COLLEGE HISTORIES OF ART
EDITED BY
JOHN C. VAN DYKE, I..H.D.
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
A. D. F. HAMLIN
COLLEGE HISTORIES OF ART
EDITED BY
JOHN C. VAN DYKE, L.H.D.
PxOFKSSOk OF THE HlSTORY OF ART IN RfTGERS
College
HISTORY OF PAINTING By John C. Van Dyke, the Editor of the Series. With Frontispiece and no Illustrations, Bibliographies, and Index. Crown 8vo, $1.50.
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE By Alfred D. F. Hamlin, A.M.. Adjunct Professor of Architecture. Columbia College. New York. With Frontispiece and 2^9 Illustrations and Diagrams, Bibli- ographies, Glossary- Index of Architects, and a General Index. Crown 8vo, $2.00.
HISTORY OF SCULPTURE
By Allan Marquand. Ph.D.. L.H.D.. and Artmir L. Frothingham, Jr., Ph.D.. Professors of Archseology and the History of Art in Princeton University. With Frontispiece and 112 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, fi.jc
M =
A TEXT-BOOK
OF THE
History of Architecture
A. D. F. HAMLIN, A.M.
ADJUNCT-PROFESSOR OF ARCHITECTURE IN THE SCHOOL OF MINES, COLUMBIA COLLEGE
/ 6>5b 0
SEVENTH EDITION
NEW YORK LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
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PREFACE.
The aim of this work has been to sketch the various periods and styles of architecture with the broadest possi- ble strokes, and to mention, with such brief characterization as seemed permissible or necessary, the most important works of each period or style. Extreme condensation in presenting the leading facts of architectural history has been necessary, and much that would rightly claim place in a larger work has been omitted here. The dan- ger was felt to be rather in the direction of too much detail than of too little. While the book is intended primarily to meet the special requirements of the college student, those of the general reader have not been lost sight of. The majority of the technical terms used are defined or explained in the context, and the small remain- der in a glossary at the end of the work. Extended criti- cism and minute description were out of the question, and discussion of controverted points has been in consequence as far as possible avoided.
The illustrations have been carefully prepared with a view to elucidating the text, rather than for pictorial effect. With the exception of some fifteen cuts repro- duced from Liibke's Geschichte der Architektur (by kind per- mission of Messrs. Seemann, of Leipzig), the illustrations are almost all entirely new. A large number are from
VI PREFACE.
original drawings made by myself, or under my direction, and the remainder are, with a few exceptions, half-tone reproductions prepared specially for this work from photo- graphs in my possession. Acknowledgments are due to Messrs. H. W. Buemming, H. D. Bultman, and A. E. Weidinger for valued assistance in preparing original draw- ings; and to Professor W. R. Ware, to Professor W. H. Thomson, M.D., and to the Editor of the Series for much helpful criticism and suggestion.
It is hoped that the lists of monuments appended to the history of each period down to the present century may prove useful for reference, both to the student and the general reader, as a supplement to the body of the text.
A. D. F. Hami.in.
Columbia College, New York, January 20, 1896.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
Preface v
List of Illustrations xi
General Bibliography xix
Introduction . xxi
CHAPTER I.
Primitive and Prehistoric Architecture . . i
CHAPTER II.
Egyptian Architecture 6
CHAPTER III.
Egyptian Architecture, Continued 16
CHAPTER IV. Chaldean and Assyrian Architecture ..... 28
CHAPTER V. Persian, Lycian, and Jewish Architecture .... 35
CHAPTER VI. \ / - Greek Architecture ....
vii
Mil TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VII. PACK
Greek Architecture, Continued 60
CHAPTER VIII. Roman Architecture 74
CHAPTER IX. Roman Architecture, Continued -88
CHAPTER X.
Early Christian Ar< iiiii.< 11 ke 1 ic
CHAPTER XI.
Byzantine Architecture 120
CHAPTER XII.
N AM) MOHAMMEDAN Ak< II I I H I I KK — ARABIAN, MORRSQI K, PERSIAN, INDIAN, AND TURKISH . . . I35
CHAPTER XIII. Early Mrdlcval Archito n re in Italy and Fran . 155
CHAPTER xiv.
Early Mki.i v.vai. ARCHITECTVES IN GERMANY, GrRAT BRITAIN,
AND MAIN .......... wi
I H A ITER XV. GOTHK Architecture r»2
CHAPTER XVI. Gothic Architecture in 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS. IX
CHAPTER XVII. PACE
Gothic Architecture in Great Britain .... 218
CHAPTER XVIII.
x/<3othic Architecture in Germany, the Netherlands, and
Spain 237
CHAPTER XIX. x/Gothic Architecture in Italy 254
CHAPTER XX. Early Renaissance Architecture in Italy .... 2^0
*3
CHAPTER XXI.
Renaissance Architecture in Italy — The Advanced Renais- sance and Decline 288
CHAPTER XXII. Renaissance Architecture in France . . . . . 308
CHAPTER XXIII.
Renaissance Architecture in Great Britain and the
Netherlands 326
CHAPTER XXIV. Renaissance Architecture in Germany, Spain, and Portu- gal 338
^TMPTfjP VVTr Tie Classic Revivals in Europe . _^D .... 354
X TABLE OF CONTEN IS.
CHAPTER XXVI. PAGr
Rkcent Architecture in Europe 368
LllAl'lllk .IM4L Architecture in the United States . ^. . . .383
CHAPTER XXVIII. Oriental Architecture — India, China, and Japan . . 401
Glossary 427
Index of Architects 419
Index 423
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
The authorship of the original drawings is indicated by the in tials affixed : A. = drawings by the author ; B. = H. \V. Buemming ; Bn. = II. 1). Bultman ; Ch. ss Chateau, L Architecture en France ; G. = drawings adapted from Gwilt's Encyclopaedia of Architecture ,• L. = Ltibke's Ge- schichte der Arckitektur ; W. = A. E. Weidinger. All other illustra- tions are from photographs.
Frontispiece. The Parthenon Restored (from model in Metro- politan Museum, New York) i Section of Great Pyramid (A.)
2 Section of King's Chamber (A.)
3 Plan of Sphinx Temple (A.)
4 Ruins of Sphinx Temple (A.)
5 Tomb at Abydos (A.)
6 Tomb at Beni-Hassan (A.) *.
7 Section and Half-plan of same (A.)
8 Plan of the Ramesseum (A.)
9 Temple of Edfou. Plan (B.) io Temple of Edfou. Section (B.) .
11 Temple of Karnak. Plan (L.) .
12 Central Portion of Hypostyle Hall at Karnak (from model in Met
ropolitan Museum, New York)
13 Great Temple of Ipsamboul
14 Edfou. Front of Hypostyle Hall
15 Osirid Pier (Medinet Abou) (A.)
16 Types of Column (A.)
17 Egyptian Floral Ornament-Forms (A.)
18 Palace of Sargon at Khorsabad. Plan (L.)
19 Gate, Khorsabad (A.)
20 Assyrian Ornament (A.)
21 Column from Persepolis (B.)
22 Lion Gate at Mycenae (A.)
xi
8 9 9 10 11 11 12 M 17 17 18
20 21
23 24 25 26
30 32 34 37 44
Xll
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
23 Polygonal Masonry, Mycenae (A.)
24 Tholos of Atreus ; Plan and Section (A.) .
25 Tholos of Atreus, Doorway (after Clarke) (A. 1
26 Greek Doric Order (A.) ....
27 Doric Order of the Parthenon. (From cast in
seum, New York) ....
28 Greek Ionic Order, Miletus (A.)
29 Side View of Ionic Capital (B.) .
30 Greek Corinthian Order (A.)
31 Types of Greek Temple Plans (A.) .
32 Carved Anthemion Ornament, Athens
33 Temple of Zeus, Agrigentum ; Plan (A.) .
34 Ruins of the Parthenon ....
35 Plan of the Erechtheum (A.)
36 West End of the Erechtheum (A.)
37 Propylaea at Athens. Plan ((J.)
38 Choragic Monument of Lysicrates. (From model in
tan Museum, New York)
39 Temple of Olympian Zeus, Athens. Plan (A.)
40 Plan < if (i reek Theatre (A.)
41 Mausoleum at 1 lalicarnassus ( A. )
42 Roman Doric Order from Theatre of Manellus.
Metropolitan Museum, New York)
43 Roman Ionic Order (A.) ....
44 Roman Corinthian Order. (FrOB model in
seum, New York) ....
45 Roman Arcade with Engaged Columns (A ) 40 liarrel Vault (A.)
■ >ined Vault (A.) 48 Roman Wall Masonry (P.) 40. Roman Carved Ornament (Lnteraa Moaeum)
JO Roman Ceiling Panels (A.)
-1 I emple of Tort una Yirilis. Plan
-2 1 ircular Temple. Tivoli (A.)
53 Temple of Venus anil Rome. Plan (A.) .
54 Plan of the Pantheon ( P. 1 .
55 Interior of the Pantheon ....
56 Exterior of the Pantheon. (Model in Metro
New York) .....
-rum and Basilica of Trajan (A.)
Metropolitan Mu
M
Metropol
(Model i
etropolitan Mu
97
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Xlll
Rome (
58 BasiHca of Constantine. Plan (G.)
59 Ruins of Basilica of Constantine
60 Central Block, Therma; of Caracalla. Plan (G
61 Roman Theatre, Herculanum
62 Colosseum at Rome. Half Plan (A.)
63 Arch of Constantine. (Model in Metropolitan Museum
York)
64 Palace of Diocletian, Spalato. Plan (G.) .
65 Plan of House of Pansa, Pompeii (A.)
66 Plan of Santa Costanza, Rome (A.) .
67 Plan of the Basilica of St. Paul-beyond-the-Wall
68 St. Paul-beyond-the-Walls. Interior
69 Church at Kalb Louzeh (A.)
70 Cathedral at Bozrah. Plan (A.)
71 Diagram of Pendentives (A.) .
72 Spandril, Hagia Sophia ....
73 Capital with Impost-Block, S. Vitale
74 Plan of St. Sergius, Constantinople (A.)
75 Plan of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople (A.)
76 Section of Hagia Sophia (A.)
77 Interior of Hagia Sophia (full page) .
78 Plan of St. Mark's, Venice (A.) .
79 Interior of St. Mark's ....
80 Mosque of Sultan Hassan, Cairo. Sanctuary
81 Mosque of Kaid Bey, Cairo
82 Moorish Detail, Alhambra
83 Interior of Great Mosque, Cordova .
84 Plan of the Alhambra (A.) . .
85 Tomb of Mahmud, Bijapur. Section (A.) .
86 The Taj Mahal, Agra ....
87 Mosque of Mehmet II., Constantinople. Plan (L.) S8 Exterior of Ahmediyeh Mosque, Constantinople
89 Interior of Suleimaniyeh Mosque, Constantinople
90 Interior of San Ambrogio, Milan
91 West Front and Campanile, Cathedral of Piacenza
92 Baptistery, Cathedral, and Leaning Tower, Pisa
93 Interior of Pisa Cathedral ....
94 Plan of St. Front, Perigueux (G.)
95 Interior of St. Front (P.) . ...
96 Plan of Notre Dame du Port, Clermont (Ch.)
A.)
New
TACK
98
99
100 101 102
104 106 107 in
"3 114 116
"7
123
125 126 127 128 128 129 132 133 137 139 141 142 144 147 M9 151 152 153 157 158 160 161 164 165 166
XIV
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
97 Section of same (Ch.) .....
98 A Six-part Ribbed Vault (A.)
99 Plan of Minster at Worms (G.) . . .
100 One Bay, Cathedral oi Spires (L.) . .
101 East End, Church of the Apostles, Cologne . X02 Plan of Durham Cathedral (Bn.)
103 One Bay, Transept of Winchester Cathedral (G.)
104 Front of Iffley Church (A.) ....
105 Constructive System of Gothic Church (A.)
106 Plan of Sainte Chapelle, Paris (Bn.) i<>7 Early Gothic Flying Buttress (Bn.)
108 Ribbed Vault, English Type (Bn. after Bebcock)
109 Penetrations and Intersections of Vaults (Bn.) .
110 Plate Tracery, Charlton-on-Oxmore
111 Bar Tracer), St. Michael's, Warfield (W.)
112 Rose Window from St. Ouen, Rouen (G.)
113 Flamboyant Detail, Strasburg
114 Early Gothic Carving (A.) ....
115 Carving, Decorated Period, from Southwell Minster
116 Plan of Notre Dame, Paris (L.)
117 Interior of Notre Dame ....
118 Interior of I. e Mans Cathedral
1 1 «> Vaulting with Zigzag Kidge Joints (A.) . 190 One Bay, Abbey of St. Denis (G.)
121 The Sainte Chapelle, Paris. Exterior
122 Amiens Cathedral ; Plan (G.)
123 Alby Cathedral. Plan (A. after I.iibke) .
124 West Front of Notre Dame, Paris .
125 West Front of St M.kIou, Kouen .
ij'. French Gothic Capitate (A.) ....
127 House of |;i< ijiics ( 11 tir, BourgCS (L.)
128 Plan of Salisbury Cathedral (Bn.) .
129 Ribbed Vaulting, Choir of Fxeter Cathedral 1 ;■ . I iemc Vaulting, Tewkesbury Ablwy
131 Vault of Chapter Mouse, Wells
132 Cloister* of SalJaboty Cathedral
133 Perpendicular . Windsor
134 West Front, Lichfield < etbedral
135 0 Choir, Lichfield Cathedral {A )
136 Pan Vaulting, Henry VIL's Chapel
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
XV
137 Eastern Part, Westminster Abbey Plan (L.)
138 Roof of Nave, .St. Mary's, Westonzoyland (W.)
139 One Bay, Cathedral of St. George, Limburg (L.
140 Section of St. Elizabeth, Marburg (Bn.)
141 Cologne Cathedral, Plan (('..)
142 Church of Our Lady, Treves (L.)
143 Plan of Ulm Cathedral (L.) .
144 Town Hall, Louvain .
145 Facade of Burgos Cathedral
146 Detail from S. Gregorio, Valladolid
147 Duomo at Florence, Plan (G.)
148 Duomo at Florence. Nave
149 One Bay, Cathedral of S. Martino, Lucca (L. )
150 Interior of Sienna Cathedral
151 Facade of Sienna Cathedral
152 Exterior of the Certosa, Pavia
153 Plan of the Certosa, Pavia
154 Upper Part of Campanile, Florence
155 Upper Part of Palazzo Vecchio, Florence
156 Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence
157 West Front of Doge's Palace, Venice
158 Capital, Palazzo Zorzi, Venice
159 Section of Dome, Duomo of Florence (Bn.)
160 Exterior of Dome, Duomo of Florence
161 Interior of S. Spirito, Florence
162 Court of Riccardi Palace, Florence
163 Facade of Strozzi Palace, Florence
164 Tomb of Pietro di Noceto, Lucca
165 Vendramini Palace, Venice
166 Facade of Giraud Palace, Rome (L.)
167 Plan of Farnese Palace, Rome (L.)
168 Court of Farnese Palace, Rome
169 Bramante's Plan for St. Peter's, Rome (L.)
1 70 Plan of St. Peter's, Rome, as now standing (Bn
171 Interior of St. Peter's (full page)
172 Library of St. Mark, Venice .
173 Interior of San Severo, Naples
174 Church of Santa Maria della Salute, Napl
175 Court Facade, East Wing of Blois .
176 Staircase Tower, Blois
after G.)
XVI
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
177 Plan of Chateau of Chambord (A.)
178 Upper Part of Chateau of Chambord
179 Detail of Court of Louvre, southwest portion
180 The Luxemburg Palace, Paris
181 Colonnade of the Louvre
182 Dome of the Invalides, Paris .
183 Facade of St. Sulpice, Paris
184 Burghley House 1S5 Whitehall Palace. The Banqueting Hall
186 Plan of St. Paul's Cathedral, London (G.)
187 Exterior of St. Paul's Cathedral
188 Plan of Blenheim (G.) .
189 St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, London .
190 Renaissance Houses, Bntndl
191 The Castle, Hamelschenburg
192 The Friedrichsbau, Heidelberg Castle
193 Pavilion of Zwinger Palace, Dresden 104 Marienkirche, Dresden t-h Portal of University, Salamanca
196 Court (Patio) of Casa de Zaporta
197 Palace of Charles V. , Granada
1 cade of British Museum, London St George's Hall, Liverpool . 200 The Old Museum. Berlin I he Propylcea, Munich
202 Plan of the Pantheon, 1
203 Exterior of the Pantheon
204 Arch of Triumph of I'Etoile, Paris
! he Madeleine, P .
«>r of Kcole des Beaux-Art 1 . Isaac's Cathedral, St. Petersburg 208 Plan of Ixmvre and Tuik-ric- \ilion Richelieu, Louvre
210 Grand Stain I 'jx-ra HottM
211 fountain of I.ongchampN. Marseilles
.'ii«'-ra Museum. Paris . val Theatre, Dresden
214 Maria- Theresienhof. Vienna
215 Houses of Parliament. London
OOrtS, Manchester
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XV11
PAGE
217 Natural History Museum, South Kensington .... 381
21 8 Christ Church, Philadelphia 386
219 Craigie House, Cambridge (Mass.) 387
220 National Capitol, Washington ....... 389
221 Custom House, New York ...".... 390
222 Trinity Church, Boston 394
223 Public Library, Woburn (Mass.) 395
224 Times Building, New York 396
225 Country House (Mass.) 398
226 Porch of Temple of Vimalah Sah, Mount Abu .... 406
227 Tower of Victory, Chittore 407
228 Double Temple at Hullabid : Detail 410
229 Shrine of Soubramanya, Tanjore 412
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY.
(This includes the leading architectural works treating of more than one period or style. The reader should consult also the special references at the head of each chapter. Valuable material is also contained in the leading architectural periodicals and in monographs too numerous to mention.)
Dictionaries and Encyclopedias.
Agincourt, History of Art by its Monuments ; London.
Architectural Publication Society, Dictionary of Architecture; London.
Bosc, Dictionnaire raisonne d 'architecture ; Paris.
Durm and others, Handbuch der Architektur ; Stuttgart. (This is an encyclopedic compendium of architectural knowl- edge in many volumes ; the series not yet complete. It is referred to as the Hdbuch. d. Arch.)
Gwilt, Encyclopedia of Architecture ; London.
Longfellow and Frothingham, Cyclopedia of A rchitecture in Italy and the Levant ; New York.
Planat, Encyclope'die d' architecture ; Paris.
Sturgis, Dictionary of Architecture and Building ; New York.
General Handbooks and Histories.
Biihlmann, Die Architektur des klassischen Alterthums und der Renaissance ; Stuttgart. (Also in English, published in New York.)
Choisy, Histoire de I' 'architecture ; Paris.
Durand, Recueil et parallele d 'edifices de tous genres ; Paris.
Fergusson, History of Architecture in All Countries ; London.
Fletcher and Fletcher, A History of Architecture ; London.
xix
XX GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gaflhaband, L' Architecture du Vine, an XVI lime. Steele; Paris. — Monuments anciens et modernes ; Paris.
Kugler, Gcschichte der Baukunst; Stuttgart.
Longfellow, The Column and the Arch ; New York.
Liibke, Gcschichte der Architektur ; Leipzig. — History of Art, tr. and rev. by R. Sturgis ; New York.
Perry, Chronology of Mediaeval and Renaissance A rchitecturt ; Ix>ndon.
Reynaud, Traits d 'architecture ; Paris.
Rosengarten, Handbook of Architectural Styles ; Ixmdon and New York.
Simpson, A History of Architectural Development; Jondon.
Spiers, Architecture East and West; I<ondon.
Stratham, Architecture for General Readers ; London.
Sturgis, European Architecture ; New York.
Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects ; London.
Viollet-le-Duc, Discourses on Architecture ; Boston.
Theory, the OxonSj Etc
Chambers, A Treatise on Civil Architecture ; Ixjndon.
Daviler, Cours d' 'architecture de Vignole ; Paris.
l.vjuie, Traiti itimentaire d' architecture ; Paris. /*
(iuadet, Thiorie de I 'architecture ; Paris. ,
Robinson, Principles of Architectural Composition; New ,. York.
Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture ; I/>ndon. ^
StalgM, //,>,-<• to Judge Architecture ; New York.
Tuckerman, Vi\rnola, the Five Orders of Architecture ; New York.
Yan Brunt, Greek Lines and Other Essays ; Boston.
Yan Pelt, A Discussion of Composition.
Ware, The American Vignola ; Sr ran ton.
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
INTRODUCTION.
A history of architecture is a record of man's efforts to build beautifully. The erection of structures devoid of beauty is mere building, a trade and not an art. Edifices in which strength and stability alone are sought, and in designing which only utilitarian considerations have been followed, are properly works of engineering. Only when the idea of beauty is added to that of use does a structure take its place among works of architecture. We may, then, define architecture as the art which seeks to harmonize in a building the requirements of utility and of beauty. It is ^ the most useful of the fine arts and the noblest of the use- ' ful arts. It touches the life of man at every point. It is s^ concerned not only in sheltering his person and ministering • to his comfort, but also in providing him with places for Xl worship, amusement, and business ; with tombs, memorials, embellishments for his cities, and other structures for the varied needs of a complex civilization. It engages the ser- vices of a larger portion of the community and involves greater outlays of money than any other occupation except agriculture. Everyone at some point comes in contact with the work of the architect, and from this universal con- tact architecture derives its significance as an index of the civilization of an age, a race, or a people.
xxi
xxn INTRODUCTION.
It is the function of the historian of architecture to trace the origin, growth, and decline of the architectural styles which have prevailed in different lands and ages, and to show how they have reflected the great movements of civil- ization. The migrations, the conquests, the commercial, social, and religious changes among different peoples have all manifested themselves in the changes of their architect- ure, and it is the historian's function to show this. It is also his function to explain the principles of the styles, their characteristic forms and decoration, and to describe the great masterpieces of each style and period.
STYLE is a quality ; the "historic styles " are phases of development. Style is character expressive of definite con- ceptions, as of grandeur, gaiety, or solemnity. An historic style is the particular phase, the characteristic manner of design, which prevails at a given time and place. It is not the result of mere accident or caprice, but of intellectual, moral, social, religious, and even politicai conditions. Gothic architecture could never have been invented by the Greeks, nor could the Egyptian styles have grown up in Italy. Each style is based upon some fundamental principle springing from its surrounding civilization, which under- goes successive developments until it either reaches perfec- tion or its possibilities are exhausted, after which a period of decline usually sets in. This is followed either by a re- action and the introduction of some radically new principle leading to the evolution of a new style, or by the final de- cay and extinction of the civilization and its replacement by some younger and more virile element. Thus the his- tory of architecture appears as a connected chain of causes and effects succeeding each other without break, each style growing out of that which preceded it, or springing out of the fecundating contact of a higher with a lower civiliza- tion. To study architectural styles is therefore to study a branch of the history of civilization.
INTRODUCTION. XXlii
Technically, architectural styles are identified by the means they employ to cover enclosed spaces, by the char- acteristic forms of the supports and other members (piers columns, arches, mouldings, traceries, etc.), and by their decoration. The plan should receive special attention, since it shows the arrangement of the points of support, and hence the nature of the structural design. A comparison, for example, of the plans of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak (Fig. ii,//) and of the Basilica of Constantine (Fig. 58) shows at once a radical difference in constructive principle between the two edifices, and hence a difference of style.
STRUCTURAL PRINCIPLES. All architecture is based on one or more of three fundamental structural principles ; that of the lintel, of the arch or vault, and of the truss. The princi- ple of the lintel is that of resistance to transverse strains, and appears in all construction in which a cross-piece or beam rests on two or more vertical supports. The arch or vault makes use of several pieces to span an opening be- tween two supports. These pieces are in compression and exert lateral pressures or thrusts which are transmitted to the supports or abutments. The thrust must be resisted either by the massiveness of the abutments or by the opposition to it of counter-thrusts from other arches or vaults. Roman builders used the first, Gothic builders the second of these means of resistance. The truss is a framework so composed of several pieces of wood or metal that each shall best resist the particular strain, whether of tension or compression, to which it is subjected, the whole forming a compound beam or arch. It is especially applicable to very wide spans, and is the most characteristic feature of modern construction. How the adoption of one or another of these principles affected the forms and even the decoration of the various styles, will be shown in the succeeding chapters.
HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT. Geographically and chronolog- ically, architecture appears to have originated in the Nile
XXIV INTRODUCTION.
valley. A second centre of development is found in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, not uninfluenced by the older Egyptian art. Through various channels the Greeks inherited from both Egyptian and Assyrian art, the two influences being discernible even through the strongly origi- nal aspect of Greek architecture. The Romans in turn, adopting the external details of Greek architecture, trans- formed its substance by substituting the Etruscan arch for the Greek construction of columns and lintels. They de- veloped a complete and original system of construction and decoration and spread it over the civilized world, which has never wholly outgrown or abandoned it.
With the fall of Rome and the rise of Constantinople these forms underwent in the East another transformation, called the Byzantine, in the development of Christian domi- cal church architecture. In the North and West, mean- while, under the growing institutions of the papacy and of the monastic orders and the emergence of a feudal civiliza- tion out of the chaos of the Dark Ages, the constant pre- occupation of architecture was to evolve from the basilica type of church a vaulted structure, and to adorn it through- out with an appropriate dress of constructive and symbolic ornament Gothic architecture was the outcome of this preoccupation, and it prevailed throughout northern and n Europe until nearly or quite the close of the fif- teenth century.
During this fifteenth century the Renaissance style ma- t tired in Italy, where it speedily triumphed over ( rOthic fash- ions and produced a marvellous series of civic monuments, palaces, and churches, adorned with forms borrowed or imitated from classic Roman art. This influence spread through Europe in the sixteenth century, and ran a Course of two centuries, after which a period of servile classicism was followed by a rapid decline in taste. I 'o this succeeded the eclecticism and confusion of the nineteenth century, to
INTRODUCTION. XXV
which the rapid growth of new requirements and develop- ment of new resources have largely contributed.
In Eastern lands three great schools of architecture have grown up contemporaneously with the above phases of Western art ; one under the influence of Mohammedan civilization, another in the Brahman and Buddhist archi- tecture of India, and the third in China and Japan. The first of these is the richest and most important. Primarily inspired from Byzantine art, always stronger on the decora- tive than on the constructive side, it has given to the world the mosques and palaces of Northern Africa, Moorish Spain, Persia, Turkey, and India. The other two schools seem to be wholly unrelated to the first, and have no affinity with the architecture of Western lands.
Of- Mexican, Central American, and South American architecture so little is known, and that little is so remote in history and spirit from the styles above enumerated, that it belongs rather to archaeology than to architectural his tory, and will not be considered in this work.
Note. — The reader's attention is called to the Appendix to this volume, in which are gathered some of the results of recent investigations and of the architectural progress of the last few years which could not readily be introduced into the text of this edition. The General Bibliography and the lists of books recommended have been revised and brought up to date.
CHAPTER I.
PRIMITIVE AND PREHISTORIC ARCHITECTURE.
Books' Recommended : Desor, Les constructions lacustres du lac de Neufchatel. Fergusson, Rude Stone Monuments. R. C. Hoare, Ancient Wiltshire. Lyell, The Antiquity of Man. Lubbock, Prehistoric Times. Nadaillac, Prehistoric America. Rougemont, L'age du Bronze. Tylor, Primitive Culture.
EARLY BEGINNINGS. It is impossible to trace the early stages of the process by which true architecture grew out of the first rude attempts of man at building. The oldest existing monuments of architecture — those of Chaldaea and Egypt — belong to an advanced civilization. The rude and elementary structures built by savage and barbarous peo- ples, like the Hottentots or the tribes of Central Africa, are not in themselves works of architecture, nor is any in- stance known of the evolution of a civilized art from such beginnings. So far as the monuments testify, no savage people ever raised itself to civilization, and no primitive method of building was ever developed into genuine archi- tecture, except by contact with some existing civilization of which it appropriated the spirit, the processes, and the forms. How the earliest architecture came into existence is as yet an unsolved problem.
PRIMITIVE ARCHITECTURE is therefore a subject for the ar- chaeologist rather than the historian of art, and needs here only the briefest mention. If we may judge of the condi- tion of the primitive races of antiquity by that of the sav- age and barbarous peoples of our own time, they required 1
2 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
only the simplest kinds of buildings, though the purposes which they served were the same as those of later times in civilized communities. A hut or house for shelter, a shrine of some sort for worship, a stockade for defence, a cairn or mound over the grave of the chief or hero, were provided out of the simplest materials, and these often of a perish- able nature. Poles supplied the framework ; wattles, skins, or mud the walls ; thatching or stamped earth the roof. Only the simplest tools were needed for such elementa- ry construction. There was ingenuity and patient labor in work of this kind ; but there was no planning, no fit- ting together into a complex organism of varied materials shaped with art and handled with science. Above all, there was no progression toward higher ideals of fitness and beauty. Rudimentary art displayed itself mainly in objects of worship, or in carvings on canoes and weapons, executed as talismans to ward off misfortune or to charm the unseen powers; but even this art was sterile and never grew of itself into civilized and progressive art.
Yet there must have been at some point in the remote past an exception to this rule. Somewhere and somehow the people of Egypt must have developed from crude be- ginnings the architectural knowledge and resource which meet us in the oldest monuments, though every vestige of that early age has apparently perished. But although nothing has come down to us of the actual work of the builders who wrought in the primitive ages of mankind, there exist throughout Europe and Asia almost countless monuments of a primitive character belonging to relatively recent times, but executed before the advent of historic civilization to the regions where they are found. A gen- eral resemblance among them suggests a common heritage of traditions from the hoariest antiquity, and throws light on the probable character of the transition from barbaric to civilized architecture.
PRIMITIVE AND PREHISTORIC ARCHITECTURE. 3
prehistoric MONUMENTS. These monuments vary widely in age as well as in excellence ; some of them belong to Roman or even Christian times ; others to a much remoter period. They are divided into two principal classes, the megalithic structures and lake dwellings. The latter class may be dismissed with the briefest mention. It comprises a considerable number of very primitive houses or huts built on wooden piles in the lakes of Switzerland and sev- eral other countries in both hemispheres, and forming in some cases villages of no mean size. Such villages, built over the water for protection from attack, are mentioned by the writers of antiquity and portrayed on Assyrian re- liefs. The objects found in them reveal an incipient but almost stationary civilization, extending back from three thousand to five thousand years or more, and lasting through the ages of stone and bronze down into historic times.
The megalithic remains of Europe and Asia are far more important. They are very widely distributed, and consist in most cases of great blocks of stone arranged in rows, circles, or avenues, sometimes with huge lintels resting upon them. Upright stones without lintels are called w^«- liirs %-/stand'mg in pairs with lintels they are known as dol- mens ; the circles are called cromlechs. Some of the stones are of gigantic size, some roughly hewn into shape ; others left as when quarried. Their age and purpose have been much discussed without reaching positive results. It is probable that, like the lake dwellings, they cover a long range of time, reaching from the dawn of recorded history some thousands of years back into the unknown past, and that they were erected by races which have disappeared before the migrations to which Europe owes her present populations. That most of them were in some way con- nected with the worship of these prehistoric peoples is gen- erally admitted ; but whether as temples, tombs, or memo-
4 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
rials of historical or mythical events cannot, in all cases, be positively asserted. They were not dwellings or palaces, and very few were even enclosed buildings. They are imposing by the size and number of their immense stones, but show no sign of advanced, art, or of conscious striving after beauty of design. The small number of " carved stones," bearing singular ornamental patterns, symbolic or mystical rather than decorative in intention, really tends to prove this statement rather than to controvert it It is not impossi- ble that the dolmens were generally intended to be covered by mounds of earth. This would group them with the tumuli referred to below, and point to a sepulchral purpose in their erection. Some antiquaries, Fergusson among them, contend that many of the European circles and avenues were intended as battle-monuments or trophies.
There are also walls of great antiquity in various parts of Europe, intended for fortification ; the most important of these in Greece and Italy will be referred to in later chapters. They belong to a more advanced art, some of them even deserving to be classed among works of archaic: architecture.
The tumuli, or burial mounds, which form so large a part of the prehistoric remains of both continents, are interest* ing to the architect only as revealing the prototypes of the pyramids of Egypt and the subterranean tombs of Mv< rn,r and other early Greek centres. The piling of huge cairns or commemorative heaps of stone is known from the Script- I and other ancient writings to have been a custom of the greatest antiquity. The pyramids and the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus are the most imposing and elaborate out- growths of this pra< ti< v, of which the prehistoric tumuli are the simpler manifestations.
These crude and elementary products of undeveloped
civilizations have no place-, however, in any list of genuine architectural works. They belong rather to the domain of
PRIMITIVE AND PREHISTORIC ARCHITECTURE. 5
archaeology and ethnology; and have received this brief mention only as revealing the beginnings of the builder's art, and the wide gap that separates them from that gen- uine architecture which forms the subject of the following chapters.
MONUMENTS : The most celebrated in England are at Avebury, an avenue, large and small circles, barrows, and the great tumuli of Bartlow and Silbury " Hills ;" at Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain, great megalithic circles and many barrows; " Sarsen stones" at Ashdown ; tumuli, dol- mens, chambers, and circles in Derbyshire. In Ireland, many cairns and circles. In Scotland, circles and barrows in the Orkney Islands. In France, Carnac and Lokmariaker in Brittany are especially rich in dol- mens, circles, and avenues. In Scandinavia, Germany, and Italy, in In- dia and in Africa, are many similar remains.
CHAPTER II. EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE.
Books Recommended : Champollion, Monuments de P Egypte et de la Nubie. Choisy, Hart de bdlir chez les Egyptiens. Flinders-Petrie, History of Egypt ; Ten Years Digging in Egypt, 1 881-91. Jomard, Description de P Egypte, Antiquites. Lep-
sius, Denkmaler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien. Mariette, Mon- uments of Upper Egypt. Maspero, Egyptian Arc/neology. Vcx- rot and Chipiez, History of Art in Ancient Egypt. I'risse d'Avennes, Histoire de Part egyptien. Reber, History of Ancient Art. Rossellini, Monumenti del Egitto. Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of Ancient Egyptians.
land and people. As long ago as 5000 B.C., the Egyptians were a people already highly civilized, and skilled in the arts of peace and war. The narrow valley of the Nile, fertilized by the periodic overflow of the river, was flanked by rocky heights, nearly vertical in many places, which afforded abundance of excellent building stone, while they both isolated the Egyptians and protected them from foreign aggression. At the Delta, however, the valley widened out, with the falling away of these heights, into broad lowlands, from which there was access to the outer world.
The art history of Egypt may be divided into five pe- riods as follows :
I. The Ancient EMPIRE (< ir. 4500 ?-}ooo B.C.). compris- ing the first ten dynasties, with Memphis as the capital.
II The First Thebam Monarchy or Middle Empire
(3000-2100 B.C.) comprising the eleventh, twelfth, and thir teenth dynasties rjignmg at Thebes
EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 7
The Hyksos invasion, or incursion of the Shepherd Kings, interrupted the current of Egyptian art history for a period of unknown length, probably not less than four or five centuries.
III. The Second Theban Monarchy (i7oo?-iooo b.c), comprising the eighteenth to twentieth dynasties inclusive, was the great period of Egyptian history ; the age of con- quests and of vast edifices.
IV. The Decadence or Saitic Period (1000-324 b.c), comprising the dynasties twenty-one to thirty (Saitic, Bu- bastid, Ethiopic, etc.), reigning at Sais, Tanis, and Bubastis, and the Persian conquest ; a period almost barren of im- portant monuments.
(Periods III. and IV. constitute together the period of the New Empire, if we omit the Persian dominion.)
V. The Revival (from 324 b.c. to cir. 330 a.d.) comprises the Ptolemaic or Macedonian and Roman dominations.
THE ANCIENT EMPIRE : THE PYRAMIDS. The great works of this period are almost exclusively sepulchral, and include the most ancient buildings of which we have any remains. While there is little of strictly architectural art, the over- whelming size and majesty of the Pyramids, and the audac- ity and skill shown in their construction, entitle them to the first place in any sketch of this period. They number over a hundred, scattered in six groups, from Abu-Roash in the north to Meidoum in the south, and are of various shapes and sizes. They are all royal tombs and belong to the first twelve dynasties ; each contains a sepulchral chamber, and each at one time possessed a small chapel adjacent to it, but this has, in almost every case, perished.
Three pyramids surpass all the rest by their prodigious size ; these are at Ghizeh and belong to the fourth dynasty. They are known by the names of their builders ; the oldest and greatest being that of Cheops, or Khufu ; * the second,
* The Egyptian names known to antiquity are given here first in the more familiar classic form, and then in the Egyptian form.
8
HiSTORV OF ARCHITECTURE.
that of Chephren, or Khafra ; and the third, that of Myceri- nus, or Menkhara. Other smaller ones stand at the feet of these giants.
The base of the " Great Pyramid " measures 764 feet on a side ; its height is 482 feet, and its volume must have originally been nearly three and one-half million cubic yards (Fig. 1). It is constructed of limestone upon a pla- teau of rock levelled to receive it, and was finished exter-
\
\
^||P^
FIG. I.— nCTMM OF GREAT I'VKAMID.
«, Kintfs Chamber; b. Queen's Chamber ; c, Chamber cut in Rock.
nally, like its two neighbors, with a coating of polished
stone, supposed by >omc to have been dispose! in bands of different colored granites, but of which it was long ago led. It contained three principal chambers and an elaborate system of inclined passages, all executed in finely cut granite and limestone. The sarcophagus was in the uppermost chamber, above which the superincumbent weight was relieved by open Spaces and a species of rudi- mentary arch of A -shape (Fig. 2). The other two pyra- mids differ from that of Cheops in the details of their gemenl and in size, not in the principle of their con- struction. Chephren is 454 feet high, with a base 717
Kt.Vl'TIAN ARCHITECTURE.
feet square. Mvcerinus, which still retains its casing of pink granite, is but 218 feet in height, with a 'base 253 feet on a side.
Among the other pyramids there is considerable variety both of type and material. At Sakkarah is one 190 feet high, constructed in six unequal steps on a slightly oblong base measur- ing nearly 400 X 357 feet. It was attributed by Mariette to Ouene- phes, of the first dynasty, though now more generally ascribed to Senefrou of the third. At Abu- Seir and Meidoum are other stepped pyramids ; at Dashour is one having a broken slope, the lower part steeper than the up- per. Several at Meroe with un- usually steep slopes belong to the Ethiopian dynasties of the Decadence. A number of pyramids are built of brick.
TOMBS. The Ancient Em- pire has also left us a great number of tombs of the type known as Mastabas. These are oblong rectangular struct- ures of stone or brick with slightly inclined sides and flat ceilings. They uniformly face the east, and are internally di- vided into three parts ; the chamber or chapel, the senlab,
and the well. In the first of these, next the entrance, were placed the offerings made to the Ka or " double," for whom
FIG. 2. — SECTION OF KING S CHAMBER.
FIG. 3. — PLAN OF SPHINX TEMPLE.
IO
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
also scones of festivity or worship were carved and painted on its walls to minister to his happiness in his incorporeal life. The serdabs, or secret inner chambers, of which there were several in each mastaba, contained statues of the de- funct, by which the existence and identity of the Ka were preserved. Finally came the well, leading to the mum- my chamber, deep underground, which contained the sar- cophagus. The sarcophagi, both of this and later ages, are good examples of the minor architecture of Egypt ; many of them are panelled in imitation of wooden con- struction and richly decorated with color, symbols, and hieroglyphs.
OTHER MONUMENTS. Two other monuments of the An- cient Empire also claim attention : the Sphinx and the adja- cent so-called " Sphinx temple " at (ihizeh. The first of these, a huge sculp- ture carved from the rock, represents Harmachis in the form of a human- headed lion. It is ordina- rily partly buried in the sand ; is 70 feet long by 66 feet high, and forms one of the most striking monuments of Egyptian art. Close to it lie the nearly buried ruins of the tem- ple once supposed to be that of the Sphinx, but now proved by ivtric to have been erected in connection with the second pyramid. The plan and present aspect of this venerable edifice arc shown in Pigs. 3 and 4. The hall was roofed with stone lintels carried on sixteen square monolithic piers of alabaster. The whole was buried in a rectangular mass of :ry and revetted internally with alabaster, but was wholly destitute internally as well as externally of d< tion or even of moulding* With the exception of scanty remains of a few of the pyramid-temples or chapels, and the
HI.. 4.— KLIN- OF SPHINX TEMPLE.
EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE.
II
FIG. 5. — TOMB AT ABYDOS.
temple discovered by Petrie in Meidoum, it is the only sur- vival from the temple architecture of that early age.
THE MIDDLE EMPIRE : TOMBS. The monuments of this period, as of the pre- ceding, are almost whol- ly sepulchral. We now encounter two types of tombs. One, structural and pyramidal, is repre- sented by many exam- ples at Abydos, the most venerated of all the bur- ial grounds of Egypt (Fig. 5). All of these are buifTofJrrick, arlcTare of moderate size and little artistic interest. The second type
is that oftombs cut in the vertical cliffs of the west bank of the Nile Valley. The entrance to these faces eastward
as required by tradi- tion ; the remoter end of the excavation point- ing toward the land of the Sun of Night. But such tunnels only be- come works of archi- tecture when, in addi- tion to the customary mural paintings, they receive a decorative treatment in the design of their structural forms. Such a treatment appears in several tombs at Beni-Hassan, in which columns are re- served in cutting away the rock, both in the chapel- chambers and in the vestibules or porches which precede them. These columns are polygonal in some cases, clustered
FIG. 6. — TOMB AT BENI-HASSAN.
J2
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
in others. The former type, with eight, sixteen, or thirty- two sides (in these last the arrises or edges are emphasized by a slight concavity in each face, like embryonic fluting), have a square abacus, suggesting the Greek Doric order, and giving rise to the name proto- Doric (Fig. 6). Col- umns of this type are also found at Karnak, Kalabsh^, Amada, and Abydos. A reminiscence of primitive wood construction is seen in the dentils over the plain architrave of the entrance, which in other respects recalls the tripie
— — ' — **
''\^r'''"'"j'"'''''/''"""/'"/'"''/""'""'''/'//"'"'"'"
I
® <§>
FKi. 7.— SUCTION ANI> HAI.F-I'l AN OK A TOMH AT BFNI-I
entrances to certain mastabas of the Old Empire. These dentils are imitations of the ends of rafters, and to some an iMBOlogista suggest a wooden origin for the whole system of Columnar design. but these rock-COt shafts and heavy architraves in no respect resemble wooden prototypes, but point rather to an imitation cot in the nuk of a well- developed, pre-existing system Of stone const nut ion, some of whose details, however, were undoubtedly derived from early methods of building in wood. The vault was below the chapel and reached by a separate entrance. The
serdab «.i- replaced by a niche in which was the figure ol the defunct carved from the native rock. Some of the
EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 13
tombs employed in the chapel-chamber columns of quatrefoil section with capitals like clustered buds (Fig. 7), and this type became in the next period one of the most character- istic forms of Egyptian architecture.
TEMPLES. Of the temples of this period only two have left any remains of importance. Both belong to the twelfth dynasty (cir. 2200 B.C.). Of one of these many badly shat- tered fragments have been found in the ruins of Bubastis; these show the clustered type of lotus-bud column men- tioned above. The other, of which a few columns have been identified among the ruins of the Great Temple at Karnak, constituted the oldest part of that vast agglomera- tion of religious edifices, and employed columns of the so- called proto-Doric type. From these remains it appears that structural stone columns as well as those cut in the rock were used at this early period (2200 B.C.). Indeed, it is probable that the whole architectural system of the New Empire was based on models developed in the age we are considering ; that the use of multiplied columns of various types and the building of temples of complex plan adorned with colossal statues, obelisks, and painted reliefs, were perfectly understood and practised in this period. But the works it produced have perished, having been most prob- ably demolished to make way for the more sumptuous edi- fices of later times.
THE NEW EMPIRE. This was the grand age of Egyptian ar- chitecture and history. An extraordinary series of mighty men ruled the empire during a long period following the expulsion of the Hyksos usurpers. The names of Thoth- mes, Amenophis, Hatasu, Seti, and Rameses made glorious the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties. Foreign con- quests in Ethiopia, Syria, and Assyria enlarged the terri- tory and increased the splendor of the empire. The major- ity of the most impressive ruins of Egypt belong to this period, and it was in these buildings that the characteristic
14
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
^H
r--
• • • •
• • • •
• • • •
;*r*rn:
elements of Egyptian architecture were brought to perfec- tion and carried out on the grandest scale.
TOMBS OF THE NEW EMPIRE. Some of these are stria -Aural, others excavated ; both types displaying considerable vari- ety in arrangement and detail. The rock-cut tombs of Bab-el-Molouk, among which are twenty-five royal sepulchres, are striking both by the simplicity of their openings and the depth and complexity of their shafts, tunnels, and chambers. From the pipe-like length of their tunnels they have since the time of Herodotus been known by the name syrinx. Every precaution was taken to lead astray and baffle the Intend- ing violator of their sanctity. They
penetrated hundreds of feet [n to the
rOCk ; their chambers, often formed with columns and vault-like roots,
wen- resplendent with colored reliefs
and ornament destined to solace and sustain the shadowy Ka until the soul itself, the Ma, should arrive before the tribunal of Osiris, the
Sun of Night. Most impressively
df) these brilliant pictures,* intend- ed to be forever shut away from human eyes, attest the
erity of the Egyptian belief and the conscientious^
of the art which it inspired.
While the tomb of the private citizen was complete in it- self, containing the Ka-statues and often the chapel, as well as the mummy, the royal tomb demanded something more elaborate in stale and arrangement. In some cases * See Van lake's History of Tainting, Figure I.
-I I V. OK M RAMKS-
■tnt
, Satuluary : i, Hyfiottylf
1 1 .ill : ,, Scnntf court : </, Mmtrnncr lourf ; e, I'ylont.
EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 1 5
external structures of temple-form took the place of the underground chapel and serdab. The royal effigy, many times repeated in painting and sculpture throughout this temple-like edifice, and flanking its gateways with colos- sal seated figures, made buried Ka-statues unnecessary. Of these sepulchral temples three are of the first magni- tude. They are that of Queen Hatasu (XVIIIth dynasty) at Deir-el-Bahari ; that of Rameses II. (XlXth dynasty), the Ramesseum, near by to the southwest ; and that of Rameses III. (XXth dynasty) at Medinet Abou still further to the southwest. Like the tombs, these were all on the west side of the Nile ; so also was the sepulchral temple of Amenophis III (XVIIIth dynasty), the Ameno- pheum, of which hardly a trace remains except the two seated colossi which, rising from the Theban plain, have astonished travellers from the times of Pausanias and Strabo down to our own. These mutilated figures, one of which has been known ever since classic times as the " vocal Memnon," are 56 feet high, and once flanked the entrance to the forecourt of the temple of Amenophis. The plan of the Ramesseum, with its sanctuary, hypostyle hall, and forecourts, its pylons and obelisks, is shown in Figure 8, and may be compared with those of other temples . given on pp. 17 and 18. That of Medinet Abou resembles it closely. The Ramesseum occupies a rectangle of 590 x 182 feet; the temple of Medinet Abou measures 500 x 160 feet, not counting the extreme width of the entrance pylons. The temple of Hatasu at Deir-el-Bahari is partly excavated and partly structural, a model which is also followed on a smaller scale in several lesser tombs. Such an edifice is called a hemispeos.
CHAPTER III.
EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE— Continued.
Books Recommended : Same as for Chapter II.
TEMPLES. The surpassing glory of the New Empire was its great temples. Some of them were among the most stupen- dous creations of structural art. To temples rather than pal- aces were the resources and energies of the kings devoted, and successive monarchs found no more splendid outlet for their piety and ambition than the founding of new temples or the extension and adornment of those already existing. By the forced labor of thousands of fellaheen (tin- system is in force to this day and is known as the C0rv&) architectural piles of vast extent could be erected within the lifetime of a monarch. As in the tombs the internal walls bore pict- ures for the contemplation of the Ka, so in the temples
the external walls, for the glory of the king and the de- lectation of the people, were covered with colored reliefs reciting the.- monarch's glorious deeds. Internally the worship and attributes of the gods were represented in a similar manner, in endless iteration.
THE TEMPLE SCHEME. This is admirably shown in the temple of Khonsu, at Karnak, built by Rameses MI. (XXth dynasty), and in the temple of Edfou (Fitfs. 9 and 10), though this belong! to the Roman period. It comprised a sanctu- ary hyOOStyle (columnar) hall, known as the "hall of assembly," and a forecourt preceded by a double pylon or
EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE.
17
gateway. Each of these parts might be made more or less com- plex in different temples, but the essential features are encountered everywhere under all changes of form. The building of a temple began with the sanctuary, which contained the sacred chamber and the shrine of the god, with sub- ordinate rooms for the priests and for various rites and functions. These chambers were low, dark, mysterious, accessible only to the priests and king. They were given a certain dignity by being raised upon a sort of platform above the general level, and reached by a few steps. They were sumptu- ously decorated internally with ritual pictures in relief. The hall was sometimes loftier, but
set on a slightly lower level ; its massive columns sup- ported a roof of stone lintels, and light was admitted either through clearstory windows under the roof of a central portion higher than the sides, as at Karnak, or over a low screen-wall built between the columns of the front row, as at Edfou and Denderah. This method was peculiar to the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. The court was usually sur-
F1G. 9. — TEMPLE OF EDFOU. PLAN.
FIG. 10.— TEMPLE OK EDFOU. SECTION.
i8
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
rounded by a single or double colonnade ; sometimes, how- ever, this colonnade only flanked the sides or fronted the hall, or again was wholly wanting. The pylons were twin buttress-like masses flanking the entrance gate of the court. They were shaped like oblong truncated pyramids, crowned by flaring cornices, and were decorated on the outer face with masts carrying banners, with obelisks, or with seated colossal figures of the royal builder. An avenue of sphinxes formed the approach to the entrance, and the whole tem-
HG, U.— TEMt'LK OF KAKSAK. PLAN.
pie precinct was surrounded by a wall, usually of crude brick, pierced by one or more gates with or without pylons. The piety of successive monarehs was displayed in the addition of new hypostyle halls, courts, pylons, or obelisks, by which the temple was successively extended in length, and sometimes also in width, by the increased dimensions of the new courts. The great Temple of Kar- nak most strikingly illustrates this growth. Begun by Osourtesen (Xllth dynasty) more than 2000 years B.C, it was not completed in its present form until the time of the Ptolemies, when the last of the pylons and external gates were erected.
The variations in the details of this general type were numerous. Thus, at Kl Kab, the temple of Amenophis III.
EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE 19
has the sekos and hall but no forecourt. At Deir-el- Medineh the hall of the Ptolemaic Hathor-temple is a mere porch in two parts, while the enclosure within the circuit wall takes the place of the forecourt. At Karnak all the parts were repeated several times, and under Amenophis III. (XVIIIth dynasty) a wing was built at a nearly right angle to the main structure. At Luxor, to a complete typi- cal temple were added three aisles of an unfinished hypo- style hall, and an elaborate forecourt, whose axis is inclined to that of the other buildings, owing to a bend of the river at that point. At Abydos a complex sanctuary of many chambers extends southeast at right angles to the general mass, and the first court is without columns. But in all these structures a certain unity of effect is produced by the lofty pylons, the flat roofs diminishing in height over suc- cessive portions from the front to the sanctuary, the sloping windowless walls covered with carved and painted pictures, and the dim and massive interiors of the columnar halls.
TEMPLES OF KARNAK. Of these various temples that of Amen-Ra is incomparably the largest and most imposing. Its construction extended through the whole duration of the New Empire, of whose architecture it is a splendid rteum'e (Fig. 11). Its extreme length is 1,215 feet, and its greatest width 376 feet. The sanctuary and its accessories, mainly built by Thothmes I. and Thothmes III., cover an area nearly 456 X 290 feet in extent, and comprise two hypo- style halls and countless smaller halls and chambers. It is preceded by a narrow columnar vestibule and two pylons en- closing a columnar atrium and two obelisks. This is entered from the Great Hypostyle Hall (// in Fig. 11 ; Fig. 12), the noblest single work of Egyptian architecture, measuring 340 X 170 feet, and containing 134 columns in sixteen rows, sup- porting a massive stone roof. The central columns with bell- capitals are 70 feet high and nearly 12 feet in diameter ; the others are smaller and lower, with lotus-bud capitals, sup-
20 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
porting a roof lower than that over the three central aisles
A clearstory of stone-crated windows makes up the differ- ence in height between these two root's. The interior, thus lighted, was splendid with painted reliefs, which helped not only to adorn the hall but to give scale to its massive parts. The whole stupendous creation was the work of three kings — Kameses I., Seti I., and Rameses II. (XlXth dynasty). In front of it was the great court, Hanked by columns,
FIG. 12. — CENTRAL PORTION Of IIVI-OSTVI.K HAM. AT KARNAK.
(From mode! in Metropolitan Mtiwum, New York.)
and still showing the ruins of a central avenue of colossal pillars begun, but never completed, by the Bubastid kings of the XXI Id dynasty. One or two smaller Structures and the curious lateral wing built by Amenophis III., interrupt the otherwise orderly ami symmetrical advance of this plan from the sanctuary to the huge first pylon (last in point of date) erected by the Ptolen
The smaller temple of Khonsu, south of that of Amen- Ra, has already been alluded to as a typical example of templar design. Next to Karnak in importance comes the Temple of Luxor in its immediate neighborhood. It has two forecourts adorned with double-aisled colonnades and
EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE.
21
connected by what seems to be an unfinished hypostyle hall. The Ramesseum and the temples of Medinet Abou and Deir-El-Bahari have already been mentioned (p. 15). At Gournah and Abydos are the next most celebrated temples of this period ; the first famous for its rich clus- tered lotus-columns, the latter for its beautiful sanctuary
FIG. 13. — GREAT THMHLE OF II'SAMBIH'L.
chambers, dedicated each to a different deity, and covered with delicate painted reliefs of the time of Seti I.
GROTTO TEMPLES. Two other styles of temple remain to be noticed. The first is the subterranean or grotto temple, of which the two most famous, at Ipsamboul (Abou-simbel). were excavated by Rameses II. They are truly colossal conceptions, reproducing in the native rock the main feat- ures of structural temples, the court being represented bv the larger of two chambers in the Greater Temple (Fig. 13)
22 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
Their facades are adorned with colossal seated figures of the builder ; the smaller has also two effigies of Nefert- Ari, his consort. Nothing more striking and boldly impres- sive is to be met with in Egypt than these singular rock-cut facades. Other rock-cut temples of more modest dimen- sions are at Addeh, Feraig, Beni-Hassan (the " Speos Arte- midos"), Beit-el - Wali, and Silsileh. At Gherf-Hossein, Asseboua, and Derri are temples partly excavated and partly structural.
PEKIPTERAL TEMPLES. The last type of temple to be noticed is represented by only three or four structures of moderate size ; it is the peripteral, in which a small cham- ber is surrounded by columns, usually mounted on a terrace with vertical walls. They were mere chapels, but are among the most graceful of existing ruins. At Philae are two structures, one by Nectanebo, the other Ptolemaic, resem- bling peripteral temples, but without cella-chamber^ or roofs. They may have been waiting-courts for the adjoin- ing temples. That at Elephantine (Amenophis III.) has square piers at the sides, and columns only at the ends. Another by Thothmes II., at Medinet Abou, formed only a part (the seko> ?) of a larger plan. At Edfou is another, belonging to the Ptolemaic period.
LATER TEMPLES. After the architectural inaction of the me a marvellous recrudescence of splendor under the Ptolemies, whose Hellenic origin and sympathies did not lead them into the mistaken effort to imp models upon Egyptian art. The temples cici ted under their dominion, and later under Roman rule, vied with the grandest works of the Ran Uld surpassed them in
the rich elaboration and variety of their architectural de- tails. The temple at Edfou (Pigs. 9, 10, 14) is the most per- fectly preserved, and conforms most closely to the typical plan ; that of I-i->, at Philae, is the most elaborate and orriate. Denderuh also possesses a group of admirably
EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE.
23
preserved temples of the same. period. At Esneh, and at Kalabshe and Kardassy or Ghertashi in Nubia are others In all these one notes innovations of detail and a striving for effect quite different from the simpler majesty of the preceding age (Fig. 14). One peculiar feature is the use of screen walls built into the front rows of columns of the hypostyle hall. Light was admitted above these walls, which measured about half the height of the columns and
FIG. 14. — EDFOU. FRONT OF HYPOSTYLE HALL.
were interrupted at the centre by a curious doorway cut through their whole height and without any lintel. Long disused types of capital were revived and others greatly elaborated ; and the wall-reliefs were arranged in bands and panels with a regularity and symmetry rather Greek than Egyptian. -?*"
ARCHITECTUBAL DETAILS. With the exception of a few purely utilitarian vaulted structures, all Egyptian architect- ure was based on the principle of the lintel. Artistic splen- dor depended upon the use of painted and carved pictures, and the decorative treatment of the very simple supports
24
HISTORY OK ARCHITE4 II RE.
employed. Piers and columns sustained the root., of such chambers as were too wide for single lintels, and produced, in halls like those of Karnak, of the Ramesseum, or of Denderah, a stupendous effect by their height, massiveness, number, and colored decoration. The simplest piers were plain square shafts ; others, more elaborate, had lotus stalks and (lowers or heads of Hathor carved upon them. The most striking were those against whose front faces were carved co- lossal figures of Osiris, as at Luxor, Medinet Abou, and Karnak (Fig. 15). The columns, which were seldom over six diameters in height, were treated with greater variety ; the shafts, slightly tapering upward, were either round or clustered in section, and usually contracted at the base The capitals with which they were crowned were usually of one of the five chief types descrrcx <1 below. Besides round and clustered shafts, the Middle Empire and a few of the earlier monuments of the New Em- pire employed polygonal or slightly (luted shafts (see p. n), as at Beni Hassan and Karnak ; these had a plain square abacus, with sometimes a cushion-like echinus beneath it. A round plinth served as a base t'nv most of the columns.
capitals. The ft\c chief types of capita] were: a, the
plain lotus bud, as at Karnak (Great Hall) ; />, the clustered lotus bud (Beni-Hassan, Karnak. I. uxor, (iournah, etc) the tdmpiiniform or inverted bell (central aisles at Karnak, I. uxor, the Ramesseum); </, the palm-capital, frequent in the Liter temples; and <\ the Hathor-headed, in which heads of Hathor adorn (he four fares of a cubical ma surmounted by a model of a shrine (Scdinga, Edfou, Den-
PMi 15.— OSIKII) f'IP.K (ME- DMBT ai.
EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE.
25
derail, Esneh). These types were richly embellished and varied by the Ptolemaic architects, who gave a clustered or quatrefoil plan to the bell-capital, or adorned its surface with palm leaves. A few other forms are met with as ex- ceptions. The first four are shown in Fig. 16.
Every part of the column was richly decorated in color. Lotus- leaves or petals swathed the swelling lower part of the shaft, which was elsewhere covered with successive bands of carved pictures and of hieroglyphics. The capi- tal was similarly covered with carved and painted orna- ment, usually of lotus-flowers or leaves, or alternate stalks of lotus and papyrus.
The lintels were plain and square in section, and often of prodigious size. Where they appeared externally they were crowned with a simple cavetto cornice, its curved sur- face covered with col- ored flutings alternating with cartouches of hie- roglyphics. Sometimes, esnecially on the screen walls of the Ptolemaic age, this was surmount- ed by a cresting of ad- ders or uraei in closely serried rank. No other form of cornice or crest- ing is met with. Mould- ings as a means of archi- tectural effect were singularly lacking in Egyptian archi- tecture. The only moulding known is the clustered torus {torus = a convex moulding of semicircular profile), which resembles a bundle of reeds tied together with cords or ribbons. It forms an astragal under the cavetto cornice and runs down the angles of the pylons and walls.
POLYCHROMY AND ORNAMENT. Color was absolutely es-
TYPES OF COLUMN.
«, Campaniform ; d, Clustered Lotus-Column . c, Simple Lotus-Column ; d, Palm-Column.
26 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
sential to the decorative scheme. In the vast and dim in- teriors, as well as in the blinding glare of the sun, mere sculpture or relief would have been wasted. The applica- tion of brilliant color to pictorial forms cut in low relief, or outlined by deep incision with the edges of the figures delicately rounded [intaglio rilievd) was the most appropriate treatment possible. The walls and col- umns were covered with pictures treat- ed in this way, and the ceilings and lintels were embellished with symbolic forms in the same manner. All the ornaments, as distinguished from the ,LORAL paintings, were symbolical, at least in
ORNAMENT-FORMS. I «5 » / >
their origin. Over the gateway was the solar disk or globe with wide-spread wings, the symbol of the sun winging its way to the conquest of night ; upon the ceiling were sacred vultures, zodiacs, or stars spangled on a blue ground. Externally the temples presented only masses of unbroken wall ; but these, as. well as the pylons, were covered with huge pictures of a historical character. Only in the tombs do we find painted ornament of a purely conventional sort (Fig. 17). Rosettes, diaper patterns, spirals, and checkers are to be met with in them ; but many of these can be traced to symbolic origins.*
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. The only remains of palaces are the pavilion of Rameses III. at Medinet Abon, and another at Scmneh. The Royal Labyrinth has so com- pletely perished that even its site is uncertain. The Egyp- tians lived so much out of doors that the house was a less important edifice than in colder climates. Egyptian dwell- ing! were probably in most cases built of wood or crude
*See Oioodyear's Grammar of tht Lotus for an elaborate and ingen- ious presentation of the theory of a common lotus-origin for all the conven- tional forms occurring in Egyptian ornament.
EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 2j
brick, and their disappearance is thus easily explained. Re- lief pictures on the monuments indicate the use of wooden framing for the walls, which were probably filled in with crude brick or panels of wood. The architecture was ex- tremely simple. Gateways like those of the temples on a smaller scale, the cavetto cornice on the walls, and here and there a porch with carved columns of wood or stone, were the only details pretending to elegance. The ground- plans of many houses in ruined cities, as at Tel-el-Amarna and a nameless city of Amenophis IV., are discernible in the ruins ; but the superstructures are wholly wanting. It was in religious and sepulchral architecture that the construc- tive and artistic genius of the Egyptians was most fully manifested.
MONUMENTS : The principal necropolis regions of Egypt are centred about Ghizeh and ancient Memphis for the Old Empire (pyramids and mastabas), Thebes for the Middle Empire (Silsileh, Beni Hassan), and Thebes (Vale- of the Kings, Vale of the Queens) and Abydos for the New Empire.
The Old Empire has also left us the Sphinx, Sphinx temple, and the temple at Meidoum.
The most important temples of the New Empire were those of Karnak (the great temple, the southern or temple of Khonsu), of Luxor, Medinet Abou (great temple of Rameses III., lesser temples of Thothmes II. and III. with peripteral sekos ; also Pavilion of Rameses III.) ; of Abydos ; of Gournah ; of Eilithyia (Amenophis III.) ; of Soleb and Sesebi in Nubia ; of Elephantine (peripteral) ; the tomb temple of Deir-el-Bahari, the Ramesseum, the Amenopheum ; hemispeos at Gherf Hbssein ; two grotto temples at Ipsamboul.
At Meroe are pyramids of the Ethiopic kings of the Decadence.
Temples of the Ptolemaic period ; Philae, Denderah.
Temples of the Roman period : Koum Ombos, Edfou ; Kalabshe, Kardassy and Dandour in Nubia ; Esneh,
CHAPTER IV.
CHALDEAN AND ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE.
Books RECOMMENDED : As before, Reber. Also, Bab- elon, Manual of Oriental Antiquities. Botta and Eland in, Monuments tic Ninivc. Layard, Discoveries in Nineveh ; Xin- ereli and its Remains. Loft us, Vnnc/s and Researches in Chaldira and Susiana. Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art in Chaldaa and Assyria. Peters, Nippur. Place, Ninive et I'Assyrie.
SITUATION; HISTORIC PERIODS. The Tigro-Euphrates val- ley was the seat of a civilization nearly or quite as old as that of the Nile, though inferior in its monumental art. The kingdoms of Chaldssa and Assyria which ruled in this val- ley, sometimes as rivals and sometimes as subjects one of the other, differed considerably in character and culture. But the scarcity of timber and the lack of good building- stone except in the limestone table-lands and more distant mountains of upper Mesopotamia, the abundance of clay, and the flatness of the country, imposed upon the builders of both nations similar restrictions of conception, form, and material. 'Both peoples, moreover, were probably, in part at least, of Semitic race.* The Chalda-ans attained Civilisation as early as 4000 »?.(•., and had for Centuries main- tained fixed institutions and practised the arts and sciences when the Assyrians began their career a- a nation of con- querors by reducing Chaldssa to subjection.
* This is denied by tome recent writers, so far as the < h.ild xatU are con- cerned, and is not intended here to apply to the. Accadians and Summer- ians of primitive ChSfcfara.
CHALD.EAN AND ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE. 29
The history of Chakheo- Assyrian art may be divided into three main periods, as follows :
1. The Early Chai.d.kan, 4000 to 1250 n.c
2. The Assyrian, 1250 to 6c6 B.C.
3. The Barylonian, 606 to 538 b.c.
In 538 the empire fell before the Persians.
GENERAL CHARACTER OF MONUMENTS. Recent excavations at Nippur (Niffer), the sacred city of Chaldaea, have uncov- ered ruins older than the Pyramids. Though of slight importance architecturally, they reveal the early knowledge of the arch and the possession of an advanced culture. The poverty of the building materials of this region afforded only the most limited resources for architectural effect. Owing to the flatness of the country and the impracticabil- ity of building lofty structures with sun-dried bricks, ele- vation above the plain could be secured only by erecting buildings of moderate height upon enormous mounds or terraces, built of crude brick and faced with hard brick or stone. This led to the development of the stepped pyra- mid as the typical form of Chalda^o-Assyrian architecture. Thick walls weFe necessary both for stability and for pro- tection from the burning heat of that climate. The lack of stone for columns and the difficulty of procuring heavy beams for long spans made broad halls and chambers im- possible. The plans of Assyrian palaces look like assem- blages of long corridors and small cells (Fig. 18). Neither the wooden post nor the column played any part in this architecture except for window-mullions and subordinate members* It is probable that the vault was used for roof- ng many of the halls ; the arch was certainly employed for doors and the barrel-vault for the drainage-tunnels
* See Fergusson, Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis, for an ingenious but unsubstantiated argument for the use of columns in Assyrian palaces.
30
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
under the terraces, made necessary by the heavy rainfall. What these structures lacked in durability and height was made up in decorative magnificence. The interior walls were wainscoted to a height of eight or nine feet with alabaster slabs covered with those low-relief pictures of
l8.--PAI.ACB OF SAR<.<>N AT K Hi .K-.AHA1).
hunting scenes, battles, and gods, whieh now enrich the
museums of London, Paris, and other modern < it its. Else- where painted plaster or more durable enamelled tile in brill- iant colors embellished the walls, and, doubtless, rugs and
tapestries added their riehness to this an liitei tural splendor.
CHALDJEAN AECHITECTURE. The ruins at Mugheir (the
Biblical Ur), dating, perhaps, from 2200 B.C., belong to the
two-storied terrace or platform of a temple to Sin or Hurki.
CHALD.EAN AND ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE. 31
The wall of sun-dried brick is faced with enamelled tile. The shrine, which was probably small, has wholly disap- peared from the summit of the mound. At Warka (the an- cient Erech) are two terrace-walls of palaces, one of which is ornamented with convex flutings and with a species of mosaic in checker patterns and zigzags, formed by terra-cotta cones or spikes driven into the clay, their exposed bases being enamelled in the desired colors. The other shows a system of long, narrow panels, in a style suggesting the influence of Egyptian models through some as yet unknown channel. This panelling became a common feature of the later Assyrian art (see Fig. 19). At Birs-Nimroud are the ruins of a stepped pyramid surmounted by a small shrine. Its seven stages are said to have been originally faced with glazed tile of the seven planetary colors, gold, silver, yellow, red, blue, white, and black. The ruins at Nippur, which comprise temples, altars, and dwellings dating from 4000 B.C., have been alluded to. Babylon, the later capital of Chaldaea, to which the shapeless mounds of Mujelibeh and Kasr seem to have belonged, has left no other recognizable vestige of its ancient magnificence.
ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE. Abundant ruins exist of Nine- veh, the Assyrian capital, and its adjacent palace-sites. Excavations at Koyunjik, Khorsabad, and Nimroud have laid bare a number of these royal dwellings. Among them are the palace of Assur-nazir-pal (885 b.c.) and two palaces of Shalmaneser II. (850 b.c) at Nimroud ; the great palace of Sargon at Khorsabad (721 b.c.) ; that of Sennacherib at Koyunjik (704 b.c.) ; of Esarhaddon at Nimroud (650 b.c) ; and of Assur-bani-pal at Koyunjik (660 B.C.). All of these paiaces are designed on the same general principle, best shown by the plan (Fig. 18) of the palace of Sargon at Khorsabad, excavated by Botta and Place.
In this palace two large and several smaller courts are surrounded by a complex series of long, narrow halls and
3 2
HISTORY OF ARCHITFXTl RK.
small, square chambers. One court probably belonged to the harem, another to the kind's apartments, others to de- pendents and to the service of the palace. The crude brick walls are immensely thick and without windows, the only openings being for doors. The absence of columns made wide halls impossible, and great size could only be attained in the direction of length. A terraced pyramid supported an altar or shrine to the southwest of the palace ; at the
fig. 19.— <;ate, KIIDKSAHAP.
west corner was a temple, the substructure of which was crowned by a cavetto cornice showing plainly the influence
of Egyptian models. The whole palace stood upon a stu- pendous platform faced with cut stone, an unaccustomed
extravagance in Assyria.
ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS There is no evidence that the Assyrians ever used eolmnnar supports except in minor or accessory details. There are few halls in any of the ruins too wide to be spanned by gOOd Syrian Cedar beams or palm timbers, and these few > in to have had vaulted
Ceilings. So clumsy a feature as the central wall in the great hall of Ksarhaddon's palace at Nimroud would never have been resorted to for the Support of the ceiling, had
CIIALD.KAN AND ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE. 33
the Assyrians been familiar with the use of columns. That they understood the arch and vault is proved by their admirable terrace-drains and the fine arched gate in the walls of Khorsabad (Fig. 19), as well as by bas-reliefs rep- resenting dwellings with domes of various forms. More- over, a few vaulted chambers of moderate size, and fallen fragments of crude brick vaulting of larger span, have been found in several of the Assyrian ruins.
The construction was extremely simple. The heavy clay walls were faced with alabaster, burned brick, or enamelled tiles. The roofs were probably covered with stamped earth, and sometimes paved on top with tiles or slabs of alabaster to form terraces. Light was introduced most probably through windows immediately under the roof and divided by small columns forming mullions, as suggested by certain relief pictures. No other system seems consistent with the windowless walls of the ruins. It is possible that many rooms depended wholly on artificial light or on the scant rays coming through open doors. To this day, in the hot season the population of Mosul takes refuge from the torrid heats of summer in windowless basements lighted only by lamps.
ORNAMENT. The only structural decorations seem to have been the panelling of exterior walls in a manner re- sembling the Chaldaean terrace-walls, and a form of par- apet like a stepped cresting. There were no character- istic mouldings, architraves, capitals, or cornices. Nearly all the ornament was of the sort called applied, i.e., added after the completion of the structure itself. Pictures in low relief covered the alabaster revetment. They depicted hunting-scenes, battles, deities, and other mythological sub- jects, and are interesting to the architect mainly for their occasional representations of buildings and details of con- struction. Above this wainscot were friezes of enamelled brick ornamented with symbolic forms used as decorative 3
34
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
*€ « I ««. « ««<< « ««« ZZT
F1C. 20. — ASSYRIAN ORNAMENT.
motives; winged bulls, the " sacred tree" and mytholog- ical monsters, with rosettes, palmettes, lotus-flowers, and guillochcs (ornaments of interlacing bands winding about regularly spaced buttons or eyes). These ornaments were also used on the archivolts around the great arches of palace gates. The most singular adornments of these gates
were the carved " portal guardi- ans " set into the deep jambs — colossal monsters with the bodies of bulls, the wings of eagles, and human heads of terrible counte- nance. Of mighty bulk, they were yet minutely wrought in every detaij of head-dress, beard, feath- ers, curly hair, and anatomy.
The purely conventional or- naments mentioned above — the rosette, guilloche, and lotus-flower, and probably also the palmette, were derived from Egyptian originals. They were treated, however, in a quite new spirit and adapted to the special materials and uses of their environment. Thus the form of the palmette, even if derived, as is not unlikely, from the Egyptian lotus-motive, was assimilated to the more familiar palm-forms of Assyria (Fig. 20).
Assyrian architecture never rivalled the Egyptian in grandeur or constructive power, in seriousness, or the higher artistic qualities. It did, however, produce impos- ing results with the poorest resources, and in its use of the arch and its development of ornamental forms it furnished trototypes for some of the most characteristic features of iter Asiatic art, which profoundly influenced both Greek and Byzantine architecture.
MONUMENTS: The most Important Chaldaeaa and Assyrian monuments
of which there are extant remains, have already been enumerated in the text. It is therefore unnecessary to duplicate the list here.
CHAPTER V.
PERSIAN, LYCIAN AND JEWISH ARCHITECTURE.
Books Recommended : As before, Babelon ; Bliss, Exca- vations at Jerusalem. Reber. Also Dieulafoy, L Art antique de la Perse. Fellows, Account of Discoveries in Lycia. Fer- gusson, The Temple at Jerusalem. Flandin et Coste, Perse ancienne. Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art in 'Persia; His- tory of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria, ana' Lycia ; History of Art in Sardinia and Judcea. Texier, L1 Armlnie et la Perse ; L'Asie Mineure. De Vogii£, Le Temple de Jerusalem .
PERSIAN ARCHITECT USE. With the Persians, who under Cyrus (536 b.c.) and Cambyses (525 B.C.) became the masters of the Orient, the Aryan race superseded the Semitic, and assimilated in new combinations the forms it borrowed from the Assyrian civilization. Under the Achaemenidae (536 to 330 b.c) palaces were built in Persepolis and Susa of a splendor and majesty impossible in Mesopotamia, and rival- ling the marvels in the Nile Valley. The conquering nation of warriors who had overthrown the Egyptians and As- syrians was in turn conquered by the arts of its vanquished foes, and speedily became the most luxurious of all nations. The Persians were not great innovators in art ; but inhabit- ing aland of excellent building resources, they were able to combine the Egyptian system of interior columns with de- tails borrowed from Assyrian art, and suggestions, derived most probably from the general use in Persia and Central Asia, of wooden posts or columns as intermediate supports. Out of these elements they evolved an architecture which
36 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
has only become fully known to us since the excavations of M. and Mme. Dieulafoy at Susa in 1882.
ELEMENTS OF PERSIAN ARCHITECTURE. The Persians used both crude and baked bricks, the latter far more freely than was practicable in Assyria, owing to the greater abundance of fuel. Walls when built of the weaker material were faced with baked brick enamelled in brilliant colors, or both moulded and enamelled, to form colored pictures in relief. Stone was employed for walls and columns, and, in con- junction with brick, for the jambs and lintels of doors and windows. Architraves and ceiling-beams were of wood. The palaces were erected, as in Assyria, upon broad plat- forms, partly cut in the rock and partly structural, ap- proached by imposing flights of steps. These palaces were composed of detached buildings, propylaea or gates of honor, vast audience-halls open on one or two sides, and chambers or dwellings partly enclosing or flanking these halls, or grouped in separate buildings. Temples appear to have been of small importance, perhaps owing to habits of out-of-door worship of fire and sun. There are few struct- ural tombs, but there are a number of imposing royal sep- ulchres cut in the rock at Naksh-i-Roustam.
ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS. The Persians, like the Egyp- tians, used the column as an internal feature in hvpostvle halls of great size, and externally to form porches, and per- haps, also, open kiosks without walls. The great Hall of Xerxes at Persepolis coven 100,000 square feet — more than double the area of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. But the Persian column was derived from wooden proto- types and used with irooden architraves, permitting a wider spacing than is possible with stone. In the present in- stance thirty-six columns sufficed for an area which in the Karnak hall contained one hundred and thirty-four. The shafts being slender and finely fluted instead of painted or carved, the effect prouueed was totally different from that
PERSIAN, LYCIAN, AND JEWISH ARCHITECTURE. 37
sought by the Egyptians. The most striking peculiarity of the column was the capital, which was forked (Fig. 21) In one of the two principal types the fork, formed b) the coupled fore-parts of bulls or symbolic monsters, rested directly on the top of the shaft. In the other, two singular members were interposed between the fork and the shaft ; the lower, a sort of double bell or bell-and-palm capital, and above it, just beneath the fork, a cu- rious combination of vertical scrolls or volutes, resembling certain orna- ments seen in Assyrian furniture. The transverse architrave rested in the fork ; the longitudinal archi- trave was supported on the heads of the monsters. A rich moulded base, rather high and in some cases adorned with carved leaves or flut- ings, supported the columns, which in the Hall of Xerxes were over 66 feet high and 6 feet in diameter. The architraves have perished, but the rock - cut tomb of Darius at Naksh-i-Roustam reproduces in its
facade a palace-front, showing a banded architrave with dentils — an obvious imitation of the ends of wooden rafters on a lintel built up of several beams.
These features of the architrave, as well as the fine flut- ings and moulded bases of the columns, are found in Ionic architecture, and in part, at least, in Lycian tombs. As all these examples date from nearly the same period, the origin of these forms and their mutual relations have not been fully determined. The Persian capitals, however, are
-COLUMN FROM PER- SEPOLIS.
38 HISTORY OF ARC HI l'l.< TURK.
unique, and so far as known, without direct prototypes or derivatives. Their constituent elements may have been borrowed from various sources. One can hardly help see- ing the Egyptian palm-capital in the lower member of the compound type (Fig. 21).
The doors and windows had banded architraves or trims and cavetto cornices very Egyptian in character. The por- tals were flanked, as in Assyria, by winged monsters ; but these were built up in several courses of stone, not carved from single blocks like their prototypes. Plaster or, as at Susa, enamelled bricks, replaced as a wall-finish the As- syrian alabaster wainscot. These bricks, splendid in color, and moulded into relief pictures covering large surfaces, are the oldest examples of the skill of the Persians in a branch of ceramic art in which they have always excelled down to our own day.
LYCIAN AECHITECTUEE. The architecture of those Asiatic peoples which served as intermediaries between the ancienr civilizations of Egypt and Assyria on the one hand and oi the Greeks on the other, need occupy us only a moment in passing. None of them developed a complete and inde- pendent style or produced monuments of the first rank. Those chiefly concerned in the transmission of ideas were the Cypriotes, Phoenicians, and I.yeians. The part played by other Asiatic nations is too slight to be considered here. Prom Cyprus the (Greeks could have learned little beyond a few elementary notions regarding sculpture and pottery, although it is possible that the volute-form in Ionic archi- tecture was originally derived from patterns on Cypriote pottery and from certain Cypriote steles, where it appears as a modified lotus motive. The Phoenicians were the World's traders from a very early age down to the Persian conquest They ttOt only distributed through the Mediter- ranean lands the manufactures <>f Egypt and Assyria, but also counterfeited them anil adopted their forms in deco-
PERSIAN, LYCIAN, AND JEWISH ARCHITECTURE. 39
rating their own wares. But they have bequeathed us not a single architectural ruin of importance, either of temples or palaces, nor are the few tombs still extant of sufficient artistic interest to deserve even brief mention in a work of this scope.
In Lycia, however, there arose a system of tomb-design which came near creating a new architectural style, and which doubtless influenced both Persia and the Ionian col- onies. The tombs were mostly cut in the rock, though a few are free-standing monolithic monuments, resembling sarcophagi or small shrines mounted on a high base or pedestal.
In all of these tombs we recognize a manifest copying in stone of framed wooden structures. The walls are pan- elled, or imitate open structures framed of squared timbers. The roofs are often gabled, sometimes in the form of a pointed arch ; they generally show a banded architrave, dentils, and a raking cornice, or else an imitation of broadly projecting eaves with small round rafters. There are sev- eral with porches of Ionic columns ; of these, some are of late date and evidently copied from Asiatic Greek models. Others, and notably one at Telmissus, seem to be examples of a primitive Ionic, and may indeed have been early steps in the development of that splendid style which the Ionic Greeks, both in Asia Minor and in Attica, carried to such perfection.
JEWISH ARCHITECTURE. The Hebrews borrowed from the art of every people with whom they had relations, so that we encounter in the few extant remains of their archi- tecture Egyptian, Assyrian, Phoenician, Greek, Roman, and Syro-Byzantine features, but nothing like an independent national style. Among the most interesting of these re- mains are tombs of various periods, principally occurring in the valleys near Jerusalem, and erroneously ascribed by popular tradition to the judges, prophets, and kings of
40 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
Israel. Some of them are structural, some cut in the rock ; the former (tomb of Absalom, of Zechariah) deco- rated with Doric and Ionic engaged orders, were once sup- posed to be primitive types of these orders and of great antiquity. They are now recognized to be debased imita- tions of late Greek work of the third or second century B.C. They have Egyptian cavetto cornices and pyramidal roofs, like many Asiatic tombs. The openings of the roc k- cut tombs have frames or pediments carved with rich sur- face ornament showing a similar mixture of types — Roman triglyphs and garlands, Syrian-Greek acanthus leaves, con- ventional foliage of Byzantine character, and naturalistic carvings of grapes and local plant-life. The carved arches of two of the ancient city gates (one the so-called Golden Gate) in Jerusalem display rich acanthus foliage somewhat like that of the tombs, but more vigorous and artistic. If of the time of Herod or even of Constantine, as claimed by some, they would indicate that Greek artists in Syria created the prototypes of Byzantine ornament. They are more probably, however, Byzantine restorations of the 6th century a.d.
The one great achievement of Jewish architecture w;is the national Temple of Jehovah, represented by three suc- cessive edifices on Mount Moriah, the site of the present so-called " Mosque of Omar." The first, built by Solo- mon (1012 i:.( .) appears from the Biblical description* to have combined Egyptian conceptions (successive courts, lofty entrance -pylons, the Sanctuary and the sekos or '•Holy of Holies") with Phoenician and Assyrian details and workmanship (cedar woodwork, empaistic decoration or overlaying with rrf>oitss/ metal work, the isolated brazen columns Jachin and Boaz). The whole stood on a mighty platform built up with stupendous masonry and vaulted chambers from the valley surrounding the rock on three * 1 Kings vi.-vii. ; 2 Chronicles iii.-iv.
PERSIAN, LYCIAN, AND JEWISH ARCHITECTURE. 41
sides. This precinct was nearly doubled in size by Herod (18 B.C.) who extended it southward by a terrace-wall of Still more colossal masonry. Some of the stones are twen- ty-two feet long ; one reaches the prodigious length of forty feet. The "Wall of Lamentations" is a part of this terrace, upon which stood the Temple on a raised platform. As rebuilt by Herod, the Temple reproduced in part the an- tique design, and retained the porch of Solomon along the east side ; but the whole was superbly reconstructed in white marble with abundance of gilding. Defended by the Castle of Antonia on the northwest, and embellished with a new and imposing triple colonnade on the south, the whole edifice, a conglomerate of Egyptian, Assyrian, and Roman conceptions and forms, was one of the most singular and yet magnificent creations of ancient art.
The temple of Zerubbabel (515 B.C.), intermediate be- tween those above described, was probably less a re-edifi- cation of the first, than a new design. While based on the scheme of the first temple, it appears to have followed more closely the pattern described in the vision of Ezekiel (chapters xl.-xlii.). It was far inferior to its predecessor in splendor and costliness. No vestiges of it remain.
MONUMENTS. Persian : at Murghab, the tomb of Cyrus, known as Gabre-Madre-Soleiman — a gabled structure on a seven-stepped pyramidal basement (525 B.C.). At Persepolis the palace of Darius (521 B.C.) ; the Propylaea of Xerxes, his palace and his harem (?) or throne-hall (480 B.C.). These splendid structures, several of them of vast size, resplendent with color and majestic with their singular and colossal columns, must have formed one of the most imposing architectural groups in the world. At various points, tower-like tombs, supposed erroneously by Fergusson to have been fire altars. At Naksh-i-Roustam, the tomb of Darius, cut in the rock. Other tombs near by at Persepolis proper and at Pasargadne. At the latter place remains of the palace of Cyrus. At Susa the palace of Xerxes and Artaxerxes (480-405 B.C.).
There are no remains of private houses or temples.
I.ycian : the principal Lycian monuments are found in Myra, Anti-
42 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
phellus, and Telmissus. Some of the monolithic tombs have been re- moved to the British and other European museums.
JEWISH : the temples have been mentioned above. The palace of Solo- mon. The rock-cut monolithic tomb of Siloam. So-called tombs of Absalom and Zechariah, structural ; probably of Herod's time or later. Rock-cut Tombs of the Kings ; of the Prophets, etc. City gates (Hero- dian or early Christian period).
CHAPTER VI.
GREEK ARCHITECTURE.
Books Recommended : As before, Reber. Also, Anderson and Spiers, Architecture of Greece and Rome. Baumeister, Denkmaler der Klassischen Alterthums. Botticher, Tektonik der Hellenen. Chipiez, Histoire critique des ordres grecs. Curtius, Adler and Treu, Die Ausgrabungen zu Olympia. Durm, Antike Baukunst (in Handbuch d. Arch). Frazer, Pau- sanias' Description of Greece. Hitorff, Larchitecture poly- chrome chez les Grecs. Michaelis, Der Parthenon. Penrose, An Investigation, etc., of Athenian Architecture. Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art in Primitive Greece ; La Grece de P Epopee; La Grece archaique. Stuart and Revett, Antiquities of Athens. Tarbell, History of Greek Art. Texier, L'Asie Mineure. Wilkins, Antiquities of Magna Grcecia.
GENERAL CONSIDEBATIONS. Greek art marks the begin- ning of European civilization. The Hellenic race gathered up influences and suggestions from both Asia and Africa and fused them with others, whose sources are unknown, into an art intensely national and original, which was to influence the arts of many races and nations long centuries after the decay of the Hellenic states. The Greek mind, compared with the Egyptian or Assyrian, was more highly intellect- ual, more logical, more symmetrical, and above all more inquiring and analytic. Living nowhere remote from the sea, the Greeks became sailors, merchants, and colonizers. The Ionian kinsmen of the European Greeks, speaking a dialect of the same language, populated the coasts of Asia Minor and many of the islands, so that through them the
44
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
Greeks were open to the influences of the Assyrian, Phoeni- cian, Persian, and Lycian civilizations. In Cyprus they en- countered Egyptian influences, and finally, under Psammet- ichus, they established in Egypt itself the Greek city of Naukratis. They were thus by geographical situation, by character, and by circumstances, peculiarly fitted to receive, develop, and transmit the mingled influences of the East and the South.
PREHISTORIC MONUMENTS.* Authentic Greek history be- gins with the first Olympiad, 776 B.C. The earliest mon- uments of that historic architecture which devel- oped into the masterpieces of the Periclean and Alex- andrian ages, date from the middle of the follow- ing century. But there are a number of older build- ings, belonging presuma- bly to the so-called Heroic Age, which, though seem- ingly unconnected with
the later historic develop- ment of Greek architect- ure, are still worthy of note. They are the work of a people somewhat advanced in civilization, probably the I'elasgi, who preceded the Dori- ans on Greek soil, and consist mainly of fortifications, walls, gates, and tombs, the most important of which are at Mycenae and Tiryns. At the latter place is a well-defined acropolis, with massive walls in which are passages Covered
by stones successively overhanging or corbelled until they
t. The masonry is of huge stones piled without cement.
\t Mycena the city wall is pierced In the remarkable Lion
Gate (Fig. 22), consisting of two jambs and a huge lintel,
* 1- or enlargement on tbu topic Me Appeadix A.
tU.. 22.— I.ION GATE AT MVCKN^.
GREEK ARCHITECTURE. 45
over which the weight is relieved by a triangular opening. This is filled with a sculptured group, now much defaced, representing two rampant lions flanking a singular column which tapers downward. This symbolic group has rela- tions with Hittite and Phrygian sculptures, and with the symbolism of the worship of Rhea Cybele. The masonry of the wall is carefully dressed but not regularly coursed. Other primitive walls and gates showing openings and embryonic arches of various forms, are found widely scat- tered, at Samos and Delos, at Phigaleia, Thoricus, Argos and many other points. The very earliest are hardly more than random piles of rough stone. Those which may fairly claim notice for their artistic masonry are of a later date and of two kinds : the coursed, and the polygonal or Cyclo- pean, so called from the tra- dition that they were built by the Cyclopes. These Cyclo- fig. 23.— polygonal masonry. pean walls were composed of
large, irregular polygonal blocks carefully fitted together and dressed to a fairly smooth face (Fig. 23). Both kinds were used contemporaneously, though in the course of time the regular coursed masonry finally superseded the polygonal.
THOLOS OF ATBEUS. All these structures present, however, only the rudiments of architectural art. The so-called Tholos (or Treasury) of Atreus, at Mycenae, on the other hand, shows the germs of truly artistic design (Fig. 24). It is in reality a tomb, and is one of a large class of prehistoric tombs found in almost every part of the globe, consisting of a circular stone-walled and stone-roofed chamber buried under a tumulus of earth. This one is a beehive-shaped construction of horizontal courses of masonry, with a stone- walled passage, the dromos, leading to the entrance door.
46
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
Though internally of domical form, its construction with horizontal beds in the masonry proves that the idea of the
true dome with the beds of each course pitched at an angle always normal to the curve of the vault, was not yet grasped. A small sepulchral chamber opens from the great one, by a door with the cus- tomary relieving triangle over it.
Traces of a metal lin- ing have been found on the inner surface of the dome and on the jambs of the entrance - door. This entrance is the most artistic and elaborate part of the edifice (Fig. 25). The main opening is enclosed in a three-banded frame, and was once flanked by columns which, as shown by fragments still existing and by marks on either side the do«>r, tapered downward as in the sculptured column over the Lion (iate. Shafts, bases, and capitals • covered with zig-zag bands or chevrons of fine spirals. This well- studied decoration, the banded jambs, and the curiously inverted columns
(of which several other examples exist
in or near Mycenae), all point to a
fairly developed art, derived partly
from Egyptian and partly from Asiatic sources. That
Kgyptian influences had affected this early art is further
FIG. 24. — THOI.OS OF ATRKl'S.
SH THIN.
FIG. 25.— THOLOS OF ATRKl'S. DOOKWAY.
GREEK ARCHITECTURE. 47
proved by a fragment of carved and painted ornament on a ceiling in Orchomenos, imitating with remarkable closeness certain ceiling decorations in Egyptian tombs.
HISTORIC monuments ; the ORDERS. It was the Dorian s and Ionians who developed the architecture of classic Greece. This fact is perpetuated in the traditional names, Doric and Ionic, given to the two systems of columnar de- sign which formed the most striking feature of that archi- S tecture. While in Egypt the column was used almost ex- clusively as an internal support and decoration, in .Greece it was chiefly employed to produce an imposing exterior ef- fect. It was the most important element in the temple architecture of the Greeks, and an almost indispensable adornment of their gateways, public squares, and temple enclosures. To the column the two races named above gave each a special and radically distinct development, and it was not until the Periclean age that the two forms came to be used in conjunction, even by the mixed Doric-Ionic people of Attica. Each of the two types had its own special shaft, capital, entablature, mouldings, and orna- ments, although considerable variation was allowed in the proportions and minor details. The general type, however, remained substantially unchanged from first to last. The earliest examples known to us of either order show it com- plete in all its parts, its later development being restricted to the refining and perfecting of its proportions and details. The probable origin of these orders will be separately con- sidered later on.
THE DORIC. The column of the Doric order (Figs. 26, 27) consists of a tapering shaft rising directly from the stylo- bate or platform and surmounted by a capital of great sim- plicity and beauty. The shaft is fluted with sixteen to twenty shallow channellings of segmental or elliptical sec- tion, meeting in sharp edges or arrises. The capital is made up of a circular cushion or echinus adorned with fine
43
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
grooves called annuhe, and a plain square abacus or cap Upon this rests a plain architrave or epistyle, with a narrow fillet, the taenia, running along its upper edge. The frieze
above it is divided into square panels, called the metopes, sepa- rated by vertical triglyphs having each two vertical grooves and chamfered edges. There is a triglyph over each column and one over each intercolumniation, or two in rare instances where the columns are widely spaced. The cornice consists of a broadly projecting corona resting on a be J -mould of one or two simple mouldings. Its under surface, called the soffit, is adorned with mutules, square, flat projections having each eighteen guttie de- pending from its under side. Two or three small mouldings run along the upper edge of the corona, which has in addition,
over each slope of the gable, a gutter-moulding or cymatium. The cornices along the horizontal edges of the roof have instead of the cymatium a row of anteji.\,r, ornaments of terra-< Otta <>r marble placed opposite the foot of each tile-ridge of the roofing. The enclosed triangular field of the gable, called the tympanum, was in the larger monuments adorned with sculptured groups resting on the shelf formed by the horizontal cor- nice below. Carved ornaments called acroieria commonly embellished the three angles of the gable or pediment.
POLYCHBOMY. It has been fully proved, after a century of debate, that all this elaborate system of parts, seven
FIG. 26. — GREEK DORIC ORDER.
A, Cre/idoma, or Stylobate : 6, Column; c. Architrave ; it,
'1 tenia : e, Frieze : f, Horizontal cornice: g, Raking cornice; h.
Tympanum 0/ pediment ; h, Mt- tofie.
GREEK ARCHITECTURE.
49
and dignified in their simplicity of form, received a rich decoration of color. While the precise shades and tones employed cannot be predicated with certainty, it is well established that the triglyphs were painted blue and the metopes red, and that all the mouldings were decorated with leaf-ornaments, " eggs-and-darts," and frets, in red, green, blue, and gold. The walls and columns were also colored, probably with pale tints of yellow or buff, to re- duce the glare of the fresh marble or the whiteness of the fine stucco with which the surfaces of masonry of coarser stone were primed. In the clear Greek atmosphere and outlined against the brilliant sky, the Greek temple must have presented an aspect of rich, sparkling gayety.
ORIGIN OP THE ORDER. It is generally believed that the details of the Doric frieze and cornice were reminiscences of a primitive wood construction. The triglyph suggests the chamfered ends of cross-beams made up of three planks each ; the mutules, the sheathing of the eaves ; and the guttae, the heads of the spikes or trenails by which the sheathing was secured. It is known that in early astylar temples the me- topes were left open like the spaces between
the ends Of Ceiling-raf- fig. 27.— dokic order of the Parthenon.
ters. In the earlier
peripteral temples, as at Selinus, the triglyph-frieze is re- tained around the cella-wall under the ceiling of the colon- nade, where it has no functional significance, as a survival from times antedating the adoption of the colonnade, when
50 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
the tradition of a wooden roof-construction showing ex temally had not yet been forgotten.
A similar wooden origin for the Doric column has been advocated by some, who point to the assertion of Pausa- nias that in the Doric Heraion at Olympia the original wooden columns had with one exception been replaced by stone columns as fast as they decayed. (Seep. 62.) This, however, only proves that wooden columns were sometimes used in early buildings, not that the Doric column was de- rived from them. Others would derive it from the Egyp- tian columns of Beni Hassan (p. 12), which it certainly re- sembles. But they do not explain how the Greeks could have been familiar with the Beni Hassan column long be- fore the opening of Egypt to them under Psammetichus ; nor why, granting them some knowledge of Egyptian archi- tecture, they should have passed over the splendors of Kar- nak and Luxor to copy these inconspicuous tombs perched high up on the cliffs of the Nile. It would seem that the (ireeks invented this form independently, developing it in buildings which have perished ; unless, indeed, they brought the idea with them from their primitive Aryan home in A
THE IONIC ORDER was characterized by greater slenderness of proportion and elegance of detail than the Doric, and depended more on carving than on color for the decoration of its members (Fig. 28). It was adopted in the fiftii cen- tury BX. by the people of Attica, and used both for civic and religious buildings, sometimes alone and sometimes in con- junction with the Doric. The column was from eight to ten diameters in height, against four and one-third to seven for the Doric. It stood on a base which was usually coin- posed of two tori (see p. 25 for definition) separated by a scotia (a concave moulding of semicircular or semi-elliptical profile), and was sometimes provided also with a square flat base-block, the////////. There was much variety in the pro- portions and details of these mouldings, which were often
GREEK ARCHITECTURE.
51
enriched by (lutings or carved guilloches. The tall shall bore twenty-four deep narrow flutings separated by narrow fillets. The capital was the most peculiar feature of the order. It consisted of a bead or astragal and echinus, over which was a horizontal band ending on either side in a scroll or volute, the sides of which presented the aspect shown in Fig. 29. A thin moulded abacus was interposed between this member and the archi- trave.
The Ionic capital was marked by two awkward features which all its richness could not conceal. One was the protrusion of the echinus beyond the face of the band above it, the other was the disparity be- tween the side and front views of the capital, especially noticeable at the corners of a colonnade. To obviate this, various contrivances were tried, none wholly successful. Ordinarily the two adjacent exte- rior sides of the corner capital were treated alike, the scrolls at their meeting being bent out at an angle of 450, while the two inner faces simply intersected, cutting each other in halves.
The entablature comprised an architrave of two or three flat bands crowned by fine mouldings ; an uninterrupted frieze, frequently sculptured in relief ; and a simple cornice of great beauty. In addition to the ordinary bed-mould- ings there was in most examples a row of narrow blocks or dentils under the corona, which was itself crowned by a high cymatium of extremely graceful profile, carved with the rich " honeysuckle " {anthemioti) ornament. All the mould- ings were carved with the "egg-and-dart," heart-leaf and anthemion ornaments, so designed as to recall by their out-
FIG. 28. — GREEK IONIC OR- DER. (MILETUS.)
52
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
ifflAffl&ffl&smjmi
line the profile of the moulding itself. The details of this order were treated with much more freedom and variety than those of the Doric. The pediments of Ionic build- ings were rarely or never adorned with groups of sculpture. The volutes and echinus of the capital, the fluting of the shaft, the use of a moulded circular base, and in the cornice the high corona and cymatium, these were constant ele- ments in every Ionic order, but all other details varied widely in the different examples.
ORIGIN OF THE IONIC ORDER. The origin of the Ionic order has given rise to almost as much controversy as that of the Doric. Its different elements were apparently derived
from various sources. The Lycian tombs may have contributed the denticular cornice and perhaps also the gen- eral form of the column and capital. In the Per- sian architecture of the sixth century n.c, the high moulded base, the narrow flutings of the shaft, the carved bead- moulding and the use of scrolls in the capital are characteristic features, which may have been borrowed by the Ionians during the same century, unless, indeed, they were themselves the work of fonic or Lycian workmen in Persian employ. The banded architrave and the use of the volute in the decoration of stele-caps (from <rrq\rj = a me- morial stone OT COltimn standing isolated and upright), furniture, and minor structures are common features in Assyrian, Lycian, and other Asiatic architecture of early date. The volute or scroll itself as an independent deco-
FIG. 29.— SIDE VIEW OF IONIC CAPITAL.
GREEK ARCHITECTURE.
53
rative motive may have originated in successive variations of Egyptian lotus-patterns.* But the combination of these diverse elements and their development into the final form of the order was the work of the Ionian Greeks, and it was in the Ionian provinces of Asia Minor that the most splen- did examples of its use are to be found (Halicarnassus, Miletus, Pri- ene, Ephesus), while the most grace- ful and perfect are those of Doric- Ionic Attica.
THE CORINTHIAN ORDER. This was a late outgrowth of the Ionic rather than a new order, and up to the time of the Roman conquest was only used for monuments of small size (see Fig. 38). Its entablature in pure Greek examples was identical with the Ionic ; the shaft and base were only slightly changed in proportion and detail. The capital, however, was a new departure, based probably on metallic embellishments of altars, pedestals, etc., of Ionic style. It consisted in the best examples of a high bell-shaped core surrounded by one or two rows of acanthus leaves, above which were pairs of branching scrolls meeting at the corners in spi- ral volutes. These served to support the angles of a moulded abacus with concave sides (Fig. 30). One ex- ample, from the Tower of the Winds (the clepsydra of Andronicus Cyrrhestes) at Athens, has only smooth pointed palm-leaves and no scrolls above a single row of acanthus leaves. Indeed, the variety and disparity among the dif- * As contended by W. H. Goodyear in his Grammar of the Lotus.
FIG. 30. — GREEK CORINTHIAN ORDER.
(From the monument of Lysi- crates.)
54 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
ferent examples prove that we have here only the first steps toward the evolution of an independent order, which it was reserved for the Romans to fully develop.
GREEK TEMPLES ; THE TYPE. With the orders as their chief decorative element the Greeks built up a splendid archi- tecture of religious and secular monuments. Their noblest works were temples, which they designed with the utmost simplicity of general scheme, but carried out with a mastery of proportion and detail which has never been surpassed. Of moderate size in most cases, they were intended prima- rily to enshrine the simulacrum of the deity, and not, like Christian churches, to accommodate great throngs of wor- shippers. Nor were they, on the ■■■■ ■ ■ it— ■"■€ other hand, sanctuaries designed, like those of Egypt, to exclude all - - L> —I !■ ■J but a privileged few from secret
a * V " '* V *l rites performed only by the priests
and king. The statue of the deity was enshrined in a chamber, the /ides (see plan, Fig. 31), often of considerable size, and accessible to the public through a columnar
F-..3..-TV.ES OF GREEK TEMPLE porch tne *„,„„„,•. \ smaller
rums. -
,, /» Antis: t, Prost,u: c, chamber, the opisthodomus, was Amphifirostyit : d. Peripteral sometimes added iii the rear of
{The Parthenon) : .V, Saos ; O, .,
Ofihthodomu, : S, Statue. llu' «"« SailCtUatV, tO MTV,
treasury or depository for votive offerings. Together these formed a wiudowless Structure called the cella, beyond which was the rear porch, the/W- ticum or efinaos. This whole structure was in the larger
temples surrounded by a colonnade, the peristyle, which formed the most splendid feature of Creek architecture. The external aisle on either side of the cella was called the
pteroma. A single gabled roof covered the entire building.
The Greek colonnade was thus an exterior feature, sur-
GREEK ARCHITECTURE. 55
rounding the solid cella-wall instead of being enclosed by it as in Egypt. The temple was a public, not a royal monument ; and its builders aimed, not as in Egypt at size and overwhelm- ing sombre majesty, but rather at sunny beauty and the high- est perfection of proportion, execution, and detail (Fig. 34).
There were of course many variations of the general type just described. Each of these has received a special name, which is given below with explanations and is illus- trated in Fig. 31.
In antis ; with a porch having two or more columns en- closed between the projecting side-walls of the cella.
Prostylar (or prostyle) ; with a columnar porch in front and no peristyle.
Amphiprostyhxr (or -style) ; with columnar porches at both ends but no peristyle.
Peripteral ; surrounded by columns.
Pseudoperipteral ; with false or engaged columns built into the walls of the cella, leaving no pteroma.
Dipteral ; with double lateral ranges of columns (see
Fig- 39)-
Pseudodipteral ; with a single row of columns on each side, whose distance from the wall is equal to two interco- lumniations of the front.
Tetrastyle, hexastyle, octastyle, decastyle, etc. ; with four, six, eight, or ten columns in the end rows.
CONSTBUCTION. All the temples known to us are of stone, though it is evident from allusions in the ancient writers that wood was sometimes used in early times. (See p. 62.) The finest temples, especially those of Attica, Olympia, and Asia Minor, were of marble. In Magna Grsecia, at Assos, and in other places where marble was wanting, limestone, sandstone, or lava was employed and finished with a thin, fine stucco. The roof was almost invariably of wood and gabled, forming at the ends pediments decorated in most cases with sculpture. The disappearance of these inflam-
s
56 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE,
mable and perishable roofs has given rise to endless specu- lations as to the lighting of the cellas, which in all known ruins, except one at Agrigentum, are destitute of windows. It has been conjectured that light was admitted through openings in the roof, and even that the central part of the cella was wholly open to the sky. Such an arrangement is termed hypcet/irat, from an expression used in a description by Vitruvius;* but this description corresponds to no known structure, and the weight of opinion now inclines against the use of the hypoethral opening, except possibly in one or two of the largest temples, in which a part of the cella in front of the statue may have been thus left open. But even this partial hypathros is not substantiated by direct evidence. It hardly seems probable that the magnificent chryselephantine statues of such temples were ever thus left exposed to the extremes of the climate, which are often severe even in Greece. In the model of the Parthenon de- signed by Ch. Chipiez for the Metropolitan Museum in New York, a small clerestory opening through the roof admits a moderate amount of light to the cella; but this ingenious device rests on no positive evidence (see Frontispiece). It seems on the whole most probable that the cella was lighted entirely by artificial illumination ; but the controversy in its present state is and imist be wholly speculative.
The wooden roof was covered with tiles of terra-cotta <>i marble. It was probably ceiled and panelled on the undef side, and richly decorated with color and gold. The pter- om.i had under the exterior roof a ceiling of stone or mar- ble, deeply panelled between transverse architraves.
The naos and opisthodomus being in the larger temples too wide to be spanned by single beams, were furnished with interior columns to afford intermediate support. To avoid the extremes of too great massiveness and excessive slenderness in these columns, they were built in two stages, •Lib III., Cap. I.
GREEK-ARCHITECTURE.
57
and advantage was taken of this arrangement, in some cases, at least, to introduce lateral galleries into the naos.
SCULPTURE AND CARVING. All the architectural member- ing was treated with the greatest refinement of design and execution, and the aid of sculpture, both in relief and in the round, was invoked to give splendor and significance to the mon- ument. The statue of the deity was the focus of internal interest, while externally, groups of statues representing the Olympian deities or the mythical exploits of gods, demigods, and heroes, adorned the ga- bles. Relief carvings in the friezes and metopes commemorated the fa- vorite national myths. In these sculptures we have the finest known adaptations of pure sculpture — i.e., sculpt- ure treated as such and complete in itself — to
an architectural framework. The noblest examples of this decorative sculpture are those of the Parthenon, consisting of figures in the full round from the pediments, groups in high relief from the metopes, and the beautiful frieze of the Panathenaic procession from the cella-wall under the pteroma ceiling. The greater part of these splendid works are now in the British Museum, whither they were removed by Lord Elgin in 1801. From Olympia, Aegina, and
:arved anthemion ornament.
ATHENS.
58 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
Phigaleia, other master- works of the same kind have been transferred to the museums of Europe. In the Doric style there was little carving other than the sculpture, the orna- ment being mainly polychromatic. Greek Ionic and Co- rinthian monuments, however, as well as minor works such as steles, altars, etc., were richly adorned with carved mouldings and friezes, festoons, acroteria, and other em- bellishments executed with the chisel. The anthemion ornament, a form related to the Egyptian lotus and Assy- rian palmette, most frequently figures in these. It was made into designs of wonderful vigor and beauty (Fig. ,32). DETAIL AND EXECUTION. In the handling and cutting of stone the Greeks displayed a surpassing skill and delicacy. While ordinarily they were content to use stones of moder- ate size, they never hesitated at any dimension ne< essary for proper effect or solid construction. The lower drums of the Parthenon peristyle are 6 feet (>' _■ inches in diameter, and 2 feet 10 inches high, cut from single blocks of l'entelic marble.- The architraves of the Propylaea at Athens are each made up of two lintels placed side by side, the longesl 17 feet 7 inches long, 3 feet 10 inches high, and 2 feel 1 inches thick. In the colossal temples of Asia Minor, where the taste for the vast and grandiose was more pronounced, blocks of much greater size were used. These enormous stones were cut and fitted with the most scrupulous exa< t- mss. The walls of all important structures were built in
regular courses throughout, every stone carefully bedded with extremely 1 lose joints. The masonry w.ts usually laid up without cement and clamped with metal ; there is no filling in with rubble and concrete between men facings of cut stone, as in most modern work. When the only avail- able stone iras of 1 ".use texture it was finished with a coat- ing of fine StUCCO, in which sharp edges and minute detail could be worked.
The details were, in the best period, executed with the
GREEK ARCHITECTURE. 59
most extraordinary refinement and care. The profiles of capitals and mouldings, the carved ornament, the arrises of the flutings, were cut with marvellous precision and deli- cacy. It has been rightly said that the Greeks " built like Titans and finished like jewellers." But this perfect finish was never petty nor wasted on unworthy or vulgar design. The just relation of scale between the building and all its parts was admirably maintained ; the ornament was dis- tributed with rare judgment, and the vigor of its design saved it from all appearance of triviality.
The sensitive taste of the Greeks led them into other refinements than those of mere mechanical perfection. In the Parthenon especially, but ajso in lesser degree in other temples, the seemingly straight lines of the building were all slightly curved, and the vertical faces inclined. This was done to correct the monotony and stiffness of absolutely straight lines and right angles, and certain optical illusions which their acute observation had detected. The long hor- izontal lines of the stylobate and cornice were made convex upward ; a similar convexity in the horizontal corona of the pediment counteracted the seeming concavity otherwise re- sulting from its meeting with the multiplied inclined lines of the raking cornice. The columns were almost imper- ceptibly inclined toward the cella, and the corner inter- columniations made a trifle narrower than the rest ; while the vertical lines of the arrises of the flutings were made convex outward with a curve of the utmost beauty and delicacy. By these and other like refinements there was imparted to the monument an elasticity and vigor of aspect, ah elusive and surprising beauty impossible to de- scribe and not to be explained by the mere composition and general proportions, yet manifest to every cultivated eye.*
* These refinements, first noticed by Allason in 1814, and later confirmed by Cockered and Haller as to the columns, were published to the world in 1838 by IIofTer, verified by Penrose in 1846, and further developed by the investigations of Ziller and later observers.
CHAPTER VII.
GREEK ARCHITECTURE— Continued.
Books Recommended : Same as for Chapter VI. Also, Bacon and Clarke, Investigations at Assos. Espouy, Frag- ments d'arehitee urt antique. Harrison and Verrall, Mythology ami Monuments of Ancient Athens. Hitorff et Zanth, Recual des Monuments de S&geste et Se/inonte. Magne, Le Parthenon. Koldewey and Puchstein, Die griechischen Tempel in Unter~ italien und Sicilien. Waldstein, The Argive Herceum.
HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT. The history of Greek architect- ure, subsequent to the Heroic or Primitive Age, may be divided into periods as follows :
The Archaic ; from 650 to 500 b.c.
The Transitional ; from 500 to 460 b.c, or to the re- vival of prosperity after the Persian wars.
The Periclean ; from 460 to 400 b.c.
The FLORID or Alexandrian ; from 400 to 300 B.C. The Decadent ; 300 to 100 b.c.
The Roman ; 100 ill. to 200 ad.
These dates are, of course, somewhat arbitrary ; it is impossible to set exact bounds to style-periods, which must inevitably overlap at certain points, but the dates, as given above, will assist in distinguishing the successive phases of the history.
ARCHAIC PERIOD. The archaic period is characterized by •' Insure use <>f the Doric order, which appears iii the earliest monuments complete in all its parts, but heavy in its proportions and coarse in its execution. The oldest known temples of this period are the Apollo Temple at Corinth (650 b.c. ?), and the Northern Temple on the acropolis at Selinus in Sicily (cir. 610-590 B.C.), They are both of a coarse lime- stone covered with stucco. The columns are low and mas- sive (41/3 to 4^ diameters in height), widely spaced, and
GREEK ARCHITECTURE. 6l
carry a very high entablature. The triglyphs still appear around the cella wall under the pteroma ceiling, an illogical detail destined to disappear in later buildings. Other tem- ples at Selinus date from the middle or latter part of the sixth century ; they have higher columns and finer profiles than those just mentioned. The great Temple of Zeus at Selinus was the earliest of five colossal Greek temples of very nearly identical dimensions ; it measured 360 feet by 167 feet in plan, but was never completed. During the second half of the sixth century important Doric temples were built at Paestum in South
I
m
1
Italy, and Agrigentum in Sicily ; the somewhat primi- tive temple at Assos in Asia Minor, with uncouth carv- ings of centaurs and mon- sters on its architrave, be- * ■ '"" ■ '^ longs to this same period, fig. 33.— temple of zeus. agrigentum. The Temple of Zeus at
Agrigentum (Fig. 3$) 's another singular and exceptional design, and was the second of the five colossal temples mentioned above. The pteroma was entirely enclosed by walls with engaged columns showing externally, and was of extraordinary width. The walls of the narrow cella were interrupted by heavy piers supporting atlantes, or applied statues under the ceiling. There seem to have been win- dows between these figures, but it is not clear whence they borrowed their light, unless it was admitted by the omis- sion of the metopes between the external triglyphs.
THE TRANSITION. During the transitional period there was a marked improvement in the proportions, detail, and workmanship of the temples. The cella was made broader, the columns more slender, the entablature lighter. The triglyphs disappeared from the cella wall, and sculpture of a higher order enhanced the architectural effect. The pro-
62 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
files of the mouldings and especially of the capitals became more subtle and refined in their curves, while the develop- ment of the ionic order in important monuments in Asia
Minor was preparing the way for the splendors of the I'cr- ielean age. Three temples especially deserve notice : the Athena Temple on the island of .ZEgina, the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, and the so-called Theseum— perhaps a temple of Heracles — in Athens. They belong to the pe- riod 470-450 B.C. ; they are all hexastyle and peripteral, and without triglyphs on the cella wall. Of the three the uid in the list is interesting as the scene of those rites which preceded and accompanied the I'anhellenic Olympian games, and as the central feature of the Altis, the most complete temple-group and enclosure among all (Ireek re- mains. It was built of a coarse conglomerate, finished with fine stucco, and embellished with sculpture by the greatest masters of the time. The adjacent Heraion (tem- ple of Hera) was a highly venerated and ancient shrine, originally built with wooden columns which, according to Pausanias, were replaced one by one, as they decayed, by stone columns. The truth of this statement is attested
by the discovery of a singular variety of capitals among it*
ruins, corresponding to the various periods at which they were added. The Theseum is the most perfectly preserved of all (Ireek temples, and in the refinement of its forms is only surpassed by those of the Periclean age.
THE PEBICLEAN AGE. The Persian wars may be taken as the dividing line between the Transition period and the l'erielean agei 'I he ,'lan of national enthusiasm that followed the expulsion of the invader, and the glory and
wealth which accrued to Athens ;<s the champion of all
Hellas, resulted in a splendid reconstruction of the Attic monuments as well as a revival of building activity in Asia
Minor. By the wise administration of Pericles and by the
genius of Ictinus, Phidias, and other artists of surpassing
GREEK ARCHITECTURE.
<53
skill, tin- Acropolis at Athens was crowned with a group of buildings and statues absolutely unrivalled. Thief among them was the Parthenon, the shrine of Athena Parthenos, which the critics of all schools have agreed in considering the most faultless in design and execution of all buildings erected by man (Figs. 31, 34, and Frontispiece). It was
K1U. 34.— KUINS OF THE 1'ARTHKNON.
an octastyle peripteral temple, with seventeen columns on the side, and measured 220 by 100 feet on the top of the stylobate. It was the work of Ictinus and Callicrates, built to enshrine the noble statue of the goddess by Phidias, a standing chryselephantine figure forty feet high. It was the masterpiece of Greek architecture not only by reason of its refinements of detail, but also on account of the beauty of its sculptural adornments. The frieze about the cella wall under the pteroma ceiling, representing in low relief
64
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
with masterly skill the Panathenaic procession ; the sculpt- ured groups in the metopes, and the superb assemblages of Olympic and symbolic figures of colossal size in the pedi- ments, added their majesty to the perfection of the architecture. Here also the horizontal curva- tures and other refinements are found in their highest develop- ment. Northward from it, upon the Acropolis, stood the Erech- theum, an excellent example of the Attic-Ionic style (Figs. 35, 36). Its singular irregularities of plan F,r- a*-*"" of nomw and level, and the variety of its detail, exhibit in a striking way the Greek indifference to mere formal symmetry when confronted by practical considerations. The motive in this case was the desire to include in one design several existing and venerated shrines to Attic deities and heroes — Athena Pofias, Poseidon, Pandrosus, Krechtheus, Boutes, etc. He- gun by unknown architects in 479 B.C., and not completed
until 408 B.C., it re- mains in its ruin still one of the most interesting and at- tractive of ancient buildings. Its two colonnades of dif- fering design, its beautiful north doorway, and the unique and noble caryatid porch or balcony on the south side arc unsurpassed in delicate beauty combined with vigor of design. * A smaller monument of the Ionic order, the amphiprostyle temple to Nike Apteros —
* Sec Appendix, p. 427.
'..— WKST ENI) Of BM4 IITMF.l'M, KKSToKBD.
GREEK ARCHITECTURE.
65
FIG. 37. — PROPVL.SA AT ATHENS. PLAK.
the Wingless Victory — stands on a projecting spur of the Acropolis to the southwest. It measures only 27 feet by 18 feet in plan ; the cella is nearly square ; the columns are sturdier than those of the Erechtheum, and the execution of the monument is admirable. It was the first complet- ed of the extant build- ings of the group of the Acropolis and dates from 466 B.C.
In the Propylaea (Fig. 37), the monumental gateway to the Acropo- lis, the Doric and Ionic orders appear to have been combined for the first time (437 to 432 B.C.). It was the mas- ter work of Mnesicles. The front and rear facades were Doric hexastyles ; ad- joining the front porch were two projecting lateral wings employing a smaller Doric order. The central passage- way led between two rows of Ionic columns to the rear porch, entered by five doorways and crowned, like the front, with a pediment. The whole was executed with the same splendor and perfection as the other buildings of the Acropolis, and was a worthy gateway to the group of noble monuments which crowned that citadel of the Attic capital. The two orders were also combined in the temple of Apollo Epicurius at Phigalaea (Bassae). This temple was erected in 430 b.c. by Ictinus, who used the Ionic order internally to decorate a row of projecting piers in- stead of free-standing columns in the naos, in which there was also a single Corinthian column of rather archaic de- sign, which may have been used as a support for a statue or votive offering.
66 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
ALEXANDRIAN AGE. A period of reaction followed the splendid architectural activity of the Periclean age. A succession of disastrous wars — the Sicilian, Peloponnesian, and Corinthian — drained the energies and destroyed the peace of European Greece for seventy-five years, robbing Athens of her supremacy and inflicting wounds from which she never recovered. In the latter part of the fourth cen- tury, however, the triumph of the Macedonian empire over all the Mediterranean lands inaugurated a new era of architectural magnificence, especially in Asia Minor. The keynote of the art of this time was splendor, as that of the preceding age was artistic perfection. The Corinthian order came into use, as though the Ionic were not rich enough for the sumptuous taste of the time, and capitals and bases of novel and elaborate design embellished the Ionic temples of Asia Minor. In the temple of Apollo Didymaeus at Miletus, the plinths of the bases were made octagonal and panelled with rich scroll-carvings ; and the piers which buttressed the interior faces of the cella- walls were given capitals of singular but elegant form, mid- way between the Ionic and Corinthian types. This temple belongs to the list of colossal edifices already referred to ; its dimensions were 366 by 163 feet, making it the largest of them all. The famous Artemisium (temple of Arte ms or Diana) measured 342 by 163 feet. Several of the columns of the latter were enriched with sculptured figures encir- cling the lower drums of the colossal shafts. The most lav- ish expenditure was bestowed upon small structures, shrines, and sarcophagi. The graceful monument still visible in Athens, erected by the choraegus Lysicrates in token of his victory in the choral competitions, belongs to this period .'330 B.C.). It is circular, with a slightly domical imbricated roof, and is decorated with elegant engaged Corinthian col- umns (Fig. 38). In the Imperial Museum at Constantinople are several sarcophagi of this period found at Sidon, but
GREEK ARCHITECTURE.
67
executed by Greek artists, and of exceptional beauty. They are in the form of temples or shrines ; the finest of them, supposed by some to have been made for Alexander's favorite general Perdiccas, and by others for the Persian satrap who figures prominently on its sculptured reliefs, is the most sumptuous work of the kind in existence. The exquisite poly- chromy of its beautiful reliefs and the perfection of its rich details of cornice, pediment, til- ing, and crestings, make it an exceedingly interesting and in- structive example of the minor architecture of the period.
THE DECADENCE. After the de- cline of Alexandrian magnifi- cence Greek art never recovered its ancient glory, but the flame was not suddenly extinguished. While in Greece proper the works
of the second and third centuries B.C., are for the most part weak and lifeless, like the Stoa of Attalus (175 B.C.) and the Tower of the Winds (the Clepsydra of Andronicus Cyrrhes- tes, 100 B.C.) at Athens or the Portico of Philip in Delos, there were still a few worthy works built in Asia Minor. The splendid Altar erected at Pergamon by Eumenes II. (circ. 180 B.C.) in the Ionic order, combined sculpture of ex- traordinary vigor with imposing architecture in masterly fashion. At Aizanoi an Ionic Temple to Zeus, by some at- tributed to the Roman period, but showing rather the charac- ter of good late Greek work, deserves mention for its elegant details, and especially for its frieze-decoration of acanthus leaves and scrolls resembling those of a Corinthian capital.
38. — CHORAGIC MONUMENT OF LVSICRATES.
(Restored model, N. Y.)
68 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
ROMAN PERIOD. During this period, i.e., throughout the second and first centuries B.C., the Roman dominion was spreading over Greek territory, and the structures erected subsequent to the conquest partake of the Roman charac- ter and mingle Roman conceptions with Greek details and vice versd. The temple of the Olympian Zeus at Athens (Fig.
39), a mighty dipteral Co-
■ ■■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■il rinthian edifice measuring
■ ■■■■■■■■^^^■^"■■4 354 by 171 feet, standing on
■ ■ ■_ > * * 1' * 'm\ * ^fr^--* " " 3 a vast terrace or temenos
■ ■ B^^^^i-^ ■ ■ 3 surrounded by a buttressed fmimi umi wall, was begun by Anti-
, — B^-- — jy— -j^ ochus Epiphanes (170 B.C.)
01] the site of an earlier un-
FIC. 39.— TEMI1.K OK OLYMPIAN .
ATHENS> finished Doric temple of the
time of Pisistratus, and car- ried out under the direction of the Roman architect, ( sutius. It was not, however, finally completed until the time of Hadrian, 130 A.D. Meanwhile Sulla had despoiled it of several columns* which he carried to Rome (86 is.c), to use in the rebuilding of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, where they undoubtedly served as models in the develop- ment of the Roman Corinthian order. The columns were 57 feet high, with capitals of the most perfect Corinthian type ; fifteen are now standing, and one lies prostrate near by. To the Roman period also belong the Agora Gate ((in. 35 1:1 .), the Arch of Hadrian (117 a.d.), the Odeon of Regilla or of Eierodei Atticus (143 a.d.), at Athens, and many temples and tombs, theatres, arches, etc., in the
k provin
/
* I.. Bevier, in Papers of the American Classical School at Athens (vol. i., pp. 195, 196), contend! that these were columns left from the old Doric temple. This is untenable, for Sulla would certainly not have taken the trouble to carry away archaic Doric columns, with sue 1 splendid Corin- thian columns before him.
GREEK ARCHITECTURE. 69
SECULAR MONUMENTS; PROPYL.EA. The stately gateway by which the Acropolis was entered has already been de- scribed. It was the noblest and most perfect of a class of buildings whose prototype is found in the monumental co- lumnar porches of the palace-group at Persepolis. The Greeks never used the arch in these structures, nor did they attach to them the same importance as did most of the other nations of antiquity. The Altis of Olympia, the national shrine of Hellenism, appears to have had no cen- tral gateway of imposing size, but a number of insignificant entrances disposed at random. The Propylaea of Sunium, Priene and Eleusis are the most conspicuous, after those of the Athenian Acropolis. Of these the Ionic gateway at Priene is the finest, although the later of the two at Eleu- sis is interesting for its anta-capitals. (Anta = a flat pilas- ter decorating the end of a wing-wall and treated with a base and capital usually differing from those of the adja- cent columns.) These are of Corinthian type, adorned with winged horses, scrolls, and anthemions of an exuberant richness of design, characteristic of this late period.
COLONNADES, ST02E. These were built to connect public monuments (as the Dionysiac theatre and Odeon at Athens) ; or along the sides of great public squares, as at Assos and Olympia (the so-called Echo Hall) ; or as inde- pendent open public halls, as the Stoa Diple at Thoricus. They afforded shelter from sun and rain, places for prom- enading, meetings with friends, public gatherings, and simi- lar purposes. They were rarely of great size, and most of them are of rather late date, though the archaic structure at Paestum, known as the Basilica, was probably in reality an open hall of this kind.
THEATRES, ODEONS. These were invariably cut out of the rocky hillsides, though in a few cases (Mantinsea, Myra, Antiphellus) a part of the seats were sustained by a built-up substructure and walls to eke out the deficiency of the hill-
70
HISTORY OF AKCIIITKCTURE.
S 3 II
•••••••• •••••••• |^J t •
PIC. 40. — PLAN OF GREEK THEATRE.
o, Orchestra ; /, Logeion ; /, Paraskettai , t, J, Stoa.
slope under them. The front of the excavation was en- closed by a stage and a set scene or background, built up
so as to leave somewhat over a semicircle for the orchestra or space enclosed by the lower tier of seats (Fig. 40). An altar to Dio- nysus (Bacchus) was the es- sential feature in the fore- ground of the orchestra, where the Dionysiac choral dance was performed. The seats formed successive steps of stone or marble sweeping around the slop- ing excavation, with carved marble thrones for the priests, archons, and other dignitaries. The only architectural dec- oration of the theatre was that of the set scene or skctir, which with its wing-walls (paraskenai) enclosing the stage {iageio/i\ was a permanent structure of stone or marble adorned with doors, cornices, pilasters, etc This has perished in nearly every case ; but at Aspendus, in Asia Minor, there is one still fairly well preserved, with a rich architectural decoration on its inner face. The extreme diameter of the theatres varied greatly ; thus at Aizanoi it is 187 feet, and at Syra- cuse 495 feet. The theatre of Dionysus at Athens (finished 325 n.( .) could accommodate thirty thousand spectators.
The odeon differed from the theatre principally in being smaller and entirely covered in by a wooden roof. The Odeon of Eegilla, bttilt by Herodes Atticus in Athens (143 A.D.), is a well-preserved specimen of this class, but all
traces of its cedar ceiling and of its intermediate supports have disappeared.
BUILDINGS FOR ATHLETIC CONTESTS. These comprised stadia and hippodromes for races, and gymnasia and pa-
GREEK ARCHITECTURE. Jl
laestrae for individual exercise, bathing, and amusement. The stadia and hippodromes were oblong enclosures surrounded by tiers of seats and without conspicuous architectural feat- ures. The palcestra or gymnasium — for the terms are not clearly distinguished — was a combination of courts, cham- bers, tanks (piscina?) for bathers and exedroz or semicircular recesses provided with tiers of seats for spectators and auditors, destined not merely for the exercises of athletes preparing for the stadium, but also for the instruction and diversion of the public by recitations, lectures, and discus- sions. It was the prototype of the Roman thermae, but less imposing, more simple in plan and adornment. Every Greek city had one or more of them, but they have almost wholly disappeared, and the brief description by Vitruvius and scanty remains at Alexandria Troas and Ephesus fur- nish almost the only information we possess regarding their form and arrangement.
TOHBS. These are not numerous, and the most important are found in Asia Minor. The greatest of these is the famed Mausoleum at Halicarnassus in Caria, the monument erected to the king Mausolus by his widow Artemisia (354 b.c; Fig. 41). It was designed by Satyrus and Pythius in the Ionic style, and comprised a podium or base 50 feet high and measuring 80 feet by 100 feet, in which was the sepulchre. Upon this base stood a cella surrounded by thirty-six Ionic columns, and crowned by a pyramidal roof, on the peak of which was a colossal marble quadriga at a height of 130 feet. It was, superbly decorated by Scopas and other great sculptors with statues, marble lions, and a magnificent frieze. The British Museum possesses frag- ments of -this most imposing monument. At Xanthus the Nereid Mouumeut, so called from its sculptured figures of Nereides, was a somewhat similar design on a smaller scale, with sixteen Ionic columns. At Mylassa was another tomb with an open Corinthian colonnade supporting a roof formed
72
HISTORY OF AK( II!'H:( IURK
in a stepped pyramid. Some of the later rock-cut tombs of Lycia at Myra and Antiphellus may also be counted as Hellenic works.
FIG. 41. — MAt'SOt.RI'M AT HAMCARNASSUS.
(As restored by the author.)
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. This never attained great im- portant* in Greece, and <>ui knowledge of the typical Greek house is principally derived from literary sources. Very few remains of Greek houses have been found sufficiently
well preserved to permit of restoring even the plan. It is
probable that they resembled in general arrangement
the houses of Pompeii (see p. 107) ; but that they were generally insignificant in size and decoration. The exte- rior walls were pierced only by the entrance doors, all light being thrived from one or more interior courts. In the
Ionian epoch there must have been greater display
and luxury in domestic architecture, but no remains have
GREEK ARCHITECTURE. 73
come down to us of sufficient importance or completeness to warrant further discussion.
MONUMENTS. In addition to those already mentioned in the text the following should be enumerated :
Prehistoric Period. In the Islands about Santorin, remains of houses antedating 1500 B.C. ; at Tiryns the Acropolis, walls, and miscel- laneous ruins ; the like also at Mycenae, besides various tombs ; walls and gates at Samos, Thoricus, Menidi, Athens, etc.
Archaic Period. Doric Temples at Metapontium (by Durm assigned to 610 B.C.), Selinus, Agrigentum, Paestum ; at Athens the first Parthe- non ; in Asia Minor the primitive Ionic Artemisium at Ephesus and the Heraion at Samos, the latter the oldest of colossal Greek temples.
Transitional Period. At Agrigentum, temples of Concord, Castor and Pollux, Demeter, Aesculapius, all circ. 480 B.C. ; temples at Selinus and Segesta.
Periclean Period. In Athens the Ionic temple on the Illissus, de- stroyed during the present century ; on Cape Sunium the temple of Athena, 430 B.C., partly standing ; at Nemea, the temple of Zeus ; at Tegea, the temple of Athena Elea (400? B.C.) ; at Rhamnus, the temples of Themis and of Nemesis ; at Argos, two temples, stoa, and other buildings ; all these were Doric.
Alexandrian Period. The temple of Dionysus at Teos ; temple of Artemis Leucophryne at Magnesia, both about 330 B.C. and of the Ionic order.
Decadence and Roman Period. At Athens the Stoa of Eumenes, circ. 170 B.C. ; the monument of Philopappus on the Museum hill, 110 A. D. ; the Gymnasium of Hadrian, 114 to 137 A.D. ; the last two of the Corin- thian order.
Theatres. Besides those already mentioned there are important re- mains of theatres at Epidaurus, Argos, Segesta, Iassus (400? B.C.), Delos, Sicyon, and Thoricus ; at Aizanoi, Myra, Telmissus, and Patara, besides many others of less importance scattered through the Hellenic world. At Taormina are extensive ruins of a large Greek theatre rebuilt in the Roman period.
CHAPTER VIII.
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.
Books RBCOlfMSHDCD : As before, Anderson and Spiers, Baumeister, Reber. Choisy, D Art de bdtir chcz les Romains. Desgodetz, Rome in her Ancient Grandeur. Durni, Die Bau- kunst iter Etrusker; Die Baukunst der Romer. Lanciani, Ancient Rome in the Light of Modem Discovery ; New Tales of Old Rome ; Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome. De Mar'ha, Archeologie ctrusque et romaine. Middleton, Ancient Rome in 1888.
LAND AND PEOPLE. The geographical position of Italy conferred upon her special and obvious advantages for tak- ing up and carrying northward and westward the arts of civilization. A scarcity of good harbors was the only draw- back amid the blessings of a glorious climate, fertile soil, varied scenery, and rich material resources. From a re- mote antiquity Dorian colonists had occupied the southern portion and the island of Sicily, enriching them with splen- did monuments of Doric art ; and Phoenician commerce had brought thither the products of Oriental art and indus- try. The foundation of Rome in 753 B.C. established the nucleus about which the sundry populations of Italy were to crystallize into the Roman nation, under the dominating influence of the Latin element. Later on, the absorption of the conquered Etruscans added to this composite people a race of builders and engineers, as jrel rude and uncouth in their art, but destined to become a powerful factor in developing the new architecture that was to spring from the contact of the practical Romans with the noble art of the Greek centres.
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 75
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. While the Greeks bequeathed to posterity the most perfect models of form in literary and plastic art, it was reserved for the Romans to work out, the applications of these to every-day material life. The > Romans were— above all things a practical people. Their consummate skill as organizers is manifest in the marvel- lous administrative institutions of their government, under which they united the most distant and diverse nationali- ties. Seemingly deficient in culture, they were yet able to recast the forms of Greek architecture in new moulds, and to evolve therefrom a mighty architecture adapted to wholly novel conditions. They brought engineering into the ser- vice of architecture, which they fitted to the varied require- ments of government, public amusement, private luxury, and the common comfort. They covered the antique world with arches and amphitheatres, with villas, baths, basilicas, and temples, all bearing the unmistakable impress of Rome, though wrought by artists and artisans of divers races. Only an extraordinary genius for organization could have accomplished such results.
The architects of Rome marvellously extended the range of their art, and gave it a flexibility by which it accommo- dated itself to the widest variety of materials and condi- tions. They made the arch and vault the basis of their system of design, employing them on a scale previously un- dreamed of, and in combinations of surpassing richness and majesty. They systematized their methods of construction so that soldiers and barbarians could execute the rough mass of their buildings, and formulated the designing of the decorative details so that artisans of moderate skill could execute them with good effect. They carried the principle of repetition of motives to its utmost limit, and sought to counteract any resulting monotony by the scale and splendor of the design. Above all they developed planning into a fine art, displaying their genius in a won-
76 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
derful variety of combinations and in an unfailing sense
of the demands of constructive propriety, practical con- venience, and artistic effect. Where Egyptian or Greek architecture shows one type of plan, the Roman shows a score.
GREEK INFLUENCE. Previous to the closing years of the Republic the Romans had no art but the Etruscan. The few buildings of importance they possessed were of Etrus- can design and workmanship, excepting a small number built by Greek hands. It was not until the Empire that Roman architecture took on a truly national form. True Roman architecture is essentially imperial. The change from the primitive Etruscan style to the splendors of the imperial age was due to the conquest of the Greek states. Not only did the Greek campaigns enrich Rome with an unprecedented wealth of artistic spoils ; they also brought into Italy hosts of Greek artists, and filled the minds ol the campaigners with the ambition to realize in their own dominions the marble colonnades, the temples, theatres, and propylaea of the Greek cities they had pillaged. The Greek orders were adopted, altered, and applied to ar- caded designs as well as to peristyles and other open colonnades. The marriage of the column and an h gave birth to a system of forms as characteristic of Roman architecture as the Doric or Ionic colonnade is of the Greek.
THE ROMAN ORDERS. To meet the demands of Roman taste the BtruScan column was retained with its simple en- tablature ; the Doric and lonii were adopted in a modified form; the Corinthian was developed into a complete and independent order, and the Composite was added to the
list. A regular system of proportions for all these five orders was gradually evolved, and the mouldings were profiled with arcs of circles instead of the subtler Greek curves. In the building of many - storied structures the
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.
77
ciders were superposed, the more slender over the stur- dier, in an orderly and graded succession. The immense extent and number of the Roman buildings, the coarse materials often used, the relative scarcity of highly trained artisans, and above all, the necessity of making a given amount of artistic design serve for the largest possible amount of architecture, combined to direct the designing of detail into uniform channels. Thus in time was established a sort of canon of proportions, which was reduced to rules by Vitruvius, and revived in much more detailed and precise form by Vignola in the sixteenth century.
In each of the orders, including the Doric, the column was given a base one half of a diameter in height (the unit of measurement being the diameter of the lower part of the shaft, the crassitudo of Vitruvius). The shaft was made to contract about one-sixth in diameter toward the capital, under which it was termi- nated by an astragal or collar of small mouldings ; at the base it end- ed in a slight flare and fillet called the cincture. The entablature was in all cases given not far from one quarter the height of the whole column. The Tuscan order was a rudimentary or Etruscan Doric with a column seven diameters high and a simple entablature without triglyphs, mutules, or dentils. But few examples of its use are known. The Doric (Fig. 42) retained the triglyphs and metopes, the mutules and guttae of the (ireek ; but the column was made eight diameters high,
FIG. 42. — ROMAN DORIC ORDER (THEATRE OF MARCELLUS).
'I
73
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
HilfliMJiMjl
the shaft was smooth or had deep flutings separated by nar- row fillets, and was usually provided with a simple moulded base on a square plinth. Mutules were used only over the triglyphs, and were even replaced in some cases by dentils ; the corona was made lighter than the Greek, and a cyma- tium replaced the antefixae on the lateral cornices. The Ionic underwent fewer changes, and these principally in the smaller mouldings and details of the capital. The col- umn was nine diameters high (Fig. 43). The Corinthian was made into an independent order by the designing of a special base of small tori and scoiiie, and by sumptuously carved modillions or brackets en- riching the cornice and supporting the corona above a denticulated bed - mould (Fig. 44). Though the first designers of the modillion were probably Greeks, it must, never- theless, be taken as really a Roman device, worthily completing the es- sentially Roman Corinthian order. The Composite was formed by com- bining into one capital portions <>f the Ionic and Corinthian, and giv- ing to it a simplified form of the Corinthian cornice. Tift- Corinthian order remained, however, the fa- vorite order of Roman architecture. U8E OF THE OEDERS. The Romans introduced many innovations in the general use and treatment of the orders. Monolithic shafts were preferred to those built up of superposed drums. The fluting was omitted on these, and when hard and semi-precious stone like porphyry or verd-antique was the material, it was highly polished to bring out its color. These polished monoliths were often
£
irTTTTTTTl
flO 4J— ROMAN IONIC ORDER.
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.
79
of great size, and they were used in almost incredible numbers.
Another radical departure from Greek usage was the mounting of columns on pedestals to secure greater height without increasing the size of the column and its entablature. The Greek anta was devel- oped into the Roman pilaster or flattened wall-column, and every free column, or range of columns perpendicular to the facade, had its corresponding pilaster to support the wall-end of the architrave. But the most radical inno- vation was the general use of engaged columns as wall - decorations or buttresses. The en- gaged column projected from the wall by more than half its diameter, and was built up with the wall as a part of its substance (Fig. 45). The
entablature was in many cases advanced only over the col- umns, between which .it was set back almost to the plane of the wall. This practice is open to the obvious criticism that it makes the column appear superfluous by depriving it of its function of supporting the continuous entablature. The objection has less weight when the projecting entabla- ture over the column serves as a pedestal for a statue or
FIG. 44.-
CO.RINTHIAN ORDER (TEMPLE OF CASTOR AND POLLUX).
So
HISTORY OF ARCHITECT!. KK.
similar object, which restores to the column its function as a support (see the Arch of Constantine, Fig. 63),
ARCADES. The orders, though probably at first used only as free supports in porticos and colonnades, were early
applied as decorations to arcaded structures. This practice became general with the multiplication of many- storied arcades like those ot the amphitheatres, the en- gaged columns being set between the arches as but- tresses, supporting entabla- tures which marked the divi- sions into stories (Fig. 45). This combination has been " assailed as a false and illogi- cal device, but the critic ism proceeds from a too narrow- conception of architectural propriety. It is defensible upon both artistic and logi- cal -rounds ; for it not only furnishes a most desir- =». able play of light and
shade and a pleasing
contrast of re< tangular
and curved lines, but by emphasizing the con- structive divisions and elements of the building and the vertical support of the piers, it also contributes to the ex- pressiveness and vigor of the design.
VAULTING. The Romans substituted vaulting in brick, concrete, or masonry for wooden ceilings wherever possible, both in public and private edifices. The Etruscans were
-ROMAN ARCADI \MIH KMGAOBO COtXMNs.
(V rom the Colosseum.)
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.
8l
jpruy
FIG. 46. — BARREL VAULT.
the first vault-builders, and the Cloaca. Maxima, the great sewer of Republican Rome (about 500 b.c.) still remains as a monument of their engineering skill. Probably not only cmm Etruscan engineers (whose tradi-
tions were perhaps derived from Asi- atic sources in the remote past), but Asiatic builders also from conquered eastern provinces, were engaged together in the development of the wonderful system of vaulted con- struction to which Roman architect- ure so largely owed its grandeur. Three types of vault were commonly used : the barrel-vault, the groined or four-part vault, and the dome.
The barrel vault (Fig. 46) was generally semi-cylindrical in section, and was used to cover corridors and oblong halls, like the temple-cellas, or was bent around a curve, as in amphitheatre passages.
The groined vault is formed by the intersection of two barrel-vaults (Fig. 47). When several compartments of groined vaulting are placed together over an oblong plan, a double ad- vantage is secured. Lateral win- dows can be carried up to the full height of the vaulting instead of being stopped below its springing ; and the weight and thrust of the vaulting are concentrated upon a number of isolated points instead of being exerted along the whole extent of the side walls, as with the barrel-vault. The Romans saw that it was sufficient to dispose the masonry at these points in masses at right angles to the length of the hall, to best resist the lateral 6
FIG. 47. — GROINED VAULT.
St St Groins.
82 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
thrust of the .vault. This appears clearly in the plan of the Basilica of Constantine (Fig. 58).
The dome was in almost all Roman examples supported on a circular wall built up from the ground, as in the Pan- theon (Fig. 54). The pendentive dome, sustained by four or eight arches over a square or octagonal plan, is not found in true Roman buildings.
The Romans made of the vault something more than a mere constructive device. It became in their hands an element of interior effect at least equally important with the arch and column. No style of architecture has ever evolved nobler forms of ceiling than the groined vault and the dome. Moreover, the use of vaulting made possible effects of unencumbered spaciousness and amplitude which could never be compassed by any combination of piers and columns. It also assured to the Roman monuments a du- ration and a freedom from danger of destruction by fire im- possible with any wooden-roofed architecture, however no- ble its form or careful its execution.
CONSTRUCTION. The constructive methods of the Romans varied with the conditions and resources of different prov- inces, but were everywhere dominated by the same prac- tical spirit. Their vaulted architecture demanded for the support of its enormous weights and for resistance to its disruptive thrusts, piers and buttresses of great mass. To construct these wholly of cut stone appeared preposterous and wasteful to the Roman. Italy abounds in clay, lime, and a volcanic product, pozzolana (from Puteoli or Pozzuoli, where it has always been obtained in large quantities), which makes an admirable hydraulic cement. With these materials it was possible to employ unskilled labor for the great bulk of this massive masonry, and to erect with the greatest rapidity and in the most economical manner those stupendous piles which, even in their ruin, excite the ad- miration of every beholder.
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 83
STONE, CONCRETE, AND BRICK MASONRY. For buildings of an externally decorative character such as temples, arches of triumph, and amphitheatres, as well as in all places where brick and concrete were not easily obtained, stone was em- ployed. The walls were built by laying up the inner and outer faces in ashlar or cut stone, and filling in the inter- mediate space with rubble (random masonry of uncut stone) laid up in cement, or with concrete of broken stone and cement dumped into the space in successive layers. The cement converted the whole into a conglomerate closely united with the face-masonry. In Syria and Egypt the local preference for stones of enormous size was gratified, and even surpassed, as in Herod's terrace-walls for the tem- ple at Jerusalem (p. 41), and in the splendid structures of Palmyra and Baalbec. In Italy, however, stones of mod- erate size were preferred, and when blocks of unusual di- mensions occur, they are in many cases marked with false joints, dividing them into apparently smaller blocks, lest they should dwarf the building by their large scale. The general use in the Augustan period of marble for a decora- tive lining or wainscot in interiors led in time to the objectionable prac- tice of coating buildings of concrete with an apparel of sham marble ma- sonry, by carving false joints upon an external veneer of thin slabs of that material. Ordinary concrete walls
r ^ f , ... 11, 1 1 FIG. 48. — ROMAN WALL MA-
were frequently faced with small blocks sonry.
of tufa, called, according to the man- a, Brickwork : b. Tufa
ner of its application, opus reticulatum, aMar ■■ r-> °J"'S reticu-
latum; i, Opus incertum.
opus incertum, opus spicatum, etc. (Fig.
48). In most cases, however, the facing was of carefully executed brickwork, covered sometimes by a coating of stucco. The bricks were large, measuring from one to two feet square where used for quoins or arches, but triangular
84 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
where they served only as facings. Bricks were also used in the construction of skeleton ribs for concrete vaults of large span.
VAULTING. Here, as in the wall-masonry, economy and common sense devised methods extremely simple for ac- complishing vast designs. While the smaller vaults were, so to speak, cast in concrete upon moulds made of rough boards, the enormous weight of the larger vaults precluded their being supported, while drying or " setting," upon timber centrings built up from the ground. Accordingly, a skeleton of light ribs was first built on wooden centrings, and these ribs, when firmly " set," became themselves supports for intermediate centrings on which to cast the concrete fill- ings between the ribs. The whole vault, once hardened, formed really a monolithic curved lintel, exerting no thrust whatever, so that the extraordinary precautions against lateral disruption practised by the Romans were, in fart, in many cases quite superfluous.
DECORATION. The temple of Castor and Pollux in the Forum (long miscalled the temple of Jupitor Stator), is a typical example of Roman architectural decoration, in which richness was preferred to the subtler refinements of design (see Fig. 44). The spdendid figure -sculpture which adorned the Greek monuments would have been inappropriate on the theatres and thcrnue of Rome Of the provinces, even had there been the taste or the skill to produce it. Conventional carved ornament was substituted in its place, and developed into a splendid system of highly decorative forms. Two principal elements appear in this Oration — the acanthus-leaf, as the basis of a whole series of wonderfully varied motives ; and symbolism, represented principally by what are technically termed grotesque* — in- congruous combinations of natural forms, as when an in- fant's body terminates in a bunch of foliage (Fig. 49). Only to a limited extent do we find true sculpture employed as
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.
85
decoration, and that mainly for triumphal arches or memorial columns.
The architectural mouldings were nearly always carved, the Greek water-leaf and egg-and-dart forming the basis of most of the enrichments ; but these were greatly elabo- rated and treated with more minute detail than the Greek prototypes. Friezes and bands were commonly ornamented
tin-* \^ri •*&&£? Cfra
'mmmmm
FIG. 49, — ROMAN CARVED ORNAMENT.
(Lateran Museum.)
with the foliated scroll or rinceau (a convenient French term for which we have no equivalent). This motive was as characteristic of Roman art as the anthemion was of the Greek. It consists of a continuous stem throwing out al- ternately on either side branches which curl into spirals and are richly adorned with rosettes, acanthus-leaves, scrolls, tendrils, and blossoms. In the best examples the detail was modelled with great care' and minuteness, and the motive itself was treated with extraordinary variety and fertility of invention. A derived and enriched form of the anthemion was sometimes used for bands and friezes ; and grotesques, dolphins, griffins, infant genii, wreaths,
86
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
festoons, ribbons, eagles, and masks are also common feat- ures in Roman relief carving.
The Romans made great use of panelling and of moulded plaster in their interior decoration, especially for ceilings.
The panelling of domes ;m<l
|" Jj ^2^2^ L "^ vaults was usually roughly
S^^fifi nlyiil l^^ffl shaped in their first construc-
•^^ ia^^P iSc^teS tion aiu' finished afterward in
I fe^^l BraS^S?! stucco with rich moulding and
^W*2i i^PlN ^^^^ rosettes. The panels were no! »>>. *&& hse£j&s-|II ftW-^aJ aiw;ivs square or rectangular,
as in Greek ceilings, but of va- rious geometric forms in pleas- panels and decorations were wrought in relief in a heavy coating of plaster applied to the finished structure, and these stucco reliefs are among the most refined and charming prod- ucts of Roman art. (Baths of Titus ; Baths at Pompeii ; Palace of the Caesars and tombs at Rome.)
COLOR DECORATION. Plaster was also used as a ground for painting, executed in distemper or by the encaustic process, wax liquefied by a hot iron being the medium for applying the color in the latter case. Pompeii and Herculaneum fur- nish countless examples of brilliant wall-painting in which strong primary colors form the ground, and a semi-natu- ralistic, semi-fantastic representation of figures, architect- ure and landscape is mingled with festoons, vines, and purely conventional ornament. Mosaic was also employed to decorate floors and wall-spaces, and sometimes for ceil- ings.* The later imperial baths and palaces were espe-
•Sce Van Dyke's History of Painting, p. 33.
FIG. 50. —ROMAN CKILING PANELS.
(«, From Palmyra ; b. Basilica of Con- stantine.)
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 87
cially rich in mosaic of the kind called opus Grecanicum, executed with numberless minute cubes of stone or glass, as in the Baths of Caracalla and the Villa of Hadrian at Tivoli.
To the walls of monumental interiors, such as temples, basilicas, and thermae, splendor of color was given by veneering them with thin slabs of rare and richly colored marble. No limit seems to have been placed upon the costliness or amount of these precious materials. Byzan- tine architecture borrowed from this practice its system of interior color decoration.
CHAPTER IX.
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE— Continued.
Hooks RECOMMENDED : Same as for Chapter VIII. Also, Guhl and Ivorner, Life of the Ancient Creeks and Romans. Adams, Ruins of the Palace of Spalatro. Burn, Rome and the Campagna. Cameron, Roman Baths. Mail, tr. by Kelcey, Pompeii, its Life and Art. Mazois, Raines de Pompeii. Von Presuhn, Die neueste Ausgrabungen zu Pom- peii. Wood, Ruins of Palmyra and Baalbec.
THE ETRUSCAN STYLE. Although the first Creek archi- tects were employed in Rome as early as 493 B.C., the archi- tecture of the Republic was practically Etruscan until near- ly 100 b.c. Its monuments, consisting mainly of city walls, tombs, and temples, are all marked by a general uncouth- ness of detail, denoting a lack of artistic refinement, but they display considerable constructive skill. In the Etruscan walls we meet with both polygonal and regularly coursed masonry ; in both kinds the true arch appears as the almost universal form for gates and openings. A famous example is the Augustan Cate at Perugia, a late work rebuilt about 40 b.c, but thoroughly Etruscan in style. At Vola- terra (Volterra) is another arched gate, and in Perugia frag- ments of still another appear built into the modern walls.
The Etruscans built both structural and excavated tombs ; they consisted in general of a single chamber with a slightly arched or gabled roof, supported in the larger tombs on heavy square pins. The interiors were
covered with pictures ; externally there was little orna- ment except about the gable and doorway. The latter
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.
89
had a stepped or moulded frame with curious crossettes or ears projecting laterally at the top. The gable recalled the wooden roofs of Etruscan temples, but was coarse in detail, especially in its mouldings. Sepulchral monuments of other types are also met with, such as cippi or memorial pillars, sometimes in groups of five on a single pedestal (tomb at Albano).
Among the temples of Etruscan style that of Jupiter Capitolinus on the Capitol at Rome, destroyed by fire in 80 b.c, was the chief. Three narrow chambers side by side formed a cella nearly square in plan, preceded by a hexa- style porch of huge Doric, or rather Tuscan, columns ar- ranged in three aisles, widely spaced and carrying ponder- ous wooden architraves. The roof was of wood ; the cymatium and ornaments, as well as the statues in the pedi- ment, were of terra-cotta, painted and gilded. The details in general showed acquaintance with Greek models, which appeared in debased and awkward imitations of triglyphs, cornices, antefixae, etc.
GREEK STYLE. The victories of Marcellus at Syracuse, 212 B.C., Fabius Maximus at Tarentum (209 b.c), Flaminius (196 b.c), Mum- mius (146 b.c), Sulla (86 b.c), and others in the various Greek prov- inces, steadily increased the vogue of Greek architecture and the num- ber of Greek artists in Rome. The temples of the last two centuries b.c, and some of earlier date, though still Etruscan in plan, were in many cases strongly Greek in the character of their details. A few have remained to our time in tolerable preservation. The temple of Fortuna
FIG. 51. — TEMl'LE FOR II N A VIRILIS. PLAN.
90
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
Virilis (really of Fors Fortuna), of the second century (?) B.C., is a tetrastyle prostyle pseudoperipteral temple with a high podium or base, a typical Etruscan cella, and a deep
porch, now walled up, but thoroughly Greek in the ele- gant details of its Ionic order (Fig. 51). Two circular tem- ples, both called erroneously Temples of Vesta, one at Rome near the Cloaca Maxi- ma, the other at Tivoli, be- long among the monuments of Greek style. The first was probably dedicated to Hercu- les, the second probably to the Sibyls; the latter being much the better preserved of the two. Both were surround- ed by peristyles of eighteen Corinthian columns, and prob- ably covered by domical roofs with gilded bronze tiles. The Corinthian order appears here complete with its modillion cornice, but the crispness of the detail and the fineness of the execution are Greek and not Roman. These temples date from about 72 u.c, though the one at Rome was probably rebuilt in the first century A.D. (Fig. 52).
IMPERIAL ARCHITECTURE ; AUGUSTAN AGE. F.vcn in the temples of Greek style Roman conceptions of plan and composition are dominant. The Creek architect was not free to reproduce textually Greek designs or details, how- ever strongly he might impress with the Greek character whatever he touched. The demands of imperial splendor
riO. 52.— CIRCULAR TKMPLE. TIVOLI.
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 91
and the building of great edifices of varied form and com- plex structure, like the thermae and amphitheatres, called for new adaptations and combinations of planning and engineering. The reign of Augustus (27 B.c-14 a.d.) in- augurated the imperial epoch, but many works erected before and after his reign properly belong to the Augustan age by right of style. In general, we find in the works of this period the happiest combination of Greek refinement with Roman splendor. _It was in this period that Rome first assumed the aspect of an opulent and splendid metropolis, though the way had been prepared for this by the regularization and adornment of the Roman Forum and the erection of many temples, basilicas, fora, arches, and theatres during the generation preceding the accession of Augustus. His reign saw the inception or completion of the portico of Octavia, the Augustan forum, the Septa Julia, the first Pantheon, the adjoining Thermae of Agrippa, the theatre of Mar- cellus, the first of the imperial palaces on the Palatine, and a long list of temples, including those of the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux), of Mars Ultor, of Jupiter Tonans on the Capitol, and others in the provinces ; besides colon- nades, statues, arches, and other embellishments almost without number.
LATER IMPERIAL WORKS. With the successors of Augus- tus splendor increased to alfnost fabulous limits, as, for in- stance, in the vast extent and the prodigality of ivory and gold in the famous Golden House of Nero. After the great fire in Rome, presumably kindled by the agents of this emperor, a more regular and monumental system of street-planning and building was introduced, and the first municipal building-law was decreed by him. To the reign of Vespasian (68-79 a.d.) we owe the rebuilding in Roman style and with the Corinthian order of the temple of Jupi- ter Capitolinus, the Baths of Titus, and the beginning of the Flavian amphitheatre or Colosseum. The two last-
92 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
named edifices both stood on the site of Nero's Golden House, of which the greater part was demolished to make way for them. During the last years of the first century the arch of Titus was erected, the Colosseum finished, amphitheatres built at Verona, Pola, Reggio, Tusculum, Nimes (France), Constantine (Algiers), Pompeii and Her- culanum (these last two cities and Stabiae rebuilt after the earthquake of 63 a.o.), and arches, bridges, and temples erected all over the Roman world.
The first part of the second century was distinguished by the splendid architectural achievements of the reign of Hadrian (117-138 a.o.) in Rome and the provinces, espe- cially Athens. Nearly all his works were marked by great dignity of conception as well as beauty of detail. During the latter part of the century a very interesting series of buildings were erected in the Hauran (Syria), in which (ireek and Arab workmen under Roman direction pro- duced examples of vigorous stone architecture of a mingled Roman and Syrian character.
The most remarkable thermae of Rome belong to the third century — those of (aracalla (211-217 a.d.) and of Diocletian (284-305 a.d.) — their ruins to-day ranking among the most imposing remains of antiquity. In Syria the temples of the Sun at Baalbec and Palmyra (273 \.i»., under Aurelian), and the great palace of Diocletian at Spalato, in Dalmatia (300 a.o.), are still the wonder of the few travellers who reach those distant spots.
While during the third and fourth centuries there was a marked decline in purity and refinement of detail, many of the later works of the period display a remarkable freedom and originality in conception. Bat these works are really not Roman, they are foreign, that is, provincial products ; and the transfer of the capital to Byzantium revealed the in- ising degree in which Rome was coming to look to the for her Strength and her art.
ROM AX ARCHITECTURE.
93
TEMPLES. The Romans built both rectangular and circu- lar temples, and there- was much variety in their treatment. In the rectangular temples a high /odium, or basement, was substituted for the Greek stepped stylobate, and the pro- Style plan was more
common than the pe- esm » « . I rr»l • • • • % ^—j
ripteral. The cella ['lll"*"*,*f*it was relatively short and wide, the front porch inordinately deep, and frequently divided by longitudi- nal rows of columns into three aisles. In most cases the exte- rior of the cella in prostyle temples was decorated by engaged columns. A barrel vault gave the inte- rior an aspect of spa- ciousness impossible with the Greek sys- tem of a wooden ceiling supported on double ranges of col- umns. In the place of these, free or engaged columns along the
side-walls received the ribs of the vaulting. Between these ribs the ceiling was richly panelled, or coffered and sump- tuously gilded. The temples of Fortuna Virilis and of Faustina at Rome '(the latter built 141 a.d., and its ruins incorporated into the modern church of S. Lorenzo in Mi- randa), and the beautiful and admirably preserved Maison
FIG. 53. — TE.MrLE OF VENUS AND ROME. PLAN.
94
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
Carree, at Nlmes (France) (4 a.d.) are examples of this type. The temple of Concord, of which only the podium remains, and the small temple of Julius (both of these in the Forum) illustrate another form of prostyle temple in which the porch was on a long side of the cella. Some of the larger temples were peripteral. The temple of the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux) in the Forum, was one of the most magnificent of these, certainly the richest in detail (Fig. 44). Very remarkable was the double temple of Venus and Rome, east of the Forum, designed by the Emperor Hadrian about 130 a.d. (Fig. 53). It was a vast pseudodipteral edifice containing two cellas in one structure, their statue-niches or apses meeting back to back in the centre. The temple stood in the midst of an imposing columnar peribolus en- tered by magnificent gateways. Other important temples have already been rr^ntioned on p. 91.
Besides the two circular temples already described, the temple of vesta, adjoining the House of the Vestals, at the east end of the Forum should be mentioned. At Baalbec is a cir- cular temple whose entablature curves inward between the widely- spaced columns until it touches the Cells in the middle of each inter- columniation. It illustrates the caprices of design which sometimes resulted from the disregard of tra- dition and the striving after origi- nality (273 A. P.).
THE PANTHEON. The noblest of all circular temples of Rome and of the worl1 was the Pantheon. It was built by .Vadrian, 11 7-138 a.d., on the site of the earlier rectangular ten;ole of the* same name erected by Agrippa. It measures 142 fc^t in diameter
FIG. 54. — PLAN OF THE PAN- THEON.
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.
95
**■ "tOtaMp> «^^™» JIIMKf. ^$0 ''"*"
internally ; the wall is 20 feet thick and supports a hemi- spherical dome rising to a height of 140 feet (Figs. 54, 55). Light is admitted solely through a round opening 28 feet in diameter at the top of the dome, the simplest and most impressive method of illumina- tion conceivable. The rain and snow that enter produce no ap- preciable effect upon the temperature of the vast hall. There is a single entrance, with noble bronze doors, admitting di- rectly to the interior, around which seven niches, alternately rectangular and semi- circular in plan and fronted by Corinthian
columns, lighten, without weakening, the mass of the encir- cling wall. This wall was originally incrusted with rich marbles, and the great dome, adorned with deep coffering in rectangular panels, was decorated with rosettes and mouldings in gilt stucco. The dome appears to have been composed of numerous arches and ribs, filled in and finally coated with concrete. A recent examination of a denuded portion of its inner surface has convinced the writer that the interior panelling was executed after, and not during, its construction, by hewing the panels out of the mass of brick and concrete, without regard to the form and posi- tion of the origin skeleton of ribs.
The exterior (Fig. 56) was less successful than the inte-
FIG. 55. — INTERIOR OF THE PANTHEON.
96 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
rior. The gabled porch of twelve superb granite columns 50 feet high, three-aisled in plan after the Etruscan mode, and covered originally by a ceiling of bronze, was a rebuild- ing with the materials and on the plan of tin- original pro- naos of the Pantheon of Agrippa. The circular wall behind it is faced with fine brickwork, and displays, like the dome,
PIO. <jr'- UIU1UM OK THE I'ANTHF'iN.
(From model in Metropolitan Museum, New York.)
many curious arrangements of discharging arches, reminis- - of traditional constructive precautions here wholly useless and fictitious because only skin-deep. A revetment A marble below and plaster above once concealed this brick facing. The portico, in spite of its too steep gable (once filled with a " gigantomachia " in gilt bronze) and its what awkward association with a round building, is n< theless a noble work, its capitals in Pentelic marble ranking among the finest known examples of the Roman Corinl Taken as a whole, the Pantheon is one of the great master s of the world's architecture.
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.
97
FORA AND BASILICAS. The fora were the places for gen- eral public assemblage. The chief of those in Rome, the Forum Magnum, or Forum Romanum, was at first merely an irregular vacant space, about and in which, as the focus of the civic life, temples, halls, colonnades, and statues grad- ually accumulated. These chance aggregations the system- atic Roman mind reduced in time to orderly and monumental form ; successive emperors extended them and added new fora at enormous cost and with great splendor of architect- ure. Those of Julius, Augustus, Vespasian, and Nerva (or Domitian), adjoining the Roman Forum, were magnificent enclosures surrounded by high walls and single or double colonnades. Each contained a temple or basilica, besides gate- ways, memorial columns or arches, and countless statues. The Forum of Trajan surpassed all the rest ; it covered an area of thirty-five thousand square yards, and in- cluded, besides the main area, entered through a triumphal arch, the Ba- silica Ulpia, the temple of Trajan, and his colos- sal Doric column of Vic- tory. Both in size and beauty it ranked as the chief architectural glory of the city (Fig. 57). The six fora together contained thirteen temples, three basilicas, eight triumphal arches, a mile of porticos, and a number of other public edifices.* Besides
* Lanciani : Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries, p. 89.
FIG. 57. — FORUM AND BASILICA OF TRAJAN.
98 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
these, a net-work of colonnades covered large tracts of the city, affording sheltered communication in every direction, and here and there expanding into squares or gardens sur- rounded by peristyles.
The public business of Rome, both judicial and commer- cial, was largely transacted in the basilicas ^ large buildings consisting usually of a wide and lofty central nave Hanked by lower side-aisles, and terminating at one or both ends in an apse or semicircular recess called the tribune, in which were the seats for the magistrates. The side-aisles were separated from the nave by columns supporting a clear- story wall, pierced by windows above the roofs of the side-aisles. In some cases the latter were two stories high, with galleries ; in others the central space was open to the sky, as at Pompeii, suggesting the derivation of the ha >ilica from the open square surrounded by col- onnades, or from the forum itself, with which we And it usually associ-
,";7nNKU'>^CON ated- The most important basilicM •in Rome were the Sempronian, the iEmilian (about 54 n.e.), the Julian In the Forum lHini (51 B.C.), and the TTlpian in the Forum of Trajan (113 A. i).). The last two were probably open basilh as, only the side-aisles being roofed. The Ulpian (Fig. 57) was the most magnificent of all, and in conjunction with the Forum of Trajan formed one of the most imposing of those monu- mental aggregations of columnar architecture which con- tributed so largely to the splendor of the Roman capital.
These monuments frequently suffered from the burning of their wooden roofs. It was Constantine who completed the first vaulted and fireproof basilica, begun by his pre- decessor and rival, Maxentius, on the site of the former Temple of Peace (Figs. 58, 59). Its design reproduced on a
ROMA? ARCHITECTURE.
99
grand scale the plan of the tepidarium-halls of the thermae, the side-recesses of which were converted into a continuous side-aisle by piercing arches through the buttress-walls that separated them. Above the imposing vaults of these re- cesses and under the cross-vaults of the nave were windows admitting abundant light. A narthexy or porch, preceded
59. — BASILICA OF CONSTANTINE. RUINS.
the hall at one end ; there were also a side entrance from the Via Sacra, and an apse or tribune for the magistrates opposite each of these entrances. The dimensions of the main hall (325 x 85 feet), the height of its vault (117 feet), and the splendor of its columns and incrustations excited universal admiration, and exercised a powerful influence on later architecture.
THERMJE. The leisure of the Roman people was largely- spent in the great baths, or therma, which took the place substantially of the modern club. The establishments
IOO
HISTORY OF ARCHI'I 2CTURE.
erected by the emperors for this purpose were vast and complex congeries of large-and small halls, courts, and cham- bers, combined with a masterly comprehension of artistic- propriety and effect in the sequence of oblong, square, oval, and circular apartments, and in the relation of the greater to the lesser masses. They were a combination of the Greek pahestra with the Roman balnea, and united in one harmoni- ous design great public swimming-baths, private baths for individuals and families, places for gym- nastic exercises and games,courts, peristyles, gardens, halls for liter- ary entertainments, lounging-rooms, and all the complex accommo- dation required for the service of the whole es- tablishment. They were built with apparent dis- regard of cost, and adorned with splendid extravagance. The earliest were the Baths of Agrippa(27 B.C.) behind the Pantheon ; next may be mentioned those of Titus, built on the Substructions of Nero's Golden House. The remains of the Thermae of Caracalla (21 1 \.n.) form the most extensive mass of ruins in Rome, and clearly display the admirable planning of this and similar establishments. A gigantic block of buildings containing the three great halls for cold, warm, and hot baths, stood in the centre of a vast enclosure surrounded by private baths. .md halls for lecture-audiences
and other gatherings. The enclosure was adorned with statues, flower-gardens, and places for out-door games. The Baths of Diocletian (302 a.d.) embodied this arrange-
trmirryittfTTT
o . . . . 3°/
• ■
FIG. 60.— THERMS OF CARACALLA. PLAN OF CENTRAL BLOCK. A, Caldarium,or Hot Bath : B, Intermediate Chamber : C, l'f/>idarium, or Warm Path : D, Rrigidarium, or Cold Bath: E, Peristyles: a, Cymnasth Rooms : 6, Dressing- Rooms : c, Cooling Rooms : d. Small Courts ; e, Entrances/ r, / 'eslibules.
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 103
Capua, and many cities in the foreign provinces there are well-preserved remains of similar structures.
Closely related to the amphitheatre were the circus and the stadium. The Circus Maximus between the Palatine and Aventine hills was the oldest of those in Rome. That erected by Caligula and Nero on the site afterward partly occupied by St. Peter's, was more splendid, and is said to have been capable of accommodating over three hundred thousand spectators after its enlargement in the fourth century. The long, narrow race-course was divided into two nearly equal parts by a low parapet, the spina, on which were the goals (inetce) and many small decorative structures and columns. One end of the circus, as of the stadium also, was semicircular ; the other was segmental in the cir- •us, square in the stadium ; a colonnade or arcade ran fcong the top of the building, and the entrances and exits ar?re adorned with monumental arches.
jn TRIUMPHAL ARCHES AND COLUMNS. Rome and the pro- TiMcial cities abounded in monuments commemorative of victory, usually single or triple arches with engaged col- umns and rich sculptural adornments, or single colossal columns supporting statues. The arches were characteris- tic products of Roman design, and some of them deserve high praise for the excellence of their proportions and the elegance of their details. There were in Rome in the sec- ond century a.d., thirty-eight of these monuments. The Arch of Titus (71-82 a.d.) is the simplest and most perfect of those still extant in Rome ; the arch of Septimius Sev- erus in the Forum (203 a.d.) and that of Constantine (330 a.d.) near the Colosseum, are more sumptuous but less pure in detail. The last-named was in part enriched with sculptures taken from the earlier arch of Trajan. The statues of Dacian captives on the attic (attic=z species of subordinate story added above the main cornice) of this arch were a fortunate addition, furnishing a raison-d 'etre
io4
HISTORY OF ARCHIIT.CTURE.
1 l(,. 63. — ARCH OF CONSTANTINE.
(From model in Metropolitan Museum, New York.)
for the columns and broken entablatures on which they rest. Memorial columns of colossal size were erected by several emperors, both in Rome and abroad. Those of
Trajan and of Marcus Aurelius are still stand- ing in Rome in perfect preservation. The first was 140 feet high in- cluding the pedestal and the statue which surmounted it ; its cap- ital marked the height of the ridge levelled by the emperor for the fo- rum on which the col- umn stands. Its most striking peculiarity is the spiral band of reliefs winding around the shaft from bottom to top and representing the Dacian campaigns of Trajan. The other column is of similar design and dimensions, but greatly inferior to the first in execution. Both are really towers, with interior stair-cases leading to the top.
TOMBS. The Romans developed no special and national type of tomb, and few of their sepulchral monuments were of large dimensions. The most important in Rome were the pyramid of Cains Cestius (late first century B.C.), and the circular tombs of Cecilia Metella (fio b.< .). Augustus (14 a.m.) and Hadrian, now the Castle of S. Angelo (138 \.i».). The latter was composed of a huge cone of marble sup- ported on a cylindrical structure 230 feet in diameter stand- ing on a square podium 300 feet long and wide. The cone probably once terminated in the gilt bronze pine-cone now in the Giardino delta Pigna of the Vatican. In the Mauso leum of Augustus a mound of earth planted with trees
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 105
crowned a similar circular base of marble on a podium 220 feet square, now buried.
The smaller tombs varied greatly in size and form. Some were vaulted chambers, with graceful internal painted deco- rations of figures and vine patterns combined with low-relief enrichments in stucco. Others were designed in the form of altars or sarcophagi, as at Pompeii ; while others again resembled aediculse, little temples, shrines, or small towers in several stories of arches and columns, as at St. Remy (France).
PALACES AND DWELLINGS. Into their dwellings the Romans carried all their love of ostentation and personal luxury. They anticipated in many details the comforts of modern civilization in their furniture, their plumbing and heating, and their utensils. Their houses may be divided into four classes : the palace, the villa, the dotnus or ordinary house, and the insula or many-storied tenement built in compact blocks. The first three alone concern us, and will be taken up in the above order.
The imperial palaces on the Palatine Hill comprised a wide range in style and variety of buildings, beginning with the first simple house of Augustus (26 B.C.), burnt and re- built 3 a.d. Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero added to the Augustan group ; Domitian rebuilt a second time and en- larged the palace of Augustus, and Septimius Severus re- modelled the whole group, adding to it his own extraordi- nary seven-storied palace, the Septizonium. The ruins of these successive buildings have been carefully excavated, and reveal a remarkable combination of dwelling-rooms, courts, temples, libraries, basilicas, baths, gardens, peri- styles, fountains, terraces, and covered passages. These were adorned with a profusion of precious marbles, mosaics, columns, and statues. Parts of the demolished palace of Nero were incorporated in the substructions of the Baths of Titus. The beautiful arabesques and plaster reliefs
io6
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
which adorned them were the inspiration of much <>f the fresco and stucco decoration of the Italian Renaissance, At Spalato, in Dalmatia, are the extensive ruins of the
great Palace of Diocle- tian, which was laid out on the plan of a Roman camp, with two intersecting avenues (Fig. 64). It comprised a temple, mausoleum, basilica, and other
i_* _ \ 1^ structures besides
^- 3 ; —s&K Hf • t those portions devot-
ed to the purposes of a royal resident
45$^ iM^[HP£x D Thc vma was in re-
ality a country palace, arranged with special reference to the pre- vailing winds, exposure to the sun and shade, and the enjoyment of a wide prospect Fiat lis, temples, exedrce, theatres, tennis-courts, sun-rooms, and shaded por- ticoes were connected with the house proper, which was built around two or three interior courts or peristyles. Statues, fountains, and colossal vases of marble adorned the grounds, which were laid out in terraces and tr with all the fantastic arts of the Roman landscape-gardener, The most elaborate and extensive villa was that of Ha- drian, at Tibur (Tivoli) ; its ruins, covering hundreds <<f . form one of the most interesting spots to visit in the -hborhood of Rome.
There are few remains in Rome of the domus or private house. Two, however, have left remarkably interesting ruins — the Atrium Vestae, or House of the Vestal Virgins,
FIG. 64. — PALACK OF DIOCLETIAN. SPALATO.
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE
IO7
east of the Forum, a well-planned and extensive house sur- rounding a cloister or court ; and the House of Livia, so- called, on the Palatine Hill, the walls and decorations of which are excellently preserved. The typical Roman house in a provincial town is best illustrated by the ruins of Pom- peii and Herculanum, which,
buried by an eruption of fiortus or Garden
Vesuvius in 79 a.d., have been partially excavated since 1721. The Pompeiian house (Fig. 65) consisted of several courts or atria, some of which were surrounded by colonnades and called peristyles. The front portion was reserved for shops, or presented to the street a wall unbroken save by the entrance ; all the rooms and chambers opened upon the interior courts, from which alone they borrowed their light. In the brilliant cli- mate of southern Italy win- dows were little needed, as sufficient light was admitted by the door, closed only by portieres for the most part ; especially as the family life was passed mainly in the shaded courts, to which fountains, parterres of shrub- bery, statues, and other adornments lent their inviting charm. The general plan of these houses seems to have been of Greek origin, as well as the system of decora- tion used on the walls. These, when not wainscoted with
:ITPTl
abx ala
FIG. 65. — HOUSE OF PANSA, POMPEII.
j, Shops : v. Vestibule ; J", Family Rooms ; £, Kitchen ; /, Lararium ; P, P, P, Peri- styles.
IO» HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
marble, were covered with fantastic, but often artistic, painted decorations, in which an imaginary architecture as of metal, a fantastic and arbitrary perspective, illusory pict- ures, and highly finished figures were the chief elements. These were executed in brilliant colors with excellent effect. The houses were lightly built, with wooden ceilings and roofs instead of vaulting, and usually with but one story on account of the danger from earthquakes. That the work- manship anil decoration were in the capital often superior to what was to be found in a provincial town like Pompeii, is evidenced by beautiful wall-paintings and reliefs discov- ered in Rome in 1879 and now preserved in the Museo delle Terme. More or less fragmentary remains of Roman houses have been found in almost every corner of the Roman empire, but nowhere exhibiting as completely as in Pompeii the typical Roman arrangement.
WORKS OF UTILITY. A word should be said about Roman engineering works, which in many cases were designed with an artistic sense of proportion and form which raises them into the domain of genuine art. Such were especially the bridges, in which a remarkable effect of monumental grandeur was often produced by the form and proportions of the arches and piers, and an appropriate use of rough and dressed masonry, as in the Pons i£lius (Ponte S. An- the great bridge at Alcantara (Spain), ami the Pool du Gard, in southern France. The aqueducts are impres- sive rather by their length, scale, and simplicity, than by any special refinements of design, except where their arches are treated with some architectural decoration to form gates, as in the Porta Maggiore, at Rome.
MONUMENTS : 1 Those which have no important extant remains are given in italics. ) Tl Mil I I : Jupiter (',;/> /'/.>//'// •- «, Liter, and l.i-
bera, 404 K.c. (ruins of later rebuilding in S. Mari.i in < osmedin) ; first T. 0/ CtHCtrd (rebuilt in AdfUSfl ', first marble temple in por-
tico of Metdlus, by a(ireck. Hermodorus, 143 H.c. ; temples of Fortune at
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. IO9
Pneneste and at Rome, and of " Vesta " at Rome, 83-78 B.C. ; of " Vesta" at Tivoli, and of Hercules at Cori, 72 B.C. ; first Pantheon, 27 B.C. In Augustan Age temples of Apollo, Concord rebuilt, Dioscuri, Julius, Jupi- ter Stalor, Jupiter Tonans, Mars Ultor, Minerva {at Rome and Assisi), Maison Carree at Nimes, Saturn ; at Puteoli, Pola, etc. T. of Peace; T.Jupiter Capitolinus, rebuilt 70 a.d. ; temple at Brescia. Temple of Vespasian, 96 A.D. ; also of Minerva in Forum of Nerva ; of Trajan, 117 A.D. ; second Pantheon ; T. of Venus and Rome at Rome, and of Jupiter Olympius at Athens, 135-138 a.d. ; Faustina, 141 a.d. ; many in Syria ; temples of Sun at Rome, Baalbec, and Palmyra, cir. 273 A.D. ; of Romulus, 305 a.d. (porch S. Cosmo and Damiano). Places of Assembly : Fora — Roman, Julian, 46 B.C. ; Augustan, 40-42 B.C. ; of Peace, 75 A.D. ; Nerva, 97 a.d. ; Trajan (by Apollodorus of Damascus, 117 a.d. Basilicas : Sem- proniaii, j-Emilian, 1st century B.C. ; Julian, 51 B.C. ; Septa Julia, 26 B.C. ; the Curia, later rebuilt by Diocletian, 300 A.D. (now Church of S. Adriano) ; at Fa no, 20 A.D. (?) ; Forum and Basilica at Pompeii, 60 a.d. ; of Trajan ; of Constantine, 310-324 a.d. Theatres (th.) and Amphitheatres (amp.) : th. Pompey, 55 B.C. ; of Balbus and of Marcellus, 13 B.C. ; th. and amp. at Pompeii and Herculanum ; Colosseum at Rome, 78-82 a.d. ; th. at Orange and in Asia Minor ; amp. at Albano, Constantine, Nimes, Petra, Pola, Reggio, Trevi, Tusculum, Verona, etc. ; amp. Castrense at Rome, 96 a.d. Circuses and stadia at Rome. Thermae: of Agrippa, 27 B.C. ; of Nero ; of Titus, 78 a.d. ; Domitian, 90 a.d. ; Caracalla, 211 A.D. ; Diocletian, 305 A.D. ; Constantine, 320 A.D. ; " Minerva Medica," 3d or 4th century a.d. Arches : of Stertinius, 196 B.C. ; Scipio, 190 B.C.; Augustus, 30 B.C. ; Titus, 71-82 a.d. ; Trajan, 117 A.D. ; Severus, 203 A.D. ; Constantine, 320 A.D. ; of Drusus, Dolabella, Silversmiths, 204 A.D.; Janus Quadrifrons, 320 a.d. (?) ; all at Rome. Others at Benevento, An- cona, Rimini in Italy ; also at Athens, and at Reims and St. Chamas in France. Columns of Trajan, Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius at Rome; others at Constantinople, Alexandria, etc. Tombs : along Via Appia and Via Latina, at Rome ; Via Sacra at Pompeii ; tower-tombs at St. Remy in France ; rock-cut at Petra ; at Rome, of Caius Cestius and Cecilia Me- tella, 1st century B.C. ; of Augustus, 14 a.d. ; Hadrian, 138 a.d. Pal- aces and Private Houses : On Palatine, of Augustus, Tiberius, Nero, Domitian, Septimius Severus, Elagabalus ; Villa of Hadrian at Tivoli ; palaces of Diocletian at Spalato and of Constantine at Constantinople. House of Livia on Palatine (Augustan period) ; of Vestals, rebuilt by Hadrian, cir. 120 a.d. Houses at Pompeii and Herculanum, cir. 60-79 a.d. ; Villas of Gordianus (" Tor' de' Schiavi," 240 a.d.), and of Sallust at Rome, and of Pliny at Laurentium.
CHAPTER X.
EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE.
Books Recommended : Hansen, Die Basiliken christlichen Rams. Butler, Architecture and other Arts in Northern Cen- tra/ Syria. Corroyer, V architecture romane. Camming*, A History of Architecture in Italy. Essenwein (Handbuch d. Architektur , Ausg&nge der kiassischen Bauhunst. (lutensohn u. Knap]), Denhmdler der christlichen Religion. Htlbsch, Monti mints de P architecture chrio'eune. Lanciani, Pagan 'tint Christian Rome. Mothes, Die BasiKhenform l»i ,/en Christen, etc. Okely, Development of Christian Architecture in Italy. Von Quast, Die a !te litis (lie hen Bauwerht %U Ravenna. De Rossi, Roma Sottcrtanea. De Vogue, Syrie Centrale ; Eglises ile la Tern Sainte.
INTRODUCTORY. The official recognition of Christianity in the year 328 by Constantine simply legalized an institu- tion which had been for three centuries gathering momen- tum for its final conquest of the antique world. The new religion rapidly enlisted in its service for a common purpose and under a common impulse races as wide apart in blood and culture as those which had built up the art of imperial Rome. It was Christianity which reduced to civilization in the West the Germanic hordes that had overthrown Koine, bringing their fresh and hitherto untamed vigor to the task of recreating architecture out of the decaying fragments of tit. So in the East its life-giving influence awoke the slumbering Greek art-instinct to new triumphs in the arts of building, less refined and perfect indeed, but not
- sublime than those of the Periclean age. Long before the Constantinian edict, the Christians in the Eastern prov- inces had enjoyed substantial freedom of worship. Meet- ing often in the private basilicas of wealthy converts, and
EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. Ill
finding these, and still more the great public basilicas, suited to the requirements of their worship, they early be- gan to build in imitation of these edifices. There are many remains of these early churches in northern Africa and central Syria.
early christian ART in ROME. This was at first wholly sepulchral, developing in the catacombs the symbols of the new faith. Once liberated, however, Christianity appro- priated bodily for its public rites the basilica-type and the general substance of Roman architecture. Shafts and capitals, architraves and rich linings of veined marble, even the pagan Bacchic symbolism of the vine, it adapted to new uses in its own service. Constantine led the way in archi- tecture, endowing Bethlehem and Jerusalem with splendid churches, and his new capital on the Bosphorus with the first of the three historic basilicas dedicated to the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia). One of the greatest of innovators, he seems to have had a special predilection for circular buildings, and the tombs and baptisteries which he erected in this form, especially that for his sister Constantia in Rome (known as Santa Costanza, Fig. 66), furnished the pro- FIG ^^ COSTANZA) totype for numberless Italian baptis- rome.
teries in later ages.
The Christian basilica (see Figs. 67, 68) generally com- prised a broad and lofty nave, separated by rows of columns from the single or double side-aisles. The aisles had usually about half the width and height of the nave, and like it were covered with wooden roofs and ceilings. Above the columns which flanked the nave rose the lofty clearstory wall, pierced with windows above the side-aisle roofs and supporting the immense trusses of the roof of the nave. The timbering of
112 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
the latter was sometimes bare, sometimes concealed by a richly panelled ceiling, carved, gilded, and painted. At the further end of the nave was the sanctuary or apse, with the seats for the clergy on a raised platform, the bcrna, in front of which was the altar. Transepts sometimes expanded to right and left before the altar, under which was the confi-s- sio or shrine of the titular saint or martyr.
An atrium or forecourt surrounded by a covered arcade preceded the basilica proper, the arcade at the front of the church forming a porch or uarthex, which, however, in some cases existed without the atrium. The exterior was ex- tremely plain ; the interior, on the contrary, was resplen- dent with incrustations of veined marble and with sumptuous decorations in glass mosaic (called opus Grecanicum) on a blue or golden ground. Especially rich were the half-dome of the apse and the wall-space surrounding its arch and called the triumphal arch ; next in decorative importance came the broad band of wall beneath the clearstory win- dow-,. Upon these surfaces the mosaic-workers wrought with minute cubes of colored glass pictures and symbols almost imperishable, in which the glow of color and a cer- tain decorative grandeur of effect in the composition went far to atone for the uncouth drawing. With growing wealth and an increasingly elaborate ritual, the furniture and equipments of the church assumed greater architectural importance. A large rectangular space was retained for the choir in front of the bema, and enclosed by a breast* high parapet of marble, richly inlaid. On either side were the pulpits or ambones for the Gospel and Epistle. A lofty canopy was built over the altar, the baldaquin, supported on four marble columns. A few basilicas were built with side- . in two stories, as in S. I.oren/.o and Sta. Agnese. Adjoining the basilica in the earlier examples were the baptistery and the tomb of the saint, Circular or polygonal buildings usually ; but in later times these were replaced
EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 113
by the font or baptismal chapel in the church and the con- frssio under the altar.
Of the two Constantinian basilicas in Rome, the one dedicated to St. Peter was demolished in the fifteenth cen- tury ; that of St. John Lateran has been so disfigured by modern alterations as to be unrecognizable. The former of the two adjoined the site of the martyrdom of St. Peter in the circus of Caligula and Nero ; it was five-aisled, 380 feet in length by 2 1 2 feet in width. The nave was 80 feet wide and 100 feet high, and the dispropor- \ tionately high clearstory wall rested on horizontal architraves carried by col-
. ... FIG. 67. — PLAN OF THE BASILICA OF ST. PAUL.
umns. The impressive di- mensions and simple plan of this structure gave it a majesty worthy of its rank as the first church of Christen- dom. St. Paul beyond the Walls (S. Paolo fuori le mura), built in 386 by Theodosius, resembled St. Peter's closely in plan (Figs. 67, 68). Destroyed by fire in 1821, it has been rebuilt with almost its pristine splendor, and is, next to the modern St. Peter's and the Pantheon, the most im- pressive place of worship in Rome. Santa Maria Maggiore,* though smaller in size, is more interesting because it so largely retains its original aspect, its Renaissance ceiling hap- pily harmonizing with its simple antique lines. Ionic col- umns support architraves to carry the clearstory, as in St. Peter's. In most other examples, St. Paul's included, arches turned from column to column perform this function. The first known case of such use of classic columns as arch-bear- ers was in the palace of Diocletian at Spalato ; it also appears in Syrian buildings of the third and fourth centuries a.u.
* Hereafter the abbreviation S. M. will be generally used instead of the name Santa Maria. 8
H4
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
The basilica remained the model for ecclesiastical archi- tecture in Rome, without noticeable change either of plan or detail, until the time of the Renaissance. All the earlier examples employed columns and capitals taken from ancient
ruins, often incongruous and ill-matched in size and order. San Clemente ( i < HS4) has retained almost intact its early aspect, its choir- enclosure, baldaquin, and ambones having been well preserved or carefully re- stored. Other important basilicas are mentioned in the list of monuments on pages 118, 119.
JtAVENNA. The fifth and s i .\ t h centuries endowed Ravenna with a number of notable buildings which, with the exception of the cathedral, demolished in the last century, have been pre- served to our day. Subdued by the Byzantine emperof Justinian in 537, Ravenna became the meeting-ground irly Christian and Byzantine traditions and the basili- Can and circular plans are both represented. The two churches dedicated to St. Apollinaris, S. Apollinare Nuovo (520) in the city, and S. Apollinare in Classe (538) three miles distant from the city, in what was formerly the port, are especially interesting for their fine mosaics, and for the impost-blocks interposed above the capitals of their columns to receive the springing of the pier-arches. These blo< ks appear to be somewhat crude modifications
-
EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 1 1 5
ol the fragmentary architraves or entablatures employed in classic Roman architecture to receive the springing of vaults sustained by columns, and became common in Byzantine structures (Fig. 73). The use of external arcad- ing to give some slight adornment to the walls of the second of the above-named churches, and the round bell- towers of brick which adjoined both of them, were first steps toward the development of the "wall-veil" or ar- caded decoration, and of the campaniles, which in later cen- turies became so characteristic of north Italian churches (see Chapter XIII.). In Rome the campaniles which ac- company many of the mediaeval basilicas are sauare and pierced with many windows.
The basilican form of church became general in Italy, a large proportion of whose churches continued to be built with wooden roofs and with but slight deviations from the original type, long after the appearance of the Gothic style. The chief departures from early precedent were in the ex- terior, which was embellished with marble incrustations as in .S. Miniato (Florence) ; or with successive stories of wall-arcades, as in many churches in Pisa and Lucca (see Fig. 90) ; until finally the introduction of clustered piers, pointed arches, and vaulting, gradually transformed the basilican into the Italian Romanesque and Gothic styles.
SYRIA AND THE EAST. In Syria, particularly the central portion, the Christian architecture of the 3d to 8th centuries produced a number of very interesting monuments. The churches built by Constantine in Syria — the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem (nominally built by his mother), of the Ascension at Jerusalem, the magnificent octagonal church on the site of the Temple, and finally the some- what similar church at Antioch — were the most notable Christian monuments in Syria. The first three on the list, still extant in part at least, have been so altered by later
I 10
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
additions and restorations that their original forms are only approximately known from early descriptions. They were all of large size, and the octagonal church on the Temple platform was of exceptional magnificence.* The columns and a part of the marble incrustations of the early design are still visible in the " Mosque of Omar," but most of the old work is concealed by the decoration of tiles applied by the Moslems, and the whole interior aspect altered by the wood-and-plaster dome with which they replaced the
simpler roof of the original. Christian architecture in Syria soon, however, di- verged from Roman tradi- tions. T h e abundance of hard stone, the total lack of clay or brick, the remote- from Rome, led t<> a peculiar independence and originality in the forms and details of the ecclesiastical as well as of the domestic: architecture of central Syria. These innovations upon Roman models resulted in the development of distinct types which, but for the arrest of progress by the Mohammedan conquest in the seventh century, WOOld doubtless have inaugurated a new and in- dependent style of architecture. Piers of masonry came
• Ftryuwon (History of Arckittctwt, vol. ii.. pp. 408, 432) contend! that this was the real (onstantinian church of the Holy Sepulchre, and that the one called to-day by that name was erected by the Crusaders in the twelfth century. The more general view is that the latter was originally built by < onst.mtine as the Church of the Sepulchre, though subsequently much altered, and that the octagonal edifice was also his work, but erected under some other name. Whether this church was later incorporated in the " Mosque of Omar." or merely furnished some of the materials for its construction, is not quite clear.
FIG. 69.— CHC'KCH AT KALB LOl'ZEII.
EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE.
117
to replace the classic column, as at Tafkha (third or fourth century), Rouheiha and Kalb Louzeh (fifth century ? Fig. 69) ; the ceilings in the smaller churches were often formed with stone slabs ; the apse was at first confined within the main rectangle of the plan, and was sometimes square. The exterior assumed a striking and pictur- esque variety of forms by means of turrets, porches, and gables. Singularly enough, vaulting hardly appears at all, though the arch is used with fine effect. Conventional and monastic groups of buildings appear early in Syria, and that of St. Simeon Stylites at Kelat Seman is an impres- sive and interesting monument. Four three-aisled wings form the arms of a cross, meet- ing in a central octagonal open court, in the midst of which stood the column of the saint. The eastern arm of the cross forms a complete basilica of itself, and the whole cross meas- ures 330 x 300 feet. Chapels, cloisters, and cells adjoin the main edifice.
Circular and polygonal plans appear in a number of Syrian examples of the early sixth cen- tury. Their most striking feat- ure is the inscribing of the circle or polygon in a square which forms the exterior outline, and the use of four niches to fill out the corners. This occurs at Kelat Seman in a small double church, perhaps the tomb and chapel of a martyr ; in the cathedral at Bozrah (Fig. 70), and in the small domical church of St. George at Ezra. These were probably the prototypes of many Byzantine churches like St. Sergius at Constantinople, and San Vitale at Ravenna .(Fig. 74), though the exact dates of the Syrian
:athedral at bozrah.
Il8 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
churches are not known. The one at Ezra is the only one of the three which has a dome, the others having been roofed with wood.
The interesting domestic architecture of this period is preserved in whole towns and villages in the Hauran, which, deserted at the Arab conquest, have never been reoccupied and remain almost intact but for the decay of their wooden roofs. They are marked by dignity and simplicity of de- sign, and by the same picturesque massing of gables and roofs and porches which has already been remarked of the churches. The arches are broad, the columns rather heavy, the mouldings few and simple, and the scanty carving vig- orous and effective, often strongly Byzantine in type.
Elsewhere in the Eastern world are many early churches of which even the enumeration would exceed the limits of this work. Salonica counts a number of basilicas and sev- eral domical churches. The church of St. George, now a mosque, is of early date and thoroughly Roman in plan and ion, of the same class with the Pantheon and the tomb of Helena, in both of which a massive circular wall is light- ened by eight niches. At Angora (Ancyra), Hierapolis,. Pergamus, and other points in Asia Minor ; in Egypt, Nu- bia, and Algiers, are many examples of both circular and basilican edifices of the early centuries of Christianity. In Constantinople there remains but a single representative of the basilican type, the church of St. John Studius, now the Emir Akhor mosque.
M0NUMENT8: ROMI : 4th century : St. Peter's, Sta. Costanza, 330? ; Ma. Pudentiana, 335 (rebuilt 1598); tomb of St. Helena; Baptistery of < onstantine ; St. Paul's beyond the Walls, 386 ; St. John Lateral] (wholly remodelled in modern times). 5th century : Baptistery of St. John Lateran ; Sta. Sabina, 425 ; Sta. Maria Maggiorc, 432 ; S. I'ietro in Vincoli, 442 (greatly altered in modern times). 6th century: S. Lorenzo, 5S0 (the older portion in two stories) ; SS. Cosmo e Damiano. 7th century : Sta. Agnese, 625 ; S. Giorgio in Velabro, 682. 8th century : Sta. Maria in
EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. I 19
Cosmedin ; S. Crisogono. 9th century : S. Nereo ed Achilleo ; Sta. Pras- sede ; Sta. Maria in Dominica. 12th and 13th centuries: S. Clemente, 1 1 18 ; Sta. Maria in Trastevere ; S. Lorenzo (nave) ; Sta. Maria in Ara Coeli. RAVENNA : Baptistery of S. John, 400 (?) ; S. Francesco ; S. Gio- vanni Evangelista, 425 ; Sta. Agata, 430 ; S. Giovanni Battista, 439 ; tomb of Galla Placidia, 450 ; S. Apollinare Nuovo, 500-520 ; S. Apollinare in Classe, 538 ; St. Victor ; Sta. Maria in Cosmedin (the Arian Baptist- ery) ; tomb of Theodoric (Sta. Maria della Rotonda, a decagonal two- storied mausoleum, with a low dome cut from a single stone 36 feet in diameter), 530-540. Italy in General : basilica at Parenzo, 6th cen- tury ; cathedral and Sta. Fosca at Torcello, 640-700 ; at Naples Sta. Restituta, 7th century ; others, mostly of ioth-i3th centuries, at Murano near Venice, at Florence (S. Miniato), Spoleto, Toscanella, etc. ; bap- tisteries at Asti, Florence, Nocera dei Pagani, and other places. In Sy- ria and the East : basilicas of the Nativity at Bethlehem, of the Sepulchre and of the Ascension at Jerusalem ; also polygonal church on Temple platform ; these all of 4th century. Basilicas at Bakouzah, Hass, Kelat Seman, Kalb Louzeh, Rouheiha, Tourmanin, etc. ; circular churches, tombs, and baptisteries at Bozrah, Ezra, Hass, Kelat Seman, Rouheiha, etc. ; all these 4th-8th centuries. Churches at Constantinople (Holy Wisdom, St. John Studius, etc.), Hierapolis, Pergamus, and Thes- salonica (St. Demetrius, " Eski Djuma") ; in Egypt and Nubia (Djemla, Announa, Ibreem, Siout, etc.) ; at Orleansville in Algeria. (For churches, etc., of 8th-ioth centuries in the West, see Chapter XIII.)
CHAPTER XL
BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE.
Books Recommended : As before, Essenwein, Hiibsch, Von Quast. Also, Bayet, L Art Byzantin. Choisy, L Art de bdtir chcz les Byzantins. Lethaby and Swainson, Sancta Sophia. Ongania, La Basilica di San Marco. Pulgher, An- cicnncs EgSses ByaanHnes de Constantinople. Salzenberg, Alkhristlichc Baudrnkmalc von Constantinopel. Texier and Pullan, Byzantine Architecture.
ORIGIN AND CHARACTER. The decline and fall of Rome arrested the development of the basilican style in the West, as did the Arab conquest later in Syria. It was otheru in the new Eastern capital founded by Constantine in the ancient Byzantium, which was rising in power and wealth while Rome lay in ruins. Situated at the strategic point of the natural highway of commerce between East and West, salubrious and enchantingly beautiful in its sur- roundings the new capital grew rapidly from provincial insignificance to metropolitan importance. Its founder had embellished it with an extraordinary wealth of build- in:^, in whit h, owing to the scarcity of trained architet ts, quantity and cost doubtless outran quality. But at least the tatnenesfl of blindly followed precedent was avoided, and this departure from traditional tenets contributed un- doubtedly to the originality of Byzantine architecture. A lar^e part of the artisans employed in building were then, as BOW, from Asia Minor and the /Egean Islands, (ireek in race if not in name. An Oriental taste for brilliant and har- monious color and for minute decoration spread over broad
BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE. 121
surfaces must have been stimulated by trade with the Far East and by constant contact with Oriental peoples, cos- tumes, and arts. An Asiatic origin may also be assigned to the methods of vaulting employed, far more varied than the Roman, not only in form but also in materials and pro- cesses. From Roman architecture, however, the Byzan- tines borrowed the fundamental notion of their structural art ; that, namely, of distributing the weights and strains of their vaulted structures upon isolated and massive points of support, strengthened by deep buttresses, internal or ex- ternal, as the case might be. Roman, likewise, was the use of polished monolithic columns, and the incrustation of the piers and walls with panels of variegated marble, as well as the decoration of plastered surfaces by fresco and mosaic, and the use of opus sectile and opus Alexandrinum for the production of sumptuous marble pavements. In the first of these processes the color-figures of the pattern are formed each of a single piece of marble cut to the shape required ; in the second the pattern is compounded of minute squares, triangles, and curved pieces of uniform size. Under these combined influences the artists of Constantinople wrought out new problems in construction and decoration, giving to all that they touched a new and striking character.
There is no absolute line of demarcation, chronological, geographical, or structural, between Early Christian and Byzantine architecture. But the former was especially characterized by the basilica with three or five aisles, and the use of wooden roofs even in its circular edifices ; the vault and dome, though not unknown, being exceedingly rare. Byzantine architecture, on the other hand, rarely produced the simple three-aisled or five-aisled basilica, and nearly all its monuments were vaulted. The dome was es- pecially frequent, and Byzantine architecture achieved its highest triumphs in the use of the pendentive, as the trian- gular spherical surfaces are called, by the aid of which a
122 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
dome can be supported on the summits of four arches span- ning the four sides of a square, as explained later. There is as little uniformity in the plans of Byzantine buildings as in the forms of the vaulting. A few types of church- plan, however, predominated locally in one or another cen- tre ; but the controlling feature of the style was the dome and the constructive system with which it was associated. The dome, it is true, had long been used by the Romans, but always on a circular plan, as in the Pantheon. It is also a fact that pendentives have been found in Syria and Asia Minor older than the oldest Byzantine examples. But the special feature characterizing the Byzantine dome on pendentives was its almost exclusive association with plans having piers and columns or aisles, with the dome as the central and dominant feature of the complex design | plans, Figs. 74, 75, 78). Another strictly Byzantine pra< ti< e was the piercing of the lower portion of the dome with win- dows forming a circle or crown, and the final development of this feature into a high drum.
CONSTRUCTION. Still another divergence from Roman methods was in the substitution of brick and stone ma- sonry for concrete. Brick was used for the mass as well as the facing of walls and piers, and for the vaulting in many buildings mainly built of stone. Stone was used either alone or in combination with brick, the latter appearing in bands of four or five courses at intervals of three or four feet. In later work a regular alternation of the two materials, course for course, was not uncommon. In piers intended to support unusually heavy loads the stone was very carefully cut and fitted, and sometimes tied and clamped with iron.
Vaults were built sometimes of brick, sometimes of cut stone ; in a few cases even of earthenware jars fitting into each other, and laid up in a continuous contracting spiral from the base to the crown of a dome, as in San Vitale at
BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE.
123
Ravenna. Ingenious processes for building vaults without centrings were made use of — processes inherited from the drain-builders of ancient Assyria, and still in vogue in Ar- menia, Persia, and Asia Minor. The groined vault was common, but always approximated the form of a dome, by a longitudinal convexity upward in the intersecting vaults. The aisles of Hagia Sophia * display a remarkable variety of forms in the vaulting.
DOMES. The dome, as we have seen, early became the most characteristic feature of Byzantine architecture ; and especially the dome on pendentives. If a hemisphere be cut by five planes, four per- pendicular to its base and bounding a square in- scribed therein, and the fifth plane parallel to the base and tangent to the semicircular intersections made by the first four, there will remain of the original surface only four triangular spaces bounded by arcs of circles. These are called pendentives (Fig. 71 a). When these are built up of masonry, each course forms a species of arch, by virtue of its convexity. At the crown of the four arches on which they rest, these courses meet and form a complete circle, perfectly stable and capable of sustaining any superstructure that does not by excessive weight disrupt the whole fabric by overthrow-
* "St. Sophia," the common name of this church, is a misnomer. It was not dedicated to a saint at all, but to the Divine Wisdom (Hagia Sophia), which name the Turks have retained in the softened form " Aya Sofia."
FIG. 71. — DIAGRAM OF PENDENTIVES.
124 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
ing the four arches which support it. Upon these pen- dentives, then, a new dome may be started of any desired curvature, or even a cylindrical drum to support a still loftier dome, as in the later churches (Fig. 71 b). This method of covering a square is simpler than the groined vault, having no sharp edges or intersections ; it is at least as effective architecturally, by reason of its greater height in the centre ; and is equally applicable to successive bays of an oblong, cruciform, and even columnar building. In the great cisterns at Constantinople vast areas are covered by rows of small domes supported on ranges of columns.
The earlier domes were commonly pierced with windows at the base, this apparent weakening of the vault being com- pensated for by strongly buttressing the piers between the windows, as in Hagia Sophia. Here forty windows form a crown of light at the spring of the dome, producing an ef- lYi t almost as striking as that of the simple oculus of the Pantheon, and celebrated by ancient writers in the most extravagant terms. In later and smaller churches a high drum was introduced beneath the dome, in order to secure, by means of longer windows, more light than could be ob- tained by merely piercing the diminutive domes.
Buttressing was well understood by the Byzantines, whose plans were skilfully devised to provide internal abutments, which were often continued above the roofs of the side-aisles to prop the main vaults, pre* \t was
done by the Romans in their therm. e and similar halls.
But the Byzantines, while adhering less strictly than the
Romans to traditional forms and processes, and displaying much more ready contrivance and special adaptation of means to ends, never worked out this pregnant structural principle to its logical conclusion as did the Gothic archi- - of Western Europe a few centuries later. DECORATION. The exteriors of Byzantine buildings (ex- cept in some of the small churches of late date) were
BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE.
\2
generally bare and lacking in beauty. The interiors, on the contrary, were richly decorated, color playing a much larger part than carving in the designs. Painting was re- sorted to only in the smaller buildings, the more durable and splendid medium of mosaic being usually preferred. This was, as a rule, confined to the vaults and to those por- tions of the wall-surfaces embraced by the vaults above their springing. The colors were brilliant, the background being usually of gold, though sometimes of blue or a deli- cate green. Biblical scenes, symbolic and allegorical fig- ures and groups of saints adorned the larger areas, partic- ularly the half-dome of the apse, as in the basilicas. The smaller vaults, the sof- fits of arches, borders of pictures, and other minor surfaces, received a more conventional decoration of crosses, monograms, and set patterns.
The walls throughout were sheathed with slabs of rare marble in panels so disposed that the veining should pro- duce symmetrical fig- ures. The panels were framed in billet-mould- ings, derived perhaps from classic dentils ; the billets or projections on one side the moulding coming opposite the spaces on the other. This seems to have been a purely Byzantine feature.
CARVED DETAILS. Internally the different stories were marked by horizontal bands and cornices of white or inlaid marble richly carved. The arch-soffits, the archivolts or
FIG. 72.— SPANDRIL. HACIA SOI'HIA.
126
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
hands around the arches, and the spandrils between them were covered with minute and intricate incised carving. The motives used, though based on the acanthus and an- themion, were given a wholly new aspect. The relief was low and flat, the leaves sharp and crowded, and the effect rich and lacelike, rather than vigorous. It was, however, well adapted to the Covering of large areas where genera] effect was more important than detail. Even the capital! were treated in the same spirit. The impost-block was al- most universal, except where its use was rendered unnec- essary by giving to the capital itself the massive pyrami- dal form required to receive properly the spring of the arch or vault. In such cases (more frequent in Con- stantinople than else* where) the surface of the capital was simply covered with incised carving of foliage, l>as-
kctwork, monograms. etc. ; rudimentary vo- lutes in a few cases recalling classic tra- ditions (Figs. 72, 73). The mouldings were weak and poorly exe- cuted, and the vigor- ous profiles of classic
cornices were only remotely suggested by the charai ter-
•ions of mouldings which took their place. PLAN8. The remains of I'yzaiitine architecture are almost exclusively Of churches and baptisteries, but the plans of eedingly varied. The first radical departure
ITAI WITH IMPOST II <" K.
BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE. 1 27
from the basilica-type seems to have been the adoption of circular or polygonal plans, such as had usually served only for tombs and baptisteries. The Baptistery of St. John at Ravenna (early fifth century) is classed by many authorities as a Byzantine monument. In the early years of the sixth century the adoption of this model had become quite general, and with it the development of domical de- sign began to advance. The church of St. Sergius at Constantinople (Fig. 74), originally joined to a short basilica dedicated to St. Bacchus (afterward destroyed by the Turks), as in the double church at Kelat Seman, was built about 520 ; that of San Vitale at Ravenna was be- gun a few years later; both are FIG- 74- _ST- SERGIUS> CON- STANTINOPLE.
domical churches on an octagonal
plan, with an exterior aisle. Semicircular niches — four in St. Sergius and eight in San Vitale — projecting into the aisle, enlarge somewhat the area of the central space and giVe va- riety to the internal effect. The origin of this characteristic feature may be traced to the eight niches of the Pantheon, through such intermediate examples as the temple of Minerva Medica at Rome. The true pendentive does not appear in these two churches. Timidly employed up to that time in small structures, it received a remarkable development in the magnificent church of Hagia Sophia, built by Anthe- mius of Tralles and Isodorus of Miletus, under Justinian, 532-538 a.d. In the plan of this marvellous edifice (Fig. 75) the, dome rests upon four mighty arches bounding a square, into two of which open the half-domes of semicir- cular apses. These apses are penetrated and extended each by two smaller niches and a central arch, and the whole vast nave, measuring over 200 x 100 feet, is flanked by
128
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
enormously wide aisles connecting at the front with a majestic narthex. Huge transverse buttresses, as in the Ba- silica of Constantine (with whose structural design this building shows striking affinities), divide the aisles each into three sec- tions. The plan suggests that of St. Sergius cut in two, with a lofty dome on pendentives over a square plan inserted between the halves. Thus was secured a noble and unobstructed hall of unrivalled proportions and great beauty, covered by a combina- tion of half-domes increasing in span and height as they lead up successively to the stupendous central vault, which rises 180 feet into the air and fitly crowns the whole. The imposing effect of this low-curved but loftily-poised dome, resting as it does upon a crown of windows, and so disposed that its summit is visible from every point of the nave (as may be easily seen from an examination of the section, Fig. 76), is not surpassed in any interior ever erected.
FIG. 75. — FLAN OF HAGIA SOFHIA.
■
V
i
BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE. 131
The two lateral arches under the dome are filled by clear- story walls pierced by twelve windows, and resting on ar- cades in two stories carried by magnificent columns taken from ancient ruins. These separate the nave from the side- aisles, which are in two stories forming galleries, and are vaulted with a remarkable variety of groined vaults. All the masses are disposed with studied reference to the re- sistance required by the many and complex thrusts exerted by the dome and other vaults. That the earthquakes of one thousand three hundred and fifty years have not de- stroyed the church is the best evidence of the sufficiency of these precautions.
Not less remarkable than the noble planning and con- struction of this church was the treatment of scale and decoration in its interior design. It was as conspicuously the masterpiece of Byzantine architecture as the Parthenon was of the classic Greek. With little external beauty, it is internally one of the most perfectly composed and beauti- fully decorated halls of worship ever erected. Instead of the simplicity of the Pantheon it displays the com- plexity of an organism of admirably related parts. The division of the interior height into two stories below the spring of the four arches, reduces the component parts of the design to moderate dimensions, so that the scale of the whole is more easily grasped and its vast size em- phasized by the contrast. The walls are incrusted with precious marbles up to the spring of the vaulting ; the capitals, spandrils, and soffits are richly and minutely carved with incised ornament, and all the vaults covered with splendid mosaics. Dimmed by the lapse of centuries and disfigured by the vandalism of the Moslems, this noble in- terior, by the harmony of its coloring and its impressive grandeur, is one of the masterpieces of all time (Fig. 77).
LATER CHURCHES. After the sixth century no monuments were built at all rivalling in scale the creations of the
132
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
former period. The later churches were, with few excep- tions, relatively small and trivial. Neither the plan nor the general aspect of Hagia Sophia seems to have been imitated in these later works. The crown of dome-windows was replaced by a cylindrical drum under the dome, which was usually of insignificant size. The exterior was treated more decoratively than before, by means of bands and in- crustations of colored marble, or alternations of stone and brick ; and internally mosaic continued to be executed with great skill and of great beauty until the tenth century, wlu-n the art rapidly declined. These later churches, of which a number were spared by the Turks, are, therefore, generally pleasing and elegant rather than striking or imposing.
foreign monuments. The influence of Byzantine art was wide-spread, both in Europe and Asia. The leading city of civilization through the Dark Ages, Constantino- ple influenced Italy through her political and commercial relations with Ravenna, (lenoa, and Yen- ice. The church of St. Mark in the latter city was one result of this influence (Figs. 78, 79). I'.e- gun in 1063 to replace an earlier church destroyed by fire, it re- ceived through several centuries additions not always Byzantine in character. Yet it was mainly the work of Byzantine builders, who copied most probably the church of the Apostles at Constantinople, built by Justinian. The picturesque but wholly unstructural use of columns in the entrance porches, the upper part-> of the facade, the wooden cupolas over the five domes, and the pointed art ties in the narthex, are deviations from Byzan- tine traditions dating in part from the later Middle Ages
FIG. 78. — PLAN (IK ST. MAKk's,
VK'.
l'.YXANTINE ARCHITECTURE.
>33
Nothing could well be conceived more irrational, from a structural point of view, than the accumulation of columns in the entrance-arches ; but the total effect is so pictur- esque and so rich in color, that its architectural defects are easily overlooked. The external veneering of white and colored marble occurs rarely in the East, but became
FIG. 79. — INTERIOR OF ST. MARK S.
a favorite practice in Venice, where it continued in use for five hundred years. The interior of St. Mark's, in some respects better preserved than that of Hagia Sophia, is especially fine in color, though not equal in scale and gran- deur to the latter church. With its five domes it has less unity of effect than Hagia Sophia, but more of the charm of picturesqueness, and its less brilliant and simpler lighting enhances the impressiveness of its more modest dimensions.
134 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
In Russia and Greece the Byzantine style has continued to be the official style of the Greek Church. The Russian monuments are for the most part of a somewhat fantastic aspect, the Muscovite taste having introduced many inno- vations in the form of bulbous domes and other eccentric details. In Greece there are few large churches, and some of the most interesting, like the Cathedral at Athens, are almost toy-like in their diminutiveness. On Mt. Athos (Hagion Oros) is an ancient monastery which still retains its Byzantine character and traditions. In Armenia (as at Ani, Etchmiadzin, etc.) are also interesting examples of late Armeno-Byzantine architecture, showing applications to exterior carved detail of elaborate interlaced ornament looking like a re-echo of Celtic MSS. illumination, itself, no doubt, originating in Byzantine traditions. But the greatest and most prolific offspring of Byzantine architec- ture appeared after the fall of Constantinople (1453) m tlic new mosque-architecture of the victorious Turks.
MONUMENTS. COMtTAHTWOPLE : St. Sergius, 520; Hagia Sophia, 532-53S ; Holy Apostles by Justinian (demolished); Holy Peace (St. Irene) originally by Constantine, rebuilt by Justinian, and again in 8th century by Leo the Isaurian ; Hagia Theotokos, 12th century (?) ; Mone- tea Choral <" Kahire Djami"), 10th century; Bantokrator ; "1 Djami." Cisterns, especially the " Bin l'.ir Direk" (1,001 columns) and " Yere Batan Serai ; " palaces, few vestiges except the great hall of the Blachern.x- palace. Sai.osh \ : Churches— of Divine Wisdom
V.ardias, St. F.lias. RAVKHKA : San Yitale, 527-540. VMM-
' **•, ^77-1071 ; " Fondaco dei Turchi," now < "ivic Museum,
12th century. Other churches at Athens an«i Mt. Athos; at Misitra.
pllfll. etc. ; in Armenia at Ani. Dighoor, F.tchmiad/in.
Koiithais. I'it/ounda, Csunlar. etc.; tombs at Ani, Yar/hahan, etc. ; in
I at Kieff (St. Basil, Cathedral), Kostroma, Moscow (Assumption,
m1, Yasili Blaghennoi, etc.), Novgorod, Tchernigoff ; at Kurtea
iish in Wallachia, and many other places.
CHAPTER XII.
SASSANIAN AND MOHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE.
(ARABIAN, MORESQUE, PERSIAN, INDIAN, AND TURKISH.)
Books Recommended : Bourgoin, Les Arts Arabes. Coste, Monuments du Caire ; Monuments modernes de la Perse. Cunningham, Archozological Survey of India. Fergusson. Indian and Eastern Architecture. De Forest, Indian Archi- tecture and Ornament. Flandin et Coste, Voyage en Perse. Franz-Pasha, Die Baukunst des Islam. Gayet, L Art Arabe ; L'Art Persan. Girault de Prangey, Essai sur f architecture des Arabes en Espagne, etc. Goury and Jones, The Alham- bra. Jacob, Jeypore Portfolio of Architectural Details. Le Bon, La civilisation des Arabes; Les monuments dc I'Inde. Owen Jones, Grammar of Ornament. Parvillee, D Architec- ture Ottomane. Prisse d'Avennes, DArt Arabe. Texier, Description de PA rme'tiie, la Perse, etc.
GENERAL SURVEY. While the Byzantine Empire was at its zenith, the new faith of Islam was conquering Western Asia and the Mediterranean lands with a fiery rapidity, which is one of the marvels of history. The new archi- tectural styles which grew up in the wake of these con- quests, though differing widely in conception and detail in the several countries, were yet marked by common charac- teristics which set them quite apart from the contemporary Christian styles. The predominance of decorative over structural considerations, a predilection for minute surface- ornament, the absence of pictures and sculpture, are found alike in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Indian buildings, though in varying degree. These new styles, however, were almost entirely the handiwork of artisans belonging to the
I3<5 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
conquered races, and many traces of Byzantine, and even after the Crusades, of Norman and Gothic design, are recognizable in Moslem architecture. But the Orientalism of the conquerors and their common faith, tinged with the poetry and philosophic mysticism of the Arab, stamped these works of Copts, Syrians, and Greeks with an unmis- takable character of their own, neither Byzantine nor Early Christian.
ARABIC ARCHITECTURE. In the building of mosques and tombs, especially at Cairo, this architecture reached a re- markable degree of decorative elegance, and sometimes of dignity. It developed slowly, the Arabs not being at the outset a race of builders. The early monuments of Syria and Egypt were insignificant, and the sacred Kaabah at Mecca and the mosque at Medina hardly deserve to be called architectural monuments at all. The most impor- tant early works were the mosques of Amrou at Cairo (642, rebuilt and enlarged early in the eighth century), of El Aksah on the Temple platform at Jerusalem (691, by AM- el-Melek), and of El Walid at Damascus (705-732, recently seriously injured by fire). All these were simple one- storied structures, with flat wooden roofs carried on par- allel ranges of columns supporting pointed arches, the arcades either closing one side of a square court, or sur- rounding it completely. The long perspectives of the aisles and the minute decoration of the archivolts and ceilings alone gave them architectural character. The beautiful Dome of the Rock (Kubbet-es-Sakhrah, miscalled the Mosque <>f Omar) on the Temple platform at Jerusalem is either a remodelled Constantinian edifice, or in large part composed of the materials of one (see p. 1 16).
The splendid mosque of Ibn Touloun (876-885) was built on tin- same plan as that of Amrou, but with cantoned piers instead of columns and a corresponding increase in variety of perspective and richness of effect. With the incoming
SASSANIAN AND MOHAta'MEDAN ARCHITECTURE. 137
of the Fatimite dynasty, however, and the foundation of the present city of Cairo (971), vaulting began to take the place of wooden ceilings, and then appeared the germs of those extraordinary applications of ge- ometry to decorative design which were henceforth to be the most striking feature of Arabic ornament. Under the Ayub dy- nasty, which began with Salah-ed-din (Saladin) in 11 72, these elements, of which the great Bar- kouk mosque (1149) is the most imposing early example, de- veloped slowly in the domical tombs of the Kara/ah at Cairo, and prepared the way for the increasing richness and splen- dor of a long series of mosques, among which those of Kala- oun ( 1 284-1318), Sul- tan Hassan (1356), El Mu'ayyad (1415), and Kaid Bey (1463), were the most conspicuous examples (Fig. 80). They mark, indeed, successive advances in complexity of planning, in- genuity of construction, and elegance of decoration. To- gether they constitute an epoch in Arabic architecture, which coincides closely with the development of Gothic
FIG. 80.— MOSQUE OF SULTAN HASSAN, CAIRO : SANCTUARY.
a, Mihrab : i, Mimber.
133 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
vaulted architecture in Europe, both in the stages and the duration of its advances.
The mosques of these three centuries are, like the mediae- val monasteries, impressive aggregations of buildings of various sorts about a central court of ablutions. The tomb of the founder, residences for the imams, or priests, schools (madrassah), and hospitals {mdristdn) rival in importance the prayer-chamber. This last is, however, the real focus of interest and splendor ; in some cases, as in Sultan Hassan, it is a simple barrel-vaulted chamber open to the court ; in others an oblong arcaded hall with many small domes ; or again, a square hall covered with a high pointed dome on pendentives of intricately beautiful stalactite-work (see below). The ceremonial requirements of the mosque were simple. The court must have its fountain of ablutions in the centre. The prayer-hall, or mosque proper, must have its mi/irdb, or niche, to indicate the kibleh, the direc- tion of Mecca ; and its mimber, or high, slender pulpit for the reading of the Koran. These were the only absolutely indispensable features" of a mosque, but as early as the ninth century the minaret was added, from which the call to prayer could be sounded over the city by the mueddin. Not until the Ayubite period, however, did it begin to as- sume those forms of varied and picturesque grace which lend to Cairo so much of its architectural charm.
ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS. While Arabic architecture, in Syria and Egypt alike, possesses more decorative than con- structive originality, the beautiful forms of its domes, pen- dentives, and minarets, the simple majesty of the great pointed barrel-vaults of the Hassan mosque and similar monuments, and the graceful lines of the universally used pointed arch, prove the Coptic builders and their later hie successors to have been architects of great ability. The Arabic domes, as seen both in the mosques and in the remarkable group of tombs commonly called "tombs of the
SASSANIAN AND MOHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE. 1 39
Khalifs," are peculiar not only in their pointed outlines and their rich external decoration of interlaced geomet- ric motives, but still more in the external and internal treatment of the pendentives, exquisitely decorated with stalactite ornament. This ornament, de- rived, no doubt, from a combination of minute corbels with rows of small niches, and presumably of Persian origin, was finally developed into a system of ex- traordinary intricacy, applicable alike to the topping of a niche or panel, as in the great doorways of the mosques, and to the bracketing out of minaret galleries (Figs. 81, 82). Its ap- plications show a be- wildering variety of forms and an extraordinary aptitude for intricate geometrical design.
decoration. Geometry, indeed, vied with the love of color in its hold on the Arabic taste. Ceiling-beams were carved into highly ornamental forms before receiving their rich color-decoration of red, green, blue, and gold. The doors and the number were framed in geometric patterns with slender intersecting bars forming complicated star- panelling. The voussoirs of arches were cut into curious interlocking forms ; doorways and niches were covered with stalactite corbelling, and pavements and wall-incrustations,
FIG. 8l.— MOSQUE OF KAID BEY, CAIRO.
140 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
whether of marble or tiling, combined brilliancy and har- mony of color with the perplexing beauty of interlaced star-and-polygon patterns of marvellous intricacy. Stained glass added to the interior color-effect, the patterns being perforated in plaster, with a bit of colored glass set into each perforation — a device not very durable, perhaps, but singularly decorative.
OTHER WOEKS. Few of the mediaeval Arabic palaces have remained to our time. That they were adorned with a splendid prodigality appears from contemporary accounts. This splendor was internal rather than external ; the pal- ace, like all the larger and richer dwellings in the East, surrounded one or more courts, and presented externally an almost unbroken wall. The fountain in the chief court, the diwdn (a great, vaulted reception-chamber opening upon the court and raised slightly above it), the ddr, or men's court, rigidly separated from the kareem for the women, were and are universal elements in these great dwellings. The more common city-houses show as their most striking features successively corbelled-out stories and broad wooden eaves, with lattice-84 reens covering single windows, or almost a whole facade, composed oj turned work (iiKis/nafriyva), in designs of great beauty.
The fountains* gates, and minor works of the Arabs dis- play the same beauty in decoration and color, the same general forms and details which characterize the larger works, but it is impossible here to particularize further with regard to them.
Moresque. Elsewhere in Northern Africa the Arabs pro- duced DO such important works as in Egypt, nor is the architecture of the other Moslem states so well preserved or
so well known. Constructive design would appear to have been there even more completely subordinated to decora- tion ; tiling and plaster-relief took the place of more archi- tectural elements and materials, while horseshoe and cusped
SASSANIAN AND MOHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE. 141
arches were substituted for the simpler and more architect- ural pointed arch (Fig. 82). The courts of palaces and public buildings were
surrounded by ranges of horseshoe arches on slender columns ; these last being provided with capitals of a form rare- ly seen in Cairo. Tow- ers were built of much more massive design than the Cairo mina- rets, usually with a square, almost solid shaft and a more open lantern at the top, sometimes in several diminishing stories.
HISPANO-MORESQUE. The most splendid phase of this branch of Arabic architecture is found not in Africa but in Spain, which was overrun in 710-713 by the Moors, who estab- lished there the inde- pendent Khalifate of
r FIG. 82. — MOORISH DETAIL, AI.HAMBRA.
CordOVa. I hlS Was Showing stalactite and perforated work,
later Split UP intO pettV Moorish cusped arch, Hispano-Moresque cap-
itais, and decorative inscriptions.
kingdoms, of which the
most important were Granada, Seville, Toledo, and Valen- cia. This dismemberment of the Khalifate led in time to the loss of these cities, which were one by one recovered by the Christians during the fourteenth and fifteenth cen-
142
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
turies ; the capture of Granada, in 1492, finally destroying the Moorish rule.
The dominion of the Moors in Spain was marked by a high civilization and an extraordinary activity in building. The style they introduced became the national style in the regions they occupied, and even after the expulsion of the Moors was used in buildings erected by Christians and by Jews. The " House of Pilate," at Seville, is an example of this, and the general use of the Moorish style in Jewish synagogues, down to our own day, both in Spain and abroad,
originated in the erec- tion of synagogues for the Jews in Spain by Moorish artisans and in Moorish style, both dur- ing and after the period of Moslem supremacy!
Besides innumerable mosques, castles, bridg- es, aqueducts, gates, and fountains, the Moors erected several monu- ments of remarkable size and magnifh in< e.
Specially worthy of no- tice among them are the
( rreat Mosque at ( \>r-
dova, the Alcazars of Seville and Malaga, the Giralda at Seville, and the Alhambra at ( Ca- nada. The Mosque at Cordova, begun in 786 by 'Abd-er-Rah- man, enlarged in 876, and again by HI Mansour in 976, is a va>t art aded ball 375 feet x 420 feet in extent, but only 30
no. 83.— iNTRKioK of nra grsat Moaom at
SASSANIAN AND MOHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE. 143
feet high (Fig. 83). The rich wooden ceiling rests upon sev- enteen rows of thirty to thirty-three columns each, and two intersecting rows of piers, all carrying horseshoe arches in two superposed ranges, a large portion of those about the sanctuary being cusped, the others plain, except for the alternation of color in the voussoirs. The mihrdb niche is particularly rich in its minutely carved incrustations and mosaics, and a dome ingeniously formed by intersecting ribs covers the sanctuary before it. This form of dome occurs frequently in Spain.
The Alcazars at Seville and Malaga, which have been re- stored in recent years, present to-day a fairly correct coun- terpart of the castle-palaces of the thirteenth century. They display the same general conceptions and decorative feat- ures as the Alhambra, which they antedate. The Oiralda at Seville is, on the other hand, unique. It is a lofty rectan- gular tower, its exterior panelled and covered with a spe- cies of quarry-ornament in relief ; it terminated originally in two or three diminishing stages or lanterns, which were replaced in the sixteenth century by the present Renais- sance belfry.
The Alhambra is universally considered to be the mas- terpiece of Hispano-Moresque art, partly no doubt on ac- count of its excellent preservation. It is most interesting as an example of the splendid citadel-palaces built by the Moor- ish conquerors, as well as for its gorgeous color-decoration of minute quarry-ornament stamped or moulded in the wet plaster wherever the walls are not wainscoted with tiles. It was begun in 1248 by Mohammed-ben- Al-Hamar, enlarged in 1279 by his successor, and again in 1306, when its mosque was built. Its plan (Fig. 84) shows two large courts and a smaller one next the mosque, with three great square chambers and many of minor importance. Light arcades surround the Court of the Lions with its fountain, and adorn the ends of the other chief court ; and the stalactite
144
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
lETHTtr.
pendentive, rare in Moorish work, appears in the " Hall of Ambassadors" and some other parts of the edifice. But its chief glory is its ornamentation, less durable, less archi- tectural than that of the Cairene buildings, but making up
for this in delicacy and richness. Mi- nute vine -patterns and Arabic inscrip- tions are interwov- en with waving in- tersecting lines, forming a net-like framework, to all of w li i c h deep red, blue, black, and gold give an indescriba- ble richness of ef- fect.
The Moors also overran Sicily in tin- eighth century, but while their architecture there profoundly influenced that of the Christians who recovered Sicily in 1090, and copied the style of the conquered Moslems, there is too little of the original Moorish architecture remaining to claim men- tion here.
8A8SANIAN. The Sassanian empire, which during the four Centuries from 226 to 641 AJX had withstood koine and
extended its own sway almost to India, left on Persian soil a number of interesting monuments which powerfully influ- enced the Mohammed. in style of that region. The Sassanian buildings appear to have been principally palaces, and were
all vaulted. With their long barrel-vaulted halls, combined
with square domical chambers, a^ in Firouz-Abad and Ser-
bistan, they exhibit reinmix en< es of antique Assyrian tia-
FIG. 84. - TI.AN OF THE AI.HAMBRA.
A, Hall of Ambassadors : a, Mosque : b. Court of Mosque ; c, Sata delta Barca ; d, d, fiat lis : <•, flail 0/ the Two Sisters ; _/", f, /, Hall of the Tribunal ; g. Half 0/ the Abencerrages.
SASSANIAN AND MOHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE. 145
•dition. The ancient Persian use of columns was almost entirely abandoned, but doors and windows were still treated with the banded frames and cavetto-cornices of Persepolis and Susa. The Sassanians employed with these exterior details others derived perhaps from Syrian and Byzantine sources. A sort of engaged buttress-column and blind arches repeated somewhat aimlessly over a whole facade were characteristic features ; still more so the huge arches, elliptical or horse-shoe shaped, which formed the entrances to these palaces, as in the Tak-Kesra at Ctesiphon. Ornamental details of a debased Roman type appear, min- gled with more gracefully flowing leaf-patterns resembling early Christian Syrian carving. The last great monument of this style was the palace at Mashita in Moab, begun by the last Chosroes (627), but never finished, an imposing and richly ornamented structure about 500 x 170 feet, occupy- ing the centre of a great court.
PERSIAN -MOSLEM ARCHITECTURE. These Sassanian pal- aces must have strongly influenced Persian architecture after the Arab conquest in 641. For although the ar- chitecture of the first six centuries after that date suf- fered almost absolute extinction at the hands of the Mon- gols under Genghis Khan, the traces of Sassanian influence are still perceptible in the monuments that rose in the fol- lowing centuries. The dome and vault, the colossal por- tal-arches, and the use of brick and tile are evidences of this influence, bearing no resemblance to Byzantine or Arabic types. The Moslem monuments of Persia, so far as their dates can be ascertained, are all subsequent to 1200, unless tradition is correct in assigning to the time of Haroun Ar Rashid (786) certain curious tombs near Bag- dad with singular pyramidal roofs. The ruined mosque at Tabriz (1300), and the beautiful domical Tomb at Sultani- yeh (13 13) belong to the Mogul period. They show all the essential features of the later architecture of the Sufis 10
146 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
(1499-1694), during whose dynastic period were built the Still more splendid and more celebrated Meidan or square, the great mosque of Mesjid Shah, the Bazaar and the College or Medress of Hussein Shah, all at Ispahan, and many other important monuments at Ispahan, Bagdad, and Teheran. In these structures four elements especially claim atten- tion ; the pointed bulbous dome, the round minaret, the portal-arch rising above the adjacent portions of the build ing, and the use of enamelled terra-cotta tiles as an exter- nal decoration. To these may be added the ogee arch (ogee = double-reversed curve), as an occasional feature. The vaulting is most ingenious and beautiful, and its forms, whether executed in brick or in plaster, are sufficiently va- ried without resort to the perplexing complications of stalactite work. In Persian decoration the most striking qualities are the harmony of blended color, broken up into minute patterns and more subdued in tone than in the Hispano- Moresque, and the preference of flowing lines and floral ornament to the geometric puzzles of Arabic design. Persian architecture influenced both Turkish and Indo- Moslem art, which owe to it a large part of their decorative charm.
INDO-MOSLEM. The Mohammedan architecture of India is so distinct from all the native Indian styles and so related to the art of Persia, if not to that of the Arabs, that it prop- erly belongs here rather than in the later chapter on Orien- tal styles. It was in the eleventh century that the states of India first began to fall before Mohammedan invaders, but not until the end of the fifteenth century that the great Mogul dynasty was established in Hindostan as the domi- nant power. During the intervening period local schools of Moslem architecture were developing in the Pathan country of Northern India (1 193—1554), in Jaunpore and Gnjerat ('396-1572), in Scinde, where Persian influence pre- dominated ; in Kalburgah and Bidar (1 347-1426). These
SASSANIAN AND MOHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE. 147
schools differed considerably in spirit and detail ; but un- der the Moguls (i 494-1 706) there was less diversity, and to this dynasty we owe many of the most magnificent mosques and tombs of India, among which those of Bijapur retain a marked and distinct style of their own.
The Mohammedan monuments of India are characterized by a grandeur and amplitude of disposition, a symmetry and monumental dignity of design which distinguishes them widely from the picturesque but some- times trivial buildings of the Arabs and Moors. Less dependent on col- or than the Moorish or Persian structures, they are usually built of mar- ble, or of marble and sandstone, giving them an air of permanence and solidity wanting in other Moslem styles ex- cept the Turkish. The dome, the round mina- ret, the pointed arch, and the colossal portal-arch, are uni- versal, as in Persia, and enamelled tiles are also used, but chiefly for interior decoration. Externally the more digni- fied if less resplendent decoration of surface carving is used, in patterns of minute and graceful scrolls, leaf forms, and Arabic inscriptions covering large surfaces. The Arabic stalactite pendentive star-panelling and geometrical inter- lace are rarely if ever seen. The dome on the square plan is almost universal, but neither the Byzantine nor the Arabic pendentive is used, striking and original combina- tions of vaulting surfaces, of corner squinches, of corbel- ling and ribs, being used in its place. Many of the Pathan
FIG. 85. — TOMB OF MAHMl'D, BIJAPUR. SECTION.
I48 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
domes and arches at Delhi, Ajmir, Ahmedabad, Shepree, etc., are built in horizontal or corbelled courses supported on slender columns, and exert no thrust at all, so that they are vaults only in form, like the dome of the Tholos of Atreus (Fig. 24). The most imposing and original of all Indian domes are those of the Jumma Musjid and of the Tomb of Mahmud, both at Bijapur, the latter 137 feet in span (Fig. 85). These two monuments, indeed, with the Mogul Taj Mahal at Agra, not only deserve the first rank among Indian monuments, but in constructive science combined with noble proportions and exquisite beauty are hardly, if at all, surpassed by the greatest triumphs of western art. The Indo-Moslem architects, moreover, especially those of the Mogul period, excelled in providing artistic settings for their monuments. Immense platforms, superb courts, imposing flights of steps, noble gateways, minarets to mark the angles of enclosures, and landscape gardening of a high order, enhance greatly the effect of the great mosques, tombs, and palaces of Agra, Delhi, lut- tehpore Sikhri, Allahabad, Secundra, etc.
The most notable monuments of the Moguls are the Mosque of Akbar (1 556-1605) at l-'uttehpore Sikhri, the tomb of that sultan at Secundra, and his pain e at Alla- habad ; the Pearl Mosque at Agra and the Jumma Musjid at Delhi, one of the largest and noblest of Indian mosques, both built by Shah Jehan about 1650 ; his immense but now ruined palace in the lame City ; and finally the un- rivalled mausoleum, the Taj Mahal at Agra, built during his lifetime as a festal hall, to serve as his tomb after death (Fig. 86)* This last is the pearl of Indian archite* ture, though it is said to have been designed by a Kuropean an hitect, French or Italian. It is a white marble structure 185 feet square, centred in a court 313 feet square, forming a platform 18 feet high. The corners of this court are marked by elegant minarets, and the whole is dominated by
SASSANIAN AND MOHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE. 149
the exquisite white marble dome, 58 feet in diameter, 80 feet high, internally rising over four domical corner chapels, and covered externally by a lofty marble bulb-dome on a high drum. The rich materials, beautiful execution, and ex- quisite inlaying of this mausoleum are worthy of its majes-
FIG. 86. — TAJ MAHAL, AGRA.
tic design. On the whole, in the architecture of the Mo- guls in Bijapur, Agra, and Delhi, Mohammedan architecture reaches its highest expression in the totality and balance of its qualities of construction, composition, detail, orna- ment, and settings. The later monuments show the decline of the style, and though often rich and imposing, are lack- ing in refinement and originality.
TURKISH. The Ottoman Turks, who began their conquer- ing career under Osman I. in Bithynia in 1299, had for a
150 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
century been occupying the fairest portions of the Byzan- tine empire when, in 1453, they became masters of Constan- tinople. Hagia Sophia was at once occupied as their chief mosque, and such of the other churches as were spared, were divided between the victors and the vanquished. The conqueror, Mehmet II., at the same time set about the building of a new mosque, entrusting the design to a By- zantine, Christodoulos, whom he directed to reproduce, with some modifications, the design of the "Great Church " — Hagia Sophia. The type thus officially adopted has ever since remained the controlling model of Turkish mosque design, so far, at least, as general plan and con- structive principles are concerned. Thus the conquer- ing Turks, educated by a century of study and imita- tion of Byzantine models in Brusa, Nicomedia, Smyrna, Adrianople, and other cities earlier subjugated, did what the Byzantines had, during nine centuries, failed to do. The noble idea first expressed by Anthemius and Isidorus in the Church of Hagia Sophia had remained undevel- oped, unimitated by later architects. It was the Turk who first seized upon its possibilities, and developed there- from a style of architecture less sumptuous in color and decoration than the sister styles of Persia, Cairo, or India, but of great nobility and dignity, notwithstanding. The low-curved dome with its crown of buttressed windows, the plain spherical pendentives, the great apses at each end, covered by half-domes and penetrated by smaller niches, the four massive piers with their projecting buttress-massei extending across the broad lateral aisles, the narthex and the arcaded atrium in front — all these appear in the great Turkish mosques of Constantinople. In the Conqueror's mosque, however, two apses with half-domes replace the lateral galleries and clearstory of Hagia Sophia, making a perfectly quadripartite plan, destitute of the emphasis and significance of a plan drawn on one main axis (Fig. 87).
SASSANIAN AND MOHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE. 151
The same treatment occurs in the mosque of Ahmed I., the Ahmediyeh (1608 ; Fig. 88), and the Yeni Djami (" New Mosque ") at the port (1665). In the mosque of Osman III. (1755) the reverse change was effected ; the mosque h^s no great apses, four clearstories filling the four arches under the dome, as also in several of the later and smaller mosques. The greatest and noblest cf 'he Turkish mosques, the Suleimaniyeii, Dun. in 1553 by Soliman the Magnificent, re- turned to the Byzantine combination of two half-domes with two clearstories (Fig. 89).
In none of these monuments is there the internal magnif- icence of marble and mosaic of the Byzan- tine churches. These are only in a measure replaced by Persian tile-wainscoting and stained - glass win- dows of the Arabic type. The division into stories and the treatment of scale are less well man- aged than in the Ha- gia Sophia ; on the other hand, the proportion of height to width is generally admirable./ The exterior treatment is unique and effect- ive, far superior to the Byzantine practice. The massing of domes and half-domes and roofs is more artistically ar- ranged ; and while there is little of that minute carved de- tail found in Egypt and India, the composition of the lat- eral arcades, the simple but impressive domical peristyles of the courts, and the graceful forms of the pointed arches, with alternating voussoirs of white and black marble, are artistic in a high degree. The minarets are, however, in-
FIG. 87. — MOSQUE OF MEHMET II. PLAN.
CONSTANTINOPLE.
(The dimensions figured in metres.)
152
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
ferior to those of Indian, Persian, and Arabic art, though graceful in their proportions.
Nearly all the great mosques are accompanied by the domical tombs (turbe/i) of their imperial founders. Some of these are of noble size and great beauty of proportion and decoration. The Tomt of Roxelana (Khourrem), the fa-
ne. 88.— EXTERIOR AHMEDIVEH MOSQUE.
vorite wife of Soliman the Magnificent (1553), is the most beautiful of all, and perhaps the most perfect gem of Turk- ish architecture, with its elegant arcade surrounding the octagonal domical mausoleum-chamber. The monumental fountains of Constantinople also deserve mention. Of these, the one erected by Ahmet III. (1710), near Hagia
SASSANIAN AND MOHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE. 1 53
Sophia, is the most beautiful. They usually consist of a rectangular marble reservoir with pagoda-like roof and broad eaves, the four faces of the fountain adorned each with a niche and ba- sin, and covered with relief carving and gilded inscriptions.
PALACES. In this department the Turks have done littie of importance. The buildings in the Se- raglio gardens are low and insignificant. The Tchinli Kiosque, now the Imperial Mu- seum, is however, a simple but graceful two-storied edifice, consisting of four vaulted chambers in the angles of a fine cruciform hall, with domes treated like those of Bijapur on a small scale ; the tiling and the veranda in front are particularly elegant ; the design suggests Per- sian handiwork. The later palaces, designed by Armenians, are picturesque white marble and stucco buildings on the water's edge ; they possess richly decorated halls, but the details are of a debased European rococo style, quite un- worthy of an Oriental monarch.
-INTERIOR OF SILEIMANI YEH, CONSTANTI- NOPLE.
MONUMENTS. Arabian : " Mosque of Omar," or Dome of the Rock, 63S ; El Aksah, by 'Abd-el-Melek,6o,i, both at Jerusalem ; Mosque 'Amrou at Cairo, 642 ; mosques at Cyrene, 665 ; great mosque of El Walid, Da-
154 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
mascus, 705-717. Bagdad built, 755. Great mosque at Kairouan, 737. At Cairo, Ibn Touloun, 876; Cama-El-Azhar, 971 ; Barkouk, 1149 ; " Tombs of Khalifs " (Karafah), 1250-1400 ; Moristan Kalaoun, 1284 ; Medreseeo Sultan Hassan, 1356 ; El Azhar enlarged ; El Muayed, 1415 ; Kaid Bey, 1463 ; Sinan Pacha, 1468 ; " Tombs of Mamelukes," 16th century. Also palaces, baths, fountains, mosques, and tombs. IfOUSQUE : Mosque at Sa- ragossa, 713 ; mosque and arsenal at Tunis, 742 ; great mosque at Cordova, 786, 876, 975 ; sanctuary, 14th century. Mosques, baths, etc., at Cordova, Tarragona, Segovia, Toledo, 960-980 ; mosque of Sobeiha at Cordova, 981. Palaces and mosques at Fez ; great mosque at Seville, 11 72. Extensive building in Morocco close of 12th century. Ciralda at Seville, 1 160; Al- cazars in Malaga and Seville, 1 225-1 300 ; Alhambra and Generalife at Granada, 1248, 1279, 1306 ; also mosques, baths, etc. Yussuf builds pal- ace at Malaga, 1348 ; palaces at Granada. Persian : Tombs near I dad, 786 (?) ; mosque at Tabriz, 1300 ; tomb of Khodabendeh at Sultani- yeh, 1 313 ; Meidan Shah (square) and Mesjid Shah (mosque) at Ispahan, 17th century ; Medresseh (school) of Sultan Hussein, 18th century ; palaces of Chehil Soutoun (forty columns) and Aineh Khaneh (Palace of Mirrors). Baths, tombs, bazaars, etc., at Cashan, Koum, Kasmin, etc. Aminabad Caravanserai between Shiraz and Ispahan ; bazaar at Ispahan.
INDIAN: Mosque and " Kutub Minar" (tower) dr. 1200; Tomb of Altumsh, 1236 ; mosque at Ajmir, 1211-1236 ; tomb at Old Delhi ; Adina Mosque, Maldah, 1358. Mosques J umma Musjid and Lai 1 >urwa/a at Jaunpore, first half of 15th century. Mosque and bazaar, Kalhurgah, 1435 (?) Mosques at Ahmedabad and Sirkedj, middle 15th century. Mosque Jumma Musjid and Tomb of Mahmud, Bijapur, dr. 1550. Tomb of Humayfin, Delhi; of Mohammed (.bans, ( iwalior ; mosque at rutteh- pore Sikhri ; palace at Allahabad ; tomb of Akbar at Secundra, all by Ak- bar, 1556-1605. Palace and Jumma Musjid at Delhi ; Mmi Musjid (Pearl mosque) and Taj Mahal at Agra, by Shah Jehan, 1628-1658.
Ti kkish : Tomb of Osman, Brusa, 1326; Green Mosque (Yeshil Djami) Brusa, dr. 1350. Mosque at Knik (Nicxa), 1376. Mehmediyeh (mosque Mchmet II.) Constantinople, 1453; mosque at Evoiib ; Tchinli Kiosque.l.y Mehmet II., 1450-60; mosque Bayazid, I5<*> ; Selim I., t« Suleimaniyeh, by Sinan, 1553; Ahmediyeh by Ahmet I., 1608; Yeni Djami, 1665 ; Nouri Osman, by Osman III., 1755; mosque Mohammed AM in Cairo, 1824. Mosque at Adrianople. Kuans, cloistered courts for public business and commercial lodgers, various dates, i&th and 17th centuries (Yalide Khan, Vizir Khan), vaulted bazaars, fountains, Seraskierat Tower, all at Constantinople.
CHAPTER XIII.
EARLY MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE
IN ITALY AND FRANCE.
Books Recommended : Cattaneo, L 'Architecture en Italic Chapuy, Le moyen age monumental. Corroyer, Architecture romane. Cummings, A History of Architecture in Italy. En- lart, Manuel d'archeologie /ran false. Hiibsch, Monuments de P architecture chretienne. Knight, Churches 0/ Northern Italy. Lenoir, Architecture monastique. Osten, Bauwerke in der Lom- bardei. Quicherat, Melanges d'histoire et d'archeologie. Reber, History of Mediaeval Architecture. Revoil, Architecture romane du midi de la France. Rohault de Fleury, Monuments de Pise. Sharpe, Churches of Charente. De Verneilh, U Archi- tecture byzantine en France. Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raisonne de l' architecture f ran false (especially in Vol. I., Architecture religieuse) ; discourses on Architecture.
EARLY MEDLEVAL EUROPE. The fall of the Western Em- pire in 476 a.d. marked the beginning of a new era in architecture outside of the Byzantine Empire. The so- called Dark Ages which followed this event constituted the formative period of the new Western civilization, dur- ing which the Celtic and Germanic races were being Chris- tianized and subjected to the authority and to the edu- cative influences of the Church. Under these conditions a new architecture was developed, founded upon^ethe tradi- tions of the early Christian builders, modified In different regions by Roman or Byzantine influences. For Rome re- covered early her antique prestige, and Roman monuments covering the soil of Southern Europe, were a constant ob-
I5<5 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
ject lesson to the builders of that time. To this new archi- tecture of the West, which in the tenth and eleventh centuries first began to achieve worthy and monumental results, the generic name of Romanesque has been com- monly given, in spite of the great diversity of its manifesta- tions in different countries.
character OF THE ARCHITECTURE. Romanesque archi- tecture was pre-eminently ecclesiastical. Civilization and culture emanated from the Church, and her requirements and discipline gave form to the builder's art. But the basilican style, which had so well served her purposes in the earlier centuries and on classic soil, was ill-suited to the new conditions. Corinthian columns, marble incrusta- tions, and splendid mosaics were not to be had for the ask- ing in the forests of Gaul or Germany, nor could the Lom- bards and Ostrogoths in Italy or their descendants repro- duce them. The basilican style was complete in itself, possessing no seeds of further growth. The priests and monks of Italy and Western Europe sought to rear with unskilled labor churches of stone in which the general dis- positions of the basilica should reappear in simpler, more massive dress, and, as far as possible, in a fireproof con- struction with vaults of stone. This problem underlies all the varied phases of Romanesque architecture ; its final solution was not, however, reached until the Gothic period, to which the Romanesque forms the transition and step- ping-stone.
MEDIAEVAL ITALY. Italy in the Dark Ages stood midway between the civilization of the Eastern Empire and the semi-barbarism of the West. Rome, Ravenna, and Venice early became centres of culture and maintained continu- ous commercial relations with the East. Architecture did not lack either the inspiration Of the means for advancing OB new lines. But its advance was by no means the same everywhere. The unifying influence of the church was
EARLY MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE.
'57
counterbalanced by the provincialism and the local diversi- ties of the various Italian states, resulting in a wide variety of styles. These, however, may be broadly grouped in four divisions : the Lombard, the Tuscan - Romanesque, the Italo-Byzantine, and the unchanged Basilican or Early Christian, which last, as was shown in Chapter X., contin- ued to be practised in Rome throughout the Middle Ages. LOMBARD STYLE. Owing to the general rebuilding of an- cient churches under the more settled social conditions of
FIG. 90. — INTERIOR OF SAN AMBROGIO, MILAN.
the eleventh and twelfth centuries, little remains to us of the architecture of the three preceding centuries in Italy, except the Roman basilicas and a few baptisteries and cir- cular churches, already mentioned in Chapter X. The so- called Lombard monuments belong mainly to the eleventh and twelfth centuries. They are found not only in Lom- bardy, but also in Venetia and the Emilia. Milan, Pavia, Piacenza, Bologna, and Verona were important centres of development of this style. The churches were nearly all vaulted, but the plans were basilican, with such variations
i58
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
III!
as resulted from efforts to meet the exigencies of vaulted construction. The nave was narrowed, and instead of I rows of columns carrying a thin clearstory
A wall, a few massive piers of masonry, con-
A nected by broad pier-arches, supported the
t heavy ribs of the groined vaulting, as in S.
flB Ambrogio, Milan (Fig. 90). To resist the
M thrust of the main vault, the clearstory was
sometimes suppressed, the side aisle carried up in two stories forming galleries, and rows of chapels added at the sides, their partitions forming buttresses. The piers were often of clustered section, the better to receive the various arches and ribs they supported. The vaulting was in square divisions or vaulting-bays, each embracing two pier- arches which met up- on an intermediate pier lighter than the others. Thus the whole aspect of the in- terior was revolution- ized. The lightness, ■ paci ousness, and decorative elegance of the basilicas were here exchanged for a sombre and massive dignity severe in its plainness. The choir was sometimes raised afew feet above the nave, to allow of a crypt and con/essio be- neath, reached by broad flights of steps from the nave. Sta
hi. gi. Mill nam and campanile ok caihk- IjKAI., PIAI I
EARLY MEDLEVAL ARCHITECTURE. 1 59
Maria della Pieve at Arezzo (9th-nth century), S. Michele at Pavia (late nth century), the Cathedral of Piacenza (11 22), S. Amhrogio at Milan (12th century), and S. Zeno at Verona (1139) are notable monuments of this style.
LOMBARD EXTERIORS. The few architectural embellish- ments employed on the simple exteriors of the Lombard churches were usually effective and well composed. Slen- der columnettes or long pilasters, blind arcades, and open arcaded galleries under the eaves gave light and shade to these exteriors. The facades were mere frontispieces with a single broad gable, the three aisles of the church being merely suggested by flat or round pilasters dividing the front (Fig 91). Gabled porches, with columns resting on the backs of lions or monsters, adorned the doorways. The carving was often of a fierce and grotesque character. Detached bell-towers or campaniles adjoined many of these churches ; square and simple in mass, but with well-dis- tributed openings and well-proportioned belfries (Piacenza S. Zeno at Verona, etc.).*
THE TUSCAN ROMANESQUE. The churches of this style (sometimes called the Pisan) were less vigorous but more elegant and artistic in design than the Lombard. They were basilicas in plan, with timber ceilings and high clear- stories on columnar arcades. In their decoration, both in- ternal and external, they betray the influence of Byzantine traditions, especially in the use of white and colored marble in alternating bands or in panelled veneering. Still more striking is the external decorative application of wall-ar- cades, sometimes occupying the whole height of the wall and carried on flat pilasters, sometimes in superposed stages of small arches on slender columns standing free of the wall. In general the decorative element prevailed over the constructive in the design of these picturesquely beautiful churches, some of which are of noble size. The Duomo (cathedral) of Pisa, built 1063-1118, is the finest monument
* See Annendix R.
i6o
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
of the style (Figs. 92,93). It is 312 feet long and 118 wide, with long transepts and an elliptical dome of later date over the crossing (the intersection of nave and tran- septs). Its richly arcaded front and banded flanks strik- ingly exemplify the illogical and unconstructive but highly decorative methods of the Tuscan Romanesque builders
92. — BAPT1STKRV,
Hie < in iiku Baptistery (1 153), with its lofty domical cen- tral hall surrounded by an aisle, an imposing development of the type established by Constantine (p. 1 11), and the famous Leaning Tower (1 174), both designed with external arcading, combine with the Duomo to form the most re- markable group of ecclesiastical buildings in Italy, if not in Europe (Fig. 92). The same st)le appears in more flamboyant shape in
EARLY MEDI.EVAL ARCHITECTURE.
161
some of the churches of Lucca. The cathedral S. Martino (1060; facade, 1204 ; nave altered in fourteenth century) is the finest and largest of these; S. Michele (facade, 1288) and S. Frediano (twelfth century) have the most elaborately decorated facades. The same principles of design appear in the cathedral and several other churches in Pistoia and Prato; but these belong, for the most part, to the Gothic period.
FIG. 93. — INTERIOR OF FISA CATHEDRAL.
FLORENCE. The church of S. Miniato, in the suburbs of Florence, is a beautiful example of a modification of the Pisan style. It is in plan a basilica with two piers inter- rupting the colonnade on each side of the nave and sup- porting powerful transverse arches. The interior is embel- lished with bands and patterns in black and white, and the woodwork of the open-timber roof is elegantly decorated with fine patterns in red, green, blue, and gold— a treatment common in early mediaeval churches, as at Messina, Or- vieto, etc. The exterior is adorned with wall-arches of 11
162 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
classic design and with panelled veneering in white and dark marble, instead of the horizontal bands of the Pisan churches. This system of external decoration, a blending of Pisan and Italo-Byzantine methods, became the estab- lished practice in Florence, lasting through the whole Gothic period. The Baptistery of Florence, originally the cathedral, an imposing polygonal domical edifice of the tenth century, presents externally one of the most admirable examples of this practice. Its marble veneering in black and white, with pilasters and arches of excellent design, is attributed by Vasari to Arnolfo di Cambio, but is by many considered to be much older, although restored by that architect in 1294.
Suggestions of the Pisan arcade system are found in widely scattered examples in the east and south of Italy, mingled with features of Lombard and Byzantine design. In Apulia, as at Bari, Caserta Vecchia (1100), Molfetta (1192), and in Sicily, the Byzantine influence is conspic- uous in the use of domes and in many of the decorative de- tails. Particularly is this the case at Palermo and Mun- reale, where the churches erected after the Norman con- quest— some of them domical, some basilican — show a strange but picturesque and beautiful mixture of Roman- esque, Byzantine, and Arabic forms. The Cathedral of Monreale and the churches of the Eremiti and La Martorana at Palermo are the most important.
The Italo-Byzantine style has already found mention in the latter part of Chapter XI. Venice and Ravenna were its chief centres; while the influence, both of the parent style and of its Italian offshoot wa*. as we have just shown, very widespread.
WESTERN ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE. In Western Eu- rope the unrest and lawlessness which attended the un- settled relations of society under 'the feudal system long retarded the establishment of that social order without
EARLY MEDI/EVAL ARCHITECTURE. 163
which architectural progress is impossible. With the eleventh century there began, however, a great activity in building, principally among the monasteries, which repre- sented all that there was of culture and stability amid the prevailing disorder. Undisturbed by war, the only abodes of peaceful labor, learning, and piety, they had become rich and powerful, both in men and land. Probably the more or less general apprehension of the supposed impending end of the world in the year 1000 contributed to this result by driving unquiet consciences to seek refuge in the monas- teries, or to endow them richly.
The monastic builders, with little technical training, but with plenty of willing hands, sought out new architect- ural paths to meet their special needs. Remote from classic and Byzantine models, and mainly dependent on their own resources, they often failed to realize the intended results. But skill came with experience, and with advancing civiliza- tion and a surer mastery of construction came a finer taste and greater elegance of design. Meanwhile military archi- tecture developed a new science of building, and covered Europe with imposing castles, admirably constructed and often artistic in design as far as military exigencies would permit.
CHARACTER OF THE STYLE. The Romanesque architecture of the eleventh and twelfth centuries in Western Europe (sometimes called the Round- Arched Gothic) was thus pre- dominantly though not exclusively monastic. This gave it a certain unity of character in spite of national and local variations. The problem which the wealthy orders set themselves was, like that of the Lombard church-builders in Italy, to adapt the basilica plan to the exigencies of vaulted construction. Massive walls, round arches stepped or recessed to lighten their appearance, heavy mouldings richly carved, clustered piers and jamb-shafts, capitals either of the cushion type or imitated from the Corinthian,
164
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
and strong and effective carving — all these are features alike of French, German, English, and Spanish Romanesque architecture.
THE FRENCH ROMANESQUE. Though monasticism pro- duced remarkable results in France, architecture there did not wholly depend upon the monasteries. Southern Gaul (Provence) was full of classic remains and classic traditions while at the same time it maintained close trade relations with Venice and the East.* The church of St. Front at Perigueux, built in 1047, reproduced the plan of St. Mark's with singular fidelity, but without its rich decoration, and with pointed instead of round arches (Figs. 94, 95). The domical cathedral of Canon (1 050-1 100), an obvious imitation
of S. Irene at Constantinople, and the later and more Gothic Cathedral of Angouleme display a notable advance in architec- tural skill outside of the mon- asteries. Among the abbeys, Fontevrault (noi-1119) closely resembles Angouleme, but sur- passes it in the elegance of its choir and chapels. In these and a number of other domical churches of the same Franco- Pyzantine type in Aquitani substitution of the Latin crOSS in the plan for the Greek cross no. 94.-p1.AN of vr. front. use(j in gt> Front, evinces the Gallic tendency to work out to their logical end new ideas or new applications of old ones. These striking variations on Byzantine themes might have developed into an independent local style but for the overwhelming
* See Viollet-!e-I)uc, DUHomtairt niisonn/, article ARCHITECTURE, vol. i. pp. 66 et Mtf.j also dc Yerneilh, V Architatute bymntim tn Frame,
EARLY MEDLKVAL ARCHITECTURE.
165
tide of Gothic influence which later poured in from the North.
Meanwhile, farther south (at Aries, Avignon, etc.), classic models strongly influenced the details, if not the>plans, of an interesting series of churches remarkable es- pecially for their porches rich with figure sculpt- ure and for their elab- orately carved details. The classic archivolt, the Corinthian capital, the Roman forms of en- riched mouldings, are evident at a glance in the porches of Notre Dame des Doms at Avig- non, of the church of St. Gilles, and of St. Tro- phime at Aries.
DEVELOPMENT OF VAULTING. It was in Central France, and mainly along the Loire, that the systematic development of vaulted church architecture began. Naves covered with barrel-vaults appear in a number of large churches built during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, with ap- sidal and transeptal chapels and aisles carried around the apse, as in St. Etienne, Nevers, Notre Dame du Port at Cler- mont-Ferrand (Fig. 96), and St. Paul at Issoire. The thrust of these ponderous vaults was clumsily resisted by half- barrel vaults over the side-aisles, transmitting the strain to massive side-walls (Fig. 97), or by high side-aisles with trans- verse barrel or groined vaults over each bay. In either case the clearstory was suppressed — a fact which mattered
FIG. 95. — INTERIOR OF ST. FRONT, PERIGfEUX.
i66
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
FIG. 96. — PLAN OF
NOTRE DAME DV TORT,
CLERMONT.
little in the sunny southern provinces. In the more cloudy North, in Normandy, Picardy, and the Royal Domain, the nave-vault was raised higher to admit of clearstory windows, and its section was in some cases made like a pointed arch, to diminish its thrust, as at Anton. But these eleventh-century vaults nearly all fell in, and had to be reconstructed on new prin- ciples. In this work the Clunisians seem to have led the way, as at Cluny (1089) and Vezelay (1 100). In the latter church, one of the finest and most interesting French edi- fices of the twelfth century, a groined vault replaced the barrel-vault, though the ob- long plan of the vaulting-bays, due to the nave being wider than the pier-arches, led to somewhat awkward twisted surfaces in the vaulting. But even here the vaults had insufficient lateral buttressing,
and began to crack and set- tle ; so that in the great ante -chapel, built thirty years later, the side-aisles were made in two stories, the better to resist the thrust, and the groined vaults themselves were constructed of pointed sec- tion. These seem to be the earliest pointed groined vaults in France. It wrai not till the second half of that century, however {1 150-1200), that the flying buttress was combined with such vaults, so as to permit of high clearstories for t lie better lighting of the nave ; and
FIG. 97.— SECTION Or NOTRE DAME DU PORT, CLERMONT.
EARLY MEDLKVAL ARCHITECTURE.
167
the problem of satisfactorily vaulting an oblong space with a groined vault was not solved until the following century.
ONE-AISLED CHURCHES. In the Franco-Byzantine churches already described (p. 164) this difficulty of the oblong vaulting-bay did not occur, owing to the absence of side- aisles and pier-arches. Following this conception of church- planning, a number of interesting parish churches and a few cathedrals were built in various parts of France in which side-recesses or chapels took the place of side-aisles. The partitions separating them served as abutments for the groined or barrel-vaults of the nave. The cathedrals of Autun (1150) and Langres (1160), and in the fourteenth century that of Alby, employed this arrangement, common in many earlier Provencal churches which have disappeared.
SIX-FART VAULTING. In the Royal Domain great archi- tectural activity does not appear to have begun until the beginning of the Gothic period in the middle of the twelfth century. But in Normandy, and es- pecially at Caen and Mont St. Michel, there were produced, between 1046 and 1 1 20, some re- markable churches, in which a high clearstory was secured in conjunc- tion with a vaulted nave, by the use of " six-part " vaulting (Fig. 98). This was an awkward expe- dient, by which a square vaulting-bay was dividt-
ed into six parts by the groins and by a middle trans- verse rib, necessitating two narrow skew vaults meeting at
FIG. 98.— A SIX-PART RIBBED VAULT, SHOWING TWO COMPARTMENTS WITH THE FILLINGS COMPLETE.
a, a, Transverse ribs (doubleaux) ; b, b, Wall- ribs {formerets) ; c, c, Groin-ribs (diagonaux). (All the ribs are semicircles.)
1 68 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
the centre. This unsatisfactory device was retained for over a century, and was common in early Gothic churches both in France and Great Britain. It made it possible to re- sist the thrust by high side-aisles, and yet to open windows above these under the cross-vaults. The abbey churches of St. Etienne (the Abbaye aux Hommes) and Ste. Trinite (Abbaye aux Dames), at Caen, built in the time of William the Conqueror, were among the most magnificent churches of their time, both in size and in the excellence and ingenu- ity of their construction. The great abbey church of Mont St. Michel (much altered in later times) should also be mentioned here. At the same time these and other Norman churches showed a great advance in their internal composition. A well-developed triforium or subordinate gallery was introduced between the pier-arches and clear- story, and all the structural membering of the edifice was better proportioned and more logically expressed than in most contemporary work.
ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS. The details of French Roman- esque architecture varied considerably in the several prov- inces, according as classic, Byzantine, or local influences prevailed. Except in a few of the Aquitanian churches, the round arch was universal. The walls were heavy and built of rubble between facings of stones of moderate size dressed with the axe. Windows and doors were widely splayed to diminish the obstruction of the massive walls, and were treated with jamb - shafts and recessed arches. These were usually formed with large cylindrical mould- ings, richly carved with leaf ornaments, zigzags, billets, and grotesques. Figure-sculpt <ire was more generally used in the South than in the North. The interior piers were some- times cylindrical, but more often clustered, and where square bays of four-part or six-part vaulting were employed, the piers were alternately lighter and heavier. Each shaft had its in- dependent capital either of the block type or of a form re-
EARLY MEDLEVAL ARCHITECTURE. 169
sembling somewhat that of the Corinthian order. During the eleventh century it became customary to carry up to the main vaulting one or more shafts of the compound pier to support the vaulting ribs. Thus the division of the nave into bays was accentuated, while at the same time the hori- zontal three-fold division of the height by a well-defined tri- forium between the pier-arches and clearstory began to be likewise emphasized.
VAULTING. The vaulting was also divided into bays by transverse ribs, and where it was groined the groins them- selves began in the twelfth century to be marked by groin- ribs. These were constructed independently of the vault- ing, and the four or six compartments of each vaulting-bay were then built in, the ribs serving, in part at least, to sup- port the centrings for this purpose. This far-reaching principle, already applied by the Romans in their concrete vaults (see p. 84), appears as a re-discovery, or rather an independent invention, of the builders of Normandy at the close of the eleventh century. The flying buttress was a later invention ; in the round-arched buildings of the eleventh and twelfth centuries the buttressing was mainly internal, and was incomplete and timid in its arrangement.
EXTERIORS. The exteriors were on this account plain and flat. The windows were small, the mouldings simple, and towers were rarely combined with the body of the church until after the beginning of the twelfth century. Then they appeared as mere belfries of moderate height, with pyramidal roofs and effectively arranged openings, the germs of the noble Gothic spires of later times. Ex- ternally the western porches and portals were the most important features of the design, producing an imposing effect by their massive arches, clustered piers, richly carved mouldings, and deep shadows.
CLOISTERS, ETC. Mention should be made of the other monastic buildings which were grouped around the abbey
I/O HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
churches of this period. These comprised refectories, chapter-halls, cloistered courts surrounded by the conven- tual cells, and a large number of accessory structures foi kitchens, infirmaries, stores, etc. The whole formed an elaborate and complex aggregation of connected buildings, often of great size and beauty, especially the refectories and cloisters. Most of these conventual buildings have disappeared, many of them having been demolished daring the Gothic period to make way for more elegant structures in the new style. There remain, however, a number of fine cloistered courts in their original form, especially in Southern France. Among the most remarkable of these are those of Moissac, Elne, and Montmajour.
MONUMENTS. Italy. (For basilicas and domical churches of 6th-i 2th centuries see pp. 118, no.) — Before nth century: Sta. Maria at Toaca* nella, altered 1206 ; S. Donato, Zara ; chapel at Friuli ; baptistery at Boella. nth century: S. Ciovanni, Viterbo ; Sta. Maria della Pieve, Arez- 20 ; S. Antonio, Piacenza, 1014 ; Fremiti, 1132, and La Martorana, 1 143. both at Palermo ; Duomo at Bari, 1027 (much altered) ; Duomo and baptis- tery, Novara, 1030 ; Duomo at Parma, begun 1058 ; Duomo at Pisa, 1063- 1118; S. Miniato, Florence, io63-i2th century ; S. Micheleat Pavia and Duomo at Modena, late nth century. — 12th century: to Calabria and Apulia, cathedrals of Trani, 1100; Caserta, Vecchia, I100-I153 ; Molfetta, 1162; Benevento ; chnrchet S. (liovanni at Prindisi, S. Xiccolo at Bari, 1139. In Sicily, Duomo at Monreale, 1174-1189. In Northern Italy, S. Tomaso in Limine, Bergamo, riOO (?) ; Sta. (liulia, Bread*; S. Lorenzo, Milan, rebuilt m<) ; Duomo at Piacenza, 1122 ; S. Zeno at Verona, 11 30 ; S. Ambrogio, Milan, 1140, vaulted in 13th century; baptistery at I'i-vi, 1153-1278 ; Leaning Tower, Pfaa, 1174. — 14th century: S. Michele, Lucca, 1188; S. (.iovanni and S. lrediano, Lucca. In Dalmatia, cathe- dral at Zara, 1 192-1204. Many castles and early town-halls, as at Pari, Brescia, Lucca, etc.
Franck: Previous to nth century : St. Cerminy-des-Pres, 806 ; Chapel of the Trinity, St. Honorat-dcs-Lcrins ; Ste. Croix de Montmajour. — nth century: ('e'risy-la-Kon't and abbey church of Mont St. Michel, 1020 (the latter altered in 12th and 16th centuries; Yi^nory ; St. Cenou; porch of St. Bcnoit-sur-I.oire, 1030; St. Sepulchre at Neuvy, 1045 ; Ste. Trinif;
EARLY MEDLEVAL ARCHITECTURE. 171
(Abbaye aux Dames) at Caen, 1046, vaulted 1140; St. Etienne (Abbaye aux Hommes)at Caen, same date ; St. Front at Perigueux, cir. 1150 ; Ste. Croix at Quimperle, 1081; cathedral, Cahors, 1050-1110; abbey churches of Cluny (demolished) and Vezelay, 1089-1100 ; circular church of Rieux- Merinville, church of St. Savin in Auvergne, the churches of St. Paul at Issoire and Notre- Dame-du-Port at Clermont, St. Hilaire and Notre-Dame- la-Grande at Poitiers ; also St. Sernin (Saturnin) at Toulouse, all at close of nth and beginning of 12th century. — 12th century: Domical churches of Aquitania and vicinity ; Solignac and Fontevrault, 11 20 ; St. Etienne (Perigueux), St. Avit-Senieur ; Angouleme, Souillac, Broussac, etc., early 12th century; St. Trophime at Aries, 1110, cloisters later; church of Vaison ; abbeys and cloisters at Montmajour, Tarascon, Moissac (with fragments of a 10th-century cloister built into present arcades); St. Paul-du- Mausolee ; Puy-en-Velay, with fine church. Many other abbeys, parish churches, and a few cathedrals in Central and Northern France especially.
CHAPTER XIV.
EARLY MEDI/EVAL ARCHITECTURE.— Continued.
IN GERMANY, GREAT BRITAIN, AND SPAIN.
Books Recommended : As before, HUbsch and Reber. Bond, Gothic Architecture in England. Also Brandon, Analysis of Gothic Architecture. Boisseree, Xicder Rhein. Ditchfield, The Cathedrals of ling/and. Hasak, Die romanische und die gotische Baukunst (in Handbuch d. Arch.). Liibke, Die Mittelolterliche Kunst in W'estfahn. Moller, Denkmdler det deutschen Baukunst. Puttricri, Baukunst des Mittelalters in Such sen. Rickman, An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of Architecture. Scott, English Church Architecture. Van Rens- selaer, English Cathedrals.
MEDIAEVAL GERMAN y. Architecture developed less rap- idly and symmetrically in Germany than in France, notwith- standing the strong centralized government of the empire. The early churches were of wood, and the substitution of stone for wood proceeded slowly. During the (arolingian epoch (800-919), however, a few important building! were erected, embodying Byzantine and classic traditions. Among these the most notable was the Minster or palatine ehapel of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, an obvious imitation of San Vitale at Ravenna. It consisted of an octagonal domed hall surrounded by a vaulted aisle in two stories, but without the eight niches of the Ravenna plan. It preceded by a porch flanked by turrets. The Byzan- tine type thus introduced iras repeated in later churches. a> in the Nuns' Choir at Kssen (947) and at < )tttnarsheim (1050). In the great monastery at Pulda a basilica with
EARLY MEDLEVAL ARCHITECTURE.
173
transepts and with an apsidal choir at either end was built in 803. These choirs were raised above the level of the nave, to admit of crypts beneath them, as in many Lombard churches ; a practice which, with the reduplication of the choir and apse just mentioned, became very common in German Romanesque architecture.
early CHURCHES. It was in Saxony that this architecture first entered upon a truly national development. The early churches of this province and of Hildesheim (where archi- tecture flourished under the favor of the bishops, as else- where under the royal influence) were of basilican plan and destitute of vaulting, except in the crypts. They were built with massive piers, sometimes rectangular, sometimes clustered, the two kinds often alternating in the same nave. Short columns were, however, sometimes used instead of piers, either alone, as at Paulinzelle and Limburg-on-the- Hardt (1024-39), or alternating with piers, as at Hecklin- gen, Gernrode (958-1050), and St. Godehard at Hildesheim (1133). A triple eastern apse, with apsidal chapels projecting eastward from the tran- septs, were common elements in the plans, and a second apse, choir, and crypt at the west end were not infrequent. Externally the most striking feature was the association of two, four, or even six square or circular towers with the mass of the church, and the elevation of square or polygonal turrets or cupolas over the crossing. These adjuncts gave a very picturesque aspect to edifices otherwise somewhat wanting in artistic in- terest.
RHENISH CHURCHES. It was in the Rhine provinces that vaulting was first applied to the naves of German churches, nearly a half century after its general adoption in France. Cologne possesses an in-
FIG. 99. — PLAN OF
MINSTER AT
WORMS.
174
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
teresting trio of churches in which the Byzantine dome on squinehes or on pendentives, with three apses or niches opening into the central area, was associated with a long three aisled nave (St. Mary-in-the-Capitol, begun in 9th century ; Great St. Martin's, 1 150-70 ; Apostles' Church, 1 160- 99 : the naves vaulted later). The double chapel at Schwarz- Rheindorf, near Bonn (1151), also has the crossing covered by a dome on pendentives.
The vaulting of the nave itself was developed in another series of edifices of imposing size, the cathedrals of May-
ence (1036), Spires (Speyer), and Worms, and the Abbey of Laach, all built in the nth century and vaulted early in the 12th. In the first three the main vaulting is in square bays, each covering two bays of the nave, the piers of which are alternately lighter and heavier (Figs. 99, 100). At Laach the vaulting -bays are oblong, both in nave and aisles. There was no triforium gallery, and stability was secured only by ex- cessive thickness in the piers and clearstory walls, and by bringing down the main vault as near to the side-aisle roofs as possible.
EHENI8H EXTERIORS. These
great churches, together with of Bonn and Limburg-
on-the-Lahn and the cathedral
of Treves (Trier, 1047), are interesting, not only by their
size and dignity of plan and the somewhat rude massive-
18 of their construction, but even more so by the pictur-
FIG. 100. — ONH BAV 09 I ATMEMML
AT MIKKs.
EARLY MEDLKVAL ARCHITECTURE.
175
esqueness of their external design (Fig. 101). Especially successful is the massing of the large and small turrets with the lofty nave- *
roof and with the aps- es at one or both ends. The systematic use of arcading to decorate the exterior walls, and the introduction of open arcaded dwarf galleries under the cornices of the apses, gables, and dome -turrets, gave to these Rhenish church- es an external beauty hardly equalled in oth- er contemporary edi- fices. This method of exterior design, and the system of vaulting in square bays over double bays of the nave, were probably derived from
the Lombard churches of Northern Italy, with which the Hohenstauffen emperors had many political relations.
The Italian influence is also encountered in a number of circular churches of early date, as at Fulda (9th- 11th century), Driigelte, Bonn (baptistery, demolished), and in facades like that at Rosheim, which is a copy in lit- tle of San Zeno at Verona.
Elsewhere in Germany architecture was in a backward state, especially in the southern provinces. Outside of Saxony, Franconia, and the Rhine provinces, very few works of importance were erected until the thirteenth century.
FIG. lOI. — EAST END Oh' CHURCH OF THE APOS- TLES, COLOGNE.
176 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
SECULAR ARCHITECTURE. Little remains to us of ttl<
alar architecture of this period ill Germany, if we except the
great feudal castles, especially those of the Rhine, which were, after all, rather works of military engineering than of architectural art. The palace of Charlemagne at Aix (the chapel of which was mentioned on p. 172) is known to have been a vast and splendid group of buildings, partly, at least of marble ; but hardly a vestige of it remains. Of the ex tensive Palace of Henry III. at Goslar there remain well-de- fined ruins of an imposing hall of assembly in two aisles with triple-arched windows. At Brunswick the east wing of the Burg Dankwargerode displays, in spite of modern alter- ations, the arrangement of the chapel, great hall, two forti- fied towers, and part of the residence of Henry the Lion. The Wartburg palace (Ludwig III., cir. 1 150) is more gen- erally known — a rectangular hall in three stories, with win- dows effectively grouped to form arcades ; while at (ielnhau- sen and Miinzenberg are ruins of somewhat similar buildings. A few of the Romanesque monasteries of Germany have left partial remains, as at Maulbronn, which was almost en- tirely rebuilt in the Gothic period, and isolated buildings in Cologne and elsewhere. There remain also in Cologne a number of Romanesque private houses with coupled win- dows and stepped gables.
GREAT BRITAIN. Previous to the Norman conquest (1060) there was in the British Isles little or no architecture worthy of mention. The few extant remains of Saxon and Celtic buildings reveal a singular poverty of ideas and want of technical skill. These scanty remains are mostly of towers (those in Ireland nearly all round and tapering, with conical tops, their use and date being the subjects of much controversy) and crypts. The tower of Karl's Barton is the most important and best preserved of those in England. With the Norman conquest, however, began an extraor- dinary activity in the building of churches and abbeys.
EARLY MEDLKVAL ARCHITECTURE.
177
William the Conqueror himself founded a number of these, and his Norman ecclesiastics endeavored to surpass on British soil the contemporary churches of Normandy. The newj churches differed somewhat from their French proto- types ; they were narrower and lower, but much longer, especially as to the choir and transepts. The cathedrals of Durham (1096- 1133) and Nor- wich (same date) are important examples (Fig. 102). They also differed from the French churches in two important particulars ex- ternally ; a huge tower rose usu- ally over the crossing, and the western portals were small and insignificant. Lateral entrances near the west end were given greater importance and called Galilees. At Durham a Galilee chapel (not shown in the plan), takes the place of a porch at the west end, like the ante-churches of St. Benoit-sur-Loire and V^zelay.
THE NORMAN STYLE. The Anglo- Norman builders employed the?, same general features as the Ro- manesque builders of Normandy, but with more of picturesqueness and less of refinement and technical elegance. Heavy walls, recessed arches, round mouldings, cubic cushion-caps, clustered piers, and in doorways a jamb-shaft for each stepping of the arch were common to both styles. But in England the Corinthian form of capital is rare, its place being taken by simpler forms.
NORMAN INTERIORS. The interior design of the larger churches of this period shows a close general analogy to 12
FIG. I02. — PLAN OF DURHAM CATHEDRAL.
1 78
IIISToRV OF ARCHITECTURE,
contemporaneous French Norman churches, as appears by comparing the nave of Walthum or Peterboro' with that of CeVisy-la-Foret, in Normandy. Although the massiveness of the Anglo-Norman piers and walls plainly suggests the intention of vaulting the nave, this inten- tion seems never to have been carried out except in small churches and crypts. All the existing abbeys and cathedrals of this period had wooden ceilings or were, like Durham, Norwich, and Gloucester, vaulted at a later date. Completed as they were with wooden nave-roofs, the clearstory was, without danger, made quite lofty and furnished with windows of considerable size. These were placed near the outside of the thick wall, and a passage was left between them and a triple arch on the inner face of the wall — a device imitated from the abbeys at Caen. The vaulted side-aisles were low, with disproportionately wide pier-arc lies, above which was a high triforium gallery under the side -roofs. Thus a nearly equal height was assigned to each of the three stories of the bay, disregarding that subordination of minor to major parts which gives interest to an archi- tectural composition. The piers were quite often round, as at Gloucester, Hereford, and Bristol. Sometimes round piers alternated with clustered piers, as at Durham and Walthum ; and in some cases clustered piers alone were employed, as at I'lterboro* and in the transepts of Winchester (Fig. 103). FACADES AND DOORWAYS. All the details were of the sim- haracter, except in the doorways. These were richly adorned with clustered jamb-shafts and elaborately carved
FIG. I03. — ONE BAV OF
TRANSIT, WINCHESTER
CATHEDRAL.
EARLY MEDL-KVAL ARCHITECTURE.
179
mouldings, but there was little variety in the details of this carving. The zigzag was the most common feature, though birds' heads with the beaks pointing toward the centre of the arch were not uncommon. In the smaller churches (Fig. 104) the doorways were better proportioned to the whole facade than in the larger ones, in which they appear as relatively insignificant features. Very few ex amples remain of impcrtant Norman facades in their original form, nearly all of these having been altered after the round arch was displaced by the pointed arch in the latter part of the twelfth century. Iffley church (Fig. 104) is a good example of the style.
SPAIN. During the Ro- manesque period a large part of Spain was under Moorish dominion. The capture of Toledo, in 1062, by the Christians, began the gradual emancipation of the country from Mos- lem rule, and in the north- ern provinces a number of important churches were erected under the influence of French Romanesque models. The use of domical pendentives (as in the Panteon of S. Isidoro, at Leon, and in the cimborio or dome over the choir at the intersection of nave and transepts in old Salamanca cathedral) was probably derived from the domical churches of Aquitania and Anjou. Elsewhere the north- ern Romanesque type prevailed under various modifica- tions, with long nave and transepts, a short choir, and a
FIG. IO4. — FRONT OF IFFLEY CHURCH.
l80 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
complete chevet with apsidal chapels. The church of 8t. Iago at Compostella (1078) is the finest example of this class. These churches nearly all had groined vaulting over the side-aisles and barrel-vaults over the nave, the con- structive system being substantially that of the churches of Auvergne and the Loire Valley (p. 165). They differed, however, in the treatment of the crossing of nave and tran- septs, over which was usually erected a dome or cupola or pendentives or squinches, covered externally by an impos ing square lantern or tower, as in the Old Cathedral at Sal amanca, already mentioned (1120-78) and the Collegi- ate Church at Toro. Occasional exceptions to these types are met wTith, as in the basilican wooden-roofed church of S. Millan at Segovia ; in S, Isidoro at Leon, with chapels and a later-added square eastern end, and the circular church of the Templars at Segovia.
The architectural details of these Spanish churches did not differ radically from contemporary French work. As i>i France and England, the doorways were the most ornate parts of the design, the mouldings being carved with ex- treme richness and the jambs frequently adorned with statues, as in S. Vincente at Avila. There was no such logical and reasoned-out system of external design as in France, and there is consequently greater variety in the facades. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the architecture of this period is its apparent exemption from the influence of the Moorish monuments which abounded on every hand. This may be explained by the hatred which was felt by the Christians for the Moslems and all their works.
MONUMENTS. C.kkmanv : Previous to nth century: Circular churches of Holy Cross at MOnster, and of Fulda ; palace chapel of Charle- magne at Aix-la-Chapelle, 804; St. Stephen, Mayence, 990; primitive nave and crypt of St. Genoa, Cologne, 10th century; Torsch. — nth century • Churches of Gernrode, Goslar, and Merseburg in Saxony ; cathe-
EARLY MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE. l8l
dral of Bremen ; first restoration of cathedral of Treves (Trier), ioio, west front, 1047 ; Limburg-on-Hardt, 1024 ; St. Willibrod, Echternach, 103 1 ; east end of Mayence Cathedral, 1036 ; Church of Apostles and nave St. Mary-in-CapitoI at Cologne, 1036 ; cathedral of Spires (Speyer) begun 1040 ; Cathedral Hildesheim, 1061 ; St. Joseph, Bamberg, 1073 ; Abbey of Laach, 1093-1156; round churches of Bonn, Drtlgelte, Nimeguen ; cathedrals of Paderborn and Minden. — 12th century: Churches of Klus, Paulinzelle, Hamersleben, noo-iiio; Johannisberg, 1130 ; St. Godehard, Hildesheim, 1133; Worms, the Minster, 1118-83; Jerichau, 1144-60; Schwarz-Rheindorf, 1151; St. Michael, Hildesheim, 1162; Cathedral Brunswick, 1172-94 ; Lubeck, 1172 ; also churches of Gaudersheim, Wiirz- burg, St. Matthew at Treves, Limburg-on-Lahn, Sinzig, St. Castor at Coblentz, Diesdorf, Rosheim ; round churches of Ottmarsheim and Rip- pen (Denmark) ; cathedral of Basle, cathedral and cloister of Zurich (Swit- zerland).
England: Previous to nth century: Scanty vestiges of Saxon church architecture, as tower of Earl's Barton, round towers and small chapels in Ireland. — nth century: Crypt of Canterbury Cathedral, 1070; chapel St. John in Tower of London, 1070 ; Winchester Cathedral, 1076- 93 (nave and choir rebuilt later) ; Gloucester Cathedral nave, 1089-1100 (vaulted later) ; Rochester Cathedral nave, west front cloisters, and chap- ter-house, 1090-1130; Carlisle Cathedral nave, transepts, 1093-1130 ; Durham Cathedral, 1095-1133, vaulted 1233 ; Galilee and chapter-house, 1133—53 ; Norwich Cathedral, 1096, largely rebuilt 1118-93 ; Hereford Cathedral, nave and choir, 1099-1115. — 12th century: Ely Cathedral, nave, 1107-33 I St. Alban's Abbey, 1116 ; Peterboro' Cathedral, 11 17-45 '. Waltham Abbey, early 12 th century; Church of Holy Sepulchre, Cam- bridge, 1130-35; Worcester Cathedral chapter-house, 1140 (?) ; Oxford Cathedral (Christ Church), 1150-80; Bristol Cathedral chapter-house (square), 11 55 ; Canterbury Cathedral, choir of present structure by William of Sens, 1175 ; Chichester Cathedral, 1 180-1204 ; Romsey Abbey, late 12th century; St. Cross Hospital near Winchester, 1 190(7). Many more or less important parish churches in various parts of England.
Spain. For principal monuments of gth-i 2th centuries, see text, latter part of this chapter.
CHAPTER XV.
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE.
Books Recommended : Adamy, Architektonik des gotischt n Stils. Corroyer, V Architecture gothique. Enlart, Manuel a* archtologie fran$aise. Hasak, Einzelheiten des Kirchenbaues (in Hdbuch d. Arch.). Moore, Development and Character of Gothic Architecture. Parker, Introduction to Gothic Archi- tecture. Scott, Mediaeval Architecture. Viollet-le-Duc, Dis- courses on Architecture ; Dictionnaire raisonni de /'architecture francaise.
INTBODUCTOBY. The architectural styles which were de- veloped in Western Europe during the period extending from about 1150 to 1450 or 1500, received in an unscien- tific age the wholly erroneous and inept name of Gothic. This name has, however, become so fixed in common usage that it is hardly possible to substitute for it any more scientific designation. In reality the architecture to which it is applied was nothing more than the sequel and out- growth of the Romanesque, which we have already studied. Its fundamental principles were the same ; it was concerned with the same problems. These it took up where the Ro- manesque builders left them, and worked out their solution under new conditions, until it had developed out of the simple and massive models of the early twelfth century the splendid cathedrals of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- turies in England, France, Germany, the Low Countries and Spain.
THE CHUBCH AND ABCHITECTUBE. The twelfth century was an era of transition in society, as in architecture. The ideas of Church and State were becoming more clearly de- fined in the common mind. In the conflict between feudal-
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE.
183
ism and royalty the monarchy was steadily gaining ground. The problem of human right was beginning to present it- self alongside of the problem of human might. The re- lations between the crown, the feudal barons, the pope, bishops, and abbots, differed widely in France, Germany, England, and other countries. The struggle among them for supremacy presented itself, therefore, in varied aspects ; but the general outcome was essentially the same. The church began to appear as something behind and above abbots, bishops, kings, and barons. The supremacy of the papal authority gained increasing recognition, and the episcopacy began to overshadow the monastic institu- tions ; the bishops appearing generally, but especially in France, as the cham- pions of popular rights. The prerog- atives of the crown became more firmly established, and thus the Church and the State emerged from the social confusion as the two institu- tions divinely ap- pointed for the gov- ernment of men.
Under these in- fluences ecclesiasti- cal architecture ad-
vanced strides.
with No
FIG. 105. — CONSTRUCTIVE SYSTEM OF GOTHIC CHURCH. ILLUSTRATING PRINCIPLES OF ISOLATED SUPPORTS longer AND BUTTRESSING.
rapid
hampered by monas- tic restrictions, it called into its service the laity, whose guilds of masons and builders carried from one diocese to another their constantly increasing stores of constructive
1 84
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
knowledge. By a wise division of labor, each man wrought only such parts as he was specially trained to undertake. The master-builder — bishop, abbot, or mason — seems to have planned only the general arrange- ment and scheme of the building, leav- ing the precise form of each detail to be determined as the work advanced, according to the skill and fancy of the artisan to whom it was intrusted. Thus was produced that remarkable variety in unity of the Gothic cathedrals ; thus, also, those singular irregularities and makeshifts, those discrepancies and alterations in the design, which are found in every great work of medi- aeval architecture. Gothic architec- ture was constantly changing, attack- ing new problems or devising new- solutions of old ones. In this char- acter of constant flux and develop- ment it contrasts strongly with the classic styles, in which the scheme and the principles were early fixed and remained substantially unchanged for centuries. STRUCTURAL PRINCIPLES. The pointed arch, so commonly regarded as the most characteristic feature of the Gothic styl' s, was merely an incidental feature of their develop- ment. What really distinguished them most strikingly was the systematic application of two principles which the Roman and Byzantine builders had recognized and applied, but which seem to have been afterward forgotten until they were revived by the later Romanesque architects. The first of these was the concentration of strains upon iso- lated points of support, made possible by the substitution
MG. to6. — PLAN OP SAINTE CHAI'KU.E, IAK1S, (MOW* ' 1'PKESSION OP SIDE- WALLS.
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE.
185
of groined for barrel vaults. This led to a corresponding concentration of the masses of masonry at these points ; the building was constructed as if upon legs (Fig. 105). The wall became a mere filling-in between the piers or buttresses, and in time was, indeed, practically suppressed, immense windows filled with stained glass taking its place. This is well illustrated in the Sainte Chapelle at Paris, built 1242-47 (Figs. 106, 122). In this remarkable edifice, a series of groined vaults spring from slender shafts built against deep buttresses which receive and resist all the thrusts. The wall-spaces between them are wholly occupied by superb windows filled with stone tracery and stained glass. It would be impossible to combine the materials used more scientifically or effectively. The cathedrals of Gerona (Spain) and of Alby (France ; Fig. 123) illustrate the same principle, though in them the buttresses are internal and serve to separate the flanking chapels.
The second distinctive prin- ciple of Gothic architecture was that of balanced thrusts. In Roman buildings the thrust of the vaulting was resisted wholly by the inertia of mass in the abutments. In Gothic architecture thrusts were as far as possible resisted by counter-thrusts, and the final resultant pressure was trans- mitted by flying half-arches
across the intervening portions of the structure to external buttresses placed at convenient points. This combination
FIG. 107.
-EARLY GOTHIC FLYING BUT- TRESS.
1 86
HISTORY OF ARCHITl-XTURE.
of flying half-arches and buttresses is called the flying-buttress (Fig. 107). It reached its highest development in the thir- teenth and fourteenth centuries in the cathedrals of central and northern France.
BIBBED VAULTING. These two principles formed the structural basis of the Gothic styles. Their application led to the introduction of two other elements, second only to them in importance, ribbed vaulting and the pointed arch.
The first of these resulted from the effort to overcome certain practical difficulties encountered in the building of large groined vaults. As ordinarily constructed, a groined vault like that in Fig. 47, must be built as one structure, upon wooden centrings supporting its whole extent. The Romanesque architects conceived the idea of construct- ing an independent skeleton of ribs. Two of these were built against the wall (wail-ribs), two across the nave (transverse ribs) ; and two others were made to coincide with the groins (Figs. 98, 108). The groin - ribs, intersecting at the centre of the vault, divided each bay into four triangular portions, or compartuients, each of which was really an inde- pendent vault which could be sepa- rately constructed upon light cen- trings supported by the groin-ribs themselves. This prin- ciple, though identical in essence with the Roman system of brick skeleton-ribs for concrete vaults, was, in applica- tion and detail, superior to it, both from the scientific and artistic point of view. The ribs, richly moulded, became, in the hands of the Gothic architects, important decorative features. In practice the builder gave to each set of ribs independently the curvature he desired. The vaulting-sur- faces were then easily twisted or warped so as to fit the va-
ne. 108. — RIBBF.I) VAULT, ENGLISH TVI'K, Willi I'l- VIDED GKOIN- KIIIS ANI> RIDGE-KIHS.
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE.
I87
rious ribs, which, being already in place, served as guides for their construction.
THE POINTED ARCH was adopted to remedy the difficulties encountered in the construction of oblong vaults. It is obvious that where a narrow semi-cylindrical vault inter sects a wide one, it produces either what are called penetra- tions, as at a (Fig. 109), or in- tersections like that at b, both of which are awkward in as- pect and hard to construct. If, however, one or both vaults be given a pointed section, the narrow vault may be made as high as the wide one. It is then possible, with but little warping of the vaulting sur- faces, to make them intersect in groins ey which are vertical plane curves instead of wavy loops like a and b.
The Gothic architects availed themselves to the full of these two devices. They built their groin-ribs of semi-circular or pointed form, but the wall-ribs and the transverse ribs were, without exception, pointed arches of such curvature as would bring the apex of each nearly or quite to the level of the groin intersection. The pointed arch, thus introduced as the most convenient form for the vaulting-ribs, was soon applied to other parts of the structure This was a necessity with the windows and pier-arches, which would not otherwise fit well the wall- spaces under the wall-ribs of the nave and aisle vaulting.
TRACERY AND GLASS. With the growth in the size of the windows and the progressive suppression of the lateral walls
FIG. I09. — PENETRATIONS AND INTERSEC- TIONS OK VAULTS.
a, a, Penetrations by small semi- circular vaults sprung from same level, b. Intersection by small semi-circular vault sprung from higher level ; groins form luavy lines, c, Intersection by narrow pointed vault sprung from same level ; groins are plane curz>es.
1 88
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
of vaulted structures, stained glass came more and more generally into use. Its introduction not only resulted in a notable heightening and enriching of the colors and scheme of the interior decoration, but reacted on the architecture, intensifying the very causes which led to its introduction. It stimulated the increase in the size of windows, and the suppression of the walls, and contributed greatly to the de- velopment of tracery. This latter feature was an absolute necessity for the support of the glass. Its evolution can be traced (Figs, no, in, 112) from the simple coupling of twin windows under a single hood-mould, or discharging arch, to the florid net-work of the fifteenth century. In
its earlier forms it consisted merely of decorative openings, circles, and quatrefoils, pierced through slabs of stone {plate- traccry), filling the window- heads over coupled windows. Later attention was bestowed upon the form of the stone- work, which was made lighter and richly moulded (bar-trac- ery), rather than upon that of the openings (Fig. in). Then the circular and geometric pat- terns employed were aban- doned for more flowing and capricious designs {Flamboyant tracery, Fig. 112) or (in Kngland) for more rigid and rectangular arrangements {Perpendicular, Fig. 134). It will be shown later that the periods and styles of Gothic architecture are more easily identified by the tracery than by any other feature.
CHURCH PLANS. The original basilica - plan underwent radical modifications during the 12th -15th centuries. These resulted in part from the changes in construction
FIG. I IO. — PLATE TRACERY, CHARLTOK ON-OXMORE.
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE.
189
which have been described, and in part from altered eccle- siastical conditions and requirements. Gothic church archi- tecture was based on cathedral design ; and the require- ments of the cathedral
differed in many re- spects from those of the monastic churches of the preceding period.
The most important alterations in the plan were in the choir and transepts. The choir was greatly lengthened, the transepts often shortened. The choir was provided with two and often four side- aisles, and one or both of these was commonly carried entirely around the apsidal termination FIG- 1: of the choir, forming a single or double ambulatory. This combination of choir, apse, and ambulatory was called, in French churches, the chevet.
Another advance upon Romanesque models was the mul- tiplication of chapels — a natural consequence of the more popular character of the cathedral as compared with the abbey. Frequently lateral chapels were built at each bay ot the side-aisles, filling up the space between the deep but- tresses, flanking the nave as well as the choir. They were also carried around the chevet in most of the French cathe- drals (Paris, Bourges, Reims, Amiens, Beauvais, and many others) ; in many of those in Germany (Magdeburg, Co- logne, Frauenkirche at Treves), Spain (Toledo, Leon, Bar-
-BAR TRACERY, ST. MICHAEL'S, WAR- FIELD.
190
HISTORY OK ARCHITECTURE.
celona, Segovia, etc.), and Belgium (Tournay, Antwerp). In England the choir had more commonly a square eastward termination. Secondary transepts occur frequently, and these peculiarities, together with the narrowness and great length of most of the plans, make of the English cathedrals a class by themselves.
proportions AND composition. Along with these modifi- cations of the basilican plan should be noticed a great in- crease in the height and slenderness of all parts of the structure. The lofty clearstory, the arcaded triforium-pas-
sage or gallery beneath it, the high pointed pier-arches, the mul- tiplication of slender clustered shafts, and the reduction in tine area of the piers, .gave to the Gothic churches an interior aspect whol- ly different from that of the simpler, lower, and more massive Ro- manesque edifices. The perspective effects of the plans thus modified, especially of the com- plex choir and ,/it'vet with their lateral and radial chapels, were remarkably enriched and varied.
The exterior was even more radically transformed by these changes, and by the addition of towers and spires to the fronts, and sometimes to the transepts and to their in- tion with the nave. The deep buttresses, terminating in pinnacles, the rich traceries of the great lateral windows, the triple portals profusely sculptured, rose-windows of great size under the front and transept gables, combined to pro-
KIG. 112.— ROSE WINDOW, CHURCH OP ST. OUEN, ROUBN.
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE.
I9I
duce effects of marvellously varied light and shadow, and of complex and elaborate structural beauty, totally un- like the broad simplicity of the Romanesque exteriors.
DECORATIVE DETAIL. The mediaeval designers aimed to enrich every constructive feature with the most ef- fective play of lights and shades, and to embody in the decorative detail the greatest possible amount of allegory and symbol- ism, and sometimes of humor besides. The deep jambs and soffits of doors and pier - arches were moulded with a rich succession of hollow and convex"*" members, and adorned with carvings of saints, apostles, martyrs, and angels. Virtues and vices, allegories of re- ward and punishment, and an extraordinary world of monstrous and grotesque beasts, devils, and goblins filled the capitals and door-arches, peeped over tower - par- apets, or leered and grinned from gargoyles
and corbels. Another source of decorative detail was the application of tracery like that of the windows to wall-panelling, to balustrades, to open-work gables, to spires, to choir-screens, and other features, especially in
FIG. 113. — FLAMBOYANT DETAIL FROM Fl'LPIl IN STRASBURG CATHEDRAL.
T92
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (cathedrals of
York, Rouen, Cologne ; Henry VII. 's Chapel, Westminster). And finally in the carving of capitals and the ornamentation of mouldings the artists of the thirteenth century and their successors abandoned completely the classic models and traditions which still survived in the early twelfth century. The later monastic builders began to look directly to nat- ure for suggestions of decorative form. The lay builders who sculptured the capitals and crockets and finials of the early Gothic cathedrals adopted and followed to its fir.:.lity this principle of recourse to nature, especially to plant life. At first the budding shoots of early spring were freely imi- tated or skilfully conventionalized, as being by their thick and vigorous forms the best adapted for translation into stone (Fig. 114). During the thirteenth century the more advanced stages of plant growth, and leaves more complex and detailed, furnished the models for the carver, who dis- played his skill in a closer and more literal imitation of their minute veinings and indentations (Fig. 115). This
artistic adaptation of natural forms to archi- tectural decoration de- generated later into a minutely realistic copy- ing of natural foliage, in which cleverness of execution took the place of original inven- tion. The spirit of dis play is characteristic of all late Gothic work. Slenderness, minuteness of de- tail, extreme complexity and intricacy of design, an unre- strained profusion of decoration covering every surface, a lack of largeness and vigor in the conceptions, are con- spicuous traits of Gothic design in the fifteenth century,
PMm IH IWIT <,OTHIC CARVING.
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE.
193
alike in France, England, Germany, Spain, and the Low Countries. Having worked out to their conclusion the structural principles bequeathed to them by the preceding centuries, the authors of these later works seemed to have devot- ed themselves to the elaboration of mere decorative detail, and in technical finish surpassed all that had gone before (Fig. 1 13).
CHARACTERISTICS SUMMARIZED. In the light of the preceding explanations Gothic architecture may be defined as that system of structural design and decoration which
grew up out of the effort to combine, in one harmonious and organic conception, the basilican plan with a complete and systematic construction of groined vaulting. Its devel- opment was controlled throughout by considerations of stability and structural propriety, but in the application of these considerations the artistic spirit was allowed full scope for its exercise. Refinement, good taste, and great fertility of imagination characterize the details and ornaments of Gothic structures. While the Greeks in harmonizing the re- quirements of utility and beauty in architecture approached the problem from the aesthetic side, the Gothic architects did the same from the structural side. Their admirably reasoned structures express as perfectly the idea of vast- ness, mystery, and complexity as do the Greek temples that of simplicity and monumental repose. 25
:arving, decorated period, southwell minster.
194 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
i The excellence of Gothic architecture lay not so much in 1 its individual details as in its perfect adaptation to the purposes for which it was developed — its triumphs were achieved in the building of cathedrals and large churches. In the domain of civil and domestic architecture it produced nothing comparable with its ecclesiastical edifices, because it was the requirements of the cathedral and not of the palace, town-hall, or dwelling, that gave it its form and character.
PERIODS. The history of Gothic architecture is commonly divided into three periods, which are most readily distin- guished by the character of the window-tracery. These periods were not by any means synchronous in the different countries ; but the order of sequence was everywhere the same. They are here given, with a summary of the charac- teristics of each.
Early Pointed Period. [Early French ; Early English or Lancet Period in England ; Early German, etc.] Simple groined vaults ; general simplicity and vigor of design and detail ; conventionalized foliage of small plants ; plate tra- cery, and narrow windows coupled under pointed arch with circular foiled openings in the window-head. (In France, n6o to 1275.)
Middle Pointed Period. [Fayonnant in France ; Deco- rated or Geometric in England.] Vaults more perfect ; in Kngland multiple ribs and liernes ; greater slenderness and loftiness of proportions ; de