8

Fig. 115.

riumphal arches, stately and magnificent temples, were provided for the public. Schools of architecture, which none but persons of good birth were allowed to enter, were estalished, with professors and prizes for the meritorious. From all this care, one might have upposed a plentiful harvest would have been reaped. But, alas! with all the expense, with Il the fine marbles that were employed, with the bronze and gold lavished on the onstruction and decoration of the edifices erected, the art was not re-established on its rue principles. Every thing was rich; but, notwithstanding the exaggerated praises of he ignorant writers of the day, every thing was deficient in real beauty. Richness of aterial will never compensate for want of elegance in form. "The buildings of the new ity," observes Gibbon, "were executed by such artificers as the reign of Constantine could fford, but they were decorated by the hands of the most celebrated masters of the age of Pericles and Alexander. To revive the genius of Phidias and Lysippus surpassed, indeed he power of a Roman emperor; but the immortal productions which they had bequeathed o posterity were exposed without defence to the rapacious vanity of a despot. By his

commands the cities of Greece and Asia were despoiled of their most valuable ornaments. The trophies of memorable wars, the objects of religious veneration, the most finished statues of the gods and heroes, of the sages and poets of ancient times, contributed to the splendid triumph of Constantinople, and gave occasion to the remark of the historian Cedrenus, who observes, with some enthusiasm, that nothing seemed wanting except the souls of the illustrious men whom those admirable monuments were intended to represent."

201. In Rome, the triumphal arch erected in honour of Constantine presents, to this day, an example of the barbarous and tasteless spirit of the age. It is nothing less than an incongruous mixture, in sculpture and architecture, of two periods remote from each other. But, discordant as the styles are, the absurdity of placing on it part of the triumphs of Trajan, whose arch was robbed for the occasion, is still greater. Not only was Trajan's arch despoiled of its bas reliefs, but the columns and capitals, which the architect, from ignorance, scarcely knew how to put together, were stolen for the occasion. We have used the term ignorance of the architect, who, (if the monument were not standing, the fact could scarcely be credited,) with the finest models before his eyes, placed modillions with dentils in the cornice, and has used the same parts in his impost.

202. The partition of the empire at the death of Constantine was injurious as well to the arts as to the empire; and at its reunion by Constantius in 353, he exhibited but little solicitude about their prosperity. On a visit of thirty days to Rome, he presented the city with the obelisk that now stands in front of the Basilica of S. Giovanni Laterano. It had been intended by Constantine for his new city; and, after being brought down the Nile from the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, was conveyed to the banks of the Tiber instead of those of the Bosphorus. After being landed about three miles from the city, it was first elevated in the Circus Maximus. This piece of granite is about 118 ft. in length.

203. Julian's name is in bad odour with the Christian world; but he ought, nevertheless, to have justice rendered to him for his administration of the affairs of the empire, his love of freedom, and his patronage of the arts. This emperor, at Constantinople, constructed some porticoes and improved the port; and, even at so remote a spot as Paris, there still remain the ruins of a palace and baths of his construction; a circumstance which should make his memory an object of respect, perhaps veneration, to the inhabitants of that city.

204. Under Valentinian and Valens the arts received little attention, though the former manifested some care for them. Gratian was entitled to a sort of negative praise for leaving the empire of the West to his brother Valentinian II., and that of the East to Theodosius; who, after the death of the former, held the sway of the whole empire, patronising architecture, and erecting many large edifices in Constantinople. After this the empire was lastingly divided. On the death of Theodosius, Arcadius succeeded him in the East, and in the West Honorius, under whom, whilst he was ingloriously enjoying the pleasures and luxuries of his palace at Ravenna, Alaric, king of the Visigoths, entered and pillaged Rome in the year 410. Honorius raised or repaired several of the Basilica at Rome; among them that of S. Paolo fuori le Murà; and, in honour of the two emperors, a triumphal arch was erected in the city in 406, but of this no remains are in existence.

205. After this time, for sixty years the empire of the West was in a state of distraction. Nine princes filled the throne during that period, on and off the stage, rather like actors than monarchs. But the extinction of the Roman name could be no longer protracted. In 455, Genseric, king of the Vandals, gave up Rome for pillage to his soldiers for the space of three days, and some years after, his example was followed by Ricimer. In 476 the Roman empire in the West was annihilated.

206. We have thus, in this and the preceding section, shortly traced the history of Romaa architecture from its dawn among the Etruscans to the close of the regal power in Rome; and from that period to the time of its culmination under Augustus, an age of great splendour in the art, comparable even with the best days of Athens, if allowance be made for the respective habits of the nations and the climates under which they were placed. From the zenith we have followed it in its setting under Dioclesian, and after that through its crepusculum, which, in 476, was succeeded by total darkness; a darkness, however, not without meteors and coruscations which occasionally enabled us to enlighten the reader is the journey he has undertaken with us. The revolutions, however, of empires, like those of the globe on its axis, bring other dawns: such is the case with the arts, which follow those revolutions; and we shall hereafter have to record another dawn of them, which, like the light of our great luminary, had its day-spring in the east, whence came the architects Venice and Pisa. But, before we approach that period, it will be necessary to take a cursory glance at those monuments of Rome and other places under its dominion, in which tha ruins alone attest the extraordinary power and magnificence of that State, and to examiss the details of their construction as respects what simply presents itself to the eye.

207. We now, therefore, proceed to a view, 1. Of the religious buildings of the Ro mans in quadrangular and circular temples; 2. Of their public buildings in fora, triumpha arches, bridges, aqueducts, theatres, amphitheatres, and baths and circi; 3. Of their private

houses and tombs; confining ourselves to those ruins in the city, and occasionally the provinces, which best illustrate the subject.

208. Temples.-1. The quadrangular Roman temple partook very much of its Greek, or perhaps Etruscan, original; though occasionally, as in the Temple of Peace, there is a very considerable deviation from the type. But the exceptions to the general rule are very few indeed in number. The most beautiful temple of the Corinthian order that perhaps ever existed in the world was the (formerly so called) Temple of Jupiter Stator, in the Campo Vaccino or more properly the Forum at Rome, and now designated the Temple of the Dioscuri or of Castor and Pollux, in consequence of recent excavations. It was an octastyle peripteral temple, with eleven columns in flank, and the cell occupied eight columns on each side. No Greek work could surpass in elegance and beauty the profile of the Corinthian order employed in this edifice. The capital, whether considered as to design or execution, is unparalleled. At the same time it must be admitted that it bears every mark of the improvements that had been effected through the medium of Greek artists. Three columns with their entablature remain; these are 47.65 ft. high, the lower diameter being 4-84; so that the columus are 98 diameters high. The height of the entablature is a small fraction less than one quarter the height of the column. The intercolumniations are, as nearly as possible, 1·5 diameter of the column; whence the size of the temple will be easily determined.

209. At the foot of the Capitol stands the Corinthian Temple of Jupiter Tonans (so called), also called Temple of Saturn, but now of Vespasian, of which, as of the last, only three columns remain. This was an hexastyle peripteral (except on the side towards the rock) temple, 115 ft. long and 92 ft. wide, measured from outside to outside of column. The columns are 47-08 ft. high, and their lower diameter is 4.60 ft.; their height, therefore, in terms of the diameter, is very nearly 10 diameters. The height of the entablature is 9-77 ft., or not quite one fifth of the height of the column. The intercolumniations are 1:56 diameter. There is a tale in Suetonius, that Augustus had bells suspended round this temple on the occasion of his dreaming that the god complained of a falling off in the number of his worshippers. Its style is inferior to the one above described, yet it is not without beauty, though the cornice is, as compared with it, deficient in effect. (The description of the different species of temples mentioned by Vitruvius is giren in the GLOSSARY, S. v. Temple.)

210. The Temple of Mars Ultor was one of those erected by Augustus. Its profile exhibits a fine and bold example of the Corinthian order. Its whole length was about 116 ft., and its breadth about 73 ft. The cornice of the entablature is wanting. The intercolumniations are about 1 diameter.

211. In the Campo Vaccino are the remains of a Corinthian temple, built by M. Aurelius in honour of Antoninus, his predecessor, and Faustina, the wife of M. Aurelius, about the middle of the 2nd century, in a high style of art, and is considered the last pure building in Rome. It was prostylos and hexastylos; the columns are 46'10 ft. high; the entablature 11:03 ft.; diameter of the columns 4.85 ft.; and the intercolumniations, except the centre one, which is wider than the others, are 1 diameter of the columns; the columns are 9 diameters high, and the entablature rather less than one fourth that height; the frieze is ornamented with griffins and candelabra. It is not our intenti. n to describe more than the principal temples, with their parts, but to afford to the reader in this place a general view of the art; we shall therefore merely mention those of the Maison Carrée at Nismes, and the little edifice at Trevi, which last is erected in a very vitiated style: both are of the Corinthian order, and quadrangular in form.

212. Rome is very poor in examples of Ionic temples, the only two remaining being that of Fortuna Virilis and that of Concord; the first not very pure in its detail, and the latter in the very worst style. The Temple of Fortuna Virilis is of the species called prostyle and tetrastyle; that is, with four columns in front and seven on the sides, whereof the cell occupies four intercolumniations. The height of the columns is 27 35 ft.; the lower diameter of the columns 3.11 ft.; and the height of the entablature 6.78 ft. A peculiarity has been noticed in this example of the different centres of the ornamented members being ranged so as to fall with exactness over the axes of the columns.

art.

213. The (formerly so called) Temple of Concord, now of Saturn, or the Ærarium, which is a restoration of a former temple, is probably of the age of Constantine, and scarcely deserves the notice here taken of it, except as a connecting link in the chain of It was hexastyle and peripteral. The eight columns which remain are of red and white granite of different diameters. The bases are Attic, and without plinths, except those of the angular columns. The capitals are inelegant and clumsily sculptured. The mouldings of the architrave have been chiselled away to form a plane surface for containing the inscription. Modillions and dentils are met with in the cornice, and the frieze in the interior was sculptured. The height of the columns is 42.86 ft., and their lower diameter 4-48 ft.; so that they are about 9 diameters high. The height of the entablature is 7-2 ft. or about one sixth of the height of the column.

214. The circular temples of Rome and its neighbourhood will next be mentioned. Two of them, that of Vesta at Rome and of the Sybil at Tivoli, of the Corinthian order, are or considerable antiquity. Their cells are cylindrical, and are supposed to have been covered! with domes resting on the walls, though that is by no means certain. The Temple of Vesta is raised on three steps, whilst that of the Sybil is raised on a circular basement about five feet high. Both the cellæ are encircled about with a colonnade of the Corinthian order. The capitals of the Temple of the Sybil are extraordinary as pieces of effective art. The leaves of the capital, instead of being appliquées to the bell, as in other examples, are in this cut into it, and impart a magical appearance to it. The tout ensemble of this temple seems to have been conceived with an eye to its situation, and the order seems calculated only for the spot on which it stands (see fig. 116.). The circular Temple

of Bacchus is of a late date. In its exterior there is nothing to remark, except that it has lost a portico at its entrance which originally belonged to it. It consists of a central circular cell, if such it may be called, surrounded by a circular aisle, the former being separated from the latter by twelve pairs of double columns, coupled in the direction of the radii of the plan; from which columns arches spring, carrying a cylindrical wall 39-36 ft. diameter, covered with a hemispherical dome 65-6 ft. high from the pavement. The aisle or corridor is 14.75 ft. wide, surrounding the double colonnade, from which to the exterior wall is a semicircular vault, whose sofite is 32 ft. high from the pavement. Of the former so called Temple of Minerva Medica, now considered to be a Hall or Nymphæum belonging to the great Therme of the 3rd century,

of the time of Decius, little more than half of it is standing. It was 110 ft. in diameter; but the interior was formed into ten plane faces, each having a semicircular recess towards the interior. A hemispherical brick dome was 113 ft. from the pavement. A semicircular wing, covered by a hemispherically formed vault, stood on each side of the building, but they are now in ruins. Fig. 117. shows the ruin as it was in 1816, from a memorandum we then made. A rectangular vestibule with four Corinthian columns formed

the entrance, and was surmounted by a pediment roof. The temple now stands in a private garden.

215. We have reserved for the last example of a circular temple the celebrated Pantheon, supposed to have formed at one time a portion of the baths of Agrippa, and erected about 8 c. 27. The body of the temple was probably erected in the time of the republic with simple large niches, as in figs. 118. and 119.; the left side shows it as originally built, and the right side as now standing; the portico was probably erected by M. Aurelius

Antoninus, cir. A.D. 166, and completed by Septimius Severus, A.D. 202, at which time the columns were added to the niches, and other alterations made, as seen on the right half of the plan and section. The interior is circular and about 139 ft. diameter, measuring from inside to inside of the columns, which are about S3 ft. high. At a height of 75 ft. from the ground in the interior springs the hemispherical dome, which has five horizontal ranks of caissons or panels, the top of the dome being terminated by what is technically termed an eye, or circular opening, about 27 ft. diameter. All that is found in the temple is of the Corinthian order.

216. Fig. 120. is an elevation of the Pantheon, with the portico of the Parthenon below it, for the purpose of comparing the relative sizes of the porticoes of the two buildings. The portico, it will be seen, is octastyle, and projects 62 ft. from the circumference of the circular part of the edifice. The shafts of the columns are plain, and the portico is surmounted by a pediment similar to that on the wall of the building. The columns are 47 03 ft. high, and their lower diameter 4.79 ft.

The

entablature is 10-22 ft., or nearly, not quite a fifth of the height of the column. The

profile of the order is bold and well conceived, and the execution in a good style. It has been stripped of its ornaments, many whereof were bronze, by the cupidity of the possessors of power at various times. Though the present interior is comparatively modern, we think it right to give the following particulars of the order: The columns are 34.67 ft. high, the lower diameter being 3.64 ft. The shafts are fluted, and have what are called cablings up one third of their height. It will be seen on inspection of the plan that these columns are placed in front of the great niches. We are not aware that the circumstance whereto we are about to advert has been heretofore noticed, and we give the result of our calculation in round numbers only, as an approximation to the truth. The rules for lighting apartments will form the subject of a future section. We shall here merely observe, that the contents of the building, measuring round the inner convexity of the columns, and not calculating the niches, is about 1,787,300 cubic feet, and that the area of the eye of the dome is about 32 square ft., from which it follows that 2226 cubic ft. of space in this building are lighted by 1 foot superficial of light. The building is neither gloomy nor

Fig. 119. SECTIONS OF ORIGINAL AND PRESENT PANTHEON.