more like a reinvention than a reproduction of forms long since
familiar to the Roman world. Had Rome retained her power and
pre-eminence a century or two longer, a style might have been elaborated
as distinct from that of the ancient world, and as complete in itself,
as our pointed Gothic, and perhaps more beautiful. Such was not the
destiny of the world; and what we have now to do is to examine this
transition style as we find it in ancient Rome, and familiarise
ourselves with the forms it took during the three centuries of its
existence, as without this knowledge all the arts of the Gothic era
would for ever remain an inexplicable mystery. The chief value of the
Roman style consists in the fact that it contains the germs of all that
is found in the Middle Ages, and affords the key by which its mysteries
may be unlocked, and its treasures rendered available. Had the
transition been carried through in the hands of an art-loving and
artistic people, the architectural beauties of Rome must have surpassed
those of any other city in the world, for its buildings surpass in scale
those of Egypt and in variety those of Greece, while they affect to
combine the beauties of both. In constructive ingenuity they far surpass
anything the world had seen up to that time, but this cannot redeem
offences against good taste, nor enable any Roman productions to command
our admiration as works of art, or entitle them to rank as models to be
followed either literally or in spirit.
During the first two centuries and a half of her existence, Rome was
virtually an Etruscan city, wholly under Etruscan influence; and during
that period we read of temples and palaces being built and of works of
immense magnitude being undertaken for the embellishment of the city;
and we have even now more remains of kingly than we have of consular
Rome.
After expelling her kings and shaking off Etruscan influence, Rome
existed as a republic for five centuries, and during this long age of
barbarism she did nothing to advance science or art. Literature was
almost wholly unknown within her walls, and not one monument has come
down to our time, even by tradition, worthy of a city of a tenth part of
her power and magnitude. There is probably no instance in the history of
the world of a capital city existing so long, populous and peaceful at
home, prosperous and powerful abroad, and at the same time so utterly
devoid of any monuments or any magnificence to dignify her existence.
When, however, Carthage was conquered and destroyed, when Greece was
overrun and plundered, and Egypt, with her long-treasured art, had
become a dependent province, Rome was no longer the city of the Aryan
Romans, but the sole capital of the civilised world. Into her lap were
poured all the artistic riches of the universe; to Rome flocked all who
sought a higher distinction or a more extended field for their ambition
than their own provincial capitals could then afford. She thus became
the centre of all the arts and of all the science then known; and, so
far at least as quantity is concerned, she amply redeemed her previous
neglect of them. It seems an almost indisputable fact that, during the
three centuries of the Empire, more and larger buildings were erected in
Rome and her dependent cities than ever were erected in a like period in
any part of the world.
For centuries before the establishment of the Roman Empire, progressive
development and increasing population, joined to comparative peace and
security, had accumulated around the shores of the Mediterranean a mass
of people enjoying material prosperity greater than had ever been known
before. All this culminated in the first centuries of the Christian era.
The greatness of the ancient world was then full, and a more
overwhelming and gorgeous spectacle than the Roman Empire then displayed
never dazzled the eyes of mankind. From the banks of the Euphrates to
those of the Tagus, every city vied with its neighbour in the erection
of temples, baths, theatres, and edifices for public use or private
luxury. In all cases these display far more evidence of wealth and power
than of taste and refinement, and all exhibit traces of that haste to
enjoy, which seems incompatible with the correct elaboration of anything
that is to be truly great. Notwithstanding all this, there is a
greatness in the mass, a grandeur in the conception, and a certain
expression of power in all these Roman remains which never fail to
strike the beholder with awe and force admiration from him despite his
better judgment. These qualities, coupled with the associations that
attach themselves to every brick and every stone, render the study of
them irresistibly attractive. It was with Imperial Rome that the ancient
world perished; it was in her dominions that the new and Christian world
was born. All that was great in Heathendom was gathered within her
walls, tied, it is true, into an inextricable knot, which was cut by the
sword of those barbarians who moulded for themselves out of the
fragments that polity and those arts which will next occupy our
attention. To Rome all previous history tends; from Rome all modern
history springs: to her, therefore, and to her arts, we inevitably turn,
if not to admire, at least to learn, and if not to imitate, at any rate
to wonder at and to contemplate a phase of art as unknown to previous as
to subsequent history, and, if properly understood, more replete with
instruction than any other form hitherto known. Though the lesson we
learn from it is far oftener what to avoid than what to follow, still
there is such wisdom to be gathered from it as should guide us in the
onward path, which may lead us to a far higher grade than it was given
to Rome herself ever to attain.
CHAPTER III.
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.
CONTENTS.
Origin of style—The arch—Orders: Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Composite—
Temples—The Pantheon—Roman temples at Athens—at Baalbec.
CHRONOLOGICAL MEMORANDA.
DATES.
Foundation of Rome B.C. 753
Tarquinius Priscus—Cloaca Maxima, foundation of Temple of 616
Jupiter Capitolinus.
Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus dedicated 507
Scipio—tomb at Literium 184
Augustus—temples at Rome 31
Marcellus—theatre at Rome—died 23
Agrippa—portico of Pantheon—died 13
Nero—burning and rebuilding of Rome—died A.D. 68
Vespasian—Flavian amphitheatre built 70
Titus—arch in Forum 79
Destruction of Pompeii 79
Trajan—Ulpian Basilica and Pillar of Victory 98
Hadrian builds temple at Rome, Temple of Jupiter Olympius 117
at Athens, &c.
Septimius Severus—arch at Rome 194
Caracalla—baths 211
Diocletian—palace at Spalato 284
Maxentius—Basilica at Rome 306
Constantine—transfer of Empire to Constantinople 328
The earliest inhabitants of Rome were an Aryan or, as they used to be
called, Indo-Germanic race, who established themselves in a country
previously occupied by Pelasgians. Their principal neighbour on one side
was Etruria, a Pelasgian nation. On the other hand was Magna Græcia,
which had been colonised in very early ages by Hellenic settlers of
kindred origin. It was therefore impossible that the architecture of the
Romans should not be in fact a mixture of the styles of these two
people. As a transition order, it was only a mechanical juxtaposition of
both styles, the real fusion taking place many long centuries
afterwards. Throughout the Roman period the two styles remain distinct,
and there is no great difficulty in referring almost every feature in
Roman architecture to its origin.
From the Greeks were borrowed the rectangular peristylar temple, with
its columns and horizontal architraves, though they seldom if ever used
it in its perfect purity, the cella of the Greek temples not being
sufficiently large for their purposes. The principal Etruscan temples,
as we have already shown, were square in plan, and the inner half
occupied by one or more cells, to the sides and back of which the
portico never extended. The Roman rectangular temple is a mixture of
these two: it is generally, like the Greek examples, longer than its
breadth, but the colonnade never seems to have entirely surrounded the
building. Sometimes it extends to the two sides as well as the front,
but more generally the cella occupies the whole of the inner part though
frequently ornamented by a false peristyle of three-quarter columns
attached to its walls.
Besides this, the Romans borrowed from the Etruscans or Greeks a
circular form of temple. As applied by the Romans it was generally
encircled by a peristyle of columns, though it is not clear that the
Etruscans so used it; this may therefore be an improvement adopted from
the Greeks on an Etruscan form. In early times these circular temples
were dedicated to Vesta, Cybele, or some god or goddess either unknown
or not generally worshipped by the Aryan races; but in later times this
distinction was lost sight of.
A more important characteristic which the Romans borrowed from the
Etruscans was the circular arch. It was known, it is true, to the
Egyptians, Assyrians, and Greeks; yet none of these people, perhaps
excepting the Assyrians, seem to have used it as a feature in their
ornamental architecture; but the Etruscans appear to have had a peculiar
predilection for it, and from them the Romans adopted it boldly, and
introduced it into almost all their buildings. It was not at first used
in temples of Grecian form, nor even in their peristylar circular ones.
In the civil buildings of the Romans it was a universal feature, but was
generally placed in juxtaposition with the Grecian orders. In the
Colosseum, for instance, the whole construction is arched; but a useless
network of ill-designed and ill-arranged Grecian columns, with their
entablatures, is spread over the whole. This is a curious instance of
the mixture of the two styles, and as such is very characteristic of
Roman art; but in an artistic point of view the place of these columns
would have been far better supplied by buttresses or panels, or some
expedient more correctly constructive.
After having thoroughly familiarised themselves with the forms of the
arch as an architectural feature, the Romans made a bold stride in
advance by applying it as a vault both to the circular and rectangular
forms of buildings. The most perfect examples of this are the rotunda of
the Pantheon and the basilica of Maxentius, commonly called the Temple
of Peace, strangely like each other in conception, though apparently so
distant in date. In these buildings the Roman architects so completely
emancipated themselves from the trammels of former styles as almost to
entitle them to claim the invention of a new order of architecture. It
would have required some more practice to invent details appropriate to
the purpose; still these two buildings are to this hour unsurpassed for
boldness of conception and just appreciation of the manner in which the
new method ought to be applied. This is almost universally acknowledged
so far as the interior of the Pantheon is concerned. In simple grandeur
it is as yet unequalled; its faults being principally those of detail.
It is not so easy, however, to form an opinion of the Temple of Peace in
its present ruined state; but in so far as we can judge from what yet
remains of it, in boldness and majesty of conception it must have been
quite equal to the other example, though it must have required far more
familiarity with the style adopted to manage its design as appropriately
as the simpler dome of the Pantheon.
These two buildings may be considered as exemplifying the extent to
which the Romans had progressed in the invention of a new style of
architecture and the state in which they left it to their successors. It
may however be worth while pointing out how, in transplanting Roman
architecture to their new capital on the shores of the Bosphorus, the
semi-Oriental nation seized on its own circular form, and, modifying and
moulding it to its purpose, wrought out the Byzantine style; in which
the dome is the great feature, almost to the total exclusion of the
rectangular form with its intersecting vaults. On the other hand, the
rectangular form was appropriated by the nations of the West with an
equally distinct rejection of the circular and domical forms, except in
those cases in which we find an Eastern people still incorporated with
them. Thus in Italy both styles continued long in use, the one in
baptisteries, the other in churches, but always kept distinct, as in
Rome. In France they were so completely fused into each other that it
requires considerable knowledge of architectural analysis to separate
them again into their component parts. In England we rejected the
circular form altogether, and so they did eventually in Germany, except
when under French influence. Each race reclaimed its own among the
spoils of Rome, and used it with the improvements it had acquired during
its employment in the Imperial city.
ORDERS.
The first thing that strikes the student in attempting to classify the
numerous examples of Roman architecture is the immense variety of
purposes to which it is applied, as compared with previous styles. In
Egypt architecture was applied only to temples, palaces and tombs. In
Greece it was almost wholly confined to temples and theatres; and in
Etruria to tombs. It is in Rome that we first feel that we have not to
deal with either a Theocracy or a kingdom, but with a great people, who
for the first time in the world’s history rendered architecture
subservient to the myriad wants of the many-headed monster. It thus
happens that in the Roman cities, in addition to temples we find
basilicas, theatres and amphitheatres, baths, palaces, tombs, arches of
triumph and pillars of victory, gates, bridges, and aqueducts, all
equally objects of architectural skill. The best of these, in fact, are
those which from previous neglect in other countries are here stamped
with originality. These would have been noble works indeed had it not
been that the Romans unsuccessfully applied to them those orders and
details of architecture which were intended only to be applied to
temples by other nations. In the time of Constantine these orders had
nearly died out, and were only subordinately used for decorative
purposes. In a little while they would have died out altogether, and the
Roman would have become a new and complete style; but, as before
remarked, this did not take place, and the most ancient orders therefore
still remain an essential part of Roman art. We find the old orders
predominating in the age of Augustus, and see them gradually die out as
we approach that of Constantine.
DORIC.
Adopting the usual classification, the first of the Roman orders is the
Doric, which, like everything else in this style, takes a place about
half-way between the Tuscan wooden posts and the nobly simple order of
the Greeks. It no doubt was a great improvement on the former, but for
monumental purposes infinitely inferior to the latter. It was, however,
more manageable; and for forums or courtyards, or as a three-quarter
column between arcades, it was better adapted than the severer Greek
style, which, when so employed, not only loses almost all its beauty,
but becomes more unmeaning than the Roman. This fact was apparently
recognised; for there is not, so far as is known, a single Doric temple
throughout the Roman world. It would in consequence be most unfair to
institute a comparison between a mere utilitarian prop used only in
civil buildings and an order which the most refined artists in the world
spent all their ingenuity in rendering the most perfect, because it was
devoted to the highest religious purposes.
[Illustration: 179. Doric Order.]
The addition of an independent base made the order much more generally
useful, and its adoption brought it much more into harmony with the
other two existing orders, which would appear to have been the principal
object of its introduction. The keynote of Roman architecture was the
Corinthian order; and as, from the necessities of their tall,
many-storeyed buildings, the Romans were forced to use the three orders
together, often one over the other, it was indispensable that the three
should be reduced to something like harmony. This was accordingly done,
but at the expense of the Doric order, which, except when thus used in
combination, must be confessed to have very little claim to our
admiration.
IONIC.
The Romans were much more unfortunate in their modifications of the
Ionic order than in those which they introduced into the Doric. They
never seem to have either liked or understood it, nor to have employed
it except as a _mezzo termine_ between the other two. In its own native
East this order had originally only been used in porticoes between piers
or _antæ_, where of course only one face was shown, and there were no
angles to be turned. When the Greeks adopted it they used it in temples
of Doric form, and in consequence were obliged to introduce a capital at
each angle, with two voluted faces in juxtaposition at right angles to
one another. In some instances—internally at least—as at Bassæ (Woodcut
No. 142) they used a capital with four faces. The Romans, impatient of
control, eagerly seized on this modification, but never quite got over
the extreme difficulty of its employment. With them the angular volutes
became mere horns, and even in the best examples the capital wants
harmony and meaning.
[Illustration: 180. Ionic Order.]
When used as a three-quarter column these alterations were not required,
and then the order resembled more its original form; but even in this
state it was never equal to the Greek examples, and gradually
deteriorated to the corrupt application of it in the Temple of Concord
in the Forum, which is the most degenerate example of the order now to
be found in Roman remains.
CORINTHIAN.
The fate of this order in the hands of the Romans was different from
that of the other two. The Doric and Ionic orders had reached their acme
of perfection in the hands of the Grecian artists, and seem to have
become incapable of further improvement. The Corinthian, on the
contrary, was a recent conception; and although nothing can surpass the
elegance and grace with which the Greeks adorned it, the new capital
never acquired with them that fulness and strength so requisite to
render it an appropriate architectural ornament. These were added to it
by the Romans, or rather perhaps by Grecian artists acting under their
direction, who thus, as shown in Woodcut No. 181, produced an order
which for richness combined with proportion and architectural fitness
has hardly been surpassed. The base is elegant and appropriate; the
shaft is of the most pleasing proportion, and the fluting gives it just
the requisite degree of richness and no more; while the capital, though
bordering on over-ornamentation, is so well arranged as to appear just
suited to the work it has to do. The acanthus-leaves, it is true,
approach the very verge of that degree of direct imitation of nature
which, though allowable in architectural ornaments, is seldom advisable;
they are, however, disposed so formally, and there still remains so much
that is conventional in them, that, though perhaps not justly open to
criticism on this account, they are nevertheless a very extreme example.
[Illustration: 181. Corinthian Order. From the Temple of Jupiter
Stator.]
The entablature is not so admirable as the column. The architrave is too
richly carved. It is evident, however, that this arose from the artist
having copied in carving what the Greeks had only painted, and thereby
produced a complexity far from pleasing.
The frieze, as we now find it, is perfectly plain; but this undoubtedly
was not the case when originally erected. It either must have been
painted (in which case the whole order of course was also painted), or
ornamented with scrolls or figures in bronze, which may probably have
been gilt.
The cornice is perhaps open to the same criticism as the architrave, of
being over-rich, though this evidently arose from the same cause, viz.,
reproducing in carving what was originally only painted; which to our
Northern eyes at least appears more appropriate for internal than for
external decoration, though, under the purer skies where it was
introduced and used, this remark may be hardly applicable.
The order of the portico of the Pantheon is, according to our notions, a
nobler specimen of what an external pillar should be than that of the
Temple of Jupiter Stator. The shafts are of one block, unfluted; the
capital plainer; and the whole entablature, though as correctly
proportional, is far less ornamented and more suited to the greater
simplicity of the whole.
The order of the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina is another example
intermediate between these two. The columns are in this instance very
similar to those of the Pantheon, and the architrave is plain. The
frieze, however, is ornamented with more taste than any other in Rome,
and is a very pleasing example of those conventional representations of
plants and animals which are so well suited to architectural purposes—
more like Nature than those of the Greeks, but still avoiding direct
imitation sufficiently to escape the affectation of pretending to appear
what it is not and cannot be.
The Maison Carrée at Nîmes presents an example of a frieze ornamented
with exquisite taste, while at Baalbec, and in some other examples, we
have them so over-ornamented that the effect is far more offensive, from
utter want of repose, than the frieze in the Temple of Jupiter Stator
ever could be from its baldness.
Besides these there are at least fifty varieties of Corinthian capitals
to be found, either in Rome or in various parts of the Roman Empire, all
executed within the three centuries during which Rome continued to be
the imperial city. Some of them are remarkable for that elegant
simplicity which so evidently betrays the hand of a Grecian artist,
while others again show a lavish exuberance of ornament which is but too
characteristic of Roman art in general. Many, however, contain the germs
of something better than was accomplished in that age; and a collection
of them would afford more useful suggestions for designing capitals than
have yet been available to modern artists.
COMPOSITE ORDER.
Among their various attempts to improve the order which has just been
described, the Romans hit upon one which is extremely characteristic of
their whole style of art. This is known by the distinguishing name of
the Composite order, though virtually more like the typical examples of
the Corinthian order than many of those classed under the latter
denomination.
The greatest defect of the Corinthian capital is the weakness of the
small volutes supporting the angles of the abacus. A true artist would
have remedied this by adding to their strength and carrying up the
fulness of the capital to the top. The Romans removed the whole of the
upper part and substituted an Ionic capital instead. Their only original
idea, if it may be so called, in art was that of putting two dissimilar
things together to make one which should combine the beauties of both,
though as a rule the one generally serves to destroy the other. In the
Composite capital they never could hide the junction; and consequently,
though rich, and in some respects an improvement on the order out of
which it grew, this capital never came into general use, and has seldom
found favour except amongst the blindest admirers of all that the Romans
did.
[Illustration: 182. Composite Order.]
[Illustration: 183. Corinthian Base, found in Church of St. Praxede in
Rome.]
In the latter days of the Empire the Romans attempted another innovation
which promised far better success, and with very little more elaboration
would have been a great gain to the principles of architectural design.
This was the introduction of the Persian or Assyrian base, modified to
suit the details of the Corinthian or Composite orders. If they had
always used this instead of the square pedestals on which they mounted
their columns, and had attenuated the pillars slightly when used with
arcades, they would have avoided many of the errors they fell into. This
application, however, came too late to be generally used; and the forms
already introduced continued to prevail. At the same time it is evident
that a Persepolitan base for an Ionic and even for a Corinthian column
would be amongst the greatest improvements that could now be introduced,
especially for internal architecture.
COMPOSITE ARCADES.
The true Roman order, however, was not any of these columnar ordinances
we have been enumerating, but an arrangement of two pillars placed at a
distance from one another nearly equal to their own height, and having a
very long entablature, which in consequence required to be supported in
the centre by an arch springing from piers. This, as will be seen from
the annexed woodcut, was in fact merely a screen of Grecian architecture
placed in front of a construction of Etruscan design. Though not without
a certain richness of effect, still, as used by the Romans, these two
systems remain too distinctly dissimilar for the result to be pleasing,
and their use necessitated certain supplemental arrangements by no means
agreeable. In the first place, the columns had to be mounted on
pedestals, or otherwise an entablature proportional to their size would
have been too heavy and too important for a thing so useless and so
avowedly a mere ornament. A projecting keystone was also introduced into
the arch. This was unobjectionable in itself, but when projecting so far
as to do the duty of an intermediate capital, it overpowered the arch
without being equal to the work required of it.
[Illustration: 184. Doric Arcade.]
The Romans used these arcades with all the 3 orders, frequently one over
the other, and tried various expedients to harmonise the construction
with the ornamentation, but without much effect. They seem always to
have felt the discordance as a blemish, and at last got rid of it, but
whether they did so in the best way is not quite clear. The most obvious
mode of effecting this would no doubt have been by omitting the pillars
altogether, bending the architrave, as is usually done, round the arch,
and then inserting the frieze and cornices into the wall, using them as
a string-course. A slight degree of practice would soon have enabled
them—by panelling the pier, cutting off its angles, or some such
expedient—to have obtained the degree of lightness or of ornament they
required, and so really to have invented a new order.
This, however, was not the course that the Romans pursued. What they did
was to remove the pier altogether, and to substitute for it the pillar
taken down from its pedestal. This of course was not effected at once,
but was the result of many trials and expedients. One of the earliest of
these is observed in the Ionic Temple of Concord before alluded to, in
which a concealed arch is thrown from the head of each pillar, but above
the entablature, so as to take the whole weight of the superstructure
from off the cornice between the pillars. When once this was done it was
perceived that so deep an entablature was no longer required, and that
it might be either wholly omitted, as was sometimes done in the centre
intercolumniation, or very much reduced. There is an old temple at
Talavera in Spain, which is a good example of the former expedient; and
the Roman gateway at Damascus is a remarkable instance of the latter.
There the architrave, frieze and cornice are carried across in the form
of an arch from pier to pier, thus constituting a new feature in
architectural design.
[Illustration: 185. View in Courtyard of Palace at Spalato]
In Diocletian’s reign we find all these changes already introduced into
domestic architecture, as shown in Woodcut No. 185, representing the
great court of his palace at Spalato, where, at one end, the entablature
is bent into the form of an arch over the central intercolumniation,
while on each side of the court the arches spring directly from the
capitals of the columns.
Had the Romans at this period been more desirous to improve their
external architecture, there is little doubt that they would have
adopted the expedient of omitting the entire entablature: but at this
time almost all their efforts were devoted to internal improvement, and
not unfrequently at the expense of the exterior. Indeed the whole
history of Roman art, from the time of Augustus to that of Constantine,
is a transition from the external architecture of the Greeks to the
internal embellishment of the Christians. At first we see the cells of
the temple gradually enlarged at the expense of the peristyle, and
finally, in some instances, entirely overpowering them. Their basilicas
and halls become more important than their porticoes, and the exterior
is in almost every instance sacrificed to internal arrangements. For an
interior, an arch resting on a circular column is obviously far more
appropriate than one resting on a pier. Externally, on the contrary, the
square pier is most suitable, because a pillar cannot support a wall of
sufficient thickness. This defect was not remedied until the Gothic
architects devised the plan of coupling two or more pillars together;
but this point had not been reached at the time when with the fall of
Rome all progress in art was effectually checked for a time.
TEMPLES.
There is perhaps nothing that strikes the inquirer into the
architectural history of Rome more than the extreme insignificance of
her temples, as compared with the other buildings of the imperial city
and with some contemporary temples found in the provinces. The only
temple which remains at all worthy of such a capital is the Pantheon.
All others are now mere fragments, from which we can with difficulty
restore even the plans of the buildings, far less judge of their effect.
We have now no means of forming an opinion of the great national temple
of the Capitoline Jove, no trace of it, nor any intelligible
description, having been preserved to the present time. Its having been
of Etruscan origin, and retaining its original form to the latest day,
would lead us to suppose that the temple itself was small, and that its
magnificence, if any, was confined to the enclosure and to the
substructure, which may have been immense.
Of the Augustan age we have nothing but the remains of three temples,
each consisting of only three columns; and the excavations that have
been made around them have not sufficed to make even their plans
tolerably clear.
The most remarkable was that of Jupiter Stator in the Forum, the
beautiful details of which have been already alluded to and described.
This temple was octastyle in front. It was raised on a stylobate 22 ft.
in height, the extreme width of which was 98 ft., and this corresponds
as closely as possible with 100 Roman ft. The angular columns were 85
ft. from centre to centre. The height of the pillars was 48 ft., and
that of the entablature 12 ft. 6 in.[165] It is probable that the whole
height to the apex of the pediment was nearly equal to the extreme
width, and that it was designed to be so.
The pillars certainly extended on both flanks, and the temple is
generally restored as peristylar, but apparently without any authority.
From the analogy of the other temples it seems more probable that there
were not more than eight or ten pillars on each side, and that the apse
of the cella formed the termination opposite the portico.
The temple nearest to this in situation and style is that of Jupiter
Tonans.[166] The order in this instance is of slightly inferior
dimensions to that of the temple just described, and of very inferior
execution. The temple, too, was very much smaller, having only six
columns in front, and from its situation it could not well have had more
than that number on the flanks, so that its extreme dimensions were
probably about 70 ft. by 85.
The third is the Temple of Mars Ultor, of which a plan is annexed; for
though now as completely decayed as the other two, in the time of Ant.
Sabacco and Palladio there seem to have been sufficient remains to
justify an attempt at restoration. As will be seen, it is nearly square
in plan (112 ft. by 120). The cella is here a much more important part
than is usual in Greek temples, and terminates in an apse, which
afterwards became characteristic of all places of worship. Behind the
cella, and on each side, was a lofty screen of walls and arches, part of
which still remain, and form quite a new adjunct, unlike anything
hitherto met with attached to any temple now known.
[Illustration: 186. Temple of Mars Ultor. (From Cresy’s ‘Rome.’) Scale
100 ft. to 1 in.]
The next class of temples, called pseudo-peripteral (or those in which
the cella occupies the whole of the after part), are generally more
modern, certainly more completely Roman, than these last. One of the
best specimens at Rome is the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, a small
building measuring 72 ft. by 120. There is also a very elegant little
Ionic temple of this class called that of Fortuna Virilis; while the
Ionic Temple of Concord, built by Vespasian, and above alluded to,
appears also to have been of this class. So was the temple in the forum
at Pompeii; but the finest specimen now remaining to us is the so-called
Maison Carrée at Nîmes, which is indeed one of the most elegant temples
of the Roman world, owing probably a great deal of its beauty to the
taste of the Grecian colonists long settled in its neighbourhood. It is
hexastyle, with 11 columns in the flanks, 3 of which stand free, and
belong to the portico; the remaining 8 are attached to the walls of the
cella. The temple is small, only 45 ft. by 85; but such is the beauty of
its proportions and the elegance of its details that it strikes every
beholder with admiration.
[Illustration: 187. Plan of Maison Carrée at Nîmes. Scale 100 ft. to 1
in.]
The date of this temple has not been satisfactorily ascertained. From
the nail-holes of the inscription on the frieze it has been attempted to
make out the names of Caius and Lucius Cæsar, and there is nothing in
the style of its architecture to contradict this hypothesis. Even if the
buildings in the capital were such as to render this date ambiguous, it
would scarcely be safe to apply any argument derived from them to a
provincial example erected in the midst of a Grecian colony. But for
their evidence we might almost be inclined to fancy its style
represented the age of Trajan.
The temple of Diana in the same city is another edifice of singular
beauty of detail, and interesting from the peculiarity of its plan.
Exclusive of the portico it is nearly square, 70 ft. by 65, and consists
of a cella which is covered with a stone ribbed vault, the thrust of
which is counteracted by smaller vaults thrown across two side passages
or aisles which are, however, not thrown open to the cella. The columns
in the cella are detached from the wall, which is singularly interesting
as the origin of much which we find afterwards in Gothic work. (A
somewhat similar arrangement is found in the small temple at Baalbec
(Woodcut No. 197) where, however, the peristyle occupies the position
and serves the same purpose as the aisles at Nîmes, viz., to resist the
thrust of the vault over the cella.)
[Illustration: 188. Plan of Temple of Diana at Nîmes. Scale 100 ft. to 1
in.]
Throughout this building the details of the architecture are unsurpassed
for variety and elegance by anything found in the metropolis, and are
applied here with a freedom and elegance bespeaking the presence of a
Grecian mind even in this remote corner of the Empire. Another
interesting feature is the porch. This was supported by four slender
columns of singularly elegant design, but placed so widely apart that
they could not have carried a stone entablature. It is difficult to
guess what could have been the form of the wooden ones; but a mortice
which still exists in the walls of the temple shows that it must have
been eight or ten feet deep, and therefore probably of Etruscan form
(Woodcut No. 167); though it may have assumed a circular arched form
between the pillars.[167]
[Illustration: 189. View of the Interior of the Temple of Diana at
Nîmes. (From Laborde.)]
Another peculiarity is, that the light was introduced over the portico
by a great semicircular window, as is done in the Buddhist caves in
India; which, so far as I know, is the most perfect mode of lighting the
interior of a temple which has yet been discovered.
Not far from the Colosseum, in the direction of the Forum, are still to
be seen the remains of a great double temple built by the Emperor
Hadrian, and dedicated to Venus and Rome, and consisting of the ruins of
its two cells, each about 70 ft. square, covered with tunnel-vaults, and
placed back to back, so that their apses touch one another. These stand
on a platform 480 ft. long by 330 wide; and it is generally supposed
that on the edge of this once stood 56 great columns, 65 ft. in height,
thus moulding the whole into one great peripteral temple. Some fragments
of such pillars are said to be found in the neighbourhood, but not one
is now erect,—not even a base is in its place,—nor can any of its
columns be traced to any other buildings. This part, therefore, of the
arrangement is very problematical, and I should be rather inclined to
restore it, as Palladio and the older architects have done, with a
corridor of ten small columns in front of each of the cells. If we could
assume the plan of this temple to have been really peripteral, as
supposed, it must have been a building worthy of the imperial city and
of the magnificence of the emperor to whom its erection is ascribed.
More perfect and more interesting than any of these is the Pantheon,
which is undoubtedly one of the finest temples of the ancient world.
Externally its effect is very much destroyed by its two parts, the
circular and the rectangular, being so dissimilar in style and so
incongruously joined together. The portico especially, in itself the
finest which Rome exhibits, is very much injured by being prefixed to a
mass which overpowers it and does not harmonise with any of its lines.
The pitch, too, of its pediment is perhaps somewhat too high, but,
notwithstanding all this, its sixteen columns, the shaft of each
composed of a single block, and the simple grandeur of the details,
render it perhaps the most satisfactory example of its class.
[Illustration: 190. Plan of Pantheon at Rome. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
The pillars are arranged in the Etruscan fashion, as they were
originally disposed in front of three-celled temples. As they now stand,
however, they are added unsymmetrically to a rotunda, and in so clumsy a
fashion that the two are certainly not part of the same design and do
not belong to the same age. Either it was that the portico was added to
the pre-existing rotunda, or that the rotunda is long subsequent to the
portico. Unfortunately the two inscriptions on the portico hardly help
to a solution of the difficulty. The principal one states that it was
built by M. Agrippa, but the “it” may refer to the rotunda only, and may
have been put there by those who in the time of Aurelius[168] repaired
the temple which had “fallen into decay from age.” This hardly could,
under any circumstances, be predicated of the rotunda, which shows no
sign of decay during the last seventeen centuries of ill-treatment and
neglect, and may last for as many more without injury to its stability,
but might be said of a portico which, if of wood, as Etruscan porticoes
usually were, may easily in 200 years have required repairs and
rebuilding. From a more careful examination on the spot, I am convinced
that the portico was added at some subsequent period to the rotunda. If
by Agrippa, then the dome must belong to Republican times; if by Severus
it may have been, as is generally supposed, the hall of the Baths of
Agrippa.[169] Altogether I know of no building whose date and
arrangements are so singular and so exceptional as this. Though it is,
and always must have been, one of the most prominent buildings in Rome,
and most important from its size and design, I know of no other building
in Rome whose date or original destination it is so difficult to
determine.
[Illustration: 191. Half Elevation, half Section, of the Pantheon at
Rome. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
Internally perhaps the greatest defect of the building is a want of
height in the perpendicular part, which the dome appears to overpower
and crush. This mistake is aggravated by the lower part being cut up
into two storeys, an attic being placed over the lower order. The former
defect may have arisen from the architect wishing to keep the walls in
some proportion to the portico. The latter is a peculiarity of the age
in which I suppose this temple to have been remodelled, when two or more
storeys seem to have become indispensable requisites of architectural
design. We must ascribe also to the practice of the age the method of
cutting through the entablature by the arches of the great niches, as
shown in the sectional part of the last woodcut. It has already been
pointed out that this was becoming a characteristic of the style at the
time when the circular part of this temple was arranged as it at present
appears.
Notwithstanding these defects and many others of detail that might be
mentioned, there is a grandeur and a simplicity in the proportions of
this great temple that render it still one of the very finest and most
sublime interiors in the world, and the dimensions of its dome, 145 ft.
6 in. span by 147 in height, have not yet been surpassed by any
subsequent erection. Though it is deprived of its bronze covering[170]
and of the greater part of those ornaments on which it mainly depended
for effect, and though these have been replaced by tawdry and
incongruous modernisms, still nothing can destroy the effect of a design
so vast and of a form so simply grand. It possesses moreover one other
element of architectural sublimity in having a single window, and that
placed high up in the building. I know of no other temples which possess
this feature except the great rock-cut Buddhist basilicas of India. In
them the light is introduced even more artistically than here; but,
nevertheless, that one great eye opening upon heaven is by far the
noblest conception for lighting a building to be found in Europe.
Besides this great rotunda there are two other circular temples in or
near Rome. The one at Tivoli, shown in plan and elevation in the annexed
woodcuts (Nos. 192 and 193), has long been known and admired; the other,
near the mouth of the Cloaca Maxima, has a cell surrounded by twenty
Corinthian columns of singularly slender proportions. Both these
probably stand on Etruscan sites; they certainly are Etruscan in form,
and are very likely sacred to Pelasgic deities, either Vesta or Cybele.
[Illustration: 192. Plan of Temple at Tivoli. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 193. Restored Elevation of Temple at Tivoli. Scale 50 ft.
to 1 in.]
Both in dimensions and design they form a perfect contrast to the
Pantheon, as might be expected from their both belonging to the Augustan
age of art: consequently the cella is small, its interior is
unornamented, and all the art and expense is lavished on the external
features, especially on the peristyle; showing more strongly than even
the rectangular temple the still remaining predominance of Grecian
taste, which was gradually dying out during the whole period of the
Empire.
It is to be regretted that the exact dates of both these temples are
unknown, for, as that at Tivoli shows the stoutest example of a
Corinthian column known and that in Rome the slenderest, it might lead
to some important deductions if we could be certain which was the older
of the two. It may be, however, that this difference of style has no
connection with the relative age of the two buildings, but that it is
merely an instance of the good taste of the age to which they belong.
The Roman example, being placed in a low and flat situation, required
all the height that could be given it; that at Tivoli, being placed on
the edge of a rock, required as much solidity as the order would admit
of to prevent its looking poor and insecure. A Gothic or a Greek
architect would certainly have made this distinction.
One more step towards the modern style of round temples was taken before
the fall of the Western Empire, in the temple which Diocletian built in
his palace at Spalato. Internally the temple is circular, 28 ft. in
diameter, and the height of the perpendicular part to the springing of
the dome is about equal to its width. This is a much more pleasing
proportion than we find in the Pantheon; perhaps the very best that has
yet been employed. Externally the building is an octagon, surrounded by
a low dwarf peristyle, very unlike that employed in the older examples.
This angularity is certainly a great improvement, giving expression and
character to the building, and affording flat faces for the entrances or
porches; but the peristyle is too low, and mars the dignity of the
whole.[171]
[Illustration: 194. Plan and Elevation of Temple in Diocletian’s Palace
at Spalato. Scale for Plan 100 ft. to 1 in.; for Elevation 50 ft. to 1
in.]
To us its principal interest consists in its being so extremely similar
to the Christian baptisteries which were erected in the following
centuries, and which were copies, but very slightly altered, from
buildings of this class.
ATHENS.
Even assuming that Hadrian completed the great Temple of Venus at Rome
in the manner generally supposed, it must have been very far surpassed
by the great Temple of Jupiter Olympius at Athens, which, though
probably not entirely erected, was certainly finished, by that Emperor.
It was octastyle in front,[172] with a double range of 20 columns on
each flank so that it could not well have had less than 106 columns, all
about 58 ft. in height, and of the most elegant Corinthian order,
presenting altogether a group of far greater magnificence than any other
temple we are acquainted with of its class in the ancient world. Its
lineal dimensions also, as may be seen from the plan (Woodcut No. 195),
were only rivalled by the two great Sicilian temples at Selinus and
Agrigentum (Woodcuts Nos. 151, 152). It was 135 ft. wide by 354 in
length, or nearly the same dimensions as the great Hypostyle Hall at
Karnac, from which, however, it differs most materially, that being a
beautiful example of an interior, this depending for all its
magnificence on the external arrangement of its columns. Mr. Penrose’s
discoveries in 1884 show that there was an opisthodomus at the rear and
a vestibule or court in front of the cella which may have been hypæthral
so as to admit light into the interior. This arrangement became so
common in the early Christian world that there must have been some
precedent for it; which, in addition to other reasons,[173] strongly
inclines me to believe that the arrangement shown in the plan is
correct.
[Illustration: 195. Ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Olympius at Athens.]
[Illustration: 196. Plan of Temple of Jupiter Olympius at Athens.]
BAALBEC.
The temples of Palmyra and Kangovar have been already mentioned in
speaking of that of Jerusalem, to which class they seem to belong in
their general arrangements, though their details are borrowed from Roman
architecture. This, however, is not the case with the temples at
Baalbec, which taken together and with their accompaniments, form the
most magnificent temple group now left to us of their class and age. The
great temple, if completed (which, however, probably it never was),
would have been about 160 ft. by 290, and therefore, as a Corinthian
temple, only inferior to that of Jupiter Olympius at Athens. Only nine
of its colossal columns are now standing, but the bases of most of the
others are _in situ_. Scarcely less magnificent than the temple itself
was the court in which it stood, above 380 ft. square, and surrounded on
three sides by recessed porticoes of most exuberant richness, though in
perhaps rather questionable taste. In front of this was a hexagonal
court of very great beauty, with a noble portico of 12 Corinthian
columns, with two square blocks of masonry at each end. The whole extent
of the portico is 260 ft., and of its kind it is perhaps unrivalled,
certainly among the buildings of so late a date as the period to which
it belongs.
[Illustration: 197. Plan of Small Temple at Baalbec. Scale 100 ft. to 1
in.]
[Illustration: 198. Elevation of Small Temple at Baalbec. Scale 50 ft.
to 1 in.]
The other, or smaller temple, stands close to the larger. Its
dimensions, to the usual scale, are shown in the plan (Woodcut No. 197).
It is larger than any of the Roman peripteral temples, being 117 ft. by
227 ft., or rather exceeding the dimensions of the Parthenon at Athens,
and its portico is both wider and higher than that of the Pantheon at
Rome. Had this portico been applied to that building, the slope of its
pediment would have coincided exactly with that of the upper sloping
cornice, and would have been the greatest possible improvement to that
edifice. As it is, it certainly is the best proportioned and the most
graceful Roman portico of the first class that remains to us in a state
of sufficient completeness to allow us to judge of its effect.
The interior of the cella was richly ornamented with niches and
pilasters, and covered with a ribbed and coffered vault, remarkable,
like every part of this edifice, rather for the profusion than for the
good taste of its ornaments.
One of the principal peculiarities of this group of buildings is the
immense size of some of the stones used in the substructure of the great
temple: three of these average about 63 ft. in length, 10 ft. 5 in. in
breadth, and 13 ft. in height. A fourth, of similar dimensions, is lying
in the quarry, which it is calculated must weigh alone more than 1100
tons in its rough state, or nearly as much as one of the tubes of the
Britannia Bridge. It is not easy to see why such masses were employed.
If they had been used as foundation stones their use would have been
apparent, but they are placed over several courses of smaller stones,
about half-way up the terrace wall, as mere binding stones, apparently
for show. It is true that in many places in the Bible and in Josephus
nothing is so much insisted upon as the immense size of the stones used
in the building of the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem, the bulk of
the materials used appearing to have been thought a matter of far more
importance than the architecture. It probably was some such feeling as
this which led to their employment here, though, had these huge stones
been set upright, as the Egyptians would have placed them, we might more
easily have understood why so great an expense should have been incurred
on their account. As it is, there seems no reason for doubting their
being of the same age as the temples they support, though their use is
certainly exceptional in Roman temples of this class.
CHAPTER IV.
BASILICAS, THEATRES, AND BATHS.
CONTENTS.
Basilicas of Trajan and Maxentius—Provincial basilicas—Theatre at
Orange—Colosseum—Provincial amphitheatres—Baths of Diocletian.
BASILICAS.
We have already seen that in size and magnificence the temples of Rome
were among the least remarkable of her public buildings. It may be
doubted whether in any respect, in the eyes of the Romans themselves,
the temples were as important and venerable as the basilicas. The people
cared for government and justice more than for religion, and
consequently paid more attention to the affairs of the basilicas than to
those of the temples. Our means for the restoration of this class of
buildings are now but small, owing to their slight construction in the
first instance, and to their materials having been so suitable for the
building of Christian basilicas as to have been extensively used for
that purpose. It happens, however, that the remains which we do possess
comprise what we know to be the ruins of the two most splendid buildings
of this class in Rome, and these are sufficiently complete to enable us
to restore their plans with considerable confidence. It is also
fortunate that one of these, the Ulpian or Trajan’s basilica, is the
typical specimen of those with wooden roofs; the other, that of
Maxentius, commonly called the Temple of Peace, is the noblest of the
vaulted class.
[Illustration:
199. Plan of Trajan’s Basilica at Rome. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.
The part shaded darker is all that is uncovered.
]
[Illustration: 200. Restored Section of Trajan’s Basilica. Scale 100 ft.
to 1 in.]
The rectangular part of Trajan’s basilica was 180 ft. in width and a
little more than twice that in length, but, neither end having yet been
excavated, its exact longitudinal measurement has not been ascertained.
It was divided into five aisles by four rows of columns, each about 35
ft. in height, the centre being 87 ft. wide, and the side-aisles 23 ft.
4 in. each. The centre was covered by a wooden roof of semicircular
form,[174] covered apparently with bronze plates richly ornamented and
gilt. Above the side aisles was a gallery, the roof of which was
supported by an upper row of columns. From the same columns also sprang
the arches of the great central aisle. The total internal height was
thus probably about 120 ft., or higher than any English cathedral,
though not so high as some German and French churches.
At one end was a great semicircular apse, the back part of which was
raised, being approached by a semicircular range of steps. In the centre
of this platform was the raised seat of the quæstor or other magistrate
who presided. On each side, upon the steps, were places for the
assessors or others engaged in the business being transacted. In front
of the apse was placed an altar, where sacrifice was performed before
commencing any important public business.[175]
Externally this basilica could not have been of much magnificence. It
was entered on the side of the Forum (on the left hand of the plan and
section) by one triple doorway in the centre and two single ones on
either side, flanked by shallow porticoes of columns of the same height
as those used internally. These supported statues, or rather, to judge
from the coins representing the building, rilievos, which may have set
off, but could hardly have given much dignity to, a building designed as
this was. At the end opposite the apse a similar arrangement seems to
have prevailed.
This mode of using columns only half the height of the edifice must have
been very destructive of their effect and of the general grandeur of the
structure, but it became about this time rather the rule than the
exception, and was afterwards adopted for temples and every other class
of buildings, so that it was decidedly an improvement when the arch took
the place of the horizontal architrave and cornice; the latter always
suggested a roof, and became singularly incongruous when applied as a
mere ornamental adjunct at half the height of the façade. The interior
of the basilica was, however, the important element to which the
exterior was entirely sacrificed, a transition in architectural design
which we have before alluded to, taking place much faster in basilicas,
which were an entirely new form of building, than in temples, whose
conformation had become sacred from the traditions of past ages.
[Illustration: 201. Plan of Basilica of Maxentius. Scale 100 ft. to 1
in.]
[Illustration: 202. Longitudinal Section of Basilica of Maxentius. Scale
100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 203. Transverse Section of Basilica of Maxentius. Scale
100 ft. to 1 in.]
The basilica of Maxentius, which was probably not entirely finished till
the reign of Constantine, was rather broader than that of Trajan, being
195 ft. between the walls, but it was 100 ft. less in length. The
central aisle was very nearly of the same width, being 83 ft. between
the walls, and 120 ft. in height. There was, however, a vast difference
in the construction of the two; so much so, that we are startled to see
how rapid the progress had been during the interval, of less than two
centuries, that had elapsed between the construction of the two
basilicas.
[Illustration: 204. Pillar of Maxentian Basilica. (From an old print
quoted by Letarouilly.)]
In this building no pillars were used with the exception of eight great
columns in front of the piers, employed merely as ornaments, or as
vaulting shafts were in Gothic cathedrals, to support in appearance,
though not in construction, the springing of the vaults.[176] The
side-aisles were roofed by three great arches, each 74 ft. in span, and
the centre by an immense intersecting vault in three compartments. The
form of these will be understood from the annexed sections (Woodcuts
Nos. 202 and 203), one taken longitudinally, the other across the
building. As will be seen from them, all the thrusts are collected to a
point and a buttress placed there to receive them: indeed almost all the
peculiarities afterwards found in Gothic vaults are here employed on a
far grander and more gigantic scale than the Gothic architects ever
attempted; but at the same time it must be allowed that the latter, with
smaller dimensions, often contrived by a more artistic treatment of
their materials to obtain as grand an effect and far more actual beauty
than ever were attained in the great transitional halls of the Romans.
The largeness of the parts of the Roman buildings was indeed their
principal defect, as in consequence of this they must all have appeared
smaller than they really were, whereas in all Gothic cathedrals the
repetition and smallness of the component parts has the effect of
magnifying their real dimensions.
The roofs of these halls had one peculiarity which it would have been
well if the mediæval architects had copied, inasmuch as they were all,
or at least might have been, honestly used as roofs without any
necessity for their being covered with others of wood, as all Gothic
vaults unfortunately were. It is true this is perhaps one of the causes
of their destruction, for, being only overlaid with cement, the rain
wore away the surface, as must inevitably be the case with any
composition of the sort exposed horizontally to the weather, and that
being gone, the moisture soon penetrated through the crevices of the
masonry, destroying the stability of the vault. Still, some of these in
Rome have resisted for fifteen centuries, after the removal of any
covering they ever might have had, all the accidents of climate and
decay, while there is not a Gothic vault of half their dimensions that
would stand for a century after the removal of its wooden protection.
The construction of a vault capable of resisting the destructive effects
of exposure to the atmosphere still remains a problem for modern
architects to solve. Until this is accomplished we must regard roofs
entirely of honest wood as preferable to the deceptive stone ceilings
which were such favourites in the Middle Ages.
[Illustration: 205. Plan of the Basilica at Trèves. Scale 100 ft. to 1
in.]
[Illustration: 206. Internal View of the Basilica at Trèves.]
The provincial basilicas of the Roman Empire have nearly all perished,
probably from their having been converted, first into churches, for
which they were so admirably adapted, and then rebuilt to suit the
exigencies and taste of subsequent ages. One example, however, still
exists in Trèves of sufficient completeness to give a good idea of what
such structures were. As will be seen by the annexed plan, it consists
of a great hall, 85 ft. in width internally, and rather more than twice
that dimension in length. The walls are about 100 ft. in height and
pierced with two rows of windows; but whether they were originally
separated by a gallery or not is now by no means clear. At one end was
the apse, rather more than a semicircle of 60 ft. in diameter. The floor
of the apse was raised considerably above that of the body of the
building, and was no doubt adorned by a hemicycle of seats raised on
steps, with a throne in the centre for the judge. The building has been
used for so many purposes since the time of the Romans, and has been so
much altered, that it is not easy now to speak with certainty of any of
its minor arrangements. Its internal and external appearance, as it
stood before the recent restoration, are well expressed in the annexed
woodcuts; and though ruined, it was the most complete example of a Roman
basilica to be found anywhere out of the capital. A building of this
description has been found at Pompeii, which may be considered a fair
example of a provincial basilica of the second class. Its plan is
perfectly preserved, as shown in Woodcut No. 208. The most striking
difference existing between it and those previously described is the
square termination instead of the circular apse. It must, however, be
observed that Pompeii was situated nearer to Magna Græcia than to Rome,
and was indeed far more a Greek than a Roman city. Very slight traces of
any Etruscan designs have been discovered there, and scarcely any
buildings of the circular form so much in vogue in the capital. Though
the ground-plan of this basilica remains perfect, the upper parts are
entirely destroyed, and we do not even know for certain whether the
central portion was roofed or not.[177]
[Illustration: 207. External View of the Basilica at Trèves.]
[Illustration: 208. Plan of Basilica at Pompeii. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
There is a small square building at Otricoli, which is generally
supposed to be a basilica, but its object as well as its age is so
uncertain that nothing need be said of it here. In the works of
Vitruvius, too, there is a description of one built by him at Fano, the
restoration of which has afforded employment for the ingenuity of the
admirers of that worst of architects. Even taking it as restored by
those most desirous of making the best of it, it is difficult to
understand how anything so bad could have been erected in such an age.
It is extremely difficult to trace the origin of these basilicas, owing
principally to the loss of all the earlier examples. Their name is
Greek, and they may probably be considered as derived from the Grecian
Lesche, or perhaps as amplifications of the cellæ of Greek temples,
appropriated to the purposes of justice rather than of religion; but
till we know more of their earlier form and origin, it is useless
speculating on this point. The greatest interest to us, arises rather
from the use to which their plan was afterwards applied, than from the
source from which they themselves sprang. All the larger Christian
churches in the early times were copies, more or less exact, of the
basilicas of which that of Trajan is an example. The abundance of
pillars, suitable to such an erection, that were found everywhere in
Rome, rendered their construction easy and cheap; and the wooden roof
with which they were covered was also as simple and as inexpensive a
covering as could well be designed. The very uses of the Christian
basilicas at first were by no means dissimilar to those of their heathen
originals, as they were in reality the assembly halls of the early
Christian republic, before they became liturgical churches of the
Catholic hierarchy.
The more expensive construction of the bold vaults of the Maxentian
basilica went far beyond the means of the early Church, established in a
declining and abandoned capital, and this form therefore remained
dormant for seven or eight centuries before it was revived by the
mediæval architects on an infinitely smaller scale, but adorned with a
degree of appropriateness and taste to which the Romans were strangers.
It was then used with a completeness and unity which entitle it to be
considered as an entirely new style of architecture.
THEATRES.
The theatre was by no means so essential a part of the economy of a
Roman city as it was of a Grecian one. With the latter it was quite as
indispensable as the temple; and in the semi-Greek city of Herculaneum
there was one, and in Pompeii two, on a scale quite equal to those of
Greece when compared with the importance of the town itself. In the
capital there appears only to have been one, that of Marcellus,[178]
built during the reign of Augustus. It it is very questionable whether
what we now see—especially the outer arcades—belong to that age, or
whether the theatre may not have been rebuilt and these arcades added at
some later period. It is so completely built over by modern houses, and
so ruined, that it is extremely difficult to arrive at any satisfactory
opinion regarding it. Its dimensions were worthy of the capital, the
audience part being a semicircle of 410 ft. in diameter, and the scena
being of great extent in proportion to the other part, which is a
characteristic of all Roman theatres, as compared with Grecian edifices
of this class.
[Illustration: 209. Plan of the Theatre at Orange. Scale 100 ft. to 1
in.]
One of the most striking Roman provincial theatres is that of Orange, in
the south of France. Perhaps it owes its existence, or at all events its
splendour, to the substratum of Grecian colonists that preceded the
Romans in that country. Its auditorium is 340 ft. in diameter, but much
ruined, in consequence of the Princes of Orange having used this part as
a bastion in some fortification they were constructing.
[Illustration: 210. View of the Theatre at Orange.]
The stage is very tolerably preserved. It shows well the increased
extent and complication of arrangements required for the theatrical
representations of the age in which it was constructed, being a
considerable advance towards the more modern idea of a play, as
distinguished from the stately semi-religious spectacle in which the
Greeks delighted. The noblest part of the building is the great wall at
the back, an immense mass of masonry 340 ft. in extent and 116 ft. in
height, without a single opening above the basement, and no ornament
except a range of blank arches, about midway between the basement and
the top, and a few projecting corbels to receive the footings of the
masts that supported the velarium. Nowhere does the architecture of the
Romans shine so much as when their gigantic buildings are left to tell
their own tale by the imposing grandeur of their masses. Whenever
ornament is attempted, their bad taste comes out. The size of their
edifices, and the solidity of their construction, were only surpassed by
the Egyptians, and not always by them; and when, as here, the mass of
material heaped up stands unadorned in all its native grandeur,
criticism is disarmed, and the spectator stands awe-struck at its
majesty, and turns away convinced that truly “there were giants in those
days.” This is not, it is true, the most intellectual way of obtaining
architectural effect, but it has the advantage of being the easiest, the
most certain to secure the desired result, and at the same time the most
permanent.
AMPHITHEATRES.
The deficiency of theatres erected by the Romans is far more than
compensated by the number and splendour of their amphitheatres, which,
with their baths, may be considered as the true types of Roman art,
although it is possible that they derived this class of public buildings
from the Etruscans. At Sutrium there is a very noble one cut out of the
tufa rock,[179] which was no doubt used by that people for festal
representations long before Rome attempted anything of the kind. It is
uncertain whether gladiatorial fights or combats of wild beasts formed
any part of the amusements of the arena in those days, though boxing,
wrestling, and contests of that description certainly did; but whether
the Etruscans actually proceeded to the shedding of blood and to
slaughter is more than doubtful.
Even in the remotest parts of Britain, in Germany and Gaul, wherever we
find a Roman settlement, we find the traces of their amphitheatres.
Their soldiery, it seems, could not exist without the enjoyment of
seeing men engaged in doubtful and mortal combats—either killing one
another, or torn to pieces by wild beasts. It is not to be wondered at
that a people who delighted so much in the bloody scenes of the arena
should feel but very little pleasure in the mimic sorrows and tame
humour of the stage. The brutal exhibition of the amphitheatre fitted
them, it is true, to be a nation of conquerors, and gave them the empire
of the world, but it brought with it feelings singularly inimical to all
the softer arts, and was perhaps the great cause of their ultimate
debasement.
[Illustration: 211. Elevation and Section of part of the Flavian
Amphitheatre at Rome. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 212. Quarter-plan of the Seats and quarter-plan of the
Basement of the Flavian Amphitheatre. No scale.]
As might be expected, the largest and most splendid of these buildings
is that which adorns the capital; and of all the ruins which Rome
contains, none have excited such universal admiration as the Flavian
Amphitheatre. Poets, painters, rhapsodists, have exhausted all the
resources of their arts in the attempt to convey to others the
overpowering impression this building produces on their own minds. With
the single exception, perhaps, of the Hall at Karnac, no ruin has met
with such universal admiration as this. Its association with the ancient
mistress of the world, its destruction, and the half-prophetic destiny
ascribed to it, all contribute to this. In spite of our better judgment
we are forced to confess that
“The gladiators’ bloody circus stands
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection,”
and worthy of all or nearly all the admiration of which it has been the
object. Its interior is almost wholly devoid of ornament, or anything
that can be called architecture—a vast inverted pyramid. The exterior
does not possess one detail which is not open to criticism, and indeed
to positive blame. Notwithstanding all this, its magnitude, its form,
and its associations, all combine to produce an effect against which the
critic struggles in vain. Still, all must admit that the pillars and
their entablature are useless and are added incongruously, and that the
upper storey, not being arched like the lower, but solid, and with ugly
pilasters, is a painful blemish. This last defect is so striking that,
in spite of the somewhat dubious evidence of medals, I should feel
inclined to suspect that it was a subsequent addition, and meant wholly
for the purpose of supporting and working the great velarium or awning
that covered the arena during the representation, which may not have
been attempted when the amphitheatre was first erected.
Be this as it may, it certainly now very much mars the effect of the
building. The lower storeys are of bad design, but this is worse. But
notwithstanding these defects, there is no building of Rome where the
principle of reduplication of parts, of which the Gothic architects
afterwards made so much use, is carried to so great an extent as in
this. The Colosseum is principally indebted to this feature for the
effect which it produces. Had it, for instance, been designed with only
one storey of the height of the four now existing, and every arch had
consequently been as wide as the present four, the building would have
scarcely appeared half the size it is now seen to be. For all this,
however, when close under it, and comparing it with moving figures and
other objects, we could scarcely eventually fail to realise its
wonderful dimensions. In that case, a true sense of the vast size of the
building would have had to be acquired, as is the case with the façade
of St. Peter’s. Now it forces itself on the mind at the first glance. It
is the repetition of arch beyond arch and storey over storey that leads
the mind on, and gives to this amphitheatre its imposing grandeur, which
all acknowledge, though few give themselves the trouble to inquire how
this effect is produced.
Fortunately, too, though the face of the building is much cut up by the
order, the entablatures are unbroken throughout, and cross the building
in long vanishing lines of the most graceful curvatures. The oval, also,
is certainly more favourable for effect than a circular form would be. A
building of this shape may perhaps look smaller than it really is to a
person standing exactly opposite either end; but in all other positions
the flatter side gives a variety and an appearance of size, which the
monotonous equality of a circle would never produce.
The length of the building, measured over all along its greatest
diameter, is 620 ft., its breadth 513, or nearly in the ratio of 6 to 5,
which may be taken as the general proportion of these buildings, the
variations from it being slight, and apparently either mistakes in
setting out the work in ancient times, or in measuring it in modern
days, rather than an intentional deviation. The height of the three
lower storeys, or of what I believe to have been the original building,
is 120 ft.; the total height as it now stands is 157 ft. The arena
itself measures 287 ft. in length by 180 in breadth. The whole area of
the building has been calculated to contain 250,000 square feet, of
which the arena contains 40,000; then deducting 10,000 for the external
wall, 200,000 square feet will remain available for the audience. If we
divide this by 5,[180] which is the number of square feet it has been
found necessary to allow for each spectator in modern places of
amusement, room will be afforded for 40,000 spectators; at 4 feet, which
is a possible quantity, with continuous seats and the scant drapery of
the Romans, the amphitheatre might contain 50,000 spectators at one
time.
The area of the supports has also been calculated at about 40,000 square
feet, or about one-sixth of the whole area; which for an unroofed
edifice of this sort[181] is more than sufficient, though the excess
accounts for the stability of the building.
Next in extent to this great metropolitan amphitheatre was that of
Capua; its dimensions were 558 ft. by 460; its height externally 95 ft.
It had three storeys, designed similarly to those of the Colosseum, but
all of the Doric order, and used with more purity than in the Roman
example.
Next in age, though not in size, is that at Nîmes, 430 ft. by 378, and
72 in height, in two storeys. Both these storeys are more profusely and
more elegantly ornamented with pillars than those of either of the
amphitheatres mentioned above. The entablature is however broken over
each column, and pediments are introduced on each front. All these
arrangements, though showing more care in design and sufficient elegance
in detail, make this building very inferior in grandeur to the two
earlier edifices, whose simplicity of outline makes up, to a great
extent, for their faults of detail.
A more beautiful example than this is that at Verona. Its dimensions are
502 ft. by 401, and 98 ft. high, in three storeys beautifully
proportioned. Here the order almost entirely disappears to make way for
rustication, showing that it must be considerably more modern than
either of the three examples above quoted, though hardly so late as the
time of Maximianus, to whom it is frequently ascribed.[182] The arena of
this amphitheatre is very nearly perfect, owing to the care taken of it
during the Middle Ages, when it was often used for tournaments and other
spectacles; but of its outer architectural enclosure only four bays
remain, sufficient to enable an architect to restore the whole, but not
to allow of its effect being compared with that of more entire examples.
The amphitheatre at Pola, which is of about the same age as that of
Verona, and certainly belonging to the last days of the Western Empire,
presents in its ruin a curious contrast to the other. That at Verona has
a perfect arena and only a fragment of its exterior decoration, while
the exterior of Pola is perfect, but not a trace remains of its arena,
or of the seats that surrounded it. This is probably owing to their
having been of wood, and consequently having either decayed or been
burnt. Like that at Verona, it presents all the features of the last
stage of transition; the order is still seen, or rather is everywhere
suggested, but so concealed and kept subordinate that it does not at all
interfere with the general effect. But for these faint traces we should
possess in this amphitheatre one specimen entirely emancipated from
incongruous Grecian forms, but, as before remarked, Rome perished when
just on the threshold of the new style.
[Illustration: 213. Elevation of the Amphitheatre at Verona. Scale 50
ft. to 1 in.]
The dimensions of the amphitheatre at Pola are very nearly the same as
of that at Nîmes, being 436 ft. by 346. It has, however, three storeys,
and thus its height is considerably greater, being 97 ft. Owing to the
inequality of the ground on which it is built, the lower storey shows
the peculiarity of a sub-basement, which is very pleasingly managed, and
appears to emancipate it more from conventional forms than is the case
with its contemporary at Verona. The third storey, or attic, is also
more pleasing than elsewhere, as it is avowedly designed for the support
of the masts of the velarium. The pilasters and all Greek forms are
omitted, and there is only a groove over every column of the middle
storey to receive the masts. There is also a curious sort of open
battlement on the top, evidently designed to facilitate the working of
the awning, though in what manner is not quite clear. There is still one
other peculiarity about the building, the curvature of its lines is
broken by four projecting wings, intended apparently to contain
staircases; in a building so light and open as this one is in its
present state there can be no doubt but that the projections give
expression and character to the outline, though such additions would go
far to spoil any of the greater examples above quoted.
At Otricoli there is a small amphitheatre, 312 ft. by 230, in two
storeys, from which the order has entirely disappeared; it is therefore
possibly the most modern of its class, but the great flat pilasters that
replace the pillars are ungraceful and somewhat clumsy. Perhaps its
peculiarities ought rather to be looked on as provincialisms than as
genuine specimens of an advanced style. Still there is a pleasing
simplicity about it that on a larger scale would enable it to stand
comparison with some of its greater rivals.
Besides these, which are the typical examples of the style, there are
the “Castrense” at Rome, nearly circular, and possessing all the faults
and none of the beauties of the Colosseum; one at Arles, very much
ruined; and a great number of provincial ones, not only in Italy and
Gaul, but in Germany and Britain. Almost all these were principally if
not wholly excavated from the earth, the part above-ground being the
mound formed by the excavation. If they ever possessed any external
decoration to justify their being treated as architectural objects, it
has disappeared, so that in the state at least in which we now find them
they do not belong to the ornamental class of works of which we are at
present treating.
BATHS.
Next in splendour to the amphitheatres of the Romans were their great
thermal establishments: in size they were perhaps even more remarkable,
and their erection must certainly have been more costly. The
amphitheatre, however, has the great advantage in an architectural point
of view of being one object, one hall in short, whereas the baths were
composed of a great number of smaller parts, not perhaps very
successfully grouped together. They were wholly built of brick covered
with stucco (except perhaps the pillars), and have, therefore, now so
completely lost their architectural features that it is with difficulty
that even the most practised architect can restore them to anything like
their original appearance.
In speaking of the great Thermæ of Imperial Rome, they must not be
confounded with such establishments as that of Pompeii for instance. The
latter was very similar to the baths now found in Cairo or
Constantinople, and indeed in most Eastern cities. These are mere
establishments for the convenience of bathers, consisting generally of
one or two small circular or octagonal halls, covered by domes, and one
or two others of an oblong shape, covered with vaults or wooden roofs,
used as reception-rooms, or places of repose after the bath. These have
never any external magnificence beyond an entrance-porch; and although
those at Pompeii are decorated internally with taste, and are well
worthy of study, their smallness of size and inferiority of design do
not admit of their being placed in the same category as those of the
capital, which are as characteristic of Rome as her amphitheatres, and
are such as could only exist in a capital where the bulk of the people
were able to live on the spoils of the conquered world rather than by
the honest gains of their own industry.
Agrippa is said to have built baths immediately behind the Pantheon, and
Palladio and others have attempted restorations of them, assuming that
building to have been the entrance-hall. Nothing, however, can be more
unlikely than that, if he had first built the rotunda as a hall of his
baths, he should afterwards have added the portico, and converted it
from its secular use into a temple dedicated to all the gods.
As before remarked, the two parts are certainly not of the same age. If
Agrippa built the rotunda as a part of his baths, the portico was added
a century and a half or two centuries afterwards, and it was then
converted into a temple. If Agrippa built the portico, he added it to a
building belonging to Republican times, which may always have been
dedicated to sacred purposes. As the evidence at present stands, I am
rather inclined to believe the first hypothesis most correctly
represents the facts of the case.[183]
Nero’s baths, too, are a mere heap of shapeless ruins, and those of
Vespasian, Domitian, and Trajan in like manner are too much ruined for
their form, or even their dimensions, to be ascertained with anything
like correctness. Those of Titus are more perfect, but the very
discrepancies that exist between the different systems upon which their
restoration has been attempted show that enough does not remain to
enable the task to be accomplished in a satisfactory manner. They owe
their interest more to the beautiful fresco paintings that adorn their
vaults than to their architectural character. These paintings are
invaluable, as being the most extensive and perfect relics of the
painted decoration of the most flourishing period of the Empire, and
give a higher idea of Roman art than other indications would lead us to
expect.
The baths of Constantine are also nearly wholly destroyed, so that out
of the great Thermæ two only, those of Diocletian and of Caracalla, now
remain sufficiently perfect to enable a restoration to be made of them
with anything like certainty.
[Illustration: 214. Baths of Caracalla, as restored by A. Blouet.]
The great hall belonging to the baths of Diocletian is now the Church of
Sta. Maria degli Angeli, and has been considerably altered to suit the
changed circumstances of its use; while the modern buildings attached to
the church have so overlaid the older remains that it is not easy to
follow out the complete plan. This is of less consequence, as both in
dimensions and plan they are extremely similar to those of Caracalla,
which seem to have been among the most magnificent, as they certainly
are the best preserved, of these establishments.[184]
The general plan of the whole enclosure of the baths of Caracalla was a
square of about 1150 ft. each way, with a bold but graceful curvilinear
projection on two sides, containing porticoes, gymnasia, lecture-rooms,
and other halls for exercise of mind or body. In the rear were the
reservoirs to contain the requisite supply of water and below them the
hypocaust or furnace, by which it was warmed with a degree of scientific
skill we hardly give the Romans of that age credit for. Opposite to this
and facing the street was one great portico extending the whole length
of the building, into which opened a range of apartments, meant
apparently to be used as private baths, which extend also some way up
each side. In front of the hypocaust, facing the north-east, was a
semicircus or _theatridium_, 530 ft. long, where youths performed their
exercises or contended for prizes.
These parts were, however, merely the accessories of the establishment
surrounding the garden, in which the principal building was placed. This
was a rectangle 730 ft. by 380, with a projection covered by a dome on
the south-western side, which was 167 ft. in diameter externally, and
115 ft. internally. There were two small courts (A A) included in the
block, but nearly the whole of the rest appears to have been roofed
over.
The modern building which approaches nearest in extent to this is
probably our Parliament Houses. These are about 830 ft. in length, with
an average breadth of about 300, and, with Westminster Hall, cover as
nearly as may be the same area as the central block of these baths. But
there the comparison stops; there is no building of modern times on
anything like the same scale arranged wholly for architectural effect as
this one is, irrespective of any utilitarian purpose. On the other hand,
the whole of the walls being covered with stucco, and almost all the
architecture being expressed in that material, must have detracted
considerably from the monumental grandeur of the effect. Judging,
however, from what remains of the stucco ornament of the roof of the
Maxentian basilica (Woodcut No. 202), it is wonderful to observe what
effects may be obtained with even this material in the hands of a people
who understand its employment. While stone and marble have perished, the
stucco of these vaults still remains, and is as impressive as any other
relic of ancient Rome.
In the centre was a great hall (B), almost identical in dimensions with
the central aisle of the basilica of Maxentius already described, being
82 ft. wide by 170 in length, and roofed in the same manner by an
intersecting vault in three compartments, springing from eight great
pillars. This opened into a smaller apartment at each end, of
rectangular form, and then again into two other semicircular halls
forming a splendid suite 460 ft. in length. This central room is
generally considered as the _tepidarium_, or warmed apartment, having
four warm baths opening out of it. On the north-east side was the
frigidarium, or cold water bath, a hall[185] of nearly the same
dimensions as the central Hall. Between this and the circular hall (D)
was the sudatorium or sweating-bath, with a hypocaust underneath, and
flue-tiles lining its walls. The laconicum or caldarium (D) is an
immense circular hall, 116 ft. in diameter, also heated by a hypocaust
underneath, and by flue tiles in the walls. This rotunda is said to be
of later date than Caracalla. There are four other rooms on this side,
which seem also to have been cold baths. None of these points have,
however, yet been satisfactorily settled, nor the uses of the smaller
subordinate rooms; every restorer giving them names according to his own
ideas. For our purpose it suffices to know that no groups of state
apartments in such dimensions, and wholly devoted to purposes of display
and recreation, were ever before or since grouped together under one
roof. The taste of many of the decorations would no doubt be faulty, and
the architecture shows those incongruities inseparable from its state of
transition; but such a collection of stately halls must have made up a
whole of greater splendour than we can easily realise from their bare
and weather-beaten ruins, or from anything else to which we can compare
them. Even allowing for their being almost wholly built of brick, and
for their being disfigured by the bad taste inseparable from everything
Roman, there is nothing in the world which for size and grandeur can
compare with these imperial places of recreation.[186]
CHAPTER V.
TRIUMPHAL ARCHES, TOMBS, AND OTHER BUILDINGS.
CONTENTS.
Arches at Rome; in France—Arch at Trèves—Columns of Victory—Tombs—
Minerva Medica—Provincial tombs—Eastern tombs—Domestic architecture—
Spalato—Pompeii—Bridges—Aqueducts.
Triumphal Arches were among the most peculiar of the various forms of
art which the Romans borrowed from those around them, and used with that
strange mixture of splendour and bad taste which characterises all their
works.
[Illustration: 215. Arch of Trajan at Beneventum. (From a plate in
Gailhabaud’s ‘Architecture.’)]
These were in the first instance no doubt borrowed from the Etruscans,
as was also the ceremony of the triumph with which they were ultimately
associated. At first they seem rather to have been used as festal
entrances to the great public roads, the construction of which was
considered one of the most important benefits a ruler could confer upon
his country. There was one erected at Rimini in honour of an important
restoration of the Flaminian way by Augustus; another at Susa in
Piedmont, to commemorate a similar act of the same Emperor. Trajan built
one on the pier at Ancona, when he restored that harbour, and another at
Beneventum, when he repaired the Via Appia, represented in the preceding
woodcut (No. 215). It is one of the best preserved as well as most
graceful of its class in Italy. The Arch of the Sergii at Pola in Istria
seems also to have been erected for a like purpose. That of Hadrian at
Athens, and another built by him at Antinoë in Egypt, were monuments
merely commemorative of the benefits which he had conferred on those
cities by the architectural works he had erected within their walls. By
far the most important application of these gateways, in Rome at least,
was to commemorate a triumph which may have passed along the road over
which the arch was erected, and perhaps in some instances they may have
been erected beforehand, for the triumphal procession to pass through,
and of which they would remain memorials.
[Illustration: 216. Arch of Titus at Rome. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
The Arch of Titus at Rome is well known for the beauty of its detail, as
well as from the extraordinary interest which it derives from having
been erected to commemorate the conquest of Jerusalem, and consequently
representing in its bassi-rilievi the spoils of the Temple. From the
annexed elevation, drawn to the usual scale, it will be seen that the
building is not large, and it is not so well proportioned as that at
Beneventum, represented in the preceding woodcut, the attic being
overpoweringly high. The absence of sculpture on each side of the arch
is also a defect, for the real merit of these buildings is their being
used as frameworks for the exhibition of sculptural representations of
the deeds they were erected to commemorate.
In the later days of the Empire two side arches were added for
foot-passengers, in addition to the carriage-way in the centre. This
added much to the splendour of the edifice, and gave a greater
opportunity for sculptural decoration than the single arch afforded. The
Arch of Septimius Severus, represented to the same scale in Woodcut No.
217, is perhaps the best specimen of the class. That of Constantine is
very similar and in most respects equal to this—a merit which it owes to
most of its sculptures being borrowed from earlier monuments.
[Illustration: 217. Arch of Septimius Severus. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
More splendid than either of these is the Arch at Orange. It is not
known by whom it was erected, or even in what age: it is, however,
certainly very late in the Roman period, and shows a strong tendency to
treat the order as entirely subordinate, and to exalt the plain masses
into that importance which characterises the late transitional period.
Unfortunately its sculptures are so much destroyed by time and violence
that it is not easy to speak with certainty as to their age; but more
might be done than has hitherto been effected to illustrate this
important monument.
At Rheims there is an arch which was probably much more magnificent than
this. When in a perfect state it was 110 ft. in width, and had three
openings, the central one 17 ft. wide by 40 ft. high, and those on each
side 10 ft. in width, each separated by two Corinthian columns. From the
style of the sculpture it certainly was of the last age of the Roman
Empire, but having been built into the walls of the city, it has been so
much injured that it is difficult to say what its original form may have
been.
Besides these there is in France a very elegant single-arched gateway at
St. Rémi, similar to and probably of the same age as that at Beneventum;
another at Cavallon, and one at Carpentras, each with one arch. There is
also one with two similar arches at Langres; and one, the Porta Nigra,
at Besançon, which shows so complete a transition from the Roman style
that it is difficult to believe that it does not belong to the
Renaissance.
[Illustration: 218. Porte St. André at Autun.[187] (From Laborde’s
‘Monumens de la France.’)]
There still remains in France another class of arches, certainly not
triumphal, but so similar to those just mentioned that it is difficult
to separate the one from the other. The most important of these are two
at Autun, called respectively the Porte Arroux and the Porte St. André,
a view of which is given in Woodcut No. 218. Each of these has two
central large archways for carriages, and one on each side for
foot-passengers. Their most remarkable peculiarity is the light arcade
or gallery that runs across the top of them, replacing the attic of the
Roman arch, and giving a degree of lightness combined with height that
those never possessed. These gates were certainly not meant for defence,
and the apartment over them could scarcely be applied to utilitarian
purposes; so that we may, I believe, consider it as a mere ornamental
appendage, or as a balcony for display on festal occasions. It appears,
however, to offer a better hint for modern arch-builders than any other
example of its class.
[Illustration: 219. Plan of Porta Nigra at Trèves. Scale 100 ft. to 1
in.]
[Illustration: 220. View of the Porta Nigra at Trèves.]
Even more interesting than these gates at Autun is that called the Porta
Nigra at Trèves; for though far ruder in style and coarser in detail, as
might be expected from the remoteness of the province where it is found,
it is far more complete. Indeed it is the only example of its class
which we possess in anything like its original state. Its front consists
of a double archway surmounted by an arcaded gallery, like the French
examples. Within this is a rectangular court which seems never to have
been roofed, and beyond this a second double archway similar to the
first. At the ends of the court, projecting each way beyond the face of
the gateway and the gallery surmounting it, are two wings four storeys
in height, containing a series of apartments in the form of small
basilicas, all similar to one another, and measuring about 55 ft. by 22.
It is not easy to understand how these were approached, as there is no
stair and no place for one. Of course there must have been some mode of
access, and perhaps it may have been on the site of the apse, shown in
the plan (Woodcut No. 219), which was added when the building was
converted into a church in the Middle Ages. These apartments were
probably originally used as courts or chambers of justice, thus
realising, more nearly than any other European example I am acquainted
with, the idea of a gate of justice.
Notwithstanding its defects of detail, there is a variety in the outline
of this building and a boldness of profile that render it an extremely
pleasing example of the style adopted; and though exhibiting many of the
faults incidental to the design of the Colosseum, it possesses all that
repetition of parts and Gothic feeling of design which give such value
to its dimensions, though these are far from being contemptible, the
building being 115 ft. wide by 95 in height to the top of the wings.
[Illustration: 221. Bridge at Chamas. (From Laborde’s ‘Monumens de la
France.’)]
There probably were many similar gates of justice in the province, but
all have perished, unless we except those at Autun just described. I am
convinced that at that place there were originally such wings as these
at Trèves, and that the small church, the apse of which is seen on the
right hand (woodcut No. 220), stands upon the foundations of one of
these. A slight excavation on the opposite side would settle this point
at once. If it could be proved that these gateways at Autun had such
lateral adjuncts, it would at once explain the use of the gallery over
the arch, which otherwise looks so unmeaning, but would be intelligible
as a passage connecting the two wings together.
Another form also is that of an arch at the entrance of a bridge,
generally bearing an inscription commemorative of its building. Its
purpose is thus closely connected with that of the arches before
mentioned, which commemorate the execution of roads. Most of the great
bridges of Italy and Spain were so adorned; but unfortunately they have
either been used as fortifications in the Middle Ages, or removed in
modern times to make room for the increased circulation of traffic. That
built by Trajan on his noble bridge at Alcantara in Spain is well known;
and there exists a double-arched bridge at Saintes, in the south of
France. The most elegant and most perfect specimen, however, of this
class is that of St. Chamas in Provence, represented in woodcut No. 221.
It consists of two arches, one at each end of the bridge, of singular
elegance of form and detail. Although it bears a still legible
inscription, it is uncertain to what age it belongs, probably that of
the Antonines: and I would account for the purity of its details by
referring to the Greek element that pervades the south of France.
Whether this is so or not, it is impossible not to admire not only the
design of the whole bridge with its two arches, but the elegance with
which the details have been executed.
Used in this mode as commencements of roads, or entrances to bridges, or
as festal entrances to unfortified towns, there are perhaps no monuments
of the second class more appropriate or more capable of architectural
expression than these arches, though all of them have been more or less
spoiled by an incongruous order being applied to them. Used, however, as
they were in Rome, as monuments of victory, without offering even an
excuse for a passage through them, the taste displayed in them is more
than questionable: the manner, too, in which they were cut up by broken
cornices and useless columns placed on tall pedestals, with other
trivial details highly objectionable, deprive them of that largeness of
design which is the only true merit and peculiar characteristic of Roman
art, while that exquisite elegance with which the Greeks knew so well
how to dignify even the most trivial objects was in them almost entirely
lost.
COLUMNS OF VICTORY.
Columns of Victory are a class of monuments which seem to have been used
in the East in very early times, though their history it must be
confessed is somewhat fragmentary and uncertain, and they seem to have
been adopted by the Romans in those provinces where they had been
employed by the earlier inhabitants. Whatever the original may have
been, the Romans were singularly unsuccessful in their application of
the form. They never, in fact, rose above the idea of taking a column of
construction, magnifying it, and placing it on a pedestal, without any
attempt to modify its details or hide the original utilitarian purpose
for which the column was designed. When they attempted more than this,
they failed entirely in elaborating any new form at all worthy of
admiration. The Columna Rostrata, or that erected to celebrate naval
victories, was, so far as we can judge from representations (for no
perfect specimen exists), one of the ugliest and clumsiest forms of
column it is possible to conceive.
Of those of Victory, one of the most celebrated is that erected by
Diocletian at Alexandria. A somewhat similar one exists at Arsinoë,
erected by Alexander Severus; and a third at Mylassa in Caria. All these
are mere Corinthian columns of the usual form, and with the details of
those used to support entablatures in porticoes. However beautiful these
may be in their proper place, they are singularly inappropriate and
ungraceful when used as minarets or single columns.
[Illustration: 222. Column at Cussi. (From Laborde’s ‘Monumens de la
France.’)]
There are two in Rome not quite so bad as these, both being of the Doric
order. Had the square abacus in these been cut to a round form, and
ornamented with an appropriate railing, we might almost have forgotten
their original, and have fancied that they really were round towers with
balconies at the top. The great object of their erection was to serve as
vehicles for sculpture, though, as we now see them, or as they are
caricatured at Paris and elsewhere, they are little more than instances
of immense labour bestowed to very little purpose. As originally used,
these columns were placed in small courts surrounded by open porticoes,
whence the spectator could at two or perhaps at three different levels
examine the sculpture at his leisure and at a convenient distance, while
the absurdity of the column supporting nothing was not apparent, from
its not being seen from the outside. This arrangement is explained in
woodcut No. 200, which is a section through the basilica of Trajan,
showing the position of his column, not only with reference to that
building, but to the surrounding colonnade. The same was almost
certainly the case with the column of Marcus Aurelius, which, with
slight modifications, seems to have been copied from that of Trajan; but
even in the most favourable situations no monuments can be less worthy
of admiration or of being copied than these.
A far better specimen of this class is that at Cussi, near Beaune, in
France. It probably belongs to the time of Aurelian, but it is not known
either by whom it was erected or what victory it was designed to
celebrate; still that it is a column of victory seems undoubted; and its
resemblance to columns raised with the same object in India is quite
striking.
The arrangement of the base serving as a pedestal for eight statues is
not only elegant but appropriate. The ornament which covers the shaft
takes off from the idea of its being a mere pillar, and at the same time
is so subdued as not to break the outline or interfere with constructive
propriety.
[Illustration: 223. Supposed Capital of Column at Cussi.]
The capital, of the Corinthian order, is found in the neighbourhood used
as the mouth of a well. In its original position it no doubt had a hole
through it, which being enlarged suggested its application to its
present ignoble purpose, the hole being no doubt intended either to
receive or support the statue or emblem that originally crowned the
monument, but of that no trace now remains.
There cannot be a more natural mode of monumental expression than that
of a simple upright stone set up by the victors to commemorate their
prowess and success. Accordingly steles or pillars erected for this
purpose are found everywhere, and take shapes as various as the
countries where they stand or the people who erected them. In Northern
Europe they are known as Cath or battle-stones, and as rude unhewn
monoliths are found everywhere. In India they are as elegant and as
elaborately adorned as the Kutub Minar at Delhi, but nowhere was their
true architectural expression so mistaken as in Rome. There, by
perverting a feature designed for one purpose to a totally different
use, an example of bad taste was given till then unknown, though in our
days it has become not uncommon.
TOMBS.
In that strange collection of the styles of all nations which mingled
together makes up the sum of Roman art, nothing strikes the
architectural student with more astonishment than the number and
importance of their tombs. If the Romans are of Aryan origin, as is
generally assumed, they are the only people of that race among whom
tomb-building was not utterly neglected. The importance of the tombs
among the Roman remains proves one of two things. Either a considerable
proportion of Etruscan blood was mixed up with that of the dominant race
in Rome, or that the fierce and inartistic Romans, having no art of
their own, were led blindly to copy that of the people among whom they
were located.
Of the tombs of Consular Rome nothing remains except perhaps the
sarcophagus of Scipio; and it is only on the eve of the Empire that we
meet with the well-known one of Cæcilia Metella, the wife of Crassus,
which is not only the best specimen of a Roman tomb now remaining to us,
but the oldest architectural building of the imperial city of which we
have an authentic date. It consists of a bold square basement about 100
ft. square, which was originally ornamented in some manner not now
intelligible. From this rose a circular tower about 94 ft. in diameter,
of very bold masonry, surmounted by a frieze of ox-skulls with wreaths
joining them, and a well-profiled cornice: two or three courses of
masonry above this seem to have belonged to the original work; and above
this, almost certainly, in the original design rose a conical roof,
which has perished. The tower having been used as a fortress in the
Middle Ages, battlements have been added to supply the place of the
roof, and it has been otherwise disfigured, so as to detract much from
its beauty as now seen. Still we have no tomb of the same importance so
perfect, nor one which enables us to connect the Roman tombs so nearly
with the Etruscan. The only addition in this instance is that of the
square basement or podium, though even this was not unknown at a much
earlier period, as for instance in the tomb of Aruns (Woodcut No. 176).
The exaggerated height of the circular base is also remarkable. Here it
rises to be a tower instead of a mere circular base of stones for the
earthen cone of the original sepulchre. The stone roof which probably
surmounted the tower was a mere reproduction of the original earthen
cone.
[Illustration: 224. Tomb of Cæcilia Metella.]
Next in age and importance was the tomb of Augustus in the Campus
Martius. It is now so completely ruined that it is extremely difficult
to make out its plan, and those who drew and restored it in former days
were so careless in their measurements that even its dimensions cannot
be ascertained; it appears, however, to have consisted of a circular
basement about 300 ft. in diameter and about 60 ft. in height, adorned
with 12 large niches. Above this rose a cone of earth as in the Etruscan
tombs, not smooth like those, but divided into terraces, which were
planted with trees. We also learn from Suetonius that Augustus laid out
the grounds around his tomb and planted them with gardens for public use
during his lifetime. More like the practice of a true Mogul in the East
than the ruler of an Indo-Germanic people in Europe.
This tomb, however, was far surpassed, not only in solidity but in
splendour, by that which Hadrian erected for himself on the banks of the
Tiber, now known as the Mole of Hadrian, or more frequently the Castle
of St. Angelo. The basement of this great tomb was a square, about 340
ft. each way and about 75 ft. high. Above this rose a circular tower 235
ft. in diameter and 140 in height. The whole was crowned either by a
dome or by a conical roof in steps, which, with its central ornament,
must have risen to a height of not less than 300 ft. The circular or
tower-like part of this splendid building was ornamented with columns,
but in what manner restorers have not been quite able to agree; some
making two storeys, both with pillars, some, one of pillars and the
upper one of pilasters. It would require more correct measurements than
we have to enable us to settle this point, but it seems probable that
there was only one range of columns on a circular basement of some
height surmounted by an attic of at least equal dimensions. The order
might have been 70 ft., the base and attic 35 ft. each.
Internally the mass was nearly solid, there being only one sepulchral
apartment, as nearly as may be in the centre of the mass, approached by
an inclined plane, winding round the whole building, from the entrance
in the centre of the river face.
[Illustration: 225. Columbarium near the Gate of St. Sebastian, Rome.]
Besides these there was another class of tombs in Rome, called
columbaria, generally oblong or square rooms below the level of the
ground, the walls of which were pierced with a great number of little
pigeon-holes or cells just of sufficient size to receive an urn
containing the ashes of the body, which had been burnt according to the
usual Roman mode of disposing of the dead. Externally of course they had
no architecture, though some of the more important family sepulchres of
this class were adorned internally with pilasters and painted ornaments
of considerable beauty.
In the earlier ages of the Roman Empire these two forms of tombs
characterised with sufficient clearness the two races, each with their
distinctive customs, which made up the population of Rome. Long before
its expiration the two were fused together so thoroughly that we lose
all trace of the distinction, and a new form of tomb arose compounded of
the two older, which became the typical form with the early Christians,
and from them passed to the Saracens and other Eastern nations.
The new form of tomb retained externally the circular form of the
Pelasgic sepulchre, though constructive necessities afterwards caused it
to become polygonal. Instead however of being solid, or nearly so, the
walls were only so thick as was necessary to support the dome, which
became the universal form of roof of these buildings.
The sepulchres of Rome have as yet been far too carelessly examined to
enable us to trace all the steps by which the transformation took place,
but as a general rule it may be stated that the gradual enlargement of
the central circular apartment is almost a certain test of the age of a
tomb; till at last, before the age of Constantine, they became in fact
representations of the Pantheon on a small scale, almost always with a
crypt or circular vault below the principal apartment.
[Illustration: 226. Section of Sepulchre at San Vito. No scale.]
One of the most curious transitional specimens is that found near San
Vito, represented in Woodcut No. 226. Here, as in all the earlier
specimens, the principal apartment is the lower, in the square basement.
The upper, which has lost its decoration, has the appearance of having
been hollowed out of the frustum of a gigantic Doric column, or rather
out of a solid tower like the central one of the Tomb of Aruns (Woodcut
No. 176). Shortly after the age of this sepulchre the lower apartment
became a mere crypt, and in such examples as those of the sepulchres of
the Cornelia and Tossia families we have merely miniature Pantheons
somewhat taller in proportion, and with a crypt. This is still more
remarkable in a building called the Torre dei Schiavi, which has had a
portico attached to one side, and in other respects looks very like a
direct imitation of that celebrated temple. It seems certainly, however,
to have been built for a tomb.
Another tomb, very similar to that of the Tossia family, is called that
of Sta. Helena, the mother of Constantine. If it is not hers, it belongs
at any rate to the last days of the Empire, and may be taken as a fair
specimen of the tombs of that age and class. It is a vast transition
from the tomb of Cæcilia Metella, though, like all the changes
introduced by the Romans, it shows the never-failing tendency to
transfer all architectural embellishments from the exterior to the
interior of every style of building.
[Illustration: 227. Section and Elevation of Tomb of Sta. Helena, Rome.
No scale.]
It consists of a basement about 100 ft. square, containing the crypt. On
this stands a circular tower in two storeys. In the lower storey is a
circular apartment about 66 ft. in diameter, surrounded by eight niches;
in the upper the niches are external, and each is pierced with a window.
The dimensions of the tomb are nearly the same as those of Cæcilia
Metella, and it thus affords an excellent opportunity of comparing the
two extremes of the series, and of contrasting the early Roman with the
early Christian tomb.
The typical example of a sepulchre of this age is the tomb or baptistery
of Sta. Costanza, the daughter of Constantine (Woodcut No. 423.) In this
building the pillars that adorned the exterior of such a mausoleum, for
instance, as that of Hadrian, are introduced internally. Externally the
building never can have had much ornament. But the breaks between the
lower aisle and the central compartment, pierced with the clerestory,
must have had a very pleasing effect. In this example there is still
shown a certain degree of timidity, which does not afterwards reappear.
The columns are coupled and are far more numerous than they need have
been, and are united by a fragment of an entablature, as if the
architect had been afraid to place his vault directly on the capitals.
Notwithstanding these defects, it is a pleasing and singularly
instructive example of a completed transformation, and is just what we
miss in those secular buildings for which the Christians had no use.
Another building, which is now known as the Lateran Baptistery (Woodcut
No. 422), was also undoubtedly a place of sepulture. Its erection is
generally ascribed to Constantine, and it is said was intended by him to
be the place of his own sepulture. Whether this is correct or not, it
certainly belongs to his age, and exhibits all the characteristics of
the architecture of his time. Here the central apartment, never having
been designed to support a dome, is of a far lighter construction, an
upper order of pillars being placed on the lower, with merely a slight
architrave and frieze running between the two orders, the external walls
being slight in construction and octagonal in plan.[188] We must not in
this place pursue any further the subject of the transition of style, as
we have already trespassed within the pale of Christian architecture and
passed beyond the limits of Heathen art. So gradual, however, was the
change, and so long in preparation, that it is impossible to draw the
line exactly where the separation actually took place between the two.
TEMPLE OF MINERVA MEDICA.
One important building remains to be mentioned before leaving this part
of the subject. It commonly goes by the name of the Temple of Minerva
Medica, though this is certainly a misnomer.[189] Recently it has become
the fashion to assume that it was the hall of some bath; no building of
that class, however, was known to exist in the neighbourhood, and it is
extremely improbable that any should be found outside the Servian walls
in this direction; moreover, it is wanting in all the necessary
accompaniments of such an establishment.
It is here placed with the tombs, because its site is one that would
justify its being so classed, and its form being just such as would be
applicable to that purpose and to no other. It is not by any means
certain, however, that it is a tomb, though there does not seem to be
any more probable supposition. It certainly belongs to the last days of
the Roman Empire, if indeed it be not a Christian building, which I am
very much inclined to believe it is, for, on comparing it with the
Baptistery of Constantine and the tomb of Sta. Costanza, it shows a
considerable advance in construction on both these buildings, and a
greater similarity to San Vitale at Ravenna, and other buildings of
Justinian’s time, than to anything else now found in Rome.
As will be seen from the plan and section (Woodcuts Nos. 228 and 229),
it has a dome, 80 ft. in diameter, resting on a decagon of singularly
light and elegant construction. Nine of the compartments contain niches
which give great room on the floor, as well as great variety and
lightness to the general design. Above this is a clerestory of ten
well-proportioned windows, which give light to the building, perhaps not
in so effective a manner as the one eye of the Pantheon, though by a far
more convenient arrangement, to protect from the elements a people who
did not possess glass. So far as I know, all the domed buildings erected
by the Romans up to the time of Constantine, and indeed long afterwards,
were circular in the interior, though, like the temple built by
Diocletian at Spalato, they were sometimes octagonal externally. This,
however, is a Polygon both internally and on the outside, and the mode
in which the dome is placed on the polygon shows the first rudiments of
the pendentive system, which was afterwards carried to such perfection
by the Byzantine architects, but is nowhere else to be found in Rome. It
probably was for the purpose of somewhat diminishing the difficulties of
this construction that the architect adopted a figure with ten instead
of eight sides.
[Illustration: 228. Plan of Minerva Medica at Rome, as restored in
Isabelle’s ‘Édifices Circulaires,’ on the theory of its being a Bath.
Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 229. Section of Minerva Medica (from Isabelle.) Scale 50
ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 230. Rib of the Roof of the Minerva Medica at Rome.]
This, too, is, I believe, the first building in which buttresses are
applied so as to give strength to the walls exactly at the point where
it is most wanted. By this arrangement the architect was enabled to
dispense with nearly one-half the quantity of material that was thought
necessary when the dome of the Pantheon was constructed, and which he
must have employed had he copied that building. Besides this, the dome
was ribbed with tiles, as shown in Woodcut No. 230, and the space
between the ribs filled in with inferior, perhaps lighter masonry,
bonded together at certain heights by horizontal courses of tiles where
necessary.
[Illustration: 231. Tomb at St. Rémi. (From Laborde’s ‘Monumens de la
France.’)]
Besides the lightness and variety which the base of this building
derives from the niches, it is 10 ft. higher than its diameter, which
gives to it that proportion of height to width, the want of which is the
principal defect of the Pantheon. It is not known what the side
erections are which are usually shown in the ground-plans, nor even
whether they are coeval with the main central edifice. I suspect they
have never been very correctly laid down.
Taking it altogether, the building is certainly, both as concerns
construction and proportion, by far the most scientific of all those in
ancient Rome, and in these respects as far superior to the Pantheon as
it is inferior to that temple in size. Indeed there are few inventions
of the Middle Ages that are not attempted here or in the Temple of
Peace—but more in this than in the latter; so much so, indeed, that I
cannot help believing that it is much more modern than is generally
supposed.
As might be expected from our knowledge of the race that inhabited the
European provinces of the Roman Empire, there are very few specimens of
tombs of any importance to be found in them. One very beautiful example
exists at St. Rémi, represented in the annexed woodcut (No. 231). It can
hardly, however, be correctly called a tomb, but is rather a cenotaph or
a monument, erected as the inscription on it tells us, by Sextus and
Marcus, of the family of the Julii, to their parents, whose statues
appear under the dome of the upper storey. There is nothing funereal
either in the inscription or the form, nor anything to lead us to
suppose that the bodies of the parents repose beneath its foundation.
The lower portion of this monument is the square basement which the
Romans always added to the Etruscan form of tomb. Upon this stands a
storey pierced with an archway in each face, with a three-quarter pillar
of the Corinthian order at every angle. The highest part is a circular
colonnade, a miniature copy of that which we know to have once encircled
Hadrian’s Mole.
The open arrangement of the arches and colonnade, while it takes off
considerably from the tomb-like simplicity appropriate to such
buildings, adds very much to the lightness and elegance of the whole.
Altogether the building has much more of the aspiring character of
Christian art than of the more solid and horizontal forms which were
characteristic of the style then dying out.
Another monument of very singular and exceptional form is found at Igel,
near Trèves, in Germany. It is so unlike anything found in Italy, or
indeed anything of the Roman age, that were its date not perfectly known
from the inscription upon it, one might rather be inclined to ascribe it
to the age of Francis I. than to the latter days of the Roman Empire.
The form is graceful, though the pilasters and architectural ornaments
seem somewhat misplaced. It is covered with sculptures from top to
bottom. These, however, as is generally the case with Roman funereal
monuments, have no reference to death, nor to the life or actions of the
person to whom the monument is sacred, but are more like the scenes
painted on a wall or ornamental stele anywhere. The principal object on
the face represented in the woodcut is the sun, but the subjects are
varied on each face, and, though much time-worn, they still give a very
perfect idea of the rich ornamentation of the monuments of the last age
of the Empire.
[Illustration: 232. Monument at Igel, near Trèves. (From Schmidt’s
‘Antiquities of Trèves.’)]
The Tour Magne at Nîmes is too important a monument to be passed over,
though in its present ruined state it is almost more difficult to
explain than any other Roman remains that have reached our times. It
consists of an octagonal tower 50 ft. in diameter, and now about 120 ft.
high. The basement is extended beyond this tower on every side by a
series of arches supporting a terrace to which access was obtained by an
external flight of steps, or rather an inclined plane. From the marks in
the walls it seems evident that this terrace originally supported a
peristyle, or, possibly, a range of chambers. Within the basement is a
great chamber covered by a dome of rubble masonry, to which no access
could be obtained from without, but the interior may have been reached
through the eye of the dome. From the terrace an important flight of
steps led upwards to—what? It is almost impossible to refrain from
answering, to a cella, like those which crowned the tomb temples of
Assyria. That the main object of the building was sepulchral seems
hardly doubtful, but we have no other instance in Europe of a tomb with
such a staircase leading to a chamber above it.
That Marseilles was a Phœnician and then a Phocian colony long before
Roman times seems generally to be admitted, and that in the Temple of
Diana (Woodcuts Nos. 188 and 189) and in this building there is an
Etruscan or Eastern element which can hardly be mistaken, and may lead
to very important ethnographical indications when more fully
investigated and better understood.
EASTERN TOMBS.
This scarcity of tombs in the western part of the Roman Empire is to a
great extent made up for in the East; but the history of those erected
under the Roman rule in that part of the world is as yet so little known
that it is not easy either to classify or to describe them; and as
nearly all those which have been preserved are cut in the rock, it is
sometimes difficult—as with other rock-cut objects all over the world—to
understand the form of building from which they were copied.
The three principal groups of tombs of the Roman epoch are those of
Petra, Cyrene, and Jerusalem. Though many other important tombs exist in
those countries, they are so little known that they must be passed over
for the present.
From the time when Abraham was laid in the cave of Machpelah until after
the Christian era, we know that burying in the rock was not the
exception but the general practice among the nations of this part of the
East. So far as can be known, the example was set by Egypt, which was
the parent of much of their civilisation. In Egypt the façades of their
rock-cut tombs were—with the solitary exception of those of Beni
Hasan[190]—ornamented so simply and unobtrusively as rather to belie
than to announce their internal magnificence. All the oldest Asiatic
tombs seem to have been mere holes in the rock, wholly without
architectural decorations.
[Illustration: 233. Khasné. (From Laborde’s ‘Petra and Mount Sinai.’)]
We have seen, however, how the Persian kings copied their palace façades
to adorn their last resting-places, and how about the same time in Lycia
the tomb-builders copied, first their own wooden structures, and
afterwards the architectural façades which they had learned from the
Greeks how to construct. But it was not till the Roman period that this
species of magnificence extended to the places enumerated above; when to
such an extent did it prevail at Petra as to give to that now deserted
valley the appearance of a petrified city of the dead.
The typical and most beautiful tomb of this place is that called the
Khasné or Treasury of Pharaoh—represented in elevation and section in
the annexed woodcuts, Nos. 233 and 234. As will be seen, it consists of
a square basement, adorned with a portico of four very beautiful
Corinthian pillars, surmounted by a pediment of low Grecian pitch. Above
this are three very singular turrets, the use and application of which
it is extremely difficult to understand. The central one is circular,
and is of a well-understood sepulchral form, the use of which, had it
been more important, or had it stood alone, would have been intelligible
enough; but what are the side turrets? If one might hazard so bold a
conjecture, I would suggest that the original from which this is derived
was a five-turreted tomb, like that of Aruns (Woodcut No. 176), or that
of Alyattes at Sardis, which in course of time became translated into so
foreign a shape as this; but where are the intermediate forms? and by
whom and when was this change effected? Before forming any theories on
this subject, it will be well to consider whether all these buildings
really are tombs. Most of them undoubtedly are so; but may not the name
_el Deir_, or the Convent, applied by the Arabs to one of the principal
rock-cut monuments of Petra, be after all the true designation? Are none
of them, in short, cells for priests, like the _viharas_ found in India?
All who have hitherto visited these spots have assumed at once that
everything cut in the rock must be a tomb, but I am much mistaken if
this is really the case with all.
[Illustration: 234. Section of Tomb at Khasné. (From Laborde’s ‘Mount
Sinai,’ p. 175.)]
To return, however, to the Khasné. Though all the forms of the
architecture are Roman, the details are so elegant and generally so well
designed as almost to lead to the suspicion that there must have been
some Grecian influence brought to bear upon the work. The masses of rock
left above the wings show how early a specimen of its class it is, and
how little practice its designers could have had in copying in the rock
the forms of their regular buildings.
[Illustration: 235. Corinthian Tomb, Petra. (From Laborde’s ‘Sinai,’ p.
186.)]
A little further within the city is found another very similar in design
to this, but far inferior to it in detail and execution, and showing at
least a century of degradation, though at the same time presenting an
adaptation to rock-cut forms not found in the earlier examples.
A third is that above alluded to, called _el Deir_. This is the same in
general outline as the two former—of an order neither Greek nor Roman,
but with something like a Doric frieze over a very plain Corinthian
capital. In other respects it presents no new feature except the
apparent absence of a door, and on the whole it seems, if finished, to
deserve its name less than either of the other two.
[Illustration: 236. Rock-cut interior at Petra. (From Laborde’s ‘Sinai,’
p. 198.)]
Perhaps the most singular object among these tombs, if tombs they are,
is the flat façade with three storeys of pillars one over the other—
slightly indicated on the left of the Corinthian tomb in Woodcut No.
235. It is like the proscenium of some of the more recent Greek
theatres. If it was really the frontispiece to a tomb, it was totally
unsuitable to the purpose, and is certainly one of the most complete
misapplications of Greek architecture ever made.
Generally speaking, the interiors of these buildings are so plain that
travellers have not cared either to draw or measure them; one, however,
represented in the annexed woodcut (No. 236), is richly ornamented, and,
as far as can be judged from what is published, is as unlike a tomb as
it is like a _vihara_. But, as before remarked, they all require
re-examination before the purpose for which they were cut can be
pronounced upon with any certainty.
[Illustration: 237. Façade of Herod’s Tombs, from a Photograph.]
The next group of tombs is that at Jerusalem. These are undoubtedly all
sepulchres. By far the greater number of them are wholly devoid of
architectural ornament. To the north of the city is a group known as the
Tombs of the Kings, with a façade of a corrupt Doric order, similar to
some of the latest Etruscan tombs.[191] These are now very much ruined,
but still retain sufficient traces of the original design to fix their
date within or subsequently to the Herodian period without much
possibility of doubt. A somewhat similar façade, but of a form more like
the Greek Doric, found in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, bears the name of
the Sepulchre of St. James.
[Illustration: 238. So-called “Tomb of Zechariah.”]
Close to this is a square tomb, known as that of Zechariah, cut in the
rock, but standing free. Each face is adorned with Ionic pillars and
square piers at the angles, the whole being crowned with a pyramidal
roof. Perhaps this building should properly be called a cenotaph, as it
is perfectly solid, and no cave or sepulchral vault has been found
beneath it, though judging from analogies one might yet be found if
properly looked for. A tomb with an architectural façade, similar to
that of the so-called Tomb of the Judges, does exist behind it cut in
rock, and is consequently of more modern construction. It may be to mark
this that the architectural monolith was left.
Close to this is another identical with it in as far as the basement is
concerned, and which is now popularly known as the Tomb of Absalom; but
in this instance the pyramid has been replaced with a structural spire,
and it is probable when this was done that the chamber which now exists
in its interior was excavated.
[Illustration: 239. The so-called Tomb of Absalom.]
One of the remarkable points in these tombs is the curious jumble of the
Roman orders which they present. The pillars and pilasters are Ionic,
the architraves and frieze Doric, and the cornice Egyptian. The capitals
and frieze are so distinctly late Roman, that we can feel no hesitation
as to their date being either of the age of Herod or subsequent to that
time. In an architectural point of view the cornice is too plain to be
pleasing if not painted; it probably therefore was so treated.
[Illustration: 240. Angle of Tomb of Absalom. (From De Saulcy.)]
Another class of these tombs is represented by the so-called Tomb of the
Judges (Woodcut No. 241). These are ornamented by a tympanum of a Greek
or Roman temple filled with a scroll-work of rich but debased pattern,
and is evidently derived from something similar, though Grecian in
design. In age it is certainly more recent than the so-called Tomb of
Zechariah, as one of precisely similar design is found cut into the face
of the rock out of which that monument was excavated.
[Illustration: 241. Façade of the Tomb of the Judges.]
The third group is that of Cyrene, on the African coast. Notwithstanding
the researches of Admiral Beechey and of M. Pacho,[192] and the still
more recent explorations of Messrs. Smith and Porcher, above referred to
(p. 285), they are still much less perfectly known to us than they
should be. Their number is immense, and they almost all have
architectural façades, generally consisting of two or more columns
between pilasters, like the grottoes of Beni-Hasan, or the Tomb of St.
James at Jerusalem. Many of them show powerful evidence of Greek taste,
while some may be as old as the Grecian era, though the greater part are
undoubtedly of Roman date, and the paintings with which many of them are
still adorned are certainly Roman in design. Two of them are illustrated
by Woodcuts Nos. 165 and 166: one as showing more distinct evidence of
Greek taste and colour than is to be found elsewhere, though it is
doubtful if it belongs to the Grecian period any more than the so-called
Tomb of St. James at Jerusalem; the other, though of equally uncertain
date, is interesting as being a circular monument built over a cave like
that at Amrith (Woodcut No. 122), and is the only other example now
known. None of them have such splendid architectural façades as the
Khasné at Petra; but the number of tombs which are adorned with
architectural features is greater than in that city, and, grouped as
they are together in terraces on the hill-side, they constitute a
necropolis which is among the most striking of the ancient world.
Altogether this group, though somewhat resembling that at Castel d’Asso,
is more extensive and far richer in external architecture.[193]
Time has not left us any perfect structural tombs in all these places,
though there can be little doubt but they were once numerous. Almost the
only tomb of this class constructed in masonry known to exist, and which
in many respects is perhaps the most interesting of all, is found in
Asia Minor, at Mylassa in Caria. In form it is something like the
free-standing rock-cut examples at Jerusalem. As shown in the woodcut
(No. 242), it consists of a square base, which supports twelve columns,
of which the eight inner ones support a dome, the outer four merely
completing the square. The dome itself is constructed in the same manner
as all the Jaina domes are in India (as will be explained hereafter when
describing that style), and, though ornamented with Roman details, is so
unlike anything else ever built by that people, and is so completely and
perfectly what we find reappearing ten centuries afterwards in the far
East, that we are forced to conclude that it belongs to a style once
prevalent and long fixed in these lands, though this one now stands as
the sole remaining representative of its class.
[Illustration: 242. Tomb at Mylassa. (From ‘Antiquities of Ionia,’
published by the Dilettanti Society.)]
Another example, somewhat similar in style, though remotely distant in
locality, is found at Dugga, near Tunis, in Africa. This, too, consists
of a square base, taller than in the last example, surmounted by twelve
Ionic columns, which are here merely used as ornaments. There were
probably square pilasters at the angles, like that at Jerusalem
(Woodcuts Nos. 238, 239), while the Egyptian form of the cornice is
similar to that found in these examples, though with the omission of the
Doric frieze.
It apparently originally terminated in a pyramid of steps like the
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, and a large number of structural tombs which
copied that celebrated model. Nothing of this now remains but the four
corner-stones, which were architecturally most essential to accentuate
the weak lines of a sloping pyramid in such a situation. Taken
altogether, perhaps no more graceful monument of its class has come down
to our days than this must have been when complete.
[Illustration: 243. Tomb of Dugga. (From a drawing by F. Catherwood.)]
Besides these there are in Algeria two tombs of very great interest,
both from their size and the peculiarity of their forms. The best known
is that on the coast a short distance from Algiers to the westward. It
is generally known as the Kubr Roumeïa, or Tomb of the Christian Virgin—
a name it acquired from its having four false doors, each of a single
stone divided into four panels, and the stile between them forming a
cross, which has consequently been assumed to be the Christian symbol.
The building itself, which is circular, and as nearly as may be 200 ft.
in diameter, stands on a square platform measuring 210 ft. The
perpendicular part is ornamented by 60 engaged columns of the Ionic
order, and by the four false doors just mentioned; above this rose a
cone—apparently in 40 steps—making the total height about 130 ft. It is,
however, so ruined that it is very difficult to feel sure about its
exact dimensions or form.
[Illustration: 244. Plan of the Kubr Roumeïa. (From Berbrugger.) Scale
100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 245. View of Madracen. (From a plate in Blakesley’s ‘Four
Months in Algeria.’)]
From objects and scribblings of various kinds found in the interior, it
appears to have remained open till nearly the time of the Moslem
conquest, but shortly afterwards to have been closed, and to have defied
all the ingenuity of explorers till a passage was forced in 1866 by
Messrs. MacCarthy and Berbrugger, acting under the orders and at the
expense of the late Emperor Napoleon III.[194] The entrance was found
passing under the sill of the false door on the east from a detached
building standing outside the platform, and which seems to have been
originally constructed to cover and protect the entrance. From this a
winding passage, 560 ft. in length, led to the central chamber where it
is assumed the royal bodies were once deposited, but when opened no
trace of them remained, nor anything to indicate who they were, nor in
what manner they were buried.
The other tomb, the Madracen, is very similar to this one, but smaller.
Its peristyle is of a sort of Doric order, without bases, and surmounted
by a quasi-Egyptian cornice, not unlike that on the Tomb of Absalom at
Jerusalem (Woodcut No. 240), or that at Dugga (Woodcut No. 243).
Altogether its details are more elegant, and from their general
character there seems no reason for doubting that this tomb is older
than the Kubr Roumeïa, though they are so similar to each other that
their dates cannot be far distant.[195]
There seems almost no reason for doubting that the Kubr Roumeïa was the
“Monumentum commune Regiæ gentis” mentioned by Pomponius Mela,[196]
about the middle of the first century of our era, and if so, this could
only apply to the dynasty that expired with Juba II., A.D. 23, and in
that case the older monument most probably belonged to the previous
dynasty, which ceased to reign with Bocchus III., 33 years before the
birth of Christ.
One of the most interesting points connected with these Mauritanian
tombs is their curious similarity to that of Hadrian at Rome. The square
base, the circular colonnade, the conical roof, are all the same. At
Rome they are very much drawn out, of course, but that arose from the
“Mole” being situated among tall objects in a town, and more than even
that, perhaps, from the tendency towards height which manifested itself
so strongly in the architecture of that age.
The greatest similarity, however, exists in the interior. The long
winding corridor terminating in an oblong apartment in the centre is an
identical feature in both, but has not yet been traced elsewhere, though
it can be hardly doubted that it must have existed in many other
examples.
If we add to these the cenotaph at St. Rémi (Woodcut No. 231), we have a
series of monuments of the same type extending over 400 years; and,
though many more are wanted before we can fill up the gaps and complete
the series, there can be little doubt that the missing links once
existed which connected them together. Beyond this we may go still
further back to the Etruscan tumuli and the simple mounds of earth on
the Tartar steppes. At the other end of the series we are evidently
approaching the verge of the towers and steeples of Christian art; and,
though it may seem the wildest of hypotheses to assert that the design
of the spire of Strasbourg grew out of the mound of Alyattes, it is
nevertheless true, and it is only non-apparent because so many of the
steps in the progress from the one to the other have disappeared in the
convulsions of the interval.
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.
We know, not only from the descriptions and incidental notices that have
come down to us, but also from the remains found at Pompeii and
elsewhere, that the private dwellings of the Romans were characterised
by that magnificence and splendour which we find in all their works,
accompanied, probably, with more than the usual amount of bad taste.
In Rome itself no ancient house—indeed no trace of a domestic edifice—
exists except the palaces of the Cæsars on the Palatine Mount, and the
house of the Vestal Virgins[197] at its foot; and these even are now a
congeries of shapeless ruins, so completely destroyed as to make it
difficult even for the most imaginative of restorers to make much of
them. The extent of these ruins, however, coupled with the descriptions
that have been preserved, suffice to convince us that, of all the
palaces ever built, either in the East or the West, these were probably
the most magnificent and the most gorgeously adorned. Never in the
world’s history does it appear that so much wealth and power were at the
command of one man as was the case with the Cæsars; and never could the
world’s wealth have fallen into the hands of men more inclined to lavish
it for their own personal gratification than these emperors were. They
could, moreover, ransack the whole world for plunder to adorn their
buildings, and could command the best artists of Greece, and of all the
subject kingdoms, to assist in rendering their golden palaces the most
gorgeous that the world had then seen, or is likely soon to see again.
The whole area of the palace may roughly be described as a square
platform measuring 1500 ft. east and west, with a mean breadth of 1300
ft. in the opposite direction. Owing, however, to its deeply indented
and irregular outline, it hardly covers more ground than the Baths of
Caracalla.
Recent excavations have laid bare nearly the whole of the western
portion of this area, and have disclosed the plan of the building, but
all has been so completely destroyed that it requires considerable skill
and imagination to reinstate it in its previous form. The one part that
remains tolerably perfect is the so-called house of Livia the wife of
Augustus, who is said to have lived in it after the death of her
husband. In dimensions and arrangement it is not unlike the best class
of Pompeian houses, but its paintings and decorations are very superior
to anything found in that city. They are, in fact, as might be expected
from their age and position, the finest mural decorations that have come
down to us, and as they are still wonderfully perfect, they give a very
high idea of the perfection of art attained in the Augustan age, to
which they certainly belong.
That part of the palace on the Palatine which most impresses the visitor
is the eastern half, which looks on one hand to the Amphitheatre, on the
other to the Baths of Caracalla, and overhangs the Circus Maximius.
Though all their marble or painted decorations are gone, the enormous
masses of masonry which here exist convey that impression of grandeur
which is generally found in Roman works. It is not of Æsthetic beauty
arising from ornamental or ornamented construction, but the Technic
expression of power and greatness arising from mass and stability. It is
the same feeling with which we contemplate the aqueducts and engineering
works of this great people; and, though not of the highest class, few
scenes of architectural grandeur are more impressive than the now ruined
Palace of the Cæsars.
Notwithstanding all this splendour, this palace was probably as an
architectural object inferior to the Thermæ. The thousand and one
exigencies of private life render it impossible to impart to a
residence—even to that of the world’s master—the same character of
grandeur as may be given to a building wholly devoted to show and public
purposes. In its glory the Palace of the Cæsars must have been the
world’s wonder; but as a ruin deprived of its furniture and ephemeral
splendour, it loses much that would tend to make it either pleasing or
instructive. We must not look for either beauty of proportion or
perfection of construction, or even for appropriateness of material, in
the hastily constructed halls of men whose unbounded power was only
equalled by the coarse vulgarity of their characters.
SPALATO.
The only palace of the Roman world of which sufficient remains are still
left to enable us to judge either of its extent or arrangements is that
which Diocletian built for himself at Spalato, in Dalmatia, and in which
he spent the remaining years of his life, after shaking off the cares of
Empire. It certainly gives us a most exalted idea of what the splendour
of the imperial palace at Rome must have been when we find one emperor—
certainly neither the richest nor the most powerful—building, for his
retirement, a villa in the country of almost exactly the same dimensions
as the Escurial in Spain, and consequently surpassing in size, as it did
in magnificence, most of the modern palaces of Europe.
It is uncertain how far it resembles or was copied from that in Rome,
more especially as it must be regarded as a fortified palace, which
there is no reason to believe that at Rome was, while its model would
seem to have been the prætorian camp rather than any habitation built
within the protection of the city walls. In consequence of this its
exterior is plain and solid, except on the side next the sea, where it
was least liable to attack. The other three sides are only broken by the
towers that flank them, and by those that defend the great gates which
open in the centre of each face.
[Illustration: 246. Palace of Diocletian at Spalato. (From Adams.)]
The building is nearly a regular parallelogram, though not quite so. The
south side is that facing the sea, and is 592 ft. from angle to angle;
the one opposite being only 570 in length;[198] while the east and west
sides measure each 698 ft., the whole building thus covering about 9½
English acres.
The principal entrance to the palace is on the north, and is called the
Golden Gate, and, as represented in the annexed woodcut (No. 247), shows
all the peculiarities of Roman architecture in its last stage. The
horizontal architrave still remains over the doorway, a useless
ornament, under a bold discharging arch, which usurps its place and does
its duty. Above this, a row of Corinthian columns, standing on brackets,
once supported the archivolts of a range of niches—a piece of pleasing
decoration, it must be confessed, but one in which the original purpose
of the column has been entirely overlooked or forgotten.
Entering this portal, we pass along a street ornamented with arcades on
either side, till exactly in the centre of the building this is crossed
at right angles by another similar street, proceeding from the so-called
Iron and Brazen Gates, which are similar to the Golden Gate in design,
but are far less richly ornamented.
These streets divided the building into four portions: those to the
north are so much ruined that it is not now easy to trace their plan, or
to say to what purpose they were dedicated; but probably the one might
have been the lodgings of the guests, the other the residence of the
principal officers of the household.
The whole of the southern half of the building was devoted to the palace
properly so called. It contained two temples, as they are now
designated. That on the right is said to have been dedicated to Jupiter,
though, judging from its form, it would appear to have been designed
rather as the mausoleum of the founder than as a temple of that god. On
the assumption that it was a temple it has been illustrated at a
previous page.[199] Opposite to it is another small temple, dedicated,
it is said, to Æsculapius.
Between these two is the arcade represented in Woodcut No. 185, at the
upper end of which is the vestibule—circular, as all buildings dedicated
to Vesta, or taking their name from that goddess, should be. This opened
directly on to a magnificent suite of nine apartments, occupying the
principal part of the south front of the palace. Beyond these, on the
right hand, were the private apartments of the emperor, and behind them
his baths. The opposite side is restored as if it exactly corresponded,
but this is more than doubtful; and, indeed, there is scarcely
sufficient authority for many of the details shown in the plan, though
they are, probably, on the whole, sufficiently exact to convey a general
idea of the arrangements of a Roman imperial palace.
[Illustration: 247. Golden Gateway at Spalato. (From Sir Gardner
Wilkinson’s ‘Dalmatia.’)]
Perhaps, however, the most splendid feature in this palace was the great
southern gallery, 515 ft. in length by 24 in width, extending along the
whole seaward face of the building. Besides its own intrinsic beauty as
an architectural feature, it evinces an appreciation of the beauties of
nature which one would hardly expect in a Roman. This great arcade is
the principal feature in the whole design, and commands a view well
worthy the erection of such a gallery for its complete enjoyment.
POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM.
Failing to discover any example of domestic architecture in Rome, we
turn to Pompeii and Herculaneum, where we find numerous and most
interesting examples of houses of all classes, except, perhaps, the
best; for there is nothing there to compare with the Laurentian villa of
Pliny, or with some others of which descriptions have come down to us.
Pompeii, moreover, was far more a Grecian than a Roman city, and its
buildings ought to be considered rather as illustrative of those of
Greece, or at least of Magna Græcia, than of anything found to the
northward. Still these cities belonged to the Roman age, and, except in
taste and in minor arrangements, we have no reason to doubt that the
buildings did resemble those of Rome, at least to a sufficient extent
for illustration.
With scarcely an exception, all the houses of Pompeii were of one storey
only in height. It is true that in some we find staircases leading to
the roof, and traces of an upper storey, but where this latter is the
case the apartments would appear to have been places for washing and
drying clothes, or for some such domestic purpose rather than for living
or even sleeping rooms. All the principal apartments were certainly on
the ground floor, and as an almost inevitable corollary from this, they
all faced inwards, and were lighted from courtyards or _atria_, and not
from the outside; for, with a people who had not glass with which to
glaze their windows, it was impossible to enjoy privacy or security
without at the same time excluding both light and air, otherwise than by
lighting their rooms from the interior. Hence it arose that in most
instances the outside of the better class of houses was given up to
shops and smaller dwellings, which opened on to the street, while the
residence, with the exception of the principal entrance, and sometimes
one or two private doors that opened outwards, was wholly hidden from
view by their entourage.
Even in the smallest class of tradesmen’s houses which opened on the
street, one apartment seems always to have been left unroofed to light
at least two rooms on each side of it, used as bedrooms; but as the
roofs of all are now gone, it is not always easy to determine which were
so treated.
It is certain that, in the smallest houses which can have belonged to
persons at all above the class of shopkeepers, there was always a
central apartment, unroofed in the centre, into which the others opened.
Sometimes this was covered by two beams placed in one direction, and two
crossing them at right angles, framing the roof into nine compartments,
generally of unequal dimensions, the central one being open, and with a
corresponding sinking in the floor to receive the rain and drainage
which inevitably came through it. When this court was of any extent,
four pillars were required at the intersection of the beams, or angles
of the opening, to support the roof. In larger courts eight, twelve,
sixteen, or more columns were so employed, often apparently more as
decorative objects than as required by the constructive necessities of
the case, and very frequently the numbers of these on either side of the
apartment did not correspond. Frequently the angles were not right
angles, and the pillars were spaced unequally with a careless disregard
of symmetry that strikes us as strange, though in such cases this may
have been preferable to cold and formal regularity, and even more
productive of grace and beauty. Besides these courts, there generally
existed in the rear of the house another bounded by a dead wall at the
further extremity, and which in the smaller houses was painted, to
resemble the garden which the larger mansions possessed in this
direction. The apartments looking on this court were of course perfectly
private, which cannot be said of any of those looking inwards on the
_atrium_.
The house called that of Pansa at Pompeii is a good illustration of
these peculiarities, and, as one of the most regular, has been
frequently chosen for the purpose of illustration.
[Illustration: 248. House of Pansa at Pompeii. (From Gell’s ‘Pompeii’)
Scale 100 ft to 1 in.]
In the annexed plan (Woodcut No. 248) all the parts that do not belong
to the principal mansion are shaded darker except the doubtful part
marked A, which may either have been a separate house, or the women’s
apartments belonging to the principal one, or, what is even more
probable, it may have been designed so as to be used for either purpose.
B is certainly a separate house, and the whole of the remainder of this
side, of the front, and of the third side, till we come opposite to A,
was let off as shops. At C we have the kitchen and servants’ apartments,
with a private entrance to the street, and an opening also to the
principal peristyle of the house.
Returning to the principal entrance or front door D, you enter through a
short passage into the outer court E, on each side of which are several
small apartments, used either by the inferior members of the household
or by guests. A wider passage than the entrance leads from this to the
peristyle, or principal apartment of the house. On the left hand are
several small rooms, used no doubt as sleeping apartments, which were
probably closed by half-doors open above and below, so as to admit air
and light, while preserving sufficient privacy, for Roman tastes at
least. In front and on the right hand are two larger rooms, either of
which may have been the triclinium or dining-room, the other being what
we should call the drawing-room of the house. A passage between the
kitchen and the central room leads to a verandah which crosses the whole
length of the house, and is open to the garden beyond.
As will be observed, architectural effect has been carefully studied in
this design, a vista nearly 300 ft. in length being obtained from the
outer door to the garden wall, varied by a pleasing play of light and
shade, and displaying a gradually increasing degree of spaciousness and
architectural richness as we advance. All these points must have been
productive of the most pleasing effect when complete, and of more beauty
than has been attained in almost any modern dwelling of like dimensions.
Generally speaking the architectural details of the Pompeian houses are
carelessly and ungracefully moulded, though it cannot be denied that
sometimes a certain elegance of feeling runs through them that pleases
in spite of our better judgment. It was not, however, on form that they
depended for their effect; and consequently it is not by that that they
must be judged. The whole architecture of the house was coloured, but
even this was not considered so important as the paintings which covered
the flat surfaces of the walls. Comparing the Pompeian decoration with
that of the baths of Titus, and those of the House of Livia, the only
specimens of the same age and class found in Rome, it must be admitted
that the Pompeian examples show an equally correct taste, not only in
the choice but in the application of the ornaments used, though in the
execution there is generally that difference that might be expected
between paintings executed for a private individual and those for the
Emperor of the Roman world. Notwithstanding this, these paintings, so
wonderfully preserved in this small provincial town, are even now among
the best specimens we possess of mural decoration. They excel the
ornamentation of the Alhambra, as being more varied and more
intellectual. For the same reason they are superior to the works of the
same class executed by the Moslems in Egypt and Persia, and they are far
superior to the rude attempts of the Gothic architects in the Middle
Ages; still they are probably as inferior to what the Greeks did in
their best days as the pillars of the Pompeian peristyles are to the
porticoes of the Parthenon. But though doubtless far inferior to their
originals, those at Pompeii are direct imitations of true Greek
decorative forms; and it is through them alone that we can form even the
most remote idea of the exquisite beauty to which polychromatic
architecture once attained, but which we can scarcely venture to hope it
will ever reach again.
[Illustration: 249. Wall Decoration at Pompeii. (From Rosengarten.)]
One curious point which has hitherto been too much overlooked is, that
in Pompeii there are two perfectly distinct styles of decoration. One of
these is purely Etruscan, both in form and colour, and such as is only
found in the tombs or on the authentic works of the Etruscans. The other
is no less essentially Greek, both in design and colour: it is far more
common than the Etruscan form, and is always easily to be distinguished
from it. The last-mentioned or Greek style of decoration may be again
divided into two varieties; one, the most common, consisting of
ornaments directly copied from Greek models; the other with a
considerable infusion of Roman forms. This Romanised variety of Greek
decoration represents an attenuated and lean style of architecture,
which could only have come into fashion from the continued use of iron
or bronze, or other metallic substances, for pillars and other
architectural members. Vitruvius reprobates it; and in a later age
Cassiodorus speaks of it in a manner which shows that it was practised
in his time. The general adoption of this class of ornament, both at
Pompeii and in the baths of Titus, proves it to have been a very
favourite style at that time. This being the case, it must have either
been a representation of metallic pillars and other architectural
objects then in use, or it must have been copied from painted
decorations. This is a new subject, and cannot be made clear, except at
considerable length and with the assistance of many drawings. It seems,
however, an almost undoubted fact that the Romans did use metal as a
constructive material. Were it only that columns of extreme tenuity are
represented in these paintings, we might be inclined to ascribe it to
mere incorrect drawing; but the whole style of ornament here shown is
such as is never found in stone or brick pillars, and which is only
susceptible of execution in metal. Besides this, the pillars in question
are always shown in the decorations as though simply gilt or bronzed,
while the representations of stone pillars are coloured. All this
evidence goes to prove that a style of art once existed in which metal
was generally employed in all the principal features, all material
traces of which are now lost. The disappearance of all remains of such a
style is easily accounted for by the perishable nature of iron from
rust, and the value and consequent peculation induced by bronze and
similar metals. We are, moreover, aware that much bronze has been
stolen, even in recent days, from the Pantheon and other buildings which
are known to have been adorned with it.
Another thing which we learn from these paintings is, that though the
necessities of street architecture compelled these city mansions to take
a rectilinear outline, whenever the Roman architects built in the
country they indulged in a picturesque variety of outline and of form,
which they carried perhaps as far as even the Gothic architects of the
Middle Ages. This indeed we might have expected, from their carelessness
in respect to regularity in their town-houses; but these were interiors,
and were it not for the painted representations of houses, we should
have no means of judging how the same architects would treat an exterior
in the country. From this source, however, we learn that in the exterior
arrangements, in situations where they were not cramped by confined
space, their plans were totally free from all stiffness and formality.
In this respect Roman taste coincided with that of all true architecture
in all parts of the world.
Each part of the design was left to tell its own tale and to express the
use to which each apartment was applied, though the whole were probably
grouped together with some reference to symmetry. There is certainly
nothing in these ancient examples to justify the precise regularity
which the architects of the Renaissance introduced into their classical
designs, in which they sought to obliterate all distinction between the
component parts in a vain attempt to make one great whole out of a great
number of small discordant fragments.
BRIDGES AND AQUEDUCTS.
Perhaps the most satisfactory works of the Romans are those which we
consider as belonging to civil engineering rather than to architecture.
The distinction, however, was not known in those earlier days. The
Romans set about works of this class with a purpose-like earnestness
that always ensures success, and executed them on a scale which leaves
nothing to be desired; while at the same time they entirely avoided that
vulgarity which their want of refinement allowed almost inevitably to
appear in more delicate or more ornate buildings. Their engineering
works also were free from that degree of incompleteness which is
inseparable from the state of transition in which their architecture was
during the whole period of the Empire. It is owing to these causes that
the substructions of the Appian way strike every beholder with
admiration and astonishment; and nothing impresses the traveller more,
on visiting the once imperial city, than the long lines of aqueducts
that are seen everywhere stretching across the now deserted plain of the
Campagna. It is true they are mere lines of brick arches, devoid of
ornament and of every attempt at architecture properly so called; but
they are so well adapted to the purpose for which they were designed, so
grand in conception, and so perfect in execution, that, in spite of
their want of architectural character, they are among the most beautiful
of the remains of Roman buildings.
The aqueducts were not, however, all so devoid of architectural design
as those of the Campagna. That, for instance, known as the Pont du Gard,
built to convey water to the town of Nîmes in France, is one of the most
striking works of antiquity. Its height above the stream is about 180
ft., divided into two tiers of larger arches surmounted by a range of
smaller ones, giving the structure the same finish and effect that an
entablature and cornice gives to a long range of columns. Without the
introduction of one single ornament, or of any member that was not
absolutely wanted, this arrangement converts what is a mere utilitarian
work into an architectural screen of a beauty hitherto unrivalled in its
class.
The aqueducts of Segovia and Tarragona in Spain, though not perhaps so
grand, are quite as elegant and appropriate as this; and if they stood
across a line of well wooded and watered valleys, might form as
beautiful objects. Unfortunately the effect is much marred by the houses
and other objects that crowd their bases. Both these rise to about 100
ft. above the level of their foundation in the centre. That of Segovia
is raised on light piers, the effect of which is perhaps somewhat
spoiled by numerous offsets, and the upper tier is if anything too light
for the lower. These defects are avoided at Tarragona, the central
arches of which are shown in Woodcut No. 251. In this example the
proportion of the upper to the lower arcade is more perfect, and the
whole bears a character of lightness combined with constructive solidity
and elegance unrivalled, so far as I know, in any other work of its
class. It wants, however, the grandeur of the Pont du Gard; for though
its length is about the same, exceeding 800 ft., it has neither its
height nor the impression of power given by the great arches of that
building, especially when contrasted with those that are smaller.
[Illustration: 250. Aqueduct of Segovia. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 251. Aqueduct of Tarragona. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
The Roman bridges were designed on the same grand scale as their
aqueducts, though from their nature they of course could not possess the
same grace and lightness. This was, however, more than compensated by
their inherent solidity and by the manifestation of strength imparted by
the Romans to all these structures. They seem to have been designed to
last for ever; and but for the violence of man, it would be hardly
possible to set limits to their durability. Many still remain in almost
every corner of the Roman Empire; and wherever found are easily
recognised by the unmistakable impress of Roman grandeur which is
stamped upon them.
One of the most remarkable of these is that which Trajan erected at
Alcantara, in Spain, represented in the annexed woodcut. The roadway is
perfectly level, as is generally the case in Roman bridges, though the
mode by which this is obtained, of springing the arches from different
levels, is perhaps not the most pleasing. To us at least it is
unfamiliar, and has never, I think, been adopted in modern times. In
such a case we should either have made the arches all equal—a mistake,
considering their different heights—or have built solidly over the
smaller arches to bring up the level, which would have been a far
greater error in construction than the other is in taste. The bridge
consists of six arches, the whole length of the roadway being 650 ft.;
the two central arches are about 100 ft. span; the roadway is 140 ft.
above the level of the stream which it crosses. The piers are well
proportioned and graceful; and altogether the work is as fine and as
tasteful an example of bridge-building as can be found anywhere, even in
these days of engineering activity.
[Illustration: 252. Bridge of Trajan, at Alcantara, in Spain.]
The bridge which the same Emperor erected over the Danube was a far more
difficult work in an engineering point of view; but the superstructure
being of wood, resting only on stone piers, it would necessarily have
possessed much less architectural beauty than this, or indeed than many
others.
These examples of this class of Roman works must suffice; they are so
typical of the style that it was impossible to omit them altogether,
though the subject scarcely belongs in strictness to the objects of this
work. The bridges and aqueducts of the Romans richly deserve the
attention of the architect, not only because they are in fact the only
works which the Romans, either from taste or from social position, were
enabled to carry out without affectation, and with all their originality
and power, but also because it was in building these works that the
Romans acquired that constructive skill and largeness of proportion
which enabled them to design and carry out works of such vast
dimensions, to vault such spaces, and to give to their buildings
generally that size and impress of power which form their chief and
frequently their only merit. It was this too that enabled them to
originate that new style of vaulted buildings which at one period of the
Middle Ages promised to reach a degree of perfection to which no
architecture of the world had ever attained. The Gothic style, it is
true, perished at a time when it was very far from completed; but it is
a point of no small interest to know where and under what circumstances
it was invented. We shall subsequently have to trace how far it advanced
towards that perfection at which it aimed, but to which it never
reached. Strangely enough, it failed solely because of the revival and
the pernicious influence of that very parent style to which it owed its
birth, and the growth and maturity of which we have just been
describing. It was the grandeur of the edifices reared at Rome in the
first centuries of the Empire which so impressed the architects of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, that they abandoned their own
beautiful style to imitate that of the Romans, but with an incongruity
which seems inevitably to result from all imitations, as contrasted with
true creations, in architectural art.
[Illustration: Egyptian Vase. From a painting.]
CHAPTER VI.
PARTHIAN AND SASSANIAN ARCHITECTURE.
CONTENTS.
Historical notice—Palaces of Al Hadhr and Diarbekr—Domes—Palaces of
Serbistan—Firouzabad—Tâk Kesra—Mashita—Rabbath Ammon.
CHRONOLOGY.
Parthians subject to Persia B.C. 554
Seleucus Nicator 301
Arsaces 250
Mithridates 163-140
Mithridates II 124-89
Palace of Al Hadhr built (about) A.D. 200
End of Parthian Empire 227
----------
Ardeshir, or Artaxerxes, establishes Sassanian dynasty 226
Tiridates 286-342
Serbistan (about) 350
Bahram Gaur begins to reign 420
Firouzabad (about) 450
Khosru Nushirvan begins to reign 531
Khosru Nushirvan builds palace at Ctesiphon (about) 550
Khosru Purviz Chosroes 591
Palace at Mashita 614-627
Battle of Cadesia 636
There still remains one other style to be described before leaving the
domain of Heathendom to venture into the wide realms of Christian and
Saracenic art with which the remainder of these two volumes is mainly
occupied. Unfortunately it is not one that was of great importance while
it existed, and it is one of which we know very little at present. This
arises partly from the fact that all the principal buildings of the
Sassanian kings were situated on or near the alluvial plains of
Mesopotamia and were therefore built either of sun-burnt or imperfectly
baked bricks, which consequently crumbled to dust, or, where erected
with more durable materials, these have been quarried by the succeeding
inhabitants of these fertile regions. Partly also it arises from the
Sassanians not being essentially a building race. Their religion
required no temples and their customs repudiated the splendour of the
sepulchre, so that their buildings were mainly palaces. One of these,
that at Dustagird, is described by all contemporary historians[200] as
one of the most gorgeous palaces of the East, but its glories were
ephemeral: gold and silver and precious hangings rich in colour and
embroidery made up a splendour in which the more stable arts of
architecture had but little part, and all perished in an hour when
invaded by the victorious soldiers of Heraclius, or the more destructive
hosts of Arabian invaders a few years afterwards. Whatever the cause
however, never was destruction more complete. Two or three ruined
palaces still exist in Persia and Mesopotamia. A fragment known as the
Tâk Kesra still remains to indicate the spot where Ctesiphon once stood,
but the site of Dustagird is still a matter of dispute. So little in
fact remains that we should hardly be able to form an idea of what the
style really was, but for the fortunate discovery of a palace at Mashita
in Moab, which seems undoubtedly to have been erected by the last great
king of this dynasty, and which is yet unsurpassed for beauty of detail
and richness of ornament by any building of its class and age.
As nearly as may be, one thousand years had elapsed since the completion
of the palaces at Persepolis and Susa and the commencement of this
building, and for the great part of that period the history of Persian
or Central Asian architecture is a blank. The Seleucidæ built nothing
that has come down to our times. The Parthians, too, have left us
little, so that it is practically only after a hiatus of nearly six
centuries, that we again begin to feel that the art had not entirely
perished in the populous countries of Central Asia; but even then our
history recommences so timidly and with buildings of such uncertain
dates as to be very far from satisfactory.
[Illustration: 253. Plan of Palace at Al Hadhr. (From a Sketch by Mr.
Layard.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
One of the oldest buildings known as belonging to the new school is the
palace of Al Hadhr, situated in the plain, about thirty miles from the
Tigris, nearly west from the ruins of Kaleh Shergat.
The city itself is circular in plan, nearly an English mile in diameter,
and surrounded by a stone wall with towers at intervals, in the centre
of which stands a walled enclosure, nearly square in plan, about 700 ft.
by 800. This is again subdivided into an outer and inner court by a wall
across its centre. The outer court is unencumbered by buildings, the
inner nearly filled with them.[201] The principal of these is that
represented in plan on Woodcut No. 253. It consists of three large and
four smaller halls placed side by side, with various smaller apartments
in the rear. All these halls are roofed by semicircular tunnel-vaults,
without ribs or other ornament, and they are all entirely open in front,
all the light and air being admitted from the one end.
There can be little doubt that these halls are copies, or intended to be
so, of the halls of the old Assyrian palaces; but the customs and
requirements of the period have led the architect on to a new class of
arrangements which renders the resemblance by no means apparent at first
sight.
[Illustration: 254. Elevation of part of the Palace of Al Hadhr. Scale
50 ft. to 1 in.]
The old halls had almost invariably their entrances on the longer side,
which with a vault required very thick external walls as abutments. This
was obviated in Al Hadhr by using the halls as abutments the one to the
other like the arches of a bridge; so that, if the two external arches
were firm, all the rest were safe. This was provided for by making the
outer halls smaller, as shown in the elevation (Woodcut No. 254), or by
strengthening the outer wall. But even then the architect seems to have
shrunk from weakening the intermediate walls by making too many openings
in them. Those which do exist are small and infrequent; so that there is
generally only one entrance to each apartment, and that so narrow as to
seem incongruous with the size of the room to which it leads.
The square apartment at the back would seem to have been a temple, as
the lintel over the entrance doorway (which faces the east) is carved
with the sun, the moon, and other religious emblems; and the double wall
round may have contained a stair or inclined plane leading to an upper
storey, or to rooms which certainly existed over the smaller halls at
least.
All the details of the building are copied from the Roman—the archivolts
and pilasters almost literally so, but still so rudely executed as to
prove that it was not done under the direct superintendence of a Roman
artist. This is even more evident with regard to the griffins and
scroll-work, and the acanthus-leaves which ornament the capitals and
friezes. The most peculiar ornament, however, is the range of masks
carried round all the archivolts of the smaller arches. Of the nineteen
voussoirs of the larger arches, seven of them, according to Ross and
Ainsworth, had figures carved on them in relief of angels, or females,
apparently in the air, and with feet crossed and robes flying loose,
possibly emblematic of the seven planets. Even tradition is silent
regarding the date of these remarkable ruins; the town was besieged
unsuccessfully by Trajan in 116 A.D., and it is recorded to have been a
walled town containing a temple of the sun noted for its rich offerings.
This is probably the square building at the back of the great hall on
the left of the palace, and the existence of the carved religious
emblems on the lintel suggest that the palace was erected in front at a
later period. Professor Rawlinson, in his notes on the great
monarchies,[202] suggests about 200 A.D. as the probable date, and
ascribes its erection to the monarchs of the Parthian dynasty. There is
no doubt that the execution of the masonry with its fine joints is of a
totally different character from that which is found in Sassanian
buildings, which comes more under the head of rubble masonry, and was
entirely hidden, in the interior at least, by stucco. The ornament also
is of a rich character, Roman in its design, but debased Greek in its
execution. Mr. Loftus, during his researches in Chaldea, discovered at
Wurka (the ancient Erech in Mesopotamia), a large number of ornamental
details, in stone and in plaster, of precisely the same character as
those found at Al Hadhr. Among these remains he found a griffin
resembling those carved on the lintel of the square temple before
referred to, and quantities of Parthian coins, so that it is fair to
assume that Al Hadhr belongs to that dynasty.
[Illustration: 255. Plan of Mosque at Diarbekr.]
Another building which merits more attention than has hitherto been
bestowed upon it, is now used as the great mosque at Diarbekr. The
ancient portions consist of the façades only of two palaces, the north
and the south, which face one another at a distance of some 400 feet,
and form the boundaries of the great court (Woodcut No. 255). They are
apparently erected with materials taken from some more ancient building,
and whilst the capitals and friezes are of debased Roman character, the
carved shafts of the north palace (Woodcut No. 257) resemble in the
plaster design ornaments found at Wurka.
As will be seen in Woodcut No. 256, which represents the façade of the
South Palace, the openings of the ground storey are spanned by arches of
two different forms; and those of the upper storey by lintels carried on
corbels with relieving arch over; the latter a Byzantine treatment; the
former of a very much later date, and probably Saracenic: above the
openings and under the frieze are Cufic inscriptions. On the whole there
seems little doubt that the building we now see was erected, as it now
stands, at the age of the Cufic inscriptions,[203] whatever they may be,
but that the remains of some more ancient edifice was most skilfully
worked up in the new. Till, however, the building is carefully examined
by some thoroughly competent person, this must remain doubtful. The
building is rich, and so interesting that it is to be hoped that its
history and peculiarities will before long be investigated.
[Illustration: 256. Façade of South Palace at Diarbekr.]
With the accession of the Sassanians, A.D. 223, Persia regained much of
that power and stability to which she had been so long a stranger. The
capture of the Roman Emperor Valerian by the 2nd king of the race, A.D.
260, the Conquest of Armenia and victories over Galerius by the 7th
(A.D. 296), and the exploits of the 14th King, Bahram Gaur, his visit to
India and his alliance with its kings, all point to extended power
abroad; while the improvement in the fine arts at home indicates
returning prosperity and a degree of security unknown since the fall of
the Achæmenidæ.
These kings seem to have been of native race, and claimed descent from
the older dynasties: at all events they restored the ancient religion
and many of the habits and customs with which we are familiar as
existing before the time of Alexander the Great.
[Illustration: 257. View in the Court of the Great Mosque at Diarbekr.]
As before remarked, fire-worship does not admit of temples, and we
consequently miss that class of buildings which in all ages best
illustrates the beauties of architecture; and it is only in a few
scattered remains of palaces that we are able to trace the progress of
the style. Such as they are, they indicate considerable originality and
power, but at the same time point to a state of society when attention
to security hardly allowed the architect the free exercise of the more
delicate ornaments of his art.
The Sassanians took up the style where it was left by the builders of Al
Hadhr; but we only find it after a long interval of time, during which
changes had taken place which altered it to a considerable extent, and
made it in fact into a new and complete style.
They retained the great tunnel-like halls of Al Hadhr, but only as
entrances. They cut bold arches through the dividing walls, so as to
form them into lateral suites. But, above all, they learnt to place
domes on the intersections of their halls, not resting on drums, but on
pendentives,[204] and did not even attempt to bring down simulated lines
of support to the ground. Besides all these constructive peculiarities,
they lost all trace of Roman detail, and adopted a system of long
reed-like pilasters, extending from the ground to the cornice, below
which they were joined by small semicircular arches. They in short
adopted all the peculiarities which are found in the Byzantine style as
carried out at a later age in Armenia and the East. We must know more of
this style, and be able to ascribe authentic dates to such examples as
we are acquainted with, before we can decide whether the Sassanians
borrowed the style from the Eastern Romans, or whether they themselves
were in fact the inventors from whom the architects of the more western
nations took the hints which they afterwards so much improved upon.
The various steps by which the Romans advanced from the construction of
buildings like the Pantheon to that of the church of Sta. Sophia at
Constantinople are so consecutive and so easily traced as to be
intelligible in themselves without the necessity of seeking for any
foreign element which may have affected them. If it really was so, and
the architecture of Constantinople was not influenced from the East, we
must admit that the Sassanian was an independent and simultaneous
invention, possessing characteristics well worthy of study. It is quite
certain too that this style had a direct influence on the Christian and
Moslem styles of Asia, which exhibit many features not derivable from
any of the more Western styles.
[Illustration: 258. Plan of Palace at Serbistan. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 259. Section on line A B of Palace at Serbistan. (From
Dieulafoy.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
A few examples will render this clearer than it can be made in words.
The plan and section (Woodcuts Nos. 258 and 259) of a small but
interesting palace at Serbistan will explain most of the peculiarities
of the style. The entrances, it will be observed, are deep tunnel-like
arches, but the centre is covered by a dome resting on pendentives. In
the palace of Firouzabad these are constructed by throwing a series of
arches across the angles, one recessed behind the other, the lower ones
serving as centres for those above, until a circular base for the dome
has been obtained; but here in Serbistan they do not seem to have known
this expedient: the lower courses run through to the angle, and the
upper ones are brought forward in so irregular and unscientific a way as
to suggest that for their support they placed their reliance almost
entirely on the tenacious qualities of the mortar. That which, however,
would have formed the outer arch of the pendentive is wrought on the
stone down almost to the springing, as if the builder of Serbistan had
seen regular arched pendentives of some kind, but did not know how to
build them. This is the more remarkable because, as we shall see later
on, they knew how to construct semi-domes over their recesses or square
niches, and in regular coursed masonry; if they had applied these to the
angles, they would have invented the squinch, a kind of pendentive
employed in Romanesque work in the south of France. The dome is
elliptical, as are also the barrel vaults over the entrances, the
recesses in the central hall, and the vaults over the lateral halls. In
these lateral halls piers are built within the walls, forming a series
of recesses; these either have transverse arches thrown across them
where the lofty doorways come, or are covered with semidomes in regular
coursed masonry, the angles being filled in below them with small
arches. The lower portions of the piers consist of circular columns
about six feet high, behind which a passage is formed. The builders thus
obtained the means of counteracting the thrust of the vault, without
breaking the external outline by buttresses and without occupying much
room on the floor, while at the same time these projections added
considerably to the architectural effect of the interior. The date of
the building is not correctly known, but it most probably belongs to the
age of Shapour, in the middle of the fourth century.
The palace at Firouzabad is probably a century more modern, and is
erected on a far more magnificent scale, being in fact the typical
building of the style, so far at least as we at present know.
[Illustration: 260. Plan of Palace at Firouzabad. (From Dieulafoy.)
Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 261. Doorway at Firouzabad. (From Flandin and Coste.)]
As will be seen in the plan, the great central entrance opens laterally
into two side chambers, and the inner of these into a suite of three
splendid domed apartments, occupying the whole width of the building.
Beyond this is an inner court, surrounded by apartments all opening upon
it.
As will be perceived from Woodcut No. 261, representing one of the
doorways in the domed halls, the details have nothing Roman about them,
but are borrowed directly from Persepolis, with so little change that
the style, so far as we can now judge, is almost an exact reproduction,
except that the work is only surface ornament in plaster, and is an
irregular and a degraded copy of the original stone features at
Persepolis. The opening also is spanned by a circular arch under the
lintel of the Persian example, the former being the real constructive
feature, the latter a decorative imitation. The portion of the exterior
represented in Woodcut No. 262 tells the same tale, though for its
prototype we must go back still further to the ruins at Wurka—the
building called Wuswus at that place (see p. 165) being a palace
arranged very similarly to these, and adorned externally by panellings
and reeded pilasters, differing from these buildings only in detail and
arrangement, but in all essentials so like them as to prove that the
Sassanians borrowed most of their peculiarities from earlier native
examples.
The building itself is a perfectly regular parallelogram, 332 ft. by
180, without a single break, or even an opening of any sort, except the
one great arch of the entrance; and externally it has no ornament but
the repetition of the tall pilasters and narrow arches represented in
Woodcut No. 262. Its aspect is thus simple and severe, but more like a
gigantic Bastile than the palace of a gay, pavilion-loving people, like
the Persians.
Internally the arrangement of the halls is simple and appropriate, and,
though somewhat too formal, is dignified and capable of considerable
architectural display. On the whole, however, its formality is perhaps
less pleasing than the more picturesque arrangements of the palace at
Serbistan last described.
[Illustration: 262. Part of External Wall, Firouzabad. No scale.]
Another century probably elapsed before Khosru (Nushirvan) commenced the
most daring, though certainly not the most beautiful ever attempted by
any of his race; for to him we must ascribe the well-known Tâk Kesra
(Woodcuts Nos. 263, 264), the only important ruin that now marks the
site of the Ctesiphon of the Greeks—the great Modain of the Arabian
conquerors.
As it is, it is only a fragment of a palace, a façade similar in
arrangement to that at Firouzabad, but on a much larger scale, its width
being 312 ft., its height 105 to 110, and the depth of the remaining
block 170 ft. In the centre is a magnificent portal, the Aiwan, or
Throne room of the palace, vaulted over with an elliptical barrel vault
and similar to the smaller vestibules of Serbistan and Firouzabad; the
lower portion of the arch, the springing of which is about 40 ft. from
the ground, is built in horizontal courses up to 63 ft. above the
ground, above which comes the portion arched with regular voussoirs; by
this method not only was an enormous centering saved, but the thrust of
that portion built with voussoirs was brought well within the thickness
of the side walls. It is probable that the front portion of the arch,
about 20 ft. in depth, was built on walls erected temporarily for that
purpose; the remainder of the vault, however, was possibly erected
without centres, the bricks being placed flatwise and the rings being
inclined at an angle of about 10° towards the back of the front arch.
The tenacious quality of the mortar was probably sufficient to hold the
bricks in their places till the arch ring was complete, so that the
centering was virtually a template only, giving the correct form of the
ellipse, and constructed with small timbers so as to save expense. A
similar method of construction was found by Sir Henry Layard in the
drain vaults at Nimroud, and it exists in the granaries built by Rameses
II. in the rear of the Rameseum at Thebes. The lower or inner portion of
the great arch is built in four rings of bricks or tiles laid flatwise,
two of which are carried down to the springing of the whole arch: above
these in the upper portion of the arch comes a ring 3 feet in height,
regularly built in voussoir-shaped bricks breaking joint, on the surface
of which are cut a series of seventeen foils, the whole being crowned by
a slightly projecting moulding. These have nothing to do with the
construction, and are simply a novel method of decoration carved after
the arch was built.
[Illustration: 263. Plan of Tâk Kesra at Ctesiphon. (From Flandin and
Coste.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 264. Elevation of Great Arch of Tâk Kesra at Ctesiphon.
Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
The wall flanking the great arch on either side is decorated with
buttress shafts and blind arches, which are partially constructive, and
intended to support and strengthen those portions of the wall which were
simply screens, or to resist the thrust of the walls of the vaulted
chambers behind, consisting of one storey only. Decoratively they divide
up the front and were apparently introduced in imitation of the great
Roman amphitheatres. The position occupied by these semi-detached shafts
on the first storey (resting on the ledge left by the greater thickness
of wall of the lower storey), which are not in the axes of those below,
proves that the Sassanian architect thought more of their constructive
value as buttresses, than of their architectural value as superimposed
features.
[Illustration: 265. Sketch Plan of Palace at Mashita.]
Though it may not perhaps be beautiful, there is certainly something
grand in a great vaulted entrance, 72 ft. wide by 85 ft. in height and
115 in depth, though it makes the doorway at the inner end and all the
adjoining parts look extremely small. It would have required the rest of
the palace to be carried out on an unheard-of scale to compensate for
this defect. The Saracenic architects got over the difficulty by making
the great portal a semidome, and by cutting it up with ornaments and
details, so that the doorway looked as large as was required for the
space left for it. Here, in the parent form, all is perfectly plain in
the interior, and painting alone could have been employed to relieve its
nakedness, which, however, it never would have done effectually.[205]
The ornaments in these and in all the other buildings of the Sassanians
having been executed in plaster, we should hardly be able to form an
idea of the richness of detail they once possessed but for the fortunate
discovery of a palace erected in Moab by Khosru Purviz, the last great
monarch of this line.[206]
As will be seen from the woodcut (No. 265), the whole building is a
square, measuring above 500 ft. each way, but only the inner portion of
it, about 170 ft. square, marked E E, has been ever finished or
inhabited. It was apparently originally erected as a hunting-box on the
edge of the desert for the use of the Persian king, and preserves all
the features we are familiar with in Sassanian palaces. It is wholly in
brick, and contains in the centre a triapsal hall, once surmounted by a
dome on pendentives like those at Serbistan or Firouzabad. On either
side were eight vaulted halls with intermediate courts almost identical
with those found at Eski Bagdad[207] or at Firouzabad. So far there is
nothing either remarkable or interesting, except the peculiarity of
finding a Persian building in such a situation, and in the fact that the
capitals of the pillars are of that full-curved shape which are first
found in the works of Justinian, which so far helps to fix the date of
the building.
It seems, however, that at a time when Chosroes possessed all Asia and
part of Africa, from the Indus to the Nile, and maintained a camp for
ten years on the shores of the Bosphorus, in sight of Constantinople,
that this modest abode no longer sufficed for the greatest monarch of
the day. He consequently determined to add to it the enclosure above
described, and to ornament it with a portal which should exceed in
richness anything of the sort to be found in Syria. Unfortunately for
the history of art, this design was never carried out. When the walls
were raised to the height of about twenty feet, the workmen were called
off, most probably in consequence of the result of the battle of Nineveh
in 627; and the stones remain half hewn, the ornament unfinished, and
the whole exactly as if left in a panic, never to be resumed.
[Illustration: 266. Interior of ruined triapsal Hall of Palace.]
The length of the façade—marked A A in plan, Woodcut No. 265—between the
plain towers, which are the same all round, is about 170 ft.,[208] the
centre of which was occupied by a square-headed portal flanked by two
octagonal towers. Each face of these towers was ornamented by an
equilateral triangular pediment, filled with the richest sculpture. In
that shown in Woodcut No. 267, two large animals are represented facing
one another on the opposite sides of a vase, on which are two doves, and
out of which springs a vine which spreads over the whole surface of the
triangle, interspersed with birds and bunches of grapes. In another
panel one of the lions is represented with wings, evidently the last
lineal descendant of those found at Nineveh and Persepolis, and in all
are curious hexagonal rosettes, carved with a richness far exceeding
anything found in Gothic architecture, but which are found repeated with
very little variation in the Jaina temples of western India.
[Illustration: 267. One Compartment of Western Octagon Tower of the
Persian Palace at Mashita.]
The wing walls of the façade are almost more beautiful than the central
part itself. As on the towers, the ornamentation consists of a series of
triangles filled with incised decorations and with rosettes in their
centres; while, as will be observed in Woodcut No. 265, the decoration
in each panel is varied, and all are unfinished. The cornice only exists
at one angle, and the mortice stones never were inserted that were meant
to keep it in its place. Enough however remains to enable us to see
that, as a surface decoration, it is nearly unrivalled in beauty and
appropriateness. As an external form I know nothing like it. It is only
matched by that between the arches of the interior of Sta. Sophia at
Constantinople, which is so near it in age that they may be considered
as belonging to the same school of art.
[Illustration: 268. Part of West Wing Wall of External Façade of Palace
at Mashita. (From a Photograph.)]
[Illustration: 269. Elevation of External Façade of the Mashita, as
restored by the Author.]
Notwithstanding the incomplete state in which this façade was left,
there does not seem much difficulty in restoring it within very narrow
limits of certainty. The elevation cannot have differed greatly from
that shown in Woodcut No. 269, on the preceding page. In the first place
there must have been a great arch over the entrance doorway—this is _de
rigueur_ in Sassanian art, and this must have been stilted or
horse-shoed, as without that it could not be made to fit on to the
cornice in the towers, and all the arches in the interior take, as I am
informed, that shape. Besides this there is at Takt-i-Gero[209] a
Sassanian arch of nearly the same age and equally classical in design,
which is, like this one, horse-shoed to the extent of one-tenth of its
diameter; and at Urgub, in Asia Minor, all the rock-cut excavations
which are of this or an earlier age have this peculiarity in a marked
degree.[210]
Above this, the third storey, is a repetition of the lowest, on half its
scale—as in the Tâk Kesra,—but with this difference, that here the
angular form admits of its being carried constructively over the great
arch, so that it becomes a facsimile of an apse at Murano near
Venice,[211] which is adorned with the spoils of some desecrated
building of the same age, probably of Antioch or some city of Syria
destroyed by the Saracens. Above this the elevation is more open to
conjecture, but it is evident that the whole façade could not have been
less than 90 ft. in height, from the fact that the mouldings at the base
(Woodcut No. 265) are the mouldings of a Corinthian column of that
height, and no architect with a knowledge of the style would have used
such mouldings four and a half feet in height, unless he intended his
building to be of a height equal at least to that proportion. The domes
are those of Serbistan or of Amrith (Woodcut No. 122); but such domes
are frequent in Syria before this age, and became more so afterwards.
The great defect of the palace at Mashita as an illustration of
Sassanian art arises from the fact that, as a matter of course, Chosroes
did not bring with him architects or sculptors to erect this building.
He employed the artists of Antioch or Damascus, or those of Syria, as he
found them. He traced the form and design of what he wanted, and left
them to execute it, and they introduced the vine—which had been the
principal “motif” in such designs from the time of Herod till the Moslem
invasion—and other details of the Byzantine art with which Justinian had
made them familiar from his buildings at Jerusalem, Antioch, and
elsewhere. Exactly the same thing happened in India six centuries later.
When the Moslems conquered that country in the beginning of the
thirteenth century they built mosques at Delhi and Ajmere which are
still among the most beautiful to be found anywhere. The design and
outline are purely Saracenic, but every detail is Hindu, but, just as in
this case, more exquisite than anything the Moslems ever did afterwards
in that country.
Though it thus stands almost alone, the discovery of this palace fills a
gap in our history such as no other building occupies up to the present
time. And when more, and more correct, details have been procured, it
will be well worthy of a monograph, which can hardly be attempted now
from the scanty materials available. Its greatest interest, however,
lies in the fact that all the Persian and Indian mosques were derived
from buildings of this class. The African mosques were enlargements of
the _atria_ of Christian basilicas, and this form is never found there,
but it is the key to all that was afterwards erected to the eastward.
[Illustration: 270. Plan, Rabbath Ammon.]
The palace of Rabbath Ammon (Woodcuts Nos. 270, 271), also in Moab,
consists of a central court open to the sky, and four recesses or
transepts, one on each face; two of these are covered with elliptical
barrel vaults, and two with semidomes carried on pendentives. The
decoration of this palace is similar to that found at Mashita, but not
so rich in design or so good in its execution.
[Illustration: 271. Section through Palace of Rabbath Ammon.]
The remains of two other palaces have been found in Persia, one at
Imumzade, which consists of a dome on pendentives, and a second, called
the Tag Eiran, made known to us by M. Dieulafoy, and published in his
work on the ancient art of Persia.[212] The latter is probably a late
example, for it shows a considerable advance in construction, and is
lighted by clerestory windows between the brick transverse arches which
span the hall. The plan consisted of a central hall, covered over by a
dome carried on pendentives, and two wings; of the original building,
only one of these wings remains, and two sides of the central hall, in
both cases up to the springing of the real arch, the lower courses being
horizontal as in the arch at Ctesiphon.
[Illustration: 272. Arch of Chosroes at Takt-i-Bostan. (From Flandin and
Coste.)]
In the dearth of Sassanian buildings there is one other monument that it
is worth while quoting before closing this chapter. It is an archway or
grotto, which the same Chosroes cut in the rock at Takt-i-Bostan, near
Kermanshah (Woodcut No. 272). Though so far removed from Byzantine
influence it is nearly as classical as the palace at Mashita. The flying
figures over the arch are evident copies of those adorning the triumphal
arches of the Romans, the mouldings are equally classical, and though
the costumes of the principal personages, and of those engaged in the
hunting scenes on either hand, partake more of Assyria than of Rome, the
whole betrays the influence of his early education and the diffusion of
Western arts at that time more than any other monument we know of. The
statue of Chosroes on his favourite black steed “Shubz diz,” is original
and interesting, and, with many of the details of this monument, it has
been introduced into the restoration of Mashita.
This, it must be confessed, is but a meagre account of the architecture
of a great people. Perhaps it may be that the materials do not exist for
making it more complete; but what is more likely is that they have not
yet been looked for, but will be found when attention is fairly directed
to the subject. In the meanwhile what has been said regarding it will be
much clearer and better understood when we come to speak of the
Byzantine style, which overlapped the Sassanian, and was to some extent
contemporary with it.
PART II.
CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE.
INTRODUCTORY.
If a line were drawn north and south from Memel on the shores of the
Baltic to Spalato on the Adriatic, it would divide Europe into nearly
equal halves. All that part lying to the west of the line would be found
to be inhabited by nations of Celtic or Teutonic races, and all those to
the eastward of it by nations of Sclavonic origin, if—as we must do—we
exclude from present consideration those fragments of the effete
Turanian races which still linger to the westward, as well as the
intrusive hordes of the same family which temporarily occupy some fair
portions to the eastward of the line so drawn.
This line is not of course quite straight, for it follows the boundary
between Germany on the one hand, and Russia and Poland on the other as
far as Cracow, while it crosses Hungary by the line of the Raab and
separates Dalmatia from Turkey. Though Sclavonic influences may be
detected to the westward of the boundary, they are faint and underlie
the Teutonic element; but to the eastward, the little province of
Siebenburgen, in the north-east corner of Hungary, forms the only little
oasis of Gothic art in the desert of Panslavic indifference to
architectural expression. Originally it was a Roman, afterwards a
German, colony, and maintained its Gothic style throughout the Middle
Ages.[213]
From Spalato the line crosses the Adriatic to Fermo, and then following
very closely the 43rd parallel of latitude, divides Italy into two
nearly equal halves. Barbarian tribes settled to a certain extent to the
northward of this boundary and influenced the style of architecture in
some degree; while to the southward of it, their presence can with
difficulty be detected, except in a few exceptional cases, and for a
very limited time.
Architecturally all the styles of art practised during the Middle Ages
to the westward and northward of this boundary may be correctly and
graphically described as the Gothic style, using this term in a broad
sense. All those to the eastward may with equal propriety be designated
as the Byzantine style of art.
Anterior, however, to the former there existed a transitional style
known as Romanesque, but which was virtually at first nothing more than
debased Roman. It was, in fact, a modification of the classical Roman
form which was introduced between the reigns of Constantine and
Justinian, and was avowedly an attempt to adapt classical forms to
Christian purposes. At first the materials of ancient buildings sufficed
for its wants, and if after the 4th century the style did not lapse into
absolute barbarism it was due to the influence which the Proto-Byzantine
style began to exert and to the magnificent works erected by Greek
artists at Parenzo and Grado in Dalmatia, at Ravenna, Milan, and even in
Rome herself. To the eastward of the line of demarcation the transition
was perfected under the reign of Justinian (A.D. 527 to 564), when it
became properly entitled to the name of Byzantine. To the westward, in
Italy and the south of France, this first phase of the Romanesque
continued to be practised till the 6th or 7th centuries; but about that
time occurs an hiatus in the architectural history of Western Europe,
owing to the troubles which arose on the dissolution of the Roman Empire
and the irruption of the Barbarian hordes. When the art again
reappeared, it was strongly tinctured by Barbarian influences, and might
with propriety be designated the _Gothic style_, the essential
characteristic being that it is the architecture of a people differing
from the Romans or Italians in blood, and, it need hardly be added,
differing from them in a like ratio in their architectural conceptions.
The term “Gothic,” however, is so generally adopted throughout Europe to
designate the style in which the intersecting vault with pointed arches
is the main characteristic, that to depart from it, even when subdivided
into round arched and pointed arched Gothic, would only lead to
confusion. It would therefore seem better to retain the nomenclature
usually employed in modern architectural works, and to class all the
phases of the transitional style between the Roman and the Gothic
periods under the broad title of Romanesque. This would include what we
have termed Early Christian——Lombardi——Rhenish——those phases of the
style which in Italy and France are influenced by Byzantine detail——the
pure Romanesque or Romance of the south of France——the Norman style in
Italy, Sicily, and the North of France, and——Saxon and Norman in our own
country. The attempt to restrict the term Romanesque within the confines
of the 6th and 7th centuries, which was formerly attempted, has proved
to be illusory, as it has never been recognised by any student of
architecture. At the same time it is not necessary to insist on the term
when describing its various phases, and when they are better known under
other terms. It is, however, of importance, when writing a general
history of all styles, to keep strictly to some definite system, and not
to adopt the nomenclature which has in some cases been given by persons
writing monographs of the style of their own particular country. The
Germans, for instance, are inclined to call the architecture of such
cathedrals as Spires, Worms, etc., by the absurd name of Byzantine,
though no features in them have ever been borrowed from the Eastern
capital, nor do they resemble the buildings of that part of Europe.
The title Gothic, which was originally invented as a term of reproach,
and which was applied to the imaginary work of the western Barbarians
who at one time overthrew the western Empire and settled within its
limits, has no architectural or ethnological value, it being impossible
to point out any features, much less buildings, which the Goths
introduced, and which are not to be more correctly attributed to Roman
or Byzantine artists. If we except the tomb of Theodoric, all the works
in Ravenna are scarcely to be distinguished from the basilicas of the
Eastern Empire, and only embody such modifications as the material of
the country and a certain influence of debased Roman architecture in
Italy would naturally exert. The churches and thermæ which Theodoric is
said to have restored in Rome have no characteristics which are not
found in other buildings of the same class before his reign, and even in
Spain and the south of France, which was occupied more or less
continuously by the Visigoths for more than two centuries, there are no
features which they could claim to have invented.
The term Gothic, therefore, is misplaced, but inasmuch as the Goths
never invented any style, there is not likely, if this fact is
recognised, to be any confusion in its adoption.
The chief difficulty which presents itself in any attempt to classify
the work of the Romanesque and the Gothic styles is that of drawing a
line of demarcation between the two. It is not sufficient to take the
pointed arch, for in France a pointed arched barrel vault preceded the
round arched vault; and in the East, as we know, the pointed arch made
its appearance at a much earlier period: that characteristic, therefore,
must not be too rigidly insisted upon.
Beyond this general classification, the use of local names, when
available, will always be found most convenient. First, the country, or
architectural province, in which an example is found should be
ascertained, so that its locality may be marked, and if possible with
the addition of a dynastic or regal name to point out its epoch. When
the outline is sufficiently marked, it may be convenient, as the French
do, to speak of the style of the 13th century[214] as applied to their
own country. The terms they use always seem to be better than 1st, or
2nd, Middle Pointed, or even “Geometric,” “Decorated,” or
“Perpendicular,” or such general names as neither tell the country nor
the age, nor even accurately describe the style, though when they have
become general it may seem pedantic to refuse to use them. The system of
using local, combined, and dynastic names has been followed in
describing all the styles hitherto enumerated in this volume, and will
be followed in speaking of those which remain to be described; and as it
is generally found to be so convenient, whenever it is possible it will
be adhered to.
In order to carry out these principles, the division proposed for this
part of the subject is—
1st. To begin the history of Christian Art by tracing up the successive
developments of the earliest perfected style, the Byzantine, in the
countries lying to the eastward of the boundary line already defined.
Owing to the greater uniformity of race, the thread of the narrative is
far more easily followed to the eastward than we shall find to the
westward of the line. The Byzantine empire remained one and undivided
during the Middle Ages; and from that we pass by an easy gradation to
Russia, where the style continued to be practised till Peter the Great
superseded it by introducing the styles of Western Europe.
2nd. To treat of the early Christian style as it prevailed in Italy,
down to the age of Charlemagne, so long, in fact, as it remained a
debased Roman style influenced only by its connection with the Eastern
Empire. Continuing our description of the various phases of the style as
practised in Italy and in Istria and Dalmatia (the two countries with
which she was so intimately connected) down to the revival of classic
architecture: subdividing it into those sections which are suggested by
the predominant influence of Lombardic, Byzantine, or Gothic art, and
keeping as far as possible to a chronological sequence.
3rd. To take up the Romanesque style in France, and to follow it through
its various phases whilst it was being gradually absorbed in the
predominant impetus given to its successor, the Gothic style, by the
adoption of the pointed arch in intersecting vaulting during the 12th
century, and then its subsequent development in succeeding centuries,
till it perished under Francis I.
If this arrangement is not quite logical, it is certainly convenient, as
it enables us to grasp the complete history of the style in the country
where most of the more important features were invented and perfected.
Having once mastered the history of Gothic art in the country of its
birth, the sequence in which the other branches of the style are
followed become comparatively unimportant. The difficulty of arranging
them does not lie so much in the sequence as in the determination of
what divisions shall be considered as separate architectural provinces.
In a handbook, subdivision could hardly be carried too far; in a
history, a wider view ought to be taken. On the whole, perhaps, the
following will best meet the true exigencies of the case:—
4th. Belgium and Holland should be taken up after France as a separate
province during the Middle Ages, while at the same time forming an
intermediate link between that country and Germany.
5th. Though not without important ethnographical distinctions, it will
be convenient to treat all the German-speaking countries from the Alps
to the Baltic as one province. If Germany were taken up before France,
such a mode of treatment would be inadmissible; but following the
history of the art in that country, it may be done without either
confusion or needless repetition.
6th. Scandinavia follows naturally as a subordinate, and, unfortunately,
not very important, architectural subdivision.
7th. From this we pass by an easy gradation to the British Islands,
which in themselves contain three tolerably well-defined varieties of
style, popularly known as the Saxon, the Norman, or round-arched, and
the Gothic, or pointed-arched style of Architecture.
8th. Spain might have been made to follow France, as most of its
architectural peculiarities were borrowed from that country; but some
too own a German origin, while on the whole the new lessons to be
learned from a study of her art are so few, that it is comparatively
unimportant in what sequence the country is taken, and therefore it has
been found more convenient to place her last.
BOOK I.
BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
CHRONOLOGY.
DATES.
Constantine founds Constantinople A.D. 324
First Council of Nice 325
Julian the Apostate 361
Theodosius the Great 379
Theodosius II. 408
Marcian 450
Fall of Western Empire 476
Justinian I. 527
Justin II. 565
Heraclius 610
The Hejira 622
The term Byzantine has of late years been so loosely and incorrectly
used—especially by French writers on architecture—that it is now
extremely difficult to restrict it to the only style to which it really
belongs. Wherever a certain amount of coloured decoration is employed,
or a peculiar form of carving found, the name Byzantine is applied to
churches on the Rhine or in France; although no similar ornaments are
found in the Eastern Empire, and though no connection can be traced
between the builders of the Western churches and the architects of
Byzantium, or the countries subject to her sway.
Strictly speaking, the term ought only to be applied to the style of
architecture which arose in Byzantium and the East after Constantine
transferred the government of the Roman Empire to that city. It is
especially the style of the Greek Church as contradistinguished from
that of the Roman Church, and ought never to be employed for anything
beyond its limits. The only obstacle to confining it to this definition
occurs between the ages of Constantine and Justinian. Up to the reign of
the last-named monarch the separation between the two churches was not
complete or clearly defined, and the architecture was of course likewise
in a state of transition, sometimes inclining to one style, sometimes to
the other. After Justinian’s time, the line may be clearly and sharply
drawn, and it would therefore be extremely convenient if the term “Greek
architecture” could be used for the style of the Greek Church from that
time to the present day.
If that term be inadmissible, the term “Sclavonic” might be applied,
though only in the sense in which the Gothic style could be designated
as Teutonic. Both, however, imply ethnographic distinctions which it
would not be easy to sustain. The term “Gothic” happily avoids these,
and so would “Greek,” but for the danger of its being confounded with
“Grecian,” which is the proper name for the classical style of the
ancient Greeks. If the employment of either of these terms is deemed
inadvisable, it will be necessary to divide the style into Old and New
Byzantine—the first comprehending the three centuries of transition that
elapsed from Constantine to the Persian war of Heraclius and the rise of
the Mahomedan power, which entirely changed the face of the Eastern
Empire,—the second, or Neo-Byzantine, including all those forms which
were practised in the East from the reappearance of the style, in or
after the 8th century, till it was superseded by the Renaissance.
Thus divided, the true or old Byzantine style might be regarded as the
counterpart of the early Romanesque or debased Roman style, except that,
owing to the rapid development in the East, the former culminated in the
erection of Sta. Sophia (A.D. 532-558); the Eastern Empire thus forming
a style of its own of singular beauty and perfection, which it left to
its Sclavonic successors to use or abuse as their means or tastes
dictated. The Western Empire, on the contrary, was in a state of decay
ending in a _débâcle_, from which the Romanesque style only partially
emerged during the reign of Charlemagne and his successors with a new
revival in the 11th century.
Though the styles of the East and the West became afterwards so
distinctly separate, we must not lose sight of the fact, that during the
age of transition (324-622) no clear line of demarcation can be traced.
Constantinople, Rome, and Ravenna were only principal cities of one
empire, throughout the whole of which the people were striving
simultaneously to convert a Pagan into a Christian style, and working
from the same basis with the same materials.[215] Prior to the age of
Constantine one style pervaded the whole empire. The buildings at
Palmyra, Jerash, or Baalbec, are barely distinguishable from those of
the capital, and the problem of how the Pagan style could be best
converted to Christian uses was the same for all. The consequence is,
that if we were at present writing a history which stopped with the
beginning of the 7th century, the only philosophical mode of treating
the question would be to consider the style as one and indivisible for
that period; but as the separation was throughout steadily, though
almost imperceptibly, making its way, and gradually became fixed and
permanent, it will be found more convenient to assume the separation
from the beginning. This method will no doubt lead to some repetition,
but that is a small inconvenience compared with the amount of clearness
obtained. At the same time, if any one were writing a history of
Byzantine architecture only, it would be necessary to include Ravenna,
and probably Venice and some other towns in Italy and Sicily, in the
Eastern division. On the other hand, in a history devoted exclusively to
the Romanesque styles, it would be impossible to omit the churches at
Jerusalem, Bethlehem, or Thessalonica, and elsewhere in the East. Under
these circumstances, it is necessary to draw an arbitrary line
somewhere; and for this purpose the western limits of the Turkish Empire
and of Russia will answer every practical purpose. Eastward of this line
every country in which the Christian religion at any time prevailed may
be considered as belonging to the Byzantine province.
During the first three centuries of the style (324-622) it will be
convenient to consider the whole Christian East as one architectural
province. When our knowledge is more complete, it may be possible to
separate it into several, but at present we are only beginning to see
the steps by which the style grew up, and are still very far from the
knowledge requisite for such limitations, even if it should hereafter be
discovered that a sufficient number exist. All the great churches with
which Constantine and his immediate successors adorned their new capital
have perished. Like the churches at Jerusalem and Bethlehem, they were
probably constructed with wooden roofs and even wooden architraves, and
thus soon became a prey to the flames in that most combustible of
capitals. Christian architecture has been entirely swept off the face of
the earth at Antioch, and very few and imperfect vestiges are found of
the seven churches of Asia Minor. Still, the recent researches of De
Vogüé in Northern Syria,[216] and of Texier in Thessalonica[217] show
how much unexpected wealth still remains to be explored, and in a few
years more this chapter of our history may assume a shape as much more
complete than what is now written, as it excels what we were compelled
to be content with when the Handbook was published, 1855.
Since therefore, under present circumstances, no ethnographic treatment
of the subject seems feasible, the clearest mode of presenting it will
probably be to adopt one purely technical.
For this purpose it will be found convenient, first, to separate the
Neo-Byzantine style from the older division, which, in order not to
multiply terms, may be styled the Byzantine _par excellence_; the first
chapter extending from Constantine, 324, to the Hejira, 622; and the
second from that time to the end of the Middle Ages.
In reference to the ecclesiastical architecture of the first division,
it is proposed to treat—
First, of churches of the basilican or rectangular forms, subdividing
them into those having wooden, and those having stone roofs.
Secondly, to describe circular churches in the same manner, subdividing
them similarly into those with wooden roofs, and those with stone roofs
or true domes.
This subdivision will not be necessary in speaking of the Neo-Byzantine
churches, since they all have stone roofs and true domes.
With regard to civil or domestic architecture very little can at present
be said, as so little is known regarding it, but we may hope that, a few
years hence, materials will exist for an interesting chapter on even
this branch of the subject.
CHAPTER II.
BASILICAS.
CONTENTS.
Churches at Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Thessalonica—Rectangular Churches
in Syria and Asia Minor, with wooden roofs and stone vaults.
Basilicas may be subdivided into two classes—that in which the nave is
divided from the side-aisles by pillars, carrying either entablatures or
arches, as the most purely Romanesque—and that which has piers
supporting arches only, and is transitional between the first style and
the more original forms which were elaborated out of it.
[Illustration: 273. Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. (From
Bernardino Amico.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 inch.]
Of the former class one of the most authentic and perfect is that
erected at Bethlehem by Helena, the mother of Constantine, in front of
the cave of the Nativity. The nave seems to be a nearly unaltered
example of this age, with the advantage over the contemporary churches
at Rome, that all its pillars and their capitals were made for the
places they occupy, whereby the whole possesses a completeness and
justness of proportion not found in the metropolis. Its dimensions,
though sufficient for effect, are not large, being internally 103 ft.
across, by 215 ft. east and west. The choir with its three apses does
not seem to be part of the original arrangement, but to have been added
by Justinian when he renovated—Eutychius says rebuilt—the church. My
impression is that a detached circular building, external to the
basilica, originally contained the entrance to the cave. The frescoes
were added apparently in the 11th or 12th century.[218]
One of the principal points of interest connected with this church is,
that it enables us to realise the description Eusebius gives us of the
basilica which Constantine erected at Jerusalem in honour of the
Resurrection. Like this church it was five-aisled, but had galleries;
the apse also was on a larger scale than could well have been possible
in the Bethlehem church, and adorned with twelve pillars, symbolical of
the Apostles.
Of this building nothing now remains, and the only portion which could
be claimed as part of Constantine’s work is the western wall of the
Rotunda, which to a height of 15 to 20 ft. was cut out of the solid rock
in order to isolate the Holy Sepulchre in the centre. The so-called
tombs of Absalom and Zachariah in the valley of Jehoshaphat were
detached in a similar way from the rock behind them.[219]
THESSALONICA.
[Illustration: 274. Eski Djuma, Thessalonica. (From Texier and Pullan.)
Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
As before mentioned, it is to Constantinople, or Alexandria, or Antioch,
that we should naturally look to supply us with examples of the style of
the early transition, but as these fail, it is to Thessalonica alone—in
so far as we now know—that we can turn. In that city there are two
ancient examples. One, now known as the Eski Djuma or old mosque
(Woodcut No. 274), may belong to the 5th century, though there are no
very exact data by which to fix its age. It consists of a nave,
measuring, exclusive of narthex and bema, 93 ft. across by 120 ft.—very
much the proportion of the Bethlehem church, but having only three
aisles, the centre one 48 ft. in width. The other church, that of St.
Demetrius, is larger, but less simple. It is five-aisled, has two
internal transepts, and various adjuncts. Altogether it seems a
considerable advance towards the more complicated form of a Christian
church. Both these churches have capacious galleries, running above the
side aisles, and probably devoted to the accommodation of the women. The
date of St. Demetrius is most probably among the first years of the
sixth century.[220] The general ordinance of the columns will be
understood from the woodcut (No. 276). Generally they are placed on
elevated square or octagonal bases, or pedestals, as in the tepidaria of
the Thermæ in Rome, and all have a block (known as the dosseret), placed
above the capital, which is supposed to represent the entablature of the
Roman example, but is probably an original feature inserted over the
capital to support the springing of the arch. In this form it is found
very generally in the 5th and 6th centuries, after which it fell into
disuse, an increased depth being given to the abacus of the capital to
take its place.
[Illustration: 275. St. Demetrius, Thessalonica. (From Texier and
Pullan.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 inch.]
[Illustration: 276. Arches in St. Demetrius at Thessalonica, A.D. 500 to
520.]
So far as we now know, there is only one church of this class at
Constantinople—that known as St. John Studius,—a three-aisled basilica,
125 ft. long by 85 in width externally. Its date appears to be tolerably
well ascertained as A.D. 463, and from this circumstance, as well as its
being in the metropolis, it shows less deviation from the classical type
than the provincial examples just quoted. The lower range of columns
supporting the gallery still retain the classical outline and support a
horizontal entablature (Woodcut No. 277); the upper supporting arches
have very little resemblance to the classical type, and are wanting in
the architrave block or dosseret, which in fact never seems to have been
admired in the capital.
SYRIA AND ASIA MINOR.
The country where—so far at least as we at present know—the Byzantine
Basilica was principally developed was Northern Syria. Already in De
Vogüé’s work on Central Syria some dozen churches are indicated having
the aisles divided from the naves by pillars supporting arches. One of
these only—that at Soueideh—has five aisles, all the rest three. Almost
all have plain semicircular apses, sometimes only seen internally, like
those mentioned further on (page 510), but sometimes also projecting, as
was afterwards universally the fashion. Two at least have square
terminations (Kefr Kileh and Behioh), but this seems exceptional. Most
of them are almost the size of our ordinary parish churches—100 ft. by
60 or thereabouts—and all belong to the three centuries—the 4th, 5th,
and 6th—of which this chapter especially treats.
[Illustration: 277. Pillar in Church of St. John, Constantinople.]
The church at Baquoza may serve as a type of the class both in plan and
section (Woodcuts Nos. 278, 279). Its dimensions externally are 60 ft.
by 105; and besides the narthex—not shown in the section—it has four
lateral porches. It has also two square chapels or vestries at the end
of the aisles—an arrangement almost universal in these churches.
The most remarkable of the group, however, is that of St. Simeon
Stylites, at Kalat Sema’n, about 20 miles east of Antioch. Its
dimensions are very considerable, being 330 ft. long, north and south,
and as nearly as may be, 300 ft. east and west, across what may be
called the transepts. The centre is occupied by a great octagon, 93 ft.
across, on a rock in the centre of which the pillar of that eccentric
saint originally stood. This apparently was never roofed over, but stood
always exposed to the air of heaven.[221]
[Illustration: 278. Plan of Church in Baquoza. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 279. Section of Church in Baquoza. (From De Vogüé.) Scale
50 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 280. Plan of Church and Part of Monastic Buildings at
Kalat Sema’n. (From De Vogüé.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
The greater part of the conventual buildings belonging to this church
still remain in a state of completeness,—a fact which will be startling
to those who are not aware how many of the great religious
establishments of Syria still stand entire, wanting only the roofs,
which were apparently the only parts constructed of wood.
The whole of the buildings at Kalat Sema’n seem to have been completed
within the limits of the 5th century, and not to have been touched or
altered since they were deserted, apparently in consequence of the
Mahomedan irruption in the 7th century. The most curious point is that
such a building should have remained so long in such a situation,
unknown to the Western world; for the notices hitherto published have
been meagre and unsatisfactory in the extreme, and De Vogüé is only able
to state that it was visited and described by the historian Evagrius in
the year 560 A.D.
[Illustration: 281. Plan of Church at Roueiha. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 282. Section of Church at Roueiha. (From De Vogüé.) Scale
50 ft. to 1 in.]
In the same province we find also the earliest examples of the use of
pier arches in a church to separate the nave from the aisles. These seem
to have been currently used in Northern Syria in the 6th century, though
not found in the West—at least not used in the same manner—for several
centuries later. Generally three such arches only were employed in the
length of the nave, and they consequently left the floor so open and
free, that it is very questionable if in churches of limited dimensions
the introduction of a much larger number by the Gothic architects was an
improvement. Taking it altogether, it is probable that such a church as
that at Roueiha (Woodcut No. 282) would, if literally reproduced, make a
better and cheaper church for an English parish than the Mediæval models
we are so fond of copying. A considerable amount of perspective effect
is obtained by throwing two transverse arches across the nave, dividing
it into three compartments, each including four windows in the
clerestory; and the whole design is simple and solid in a degree seldom
surpassed in buildings of its class. Its dimensions are 63 ft. by 150
over all externally.
In many of these churches the transverse arches of the nave are omitted;
and when, as at Qalb Louzeh (Woodcut No. 284), the clerestory is
accentuated by roofing shafts, the same effect of perspective is
obtained by other means, and perhaps as successfully. It is very
interesting, however, to find that as early as the 6th century the
architects were thoughtfully feeling their way towards those very
principles of design which many centuries afterwards enabled the Gothic
architects to produce their most successful effects. The introduction of
four windows over each great arch, and of a rooting-shaft between each
to support the beams of the roof, was a happy thought, and it is
wonderful it was so completely lost sight of afterwards.
[Illustration: 283. Plan of Church at Qalb Louzeh. Scale 100 ft. to 1
in.]
[Illustration: 284. Apse of Church at Qalb Louzeh. (From De Vogüé.)]
It is probable that the apse (Woodcut No. 284) was originally adorned
with paintings or mosaics, or at least that it was intended it should be
so ornamented; but even as it is, it is so well proportioned to the size
of the church, and to its position, and so appropriately ornamented,
that it is better than most of those found in Roman basilicas; and, for
a small church, is a more dignified receptacle for the altar than either
the French chevet or the English chancel.
Did our limits admit of it, it would be not only pleasant but
instructive to dwell longer on this subject; for few parts of our
inquiry can be more interesting than to find that, as early as the 6th
century, the Roman basilica had been converted into a Christian church,
complete in all its details, and—internally at least—in a style of
architecture as consistent and almost as far removed from its classical
prototype as the Mediæval Gothic itself.
[Illustration: 285. Chapel at Babouda. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
Externally, too, the style was becoming independent of classical models,
though hardly in the same degree. The porches of the churches were
generally formed in two storeys, the lower having a large central arch
of admission, the upper consisting of a colonnade which partially hid,
while it supported, an open screen of windows that admitted a flood of
light into the nave just in the position where it was most effective.
Without glass or mullions such a range of windows must have appeared
weak, and would have admitted rain; but when sheltered by a screen of
pillars, it was both convenient and artistic.
[Illustration: 286. Elevation of Chapel at Babouda. (From De Vogüé.)]
This mode of lighting is better illustrated at Babouda, where it is
employed in its simplest form. No light is admitted to the chapel except
through one great semicircular window over the entrance, and this is
protected externally by a screen of columns. This mode of introducing
light, as we shall afterwards see, was common in India at this age, and
earlier, all the Chaitya caves being lighted in the same manner; and for
artistic effect it is equal, if not superior, to any other which has yet
been invented. The light is high, and behind the worshipper, and thrown
direct on the altar, or principal part of the church. In very large
buildings it could hardly be applied, but for smaller ones it is
singularly effective.
The external effect of these buildings though not so original as the
interior, is still very far removed from the classical type, and
presents a variety of outline and detail very different from the
simplicity of a Pagan temple. One of the most complete is that at
Tourmanin (Woodcut No. 287), though that at Qalb Louzeh is nearly as
perfect, but simpler in detail. For a church of the 6th century it is
wonderful how many elements of later buildings it suggests; even the
western towers seem to be indicated, and, except the four columns of the
gallery, there is very little to recall the style out of which it arose.
[Illustration: 287. Façade of Church at Tourmanin. (From De Vogüé.)]
There are considerable remains of a wooden-roofed basilica at Pergamus,
which may be even older than those just described; but having been built
in brick, and only faced with stone—the whole of which is gone—it is
difficult to feel sure of the character of its details and mouldings. It
had galleries on either side of the nave, but how these were supported
or framed is not clear. It may have been by wooden posts or marble
pillars, and these would have either decayed or been removed. The two
square calcidica or vestries, which in the Syrian churches terminate the
side-aisles, are here placed externally like transepts, and beyond them
are two circular buildings with domical roofs and square apses. What
their use was is, however, doubtful. In fact, we know so little of the
architecture of that age in Asia Minor that this building stands quite
exceptionally; and very little use can be made of it, either as throwing
light on other buildings, or as receiving illustration from their
peculiarities. But seeing how much has been effected in this direction
of late, we may fully hope that this state of isolation will not long
remain.
[Illustration: 288. Church at Pergamus. (From a Plan by Ed. Falkener,
Esq.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
One other church of the 4th century is known to exist—at Nisibin. It is
a triple church, the central compartment being the tomb of the founder,
the first Armenian bishop of the place. Though much ruined, it still
retains the mouldings of its doorways and windows as perfect as when
erected, the whole being of fine hard stone. These are identical in
style with the buildings of Diocletian at Spalato; and as their date is
well known, they will, when published, form a valuable contribution to
the information we now possess regarding the architecture of this
period.
CHURCHES WITH STONE ROOFS.
All the buildings above described—with the exception of the chapel at
Babouda—have wooden roofs, as was the case generally with the basilicas
and the temples of the classical age. The Romans, however, had built
temples with aisles and vaulted them as early as the age of Augustus, as
at Nîmes, for instance (Woodcut No. 189), and they had roofed their
largest basilicas and baths with intersecting vaults. We should not
therefore feel surprised if the Christians sometimes attempted the same
thing in their rectangular churches, more especially as the dome was
always a favourite mode of roofing circular buildings; and the problem
which the Byzantine architects of the day set themselves to solve was—as
we shall presently see—how to fit a circular dome of masonry to a
rectangular building.
One of the earliest examples of a stone-roofed church is that at Tafkha
in the Hauran. It is probably of the age of Constantine, though as
likely to be before his time as after it. Its date, however, is not of
very great importance, as its existence does not prove that the form was
adopted from choice by the Christians: the truth being that, in the
country where it is found, wood was never used as a building material.
All the buildings, both domestic and public, are composed wholly of
stone—the only available material for the purpose which the country
afforded. In consequence of this, when that tide of commercial
prosperity which rose under the Roman rule flowed across the country
from the Euphrates valley to the Mediterranean, the inhabitants had
recourse to a new mode of construction, which was practically a new
style of architecture. This consisted in the employment of arches
instead of beams. These were placed so near one another that flat stones
could be laid side by side from arch to arch. Over these a layer of
concrete was spread, and a roof was thus formed so indestructible that
whole towns remain perfect to the present day, as originally constructed
in the first centuries of the Christian era.[222]
[Illustration: 289. Section on A B, Tafkha. (From De Vogüé.) Scale 50
ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 290. Plan, Tafkha. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 291. Section on C D, Tafkha.]
[Illustration: 292. Half Front Elevation, Tafkha. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
One example must suffice to explain this curious mode of construction.
The church at Tafkha is 50 ft. square, exclusive of the apse. It is
spanned by four arches, 7 ft. 6 in. apart. On each side are galleries of
flat slabs resting on brackets, as shown in Woodcuts Nos. 289, 291,
which again are supported by smaller transverse arches. At one side is a
tower, but this is roofed wholly by bracketing, as if the architect
feared the thrust of the arch even at that height.
The defect of this arrangement as an architectural expedient is the
extreme frequency of the piers, 8 or 10 ft. being the greatest distance
practicable; but as a mechanical expedient it is singularly ingenious.
More internal space is obtained with a less expenditure of material and
danger from thrust than from any mode of construction—wholly of stone—
that we are acquainted with; and with a little practice it might no
doubt be much improved upon. The Indian architects, as we shall
presently see, attempted the same thing, but set about it in a
diametrically opposite way. They absolutely refused to employ the arch
under any circumstances, but bracketed forward till the space to be
covered was so limited that a single stone would reach across. By this
means they were enabled to roof spaces 20 or 25 ft. span without arches,
which is about the interval covered with their aid at Tafkha.[223]
[Illustration: 293. Great Church at Hierapolis. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.
(E. Falkener del.)]
[Illustration: 294. Church at Hierapolis. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in. (E. F.
del.)]
Another circumstance which renders these Hauran examples interesting to
the architectural student is that they contain no trace or reminiscence
of wooden construction or adornment, so apparent in almost every other
style. In Lycia it is absurdly so. In Egypt, in Greece, in India, in
Persia—everywhere, in fact—we can trace back the principal form of
decoration to a wooden original; here alone all is lithic, and it is
probably the only example of the sort that the whole history of
architecture affords.
If there are any churches in the Byzantine province of the age of which
we are treating, whose naves are roofed by intersecting vaults, they
have not yet been described in any accessible work; but great
tunnel-vaults have been introduced into several with effect. One such is
found at Hierapolis, on the borders of Phrygia (Woodcut No. 293). It is
divided by a bold range of piers into three aisles, the centre one
having a clear width of 45 ft. 6 in. The internal dimensions of the
church are 177 ft. by 115. There are three great piers in the length,
which carry bold transverse ribs so as to break the monotony of the
vault, and have between them secondary arches, to carry the galleries.
[Illustration: 295. Section of Church at Hierapolis. Scale 50 ft. to 1
in. With monogram found on its walls. (From a Drawing by E. Falkener.)]
There is another church at the same place, the roof of which is of a
somewhat more complicated form. The internal length, 140 ft., is divided
into three by transverse arches; but its great peculiarity is that the
vault is cut into by semi-circular lunettes above the screen side-walls,
and through these the light is introduced. This arrangement will be
understood from the section (Woodcut No. 295). Taken altogether, there
is probably no other church of its age and class in which the vault is
so pleasingly and artistically arranged, and in which the mode of
introducing the light is so judicious and effective.
The age of these two last churches is not very well ascertained. They
probably belong to the 5th, and are certainly not later than the 6th,
century; but, before we can speak with certainty on the subject, more
examples must be brought to light and examined. From our present
knowledge it can hardly be doubted that a sufficient number do exist to
complete the chapter; and it is to be hoped they will be published,
since a history of vaults in the East, independent of domes, is still a
desideratum.
CHAPTER III.
CIRCULAR OR DOMICAL BUILDINGS.
CONTENTS.
Circular Churches with wooden roofs and with true domes in Syria and
Thessalonica—Churches of St. Sergius and Bacchus and Sta. Sophia,
Constantinople—Domestic Architecture—Tombs.
At the time of the erection of the churches described in the last
chapter, a circular domical style was being simultaneously elaborated in
the East, which not only gave a different character to the whole style,
but eventually entirely superseded the western basilican form, and
became an original and truly Byzantine art.
Constantine is said to have erected a church at Antioch which, from the
description given by Eusebius, was octagonal in plan.
On Mount Gerizim, on or near the site of the Samaritan temple, Justinian
built an octagonal church showing in its multifold chapels a
considerable advance towards Christian arrangements; it has, however
been so completely destroyed that only its foundation can now be traced,
from which the plan (Woodcut No. 296) was measured and worked out by Sir
Charles Wilson.
[Illustration: 296. Church on Mount Gerizim.]
[Illustration: 297. Cathedral at Bosra. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
At Bosra in the Hauran there is a church of perfectly well-ascertained
date—A.D. 512—which, when more completely illustrated, will throw
considerable light on the steps by which a Pagan temple was transformed
into a Christian church. It is a building externally square, but
internally circular (Woodcut No. 297). The central space is 91 ft. in
diameter, and was evidently covered with a wooden roof, according to M.
de Vogüé, supported on eight piers. The interest of the plan consists in
its showing the progress made in adapting this form to Christian
purposes, and it is to be hoped that further investigation may enable us
to supply all the steps by which the transformation took place. De Vogüé
is of opinion that there was a central dome carried on piers and columns
similar to the church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople, with
aisles round and gallery over them, the latter covered with a timber
roof, the holes in which the rafters were fixed being still visible.
Owing to want of lateral support the dome fell down, and at a later
period a small basilica church was erected within the enclosure in front
of the apse; the proximity of the piers of this church suggests that it
was covered with stone slabs according to the custom of the country. The
inscription over the principal entrance door states that the church was
dedicated to SS. Sergius and Bacchus, and was completed in the 400th
year of Bosra (511-512 A.D.). Another example exists at Kalat Sema’n, in
Northern Syria, and presents a combination of an octagonal with a
rectangular church very common in Armenia and Georgia. As is generally
the case there, they are very small in dimensions, the whole group only
measuring 120 ft. by 73. Their actual destination is not known, but M.
de Vogüé suggests that the triapsal arrangement in the octagonal
building points to its having been erected as a baptistery. This group
is situated about 200 yards from the main buildings illustrated in
Woodcut (No. 280).
[Illustration: 298. Section of Double Church at Kalat Sema’n. (From De
Vogüé.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 299. Plan, Kalat Sema’n. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
CHURCHES WITH DOMES.
Whether the dome of the Pantheon at Rome (p. 320) was erected in the
time of the Antonines, or before the time of Augustus, as was formerly
supposed, it is evident that the Romans had conquered the difficulties
of domic construction long before the transference of the seat of power
to Byzantium; the Pantheon being, up to this hour, the largest (single)
dome ever constructed by the hand of man. Simple and grand as it
undoubtedly is, it had several glaring defects in its design which the
Byzantines set themselves to remedy. The first was that twice the
necessary amount of materials was consumed in its construction. The
second, that the mode of lighting by a hole in the roof, which also
admitted the rain and the snow, was most objectionable before the
invention of glass. The third, that a simply circular plan is always
unmeaning and inconvenient. A fourth, that a circular building can
hardly, by any contrivance, be made to fit on to any other buildings or
apartments.
In the Minerva Medica (Woodcut No. 229) great efforts were made, but not
quite successfully, to remedy these defects. The building would not fit
on to any others, and, though an improvement on the design of the
Pantheon, was still far from perfect.
[Illustration: 300. Diagram of Byzantine Arrangement.]
[Illustration: 301. Diagram of Byzantine Pendentives.]
The first step the Byzantines made was to carry the dome on arches
resting on eight piers enclosing an octagon A (Woodcut No. 300); this
enabled them to obtain increased space, to provide nave, choir, and
transepts, and by throwing out niches on the diagonal lines, virtually
to obtain a square hall in the centre. The difference between the
octagon and circle is so slight, that by corbelling out above the
extrados of the arches, a circular base for the dome was easily obtained
B. The next step was to carry the dome on arches resting on four piers,
and their triumph was complete when by the introduction of pendentives—
represented by the shaded parts at D (Woodcut No. 301), they were
enabled to place the circular dome on a square compartment. The
pendentives and dome thus projected formed part of a sphere, the radius
of which was the half-diagonal of the square compartment. Constructively
it would probably have been easier to roof the space by an intersecting
vault; and even if of 100 or 150 ft. span it would without difficulty
have been effected. The difference between the intersecting vault and
the dome (as shown in Woodcuts 302 and 303; the former the tomb of Galla
Placidia, built 450 A.D., the latter the chapel of St. Peter Crysologus
attached to the archiepiscopal palace of about the same date, and both
in Ravenna) is perhaps the most striking contrast the history of
architecture affords between mechanical and ornamental construction.
Both are capable of being ornamented to the same extent and in the same
manner; but the difference of form rendered the dome a beautiful object
in itself wholly irrespective of ornament, whereas the same cannot
always be said of the intersecting barrel vault. Altogether, the effect
would have been architecturally so infinitely inferior, that we cannot
but feel grateful to the Byzantines that they persevered, in spite of
all mechanical temptations, till they reached the wonderful perfection
of the dome of Sta. Sophia.
[Illustration: 302. Tomb of Galla Placidia, Ravenna. (For plan see
Woodcut No. 434.)]
[Illustration: 303. Chapel in Archiepiscopal Palace, Ravenna.]
Among the earliest domical churches found in the East is that of St.
George at Thessalonica. It is also, perhaps, the finest example of its
class belonging strictly to that group which has been designated above
as the Eastern Romanesque.
[Illustration: 304. Plan of St. George at Thessalonica. Scale 100 ft. to
1 in.]
As will be seen from the plan it is a circular apartment, 79 ft. in
diameter, surrounded by walls 20 ft. in thickness, into which are cut
seven great niches; two apparently serving as entrances, opposite one of
which is a bema or presbytery of considerable importance and purely
Christian form. The dome is hemispherical, pierced at its base by eight
semi-circular lunettes, and externally covered and concealed by a wooden
roof. This form of roof is first found in the West at Nocera dei Pagani
(p. 547), but the dome there is only half the diameter of this one, and
of a very different form and construction. The dome of St. George’s
retains its internal decorations, which are among the earliest as well
as the most interesting Christian mosaics in existence.[224] The
architecture presented in them bears about the same relation to that in
the Pompeiian frescoes which the Jacobæan does to classical
architecture, and, mixed with Christian symbols and representations of
Christian saints, makes up a most interesting example of early Christian
decoration.
[Illustration: 305. Section of Church of St. George at Thessalonica.
(From Texier and Pullan.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 306. View of Church of St. George at Thessalonica. (From
Texier and Pullan.)]
No inscriptions or historical indications exist from which the date of
the church can be fixed. We are safe, however, in asserting that it was
erected by Christians, for Christian purposes, subsequently to the age
of Constantine. If we assume the year 400 as an approximate date we
shall probably not err to any great extent, though the real date may be
somewhat later.
[Illustration: 307. Plan of Kalybe at Omm-es-Zeitoun (Syria). No Scale.]
How early a true Byzantine form of arrangement may have been introduced
we have no means of knowing; but as early as the year 285—according to
De Vogüé—we have a Kalybe[225] at Omm-es-Zeitoun, which contains all the
elements of the new style. It is square in plan, with a circular dome in
its centre for a roof. The wing walls which extend the façade are
curious, but not singular. One other example, at least, is found in the
Hauran, at Chaqqa, and there may be many more.
[Illustration: 308. View of Kalybe at Omm-es-Zeitoun. (From De Vogüé.)]
Still, in the Hauran they never seem quite to have fallen into the true
Byzantine system of construction, but preferred one less mechanically
difficult, even at the expense of crowding the floor with piers. In the
church at Ezra, for instance, the internal octagon is reduced to a
figure of sixteen sides before it is attempted to put a dome upon it,
and all thought of beauty of form, either internally or externally, is
abandoned in order to obtain mechanical stability—although the dome is
only 30 ft. in diameter.
As the date of this church is perfectly ascertained (510) it forms a
curious landmark in the style just anterior to the great efforts
Justinian was about to make, and which forced it so suddenly into its
greatest, though a short-lived, degree of perfection.
[Illustration: 309. Plan of Church at Ezra. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 310. Section of Church at Ezra. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
CONSTANTINOPLE.
As before mentioned, all the churches of the capital which were erected
before the age of Justinian, have perished, with the one exception of
that of St. John Studius mentioned above (page 421). This may in part be
owing to the hurried manner in which they were constructed, and the
great quantity of wood consequently employed, which might have risked
their destruction anywhere. It is, however, a curious, but
architecturally an important, fact that Byzantium possessed every
conceivable title to be chosen as the capital of the Empire, except the
possession of a good building-stone, or even apparently any suitable
material for making good bricks. Wood seems in all times to have been
the material most readily obtained and most extensively used for
building purposes, and hence the continual recurrence of fires, from
before the time of Justinian down to the present day. That monarch was
the first who fairly met the difficulty; the two churches erected during
his reign, which now exist, are constructed wholly without wood or
combustible materials of any sort—and hence their preservation.
The earliest of these two, popularly known as the “Kutchuk Agia Sophia,”
or lesser Sta. Sophia, was originally a double church, or more properly
speaking two churches placed side by side, precisely in the same manner
as the two at Kalat Sema’n (Woodcut No. 298). The basilica was dedicated
to the Apostles Peter and Paul; the domical church, appropriately, to
the Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus. The former has entirely disappeared,
from which I would infer that it was constructed with pillars and a
wooden roof.[226] The latter remains very nearly intact. The frescoes
and mosaics have, indeed, disappeared from the body of the church,
hidden, it is to be hoped, under the mass of whitewash which covers its
walls—in the narthex they can still be distinguished.
[Illustration: 311. Church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus.]
[Illustration: 312. Section of Church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus. Scale
50 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 313. Capital from Church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus.
(From Lenoir.)]
[Illustration: 314. Entablature from Church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus.
(From Lenoir.)]
The existing church is nearly square in plan, being 109 ft. by 92 over
all, exclusive of the apse, and covering only about 10,000 sq. ft. It
has consequently no pretensions to magnificence on the score of
dimensions, but is singularly elegant in design and proportion.
Internally, the arrangement of the piers of the dome, of the galleries,
and of the pillars which support them, are almost identical with those
of St. Vitale at Ravenna, but the proportions of the Eastern example are
better, being 66 ft. in height by 52 in diameter, while the other, with
the same diameter, is nearly 20 ft. higher, and consequently too tall to
be pleasing.
The details of this church are generally well designed for the purposes
to which they are applied. There is a certain reminiscence of classical
feeling in the mouldings and foliage—in the latter, however, very faint.
The architrave block (No. 313) here seems almost to have superseded the
capital, and what was once a classical entablature has retained very
little of its pristine form (No. 314), and indeed was used
constructively only, for the support of a gallery, or some such
mechanical requirement. The arch had entirely superseded it as an
ornamental feature long before the age of Justinian.
STA. SOPHIA.
Although the building just described, and others that might be quoted,
probably contain the germs of all that is found in Sta. Sophia, they are
on so small a scale that it is startling to find Justinian attempting an
edifice so grand, and so daring in construction, without more experience
than he appears to have obtained. Indeed so exceptional does this great
structure appear, with our present knowledge, that we might almost feel
inclined at first sight to look upon it as the immediate creation of the
individual genius of its architect, Anthemius of Thralles; but there can
be little doubt that if a greater number of contemporary examples
existed we should be able to trace back every feature of the design to
its origin. The scale, however, on which it was carried out was
certainly original, and required great boldness on the part of the
architect to venture upon such a piece of magnificence. At all events,
the celebrated boast of its founder on contemplating his finished work
was more than justified. When Justinian exclaimed, “I have surpassed
thee, O Solomon,” he took an exaggerated view of the work of his
predecessor, and did not realize the extent to which his building
excelled the Jewish temple. The latter was only equal to a small church
with a wooden roof supported by wooden posts, and covering some 7200 sq.
ft. Sta. Sophia covers ten times that area, is built of durable
materials throughout, and far more artistically ornamented than the
temple of the Jews ever could have been. But Justinian did more than
accomplish this easy victory. Neither the Pantheon nor any of the
vaulted halls at Rome equal the nave of Sta. Sophia in extent, or in
cleverness of construction, or in beauty of design. Nor was there
anything erected during the ten centuries which elapsed from the
transference of the capital to Byzantium till the building of the great
mediæval cathedrals which can be compared with it. Indeed it remains
even now an open question whether a Christian church exists anywhere, of
any age, whose interior is so beautiful as that of this marvellous
creation of old Byzantine art.
The original church of Sta. Sophia which had been erected by Constantine
was, it seems, burnt to the ground in the fifth year of Justinian, A.D.
532, when he determined to re-erect it on the same spot with more
magnificence and with less combustible materials. So rapidly were the
works pushed forward, that in six years it was ready for dedication,
A.D. 537. Twenty years afterwards a portion of the dome fell down in
consequence of an earthquake; but this damage was repaired, and the
church re-dedicated, A.D. 563, in the form, probably very nearly, in
which we now find it.
[Illustration: 315. Plan of Sta. Sophia. Upper Storey and Ground Floor.
Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
In plan it closely approaches an exact square, being 235 ft. north and
south by 250 east and west, exclusive of the narthex and apse. The
narthex itself is a splendid hall, 205 ft. in length internally, by 26
ft. wide, and two storeys in height. Beyond this there is an exo-narthex
which runs round the whole of the outer court, but this hardly seems to
be part of the original design. Altogether, the building, without this
or any adjuncts which may be after-thoughts, covers about 70,000 sq.
ft., or nearly the average area of a mediæval cathedral of the first
class.
[Illustration: 316. Elevation Façade of Sta. Sophia at Constantinople.
(From Salzenberg.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
Externally the building (Woodcut No. 316) possesses little architectural
beauty beyond what is due to its mass and the varied outline arising
from the mechanical contrivances necessary to resist the thrust of its
internal construction. It may be that, like the early Christian
basilicas at Rome, it was purposely left plain to distinguish it from
the external adornment of Heathen temples, or it may have been intended
to revêt it with marble, and add the external ornament afterwards.
Before we became acquainted with the ornamental exteriors of Syrian
churches, the former theory would seem the more plausible, though it can
hardly now be sustained; and when we consider that the second dedication
only took place the year before Justinian’s death, and how soon
troublous times followed, we may fairly assume that what we now see is
only an incomplete design. Whatever may be the case with the exterior,
all the internal arrangements are complete, and perfect both from a
mechanical and an artistic point of view. In such a design as this, the
first requirement was to obtain four perfectly stable arches on which
the dome might rest. The great difficulty was with the two arches
running transversely north and south. These are as nearly as may be 100
ft. span and 120 high to the crown, and 10 ft. on the face. Each of them
has a mass of masonry behind it for an abutment, 75 ft. long by 25 ft.
wide, only partially pierced by arches on the ground and gallery floor;
and as the mass might have been carried to any height, it ought, if
properly constructed, to have sufficed for an arch very much wider and
more heavily weighted than that which it supports. Yet the southern wall
is considerably bulged, and the whole of that side thrown out of the
perpendicular. This probably was the effect of the earthquake which
caused the fall of the dome in 559, since no further settlement seems to
have taken place. The longitudinal arches presented no difficulty. The
distance between the solid parts of the piers was 75 ft., and this was
filled up with a screen wall supporting the inner side of the arch; so,
unless that was crushed, the whole was perfectly stable. Pendentives
between these four arches ought not to have presented any difficulties.
It would, however, have been better, from an architectural point of
view, if they had been carried further up and forward, so as to hang a
weight inside the dome to counteract the outward thrust, as was
afterwards so successfully practised at Beejapore.[227] As it is, the
dome rests rather on the outer edge of the system, without sufficient
space for abutment. In itself the dome is very little lower than a
hemisphere, being 107 ft. across by 46 ft. in height. Externally, it
would have been better if higher; for internal effect this is
sufficient. Its base is pierced by forty small windows, so small and so
low as not to interfere in any way with the apparent construction, but
affording an ample supply of light—in that climate at least—to render
every part of the dome bright and cheerful.
[Illustration: 317. Section of Sta. Sophia from E. to W. Scale 100 ft.
to 1 in.]
Beyond the great dome, east and west, are two semi-domes of a diameter
equal to that of the great dome, and these are again cut into by two
smaller domes, so that the building, instead of being a Greek cross, as
usually asserted, is only 100 ft. across in the centre and 125 wide
beyond the central space each way. There is a little awkwardness in the
way in which the smaller semi-domes cut into the larger, and the three
windows of the latter are unconnected with any other part of the design,
which is unpleasing, but might easily be remedied in a second attempt.
These very irregularities, however, give a variety and appropriateness
to the design which has probably never been surpassed. A single dome of
the area of the central and two semi-domes would not have appeared
nearly so large, and would have overpowered everything else in the
building. As it is, the eye wanders upwards from the large arcades of
the ground floor to the smaller arches of the galleries, and thence to
the smaller semi-domes. These lead the eye on to the larger, and the
whole culminates in the great central roof. Nothing, probably, so
artistic has been done on the same scale before or since. In these
arrangements Sta. Sophia seems to stand alone.
If, however, the proportions of this church are admirable, the details
are equally so. All the pillars are of porphyry, verd antique, or
marbles of the most precious kinds. The capitals are among the most
admirable specimens of the style. It will be remembered that the
governing line of a classical Corinthian capital is a hollow curve, to
which acanthus-leaves or other projecting ornaments were applied. When
the columns were close together, and had only a beam to support, this
form of capital was sufficient; but when employed to carry the
constructive arches of the fabric its weakness became instantly
apparent. Long before Justinian’s time, the tendency became apparent to
reverse the curve and to incise the ornament. In Sta. Sophia the
transition is complete; the capitals are as full as elegance would
allow, and all the surfaces are flat, with ornaments relieved by
incision. In the lower tier of arches (Woodcut No. 318) this is boldly
and beautifully done, the marble being left to tell its own story. In
the upper tier, further removed from the eye, the interstices are filled
in with black marble so as to ensure the desired effect.
[Illustration: 318. Lower Order of Sta. Sophia. (From Salzenberg.)]
All the flat surfaces are covered with a mosaic of marble slabs of the
most varied patterns and beautiful colours; the domes, roofs, and curved
surfaces, with a gold-grounded mosaic relieved by figures or
architectural devices. Though much of the mosaic is now concealed,
enough is left to enable the effect of the whole to be judged of, and it
certainly is wonderfully grand and pleasing. The one thing wanting is
painted glass, like that which adorns the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem,
to render this building as solemnly impressive as it is overpoweringly
beautiful.
Sta. Sophia is so essentially different from the greater number of
churches, that it is extremely difficult to institute a comparison
between them. With regard to external effect, Gothic cathedrals
generally excel it; but whether by accident or by the inherent necessity
of the style is by no means so clear. In so far as the interior is
concerned, no Gothic architect ever rose to the conception of a hall 100
ft. wide, 250 ft. in length, and 180 ft. high, and none ever disposed
each part more artistically to obtain the effect he desired to produce.
Where the Byzantine style might profit from the experience subsequently
gained by Gothic architects is in the use of mouldings. The one defect
in the decoration of Sta. Sophia is that it depends too much on colour.
It would have been better if the pier-arches, the window-frames, and the
string-courses generally had been more strongly accentuated by moulding
and panellings, but this is a slight defect among so many beauties.
[Illustration: 319. Upper Order of Sta. Sophia. (From Salzenberg.)]
A comparison with the great Renaissance cathedrals is more easy, but
results even more favourably to the Byzantine example. Two of these have
domes which are considerably larger—St. Peter’s at Rome and Sta. Maria
at Florence being each 126 ft.; St. Paul’s, London (108), is within a
foot of the same diameter, all the rest are smaller.[228] This, however,
is of less consequence than the fact that they are all adjuncts to the
design of the church. None of them are integral or supported by the rest
of the design, and all tend to dwarf the buildings they are attached to
rather than to heighten the general effect. With scarcely an exception
also all the Renaissance cathedrals employ internally great sprawling
pillars and pilasters, designed for external use by the Romans, which
not only diminish the apparent size of the building but produce an
effect of unreality and sham utterly fatal to true art.
In fact, turn it as we will, and compare it as we may with any other
buildings of its class, the verdict seems inevitable that Sta. Sophia—
internally at least, for we may omit the consideration of the exterior,
as unfinished—is the most perfect and most beautiful church which has
yet been erected by any Christian people. When its furniture was
complete the verdict would probably have been still more strongly in its
favour; but so few of the buildings described in these pages retain
these adjuncts in anything like completeness that they must be withdrawn
from both sides and our remarks be confined to the architecture, and
that only.
The church of Sta. Sophia at Thessalonica, according to Greek tradition,
was built by Justinian in the latter part of his reign.[229] It is a
church of considerable dimensions, measuring 140 ft. east and west by
118 ft. in width, with a dome 33 ft. in diameter. It possesses also an
upper gallery, and its arrangements generally are well considered and
artistic. There does not seem to be any documentary evidence of its age,
but judging from the details published in Texier, the date ascribed to
it seems probable. This has been further established lately from an
inscription found in the apse, which as well as the dome still retain
their ancient mosaics; the inscription is incomplete, but Messrs.
Duchesne and Bayet, in an appendix to their work on Mount Athos, ascribe
it to the second half of the 6th century. The church possesses one
special characteristic: above the pendentives is a low drum, circular
internally,[230] in which windows are pierced, but which, externally, is
carried up square: by this means the angle piers are well weighted and
are thus enabled to resist more effectually the thrust of the arches
carrying the pendentives. The two side walls also, which in Sta. Sophia
at Constantinople were built almost flush with the inner arch, leaving
outside a widely-projecting arch thrown across between the buttresses to
carry the buttresses of the dome, are here placed flush with the outside
of the arch, thus giving increased space to the interior.
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.
The publication of the Count De Vogüé’s book has enabled us to realise
the civil and domestic architecture of Syria in the 5th and 6th
centuries with a completeness that, a very short time ago, would have
been thought impossible. Owing to the fact that every part of the
buildings in the Hauran was in stone, and that they were suddenly
deserted on the Mahomedan conquest, never, apparently, to be
re-occupied, many of the houses remain perfectly entire to the present
day, and in Northern Syria only the roofs are gone.
Generally they seem to have been two storeys in height, adorned with
verandahs supported by stone columns, the upper having a solid
screen-fence of stone about 3 ft. 6 in. high, intended apparently as
much to secure privacy to the sleeping apartments of the house as
protection against falling out. In some instances the lower storey is
twice the height of the upper, and contained the state apartments of the
house. In others, as in that at Refadi (Woodcut No. 320), it seems to
have been intended for the offices. In the plan of a house at Moudjeleia
(Woodcut No. 321) the principal block of the house is in two storeys,
with portico on ground floor and verandah over. The buildings at the
back with their courtyard were probably offices, and those in front by
the side of the main entrance warehouses or stores.
[Illustration: 320. Elevation of House at Refadi. (From De Vogüé.) Scale
20 ft. to 1 in.]
In some instances one is startled to find details which we are
accustomed to associate with much more modern dates; as, for instance,
this window (Woodcut No. 322) from the palace at Chaqqa, which there
seems no reason whatever for doubting belongs to the 3rd century—
anterior to the time of Constantine! It looks more like the vagary of a
French architect of the age of Francis I.
[Illustration: 321. Plan of house at Moudjeleia.]
[Illustration: 322. Window at Chaqqa. (From De Vogüé.)]
The building known as the Golden Gateway at Jerusalem and attributed to
Justinian, bears in its details many striking resemblances to those of
the 5th and 6th centuries in Central Syria, illustrated in De Vogüé’s
book. It is situated on the east side of the Haram enclosure, and
consists of a vestibule divided by columns into two aisles of three bays
each vaulted with a cupola[231] carried on arches, between which and the
capitals of the columns is found the Byzantine dosseret already referred
to. Within the eastern doorways (said to have been blocked up by Omar)
are two huge monoliths 14 ft. 6 in. and 11 ft. respectively, the
doorposts of an earlier gateway. Externally, on the entrance fronts
(east and west), the entablature of the pilasters is carried round the
circular-headed doorways which they flank; the earliest instance of this
development is found in the Palace of Diocletian at Spalato, and there
is a second example in the Roman gateway to the Mosque of Damascus,
which probably suggested the idea to the Byzantine builders; the sharp
stiff foliage of Greek type with which the ornament is carved on the
Golden Gate agrees in style and character with that in the church of St.
Demetrius at Thessalonica dating from the commencement of the 6th
century.
[Illustration: 323. Interior of the Golden Gateway. (From a Drawing by
Catherwood. Originally published in Fisher’s ‘Oriental Album.’)]
Of similar style and character are the arch-moulds of the double gate on
the south wall of the Haram, and the cupolas of the interior vestibule,
the columns carrying them however being probably of earlier date and
possibly part of the substructure of Herod’s temple. The surface
decoration of these cupolas is similar to that found in Central Syria.
[Illustration: 324. Golden Gateway (west side). (From a Photograph.)]
The sepulchral remains of Syria, both structural and rock-cut, seem
nearly as numerous as the dwellings of the living, and are full of
interest, not only from their frequently bearing dates, but from their
presenting new types of tombs, or old types in such new forms as
scarcely to be recognizable.
[Illustration: 325. Roof of one of the Compartments of the Gate Huldah.
(From De Vogüé.)]
The oldest example, that of Hamrath in Souideh, dates from the 1st
century B.C., and consists of a tomb 28 ft. square decorated with
semi-detached Doric columns; the roof is gone, but it was probably
covered with one of pyramidal form like the tomb of Zechariah (Woodcut
No. 238).
The tomb of Diogenes at Hass (Woodcut No. 326), also square, consisted
of two storeys, with a portico on the ground storey on one side, and a
peristyle on all four sides of the upper storey, above which rose the
central walls carrying a pyramidal roof, not stepped, as in the
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, but with projecting bosses on each stone.
The same class of roof is found on other tombs, being adopted probably
as the simplest method of covering over the tomb; these tombs date from
the 4th and 5th centuries, and in all cases the sepulchral chambers
within them are vaulted with large slabs of stone carried on stone ribs.
[Illustration: 326. Tomb at Hass]
Besides these, there is another class of tomb apparently very numerous,
in which the sepulchral chamber is below the ground, with vaulted
entrance rising to form a podium on which columns either two or four in
number are erected;[232] in the latter case the columns bearing an
entablature with small pyramidal roof; in the former a fragment of
architrave only, the two columns being sometimes tied together one-third
of the way down by a stone band with dentils carved on it: these tombs
are, many of them, dated, and belong to the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
With our present limits it is only possible to characterize generally
the main features of the Byzantine style, and to indicate the sources
from which further information may be obtained. In the present instance
it is satisfactory to find that ample materials now exist for filling up
a framework which a few years ago was almost entirely a blank. Any one
who will master the works of De Vogüé, or Texier, or Salzenberg, and
other minor publications, may easily acquire a fair knowledge of the
older Byzantine style of architecture. Once it is grasped it will
probably be acknowledged that there are few more interesting chapters
than that which explains how a perfect Christian Church like that of
Sta. Sophia was elaborated out of the classical edifices of ancient
Rome. It will also probably be found that there are few more instructive
lessons to be learnt from the study of architectural history than the
tracing of the various contrivances which were so earnestly employed,
during the first two centuries of Christian supremacy, in attaining this
result.
CHAPTER IV.
NEO-BYZANTINE STYLE.
CONTENTS.
Sta. Irene, Constantinople—Churches at Ancyra, Trabala, and
Constantinople—Churches at Thessalonica and in Greece—Domestic
Architecture.
Santa Sophia at Constantinople was not only the grandest and most
perfect creation of the old school of Byzantine art, but it was also the
last. It seems as if the creative power of the Empire had exhausted
itself in that great effort, and for long after it the history is a
blank. We always knew that the two centuries which elapsed between the
ages of Constantine and Justinian were ages of great architectural
activity. We knew that hundreds, it may be thousands, of churches were
erected during that period. With the two subsequent centuries, however,
the case seems widely different. Shortly after Justinian’s death, the
troubles of the Empire, the Persian wars of Heraclius, and, more than
either, the rise of the Mahomedan power in the East, and of the Roman
pontificate under Gregory the Great in the West—all tended so to disturb
and depress the Byzantine kingdom as to leave little leisure and less
means for the exercise of architectural magnificence. It is therefore
hardly probable that we shall ever be in a position to illustrate the
7th and 8th centuries as we now know we can the 5th and 6th. Still,
building must have gone on, because when we again meet the style, it is
changed. One of the very earliest churches of the new school is that of
Sta. Irene at Constantinople, rebuilt as we now find it by Leo the
Isaurian (A.D. 718-740). It differs in several essential particulars
from the old style, and contains the germ of much that we find
frequently repeated. The change is not so great as might have taken
place in two centuries of building activity, but it is considerable. In
this church we find, apparently for the first time in a complete form,
the new mode of introducing the light to the dome through a
perpendicular drum, which afterwards became so universal that it serves
to fix the age of a building in the East with almost as much certainty
as the presence of a pointed arch does that of a building in the West.
As this invention is so important, it may be well to recapitulate the
steps by which it was arrived at.
[Illustration: 327. Half Section, half Elevation, of Dome of Sta. Irene
at Constantinople.]
The oldest mode of lighting a dome is practised in the Pantheon (Woodcut
No. 191), by simply leaving out the central portion. Artistically and
mechanically nothing could be better, but before the invention of glass
it was intolerably inconvenient whenever much rain or snow fell. A
change therefore was necessary, and it is found in the tomb or temple of
Marcellus, built during the reign of Constantine on the Via Prenestina
at Rome. It consists simply of boring four circular holes through the
dome a little above its springing. The next step is seen at Thessalonica
in the church of St. George (Woodcut No. 305). There eight semi-circular
lunettes are pierced in the dome, at its springing, and answer the
purpose very perfectly. The system culminated in Sta. Sophia, where
forty windows introduce a flood of light without its ever falling on the
eyes of the spectator. After this it seems to have been considered
desirable not to break the hemisphere of the dome, but to place the
windows in a perpendicular circular rim of masonry—called the drum—and
to introduce the light always through that. Externally there can be no
doubt but that this was an improvement; it gave height and dignity to
the dome in small churches, where, without this elevation, the feature
would have been lost. Internally, however, the advantage is
problematical: the separation of the dome from its pendentives destroyed
the continuity of the roof, and introduced the stilted effect so
objectionable in Renaissance domes. In the Neo-Byzantine churches the
dome became practically a skylight on the roof, the drum increasing in
height and the dome diminishing in dignity as the style progressed. As
all the churches are small, the feature is unobjectionable; but in
larger edifices it would have been found difficult to construct it, and
the artistic result would hardly have been pleasing, even had this
difficulty been got over. Be this as it may, its value as a chronometric
landmark is undoubted.
As a rule it may generally be asserted that, in all Christian domes
erected during the old Byzantine period, the light is introduced by
openings in the dome itself.[233] After that time, the light is as
generally admitted through windows in the drum, the dome itself being
cut into only in the rarest possible instances.
[Illustration: 328. St Clement, Ancyra. (From a Drawing by Ed.
Falkener.)]
[Illustration: 329. Church of St. Clement, Ancyra. Scale 100 ft. to 1
in.]
If these views are correct, the church of St. Clement at Ancyra is a
transitional specimen subsequent to Sta. Sophia, because the dome is
raised timidly (Woodcut No. 328) on a low drum pierced with four small
windows; but it is anterior to Sta. Irene, because the dome is still
pierced with twelve larger windows, after the manner of Sta. Sophia and
the older churches. All the details of its architecture, in so far as
they can be made out, bear out this description. They are further
removed from the classical type than the churches of Justinian, and the
whole plan (Woodcut No. 329) is more that which the Greek church
afterwards took than any of the early churches show. Its greatest
defect—though the one most generally inherent in the style—is in its
dimensions. It is only 64 ft. long, over all externally, by 58 ft. wide.
Yet this is a fair average size of a Greek church of that age.
Another church, very similar, is found at Myra, dedicated to St.
Nicholas. It exceeds that of St. Clement in size, and has a double
narthex considerably larger in proportion, but so ruined that it is
difficult to make out its plan, or to ascertain whether it is a part of
the original structure, or a subsequent addition. The cupola is raised
on a drum, and altogether the church has the appearance of being much
more modern than that at Ancyra.
A third church of the same class, and better preserved, is found at
Trabala in Lycia. It is of the same type as St. Clement, and similar in
its arrangements to Sta. Sophia, except in the omission of the
semi-domes, which seem never to have been adopted in the provinces,[234]
and indeed may be said to be peculiar to the metropolitan church.
Notwithstanding the beauty of that feature, it appears to have remained
dormant till revived by the Turks in Constantinople, and there alone.
In this example there are two detached octagonal buildings, either tombs
or sacristies; a form which, except in large detached buildings, does
not seem to have been so common as the circular, till after the time of
Justinian.
[Illustration: 330. Church at Trabala. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
Returning to the capital, we find one other remarkable peculiarity of
the Neo-Byzantine style in the attempt to allow the external surface of
an ordinary tunnel-vault to retain its form without any ridge whatever.
It can hardly be doubted that this is artistically a mistake. With domes
it was early felt to be so, and consequently we always find a flower or
pinnacle in iron, or some such ornament, marking the centre. In this the
Saracenic architects were especially successful—all their domes possess
a central ornament sufficient to relieve them, and generally of the most
beautiful proportions. With the extrados of a circular vault, however,
it is even worse than with a dome. A roof is felt to be a contrivance to
keep off the rain. It may be more or less sloping, according to the
materials of which it is constructed; but to make one part of each ridge
sloping, and the central portion flat, is a discord that offends the
eye, besides looking weak and unmeaning. A pointed arch would avoid the
evil, but a reverse or ogee curve is perhaps the most pleasing. In the
Neo-Byzantine age, however, between the 8th and the 12th centuries, the
eye seems to have got accustomed to it. It is common in the East,
especially at Constantinople and at Venice. In St. Mark’s and elsewhere
it became so familiar a form that it was copied and continued by the
Renaissance architects even to the end of the 16th century.
[Illustration: 331. Church of Moné tés Choras. (From Lenoir.) No scale.]
One of the best illustrations of these peculiarities is the church of
Moné tés Choras at Constantinople, now converted into a mosque and
called Kahriyeh Djamisi. The older part of it seems to belong to the
11th century, the side-aisles to the 12th, and though small, it
illustrates the style perfectly. The porch consists of five arches
covered with an intersecting vault, visible both externally and
internally. The last two bays are covered with cupolas which still
retain their mosaics internally, and those of singular beauty and
brilliancy, though, owing to the constructive defects of the
intermediate parts, the wet has leaked through, and the mosaics have
mostly peeled off. Externally the front is ornamented with courses of
stones alternating with two or three layers of tiles, and even in its
ruined state is effective and picturesque. Its principal interest is
that it shows what was the matrix[235] of the contemporary church of St.
Mark at Venice. Subsequent additions have much modified the external
appearance of St. Mark, but there can be very little doubt that
originally it was intended to be very like the façade shown in Woodcut
No. 331.
Not far from Moné tés Choras there are two other churches of the same
class and of about the same age. One, the Pantokrator, has been added to
at various times so as to cover a large space of ground, but it consists
consequently of small and ill-assorted parts. It retains, however, a
good deal of its marble pavements and other features of interest. The
other, known as the Fethîyeh Djamisi, is smaller and more complete, and
possesses some mosaics of considerable beauty.
[Illustration: 332. Plan of the Theotokos. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 333. Elevation of Church of the Theotokos. (From Lenoir,
‘Architecture Monastique.’) Enlarged scale.]
The best example of its class, however, in Constantinople is that known
as the Theotokos. Like those just mentioned it is very small, the church
itself being only 37 ft. by 45, and, though its double narthex and
lateral adjuncts add considerably to its dimensions, it is still only a
very small church. Some parts of it are as old as the 9th or 10th
century, but the façade represented in Woodcut No. 333 is certainly not
older than the 12th century. Taking it altogether, it is perhaps the
most complete and elegant church of its class now known to exist in or
near the capital, and many of its details are of great beauty and
perfection.
It seems scarcely possible to suppose that the meagre half-dozen of
small churches just enumerated are all that were erected in the capital
between the death of Justinian and the fall of the city. Yet there is no
evidence that the Turks destroyed any. Why should they? They converted
them into mosques, finding them especially convenient for that purpose,
and they have maintained them with singularly little alteration to the
present day.
THESSALONICA.
This deficiency of examples in the capital is to some extent supplied by
those which are found existing at Thessalonica. Three churches belonging
to this age are illustrated in Texier and Pullan’s work.
[Illustration: 334. Apse of Church of the Apostles, Thessalonica. (From
Texier and Pullan.)]
The first of these is the church of Kazandjita Djami, dedicated to the
Mother of God, a small church measuring only 53 ft. by 37, exclusive of
the apse. Its date is perfectly ascertained—viz., 1028.
Next to these comes the church of Elias, A.D. 1054, and very similar to
it in style is that of the Apostles (Woodcut No. 334), which we may
consequently date with safety in the 11th century, from this
juxtaposition alone, though there are several other examples which
enable us to treat it as a characteristic type of the age. It is a
pleasing and picturesque specimen of Byzantine brickwork. Like all the
churches of the time, it is small, 63 ft. by 59 externally. In plan it
very much resembles the Theotokos at Constantinople, but in elevation is
taller and thinner; though whether this arises from any local
peculiarity, or from some difference of age, is not clear. I suspect the
former. The earthquakes of the capital may have induced a less ambitious
form, as far as height is concerned, than was adopted in the provinces.
GREECE.
[Illustration: 335. Catholicon Dochiariu.]
There can be little doubt but that, if a systematic search were made
among the churches of Greece, many would be brought to light which would
be most useful in completing our knowledge of the Neo-Byzantine
style.[236] At Mount Athos there exists from twenty to thirty
monasteries, each with its Catholicon or principal church and other
chapels. Many of these are of ancient date, ranging between the 10th and
16th centuries, and although some of them may have been restored, in
some cases rebuilt in later times, they have not yet been examined or
illustrated by any competent architect. Brockhaus in his work[237] gives
the plan of three churches, one of which, the Catholicon (dated 1043) of
the Dochiariu Monastery (Woodcut No. 335), is further illustrated by a
bird’s-eye view taken from a photograph. The domes and drums over the
narthex and two eastern chapels would seem to be later additions, made
either in consequence of the proximity of the buildings of the monastery
which obscured the light obtainable from windows, or to show better the
wall frescoes, which in the case of the narthex, where no windows ever
existed, must have been quite dark at first. The oldest church (963
A.D.) apparently is that of the Protaton at Caryas, which consists of a
short nave, a transept, and a long choir, and is wanting in that one
feature which is supposed to be characteristic of a Byzantine church,
viz., a dome; the whole building is covered like a basilica with a flat
wooden roof, beneath which are clerestory windows. Photogravures or
woodcuts are given of the churches of Chilandari (1197 A.D.), Xeropotamu
(1028-34 A.D.), the Laura (963 A.D., but rebuilt under Turkish rule),
and woodcuts from photographs in an interesting description of the
Monasteries by Mr. A. Riley,[238] give a good general idea of the work
to be found in Athos, from which it would seem that the chief interest
centres in the sumptuous carvings of the icon and stalls,[239] and in
the frescoes with which most of the interiors of the churches are
painted.
[Illustration: 336. Plan of Panagia Lycodemo. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 337. Church of Panagia Lycodemo. (From A. Lenoir.)
Enlarged scale.]
For Greece proper we are dependent almost wholly on Couchaud[240] and
Blouet.[241] So far as the illustrations go they suggest that there are
no churches of such dimensions as would ensure dignity, nor are any so
beautiful in outline or detail as to make us regret much that we do not
know more about them. Still they are sufficiently original to be worthy
of study, and when properly known may help to join together some of the
scattered links of the chain which once connected the architecture of
the West and East, but which is at present so difficult to follow out.
In Athens there are several churches of considerable interest, and not
without architectural pretension. They are all small, however. The
largest is that known as Panagia Lycodemo, or the church of St.
Nicodemus, and is only 62 ft. long by 45 ft. wide over all. It seems
also to be the oldest, since its dome is partially pierced with windows
inside, though outside there is a distinctly marked drum (Woodcut No.
337). Notwithstanding the smallness of its dimensions, considerable
effect is obtained internally by the judicious arrangement of the parts
and the harmony of proportion which reigns throughout. The exterior is
also pleasing, though the loss of the cornice gives an unfinished look
to the whole, and there is a want of sufficient connection between the
dome and the walls of the building to make them part of one composition.
[Illustration: 338. Cathedral at Athens. (From Gailhabaud.)]
A more beautiful and more interesting example is the church known as the
Catholicon or Cathedral at Athens (Woodcut No. 338). It is a cathedral,
however, only in a Greek sense, certainly not as understood in the Latin
Church, for its dimensions are only 40 ft. by 25 over all externally. It
is almost impossible to judge of its age from its details, since they
are partly borrowed from older classical buildings, or imitations of
classical forms, so fashioned as to harmonize with parts which are old.
But the tallness of its dome, the form of its windows, and the internal
arrangements, all point to a very modern date for its erection—as
probably the 13th century as the 11th or 12th.
The church of the Virgin at Mistra in the Peloponnesus was built in the
13th century on a hillside overlooking the plain of Sparta, and partly
with materials taken from the remains of the ancient city; but though it
belongs possibly to the same age as the Catholicon at Athens, it differs
considerably from it in style, and bears much more resemblance to the
churches of Apulia and Sicily than either of those described above.
[Illustration: 339. Plan of Church at Mistra. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 340. Church at Mistra. (From Couchaud, ‘Églises
Byzantines en Grèce.’) Enlarged scale.]
Where arcades are used externally in these Greek churches, they are
generally supported by pillars of somewhat classical look (often old
classic columns and capitals were used up), crowned by capitals of the
square foliaged form, employed to support arches in the early styles all
over Europe; and the windows, when divided, take merely the form of
diminutive arcades. The Byzantines never attained to tracery; all their
early windows are single round-headed openings. These were afterwards
grouped together in threes and fives; and, as in the Gothic style, when
they could be put under one discharging arch, the piers were attenuated
till they became almost mullions, but always supporting constructive
arches, without any tendency to run into interlacing forms like the
Gothic. The universal employment of mural painting in Byzantine
churches, and the consequent exclusion of painted glass, rendered the
use of the large windows which the Gothic architects employed quite
inadmissible; and in such a climate very much smaller openings sufficed
to admit all the light that was required. Tracery would thus, in fact,
have been an absurdity, and the windows were often filled in with
transparent marble slabs pierced with holes, which were either glazed or
occasionally even left open. The Byzantine architects sought to ornament
their windows externally by the employment of tiles or colours disposed
in various patterns, and often produced a very pleasing effect, as may
be seen from the woodcut (No. 337) illustrating the apse of the Panagia
Lycodemo at Athens, in the Hebdomon Palace (Woodcut No. 342), and other
specimens already quoted.
[Illustration: 341. Apse from Mistra. (From Couchaud.)]
Occasionally we find in these churches projecting porches or balconies,
and machicolations, which give great relief to the general flatness of
the walls. These features are all marked with that elegance peculiar to
the East, and more especially to a people claiming descent from the
ancient Greeks, and possibly having some of their blood in their veins.
Sometimes, too, even a subordinate apse is supported on a bracket-like
balcony, so as to form a very pleasing object, as in the accompanying
specimen from Mistra.
On the whole the Neo-Byzantine style may be said to be characterised by
considerable elegance, with occasional combinations of a superior order;
but after the time of Justinian the country was too deficient in unity
or science to attempt anything great or good, and too poor to aspire to
grandeur, so that it has no claim to rank among the great styles of the
earth.[242] The old Byzantine style was elevated to a first-class
position through the buildings of Justinian; but from his time the
history of the art is a history of decline, like that of the Eastern
Empire itself and of Greece, down to the final extinction both of the
Empire and the style, under the successive conquests by the Venetians
and the Turks. The only special claim which the Neo-Byzantine style
makes upon our sympathies or attention is that of being the direct
descendant of Greek and Roman art. As such, it forms a connecting link
between the past and present which must not be overlooked, while in
itself it has sufficient merit to reward the student who shall apply
himself to its elucidation.
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.
[Illustration: 342. Palace of the Hebdomon, Constantinople.]
It is more than probable that very considerable remains of the civil or
domestic architecture of the Neo-Byzantine period may still be
recovered. Most of their palaces or public buildings have continued to
be occupied by their successors, but the habits of Turkish life are
singularly opposed to the prying of the archæologist. Almost the only
building which has been brought to light and illustrated is the palace
of the Hebdomon at Blachernæ in Constantinople, built by Constantine
Porphyrogenitus (913-949). All that remains of it, however, is a block
of buildings 80 ft. by 40 in plan, forming one end of a courtyard; those
at the other end, which were more extensive, being too much ruined to be
restored. The parts that remain probably belong to the 9th century, and
consist of two halls, one over the other, the lower supported by pillars
carrying vaults, the upper free. The façade towards the court (Woodcut
342) is of considerable elegance, being adorned by a mosaic of bricks of
various colours disposed in graceful patterns, and forming an
architectural decoration which, if not of the highest class, is very
appropriate for domestic architecture.
One great cause of the deficiency of examples may be the combustibility
of the capital. They may have been destroyed in the various fires, and
outside Constantinople the number of large cities and their wealth and
importance was gradually decreasing till the capital itself sunk into
the power of the Turks in the year 1453.
CHAPTER V.
ARMENIA.
CONTENTS.
Churches at Dighour, Usunlar, Pitzounda, Bedochwinta, Mokwi,
Etchmiasdin, and Kouthais—Churches at Ani and Samthawis—Details.
CHRONOLOGY.
Dates.
Tiridates converted to Christianity by Gregory II. A.D. 276
St. Gregory confirmed as Pontiff by Pope Sylvester 319
Christianity proscribed and persecuted by the Persians 428-632
Fall of Sassanide dynasty. 632
Establishment of Bagratide dynasty under Ashdod 859
Greatest prosperity under Apas 928
Ashdod III. 951
Sempad II. 977-989
Alp Arslan takes Ani 1064
Gajih, last of the dynasty, slain 1079
Gengis Khan 1222
The architectural province of Armenia forms an almost exact pendant to
that of Greece in the history of Byzantine architecture. Both were early
converted to Christianity, and Greece remained Christian without any
interruption from that time to this. Yet all her earlier churches have
perished, we hardly know why, and left us nothing but an essentially
Mediæval style. Nearly the same thing happened in Armenia, but there the
loss is only too easily accounted for. The Persian persecution in the
5th and 6th centuries must have been severe and lasting, and the great
_bouleversement_ of the Mahomedan irruption in the 7th century would
easily account for the disappearance of all the earlier monuments. When,
in more tranquil times—in the 8th and 9th centuries—the Christians were
permitted to rebuild their churches, we find them all of the same small
type as those of Greece, with tall domes, painted with frescoes
internally, and depending for external effect far more on minute
elaboration of details than on any grandeur of design or proportion.
Although the troubles and persecutions from the 5th to the 8th century
may have caused the destruction of the greater part of the monuments, it
by no means follows that all have perished. On the contrary, we know of
the church above alluded to (p. 428) as still existing at Nisibin and
belonging to the 4th century, and there can be little doubt that many
others exist in various corners of the land; but they have hardly yet
been looked for, at least not by anyone competent to discriminate
between what was really old and what may have belonged to some
subsequent rebuilding or repair.
[Illustration: 343. View of Church at Dighour. (From Texier.)]
Till this more careful examination of the province shall have been
accomplished, our history of the style cannot be carried back beyond the
Hejira. Even then very great difficulty exists in arranging the
materials, and in assigning correct dates to the various examples. In
the works of Texier,[243] Dubois,[244] Brosset,[245] and Grimm[246] some
forty or fifty churches are described and figured in more or less
detail, but in most cases the dates assigned to them are derived from
written testimony only, the authors not having sufficient knowledge of
the style to be able to check the very fallacious evidence of the
_litera scripta_. In consequence of this, the dates usually given are
those of the building of the first church on the spot, whereas, in a
country so troubled by persecution as Armenia, the original church may
have been rebuilt several times, and what we now see is often very
modern indeed.
[Illustration: 344. Plan of Church at Dighour. (From Texier.) Scale 50
ft. to 1 in.]
Among the churches now existing in Armenia, the oldest seems to be that
in the village of Dighour near Ani. There are neither traditions nor
inscriptions to assist in fixing its date; but, from the simplicity of
its form and its quasi-classical details, it is evidently older than any
other known examples, and with the aid of the information conveyed in De
Vogüé’s recent publications we can have little hesitation in assigning
it to the 7th century.[247] The church is not large, being only 95 ft.
long by 82 wide over all. Internally its design is characterised by
extreme solidity and simplicity, and all the details are singularly
classical in outline. The dome is an ellipse, timidly constructed, with
far more than the requisite amount of abutment. One of its most marked
peculiarities is the existence of two external niches placed in
projecting wings and which were no doubt intended to receive altars. Its
flanks are ornamented by three-quarter columns of debased classical
design. These support an architrave which is bent over the heads of the
windows as in the churches of Northern Syria erected during the 6th
century.
[Illustration: 345. Section of Dome at Dighour.]
Its western and lateral doorways are ornamented by horse-shoe arches,
which are worth remarking here, as it is a feature which the Saracenic
architects used so currently and employed for almost every class of
opening. The oldest example of this form known is in the doorway of the
building called Takt-i-Gero on Mount Zagros.[248] In this little shrine,
all the other details are so purely and essentially classic that the
building must be dated before or about the time of Constantine. The
horse-shoe arch again occurs in the church at Dana on the Euphrates in
540.[249] At Dighour we find it used, not in construction but as an
ornamental feature. The stilting of the arch was evidently one of those
experiments which the architects of that time were making in order to
free themselves from the trammels of the Roman semi-circular arch. The
Saracens carried it much further and used it with marked success, but
this is probably the last occasion in which it was employed by a
Christian architect as a decorative expedient.
The six buttresses, with their offsets, which adorn the façade, are
another curious feature in the archæology of this church. If they are
integral parts of the original design, which there seems no reason to
doubt, they anticipate by several centuries the appearance of this form
in Western Europe.
[Illustration: 346. Plan of Church at Usunlar. (From Grimm.) Scale 50
ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 347. West Elevation of Church at Usunlar. (From Grimm.)
Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 348. Plan of Church at Pitzounda. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
One of the oldest and least altered of the Armenian churches seems to be
that of Usunlar, said to have been erected by the Catholicos Jean IV.
between the years 718 and 726. In plan it looks like a peristylar
temple, but the verandahs which surround it are only low arcades, and
have very little affinity with classical forms. These are carried round
the front, but there pierced only by the doorway. The elevation, as here
exhibited, is simple, but sufficiently expresses the internal
arrangements, and, with an octagonal dome, forms, when seen in
perspective, a pleasing object from every point of view. Both plan and
design are, however, exceptional in the province. A far more usual
arrangement is that found at Pitzounda in Abkassia, which may be
considered as the typical form of an Armenian church. It is said to have
been erected by the Emperor Justinian, and there is nothing in the style
or ornamentation of the lower part that seems to gainsay its being his.
But the plan is so like many that belong to a much later age, that we
must hesitate before we can feel sure that it has not been rebuilt at
some more modern date. Its cupola certainly belongs to a period long
after the erection of Sta. Irene at Constantinople (Woodcut No. 327),
when the dome pierced with tall windows had become the fashionable form
of dome in the Byzantine school. Its interior, also, is unusually tall,
and the pointed arches under the dome look like integral parts of the
design, and when so employed belong certainly to a much more modern
date. On the whole, therefore, it seems that this church, as we now see
it, may have been rebuilt in the 9th or 10th century.
[Illustration: 349. Section of Church at Pitzounda. (From Dubois.) No
scale.]
[Illustration: 350. View of Church at Pitzounda. (From Dubois.)]
Whatever its date, it is a pleasing example of the style. Externally it
is devoid of ornament except what is obtained by the insertion of tiles
between the courses of the stone, and a similar relief to the windows;
but even this little introduction of colour gives it a gay and cheerful
appearance, more than could easily be obtained by mouldings or carving
in stone.
The upper galleries of the nave and the chapels of the choir are also
well expressed in the external design, and altogether, for a small
church—which it is (only 137 ft. by 75)—it is as pleasing a composition
as could easily be found.
The idea that the date of this church is considerably more modern than
Dubois and others are inclined to assign to it, is confirmed by a
comparison of its plan with that at Bedochwinta, which Brosset
determines from inscriptions to belong to the date 1556-1575; and the
knowledge lately acquired tends strongly to the conviction that this
plan of church belongs to a later period in the Middle Ages, though it
is difficult to determine when it was introduced, and it may be only a
continuation of a much earlier form.
[Illustration: 351. Church at Bedochwinta. (From Brosset.) Scale 100 ft.
to 1 in.]
One other church of this part of the world seems to claim especial
mention, that of Mokwi, built in the 10th century, and painted as we
learn from inscriptions, between 1080 and 1125. It is a large and
handsome church, but its principal interest lies in the fact that in
dimensions and arrangement it is almost identical with the
contemporaneous church of Sta. Sophia at Novogorod, showing a connection
between the two countries which will be more particularly pointed out
hereafter. It is now very much ruined, and covered with a veil of
creepers which prevents its outward form from being easily
distinguished.
[Illustration: 352. Plan of Church at Mokwi. Scale 100 feet to 1
in.[250]]
As will be perceived, its plan is only an extension of the two last
mentioned, having five aisles instead of three; but it is smaller in
scale and more timid in execution. The church which it most resembles is
that at Trabala in Syria (Woodcut No. 330), which is certainly of an
earlier date than any we are acquainted with further east. Practically
the same plan occurs at Athens (Woodcut No. 338), and at Mistra (Woodcut
No. 339), but these seem on a smaller scale than at Mokwi, so that it
may be considered as the typical form of a Neo-Byzantine church for four
or five centuries, and it would consequently be unsafe to attempt to fix
a date from its peculiarities.
[Illustration: 353. Plan of Church at Etchmiasdin. (From Brosset.) Scale
100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 354. Church of Kouthais. (From Dubois.) Scale 100 ft. to
1 in.]
Interesting as these may be in an historical point of view, the most
important ecclesiastical establishment in this part of the world is that
of Etchmiasdin. Here are four churches built on the spots from which,
according to tradition, rose the two arches or rainbows, crossing one
another at right angles, on which our Saviour is said to have sat when
he appeared to St. Gregory. They consequently ought to be at the four
angles of a square, or rectangle of some sort, but this is far from
being the case. The principal of these churches is that whose plan is
represented in Woodcut No. 353. It stands in the centre of a large
square, surrounded by ecclesiastical buildings, and is on the whole
rather an imposing edifice. Its porch is modern; so also, comparatively
speaking, is its dome; but the plan, if not the greater part of the
substructure, is ancient, and exhibits the plainness and simplicity
characteristic of its age. The other three churches lay claim to as
remote a date of foundation as this, but all have been so altered in
modern times that they have now no title to antiquity.
[Illustration: 355. Window at Kouthais. (From Dubois.)]
The idea that the churches at Pitzounda and Bedochwinta must be
comparatively modern is confirmed by comparing their plan with that of
Kouthais, a church which there seems no reasonable ground for doubting
was founded in 1007, and erected, pretty much as we now find it, in the
early part of the 11th century. It has neither coupled piers nor pointed
arches, but is adorned externally with reed-like pilasters and elaborate
frets, such as were certainly employed at Ani in the course of the 11th
century. The annexed elevation (Woodcut No. 355) of one of its windows
exhibits the Armenian style of decoration of this age, but is such as
certainly was not employed before this time, though with various
modifications it became typical of the style at its period of greatest
development.
ANI.
[Illustration: 356. Plan of Cathedral at Ani. (From Texier.) Scale 100
ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 357. Section of Cathedral at Ani. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
Even Etchmiasdin, however, sinks into insignificance, in an
architectural point of view, when compared with Ani, which was the
capital of Armenia during its period of greatest unity and elevation,
and was adorned by the Bagratide dynasty with a series of buildings
which still strike the traveller with admiration, at least for the
beauty of their details; for, like all churches in this part of the
world, they are very small. If, however, the cathedral at Ani is
interesting to the architect from its style, it is still more so to the
archæologist from its date, since there seems no reason to doubt that it
was built in the year 1010, as recorded in an inscription on its walls.
This, perhaps, might be put on one side as a mistake, if it were not
that there are two beautiful inscriptions on the façade, one of which is
dated 1049, the other 1059. To this we must add our knowledge that the
city was sacked by Alp Arslan in 1064, and that the dynasty which alone
could erect such a monument was extinguished in 1080. With all this
evidence, it is startling to find a church not only with pointed arches
but with coupled piers and all the characteristics of a complete
pointed-arch style, such as might be found in Italy or Sicily not
earlier than the 13th century. This peculiarity is, however, confined to
the constructive parts of the interior. The plan is that of Pitzounda or
Bedochwinta, modified only by the superior constructive arrangement
which the pointed arch enabled the architects to introduce; and
externally the only pointed arch anywhere to be detected, is in the
transept, where the arch of the vault is simulated to pass through to
the exterior.
[Illustration: 358. Side Elevation of Cathedral at Ani. Enlarged scale.]
In the plan and elevation of the building will be observed a peculiarity
which was afterwards almost universal in the style. It is the angular
recess which marks the form of the apses outside without breaking the
main lines of the building. In the lateral elevation of this cathedral
(Woodcut No. 358) they are introduced on each side of the portal where
the construction did not require them, in order to match those at the
east end. But in the Cathedral at Samthawis (Woodcut No. 359) they are
seen in their proper places on each side of the central apse. Though
this church was erected between the years 1050-1079, we find these
niches adorned with a foliation (Woodcut No. 360) very like what we are
accustomed to consider the invention of the 14th century in Europe,
though even more elegant than anything of its class used by the Gothic
architects.
At Sandjerli, not far from Ani, is another church, which from
inscriptions translated by M. Brosset, and from sections given by him,
appears to belong to the same date (1033-1044), and to possess coupled
columns and pointed arches like those of the cathedral of Ani, which
indeed it resembles in many points, and which renders the date above
given highly probable.
[Illustration: 359. East Elevation of Chapel at Samthawis. (From
Grimm.)]
[Illustration: 360. Niche at Samthawis. (From Grimm.)]
[Illustration: 361. Plan of Tomb at Ani. (From Texier.)]
[Illustration: 362. Tomb at Ani. (From Texier.)]
The plans above quoted may probably be taken as those most typical of
the style, but in no part of the world are the arrangements of churches
so various. All being small, there were no constructive difficulties to
be encountered, and as no congregation was to be accommodated, the
architects apparently considered themselves at liberty to follow their
fancies in any manner that occurred to them. The consequence is that the
plans of Armenian churches defy classification; some are square, or
rectangles of every conceivable proportion of length to breadth, some
octagons or hexagons, and some of the most indescribable irregularity.
Frequently two, three, or four are grouped and joined together. In some
instances the sacred number of seven are coupled together in one design,
though more generally each little church is an independent erection; but
they are all so small that their plans are of comparatively little
importance. No grandeur of effect or poetry of perspective can be
obtained without considerable dimensions, and these are not to be found
in Armenia.
[Illustration: 363. Tomb at Varzahan. (From Layard’s ‘Nineveh and
Babylon.’)]
There are also some examples of circular churches, but these are far
from being numerous. Generally speaking they are tombs, or connected
with sepulchral rites, and are indeed mere amplifications of the usual
tombs of the natives of the country, which are generally little models
of the domes of Armenian churches placed on the ground, though perhaps
it would be more correct to say that the domes were copied from the
tombs than the reverse.
The most elegant of all those hitherto made known is one found at Ani,
illustrated in Woodcuts Nos. 361, 362. Notwithstanding the smallness of
its dimensions, it is one of the most elegant sepulchral chapels known.
Another on a larger scale (Woodcut No. 363) is borrowed from Mr.
Layard’s book. This tomb shows all the peculiarities of the Armenian
style of the 11th or 12th century. Though so much larger, it is by no
means so beautiful as the last mentioned tomb at Ani. In its
ornamentation a further refinement is introduced, inasmuch as the
reed-like columns are tied together by true love-knots instead of
capitals—a freak not uncommon either in Europe at the same age, or in
the East at the present day, but by no means to be recommended as an
architectural expedient.
[Illustration: 364. Capital at Ani. (From Grimm.)]
[Illustration: 365. Capital at Gelathi. (From Grimm.)]
With scarcely an exception, all the buildings in the Armenian provinces
are so small that they would hardly deserve a place in a history of
architecture were it not for the ingenuity of their plans and the
elegance of their details. The beauty of the latter is so remarkable
that, in order to convey a correct notion of the style, it would be
necessary to illustrate them to an extent incompatible with the scope of
this work. In them too will be found much that has hitherto been
ascribed to other sources. The annexed capital (Woodcut No. 364), for
instance, would generally be put down as Saracenic of the best age, but
it belongs, with a great deal more quite as elegant, to one of the
churches at Ani; and the capital from Gelathi (Woodcut No. 365) would
not excite attention if found in Ireland. The interlacing scrolls which
occupy its head are one of the most usual as well as one of the most
elegant modes of decoration employed in the province, and are applied
with a variety and complexity nowhere else found in stone, though they
may be equalled in some works illustrated by the pen.
Besides, however, its beauty in an artistic point of view, this basket
pattern, as it is sometimes called, is still more so as an Ethnographic
indication which, when properly investigated, may lead to the most
important conclusions. The three following woodcuts, Nos. 366, 367, and
368, taken from churches at a now deserted village called Ish Khan, will
serve to explain its more usual forms; but it occurs almost everywhere
in the Armenian architectural province, and with as infinite a variety
of details as are to be found with its employment in Irish manuscripts.
[Illustration: 366. Window in small Church at Ish Khan, Tortoom. (From a
Photograph.)]
[Illustration: 367. Window in Ish Khan Church, Tortoom. (From a
Photograph.)]
[Illustration: 368. Jamb of doorway at Ish Khan Church, Armenia. (From a
Photograph.)]
Out of Armenia it occurs in the church at Kurtea el Argyisch in
Wallachia (Woodcut No. 385), and is found in Hungary and Styria, and no
antiquary will probably fail to recognise it as the most usual and
beautiful pattern on Irish crosses and Scotch sculptured stones. On the
other hand it occurs frequently in the monolithic deepdans or lamp-posts
and in the temples on the Canarese or West Coast of India, and in all
these instances with so little change of form that it is almost
impossible that these examples should be independent inventions. Still
the gaps in the sequence are so great that it is very difficult to see
how they could emanate from one centre. Few, however, who know anything
of the early architecture of Ireland can fancy that it did come from
Rome across Great Britain, but that it must have had its origin further
east, among some people using groups of churches and small cells,
instead of congregational basilicas. So far, too, as we can yet see, it
is to the East we must look for the original design of the mysterious
round towers which form so characteristic a feature of Irish
architecture, and were afterwards so conspicuous as minars in the East,
and nowhere more so than in Armenia. Recent researches, too, are making
it more and more clear that Nestorian churches did exist all down the
West Coast of India from a very early period, so that it would not be
impossible that from Persia and Armenia they introduced the favourite
style of ornament.
All this may seem idle speculation, and it may turn out that the
similarities are accidental, but at present it certainly does not look
as if they were, and if they do emanate from a common centre, tracing
them back to their original may lead to such curious ethnological and
historical conclusions that it is at all events worth while pointing
them out in order that others may pursue the investigation to its
legitimate conclusion.
Taken altogether, Armenian architecture is far more remarkable for
elegance than for grandeur, and possesses none of that greatness of
conception or beauty of outline essential to an important architectural
style. It is still worthy of more attention than it has hitherto
received, even for its own sake. Its great title to interest will always
be its ethnological value, being the direct descendant of the Sassanian
style, and the immediate parent of that of Russia. At the same time,
standing on the eastern confines of the Byzantine Empire, it received
thence that impress of Christian art which distinguished it from the
former, and which it transmitted to the latter. It thus forms one of
those important links in the chain of architectural history which when
lost render the study of the subject so dark and perplexed, but when
appreciated add so immensely to its philosophical interest.
CHAPTER VI.
ROCK-CUT CHURCHES.
CONTENTS.
Churches at Tchekerman, Inkerman, and Sebastopol—Excavations at Kieghart
and Vardzie.
Intermediate between the Armenian province which has just been described
and the Russian, which comes next in the series, lies a territory of
more than usual interest to the archæologist, though hardly demanding
more than a passing notice in a work devoted to architecture. In the
neighbourhood of Kertch, which was originally colonised by a people of
Grecian or Pelasgic origin, are found numerous tumuli and sepulchres
belonging generally to the best age of Greek art, but which, barring
some slight local peculiarities, would hardly seem out of place in the
cemeteries of Etruria or Crete.
At a later age it was from the shores of the Palus Mœotis and the
Caucasus that tradition makes Woden migrate to Scandinavia, bearing with
him that form of Buddhism[251] which down to the 11th century remained
the religion of the North—while, as if to mark the presence of some
strange people in the land, we find everywhere rock-cut excavations of a
character, to say the least of it, very unusual in the West.
These have not yet been examined with the care necessary to enable us to
speak very positively regarding them;[252] but, from what we do know, it
seems that they were not in any instance tombs, like those in Italy and
many of those in Africa or Syria. Nor can we positively assert that any
of them were viharas or monasteries[253] like most of those in India.
Generally they seem to have been ordinary dwellings, but in some
instances appropriated by the Christians and formed into churches.
[Illustration: 369. Cave of Inkerman. (From Dubois de Montpereux.)]
One, apparently, of the oldest is a rectangular excavation at Tchekerman
in the Crimea. It is 37 ft. in length by 21 in width, with hardly any
decoration on its walls, but having in the centre a choir with four
pillars on each face, which there seems no doubt was originally devoted
to Christian purposes. The cross on the low screen that separates it
from the nave is too deeply cut and too evidently integral to have been
added. But for this it would seem to have been intended for a Buddhist
vihara.
[Illustration: 370. Rock-cut Church at Inkerman. (From Dubois de
Montpereux.)]
Under the fortress at Inkerman—facing the position held by our army—
there is an excavation undoubtedly of Christian origin. It is a small
church with side-aisles, apse, and all the necessary accompaniments.
Beyond this is a square excavation apparently intended as a refectory,
and other apartments devoted to the use of a monastic establishment.
These again are so like what we find among the Buddhist excavations in
India as to be quite startling. The one point in which this church
differs from a Buddhist chaitya is that the aisle does not run round
behind the altar. This is universally the case in Buddhist, but only
exceptionally so in Christian, churches.
[Illustration: 371. View in Church Cave, near Sebastopol.]
Close to Sebastopol is another small church cave with its accompanying
monastery. This one is said to be comparatively modern, and if its
paintings are parts of the original design it may be so, but no certain
data are given for fixing the age of the last two examples. That under
the fortress (Woodcut No. 371) seems, however, to be of considerable
antiquity.
There is one which in plan is very like those just described at Vardzie,
said to belong to the 12th century, and another, almost absolutely
identical with a Buddhist vihara, at Kieghart in Armenia, which has a
date upon it, A.D. 1288.
On the banks of the Kour, however, at Ouplous-Tsikhe and Vardzie, are
some excavations which are either temples or monasteries, and which
range from the Christian era downwards. These are generally assumed to
be residences—one is called the palace of Queen Thamar—and they were
evidently intended for some stately purpose. Yet they were not temples
in any sense in which that term would be employed by the Greek or Roman
world. Whatever their destination, these rock-cut examples make, when
taken altogether, as curious a group of monuments as are to be found in
this corner of Asia, and which may lead afterwards to curious
archæological inferences. At present we are hardly in a position to
speculate on the subject, and merely point to it here as one well
meriting further investigation.
CHAPTER VII.
MEDIÆVAL ARCHITECTURE OF RUSSIA.
CONTENTS.
Churches at Kief—Novogorod—Moscow—Towers.
CHRONOLOGY.
DATES.
Rurik the Varangian at Novogorod A.D. 850
Olga baptized at Constantinople 955
St. Vladimir the Great 981-1015
Yaroslaf died 1054
Sack of Kief 1168
Tartar invasion under Gengis Khan 1224
Tartar wars and domination till 1480
Ivan III. 1462-1505
Basil III. 1505-1533
Ivan IV., or the Terrible 1533-1584
Boris 1598-1605
Peter the Great 1689-1725
The long series of the architectural styles of the Christian world which
has been described in the preceding pages terminates most appropriately
with the description of the art of a people who had less knowledge of
architecture and less appreciation of its beauties than any other with
which we are acquainted. During the Middle Ages the Russians did not
erect one single building which is worthy of admiration, either from its
dimensions, its design, or the elegance of its details; nor did they
invent one single architectural feature which can be called their own.
It is true the Tartars brought with them their bulbous form of dome, and
the Russians adopted it, and adhere to it to the present day,
unconscious that it is the symbol of their subjection to a race they
affect to despise; but excepting as regards this one feature, their
architecture is only a bad and debased copy of the style of the
Byzantine Empire. There is nothing, in fact, in the architecture of the
country to lead us to doubt that the mass of the population of Russia
was always of purely Aryan stock, speaking a language more nearly allied
to the Sanskrit than any of the other Mediæval tongues of Europe, and
that whatever amount of Tartar blood may have been imported, it was not
sufficient to cure the inartistic tendencies of the race. So much is
this felt to be the case, that the Russians themselves hardly lay claim
to the design of a single building in their country from the earliest
times to the present day. They admit that all the churches at Kief,
their earliest capital, were erected by Greek architects; those of
Moscow by Italians or Germans; while those of St. Petersburg, we know,
were, with hardly a single exception, erected by Italian, German, or
French architects. These last have perpetrated caricatures of revived
Roman architecture worse than are to be found anywhere else. Bad as are
some of the imitations of Roman art found in western Europe, they are
all the work of native artists; are, partially at least, adapted to the
climate, and common-sense peeps through their worst absurdities; but in
Russia only second-class foreigners have been employed, and the result
is a style that out-herods Herod in absurdity and bad taste.
Architecture has languished not only in Russia, but wherever the
Sclavonic race predominates. In Poland, Hungary, Moldavia, Wallachia,
&c., although some of these countries have at times been rich and
prosperous, there is not a single original structure worthy to be placed
in comparison with even the second-class contemporary buildings of the
Celtic or Teutonic races.
Besides the ethnographic inaptitude of the nation, however, there are
other causes which would lead us to anticipate, _à priori_, that nothing
either great or beautiful was likely to exist in the Mediæval
architecture of Russia. In the first place, from the conversion of Olga
(964) to the accession of Peter the Great (1689), with whom the national
style expired, the country hardly emerged from barbarism. Torn by
internal troubles, or devastated by incursions of the Tartars, the
Russians never enjoyed the repose necessary for the development of art,
and the country was too thinly peopled to admit of that concentration of
men necessary for the carrying out of any great architectural
undertaking.
Another cause of bad architecture is found in the material used, which
is almost universally brick covered with plaster; and it is well known
that the tendency of plaster architecture is constantly to extravagance
in detail and bad taste in every form. It is also extremely perishable,—
a fact which opens the way to repairs and alterations in defiance of
congruity and taste, and to the utter annihilation of everything like
archæological value in the building.
When the material was not brick it was wood, like most of the houses in
Russia of the present day; and the destroying hand of time, aided no
doubt by fire and the Tartar invasions, have swept away many buildings
which would serve to fill up gaps, now, it is feared, irremediable in
the history of the art.
Notwithstanding all this, the history of architecture in Russia need not
be considered as entirely a blank, or as wholly devoid of interest.
Locally we can follow the history of the style from the south to the
north. Springing originally from two roots—one at Constantinople, the
other in Armenia—it gradually extended itself northward. It first
established itself at Cherson, then at Kief, and after these at Vladimir
and Moscow, whence it spread to the great commercial city of Novogorod.
At all these places it maintained itself till supplanted by the rise of
St. Petersburg.
[Illustration: 372. Church of St. Basil, Kief. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
Though the Princess Olga was baptised in 955, the general profession of
Christianity in Russia did not take place till the reign of Vladimir
(981-1015). He built the wooden cathedral at Cherson, which has
perished. At Kief the same monarch built the church of Dessiatinnaya,
the remains of which existed till within the last few years, when they
were removed to give place to a modern reproduction. He also built that
of St. Basil in the same city, which, notwithstanding modern
improvements, still retains its ancient plan, and is nearly identical in
arrangement and form with the Catholicon at Athens (Woodcut No. 338).
The plan (Woodcut No. 372) gives a fair idea of the usual dimensions of
the older churches of Russia. The parts shaded lighter are subsequent
additions.
[Illustration: 373. St. Irene, Kief.]
A greater builder than Vladimir was Prince Yaroslaf (1019-1054). He
founded the church of St. Irene at Kief (Woodcut No. 373), the ruins of
which still exist. It is a good specimen of the smaller class of
churches of that date.
His great works were the cathedrals of Kief and Novogorod, both
dedicated to Sta. Sophia, and with the church at Mokwi quoted above
(Woodcut No. 352) forming the most interesting group of Russian churches
of that age. All three belong to the 11th century, and are so extremely
similar in plan, that, deducting the subsequent additions from the two
Russian examples, they may almost be said to be identical. They also
show so intimate a connection between the places on the great commercial
road from the Caucasus to the Baltic, that they point out at once the
line along which we must look for the origin of the style.
[Illustration: 374. Plan of Cathedral at Kief. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
Of the three, that at Kief[254] (Woodcut No. 374) is the largest; but it
is nearly certain that the two outer aisles are subsequent additions,
and that the original church was confined to the remaining seven aisles.
As it now stands its dimensions are 185 ft. from north to south, and 136
from east to west. It consequently covers only about 25,000 ft., or not
half the usual dimensions of a Western cathedral of the same class. As
will be perceived, its plan is like that of the churches of Asia Minor,
so far as the central aisles are concerned. In lateral extension it
resembles a mosque, a form elsewhere very unusual in Christian churches,
but which here may be a Tartar peculiarity. At all events it is
generally found in Russian churches, which never adopt the long
basilican form of the West. If their length in an eastern and western
direction ever exceeds the breadth, it is only by taking in the narthex
with the body of the church.
[Illustration: 375. East End of the Church at Novogorod. (From a Drawing
by A. Durand.)]
Internally this church retains many of its original arrangements, and
many decorations which, if not original, are at least restorations or
copies of those which previously occupied their places. Externally it
has been so repaired and rebuilt that it is difficult to detect what
belongs to the original work.
In this respect the church of Novogorod has been more fortunate. Owing
to the early decline of the town it has not been much modernised. The
interior retains many of its primitive features. Among other furniture
is a pair of bronze doors of Italian workmanship of the 12th century
closely resembling those of San Zenone at Verona. The part of the
exterior that retains most of its early features is the eastern end,
represented in the Woodcut No. 375. It retains the long reed-like shafts
which the Armenians borrowed from the Sassanians, and which penetrated
even to this remote corner. Whether the two lower circular apses shown
in the view are old is by no means clear: but it is probable that they
are at least built on ancient foundations. The domes on the roof, and
indeed all the upper part of the building, belong to a more modern date
than the substructure.
The cathedral of Tchernigow, near Kief, founded 1024, retains perhaps
more of its original appearance externally than any other church of its
age. Like almost all Russian churches it is square in plan, with a dome
in the centre surrounded by four smaller cupolas placed diagonally at
the corners. To the eastward are three apses, and the narthex is flanked
by two round towers, the upper parts of which, with the roofs, have been
modernised, but the whole of the walls remain as originally erected,
especially the end of the transept, which precisely resembles what we
find in Greek Churches of the period.
[Illustration: 376. Cathedral at Tchernigow. (From Blasius, ‘Reise in
Russland.’)]
To the same age belong the convent of the Volkof (1100) and of Yourief
at Novogorod, the church of the Ascension, and several others at Kief.
All these are so modernised as, except in their plans, to show but
slight traces of their origin.
Another of the great buildings of the age was the cathedral of Vladimir
(1046). It is said to have been built, like the rest, by Greek artists.
The richness and beauty of this building have been celebrated by early
travellers, but it has been entirely passed over by more modern writers.
From this it is perhaps to be inferred that its ancient form is
completely disguised in modern alterations.
The ascendency of Kief was of short duration. Early in the 13th century
the city suffered greatly from civil wars, fires, and devastations of
every description, which humbled her pride, and inflicted ruin upon her
from which she never wholly recovered.
Vladimir was after this the residence of the grand dukes, and in the
beginning of the 14th century Moscow became the capital, which it
continued to be till the seat of empire was transferred by Peter the
Great to St. Petersburg. During these three centuries Moscow was no
doubt adorned with many important buildings, since almost every church
traces its foundation back to the 14th century; but as fires and Tartar
invasions have frequently swept over the city since then, few retain any
of the features of their original foundation, and it may therefore
perhaps be well to see what can be gleaned in the provinces before
describing the buildings of the capital.
[Illustration: 377. Village Church near Novogorod. (From a Drawing by A.
Durand.)]
As far as can be gathered from the sketch-books of travellers or their
somewhat meagre notes, there are few towns of Russia of any importance
during the Middle Ages which do not possess churches said to have been
founded in the first centuries after its conversion to Christianity;
though whether the existing buildings are the originals, or how far they
may have been altered and modernised, will not be known till some
archæologist visits the country, directing his attention to this
particular inquiry. Although the Russians probably built as great a
number of churches as any nation of Christendom, yet like the Greek
churches they were all undoubtedly small. Kief is said, even in the age
of Yaroslaf, to have contained 400 churches; Vladimir nearly as many.
Moscow, in the year 1600, had 400 (thirty-seven of which were in the
Kremlin), and now possesses many more.
Many of the village churches still retain their ancient features; the
example here given of one near Novogorod belongs probably to the 12th
century, and is not later than the 13th. It retains its shafted apse,
its bulb-shaped Tartar dome, and, as is always the case in Russia, a
square detached belfry—though in this instance apparently more modern
than the edifice itself. Woodcut No. 378 is the type of a great number
of the old village churches, which, like the houses of the peasants, are
of wood, generally of logs laid one on the other, with their round ends
intersecting at the angles, like the log-huts of America at the present
day. As architectural objects they are of course insignificant, but
still they are characteristic and picturesque.
[Illustration: 378. Village Church near Tzarskoe Selo. (From Durand.)]
Internally all the arrangements of the stone churches are such as are
appropriate for pictorial rather than for sculptural decoration. The
pillars are generally large cylinders covered with portraits of saints,
and the capitals are plain, cushion-like rolls with painted ornaments.
The vaults are not relieved by ribs, or by any projections that could
interfere with the coloured decorations. In the wooden churches the
construction is plainly shown, and of course is far lighter. In them
also colour almost wholly supersedes carving. The peculiarities of these
two styles are well illustrated in the two Woodcuts, Nos. 379 and 380,
from churches near Kostroma in Eastern Russia. Both belong to the Middle
Ages, and both are favourable specimens of their respective classes. In
these examples, as indeed in every Greek church, the principal object of
ecclesiastical furniture is the _iconostasis_ or image-bearer,
corresponding to the rood-screen that separates the choir from the nave
in Latin churches. The rood-screen, however, never assumed in the West
the importance which the iconostasis always possessed in the East. There
it separates and hides from the church the sanctuary and the altar, from
which the laity are wholly excluded. Within it the elements are
consecrated, in the presence of the priests alone, and are then brought
forward to be displayed to the public. On this screen, as performing so
important a part, the Greek architects and artists have lavished the
greatest amount of care and design, and in every Greek church, from St.
Mark’s at Venice to the extreme confines of Russia, it is the object
that first attracts attention on entering. It is, in fact, so important
that it must be regarded rather as an object of architecture than of
church furniture.
[Illustration: 379. Interior of Church at Kostroma. (From Durand.)]
The architectural details of these Russian churches must be pronounced
to be bad; for, even making every allowance for difference of taste,
there is neither beauty of form nor constructive elegance in any part.
The most characteristic and pleasing features are the five domes that
generally ornament the roofs, and which, when they rise from the
_extrados_, or uncovered outside of the vaults, certainly look well. Too
frequently, however, the vault is covered by a wooden roof, through
which the domes then peer in a manner by no means to be admired. The
details of the lower part are generally bad. The view (Woodcut No. 381)
of a doorway of the Troitska monastery, near Moscow, is sufficiently
characteristic. Its most remarkable feature is the baluster-like
pillars, of which the Russians seem so fond. These support an arch with
a pendant in the middle—a sort of architectural _tour de force_ which
the Russian architects practised everywhere and in every age, but which
is far from being beautiful in itself, or from possessing any
architectural propriety. The great roll over the door is also
unpleasant. Indeed, as a general rule, wherever in Russian architecture
the details are original, they must be condemned as ugly.
At Moscow we find much that is at all events curious. It first became a
city of importance about the year 1304, and retained its prosperity
throughout that century. During that time it was adorned by many
sumptuous edifices. In the beginning of the 15th century it was taken
and destroyed by the Tartars, and it was not till the reign of Ivan III.
(1462-1505) that the city and empire recovered the disasters of that
period. It is extremely doubtful if any edifice now found in Moscow can
date before the time of this monarch.
[Illustration: 380. Interior of Church near Kostroma. (From Durand.)]
In the year 1479 this king dedicated the new church of the Assumption of
the Virgin, said to have been built by Aristotile Fioravanti, of
Bologna, in Italy, who was brought to Russia expressly for the purpose.
The plan of it (Woodcut No. 382) gives a good idea of the arrangement of
a Russian church of this age. Small as are its dimensions—only 74 ft. by
56 over all externally, which would be a very small parish church
anywhere else—the two other cathedrals of Moscow, that of the Archangel
Michael and the Annunciation, are even smaller still in plan. Like true
Byzantine churches, they would all be exact squares, but that the
narthex being taken into the church gives it a somewhat oblong form. In
the Church of the Assumption there is, as is almost universally the
case, one large dome over the centre of the square, and four smaller
ones in the four angles.[255] The great iconostasis runs, as at Sta.
Sophia at Kief, quite across the church; but the two lateral chapels
have smaller screens inside which hide their altars, so that the part
between the two becomes a sort of private chapel. This seems to be the
plan of the greater number of the Russian churches of this age.
[Illustration: 381. Doorway of the Troitzka Monastery, near Moscow.]
[Illustration: 382. Plan of the Church of the Assumption, Moscow.]
[Illustration: 383. Plan of the Church of St. Basil, Moscow.]
[Illustration: 384. View of the Church of Vassili Blanskenoy, Moscow.]
But there is one church in Moscow, that of Vassili (St. Basil) Blajenny,
which is certainly the most remarkable, as it is the most
characteristic, of all the churches of Russia. It was built by Ivan the
Terrible (1534-1584), and its architect was a foreigner, generally
supposed to have come from the West, inasmuch as this monarch sent an
embassy to Germany under one Schlit, to procure artists, of whom he is
said to have collected 150 for his service. If, however, German workmen
erected this building, it certainly was from Tartar designs. Nothing
like it exists to the westward. It more resembles some Eastern pagoda of
modern date than any European structure, and in fact must be considered
as almost a pure Tartar building. Still, though strangely altered by
time, most of its forms can be traced back to the Byzantine style, as
certainly as the details of the cathedral of Cologne to the Romanesque.
The central spire, for instance, is the form into which the Russians had
during five centuries been gradually changing the straight-lined dome of
the Armenians. The eight others are the Byzantine domes converted by
degrees into the bulb-like forms which the Tartars practised at Agra and
Delhi, as well as throughout Russia. The arrangement of these domes will
be understood by the plan (Woodcut No. 383), which shows it to consist
of one central octagon surrounded by eight smaller ones, raised on a
platform ascended by two flights of stairs. Beneath the platform is a
crypt. For the general appearance the reader must be referred to Woodcut
No. 384, for words would fail to convey any idea of so bizarre and
complicated a building. At the same time it must be imagined as painted
with the most brilliant colours; its domes gilt, and relieved by blue,
green, and red, and altogether a combination of as much barbarity as it
is possible to bring together in so small a space. To crown the whole,
according to the legend, Ivan ordered the eyes of the architect to be
put out, lest he should ever surpass his own handiwork; and we may feel
grateful that nothing so barbarous was afterwards attempted in Europe.
[Illustration: 385. View of Church at Kurtea d’Argyisch. (From ‘Jahrbuch
der Central Com.’)]
[Illustration: 386. Plan of Church at Kurtea d’Argyisch. Scale 50 ft. to
1 in.]
[Illustration: 387. Tower of Ivan Veliki, Moscow, with the Cathedrals of
the Assumption and the Archangel Gabriel.]
Though not strictly speaking in Russia itself, there is at Kurtea
d’Argyisch, in Wallachia, 90 miles north-west from Bucharest, a church
which is so remarkable, so typical of the style, that it cannot be
passed over. It was erected in the first years of the 16th century
(1517-1526) by a Prince Nyagon, and is, so far as is at present known,
the most elaborate example of the style. All its ornamental details are
identical with those found at Ani and other places in Armenia, but are
used here in greater profusion and with better judgment than are to be
found in any single example in that country. In outline it is not so
wild as the Vassili Blanskenoy, but the interior is wholly sacrificed to
the external effect, and no other example can well be quoted on which
ornamental construction is carried to so great an extent, and generally
speaking in such good taste. The twisted cupolas that flank the
entrances might as well have been omitted, but the two central domes and
the way the semi-domes are attached to them are quite unexceptionable,
and altogether, with larger dimensions, and if a little more spread out,
it would be difficult to find a more elegant exterior anywhere. As it is
only 90 ft. long by 50 wide it is too small for architectural effect,
but barring this it is the most elegant example of the Armeno-Russian or
Neo-Byzantine architecture which is known to exist anywhere, and one of
the most suggestive, if the Russians knew how to use it.[256]
TOWERS.
[Illustration: 388. Tower of Boris, Kremlin, Moscow.]
Next in importance to the churches themselves are the belfries which
always accompany them. The Russians seem never to have adopted separate
baptisteries, nor did they affect any sepulchral magnificence in their
tombs. From the time of Herodotus the Scythians were great casters of
metal, and famous for their bells. The specimens of casting of this sort
in Russia reduce all the great bells of Western Europe to comparative
insignificance. It of course became necessary to provide places in which
to hang these bells: and as nothing, either in Byzantine or Armenian
architecture, afforded a hint for amalgamating the belfry with the
church, they went to work in their own way, and constructed the towers
wholly independent of the churches. Of all those in Russia, that of Ivan
Veliki, erected by the Czar Boris, about the year 1600, is the finest.
It is surmounted by a cross 18 ft. high, making a total height of 269
ft. from the ground to the top of the cross. It cannot be said to have
any great beauty, either of form or detail: but it rises boldly from the
ground, and towers over all the other buildings of the Kremlin. With
this tower for its principal object, the whole mass of building is at
least picturesque, if not architecturally beautiful. In the Woodcut (No.
388) the belfry is shown as it stood before it was blown up by the
French. It has since been rebuilt, and with the cathedrals on either
hand, makes up the best group in the Kremlin.
Besides the belfries, the walls of the Kremlin are adorned with towers,
meant not merely for military defence, but as architectural ornaments,
and reminding us somewhat of those described by Josephus as erected by
Herod on the walls of Jerusalem. One of these towers (Woodcut No. 389),
built by the same Czar Boris who erected that last described, is a good
specimen of its class. It is one of the principal of those which give
the walls of the Kremlin their peculiar and striking character.
[Illustration: 389. Sacred Gate, Kremlin, Moscow.]
These towers, however, are not peculiar to the Kremlin of Moscow. Every
city in Russia had its Kremlin, as every one in Spain had its Alcazar,
and all were adorned with walls deeply machicolated, and interspersed
with towers. Within were enclosed five-domed churches and belfries, just
as at Moscow, though on a scale proportionate to the importance of the
city. It would be easy to select numerous illustrations of this. They
are, however, all very much like one another, nor have they sufficient
beauty to require us to dwell long on them. Their gateways, however, are
frequently important. Every city had its _porta sacra_, deriving its
importance either from some memorable event or from miracles said to
have been wrought there, and being the triumphal gateways through which
all processions pass on state occasions.
The best known of these is that of Moscow, beneath whose sacred arch
even the Emperor himself must uncover his head as he passes through; and
which, from its sanctity as well as its architectural character, forms
an important feature among the antiquities of Russia.
So numerous are the churches, and, generally speaking, the fragments of
antiquity in this country, that it would be easy to multiply examples to
almost any extent. Those quoted in the preceding pages are,
architecturally, the finest as well as the most interesting from an
antiquarian point of view, of those which have yet been visited and
drawn; and there is no reason to believe that others either more
magnificent or more beautiful still remain undescribed.
This being the case, it is safe to assert that Russia contains nothing
that can at all compare with the cathedrals, or even the parish
churches, of Western Europe, either in dimensions or in beauty of
detail. Every chapter in the history of architecture must contain
something to interest the student: but there is none less worthy of
attention than that which describes the architecture of Russia,
especially when we take into account the extent of territory occupied by
its people, and the enormous amount of time and wealth which has been
lavished on the multitude of insignificant buildings to be found in
every corner of the empire.
BOOK II.
ITALY.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
CONTENTS.
Division and Classification of the Romanesque and Gothic Styles of
Architecture in Italy.
If a historian were to propose to himself the task of writing a
tolerably consecutive narrative of the events which occurred in Italy
during the Middle Ages, he would probably find such difficulties in his
way as would induce him to abandon the attempt. Venice and Genoa were as
distinct states as Spain and Portugal. Florence, the most essentially
Italian of the republics, requires a different treatment from the half
German Milan. Even such neighbouring cities as Mantua and Verona were
separate and independent states during the most important part of their
existence. Rome was, during the whole of the Middle Ages, more European
than Italian, and must have a narrative of her own; Southern Italy was a
foreign country to the states of the North; and Sicily has an
independent history.
The same difficulties, though not perhaps to the same degree, beset the
historian of art, and, if it were proposed to describe in detail all the
varying forms of Italian art during the Middle Ages, it would be
necessary to map out Italy into provinces, and to treat each almost as a
separate kingdom by itself. In this, as in almost every instance,
however, the architecture forms a better guide-line through the tangled
mazes of the labyrinth than the written record of political events, and
those who can read her language have before them a more trustworthy and
vivid picture of the past than can be obtained by any other means.
The great charm of the history of Mediæval art in England is its unity.
It affords the picture of a people working out a style from chaos to
completeness, with only slight assistance from those in foreign
countries engaged in the same task. In France we have two elements, the
old Southern Romanesque long struggling with the Northern Celtic, and
unity only obtained by the suppression of the former, wherever they came
in contact. In Italy we have four elements,—the Roman, the Byzantine,
the Lombardic, and the Gothic,—sometimes existing nearly pure, at others
mixed, in the most varying proportions, the one with the other.
In the North the Lombardic element prevailed; based on the one hand on
the traditions of Imperial Rome, and in consequence influenced in its
art by classical forms; and, on the other, inspired in all its details
by a vast accumulation of Byzantine work. In the 5th and 6th centuries
this work (chiefly confined to columns, screens, and altar pieces) was
executed by Greek artists sent on from Constantinople. The 7th century
seems to have been quite barren so far as architecture was concerned;
but in the 8th century, owing either to the Saracen invasion or to the
emigration caused by the persecution of the Iconoclasts in 788, the
Byzantine influence became again predominant, but no longer with that
same purity of design as we find in the earlier work of the 5th and 6th
centuries.
In the South, the Byzantine forms prevailed, partly because the art was
there based on the traditions of Magna Grecia, and more, perhaps, from
the intimate connection that existed between Apulia and the Peloponnesus
during the Middle Ages.
Between the two stood Rome, less changed than either North or South—the
three terms, Roman, Romano-Byzantine, and Renaissance comprise all the
variation she submitted to. In vain the Gothic styles besieged her on
the north and the Byzantine on the south. Their waves spent themselves
on her rock without producing much impression, while her influence
extended more or less over the whole peninsula. It was distinctly felt
at Florence and at Pisa on the north and west, though these conquests
were nearly balanced by the Byzantine influence which is so distinctly
felt at Venice or Padua on the east coast.
The great difficulty in the attempt to reconcile these architectural
varieties with the local and ethnographical peculiarities of the people—
a difficulty which at first sight appears all but insuperable—is, that
sometimes all three styles are found side by side in the same city.
This, however, constitutes, in reality, the intrinsic merit of
architecture as a guide in these difficulties. What neither the language
of the people nor their histories tell us, their arts proclaim in a
manner not to be mistaken. Just in that ratio in which the Roman,
Byzantine, or Lombardic style prevails in their churches, to that extent
did either of these elements exist in the blood of the people. Once
thoroughly master the peculiarities of their art, and we can with
certainty pronounce when any particular race rose to power, how long its
prevalence lasted, and when it was obliterated or fused with some other
form.
There is no great difficulty in distinguishing between the Byzantine and
the other two styles, so far as the form of dome is concerned. The
latter is almost always rounded externally, the former almost always
straight-lined. Again: the Byzantine architects never used intersecting
vaults for their naves. If forced to use a pointed arch, they did so
unwillingly, and it never fitted kindly to their favourite circular
forms; the style of their ornamentation was throughout peculiar, and
differed in many essential respects from the other two styles.
It is less easy always to discriminate between the Gothic and Lombardic
in Italy. We frequently find churches of the two styles built side by
side in the same age, both using round arches, and with details not
differing essentially from one another. There is one test, however,
which is probably in all cases sufficient. Every Gothic church had, or
was intended to have, a vault over its central aisle. No early Christian
church ever attempted it. The importance of the distinction is apparent
throughout. The Gothic churches have clustered piers, tall
vaulting-shafts, external and internal buttresses, and are prepared
throughout for this necessity of Gothic art. The early Christian
churches, on the contrary, have only a range of columns, generally of a
pseudo-Corinthian order, between the central and side aisles; internally
no vaulting-shafts, and externally only pilasters. Had these architects
been competent, as the English were, to invent an ornamental wooden
roof, they would perhaps have acted wisely; but though they made several
attempts, especially at Verona, they failed signally to devise any mode
either of hiding the mere mechanical structure of their roofs or of
rendering them ornamental.
Vaulting was, in fact, the real formative idea of the Gothic style, and
it continued to be its most marked characteristic during the continuance
of the style, not only in Italy, but throughout all Europe.
As it is impossible to treat of these various styles in one sequence,
various modes of precedence might be adopted, for each of which good
reasons could be given; but the following will probably be found most
consonant with the arrangement elsewhere adopted in this work:—
First, to treat of the early Christian style as it prevailed in Italy
down to the age of Charlemagne, and to trace out its history down to the
11th century, in order to include all that work executed by Greek
artists or copied from it by Lombardic artists; a phase which might
appropriately be termed the Byzantine-Lombardic style.
Secondly, to follow the history of the formation of the round-arched
style in Lombardy and North Italy, which constitutes the real Lombardic
style.
Thirdly, to take up the Byzantine-Romanesque style as it was practised
in the centre and South of Italy; because it follows chronologically
more closely the art of the North of Italy.
Fourthly, to follow the changes which the influence of the Gothic style
exercised in the 13th and 14th centuries in Italy.
Sicily will demand a chapter to herself; not only because a fourth
element is introduced there in the Saracenic—which influenced her style
almost as much as it did that of the South of Spain—but because such
pointed Gothic as she possesses was not German, like that of Northern
Italy, but derived far more directly from France, under either the
Norman or Angiovine dynasties. Gothic architecture in Palestine also
requires a chapter, and is best described here owing to its close
resemblance to the style in the South of Italy.
CHAPTER II.
EARLY CHRISTIAN AND BYZANTINE-LOMBARDIC STYLES.
CONTENTS.
Basilicas at Rome—St. Peter’s—St. Paul’s—Ravenna—St. Mark’s, Venice—
Dalmatia and Istria—Torcello.
CHRONOLOGY.
DATES.
Honorius A.D. 395
Valentinian 425-435
Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths 493-525
Justinian 527
Alboin Longimanus, King of Lombardy 568
Gregory I. 590
Charlemagne 768
Conrad I. 911
Henry the Fowler 918
Otho the Great 936
Otho II. 973
Otho III. 983
Henry II. 1002
Conrad II. 1024
Henry III. 1039
Henry IV. 1056
Henry V. 1106
Lothaire II. 1125
Conrad III. 1138
Frederick Barbarossa 1152
Henry VI. 1190
Frederick II. 1212
Conradin 1250
BASILICAS.
Like the study of all modern history, that of Christian architecture
commences with Rome; and not, as is sometimes supposed, where the
history of Rome leaves off, but far back in the Empire, if not, indeed,
almost in the Republic.
As has already been pointed out, the whole history of the art in
Imperial Rome is that of a style in course of transition, beginning with
a purely Pagan or Grecian style in the age of Augustus, and passing into
one almost wholly Christian in the age of Constantine.
At the first epoch of the Empire the temple architecture of Rome
consisted in an external arrangement of columns, without arches or
vaults, and was wholly unsuited for the purposes of Christian worship.
Towards the end of the period it had become an internal architecture,
making use of arches and vaults almost entirely to the exclusion of the
columnar orders, except as ornaments, and became so perfectly adapted to
Christian requirements, that little or no essential change in it has
taken place from that time to the present day. A basilica of the form
adopted in the first century after Constantine is as suited now as it
was then to the forms and ceremonies of the Christian ritual.
The fact seems to be, that during the first three centuries after the
Christian era an immense change was silently but certainly working its
way in men’s minds. The old religion was effete: the best men, the most
intellectual spirits of the age, had no faith in it; and the new
religion with all its important consequences was gradually supplying its
place in the minds of men long before it was generally accepted.
There is thus no real distinction between the Emilian or Ulpian
basilicas and those which Constantine erected for the use of the early
Christian republic. Nor is it possible, in such a series as the
Pantheon, the Temple of Minerva Medica, and the Church of San Vitale at
Ravenna, to point out what part really belongs to Pagan and what to
Christian art.
It is true that Constantine fixed the epoch of completed transition, and
gave it form and substance; but long before his time Paganism was
impossible and a reform inevitable. The feeling of the world had
changed—its form of utterance followed as a matter of course.
Viewed in this light, it is impossible to separate the early history of
Christian art from that of Imperial Rome. The sequence is so immediate
and the change so gradual, that a knowledge of the first is absolutely
indispensable to a right understanding of the second.
One of the most remarkable facts connected with the early history of the
Christian religion is, that neither its Founder nor any of His more
immediate successors left any specific directions either as to the
liturgical forms of worship to be observed by His followers, nor laid
down any rules to be observed in the government of the newly established
Church. Under these circumstances it was left almost wholly to those to
whose care the infant congregation was entrusted to frame such
regulations for its guidance as the exigencies of the occasion might
dictate, and gradually to appoint such forms of worship as might seem
most suitable to express the purity of the new faith, but at the same
time with a dignity befitting its high mission.
In Judea these ceremonies, as might naturally be expected, were strongly
tinctured with the forms of the Mosaic dispensation; but it appears to
have been in Africa, and more especially in the pomp-loving and
ceremonious Egypt, that fixed liturgies and rites first became an
integral part of the Christian religion. In those countries far from the
central seat of government, more liberty of conscience seems to have
been attained at an early period than would have been tolerated in the
capital. Before the time of Constantine they possessed not only
churches, but a regularly established hierarchy and a form of worship
similar to what afterwards obtained throughout the whole Christian
world. The form of the government of the Church, however, was long
unsettled. At first it seems merely to have been that the most respected
individuals of each isolated congregation were selected to form a
council to advise and direct their fellow-Christians, to receive and
dispense their alms, and, under the simple but revered title of
Presbyters, to act as fathers rather than as governors to the scattered
communities by which they were elected. The idea, however, of such a
council naturally includes that of a president to guide their
deliberations and give unity and force to their decisions; and such we
soon find springing up under the title of Bishops, or Presbyter Bishops,
as they were first called. During the course of the second century the
latter institution seems gradually to have gained strength at the
expense of the power of the Presbyters, whose delegate the Bishop was
assumed to be. In that capacity the Bishops not only took upon
themselves the general direction of the affairs of the Church, but
formed themselves into separate councils and synods, meeting in the
provincial capitals of the provinces where they were located. These
meetings took place under the presidency of the Bishop of the city in
which they met, who thus assumed to be the chief or metropolitan. These
formed a new presbytery above the older institution, which was thus
gradually superseded—to be again surpassed by the great councils which,
after the age of Constantine, formed the supreme governing body of the
Church; performing the functions of the earlier provincial synods with
more extended authority, though with less unanimity and regularity than
had characterised the earlier institution.
It was thus that during the first three centuries of its existence the
Christian community was formed into a vast federal republic, governed by
its own laws, administered by its own officers, acknowledging no
community with the heathen and no authority in the constituted secular
powers of the State. But at the same time the hierarchy admitted a
participation of rights to the general body of the faithful, from whom
they were chosen, and whose delegation was still admitted to be their
title to office.
When, in the time of Constantine, this persecuted and scattered Church
emerged from the Catacombs to bask in the sunshine of Imperial favour,
there were no buildings in Rome, the plan of which was more suited to
their purposes than that of the basilicas of the ancient city. Though
designed and erected for the transaction of the affairs of the heathen
Empire, they happened to be, in consequence of their disposition and
immense size, eminently suited for the convenience of the Christian
Church, which then aspired to supersede its fallen rival and replace it
by a younger and better institution.[257]
In the basilica the whole congregation of the faithful could meet and
take part in the transaction of the business going on. The bishop
naturally took the place previously occupied by the prætor or quæstor,
the presbyters those of the assessors. The altar in front of the apse,
where the pious heathen poured out libations at the commencement and
conclusion of all important business, served equally for the celebration
of Christian rites, and with the fewest possible changes, either in the
form of the ceremonies or in the nature of the business transacted
therein, the basilica of the heathen became the ecclesia or place of
assembly of the early Christian community.
In addition, however, to the rectangular basilica, which was essentially
the place of meeting for the transaction of the business of the Church,
the Christian community early adopted a circular-formed edifice as a
ceremonial or sacramental adjunct to the basilica. These were copied
from the Roman tombs above described, and were in fact frequently built
for the sepulchres of distinguished persons; but they were also used at
a very early date as baptisteries, as well as for the performance of
funereal rites. It does not appear that baptism, the marriage rites, or
indeed any of the sacraments, were performed in the earliest ages in the
basilica, though in after ages a font was introduced even into
cathedrals. The rectangular church became ultimately the only form used.
In the earlier ages, however, a complete ecclesiastical establishment
consisted of a basilica, and a baptistery, independent of one another
and seldom ranged symmetrically, though the tendency seems to have been
to place the round church opposite the western or principal entrance of
the basilica.
Though this was the case in the capital and other great cities, it was
otherwise before the time of Constantine in the provinces. There the
Christian communities existed as members of a religious sect long before
they aspired to political power or dreamt of superseding the secular
form of government by combination among themselves. In the remote parts
of the Empire, in the earliest ages, they consequently built for
themselves churches which were temples, or, in other words, houses of
prayer, designed for and devoted wholly to the celebration of religious
rites, as in the Pagan temples, and without any reference to the
government of the community or the transaction of the business of the
assembly. If any such existed in Italy or any other part of Europe, they
either perished in the various persecutions to which the Christians were
exposed when located near the seat of government, or they became
hallowed by the memories of the times of martyrdom, and were rebuilt in
happier days with greater magnificence, so that little or no trace of
the original buildings now remains. So long, therefore, as our
researches were confined to European examples, the history of Christian
architecture began with Constantine; but recent researches in Africa
have shown that, when properly explored, we shall certainly be able to
carry the history of the early Christian style in that country back to a
date at least a century before his time. In Syria and Asia Minor so many
early examples have come to light that it seems probable that we may,
before long, carry the history of Byzantine art back to a date nearly
approaching that of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. It is,
however, only so recently that the attention of ecclesiologists has been
directed to the early examples of Christian architecture, that it is not
yet possible to grasp completely the whole bearing of the subject; but
enough is known to show how much the progress of research may modify the
views hitherto entertained on the subject. Meanwhile too much attention
can hardly be bestowed upon it, as it is by means of these early
specimens of architectural art that we shall probably be best able to
recover the primitive forms of the Christian liturgical observance.
One of the most ancient as well as interesting of the African churches
which has yet been brought to light is that at Djemla. It is a simple
rectangle, internally 92 ft. by 52, divided longitudinally with three
aisles, the centre one of which terminates in a square cella or choir,
which seems to have been enclosed up to the roof; but the building is so
ruined that this cannot be known for a certainty. Though so exceptional,
it is not difficult to see whence the form was derived. If we take such
a plan, for instance, as that of the Maison Carré at Nîmes (Woodcut No.
187), and build a wall round and put a roof over it, so as to make a
building which was originally appropriated to external worship suitable
for internal religious purposes, we should have exactly such a result as
this. The cella must be diminished in extent, the pillars more widely
spaced, and the front row converted into a wall in which the entrances
would be usually placed. In this instance the one entrance, for some
local reason, is lateral. The whole floor of the church is covered with
a mosaic so purely classical in style of execution as to leave no doubt
as to its early date.
[Illustration: 390. Plan of Church at Djemla. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 391. Plan of Church at Announa. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
A more common form is shown in the annexed woodcut, representing a small
church at Announa, likewise in Algeria, about 45 ft. square, divided
into three aisles and with a projecting apse. If we turn to the plan of
the Temple of Mars Ultor (Woodcut No. 186), we see at once whence this
form was derived. It only requires the lateral columns to be brought
slightly forward to effect the requisite change. When the building was
to be used by a congregation, and not merely for display, the pillars
would require to be more widely spaced.
A third form, from Ibrim in Nubia, shows the peculiarity of the apse
being internal, which became very fashionable in the Eastern, though not
so much so in the Western, churches, but still sufficiently so to make
its introduction at this early age worthy of notice. The building is
small, being only 57 ft. in length externally, but is remarkable for
being built with something of the solidity of the Egyptian edifices
among which it stands.
The next example which it may be necessary to quote to make this early
form intelligible, is that of the church of St. Reparatus, near
Orleansville—the ancient Castellum Tingitanum. According to an
inscription still existing, it was erected A.D. 252,[258] but the second
apse seems to have been added at a later date, to contain the grave of
the saint. As it now stands, it is a double-apsed basilica 80 ft. long
by 52 broad, divided into five aisles, and exhibiting on a miniature
scale all the peculiarities of plan which we have hitherto fancied were
not adopted until some centuries later. In this instance both the apses
are internal, so that the side-aisles are longer than the centre one, no
portion of them appearing to have been cut off for chalcidica or
vestries, as was very generally the case in this age.
Another example, very much like this in arrangement, but on a larger
scale, is found at Ermet, the ancient Hermonthis in Egypt. It measures
over all 150 ft. by 90, and, if the plan in the great French work[259]
is to be depended upon, is one of the most complete examples of its
class. It has four ranges of columns, taken apparently from more ancient
examples, and two apses with all the usual appurtenances.
[Illustration: 392. Plan of Church at Ibrim in Nubia. No scale.]
[Illustration: 393. Plan of Basilica at Orleansville. Scale 50 ft. to 1
in.]
Another two-aisled and single apse church, measuring 100 ft. by 65,
called Dyer Abou Taneh, is represented in the same work;[260] but
perhaps the most interesting of these churches is that known as the
White Convent, situated on the edge of the Libyan Desert, above Siout.
Externally it measures 215 ft. by 122, and is enclosed in a solid wall,
surmounted by an Egyptian cornice, so that it looks much more like an
ancient temple than a Christian church. Originally it had six doors, but
all are now walled up, except one in the centre of the southern face;
and above, a series of small openings, like loopholes, admitted light to
apartments which apparently occupied the upper storey of lateral
corridors. Light to the church was, of course, admitted through the
clerestory, which could easily be done; and altogether as a fortified
and mysterious abode, and place of worship of ascetics, it would be
difficult to find a more appropriate example.
The age of this church is not very well ascertained; popularly it is,
like so many others, ascribed to Sta. Helena, and the double aisles and
triapsal arrangements are so like her church at Bethlehem, that there is
no _à priori_ improbability in the assumption. The plan, however, is
more complicated and complete, and its external form bespeaks of
troublous times, so that altogether it is probably a century or two (the
monks say 140 years) more modern. Like other churches of its class,
ancient materials have been so used up with those prepared at the time,
that it is extremely difficult to ascertain the dates of such buildings.
If, however, any one with sufficient knowledge would make a special
study of these Egyptian churches, he would add one of the most
interesting chapters to our history of early Christian Architecture, and
explain many ritual arrangements whose origin is now involved in
mystery; but for this we must wait. The materials are not at present
available, all travellers in Egypt being so attracted by the surpassing
interest of the Pagan remains of that country, as hardly to find time
for a glance at the Christian antiquities.[261]
[Illustration: 394. White Convent near Siout. (From a Plan by the Hon.
Sir Arthur Gordon.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
It was probably in a great measure owing to the influence of these
provincial examples that the arrangements of the metropolitan basilicas
were not long allowed to retain the form above described, though more
was probably due to the change which was gradually taking place in the
constitution of the governing body of the Church. The early arrangements
of the Christian basilica, as copied from the secular forms of the Pagan
places of assembly, soon became unsuited to the more exclusively
religious purposes to which they were to be appropriated. The now
dominant hierarchy of Rome soon began to repudiate the republicanism of
the early days of the Church, and to adopt from the East the convenient
doctrine of the absolute separation of the congregation into clergy and
laity. To accommodate the basilica to this new state of things, first
the apse was railed off and appropriated wholly to the use of the
clergy: then the whole of the dais, or raised part in front of the apse
on which the altar stood, was separated by pillars, called cancelli, and
in like manner given up wholly to the clergy, and was not allowed to be
profaned by the presence of the unordained multitude.
The last great change was the introduction of a choir, or enclosed space
in the centre of the nave, attached to the bema or _presbytery_, as the
raised space came to be called. Round three sides of this choir the
faithful were allowed to congregate to hear the Gospels or Epistles read
from the two pulpits or _ambones_, which were built into its enclosure,
one on either side; or to hear the services which were read or sung by
the inferior order of clergy who occupied its precincts.
The enclosure of the choir was kept low, so as not to hide the view of
the raised presbytery, or to prevent the congregation from witnessing
the more sacred mysteries of the faith which were there performed by the
higher order of clergy.
Another important modification, though it entailed no architectural
change, was the introduction of the bodies of the saints in whose honour
the building was erected into the basilica itself, and depositing them
in a confessional or crypt below the high altar.
There is every reason to believe that a separate circular building, or
proper tomb, was originally erected over the grave or place of
martyrdom, and the basilica was sanctified merely by its propinquity to
the sacred spot. Afterwards the practice of depositing the relics of the
saint beneath the floor became universally the rule. At about the same
time the baptistery was also absorbed into the basilica; and instead of
standing opposite the western entrance, a font placed within the western
doors supplied its place. This last change was made earlier at Rome than
elsewhere. It is not known at what exact period the alteration was
introduced, but it is probable that the whole was completed before the
age of Gregory the Great.
It was thus that in the course of a few centuries the basilicas
aggregated within themselves all the offices of the Roman Church, and
became the only acknowledged ecclesiastical buildings—either as places
for the assembly of the clergy for the administration of the sacraments
and the performance of divine worship, or for the congregation of the
faithful.
None of the basilican churches, either of Rome or the provinces, possess
these arrangements exactly as they were originally established in the
fourth or fifth century. The church of San Clemente, however, retains
them so nearly in their primitive form that a short description of it
may tend to make what follows more easily intelligible. This basilica
seems to have been erected in the fourth or fifth century over what was
supposed to be the house in which the saint of that name resided.
Recently a subterranean church or crypt has been discovered, which must
of course be more ancient than the present remains.[262] Above this
subterranean church stands the edifice shown in the accompanying plan
(Woodcut No. 395), nearly one-third less in size, being only 65 ft. wide
internally, against 93 of the original church, though both were about
the same length.
[Illustration: 395. Plan of the Church of San Clemente at Rome. (From
Gutensohn and Knapp.[263]) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in]
It is one of the few that still possesses an _atrium_ or courtyard in
front of the principal entrance, though there can be but little doubt
that this was considered at that early age a most important, if not
indeed an indispensable, attribute to the church itself. As a feature it
may have been derived from the East, where we know it was most common,
and where it afterwards became, with only the slightest possible
modifications, the mosque of the Moslems. It would seem even more
probable, however, that it is only a repetition of the _forum_, which
was always attached to the Pagan basilica, and through which it was
always entered; and for a sepulchral church at least nothing could be
more appropriate, as the original application of the word forum seems to
have been to the open area that existed in front of tombs as well as of
other important buildings.[264]
In the centre of this atrium there generally stood a fountain or tank of
water, not only as an emblem of purity, but that those who came to the
church might wash their hands before entering the holy place—a custom
which seems to have given rise to the practice of dipping the fingers in
the holy water of the piscina, now universal in all Catholic countries.
The colonnade next the church was frequently the only representative of
the atrium, and then—perhaps indeed always—was called the _narthex_, or
place for penitents or persons who had not yet acquired the right of
entering the church itself.
From this narthex three doorways generally opened into the church,
corresponding with the three aisles; and if the building possessed a
font, it ought to have been placed in one of the chapels on either the
right or left hand of the principal entrance.
The choir, with its two pulpits, is shown in the plan—that on the
left-hand side being the pulpit of the Epistle, that on the right of the
Gospel. The railing of the _bema_ or presbytery is also marked, so is
the position of the altar with its canopy supported on four pillars, and
behind that the throne of the bishop, with the seats of the inferior
clergy surrounding the apse on either side.
Besides the church of San Clemente there are at least thirty other
basilican churches in Rome, extending in date from the 4th to the 14th
century. Their names and dates, as far as they have been ascertained,
are set forth in the accompanying list, which, though not altogether
complete, is still the best we possess, and is sufficient for our
present purpose.[265]
BASILICAS OF ROME.
W. ST. PETER’S Constantine (5 aisled) 330
W. ST. JOHN LATERAN Ditto 330
W. ST. LORENZO (west end Ditto 335
lower storey)
N.W. S. PUDENTIANA Ditto 335
E. ST. PAUL’S Theodosius and Honorius 380
(5 aisled)
N.W. S. MARIA MAGGIORE Pope Sixtus III. 432
ST. LORENZO (nave) Ditto 432-40
E. ST. PETER _ad Vincula_ Eudoxia (Greek Doric 442
columns)
N.W.W. ST. JOHN AND ST. PAUL Leo I. 450
N.W.W. QUATTRO CORONATI Ditto 450
N.W. ST. MARTIN _di Monti_ 500
W. S. AGNES 500-514
N.E. S. SABINA 525
ST. LORENZO (galleries to Pope Pelagius 580
west end)
W. S. BALBINA Gregory the Great (no 600
side-aisles)
ST. VINCENT _alle tre Honorius I. 626
fontane_
N.W.N. ST. GIORGIO _in Velabro_ Leo II. 682
N.W.W. ST. CRISOGONUS Gregory III. 731
ST. JOHN _in porta Adrian I. 772
latina_
S.E.E. S. MARIA _in Cosmedin_ Ditto 782
S.W.W. SS. NEREUS AND ACHILLES Leo III. 800
N.W.N. ST. PRAXEDE Paschal I. 817
N.W. S. CECILIA Ditto 821
W. S. MARIA _in Domenica_ Ditto 823
N.W.N. ST. MARK’S 833
ST. JOHN LATERAN Rebuilt by Sergius III. 910
N.W.W. ST. CLEMENT Paschal II. 1100-14
ST. BARTHELEMY _in Isola_ Ditto 1113
W. S. MARIA _in Trastevere_ Innocent II. 1139
ST. LORENZO (the two Honorius III. 1216
churches thrown into one)
S. MARIA _sopra Minerva_ 1370
(?) S. MARIA _in Ara Cœli_ Gothic 14th cent.
ST. AGOSTINO Renaissance 1483
Three of these, St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s, and the Lateran church, have
five aisles, all the rest three, with only one insignificant exception,
Sta. Balbina, which has no side-aisles. Two, St. Agnes and the old part
of St. Lorenzo, have their side-aisles in two storeys, all the rest are
only one storey in height, and the side-aisles generally are half the
width of the central aisle or nave. Some of the more modern churches
have the side-aisles vaulted, but of those in the list all except the
two last have flat wooden ceilings over the central compartment, and
generally speaking the plain ornamental construction of the roof is
exposed. It can scarcely be doubted that originally they were ceiled in
some more ornamental manner, as the art of ornamenting this new style of
open construction seems to have been introduced at a later date.
[Illustration: 396. Plan of the original Basilica of St. Peter at Rome.
(From Gutensohn and Knapp.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
Of the two last named, the Sta. Maria sopra Minerva might perhaps be
more properly classed among the buildings belonging to the Italian
Gothic style; but as it is the only one in Rome that has any claim to
such a distinction, it is hardly worth while making it an exception to
the rest. The San Agostino might also be called a Renaissance specimen.
It certainly is a transitional specimen between the pillared and
pilastered styles, which were then struggling for mastery. It may either
be regarded as the last of the old race or the first of the new style,
which was so soon destined to revolutionise the architectural world.
ST. PETER’S.
Of the other examples the oldest was the finest. This great basilica was
erected in the reign of Constantine, close to the circus of Nero, where
tradition affirmed that St. Peter had suffered martyrdom. It
unfortunately was entirely swept away to make room for the greatest of
Christian temples, which now occupies its site; but previous to its
destruction careful measurements and drawings were made of every part,
from which it is easy to understand all its arrangements—easier perhaps
than if it had remained to the present day, and four centuries more of
reform and improvements had assisted in altering and disfiguring its
venerable frame.
As will be seen in the plan (Woodcut No. 396), drawn to the usual scale,
it possessed a noble atrium or forecourt, 212 ft. by 235, in front of
which were some bold masses of building, which, during the Middle Ages,
were surmounted by two belfry-towers. The church itself was 212 ft. in
width by 380 in length, covering, without its adjuncts, an area of above
80,000 English feet, which, though less than half the size of the
present cathedral, is as large as that covered by any mediæval cathedral
except those of Milan and Seville. The central aisle was about 80 ft.
across (about twice the average width of a Gothic nave), and nearly the
same as that of the basilica of Maxentius and the principal halls of the
greater thermæ. For some reason or other this dimension seems to have
been a modulus very generally adopted. The bema or sanctuary, answering
to the Gothic transept, extended beyond the walls of the church either
way, which was unusual in early Christian buildings. The object here
seems to have been to connect it with the tombs on its north side. The
arrangement of the sanctuary was also peculiar, having been adorned with
twelve pillars supporting a gallery. These, when symbolism became the
fashion, were said to represent the twelve apostles. This certainly was
not their original intent, as at first only six were put up—the others
added afterwards. The sanctuary and choir were here singularly small and
contracted, as if arranged before the clergy became so numerous as they
afterwards were, and before the laity were excluded from this part of
the church.
The general internal appearance of the building will be understood from
the following woodcut (No. 397), which presents at one view all the
peculiarities of the basilican buildings. The pillars separating the
central from the side aisles appear to have been of uniform dimensions,
and to have supported a horizontal entablature, above which rose a
double range of panels, each containing a picture—these panels thus
taking the place of what was the triforium in Gothic churches. Over
these was the clerestory, and again an ornamental belt gave sufficient
elevation for the roof, which in this instance showed the naked
construction. On the whole perhaps the ratio of height to width is
unexceptionable, but the height over the pillars is so great that they
are made to look utterly insignificant, which indeed is the great defect
in the architectural design of these buildings, and, though seldom so
offensive as here, is apparent in all. The ranges of columns dividing
the side-aisles were joined by arches, which is a more common as well as
a better arrangement, as it not only adds to the height of the pillars,
but gives them an apparent power of bearing the superstructure. At some
period during the Middle Ages the outer aisles were vaulted, and Gothic
windows introduced into them. This change seems to have necessitated the
closing of the intermediate range of clerestory windows, which probably
was by no means conducive to the general architectural effect of the
building.
[Illustration: 397. View of the old Basilica of St. Peter, before its
destruction in the 15th century. From Fontana.]
Externally this basilica, like all those of its age, must have been
singularly deficient in beauty or in architectural design. The sides
were of plain unplastered brick, the windows were plain arch-headed
openings. The front alone was ornamented, and this only with two ranges
of windows somewhat larger than those at the sides, three in each tier,
into which tracery was inserted at some later period, and between and
above these, various figures and emblems were painted in fresco on
stucco laid on the brickwork. The whole was surmounted by that singular
coved cornice which seems to have been universal in Roman basilicas,
though not found anywhere else that I am aware of.
The two most interesting adjuncts to this cathedral were the two tombs
standing to the northward. According to the mediæval tradition the one
was the tomb of Honorius and his wives, the other the church of St.
Andrew. Their position, however, carefully centred on the spina of the
circus of Nero, where the great apostle suffered martyrdom, seems to
point to a holier and more important origin. My own conviction is that
they were erected to mark the places where the apostle and his
companions suffered. It is besides extremely improbable that after the
erection of the basilica an emperor should choose the centre of a circus
for the burying-place of himself and his family, or that he should be
permitted to choose so hallowed a spot. They are of exactly the usual
tomb-form of the age of Constantine, and of the largest size, being each
100 ft. in diameter.
The first was destroyed by Michael Angelo, as it stood on the site
required for his northern tribune, the second by Pius VI., in 1776, to
make way for the present sacristy, and Rome thus lost, through pure
carelessness, the two oldest and most sacred edifices of the Christian
period which she possessed.
The most eastern had been so altered and overlaid, having been long used
as a sacristy,[266] that it might have been difficult to restore it; but
its position and its antiquity certainly entitled it to a better fate.
ST. PAUL’S.
The church of San Paolo fuori le Mura was almost an exact counterpart of
St. Peter’s both in design and dimensions. The only important variations
were that the transept was made of the same width as the central nave,
or about 80 ft., and that the pillars separating the nave from the
side-aisles were joined by arches instead of by a horizontal architrave.
Both these were undoubted improvements, the first giving space and
dignity to the bema, the latter not only adding height to the order, but
giving it, together with lightness, that apparent strength requisite to
support the high wall placed over the pillars.
[Illustration: 398. View of the Interior of St. Paul’s, at Rome, before
the fire.]
The order too was finer and more important than at St. Peter’s,
twenty-four of the pillars being taken from some temple or building (it
is generally said the mausoleum of Hadrian) of the best age of Rome,
though the remaining sixteen were unfortunately only very bad copies of
them. These pillars are 33 ft. in height, or one-third of the whole
height of the building to the roof. In St. Peter’s they were only a
fourth, and if they had been spaced a little farther apart, and the arch
made more important, the most glaring defect of these buildings would in
a great measure have been avoided.
Long before its destruction by fire in 1822 this church had been so
altered as to lose many of its most striking peculiarities. The bema or
presbytery was divided into two by a longitudinal wall. The greater
number of its clerestory windows were built up, its atrium gone, and
decay and whitewash had done much to efface its beauty, which
nevertheless seems to have struck all travellers with admiration, as
combining in itself the last reminiscence of Pagan Rome with the
earliest forms of the Christian world. It certainly was the most
interesting, if not quite the most beautiful, of the Christian
buildings, of that city.[267]
The third five-aisled basilica, that of St. John Lateran, differs in no
essential respect from those just described except in dimensions; it
covers about 60,000 ft., and consequently is inferior in this respect to
the other two. It has been so completely altered in modern times that
its primitive arrangements can now hardly be discerned, nor can their
effect be judged of, even assuming that they were peculiar to it, which,
however, is by no means certain.
Like the other two, it appears to have been originally erected by
Constantine, who seems especially to have affected this five-aisled
form. The churches which he erected at Jerusalem and Bethlehem both have
this number of aisles. From the similarity which exists in the design of
all these churches we might easily restore this building, if it were
worth while. Its dimensions can easily be traced, but beyond this
nothing remains of the original erection.
Of those with three aisles by far the finest and most beautiful is that
of S. Maria Maggiore, which, notwithstanding the comparative smallness
of its dimensions, is now perhaps the best specimen of its class
remaining. Internally its dimensions are 100 ft. in width by 250 to the
front of the apse; the whole area being about 32,000 ft.: so that it is
little more than half the size of the Lateran church, and between
one-third and one-fourth of that of the other two five-aisled churches.
[Illustration: 399. Plan of S. Maria Maggiore. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
Notwithstanding this, there is great beauty in its internal colonnade,
all the pillars of which are of one design, and bear a most pleasing
proportion to the superstructure. The clerestory too is ornamented with
pilasters and panels, making it a part of the general design; and with
the roof, which is panelled with constructive propriety and simplicity
combined with sufficient richness, serves to make up a whole which gives
a far better and more complete idea of what a basilica either was
originally, or at least might have been, than any other church at Rome.
It is true that both the pilasters of the clerestory and the roof are
modern, and in modern times the colonnade has been broken through in two
places; but these defects must be overlooked in judging of the whole.
Another defect is that the side-aisles have been vaulted in modern
times, and in such a manner as to destroy the harmony that should exist
between the different parts of the building. In striving to avoid the
defect of making the superstructure too high in proportion to the
columns, the architect has made the central roof too low either for the
width or length of the main aisle. Still the building, as a whole, is—or
rather was before the completion of the rebuilding of St. Paul’s—the
very best of the older wooden-roofed churches of Christendom, and the
best model from which to study the merits and defects of this style of
architecture.
[Illustration: 400. View of S. Maria Maggiore. (From Gutensohn and
Knapp.)]
[Illustration: 401. Plan of S. Agnes. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 402. Section of S. Agnes. (From Gutensohn and Knapp.)
Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
Another mode of getting over the great defect of high walls over the
pillars was adopted, as in St. Lorenzo and Sta. Agnese, of using a
gallery corresponding with the triforium of Gothic churches. In St.
Lorenzo, where this feature first occurs, it would seem to have been
derived from the Eastern Empire, where the custom of providing galleries
for women had long been established; this is rendered probable by the
fact that the sculpture of the capitals carrying the arches of the
triforium is of pure Byzantine character, and by the adoption of what is
virtually a dosseret,[268] or projecting impost above the capital to
carry the arches, which at their springing are considerably wider and
deeper than the abacus of the capital. According to M. Cattaneo[269] the
earliest part of this church is the Eastern end, built by Constantine
(see plan, Woodcut No. 403), which first consisted of nave, aisles, and
a Western apse. In the Pontificate of Sixtus III. (432-440) an immense
basilica was added on the Western side with an Eastern apse built back
to back with the original apse; and later on, in 578-590, galleries were
added to the Western church by Pope Pelagius II. over the side aisles.
In 1226-1227, when Honorius III. restored the whole building, he removed
the two apses, continued the new arcade up to the early Western wall,
and raised the choir of the early church to its present elevation
(Woodcut No. 404). Both in St. Lorenzo and St. Agnes the galleries may
have been suggested if not required by the peculiarity of the ground,
which was higher on one side than on the other; but whether this was the
true cause of its adoption or not, the effect was most satisfactory, and
had it been persevered in so as to bring the upper colonnade more into
harmony of proportion with the other, it would have been attended with
the happiest results on the style. Whether it was, however, that the
Romans felt the want of the broad plain space for their paintings, or
that they could not bring the upper arches into proportion with the
classical pillars which they made use of, the system was abandoned
almost as soon as adopted, and never came into general use.
[Illustration: 403. Plan of St. Lorenzo.]
It should be observed that this arrangement contained the germs of much
that was afterwards reproduced in Gothic churches. The upper gallery,
after many modifications, at last settled into a triforium, and the
pierced stone slabs in the windows became tracery—but before these were
reached a vaulted roof was introduced, and with it all the features of
the style were to a great extent modified.
[Illustration: 404. Interior of the Basilica of St. Lorenzo (fuori le
Mura).]
The church known as that of Sta. Pudentiana is one of the very oldest
and consequently one of the most interesting of those in Rome. It stands
on substructions of ancient Roman date, which probably formed part of
the Thermæ of Novatus or the house of the Senator Pudens, who is
mentioned by St. Paul at the end of his Second Epistle to Timothy, and
with whom he is traditionally said to have resided during his sojourn in
Rome. The vaults beneath the church certainly formed part of a Roman
mansion, so apparently do those buildings, shown on the plan, and placed
behind and on one side of the sanctuary; but whether these were used for
Christian purposes before the erection of the church in the fourth
century is by no means certain. In plan the church remains in all
probability very much as originally designed, its most striking
peculiarity being the segmental form of the apse, which may possibly
have arisen from some peculiar arrangement of the original building. It
was not, however, found to be pleasing in an architectural point of
view, and was not consequently again employed.
[Illustration: 405. Plan of Sta. Pudentiana. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 406. Section of Sta. Pudentiana. (From Hubsch.[270])
Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
The annexed section probably represents very nearly the original form of
the nave, though it has been so encrusted with modern accretions as to
render it difficult to ascertain what the first form really was. The
shafts of the pillars may have been borrowed from some older edifice,
but the capitals were clearly designed to support arches, and must
therefore be early Christian (fourth century?), and are among the most
elegant and appropriate specimens of the class now extant.
[Illustration: 407. Capital of Sta. Pudentiana. (From Hubsch.)]
In some instances, as in San Clemente, above alluded to, in San Pietro
in Vincula, and Sta. Maria in Cosmedin, the colonnade is divided into
spaces of three or four intercolumniations by piers of solid masonry,
which give great apparent solidity and strength to the building, but at
the expense of breaking it up into compartments more than is agreeable,
and these destroy that beauty of perspective so pleasing in a continuous
colonnade. This defect seems to have been felt in the Santa Praxede,
where three of these piers are introduced in the length of the
nave,[271] and support each a bold arch thrown across the central aisle.
The effect of this might have been most happy, as at San Miniato, near
Florence; but it has been so clumsily managed in the Roman example, as
to be most destructive of all beauty of proportion.
[Illustration: 408. Half Section, half Elevation, of the Church of San
Vincenzo alle Tre Fontane. (From Gutensohn and Knapp.) Scale 50 ft. to 1
in.]
Some of the principal beauties as well as some of the most remarkable
defects of these basilican churches arise from the employment of columns
torn from ancient temples: where this has been done, the beauty of the
marble, and the exquisite sculpture of the capitals and friezes, give a
richness and elegance to the whole that go far to redeem or to hide the
rudeness of the building in which they are encased. But, on the other
hand, the discrepancy between the pillars—Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian
columns being sometimes used side by side—destroys all uniformity, and
the fragmentary character of the entablatures they support is still more
prejudicial to the continuity of the perspective, which should be the
greatest charm of these churches. By degrees, the fertile quarries of
ancient Rome seem to have become entirely exhausted; and as the example
of St. Paul’s proves, the Romans in the fourth century were incapable of
manufacturing even a bad imitation, and were at last forced to adopt
some new plan of supporting their arcades. The church of SS. Nereo ed
Achilleo is, perhaps, the most elegant example of this class, the piers
being light octagons; but the most characteristic, as well as the most
original, is the San Vincenzo alle Tre Fontane, shown in section and
elevation in Woodcut No. 408. It so far deviates from the usual
basilican arrangements as to suggest a later date. It has the same
defect as all the rest—its pier arches being too low, and for which
there is no excuse here—but both internally and externally it shows a
uniformity of design and a desire to make every part ornamental that
produces a very pleasing effect, notwithstanding that the whole is
merely of brick, and that ornament is so sparingly applied as barely to
prevent the building sinking into the class of mere utilitarian
erections.
Among the most pleasing architectural features, if they may be so
called, of these churches, are the mosaic pavements that adorn the
greater number. These were always original, being designed for the
buildings in which they are used, and following the arrangement of the
architecture surrounding them. The patterns too are always elegant, and
appropriate to the purpose; and as the colours are in like manner
generally harmoniously blended, they form not only a most appropriate
but most beautiful basement to the architecture.
A still more important feature was the great mosaic picture that always
adorned the semi-dome of the apse, representing most generally the
Saviour seated in glory surrounded by saints, or else some scene from
the life of the holy personage to whom the church was dedicated.
These mosaics were generally continued down to nearly the level of the
altar, and along the whole of the inner wall of the sanctuary in which
the apse was situated, and as far as the triumphal arch which separated
the nave from the sanctuary, at which point the mosaic blended with the
frescoes that adorned the upper walls of the central nave above the
arcades. All this made up an extent of polychromatic decoration which in
those dark ages, when few could read, the designers of these buildings
seem to have considered as virtually of more importance than the
architectural work to which it was attached. Any attempt to judge of the
one without taking into consideration the other, would be forming an
opinion on hearing but half the evidence; but taken in conjunction, the
paintings go far to explain, and also to redeem, many points in which
the architecture is most open to criticism.
RAVENNA.
During the whole period of the development of early Christian
architecture in Rome, the city of Ravenna, owing to her close connection
with the Eastern empire, almost rivalled in importance the old capital
of the world, and her churches were consequently hardly less important
either in number or in richness than those we have just been describing.
It is true she had none so large as the great metropolitan basilicas of
St. Peter and St. Paul. The one five-aisled church she possessed—the
cathedral—has been entirely destroyed, to make way for a very
contemptible modern erection. From the plans, however, which we possess
of it, it seems to have differed very considerably from the Roman
examples, most especially in having no trace of a transept, the building
being a perfectly regular parallelogram, half as long again as its
breadth, and with merely one great apse added at the end of the central
nave. Its loss is the more to be regretted, as it was, besides being the
largest, the oldest church in the city, having been erected about the
year 400, by Archbishop Ursus. The baptistery that belonged to it has
been fortunately preserved, and will be described hereafter.
Besides a considerable number of other churches which have either been
lost or destroyed by repair, Ravenna still possesses two first-class
three-aisled basilicas—the San Apollinare Nuovo,[272] originally an
Arian church, built by Theodoric, king of the Goths (A.D. 493-525); and
the S. Apollinare in Classe, at the Port of Ravenna, situated about
three miles from the city, commenced A.D. 538, and dedicated 549 A.D. Of
the two, the first-named is by far the more considerable, being 315 ft.
long by 115 in width externally, while the other only measures 216 ft.
in length by 104. As will be seen by the plan, S. Apollinare in Classe
is a perfectly regular basilica with twelve pillars on each side of the
nave, which is 50 ft. in width. The apse is raised to allow of a crypt
underneath, and externally it is polygonal, like the Byzantine apse.
[Illustration: 409. Plan of St. Apollinare in Classe. Scale 100 ft. to 1
in.]
[Illustration: 410. Arches in Church of San Apollinare Nuovo. (From
Quast.[273])]
The great merit of these two basilicas, as compared with those of Rome,
arises from the circumstance of Ravenna having possessed no ruined
temples whose spoils could be used in the construction of new buildings.
On the other hand the Goths had no architectural forms of their own; the
architects and workmen therefore who were brought over from
Constantinople reproduced the style with which they were best acquainted
in the East, with such alterations in plan as the liturgies of the
church required, such modifications in construction as the materials of
the country necessitated, and such ideas in architectural design as were
suggested by the examples in Rome with which Theodoric was well
acquainted, having not only restored some of the churches there, but
insisted that the primitive style should be adhered to. The simple
basilican form of church with nave, and aisles without galleries over,
and a single apse, was based on numerous examples existing in Rome, to
which source may be ascribed the external blind arcades of the aisle and
nave walls.[274] From Woodcut 410, representing the arches of the nave
of St. Apollinare Nuovo, it will be seen that an elegance of proportion
is revealed and a beauty of design shown in the details of the
capitals[275] and the dosserets which surmount them, which are quite
foreign to any Roman examples. The great triforium frieze above the
arches, and the wall space above them between the clerestory windows,
covered with mosaics, executed 570 A.D. by Greek artists from
Constantinople, suggest a completeness of design which had not been
reached in Rome. All this is still more apparent in Woodcut No. 411,
taken from the arcade where the nave joins the apse in St. Apollinare in
Classe, which shows a further advance in the working out of a new style,
based partially on Roman work, but carried out by Byzantine artists.
[Illustration: 411. Part of Apse in S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna.
(From Quast.)]
[Illustration: 412. S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna. (From Quast.)]
Externally these buildings appear to have remained to the present hour
almost wholly without architectural embellishment. It was considered
sufficient for ornamental purposes to make the brick arches necessary
for the construction slightly more prominent and important than was
actually required. As if impelled by some feeling of antagonism to the
practice of the heathens, the early Christians seem to have tried to
make the external appearance of their buildings as unlike those of their
predecessors as was possible. Whether this was the cause or not, it is
certain that nothing can well be less ornamental than these exteriors;
and even the _narthex_,[276] which in the Apollinare in Classe afforded
an excellent opportunity for embellishment, could not be less ornamental
if it were the entrance to a barn instead of to a church of such
richness and beauty as this in all its internal arrangements.
VENICE.
The restoration of portions of the Cathedral of St. Mark during the past
twenty years, and the careful examination of various documents in the
archives of that city have led to the discovery that the work attributed
to Doge Pietro Orseolo, 976-78, consisted mainly in the re-construction
of the basilican church erected by the Doge Jean Participazio in 829-32,
and burnt in 976. The acquisition of the relics of St. Mark the
Evangelist, brought from Alexandria in 828 (when the Mohametans pulled
down the church of St. Mark in that town), determined Jean’s brother
Justinian to build a church which should be worthy of their reception.
He died, however, before the work was commenced, but left a large sum of
money for the purpose. This church was built on the old site situated
between the Ducal Palace and the church of St. Theodore, which, up to
that time, had served as the Ducal chapel. The width of the church would
seem to have been the same as that of the present nave and aisles. Its
west end formed part of the existing wall behind the present vestibule,
but some difference of opinion seems to exist as to its eastern end, and
whether it coincided with the actual apses. Though nominally built in
976-78 the decoration of Orseolo’s church was probably carried on in
succeeding years, and much of the sculptural work in the present
building dates from the first half of the 11th century. In 1063, under
the Doge Domenico Contarini, the church of St. Theodore, according to M.
Cattaneo,[277] was pulled down and some of its materials used in the new
cathedral. Portions also of the Ducal Palace were destroyed to give
increased space on the south side for the Transept, the portion known as
the Treasury only being preserved.[278] The record of the new church
states that it was built similar in its artistic construction to that at
Constantinople erected in honour of the twelve apostles.[279] The
arrangement and the design of the church thus extended were probably due
to a Greek architect, though much of the work, according to M. Cattaneo,
was afterwards carried out by a Lombard sculptor, Mazulo, who designed
the atrium and tower of the abbey of Pomposa (about 30 miles from
Venice), where the carving is of the same character or style as that in
St. Mark’s. Internally the church measures 200 ft. east and west, and
164 ft. across the transepts; externally these dimensions are increased
to 260 × 215, and the whole area to about 46,000 square ft., so that
although of respectable dimensions it is by no means a large church. The
central and western dome are 42 ft. in diameter, the other three 33 ft.
only. They are carried on spherical pendentives resting on circular
barrel vaults about 15 ft. wide; a crypt 86 ft. × 74 ft. extends under
the eastern dome and apses, the vault being supported by fifty-six
monolithic columns 5 ft. 6 in. high: the whole height from floor to the
crown of the arch being under 9 ft. The construction of this crypt
probably followed the erection of the church, which was not consecrated
till 1111, when Ordelapo Faliero was Doge. Externally this apse is
polygonal, as in Byzantine churches, the upper storey being set back to
allow of a passage round. The narthex or vestibule in front of the
church, which extends also on north and south of the nave aisles up to
the transepts, and the rooms over the north narthex and over part of the
baptistery, must have followed the erection of the church; in fact, the
principal front could not have been completed without them.
[Illustration: 413. Plan of St. Mark’s, Venice.]
[Illustration: 414. Capital in Apse, St. Mark’s, Venice.]
[Illustration: 415. View of St. Mark’s, Venice. (From Rosengarten.)]
[Illustration: 416. Section of St. Mark’s, Venice. (From ‘Chiesi
Principali di Europa.’)]
Externally the original construction was in brick, with blind arcades,
niches, and a simple brick cornice such as is found in Lombardic work.
It was not till the commencement of the 13th century that the decoration
of the front and sides with marble was undertaken; the arches were
encased with marble slabs carried on ranges of columns, those of the
narthex being placed one above the other. The shafts, capitals and bases
were brought from other buildings, having been imported from Altinum,
Aquileia, Heraclea, Ravenna, and from other places in Dalmatia, Syria,
and the East. It is possible that the porches of the churches of St.
Gilles and of St. Trophime at Arles may have suggested this method of
decoration, of which no prototype exists in the East. The capitals are
of all periods, from the 4th to the 11th centuries, the entablature
blocks and the stylobates being specially worked for the building. The
rose window of the south transept and others of similar style were
inserted about the commencement of the 14th century, the baptistery and
the chapel of St. Isidore[280] being encased with marbles in the middle
of the same century, and the decoration of the upper part of the arches
of the west, towards the end of the 14th century. As will be seen by the
north and south fronts section (Woodcut No. 416) the original brick
domes were surmounted by timber domes covered with lead, and of
considerable height. These were probably added in the middle of the 13th
century.[281] The rood loft dates from the end of the same century. The
earlier mosaics in the domes date from the 12th century, and the marble
casing of the lower portion of the walls and the richly decorated
pavement from the 12th and 13th centuries. The work of decoration was
carried on through succeeding centuries with occasional restorations, so
that the church itself constitutes a museum with almost every phase of
work in mosaic from the 12th to the 18th centuries.
Though from a strictly architectural point of view the disposition of
the design is not equal to those of some of our northern cathedrals
(except perhaps for the greater beauty of Byzantine domical
construction), it is impossible to find fault with plain surfaces when
they are covered with such exquisite gold mosaics as those of St.
Mark’s, or with the want of accentuation in the lines of the roof, when
every part of it is more richly adorned in this manner than any other
church of the Western world. Then too the rood screens, the pulpit, the
pala d’oro and the whole furniture of the choir are so rich, so
venerable, and on the whole so beautiful, and seen in so exquisitely
subdued a light, that it is impossible to deny that it is perhaps the
most impressive interior in Western Europe. St. Front at Périgueux, with
almost identical dimensions and design (Woodcut No. 562), is cold,
scattered, and unmeaning, because but a structural skeleton of St.
Mark’s without its adornments. The interior of a 13th-century Gothic
church is beautiful, even when whitewashed; but these early attempts had
not yet reached that balance between construction and ornament, which is
necessary to real architectural effect.
The same is true of the exterior; if stripped of its ornament and
erected in plain stone it would hardly be tolerable, and the mixture of
florid 14th-century foliage and bad Italian Gothic details with the
older work, would be all but unendurable. But marble, mosaic, sculpture,
and the all-hallowing touch of age and association, disarm the critic,
and force him to worship when his reason tells him he ought to blame.
Much as St. Mark’s must have been admired in the days of its freshness,
the Gothic feeling seems to have been so strong in Northern Italy in the
11th and 12th centuries as to prevent its being used as a model. The one
prominent exception is San Antonio, Padua (1237-1307), which is
evidently a copy of St. Mark’s, but with so much Gothic design mixed up
with it as to spoil both. Length was sought to be obtained by using
seven domes instead of five, and running an aisle round the apse. The
side-aisles were covered with intersecting vaults, and pointed arches
were occasionally introduced when circular would have harmonised better
with the general design.
[Illustration: 417. Plan of St. Antonio, Padua. (From Wiebeking.) Scale
100 ft. to 1 in.]
Externally the enveloping porch was omitted—not even the Pisan
modification of it introduced, though it might have been employed with
the happiest effect. The consequence of all this jumble is, that San
Antonio is externally one of the most unsatisfactory churches in Europe,
though possessing a quaint Oriental look from the grouping of its dome
with the minaret-like spires which adorn it. The inside is not so bad,
though a roof of only five bays over a quasi-Gothic church, 200 ft. in
length, distorts the proportion, and with the ill-understood details of
the whole, spoils what narrowly escaped being one of the most successful
interiors of that part of Italy.
DALMATIA AND ISTRIA.
Both Dalmatia and Istria formed part of the Gothic kingdom of Theodoric:
we find therefore the same Byzantine influence exerted as in Ravenna; an
influence which increased when the first-named country was retaken by
Justinian in 535, and the second in 539 A.D.
At Parenzo in Istria there is a basilica, built in the year 543 A.D. by
the Bishop Euphrasius, and consequently contemporary with the examples
at Ravenna already described. This church still retains its atrium,
baptistery, and other accompaniments, which those at Ravenna have lost.
It consists of a basilica in three aisles, with an apse at the end of
each, and an atrium in front, beyond which is situated the baptistery;
and in front of this again a tower, though this latter feature seems to
be of more modern date. On one side at the east end is a chapel or
crypt; this, Mr. Jackson[282] suggests, may have been “the martyrium or
confessio of the basilica where the remains of the saintly patrons of
the church were preserved and venerated.” “According to strict rule,”
Mr. Jackson observes, “the confessio should be in a crypt under the
choir as at Aquileja and Zara, but Parenzo lies so low that excavation
would be difficult, and here as in other cases the martyrium may have
been placed in an adjoining building.”[283]
Internally the church is 121 ft. in length by 32 in width, and possesses
all the usual arrangements of a church of that date. The columns are
borrowed from some earlier edifice, but the capitals are all original,
and were carved for the church. They are all of pure Byzantine type, and
are surmounted by that essentially Byzantine feature the dosseret. The
central apse, though circular inside, is polygonal outside, which is
another characteristic of Byzantine work. Like Torcello it has still
preserved its semicircle of marble seats for the clergy, with the
episcopal throne in the middle. Externally the façade retains portions
of the ancient mosaics with which it was decorated, and although
internally the nave has lost its early decorations, the lofty dado of
the apse inlaid with slabs of porphyry and serpentine interspersed with
mosaics of opaque glass, onyx and mother-of-pearl, bears witness to its
original splendour, the cypher of Euphrasius denoting its execution to
be coeval with the building of the church, and therefore some centuries
earlier than the mosaics of the baldachino, which are dated 1277.
[Illustration: 418. Church at Parenzo in Istria. (From Jackson.) Scale
100 ft. to 1 in.]
We are indebted also to Mr. Jackson for the description of two churches
at Grado: the Duomo and St. Maria delle Grazie; the former a fine
basilican church with nave and aisles and a deep central apse, circular
inside and polygonal externally.[284] The twenty columns of the nave are
all taken from earlier edifices, and of the capitals which surmount them
five are Roman and twelve of pure Byzantine workmanship, based on the
Roman composite capital, but treated in a quite original way. The
capitals are not surmounted by the dosseret, but in the other church of
St. Maria delle Grazie some have the dosseret and others are without it,
though all of the same period. The chief glory of the church, however,
lies in its magnificent marble pavement (measured and illustrated in Mr.
Jackson’s work), the greater portion of which is still preserved. The
church of St. Maria delle Grazie is a small basilican church of six bays
with fragments of similar pavement to those in the Duomo. The apse here
is masked on the exterior by two sacristies on each side which entirely
enclose it; similar examples are found in De Vogüé’s work of “Central
Syria” (Woodcuts Nos. 278, 281, and 299).
[Illustration: 419. Capital of Column at Parenzo.]
The churches of Parenzo and Grado appear to be the only examples
remaining of early Romano-Byzantine work on this side of the Adriatic.
St. Maria de Canneto at Pola, consecrated in 546 A.D., was destroyed in
the 14th and 15th centuries and its materials carried off to Venice for
the adornment of the churches there. As edifices of the age of
Justinian, and as showing the relative position of the various parts
that made up an ecclesiastical establishment in those early times, the
churches of Parenzo and Grado are singularly deserving of the attention
of those to whom the history of art is a matter of interest.
TORCELLO.
The church at Torcello, in the Venetian Lagune, is the last example it
will be necessary to quote in order to make the arrangements of the
early basilicas intelligible. It was originally erected in the seventh
century; of this church, according to M. Cattaneo, the only portion
remaining, if we except a fragment of the ancient baptistery, is the
central apse. In 864, the church would seem to have been reconstructed,
and to this period belong the two side apses, the apsidal crypt with new
windows pierced through the old wall and the external walls: it is
possible that the original nave of the seventh century was retained till
1008, when it was rebuilt by the Doge Pietro Orseolo, on the occasion of
his son being raised to the Bishopric of Torcello. Thirteen of the
capitals of the nave date from this period, one may be earlier, and five
belong to the second half of the 12th century. The whole width of the
church is 71 ft. internally by 125 in length. A screen of six pillars
divides the nave from the sanctuary. Perhaps, however, the most
interesting part of this church is the interior of its apse, which still
retains the bishop’s throne, surrounded by six ranges of seats for his
presbytery, arranged like those of an ancient theatre. It presents one
of the most extensive and best preserved examples of the fittings of the
apse, and gives a better idea of the mode in which the apses of churches
were originally arranged than anything that is to be found in any other
church, either of its age or of an earlier period.[285]
Like Sta. Pudentiana (Woodcut No. 404), this church possesses a small
side chapel, a vestry or sanctuary, on the Gospel side of the altar, and
the remains of the ancient baptistery may still be traced in front of
the west door. This was a square block, externally, measuring 37 ft.
each way; internally an octagon, with the angles cut into hemispherical
niches. A portion of its eastern side only remains, and this is now
hidden behind the modern baptistery, in which, under a board in the
pavement, can be seen the foundations of the second baptistery of the
12th century. In the rear of the church stood the campanile, and across
a narrow passage the conventual buildings; in front of which now stands
the beautiful little church of Sta. Fosca, the whole making up a group
of nearly unrivalled interest considering its small dimensions.
[Illustration: 420. Plan of Church at Torcello. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.
(From Cattaneo.)]
Other examples might be quoted differing in some slight respect from
those just given, but the above are probably sufficient to explain the
general arrangements of the early basilican churches and the style of
their architecture, so long as this worked on the old tradition of the
Romano-Byzantine style; in other words, so long as it continued in Italy
to be a distinction from the Roman style without any foreign admixture
beyond that introduced direct from Byzantium. It might be instructive to
speculate on what the style might have become if left alone to develope
itself on its native soil, but it would be extremely difficult to make
the subject clear without a much larger amount of illustration than is
admissible, and which in such a history as this would be out of place.
Simultaneously with the elaboration of the rectangular form of church by
the Italians, the Byzantines were occupied with the same task; but,
being freer from the trammels of tradition and less influenced by
examples, they early arrived at forms much more divergent from those of
the classical period than those of Italy, and their style, reacting on
the Italian, produced that very beautiful combination of which Pisa
Cathedral is a type, and St. Mark’s at Venice an extreme example. This
style generally pervaded the whole south of Italy, with the exception of
Rome; and, from the elements of which it was composed, may fairly be
designated Byzantine Italian.
[Illustration: 421. Apse of Basilica at Torcello.]
While this was going on in the south, the Longobards, and other
Barbarians who invaded the north of Italy, seized on this type and
worked it out in their own fashion. They, however, conceived the desire
to give a more permanent character to their churches by covering them
over with stone vaulted roofs, which led to most important modifications
of the style. It may probably be correct to assert that no
Romano-Byzantine or early Romanesque church has, or ever had, a vaulted
nave. On the other hand, there is hardly a Barbarian church which the
builders did not aspire to vault, though they were frequently unable to
accomplish it. It was this vaulting mania which led to the invention of
compound piers, pointed arches, buttresses, pinnacles, and all the
numerous peculiarities of the Gothic style; and which, reacting on
northern Italy, produced the Ghibelline or Italian-Gothic style.
No exact boundary can be drawn between these two: modifications of style
varied, as Byzantine or Gothic influences ebbed or flowed, during the
Middle Ages. Venice and Pisa, and all Calabria, were generally
influenced by their intercourse with the East, while the whole of the
north of Italy and away from the coast as far down as Sienna and Orvieto
the strong hand of the Teuton made itself felt.
Yet Italy cannot be said to have been successful in either style. Her
superior civilisation enabled her to introduce and use an elegance of
detail unknown north of the Alps; but she did not work out the basilican
type for herself: she left it to others to do that for her, and
consequently never perfectly understood what she undertook, or why it
was done. The result is that, though great elegance is found in parts,
Italy can hardly produce a single church which is satisfactory as a
design; or which would be intelligible without first explaining the
basework of those true styles from which its principal features have
been borrowed.
CHAPTER III.
CIRCULAR CHURCHES.
CONTENTS.
Circular Churches—Tomb of Sta. Costanza—Churches at Perugia, Nocera,
Ravenna, Milan—Secular Buildings.
In addition to the Pagan basilicas and temples, from which the
arrangements of so many of the Christian edifices were obtained, the
tombs of the Romans formed a third type, from which the forms of a very
important class of churches were derived.
The form which these buildings retained, so long as they remained mere
sepulchres appropriated to Pagan uses, has been already described (pp.
342 to 346). That of Cæcilia Metella and those of Augustus and Hadrian
were what would now be called “chambered tumuli;” originally the
sepulchral chamber was infinitesimally small as compared with the mass,
but we find these being gradually enlarged till we approach the age of
Constantine, when, as in the tombs of the Tossia Family, that called the
Tomb of Helena (Woodcut No. 227) and many others of the same age, they
became miniature Pantheons. The central apartment was all in all; the
exterior was not thought of. Still they were appropriated to sepulchral
rites, and these only, so long as they belonged to Pagan Rome. The case
was different when they were erected by the Christians. No association
could be more appropriate than that of these sepulchral edifices, to a
religion nursed in persecution, and the apostles of which had sealed
their faith with their blood as martyrs; and when the Sacrament for the
dying and the burial service were employed, it was in these circular
churches that it was performed. But besides the viaticum for the
departing Christian, the Church provided the admission sacrament of
baptism for those who were entering into communion, and this was, in
early days at least, always performed in a building separate from the
basilica. It would depend on whether marriage was then considered as a
sacrament or a civil contract, whether it was celebrated in the basilica
or the church; but it seems certain that the one was used almost
exclusively as the business place of the community, the other as the
sacramental temple of the sect. This appears always to have been the
case, at least when the two forms existed together, as they almost
always did in the great ecclesiastical establishments of Italy. When the
church was copied from a temple, as in the African examples above
described, it is probable it may have served both purposes. But too
little is known of the architecture of this early age, and its
liturgies, to speak positively on the subject.
The uses and derivation of these three forms of churches are so distinct
that it would be extremely convenient if we could appropriate names to
distinguish them. The first retains most appropriately the name of
basilica, and with sufficient limitation to make it generally
applicable. The word _ecclesia_, or _église_, would equally suffice for
the second but that it is not English, and has been so indiscriminately
applied that it could not now be used in a restricted sense. The word
kirk, or as we soften it into church, would be appropriate to the
third,[286] but again it has been so employed as to be inapplicable. We
therefore content ourselves with employing the words Basilica, Church,
and Round Church, to designate the three, employing some expletive when
any confusion is likely to arise between the first two of the series.
The most interesting feature of the early Romanesque circular buildings
is that they show the same transitional progress from an external to an
internal columnar style of architecture which marked the change from the
Pagan to the Christian form of sacred edifice. It is perhaps not too
much to assert that no ancient classic building of circular form has any
pillars used constructively in its interior.[287] Even the Pantheon,
though 143 ft. 6 in. in diameter, derives no assistance from the pillars
that surround it internally—they are mere decorative features. The same
is true of the last Pagan example we are acquainted with—the temple or
tomb which Diocletian erected in his palace at Spalato (Woodcut No.
194). The pillars do fill up the angles there, but the building would be
stable without them. The Byzantine architects also generally declined to
avail themselves of pillars to support their domes, but the Romanesque
architects used them almost as universally as in their basilicas.
Another very striking peculiarity is the entire abandonment of all
external decoration. Roman circular temples had peristyles, like those
at Tivoli (Woodcut No. 193) and that of Vesta in Rome. Even the Pantheon
is as remarkable for its portico as its dome, so is that known as the
Torre dei Schiavi,[288] but it is only in the very earliest of the
Christian edifices that we find a trace of the portico, and even in them
hardly any attempt at external decoration. The temples of the Christians
were no longer shrines to contain statues and to which worship might be
addressed by people outside, but had become halls to contain the
worshippers themselves while engaged in acts of devotion.
The tomb of the Empress Helena (Woodcut No. 227) is one of the earliest
examples of its class. It has no pillars internally, it is true, but it
likewise has none on the exterior—the transition was not then complete.
The same is the case with the two tombs on the Spina of the Circus of
Nero (Woodcut No. 396). They too were astylar, and their external
appearance was utterly neglected.
[Illustration: 422. Baptistery of Constantine. (From Isabelle.) Scale
100 ft. to 1 in.]
When from these we turn to the Tomb or Baptistery of Constantine, built
some time afterwards (Woodcut No. 422), we find the roof supported by a
screen of eight columns, two storeys in height, and through all its
alterations can detect the effort to make the interior ornamental. It
has, however, a portico, but this again is practically an interior, both
ends being closed with apsidal terminations, so that it really forms a
second apartment, rather than a portico. In both these respects it is in
advance of the building next to it in age that we know of—the Octagon at
Spalato—which it otherwise very much resembles. The eight internal
pillars instead of being mere ornaments have become essential parts of
the construction, and the external peristyle has disappeared, leaving
only the fragment of a porch.
[Illustration: 423. Plan of the Tomb of Sta. Costanza, Rome. (From
Isabelle, ‘Édifices Circulaires.’) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
The tomb which the same Emperor erected to contain the remains of his
daughter Constantia, is another example of the same transitional style.
The interior in this instance is vaulted, but so timidly that
twenty-four pillars are employed to sustain a weight for which half that
number would have been amply sufficient. In the square niche opposite
the entrance stood the sarcophagus of the princess, now in the Vatican.
The roof of the aisle is adorned with paintings of the vintage and
scenes of rural life, which, like all those on the tombs of Pagan Rome,
have no reference to the sepulchral uses to which the building was
dedicated. The whole internal diameter of the tomb is 73 ft., that of
the dome 35.
In front of the building is a small crypto-porticus similar in
arrangement to that of her father’s tomb, and beyond this is an oblong
space with circular ends, and surrounded on all sides by arcades; its
dimensions were 535 ft. by 130, and, though so ruined as hardly to allow
of its arrangements being restored, it is interesting as being perhaps
the only instance of the “_forum_,” which it is probable was left before
all tombs in those times, and traces of which may perhaps be found
elsewhere, though as yet they have not been looked for.
[Illustration: 424. Plan of San Stefano Rotondo. (From Gutensohn and
Knapp.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
The only other important circular building within the walls of Rome of
this early age is that known as S. Stefano Rotondo. Though there is
nothing to fix its date with any precision, it is almost certain that it
belongs to the fifth century of the Christian era.[289] It is 210 ft. in
diameter, and its roof was supported by two ranges of columns,
circularly disposed in its interior; and on the first or inner range
rested a horizontal architrave like that of St. Peter’s. In the outer
one the pillars support arches like those of St. Paul’s.[290] All the
pillars are taken from older buildings. The outer aisle was divided into
eight compartments; but in what manner, and for what purpose, it is not
now easy to ascertain, owing to the ruined state of the building, and to
its having been so much and so frequently altered since it was first
erected. Nor can it be determined exactly how it was roofed; though it
is probable that its arrangements were identical with those of the great
five-aisled basilicas, which it closely resembles, except in its
circular shape.
[Illustration: 425. Plan of Sti. Angeli, Perugia. (From Isabelle.) Scale
100 ft. to 1 in.]
This is more clear in another church of the same age, that of Sti.
Angeli, at Perugia, which is very similar in its disposition. Of this
building a section is here shown, as given by M. Isabelle—perhaps not
quite to be depended upon in every respect, but still affording a very
fair representation of what the arrangements of the circular wooden
roofed churches were. Its dimensions are much less than those of San
Stefano, being only 115 ft. in diameter; but it is more regular, the
greater part of its materials being apparently original, and made for
the place they occupy. In the church of San Stefano, the tomb-shaped
circular form was probably used as symbolical of his martyrdom. That at
Perugia was most likely originally a baptistery, or it may also have
been dedicated to some martyr; but in the heart of Etruria this form may
have been adopted for other reasons, the force of which we are hardly
able at the present day to appreciate, though in all cases locality is
one of the strongest influencing powers in so far as architectural forms
are concerned.
[Illustration: 426. Section of Sti. Angeli, Perugia. (From Isabelle,
‘Édifices Circulaires.’) No scale.]
[Illustration: 427. Plan of Baptistery at Nocera dei Pagani. Double the
usual scale, or 50 ft. to 1 in.]
At Nocera dei Pagani, on the road between Naples and Salerno, there is
an extremely beautiful circular church, built undoubtedly for the
purpose of a baptistery, and very similar in plan and general
arrangement to the tomb of Constantia, now known as the Baptistery of
Sta. Agnese, though somewhat larger being 80 ft. in diameter. Its
principal merit is the form of its dome, which is not only correct in a
scientific point of view, but singularly graceful internally. Externally
this building for the first time introduces us to a peculiarity which
had as much influence on the western styles as any of those pointed out
above. As before observed (p. 540), the early Romanesque architects
never attempted to vault their rectangular buildings, but they did
frequently construct domes over their circular edifices. But here again
they did not make the outside of the dome the outline of their
buildings, as the Romans had always done before the time of Constantine,
and as the Byzantines and Saracens invariably did afterwards; but they
employed their vault only as a ceiling internally, and covered it, as in
this instance, with a false wooden roof externally. It may be difficult
to determine how far this was a judicious innovation; but this at least
is certain, that it had as much influence on the development of the
Gothic style as the vaulting mania itself. In the 10th and 11th
centuries many attempts were made to construct true roofs of stone, but
unsuccessfully; and from various causes, which will be pointed out
hereafter, the idea was abandoned, and the architects were forced to
content themselves with a stone ceiling, covered by a wooden roof,
though this became one of the radical defects of the style, and one of
the principal causes of the decay and destruction of so many beautiful
buildings.
[Illustration: 428. Section of Baptistery at Nocera dei Pagani. (From
Isabelle, ‘Édifices Circulaires.’) No scale.]
RAVENNA.
Ravenna possesses several circular buildings, almost as interesting as
those of the capital; the first being the baptistery of St. John
belonging to the original basilica, and consequently one of the oldest
Christian buildings of the place. Externally it is a plain octagonal
building, 40 ft. in diameter. Internally it still retains its mosaic and
other internal features added in the 5th century, which are singularly
elegant and pleasing. Its design is somewhat like that of the temple at
Spalato, but with arcades substituted everywhere for horizontal
architraves; the century that elapsed between these two epochs having
sufficed to complete the transition between the two styles.
[Illustration: 429. Plan of St. Vitale, Ravenna. (From Isabelle.) Scale
100 ft. to 1 in.]
Far more interesting than this is the great church of St. Vitale, the
most complicated, and at the same time, perhaps, the most beautiful, of
the circular churches of that age. In design it is nearly identical with
the church of St. Sergius at Constantinople (see Woodcut No. 311), from
which it was undoubtedly copied, and probably by Greek artists from that
town. It was built in the reign of Justinian by St. Ecclesius,
archbishop of the see, and was consecrated in 547, eight years after the
taking of Ravenna by Justinian’s generals. The principal difference of
the plan lies in its being enclosed within an octagon instead of a
square, as in St. Sergius, probably to mask the irregularity of the main
entrance from a street which did not run in the direction of any of the
cardinal points. The recesses are loftier in proportion than those of
St. Sergius, and in the lower storey arcades take the place of beams.
The aisles being covered with timber roofs, it was necessary to raise
the walls of the octagon higher than those of St. Sergius, and small
arches take the place of the usual pendentives: the springing of the
dome, which is 50 ft. in diameter, is on the level of the sill of the
windows the arches of which therefore form penetrations into the dome.
[Illustration: 430. Section of St. Vitale, Ravenna. (From Isabelle.)
Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
The church is built in bricks with thick mortar joints, the dome being
constructed in an ingenious manner with hollow pots fitted the end of
one into the mouth of the other; the lightness of this vault has enabled
the builders to dispense with the immense arches and buttresses found in
St. Sergius and in Sta. Sophia. Similar construction with pots had been
employed in the East for domes and roofs,[291] and they form as
permanent a method as stone itself, in addition to the stability,
facility of construction, and lightness which such an expedient affords.
[Illustration: 431. Capital in St. Vitale, Ravenna.]
Internally a good deal has been done in modern times to destroy the
simplicity of the original effect of the building; but still there is a
pleasing result produced by alternating the piers with circular columns,
and a lightness and elegance about the whole design that render it
unrivalled in the western world among churches of its class. This seems
to have been admitted by its contemporaries as much as it is in modern
times. Charlemagne at all events copied it for his own tomb at
Aix-la-Chapelle, and the architects of many other circular buildings of
that age appear to have derived their inspiration from this one.
[Illustration: 431_a_. Capital in St. Vitale, Ravenna.]
The church of San Lorenzo at Milan, had it not been so much altered in
modern times, would take precedence of San Vitale in almost every
respect. The date of its erection is not known, though it certainly must
be as early as, if not earlier than, the time of Justinian. Down to the
8th century it was the cathedral of the city. It was burnt to the ground
in 1071, and restored in 1119; the dome then erected fell in 1571, on
which it underwent its last transformation from the hands of Martino
Bassi and Pellegrini, who so disfigured its ancient details as to lead
many modern inquirers to doubt whether it was really so old as it was
said to be.
Its plan, however, seems to have remained unchanged, and shows a further
progress towards what afterwards became the Byzantine style than is to
be found either in St. Sergius or in San Vitale. It is in fact the
earliest attempt to amalgamate the circular church with one of a square
shape; and except that the four lateral colonnades are flat segments of
circles, and that there is a little clumsiness in the angles (due
possibly to the additions made in 1119 and 1571, when the plan of the
dome was changed to an octagon, the original dome being probably
circular, and carried on four spherical pendentives), it is one of the
most successful designs handed down from that early age.
The dome as it now stands is octagonal, which the first dome certainly
could not have been. Its diameter is 70 ft., nearly equal to that of the
Minerva Medica, and the whole diameter of the building is internally 142
ft.
[Illustration: 432. Plan of S. Lorenzo at Milan. (From Quast,
‘Altchristlichen,’ &c.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
In front of the church, in the street, is a handsome colonnade of
pillars, borrowed from some ancient temple—it is said from one dedicated
to Hercules; this leads to a square atrium, now wholly deprived of its
lateral arcades; and this again to a façade, which has been strangely
altered in modern times. Opposite this, to the eastward of the church,
is an octagonal building, apparently intended as a tomb-house; and on
the north side a similar one, though smaller. On the south is the
baptistery, about 45 ft. in diameter, approached by a vestibule in the
same manner as that of Constantine at Rome, and as in the tomb of his
daughter Constantia: all these, however, have been so painfully altered,
that little remains besides the bare plan of the building; still there
is enough to show that this is one of the oldest and most interesting of
the Christian churches of Italy.
The building now known as the baptistery at Florence is an octagon, 108
ft. in diameter externally. Like the last-mentioned church, it was
originally the cathedral of the city, and was erected to serve as such
apparently in the time of Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards. If this
was so, it certainly had not originally its present form, and most
probably those columns which now stand ranged round the walls at that
time stood in the centre, as in the Roman examples. If the original roof
was of wood, it was probably in two storeys, like that of the baptistery
of Constantine, or it may have been a dome of more solid materials, like
that of the Sta. Costanza.
At the same time when the new cathedral was built, the older edifice
appears to have been remodelled both internally and externally by
Arnolpho da Lapo, and both its form and decoration so completely
changed, that it must now be considered rather as a building of the 13th
century than of the 6th, in which it seems originally to have been
erected.[292]
[Illustration: 433. Half Section, half Elevation, of the Baptistery at
Novara. (From Osten.) No scale.]
The baptistery of Novara, which may date from the time of Charlemagne,
is interesting in that it contains the germ of those external galleries
under the roof which form not only one of the most common but also one
of the most beautiful features of the later Lombard and Rhenish
churches. From the elevation (Woodcut No. 433) it will easily be seen
what was the motive and use of this arrangement, the first trace of
which dates perhaps as far back as the baptistery of Nocera (Woodcut No.
428); for wherever a wooden roof was placed over a circular vault, it is
evident that the external walls must be carried up higher than the
springing of the arch. But it was by no means necessary that this
additional wall should be so solid as that below it, and it was
necessary to introduce light and air into the space between the stone
and the wooden roofs. Add to this the incongruity of effect in placing a
light tiled wooden roof on a massive solid wall, and it will be evident
that not only did the exigencies of the building, but the true
principles of taste, demand that this part should be made as light as
possible. Such openings as those found in the baptistery at Novara
suggested an expedient which provided for these objects. This was
afterwards carried to a much greater extent. At first, however, it seems
only to have been used under the roofs of the domes with which the
Italians almost universally crowned the intervention of naves and
transepts, and round the semidomes of the apses; but so enamoured did
they afterwards become of this feature, that it is frequently carried
along the sides of the churches under the roof of the nave and of the
aisles, and also—where it is of more questionable taste—under the
sloping naves of the roof of the principal façade.
There is nothing in the Lombardian and Rhenish styles so common or so
beautiful as these galleries, the arcades of which have all the shadow
given by a cornice without its inconvenient projection, while the little
shafts with their elegant capitals and light archivolts have a sparkle
and brilliancy which no cornice ever possessed. Indeed so beautiful are
they, that we are not surprised to find them universally adopted; and
their discontinuance on the introduction of the pointed style was one of
the greatest losses sustained by architectural art in those days. It is
true they would have been quite incompatible with the thin walls and
light piers of pointed architecture, but it may be safely asserted that
no feature which these new styles introduced was equally beautiful with
those galleries which they superseded.
[Illustration: 434. Tomb of Galla Placidia, Ravenna. (From Quast.) No
scale.]
There can be little doubt that many other similar buildings belonging to
this age still exist in various parts of Italy; for it is more than
probable that, at a time when the city was not of sufficient importance,
or the congregation so numerous as to require the more extended
accommodation of the basilica, almost all the earlier churches were
circular. They either, however, have perished from lapse of time, or
have been so altered as to be nearly unrecognisable. We here, in
consequence, come again to a break in the chain of our sequence; and
when we again meet with any circular buildings in Italy, their features
are so distinctly Gothic or Byzantine, that they must be classed with
one or other of these modifications. The true Romano-Byzantine style had
nearly come to an end when Alboin the Lombard had made himself master of
the greater part of Italy about the year 575.
Before leaving this branch of the subject there are two small buildings
at Ravenna which it is impossible to pass over, though their direct
bearing on the history of this subject is not so apparent as it is in
the case of other buildings just described. The first and earliest is
the tomb of Galla Placidia (Woodcut No. 302), now known as the church of
SS. Nazario and Celso, and must have been erected before the year 450.
It is singular among all the tombs of that age from the abandonment in
it of the circular for a cruciform plan. Such forms, it is true, are
common in the chambers of tumuli and also among the catacombs, while the
church which Constantine built in Constantinople and dedicated to the
Apostles, meaning it however as a sepulchral church, was something also
on this plan. Notwithstanding, however, these examples, this must be
considered as an exceptional form, though its diminutiveness (it being
only 35 ft. by 30 internally) might perhaps account for any caprice. Its
great interest to us consists in its retaining not only its primitive
architectural form (which is that of a dome carried on pendentives, and
one of the few instances in which both dome and pendentives form part of
one sphere), but its polychromatic decorations nearly in their original
state of completeness (Woodcut 302). The three arms of the cross forming
the receptacles for the three sarcophagi is certainly a pleasing
arrangement, but is only practicable on a small scale.
[Illustration: 435. Capital of Pillars forming peristyle round
Theodoric’s Tomb. (From Hubsch.)]
[Illustration: 436. Plan of Tomb of Theodoric. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 437. Elevation of Tomb of Theodoric, Ravenna. (From
Isabelle, ‘Édifices Circulaires.’)]
Far more interesting than this—architecturally at least—is the tomb of
Theodoric, the Gothic king, now known as Santa Maria Rotunda. The lower
storey is a decagon externally, enclosing a cruciform crypt. It is 45
ft. in diameter, each face being ornamented by a deep niche. These
support a flat terrace, on which originally stood a range of small
pillars supporting arches which surrounded the upper storey. These have
all been removed, though their form can be restored from fragments
found, and as shown in Woodcut No. 435. On the face of the tomb itself
are the sinkings for the architraves and vaults which they supported.
The most singular part of the building is the roof, which is formed of
one great slab hollowed out into the form of a flat dome—internally 30
ft. and externally 35 ft. in diameter—and which certainly forms one of
the most unique and appropriate coverings for a tomb perhaps anywhere to
be found. Near the edge are a series of projecting bosses, which
evidently were originally used as handles, by means of which the immense
mass was raised to its present position. In the centre of the dome is a
small square pedestal, on which, it is said, once stood the urn which
contained the ashes of its founder.
The model of this building seems probably to have been the Mole of
Hadrian, which Theodoric saw, and must have admired, during his
celebrated visit to Rome. The polygonal arrangements of the exterior,
and the substitution of arcades for horizontal architraves, were only
such changes as the lapse of time had rendered indispensable. But the
building of the ancient world which it most resembles is the Tour Magne
at Nîmes. In both cases we have the polygonal basement containing a
great chamber, and above this externally the narrow ledge, approached by
flying flights of steps. We cannot now tell what crowned the French
example, though the fact of an urn crowning the tomb at Ravenna points
to an identical origin, but we must obtain a greater number of examples
before we can draw any positive conclusions as to the origin of such
forms. Meanwhile, however, whether we consider the appropriateness of
the forms, the solidity of its construction, or the simplicity of its
ornaments and details, this tomb at Ravenna is not surpassed by any
building of its class and age.
Though the investigation of the early history of these circular forms of
churches is not so important as that of the rectangular basilicas, it is
extremely interesting from the influence they had on the subsequent
development of the style. In Italy it is probable that one-half of the
early churches were circular in plan; and one such is still generally
retained attached to each cathedral as a baptistery. Except for this
purpose, however, the form has generally been superseded: the
rectangular being much easier to construct, more capable of extension,
and altogether more appropriate to the ritual of the Christian
community. In France the circular form was early absorbed into the
basilica, forming the Chevet or apse. In Germany its fate was much the
same as in Italy, but its supersession was earlier and more complete. In
England some half-dozen examples are known to exist, and in Spain they
have yet to be discovered.
Had the Gothic architects applied themselves to the extension and
elaboration of the circular form with the same zeal and skill as was
displayed in that task by their Byzantine brethren, they might probably
have produced something far more beautiful than even the best of our
mediæval cathedrals; but when the Barbarians began to build, they found
the square form with its straight lines simpler and easier to construct.
It thus happened that, long before they became as civilised and expert
as the Easterns were when they commenced the task, the Westerns had
worked the rectangular form into one of considerable beauty, and had
adapted it to their ritual, and their ritual to it. It thus became the
sacred and appropriate form, and the circular or domical forms were
consequently never allowed a fair trial in Western Europe.
SECULAR BUILDINGS.
Very few remains of secular buildings in the early Christian style are
now to be found in Italy. The palace of Theodoric at Ravenna, though
sadly mutilated, is perhaps the best and most perfect. In all its
details it shows a close resemblance to that of Diocletian at Spalato,
but more especially so to the Porta Aurea and the most richly and least
classically decorated parts of that edifice, but much intermixed with
mouldings and details which would seem to belong to a later style.
Another building, though perhaps of earlier date, is that which is now
called the Palazzo delle Torre at Turin, and which still retains the
architectural ordinance of the exterior of a Roman amphitheatre, but so
modified by common sense that the pilasters are frankly accepted as
purely decorative features, having only a slight projection. A similar
style of work is found at Bordeaux in what is known as the “Palais
Gallien,” but which in reality is a fragment of an amphitheatre built by
the Emperor Gallienus (260-268 A.D.). The example at Turin is built with
brick of large dimensions 15 in. by 11 in., which, coupled with its
character and style, has led M. Cattaneo to ascribe it to the 3rd or 4th
century of our era; the paucity of contemporary examples, however,
renders it extremely difficult to trace the exact history of the style
at this age.
[Illustration: 438. Palazzo delle Torre, Turin. (From Osten’s ‘Bauwerke
in der Lombardei.’)]
In so progressive an art as architecture it is always very difficult,
sometimes impossible, to fix the exact date when one style ends and
another begins. In an art so pre-eminently ecclesiastical as
architecture was in those days, it will probably be safer to look in the
annals of the Church rather than in those of the State for a date when
the debased-Roman expired, giving birth, phœnix-like, to the Romanesque.
Viewed from this point there can be little doubt but that the reign of
Gregory the Great (A.D. 590 to 603) must be regarded as that in which
the Latin language and the Roman style of architecture both ceased to be
generally or even commonly employed.
After this date we wander on through five centuries of tentative efforts
to form a new style, and in the age of another Gregory—the VII.—we find
at last the Romanesque style emancipated from former traditions, and
marching steadily forward with a well-defined aim. What had been
commenced under the gentle influence of a Theodelinda at Florence in the
year 600, was completed in the year 1077 under the firmer guidance of a
Matilda at Canossa.
CHAPTER IV.
LOMBARD AND ROUND-ARCHED GOTHIC.
CONTENTS.
Chapel at Friuli—Churches at Piacenza and Novara—St. Michele, Pavia—St.
Ambrogio, Milan—Cathedral, Piacenza—Churches at Verona—Churches at
Toscanella—Circular Churches—Towers.
When, in the early centuries of the Christian era, the great mass of
Gothic barbarism moved up the Valley of the Danube towards the west, one
great division followed that river to its source, and thence penetrated
into and settled in the Valley of the Rhine. Though sufficiently
numerous to be able almost wholly to obliterate all traces of former
civilisation, they had virtually no style of their own, and it seems
probable that the edifices left by the Romans sufficed for the early
wants of the people.
The other great division of the horde turned to the Sömmering Alps and,
penetrating into Italy by way of Udine and Conegliano, settled in the
Valley of the Po. They may have been as numerous as the others; but
Italy in those days was far more densely peopled than Germany, and the
inhabitants were consequently able to resist obliteration far more
successfully than on the north of the Alps, and even where the new
element prevailed most strongly its influence was far less felt than in
the more sparsely-peopled Rhenish provinces. This was generally more
apparent along the coast than in the interior. Venice did not exist, and
Ravenna, though overwhelmed, became the great centre of Romano-Byzantine
art. Pisa and Lucca resisted throughout. Florence was divided. The
Barbarian influence was strongly felt at Siena, more feebly at Orvieto;
but there it was stopped by the influence of Rome, which throughout the
Middle Ages remained nearly uncontaminated.
Notwithstanding the almost insuperable barrier of the Alps which
stretched between them and the different influences to which they were
subjected, the connection between the northern and southern hordes
remained intimate during the whole of the Middle Ages. Milan was as much
German as Italian; and, indeed, except from a slightly superior degree
of elegance in the southern examples, it is sometimes extremely
difficult to distinguish between the designs of Lombard and of Rhenish
churches. As the Middle Ages wore on, however, the breach between the
two styles widened; and there is no difficulty, in the later pointed
schools, in seeing how Italy was gradually working itself free from
German influence, till at last they became distinct and antagonistic
nationalities, practising two styles of art, which had very little in
common the one with the other.
Whoever the Barbarians were who in the 5th and 6th centuries swarmed
into Italy—Austro-Goths, Visi-Goths, or Lombards—they certainly did not
belong to any of the great building races of the world. Few people ever
had better opportunities than they of employing their easily-acquired
plunder in architectural magnificence, if they had any taste that way;
but, though we hear everywhere of the foundation of churches and the
endowment of ecclesiastical establishments during the Carlovingian
period, not one important edifice of that age has come down to our time.
The monumental history of the early Romanesque style is as essentially a
blank in Italy as it is in Saxon England. One or two circular buildings
remain tolerably entire; some small chapels let us into the secrets of
the style, but not one important edifice of any sort attests the
splendour of the Lombard kingdom of Northern Italy. Aryans they must
have been, and it was not till the beginning of the 11th century, when
their blood was thoroughly mixed with that of the indigenous inhabitants
and a complete fusion of races had taken place, that we find buildings
of a monumental character erected, which have come down to the present
day.
[Illustration: 439. Chapel at Friuli. (From Gailhabaud.)]
Among the smaller monuments of the age none has been preserved more
complete and less altered than the little chapel at Friuli; which,
though extremely small (only 18 ft. by 30 inside the walls), is
interesting, as retaining all its decorations almost exactly as they
were left by Gertrude, duchess of Friuli, who erected it in the 8th
century. It shows considerable elegance in its details, and the
sculpture is far better than it afterwards became, though perhaps its
most remarkable peculiarity is the intersecting vault that covers it—
_pulchre testudinatum_, as the old chronicle terms it. This is one proof
among many, how early that feature was introduced which afterwards
became the formative principle of the whole Gothic style, and was as
essentially its characteristic as the pillars and entablatures of the
five orders were the characteristics of the classical styles of Greece
and Rome. As before remarked, it is this necessity for a stone roof that
was the problem to be solved by the architects, and to accomplish which
the style took almost all those forms which are so much admired in it.
From this example of the Carlovingian era we are obliged to pass to the
11th and 12th centuries, the first great building age of the Lombards.
It is true that there is scarcely a single important church in Pavia, in
Verona, or indeed in any of the cities of Lombardy, the original
foundation of which cannot be traced back to a much earlier period.
Before the canons of architectural criticism were properly understood,
antiquaries were inclined to believe that in the buildings now existing
they saw the identical edifices erected during the period of the Lombard
sway. Either, however, in consequence of the rude construction of the
earlier buildings, or because they were too small or too poor for the
increased population and wealth of the cities at a later period, every
one of the original churches has disappeared and been replaced by a
larger and better-constructed edifice, adorned with all the improvements
which the experience of centuries had introduced into the construction
of religious edifices.
Judging from the rudeness of the earliest churches which we know to have
been erected in the 11th century, it is evident that the progress made,
up to that period, was by no means equal to what was accomplished during
the next two centuries.
[Illustration: 440. Plan of San Antonio, Piacenza. (From Osten.[293])
Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.[294]]
This will appear from the plan and section of St. Antonio at Piacenza
(Woodcuts Nos. 440 and 440a), built in the first years of the 11th
century, and dedicated in 1014 by Bishop Siegfried.
[Illustration: 440a. Section of Church of San Antonio at Piacenza. (From
Osten.)]
[Illustration: 441. Plan and section of Baptistry at Asti. (From Osten.)
Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
Its arrangement is somewhat peculiar; the transepts are near the west
end, and the octagonal tower rising from the intersection is supported
on eight pillars, the square being completed by four polygonal piers.
The principal point, however, to observe is, how completely the style
has emancipated itself from all Roman tradition. A new style has grown
up as essentially different from the early Christian as the style of
Cologne or of York Cathedral. The architect is once more at liberty to
work out his own designs without reference to anything beyond the
exigencies of the edifices themselves. The plan, indeed, is still a
reminiscence of the Basilica; but so are all the plans of Mediæval
cathedrals, and we may trace back the forms of the pillars, the piers,
and the arches they support, to the preceding style. All these were
derived from Roman art, but the originals are forgotten, and the new
style is wholly independent of the old one. The whole of the church too
is roofed with intersecting vaults, which have become an integral part
of the design, giving it an essentially different character. On the
outside buttresses are introduced—timidly, it is true, but so
frequently, as to make it evident that already there existed no
insuperable objection to increase either their number or depth, as soon
as additional abutment was required for wider arches.
The windows, as in all Italian churches, are small, for the Italians
never patronised the art of painting on glass, always preferring
frescoes or paintings on opaque grounds. In their bright climate, very
small openings alone were requisite to admit a sufficiency of light
without disturbing that shadowy effect which is so favourable to
architectural grandeur.
Being a parochial church, this building had no baptistery attached to
it; but there is one at Asti (Woodcut No. 441) so similar in style and
age, that its plan and section, if examined with those of San Antonio,
will give a very complete idea of Lombard architecture in the beginning
of the 11th century, when it had completely shaken off the Roman
influence, but had not yet begun to combine the newly-invented forms
with that grace and beauty which mark its more finished examples. One
peculiarity of this building is the gloom that reigns within, there
being absolutely no windows in the dome, and those in the aisles are so
small, that even in Italy the interior must always have been in
comparative darkness.
[Illustration: 442. Plan of the Cathedral at Novara. Scale 100 ft. to 1
in.]
The cathedral of Novara, which in its present state is one of the most
important buildings of the 11th century in the North of Italy, shows the
style still further advanced. The coupling and grouping of piers are
here fully understood, and the divisions of the chapels which form the
outer aisle are, in fact, concealed buttresses. The Italians were never
able to divest themselves of their partiality for flat walls, and never
liked the bold external projections so universally admired on the other
side of the Alps. They therefore gladly had recourse to this expedient
to conceal them; and when this was not available they used metallic ties
to resist the thrust of the arches—an expedient which is found even in
this example. As will be seen from the annexed plan, the atrium
connecting the basilica with the baptistery is retained, which seems to
have been an arrangement almost universal in those early times. The half
section, half elevation of the front (Woodcut No. 443) shows very
distinctly how far the invention of the new style had then gone; for
except some Corinthian pillars, borrowed from an older edifice, no trace
of debased-Roman architecture is to be found in it. The design of the
façade explains what it was that suggested to the Pisan architects the
form to which they adapted their Romanesque details. In both styles the
arcade was the original model of the whole system of ornamentation. In
this case it is used first as a discharging arch, then as a mere
repetition of a useful member, and lastly without pillars, as a mere
ornamental string-course, which afterwards became the most favourite
ornament, not only in Italy, but throughout all Germany.
[Illustration: 443. Elevation and Section of the Façade of the Cathedral
at Novara. (From Osten.)]
Interesting as such an example is to the architectural antiquary who is
tracing back and trying to understand the forms of a new style, it would
be difficult to conceive anything much uglier and less artistic than
such a façade as this of Novara or that of San Antonio, last quoted.
Their sole merit is their history and their expression of rude energy,
so characteristic of the people who erected them.
[Illustration: 444. Section of San Michele, Pavia. (From Agincourt.) No
scale.]
The church of San Michele at Pavia, which took its present form either
at the end of the 11th or beginning of the 12th century, is one of the
most interesting of this age, and presents in itself all the
characteristics of a perfect round-arched Gothic church. Indeed there is
hardly any feature worth mentioning which was invented after this date
except the pointed arch—a very doubtful improvement—and window tracery,
which the Italians never cordially adopted or understood. The section
(Woodcut No. 444) shows the general arrangement of San Michele in its
present state. The researches of M. de Dartein,[295] however, have shown
that, when first built, the nave was covered over with two square
quadripartite vaults, as might in fact have been divined from the
difference in size[296] of the centre and two other piers. The existing
oblong vaulted compartments date from the 15th century, when secondary
shafts were carried up above the ground storey shafts of piers 1 and 3.
The section, however, shows that well-marked vaulting shafts spring from
floor to roof, that the pier arches in the wall are probably distinct
and well understood, and that the angles of these piers are softened and
ornamented by shafts and other subordinate members. Altogether, it is
evident that that subdivision of labour (if the expression may be used)
which was so characteristic of the true Gothic style had here been
perfectly understood, every part having its own function and telling its
own story. To complete the style only required a little experience to
decide on the best and most agreeable proportions in size and solidity.
In a century from the date of this church the required progress had been
made; a century later it had been carried too far, and the artistic
value of the style was lost in mere masonic excellence. San Michele and
the other churches of its age fail principally from over-heaviness of
parts and a certain clumsiness of construction, which, though not
without its value as an expression of power, wants the refinement
necessary for a true work of art. Externally, one of the most pleasing
features of this church is the apse with its circular gallery. In
Italian churches the gallery is usually a simple range of similar
arcades; here, however, it is broken into three great divisions by
coupled shafts springing from the ground, and these again subdivided by
single shafts running in like manner through the whole height of the
apse. The gallery thus not only becomes a part of the whole design,
instead of looking like a possible afterthought, but an agreeable
variety is also given, which adds not a little to the pleasing effect of
the building.
[Illustration: 445. View of the Apse of San Michele, Pavia. (From Du
Somerard, ‘Les Arts au Moyen-Age.’)]
There are at least two other churches in Pavia, which, though altered in
many parts, retain their apsidal arrangements tolerably perfect. One of
these, that of San Teodoro (1150), may be somewhat later than the San
Michele, and has its gallery divided into triplets of arcades by bold
flat buttresses springing from the ground. In the other, San Pietro in
Cielo d’Oro, dating from 1132, the arcade is omitted round the apse,
though introduced in the central dome. It has besides two subordinate
apses of graceful design, but inferior to the other examples.
Though Milan must have been rich in churches of this age, the only one
now remaining tolerably entire is San Ambrogio, which is so interesting
as almost to make amends for its singularity. Historical evidence shows
that a church existed here from a very early age. It was rebuilt in the
9th century by Bishop Angelbert, aided by the munificence of Louis the
Pious, and an atrium was added by Bishop Anspertus; but except the apse
and “the canons’” tower, nothing remains of even that church, all the
rest having been rebuilt in the 11th or 12th century. During the late
restoration the bases of some of the columns of the 9th-century church
were discovered, and one of them is now visible in the pulpit enclosure.
The disposition of the building will be understood from the annexed
plan, which shows both the atrium and the church. The former is
virtually the nave; in other words, had the church been erected on the
colder and stormier side of the Alps, a clerestory would have been added
to the atrium, and it would have been roofed over; and then the plan
would have been nearly identical with that of a Northern cathedral.
[Illustration: 446. Plan of San Ambrogio, Milan. (From Ferrario.) Scale
100 ft. to 1 in.]
The third (sexpartite) bay was revaulted in the 14th century with two
oblong quadripartite vaults, but these are now replaced by sexpartite
vaulting. The dome is probably an addition of the end of the 12th
century, and it is raised over what would otherwise have been the fourth
bay of the church. As it is, the atrium (Woodcut No. 446) is a highly
pleasing adjunct to the façade, removing the church back from the noisy
world outside, and by its quiet seclusion tending to produce that
devotional feeling so suitable to the entrance of a place of worship.
The façade of the building itself, though, like the atrium, only in
brick, is one of the best designs of its age; the upper loggia, or open
gallery, of five bold but unequal arches, producing more shadow than the
façade at Pisa, without the multitude of small parts there crowded
together, and with far more architectural propriety and grace. As seen
from the atrium, with its two towers, one on either flank, it forms a
composition scarcely surpassed by any other in this style.
As now restored, the simplicity and line effect of the vaulted interior
is remarkable, and it is also a museum of ecclesiological antiquities of
the best class. The silver altar of Angilbertus (A.D. 835) is unrivalled
either for richness or beauty of design by anything of the kind known to
exist elsewhere, and the _baldacchino_ that surmounts it is also of
singular beauty: so are some of its old tombs, of the earliest Christian
workmanship. Its mosaics, its pulpit, and the bronze doors, not to
mention the brazen serpent—said to be the very one erected by Moses in
the wilderness—and innumerable other relics, make this church one of the
most interesting of Italy, if not indeed of all Europe.
[Illustration: 447. Atrium of San Ambrogio, Milan. (From
Ferrario.[297])]
Generally speaking, the most beautiful part of a Lombard church is its
eastern end. The apse with its gallery, the transepts, and above all the
dome that almost invariably surmounts their intersection with the choir,
constitute a group which always has a pleasing effect, and is very often
highly artistic and beautiful. The sides of the nave, too, are often
well designed and appropriate; but, with scarcely a single exception,
the west end, or entrance front, is comparatively mean. The building
seems to be cut off at a certain length without any appropriate finish,
or anything to balance the bold projections towards the east. The French
cathedrals, on the contrary, while they entirely escape this defect by
means of their bold western towers, are generally deficient in the
eastern parts, and almost always lack the central dome or tower. The
English Gothic architects alone understood the proper combination of the
three parts. The Italians, when they introduced a tower, almost always
used it as a detached object, and not as a part of the design of the
church. In consequence of this the façades of their churches are
frequently the least happy parts of the composition, notwithstanding the
pains and amount of ornament lavished upon them.
[Illustration: 448. Façade of the Cathedral at Piacenza. (From Chapuy,
‘Moyen-Âge Monumental.’)]
The elevation of the cathedral at Piacenza is a fair illustration of the
general mode of treating the western front of the building, not only in
the 11th and 12th centuries, but afterwards, when a church had a façade
at all—for the Italians seem to have been seldom able to satisfy
themselves with this part of their designs, and a great many of their
most important churches have, in consequence, not even now been
completed in this respect.
Instead of recessing their doors, as was the practice on this side of
the Alps, the Italians added projecting porches, often of considerable
depth, and supported by two or more slight columns, generally resting on
the backs of symbolical animals. No part of these porches, as an
architectural arrangement, can be deemed worthy of any commendation;
for, in the first place, a column planted on an animal’s back is an
anomaly and an absurdity, and the extreme tenuity of the pillars, as
compared with the mass they support, is so glaring that even its
universality fails in reconciling the eye to the disproportion. In the
present instance the porch is two storeys in height, the upper being a
niche for sculpture. Its almost exact resemblance to the entrance porch
below is therefore a defect. Above there is generally a gallery,
sometimes only in the centre; sometimes, as in this instance, at the
sides, though often carried quite across; and in the centre above this
there is almost invariably a circular window, the tracery of which is
frequently not only elaborately but beautifully ornamented with foliage
and various sculptural devices.
Above this there is generally one of those open galleries mentioned
before, following the slope of the roof, though frequently, as in this
instance, this is replaced by a mere belt of semicircular arches,
suggesting an arcade, but in reality only an ornament.
VERONA.
Almost every important city in Lombardy shows local peculiarities in its
style, arising from some distinction of race or tradition. The greater
number of these must necessarily be passed over in a work like the
present, but some are so marked as to demand particular mention. Among
these that of Verona seems the most marked and interesting. This Roman
city became the favourite capital of Theodoric the Goth—Dietrich of
Berne, as the old Germans called him—and was by him adorned with many
noble buildings which have either perished or been overlooked. There is
a passage in the writings of his friend Cassiodorus which has hitherto
been a stumbling-block to commentators, but seems to find an explanation
in the buildings here, and to point to the origin of a mode of
decoration worth remarking upon. In talking of the architecture of his
day he speaks of “the reed-like tenuity of the columns making it appear
as if lofty masses of building were supported on upright spears, which
in regard to substance look like hollow tubes.”[298] It might be
supposed that this referred exclusively to the metal architecture of the
use of which we find traces in the paintings at Pompeii and
elsewhere.[299] But the context hardly bears this out, and he is
probably alluding to a stone or marble architecture, which in the
decline of true art had aspired to a certain extent to imitate the
lightness which the metallic form had rendered a favourite.
To return to Verona:—The apse of the cathedral seems to have belonged to
an older edifice than that to which it is now attached, as was often the
case, that being the most solid as well as the most sacred part of the
building. As seen in the woodcut (No. 449) it is ornamented with
pilasters, classical in design, but more attenuated than any found
elsewhere; so that I cannot but believe that this is either one of the
identical buildings to which Cassiodorus refers, or at least an early
copy from one of them.
[Illustration: 449. Apse of the Cathedral, Verona. (From Hope’s ‘History
of Architecture.’)]
At a far later age, in the 12th century, the beautiful church of San
Zenone shows traces of the same style of decoration (Woodcut No. 450),
pilasters being used here almost as slight as those at the cathedral,
but so elegant and so gracefully applied as to form one of the most
beautiful decorations of the style. Once introduced, it was of course
repeated in other buildings, though seldom carried to so great an extent
or employed so gracefully as in this instance. Indeed, whether taken
internally or externally, San Zenone may be regarded as one of the most
pleasing and perfect examples of the style to be found in the North of
Italy.
The cathedral at Modena is another good example, though not possessing
any features of much novelty or deserving special mention. That of Parma
is also important, though hardly so pleasing. Indeed, scarcely any city
in the Valley of the Po is without some more or less-perfect churches of
this date, none showing any important peculiarities that have not been
exemplified above, unless perhaps it is the apse of the church of San
Donato on the Murano near Venice, which is decorated with a richness of
marble decoration to which the purer Gothic style never attained, and
which entitles this church to rank rather with the Byzantine than with
the Lombard buildings of which we are treating, or a style so curiously
exceptional as to make it one of the most interesting churches,
historically, to be found in the North of Italy.
[Illustration: 450. Façade of San Zenone, Verona. (From Chapuy.)]
Recent discoveries in Syria[300] have proved almost beyond a doubt that
the carved slabs with which it is adorned externally were borrowed from
some desecrated building on the coast of Syria—destroyed probably by the
Moslems—and brought to Venice, probably at the time when the church
acquired the remains of San Donato, in the beginning of the 12th
century. Whether brought then or at an earlier period, they belong to
the age of Justinian, certainly came from the East, and, mixed up with
Italian details of the period, make up an exterior as picturesque as it
is interesting to the student of the history of art in those days.
It is extremely difficult to draw a line between the pointed and
round-arched Gothic styles in Italy. The former was so evidently a
foreign importation, so unwillingly received and so little understood,
that it made its way but slowly. Even, for instance, in the church at
Vercelli, which is usually quoted as the earliest example of the pointed
style in Italy (built 1219-1222), there is not a pointed arch nor a
trace of one on the exterior. All the windows and openings are
round-headed, and, except the pier-arches and vaults, nothing pointed
appears anywhere. Even at a later date than this the round arch,
especially as a decorative form, is frequently placed above the pointed
one, and always used in preference to it. Instead, therefore, of
attempting to draw a line where none exists in reality, it will be
better now to pass on from this part of the subject, and to take up the
older style at a point from which we can best trace the formation of the
new. The latter does not essentially differ from the former, except in
the introduction of the French form of the pointed arch and its
accompaniments. It remains only to say a few words on the peculiarities
which the round form of churches took in the hands of the early Lombard
architects, as well as on the campanile, which forms so striking a
feature in the cities of Northern Italy.
TOSCANELLA.
On the boundary-line which separates the Guelfic from the Ghibelline
influence, there exist at Toscanella, near Viterbo, two churches of
great beauty of detail; but which, as might almost be predicated from
their situation, defy any attempt at classification. They are not
Gothic, for they have no vaults, nor does their style suggest any
vaulting contrivances. They are scarcely debased Roman, for the tracery
of their circular windows, their many-shafted doors, and generally their
details are such as to indicate a Northern rather than a Roman affinity;
and the Byzantine sculpture which is found in the pulpit was probably
taken from an earlier church—though an Italian Byzantine influence can
be traced in much of its decoration. Under these circumstances, it is
better to treat them as exceptional, than to attempt to give them a name
which might mislead without conveying any correct information.
The elder of these two churches, Sta. Maria, was erected in the
beginning of the 13th century (1206?), but is so unlike most buildings
of that age, that it is usually ascribed to the 6th or 7th. On a close
examination, however, all its details are found to be full of advanced
Romanesque forms. The pillars are rude Corinthian, with a Lombardic
abacus. They are widely spaced, having no vault to support; and the
mouldings of the arches are what we should call “Transitional Early
English.”
[Illustration: 451. Plan of Sta. Maria, Toscanella. (From Gailhabaud.)
Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
Externally the façade is too plain to be quite pleasing, but this arises
from its depending originally on painting for its decoration—some traces
of which still remain, but the greater part has perished. Its three
doorways are richly and beautifully ornamented with shafts and
sculptured foliage, quite equal in detail to anything of the class to be
found in Italy, and its great circular window would not be thought out
of place at Chartres or Lincoln.
[Illustration: 452. View of the Interior of Sta. Maria, Toscanella.
(From Gailhabaud.)]
The church of St. Pietro is probably a century later than that of Sta.
Maria, and its façade is richer and more elegant—a difference arising
more from those details being in this instance carved which in the
earlier church were painted. The design, however, deserves attention for
its historical, perhaps, even more than its artistic claims; for it was
this class of façade that Palladio and the architects of the
cinque-cento period seized upon, and, applying pilasters and pediments
of classical type, converted it into the fashionable churches which are
to be found in every part of Europe.[301]
[Illustration: 453. Elevation of the Exterior of Sta. Maria, Toscanella.
(From Gailhabaud.) No scale.]
The difficulty which the Italians never entirely conquered, was how to
amalgamate the sloping lines of the roofs of the aisles with the
horizontal lines of the rest of the façade. The gallery over the central
doorway enabled them very nearly to accomplish it in these Toscanella
churches, and if the same string-courses had been carried all across,
the whole might have been harmonised; but it was just missed, and, what
is strange, more so in the second than in the first example.
CIRCULAR CHURCHES.
In the earliest times of Christian architecture, as we have already
seen, the circular form of church was nearly as frequent as that derived
from the Roman basilica. In process of time the latter was found to be
much better adapted to the extended requirements of Christianity. Hence
in the 11th and 12th centuries, when so many of the early churches were
rebuilt and enlarged, most of the old circular buildings disappeared.
Enough, however, remain to enable us to trace, though imperfectly, what
their arrangements were.
Among those which have been illustrated, perhaps the most interesting is
that known as the church of San Stefano at Bologna, or rather the
circular centre of that congeries of seven churches usually known by
that name.
It is one of those numerous churches of which it is impossible to
predicate whether it was originally a baptismal or a sepulchral edifice.
In old times it bore both names, and may have had both destinations, but
latterly, at all events, the question has been settled by the compromise
usually adopted in such cases, of dedicating it to the first martyr, to
whom a sepulchral form of building is especially appropriate.
[Illustration: 454. Plan of the Duomo, Brescia. (From Hübsch.) Scale 100
ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 455. Elevation of Duomo at Brescia. (From Hübsch.) Scale
50 ft. to 1 in.]
Notwithstanding a considerable amount of ancient remains mixed up in the
details, no part of the present church seems older than the Carlovingian
era; while, on the other hand, its extreme irregularity and clumsiness
of construction point to a period before the 11th century. Its general
form is that of an extremely irregular octagon, about 60 ft. in
diameter, in the centre of which stands a circlet of columns, some
coupled, some single, supporting a semicircular dome. The circumscribing
aisle is covered with the usual intersecting ribbed vault of the 10th
century, but the whole is so rude as scarcely to deserve mention except
for its antiquity.
The Duomo Vecchio of Brescia is ascribed to the 8th or 9th century, but
this date according to Cattaneo[302] can only be ascribed to an earlier
basilica church, the crypt of which still exists on the east side of the
Duomo. As will be seen from the plan, it is a large church, 125 ft.
across over all, and is covered by a dome 65 ft. in diameter internally
supported by eight piers of plain design. The mode in which light is
introduced into the central compartment illustrates the various
tentative expedients by which the architects in that age attempted to
accomplish their object. First, there is a range of small windows in the
dome below the springing of the dome. In the dome itself there are four
circular sides, and, as if the architect felt that he was doing
something unusual and inartistic, he managed externally to confuse these
with the rudiments of the roof gallery.
[Illustration: 456. Section of Duomo at Brescia. (From Hübsch.) Scale 50
ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 457. San Tomaso in Limine. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 458. San Tomaso. (From Isabelle, ‘Édifices Circulaires.’)
Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
It is not clear whether originally it had or was intended to have an
apse between its two round towers—where the foundations of some
buildings can still be traced; but these may be the remains of the early
church referred to.
Turning from these, we find the round-arched Gothic style completely
developed in the church of San Tomaso in Limine, near Bergamo. From the
annexed plan it will be seen that the circular part is the nave or
entrance, as in Germany and England, in contradistinction to the French
mode of arrangement, where the circular part is always the sanctum, the
rectangular the nave or less holy place.
The general plan of this example is circular. It is not more than 30 ft.
across internally. In the centre stand eight pillars, supporting a
vaulted gallery, which forms a triforium or upper storey, and, with the
dome and its little cupola, raise the whole height to about 50 ft. A
small choir with a semicircular niche projects eastward.
The dimensions of the building are so small that it hardly deserves
notice, except as a perfect example of the style of the 11th or 12th
century in Lombardy, and for a certain propriety and elegance of design,
in which it is not surpassed, internally at least, by any building of
its age. It is to be regretted that the idea was never carried out (at
any rate no example remains) on such a scale as to enable us to judge of
the effect of such a domical arrangement as is here attempted. The great
defect of all one-storeyed domes is their lowness, both internally and
more especially externally. This method of building a dome in two
storeys would seem calculated to obviate the objection; but though
common in small sepulchral chambers, it has never been tried on a scale
sufficiently large to enable us to judge of its real effect. After this
period the circular shape was so completely superseded by the
rectangular, that no further improvement took place in it.
TOWERS.
There is perhaps no question of early Christian archæology involved in
so much obscurity as that of the introduction and early use of towers.
The great monumental pillars of the Romans—as, for instance, those of
Trajan and Antoninus—were practically towers; and latterly their tombs
began to assume an aspiring character like that at St. Remi (Woodcut No.
231), or those at Palmyra and elsewhere in the East, which show a marked
tendency in that direction. But none of these can be looked upon as an
undoubted prototype of the towers attached to the churches of the
Christians.
At Ravenna, as early as the age of Justinian, we find a circular tower
attached to St. Apollinare in Classe (Woodcut No. 412), and in the other
churches of that place they seem even then to have been considered
necessary adjuncts.[303] At the same time it is by no means clear that
they were erected as bell-towers; indeed the evidence is tolerably clear
that bells were not used in Christian churches till the time of Pope
Adrian I., some two centuries later. What, then, were they? There is, I
think, no trace of their being sepulchral monuments, or that they were
designed or used as tombs; and unless they were, like the _sthambas_ of
the Buddhists, pillars of victory, or towers erected to mark sacred or
remarkable spots, it is difficult to say what they were, or where we are
to look for an analogy.
Be this as it may, the oldest circular towers with which we are
acquainted are those of Ravenna; while the last of the series is the
famous leaning one at Pisa, commenced in the year 1174. The gradations
between these two extremes must have been the same that marked the
changes in the architecture of the churches to which they are attached;
but the links are more completely wanting in the case of the towers than
in that of the churches.[304]
[Illustration: 459. Tower of Sta. Maria in Cosmedin. (From Gutensohn and
Knapp.)]
The tower of St. Apollinare in Classe, above referred to, the most
perfect of those of Ravenna, is a simple brick tower (see Woodcut No.
412), nine storeys in height, the lower windows being narrow single
openings; above there are two, and the three upper storeys are adorned
with four windows of three lights each.
In Rome, as far as we know, the first tower attached to a church was
that said to have been built by Pope Adrian I. in front of the atrium of
St. Peter’s; but there are no examples now existing in Rome which can be
said to be earlier than the 11th century, and that date applies only to
the lower portion of them. In the 12th and 13th centuries they became
common, and we find them attached to the churches of S. Lorenzo without
the walls, S. Croce in Gerusalemme, SS. Giovanni e Paolo, S. Giorgio in
Velabro (13th century), and others. All these are square in plan and
extremely similar in design, no improvement and scarcely any change
having taken place between the first and the last, as if the form were
an old and established one when we find it first adopted. That attached
to Sta. Maria in Cosmedin (Woodcut No. 459) is perhaps one of the best
and most complete. Its dimensions are small, its breadth being little
more than 15 ft., and its height only 110; but notwithstanding this
there is great dignity in the design, and, in a city where buildings are
not generally tall, its height is sufficient to give it prominence
without overpowering other objects,—a characteristic which renders these
Roman towers not only beautiful structures in themselves, but
appropriate ornaments to the buildings to which they are attached.
The chief interest of these towers is derived from the numerous progeny
to which they gave birth: for though there is scarcely an instance of a
square Romanesque tower beyond the walls of Rome during the period in
which this style flourished, the form was seized upon with avidity by
the Gothic architects in all the countries of Europe; and whether as a
detached campanile (as in Italy), or as an integral part of the building
(as we soon find it employed on this side of the Alps), it forms the
most prominent, and perhaps also the most beautiful, feature in the
aspiring architecture of the Middle Ages.
There is certainly no architectural feature which the Gothic architects
can so justly call their own as the towers and spires which in the
Middle Ages were so favourite, so indispensable a part of their churches
and other edifices, becoming in fact as necessary parts of the external
design as the vaults were of the internal decoration of the building.
It is true, as before remarked, that we neither know where they were
first invented, nor even where they were first applied to Christian
churches—those of Rome and Ravenna being evidently not the earliest
examples; nor have they any features which betray their origin—at least
none have yet been pointed out, though it is not impossible that a
closer examination would bring some such to light. They certainly are as
little classical, in form or details, as anything that can well be
conceived; and belong to an undefined Romanesque style.
Those of which we have already spoken are all church-towers—_campaniles_
or bell-towers attached to churches. But this exclusive distinction by
no means applies to the Gothic towers. The tower of St. Mark at Venice,
for instance, and the Toraccio at Cremona, are evidently civic
monuments, like the belfries of the Low Countries—symbols of communal
power wholly distinct from the church, their proximity to which seems
only to arise from the fact of all the principal buildings being grouped
together. This is certainly the case with a large class of very ugly
buildings in Italy, such as those attached to the town-halls of Florence
and Siena, or the famous Asinelli and Garisenda towers at Bologna. They
are merely tall square brick towers, with a machicolated balcony at the
top, but possessing no more architectural design than the chimney of a
cotton factory. Originally, when lower, they may have been towers of
defence, but afterwards became mere symbols of power.
A third class, and by far the most numerous, of these buildings are
undoubtedly ecclesiastical erections; they are either actually attached
to the churches, or so placed with regard to them as to leave no doubt
on the matter. There is not, however, I believe, in all Italy a single
example of a tower or towers forming, as on this side of the Alps, an
integral part of the design.
Sometimes they stand detached, but more generally are connected with
some angle of the building, the favourite position being the western
angle of the southern transept. Occasionally we find one tower placed at
the angle of the façade, but this is seldom the case when the tower and
the church are of the same age. It is so in the cathedral at Lucca, and
San Ambrogio at Milan; in the latter of which a second tower has been
added more recently to balance the older one. It does also happen as in
the instance of Novara, before quoted (Woodcut No. 443), that two towers
are actually parts of the original design; this, however, is certainly
the exception, not the rule.
In design the Italian campaniles differ very considerably from those on
this side of the Alps. They never have projecting buttresses, nor assume
that pyramidal form which is so essential and so beautiful a feature in
the Northern examples. In plan the campanile is always square, and
carried up without break or offset to two-thirds at least of its
intended height. This, which is virtually the whole design (for the
spire seems an idea borrowed from the North), is generally solid to a
considerable height, or with only such openings as serve to admit light
to the stairs or inclined planes. Above the solid part one round-headed
window is introduced in each face, and in the next storey two; in the
one above this three, then four, and lastly five, the lights being
merely separated by slight shafts, so that the upper storey is virtually
an open loggia (see Woodcut No. 498). There is no doubt great beauty and
propriety of design in this arrangement; in point of taste it is
unobjectionable, but it wants the vigour and variety of the Northern
tower.
So far as we can judge from drawings and such ancient examples as
remain, the original termination was a simple cone in the centre, with a
smaller one at each of the angles.
At Verona an octagonal lantern is added, and at Modena and Cremona the
octagon is crowned by a lofty spire, but these hardly come within the
limits of the epoch of which we are now treating. So greatly did the
Italians prefer the round arch, that even in their imitation of the
Northern styles they used the pointed shape only when compelled—a
circumstance which makes it extremely difficult, particularly in the
towers, to draw the line between the two styles; for though pointed
arches were no doubt introduced in the 13th and 14th centuries, the
circular-headed shape continued to be employed from the age of the
Romanesque to that of the Renaissance.
One of the oldest and certainly the most celebrated of the Gothic towers
of Italy, is that of St. Mark’s at Venice, commenced in the year 902; it
took the infant republic three centuries to raise it 180 ft., to the
point at which the square basement terminates. On this there must
originally have been an open loggia of some sort, no doubt with a
conical roof. The present superstructure was added in the 16th century;
but though the loggia is a very pleasing feature, it is overpowered by
the solid mass that it surmounts, and by the extremely ugly square
extinguisher that crowns the whole. Its locality and its associations
have earned for it a great deal of undue laudation, but in point of
design no campanile in Italy deserves it less. The base is a mere
unornamented mass of brickwork, slightly fluted, and pierced
unsymmetrically with small windows to light the inclined plane within.
Its size, its height, and its apparent solidity are its only merits.
These are no doubt important elements in that low class of architectural
excellence of which the Egyptian pyramids are the type; but even in
these elements this edifice must confess itself a pigmy, and inferior to
even a second-class pyramid on the banks of the Nile, while it has none
of the beauty of design and detail displayed by the Giralda of Seville,
or even by other Italian towers in its own neighbourhood.
The campanile at Piacenza (Woodcut No. 448) is, perhaps, more like the
original of St. Mark’s than any other, and certainly displays as little
beauty as any building of this sort can possess.
That of San Zenone at Verona is far more pleasing. It is, indeed, as
beautiful both in proportion and details as any of its age, while it
exemplifies at once the beauties and the defects of the style. Among the
first is an elegant simplicity that always is pleasing, but this is
accompanied by a leanness and poverty of effect, when compared with
Northern examples, which must rank in the latter category.
Mr. Jackson, in his work on Dalmatia and Istria, gives illustrations of
several towers in those countries which, in beauty of design, excel many
of the Italian examples. The Romanesque style would seem to have had a
much longer duration on the east side of the Adriatic than in Italy.
Thus the tower of Spalato, a lofty campanile of six storeys in height,
commenced in the beginning of the 13th century and not terminated till
1416 (except the upper octagon and spire), is virtually in the same pure
Romanesque style throughout. Mr. Jackson notes also the continued
influence of Roman work of the 3rd century, by which it is surrounded,
and that fragments of ancient material, columns and capitals, have been
used up in its construction. The campaniles of Zara and in the island of
Arbe are both fine examples of Romanesque design.
CHAPTER V.
BYZANTINE-ROMANESQUE.
CONTENTS.
Cathedrals of Naples—San Miniato, Florence—Cathedrals of Pisa and Zara—
Cathedrals of Troja, Bari, and Bittonto—San Nicolo, Bari—Cloisters of
St. John Lateran—Baptistery of Mont St. Angelo—San Donato, Zara—
Churches in South Italy—Circular Buildings—Towers—Civil Architecture.
CHRONOLOGY.
DATES.
The Normans enter Italy A.D. 1018
The Normans conquer Apulia from the Greeks 1043
The Normans attack the Saracens in Sicily 1061
Conquest of Sicily completed by Roger de Hauteville 1090
Roger II. 1101
William I., surnamed the Wicked 1153
William II., surnamed the Good 1166
Tancred 1189
Frederic Hohenstaufen of Germany 1197
Conrad 1250
Conradin 1254
Charles I., first Angiovine King of Naples 1266
René, last Angiovine King of Naples 1435
It would be easier to define the limits and character of the styles of
Italian Mediæval Architecture in the centre and south of Italy by a
negative than a positive title. To call them the “non-Gothic” styles
would describe them correctly, but would hardly suffice to convey a
distinct idea of their peculiarities. Romanesque, or even Italian
Romanesque, would not be sufficient, because that term fails to take
cognizance of the foreign element found in them. That element is the
Byzantine, derived partly from the continued relations which such cities
as Venice or Pisa maintained during the Middle Ages with the Levant, and
partly from the intercourse which the inhabitants of Magna Gracia kept
up across the Adriatic with the people on its eastern shores. To such a
mixture of styles the term Byzantine-Romanesque would be quite
appropriate; and although there are in Apulia churches, such as Molfetta
and St. Angelo, which look more like Levantine designs than anything to
be found in other parts of Europe (except perhaps such buildings as St.
Front, Périgueux, and one or two exceptional buildings in the South of
France), and in a very detailed description of Italian styles it might
be expedient to attempt a further subdivision with other specific terms,
for the present it will probably suffice to describe the various
non-Gothic styles of the centre and southern half of Italy in local
sections without attempting any very minute classification of their
variations. As the Italians had no great national style of their own,
and both in the North and South were principally working under foreign
influences, it is in vain to look for any thread that will conduct the
student straight through the labyrinth of their styles. Italian unity is
the aspiration of the present century; during the Middle Ages it did not
exist either in politics or art.
[Illustration: 460. The Old and New Cathedrals at Naples. (From
Schultz.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
Although Naples is in the very centre of its province, where we
naturally first look for examples of the style, there are few cities in
Italy which contain so little to interest the architect or the
antiquary. Still she does possess one group of churches, which, by their
juxtaposition, at least serve to illustrate the progress of the style
during the Middle Ages. The earliest of these, Sta. Restituta—shaded
dark in the plan (Woodcut No. 460)—may be as old as the 4th or 5th
century, and retains its original plan and arrangement, though much
disfigured in details. The baptistery, a little behind the apse on its
left, is certainly of the date indicated, and retains its mosaics, which
seem to be of the same age.
In the year 1299 Charles II. of Anjou commenced the new cathedral at
right angles with the old, his French prejudices being apparently
shocked at the incorrect orientation of the older church. It is a
spacious building, 300 ft. long, arranged, as Italian churches usually
were at that age, with a wooden roof over the nave and intersecting
vaults over the side-aisles. Opposite the entrance of the old cathedral
is a domical chapel of Renaissance design, so that the group contains an
illustration of each of the three ages of Italian art.
[Illustration: 461. Plan of San Miniato.]
[Illustration: 462. Section of San Miniato, near Florence. (From drawing
by R. W. Schultz.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 463. Elevation of San Miniato. (From drawing by R. W.
Schultz.)]
The church of San Miniato (Woodcuts Nos. 461-463), on a hill overlooking
Florence, is one of the earliest (1013), as well as one of the most
perfect, of the Byzantine-Romanesque style. Internally it is only 165
ft. in length by 70 in width, divided longitudinally into aisles, and
transversely into three nearly square compartments by clustered piers
supporting two great arches which run up to the roof. The whole of the
eastern compartment is occupied by a crypt or under-church open to the
nave, above which are the choir and apse, approached by flights of steps
in the aisles. The entire arrangement, together with the division of the
nave into three compartments, is most satisfactory, and the proportions
of the whole are very appropriate. The pillars themselves are so nearly
classical in design that they almost seem to have been taken from some
ancient building, and the architraves and stringcourses are all well
designed and fitted to the places they occupy. The principal ornament of
the interior is an inlaid pattern of simple design, sufficient to
relieve the monotony of the interior, but without producing any
confusion. The exterior depends principally, like the interior, for its
effect on coloured panelling, but has a range of blind arches running
round the sides and across the front. The façade, however, is very badly
designed: either it was one of the earliest examples, and the architects
had not learned how to combine the sloping roofs of the aisles with the
upper part of the façades, or it has been altered in more modern times;
but for this slight defect it would be difficult to find a church in
Italy containing more of classic elegance, with perfect appropriateness
for the purposes of Christian worship.
[Illustration: 464. Transverse Section of San Miniato. (From R. W.
Schultz.)]
There must have been several, probably many, buildings in the same style
erected in Tuscany during the first half of the 11th century. Otherwise
it is almost impossible to understand how so complete a design as that
of Pisa Cathedral could have been executed. It was commenced apparently
in 1006, but it was not till 1063, after the plundering of Palermo,
according to Reber,[305] that the means were provided for the
extraordinary richness of the design, the magnificence of which had at
that time no parallel among the ecclesiastical edifices of Italy; the
work was suspended in 1095, and could only be resumed by means of
pecuniary aid given to the undertaking by the Byzantine emperor. After
the consecration of the cathedral in 1103, the interior decorations were
carried on until the 15th century. Internally its design is evidently
based on that of the basilicas of Rome and Ravenna, except that instead
of the range at the latter place of figures in mosaic, it has a splendid
triforium gallery and in plan strongly marked projecting transepts. Its
great merit, however, as a design arises from the fact that the builders
had learned to proportion the parts to one another so as to get greater
magnificence with very much smaller dimensions. The size, for instance,
of the nave of San Paolo fuori le Mure at Rome is 290 ft. by 215; these
dimensions are nearly double those at Pisa, where they are 173 ft. by
106. Yet, in consequence of the greater relative height of the nave and
the better spacing of the pillars and proportion of the parts, the
interior of Pisa is more pleasing and more impressive than the Roman
church. Its effect, too, is immensely increased by the truly Mediæval
projection of the transepts. In no church in Italy is there such poetry
of perspective as in looking anglewise across the intersection, and
seldom anywhere a more satisfactory interior than that of this church.
[Illustration: 465. View of the Cathedral at Pisa. (From Chapuy’s
‘Moyen-Age Monumental.’)]
The exterior, too, is almost equally pleasing. The side-aisles are
adorned with a range of blind arches running all round, adorned with
parti-coloured marble, inlaid either in courses or in patterns. Above
this is a gallery, representing the triforium, carried all round, and in
the façades formed into an open gallery; a second open gallery
represents the sloping roof of the aisles, a third the clerestory, a
fourth the slopes of the great roof. The difficulty here, as in almost
all Italian designs, is caused by the sloping roofs; but, with this
exception, the whole makes up a rich and varied composition without any
glaring false construction, and expresses with sufficient clearness the
arrangements of the interior. The dome is of later design, and, being
oval in plan, cannot be said to be pleasing in outline.
[Illustration: 466. Plan of Zara Cathedral. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
The Italians were evidently delighted with their new style. It was
repeated with very little variation at Lucca, in the church of San
Michele (1188), only that the arcades stood free on the sides as well as
on the front. The façade of San Martino, in the same city, is in the
same style; so is that of the cathedral at Pistoja, and so is Sta. Maria
at Arezzo. The arrangement was probably suggested by the porticoes of
Pagan temples; and were it not for the awkwardness caused by the sloping
line of the roofs, it might be characterised as one of the most
successful inventions of the age.
In some instances, as in the façade of the Cathedral at Zara in Dalmatia
(Woodcut No. 467), which according to Mr. Jackson[306] was not begun
before the 13th century, the consecration taking place in 1285, the
difficulties of the design of the façade are to a great extent conquered
by reducing the arcades to mere decorative panelling, and more than this
by separating the design of the centre from that of the aisles by a bold
square pilaster. This is exactly the feature we miss at Pisa and Lucca,
where the want of it imparts a considerable degree of weakness to the
whole design.
[Illustration: 467. View of Zara Cathedral. (From Sir Gardner
Wilkinson’s ‘Dalmatia and Montenegro.’)]
The plan of the Zara Cathedral (Woodcut No. 466) is that usually adopted
in churches of this class; but it possesses a lady chapel and
baptistery, placed laterally in a somewhat unusual manner. Its
dimensions are small, being only 170 ft. by 65 externally.
The east end of this church, its doorways and windows, show, as might be
expected from its locality, a greater tendency towards Romanesque art
than can be found on the western shores of the Peninsula, but in
internal arrangements it belongs wholly to the Italian style.
The cathedral at Trau, also in Dalmatia, illustrated in Mr. Jackson’s
work, is a fine example, which is not only built in one consistent style
throughout, but possesses the still rarer advantage of being completed
outside as well as inside, “instead,” as Mr. Jackson observes, “of
presenting, like so many Italian churches, a rough face of unfinished
brickwork or masonry awaiting in vain the splendid veneer of marble or
sculpture that never comes.” The main part of the church was built in
the first half of the 13th century. The floor is of the basilica type,
with nave (five bays, vaulted) and aisles, centre and side apses, and a
magnificent narthex, the full width of nave and aisles, with a sumptuous
portal of pure Romanesque design (1240), which is perhaps finer than any
example in Italy, and is only rivalled in its decorative sculpture by
those of the French portals. Mr. Jackson is of opinion that Dalmatian
art took a great departure under Hungarian rule, and followed more in
the direction of the purer Romanesque style than in that of the
Byzantine. The artists were foreigners, invited not only from Germany
but also from France. Villars d’Honecourt recounts his having been sent
for, and “French influence,” Mr. Jackson states, “may be detected in
some other churches in Hungary.” The portal of the church at Jak, in
Hungary, illustrated in Mr. Jackson’s work, is French in character, with
a profusion of orders carved with the zigzag fret and dentil very
similar to the later Norman work, and includes capitals “à crochet” such
as belong to French 12th-century work. The series of trefoil-headed
niches, with figures in them which rise above the doorway, are French in
character, and remind one of the façade of St. Père-sous-Vezelay. At
Cattaro, in Dalmatia, and at Veglia, in one of the islands of the
Quarnero, are other examples of fine Romanesque work of the 12th
century.
Further south on the mainland of Italy, at Troja, we find a singularly
elegant cathedral church (1093-1115?) in the same style (Woodcut No.
468). Its flanks and apse are perhaps even more elegant than anything in
the neighbourhood of Pisa. So is the lower part of its façade, which is
adorned with a richness and elegance of foliage characteristic of the
province where it is found; and the cornice that crowns the lower storey
is perhaps unmatched by any similar example to be found in Italy, either
for beauty of sculptural decoration or for appropriateness of profile.
The upper part of the façade differs, however, considerably from that of
the examples just quoted. A great rose-window, of elegant but
ill-understood tracery, takes the place of the arcades, and, with the
sculptured arch over it, completes all that remains of the original
design. The plain pieces of walling that support the central window are
parts of a modern repair.
[Illustration: 468. Façade of Cathedral at Troja. (From Schultz.[307])
No scale.]
[Illustration: 469. Cathedral at Bari. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
As a general rule, all the churches in the South of Italy are small.
This one at Troja is arranged in plan like that at Pisa, with bold
projecting transepts, but its length is only 167 ft., and the width of
its nave 50, while in the Northern cathedral these dimensions are nearly
double—310 ft. by 106—and the area four times as great. This is true of
all, however elegant they may be—they are parish churches in dimensions
as compared with their Northern rivals.
[Illustration: 470. East End of Cathedral at Bari. (From Schultz.) Scale
50 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 471. Apse of San Pellino. (From Schultz.) Scale 50 ft. to
1 in.]
[Illustration: 472. Church at Caserta Vecchia. (From Schultz.) Scale 50
ft. to 1 in.]
Many also, as the cathedral at Bari (Woodcut No. 469), have their apses
internal, which detracts very much from the meaning of the design, and
does away with the apsidal terminations, which are perhaps the most
beautiful features in the external design of Italian churches; while
they lack the great traceried windows which go so far to replace the
absence of the apse in English design. The annexed elevation of the east
end at Bari (Woodcut No. 470) gives a fair idea of the general
arrangement of that part in the churches in Apulia. It is novel, and the
two tall towers with a central dome combine with elegant details to make
up a whole which it is impossible not to admire though it will not bear
comparison with the more artistic arrangements of Northern architects.
Where the apse[308] is allowed to be seen externally, it is sometimes,
as at San Pellino (Woodcut No. 471), an object of great beauty and
originality, but such examples are rare in the province, and the designs
suffer in proportion.
[Illustration: 473. West Front of Bittonto Cathedral. (From a Sketch by
A. J. R. Gawen, Esq.)]
In the richer churches, as at Pisa, a blind arcade is carried round the
flanks, sometimes with an open gallery under the eaves, as in German
churches, but this was far from being universally the case; on the
contrary, it would be difficult, as a typical example of the style, to
select one more characteristic than the flank of the church of Caserta
Vecchia (1100-1153) (Woodcut No. 472). The windows are small but
numerous, and mark the number of bays in the interior. The transept is
slightly projected, and ornamented with an arcade at the top, and above
this rises a dome such as is found only in Calabria or Sicily. The tower
was added afterwards, and, though unsymmetrical, assists in relieving a
design which would otherwise run the risk of being monotonous.
[Illustration: 474. West Front of the Church of San Nicolo in Bari.
(From a Sketch by A. J. R. Gawen, Esq.)]
It was, however, on their entrance façades that the architects of
Southern Italy lavished their utmost care. The central doorways are
usually covered with rich hoods, supported by pillars resting on
monsters somewhat like those found in the North of Italy. Above this is
either a gallery or one or two windows, and the whole generally
terminates in a circular rose-window filled with tracery. As exemplified
in the front of Bittonto Cathedral (Woodcut No. 473), such a composition
is not deficient in richness, though hardly pleasing as an architectural
composition.
The same arrangement, on about the same scale, occurs at Bari, Altamura,
and Ruvo; and on a somewhat smaller scale in the churches of Galatina,
Brindisi, and Barletta. The great and peculiar beauty of the cathedral
at Bittonto is its south front, one angle of which is shown in the
woodcut; but which becomes richer towards the east, where it is adorned
with a portal of great magnificence and beauty. The richness of its open
gallery (under what was the roof of the side-aisles) is unsurpassed in
Apulia, and probably by anything of the same kind in Italy.
[Illustration: 475. View of the Interior of San Nicolo, Bari. (From
Schultz.)]
The façade of San Nicolo at Bari (1197) is something like the last
mentioned, except that handsome Corinthian columns have been borrowed
from some older building, and add to the richness of the design, though
they hardly can be said to belong to the composition. Internally this
church seems to have displayed some such arrangement as that of San
Miniato (Woodcuts No. 463, 464). Instead, however, of improving upon it,
as might be expected from the time that had elapsed since the previous
one was erected, the Southern architect hardly knew the meaning of what
he was attempting. He grouped together the three pillars next to the
entrance, and threw arches across the nave from them, but these arches
neither support the roof nor aid the construction in any other way. They
do add to the perspective effect of the interior, but it is only by a
theatrical contrivance very rare in the Middle Ages, and by no means to
be admired when found.
[Illustration: 476. Plan of Crypt at Otranto. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 477. View in Crypt at Otranto. (From Schultz.)]
Most of these Apulian churches possess crypts almost as important as
that of San Miniato, some more so; and the numerous pillars in some of
these give rise to effects of perspective only to be found elsewhere in
such buildings as the Mosque at Cordova, or the cisterns at
Constantinople. As in the annexed example, from the cathedral at
Otranto, it is wonderful what space and what variety may be attained
with small dimensions by the employment of numerous points of support.
This was the secret of most of the best effects produced by the Northern
architects; but the Italians never understood it, or practised it,
except in crypts. Perhaps it may have been that they thought it
necessary to sacrifice architectural effect to the exigencies of public
worship. Whether this were the cause or not, the result, as already
pointed out, was fatal to the architectural effect of many of their
designs, especially in the Northern province.
In Southern Italy this is seldom the case, but the difference arose from
the fact that the naves of the churches had never vaulted roofs, and
were consequently separated from the aisles by single pillars instead of
composite piers. This took away all temptation to display mechanical
dexterity, and left the architect free to produce the best artistic
effect he was able to design with the materials at his command.
[Illustration: 478. Window in the South Side of the Cathedral Church at
Matera. (From a Sketch by Mr. Gawen.)]
No one who takes the pains to familiarise himself with the architecture
of these Southern Italian churches, can well fail to be impressed with
their beauty. That beauty will be found, however, to arise not so much
from the dimensions or arrangement of their plans, or the form of their
outline, as from the grace and elegance of their details. Every feature
displays the feeling of an elegant and refined people, who demanded
decoration as a necessity, though they were incapable of rising to any
great architectural conception. They excelled as ornamentists, though at
best only indifferent architects.
It is impossible to render this evident in such a work as the present;
but besides the examples already given, a window (Woodcut No. 478) from
the cathedral church at Matera (1270) will explain how unlike the style
of decoration is to anything with which we are familiar in the North,
and at the same time how much picturesque effect may be produced by a
repetition of similar details. The church itself has this peculiarity,
that its west front is plain and unimportant, and that all the
decoration is lavished on the south side, which faces the piazza. There
are two entrances on this face, that towards the east being, as usual,
the richer. Above these is a range of richly-ornamented windows, one of
which—a little out of the centre—is far more splendid than the rest
(Woodcut No. 478). From this it is said that letters and rescripts from
the Greek patriarch at Constantinople used to be read, and it is perhaps
as elaborate a specimen of the mode of decoration used in these churches
as can be found in the province.
[Illustration: 479. Doorway of Church of Pappacoda, Naples. (From
Schultz.)]
The same exuberance of decoration continued to be employed down to the
latest period of the art, and after Northern forms had been introduced
by the Angiovine dynasty at Naples. The doorway from the church at
Pappacoda (Woodcut No. 479) is a type of many to be found in that city
and elsewhere in the architectural province. True, it is overdone to
such an extent that much of the labour bestowed upon it must be
considered as thrown away; but if a love of art induced people to labour
so lovingly in it, it is hard to refuse them the admiration which their
enthusiasm deserves.
Another class of ornamental detail in which this province is especially
rich is that of bronze doors, of which some six or seven examples still
remain. Of these perhaps the finest are those of the cathedral at Trani.
They were made in 1160, and for beauty of design, and for the exuberance
and elegance of their ornaments, are unsurpassed by anything of the kind
in Italy, or probably in the world. Another pair of doors of almost
equal beauty, made in 1119, belongs to the cathedral at Troja (Woodcut
No. 468), and a third, which is still in a very perfect state,
constructed at Constantinople, in the year 1076, for the church of Mont
San Angelo; and is consequently contemporary with the doors of Sta.
Sophia, Novogorod, and San Zenone, Verona, and so similar in design as
to form an interesting series for comparison.
Other churches in the same style as those mentioned above are found at
Canosa, Giovenazzo, Molo, Ostuni, Manduria, and other places in the
province. Those of Brindisi, from which we should expect most, have been
too much modernised to be of value as examples; but there is in the town
a small circular church of great beauty, built apparently by the Knights
Templars, and afterwards possessed by the Knights of St. John. It is now
in ruins, but many of the frescoes which once adorned its walls still
remain, as well as the marble pillars that supported its roof. Being at
some distance from the harbour, the Knights of St. John built another
small church near the port, which still remains nearly unaltered.
[Illustration: 480. Cloisters of St. John Lateran. (From Rosengarten.)]
Although throughout the Middle Ages Rome went on building large
churches, it was in the debased-Roman style already referred to, fitting
together Roman pillars with classical details of more or less purity,
but hardly, except in their cloisters, deserving the name of a style.
Perhaps the most original, as it certainly is one of the most beautiful,
things the Romans did, is the cloister of St. John Lateran. There the
little arcades, supported by twisted columns, and adorned with mosaics,
are as graceful and pleasing as anything of that class found elsewhere;
and as they are encased in a framework of sufficient strength to take
off all appearance of mechanical weakness, their unconstructive forms
are not unpleasing. The entablature, which is the ruling feature in the
design, retains the classical arrangement in almost every detail, and in
such purity as could only be found in Rome in the 13th century, when
this cloister appears to have been erected; but the style never extended
beyond the limits of that city, and thus has little bearing on the
thread of our narrative.
The cloister of the Benedictine monastery adjoining the basilica of St.
Paul’s outside the walls, is another example of the same kind in which
the columns present almost every variety of form; spiral, twisted,
fluted, and sometimes two or three of these combined, many of them, as
well as the entablature, being covered with mosaics.
SOUTHERN ITALY.
As already remarked, the architects of the southern half of the Italian
peninsula were generally content to adopt the Romanesque plan of
covering their naves with a wooden roof—for when an intersecting vault
is found it is clearly a French or German interpolation—but they often
employed one dome, generally over the altar, and used it as an ornament
both external and internal. The two illustrations already given of the
domes at Bari (Woodcut No. 470) and Caserta Vecchia (Woodcut No. 472)
show the form these usually took in the province. They belong to a type
not unusual in the East, but unknown to the Gothic architects of Europe.
[Illustration: 481. Plan of Church at Molfetta. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 482. Section of Church at Molfetta. (From Schultz.) Scale
50 ft. to 1 in.]
When called upon to roof their churches with stone, they almost
invariably adopted the domical in preference to the vaulted form, as at
Molfetta (1162), where they make a pleasing form of roof, not unlike
that of Loches Cathedral (Woodcut No. 585). The great defect of domes
when thus employed is their height, which generally throws the whole of
the building out of proportion; and unless light is introduced through
openings in the drum, or in the dome itself, they are dark and gloomy.
This is certainly the case at Molfetta, but otherwise the church seems
well designed and of pleasing proportions. To be successful, domes
should be low and flat internally; and any height required externally
must be given by a false dome, as at St. Mark’s, or as done by the
Renaissance architects generally.
[Illustration: 483. Baptistery, Mont St. Angelo Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 484. Plan of Baptistery, Mont St. Angelo. Scale 50 ft. to
1 in.]
This was not so much felt when the building was square, and covered by
only one dome, like the baptistery or tomb of Mont St. Angelo, where
effect of space on the floor was not aimed at so much as a combination
of external dignity with limited dimensions in plan, and was attained by
the arrangement adopted. As will be observed, the pointed arch, as in
the tower at Gaeta (Woodcut No. 489), is used in the basement, but above
this round arches with balusters for pillars, such as we should call
Saxon, though their age here may be the 12th century.
[Illustration: 485. Tomb of Bohemund at Canosa. (From Schultz.)]
Among the little bits of Orientalism that crop up here and there all
over the province, one of the most pleasing is the little tomb of
Bohemund at Canosa (1111). It is charming to find in Italy an Eastern
Kibleh with its dome, erected to contain the remains of a Christian
king. Though elegant, however, the dome is not fitted to the square, as
it would have been in more experienced hands, and the whole design is
somewhat badly put together. Its bronze doors are among its chiefest
ornaments, and are elegant, though inferior to numerous examples of the
same class in the churches of the province.
Many other examples of Byzantine domical forms might be quoted as
existing in Southern Italy. It is not, however, so much in the forms as
in the details that the Eastern influence is felt, and that no less in
the churches which retain the basilican form of Ravenna than in those
which assume the domical form of Constantinople.
The buildings of the Southern Province cannot certainly compete with
those of the Northern either in size or in daring mechanical
construction, but in detail they are frequently more beautiful, while
their forms are more national and less constrained. Their great
interest, however, in the eyes of the student, consists in their forming
a link between the Eastern and Western worlds, and thus joining together
two styles which we have hitherto been too much in the habit of
considering as possessing no point of contact.
CIRCULAR BUILDINGS.
One of the best known, as well as one of the largest examples of this
class of buildings in Italy, is the baptistery at Pisa (seen partially
on the left side of Woodcut No. 465). Internally it is, as nearly as may
be, 100 ft. in diameter, and the walls are about 8 ft. 6 in. in
thickness. The dome itself, however, is only 60 ft. in diameter, and is
supported on four piers and eight pillars. These serve to separate the
central space from the aisle which runs round it, and which is two
storeys in height, but singularly ill-proportioned and clumsy in detail.
The worst part of the design, however, is the dome, if dome it can be
called. Internally it is conical in form, and thrust through an external
hemispherical dome in a manner more clumsy and unpleasing than any other
example of its class. Externally, these defects are to some extent
atoned for by considerable richness and beauty of detail. It had
originally only one range of blind arcades, with three-quarter columns,
surmounted by an open arcade; an arrangement exactly similar to that of
the two lower storeys of the cathedral and the leaning tower (Woodcut
No. 488). A considerable amount of pointed Gothic decoration was
afterwards added, which, though somewhat incongruous, is elegant in
itself, and hides to some extent the original defects of the design. But
the outline of the building and its whole arrangements are so radically
bad, that no amount of ornament can ever redeem them.
Taken altogether, the Pisan baptistery is so very peculiar, that it
would be interesting if its design could be traced back to some
undoubted original. That this is possible will hardly be doubted by any
one at all familiar with the subject; meanwhile, the building most like
it that has been illustrated is the little church of San Donato, at
Zara. The church was probably built according to Mr. Jackson by Bishop
Donatus III. at the beginning of the 9th century, with materials taken
from ancient buildings, some of them of the best period of Roman
architecture. The two monolithic columns in front of the triple
sanctuary, and which are 30 ft. in height, bear testimony to the size
and importance of the temple they originally adorned, and the great
thickness of the walls and the size of the piers suggest a wealth of
material at the disposal of the builders. The rectangular building on
the south side Mr. Jackson considers to be coeval with the church; and
the chamber over it, which was on the same level and originally opened
on to the gallery round the aisles, formed a second church intended for
the use of the catechumens. The church is so built round that it is
impossible to say what its external appearance may have been. Both from
its resemblance to the Pisan baptistery and its own merits, it is an
interesting addition to our knowledge of those circular churches which
were such favourites with all the Christian architects in the
Carlovingian period. The resemblance in this instance is the more
remarkable, because the façade of the cathedral at Zara (Woodcut No.
467) is in the Pisan style, only slightly modified by local
peculiarities. From what we already know, it seems undoubted that there
was a close connection—architecturally, at least—between Pisa and Zara.
If this were fully investigated, it would probably throw considerable
light on the origin of the Pisan style, which has hitherto seemed so
exceptional in Italy, and also explain how the Byzantine element came to
be so strongly developed in what at first sight appears to be a
Romanesque style of art.
[Illustration: 486. Ground and Upper Storey of San Donato, Zara. (From
Jackson.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 487. Section San Donato, Zara. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
TOWERS.
The typical example of a tower in the Italian style is the celebrated
leaning tower at Pisa, partly seen in Woodcut No. 465. It is, indeed, so
far as we at present know, the only one which carries out that
arrangement of numerous tiers of superimposed arcades which is so
characteristic of the style. The lower storey is well designed as a
solid basement for the superincumbent mass; its walls are 13 ft. in
thickness, and it is adorned with 15 three-quarter columns: its height
being 35 ft. The six storeys above this average 20 ft. in height, and
are each adorned with an open arcade. The whole is crowned by a smaller
circular tower, 27 ft. in height, in which the bells are hung. The
entire height is thus 182 ft.; the mean diameter of the main portion,
52. There is no doubt that it was originally intended to stand
perpendicular, though the contrary has been asserted; but before the
commencement of the fifth storey the foundations had given way, and the
attempts to readjust the work are plainly traceable in the upper
storeys, though without success. It leans 11 ft. 2 in. out of the
perpendicular,[309] which, though not sufficient to endanger its
stability, is enough to render it very unsightly. Even without this
defect, however, its design can hardly be commended; an arrangement of
six equal arcades, with horizontal entablatures, is not an expedient
mode of adorning a building, where elevation is the element of success.
The introduction of strongly-marked vertical lines, or some variation in
the design of the arcades, would have greatly improved the design: and
so the Italians seem to have thought, for it was never repeated, and the
Pisan tower remains a solitary example of its class.
[Illustration: 488. Leaning Tower at Pisa. (From Taylor and Cresy.)
Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 489. Tower of Gaeta. (From Schultz.) No Scale.]
Nothing at all resembling it occurs in the southern parts of the
province, though it must be admitted that they contain very few really
important towers of any sort.
Perhaps the earthquakes to which a great portion of the country is
liable may have deterred the architects from indulging in structures of
great altitude; but it must be added that the idea of belfry or tower
did not enter into their municipal arrangements, and their towns are not
consequently illustrated by such towers as those of Venice, Cremona, or
Verona in the north. Of those which do exist that of Gaeta is perhaps as
picturesque as any. It was erected 1276-1290, and is both characteristic
of the style and elegant in outline. As will be observed, the lower
storey has pointed arches, while those above are all round; an
arrangement which, though to our eyes it may appear archæologically
wrong, is certainly constructively right, and the effect is very
pleasing, from the height and dignity given to the entrance.
The two towers of the cathedral at Bari (Woodcut No. 470) are not so
happy in design as this. They are too tall for their other dimensions,
and want accentuation throughout; while the change from the lower to the
upper storey is abrupt and ill-contrived. The tower at Caserta Vecchia
(Woodcut No. 472) is low and squat in its proportions, and unfortunately
too typical of the towers in this land of earthquakes.
CIVIL ARCHITECTURE.
As a rule, it may be asserted that the southern province of Italy is
singularly deficient in examples of civil or domestic architecture.
Great monastic establishments existed there during the Middle Ages which
must have possessed buildings befitting their magnificence; but these
have either perished and been rebuilt, or have been so restored that
their original forms can hardly be recognised. There are, indeed,
cloisters at Amalfi and Sorrento; much more remarkable, however, for the
beauty of their situation than for their architecture, which is
extremely rude and clumsy. There are no chapter-houses: no halls or
conventual buildings of any sort. In this respect, the province forms a
remarkable contrast with Spain in the same age; though it must be
confessed that the North of Italy is also very deficient in conventual
buildings of the Middle Ages, the most magnificent and beautiful
belonging more to the Renaissance than to the Mediæval period.
At Ravello there is the Casa Ruffolo, a picturesque palace of the 13th
century, still nearly entire: a strange mixture of Gothic and Saracenic
taste, but so exceptional, that it would not be fair to quote it as a
type of any style. It seems to owe its peculiarities more to the taste
of some individual patron or architect rather than to any national taste
or form of design.
[Illustration: 490. Plan of Castel del Monte. (From Schultz.) Scale 100
ft. to 1 in.]
There are, however, several Hohenstauffen castles of tolerable
preservation, more or less typical of the domestic arts of the day in
which they were erected. One of the best preserved of these is that of
Castel del Monte, erected by Frederick II., 1240-44. It is an octagon in
plan, with octagonal turrets at each angle. It measures 167 ft. across
its extreme breadth, and surrounds a courtyard 57 ft. in diameter. Both
storeys are vaulted, and all the details throughout are good and
pleasing. The whole is an admixture of Italian taste, superimposed on a
German design; but it will be observed how little removed the
architectural details of the entrance are, even at that early age, from
the style of the Renaissance. This is, indeed, the great characteristic
of the architectural objects in Southern Italy. Though they adopted
Christian forms, they never abandoned the classical feeling in details;
and it is this which mainly renders them worthy of study. Whether
considered in regard to dimensions, outline, or constructive
peculiarities, their churches will not bear a moment’s comparison with
those of the North; but in elegance of detail they often surpass purely
Gothic buildings to such a degree as to become to some extent as worthy
of study as their more ambitious rivals.
[Illustration: 491. Part Section, part Elevation, of Castel del Monte.
(From Schultz.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
CHAPTER VI.
POINTED ITALIAN GOTHIC.
CONTENTS.
Fresco paintings—Churches at Vercelli, Asti, Verona, and Lucca—Cathedral
at Siena—Sta. Maria, Florence—Church at Chiaravalle—St. Petronio,
Bologna—Cathedral at Milan—Certosa, near Pavia—Duomo at Ferrara.
CHRONOLOGY.
DATES.
Bologna independent A.D. 1112
Countess Matilda at Florence 1115
Obizzo d’Este at Ferrara 1184
Enrico Dandolo takes Constantinople 1203
War between Genoa and Venice 1205
Azzo d’Este at Ferrara 1208
Martino della Scala at Verona 1259
Martino delle Torre at Milan 1260
Visconti Lord of Milan 1277
Taddeo de Pepoli at Bologna 1334
Conspiracy of Marino Faliero 1355
Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan 1395
Verona ceded to Venice 1409
Cosmo de’ Medici 1434
Before the commencement of the 13th century, the Italians had acquired
such mastery over the details of their round-arched style, and had
worked it into such originality and completeness, that it is surprising
that they should so easily have abandoned it for that form of Pointed
Gothic which they afterwards adopted. It is true the Italians never rose
to the conception of such buildings as the great Rhenish cathedrals,
like those of Spires and Worms, or the old churches at Cologne; nor did
they perhaps even rival the quasi-classical grace and elegance of the
Provençal churches; but at Verona, Modena, and indeed throughout the
North of Italy, they had elaborated a complete round-arched style, all
the details of which were not only appropriate and elegant, but seemed
capable of indefinite development in the direction in which they were
proceeding. They had also before their eyes the Romanesque style of Pisa
and Lucca with all its elegance, and the example of Rome, where the
architects steadily refused to acknowledge the pointed arch during the
whole of the Mediæval period. Yet in the beginning of the 13th century—
say 1220, when the cathedrals of Amiens, Salisbury, and Toledo were
designed—Italy too was smitten with admiration for the pointed arch, and
set to work to adapt it to her tastes and uses.
It would be difficult to account for this, were we not aware how deeply
the feelings that gave rise to the Ghibelline faction were rooted in the
Italian soil. In all the cities, except Rome, the cause of the
Ghibellines was throughout the Middle Ages identified with that of
freedom and local independence, in opposition to that of the Guelfs,
which symbolised the supremacy of the Pope and the clerical party.
Knowing how strenuously this was resisted, we naturally expect to find
it expressed in the architecture of the country. Two, indeed, of the
great churches of Italy, Assisi (1228) and Milan (1385), were erected by
Germans in the German style of the day; but these are exceptional. The
form which the pointed-arched style took on its introduction, was that
of adaptation to the Italian style, in a manner which the Italians
thought more consonant with beauty and convenience than that adopted
north of the Alps. In this they were certainly mistaken. The elegance of
the details employed by a refined and cultivated people, and based on
classical traditions, goes far to redeem, in most instances, the defects
of their designs; but they never grasped the true principles of Gothic
art, and the fatal facility of the pointed arch led them more astray
after mechanical clevernesses than even the Germans. Still, it is an
original style, and, however imperfect, is well worthy of study.
Before proceeding to describe the style more in detail, it may be well
to point out one of the principal causes which led to the more marked
features of difference between the Gothic architecture of Italy and that
of Germany and France. This was the distaste of the Italians for the
employment of painted glass, or at least their want of appreciation of
its beauties when combined with architecture.
It will be explained in a future chapter how all-important painted glass
was to the elaboration of the Gothic style. But for its introduction,
the architecture of France would bear no resemblance to what it was, and
is. In Italy, indeed, the people loved polychromy, but always of the
opaque class. They delighted to cover the walls of their churches with
frescoes and mosaics, to enrich their floors with the most gorgeous
pavements, and to scatter golden stars over the blue ground of their
vaults; but rarely, if ever, did they fill, or design to fill, their
windows with painted glass. Perhaps the glare of an Italian sun may have
tended to render its brilliancy intolerable; but more probably the
absence of stained glass is owing to its incompatibility with
fresco-painting, the effect of which would be entirely destroyed by the
superior brightness of the transparent material. The Italians were not
prepared to relinquish the old and favourite mode of decoration in which
they so excelled. This adherence to the ancient method of ornamentation
enabled them, in the 15th and 16th centuries, to surpass all the world
in the art of painting, but it was fatal to the proper appreciation of
the pointed style, and to its successful introduction into the land.
The first effect of this tendency was that the windows in Italian
churches were small, and generally devoid of tracery, with all its
beautiful accompaniments. The walls, too, being consequently solid, were
sufficient, by their own weight, to abut the thrust of the arches: so
that neither projecting or flying buttresses nor pinnacles were needed.
The buildings were thus deprived externally of all the aspiring vertical
lines so characteristic of true Gothic. The architects, to relieve the
monotony arising from the want of these features, were forced to recur
to the horizontal cornices of the classical times, and to cover their
walls with a series of panelling which, however beautiful in itself, is
mere ornament—both unmeaning and inconsistent.
Internally, too, having no clerestory to make room for, and no
constructive necessities to meet, they jumped to the conclusion that the
best design is that which covers the greatest space with the least
expenditure of materials, and the least encumbrance of the floor. With
builders this is a golden rule, but with architects it is about the
worst that can possibly be adopted. The Germans were not free from this
fault, but the Italians carried it still further. If on four or five
piers they could support the vault of a whole nave, they never dreamed
of introducing more. A French architect, though superior in constructive
skill, would probably have introduced eight or ten in the same space. An
Italian aimed at carrying the vaults of the side-aisles to the same
height as that of the nave, if he could. A Northern architect knew how
to keep the two in their due proportion, whereby he obtained greater
height and greater width in the same bulk, and an appearance of height
and width greater still, by the contrast between the parts, at the same
time that he gave his building a character of strength and stability
perhaps even more valuable than that of size.
In the same manner the Northern architects, while they grouped their
shafts together, kept them so distinct as to allow every one to bear its
proportional part of the load, and perform its allotted task. The
Italians never comprehended this principle, but merely stuck pilasters
back to back, in imitation of the true architects, producing an
unmeaning and ugly pier. The same incongruities occur in every part and
every detail. It is a style copied without understanding, and executed
without feeling. The elegance of the sculptured foliage and other
details sometimes goes far to redeem these faults; for the Italians,
though bad architects, were always beautiful carvers, and, as a Southern
people, were free from the vulgarities sometimes apparent farther north,
and never fell into the wild barbarisms which too often disfigure even
the best buildings on this side of the Alps. Besides, when painting is
joined to sculpture in churches, the architecture may come to occupy a
subordinate position, and thus escape the censure it deserves.
Unfortunately there are only two examples of any importance in this
style that retain all their painted decorations—St. Francis at Assisi,
and the Certosa near Pavia. From this circumstance they are perhaps the
most admired in Italy. In others the spaces left for colour are still
plain and blank. We see the work of the architect unaided by the
painting which was intended to set it off, and we cannot but condemn it
as displaying at once bad taste and ignorance of the true Gothic
feeling.
One of the earliest, or perhaps the very first Italian edifice into
which the pointed arch was introduced, is the fine church of St. Andrea
at Vercelli, commenced in the year 1219 by the Cardinal Guala Bicchieri,
and finished in three years. This prelate, having been long legate in
England, brought back with him an English architect called, it is said,
Brigwithe, and entrusted him with the erection of this church in his
native place.
[Illustration: 492. Plan of the Church at Vercelli. (From Osten’s
‘Baukunst in Lombardei.’) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
In plan, it is certainly very like an English church, terminating
squarely towards the east, and with side chapels to the transepts,
arranged very much as we find them at Buildwas, Kirkstall, and other
churches of this class and size, only that here they are polygonal,
which was hardly ever the case in England. But with the plan all
influences of the English architect seem to have ceased, and the
structure is in purely Italian style. Externally the pointed arch
nowhere appears, all the doors and windows being circular-headed; while
internally it is confined to the pier-arches of the nave and the
vaulting of the roof. The façade is flanked at its angles by two tall,
slender, square towers; and the intersection of the nave and transept is
covered by one of those elegant octagonal domes which the Italians knew
so well how to use, and which is in fact the only original feature in
their designs. The external form of this church is interesting, as
displaying the germs of much that two centuries afterwards was so
greatly expanded by a German architect in the design of Milan cathedral.
A few years later, in 1229, a church was commenced at Asti, the tower of
which was finished in 1266. This allowed time for a more complete
development of the pointed style, which here prevails not only
internally, but externally. Tall pointed windows appear in the flanks,
and even the doorways assume that form, in their canopies, if not in
their openings. The porch (Woodcut No. 493) is a later addition, and a
characteristic specimen of the style during the 14th century. This
church is also one of the earliest examples in which those elegant
terra-cotta cornices of small intersecting arches seem to have been
brought to perfection.
[Illustration: 493. Church at Asti. (From Chapuy, ‘Moyen-Âge
Monumental.’)]
The most remarkable church of this age is that of St. Francis at Assisi,
commenced in 1228, and finished, in all essentials at least, in 1253. It
is said to have been built by a German named Jacob, or Jacopo. Certainly
no French or English architect would have designed a double church of
this class, though, on the other hand, no Italian could have drawn
details so purely Northern as those of the upper church. In the lower
church there are hardly any mouldings to mark the style, but its
character is certainly rather German than Italian. This church depends
for its magnificence and character much more on painting than on
architecture. In the first place it is small, the upper church being
only 225 ft. long, by 36 in. width; and though the lower one has
side-aisles which extend the width to 100 ft., yet the upper church is
only 60 ft. in height, and the lower about 30, so that it is far too
small for much architectural magnificence. None of its details are equal
to those of contemporary churches on this side of the Alps. The whole
church is covered with fresco paintings in great variety and of the most
beautiful character, which justly render it one of the most celebrated
and admired of all Italy. On this side of the Alps without its frescoes,
it would hardly attract any attention. It is invaluable as an example of
the extent to which the polychromatic decoration may be profitably
carried, and of the true mode of doing it; and also as an illustration
of the extent to which the Italians allowed a foreign style and mode of
ornamentation to be introduced into their country.
[Illustration: 494. Plan of Sta. Anastasia, Verona. Scale 100 ft. to 1
in.]
[Illustration: 495. One Bay of Sta. Anastasia, Verona.]
One of the purest and most perfect types of an Italian Gothic church is
that of Sta. Anastasia at Verona, commenced apparently in 1260. It is
not large, being only 285 ft. in length externally; but its arrangements
are very complete, and very perfect if looked at from an Italian point
of view. The square of the vault of the nave is the modulus, instead of
that of the aisles, as in true Gothic churches: owing to which the
pier-arches are further apart than a true artist would have placed them;
there are also no buttresses externally, but only pilasters. The
consequence of this is, that the arches have to be tied in with iron
rods at the springing, which internally adds very much to the appearance
of weakness, caused in the first instance by the wide spacing and
general tenuity. These bad effects are aggravated by the absence of a
string-course at the springing of the vault; and by the substitution of
a circular hole for the triforium, and a hexafoiled opening of very
insignificant dimensions for the glorious clerestory windows of Northern
churches. Altogether, though we cannot help being pleased with the
spaciousness and general elegance of design, it is impossible not to
feel how very inferior it is to that of churches on this side the Alps.
[Illustration: 496. One Bay, externally and internally, of the Church of
San Martino, Lucca.]
The church of San Martino at Lucca, built about a century after Sta.
Anastasia (middle of 14th century), presents a strikingly happy
compromise between the two styles. The pier-arches are still too wide—23
ft. in the clear; but the defect is remedied to some extent by the
employment of circular instead of pointed arches, and the triforium is
all that can be desired; the clerestory, however, is as insignificant as
it must be where the sun is so brilliant and painted glass inadmissible.
It would be easy to point out other defects; but, taking it altogether,
there are few more elegant churches than this, and hardly one in Italy
that so perfectly meets all the exigencies for which it was designed.
[Illustration: 497. Plan of the Cathedral at Siena. (From the ‘Églises
principales d’Europe.’) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
The cathedrals of Siena and Orvieto (the former commenced in 1243, the
latter in 1290) are perhaps, taken altogether, the most successful
specimens of Italian pointed Gothic. They are those at least in which
the system is carried to the greatest extent without either foreign aid
or the application of distinctly foreign details. These two buildings,
moreover, both retain their façades as completed by their first
architects, while the three great churches of this style—the cathedrals
of Florence, Bologna, and Milan—were in this respect left unfinished,
with many others of the smaller churches of Italy. The church at Siena
illustrates forcibly the tendency of the Italian architects to adhere to
the domical forms of the old Etruscans, which the Romans amplified to
such an extent, and the Byzantines made peculiarly their own. I cannot
but repeat my regret that the Italians alone, of all the Western
Mediæval builders, showed any predilection for this form of roof. On
this side of the Alps it could have been made the most beautiful of
architectural forms. In Italy there is no instance of more than moderate
success—nothing, indeed, to encourage imitation. Even the example now
before us is no exception to these remarks, though one of the boldest
efforts of Italian architects. In plan it ought to have been an octagon,
but that apparently would have made it too large for their skill to
execute, so they met the difficulty by adopting a hexagon, which, though
producing a certain variety of perspective, fits awkwardly with the
lines of columns, and twists the vaults to an unpleasant extent. Still,
a dome of moderate height, and 58 ft. in diameter, covering the centre
of the church, and with sufficient space around to give it dignity, is a
noble and pleasing feature, the merit of which it is impossible to deny.
Combined with the rich colouring and gorgeous furniture of the church,
it makes up a whole of great beauty. The circular pier-arches, however,
and the black and white stripes by which the exterior is marked, detract
considerably from the effect of the whole—at least in the eyes of
strangers, though the Italians still consider it a beauty. The façade of
this cathedral is represented in Woodcut No. 498. It consists of three
great portals, the arches of which are equal in size, though the centre
doorway is larger than those at the sides. Above is the invariable
circular window of the Italian architects, and the whole is crowned by
steep triangular gables. Beneath the cathedral, or rather under the
choir, is the ancient baptistery, now the church of St. John the
Baptist; its front is in a much purer style of Gothic than the
cathedral.[310]
[Illustration: 498. Façade of the Cathedral at Siena.]
The carved architectural ornaments of the façade are rich and elaborate
in the extreme, though figured sculpture is used to a much less extent
than in Northern portals of the same age. It is also observable that the
strong horizontal lines do not harmonise with the aspiring character of
pointed architecture.
The cathedral of Orvieto is smaller and simpler, and less rich in its
decorations, than that at Siena, with the exception of its façade, which
is adorned with sculpture and painting. Indeed the three-gabled front
may be considered the typical one for churches of this class. The
façades intended to have been applied to the churches at Florence,
Bologna, Milan, and elsewhere, were no doubt very similar to that
represented in Woodcut No. 498. As a frontispiece, if elaborately
sculptured and painted, it is not without considerable appropriateness
and even beauty; but, as an architectural object, it is infinitely
inferior to the double-towered façades of the Northern cathedrals, or
even to those with only one great tower in the centre. It has besides
the defect of not expressing what is behind it; the central gable being
always higher than the roof, and the two others merely ornamental
appendages. Indeed, like the Italian Gothic buildings generally, it
depended on painting, sculpture, and carving for its effect, far more
than on architectural design properly so called.
Among the greatest and most complete examples of Italian Gothic is the
church of Sta. Maria dei Fiori, the cathedral of Florence, one of the
largest and finest churches produced in the Middle Ages—as far as mere
grandeur of conception goes, perhaps the very best, though considerably
marred in execution from defects of style, which are too apparent in
every part.
[Illustration: 499. Plan of Cathedral at Florence. (From Isabelle,
‘Édifices Circulaires.’) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
The building of the church was commenced in the year 1294 or 1298 (it is
not quite clear which), from the designs and under the superintendence
of Arnolfo di Lapo, for unfortunately in this style we know the names of
all the architects, and all the churches show traces of the caprice and
of the misdirected efforts of individuals, instead of the combined
national movement which produced such splendid results in France and
England. It is not known how far Arnolfo had carried the building when
he died, in 1310, but probably up to the springing of the vaults. After
this the works proceeded more leisurely, but the nave and smaller domes
of the choir were no doubt completed as we now find them in the first
twenty years of the 14th century. The great octagon remained unfinished,
and, if covered in at all, it was only by a wooden roof of domical
outline externally, which seems to be that represented in the fresco in
the convent of San Marco, till Brunelleschi commenced the present dome
in 1420, and completed it in all essential parts before his death, which
happened in 1444. The building may therefore be considered as
essentially contemporary with the cathedral of Cologne, which it very
nearly equals in size (its area being 84,802 ft., while that of Cologne
is estimated at 91,000), and, as far as mere conception of plan goes,
there can be little doubt but that the Florentine cathedral far
surpasses its German rival. Nothing indeed can be finer than its general
ground-plan. A vast nave leads to an enormous dome, extending into the
triapsal arrangement so common in the early churches of Cologne, and
which was repeated in the last and greatest effort of the Middle Ages,
or rather the first of the new school—the great church of St. Peter at
Rome. In the Florentine church all these parts are better subordinated
and proportioned than in any other example, and the mode in which the
effect increases and the whole expands as we approach from the entrance
to the sanctum is unrivalled. All this, alas! is utterly thrown away in
the execution. Like all inexperienced architects, Arnolfo seems to have
thought that largeness of parts would add to the greatness of the whole,
and thus used only four great arches in the whole length of his nave,
giving the central aisle a width of 55 ft. clear. The whole width is
within 10 ft. of that of Cologne, and the height about the same; and
yet, in appearance, the height is about half, and the breadth less than
half, owing to the better proportion of the parts and to the superior
appropriateness in the details on the part of the German cathedral. At
Florence the details are positively ugly. The windows of the side-aisles
are small and misplaced, those of the clerestory mere circular holes.
The proportion of the aisles one to another is bad, the vaults
ill-formed, and altogether a colder and less effective design was not
produced in the Middle Ages. The triapsal choir is not so objectionable
as the nave, but there are large plain spaces that now look cold and
flat; the windows are too few and small, and there is a gloom about the
whole which is very unsatisfactory. It is nearly certain that the
original intention was to paint the walls, and not to colour the
windows, so that these defects are hardly chargeable to the original
design, and would not be apparent now were it not that in a moment of
mistaken enthusiasm the Florentines were seized with a desire to imitate
the true style of Gothic art, and rival Northern cathedrals in the glory
of their painted glass. This, in a church whose windows were designed
only of such dimensions as were sufficient to admit the requisite
quantity of white light, was fatal. Notwithstanding the beauty of the
glass itself, which seems to have been executed at Lubeck, 1434, from
Italian designs, it is so completely out of place that it only produces
irritation instead of admiration, and has certainly utterly destroyed
the effect and meaning of the interior it was intended to adorn.
[Illustration: 500. Section of Dome and part of Nave of the Cathedral at
Florence. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 501. Part of the Flank of Cathedral at Florence.]
[Illustration: 502. Dome at Chiaravalle, near Milan. (From a drawing by
Ed. Falkener, Esq.)]
Externally the façade was never finished,[311] and we can only fancy
what was intended from the analogy of Siena and Orvieto. The flanks of
the nave are without buttresses or pinnacles, and, with only a few
insignificant windows, would be painfully flat except for a veneer of
coloured marbles disposed in panels over the whole surface. For an
interior or a pavement such a mode of decoration is admissible; but it
is so unconstructive, so evidently a mere decoration, that it gives a
weakness to the whole, and most unsatisfactory appearance to so large a
building. This is much less apparent at the east end, where the outline
is so broken, and the main lines of the construction so plainly marked,
that the mere filling in is comparatively unimportant. This is the most
meritorious part of the church, and, so far as it was carried up
according to the original design, is extremely beautiful. Even the
plainness and flatness of the nave serve as a foil to set off the
varying outline of the choir. Above the line of the cornice of the
side-aisles there is nothing that can be said to belong to the original
design except the first division of the drum of the dome, which follows
the lines of the clerestory. It has long been a question what Arnolfo
originally intended, and especially how he meant to cover the great
octagonal space in the centre. All knowledge of his intentions seems to
have been lost within a century after his death: at least, in the
accounts of the proceedings of the commission which resulted in the
adoption of Brunelleschi’s design for the dome, no reference is made to
any original design as then existing, and no one appears to have known
how Arnolfo intended to finish his work. Judging from the structure as
far as he carried it, and with the knowledge we now possess of the
Italian architecture of that age, we can easily conjecture what his
design for its completion may have been. Internally, it probably
consisted of a dome something like the present, but flatter, springing
from the cornice, 40 ft. lower than the present one, and pierced with
large openings on each of its eight faces.
[Illustration: 503. Section of Eastern portion of Church at Chiaravalle.
(From Gruner’s ‘Terra Cotta Architecture in Italy.’) Scale 50 ft. to 1
in.]
Externally, two courses were open to him. The first and most obvious was
to hide the dome entirely under a wooden roof, as is done in St.
George’s, Thessalonica (Woodcut No. 305), or in the baptistery in front
of the cathedral, and is done in half the baptisteries in Italy—as at
Parma, for instance (Woodcut No. 514). Had he done this, the span of the
dome might have been very much larger, without involving any
constructive difficulties, and the three towers over the choir and
transepts might have sufficed to relieve its external appearance
sufficiently for architectural effect. On the whole, however, I am
rather inclined to believe that something more ambitious than this was
originally proposed, and that the design was more like that of
Chiaravalle near Milan, built in 1221, and one of the most complete and
perfect of this class of dome now existing in Italy. Its external
appearance may be judged of from Woodcut 502, and its constructive
details from the section, Woodcut No. 503.
If the basement is sufficiently solid—and that at Florence is more than
sufficient for any superstructure of the sort—it is evident the
architect can dispose of such masses of masonry, that he can counteract
any thrust or tendency to spread that can exist in any dome of this
sort; and instead of being only 136 ft. across, 150 or 160 might easily
have been attempted. Instead of 375 ft., which is the height of the
present dome from the floor to the top of the cross externally, it might
even with the present diameter have been carried up to at least 500 ft.,
or as high as the church was long,—70 to 100 ft. above the height of St.
Peter’s at Rome.
Had this been done, the three smaller semi-domes must have been intended
to be crowned with miniature octagonal spires of the same class with the
great dome, and between these the vast substructures show that it was
intended to carry up four great spires, probably to a height of 400 ft.
Had all this been done (and something very like it seems certainly to
have been intended), neither Cologne Cathedral, nor any church in
Europe, ancient or modern, would have been comparable to this great and
glorious apse. As it is, the plain, heavy, simple outlined dome of
Brunelleschi acts like an extinguisher, crushing all the lower part of
the composition, and both internally and externally destroying all
harmony between the parts. It has deprived us of the only chance that
ever existed of witnessing the effect of a great Gothic dome; not indeed
such a dome as might with the same dimensions have been executed on this
side of the Alps, but still in the spirit, and with much of the poetry,
which gives such value to the conceptions of the builders in those days.
But for this change of plan, the ambition of the Florentines might have
been in some measure satisfied, whose instructions to the architect
were, that their cathedral “should surpass everything that human
industry or human power had conceived of great and beautiful.”
About a century later (1390), the Bolognese determined on the erection
of a monster cathedral, which, in so far as size went, would have been
more than double that at Florence. According to the plans that have come
down to us, it was to have been about 800 ft. long and 525 wide across
the transepts; at the intersection was to have been a dome 130 ft. in
diameter, or only 6 ft. less than that at Florence; and the width of
both nave and transepts was to have been 183 ft.: so that the whole
would have covered about 212,000 ft., or nearly the same area as St.
Peter’s at Rome, and three times that of any French cathedral! Of this
vast design, only about one-third (Woodcut No. 504), 74,000 sq. ft., was
ever carried out; but that fragment is quite sufficient to enable us to
judge of the merits or defects of this style in its state of greatest
perfection. The only other building in the same style on a sufficient
scale to admit of comparison with this is the nave of the cathedral at
Florence just described, but that is nearly as may be only half of its
dimensions, or 36,000 ft. as compared with 72,000. The chapels, too, at
Bologna add practically a fifth aisle, giving great variety and richness
to the perspective. The varied heights and proportions of the central
and side aisles are singularly pleasing, and there being six arches at
Bologna instead of only four as at Florence, and twelve side chapels
where none exist in the other example, go far to redeem the lean
mechanical look which is the great defect of this style. The great
advantage San Petronio has over the Florentine church is in the size and
number of its windows, and these not being filled with stained glass the
whole church has a bright and pleasing effect that contrasts most
favourably with the gloom of its great rival. Notwithstanding this, the
nave of San Petronio cannot be considered as a successful work of art.
In the first place it is too mechanically perfect. The area of the
points of support as compared with the voids is, as far as can be made
out from such plans as exist, about one-twelfth, which would be a merit
in a railway station, but something more is wanted in a monumental
building. In the next there is a singular deficiency of either
constructive or constructed ornament. On this side of the Alps an
architect with vaulting shafts, string-courses, galleries, and fifty
other expedients, would have relieved the bareness of the walls. At
Bologna it probably was intended they should be painted, and this never
having been executed may account for most of its apparent defects.
[Illustration: 504. Plan of the part executed of St. Petronio, Bologna.
(from Wiebeking.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
In Gothic architecture one of two systems seems indispensable: either
painted glass with strongly-marked carved mouldings over the whole of
the interior, or white glass with flat surfaces suitable for opaque
paintings. Few cathedrals are complete in both respects at the present
day, but in their imperfect state the Northern system has an immense
advantage over the Southern. The architecture of our cathedrals is
complete and beautiful even in ruins. An Italian church without its
coloured decoration is only a framed canvas without harmony or meaning.
Were San Petronio as complete in its coloured decoration as the Certosa
at Pavia or Monreale at Palermo, it might stand a fair competition with
the best interiors on this side of the Alps. As it is, it is only a
splendid example of ornamental but unornamented construction, and, as
was attempted to be explained in the Introduction, both elements are
wanted for success in architectural design.
[Illustration: 505. Section of San Petronio, Bologna. (From Wiebeking.)
Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
The exterior of the church is in too unfinished a state to enable us to
judge of what its effect might have been if completed, but many of its
details, especially of the façade, are of very great beauty, in many
respects superior to what is to be found on this side of the Alps. Its
central dome, however, never could have been a feature worthy of so vast
a church. In diameter it is equal, or nearly so, to that of Florence,
but the points of support are so small, and so far apart, that it must
have been mainly if not wholly of wood. No such towering structure as
Arnolfo’s vast substructures show that he intended, could have stood on
the slim supports of the Bolognese church.[312]
[Illustration: 506. Plan of the Cathedral of Milan. (From ‘Chiesi
Principali d’Europa.’) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
The cathedral of Milan—at once the most remarkable and one of the
largest and richest of all the churches erected in the Middle Ages—was
commenced in the year 1385, by order of Gian Galeazzo, first Duke of
Milan, and consecrated in 1418, at which date all the essential parts
seem to have been completed, though the central spire was not finished
till about the year 1440, by Brunelleschi.
The design is said to have been furnished by a German architect,
Heinrich Arlez von Gemunden, or as the Italians call him, “da
Gamondia,”—a statement which is corroborated by the fact that the
details and many of the forms are essentially Northern; but it is
equally certain that he was not allowed to control the whole, for all
the great features of the church are as thoroughly Italian as the
details are German: it is therefore by no means improbable that Marco da
Campione, as the Italians assert, or some other native artist, was
joined with him or placed over him.
In size it is, except Seville, the largest of all Mediæval cathedrals,
covering 107,782 ft. In material it is the richest, being built wholly
of white marble, which is scarcely the case with any other church, large
or small; and in decoration it is the most gorgeous—the whole of the
exterior is covered with tracery, and the amount of carving and statuary
lavished on its pinnacles and spires is unrivalled in any other building
of Europe. It is also built wholly (with the exception of the façade)
according to one design. Yet, with all these advantages, the appearance
of this wonderful building is not satisfactory to any one who is
familiar with the great edifices on this side of the Alps. Cologne is
certainly more beautiful; Rheims, Chartres, Amiens, and Bourges leave a
far more satisfactory impression on the mind; and even the much smaller
church of St. Ouen will convey far more pleasure to the true artist than
this gorgeous temple.
The cause of all this it is easy to understand, since all or nearly all
its defects arise from the introduction of Italian features into a
Gothic building; or rather, perhaps, it should be said, from a German
architect being allowed to ornament an Italian cathedral. Taking the
contemporary cathedral of St. Petronio at Bologna as our standard of
comparison, it will be seen that the sections (Woodcuts Nos. 505, 507)
are almost identical both in dimensions and in form, except that at
Milan the external range is a real aisle instead of a series of side
chapels; but, at the same time, it will be perceived that the German
system prevailed in doubling the number of the piers between the nave
and side-aisles. So far, therefore, the German architect saved the
church. The two small clerestories, however, still remain; and although
the design avoids the mullionless little circles of Bologna, there is
only space for small openings, which more resemble the windows of an
attic than of a clerestory. The greater quantity of light being thus
introduced by the tall windows of the outer aisle, the appearance is
that of a building lighted from below, which is fatal to architectural
effect.
The model still preserved on the spot shows that the German architect
designed great portals at each end of the transepts. This, however, was
overruled in favour of two small polygonal apses. Instead of the great
octagonal dome which an Italian would have placed upon the intersection
of the whole width of the nave and transepts, German influence has
confined it to the central aisle, which is perhaps more to be regretted
than any other mistake in the building. The choir is neither a French
chevet nor a German or Italian apse, but a compromise between the two, a
French circlet of columns enclosed in a German polygonal termination.
This part of the building, with its simple forms and three glorious
windows, is perhaps an improvement on either of the models of which it
is compounded.
[Illustration: 507. Section of the Cathedral of Milan.[313] (From
Wiebeking.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
This is the nearest approach to the French chevet arrangement to be
found in all Italy. It is extremely rare in that country to find an
aisle running round the choir, and opening into it, or with the circlet
of apsidal chapels which is so universal in France. The Italian church
is not, in fact, derived from a combination of a circular Eastern church
with a Western rectangular nave, but is a direct copy from the old Roman
basilica.
[Illustration: 508. View of the Interior of Milan Cathedral. (From
Rosengarten.)]
The details of the interior of Milan cathedral are almost wholly German
(Woodcut No. 508). The great capitals of the pillars, with their niches
and statues, are the only compromise between the ordinary German form
and the great deep ugly capitals—fragments, in fact, of classical
entablatures—which disfigure the cathedrals of Florence and Bologna, and
so many other Italian churches. Had the ornamentation of these been
carried up to the springing of the vault, they would have been
unexceptionable; as it is, with all their richness, their effect is
unmeaning.
Externally, the appearance is in outline not unlike that of Sta. Maria
dei Fiori; the apse is rich, varied, and picturesque, and the central
dome (excepting the details) similar, though on a smaller scale, to what
I believe to have been the original design of the Florentine church. The
nave is nearly as flat as at Florence, the clerestory not being visible;
but the forest of pinnacles and flying buttresses and the richness of
the ornamentation go far to hide that defect. The façade was left
unfinished, as was so often the case with the great churches of Italy.
Pellegrini was afterwards employed to finish it, and a model of his
design is still preserved. It is fortunate that his plan was not carried
out. The façade was finished, as we now see it, from the designs of
Amati, by order of Napoleon. It is commonplace, as might be expected
from its age, but inoffensive. The doorways are part of Pellegrini’s
design, and the Mediæval forms being placed over those of the
cinque-cento, produce a strangely incongruous effect. For the west front
several original designs are still preserved. One of these, with two
small square towers at the angles, as at Vercelli and elsewhere, was no
doubt the Italian design. The German one (Woodcut No. 509) is preserved
by Bassi:[314] had this been executed, the façade would have been about
one-third (viz. 100 ft.) wider than that of Cologne. Had the height of
the towers been in the same proportion, they would have been the tallest
in the world. In that case the effect here, as at Cologne, would have
been to shorten and overpower the rest of the building to a painful
extent. A design midway between the two, with spires rising to the same
height as the central one, or about 360 ft., would perhaps have the
happiest effect. At any rate, the want of some such features is greatly
felt in the building as it stands.
[Illustration: 509. Design for Façade of Milan Cathedral. (From Bassi.)]
The Certosa, near Pavia, was commenced about the same date (1396) as the
cathedral at Milan. It is seldom that we find two buildings in the
Middle Ages so close to one another in date and locality, and yet so
dissimilar. There is no instance of such an occurrence on this side of
the Alps, till modern times; and it shows that in those days the
Italians were nearly as devoid of any distinct principles of
architecture as we have since become.
[Illustration: 510. View of the Certosa, near Pavia. (From a
Photograph.)]
The great difference between Pavia and Milan is that the former shows no
trace of foreign influence. It is as purely Italian as St. Petronio, and
by no means so complete or consistent in design. Nothing, in fact, can
be more painful than the disproportion of the parts, the bad drawing of
the details, the malformation of the vaults, and the meanness of the
windows; though all these defects are completely hidden by the most
gorgeous colouring, and by furniture of such richness as to be almost
unrivalled. So attractive are these two features to the majority of
spectators, and so easily understood, that nine visitors out of ten are
delighted with the Certosa, and entirely forget its miserable
architecture in the richness and brilliancy of its decorations.
Externally the architecture is better than in the interior. From its
proximity to Pavia, it retains its beautiful old galleries under the
roof. Its circular apses, with their galleries, give to this church, for
the age to which it belongs, a peculiar character, harmonising well with
the circular-headed form, which nearly all the windows and openings
present. Even in the interior there are far more circular than pointed
arches.
The most beautiful and wonderful part of the building is the façade.
This was begun in 1473, and is one of the best specimens in Italy of the
Renaissance style. It would hardly, therefore, be appropriate to mention
it here, were it not that the dome over the intersection of the nave and
transepts is of the same age and style, but reproduces so exactly
(except in details) what we fancy the Mediæval Italian Gothic dome to
have been, that it may be considered as a feature of the earlier ages.
Referring to Woodcut No. 502, it will be seen how like it is to that of
Chiaravalle in outline. It is less tall, however, and, if translated
into the details of the great church at Florence, would fit perfectly on
the basement there prepared for such a feature.
Like many other churches in Northern Italy, the principal parts of the
Certosa are built in brick, and the ornamental details executed in
terra-cotta. Some of the latter, especially in the cloisters, are as
beautiful as any executed in stone in any part of Italy during the
Middle Ages; and their perfect preservation shows how suitable is the
material for such purposes. It may not be appropriate for large details
or monumental purposes, but for the minor parts and smaller details,
when used as the Italians in the Middle Ages used it, terra-cotta is as
legitimate as any material anywhere used for building purposes; and in
situations like the alluvial plains of the Po, where stone is with
difficulty obtainable, its employment was not only judicious but most
fortunate in its results.
It would be a tedious and unprofitable task to attempt to particularise
all the churches which were erected in this style in Italy, as hardly
one of them possesses a single title to admiration beyond the very
vulgar one of size. To this Santa Croce, at Florence, adds its
association with the great men who lie buried beneath it, and Sta. Maria
Novella can plead the circumstance—exceptional in that city—of
possessing a façade;[315] but neither of these has anything to redeem
its innate ugliness in the eyes of an architect.
There are two great churches of this period at Venice, the San Giovanni
e Paolo (1246-1420) and the Frari (1250); they are large and richly
ornamented fabrics, but are both entirely destitute of architectural
merit.
[Illustration: 511. Duomo at Ferrara. (From Hope’s ‘Architecture.’)
Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
A much more beautiful building is the cathedral at Como, the details of
which are so elegant and so unobtrusively used as in great measure to
make up for the bad arrangement and awkward form of the whole. In design
it is, however, inferior to that of the Duomo at Ferrara (Woodcut No.
511). The latter does not display the richness of the façades of Siena
or Orvieto, nor the elegance of that last named; but among the few
Italian façades which exist, it stands pre-eminent for sober propriety
of design and the good proportions of all its parts. The repose caused
by the solidity of the lower portions, and the gradual increase of
ornament and lightness as we ascend, all combine to render it harmonious
and pleasing. It is true it wants the aspiring character and bold relief
of Northern façades; but these do not belong to the style, and it must
suffice if we meet in this style with a moderate amount of variety,
undisturbed by any very prominent instances of bad taste.
The true type of an Italian façade is well illustrated in the view of
St. Francesco at Brescia (Woodcut No. 512), which may be considered the
germ of all that followed. Whether the church had three aisles or five,
the true Italian façade in the age of pointed architecture was always a
modification or extension of this idea, though introduced with more or
less Gothic feeling according to the circumstances of its erection.
At Florence there is a house or warehouse, converted into a church,—Or
(horreum) San Michele, which has attracted a good deal of attention, but
more on account of its curious ornaments than for beauty of design—which
latter it does not, and indeed can hardly be expected to, possess. The
little chapel of Sta. Maria della Spina at Pisa owes its celebrity to
the richness of its niches and canopies, and to the sculpture which they
contain. In this the Italians were always at home, and probably always
surpassed the Northern nations. It was far otherwise with architecture,
properly so called. This, in the age of the pointed style, was in Italy
so cold and unmeaning, that we do not wonder at the readiness with which
the Italians returned to the classical models. They are to be forgiven
in this, but we cannot so easily forgive _our_ forefathers, who
abandoned a style far more beautiful than that of Italy to copy one
which they had themselves infinitely surpassed; and this only because
the Italians, unable either to comSprehend or imitate the true
principles of pointed art, were forced to abandon its practice.
Unfortunately for us, they had in this respect in that age sufficient
influence to set the fashion to all Europe.
[Illustration: 512. View of St. Francesco, Brescia. (From Street’s
‘Brick and Marble in the Middle Ages.’)]
Of late work in Dalmatia the most remarkable is the Cathedral of
Sebenico (described in Mr. Jackson’s work), built entirely in stone and
marble, and without any brick or timber in its construction. It is a
cruciform building, covered over by a waggon-vault of stone, visible
both inside and outside. It was commenced from the design of Messer
Ambrosia, a Venetian architect, in 1435, to whom may be attributed the
nave and aisles up to the string-course above nave arches. The work was
continued after 1441 by another architect, Messer Giorgio, also from
Venice, who died in 1475, leaving the building still incomplete. The
style of the work is late Venetian Gothic, influenced in its later
portions by the Renaissance revival. The cloisters of the Badia at
Curzola, and of the Dominican and Franciscan convents at Ragusa, are
also beautiful specimens of late Italian Gothic.
END OF VOL. I.
----------------------------
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
[Illustration: PORTAL OF THE CONVENT AT BELEM, NEAR LISBON.]
A
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
IN ALL COUNTRIES,
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY.
BY JAMES FERGUSSON, D.C.L., F.R.S., M.R.A.S.,
FELLOW ROYAL INST. BRIT. ARCHITECTS,
_&c. &c. &c._
[Illustration: Façade of Church at Tourmanin.]
IN FIVE VOLUMES.—VOL. II.
_THIRD EDITION._
EDITED BY R. PHENÉ SPIERS, F.S.A.,
FELLOW ROYAL INST. BRITISH ARCHITECTS.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET,
1893.
_The right of Translation is reserved._
FERGUSSON’S ARCHITECTURE.
_Third Edition, with 330 Illustrations, 2 vols., medium 8vo_, 31s. 6d.
A HISTORY OF THE MODERN STYLES
OF ARCHITECTURE.
By the late JAMES FERGUSSON, F.R.S.
A New Edition, Revised and Enlarged. With a Special Account of
the Architecture of America.
By ROBERT KERR, Professor of Architecture at King’s College, London.
---------------------
BY THE SAME.
_New and Cheaper Edition, with 400 Illustrations, medium 8vo_, 31s. 6d.
A HISTORY OF INDIAN AND EASTERN
ARCHITECTURE.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
PART II.—CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE.
(_Continued._)
BOOK II.—ITALY.
(_Continued._)
CHAP. PAGE
VII. Circular churches—Towers at Prato and Florence—Porches— 1
Civic buildings—Town-halls—Venice—Doge’s Palace—Cà d’Oro—
Conclusion
VIII. SICILY—Population of Sicily—The Saracens—Buildings at 22
Palermo—Cathedral of Monreale—Cefalu—The Pointed Arch
IX. GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN PALESTINE—Church of Holy 32
Sepulchre, Jerusalem—Churches at Abû Gosh and Lydda—Mosque
at Hebron
BOOK III.—FRANCE.
I. Division of subject—Pointed arches—Provence—Churches at 39
Avignon, Arles, Alet, Fontifroide, Maguelonne, Vienne—
Circular churches—Towers—Cloisters
II. AQUITANIA—Churches at Périgueux, Souillac, Angoulême, 64
Alby, Toulouse, Conques, Tours—Tombs
III. ANJOU—Cathedral at Angers—Church at Fontevrault— 81
Poitiers—Angiovine spires
IV. AUVERGNE—Church at Issoire—Clermont—Fortified Church at 89
Royat
V. BURGUNDY—Church of St. Martin d’Ainay—Cathedral at le 94
Puy-en-Velay—Abbeys of Tournus and Cluny—Cathedral of
Autun—Church of St. Menoux
VI. FRANKISH PROVINCE—Exceptional buildings—Basse Œuvre, 104
Beauvais—Montier-en-Der
VII. NORMANDY—Triapsal Churches—Churches at Caen— 110
Intersecting Vaulting—Bayeux
VIII. FRANKISH ARCHITECTURE—Historical notice—The pointed 120
arch—Freemasonry—Mediæval architects
IX. FRENCH GOTHIC CATHEDRALS—Paris—Chartres—Rheims—Amiens— 130
Other Cathedrals—Later style—St. Ouen’s, Rouen
X. Gothic details—Pillars—Windows—Circular Windows—Bays— 161
Vaults—Buttresses—Pinnacles—Spires—Decoration—
Construction—Furniture of Churches—Domestic architecture
BOOK IV.—BELGIUM AND HOLLAND.
I. Historical notice—Old Churches—Cathedral of Tournay— 187
Antwerp—St. Jacques at Liège
II. Civil Architecture—Belfries—Hall at Ypres—Louvain— 199
Brussels—Domestic architecture
III. HOLLAND—Churches—Civil and Domestic Buildings 206
BOOK V.—GERMANY.
I. INTRODUCTORY—Chronology and Historical notice 209
II. Basilicas—Plan of St. Gall—Church at Reichenau— 213
Romain-Motier—Granson—Church at Gernrode—Trèves—
Hildesheim—Cathedrals of Worms and Spires—Churches at
Cologne—Other Churches and Chapels—Double Churches—Swiss
Churches
III. CIRCULAR CHURCHES—Aix-la-Chapelle—Nymwegen—Fulda—Bonn— 247
Cobern
IV. DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE—Lorsch—Palaces on the Wartburg— 255
Gelnhausen—Houses—Windows
V. POINTED STYLE IN GERMANY—History of style—St. Gereon, 264
Cologne—Churches at Gelnhausen—Marburg—Cologne Cathedral—
Freiburg—Strasburg—St. Stephen’s, Vienna—Nuremberg—
Mühlhausen—Erfurt
VI. Circular Churches—Church Furniture—Civil Architecture— 292
Town-hall at Brunswick
VII. NORTHERN GERMANY—BRICK ARCHITECTURE—Churches at Lubeck— 302
in Brandenburg—in Ermeland—Castle at Marienburg
BOOK VI.—SCANDINAVIA.
I. Sweden—Norway—Denmark—Gothland—Round Churches—Wooden 313
Churches
BOOK VII.—ENGLAND.
I. INTRODUCTORY 335
II. SAXON ARCHITECTURE 341
III. ENGLISH MEDIÆVAL ARCHITECTURE—Plans of English 345
Cathedral Churches—Vaults—Pier Arches—Window tracery—
External Proportions—Diversity of Style—Situation—
Chapter-Houses—Chapels—Parish Churches—Details—Tombs—Civil
and Domestic Architecture
IV. ARCHITECTURE OF SCOTLAND—Affinities of Style—Early 418
Specimens—Cathedral of Glasgow—Elgin—Melrose—Other
Churches—Monasteries
V. IRELAND—Oratories—Round Towers—Domical Dwellings—Domestic 443
Architecture—Runic Cross Decoration
BOOK VIII.—SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.
I. SPAIN—INTRODUCTORY 460
II. Romanesque Churches at Naranco, Roda, and Leon—Early 464
Spanish Gothic: Churches at Santiago, Zamora, Toro, Avila,
Salamanca, and Tarragona—Middle Pointed style: Churches at
Toledo, Burgos, Leon, Barcelona, Manresa, Gerona, Seville—
Late Gothic style: Churches at Segovia, Villena—Moresco
style: Churches at Toledo, Ilescas, and Saragoza
III. CIVIL ARCHITECTURE—Monastic Buildings—Municipal 502
Buildings—Castles
IV. PORTUGAL—Church of Batalha—Alcobaça—Belem 507
PART III.—SARACENIC AND ANCIENT AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE.
BOOK I.
I. SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE IN CHRISTIAN COUNTRIES; OR, 512
BYZANTINE SARACENIC—Introduction
II. SYRIA AND EGYPT—Mosques at Jerusalem—El Aksah—Dome of 516
the Rock—Mosque at Damascus—Egypt—Mosques at Cairo—Mosque
at Kerouan—Other African buildings—Mecca
III. SPAIN—Introductory Remarks—Mosque at Cordoba—Palace at 542
Zahra—Churches at Sta. Maria and Cristo de la Luz at
Toledo—Giralda at Seville—Palace of the Alcazar—The
Alhambra—Sicily
IV. TURKEY—Mosques of Mahomet II.—Suleimanie and Ahmedjie 556
Mosques—Mosques of Sultanas Validé, and of Osman III.—
Civil and Domestic Architecture—Fountains, &c.
V. PERSIA—Historical notice—Tombs at Bagdad—Imaret at 567
Erzeroum—Mosque at Tabreez—Tomb at Sultanieh—Bazaar at
Ispahan—College of Husein Shah—Palaces and other
Buildings—Turkestan
BOOK II.—ANCIENT AMERICA.
I. INTRODUCTORY 583
II. CENTRAL AMERICA—Historical notice—Central American 589
style—Temples—Palaces—Buildings at Palenque—Uxmal, &c.
III. PERU—Historical notice—Titicaca—Tombs—Walls of Cuzco, 600
&c.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
NO. PAGE
_Frontispiece._—Portal of the Convent at Belem, near Lisbon.
_Vignette to Title-page._—Façade of Church at Tourmanin.
_Frontispiece to Part II._ (continued).—View of Cologne
Cathedral xvi
513. Plan of Baptistery, Parma 2
514. Baptistery at Parma, half Section half Elevation 2
515. View of the Duomo at Prato 3
516. Torracio at Cremona 4
517. Campanile, Palazzo Scaligeri, Verona 5
518. Campanile, S. Andrea, Mantua 6
519. Campanile at Florence 7
520. North Porch, Sta. Maria Maggiore, Bergamo 9
521. Palace of the Jurisconsults at Cremona 11
522. Broletto at Como 12
523. Ornamental Brickwork from the Broletto at Brescia 13
524. Window from the Cathedral of Monza 14
525, 526. Windows from Verona 15
527. Central Part of the Façade of the Doge’s Palace, Venice 16
528. Palace of Cà d’Oro, Venice 18
529. Angle Window at Venice 19
530. Ponte del Paradiso, Venice 20
531. San Giovanni degli Eremiti, Palermo 25
532. Plan of Church at Monreale 26
533. Portion of the Nave, Monreale 27
534. Lateral Entrance to Cathedral at Palermo 28
535. East End of Cathedral at Palermo 29
536. Plan of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem 34
537. Holy Sepulchre—Plan and Elevation as it existed before
the fire in 1808 35
538. Plan of Church at Abû Gosh 36
539. Section of East End of same 36
540. Section of East End of Church at Lydda 37
541. Plan of Apse of Church at Lydda 37
542. Plan of Mosque at Hebron 38
543. Diagram of the Architectural Divisions of France 41
544. Diagram of Vaulting 46
545. Diagram of Dome pendentives 47
546. Section of Church at Carcassonne, with the outer aisles
added in the 14th century 48
547. Porch of Notre Dame de Doms, Avignon 51
548. Porch of St. Trophime, Arles 52
549. Apse of Church at Alet 53
550. Internal Angle of Apse at Alet 54
551. Elevation of half one Bay of the Exterior of St.
Paul-Trois-Châteaux 55
552. Half bay of Interior of same 55
553. Longitudinal and Cross Section of Fontifroide Church 56
554. Doorway in Church at Maguelonne 57
555. Plan of Cathedral, Vienne 58
556. Plan of Church at Planes 59
557. Tower at Puissalicon 60
558. Church at Cruas 61
559. Cloister at Fontifroide 62
560, 561. Capitals in Cloister, Elne 62
562. Plan of St. Front, Périgueux 64
563. Part of St. Front, Périgueux 65
564. Interior of Church at Souillac 67
565. Plan of Cathedral at Angoulême 68
566. One Bay of Nave, Angoulême 68
567. Plan of Church at Moissac 69
568. Plan of Cathedral at Alby 69
569. Plan of Church of the Cordeliers, at Toulouse 70
570. Section of Church of the Cordeliers 71
571. Angle of Church of the Cordeliers 71
572. Plan of St. Sernin, Toulouse 72
573. Section of St. Sernin 72
574. Plan of Church at Conques 73
575. Plan of St. Martin at Tours 74
576. Plan of Church at Charroux 75
577. Plan of St. Benigne, Dijon 75
578. St. Sernin, Toulouse 77
579. Church at Aillas 78
580. Church at Loupiac 78
581. St. Eloi, Espalion 79
582. Tomb at St. Pierre, Toulouse 80
583. Plan of Cathedral at Angers 82
584. Plan of St. Trinité, Angers 82
585. View of the Interior of Loches 83
586. Plan of Church at Fontevrault 83
587. View of Chevet at Fontevrault 84
588. Elevation of one of the Bays of the Nave at Fontevrault 84
589. Façade of Church of Notre Dame at Poitiers 85
590. Plan of Cathedral at Poitiers 86
591. Spire at Cunault 87
592. Plan of Church at Issoire 89
593. Elevation of Church at Issoire 90
594. Section of Church at Issoire, looking East 90
595. Elevation of Chevet, Notre Dame du Port, Clermont 91
596. Plan of Chevet of same 92
597. Fortified Church at Royat 93
598. Façade of Church of St. Martin d’Ainay, Lyons 95
599. Cloister of Cathedral of Le Puy-en-Velay 96
600. View of Interior of Abbey at Tournus 97
601. Plan of Abbey Church at Cluny 98
602. View in Aisle at Autun 100
603. View in Nave at Autun 100
604. Section of Narthex at Vezelay 101
605. East End, St. Menoux 102
606. Chevet, St. Menoux 103
607. Plan and Section of Basse Œuvre, Beauvais 105
608. External and Internal View of Basse Œuvre 106
609. Decoration of St. Généreux 107
610. Section of Eastern portion of Church of Montier-en-Der 108
611. Triapsal Church at Querqueville 110
612. Plan of the Church of St. Stephen, Caen 112
613. Western Façade of same 113
614. Section of Nave of same 114
615. Diagram of Vaulting of same 115
616. Elevation of Compartment of Nave of St. Stephen, Caen 115
617. Compartment, Abbaye-aux-Dames, Caen 116
618. East End of St. Nicolas, Caen 117
619. Lower Compartment, Nave, Bayeux 118
620. Plan of Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris 132
621. Section of Side-aisles, of same 133
622. External Elevation of same 133
623. Plan of Chartres Cathedral 134
624. Plan of Rheims Cathedral 135
625. Plan of Amiens Cathedral 135
626. View of the Façade of the Cathedral at Paris 136
627. North-west View of the Cathedral at Chartres 138
628. Buttress at Chartres 139
629. Buttresses at Rheims 139
630. Bay of Nave of Beauvais Cathedral 142
631. Doorway, South Transept, Beauvais 143
632. Plan of Cathedral at Noyon 144
633. Spires of Laon Cathedral 145
634. View of Cathedral at Coutances 146
635. Lady Chapel, Auxerre 147
636. Plan of Cathedral at Troyes 148
637. Façade of Cathedral at Troyes 149
638. Window of Cathedral at Lyons 150
639. Plan of Cathedral at Bazas 150
640. Plan of Cathedral at Bourges 151
641. Section of Cathedral at Bourges 152
642. View in the Church of Charité sur Loire 154
643. Chevet, Pontigny 155
644. West Front of Ste. Marie de l’Épine 156
645. Plan of Church of St. Ouen at Rouen 157
646. Church of St. Ouen from the S.E. 158
647. Southern Porch of same 159
648. Diagram of plans of Pillars 162
649. Window, St. Martin, Paris 163
650. Window in Nave of Cathedral at Chartres 163
651. Window in Choir of Cathedral at Chartres 163
652. Window at Rheims 164
653. Window at St. Ouen 164
654. Window at Chartres 165
655. West Window, Chartres 166
656. Transept Window, Chartres 166
657. West Window, Rheims 166
658. West Window, Evreux 166
659. West Window, St. Ouen 167
660. Diagram of Vaulting 169
661. Abbey Church, Souvigny 170
662. Diagram of Buttresses 172
663. Flying Buttresses of St. Ouen 172
664. Flying Buttress at Amiens 173
665. St. Pierre, Caen 176
666. Lantern, St. Ouen, Rouen 177
667. Corbel 178
668. Capitals from Rheims 178
669. Rood-Screen from the Madeleine at Troyes 181
670. Hôtel de Ville of St. Antonin 182
671. House at Cluny 183
672. House at Yrieix 184
673. Portal of the Ducal Palace at Nancy 185
674. View of West End of Church at Nivelles 190
675. Plan of Cathedral at Tournay 191
676. Section of Central Portion of same, looking South 192
677. West Front of Notre Dame de Maestricht 192
678. Spire of the Chapel of St. Sang, Bruges 193
679. Window in Church at Villers, near Genappe 193
680. Plan of the Cathedral at Antwerp 195
681. Plan of St. Jacques, Liège 197
682. Belfry at Ghent 200
683. Cloth-hall at Ypres 201
684. Town-hall, Brussels 203
685. Part of the Bishop’s Palace, Liège 205
686. Reduction of an original plan of a Monastery at St.
Gall 215
687. Plan of Church at Mittelzell, in the island of
Reichenau 217
688. Elevation of West End of same 217
689. Plan of the Church of Romain-Motier 218
690. View of same 218
691. Section of Church at Granson 219
692. Plan of Church at Gernrode 220
693. View of West End of Church at Gernrode 220
694. View of West End of Abbey of Corvey 221
695. Plan of original Church at Trèves 223
696. Plan of Mediæval Church at Trèves 223
697. Western Apse of Church at Trèves 224
698. Eastern Apse of Church at Trèves 224
699. Internal View of the Church of St. Michael at
Hildesheim 225
700. Plan of same 225
701. Plan of Cathedral of Worms 227
702. One Bay of Cathedral at Worms 227
703. Side Elevation of same 228
704. Plan of the Cathedral at Spires 229
705. Western Apse of Cathedral at Mayence 230
706. Church at Minden. Cathedral at Paderborn. Church at
Soest 231
707. Plan of Sta. Maria in Capitolio, Cologne 232
708. Apse of the Apostles’ Church at Cologne 233
709. Apse of St. Martin’s Church at Cologne 234
710. East End of Church at Bonn 235
711. Plan of Church at Laach 236
712. View of Church at Laach 236
713. Church at Sinzig 237
714. Rood Screen at Wechselburg 238
715. Crypt at Göllingen 238
716. Façade of Church at Rosheim 239
717. Church at Marmoutier 240
718. Section of Church of Schwartz Rheindorf 241
719. View of same 242
720. Plan of Chapel at Landsberg 243
721. Section of Chapel at Landsberg 243
722. View and Plan of the Cathedral at Zurich 243
723. Doorway at Basle 244
724. Plan of Church at Aix-la-Chapelle 248
725. Church at Nymwegen 249
725a. Plan of Church at Mettlach 249
725b. Capital of Triforium of same 250
726. Church at Petersberg 251
727. Plan of Church at Fulda 251
728. Plan of Church at Drüggelte 251
729. Baptistery at Bonn 252
730. Chapel at Cobern on the Moselle 253
731. Porch of Convent at Lorsch 255
732. Arcade of the Palace at Gelnhausen 257
733. Capital, Gelnhausen 257
734. View of the Palace on the Wartburg 258
735. Cloister at Zurich 266
736. Dwelling-house, Cologne 261
737. Windows in back of same 262
738. Windows from Sion Church, Cologne 262
739. Windows from St. Quirinus at Neuss 262
740. Section of St. Gereon, Cologne 265
741. Plan of St. Gereon, Cologne 265
742. East End of Church at Gelnhausen 266
743. Plan of Church at Marburg 267
744. Section of Church at Marburg 267
745. Plan of Church at Altenberg 268
746. Plan of Cathedral at Cologne 269
747. Western Façade of Cathedral of Cologne 272
748. View of Church at Freiburg 274
749. Plan of Strasburg Cathedral 276
750. West Front of same 277
751. Plan of Ratisbon Cathedral 280
752. View of the Spire of St. Stephen’s, Vienna 281
753. Plan of the Franciscan Church at Salzburg 283
754. Plan of St. Lawrence’s Church, Nuremberg 284
755. Plan of Church at Kuttenberg, taken above the roof of
the aisles 284
756. Section of the Church of same 285
757. Plan of Church of St. Victor at Xanten 287
758. View of Marien Kirche, Mühlhausen 289
759. Plan of Marien Kirche, Mühlhausen 289
760. St. Severus Church at Erfurt 290
761. Anna Chapel at Heiligenstadt 292
762. Sacraments Häuschen, Nuremberg 293
763. Doorway of Church at Chemnitz 294
764. Schöne Brunnen at Nuremberg 296
765. Todtenleuchter, Vienna 297
766. Bay Window from St. Sebald’s Parsonage, Nuremberg 298
767. Façade of House at Brück-am-Mur 299
768. Town-hall at Brunswick 300
769. Plan of Cathedral, Lubeck 303
770. Plan of Marien Kirche, Lubeck 304
771. View of same 305
772. Tower in the Kœblinger Strasse, Hanover 306
773. Church at Frauenburg 307
774. Church at Santoppen 308
775. Façade of Marien Kirche, Brandenburg 309
776. Façade of the Knight-hall in the Castle of Marienburg 310
777. Plan of Upsala Cathedral 314
778. Apse of Lund Cathedral 315
779. Old Country Church and Belfry 316
780. Plan of Cathedral of Trondhjem 317
781. View of Cathedral of Trondhjem 318
782. Elevation of Domkirche: Roeskilde 319
783. Plan of same 319
784. Frue Kirche, Aarhuus 319
785. Church of Kallundborg 320
786. Helge-Anders Church, Wisby 322
787. Interior of Church at Gothem 323
788. Folö Church, Gothland 324
789. Portal, Sandeo Church, Gothland 325
790. Portal, Hoäte Church, Gothland 326
791. View of Round Church, Thorsager, Jutland 327
792. Section and Ground-plan of same 328
793. Round Church of Oester Larsker, Bornholm 329
794. View and plan of Hagby Church, Sweden 330
795. Läderbro Church and Wapenhus, Gothland 331
796. Plan of Church at Hitterdal 332
797. View of Church at Hitterdal 333
798. Church of Urnes, Norway 334
799. Tower of Earl’s Barton Church 341
800. Windows, Earl’s Barton 342
801. Saxon Doorway at Monkwearmouth 343
802. Plan of Norwich Cathedral 346
803. Plan of Canterbury Cathedral 347
804. Plan of Durham Cathedral 348
805. Plan of Salisbury Cathedral 349
806. Plan of Winchester Cathedral 350
807. Plan of Ely Cathedral 351
808. Octagon at Ely Cathedral 352
809. Plan of Westminster Abbey 354
810. Nave of Peterborough Cathedral 357
811. Nave of Lincoln Cathedral 359
812. Nave of Lichfield Cathedral 360
813. Choir of Gloucester Cathedral 361
814. Diagrams of Vaulting 362
815. Vault of Cloister, Gloucester 363
816. Vault of Aisle at St. George’s, Windsor 364
817. Aisle in Henry VII.’s Chapel, Westminster 364
818. Retro-choir, Peterborough Cathedral 365
819. Choir Arches of Oxford Cathedral 366
820. Transformation of the Nave, Winchester Cathedral 368
821. Choir of Ely Cathedral 369
822. Two Bays of the Nave of Westminster Abbey 370
823. One Bay of Cathedral at Exeter 370
824. The Five Sisters Window, York 372
825. Ely Cathedral, East End 373
826. Lancet Window, Hereford Cathedral 374
827. East End of Lincoln Cathedral 375
828. North Transept Window, Lincoln 376
829. Window in Chapter-house at York, English Geometric
Tracery 377
830. Window in St. Anselm’s Chapel, Canterbury 377
831. East Window of Carlisle Cathedral 378
832. South Transept Window, Lincoln 378
833. Perpendicular Tracery, Winchester Cathedral 379
834. Salisbury Cathedral, from the N.E. 381
835. View of Lichfield Cathedral 382
836. Lincoln Cathedral 383
837. View of the Angel Tower and Chapter-house, Canterbury 384
838. West Front of Peterborough Cathedral 385
839. Chapter-house, Bristol 389
840. Chapter-house, Salisbury 390
841. Chapter-house, Wells 391
842. Chapter-house, York 392
843. Internal Elevation of St. Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster 394
844. Plan of Ste. Chapelle, Paris 395
845. Plan of St. Stephen’s. Westminster 395
846. Interior View of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge 396
847. Plan of Circular Church at Little Maplestead 398
848. Spire of Great Leighs Church, Essex 398
849. Tower of Little Saxham Church, Suffolk 398
850. Roof at Trunch Church 400
851. Roof of Aisle in New Walsingham Church 400
852. Plan of Church of Walpole St. Peter’s, Norfolk 401
853. Staircase at Canterbury Cathedral 402
854. Norman Gateway, College Green, Bristol 403
855. Capitals, &c., of Doorway leading to the Choir Aisles,
Lincoln 404
856. West Doorway, Lichfield Cathedral 405
857. Tomb of Bishop Marshall, Exeter Cathedral 405
858. The Triple Canopy in Heckington Church, Lincolnshire 406
859. Prior d’Estria’s Screen, Canterbury Cathedral 406
860. Doorway of Chapter-house, Rochester Cathedral 407
861. Tomb of the Black Prince, Canterbury Cathedral 408
862. Tomb of Edward III. in Westminster Abbey 409
863. Tomb of Edward II. in Gloucester Cathedral 410
864. Tomb of Bishop Redman in Ely Cathedral 411
865. Waltham Cross (restored) 412
866. Plan of Westminster Hall 414
867. Section of Westminster Hall 414
868. Hall of Palace at Eltham 415
869. Window, Leuchars 420
870. Pier-Arch, Jedburgh 421
871. Arches in Kelso Abbey 422
872. Plan and three Bays of Choir, Kirkwall Cathedral 423
873. North Side of the Cathedral at Kirkwall 424
874. 1. Plan of Glasgow Cathedral. 2. Plan of Crypt, Glasgow
Cathedral 425
875. View in Crypt of Glasgow Cathedral 426
876. Crypt of Cathedral at Glasgow 427
877. Clerestory Window, Glasgow Cathedral 427
878. East End of Glasgow Cathedral 428
879. East End, Elgin Cathedral 429
880. South Transept, Elgin Cathedral 430
881. Ornament of Doorway of same 430
882. Plan of Elgin Cathedral 431
883. Aisle in Melrose Abbey 432
884. East Window, Melrose 433
885. Chapel at Roslyn 434
886. Under Chapel, Roslyn 434
887. Stone Roof of Bothwell Church 435
888. Exterior of Roof of Bothwell Church 435
889, 890. Ornamental Arcades, from Holyrood 436
891. Interior of Porch, Dunfermline 437
892. Window at Dunkeld 438
893. Doorway, Linlithgow 439
894. Doorway, St. Giles’s, Edinburgh 440
895. Doorway, Pluscardine Abbey 441
896. Window in Tower, Iona 441
897. Aisle in Trinity College Church, Edinburgh 442
898. Cloister, Kilconnel Abbey 445
899. Oratory, Innisfallen, Killarney 447
900. Cormac’s Chapel, Cashel 448
901. Section of Chapel, Killaloe 448
902. St. Kevin’s Kitchen, Glendalough 449
903. Doorway in Tower at Um Rasas 451
904. Round Tower and Chancel Arch of Fineens Church,
Clonmacnoise 452
905. Doorway in Tower, Kildare 452
906. Doorway in Tower, Donoughmore, Meath 453
907. Doorway in Tower, Antrim 453
908. Tower, Devenish 453
909. Tower, Kilree, Kilkenny 453
910. Tower, Kinneth, Cork 454
911. Tower, Ardmore 454
912. Floor in Tower, Kinneth 455
913. Doorway, Monasterboice 455
914. Doorway, Kilcullen, Kildare 455
915. Windows in Round Towers 455
916. Window, Glendalough 455
917. Oratory of Gallerus 457
918. Tower, Jerpoint Abbey 457
919. House, Galway 458
920. Ballyromney Court, Cork 458
921. Cross at Kells 459
922. View of Church at Naranco 465
923. Plan of Church at Naranco 465
924. Plan of S. Pablo 466
925. Detail of S. Pablo 466
926. Church at Roda 466
927. Panteon of St. Isidoro, Leon 467
928. Plan of Santiago di Compostella 468
929. Santiago Cathedral. Interior of South Transept, looking
North-East 469
930. Interior of S. Isidoro, Leon 470
931. Cathedral at Zamora 471
932. Collegiate Church at Toro 472
933. Lérida Old Cathedral. Door of South Porch 473
934. San Vincente, Avila. Interior of Western Porch 474
935. Exterior of Lantern, Salamanca Old Cathedral 475
936. Section of Cimborio at Salamanca 476
937. Plan of St. Milan, Segovia 476
938. Tarragona Cathedral. View across Transepts 477
939. Church of the Templars at Segovia 478
940. Plan of Cathedral at Toledo 479
941. View in the Choir of the Cathedral at Toledo 480
942. Plan of Burgos Cathedral 481
943. West Front of Burgos Cathedral 482
944. Plan of Leon Cathedral 483
945. Bay of Choir, Leon Cathedral 484
946. Compartment of Nave, Burgos Cathedral 484
947. Plan of Cathedral at Barcelona 485
948. Sta. Maria del Mar, Barcelona 486
949. Sta. Maria del Pi, Barcelona 486
950. Interior of Collegiate Church, Manresa 487
951. Plan of Cathedral at Gerona 488
952. Interior of Cathedral at Gerona, looking East 489
953. Cimborio of Cathedral at Valencia 490
954. Plan of Cathedral at Seville 491
955. Plan of Cathedral at Segovia 493
956. Section of Church at Villena 493
957. Plan of Sta. Maria la Bianca 495
958. Interior of Sta. Maria la Bianca 496
959. Apse of St. Bartolomeo 497
960. Chapel at Humanejos 498
961. Tower at Ilescas 499
962. St. Paul, Saragoza 500
963. Doorway from Valencia 501
964. Cloister of the Huelgas, near Burgos 502
965. Cloister, Tarazona 503
966. The Casa Lonja, Valencia 504
967. Castle of Cocos, Castille 505
968. Plan of the Church at Batalha 508
969. Portal at Belem 510
970. Plan of the Mosque el-Aksah at Jerusalem 517
971. View in the Mosque el-Aksah 518
972. Plan of the Dome of the Rock (Mosque of Omar) 520
973. View in Aisle of same 521
974. Capital in Dome of the Rock 521
975. Order of the Dome of the Rock 522
976. Plan of Mosque at Damascus 523
977. Plan of Mosque of Amru, Old Cairo 526
978. Arches in the Mosque of Amru 527
979. Mosque of Ibn Tooloon at Cairo 528
980. Window in Mosque of same 529
981. Plan of Mosque of Sultan Hassan, Cairo 531
982. Section of same 532
983. Plan of Mosque and Tombs of Sultan Berkook, Cairo 533
984. Section of Mosque of Berkook 533
985. Mosque of Kaitbey 535
986. Plan of Great Mosque at Mecca 537
987. Plan of Great Mosque of Kerouan 538
988. Main Entrance in Court of same 539
989. Minaret at Tunis 540
990. Plan of Mosque of Cordoba 544
991. Interior of Sanctuary at Cordoba 545
992. Exterior of the Sanctuary, Cordoba 546
993. Screen of the Chapel of Villa Viciosa, Mosque of
Cordoba 547
994. Church of San Cristo de la Luz, Toledo 548
995. The Giralda at Seville 550
996. Plan of the Alhambra, Granada 552
997. Plan of Suleimanie Mosque 559
998. Section of Suleimanie Mosque 560
999. View of Suleimanie Mosque 561
1000. Plan of Ahmedjie Mosque 563
1001. Plan of Tomb of Zobeidé, Bagdad 568
1002. View of Tomb of Zobeidé 568
1003. Tomb of Ezekiel, near Bagdad 569
1004. Imaret of Oulou Diami at Erzeroum 570
1005. Plan of Mosque of Tabreez 572
1006. View of Ruined Mosque at Tabreez 573
1007. Tomb of Sultan Khodabendah at Sultanieh 574
1008. Section of the Tomb at Sultanieh 574
1009. View of the Tomb at Sultanieh 575
1010. Plan of Great Mosque at Ispahan 576
1011. Madrissa of Sultan Husein at Ispahan 578
1012. Throne-room at Teheran 579
1013. Palace at Ispahan 580
1014. Pavilion in the Khan’s Palace at Khiva 581
1015. Pyramid of Oajaca, Tehuantepec 590
1016. Plan of the Temple at Mitla 591
1017. View of the Palace at Mitla 592
1018. Elevation of Teocalli at Palenque 594
1019. Plan of Temple 594
1020. Elevation of Building at Chunjuju 596
1021. Elevation of part of Palace at Zayi 596
1022. Plan of Palace at Zayi 597
1023. Casa de las Monjas, Uxmal 597
1024. Interior of a Chamber, Uxmal 598
1025. Apartment at Chichen Itza 599
1026. Diagram of Mexican construction 599
1027. Ruined Gateway at Tia Huanacu 601
1028. Gateway at Tia Huanacu 602
1029. Tombs at Sillustani 603
1030. Ruins of House of Manco Capac in Cuzco 604
1031. House of the Virgins of the Sun 605
1032. Peruvian Tombs 606
1033. Elevation of Wall of Tambos 606
1034. Sketch Plans of the Walls of Cuzco 607
1035. View of Walls of Cuzco 607
FRONTISPIECE TO PART II.
(Continued.)
[Illustration:
VIEW OF COLOGNE CATHEDRAL.
(From Rosengarten.)
]
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
PART II.—CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE.
_Continued._
BOOK II.
ITALY.—_Continued._
CHAPTER VII.
CONTENTS.
Circular churches—Towers at Prato and Florence—Porches—Civic buildings—
Town-halls—Venice—Doge’s palace—Cà d’Oro—Conclusion.
CIRCULAR BUILDINGS.
THERE are very few specimens in Italy of circular or polygonal buildings
of any class belonging to the Gothic age. As churches, none are to be
expected. Baptisteries had passed out of fashion. One such building, at
Parma, commenced in 1196, deserves to be quoted, not certainly for its
beauty, but as illustrating those false principles of design shown in
every part of every building of this age in Italy. Externally the
building is an octagon, six storeys in height, the four upper ones being
merely used to conceal a dome, which is covered by a low-pitched wooden
roof. The lowest and the highest storeys are solid, the others are
galleries supported by little ill-shaped columns. It is probable that
this was not the original design of the architect, Antelami. No doubt he
intended to conceal the dome, or at all events to cover it, as was the
universal practice in Italy; but instead of a mere perpendicular wall,
as here used, the external outline should have assumed a conical form,
which might have rendered it as pleasing as it is now awkward. We have
no instance of a circular building carried out by Italian architects
according to their own principles sufficiently far to enable us to judge
what they were capable of in this style, unless perhaps it be the tombs
of the Scaligers at Verona. These take the circular or polygonal form
appropriate to tombs, but are on so small a scale that they might rather
be called crosses than mausolea; and though illustrating all the best
principles of Italian design, and evincing an exuberance of exquisite
ornament, they can hardly be regarded as important objects of high art.
It is only from small buildings like these that we may recover the
principles of this art as practised in Italy. Not being, like the
Northern styles, a progressive national effort, but generally an
individual exertion, if the first architect died during the progress of
a larger building, no one knew exactly how he had intended to finish it,
and its completion was entrusted to the caprice and fancy of some other
man, which he generally indulged, wholly regardless of its incongruity
with the work of his predecessor.
[Illustration: 513. Baptistery, Parma. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 514. Baptistery at Parma, half Section, half Elevation.
Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
TOWERS.
The Italians in the age of pointed architecture were hardly more
successful in their towers than in their other buildings, except that a
tower, from its height, must always be a striking object, and, if both
massive and high, cannot fail to have a certain imposing appearance, of
which no clumsiness on the part of the architect can deprive it. Such
towers as the Asinelli and Garisenda at Bologna possess no more
architectural merit than the chimneys of our factories. Most of those
subsequently erected were better than these, but still the Italians
never caught the true idea of a spire.
Throughout the whole of the Middle Ages they retained their affection
for the original rectangular form, making their towers as broad at the
summit as at the base. With very few exceptions, they are without
buttresses, or any projection on the angles, to aid in giving them even
an appearance of support. In consequence, when a spire was placed on
such an edifice it always fitted awkwardly. The art by which a tower was
prepared for its termination, first by the graduated buttresses at its
base, then by the strongly marked vertical lines of its upper portion,
and above all by the circle of spirelets at the top, out of which the
central spire shot up as an absolute necessity of the composition—this
art, so dear and so familiar to the Northern builders, was never
understood by the Italians. If they, on the contrary, placed an octagon
on their square towers, it looked like an accident for which nothing was
prepared, and the spire was separated from it only by bold horizontal
cornices, instead of by vertical lines, as true taste dictated.
[Illustration: 515. View of the Duomo at Prato. (From Wiebeking.)]
In fact, the Italians seem to have benefited less by the experience or
instruction of their Northern neighbours in tower-building than in any
other feature of the style, and to have retained their old forms in
these after they had abandoned them in other parts of their churches.
The typical tower of its class is the Torracio of Cremona. It is a
monumental tower commenced in 1296 to commemorate a peace made between
Cremona and the neighbouring states after a long and tedious contest for
supremacy. It is not an ecclesiastical edifice, but partakes, therefore,
like those of St. Mark, Venice, and of Modena, more of the character of
a civic belfry than of a church tower, such as those previously
mentioned. It is the highest and largest, and consequently, according to
the usual acceptation of the term the finest, of Italian towers. Its
whole height is 396 ft., about two-thirds of which is a square ungainly
mass, without either design or ornament of any importance. On this is
placed an octagon and spire, which, though in themselves perhaps the
best specimens of their class in Italy, have too little connection
either in design or dimensions with the tower on which they stand.
[Illustration: 516. Torracio at Cremona. (From Gally Knight.)]
The celebrated tower of the Ghirlandina at Modena is, perhaps, one of
the best to enable us to compare these Italian towers with the
Cis-Alpine ones, since it possesses a well-proportioned spire, which is
found in few of the others. From its date it belongs to the second
division of the subject, having been commenced in the 13th and finished
in the 14th century; but, as before remarked, there is no line of
distinction between the round-arched and pointed-arched styles in Italy,
and though this campanile seems to be wholly without any pointed forms,
we may describe it here.
[Illustration: 517. Campanile, Palazzo Scaligeri, Verona. (From
Street.)]
Its whole height is about 315 ft., of which less than 200 are taken up
in the square part—which thus bears a less predominant proportion to the
spire than any other Italian example. It is evidently meant to rival the
famous German spires which had become such favourites in the age in
which it was built; and although it avoids many of the errors into which
the excessive love of decoration and of _tours de force_ led the
Germans, still the result is far from satisfactory. The change from the
square to the octagon is abrupt and unpleasing, and the spire itself
looks too thick for the octagon. Everywhere there is a want of those
buttresses and pinnacles with which the Gothic architects knew so well
how to prepare for a transition of form, and to satisfy the mind that
the composition was not only artistically but mechanically correct. The
Italians never comprehended the aspiring principle of the Gothic styles,
and consequently, though they had far more elegance of taste and used
better details, their works hardly satisfy the mind to a greater extent
than a modern classical church or museum.
The same remarks apply to the towers of Siena, Lucca, Pistoja, and
indeed to all in the North of Italy: all have some pleasing points, but
none are entirely satisfactory. None have sufficient ornament, or
display enough design, to render them satisfactory in detail, nor have
they sufficient mass to enable them to dispense with the evidence of
thought, and to impress by the simple grandeur of their dimensions.
[Illustration: 518. Campanile, S. Andrea, Mantua. (From Street.)]
The towers of Asti (1266) and Siena (rebuilt in 1389) are illustrated in
Woodcuts Nos. 493 and 498. They certainly display but little art. A more
pleasing specimen is the tower (Woodcut No. 515) attached to the Duomo
at Prato (about 1312), which may be considered as a specimen of the very
best class of Italian tower-design of the age, although in fact its only
merit consists in the increase in the size of the openings in every
storey upwards, so as to give a certain degree of lightness to the upper
part. On this side of the Alps the same effect was generally attained by
diminishing the diameter. When a spire is to be added, that is the only
admissible mode; but when the building is to be crowned by a cornice, as
at Prato, the mode there adopted is perhaps preferable.
The tower which is attached to the palace of the Scaligeri at Verona
(Woodcut No. 517) is perhaps as graceful as any other, and as
characteristic of the Italian principles of tower-building. The lower
part is absolutely plain and solid, the upper storey alone being pierced
with one splendid three-light window in each face, with a boldly
projecting cornice over it marking the roof. On this is placed an
octagonal lantern two storeys in height. Had the lower portion of the
lantern been broken by turrets or pinnacles at the angles, the effect
would have been greatly improved. As it is, it seems only a makeshift to
eke out the height of the whole; though the octagon with its boldly
projecting cornice is as graceful as anything of the kind in Italian
architecture.
The campanile attached to the church of St. Andrea at Mantua (Woodcut
No. 518) is more nearly Gothic both in design and details. Its vertical
lines are strongly marked, and the string-courses and cornices are of
moulded brickwork, which is a pleasing and characteristic feature in the
architecture of Lombardy.
The worst part of this design is the smallness of the octagon and spire,
and the unconnected mode in which they are placed on the roof of the
tower.
The typical example of the Italian towers is that erected close to the
Duomo at Florence from designs by Giotto, commenced in 1324, and
considerably advanced, if not nearly finished, at the time of his death,
two years afterwards.
[Illustration: 519. Campanile at Florence. (From Gailhabaud.) Scale 50
ft. to 1 in.]
Though hardly worthy of the praise which has been lavished on it, it is
certainly a very beautiful building. Being covered with ornament from
the base to the summit, it has not that nakedness which is the reproach
of so many others, and the octagonal projections at the angles give it
considerable relief. Besides this, the openings are very pleasingly
graduated. It is virtually solid for about one-third of its height. The
middle division consists of two storeys, each with two windows, while
the upper part is lighted by one bold opening on each face, as at Prato.
All this is good. One great defect of the composition is its
parallelism. The slightest expansion of the base would have given it
great apparent stability, which its height requires. Another fault is
its being divided by too strongly marked horizontal courses into
distinct storeys, instead of one division falling by imperceptible
degrees into the other, as in the Northern towers. It has yet another
defect in common with the Duomo, to which it belongs, namely, the false
character of its ornamentation, which chiefly consists of a veneer of
party-coloured slabs of marble,—beautiful in itself, but objectionable
as not forming a part of the apparent construction.
The tower now rises to a height of 269 ft., and it was intended to have
added a spire of about 90 ft. to this; but unless it had been more
gracefully managed than is usual in Italy, the tower is certainly better
without it. There is nothing to suggest a spire in the part already
executed, nor have we any reason to believe that Giotto understood the
true principles of spire-building better than his contemporaries.
PORCHES.
Another feature very characteristic of the Gothic style in Italy is to
be found in the porches attached to the churches. Generally they are
placed on the flanks, and form side-entrances, and in most instances
they were added after the completion of the body of the building, and
consequently seldom accord in style with it. One has already been
illustrated as attached to the church at Asti (Woodcut No. 493); another
(Woodcut No. 501), belonging to the church of Sta. Maria dei Fiori at
Florence, is an integral and beautiful part of the design.
One of the most characteristic specimens of the class in all Italy is
that attached to the northern flank of the church of Sta. Maria Maggiore
at Bergamo (Woodcut No. 520). The principal archway and the doorway
within it are circular in form, although built in the middle of the 14th
century, and are ornamented with trefoils and other details of the age.
Above this are three trefoiled arches, the central one containing an
equestrian statue of a certain Duke Lupus, at whose expense the porch
was probably built, and above these is a little pagoda-like pavilion
containing statues of the Virgin and Child.
The whole design is so unconstructive that it depends more on the iron
ties that are everywhere inserted to hold it together than on any system
of thrusts or counterpoises, which a true Gothic architect would
certainly have supplied.
[Illustration: 520. North Porch, Sta. Maria Maggiore, Bergamo. (From
Street’s ‘Brick and Marble of the Middle Ages.’)]
The two main pillars rest on lions, as is universally the case in these
porches throughout Italy, though rarely found elsewhere.
Like most of these Italian porches, this one will not stand criticism as
a purely architectural object; but its details are so beautiful and its
colours so fascinating that it pleases in spite of all its defects of
design, and is more characteristic of the truly native feeling shown in
the treatment of the pointed style of architecture than the more
ambitious examples which were erected under direct foreign influence.
CIVIC BUILDINGS.
The free towns of Italy required civic buildings almost to the same
extent as the contemporary cities in Belgium, though not quite of the
same class. Their commerce, for instance, did not require trade halls,
but no town was without its town-hall, or _palazzo pubblico_, and
belfry. The intrinsic difficulty of the designing of buildings of this
class, as compared with churches, has already been pointed out. It
cannot therefore be expected that the Italians, who failed in the easier
task, should have succeeded in the harder. The town-hall at Siena is
perhaps the best existing example, most of the others having been so
altered that it is difficult to judge of their original effect. This
must be pronounced to be a very poor architectural performance, flat and
unmeaning, and without any lines or style of ornament to group the
windows together into one composition, so that they are mere scattered
openings in the wall.
That at Perugia seems originally to have been better, though now greatly
disfigured. At Florence the Palazzo Vecchio is more of a feudal
fortalice (required, it must be confessed, to keep the turbulent
citizens in order) than the municipal palace of a peaceful community. In
Ferrara and other cities the _palazzo pubblico_ is really and virtually
a fortress and nothing else.
At Piacenza it consists of a range of bold pointed stone arches,
supporting an upper storey of brick, adorned with a range of
circular-headed windows, richly ornamented, and a pleasing specimen of
the mode in which the Italians avoided the difficulty of filling the
upper parts of their windows with tracery (which they never liked) and
at the same time rendered them ornamental externally.
At Padua and Vicenza are two great halls supported on arcades, in
intention like that of Piacenza, but far from possessing its beauty.
That at Padua remains in all its pristine ugliness, as hideous an
erection as any perpetrated in the Middle Ages. The hall is one of the
largest in Europe, measuring 240 ft. in length by 84 in width
(Westminster Hall is 238×67), but wholly without ornament or beauty of
proportion. Externally the arcades that are stuck to its sides do not
relieve its mass, and are not beautiful in themselves. That at Vicenza,
though originally very similar, has been fortunate in having its outside
clothed in one of Palladio’s most successful designs,—perhaps the only
instance in which an addition of that age and style has improved a
building of the Gothic period. Comparing this hall as it stands with
that at Padua, it must be admitted that the Italians were perfectly
correct in abandoning _their_ Gothic for the revived classical style,
the improvement being apparent on the most cursory inspection.
[Illustration: 521. Palace of the Jurisconsults at Cremona. (From
Street.)]
A number of the town-halls or Brolettos in the smaller towns still
remain unaltered, or nearly so, and retain all the peculiarities of
their original design. The Palace of the Jurisconsults at Cremona for
instance (Woodcut No. 521) only requires its lower arcades to be again
opened to present all its original features, which resemble in almost
every respect those of the palazzo at Piacenza above mentioned, except
that the latter has five arches below and six windows above, instead of
two and three as here shown. This building is wholly of brick, like most
other civic buildings in the North of Italy. Sometimes, as at Piacenza,
they are of stone below and brick in the upper storeys. Sometimes,
though rarely, they are entirely faced with party-coloured marbles like
the Broletto at Como (Woodcut No. 522), which, though not extensive, is
a very beautiful specimen of the best form of civic architecture of the
best age in the North of Italy, and standing as it does between the
cathedral on the one hand and its own rude old belfry on the other,
makes up an extremely pleasing group.[316]
[Illustration: 522. Broletto at Como. (From Street.)]
One of the most important buildings of this style is the Great Hospital,
Milan. It was founded in the year 1456, and consequently belongs to an
age when the style was dying out. It still retains more of the pointed
style and of Gothic feeling than could have been found in any city
farther south, or in any one less impregnated, as it were, with German
blood and feeling.
[Illustration: 523. Ornamental Brickwork from the Broletto at Brescia.
(From Street.)]
Almost all the windows in the part originally erected are pointed in
form and divided by mullions. Their principal ornament consists of
garlands of flowers interspersed with busts and masks and figures of
Cupids, which surround the windows, or run along the string-courses. The
whole of these are in terra-cotta, and make up a style of ornamentation
as original as it is beautiful. It is besides purely local, and far
superior to the best copies of Northern details, or to the misapplied
forms of Gothic architecture which are so common in Italy.
There is perhaps nothing in the North of Italy so worthy of admiration
and study, as the way in which moulded bricks of various kinds are used
for decoration, especially in the civic buildings, and also occasionally
in the churches. Sublimity is not perhaps to be attained in brickwork;
the parts are too small; and if splendour is aimed at, it may require
some larger and more costly material to produce the desired effect; but
there is no beauty of detail or of design on a small scale that may not
be obtained by the use of moulded bricks, which are in themselves far
more durable, and, if carefully burnt, retain their sharpness of outline
longer, than most kinds of stone.
The most common way in which the Italians used this material was by
repeating around their openings or along their cornices small copies of
Gothic details, as in this example from a circular window in the
Broletto at Brescia (Woodcut No. 523). Where the details are small and
designed with taste, the effect is almost equal to stone; but where the
details are themselves on a large scale, as is sometimes the case, the
smallness of the materials becomes apparent. Even in this example the
semi-quatrefoils of the principal band are too large for the other
details, though not sufficiently so to be offensive.
[Illustration: 524. Window from the Cathedral of Monza. (From Street.)]
Though not so rich, the effect is almost equally pleasing where the
brick is merely moulded on its edge, without any very direct repetition
of Gothic details, as in the upper part of the window shown in Woodcut
No. 524, from the cathedral of Monza. Where great depth is given so as
to obtain shadow, and long tiles are used for the upper arch, as was
done by the Romans, an appearance of strength and solidity is given to
the construction unsurpassed by that obtained in any other material.
Perhaps the most pleasing application of terra-cotta ornaments is where
bricks of different colours are used so as to produce by variety of
pattern that relief which cannot so well be given by depth of shadow—a
perfectly legitimate mode of ornament when so small a material is used,
and when beauty only, not sublimity, is aimed at.
This is sometimes produced in Italy by introducing stone of a different
colour among the bricks, as in the two examples from Verona (Woodcuts
Nos. 525, 526); and where this mode of ornamentation is carried
throughout the building, the effect is very pleasing. It is difficult,
however, so to proportion the two materials as to produce exactly the
effect aimed at, and seldom that the objection does not present itself
of too much or too little stone being used. The want of shadow in brick
architecture is most felt in the cornices, where sufficient projection
cannot be obtained. The defect might be easily and legitimately got over
by the employment of stone in the upper members of the cornice, but this
expedient seems never to have been resorted to.
[Illustration: 525. Windows from Verona. (From Street.) 526.]
There are few of these brick buildings of the North of Italy which are
not open to just criticism for defects of design or detail, but this may
arise from the circumstance that they all belong to an age when the
Italians were using a style which was not their own, and employing
ornaments of which they understood neither the origin nor the
application. The defects certainly do not appear to be at all inherent
in the material, and, judging from the experience of the Italians, were
we to make the attempt in a proper spirit, we might create with it a
style far surpassing anything we now practise.
VENICE.
The most beautiful specimens of the civil and domestic architecture of
Italy in the Gothic period are probably to be found in Venice, the
richest and most peaceful of Italian cities during the Middle Ages. It
is necessary to speak of the buildings of Venice, or more correctly, of
the Venetian Province, by themselves, since its architecture is quite
distinct both in origin and character from any other found in Northern
Italy. It was not derived from the old Lombard Round Gothic, but from
the richer and more graceful Byzantine. True to its parentage, it
partook in after ages far more of the Southern Saracenic style than of
the Northern Gothic; still it cannot be classed as either Byzantine or
Saracenic, but only as Gothic treated with an Eastern feeling, and
enriched with many details borrowed from Eastern styles.
[Illustration: 527. Central Part of the Façade of the Doge’s Palace,
Venice. (From Cicognara.)]
The largest and most prominent civic example of Venetian Gothic is the
Doge’s Palace (Woodcut No. 527), first built in the commencement of the
9th century, burnt down in 976 and 1106, rebuilt 1116, and restored and
enlarged by Ziani, whose work was gradually pulled down between 1300 and
1424 to make way for the existing Palace (or at least the Gothic portion
of it facing the sea and the Piazzetta). The earliest portion is the
S.E. angle. The S.W. angle was built about 1340, down to the tenth
column (ground storey); the remainder, including the Porta della Carta
(about 1424), was erected by Bartolomeo Bon and his son, the architects
of the Cà d’Oro. Though many people are inclined to consider its general
effect unsatisfactory, an attempt has recently been made to exalt it
above the Parthenon, and all that was great and beautiful in Greece,
Egypt, or Gothic Europe. There are indeed few buildings of which it is
so difficult to judge calmly, situated as it is, attached to the
basilica of St. Mark, facing the beautiful library of Sansovino, and
looking on the one hand into the piazza of St. Mark’s, and on the other
across the water to the churches and palaces that cover the islands. It
is, in fact, the centre of the most beautiful architectural group that
adorns any city of Europe, or of the world—richer than almost any other
building in historical associations, and in a locality hallowed,
especially to an Englishman, by the poetry of Shakespeare. All this
spreads a halo around and over the building, which may furnish ample
excuse for those who blindly praise even its deformities. But the
soberer judgment of the critic must not be led astray by such feelings,
and while giving credit for the picturesque situation of this building
and a certain grandeur in its design, he is compelled wholly to condemn
its execution. The two arcades which constitute the base are, from their
extent and the beauty of their details, as fine as anything of their
class executed during the Middle Ages. There is also a just and pleasing
proportion between the simple solidity of the lower, and the airy—
perhaps slightly fantastic—lightness of the upper of these arcades. Had
what appears to have been the original design been carried out, the
building would rank high with the Alhambra and the palaces of Persia and
India; but in an evil hour, in 1480, it was discovered that larger rooms
were required than had been originally contemplated, and the upper wall,
which was intended to stand on the back wall of the arcades, was brought
forward level with the front overpowering the part below by its
ill-proportioned mass.[317] This upper storey too is far from being
beautiful in itself: the windows in it are not only far too few, but
they are badly spaced, squat, and ungraceful; while the introduction of
smaller windows and circles mars its pretensions to simplicity without
relieving its plainness. Its principal ornaments are two great windows,
one in the centre of each face, which appear to have assumed their
present form after the fire in 1578. These are not graceful objects in
themselves, and having nothing in common with the others, they look too
like insertions to produce an entirely satisfactory effect. The pierced
parapet, too, is poor and flimsy when seen against the sky. Had it
crowned the upper arcade, and been backed by the third storey, it would
have been as pleasing as it is now poor. Had the upper storey been set
back, as was probably originally designed, or had it been placed on the
ground and the arcades over it; had, in short, any arrangement of the
parts been adopted but the one that exists, this might have been a far
more beautiful building than it is. One thing in this palace is worth
remarking before leaving it—that almost all the beauty ascribed to its
upper storey arises from the polychromatic mode of decoration introduced
by disposing pieces of different coloured marbles in diaper patterns.
This is better done here than in Florence; inasmuch as the slabs are
built in, not stuck on. The admiration which it excites is one more
testimony to the fact that when a building is coloured, ninety-nine
people in a hundred are willing to overlook all its faults, and to extol
that as beautiful, which without the adjunct of colour they would have
unanimously agreed in condemning.
[Illustration: 528. Cà d’Oro, Venice. (From Cicognara.)]
A better specimen of the style, because erected as designed, and
remaining nearly as erected, is the Cà d’Oro (Woodcut No. 528),[318]
built in the first years of the 15th century, contemporary with the
piazzetta part of the ducal palace. It has no trace of the high roofs or
aspiring tendencies of the Northern buildings of the same age, no
boldly-marked buttresses in strong vertical lines, but, on the contrary
flat sky lines and horizontal divisions pervade the design, and every
part is ornamented with a fanciful richness far more characteristic of
the luxurious refinement of the East than of the manlier appreciation of
the higher qualities of art which distinguished the contemporary
erections on this side of the Alps.
The blank space between the battlements (which belong to the first
building) and the string-course would seem to have been decorated with a
series of twenty-six cusped arches, forming niches (shown in a mezzotint
drawing dated 1800)[319] and surmounted by an upper string-course
projecting in front of the battlements, thus crowning the building in a
more satisfactory way than at present. The house was built for Signor
Marino Contarini, Procurator of Venice, its original title being the
Palace of Sta. Sophia.
[Illustration: 529. Angle Window at Venice. (From Street.)]
The palaces known as the Foscari and Pisani are very similar in design
to that of Cà d’Oro, though less rich and less happy in the distribution
of the parts; but time has restored to them that colour which was an
inherent part of the older design, and they are so beautiful and so
interesting that it is hard to criticise even their too apparent defects
as works of art. Most of the faults that strike us in the buildings of
Venice arise from the defective knowledge which they betray of
constructive principles. The Venetian architects had not been brought up
in the hard school of practical experience, nor thoroughly grounded in
construction, as the Northern architects were by the necessities of the
large buildings which they erected. On the contrary, they merely adopted
details because they were pretty, and used them so as to be picturesque
in domestic edifices, where convenience was everything, and construction
but a secondary consideration. For instance, the window here shown
(Woodcut No. 529) cannot fail to give the building in which it occurs an
appearance of weakness and insecurity quite inexcusable in spite of its
external picturesqueness or its internal convenience.
[Illustration: 530. Ponte del Paradiso, Venice. (From Street.)]
The same remark applies to the screen (Woodcut No. 530) above the Ponte
del Paradiso, which, though useless and unconstructive to the last
degree, by its picturesque design and elegant details arrests all
travellers. Indeed it is impossible to see it without admiring it,
though, if imitated elsewhere, it could hardly be saved from being
ridiculous.
Both these examples are surrounded by a curious dentil moulding which is
found throughout St. Mark’s, and the origin of which must be sought for
in St. Sophia at Constantinople, though it is better known as the
Venetian dentil.
There are, besides these, many smaller palaces and houses of the Gothic
age, all more or less beautiful, and all presenting some detail or some
happy arrangement well worthy of study, and usually more refined and
more beautiful than those of the rude but picturesque dwellings of the
burghers of Bruges or Nuremberg.
The mixed Gothic style which we have been describing appears to have
exerted a considerable effect on the subsequent palatial architecture of
Venice, even after classical details had become generally fashionable.
The arrangement of the façades remained nearly the same down to a very
late period; and even when the so-called return to classical forms took
place, many details of the previous style were here retained, which was
not the case in any other part of Europe.
Domestic work of similar character to that of Venice is found in some of
the Dalmatian towns, and in the Islands of Quarnero. At Ragusa, in
Dalmatia, is a palace built in 1430, according to Mr. Jackson, from the
designs of Master Onofrio Giordani de la Cava, a Neapolitan, but altered
and rebuilt by Michelozzo in 1464, after the fire and explosion in 1462.
The arcade of the ground storey had originally pointed arches, but in
the rebuilding these were replaced by circular arches, some of the
earlier capitals being utilised in the later structure. Drawings are
given in Mr. Jackson’s work. The courtyards of this palace and of the
Sponza in the same town are interesting examples of domestic work.
CHAPTER VIII.
SICILY.
CONTENTS.
Population of Sicily—The Saracens—Buildings at Palermo—Cathedral of
Monreale Cefalu—The Pointed Arch.
THERE are few chapters of architectural history—at least among the
shorter ones—more interesting, in various ways, than that which treats
of the introduction of the pointed-arched style into Sicily, and its
peculiar development there. The whole history is so easily understood,
the style itself so distinct from any other, and at the same time so
intrinsically beautiful, that it is of all the divisions of the subject
the one best suited for a monograph, and so it seems to have been
considered by many—Hittorff and Zanth,[320] the Duke of Serra di
Falco,[321] and our own Gally Knight,[322] having chosen it for special
illustration, so that in fact there are few European styles of which we
have more complete information. Many of the points of its history are
nevertheless still subjects of controversy, not from any inherent
obscurity in the subject, but because it has been attempted to apply to
it the rules and theories derived from the history of Northern art.
The map of Sicily tells its whole history; its position and form reveal
nearly all that is required to be known of the races that inhabited it,
and of their fate. Situated in the centre of the Mediterranean Sea, of a
nearly regular triangular form, and presenting one side to Greece,
another to Africa, and a third to Italy, the length of these coasts, and
their relative distance from the opposite shores, are nearly correct
indexes of the influence each has had on the civilisation of the island.
In a former chapter[323] it was shown how strong was the influence of
Dorian Greece in Sicily. Almost all the ancient architectural remains
belong to that people. The Carthaginians, who succeeded the Greeks, left
but slight traces of humanising influence; and the rule of the Romans
was that of conquerors, oppressive and destructive of the civilisation
of the people. After the Christian era, a very similar succession of
influences took place. First and most powerful was the Byzantine
element, which forms the groundwork and main ingredient in all that
follows. To this succeeded the Saracenic epoch: bright, brilliant, but
evanescent. In the 11th century the Italian element resumed its sway
under the banner of a few Norman adventurers, and in the guise of a
Norman conquest sacerdotal Rome regained the inheritance of her imperial
predecessor. In the Christian period, however, the elements were far
from being so distinct as in those preceding it, for reasons easily
understood. Every fresh race of masters found the island already
occupied by a very numerous population of extremely various origin. The
new-comers could do no more than add their own forms of art to those
previously in use; the consequence being in every case a mixed style,
containing elements derived from every portion of the inhabitants.
We have no means of knowing the exact form of the Byzantine churches of
Sicily before the Arab invasion. All have either perished or are
undescribed. The Saracenic remains, too, have all disappeared, the
buildings generally supposed to be relics of their rule being now proved
to have been erected by Mahometan workmen for their Christian masters.
With the Norman sway a style arose which goes far to supply all these
deficiencies, being Greek in essence, Roman in form, and Saracenic in
decoration; and these elements mixed in exactly those proportions which
we should expect. Nowhere do we find the square-domed plans of the Greek
Church, nor any form suited to the Greek ritual. These have given place
to the Roman basilica, and to an arrangement adapted to the rites of the
Romish Church; but all the work was performed by Greek artists, and the
Roman outline was filled up and decorated to suit the taste and
conciliate the feelings of the worshippers, who were conquered Greeks or
converted Moors. Their fancy, too—richer and happier than that of the
ruder races of the West—was allowed full play. An Eastern exuberance in
designing details and employing colours is here exhibited, cramped a
little, it must be confessed, by the architectural forms and the ritual
arrangements to which it is applied, but still a ruling and beautifying
principle throughout.
Among all these elements, those who are familiar with architectural
history will hardly look for anything indicative of purely Norman taste
or feelings. A mere handful of military adventurers, they conquered as
soldiers of Rome and for her aggrandisement, and held the fief for her
advantage: they could have brought no arts even if their country had
then possessed any. They were content that their newly-acquired subjects
should erect for them palaces after the beautiful fashion of the
country, and that Roman priests should direct the building of churches
suited to their forms, but built as the Sicilians had been accustomed to
build, and decorated as they could decorate them, better than their
masters and conquerors.
All this, when properly understood, lends an interest to the history of
this little branch of architecture, wholly independent of its artistic
merit; but the art itself is so beautiful and so instructive, from its
being one of the styles where polychromy was universally employed and is
still preserved, that notwithstanding all that has been done, it still
merits more attention.
It is extremely difficult, in a limited space, to give a clear account
of the Sicilian pointed style, owing to the fusion of the three styles
of which it is composed being far from complete or simultaneous over the
whole island, and there being no one edifice in which all three are
mixed in anything like equal proportions. Each division of the island,
in fact, retains a predilection for that style which characterised the
majority of its inhabitants. Thus Messina and the northern coast as far
as Cefalu remained Italian in the main, and the churches there have only
the smallest possible admixture of either Greek or Saracenic work. The
old parts of the Nunziatella at Messina might be found at Pisa, while
the cathedral there and at Cefalu would hardly be out of place in
Apulia, except indeed that Cefalu displays a certain early predilection
for pointed arches, and something of Greek feeling in the decoration of
the choir.
In like manner in Syracuse and the southern angle of the island the
Greek feeling prevails almost to the exclusion of the other two. In
Palermo, on the other hand, and the western parts, the architecture is
so strongly Saracenic that hardly any antiquary has yet been able to
admit the possibility of such buildings as the Cuba and Ziza having been
erected by the Norman kings. There is, however, little or no doubt that
the latter was built by William I. (1154-1169), and the other about the
same time, though by whom is not so clear. Both these buildings were
erected after a century of Norman dominion in the island: still the
Saracenic influence, so predominant in them, need not astonish us, when
we consider the immeasurable superiority of the Saracens in art and
civilisation, not only to their new rulers, but to all the other
inhabitants. It was therefore only natural that they should be employed
to provide for the Norman Counts such buildings as they alone had the
heart to erect and adorn.
A still more remarkable instance of the prevalence of Saracenic ideas is
represented in Woodcut No. 531, being the Church of San Giovanni degli
Eremiti at Palermo. Here we find a building erected beyond all doubt as
late as the year 1132, by King Roger, for the purposes of Christian
worship, which would in no respect, except the form of its tower, be out
of place as a mosque in the streets of Delhi or Cairo. In fact, were we
guided by architectural considerations alone, this church would have
more properly been described under the head of Saracenic than of
Christian architecture.
There are three other churches of Palermo which exhibit the new mixed
style in all its completeness. These are the Martorana (1113-1143), in
which the Byzantine element prevails somewhat to the exclusion of the
other two; the Capella Palatina in the Palace, built in 1132; and the
more magnificent church of Monreale, near Palermo (Woodcut No. 532),
begun in 1174, and certainly the finest and most beautiful of all the
buildings erected by the Normans in this country. This church is 315 ft.
in its extreme length; while the beautiful gem-like Capella of the royal
palace is much smaller, being only 125 ft. long, and consequently
inferior in grandeur, though in the relative proportions of its parts,
and in all other essential points, very similar.
[Illustration: 531. San Giovanni degli Eremiti, Palermo. (From Gally
Knight’s ‘Normans in Sicily.’)]
In arrangement and dimensions the cathedral of Monreale very much
resembles that at Messina, showing the same general influence in both;
but all the details of the Palermitan example betray that admixture of
Greek and Saracenic feeling which is the peculiarity of Sicilian
architecture. There is scarcely a single form or detail in the whole
building which can strictly be called Gothic, or which points to any
connection with Northern arts or races. The plan of this, as of all the
Sicilian churches, is that of a Roman basilica, far more than of a
Gothic church. In none of them was any vault ever either built or
intended. The central is divided from the side-aisles by pillars of a
single stone, generally borrowed from ancient temples, but (in this
instance at least) with capitals of great beauty, suited to their
position and to the load they have to support. The pier-arches are
pointed, but not Gothic, having no successive planes of decoration, but
being merely square masses of masonry of simple but stilted forms. The
windows, too, though pointed, are undivided, and evidently never meant
for painted glass. The roofs of the naves are generally of open framing,
like those of the basilicas, and ornamented in Saracenic taste. The
aisles, the intersection of the transepts and nave, and the first
division of the sanctuary are generally richer, and consequently more
truly Moorish. The apse again is Roman. Taken altogether, it is only the
accident of the pointed arch having been borrowed from the Moors that
has led to the idea of Gothic feeling existing in these edifices. It
does exist at Messina and Cefalu, but in Palermo is almost wholly
wanting.
[Illustration: 532. Plan of Church at Monreale. (From Hittorff and
Zanth.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
It is evident that the architectural features in the buildings of which
the cathedral of Monreale is the type, were subordinate, in the eyes of
their builders, to the mosaic decorations which cover every part of the
interior, and are, in fact, the glory and pride of the edifice, by which
alone it is entitled to rank among the finest of Mediæval churches. All
the principal personages of the Bible are represented in the stiff but
grand style of Greek art, sometimes with Greek inscriptions, and
accompanied by scenes illustrating the Old and New Testaments. They are
separated by and intermixed with arabesques and ornaments in colour and
gold, making up a decoration unrivalled in its class by anything—except,
perhaps, St. Mark’s—the Middle Ages have produced. The church at Assisi
is neither so rich nor so splendid. The Certosa is infamous in taste as
compared with this Sicilian cathedral. No specimen of opaque painting of
its class, on this side of the Alps, can compete with it in any way.
Perhaps the painted glass of some of our cathedrals may have surpassed
it, but that is gone. In this respect the mosaic has the advantage. It
is to be regretted that we have no direct means of comparing the effect
of these two modes of decoration. In both the internal architecture was
subordinate to the colour—more so, perhaps, as a general rule, in the
Sicilian examples than in the North. In fact, the architecture was
merely a vehicle for the display of painting in its highest and most
gorgeous forms.
Besides the mosaic pictures which adorn the upper part of the walls of
these Palermitan churches, they possess another kind of decoration
almost equally effective, the whole of the lower part of the walls being
revêted with slabs of marble or porphyry disposed in the most beautiful
patterns. The Martorana depends wholly for its effect on this species of
decoration. In the Capella Palatina, and the church at Monreale, it
occupies the lower part of the walls only, and serves as a base for the
storied decorations above; but whether used separately or in
combination, the result is perfect, and such as is hardly attained in
any other churches in any part of Europe.
[Illustration: 533. Portion of the Nave, Monreale. (From Hittorff and
Zanth.)]
Externally the Gothic architects had immensely the advantage. They never
allowed their coloured decorations to interfere with their architectural
effects. On the contrary, they so used them as to make the windows
externally as well as internally their most beautiful and attractive
features.
[Illustration: 534. Lateral Entrance to Cathedral at Palermo. (From
Hittorff and Zanth.)]
The cathedral of Palermo, the principal entrance of which is shown in
Woodcut No. 534, is a building of much later date, that which we now see
being principally of the 14th century. Although possessing no dignity of
outline or grace of form, it is more richly ornamented externally with
intersecting arches and mosaic decorations than almost any other church
of its class. It is richer perhaps and better than the cathedral of
Florence, inasmuch as the decorations follow the construction, and are
not—as there—a mere unmeaning panelling that might be applied anywhere.
All this is more apparent in the apse (Woodcut No. 535) than on the
lateral elevation. It converts what would be only a very plain exterior
into a very rich and ornamental composition; not quite suited to
Northern taste, but very effective in the sunny South. Still the effect
of the whole is rather pretty than grand, and as an architectural
display falls far short of the bolder masonic expression of the Northern
Gothic churches.
After these, one of the most important churches of that age in the
island is the cathedral of Cefalu, already alluded to. It was commenced
by King Roger 1131. It is 230 ft. long by 90 ft. wide. The choir and
transepts are vaulted and groined; the nave has a wooden roof; all the
arches are pointed; and with its two western towers it displays more
Gothic feeling than any other church in Sicily.
The cathedral at Messina, though closely resembling that at Monreale in
plan, has been so altered and rebuilt as to retain very little of its
original architecture. The other churches in the island are either small
and insignificant, or, like that at Messina, have been so altered that
their features are obliterated.
[Illustration: 535. East End of Cathedral at Palermo. (From
Rosengarten.)]
Besides the Saracenic castles or palaces above mentioned, there are no
important civil buildings of Mediæval style in Sicily. There are two
cloisters—one at Monreale and the other at Cefalu—both in the style
universal in all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean Sea, and
already described in speaking of those of Elne, Fontifroide, Arles, &c.,
as well as those of St. John Lateran at Rome. Their general arrangement
consists of small but elegant pillars of Corinthian design, in pairs,
supporting pointed arches of great beauty of form. In many respects this
is a more beautiful mode of producing a cloistered arcade than the
series of unglazed windows universally adopted in the North. The
Southern method presupposes a wooden or at most a tunnel-vaulted roof,
as at Arles, whereas all our best examples have intersecting vaults of
great beauty, which indeed is the excuse for the windowed arrangement
assumed by them. An intermediate course, like that adopted at Zurich
(Woodcut No. 722), would perhaps best reconcile the difficulty; but this
was only used during the period of transition from one style to the
other. The effect, however, of the cloister at Monreale, with the
fountain in one of its divisions, and a certain air of Eastern elegance
and richness pervading the whole, is not surpassed by any of the
examples on the Continent of its own size, though its dimensions do not
allow it to compete with some of the larger examples of France, and
especially of Spain.
As the employment of the pointed arch so early in Sicily has been much
quoted in the controversy regarding the invention of that feature, it
may be convenient to state here that the pointed arch was used in the
South of France—at Vaison, for instance—at least as early as the 10th
century, but only as a vaulting expedient. During the 11th it was
currently used in the south, and as far north as Burgundy; and in the
12th it was boldly adopted in the north as a vaulting, constructive and
decorative feature, giving rise to the invention of a totally new style
of architectural art.
It is by no means impossible that the pointed arch was used by the Greek
or Pelasgic colonists about Marseilles at a far earlier date, but this
can only have been in arches or domes constructed horizontally. These
may have suggested its use in radiating vaults, but can hardly be said
to have influenced its adoption. Had it not been for the constructive
advantages of pointed arches, the Roman circular form would certainly
have retained its sway. It is possible, however, that the northern
Franks would never have adopted it so completely as they did had they
not become familiar with it either in Sicily or the East. When once they
had so taken it up, they made it their own by employing it only as a
modification of the round-arched forms previously introduced and
perfected.
In Sicily the case is different; the pointed arch there never was either
a vaulting or constructive expedient—it was simply a mode of eking out,
by its own taller form and by stilting, the limited height of the Roman
pillars, which they found and used so freely. It is the same description
of arch as that used in the construction of the mosque El-Aksah at
Jerusalem in the 8th century; at Cairo in rebuilding that of Amrou in
the 9th or 10th and in El-Azhar and other mosques of that city. As such
it was used currently in Sicily by the Saracens, and in Palermo and
elsewhere became so essential a part of the architecture of the day that
it was employed as a matter of course in the churches; but it was not
introduced by the Normans, nor was it carried by them from Sicily into
France, and, except so far as already stated, it had no influence on the
arts of France. In fact there is no connection, either ethnographically
or architecturally, between the Sicilian pointed arch and the French;
and beyond the accident of the broken centre they have nothing in
common.
Although, therefore, it can hardly again be used as evidence in the
question of the invention of the pointed arch, the architecture of
Sicily deserves a better monography than it has yet been made the
subject of. It must, however, be written by some one intimately familiar
with the Byzantine, Saracenic, and Romanesque styles. To any one so
qualified, Sicily would afford the best field in Europe for tracing the
influence of race and climate on architecture: for nowhere, owing in a
great measure to its insular position, can the facts be more easily
traced, or the results more easily observed.
In one other point of view also the style deserves attention, for from
it alone can we fairly weigh the merit of the two systems of internal
decoration employed during the Middle Ages. By comparing, for instance,
the cathedral at Monreale, with such a building as the Sainte Chapelle
at Paris, we may judge whether polychromy by opaque pictures in mosaic,
or by translucent pictures on glass, is the more beautiful mode of
decorating the interior of a building. The former have undoubtedly the
advantage of durability, and interfere less with the architectural
effect, but for beauty and brilliancy of effect I have little doubt that
the general verdict would be that the latter have at least hitherto been
the most successful mode. On the whole, however, it seems that a higher
and purer class of art may be developed out of opaque painting than can
ever be obtained from transparencies, and if this is so there can be
little doubt as to which we ought now to seek to cultivate. The question
has never yet been fairly discussed; and examples sufficiently
approximating to one another, either in age or style, are so rare that
its determination is not easy. For that very reason it is the more
desirable that we should make the most of those we have, and try if from
them we can settle one of the most important questions which
architectural history has left to be determined with reference to our
future progress in the art.
CHAPTER IX.
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN PALESTINE.
CONTENTS.
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem—Churches at Abû Gosh and Lydda—
Mosque at Hebron.
---------------------
CHRONOLOGY.
DATES.
Jerusalem taken by the Crusaders A.D. 1099
Baudouin I. 1100
Baudouin II. 1118
Foulques, Count of Anjou 1131
Saladin retakes Jerusalem 1187
Third Crusade. Richard II. 1192
Frederick II. re-enters Jerusalem 1229
Re-taken by Sultan of Damascus 1239
Final overthrow of Christians 1244
---------------------
IT may at first sight appear strange that any form of architecture in
Syria should be treated as a part of that of Italy, but the
circumstances of the case are so exceptional that there can be little
doubt of the correctness of so doing. Gothic architecture was not a
natural growth in Palestine, but distinctly an importation of the
Crusaders, transplanted by them to a soil where it took no root, and
from which it died out when the fostering care of Western protection was
removed. In this it is only too true a reflex of the movement to which
it owed its origin. The Crusades furnish one of those instances in the
history of the world where the conquerors of a nation have been so
numerous as entirely to supplant, for a time, the native population and
the indigenous institutions of the country. For nearly a century
Jerusalem was subject to kings and barons of a foreign race. The feudal
system was imported entire, with its orders of knighthood, its
“Assises,” and all the concomitant institutions which had grown up with
the feudal system in Western Europe. With them, as a matter of course,
came the hierarchy of the Roman Church, and with it the one style of
architecture which they then knew, or which was appropriate to their
form of worship.
The one point which is not at first sight obvious is, why the Gothic
style in Palestine should be so essentially Italian, with so little
admixture of the styles prevalent on the northern side of the Alps. It
may have been that then, as now, the Italians settled loosely in the
land. We know that the trade of the Levant was at that time in the hands
of Venice and other Italian cities, and it is clear that it was easier
to send to Italy for artists and workmen, than to France and Germany,
and much more likely that an Italian would undertake the erection of
buildings in the East than a Northern architect, whose ideas of
Palestine and its ways must have been extremely indistinct. Be this as
it may, there is little in the Gothic architecture of Palestine either
as regards arrangement or details—except the plan of the church of the
Holy Sepulchre—which would excite attention as singular if found in the
South of Italy or Sicily; and as little that would not seem out of place
if found on our side of the Alps.
HOLY SEPULCHRE.
The principal buildings erected by the Crusaders in Palestine were, as
might be expected, the extensive additions made to the church or rather
to the group of churches near the Holy Sepulchre—the deliverance of
which from the hands of the infidels was the object of that wonderful
burst of national enthusiasm.[324]
The buildings on the site have been so repeatedly ruined and rebuilt,
and so little remains now of their original features prior to the
Crusaders’ work, that it is only necessary here to state the generally
accepted belief that the rotunda (A) shown on the upper part of the plan
(Woodcut No. 536) represents the position of the great apse erected by
Constantine, round what he considered to be the sepulchre of Christ
(marked B on plan). The great basilica which is described by
Eusebius,[325] was erected on the east side of this. This and other
buildings were destroyed by Chosroes the Persian in 614, and portions
only (those round the Holy Sepulchre) were restored by Modestus in 629.
In 1010, the mad Khalif Hakem destroyed Modestus’s work, and the
rotunda, as shown in Woodcut, was built by the Emperor Constantine
Monomachus thirty years later.
[Illustration: 536. Plan of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Scale 100
ft. to 1 in.]
When the Crusaders reached Jerusalem, 1099 A.D., the sepulchre appears
to have stood in a court open to the sky,[326] but “covered over lest
rain should fall upon it,” surrounded with an aisle and with five
chapels (C.D.E.F.G.) attached to it. These the Crusaders
incorporated[327] with their additions and alterations, which amounted
almost to a rebuilding of the church. The plan (Woodcut No. 536)
indicates in black those portions found by the Crusaders; in half tone,
those which were built by them, and in outline only the subsequent
additions made before and after the great fire of 1808.[328] Though
entirely at variance with the arrangement of the basilica and
independent tomb-house as adopted by Constantine some seven centuries
earlier, it would seem that the object of the Crusader was to preserve
intact the Rotunda and the Holy Sepulchre. The principal entrance led
into what was virtually the main transept, with the Rotunda on the west
side and the choir and apse on the east. At a later period the space
within the crossing was enclosed for the Greek Church, so that the
Rotunda now appears to be the nave, and it is in that sense that the
church has been so often copied. The plan was commonly employed in the
North of Europe (Woodcuts Nos. 790 to 795), and bloomed into perfection
at Cologne in the church of St. Gereon (Woodcut No. 741). It is also
found at Little Maplestead (Woodcut No. 847), Zara (Woodcut No. 486), in
the churches of the Temple in London, of St. Sepulchre at Cambridge, and
elsewhere. In all these instances it consists of a circular nave leading
to a rectangular choir terminated by an apse. Though primarily
sepulchral in its origin, it is used in all these places without any
reference to its original destination, and had become a recognised form
of Christian church for the ordinary purposes of worship.
Though containing so many objects of interest, the church itself is not
large, measuring 245 ft. long internally, exclusive of the crypt and
chapel of the cross, which being at a much lower level must have formed
a crypt under the nave and aisles of the basilica.
So far as can be judged from the information which remains to us, the
style (before the fire of 1808, after which the Rotunda was entirely
rebuilt) was tolerably homogeneous throughout. The transept, now
converted into a choir, and the apse, which, though commenced in 1103,
were not completed before 1169, show progress in style. All the
constructive arches in this part of the building are pointed—but the
decorative portions still retain the circular form.
[Illustration: 537. Holy Sepulchre—Plan and Elevation as it existed
before the fire in 1808. (From Bernardino Amico.)]
Owing to its situation, and its being so much encumbered by other
buildings, the only part of the exterior which makes any pretension to
architectural magnificence is the Southern double portal, erected
apparently between the years 1140 and 1160. This is a rich and elegant
example of the style of ornamentation prevalent in Sicily and Southern
Italy in the 12th century, but among its most elaborate decoration, are
two rich cornices of classical date, built in unsymmetrically as
string-courses, amongst details belonging to the time of the Crusades.
From their style these cornices undoubtedly belong to the age of
Constantine, and are probably fragments of some ancient buildings. At an
earlier age such fragments would probably have been more extensively
used up; but in the 12th century the architects had acquired confidence
in themselves and their own style, and despised classical arrangements
both in plan and in detail.
The sepulchre itself seems to have been rebuilt, about the year
1555,[329] or at least so thoroughly repaired that it is difficult to
say what its exact original form may have been. Probably it did not
differ materially from that shown in the woodcut, since that resembles
the style of the 12th much more than that of the 16th century.
Although the church of the Holy Sepulchre was, naturally, by far the
greatest work undertaken by the Crusaders, there are some six or seven
other churches in Jerusalem,[330] or its immediate vicinity, which were
erected during the 12th century. The most complete of these at the
present day is that of St. Anne—now in course of thorough repair by the
French Government.
[Illustration: 538. Plan of Church at Abû Gosh. (From De Vogüé.) Scale
50 ft. to 1 in.]
It is a small church, 112 ft. long by 66 ft. wide internally, divided
into three aisles, each terminating in an apse, and covered with
intersecting vaults, showing strongly-marked transverse ribs of the
usual Italian pattern. It has also a small dome on the intersection
between the nave and transept. The windows are small and without
tracery. It is, in fact, a counterpart of the usual Italian church of
the age. The same remarks apply to Ste. Marie la Grande, Ste. Marie
Latine, the Madeleine, and other churches which the Christians built in
their quarter of the town during their occupation, to replace those of
which the Moslems had deprived them.
[Illustration: 539. East End of Church at Abû Gosh. (From De Vogüé.)]
One of the most perfect churches of this age, out of Jerusalem, is that
at Abû Gosh—the ancient Kirjath-Jearim (Woodcuts Nos. 538, 539).
Externally it is a rectangle, 86 ft. by 57 ft., with three apses which
do not appear externally. Under the whole is an extensive crypt. Though
small, it is so complete, and so elegant in all its details, that it
would be difficult to find anywhere a more perfect example of the style.
As it now stands it is very much simpler and plainer than any Northern
example of the same age would be; but it originally depended on painting
for its decoration, and traces of this may still be seen on its
desecrated walls. It is now used as a cattle-shed. The church at Ramleh
is one of the largest, and must originally have been one of the finest,
of these Syrian churches. It is now used as a mosque, and the consequent
alteration of its arrangement, with plaster and whitewash, have done
much to destroy its architectural effect.
[Illustration: 540. East End of Church at Lydda. (From De Vogüé.)]
At Sebaste there is one as large as that at Ramleh—160 ft. by 80 ft.—and
showing a more completely developed Gothic style than those at
Jerusalem. At Lydda there is another very similar in detail to that last
mentioned. Though now only a fragment, it is one of singular elegance,
and shows a purity of detail and arrangement not usual in Northern
churches of that age. De Vogüé is of opinion that both the last-named
churches must have been completed before the year 1187. It is hard,
however, to believe that an Italian Gothic style could have attained
that degree of perfection so early, and if the date assigned is correct,
it is evident that the pointed style was developed earlier in the East
than in the West, a circumstance which, from our knowledge of what had
happened in Armenia and elsewhere, is by no means improbable.
[Illustration: 541. Apse of Church at Lydda. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.]
The date assigned to these churches is rendered more probable by the
existence of a Gothic building, certainly as advanced as any of those
mentioned, within the enclosure of the mosque at Hebron. If this was a
work of the Crusaders it must have been built before 1187, since the
Christians never had access to the place after their defeat at Tiberias.
If not erected by them, we are forced to assume that the Moslems, after
recovering possession of the sepulchres of the Patriarchs, employed some
Christian renegades or slaves to erect a mosque on the spot, in their
own style of architecture. This is, however, by no means improbable,
since it is the only Christian church (if it be one) in Palestine which
has no apse, though there would have been no difficulty in introducing
three apses in the same manner as at Abû Gosh (Woodcut No. 538) had it
been so desired. It should also be remarked that the three aisles point
southward towards Mecca, and that, except in style, it has all the
appearance of a mosque. Both Christian and Mahometan tradition are
silent as to its erection, so that the determination of the question
must depend on a more careful examination than has yet been possible.
Whichever way it may be decided, it is a curious question. It is either
a Christian building without the arrangement elsewhere universally
indispensable, or it is a Moslem mosque in a Christian style of
architecture. If the former, the complete development of the Italian
pointed style of architecture in the East must be fixed at not less than
half a century anterior to that in the West.
[Illustration:
542. Plan of Mosque at Hebron. Scale 100 ft to 1 in.
The Gothic portion is shaded black, the Jewish hatched, and the
Mahometan outlined.
]
BOOK III.
FRANCE.
CHAPTER I.
CONTENTS.
Division of subject—Pointed arches—Provence—Churches at Avignon, Arles,
Alet, Fontifroide, Maguelonne, Vienne—Circular churches—Towers—
Cloisters.
---------------------
CHRONOLOGY.
DATES.
Charlemagne A.D. 768-813
Rollo, first Duke of Normandy 911
Hugh Capet 987
William II. of Normandy, or the Conqueror 1055-1086
Henry I. of France 1031
Philip I., or l’Amoureux 1060
Louis VI., or le Gros 1108
Louis VII., or le Jeune 1137
St. Bernard of Clairvaux 1091-1153
Philip II., or l’Auguste 1180
Louis VIII., or the Lion 1223
Louis IX., or the Saint 1226
Philip III., the Hardy 1270
Philip IV., or the Fair 1285
Philip VI. of Valois 1328
Battle of Crecy 1346
John II., the Good 1350
Charles V., the Wise 1364
Charles VI., the Beloved 1380
Charles VII., the Victorious 1422
Joan of Arc 1412-1431
Louis XI. 1461
Charles VIII. 1483
Louis XII. 1498
Francis I. 1515
---------------------
TO those who do not look beyond the present, France appears to be one of
the most homogeneous of all the countries of Europe—inhabited by a
people speaking one language, professing one religion, governed by the
same laws, and actuated by the same feelings and aspirations; yet it
certainly is not so in reality, and in the Middle Ages the distinctions
between the various races and peoples were strongly marked and capable
of easy definition. Wars, persecutions, and revolutions, have done much
to obliterate these, and the long habit of living under a centralised
despotism has produced a superficial uniformity which hides a great deal
of actual diversity. The process of fusion commenced apparently about
the reign of Louis the Saint (A.D. 1226), and has gone on steadily ever
since. Before his time France was divided into six or eight great
ethnographic provinces which might now be easily mapped out, though
their boundaries frequently differed widely from the political division
of the land.
No systematic attempt has yet been made to construct an ethnographic map
of the country from the architectural remains, though it is easy to see
how it might be done. What is wanted is that some competent archæologist
should do for the ethnography of France what Sir W. Smith did at the end
of the last century for the geology of England. Like that early pioneer
of exact knowledge in his peculiar department, he must be content to
wander from province to province, from village to village, visiting
every church, and examining every architectural remain, comparing one
with another, tracing their affinities, and finally classifying and
mapping the whole. It is probable that the labour of one man would
hardly suffice for this purpose. Monographs would be required to
complete the task, but it is one of such singular interest that it is
hoped it may soon be undertaken.
One of the great difficulties in attempting anything of the sort at
present is the nomenclature. When the science is further advanced, such
names as Silurian, Cambrian, &c., will no doubt be invented, but at
present we must be content with the political name which seems most
nearly to express the ethnographical distribution; though in scarcely a
single instance will these be found strictly correct, all in consequence
being open to adverse criticism. In France it frequently happened that
two or more ethnographic provinces were united under one sceptre—
eventually all were merged into one—and during the various changes that
took place in the Middle Ages, it was only by accident that the
political boundary exactly agreed for any great length of time with the
ethnographical.
In Germany, on the contrary, a single race is and was cut up into
numerous political divisions, so that it becomes, from the opposite
cause alone, equally difficult to apply a nomenclature which shall
correctly represent the facts of the case.
In such a work as this it would be manifestly absurd to attempt to
adjust all this with anything like minute accuracy, but the principal
features are so easily recognised that no great confusion can arise in
the application of such names as are usually employed, and it is to be
hoped that before long a better system of nomenclature will be invented
and applied.
We may rest assured of one thing, at all events, which is that the
architectural remains in France are as sufficient for the construction
of an ethnographic map of that country as the rocks are for the
compilation of a geological survey. If the one opens out to the student
an immense expanse of scientific knowledge, the other is hardly of less
interest, though in a less extended field. There are few studies more
pleasing than that of tracing the history of man through his works, and
none bring the former condition of humanity so vividly back to us as
those records which have been built into the walls of their temples or
their palaces by those who were thus unconsciously recording their
feelings for the instruction of their posterity.
[Illustration: 543. Diagram of the Architectural Divisions of
France.[331]]
The first thing that strikes the student in examining architecturally
the map of France is the recurrence of the same phenomenon as was
remarked in that of Italy, a division into two nearly equal halves by a
boundary line running east and west. In both countries, to the southward
of this line the land was occupied by a Romanesque people who, though
conquered, were never colonised by the Barbarians to such an extent as
to alter their blood or consequently the ethnographic relations of the
people. North of the line the Goths and Lombards in Italy, and the
Franks in Gaul, settled in such numbers as to influence very
considerably the status of the races, in some instances almost to the
obliteration of their leading characteristics.
In France the boundary line follows the valley of the Loire near its
northern edge till it passes behind Tours; it crosses that river between
that city and Orleans, follows a somewhat devious course to Lyons, and
up the valley of the Rhone to Geneva.
In the Middle Ages the two races were roughly designated as those
speaking the Langue d’oc and the Langue d’œil—somewhat more correctly
those to the south were called Romance,[333] those to the north
Frankish; but the truth is, the distinction is too broad to be now
clearly defined, and we must descend much more into detail before any
satisfactory conclusion can be arrived at.
On the south of the line, one of the most beautiful as well as the best
defined architectural provinces is that I have ventured to designate as
Provence or Provençal. Its limits are very nearly coincident with those
of Gallia Narbonensis, and “Narbonese” would consequently be a more
correct designation, and would be adopted if treating of a classical
style of art. It has, however, the defect of including Toulouse, which
does not belong to the province, and consequently the name affects an
accuracy it does not possess. It may, therefore, be better at present to
adopt the vague name of the “Provence” _par excellence_, especially as
Provençal is a word applied by French authors to literary matters much
in the sense it is here used to define an architectural division. The
whole of the south coast of France from the Alps to the Pyrenees belongs
to this province, and it extends up the valley of the Rhone as far as
Lyons, and is generally bounded by the hills on either side of that
river.
Perhaps the best mode of defining the limits of the Aquitanian province
would be to say that it includes all those towns whose names end with
the Basque article _ac_, consequently indicating the presence at some
former period of a people speaking that language or something very
closely allied to it, or at all events differing from those of the rest
of France. It is only on the eastward that the line seems difficult to
define. There are some towns, such as Barjac, Quissac, Gignac, in the
valley of the Rhone, in situations that would seem to belong to
Provence, and until their churches are examined it is impossible to say
to which they belong. On the south Aquitania is bounded by the Pyrenees,
on the west by the sea, and on the North by a line running nearly
straight from the mouth of the Garonne to Langeac, near to Le
Puy-en-Velay.
The third is designated that of Anjou, or the Angiovine, from its most
distinguished province. This includes the lower part of the Loire, and
is bounded on the north-east by the Cher. Between it and the sea is a
strip of land, including the Angoumois, Saintonge, and Vendée, which it
is not easy to know where to place. It may belong, so far as we yet
know, to either Aquitania or Anjou, or possibly may deserve a separate
title altogether; but in the map it is annexed for the present to Poitou
or the Angiovine province.
In Brittany the two styles meet, and are so mixed together that it is
impossible to separate them. In that district there is neither pure
Romance nor pure Frankish, but a style partaking of the peculiarities of
each without belonging to either.
Besides these, there is the small and secluded district of Auvergne,
having a style peculiarly its own, which, though certainly belonging to
the southern province, is easily distinguished from any of the
neighbouring styles, and is one of the most pleasing to be found of an
early age in France.
Beyond this to the eastward lies the great Burgundian province, having a
well-defined and well-marked style of its own, influenced by or
influencing all those around it. Its most marked characteristic is what
may be called a mechanical mixture of the classical and mediæval styles
without any real fusion. Essentially and constructively the style is
Gothic, but it retained the use of Corinthian pilasters and classical
details till late in the Middle Ages: Burgundy was also in the Middle
Ages the country of monasticism _par excellence_—a circumstance which
had considerable influence on her forms of art.
Taking, then, a more general view of the southern province, it will be
seen that if a line were drawn from Marseilles to Brest, it would pass
nearly through the middle of it. At the south-eastern extremity of such
a line we should find a style almost purely Romanesque, passing by slow
and equal gradations into a Gothic form at its other terminal.
On turning to the Frankish province the case is somewhat different.
Paris is here the centre, from which everything radiates: and though the
Norman invasion, and other troubles of those times, with the rebuilding
mania of the 13th century, have swept away nearly all traces of the
early buildings, still it is easy to see how the Gothic style arose in
the Isle of France, and how it spread from thence to all the
neighbouring provinces.
In consequence, however, of the loss of its early buildings, and of its
subsequent pre-eminence and supercession of the earlier styles, the
description of its features naturally follows that of the subordinate
provinces, and concludes the history of the mediæval styles in France.
Not to multiply divisions, we may include in the Northern province many
varieties that will afterwards be marked as distinct in maps of French
architecture, especially at the south-east, where the Nivernois and
Bourbonnois, if not deserving of separate honours, at least consist of
such a complete mixture of the Frankish and Burgundian with the Southern
styles, that they cannot strictly be said to belong to any one in
particular, though they partake of all. The Northern, however, is
certainly the predominant element, and with that therefore they should
be classed.
To the westward lies the architectural province of Normandy, one of the
most vigorous offshoots of the Frankish style: and from the power of the
Norman dukes in the 11th and 12th centuries, and the accidental
circumstance of its prosperity in those centuries when the rest of
France was prostrate from their ravages and torn by internal
dissensions, the Romanesque style shows itself here with a vigour and
completeness not found elsewhere. It is, however, evidently only the
Frankish style based remotely on Roman tradition, but which the
Barbarians used with a freedom and boldness which soon converted it into
a purely national form. This soon ripened into the complete Gothic style
of the 13th century, which was so admired that it soon spread over the
whole face of Europe, and became the type of all Gothic architecture.
Alsace is not included in this enumeration, as it certainly belongs
architecturally to Germany. Lorraine too is more German than French, and
if included at all, must be so as an exceptional transitional province.
French Flanders belonged, in the Middle Ages, to the Belgian provinces
behind it, and may therefore also be disregarded at present: but even
after rejecting all these, enough is still left to render it difficult
to remember and follow all the changes in style introduced by these
different races, and which marked not only the artistic but the
political state of France during the Middle Ages, when the six
territorial peers of France, the Counts of Toulouse, Aquitaine,
Normandy, Burgundy, Champagne, and Flanders, represented the six
principal provinces of the kingdom, under their suzerain, the Count or
King of Paris. These very divisions might now be taken to represent the
architectural distinctions, were it not that the pre-eminence of these
great princes belongs to a later epoch than the architectural divisions
which we have pointed out, and which we must now describe somewhat more
at length.
POINTED ARCHES.
Before proceeding to describe these various styles in detail, it may add
to the clearness of what follows if the mode in which the pointed arch
was first introduced into Christian architecture is previously
explained. It has already been shown that the pointed arch with
radiating voussoirs was used by the Assyrians as early as the time of
Sargon in the 8th century B.C., and by the Ethiopians as early as that
of Tirhakah. The Etrurians and Pelasgi used the form probably twelve
centuries before the Christian era, but constructed it with horizontal
courses. To come nearer, however, to our own time, the Saracens
certainly adopted it at Cairo in the first century of the Hegira,[334]
and employed it generally if not universally, and never apparently used
a round arch after the erection of the mosque of Ebn Tulûn, A.D. 879.
The Romanesque traditions, however, prevented the Christians from
adopting it in Europe till forced to do it from constructive
necessities; and the mode of its introduction into the early churches in
Provence renders them singularly important in enabling us to arrive at a
correct solution of this much mooted question.[335]
It is hardly worth while discussing whether the form was borrowed from
the East, where it had been used so long before it was known—or at least
before we are aware of its being known—in Europe. It may be that the
Pelasgic Greeks left examples of it in Provence, or that persons trading
to the Levant from Marseilles became familiar with its uses; or it may
be, though very unlikely, that it was really re-invented for the
purposes to which it was applied.
In whatever way it was introduced, it at least seems certain that all
the churches of Provence, from the age of Charlemagne to that of St.
Louis, were vaulted, and have their vaults constructed on the principle
of the pointed arch. It has nevertheless long been a received dogma with
the antiquaries of France, as well as with those of England, that the
pointed arch was first introduced in the 12th century—the first example
being assumed to be the work of Abbot Suger at St. Denis (1144-52), the
result of which is that all who have written on the subject of Provençal
architecture have felt themselves forced to ascribe the age of the
churches in question, or at least of their roofs, a date subsequent to
this period.
The use to which the Provençal architects applied the pointed arch will
be evident from the annexed diagram, the left-hand portion of which is a
section of the roof of one of the churches at Vaison. The object
evidently was to lay the roof or roofing-tiles directly on the vault, as
the Romans had done on their domes, and also, so far as we know, on
those of their thermæ. Had they used a circular vault for this purpose,
it is evident, from the right-hand side of the diagram, that to obtain a
straight-lined roof externally, and the necessary watershed, it would
have been requisite to load the centre of the vault to a most dangerous
extent, as at A; whereas with the pointed arch it only required the
small amount of filling up shown at B, and even that might have been
avoided by a little contrivance if thought necessary. By adopting the
pointed form the weights are so distributed as to ensure stability and
to render the vault self-supporting. It has already been observed that
the Gothic architects everywhere treated their vaults as mere false
ceilings, covering them with a roof of wood—an expedient highly
objectionable in itself, and the cause of the destruction, by fire or
from neglect, of almost all the churches we now find in ruins all over
Europe; whereas, had they adhered either to the Roman or Romance style
of roofing, the constant upholding hand of man would not have been
required to protect their buildings from decay.
[Illustration: 544. Diagram of Vaulting. South of France.]
The one obstacle in the way of the general adoption of this mode of
roofing was the difficulty of applying it to intersecting vaults. The
Romans, it is true, had conquered the difficulty; so had the Byzantine
architects, as we have already seen, displaying the ends of the vaults
as ornaments; and even at St. Mark’s, Venice, this system is adopted,
and with the additional advantage of the pointed arch might have been
carried further. Still it must be confessed that it was not easy—that it
required more skill in construction and a better class of masonry than
was then available to do this efficiently and well. The consequence is,
that all the Romance pointed vaults are simple tunnel-vaults without
intersections, and that the Gothic architects, when they adopted the
form, slurred over the difficulty by hiding the upper sides of their
vaults beneath a temporary wooden roof, which protected them from the
injuries of the weather. This certainly was one of the greatest mistakes
they made: had they carefully profiled and ornamented the exterior of
the stone roofs in the same manner as they ornamented the inside, their
buildings would have been not only much more beautiful, but much more
permanent, and the style would have been saved from the principal
falsity that now deforms it. Even as it is, if we wished intelligently
to adapt the Gothic to our purposes, instead of merely copying it, this
is one of the points to which we ought first to turn our attention.
[Illustration: 545. Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 3.]
Another circumstance which may be alluded to here, when speaking on this
subject, which led to the adoption of the pointed arch at an early age
in the southern provinces of France, was the use of domes as a roofing
expedient. These, it is true, are not found in Provence, but they are
common in Aquitaine and Anjou—some of them certainly of the 11th
century; and there can be little doubt but that these are not the
earliest, though their predecessors have perished or have not yet been
brought to light.
There is no one who has studied the subject who is not aware how
excellent, as a constructive expedient, the pointed arch is as applied
to intersecting vaults, but it is not so generally understood why it was
equally necessary in the construction of domes. So long as these rested
on drums rising from the ground the circular form sufficed; but when it
became necessary to rest them on pendentives in the angles of square or
octagonal buildings, the case was widely different. The early Byzantine
architects—in Sta. Sophia, for instance—did fit pendentives to circular
arches, but it was with extreme difficulty, and required very great
skill both in setting out and in execution. But the superiority of the
pointed form was perceived at an early date; and the Saracens, who were
trammelled by no traditions, adopted it at once as a doming expedient
and adhered to it as exclusively as the Gothic architects did in the
construction of their vaults—and for the same reason—simply because it
was the best mode of construction.
It is easy to explain why this should be so. In the diagram on the
preceding page, fig. 1 represents the pendentives of a dome resting on
circular arches. At A they become evanescent, and for some distance from
the centre are so weak that it is only by concealed construction that
they can be made to do their work. When the pointed arch is introduced,
as in fig. 2, not only is great freedom obtained in spacing, but the
whole becomes constructively correct; when, as in fig. 3, an octagonal
arrangement is adopted, the whole becomes still more simple and easy,
and very little adjustment is required to fit a dome to an octagon: and
if the angles are again cut off, so as to form a polygon of 16 sides,
all the exigencies of construction are satisfied.
[Illustration: 546. Section of Church at Carcassonne, with the outer
aisles added in the 14th century. No scale.]
At St. Front, Périgueux, at Moissac, and at Loches, we find the pointed
arch, introduced evidently for this purpose, and forming a class of
roofs more like those of mosques in Cairo than any other buildings in
Europe. It is true they now look bare and formal—their decorations
having been originally painted on stucco, which has pealed off; but
still the variety of form and perspective they afford internally, and
the character and truthfulness they give to the roof as seen from
without, are such advantages that we cannot but regret that these two
expedients of stone external roofs and domes were not adopted in Gothic.
Had the great architects of that style in the 13th century carried out
these with their characteristic zeal and earnestness, they might have
left us a style in every respect infinitely more perfect and more
beautiful than the one they invented, and which we are copying so
servilely, instead of trying, with our knowledge and means of
construction, to repair the errors and omissions of our forefathers, and
out of the inheritance they have left us to work out something more
beautiful and more worthy of our greater refinement and more advanced
civilisation.
The practice of the Greeks in respect to their roofs was a curious
contrast to that of the mediæval architects. Their architecture, as
before remarked, being essentially external, while that of the Middle
Ages was internal, they placed the stone of their roofs on the outside,
and took the utmost pains to arrange the covering ornamentally; but they
supported all this on a framework of wood, which in every instance has
perished. It is difficult to say which was the greater mistake of the
two. Both were wrong without doubt. The happy medium seems to be that
which the Romance architects aimed at—a complete homogeneous roof, made
of the most durable materials and ornamented, both externally and
internally; and there can be little doubt but that this is the only
legitimate and really artistic mode of effecting this purpose, and the
one to which attention should now be turned.[336]
This early mode of employing the pointed arch is so little understood
generally that, before leaving this branch of the subject, it may be
well to quote one other example with a perfectly authentic date.
The Church of St. Nazaire at Carcassonne was dedicated by Pope Urban II.
in 1096. It was not then quite complete, but there seems no doubt but
that the nave, as we now find it, was finished by the year 1100. As will
be seen from the annexed section, the side aisles and all the openings
are constructed with round arches; but the difficulty of vaulting the
nave forced on the architects the introduction of the pointed arch. It
is here constructed solid with flat ribs over each pillar, and without
any attempt to pierce it for the introduction of light; and as the west
end is blocked up—fortified in fact—the result is gloomy enough.
This example is also interesting when looked at from another point of
view. If we turn back to Woodcuts Nos. 187 and 188, and compare them
with this section, we shall be able to gauge exactly the changes which
were introduced and the progress that was made, during the 1000 years
that elapsed between the erection of these two buildings. In the plan of
the temple of Diana at Nîmes, we have the same three-aisled arrangement
as at Carcassonne. Their dimensions are not very dissimilar; the nave at
Nîmes is 27 ft. wide, the aisles 7½ ft. in the clear. At Carcassonne
this becomes 25 ft. and 10 ft. respectively. The aisles are in the early
example separated from the nave by screen walls, adorned with pillars
which are mere ornaments. In the later examples the pillars have become
the main support of the roof, the wall being omitted between them.
The roof of the nave in both instances is adorned with flat ribs, one
over each pillar; but at Nîmes the rib is rather wider than the space
between. At Carcassonne the rib occupies only one-fourth of the width of
the bay. One of their most striking differences is, that Nîmes displays
all that megalithic grandeur for which the works of the Romans were so
remarkable; while at Carcassonne the masonry is little better than
rubble. It need hardly be added that the temple displays an elegance of
detail which charms the most fastidious taste, while the decoration of
the church is rude and fantastic, though no doubt picturesque and
appropriate. The last remark must not, however, be understood as a
reproach to Gothic art, for the choir of this very church, and the two
outer arches shown in the Woodcut No. 546, were rebuilt in the year
1331, with an elegance of detail which, in a constructive sense, would
shame the best classical examples. The nave is a tentative example of a
rude age, when men were inventing, or trying to invent, a new style, and
before they quite knew how to set about it. The builders of Carcassonne
had this temple at Nîmes standing, probably much more complete than it
is now, within 120 miles of them, and they were attempting to copy it as
best they could. It is probable, however, they had also other models
besides this one, and certain that this was not the first attempt to
reproduce them. The differences are considerable; but the similarities
are so great that we ought rather to be astonished that ten centuries of
experience and effort had not shown more progress than we find.
PROVENCE.
There are few chapters in the history of mediæval architecture which it
would be more desirable to have fully and carefully written than that of
the style of Provence from the retirement of the Romans to the accession
of the Franks. This country, from various causes, retained more of its
former civilisation through the dark ages than any other, at least on
this side of the Alps. Such a history, however, is to be desired more in
an archæological than in an architectural point of view; for the
Provençal churches, compared with the true Gothic, though numerous and
elegant, are small, and most of them have undergone such alterations as
to prevent us from judging correctly of their original effect.
Among the Provençal churches, one of the most remarkable is Notre Dame
de Doms, the cathedral at Avignon (Woodcut No. 547). Like all the
others, its dimensions are small, as compared with those in the northern
province, as it is only 200 ft. in length, and the nave about 20 ft. in
width. The side aisles have been so altered and rebuilt, that it is
difficult to say what their plan and dimensions originally may have
been.
[Illustration: 547. Porch of Notre Dame de Doms, Avignon. (From
Laborde’s ‘Monuments de la France.’)]
The most remarkable feature and the least altered is the porch, which is
so purely Romanesque that it might almost be said to be copied from such
examples as the arches on the bridge of Chamas (Woodcut No. 221). It
presents, however, all that attenuation of the horizontal features which
is so characteristic of the Lower Empire, and cannot rank higher than
the Carlovingian era; though it is not quite so easy to determine how
much more modern it may be. The same ornaments are found in the
interior, and being integral parts of the ornamentation of the pointed
roof, have led to various theories to account for this copying of
classical details after the period at which it was assumed that the
pointed arch had been introduced. It has been sufficiently explained
above, how early this was the case as a vaulting expedient in this
quarter; and that difficulty being removed, we may safely ascribe the
whole of the essential parts of this church to a period not long, if at
all, subsequent to the age of Charlemagne.
Next perhaps in importance to this, is the church of St. Trophime at
Arles, the nave of which, with its pointed vault, probably belongs to
the same age, though its porch (Woodcut No. 548), instead of being the
earliest part as in the last instance, is here the most modern, having
been erected in the 11th century, when the church to which it is
attached acquired additional celebrity by the translation of the body of
St. Trophime to a final resting-place within its walls. As it is, it
forms a curious and interesting pendent to the one last quoted, showing
how in the course of two centuries the style had passed from debased
Roman to a purely native form, still retaining a strong tradition of its
origin, but so used and so ornamented that, were we not able to trace
back the steps one by one by which the porch at Avignon led to that of
Arles, we might almost be inclined to doubt the succession.
[Illustration: 548. Porch of St. Trophime, Arles. (From Chapuy,
‘Moyen-Âge Monumental.’)]
The porches at Aix, Cuxa, Coustonges, Prades, Valcabre, Tarascon, and
elsewhere in this province, form a series of singular interest, and of
great beauty of detail mixed with all the rich exuberance of our own
Norman doorways, and follow one another by such easy gradations that the
relative age of each may easily be determined.
The culminating example is that at St. Gilles, near the mouths of the
Rhone, which is by far the most elaborate church of its class, but so
classical in many of its details, that it probably is somewhat earlier
than this one at Arles, which it resembles in many respects, though far
exceeding it in magnificence. It consists of three such porches placed
side by side, and connected together by colonnades—if they may be so
called—and sculpture of the richest class, forming altogether a frontal
decoration unsurpassed except in the northern churches of the 13th
century. Such porches, however, as those of Rheims, Amiens, and
Chartres, surpass even these in elaborate richness and in dimensions,
though it may be questioned if they are really more beautiful in design.
[Illustration: 549. Apse of Church at Alet. (From Taylor and Nodier,
‘Voyages dans l’Ancienne France.’)]
There is another church of the Carlovingian era at Orange, and one at
Nîmes, probably belonging to the 9th or 10th century; both however very
much injured by alterations and repairs. In the now deserted city of
Vaison there are two churches, so classical in their style, that we are
not surprised at M. Laborde,[337] and the French antiquaries in general,
classing them as remains of the classical period. In any other country
on this side of the Alps such an inference would be inevitable; but here
another code of criticism must be applied to them. The oldest, the
chapel of St. Quinide, belongs probably to the 9th or 10th century. It
is small but remarkably elegant and classical in the style of its
architecture. The apse is the most singular as well as the most ancient
part of the church, and is formed in a manner of which no other example
is found anywhere else, so far as I know. Externally it is two sides of
a square, internally a semicircle; at each angle of the exterior and in
each face is a pilaster, fairly imitated from the Corinthian order, and
supporting an entablature that might very well mislead a Northern
antiquary into the error of supposing it was a Pagan temple.
The cathedral, though larger, is more Gothic both in plan and detail,
though not without some classical features, and is entirely free from
the bold rudeness of style we are so accustomed to associate with the
architecture of the 11th century, to which it belongs. Its system of
vaulting has already been explained (Woodcut No. 544), but neither of
these buildings has yet met with the attention they so richly merit from
those who are desirous of tracing the progress of art from the decline
of the pure Roman to the rise of the true Gothic styles.
[Illustration: 550. Internal Angle of Apse at Alet. (From Taylor and
Nodier.)]
Taking it altogether, perhaps the most elegant specimen of the style is
the ruined—now, I fear, nearly destroyed—church of Alet, which, though
belonging to the 11th century, was singularly classical in its details,
and wonderfully elegant in every part of its design. Of this the apse,
as having undergone no subsequent transformation, was by far the most
interesting, though not the most beautiful, portion. Externally the
upper part was adorned with dwarf Corinthian pilasters, surmounted by a
cornice that would not discredit the buildings of Diocletian at Spalato;
the lower part was ornamented by forms of more mediæval character, but
of scarcely less elegance. In the interior the triumphal arch, as it
would be called in a Roman basilica, is adorned by two Corinthian
pillars, designed with the bold freedom of the age, though retaining the
classical forms in a most unexpected degree.
The rest of the church is as elegant as these parts, though far less
classical, the necessities of vaulting and construction requiring a
different mode of treatment, and a departure from conventional forms,
which the architect does not seem to have considered himself at liberty
to employ in the apse.
[Illustration: 551. Elevation of half one Bay of the Exterior of St.
Paul-Trois-Châteaux.]
[Illustration: 552. Half Bay of Interior of St. Paul-Trois-Châteaux.
(From the ‘Archives des Monuments Historiques.’)]
Another singularly elegant specimen of this style is the church of St.
Paul-Trois-Châteaux, near Avignon (Woodcuts Nos. 551, 552). Its details
are so elegant and so classical that it might almost be mistaken for a
building of the Lower Empire anterior to Justinian’s time. Its plan,
however, and the details of its construction, prove that it belongs to a
much more modern date; Viollet le Duc would even bring it down as low as
the 12th century. It hardly seems possible that it should be so modern
as this; but the truth is, the whole history of the Romance style in
this province has still to be written.[338] It has not yet been examined
with the care it deserves by any competent authority, and till it is we
must be content with the knowledge that, in the neighbourhood of the
Bouches du Rhône, there exists a group of churches which, drawing their
inspiration from the classical remains with which the country is
studded, exhibit an elegance of design as exquisite as it is in strange
contrast with the rude vigour—almost vulgarity—which characterised the
works of the Normans in the opposite corner of the land at the same
period.
Passing from the round-arched to the pointed modifications of this
style, the church at Fontifroide, near Narbonne, shows it in its
completeness, perhaps better than any other example. There, not only the
roof is pointed, but all the constructive openings have assumed the same
forms. The windows and doorways, it is true, still retain their circular
heads, and did retain them as long as the native style flourished—the
pointed-headed opening being only introduced by the Franks when they
occupied this country in the time of Simon de Montfort.
[Illustration: 553. Longitudinal and Cross Section of Fontifroide
Church. (From Taylor and Nodier.)]
The section across the nave (Woodcut 553) shows the form of the central
vault, which the longitudinal section shows to be a plain tunnel-vault
unbroken by any intersection throughout the whole length of the nave.
The side aisles are roofed with half vaults, forming abutments to the
central arches—the advantage of this construction being, as before
explained, that the tiles or paving-stones of the roof rest directly on
the vault without the intervention of any carpentry. Internally also the
building displays much elegant simplicity and constructive propriety.
Its chief defect is the darkness of the vault from the absence of a
clerestory, which though tolerable in the bright sunshine of the South,
could not be borne in the more gloomy North. It was to correct this, as
we shall afterwards perceive, that in the North the roof of the aisles
was first raised to the height of that of the central nave, light being
admitted through a gallery. Next the upper roof the aisles was cut away,
with the exception of mere strips or ribs left as flying buttresses.
Lastly, the central vault was cut up by intersections, so as to obtain
space for windows to the very height of the ridge. It was this last
expedient that necessitated the adoption of the pointed-headed window.
It might never have been introduced but for the invention of painted
glass, but this requiring larger openings, compelled the architects to
bring these windows close up to the lines of the constructive vaulting,
and so follow its forms. In the South, however, painted glass never was,
at least in the age of which we are now speaking, a favourite mode of
decoration, and the windows remained so small as never to approach or
interfere in any way with the lines of the vault, and they therefore
retained their national and more beautiful circular-headed termination.
The modes of introducing light are, however, undoubtedly the most
defective part of the arrangements of the Provençal churches, and have
given rise to its being called a “cavern-like Gothic”[339] from the
gloom of their interiors as compared with the glass walls of their
Northern rivals. Still it by no means follows that this was an inherent
characteristic of the style, which could not have been remedied by
further experience; but it is probable that no ingenuity would ever have
enabled this style to display these enormous surfaces of painted glass,
the introduction of which was, if not the only, at least the principal
motive of all those changes which took place in the Frankish provinces.
[Illustration: 554. Doorway in Church at Maguelonne. (From Renouvier,
‘Monuments de Bas Languedoc.’)]
It would be tedious to attempt to describe the numerous churches of the
11th and 12th centuries which are found in every considerable town in
this province: some of them, however, such as Elne, St. Guillem du
Désert, St. Martin de Landres, Vignogoul, Valmagne, Lodève,[340] &c.,
deserve particular attention, as exemplifying this style, not only in
its earlier forms, but after it had passed into a pointed style, though
differing very considerably from that of the North. Among these there is
no church more interesting than the old fortalice-like church of
Maguelonne, which, from its exposed situation, open to the attacks of
Saracenic corsairs as well as Christian robbers, looks more like a
baronial castle than a peaceful church. One of its doorways shows a
curious admixture of classical, Saracenic, and Gothic taste, which could
only be found here; and as it bears a date (1178), it marks an epoch in
the style to which it belongs.
Had it been completed, the church of St. Gilles would perhaps have been
the most splendid of the province. Its portal has already been spoken
of, and is certainly without a rival; and the lower church, which
belongs to the 11th century, is worthy of its magnificence. It was,
however, either never finished, or was subsequently ruined along with
the upper church, which was commenced in the year 1116 by Raymond IV.,
Count of St. Gilles. This too was probably never completed, or, if it
was, it was ruined in the wars with the Huguenots. Even in its present
state, and though wanting the richness of the earlier examples, it
perhaps surpasses them all in the excellence of its masonry, and the
architectural propriety of all its parts.
Besides these, there is an important church at Valence of the 11th
century, which seems to be an almost expiring effort of the
“cavern-like” style. In other respects it resembles the Northern styles
so much as almost to remove it from the Provençal class. This is even
more true of the cathedral at Vienne, which is nevertheless the largest
and finest of the churches of Provence, but which approaches, both in
style and locality, very closely to the Burgundian churches.
[Illustration: 555. Cathedral, Vienne. (From Wiebeking.) Scale 100 ft.
to 1 in.]
Its plan is extremely simple, having no transept and no aisle trending
round the apse, as is the case with most of the Northern churches. It
consists of three aisles, the central one 35 ft. wide between the piers,
the others 14 ft. The buttresses are internal, as was usual in the
South, forming chapels, and making up the whole width externally to 113
ft. by a length over all of 300, so that it covers somewhere about
30,000 sq. ft. This is only half the dimensions of some of the great
Northern cathedrals, but the absence of transepts, and its generally
judicious proportions, make this church look much larger than it really
is.
The west front and the three western bays are of the 16th century; the
next seven are of an early style of pointed architecture, with
semi-Roman pilasters, which will be described in speaking of Burgundian
architecture, and which belong probably to the 11th or beginning of the
12th century. The apse is ascribed to the year 952, but there are no
drawings on which sufficient dependence can be placed to determine the
date.
Besides this, there is another church, St. André le Bas at Vienne,
belonging to the 11th century, whose tower is one of the most pleasing
instances of this kind of composition in the province, and though
evidently a lineal descendant of the Roman and Italian campaniles,
displays an amount of design seldom met with beyond the Alps.
CIRCULAR CHURCHES.
The round shape seems never to have been a favourite for sacred
buildings in Provence, and consequently was never worked into the apses
of the churches nor became an important adjunct to them. One of the few
examples found is a small baptistery attached to the cathedral at Aix,
either very ancient or built with ancient materials, and now painfully
modernised. At Riez there is a circular detached baptistery, usually,
like the churches at Vaison, called a pagan temple, but evidently of
Christian origin, though the pillars in the interior seem undoubtedly to
have been borrowed from some more ancient and classical edifice. But the
finest of its class is the church at Rieux, probably of the 11th
century. Internally the vault is supported by 4 piers and 3 pillars,
producing an irregularity far from pleasing, and without any apparent
motive.
[Illustration: 556. Plan of Church at Planes. (From Taylor and Nodier.)]
At Planes is another church the plan of which deserves to be quoted, if
not for its merit, at least for its singularity: it is a triangle with
an apse attached to each side, and supporting a circular part
terminating in a plain roof. As a constructive puzzle it is curious, but
it is doubtful how far any legitimate use could be made of such a
_caprice_.
There is, so far as I know, only one triapsal church, that of St. Croix
at Mont Majour near Arles. Built as a sepulchral chapel, it is a
singularly gloomy but appropriate erection; but it is too tall and too
bare to rank high as a building even for such a purpose.
TOWERS.
Provence is far from being rich in towers, which never seem there to
have been favourite forms of architectural display. That of St. André le
Bas at Vienne has already been alluded to, but this at Puissalicon
(Woodcut No. 557) near Béziers is even more typical of the style, and
standing as it now does in solitary grandeur among the ruins of the
church once attached to it, has a dignity seldom possessed by such
monuments. In style it resembles the towers of Italy more than any found
farther north, but it is not without peculiarities that point to a
different mode of elaborating this peculiar feature from anything found
elsewhere. As a design its principal defect seems to be a want of
lightness in the upper storey. The single circular opening there is a
mistake in a building gradually growing lighter towards its summit.
[Illustration: 557. Tower at Puissalicon. (From Renouvier.)]
These towers were very seldom, if ever, attached symmetrically to the
churches. When height was made an object, it was more frequently
attained by carrying up the dome at the intersection of the choir with
the nave. At Arles this is done by a heavy square tower, gradually
diminishing, but still massive to the top; but in most instances the
square becomes an octagon, and this again passes into a circle, which
terminates the composition. One of the best specimens of this class of
domes, if they may be so called, is the church of Cruas (Woodcut No.
558), where these parts are pleasingly subordinated, and form, with the
apses on which they rest, a very beautiful composition. The defect is
the tiled roofs or offsets at the junction of the various storeys, which
give an appearance of weakness, as if the upper parts could slide, like
the joints of a telescope, one into the other. This could easily be
avoided, and probably was so in the original design. If this were done,
we have here the principle of a more pleasing crowning member at an
intersection than was afterwards used in pointed architecture, and
capable of being applied to domes of any extent.
CLOISTERS.
Nearly all, and certainly all the more important churches of which we
have been speaking, were collegiate, and in such establishments the
cloister forms as important a part as the church itself, and frequently
the more beautiful object of the two. In our own cold wet climate the
cloisters lose much of their appropriateness; still, they always were
used, and always with a pleasing effect; but in the warm sunny South
their charm is increased tenfold. The artists seem to have felt this,
and to have devoted a large share of their attention to these objects—
creating, in fact, a new style of architecture for this special purpose.
[Illustration: 558. Church at Cruas. (From Taylor and Nodier.)]
With us the arcades of a cloister are generally, if not always, a range
of unglazed windows, presenting the same features as those of the
church, which, though beautiful when filled with glass, are somewhat out
of place without that indispensable adjunct. In the South the cloister
is never a window, or anything in the least approaching to it in design,
but a range of small and elegant pillars, sometimes single, sometimes
coupled, generally alternately so, and supporting arches of light and
elegant design, all the features being of a character suited to the
place where they are used, and to that only.
[Illustration: 559. Cloister at Fontifroide. (From Taylor and Nodier.)]
[Illustration:
560. 561.
Capitals in Cloister, Elne. (From Taylor and Nodier.)
]
The cloister at Arles has long occupied the attention of travellers and
artists, and perhaps no building, or part of one, in this style has been
so often drawn or so much admired. Two sides of it are of the same age
and in the same style as the porch (Woodcut No. 548), and equally
beautiful. The other two are somewhat later, the columns supporting
pointed instead of round arches. At Aix there is another similar to that
at Arles, and fragments of such colonnades are found in many places.
That of Fontifroide (Woodcut No. 559) is one of the most complete and
perfect, and some of its capitals are treated with a freedom and
boldness, and at the same time with an elegance, not often rivalled
anywhere. They even excel—for the purpose at least—the German capitals
of the same age. Those at Elne are more curious than those of any other
cloister in France, so far as I know—some of them showing so distinct an
imitation of Egyptian work as instantly to strike any one at all
familiar with that style. Yet they are treated with a lightness and
freedom so wholly mediæval as to show that it is possible to copy the
spirit without a servile adherence to the form. Here, as in all the
examples, every capital is different—the artists revelling in freedom
from restraint, and sparing neither time nor pains. We find in these
examples a delicacy of handling and refinement of feeling far more
characteristic of the South than of the ruder North, and must admit that
their architects have in these cloisters produced objects with which
nothing of the kind we have in England can compete.