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bitants only, possessing in fact no more beauty than we now give to a back staircase. They are for the most part dark, narrow, and inconvenient. Even in Italy, which in the splendour of its buildings preceded and surpassed all the other nations of Europe, the staircase was, till a late period, extremely simple in the largest and grandest palaces. Such are the staircases of the Vatican, Bernini's celebrated one being comparatively of a late date. The old staircases of the Tuilleries and of the Louvre, though on a considerable scale, are, from their simplicity, construction, and situation, little in unison with the richness of the rest of these palaces. And this was the consequence of having the state apartments on the ground floor. When they were removed to a higher place, the staircase which conducted | to them necessarily led to a correspondence of design in it.

2802. It will be observed that our observations in this section are confined to internal staircases. Large flights of steps, such as those at the Trinità de' Monti and Araceli at Rome, do not come within our notice, being unrestricted in their extent, and scarcely subject to the general laws of architectural composition. In these it should however be remembered that they must never rise in a continued series of steps from the bottom to the summit, but must be provided with landings for resting places, as is usually the case in the half and quarter spaces of internal stairs. An extremely fine example of an external flight of stairs may be cited in those descending from the terrace to the orangery at Versailles. For simplicity, grandeur, design, and beauty of construction, we scarcely know anything in Europe more admirable than this staircase and the orangery to which it leads.

2803. The selection of the place in which the staircase of a dwelling is to be seated, requires great judgment, and is always a difficult task in the formation of a plan. Palladio, the great master of the moderns, thus delivers the rules for observance in planning them, that they may not be an obstruction to the rest of the building. He says, "A particular place must be marked out, that no part of the building should receive any prejudice by them. There are three openings necessary to a staircase. The first is the doorway that leads to it, which the more it is in sight the better it is; and I highly approve of its being in such a place that before one comes to it the best part of the house may be seen, for although the house be small, yet by such arrangement it will appear larger: the door, however, must be obvious, and easy to be found. The second opening is that of the windows through which the stairs are lighted; they should be in the middle, and large enough to light the stairs in every part. The third opening is the landing place by which one enters into the rooms above; it ought to be fair and well ornamented, and to lead into the largest places first."

2804. " Staircases," continues our author, “will be perfect, if they are spacious, light, and easy to ascend; as if, indeed, they seemed to invite people to mount. They will be clear, if the light is bright and equally diffused; and they will be sufficiently ample, if they do not appear scanty and narrow in proportion to the size and quality of the building. Nevertheless, they ought never to be narrower than 4 feet" (4 feet 6 inches English *), “so that two persons meeting on the stairs may conveniently pass each other. They will be convenient with respect to the whole building, if the arches under them can be used for domestic purposes; and commodious for the persons going up and down, if the stairs are not too steep nor the steps too high. Therefore, they must be twice as long as broad. The steps ought not to exceed 6 inches in height; and if they be lower they must be so to long and continued stairs, for they will be so much the easier, because one needs not lift the foot so high; but they must never be lower than 4 inches." (These are Vicentine inches.) "The breadth of the steps ought not to be less than a foot, nor more than a foot and a half. The ancients used to make the steps of an odd number, that thus beginning to ascend with the right foot, they might end with the same foot, which they took to be a good omen, and a greater mark of respect so to enter into the temple. It will be sufficient to put eleven or thirteen steps at most to a flight before coming to a half-pace, thus to help weak people and of short breath, as well that they may there have the opportunity of resting as to allow of any person falling from above being there caught." We do not propose to give examples of other than the most usual forms of staircases and stairs; their variety is almost infinite, and could not even in their leading features be compassed in a work like this. The varieties, indeed, would not be usefully given, inasmuch as the forms are necessarily dependent on the varied circumstances of each plan, calling upon the architect almost on every occasion to invent pro re natâ.

2805. Stairs are of two sorts, straight and winding. Before proceeding with his design, the architect must always take care, whether in the straight or winding staircase, that the person ascending has what is called headway, which is a clear distance measured vertically from any step, quarter, half-pace, or landing, to the underside of the ceiling, step, or other part immediately over it, so as to allow the tallest person to clear it with his hat on; and this is the minimum height of headway that can be admitted. To return to the straight and winding staircase, it is to be observed, that the first may be divided into two flights, or be

The Vicentine foot is about 13-6 inches English.

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made quite square, so as to turn on the four sides round a close or open newel, as in fig. 995. in which the former is the case, light being obtained by windows in the walls which enclose the newel; or, as in fig. 996. in which case, the newel is open, and the light may be received either from a vertical light above, or from side windows in the walls. Palladio says these two sorts of stairs were invented by Sig. Ludovico Cornaro, a gentleman of much genius, who erected for himself a magnificent palace at Padua.

2806. Of winding or spiral stairs, some are circular on the plan, either open or with a solid newel; others elliptical, also with open or solid newels. Those with the open newel are preferable, because of their allowing the staircase to be lighted additionally, if requisite, by the light obtainable from above; besides which, persons passing up and down may see each other. Palladio thus directs the setting out of spiral staircases. "Those," he says, "which have a newel in the middle are made in this manner. The diameter being divided into three parts, two are given for the steps, and the third is for the newel; or, otherwise, the diameter may be divided into seven parts, three of which are for the newel and four for the steps. "Thus," he says, "was made the staircase of the column of Trajan at Rome; and if the stairs are made circular," (that is, the treads segments of circles on the plan,) "they will be handsomer and longer" (of course)" than if made straight."

2807. "But as it may happen that the space will not give room for these measures, the diameter may be reduced and divided according to the plates." The essence of these plans, omitting the step whose plan is segmental, we here subjoin.

2808. Fig. 997. is a plan and section of a staircase with a solid newel, in which the whole diameter is divided into twelve parts, and of these four are given to the newel, and the remainder divided equally between the steps.

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2809. Fig. 998. is the plan and section of a spiral staircase with an open newel, wheretn the diameter is divided into four parts, two being given to the newel, and the remainder equally divided between the steps.

2810. Fig. 999. is the plan and section of an elliptical staircase with an open newel. The conjugate diameter is divided into four parts, whereof two are given to the conjugate diameter of the newel, and the remainder one on each side to the steps.

2811. In fig. 1000. the same staircase is given, but with a solid newel, and of course requiring many openings on the sides to light it.

2812. It is not the difficulty of multiplying the examples of staircases which prevents our proceeding on this head, but the space into which our work is to be condensed. Enough of example has been given, by using portions of the examples, to meet every case, the decoration being dependent on the design of the architect, and the distribution on his good sense in the application of what we have submitted to him.

2813. There is, however, one important point in the construction of a staircase to which we must now advert, and that is easiness of ascent. Blondel, in his Cours d'Architecture, was, we believe, the first architect who settled the proper relation between the height and width of steps, and his theory, for the truth whereof, though it bears much appearance of it, we do not pledge ourselves, is as follows.

2814. Let x – the space over which a person walks with ease upon a level plane, and z=the height which the same person could with equal ease ascend vertically. Then if h be the height of the step, and w its width, the relation between h and w must be such that when w=x, h=0, and when h=2, w=0. These conditions are fulfilled by equations of the form h(x-w) and w-x-2h. Blondel assumes 24 (French) inches for the value of r, and 12 for that of z. We are not sufficiently, from experiment, convinced that these are the proper values; but, following him, if those values be substituted in the equation h=(24-w), and w=24-2h: if the height of a step be 5 inches, its width should be 24-10-14 inches, and it must be confessed that experience seems to confirm the theory, for it must be ob served, and every person who has built a staircase will know the fact, that the merely

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reducing the height of the risers without giving a correspondent width of tread to the step is inconvenient and unpleasant.

SECT. XXIV.

CEILINGS.

2815. Economy has worked so great a change in our dwellings, that their ceilings are, of late years, little more than miserable naked surfaces of plaster. This section, therefore, will possess little interest in the eye of speculating builders of the wretched houses erected about the suburbs of the metropolis, and let to unsuspecting tenants at rents usually about three times their actual value. To the student it is more important, inasmuch as a welldesigned ceiling is one of the most pleasing features of a room.

2816. There is, perhaps, no type in architecture more strictly useful in the internal distri bution of apartments than that derived from timber-framing; and if the reader has understood our section on floors, he will immediately see that the natural compartments which are formed in the carpentry of a floor are such as suggest panels and ornaments of great variety. Even a single-framed floor with its strutting or wind-pieces between the joists, gives us the hint for a ceiling of coffers capable of producing the happiest effect in the most insignificant room. If the type of timber-framing be applied to the dome or hemispherical ceiling, the interties between the main ribs, diminishing as they approach the summit, form the skeletons of the coffers that impart beauty to the Pantheon of Agrippa. We allude thus to the type to inculcate the principle on which ornamented ceilings are designed, being satisfied that a reference to such type will insure propriety, and bring us back to that

fitness which, in the early part of this Book, we have considered one of the main ingre dients of beauty. If the panels of a ceiling be formed with reference to this principle, nainely, how they might or could be securely framed in the timbering, the design will be fit for the purpose, and its effect will satisfy the spectator, however unable to account for the pleasure he receives. Whether the architrave be with plain square panels between it and the wall, as in the temples of the Egyptians, or as at a later period decorated with coffers, for instance in the Greek and Roman temple, the principle seems to be the same, and verifies the theory. The writer of the article "Plafond" in the Encyc. Meth. has not entered into the subject at much length, nor with the ability displayed in many other parts of that work; but he especially directs that where a ceiling is to be decorated on the plane surface with painting, the compartments should have reference to the construction. With these preliminary observations, we shall now proceed to the different forms in use. Ceilings are either flat, coved, that is, rising from the walls with a curve, or vaulted. They are sometimes, however, of contours in which one, more, or all of these forms find employment. When a coved ceiling is used, the height of the cove is rarely less than one fifth, and not more than one third the height of the room. This will be mainly dependent on the real height of the room, for if that be low in proportion to its width, the cove must be kept down; when otherwise, it is advantageous to throw height into the cove, which will make the excess of the height less apparent. If, however, the architect is unrestricted, and the proportions of the room are under his control, the height of the cove should be one quarter of the whole height. In the ceilings of rooms whose figure is that of a parallelogram, the centre part is usually formed into a large flat panel, which is commonly decorated with a flower in the middle. When the cove is used, the division into panels of the ceiling will not bear to be so numerous nor so heavy as when the ceiling appears to rest on the walls at once, but the same sorts of figures may be employed as we shall presently give for other ceilings. If the apartment is to be highly finished, the cove itself may be

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decorated with enriched panels, as in the figs. 1001, 1002, 1003, 1004, 1005, 1006. In all ceilings it is desirable to raise the centre panel higher than the rest, and the main divisions representing the timbers in flat ceilings should, if possible, fall in the centre of the piers between the windows.

2817. Fig. 1007. shows the ceiling of a square room in two ways as given on each side of the dotted line, or it may be considered as representing the ends of a ceiling to a room whose form is that of a parallelogram. The same observation applies to figs. 1008. and 1009. The sofites of the beams should in all cases approach the width they would be

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