THE CLASSICAL STYLE 377
hall or reception rooms, although the intercommunication of
the rooms made it possible to go from one part of the building
to another without stepping outside. The windows were narrow
and mullioned. The roof was often broken by gables, usually
of steep pitch, and sometimes curved, and the chimneys were
often massed together into great stacks set at intervals. Novel
features might be the long gallery situated in one of the wings
of the building and measuring something like 150 by 16 feet,
and an open terrace or loggia on the north side of the court,
facing the noonday sun.
Among the changes that modified the Elizabethan house
were: the conversion of the hall into a vestibule only one story
high; the diminution or even disappearance of the inner court
and the absence of wings, so that the building became a solid,
or nearly solid, rectangle instead of a larger but hollow one
or one with a side unbuilt and open; the disuse of gables and
the substitution of plain chimney stacks in a single block instead
of the ornamental dispersed chimney stacks, with a separate
shaft for each flue; and the replacement of the former wide
stone mullions by narrow, wooden ones. In addition cornices
now surrounded the building and their moulding served to
'emphasize each story, the top cornice usually being the
most pronounced. Pilasters, either square or rounded, with
decorated bosses, served to connect the lower and upper
cornices and to offer relief to the otherwise plain space between
windows.
The first resounding triumph of the classical style in England
was the Banqueting House, Whitehall, erected in 1619-22,
and now the Royal United Service Museum. This building
exhibited no traces of the traditional English style and was at
once hailed by contemporaries as a masterpiece of modern
architecture; and posterity has fully endorsed their verdict.
Its length was no feet and its height and breadth each 55 feet.
It depended for effect, therefore, upon Inigo Jones's magnificent
sense of proportion. That great designer had at one step equalled
the finest work of Palladio and others, whose designs the Eng-
lish artist had studied in print and during his visits to Italy.
Another gem, started earlier but not finished until more than
a decade later, was the Queen's House at Greenwich. Almost
as well known were the piazza and St. Paul's Church, Covent
Garden, whose portico furnished a model for the entrance to