faults, it cannot be denied that the stucco _does_ take away so much of
the dignity of the building, that, unless we find enough bestowed by its
form and details to counterbalance, and a great deal more than
counterbalance, the deterioration occasioned by tone and material, the
whole edifice must be condemned, as incongruous with the spirit of the
climate, and even with the character of its own gardens and approach. It
remains, therefore, to notice the details themselves. Its form is simple
to a degree; the roof generally quite flat, so as to leave the mass in
the form of a parallelopiped, in general without wings or adjuncts of
any sort. Villa Somma-Riva [Carlotta] is a good example of this general
form and proportion, though it has an arched passage on each side, which
takes away from its massiness. This excessive weight of effect would be
injurious, if the building were set by itself; but, as it always forms
the apex of a series of complicated terraces, it both relieves them and
gains great dignity by its own unbroken simplicity of size. This general
effect of form is not injured, when, as is often the case, an open
passage is left in the center of the building, under tall and
well-proportioned arches, supported by pilasters (never by columns).
Villa Porro, Lago di Como, is a good example of this method. The arches
hardly ever exceed three in number, and these are all of the same size,
so that the crowns of the arches continue the horizontal lines of the
rest of the building. Were the center one higher than the others, these
lines would be interrupted, and a great deal of simplicity lost. The
covered space under these arches is a delightful, shaded, and breezy
retreat in the heat of the day; and the entrance doors usually open into
it, so that a current of cool air is obtainable by throwing them open.
123. The building itself consists of three floors: we remember no
instance of a greater number, and only one or two of fewer. It is, in
general, crowned with a light balustrade, surmounted by statues at
intervals. The windows of the uppermost floor are usually square, often
without any architrave. Those of the principal floor are surrounded with
broad architraves, but are frequently destitute of frieze or cornice.
They have usually flat bands at the bottom, and their aperture is a
double square. Their recess is very deep, so as not to let the sun fall
far into the interior. The interval between them is very variable. In
some of the villas of highest pretensions, such as those on the banks of
the Brenta, that of Isola Bella, and others, which do not face the
south, it is not much more than the breadth of the two architraves, so
that the rooms within are filled with light. When this is the case, the
windows have friezes and cornices. But, when the building fronts the
south, the interval is often very great, as in the case of the Villa
Porro. The ground-floor windows are frequently set in tall arches,
supported on deeply engaged pilasters as in the Villa Somma-Riva. The
door is not large, and never entered by high steps, as it generally
opens on a terrace of considerable height, or on a wide landing-place at
the head of a flight of fifty or sixty steps descending through the
gardens.
124. Now, it will be observed, that, in these general forms, though
there is no splendor, there is great dignity. The lines throughout are
simple to a degree, entirely uninterrupted by decorations of any kind,
so that the beauty of their proportions is left visible and evident. We
shall see hereafter that ornament in Grecian architecture, while, when
well managed, it always adds to its grace, invariably takes away from
its majesty; and that these two attributes never can exist together in
their highest degrees. By the utter absence of decoration, therefore,
the Italian villa, possessing, as it usually does, great beauty of
proportion, attains a degree of elevation of character, which impresses
the mind in a manner which it finds difficult to account for by any
consideration of its simple details or moderate size; while, at the same
time, it lays so little claim to the attention, and is so subdued in its
character, that it is enabled to occupy a conspicuous place in a
landscape, without any appearance of intrusion. The glance of the
beholder rises from the labyrinth of terrace and arbor beneath, almost
weariedly; it meets, as it ascends, with a gradual increase of bright
marble and simple light, and with a proportionate diminution of dark
foliage and complicated shadow, till it rests finally on a piece of
simple brilliancy, chaste and unpretending, yet singularly dignified;
and does not find its color too harsh, because its form is so simple:
for color of any kind is only injurious when the eye is too much
attracted to it; and, when there is so much quietness of detail as to
prevent this misfortune, the building will possess the cheerfulness,
without losing the tranquillity, and will seem to have been erected, and
to be inhabited, by a mind of that beautiful temperament wherein modesty
tempers majesty, and gentleness mingles with rejoicing, which, above all
others, is most suited to the essence, and most interwoven with the
spirit, of the natural beauty whose peculiar power is invariably repose.
125. So much for its general character. Considered by principles of
composition, it will also be found beautiful. Its prevailing lines are
horizontal; and every artist knows that, where peaks of any kind are in
sight, the lines above which they rise ought to be flat. It has not one
acute angle in all its details, and very few intersections of verticals
with horizontals; while all that do intersect seem useful as supporting
the mass. The just application of the statues at the top is more
doubtful, and is considered reprehensible by several high authorities,
who, nevertheless, are inconsistent enough to let the balustrade pass
uncalumniated, though it is objectionable on exactly the same grounds;
for, if the statues suggest the inquiry of "What are they doing there?"
the balustrade compels its beholder to ask, "whom it keeps from tumbling
over?"
126. The truth is, that the balustrade and statues derive their origin
from a period when there was easy access to the roof of either temple or
villa; (that there was such access is proved by a passage in the
_Iphigenia Taurica_, line 113, where Orestes speaks of getting up to the
triglyphs of a Doric temple as an easy matter;) and when the flat roofs
were used, not, perhaps, as an evening promenade, as in Palestine, but
as a place of observation, and occasionally of defense. They were
composed of large flat slabs of stone ([Greek: keramos,[20]]) peculiarly
adapted for walking, one or two of which, when taken up, left an opening
of easy access into the house, as in Luke v. 19, and were perpetually
used in Greece as missile weapons, in the event of a hostile attack or
sedition in the city, by parties of old men, women, and children, who
used, as a matter of course, to retire to the roof as a place of
convenient defense. By such attacks from the roof with the [Greek:
keramos] the Thebans were thrown into confusion in Platæa (_Thucydides_
ii. 4.). So, also, we find the roof immediately resorted to in the case
of the starving of Pausanias in the Temple of Minerva of the Brazen
House, and in that of the massacre of the aristocratic party at Corcyra
(_Thucydides_ iv. 48):--[Greek: Anabantes de epi to tegos tou oikêmatos,
kai dielontes tên orophên, eballon tô keramô].
[Footnote 20: In the large buildings, that is: [Greek: keramos] also
signifies earthen tiling, and sometimes earthenware in general, as in
_Herodotus_ iii. 6 [where it is used of earthen jars of wine.] It
appears that such tiling was frequently used in smaller edifices. The
Greeks may have derived their flat roofs from Egypt. Herodotus mentions
of the Labyrinth of the Twelve Kings, that [Greek: horophê de pantôn
toutôn lithinê], but not as if the circumstance were in the least
extraordinary [_Herodotus_ ii. 148.]]
127. Now, where the roof was thus a place of frequent resort, there
could be no more useful decoration than a balustrade; nor one more
appropriate or beautiful than occasional statues in attitudes of
watchfulness, expectation, or observation: and even now, wherever the
roof is flat, we have an idea of convenience and facility of access,
which still renders the balustrade agreeable, and the statue beautiful,
if well designed. It must not be a figure of perfect peace or repose;
far less should it be in violent action: but it should be fixed in that
quick, startled stillness, which is the result of intent observation or
expectation, and which seems ready to start into motion every instant.
Its height should be slightly colossal, as it is always to be seen
against the sky; and its draperies should not be too heavy, as the eye
will always expect them to be caught by the wind. We shall enter into
this subject, however, more fully hereafter. We only wish at present to
vindicate from the charge of impropriety one of the chief features of
the Italian villa. Its white figures, always marble, remain entirely
unsullied by the weather, and stand out with great majesty against the
blue air behind them, taking away from the heaviness, without destroying
the simplicity, of the general form.
128. It seems then that, by its form and details, the villa of the Lago
di Como attains so high a degree of elevation of character, as not only
brings it into harmony of its _locus_, without any assistance from
appearance of antiquity, but may, we think, permit it to dispense even
with solidity of material, and appear in light summer stucco, instead of
raising itself in imperishable marble. And this conclusion, which is
merely theoretical, is verified by fact: for we remember no instance,
except in cases where poverty had overpowered pretension, or decay had
turned rejoicing into silence, in which the lightness of the material
was offensive to the feelings; in all cases, it is agreeable to the eye.
Where it is allowed to get worn, and discolored, and broken, it induces
a wretched mockery of the dignified form which it preserves; but, as
long as it is renewed at proper periods, and watched over by the eye of
its inhabitant, it is an excellent and easily managed medium of effect.
129. With all the praise, however, which we have bestowed upon it, we do
not say that the villa of the Larian Lake is perfection; indeed we
cannot say so, until we have compared it with a few other instances,
chiefly to be found in Italy, on whose soil we delay, as being the
native country of the villa, properly so-called, and as ever yet being
almost the only spot of Europe where any good specimens of it are to be
found; for we do not understand by the term "villa" a cubic erection,
with one window on each side of a verdant door, and three on the second
and uppermost story, such as the word suggests to the fertile
imagination of ruralizing cheesemongers; neither do we understand the
quiet and unpretending country house of a respectable gentleman; neither
do we understand such a magnificent mass of hereditary stone as
generally forms the autumn retreat of an English noble; but we
understand the light but elaborate summer habitation, raised however and
wherever it pleases his fancy, by some individual of great wealth and
influence, who can enrich it with every attribute of beauty; furnish it
with every appurtenance of pleasure; and repose in it with the dignity
of a mind trained to exertion or authority. Such a building could not
exist in Greece, where every district a mile and a quarter square was
quarreling with all its neighbors. It could exist, and did exist, in
Italy, where the Roman power secured tranquillity, and the Roman
constitution distributed its authority among a great number of
individuals, on whom, while it raised them to a position of great
influence, and, in its later times, of wealth, it did not bestow the
power of raising palaces or private fortresses. The villa was their
peculiar habitation, their only resource, and a most agreeable one;
because the multitudes of the kingdom being, for a long period, confined
to a narrow territory, though ruling the world, rendered the population
of the city so dense, as to drive out its higher ranks to the
neighboring hamlets of Tibur and Tusculum.
130. In other districts of Europe the villa is not found, because in
very perfect monarchies, as in Austria, the power is thrown chiefly into
the hands of a few, who build themselves palaces, not villas; and in
perfect republics, as in Switzerland, the power is so split among the
multitude, that nobody can build himself anything. In general, in
kingdoms of great extent, the country house becomes the permanent and
hereditary habitation; and the villas are all crowded together, and form
gingerbread rows in the environs of the capital; and, in France and
Germany, the excessively disturbed state of affairs in the Middle Ages
compelled every baron or noble to defend himself, and retaliate on his
neighbors as he best could, till the villa was lost in the château and
the fortress; and men now continue to build as their forefathers built
(and long may they do so), surrounding the domicile of pleasure with a
moat and a glacis, and guarding its garret windows with turrets and
towers: while, in England, the nobles, comparatively few, and of great
power, inhabit palaces, not villas; and the rest of the population is
chiefly crowded into cities, in the activity of commerce, or dispersed
over estates in that of agriculture; leaving only one grade of gentry,
who have neither the taste to desire, nor the power to erect, the villa,
properly so-called.
131. We must not, therefore, be surprised if, on leaving Italy, where
the crowd of poverty-stricken nobility can still repose their pride in
the true villa, we find no farther examples of it worthy of
consideration; though we hope to have far greater pleasure in
contemplating its substitutes, the château and the fortress. We must be
excused, therefore, for devoting one paper more to the state of villa
architecture in Italy; after which we shall endeavor to apply the
principles we shall have deduced to the correction of some abuses in the
erection of English country houses, in cases where scenery would demand
beauty of design and wealth permit finish of decoration.
III.
THE ITALIAN VILLA (Concluded).
132. We do not think there is any truth in the aphorism, now so
frequently advanced in England, that the adaptation of shelter to the
corporal comfort of the human race is the original and true end of the
art of architecture, properly so-called: for, were such the case, he
would be the most distinguished architect who was best acquainted with
the properties of cement, with the nature of stone, and the various
durability of wood. That such knowledge is necessary to the perfect
architect we do not deny; but it is no more the end and purpose of his
application, than a knowledge of the alphabet is the object of the
refined scholar, or of rhythm of the inspired poet.
133. For, supposing that we were for a moment to consider that we built
a house _merely_ to be lived in, and that the whole bent of our
invention, in raising the edifice, is to be directed to the provision of
comfort for the life to be spent therein; supposing that we build it
with the most perfect dryness and coolness of cellar, the most luxurious
appurtenances of pantry; that we build our walls with the most compacted
strength of material, the most studied economy of space; that we leave
not a chink in the floor for a breath of wind to pass through, not a
hinge in the door, which, by any possible exertion of its irritable
muscles, could creak; that we elevate our chambers into exquisite
coolness, furnish them with every attention to the maintenance of
general health, as well as the prevention of present inconvenience: to
do all this, we must be possessed of great knowledge and various skill;
let this knowledge and skill be applied with the greatest energy, and
what have they done? Exactly as much as brute animals can do by mere
instinct; nothing more than bees and beavers, moles and magpies, ants
and earwigs, do every day of their lives, without the slightest effort
of reason; we have made ourselves superior as architects to the most
degraded animation of the universe, only insomuch as we have lavished
the highest efforts of intellect, to do what they have done with the
most limited sensations that can constitute life.
134. The mere preparation of convenience, therefore, is not architecture
in which man can take pride, or ought to take delight;[21] but the high
and ennobling art of architecture is that of giving to buildings, whose
parts are determined by necessity, such forms and colors as shall
delight the mind, by preparing it for the operations to which it is to
be subjected in the building: and thus, as it is altogether to the mind
that the work of the architect is addressed, it is not as a part of his
art, but as a limitation of its extent, that he must be acquainted with
the minor principles of the economy of domestic erections. For this
reason, though we shall notice every class of edifice, it does not come
within our proposed plan, to enter into any detailed consideration of
the inferior buildings of each class, which afford no scope for the play
of the imagination by their nature or size; but we shall generally
select the most perfect and beautiful examples, as those in which alone
the architect has the power of fulfilling the high purposes of his art.
In the villa, however, some exception must be made, inasmuch as it will
be useful, and perhaps interesting, to arrive at some fixed conclusions
respecting the modern buildings, improperly called villas, raised by
moderate wealth, and of limited size, in which the architect is
compelled to produce his effect without extent or decoration. The
principles which we have hitherto arrived at, deduced as they are from
edifices of the noblest character, will be but of little use to a
country gentleman, about to insinuate himself and his habitation into a
quiet corner of our lovely country; and, therefore, we must glance at
the more humble homes of the Italian, preparatory to the consideration
of what will best suit our own less elevated scenery.
[Footnote 21: [Compare "The Seven Lamps of Architecture," chap. i. §
1.]]
135. First, then, we lose the terraced approach, or, at least, its size
and splendor, as these require great wealth to erect them, and perpetual
expense to preserve them. For the chain of terraces we find substituted
a simple garden, somewhat formally laid out; but redeemed from the
charge of meanness by the nobility and size attained by most of its
trees; the line of immense cypresses which generally surrounds it in
part, and the luxuriance of the vegetation of its flowering shrubs. It
has frequently a large entrance gate, well designed, but carelessly
executed; sometimes singularly adorned with fragments of ancient
sculpture, regularly introduced, which the spectator partly laments, as
preserved in a mode so incongruous with their ancient meaning, and
partly rejoices over, as preserved at all. The grottoes of the superior
garden are here replaced by light ranges of arched summerhouses,
designed in stucco, and occasionally adorned in their interior with
fresco paintings of considerable brightness and beauty.
136. All this, however, has very little effect in introducing the eye to
the villa itself, owing to the general want of inequality of level in
the ground, so that the main building becomes an independent feature,
instead of forming the apex of a mass of various architecture.
Consequently, the weight of form which in the former case it might, and
even ought to, possess, would here be cumbrous, ugly, and improper; and
accordingly we find it got rid of. This is done, first by the addition
of the square tower, a feature which is not allowed to break in upon the
symmetry of buildings of high architectural pretensions; but is
immediately introduced, whenever less richness of detail, or variety of
approach, demands or admits of irregularity of form. It is a constant
and most important feature in Italian landscape; sometimes high and
apparently detached, as when it belongs to sacred edifices; sometimes
low and strong, united with the mass of the fortress, or varying the
form of the villa. It is always simple in its design, flat-roofed, its
corners being turned by very slightly projecting pilasters, which are
carried up the whole height of the tower, whatever it may be, without
any regard to proportion, terminating in two arches on each side, in the
villa most frequently filled up, though their curve is still
distinguished by darker tint and slight relief. Two black holes on each
side, near the top, are very often the only entrances by which light or
sun can penetrate. These are seldom actually large, always
proportionably small, and destitute of ornament or relief.
137. The forms of the villas to which these towers are attached are
straggling, and varied by many crossing masses; but the great principle
of simplicity is always kept in view; everything is square, and
terminated by parallel lines; no tall chimneys, no conical roofs, no
fantastic ornaments are ever admitted: the arch alone is allowed to
relieve the stiffness of the general effect. This is introduced
frequently, but not in the windows, which are either squares or double
squares, at great distances from each other, set deeply into the walls
and only adorned with broad flat borders. Where more light is required
they are set moderately close, and protected by an outer line of arches,
deep enough to keep the noonday sun from entering the rooms. These lines
of arches cast soft shadows along the bright fronts, and are otherwise
of great value. Their effect is pretty well seen in fig. 10; a piece
which, while it has no distinguished beauty is yet pleasing by its
entire simplicity; and peculiarly so, when we know that simplicity to
have been chosen (some say, built) for its last and lonely habitation,
by a mind of softest passion as of purest thought; and to have sheltered
its silent old age among the blue and quiet hills, till it passed away
like a deep lost melody from the earth, leaving a light of peace about
the gray tomb at which the steps of those who pass by always falter, and
around this deserted, and decaying, and calm habitation of the thoughts
of the departed; Petrarch's, at Arquà. A more familiar instance of the
application of these arches is the Villa of Mecænas at Tivoli, though it
is improperly styled a villa, being pretty well known to have been
nothing but stables.
138. The buttress is the only remaining point worthy of notice. It
prevails to a considerable extent among the villas of the south, being
always broad and tall, and occasionally so frequent as to give the
building, viewed laterally, a pyramidal and cumbrous effect. The most
usual form is that of a simple sloped mass, terminating in the wall,
without the slightest finishing, and rising at an angle of about 84°.
Sometimes it is perpendicular, sloped at the top into the wall; but it
never has steps of increasing projection as it goes down. By observing
the occurrence of these buttresses, an architect, who knew nothing of
geology, might accurately determine the points of most energetic
volcanic action in Italy; for their use is to protect the building from
the injuries of earthquakes, the Italian having far too much good taste
to use them, except in cases of extreme necessity. Thus, they are never
found in North Italy, even in the fortresses. They begin to occur among
the Apennines, south of Florence; they become more and more frequent and
massy towards Rome; in the neighborhood of Naples they are huge and
multitudinous, even the walls themselves being sometimes sloped; and the
same state of things continues as we go south, on the coast of Calabria
and Sicily.