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THE
LIBRARY OF USEFUL STORIES

.. O*^ THE

UNIVERSITY

NORMAN STAIRCASE, CANTERBURY.

THE STORY OF

The art of Building-

P. LESLIE WATERHOUSE, M. A.

CHRIST S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE ; ASSOCIATE OF THE
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF BRITISH ARCHITECTS

WITH AN ACCOUNT OF
ARCHITECTURE IN AMERICA

AND

SIXTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK
APPLETON AND COMPANY

1906

3y d. appleton and company.

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

PREFATORY NOTE.

In tracing the course of Architecture in this
small volume it has been possible to touch only
upon the salient points in its story, for it is a far
cry from the Pyramids to S. Paul's. For the
guidance of those who wish to pursue the subject
further, a list of books dealing more fully with
the history, or with particular branches of it, is
appended.

My acknowledgments are due to Mr. A. H.
Hart, who has prepared several of the illustra-
tions, for his friendly assistance ; and to Mr. H,
G. Morrish for his photographs of Canterbury
Cathedral.

9, Staple Inn, Holborn, W.C.
September ^ 1901.

P. L. W.

PUBLISHERS' NOTE.

While the title of Mr.'Waterhouse's book in
England is "The Story of Architecture," the fact
that D. Appleton and Company have published Mr.
C. T. Mathews's favourably known work under
that title has made a change in the name es-
sential.

The publishers have also added a chapter
upon Architecture in America.

CONTENTS.

I. Egyptian ARcmxECTyRE

II. Greek Architecture

III. Etruscan and Roman Architecture

IV. Early Christian Architecture .
V. Mohammedan Architecture

VI. Romanesque Architecture

1. Italy .

2. France

3. Germany

4. Spain

5. England

VII. Gothic Architecture

1. France . , •

2. Great Britain . ,

3. Italy.

4. Germany .

5. Belgium, Spain, etc. .

VIII. Renaissance Architecture

1. Italy ....

2. France

3. England .

IX. Modern Architecture .

X. Architecture in America

(Added by the American publishers.)

PAGE

102

1021
109/
113
115 1
116/

T2o/

126 I
132 '
148 f
154

155 ^

156 «
156 ^
173 \
177 \

T90 \
196 i

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

FIGURE , PAG=

Norman Staircase, Canterbury . . Frontispiece

1. Section through the Great Pyramid .... 13

2. Corbelling over King's Chamber . . . .14

3. Tomb at Beni-Hasan • .16

4. Section through Tomb at Beni-Hasan . . . 18

5. Plan of Ramessium 25

6. Egyptian Colmuns 27

7. Assyrian Column .....•• 29

8. Capital from Persepolis 3i

9. Lion Gate, Mycenge 34

10. Sect'.on through the Treasury of Atreus . . .35

11. Plan of Small Greek Temple- 37

12. Plan of the Parthenon 39

13. The Doric Order . . . . . . .40

14. The Parthenon restored . . .' . . .42

15. Doric Capital, showing Colour Decoration. . . 45

16. Ionic Order 47

17. Ionic Capital from the Erechtheum . , . .49

18. Corinthian Capital 51

19. Plan of Greek Theatre 52

20. Cloaca Maxima 54

21. Co*mposite Capital ^i

22. Plan of a Roman Temple ^2

23. Maison Carree, Nimes ^6

24. Arch of Constantine .•••••• 70

25. Roman Entablature 7 1

26. Plan of Pantheon 72

27. Plan of Basilica Ulpia 75

28. Plan of the House of Pansa 77

29. Plan of S. Paul's Outside the Walls .... 82

8 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

FIGURE PAGE

30. Development of Basilica ..•••• 85

31. Capital with dosseret^ Ravenna 88

32. Diagram 90

33. Cathedral and Leaning Tower, Pisa . , , 106

34. Plan of Notre Dame du Port no

35. Section through Notre Dame du Port , . .111

36. Church of the Apostles, Cologne . , , .114

37. Plan of Church of the Apostles , . . .115

38. Saxon Window, Earl's Barton 117

39. Plan of Sainte Chapelle 123

^o. Romanesque contrasted with Gothic . . .124

41. Plan of Amiens Cathedral 129

42. Part of Arcade, Canterbury . . . • . 136

43. Choir, Canterbury Cathedral • . . . .137

44. Plan of Salisbury Cathedral 138

45. Durham Cathedral ...••.. 140

46. Geometrical Tracery ,,..•. 142

47. Perpendicular Window , 143

48. Early English Capital 146

49. Ball-flower Ornament 146

50. Fa9ade of Doges' Palace , • • • . .153

51. Renaissance Capital 164

52. Spinelli Palace 167

53. Court-yard, Cancellaria Palace 169

54 Azay-le-Rideau 175

55. Tower, Wollaton Hall 180

56. Section through Dome, S. Paul's . • . . 186

57. Steeple of S. Mary-le-Bow 189

58* Park Row Building, New York City . . . 195

59. Longfellow's House, Cambridge, Mass. • • . 198

60. The Capitol at Washington . • • • • 202

61. Trinity Church, Boston, Mass. • • • • • 208

THE STORY
OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE.

A COMPLETE Story of Architecture would re-
quire to cover as great a period of time as the
story of man himself, for architecture is coeval
with man. Man's earliest instinct would prompt
him to provide himself with food and shelter, and
in constructmg for himself a shelter or dwelling, as
a protection from the elements, he began to per-
petrate architecture. Before the days, therefore,
of reading and writing, prehistoric man began to
write a story of his life and time in the form of
buildings, which, from earliest times, have been a
reflection of his character and of his mode of life.

Unfortunately, the efforts of our earlier ances-
tors in the field of architecture have entirely dis-
appeared. It was not until man, in the course of
civilisation, became a mighty builder, and not that
only, but a builder in materials of an imperish-
able nature, that he was able to leave behind him
monuments to tell the story of his life to future
ages. Thus it comes about that it is impossible
to trace the growth of the art from its earliest
beginnings, and to follow it§ dev^pment as it
grew in importatyj^^i^PfTe^oldest^emorials of

lO STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

which we have records — the tombs and temples
of ancient Egypt — were the work, not of a race of
primitive men, but of a nation which had already
attained a knowledge of the art of construction
which later builders have never surpassed.

The waters of the Nile are the head-waters of
architecture. On the banks of this stream — the
cradle of the art — the colossal piles of these early
builders still command the wonder of all who see
them; while the most ancient of them, the pyra-
mids, have remained unchallenged for five thou-
sand years as the greatest of all architectural un-
dertakings. With these works of the mysterious
inhabitants of the Nile valley begins the history
of architecture, so far as our knowledge of it can
ever go.

V No other country bears such testimony as Egypt
to the great historical wdiXxiQ of architecture. Other
nations of antiquity have, possibly, been equally
powerful, or as highly civilised ; but they have
failed to leave behind them any enduring monu-
ments to record their greatness — no literature in
stone or marble — and they have disappeared from
the pages of history. Not so the Egyptians
There is a " voicefulness " in these old tombs and
temples along the banks of the Nile which gives
reality and life to the history of the men who
built them. Hence the unique interest which
attaches to the architecture of Egypt. These
temples, these walls, that have so long been
"washed by the passing waves of humanity," pre-
sent a reliable record of the social and religious
life of their builders, whose life-story would other-
wise have been totally lost in obscurity. Egypt
claims the attention of students of architecture,
too, by reason of having produced monuments

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. II

which, for massiveness and grandeur, have never
been excelled in the world's history Yet Egyp-
tian architecture must ever remain, to some ex-
tent, a subject by itself; it occupies no very im-
portant place in the story of the architecture
which chiefly concerns us — that of Europe. ■ It is
a strange fact that, with the exception of the few
features which were borrowed by the Greeks, all
the characteristic forms of Egyptian architecture
have become obsolete , the Greeks, moreover, in
adopting any feature, so modified and improved
it that it became, in reality, their own. > Greece,
not Egypt, was the true parent of European ar-
chitecture; yet the colossal monuments of the
Nile valley had weathered thirty centuries be-
fore Grecian architecture had left its cradle.

In almost all countries we find that the chief
structures are the outcome of the nation's religious
beliefs. Such was the case in Egypt from the
earliest times. Nothing reveals the character of
the nation so clearly as its religion ; nothing has
a more permeating influence upon its architecture.
The Egyptians were essefttially a religious people,
with a very lengthy catalogue of deities ; they
themselves spoke of their " thousand gods," and,
in addition to their many principal deities, they
paid religious regard to animals. Cats, dogs, and
many of the common animals were held sacred;
at death their bodies were embalmed, and interred
in specially constructed tombs. When a sacred
bull, or Apis, died, the funeral would be on an
elaborate scale, costing as much as $100,000 in
modern money. The remains were embalmed,
placed in a solid granite sarcophagus weighing
fifty tons or more, and deposited in one of the
long galleries hewn out of the solid rock.

12 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

It will be readily seen, then, that this phase of
the nation's religion was productive of a vast
amount of architectural work. But of far greater
importance in its influence upon the architecture
of the country was the belief held by the Egyp-
tians regarding man's life after death. While the
bad soul was sentenced to a round of migrations
into the bodies of unclean animals, the good soul,
as its reward, was made the companion of Osiris
for a period of three thousand years. At the end
of this time it returned to earth, re-entered its
former body, and again lived the life of a human
being. Thus it was most desirable that, when the
long allotted period had expired, the soul should
be able, on returning to earthy to find the body
which it was to re-enter."

The natural outcome of this belief was the
process of embalming, and the erection of tombs
which might be relied upon to last out the span
of three thousand years, and to safeguard the
body during that period.

The most colossal, and almost the oldest, of
these sepulchral monuments are the mysterious
structures with which, among the inhabitants of
Europe, the name of Egypt has always been asso-
ciated— the Pyramids. The largest, and the best
known, of these are the three at Ghizeh, near
Cairo, built respectively by Cheops (or Suphis),
Chephren, and Mycerinus. The pyramid of
Cheops, generally known as the '' Great Pyramid,"
is the most important of the three. Its builder
was a tyrant of the fourth dynasty (cir. 3700 B.C.),
who closed all the temples and forced his subjects
to labour for years at this gigantic structure,
which was to serve in due course as his tomb.
The pyramid has a square base. 755 feet in length,

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 13

covering an area of about thirteen acres, or twice
the extent of St. Peter's at Rome. The four sides
were of the form of equilateral triangles, sloping
towards and meeting at the top, at a height of
481 feet above the level of the platform. Lime-

FiG. I. — Section through the Great Pyramid.

stone was chiefly used in its construction, upon a
base of solid rock, but over this was an exterior
facing of polished granite, every vestige of which
has now disappeared. The internal passages are
still lined with highly polished granite slabs, fitted
together with astonishing accuracy.

The entrance w^as at the point marked a,
about 47 feet above the original base, and was care-
fully concealed, extraordinary precautions having
been taken to prevent the tomb from being en-
tered. From the entrance a passage slopes down
to a chamber, b, cut in the solid rock 120 feet
below the natural surface of the ground. The
object of this chamber is not apparent; possibly
it was intended as a blind. A corridor, turning

14 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

off at c, leads up to the royal burial-chamber, d,
situated almost in the centre of the structure.
Below this is a third room, called the " Queen's
Chamber," though there is no authority for the
name. The chambers and corridors are interest-
ing constructionally, for they show the methods
adopted by these early engineers for bridging
over openings in order to resist a superincumbent
weight. The central corridor is 28 feet high, with
a ceiling formed by courses of masonry which
overhang one another successively until they
meet at the top. In the case of the " King's
Chamber," in which the royal sarcophagus was^
deposited, marvellous ingenuity was displayed in
making the roof strong enough to prevent the
weight overhead from crushing
through. Five enormous stone
slabs were fixed, as we see in
the illustration, with a small
chamber between each of them ;
these were surmounted by a
rudimentary arch, formed by
two massive lintels tilted in
such a way as to meet over
the centre of the opening.

How this colossal enter-
FiG. 2. - Corbelling prisewas Carried out in all its
over King's Chamber, details contmues to be an ex-
cellent subject for speculation.
The limestone quarries, which provided the bulk
of the stone, were situated at El Massarah, a dis-
tance of fifty miles from Ghizeh ; the red granite
could not have been quarried nearer than Assouan,
upon the banks of the Nile, 500 miles away. The
blocks of stone could be readily floated down the
stream upon rafts ; thence it is probable that

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 15

they were slowly moved into position by means
of rollers, being gradually raised to the required
height along an inclined plane or embankment
constructed for this purpose. It is stated that
100,000 men were employed upon the Great Pyrar
mid for a period of twenty years; so that the
raising of such an embankment, though a gigan-
tic undertaking, would represent but a small por-
tion of this vast amount of labour. Many of the
blocks of stone measure 30 feet in length and
weigh as much as fifty tons, yet they were worked
with the greatest exactitude ; the polished granite
slabs which line the corridors are fitted together
with such accuracy that it is almost impossible
to detect the joints. Similar accuracy was ob-
served in the setting out of the structure. Pro-
fessor Petrie's measurements show that the lengths
of the sides varied from 755 feet 77 inches to 755
feet 9'4 inches, the extreme difference being 17
inches only ! .

Such a vast, unremunerative work could only
have been undertaken by a selfish tyrant who was
utterly regardless of the sufferings of his people.
At this period there were no prisoners of war, so
that the burden of the task fell upon the shoulders
of the king's *' free " subjects. The royal oppres-
sor failed, however, in the. one object to which
his efforts were directed — the safe preservation of
his embalmed remains. The secret of the prison-
house was discovered, the tomb rifled, and the
royal dust scattered to the four winds of heaven.
In the words of Byron's doggerel : —

Let not a monument give you or me hopes,
Since not a pinch of dust remains of Che-ops.

The custom of embalming led to the erection
of a vast number of smaller tombs, many of which

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

are found in the neighbourhood of the pyramids,
for this locaHty was originally the necropolis of
the ancient city of Memphis. These tombs were
usually rectangular, with sloping sides, like a
pyramid with the top cut off. Internally the walls
were decorated with paintings illustrating the
every-day life which the occupant had led, the
evident intention being to make him feel as much
'^ at home " as possible in his tomb. These paint-
ings have been invaluable in enabling us to realise
the exact conditions of life which prevailed at
the period. The material employed in the con-
struction of the tombs was limestone, but the con-
structive methods were evidently borrowed from

wooden originals.
As will be seen
later, this imita-
tion, in stone, of
wooden methods
of construction
had a remarkable
influence upon la-
ter forms of archi-
tecture.

It will be seen
that the interest
attaching to these
earliest structures of Egypt is mainly historical,
for they can lay claim to little architectural mer-
it, in the true sense of the word. The object
which the builders had in view was to make their
monuments, not beautiful, but everlasting; and
to this end all the refinements were sacrificed.
Architecture was treated by them as one of the
exact sciences rather than as a fine art. In the
tombs of a later period, however, belonging to

Fig. 3. — Tomb at Beni-Hasan.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 1 7

the twelfth dynasty (cir. 2200 B.C.) a more fully
developed architectural style is seen. At Beni-
Hasan, on the east bank of the Nile, in Middle
Egypt, are several tombs of this period, cut in
the vertical face of the rock, in which we find
the first examples of an important architectural
feature which subsequently influenced the archi-
tecture of Greece, and, through it, of Europe.

i The general view of one of these tombs shows
a portico with two columns. The whole has? been
carved out of the solid stone, and two piers have
been left in order to give support, or the appear-
ance of support, to the overhanging rock. It
will be noticed that the portion above the columns
has been squared to the form of a lintel. Over
this appears a row of dentils, or tooth-like pro-
jections, which are eminently suggestive of the
ends of rafters, such as would be used in timber
construction. The columns are of a form seldom
seen in Egypt : they taper towards the top, and
are surmounted by a square slab, or *^ abacus,"
which has the appearance of transmitting the
weight from the lintel. Some of them are polyg-
onal, with sixteen or thirty-two sides, each side
being slightly concave, in the manner of the
" flutes " of the Greek columns, which we shall
be considering in the next chapter.

If these shafts be compared with the columns
of the Greek Doric order (p. 40), it will be seen
that there are some notable points of resemblance
— the square abacus, the fluted surface, and the
tapering outline. A similar form of column was
used at a later date at Karnak, but it did not
find favour among the Egyptians, and was sub-
sequently discarded by them. Yet this special
form was destined to take an important place in

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

the architecture of Europe, for the columns of
Beni-Hasan appear to be the prototypes of the
columns of the Greek Doric order. It is strange
that the discriminating Greeks should have se-
lected for further development the very feature
which the great Egyptian builders had rejected.
Certain it is, however, that the form reappeared,
in a less crude state, in the earliest Doric temples
of the Greeks about the seventh century B.C., and
that, in the hands of the Greek masters, it was
afterwards endowed with such beauty and refine-
ment that it became the most perfect architec-
tural feature in existence.

The ceiling of the Beni-Hasan tombs, although
cut out of the solid rock, is divided by lintels into

three spaces, curved
in the form of seg-
ments of a circle, in
evident imitation of
an arched, or vaulted,
ceiling. Arched con-
struction finds no
place in the great
buildings of the Egyp-
tians; but that these
old builders were fa-
miliar with the true
principles of the arch has been proved by the
discovery of magnificent brick vaulting of the
sixth dynasty {cir. 3400 B.C.), and the still earlier
barrel-vaulted passage in a king's tomb of the
third dynasty {cu-. 4200 B.C.), discovered in 1901
by P ofessor Flinders Petrie.

Between the date of the Beni-Hasan tombs
and the great Theban period of the eighteenth
and nineteenth dynasties — an interval of five cen-

FlG. 4.

-Section through tomb at
Beni-Hasan.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 1 9

turies — little progress appears to have been made
in architecture. During part of this period Egypt
— or, more correctly, Lower Egypt — was in the
hands of the " Shepherd " invaders, of whom we
know little. Throughout their long rule they
were hated by the Egyptians, and they left few
permanent memorials behind them ; but with the
expulsion of the " Shepherd " kings began an era
of great architectural activity lasting for four
hundred years, down to the period assigned to
the exodus of the Jews [i.e. from 1700 to 1300
B.C.). This was the great temple-building age,
the '' Theban period," which witnessed the culmi-
nation of Egyptian power and artistic greatness,
and produced the greater number of the noblest
buildings in the country. Constructively, how-
ever, there was a falling-off from the precision
and careful work of the earlier periods. The
masonry was hastily and clumsily wrought, angles
were inaccurately set out, and columns irregularly
spaced; in many respects the work bears marks
of carelessness and haste which detract consider-
ably from their merit. In spite of technical de-
fects, however, the buildings of this period were
noble works which still remain the chief glory of
Egyptian architecture.

The cause of this architectural revival is not
far to seek. Before the period of the " Shepherd "
kings, and during their rule, the inhabitants of
the Nile valley had not been a fighting nation.
But when Aahmes ascended the throne of Upper
Egypt [cir. 1700 B.C.), he set himself the task of
ridding the country of the invaders, and, 'lafter
pursuing them into Palestine, completely routed
them. As a result of this victory, many thousands
of slaves were brought back by the king on his

20 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

return to Egypt. These advantages, and various
successes over the Syrians, whetted the appetites
of the Egyptians for further conquests, and they
henceforth became a nation of conquerors. Un-
der Thothmes III. {cir. 1600 B.C.) their *' sphere
of influence" advanced by leaps and bounds.
Each year witnessed new expeditions, which
brought into the country not only enormous quan-
tities of treasure, but vast numbers of prisoners
of war — for the object of the king was to capture
rather than to kill. This wholesale importation
of captives had an immediate effect upon the
architecture of the country. By their forced
labour Thothmes was enabled to erect temples
and other vast structures which placed him in the
first rank of Egyptian builders.

7 The great city of this period was Thebes — the
** hundred-gated Thebes " of Homer — which was
practically the capital of the country. Memphis,
situated farther north, nearer to the delta of the
Nile, vied with Thebes in the magnificence of its
temples ; but its remains which have come down
to us are comparatively unimportant, owing to
the fact that the site has been used as a quarry
for the supply of materials to Cairo and adjoin-
ing modern towns. Thebes, however, was more
fortunately situated : no great city has sprung
up in its neighbourhood, and its buildings have
suffered only from the wastmg hand of time,
more merciful than that of man.

*^'he great building monarchs of the Theban
period were Thothmes III., Amenhotep III.,
>Seti I., and '^Rameses IL, each of whom endeav-
oured to surpass the efforts of his predecessor
with some "new temple, nobler than the last."
Their names, it will be seen, appear in connec-

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 21

tion with the greatest temple structures of this
era.

V^The most imposing of all the Theban build-
ings was the great temple at Karnak, 1,200 feet
long, around which were grouped several smaller
ones; at Luxor, two miles farther south, was an-
other vast palace-temple. The groups on the
opposite bank of the river included the sepul-
chral temple of Amenhotep III. — second only to
that of Karnak — and the Ramessium, built en-
tirely by the great Ram^eses.

The principal work of Thothmes was the re-
building of a portion of the great temple at Kar-
nak. Isolated examples of this master-builder's
work are familiar to Europeans. In front of the
grand entrance to the temple at Karnak he erect-
ed two obelisks : one of these, which now stands
before the church of S. John Lateran in Rome, is
the largest and most splendid monument of its
kind extant. He built, or added to, temples at
Heliopolis, Abydos, Denderah, Memphis, and many
other places both in Egypt and in Nubia. '; An
obelisk of this monarch has been re-erected at
Constantinople; another, which stood originally
at Heliopolis and afterwards at Alexandria, is
now to be seen on the Thames Embankment,
where it is known as ** Cleopatra's Needle " ; its
companion has crossed the Atlantic and has been
erected jn_New York.

Amenhotep continued the building of the tem-
ple at Karnak, and erected a vast new temple, of
which, however, hardly a trace remains, for it has
suffered from the inundations of the Nile; but an
enduring memorial of the king, and of an archi-
tect bearing the same name, survives in the two
mutilated colossi, fifty-six feet high, of which one

22 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

has been known, since tlie days of the Greeks, as
the *^ vocal Memnon."

By far the greatest and most impressive of all
the buildings of this period was the grand temple
of Ammon at Karnak. Like many of the mediae-
val cathedrals, this was the work of successive
kings and generations; its walls and columns,
covered with inscriptions, furnish almost a com-
plete history of the Theban kings.

The temple was begun by Usertesen 1., the
great king of the twelfth dynasty [cir. 2400 b.c).
After an interval of several centuries, Thothmes
I. continued the work, adding a courtyard sur-
rounded by a colonnade of Osirid pillars. Thoth-
mes III. constructed a magnificent columnar hall,
143 feet by 53 feet — dimensions which had never
before been approached in a building of this form.
He also set to work to restore the ancient sanc-
tuary of Usertesen, reverently preserving all the
lines of the old building, and recording the details
of the restoration in an inscription on the walls.
^ But the great glory of the temple was the
Hypostyle Hall of Seti I. (dr. 1350 B.C.), familiar
to all travellers in modern Egypt, the most im-
posing structure of the kind in the world's his-
tory. The hall measured 340 by 170 feet, its
massive roof being carried by 134 columns in
sixteen rows; the shafts of the two central rows,
which supported the higher portion of the roof,
were more than 60 feet high and almost 12 feet
in diameter. " No language," writes Fergusson,
"can convey an idea of its beauty, and no artist
has yet been able to reproduce its form so as to
convey to those who have not seen it an idea of
its grandeur. The mass of its central piers, illu-
mined by a flood of light from the clerestory, and

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 23

the smaller pillars of the wings gradually fading
into obscurity, are so arranged and lighted as to
convey an idea of infinite space ; at the same time
the beaut)^ and massiveness of the forms, and the
brilliancy of their coloured decorations, all com-
bine to stamp this as the greatest of man's archi-
tectural works, but such a one as it would be im-
possible to reproduce, except in such a climate
and in that individual style in which, and for
which, it was created."

4-This wonderful hall was almost entirely built
during the reign of Seti I. Upon his death, it
was completed by his son Rameses II., better
known to Bible-readers as the Pharaoh of the
Oppression. He added the fifty-four columns on
the south side. In the methods of construction
there are distinct evidences of deterioration as
compared with much of the work of the more
ancient Egyptians. \Where, at an earlier date,
monolithic: columns of red granite would have
been used, we find at this period soft sandstone
built up in drums. Thus, in order to insure the
strength of the columns, it was necessary to make
them excessively massive, and by this they lost
more of grace than they gained in dignity.

It would have been impossible for the Egyp-
i monarchs to erect such stupendous structures
theij for the fact that they were able, through their
whijorious wars, to bring into the country vast
lighSibers of captives, whose lives were spent in
pill^ed labour upon these public works. In a
sidebs of interesting tomb-drawings, referring to
and Ibuilding of this temple at Karnak, we find
allovjcted the tasks upon which the prisoners were
seenjinuously occupied. Some are busy kneading
-Al; others either make bricks in wooden moulds,

24 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

or spread them in rows to bake ; others carry on
the building operations. By the side are expla-
nations of the drawings; part of the inscription
is worth quoting: "We see the captives who were
carried away as prisoners in very great numbers;
they work at the building with skilful fingers.
Their overseers show themselves in sight : these
attend with strictness, obeying the word of the
great skilful lord of the works ; . . . they are re-
warded with wine and all kinds of good dishes;
they perform their service with a mind full of love
for the king; they build for Thothmes III. a holy
of holies. May it be rewarded to him through a
number of many endless years! The overseer
speaks thus to the labourers at the building : * The
stick is in my hand ; be not idle.' " Such a pic-
ture enables us to realise the conditions under
which these colossal buildings laboriously came
into existence — the slave population toiling un-
ceasingly at the point of the goad, while the task-
masters, by their exacting severity, earned for
themselves a share of the good things of this life.

After the period of the Exodus {cir. 1300 B.C.)
a change came over the land : the Egyptians lost
a great number of their slaves, and, as a result
or a coincidence, the era of temple-building
practically ended with the reign of the great
Rameses.

At Karnak the chief object of each monarch^
was to surpass, in extent and magnificence,
the buildings of his predecessors, without regard
to congruity of plan. But in the Ramessium
at Thebes, a temple wholly built by the great
Rameses, we see the plan of a typical temple of
the period. The facade was formed by two
massive pyramidal towers (pylons), between which

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 25

was the entrance doorway ; in many cases this

fagade was situated obliquely with regard to the

temple building.

The do'orway gave ^ lOJII

access to a great ■:::*:::::: |:::::;^:f

fore-court, flanked J(

by colonnades,

which in turn led

.. !.>«.>. i.r,, r7

• f • i;:i;:i;:h^

jm*\ LI

to an mner court, .. r,, r o

,1 ^, . ^ Fig. 5. — Plan of Ramessmm.

smaller than the

first, but more richly decorated with statuary.
Both courts were open to the sky.
, Beyond these we reach the Hypostyle Hall —
the chief feature in the larger temples. In the
centre of this, two rows of lofty columns sup-
ported the higher portion of the roof, the remain-
der of the space being occupied by ranges of
smaller columns. The central portion of the roof
was higher than at the sides, an arrangement
which allowed light to be admitted through per-
forated stone panels, fixed in the wall which con-
nected the upper portion of the roof with the
lower, in the manner of the clerestory windows
of Gothic architecture. Beyond this hall were
several smaller chambers, which appear to have
been set apart for use by the king or the priests.

The columns were brilliantly coloured, and
their capitals were varied to suit the positions in
which they were placed, with due regard to the
light; those of the lofty and well-lighted central
pillars were bell-shaped, but the columns at the
side had bud-shaped capitals — wide at the base
and tapering towards the top — a form which
allowed the decoration, lighted from above, to be
seen to advantage.

After the Exodus ensued a long period of de-

26 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

cay and inactivity lasting for almost a thousand
years, until the old glories of Egypt were, to
some extent, revived by the Ptolemies. Under
their rule and, later, under the Romans, the land
enjoyed again a season of great prosperity.
Temples were erected which vied in size and
splendour with those of the great Theban age.
Of these, none is more beautiful than the temple
of Isis at Phiiae, the plan of which is a striking
illustration of the disregard of accuracy and of
regularity which characterised many buildings of
the Egyptians. As evidence of the conservatism
of this old nation of builders, it is interesting to
note that the structures of this period bear no
trace of Greek or Roman influence, either in the
architectural details or in the decorations which
covered the walls ; so that, until their true place
in history was assigned to them through the in-
terpretation of the hieroglyphic inscriptions, some
of the Ptolemaic buildings were considered to be
anterior to those of the great Theban period.
The Greeks and the Romans were accustomed to
set out their works with great accuracy ; but at
Philae the Egyptians evidently worked to their
own methods, for there are hardly two parallel
walls, or a right angle, in the building. Impos-
ing temples of this period are found also at Den-
derah and at Edfou — the latter the most perfectly
preserved temple in Egypt.
^ We have seen that in the temple-structures of
the Egyptians one of the most important features
w^as the column. Its constant use within the
buildings was probably encouraged, as tending to
add to the prevailing air of mystery which the
priests made it their business to foster. To some
extent it was necessitated by the constructive

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

system employed, for the great stone slabs which
formed the roof required strong support at fre-
quent intervals. The column thus gradually be-
came the chief medium for obtaining decorative
effect.

Many varieties were used ; they were invariably
massive, and rarely exceeded six diameters in
height. The shaft tapered towards the top, and
was usually either circular or clustered ; sometimes
it was fluted, as at Beni-Hasan. In many examples
the column was re-
duced in diameter at
the base, the point
where the greatest
strength was re-
quired; this, and the
use, above the capi-
tal, of an abacus of
smaller dimensions
than the shaft itself,-
tended to give it an
overgrown, bulky ap-

FiG. 6. — Egyptian columns.

pearance, making it look, as it were, weak through
excess of strength. The chief forms of capitals
in use were (a) the bell-shaped capital (central
columns, Karnak), which produced many graceful
forms, and to which, as we shall see later, the early
Corinthian capitals of the Greeks bore a striking
resemblance; (<^) the clustered lotus bud, repre-
senting a cluster of unopened buds of the lotus
flower (with this capital a clustered column was
used) ; and (c) the palm capital. Most of these
forms were derived from plant-life. In Egypt,
at the present day, bundles of reed plastered with
mud may frequently be seen in use as columns;
several small bundles, each tightly bound, are

28 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

banded together and form a shaft sufficiently rigid
to support heavy weights. This primitive ar-
rangement was copied, probably first in wood,
and later in stone, and is undoubtedly the origin
of the clustered and banded lotus column.

For the interior of the temples, colour, rather
than form, was relied upon for decorative effect.
In the dim light of the columnar halls, mouldmgs
and carving could not have been seen to advan-
tage, and brilliant colouring was essential. The
walls and columns were covered with a profusion
of hieroglyphic inscriptions and of paintings, in
which the designs were either outlined or cut in
low relief before the colour was applied. Where
coarse sandstone had been used in the erection of
the building, a smooth surface for the colour was
obtained by the use of stucco, with which the im-
perfections of the stone were filled up.

Next in antiquity to the civilisation of the
Nile valley was that of the great kingdom which
was established along the banks of the Euphrates
— As_syria.

Unlike the monumental structures of Egypt,
the Assyrian remains have survived only in a
fragmentary state, for little save the foundations
is left of the enormous palaces of this once
mighty kingdom. \Bxcavations which have been
carried on at Nineveh the capital, and at Khorsa-
bad, have revealed almost complete plans of the
royal dwellings, showing that they were of re-
markable extent and magnificence. Portions of
the great gateway of the palace of Khorsabad
may be seen in the British Museum. The im-
mense scale of this portal, with its human-headed
winged bulls 19 feet high, enables us to form

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 29

some opinion of the massive grandeur which
characterised these vast buildings of the x\s-
syrians. \Owing to the extensive use of sun-
dried bricks in lieu of harder materials, the
structures lacked the durability of the Nile val-
ley temples. So far as can be determined from
the bas-reliefs and the structural remains, the
architecture — apart from the applied ornamental
forms — had comparatively little artistic merit.

""• That the Assyrians, like the Egyptians, under-
stood the principles of the arch has been proved
by a fine arched gateway, discovered by M. Place
at Khorsabad, and by remains of arched drains
and of brick vaulting. On existing bas-reliefs are
found representations of domed buildings, from
which it may be assumed that this form of roof
was not unknown, though it is improba-
ble that it was used to any extent. (^^)

The prominent feature in Egyptian
temples — the colu.mn — did not occupy
an important place in the architecture of
the Assyrians; with the exception of the
bas-reliefs, the existing remains reveal
no trace of its use. On the sculptures a
form of column, with small volutes, is
represented, which may claim to be the Fig. 7.
prototype of the column of the Greek ^^^^^^
Ionic order. The interior walls of the
palaces were lined, to the height of about 10 feet,
with alabaster slabs, on which were represented,
in low relief, battle and hunting scenes and myth-
ological subjects. Many of these slabs are to be
found in the chief museums of Europe.

With the Persians who, under Cyrus (536 B.C.),
became masters of these older monarchies, an-

30 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Other style of architecture was developed which
attained great magnificence under Darius and
Xerxes. Before their period of conquest the
Persians had been simple in their mode of life,
with little architecture of their own. ^ Under later
monarchs, very different in character from the
great conqueror Cyrus, they acquired luxurious
habits, and soon surpassed even the Assyrians in
the splendour and the extent of their palaces.
Persian splendour and luxury culminated in the
great capital at Persepolis, or Takht-i-Jamshyd
(the Throne of Jamshyd), as it is still called by
the inhabitants of the district, after its mythical
founder and ruler. In the treasury of this great
city it is said that Alexander, on his entry, found
wealth to the amount of thirty millions sterling.

Here the chief buildings rested upon vast
platforms and terraces carved out of the solid
rock, which still remain, while almost every
vestige of the mighty halls and palaces which
covered them has disappeared. With the excep-
tion of a few ruins, hardly a monument remains
to mark the desolate site of the old luxurious
civilisation : —

The Lion and the Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep :
And Bahrain, that great Hunter — the Wild Ass
Stamps o'er his head, but cannot break his sleep.

^ The great hall of Xerxes at Persepolis was
undoubtedly one of the most extensive and im-
posing buildings of ancient times, having an area
of 350 by 300 feet, or almost twice the area of the
great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. Its roof was
supported by lofty columns, no less than 64 feet
in height, 4 feet 6 inches in diameter, fluted, and
slightly tapering. ^^Many of the capitals were of

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

remarkable design, in the shape of a double
bracket, formed by the forepart of two bulls
placed back to back. Frequently between the
bracket and the column, as in the illustration, a
bell-shaped capital was introduced — very similar
to one of the Egyptian forms — and, above this,
a weak and clumsy feature consist-
ing of a bundle of vertical scrolls.
These scrolls are not unlike the
volutes of the Greek Ionic capital
(p. 49), but set vertically instead of
horizontally. The wooden beams
which supported the roof appear
to have rested in the hollow space
between the necks of the bulls.
These curious capitals may be seen
in the rock-cut tomb of Darius,
carved out of the foot of the moun-
tain adjoining the terraces, in which
is represented, on a small scale, a
copy of one of these colossal halls.

But although the vast empire of Persia, stretch-
ing from the Indus on the east to Thrace and Egypt
on the west, absorbed almost every kingdom with
which its hosts came into conflict, its architecture
had little influence upon succeeding styles, or
upon that of Europe. Far different might have
been the result had the invading hordes over-
flowed Europe, and not been successfully resisted
by those brave Greeks who —

Breasted, beat Barbarians, stemmed Persia rolling on,
Did the deed, and saved the world, for the day was Mara-
thon !

Fig. S.—Capital
from Persepolis.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

11.

GREEK ARCHITECTURE.

The civilisation of the " Dark Continent '* was
many centuries ahead of that of Europe; and,
long after art had reached its zenith among the
inhabitants of the Nile valley, we find Europe still
in the " prebistoric " stage — by which we mean
that the people had not yet acquired the art of
writing their history in the form of permanent
architecture. The earliest traces of European
civilisation and architecture — if we except the re-
cent discoveries in Crete — date back no further
than the age of Homer and of Troy; of Atreus,
Agamemnon, and his other heroes of the Trojan
war {cir. 1180 B.C.). Of the men who lived before
these times, and who built up this great civilisa-
tion, w^e know absolutely nothing; they have all,
as Horace tells us, passed into oblivion : —

Brave men have lived in times of old.
Ere Agamemnon first drew breath ;
But ah ! no bard their praises told,
And all are lost in nameless death.

They lacked, however, not only the sacred bard,
but also that more trustworthy historian of an-
tiquity— the architect. The brave men who lived
before Agamemnon left no enduring architecture
behind them, and their history — unlike that of the
old Egyptians — is a sealed book to us. A few
monuments of Agamemnon's period still exist,
and supply the only reliable information which
we possess of the history of that time ; but our
knowledge of them must ever remain scanty.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. ^;^

Homer, indeed, sang bravely of the deeds of these
men, but in the writings of the old poets it is im-
possible to separate facts from fiction. " The age
of Homer," as Ruskin tells us, "is surrounded
with darkness, his very personality with doubt.
Not so that of Pericles; and the day is coming
when we shall confess that we have learnt more
of Greece out of the crumbled fragments of her
sculpture than even from her sweet singers or
soldier historians."

Although European civilisation germinated in
Greece, we have little authentic Grecian history
before the date of the first Olympiad (776 b.c.)!
The few remains of buildings of an earlier datb
than this are therefore of great interest, although
they appear not to have had any direct influence
upon the architecture of the later, or Hellenic,
period. These early structures consist chiefly of
fortifications, tombs, and walls, the work of a
people called Pelasgi {i.e. sailors) probably Phoe-
nicians, who were the dominant race in Greece at
the period assigned to the Trojan war (1180 B.C.),
and who preceded, and were totally distinct from,
the Greeks.

The most important of these remains are found
at Tiryns, the mythical city of Perseus, and at
Mycenae, the capital, according to Homer, of
Atreus and Agamemnon. Remains of walls are
found in many other parts of the country — Cyclo-
pean masonry, as it is called, for the method of
construction was suggestive of the work of giants,
and tradition ascribed its origin to the Cyclopes.
The chief feature of the work is the employment
of enormous blocks of stone, irregularly shaped,
or coursed, and fitted together without mortan
At Tiryns the acropolis is surrounded by a wall
3

34 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

of this character ; a similar wall at Mycenae con-
tains the great Gate of Lions, probably the most
ancient example extant of Greek sculpture. This
gateway consists of two monolithic piers and a
massive lintel : the wall was ^' corbelled " over in
such a way that the lintel was relieved from its
weight, the triangular space thus formed being
filled in with a sculptured group representing two
lions supporting a column which tapers from the
top towards the base.

The earliest existing structure in Greece pos-
sessing architectural merit and of regular form,
is the so-called Treasury of Atfe-
us at Myc£n^. This is in reality
a tojnb, consisting of two subter- f
ranean chambers in communica- .'
tion with one another. The larger
chamber is shaped like a beehive,
roofed over with a kind of dome, 1

^. _^ __ composed of massive blocks of '

Fig. 9.-Lion Gate, ^^^"^ ^^^^ without" mortar.) The
Mycen^. builders appear to have been un-

acquainted with the use of the
arch, for although the roof is domical in form, as
seen from the interior, the structural method
adopted differs from the arched, or true domi-
cal, construction in a most material point. The
stones — as in the Lion Gate and other openings
in the old walls of the acropolis — are not built in
the radiating form of a true arch, but are laid in
a series of horizontal courses, so that each course
overhangs the one below it; the space is thus
gradually narrowed until the projecting courses
meet at the top — an arrangement similar to the
roofs over the galleries in the Pyramids. Im-
mense blocks of stone are used in the structure;

^^.

imi^S^

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 35

the lintel over the inner doorway is a single block
27 feet long and 16 feet deep, weighing not less
than 120 tons. The chief architectural feature of
the building was the entrance doorway, flanked
by columns entirely covered with elaborate zig-
zag ornamentation, showing a fairly developed
style, with traces of Egyptian and Asiatic influ-
ences.

These earlier works in Greece are separated
from the later development of true Greek archi-
tecture by an absolute break in
form and. construction. Hellenic
civilisation was developed, not
by the Pelasgi, but by the
Greeks, or Hellenes, who suc-
ceeded them, and it was the art
which they evolved-the " classi- ^^^i^;^^.
cal architecture of Greece, as it uryof Atreus.
is called — which has been the
parent of all the styles throughout Europe in
succeeding centuries.

Suggestions were, no doubt, gathered from
Egypt and from Asia, but in the main the archi-
tecture of Greece appears to have been an original
creation. The period during which it flourished
was a comparatively short one, for the date of
the oldest known building — a temple of the Doric
grder at Corinth — is not earlier than_65i^iiX.
For two centuries after this, art progressed until,
after the defeat of^the Persians, it reached its
culmination at Atheiis during the great Periclean
age (460-400 , B.C.). A period of reaction then
ensued, followed by a short-lived but splendid
revival under Alexander the Great, and, on his
death (323 B.C.), by a decline from which it never
recovered.

36 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

The buildings, throughout these periods, upon
which the ancient Greeks lavished their genius,
were thejernples^ These differed from the tem-
ples of the old Egyptians in almost all points save
one — the frequent use of the column as the domi-
nant feature of the design. But the Egyptians?
yr built their temples with a view to impress' the
/worshipper by the mystery, the richness, and the
;<^ grandeur of the interior : for this reason, and for
> constructive purposes, the columns were placed
/ inside the building. With the Greeks, on the other
hand, the temples were comparatively small ; they
were not built as vast memorials of the greatness
of despotic monarchs, nor w^ere they required for
the accommodation of crowds of worshippers.
The roofs had not the massive solidity of the
Egyptian structures, and few supports were neces-
sary ; moreover, the buildings were designed for
external effect. In the^Greek^ temples, therefore,/^
•jc the principal columns were ranged on the outside. ^
■ As a rule, the building occupied a conspicuous
position, that it might be visible from al^ points
and be admired by all. The Greek^s' form of
worship was not congregational : it consisted
chiefly in prayers offered up outside the sanctu-
ary— from any point within view of the temple —
to the deity whose image was enshrined in it. To
provide shelter for this image was, in fact, the
chief purpose of the temple. Thus the plan was
invariably simple, (fin the smaller buildings, four
walls formed an oblong chamber, the 7?aoSy in
which was placed the statue of the deity. A por-
tico with columns, the pronaos^ gave access to
this chamber ; the whole stood upon a platform,
and was covered by a simple roof terminating in
a gable at each end. In the large temples, as we

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

shall see later in the Parthenon, columns were
ranged all round, forming a peristyle, and at the
back of the sacred cell a second chamber was
sometimes added, to serve probably as a treasury
in which to deposit the votive offerings. _Stone^
frequently marble, was the material used in the
construction throughout, except in the roofs,
which were of wood covered with marble tiles.
The perishable roofs have all disappeared, and
with them has been lost all evidence regarding
the method adopted by the Greeks for the light-
ing of the temples ; for with
one exception — the great
temple at AgrigeiUjuiij — the
walls of all known build-
ings of this kind were win-
dowless. The question of
the lighting of the Greek
temple has given rise to
much speculation, the most
acceptable theory being that the light was ad-
mitted through a row of windows high up over
the internal colonnades.

Reference has already been made to the ** Doric
order " of Greek architecture, and throughout this
story we shall constantly have to refer to the
''classical orders." The term requires a few
words of explanation.

To the casual observer, Greek temples would
all bear a striking resemblance to one another;
yet among the designs there existed three quite
distinct styles. Each style was marked by the use
of its peculiar form of column, and, accompany-
ing this, was a series of mouldings and propor-
tions, found only in conjunction with that column.
Among the Greeks the '' three orders '* were

Fig. II.— Plan of small
Greek temple.

38 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

called the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian.
The Doric order, the earliest of the three, was
marked by simplicity, strength, severity ; the Ionic
was more graceful and ornate ; and the Corinthian,
the last to make its appearance, still more rich
and exuberant in detail. The Corinthian order
had hardly established itself before Greece came
under the sway of Rome ; but with the Romans,
who adopted and remodelled the architecture of
Greece, it became the most popular, as well as
the most beautiful, of the orders.

( The earliest example of the Doric order in
Greece is the temple at Corinth_(65o b.c), the
oldest Greek temple of which we have any record.
Several columns of this building, carrying a por-
tion of the entablature, still stand, and show the
design to be somewhat crude, yet with all the
characteristic features of the order ; the columns
are monolithic, stumpy, and massive. Later ex-
amples show marked improvement in proportion
and workmanship. In the Theseum, or so-called
temple of Theseus,, at Athens (465 b.c), for
example, the shafts are more slender and the
mouldings more refined. But it was not until
the time of the Persian wars that the noblest
architecture of Greece was developed, when the
Athenians gave vent to their enthusiasm, after
the invaders had been defeated, by the rebuilding
of the national monuments.

Under the wise rule of Pericles (445-431 B.C.)
a glorious period of activity ensued, when archi-
tecture in Greece culminated, and the unrivalled
group of national buildings sprang up on the
Acropolis at Athens. Foremost among these was
the Doric temple of the virgin goddess Athene,
the world-renowned J^artheniin (fix. parthenos^ a

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

virgin), a building which, for beauty of design and
for delicacy of workmanship, must be regarded
as the nearest approach to perfection of all works
ever erected by man.

The Parthenon reveals to us all the leading,
features of a fully developed Doric temple. The
plan, as we see, was simple and regular, consisting
of two cells — the sacred chamber and a small

Fig. 12. — Plan of the Parthenon.

treasury behind it. Round these was ranged a
peristyle, or series of columns, eight of which
formed a portico at each end ; each portico con-
tained an inner row of six columns. The whole
structure stood upon a " stylobate," or raised
pavement, three steps in height.

In conjunction with this plan, let us consider
the features which constitute a design of the Doric
order. The column of this order, as the illustra-
tion shows, has no base, but is set directly upon
the stone floor or platform: its diameter is great-
est at the foot, and from this point it tapers to-
wards the top, not in a straight line, but with a
subtle convex curve, or swelling, called the "en-
tasis." Around the shaft are flutes, or. shallow
channels, twenty, or sometimes sixteen, in num-
ber, with a sharp edge between them. Surmount-

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

ing the shaft is a plain, sturdy capital, made up
of a square slab, or ''abacus," upon which the
superstructure rests, with a circular cushion called
the "echinus," spreading out from the top of the
shaft to receive the weight from
the abacus. The grooves on the
face of the column are carried
up until they are checked by a
band of fillets just below the
capital.

The upper portion of the de-
sign, supported by the columns,
is called the entablature. This
consists, first of a horizontal
marble beam or " architrave,"
upon which the weight rests, and
by which it is distributed to the
columns. Being the supporting
member of the entablature, the
architrave was almost invariably
left plain, lest ornamentation of
its surface should detract from
its appearance of strength. Above
the architrave runs the frieze,
which, in the Doric order, was divided into square
panels, or " metopes," separated by slightly pro-
jecting blocksj called " triglyphs " (three chan-
nels), on the face of which are cut vertical grooves.
As will be seen from the sketch, a triglyph occurs
over each column, and one between each pair of
columns. In many cases the metopes were filled
in with sculpture in relief. The remaining por-
tion of the entablature, above Ihe frieze, is the

[features of the
lature, the latter

Fig. 13.— The Doric
order.

' cornice.

We see, then, that the leadinj
order are the column and its entao

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 41

consisting of three parts — the plain architrave, the
frieze, with its metopes and triglyphs, and the
cornice. On the underside of the cornice will be
noticed a series of marble slabs (mutules), each
having a number of small projections resembling-
wooden pins, or nail-heads.

At the ends of the building the upper members
of the cornice are made to follow the lines of the
sloping roof until they meet in the centre at the
top, while the lower portion is carried along hori-
zontally above the frieze. The triangular space
thus formed is called the pediment; and, as the
most prominent part of the design, contained the
finest of the sculpture with which the temples were
frequently adorned.

The main details of the Doric order appear to
have been derived from early forms of construc-
tion in timber. The architrave represents the
beam which would-be found in a similar position
in a w^ooden building; the triglyphs correspond
to the ends of cross-beams, made up of three
planks, or perhaps grooved for decorative effect ;
and there seems little reason to doubt that the
mutules are reminiscences of the sloping ends of
rafters studded with nails. The other feature,
however — the column — does not suggest a wooden
prototype; as we have before noticed, it is prob-
able that the tombs of Beni-Hasan, or the temples
of the Nile valley, furnished the rough models
from which the Greeks evolved this, the most dig-
nified feature of their architecture.

We have mentioned the Parthenon as the
noblest example of a temple of the Doric order.
Careful measurements of this building have re-
vealed the existence of a number of refinements
in its construction — with a view to the correction

42 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

of optical illusions — which help us to appreciate
the extraordinary thought and care which the
Greeks bestowed on their designs. The best
known of these refinements is the " entasis," or
swelling of the outlines of the columns. The
bounding lines of the shaft, which appear straight,
are in reality convex — curved outwards from the

Fig. 14. — The Parthen^in restored.

Straight line — to the extent only of three-quarters
of an inch in a height of more than 31 feet. This
curve is not noticeable to the eye, but is just
sufficient to counteract the tendency which exists
in a straight-sided column to look hollow in the
middle.

Again, the underside of the architrave appears
to be perfectly straight. Now, a long, horizontal
line, which is perfectly straight, tends to look as
though it " sags " or droops in the centre. To
compensate for this, the horizontal lines of the
entablature are all slightly curved upwards towards
the centre, deviating from a straight line to the
extent of about 3 inches. The lines of the steps
are curved in a similar way.

Another subtle correction is applied to the
vertical lines, to counteract the apparent tenden-

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 43

cy of the building to spread outwards at the top.
The columns are not truly vertical, but are set
with an inclination, so that they all converge
slightly towards the top. The slope could not be
detected by the eye; but it was considered that,
by affecting the beholder insensibly, it helped to
give the building the appearance of repose and
of solidity. So slight is the inclination that col-
innns at opposite ends of the temple deviate from
the vertical to the extent of not more than 2 inches ;
so that their axes, if produced, would meet at a
point more than a mile above the ground!

The Parthenon is built of Pentelic marble from
tne neighbouring quarries. All the marble blocks
were laid without mortar, and were worked —
probably ground together — so carefully that the
joints were only visible by occasional differences
of colour. The columns were built up of cylindri-
cal " drums," which appear to have been first rough-
hewn, and then finished and fluted after they had
been fixed in position.

Of the sculptures which adorned this wonder-
ful building many fine examples are now in the
British Museum, where they form the chief por-
tion of the collection known as the Elgin marbles.
When Lord Elgin was ambassador to Turkey in
1800, Athens was in the hands of the Turks, who
were busily engaged in dilapidating the buildings
on the Acropolis, in order to dispose of fragments
to travellers. Seeing that the works of art were
receiving daily injury, Lord Elgin was induced to
consent to the removal of whole pieces of sculpt-
ure, which were thus saved from destruction, and
eventually found a resting-place in the British
Museum.

The bas-reliefs in the metopes of the frieze —

44 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

executed with remarkable vigour — represented
the battle of the Centaurs and the Lapithge ; many
of these, as well as the colossal groups of statuary
which filled the pediments, were doubtless the
work of Pheidias himself. Among the pediment
sculptures is a noble statue of Theseus reclining.
" 1 should say," said one of our most eminent
sculptors, when giving evidence before a Com-
mittee of the House of Commons, '* that the back
of the Theseus was the finest thing in the world."
In connection with this remark, let us remember
that the statue was executed for a position some
50 or 60 feet above the eye, so that it could not
be examined closely by any spectator. Moreover,
the back of the statue was turned towards the
wall of the building and away from the spectator:
it could not, therefore, be seen by any one. This
example serves to illustrate the surpassing excel-
lence and the thoroughness which marked the
work of the Greeks at their best period. Truly —

In the elder days of Art

Builders wrought with greatest care

Each minute and unseen part, —

for we find in the Parthenon that all the work
which was invisible to the spectator was as care-
fully and as religiously finished as that which was
immediately in sight.

Colour decoration was an essential part of the
Doric temple design. The Parthenon, at the time
of Pericles, did not present a front of dazzling
white marble, for the entire building, on the ex-
terior as well as on the internal walls, was richly
decorated with colour. The frieze, with its met-
opes and triglyphs, was brilliant with blue and
red, the glare of the walls and columns was toned

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Fig. 15. — Doric capital, show-
ing colour decoration.

down to a pale yellow tint, and the mouldings and
capitals were decorated with frets, egg and dart,
and other ornaments in dark colours, so that the
whole design presented
an appearance of rich-
ness and gaiety rather
than of simple dignity.
Time would have
dealt gently with the
Parthenon, if man had
been more merciful.
Until the seventeenth
century it suffered
chiefly from neglect ;
but in 1687 a terrible calamity overtook it, while
the city was being besieged by the Venetians.
Athens at that time was in possession of the
Turks, who converted the Acropolis into a citadel,
and stored the greater portion of their ammuni-
tion in the Parthenon. During the bombardment
a Venetian shell, falling into the temple, exploded
the gunpowder and wrecked a great part of the
building. The Venetian commander followed up
his work of destruction by breaking up, in a care-
less effort to remove it, a large portion of the
statuary from the west front. Few attempts were
then made to restore the structure, or to protect it
from the damaging effects of exposure to rain and
weather, and the work of decay went on speedily.

Goodly buildings left without a roof
Soon fall to ruin ;

the unprotected parts soon began to suffer from
the wet, and the iron cramps and dowels, which
were largely used in the construction, rusted and
caused the marble to crack and fall to pieces.

46 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

A century later, as we have seen, Lord Elgin
prevented the complete des::ruction of many of
the sculptures by removing them. This action
has been keenly criticised; but if ever the end
may be said to justify the means, Lord Elgin's
action has been justified, for, since the removal
of the most precious of the sculptures, the Acrop-
olis has been twice bombarded (1826-1827), by
the Greeks and by the Turks, with the result
that the Parthenon bears the marks and scars of
cannon-shot on all its faces.

Ictinus and Callicrates were the architects of
this wonderful building, and to their genius was
added that of the great sculptor Pheidias. The
temple was in reality a stately shrine for the
colossal statue of Athene, 40 feet high, of ivory
and gold, the work of this artist. Much of the
sculpture was also probably from his hand.

Remains of many Doric temples are to be
found in different parts of Greece and of her col-
onies. Among these the most important are the
Theseum — the best preserved of all Greek tem-
ples, in a sheltered spot below the Acropolis — the
temples at Selinus and Agrigentum in Sicily, and
-at Paestum in M.agna Graecia (South Italy), the
temple of Zeus at Olympia, and that of Apollo
Epicurius at Bassse in Arcadia.

The Ionic order — the second of the three or-
ders in date and importance — probably had its
origin in Asia Minor. Rock-cut tombs which are
found there, and the architectural remains at Per-
sepolis, of the sixth century B.C., possess features
very similar to those which characterise the Ionic
order in Greece. Some curious tombs in Lycia
— accurate restorations of which may be seen in

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

the British Museum — show the earliest works in
stone of a people who had been accustomed to
the use of wood, especially boat-building. The
tombs take the form of a boat turned upside
down, beams, planks, and
even the keel being la-
boriously reproduced in
the stone. With such
evidence before us, it is
^ easy to understand how
reminiscences of timber
construction have sur-
vived in the designs of
those early builders of
Greece who drew their
inspiration from these
sources.

.„:^ The Ionic order con-
sists of a column and en-
tablature, made up in
the same way as the Dor-
ic, but differing in the
details and in the gen-
eral proportions. The
shaft is more slender —
from eight to ten diame-
ters in height — and is
surmounted by a pecul-
iar capital which forms
the most striking fea-
ture of, the style. It will
be noticed that the aba-
cus is small, and that the Fig. i6.— ionic order,
cushion upon which it

rests terminates on each side in a feature like a
scroll, which is known as the " Ionic volute."

48 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

The column does not spring directly from the
pavement, like the Doric shaft, but stands upon a
moulded base. Upon the surface of the shaft are
twenty-four grooves, or flutes, rather deeper than
those of the Doric order, and separated from each
other by a fillet. The architrave is plain, general-
ly with three facias ; the frieze has no triglyphs, but
is either plain or enriched with an uninterrupted
design carved in relief. A characteristic feature
in the cornice is the " dentil " course, a row of
narrow blocks or tooth-like projections which —
like the Doric triglyphs — are probably reminis-
cences of primitive forms of construction in wood.
The crowning member of the cornice was frequent-
ly enriched with carving, which took the place of
the colour decoration of the Doric order.

The Ionic capital was richer and more elabo-
rate, though less vigorous, than the Doric; it pos-
sessed, however, an awkward feature in that it
was not four-sided : the front differed from the
side, and at the angle of a colonnade the two-
sided capital was very noticeable. It was usual,
therefore, to treat the corner capital with volutes
on the two exterior faces, the scrolls at the outer
angle meeting one another at an angle of 45°, in
the manner shown in the illustration (p. 47).

More numerous remains of buildings of the
Ionic order exist in Asia Minor than elsewhere ;
but the finest and most notable example of the
style is the Erechtheum, on the Acropolis at.
Athens. This buiTHmg shows much variety of
detail of the most refined order, and — an unusual
feature in the temple designs of the Greeks — con-
siderable irregularity of plan. This is due partly
to the difference of levels, rendered necessary by
the uneven site ; but it is chiefly accounted for by

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 49

the fact that in the one design were included
shrines of several deities — Athene, Pandrosus,
and Erechtheus.

The Erechtheum was begun in 479 B.C., and
was not' completed until seventy years later, so
that it was in course of
erection throughout the
w^hole of the Periclean
period. -*-A unique fea-
ture of the design is the
little south porch, the
entablature of which is
supported by female fig-
ures (caryatids) in the

place of columns. One p^^^ i^.-ionic capital from
of the caryatids and the Erechtheum.

some examples of the

carved ornament, borrowed from the Assyrian
honey-suckle, may be seen among the other treas-
ures of ancient Greece in the British. Museum.

The plan of this building underwent altera-
tions in the early days of Christianity, when it
was in use as a Christian church ; but the w^ars
of the seventeenth century are chiefly responsible
for the mutilated condition of the temple at the
present day. When Lord Elgin was in Athens
at the beginning of last century, the vestibule
was being used as a powder magazine, to which
access could be obtained only through an opening
in the wall which had been built up between the
columns.

\The first building to be completed of all those
now on the Acropolis was the small Ionic temple
of Nik6 Apteros — " Wingless Victory " — which
was erected about 466 b.c. This consists of a
square cella with a front portico of four columns.
4

50 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

The building appears now to be in a fair state of
preservation ; at one time, however, it had been
completely pulled down, and its details built into
a Turkish fortress or powder magazine, some of
the sculptures being fixed upside down. It was
rebuilt about sixty years ago from the old mate-
rials.

\Perhaps the most magnificent of all the struc-
tures ever erected by the Greeks was the Ionic
temple at Ephesus, dedicated to the great " Diana
of the Ephesians." This building was almost
totally destroyed, possibly by an earthquake, so
that the very site of it was unknown until it was
discovered by an English architect, Mr. Wood,
in 1871. The British Museum possesses the
sculptured drum of one of the '' coIumncE celaice,''
referred to by Pliny, from whom we know that
there were thirty-six of these sculptured columns,
and that one of them was by a renowned artist
named Scopas. \The beauty of the work seems
to justify the high opinion of the Greeks, who
included the great temple of Ephesus among the
seven wonders of the world.

Although the Doric and Ionic orders were
quite distinct in their respective proportions and
features, they were occasionally combined in the
same building, as in the Propylsea, the noble
gateway which gave access to the Acropolis at
Athens. In the temple of Apollo Epicurius at
Bassse in Arcadia, designed by Ictinus, one of the
architects of the Parthenon, the exterior columns
were Doric, but a row of piers on each side of the
interior was treated with Ionic capitals and details.

\The third order — the Corinthian — was of little
importance in pure Greek architecture : it appears

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

to have been used before the time of the Roman
conquest, for comparatively small monuments.
^As used by the Greeks, the order resembled the
Ionic in all its features, with the exception of the
capital. The most grace-
ful example is the cho-
ragic monument erected
at Athens (335 B.C.) by
Lysicrates, in commemo-
ration of his victory in
the choral competitions ;
a capital from this monu-
ment is shown in the
illustration.

The Corinthian capi-
tal was the great creation
of the later period of
Greek architecture. Prob-
ably the first suggestions
of the form were taken from the temples of the
Egyptians, for there exists a striking resemblance
between some of the bell-shaped capitals of Egypt
and the earliest Greek examples of the Corin-
thian order ; but to the Greek artists is due the
introduction of the angle volutes and of the
acanthus decoration which combine to make the
capTtaTsLich an exquisite work of art.

Although the Alexandrian age was an era of
great magnificence, it was, in reality, a decadent
period so far as art was concerned ; and after the
death of Alexander (323 b.c.) architecture never
recovered its lost ground. It must be remem-
bered that true Greek architecture ceased almost
immediately after the country had come under the
baneful influence of conquering Rome — i.e. about
the beginning of the second century B.C. Among

Fig. 18. — Corinthian capital.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

the vast undertakings of this Roman period was
the temple of the Olympian Zeus at Athens, a
magnificent building of the Corinthian order, be-
gun about 170 B.C., but not completed until 300
years later. SiVhen Sulla entered Athens with his
army, he carried off several of the capitals and
other portions of this temple to Rome, where they
probably served the Romans as models of the
Corinthian order.

Before leaving Greece, mention must be made
of some buildings of which remains exist, other
than temples. The largest structures were the
theatres for dramatic representations, which were
built frequently in an exca-
vation of the sloping hill-
side, in the form shown. In
the centre was an altar to
Dionysus, the space around
— the orchestra — being oc-
cupied by the chorus; the
actors appeared on a small
stage, while the audience
occupied stone or marble
seats, ranged in semicircu-
lar tiers. In the theatre of Dionysus at Athens
accommodation was provided for about 30,000
spectators. ^

The Greeks built few important tombs. The
most celebrated was the mausoleum at Halicar-
nassus in Caria — another of the seven wonders
of the world — which received its name from Mau-
solus, to whose memory it was erected by his
wife Artemisia [cir. 350 B.C.). The tomb was a
splendid structure in the Ionic style, richly deco-
rated with sculpture. Portions of the colossal

t'iG. 19. — Plan of Greek
theatre.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 53

chariot and horses which surmounted the pyram-
idal roof may be seen in the "Mausoleum room"
of the British Museum.

Some of the memorial stones (steles) used by
the Greeks were beautifully carved, and it is
interesting to notice that on many of them are
found sculptured representations of the arch.
Although the Greek builders were undoubtedly
acquainted with the arch, they appear, so far as
our knowledge goes, never to . have made any
practical use of it. '^ An arch never sleeps," says
the Hindoo proverb; and the Greeks, perhaps
rightly, felt that its use would detract from the
simplicity and the feeling of repose to which they
endeavoured to give expression in their designs.

Our knowledge of the domestic architecture
of Greece is derived almost entirely from descrip-
tions by contemporary writers, for no remains of
importance have survived. The architecture and
art of Pompeii savoured much of Greek influence,
and the Pompeian house described on p. 76 prob-
ably resembled in many particulars the houses of
the Greeks of the earlier period.

III.

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.

In dealing with the early days of Rome it is
difficult to distinguish between fiction and truth,
between legend ahd history. There was, no
doubt, a good deal of human nature in the early
inhabitants, which led them — after the city had

54 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

gained for itself such a position as to secure the
respect of all neighbouring nations — to feel that
they could not have been fashioned from the
same stuff as were other men. We thus find that
the early traditions *' mixed human things with
things divine," and gave a divine origin to the
eternal city. Whatever be the true story of the
foundation of Rome, it appears certain that at
the date assigned to it (753 B.C.) a people 'called
Etruscans were flourishing in a highly civilised
state in the immediate neighbourhood. The
Etruscans appear to have been a race of Asiatic
origin, who were possessed of great constructive

Fig. 20. — Cloaca Maxima.

skill, and had a certain amount of artistic percep-
tion, which enabled them to exercise considerable
influence upon the earlier architecture of Rome.
In fact, during the first 500 years of its existence,
Rome, as regards its architecture, was virtually
an Etruscan city.
« The Etruscan monuments which still remain

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 55

in Italy consist chiefly of walls and tombs. Of
the city walls we find examples at Volterra, Peru-
gia, Cortona, and elsewhere : the masonry is in
some cases polygonal ; in others, laid in horizon-
tal courses, and is of the character previously
referred to as " Cyclopean," the separate blocks
being of an enormous size. A new feature — a
true form of arch — was used for the gateways in
three walls.

This new constructional principle— the arch —
was fully understood by the Etruscans. One of
the earliest examples of its use is the Cloaca
Maxima, a great work executed during the reign
of the Tarquins (about 600 b.c.) for the purpose
of draining the lower parts of the city. It is
roofed over with an arch of large stones in three
concentric rings; and so skilfully did the builders
construct their work that in many places the arch
remains still intact.

Etruscan tombs, of two kinds, rock-cut and
structural, are found in great numbers through-
out Central Italy. These contained, as a rule,
one chamber only, in the form of an ordinary
room; for it appears to have been the object of
the constructors to make the dead tenant feel as
comfortable as possible in the tomb: the walls
were covered with paintings, and the chamber
frequently was provided with f|^rniture cut out of
the solid rock, and with a number of utensils of
use in every-day life.

The tombs have proved more permanent than
the temples, for all traces of the latter have dis-
appeared. We gather our information about them
chiefly from the works of Vitruvius, a prolific, but
not altogether reliable, writer of the first century
A.D. In his description he tells us that the tern-

^6 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

pies were of two kinds, circular and rectangular,
the rectangular buildings having three cells and
being devoted to the worship of three deities. So
far as our records go, the most important of these
was the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, on the
Capitol, begun by Tarquinius Superbus, and de-

*="stroyed by fire in 80 b.c/ It was adorned with
many ornaments and statues of terra-cotta, or
baked clay, of which the Etruscans made great
use. The terra-cotta vases, for which they were
celebrated, are well known in the present day ; on
many of these Greek myths were represented, a
proof that the designers had come under the in-
fluence of the art of the Greeks.

^ We have noticed that the most important and
novel feature in the works of the Etruscans was
the intelligent and scientific use of the arch. The
architecture of the two great nations of whom the
preceding chapters have treated was essentially
" trabeated " \trabs^ a beam) — i.e. the openings
were covered, and the superincumbent weight sup-
ported, by a flat horizontal beam or lintel. In
Roman architecture, which we are about to con-
sider, a new method of construction was employed ;
for the principle of the arch, adopted from the
Etruscans, soon revolutionised the art of building.
The Romans received this new feature, and learnt
their early lessons in building, from Etruria; but
their architecture developed little until conquer-
ing Rome came into contact with the treasures

^ and masterpieces of Greece.

The taste for the architecture of Greece first
manifested itself in Rome in the time of the
Scipios, about 200 B.C. 'Greece had become prac-
tically a province of Macedonia, and the victory
of Faulus over the Macedonians, in 168 B.C.,

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 57

brought her under the influence of Rome. At a
later period, when some dispute had arisen be-
tween the Achaeans and the Spartans, the latter
applied to Rome for help, and in response the
Consul Mummius settled the question by landing
in Greece and taking possession of Corinth (146
B.c.)./After carrying off all the art treasures, and
stipulating — in his ignorance as to their value —
that if any were lost by the carriers they should
be replaced by others of equal value, he set fire
to the city. From this time Greece became the
happy hunting-ground for works of art ; the artis-
tic treasures were freely pillaged, and their im-
portation naturally had immense influence upon
the buildings which were springing up in Rome ;
Greek architects also were introduced into Italy,
and under these circumstances there was soon
evolved that modified form of Grecian architec-
ture known as " Roman."

We see, then, that Roman architecture was
not an independent creation. (Broadly speak-
ing, it may be said to have resulted from the
fusii^g of the styles of the Greeks and the Etrus-
canjsJ Upon the architecture of the Greeks was
grafted the new constructional principle, the
arch, which at once enlarged its scope; but the
refined, intellectual work of the Greeks was out
of place in a city such as Rome was destined to
be. " Rome had no time for the cultivation of
the arts of peace, and as little sympathy for their
gentler influences. Conquest, wealth, and conse-
quent power, were the objects of her ambition ;
for these she sacrificed everything, and by their
means she attained a pinnacle of greatness that
no nation had reached before or has since. Her
arts have all the impress of this greatness, and

58 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

are characterised by the same vulgar grandeur
which marks everything she did." That such an
authority as Fergusson can apply the term *' vul-
gar grandeur " to the architecture of Rome is
sufficient evidence that, despite the fact that one
was derived from the other, there was, between
the two, a great gulf fixed.

Before dealing with the forms which archi-
tecture assumed in the hands of the Romans, we
must say a few words about one special feature —
the method of construction — which had an im-
portant bearing upon the architecture of Rome,
and which was radically different from that em-
ployed by the Greeks.

4^ The Romans, as a nation, possessed little
artistic feeling; but they were an inventive, and
a thoroughly practical, people, and they had an
unrivalled krrowledge of construction and of the
use of materials. In the earliest periods of their
history their buildings were constructed of solid
masonry ; but, before the first century B.C., the
use of an artificial material came into vogue, by
means of which it was possible to employ un-
skilled labour to a vast extent, and in the erec-
tion of every class of building; it became possi-
ble, with this, to build, not only on a vast scale,
but at once cheaply and speedily. This material
was concrete.

^Concrete is an artificial conglomerate made by
mixing together lime or cement, sand, water, and
gravel or small stones. The lime, in its moist
state, absorbs carbonic acid from the air and
turns into carbonate of lime, or limestone, which,
coming into contact with the sand and stones,
sets and forms a solid mass as hard as stone. /In
the buildings of the Romans this material' was

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 59

employed far more extensively than any other;
indeed, without concrete, it is safe to say that it
would have been impossible for the constructors
to have carried out so successfully the gigantic
undertakings which, down to the present day,
remain the wonder of the." eternal city."

The Roman concrete was exceptionally strong ;
one of its chief ingredients was a volcanic product
called pozzolana (from Pozzuoli, where it has al-
ways been largely obtained), which, when broken
up and incorporated with the lime, made a natural
cement of extraordinary strength and hardness.
From the first century b.c. onwards, this con-
glomerate was extensively employed in the con-
struction of almost every building of ancient*
Rome. Brickwork or masonry was used merely
as a facing for the concrete mass. The boast of
Augustus — recorded by Suetonius — that he found
Rome brick and left it marble must therefore not
be interpreted too literally. Under his auspices
the city witnessed a period of great splendour
and marble was extensively used : many of the
temples and other structures of the Augustan age
were built solidly of the finest marble; but the
majority of the works of this and the later peri-
ods were nothing more than concrete piles, hid-
den behind a veneer of marble or brickwork.

The visitor among the ruins of ancient Rome,
who sees walls, apparently of fine brickwork, on
all sides, finds it difficult to realise that bricks ^
were never used, constructionally. Yet careful
examination discloses the fact that even the
thinnest walls were merely cased with bricks and
filled in with concrete. The great domed Pan-
theon is a glaring example of a concrete mass
posing as a brick structure. Externally the wall

6o STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

presents a solid face of brickwork, in which tiers
and arcades of brick arches are arranged, as
though concentrating the weight upon piers ; yet
the arches are, structurally, of no value whatever,
for the brickwork of which they consist forms
merely a casing of 4 or 5 inches, upon a solid
concrete wall 20 feet thick. .

• We see, then, that the constructive methods
of the Romans differed in most essential points
from those of the Greeks. In the Greek's build-
ing every part did the work which it was sup-
posed to do, and which it appeared to do ; never
was there any attempt at deception. " Beauty is
truth " form.ed part of his artistic creed, and he
had a horror of deceit in any form. The Roman,
on the other hand, openly revelled in it. Of fhe
Roman it may be said that, as regards his archi-
tecture, he absolutely could not tell the truth —
*''' splendide mendax^'' he was gloriously untruthful.
But, like many evil-doers, he prospered, and, by
his new methods, A^as able to build quickly "^nd
on a grand scale. " He went in," says Ruskin,
" for a cheap and easy way of doing that whose
difficulty was its chief hojiour," and was enabted,
by tneans of his inventive genius, to greatly en-
large the scope of the architecture which had
been handed down to him from the Greeks. ^ In
his hands the art was not confined to the building
of temples, but was applied to new forms and
adapted, in an original and daring manner, to the
varied requirements of the people. Palaces, am-
phitheatres, baths, triumphal arches, basilicas, all
on a scale of unparalleled magnificence, sprang
up on every side, all presenting new problems in
design and construction, which the Roman build-
ers never shirked, but at once undertook to solve,

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Fig. 21.— Composite capital.

and upon which they speedily stamped their indi-
viduality.

Out of the three orders of Greece and the
Etruscan models were
evolved five Roman
orders : —

ij The Tuscan, a
rudimentary Doric
form borrowed from
the Etruscans. The
column was sturdy
and stood upon a
base; the entablature
was simple and with-
out triglyphs.

*^2. The Doric, which
retained the triglyphs.
This column also had
a base, and was frequently made smooth, without
flutings.

3. The Ionic, very similar to the Greek order,
but having a less rich capital, with smaller vo-
lutes.

^4. The Corinthian, the favourite order with
the Romans, in whose hands it developed into the
most beautiful feature of their architecture.

*5. The Composite, a poor attempt at an im-
provement, in which the Ionic volutes were com-
bined with the lower portion of the Corinthian
acanthus capital.

We saw that the story of architecture in Greece
was told almost entirely by her temples. This
was not the case in Rome : temple building was
not the strong point with the Romans — though
in the time of Augustus the city must have been

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

well supplied with them — and very few remains
now exist.

The illustration shows the plan of an early
temple of the Ionic order, the so-called temple
of Fortuna Virilis (correctly, of Fors Fortuna).
There is some uncertainty regarding the date of

Fig. 22. — Plan of a Roman temple.

this building, but it probably belongs to the early
part of the first century B.C. As Professor Middle-
ton points out, the date, in this and in other cases,
maybe approximately ascertained by ai^ examina-
tion of the materials used in the construction. In
the early period the only stone used by the Ro-
mans was "tufa," a soft volcanic stone which
could be easily dressed, even with bronze tools.
A somewhat harder volcanic stone, " peperino,"
then came into use, and, at a later period, "trav-
ertine," which was more durable, and harder to
work. Traverliue was sparingly used before the
first century b.c. In the temple of Fortuna Virilis
the columns of the portico and the " engaged "
columns ranged round the cell walls are of trav-
ertine; the remainder of the work is built in
tufa

rORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 6;^

The temple stood upon a \oi\.y podium^ or base,
so that a flight of steps in front was required to
give access to the higher floor level. The cell is
short and wide, and is divided by piers which help
to carry the roof. The portico is inordinately
deep, and, ranging with its side columns, we see
a series of *^ engaged " columns — i.e. half-columns
appHed to the face of the wall as purely decorative
features. From ^he earliest period of Roman
building the column was not so important a fea-
ture in their architecture as it was with the Greeks ;
and, as the arch and vault came into use, it began
to lose its significance, and gradually became
little more than a decorative accessory, tacked on
to the structural part of the design.

The details of the temple of Fortuna Virilis
were thoroughly Greek in their character, and
were probably executed by Greek artists; while
the square cell and the deep portico are elements
in the design due to Etruscan influence.

Greek artists were probably responsible for
the details of two circular temples of this early
period — the so-called temples of Vesta at Rome
and at Tivoli. In each of these the circular cell
was surrounded by a peristyle of twenty Corin-
thian columns, with capitals of great beauty.

As might be expected, we find that, through-
out the earlier period, when much of the design-
ing was intrusted to Greek architects, the build-
ings of Rome were characterised by simplicity
and purity of style; but the increasing splendour
of the empire was soon reflected in its architec-
ture, which culminated in the reign of Augustus
(27 B.C. — A.D. 14), the golden age of art and of
literature. This period produced the finest,
though by no means the most colossal, of the

64 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

works of Rome, for Augustus employed the best
of Greek sculptors, who helped to some extent to
revive the glories of ancient Greek architecture.
Moreover, his artists and workmen were kept
busy, for during this emperor's reign were built
no less than twelve temples, including those of
Castor and Pollux, of Jupiter Tonans on the
Cap'icol, and of Mars Ultor; in addition to these
works he restored or helped to complete more
than eighty others, and numerous secular build-
■ ings.

Rome contains comparatively few temple re-
mains, for a reason to be mentioned later. /The
most striking are the three noble Corinthian col-
umns of the temple of Castor and Pollux (about
A. p. 6), for a long time considered to be the re-
mains of the temple of Jujiiter Stgl^r, which stand
up among the ruins of the Forum. The quarries
of Mount Pentelicus, near Athens, provided the
marble, and Greek architects undoubtedly fur-
nished the design and the details, which are among
the finest to be found in Rome.

Most of the buildings of Rome were utilitarian,
and even the temples appear to have been useful
for purposes other than of worship. The temple
of Castor and Pollux, for example, served as an
office for checking weights and measures, for
many bronze weights exist with the inscription
^^exad: Castor x'' showing that they had been ex-
amined and verified in the temple.

It has been mentioned that the Romans excelled
in the art of construction, and that the materials
used by them were of the most enduring kind.
How comes it, then, that, of the colossal and
numerous buildings erected at this period, so few
remain to-day, even in a fragmentary state?

Story of the art of building. 65

The disappearance of the old monuments may-
be accounted for in two ways. Firstly, by the
wanton destruction, at the hands of successive
emperors, of the works of their predecessors.
Each new ruler, either as a bid for popularity or
in his own selfish interests, endeavoured to sur-
pass, in magnificence, everything that had been
done by those before him, and in these efforts at
self-aggrandisement the existing buildings were
treated with scant respect. When Nero, for ex-
ample, wished to carry out an extensive scheme
which he had prepared for the rebuilding of a por-
tion of the city, he cleared a site by means of the
great fire of Rome, and was thus enabled to pro-
ceed with the works, building, amongst other
monuments, that vast and wonderful palace, the
" Golden House of Nero," the most lavish and
costly structure that Rome had seen. A few
years later Vespasian, in his turn, wishing to
please the people by the construction of exten-
sive baths and his huge amphitheatre, the Colos-
seum, concluded that the site of Nero's great
palace was the most eligible for his purpose.
Without delay, down came the greater portion of
the Golden House, in order to provide a space for
the new buildings.

Secondly, as Christianity spread in Rome, the
temples — representing the old Pagan religion —
were not only neglected, but were, in many in-
stances, destroyed, the materials being reused in
the construction of new buildings. This state of
affairs lasted for centuries. The marble temple
of Castor and Pollux, to take an example, was,
during this pl^riod, almost carried away piecemeal.
Michael Angelo used a portion of one column lor
the pedestal upon which was set the equestrian

66 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Statue of Marcus Aurelius; another portion was
made into the marble statue of Jonah in the church
of S. Maria del Popolo. The great Basilica Julia,
in the Forum, another Augustan building, was
used as a marble quarry in the Middle Ages; the
gr€ater part of the structure was carried away for
building purposes, and the remainder was burnt
nito lime on the spot. In the course of some
excavations, three lime-kilns were found in this
building.

Vandalism has often gone hand in hand with
civilisation. " The excavators of the sixteenth

Fig. 23.— Maison Carree, Nimes.

century have done more harm to the antiquities,"
says Signer Lanciani, " than all the barbarians of
the Middle Ages." When Charles V. visited Rome
in 1536, the Pope, wishing to honour him as the
avenger of Christianity, arranged that he should
pass successively beneath the triumphal arches of
TiUis, Constantine, ancLSeverus. With this object,
says Rabelais, who was an eye-witness, ^* they de-

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 67

molished more than 200 houses, and razed three
or four churches level with the ground."

Small wonder, then, that for the finest example
of a typical Roman temple we have to go out of
Rome, and indeed out of Italy, to the Maison
Carree, at Nimes, in France. This temple differs
very little, in the arrangement of its parts, from
the temple of Fortuna Virilis, to which we have
previously referred. In each case the edifice rests
upon a raised podium, requiring a flight of steps
in the front for access to the floor. The portico
is deep in proportion to its width, and the walls
of the cell are decorated with engaged columns,
which range with the free columns of the portico.

After the Augustan ages, as wealth continued
to pour into Rome, the magnificence of the city
increased, for the Romans' method was, in the
words of Pliny, "to take everywhere what they
thought worth taking," and the buildings of the
period were the natural outcome of the increasing
licence and prodigality of the times. A typical
building was the Flavian amphitheatre, better
known, from its vast proportions, as the Colos-
seum, begun by the first of the Flavian emperors,
Vespasian, in a.d. 70.

For the Greeks' form of amusement — dramatic

representation— the Romans cared little; but they

were passionately fond of gladiatorial shows and

contests. Wherever a Roman settlement existed

— in Britain, in Gaul, or in the mother country —

traces are found of these amphitheatres. As would

be expected, Rome claimed the most gigantic of

them all.

iy-^ The Colosseum was built in the form of a vast

I ellipse, 610 feet long, 510 feet wide, and 180 feet

\high. In the centre, communicating: with the

68 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

wild beasts* dens, was the arena in which the
gladiatorial contests and spectacles were held;
around this, rows of seats, rising in tiers, gave
accommodation to 80,000 spectators, who were
partially protected from the sun's rays by a huge
\)avvning. The structure was built almost entirely
of concrete, faced with stone, and was skilfully
planned to allow the whole audience a clear view
of the arena. On the exterior the three lower
stories formed continuous arcades of semi-circu-
lar arched openings, eighty in number. In front
of the piers which separated the openings were
engaged columns, used, after the Roman manner,
as decorative accessories ; the Tuscan order in
the lowest story, the Ionic in the second, and the
Corinthian in the third. The fourth story, con-
sisting of an almost unbroken wall divided by
Corinthian pilasters, was added, or rebuilt, in the
third century. It served to support the masts,
fixed round the building in a series of corbels,
from which the great awning was stretched.

The vast scale upon which the Colosseum is
built renders it one of the most imposing ruins
of the world; but, apart from its skilful con-
struction, it had little architectural merit. The
exterior, with its endless repetition of arches and
useless columns, was monotonous. Such a build-
ing, persistently devoted to the most brutal con-
tests, was a typical product of Roman civilisation.
For more than 300 years it was the scene of bloody
contests of gladiators and prisoners, and echoed
with the multitude's

loud-roared applause
As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man,

until the year a.d. 403, When the better feeling
of the people was aroused by the self-sacrifice of

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 69

a monk named Telemachus. His story is the
one redeeming feature in the long history of the
Colosseum. In order to protest against the wan-
ton cruelty, the monk rushed on to the arena,
and fell a victim to the rage of the spectators;
but the moral effect was such that human slaugh-
ter in the arena was discontinued.

Huge as was the Colosseum, there was another
building devoted to Roman ^' sports " — the Circus
Maximus — which far surpassed it.— -No vast build-
ing in Rome has vanished so completely as has
this great circus; from its mass, no doubt, "pal-
aces, half cities, have been reared," for almost
every vestige has disappeared, so that its very
name is hardly recalled by the visitor to the
sights of modern Rome. From comparatively
small beginnings in the time of the Tarquins, the
Circus Maximus gradually developed until, after
its restoration by the Emperor Claudius, it held,
according to Pliny, no less than 250,000 specta-
tors.-Additional splendour was added by Trajan,
under whom the vast building was wholly cov-
ered, inside and out, with white marble, relieved
with brilliant mosaics. Oriental marble columns,
and statuary. *' It must then," says Professor
Middleton, '' from its crowd of works of art, its
immense size, and the splendour of its materials,
have been, on the whole, the most magnificent
building in the world." In the fourth century it
covered an area more than four times that of
the Colosseum, and accommodated — according to
records — the almost incredible number of 485,000
spectators.

•• Triumphal arches, in commemoration of vic-
tories, were striking features in Roman design.
In the second century a.d. the city contained no

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

less than thirty-eight. '"^f the few that remain, the
arch of Titus, erected a.d. 71-80, to commemo-
rate the conquest of Jerusalem, is best known for
its fine proportion and the excellence of its details.
The arch of Septimius Severus (a.d. 203) in the
Forum, and that of Constantine (a.d. 330), are
left as examples of the later work. The latter,
though built at a period when Roman art was
most degraded, contains some excellent sculp-
tures and details. This is explained by the fact
that the marble columns and entablatures, the

Fig. 24. — Arch of Constantine.

sculptured panels (representing Trajan's victo-
ries), and the colossal statues of Dacian captives,
are of much earlier date, for they were taken
from the arch and forum of Trajan — another

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 71

illustration of the ruthless manner in which the
emperors destroyed the works of their predeces-
sors. At a later date one of the fine columns of
black Numidian marble was carried off for use in
the church of S. John Lateran, where it now
stands.

The upper story (called the attic), which — as
in the arch of Constantine — was frequently added
above the main cornice, is a feature of Roman
architecture. The purely decorative purpose of
the columns is shown by the fact
that, in order to give them the ap-
pearance of supporting something, it
has been necessary to break out the
cornice and entablature over each
capital. In this special case, the
great statues they support afford an
excuse for the presence of the col-
umns ; but in many examples of Ro-
man work the uselessness of the col-
umn is too apparent.

In adapting the Greek orders to ^^^' ^^•""J^?"

i =» . man entab-

an arched system of construction, the lature.
Romans fell into some strange errors.
They appeared not to understand that the arch
took the place of the architrave as the supporting
member; it seemed to them that the column was
not complete without its entablature, so that it
became the custom to insert a square piece of
entablature between the column and the arch or
vault — an illogical piece of construction, which
was revived by the builders of the Renaissance,
and is in evidence in the work of the present day.
Under the Flavian emperors, towards the end
of the first century, art in Rome was at a very
low ebb, although buildings of colossal extent

72 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

were erected by these rulers to please the taste
and catch the votes of the populace. Under
Hadrian, however (a.d. i 17-138), there was a
great revival of taste, not in Rome only, but
in the provinces, and especially at x\thens, where
the emperor rebuilt part of the city, and com-
pleted the great temple of Jupiter Olympius,
begun 300 years before.

To Hadrian's time belongs the great circular

Pantheon, one of the noblest of all buildings of

ancient Rome, built upon the

^^^^^ site of an earlier rectangfular

jQ* % Jiy ' ■ j temple erected by Agrippa ;

m; ^-^ ^Sl^»»j the portico was, indeed, re-

Lr ^1^ .yu..l built from the materials of

Y^*. ., . >yiL, -J the older temple, and has

Nqjjjpjr Agrippa's inscription upon its

FiG.26.-Pianof Pan- ^'}^^^' The great dome-of
theon. almost exactly the same di-

ameter as S. Peter's, though
apparently much vaster — is composed of a mass
of concrete, and affords a striking illustration of
the value of that material to a nation of builders
like the Romans. The construction of a dome of
such magnitude — but built up of separate blocks
of masonry, exerting lateral thrusts — was a prob-
)em which was to exercise the minds of master-
builders many hundreds of years later, -in a con-
crete structure, however, such as the Pantheon,
the dome and vaults exercise no lateral thrust ;
the concrete becomes consolidated into a rigid
mass, which rests upon the walls like a solid lid.
This is a point which should be thoroughly
grasped by the student, for it enables him to un-
derstand why the Romans, in constructing their
huge vaulted roofs, were able to dispense with the

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 73

buttress — so necessary to the builders of later
days — and to carry their massive vaulting, upon
simple walls.

ll — Light was admitted to the Pantheon in an im-
pressive manner by means of a circular opening,
30 feet in diameter, at the top of the dome.

* "There is," says Fergusson, "a grandeur and a
simplicity in the proportions of this great temple
that render it still one of the very finest and most
sublime interiors in the world. — It possesses,
moreover, one other element of architectural sub-
limity in having a single window, and that placed
high up in the building. I know of no other
temples which possess this feature, except the
great rock-cut Buddhist basilicas of India. That
one great eye opening upon heaven is by far the
noblest conception for lighting a building to be
found in Europe."

The interior of the dome is "coffered" — i.e,
divided into deep panels, which were originally
gilt. The exterior is less imposing, though, in its
best days, when the lower portion of the walls
was encased in marble, the pediment and attic
filled with bronze statuary, and the roof covered
with bronze gilt tiles, few buildings surpassed the
Pantheon in magnificence.

,.-. Space will permit only of a passing reference
to the thermce^ or colossal baths, which were, at
one period, the most conspicuous feature of Ro-
man architecture, and the most remarkable of all
buildings in magnitude and splendour. Kl'hese
vast structures, which comprised public and pri-
vate baths of all kinds, gymnasia, libraries, thea-
tres, lecture-halls, all fitted up more lavishly than
the most luxurious of modern clubs, were built
simply as bribes by the emperors, one after the

74 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Other, to secure the vote and favour of the peo-
ple. The earlier baths — of Agrippa, Nero, Ves-
pasian, Trajan, and others — have almost entirely
disappeared; two only, of the later emperors, re-
main i,n a sufficiently perfect condition to allow a
restoration to be made with any degree of cer-
tainty.

The baths of Caracalla (a.d. 211) covered a
site little less than a quarter of a mile square, and
now form the most extensive mass of ruins in
Rome, though they suffered much, in the sixteenth
century, at the hands of Pope Paul III., who car-
ried off vast quantities of the material for use in
the construction of the Farnese Palace.

The baths of Diocletian, built a century later,
were probably still vaster ; the grand hall, 340
feet long — restored by Michael Angelo, but still
retaining the original columns and vaulting — now
forms the church of S. Maria degli Angeli.

We have made no mention yet of another
type of building in Rome, which was destined to
exert very considerable influence upon the archi-
tecture of succeeding ages. Rome was a great
commercial centre, and the public business of the
city, commercial and judicial, occupied the atten-
tion of the people far more than did their re-
ligious affairs. This business was transacted in
large, lofty buildings called basilicas^ which served
the purpose of halls of justice as well as commer-
cial exchanges. A special interest attaches to
them from the fact that they served as models
for the first places of worship built by the early
Christians of Rome, and that they thus became
the recognised type for churches built for Chris-
tian worship. Compared with other Roman struc-
tures, they were slightly built ; and as the materials

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 75

nf the old basilican halls were found to be ex-
ceedingly useful for the construction of the new
churches, extensive use was made of these an-
cient buildings for this purpose, so that few re-
mains of the old basilicas of pagan Rome exist.
The fate of the great Basilica Julia, in the Forum,

Q flElQSQQQQIIlBQQQBBIslEIl!! til

Gt] Q BB s Et ^ a & Si SI & a jei.m m B a B \s 0

GB tS Q S S IS

gE B Q Q Q S

EB Q BB Q Q Q Q B E) Q B B B B Q B la Q B I ~

Cll B QE B fSSl a BB ^ B B S 13 E} B BBS I

11 IB m I iiii m t^MhJfa
Fig. 27. — Plan of Basilica Ulpia.

has already been referred to ; the remains of the
Basilica Ulpia, erected by Trajan (a.d. 115), may
still be seen in Trajan*s forum, adjoining his col-
umn.

In the plan of this building we have a great
hall, 360 feet long by 180 feet wide, consisting of
a wide, lofty central nave, flanked by double
aisles with lower roofs. At one end is a semi-
circular recess, or apse, called the tribune, round
which, upon a raised dais, were the seats for the
magistrates, or assessors, the central seat, at a
higher level than the others, being set apart for
the chief magistrate who presided over the busi-
ness.

The roof of the basilica was usually of wood,
with the nave portion considerably higher than
that over the aisles, so as to allow the introduc-
tion of a clerestory^ wall and windows above the

76 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

columns. In the Ulpian basilica the nave was
probably open and only the side aisles roofed.

It was not until the time of Constantine that
vaulted construction was applied to the basilicas.
This emperor completed the building which had
been begun by Maxentius near the Roman forum,
now called the basilica of Constantine. In front
of this hall was a narthex, or porch — extending
the whole width of the building — which gave ac-
cess to the main entrance, while a side entrance
led from the Via Sacra. Opposite each doorway
was an apse for the accommodation of the magis-
terial bench. The one existing aisle, spanned by
three massive concrete vaults, affords the visitor
of the present day an excellent opportunity for
studying the Roman methods of building in con-
crete. Further reference will be made to the old
basilicas when we are dealing with early Christian
architecture in the next chapter.

Of the private houses or homes of the Romans
there are few remains in Rome itself, with the
exception of the so-called house of Livja on the
Palatine hill, a well-preserved specimen, with ex-
cellent wall-paintings. Typical examples of do-
mestic architecture are found in the towns of
Pompeii and Herculaneum, which were destroyed
— or, rather, buried — by the eruption of Vesuvius
in A.D. 79.

In the House of Pansa, at Pompeii, many of
the rooms (marked s) facing the street were used
as shops, and were quite separate from the man-
sion. The front door opened directly from the
street into a small lobby (l), which led to the
atrium — a courtyard, roofed over round the sides.
but open to the sky in the centre. Under this
central opening was a tank, the cojnpluvium^ which

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Fig. 28.— Plan of the House of Pansa.

collected the rain-water. Three rooms at the
end of the court, the tablimtni and the aliB^ were
used for storing the family archives. By the side
of these apart-
ments a passage • l[ ' jj'
led to the more
private portion
of the house.
Here, we find, is
a larger court,
uncovered in the
centre as before
— the peristyliu77i
— the roof of

which was supported, in the houses of the wealthy,
by rows of columns (peristyles) of the finest mar-
ble. Leading off this is the dining-room {triclini-
urn), a most important room in the house of the
old Roman, who sometimes had two or three, so
that he could vary the aspect according to the
time of the year and the state of his digestion.
The other family rooms were grouped round the
peristyle, while the bakery, kitchen, and offices
completed the establishment.

The walls of the interior were decorated with
marble slabs or with fantastic paintings, *'Pom-
peian decoration," as it is called, from the fact
that we have been made familiar with it from the
well-preserved walls of Pompeii, though it was
probably in general use among the Romans of
the period. In this decorative scheme the wall-
spaces were divided into darkly coloured panels
by means of attenuated painted columns; in the
centre of the panels graceful and highly finished
human figures or architectural and perspective
views were introduced. Frequently the plinth, or

78 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

lower portion of the wall, was painted a very dark
colour, almost black ; above this, a deep red or
brown was used, occasionally blue or yellow. The
figure treatment and the general system of deco-
ration suggest a Greek origin : it is probable —
though the theory must be always speculative —
that the houses of the Romans, as preserved to us
at Pompeii, were in all general features very sim-
ilar to those of the Greeks of the earlier period.
Mr. Petrie's recent remarkable discovery in Egypt,
however, enables us to trace back the Pompeian
plan to a still more remote date, for his excava-
tions of the village of Kahun, built for the over-
seers and the workmen of the Illahun Pyramid,
have disclosed the plans of a number of large
houses arranged upon a plan strikingly similar to
those of Pompeii.

We have now completed the short story of the
two great styles — Greek and Roman — comprising
what is known as "classical architecture." The
histories of the two are inseparable, yet they differ
strangely — the refined, truthful, exquisitely pro-
portioned work of the Greeks, and the vast, mag-
nificent, daring undertakings of the Romans.
"The Greek," says Ruskin, "rules over the arts
to this day, and will for ever, because he sought
not for beauty, not first for passion, or for in-
vention, but for Rightness." For this quality in
their architecture the Romans cared not a rap;
nor was their national life, which their architec-
ture reflected, overburdened with the sense of it.
While they were under the influence of Cxreece,
before vice and the love of luxury had fully pos-
sessed the people, Roman art progressed. But
as wealth poured into Rome, and her people lived
dissolutely upon the spoils of the conquered na-

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 79

tions, her architecture became more and more
debased, and its story differed little from that of
Rome herself —

First freedom, and then glory, — when that fails,
Wealth, vice, corruption, — barbarism at last.

IV.

EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE.

During the first three centuries of theChristian
era the new religion, though despised and dis-
credited, had been slowly gaining ground, in the
face of enormous difficulties. Rome, as we have
seen, was given over to the worst kind of licence
and debauchery. The old pagan religion was
entirely played out; the majority of the people
thought nothing about religion, pagan or other-
wise ; while of those who took the trouble to think
at all, few had any faith in the old creeds. The
monumental undertakings of the emperors, wheth-
er sacred or secular, were not prompted by piety
or by the spirit of reverence; and among the
people the more thoughtful and intellectual viewed
the prevailing licentiousness and prodigality with
apprehension, —

On that hard pagan world disgust
And secret loathing fell,

and men's minds wxre gradually being prepared
for the great upheaval.

On the other hand, it must be remembered that

8o STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

the Christian doctrines were not such as would
be cordially welcomed by the vast majority among
the pleasure-loving Romans, and the new worship
had, in consequence, to be carried on in secret;
I hence the earliest forms of art which it developed
were sepulchral, consisting of the memorials and
symbols of the faith found in the Catacombs.

The religion had little direct influence upon
architecture until it was officially recognised by
the Emperor Constantine in the year 32S ; but no
sooner had it taken its position as a Slate reli-
gion than the strength of the movement became
apparent, and there sprang up on all sides a
demand for places of Christian worship. The old
temples were not suitable for the accommodation
of large congregations, and there was, perhaps,
some hesitation about making use of buildings
which had been specially designed for pagan wor-
ship, ^n their dilemma the early Christian build-
ers turned to the gre^t halls of commerce, the
basilicas, and found what they were wanting.
The interior arrangements of the basilica suited
the requirements of the new worship, and as
builders with inventive genius were scarce in
Rome at the time, it thus came about that the
first Christian churches were built in direct imita-
tion of these great houses of assembly. As we
shall see in succeeding chapters, this model, once
adopted, was never departed from. There was no
lack of materials, for the city was filled with build-
ings upon which all kinds of extravagance had
been lavished, and which were now beginning to
fall into disrepute and neglect. Columns and
rich capitals, marble linings, architraves and orna-
ments were appropriated wholesale, and applied
to new purposes, and while pagan Rome suffered,

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 8 1

Christian basilicas sprang up in all directions with
astonishing rapidity.

At the present day there is no Christian build-
ing in Rome dating from the time of Constantine.
The church of S. John Lateran was built in his
reign, but all trace of its early work has disap-
peared under the changes of later centuries. Per-
haps the most beautiful of all the Christian basili-
cas of the time was that of S. Paul Outside the
Walls, built by Theodosius in ^S6. Unfortunate-
ly, a great portion was destroyed by fire in 1821^
but it was rebuilt with much of its former splen-
dour— ''the noblest interior in Europe, and nobly
and faithfully restored," it is called by Ruskin,
who seldom sang the praises-of the restorer. The
sketch plan of this basilica shows how closely the
Christian building follows the lines of its pagan
prototype.

In front of the church was an arcaded porch,
or narthex^ which in the earlier buildings was usu-
ally built in the form of a square, so as to form
an open courtyard. This courtyard, or atrium,
occupied a considerable area, and gradually tend-
ed to disappear as space in the city became more
valuable. Examples may still be seen in the
churches of S. Clemente in Rome and S. Ambro-
gio in Milan.

The semi-circular apse, in the basilica of the
early Christians, occupied the central portion of
the wall opposite the entrance, and accommodated
the bishop and the chief officers. The clergy offi-
ciated in the raised space before the apse, in front
of which was the altar. As the ritual became
more elaborate, in order to increase the accom-
modation, rudimentary transepts were sometimes
formed — as in the basilica of S. Paul — by slightly

82 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

widening the building at this part. The choir
and others who were assisting at the service re-
quired a considerable space, and for their use a
portion of the nave, in front of the altar, was
enclosed by a low marble screen or a railing ;

pulpits, or ^' ambos,"
pTrT^»M"«iii"ii"ii— "ii^^li^ were arranged on each

<:c

side of this reserve.
In the remaining por-
tion of the nave, or
in the aisles, sat the

faithful who had been

Fig. 29.-Plan of S. Paul's Out- baptised, for no 0th-

side the Walls. crs were admitted

within the church.
Probationers and other worshippers were allowed
only in the narthex or in the atrium.

\We see, then, in these first efforts of the early
Christians, the embryo plan, or arrangement of
parts, which afterwards developed into the typical
mediaeval cathedral plan. The division into nave
and aisles — borrowed from the pagan basilica — is
the treatment most widely adopted in buildings
for Christian worship at the present day. The
influence of the narthex may be traced in many
cathedral plans, as at Westminster Abbey and
Durham, where the westernmost bay is wider, and
its piers different in character from those of the
remainder of the nave. In the early basilicas, too,
we see foreshadowed the transept and the result-
ing cruciform plan of later cathedrals. To meet
the demand for extra accommodation, rudiment-
ary transepts were formed by an extension of the
space between the apse and the end of the nave :
this was kept free from columns and from all
other obstructions, in order that the officiating

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 83

clergy might not be hampered in the administra-
tion of the ritual.

The builders of this period possessed little
inventive genius, nor did they concern themselves
about architectural effect. The generally accepted
type of building, borrowed from their pagan fore-
bears, satisfied them and was never changed un-
less the exigencies of the service demanded an
alteration. \ So long as the apse sufficed for the
accommodation of the limited number of higher
officers for whose use it was reserved, it was re-
tained in its primitive form, though made glori-
ously brilliant by an incrustation of mosaic. But
as the office of the clergy assumed greater impor-
tance, and the ritual became more exclusive and
elaborate, it became necessary to enlarge the
space. The apse was, therefore, gradually length-
ened in accordance with the requirements for in-
creased accommodation, until it developed at last
into the choir of the mediaeval church.

We have seen that the transepts, in the early
stage of their existence, served only a utilitarian
purpose. At a later period, however, more con-
sideration was given to their architectural effect,
as regards both the exterior and the interior. It
was noted that the transeptal projections formed
a useful break in the long, monotonous line of
the building; moreover, in England especially,
the great central tower — the dominant feature of
its mediaeval cathedral design — springing from
the intersection of the nave and the cross walls,
required the abutment of the transepts in order
to support its great weight. This led to the fuller
development of the transepts for architectural and
structural reasons. The cruciform church-plan
appears, then, to have first arisen from a combi-

84 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

nation of accidental circumstances, though it was
afterwards invested with a symbolical meaning,
as representing the form of the cross.
*'- The atrium, or fore-court, which some of the
early basilican churches possessed, was probably
suggested by the similar feature in the Roman
house. It helped to shut off the sacred building
from the outer world, and, as we have said, pro-
vided accommodation for those of the worshippers
who were not fully qualified to attend the service
within the building. In cathedrals of later date
the atrium still survives in the cloister, though its
position has been changed. The two ambos of
the basilica are represented in modern churches
by the reading-desk and the pulpit, situated on
either side of the choir.

^ In almost every feature, then, the Gothic cathe-
dral plan of mediaeval times represents the natural
development of the old basilican church of the
early Christians. One change should be men-
tioned, which has been made in the position of
the altar and of the bishop's seat. The early
Christian basilicas resembled their prototypes, as
the bishop occupied the seat in the centre of the
apse, which had formerly been assigned to the
chief magistrate ; this seat became, in fact, the
bishop's throne, and was raised up above the level
of the seats of the surrounding clergy, the altar,
meanwhile, being placed centrally in front of the
apse. In a few of the later churches this arrange-
ment is still adhered to, as in S. Peter's at Rome,
where the Pope's throne is situated in the middle
of the apse, and the high altar occupies a position
in front, under the centre of the great dome. I.i
western cathedrals generally, however, the posi-
tions have been changed : the altar occupies a

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

central position against the wall of the apse, and
the bishop is accommodated elsewhere at the side
of the choir.

' Great reverence was paid by the early Christ
tians to the remains of the saint to whom the
church was dedicated, whose baptistery and font
— usually a circular or polygonal building — ad-
joined the basilica. At a later period the shrine
was placed under the altar, in the apse. In due
course the belief in the efficacy of various saints
led to the erection of secondary altars; and, the
apse being recognised as the natural position for
an altar, it became customary to build apsidal
recesses for its accommodation. At first the
secondary apses were added on either side of the
central recess, but as the main apse extended and
developed into the choir, occupying the full width
of the building, the ''apsidal chapels were either
relegated to the transepts or were ranged round

Fig. 30. — Development of basilica.

the main central apse, an arrangement which
became a 'special feature of French cathedral
architecture.

The exterior of the basilica was treated in the
simplest manner possible, with no attempt at

S6 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

architectural embellishment, while the interior
depended upon the accessories for its beauty,
rather than upon architectural form. The walls
inside were rich with veined marbles, and brilliant
with mosaic — the most permanent of all forms of
decoration, for the golden mosaics of these early-
basilicas are still undimmed after the lapse of
centuries. The apse and the wall space over its
arch — the triumphal arch, as it was called — were
especially rich with pictures worked in these small
glass cubes, many of them almost childish in draw-
ing, but all finely decorative.

w Inlaid marbles were used for the floor, in
geometric patterns, forming a sort of mosaic
known as opus Alexandiiniim — a fine specimen of
which may be seen in England in the presby-
tery of Westminster Abbey. In many of the
buildings are found an odd mixture of columns
and capitals, collected from the older buildings
of pagan Rome : plain and fluted shafts are placed
side by side, Ionic columns contrasting with Co-
rinthian, as in S. John Lateran, Corinthian with
Doric; small capitals upon lar-ge columns, shafts
of different lengths raised upon bases of unequal
heights, and soon; for, in Ruskin's words, *' the
architect of a Romanesque basilica gathered his
columns and capitals where he could find them,
as an ant picks up sticks " — a heterogeneous col-
lection, sometimes, built up with little intelligent
skill, guilty of little architectural style, but brim-
ful of history !

i/ Restoration in later days has destroyed much
of the interest, historical and otherwise, of these
early basilicas. Sta. Maria Maggiore, though to
some extent restored in the Renaissance period,
when the panelled ceiling was added, still retains

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 87

almost its original aspect, and affords the best
example of an old Christian basilica in Rome. It
is a three-aisled building in the form of a long
rectangle, with the usual apse, and with a narthex
extending along the whole of the front. The nave
is flanked by five colonnades of Ionic columns,
all the columns being, in this case, of one design.
Above the columns the clerestory wall is carried
upon an architrave, not upon a series of arches,
as in St. Paul's Outside the Walls, S. Clemente,
and most of the other basilicas. S. Clemente, al-
though rebuilt in the eleventh century, retains its
old plan, with the choir enclosure, ambos, and.,
baldaquin in a good state of preservation.

■^During the fifth and sixth centuries the city
of Ravenna, on the Adriatic coast, was second
only to the old capital in importance, and wit-
nessed the erection of churches which were hardly
inferior to the finest which Rome herself pos-
sessed. The principal of these — the ancient ca-
thedral of Ravenna — was destroyed in the last
century to make way for a modern building ; but
of the other churches]^ two of the basiiican type
of especial interest have been preserved — S.
Apollinare Nuovo (a.d. 525) and S. ApoUinare
in Classe (a.d. 549), the latter situated in what
was formerly the port, at a distance of three
miles from the city.

The plan of these churches is similar to that
of the Roman basilicas ; but as Ravenna differed
from Rome in possessing few pagan temples
which might be despoiled for the adornment of
the new buildings, it was necessary that all the
details required in the basilicas should be spe-
cially worked for the places they were to occupy.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Thus in Ravenna one does not meet with the in-
congruous medley which characterised many of
the Christian basihcas of Rome. The features of
classical Rome were imitated, but they were sub-
jected to new influences, and the task of adapting
them to the new requirements called forth the
best inventive powers of the architects.
X A feature of special interest in the Ravenna
churches is the dosseret, or impost block, in shape
Hke an inverted pyramid, which was interposed
between the capital and the springing of the
arches — a form in common use with the archi-
tects of Byzantium. Ravenna at this period car-
ried on an extensive trade
with Byzantium, and was sub-
jugated by the Byzantine
Emperor Justinian in 537.
Thus the presence of Orien-
tal details in the buildings can
be readily accounted for. But,
in addition to these details,
there are found in Ravenna
entire buildings — to which
reference must now be made
— constructed upon a plan es-
sentially different from the
basilican type. To this style
the name of Byzantine has
been given, since it originated
. from the new Eastern capital
which Constantine founded at Byzantium.

The basilican form of church was adopted in
all parts of Italy, and continued to be built for
many centuries with but slight modifications of
the interior. More changes were made exter-
nally, for, instead of the barn-like treatment

Fig. 31.— Capital with
dosser et^ Ravenna.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 89

which characterised the early basiHcas, we findP*"^
somewhat elaborate exterior decorations of marble
veneer, as at S. Miniato in Florence, or picturesque
wall arcades, as at Pisa, Lucca, and Pistoja.

Byzantine Architecture.— We must now
return to notice the new development which was
taking place while the Christians were erecting
their first basilicas in Rome. Intelligent builders
in that city were scarce, and architectural styles
had become corrupted — a result to which the pre-
vailing practice of destroying ancient monuments
and transferring their materials to new buildings
for reuse had largely contributed. \But, while
Rome was languishing, a new era was beginning
to dawn for ancient Byzantium, to which Con-
stantine transferred the seat of*the empire in the
fourth century. ^Under him the new capital —
situated upon the highway of commerce between
East and West — grew rapidly in importance.
Architecture kept pace with the other develop-
ments, but it was carrried out under new condi-
tions. \Some of the fundamental principles of
construction, as well as the art of decoration by
mosaics and marble, were adopted from Rome;
moreover Constantine, with the view of lowering
the importance of the old capital as a rival, car-
ried off from the principal Roman buildings num-
bers of columns, capitals, and such other archi-
tectural ornaments as could be reused in his
Byzantine undertakings; but many of his archi-
tects, as well as the majority of the artisans he
employed, were of Greek descent, hailing from
Asia Minor and the East. Byzantium, too, by its
trade was brought into direct contact with other
nations of the far East, so that there sprang up

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

\
. ^ >■*

an Oriental taste for brilliance and rich decora-
tion which at once manifested itself in the archi-
tecture.

-•The divergence from the Roman style is
readily observable in the church plan. The sim-
ple, rectangular, three-aisled basilica was almost
unknown in Byzantium, where its place was taken
by a square, vaulted building. In approaching a
typical Byzantine church,
such as that of Hagia
Sophia at Constantino-
ple, or S. Mark's^Venice,
the spectator's eye is at-
tracted by the broken
sky-line formed by a
series of roof-domes, so
different from the unin-
terrupted line of the old
basilica roof. The dome,
in fact, was the distin-
guishing feature of Byzantine architecture; and
its constant use, for the purpose of roofing over
the spaces, had much to do with the radical
change of plan from the long rectangle to the
square, or Greek-cross form of building.
\ The Byzantine dome was carried upon four
arch-es enclosing a square, as shown in the dia-
gram, the triangular spaces between the circular
dome and the arches being filled in with *' pen-
dentives," upon w^hich the dome really rests. It
will be seen that each course of masonry forming
the pendentives is kept in position by reason of
its convexity, so that the dome (shown by the
dotted lines) rests securely upon the upper course,
at the level of the crown of the arches — i.e. upon
the four pendentives.

Fig. 32. — Diagram.

Iff /// f y

STORY OF THE AK l Ol' BUILDING. 91

-^-The most magnificent example of the Byzan-
tine style is the great church at CcHistantinople,
built during the reign of Justinian by Anthemius
of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus, a.d. 532-53S,
and dedicated to Hagia Sophia, the Holy Wisdom,
more commonly, though incorrectly, called the
church of S. Sophia. The main building is roofed
over by a great ^central dome, 107 feet in diam- .
eter, lighted by a ring of forty small arched
windows ranged round the base. The spaces on
the east and west are covered by half-domes,
which in turn cover semicircular apses. Both the
half-domes and the apses are lighted by rings of
windows, for upon these roof-openings the whole
interior largely depends for light. The weight
of the roof is almost entirely carried upon the
massive piers which divide the aisles into three
bays; so that the whole of the vast nave, meas-
uring more than 200 feet in length and 100 feet
in breadth, is unobstructed by columns or piers
of any kind. Though differing essentially from
the long, wooden-roofed basilicas of Rome, the
plan of H. Sophia bears a striking resemblance
to that of the basilica of Constantine in the
Forum.

; The vast unobstructed nave, roofed over with
dome upon dome, culminating in the great central
vault ; the numerous windows, at all heights,
vying with the arcades of arches to confuse the
eye and thus enlarge the apparent size of the
great hall ; the precious marble sheathings of the
walls, the rich and delicately carved capitals, and
the wonder and wealth of the mosaics, undimmed
by the lapse of centuries, with which the vaults
are encrusted, — these all combine to make the
interior of this vast building one of the most im-

92 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

pressive and most harmonious of the triumphs of
architecture.

The many influences which were at work on
Byzantine architecture resulted in a great variety
of plans. N^t Ravenna, for example, where the
art of Rome mingled with that of Byzantium, we
have seen that in some of the basilicas — e.g.
S. Apollinare in Classe and S. Apollinare Nuovo
— the Roman type of building was clothed with
details of Oriental character. But other churches
differed radically from these. The baptistery of
S. John, the surviving portion of a basilica of the
fifth century, shows a simple octagonal plan.
Octagonal also, but more complicated, is the
exquisite church of S. Vitale, where the central
dome is carried upon eight piers, between each
of which is a semicircular niche or apse; around
these is carried an aisle bounded by octagonal
walls. The general disposition of the central
portion is suggestive of the Pantheon with its
eight niches, and is, indeed, almost identical with
the temple of Minerva Medica at Rome.

. Little attention was paid to the architectural
treatment of the exteriors; but the richness of
the interiors of the churches of the Byzantine
style gives them an interest and a beauty hardly
surpassed by buildings of any age. The vaulted
system of construction which was adopted pro-
duced unbroken expanses of wall and ceiling,
which were disturbed very little by projections or
mouldings — smooth surfaces upon which a deco-
rative effect was gained by means of mosaics.
Figure-sculpture and painting had become almost
lost arts at this time, and the drawings of the
mosaic-workers were rudely simple ; but the ma-
terials with which the artists worked their sym-

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 93

bolical glass-pictures atoned for much that was
lacking in the design, and imparted marvellous
beauty and splendour to the simple lines of the
architecture. The custom — which originated in
Rome — of encrusting the lower walls and the
piers with precious marbles, and of enriching the
floors wibh elaborate marble pavements of opus
Alexandrinum, contributed to the general effect
of splendour and brilliance.

.\ There was much rich carving also of the
marble surfaces. The undersides of the arches
and the spandrils, or triangular spaces between
them, were covered with delicately incised pat-
terns; the capitals of the columns were exqui-
sitely carved in crisp low relief, with symbolical
emblems, leaf-decoration, etc., and with incised
basket-work patterns. Sometimes the volutes
and other features of the classical architecture of
Rome were suggested, but the general form was
similar to the illustration on p. 88.

^Above the capital was the impost-block, or
dosseret^ which we noticed at Ravenna — a very
familiar feature in Byzantine work, and probably
a reminiscence of the fragmentary entablature of
the architecture of the Romans.

.--Like the Parthenon in the midst of the archi-
tecture of Greece, the great church of Hagia
Sophia remains unrivalled by any building of its
class. Further west, the most beautiful result
of the influence of Byzantium is the church of
S. Mark at Venice. The original church, which
stood where S. Mark's now stands, was destroyed
by fire. In 977 the new building was begun, and
was probably carried out mainly by builders from
Byzantium, for, with the exception of minor de-
tails of later date, it is purely Byzantine in char-

94 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

acter. Those who have not visited Venice will be
familiar, from photographs and drawings, with
the form of S. Mark's richly encrusted front, a
fagade worthy of the picture which Ruskin draws
in his *' Stones of Venice " :— \' a multitude of pil-
lars and white domes, clustered into a long low
pyramid of coloured light ; a treasure-heap, it
seems, partly of gold, and partly of opal and
mother-of-pearl, hollowed beneath into five great
vaulted porches, ceiled with fair mosaic, and beset
with sculpture of alabaster, clear as amber and
delicate as ivory. And round the walls of the
porches there are set pillars of variegated stones,
jasper and porphyry, and deep-green serpentine
spotted with flakes of snow, and marbles, that
half refuse and half yield to the sunshine, Cleo-
patra-like, 'their bluest veins to kiss,' — the shad-
ow, as it steals back from them, revealing line
after line of azure undulation, as a receding tide
leaves the waved sand ; their capitals rich with
interwoven tracery, rooted knots of herbage, and
drifting leaves of acanthus and vine, and mystical
signs, all beginning and ending in the Cross; and
above them, in the broad archivolts, a continuous
chain of language and of life — angels, and the
signs of heaven, and the labours of men, each in
its appointed season upon the earth ; and above
these, another range of glittering pinnacles, mixed
with white arches edged with scarlet flowers, — a
confusion of delight, amidst which the breasts of
the Greek horses are seen blazing in their breadth
of golden strength."

J^The Byzantine style has had little influence
upon the architecture of Western Europe. In
Greece and Russia it became, and has continued

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 95

to be, the recognised style for buildings of the
Greek Church, though it has naturally received
many modifications. When Constantinople fell
into the hands of the Turks (1453), the old archi-
tecture was revived, and was applied to the build-
ing of mosques, so that it was destined to exert
considerable influence upon the building forms of
the Moslems.

MOHAMMEDAN.

We have seen that Christianity in its early days
had little influence upon architecture, and that it
did little towards asserting itself in this direction
during the first 300 years of its existence. Far
different was it with respect to a new religious
movement which sprang up while the Byzantine
empire was at the height of its power, in the
sixth century of the Christian era — a movement
which rapidly infected the East, sweeping over
whole countries with an irresistible tide, and at
once leaving its impress upon every phase of art.
— Mohammed, the leader of the new faith, lived
from A.D. 570-652. So sudden was the growth
of his influence that within a century after his
death he was acknowledged as the Prophet of
God in Arabia, Egypt, and Syria, in Persia, in In-
dia as far as the Ganges, along the north of Afri-
ca, and in Spain. Under these circumstances the
Mohammedan, a new architectural style, grew up,
differing widely from the contemporary Christian

96 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

architecture, and differing also in each of the
various countries in which it prevailed.

The Arabs, who were the banner-bearers of the
new Prophet, were a nomad and warlike race, but
they were not great builders; they possessed, in
fact, but little architecture of their own before the
period of their conquests. As might be expected
then, the earliest Mohammedan places of worship,
or mosques, as they are called, w^ere insignificant,
and of simple form. Even at Mecca, the birth-
place of the Prophet, the only temple of the
Arabs-\jie sacred Kaabah — was nothing more
than a square tower of little architectural impor-
tance.

The Koran, the sacred book of religious duties
and precepts, contained no instructions for the
followers of Mohammed with regard to the build-
ing of places of assembly or of worship. The
faithful had their stated times for prayer when,
turning their faces towards Mecca, they went
through the prescribed forms; but for these
ceremonies it was not necessary that there should
be any assembling together: each man could
offer up his prayers upon his own housetop. \Nor
were the mosques required — as in the case of
temples of other religions — for the purpose of
enshrining a sacred object or an image of the
Deity, for Mecca was the one place sacred to all
Mohammedans.

At first, then, there was little building in con-
nection with the new religion : such mosques as
were erected were merely shelters for purposes of
prayer and retirement, of simplest form and, in
the majority of cases, adapted from old buildings.
When the Arabs began to erect new mosques,
being without an architecture of their own, they

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 97

were obliged to employ the native architects and
workmen — a fact which accounts for the consider-
able differences of styles found in the different
countries.

The most important, o( the early works were
the mosques of Amrow at'^Cairo (a.d. 642) and of
El Aksah (a.d. 690) at Jerusalem. \These earlier
buildings generally took the form of arcaded
cloisters with flat timber roofs one story high,
enclosing a large square courtyard. On the side
towards Mecca the cloister was much deeper and
contained several rows of columns. On this plan
was the magnificent mosque of Ibn Touloun,
also at Cairo, built towards the end of the ninth
century. Here the arcades of pointed arches
spring from series of columns. On the side of
the building nearest Mecca the arcades are five
deep; in the centre of the outer wall on this side
is the rnihrab^ or prayer-niche, indicating the
direction of the sacred city, one of the indispen-
sable features of the mosque-plan. At an early
date minarets were added — slender towers from
which the call to prayer was made to the Moham-
medans throughout the city. The minarets as-
sumed varied elegant forms, and added much
picturesqueness to the exterior design. Usually
they were octagonal, upon a square base, the
upper part being circular, and marked by a pro-
jecting balcony from which the prayer-call was
sounded. The roofs of the earlier mosques were
flat and of wooden construction, but towards the
end of the tenth centufy vaulting was introduced ;
and the vauLlj^d^roofs soon became one of the
most characteristic, as they were the most beauti-
ful, of the features of Saracenic architecture. In
the tombs of the Caliphs, built in the eleventh
7

98 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

century, and in the mosques of Barkouk (1149),
of Sultan Hassan (1355), and of Kait Bey (1463),
all at Cairo, we find not only this form of roof,
but increasing skill in workmanship and richness
in design.

L^ Every example shows that the architecture of
tne Arabs was essentially decoratixe^rather than
structural. Externally the domes were decorated
with rich and intricate geometric designs; simi-
lar but more elaborate treatment was applied to
the whole of the interior. The dome — after the
Byzantine fashion — was carried on pendentives,
which were richly decorated with honeycomb
ornament. This honeycomb corbelling was con-
stantly used by the Arabs in their roofs, for it
proved an effective method of filling up the
awkward corners resulting from the practice of
carrying octagonal walls upon a square base.
The whole of the mosque interior was treated
with lavish decoration, in which colour played a
most important part. Ceilings were panelled out
with intricately carved beams and were enriched
with harmonious patterns; niches were resplen-
dent with brightly coloured honeycomb roof-cor-
bels ; all the wall surfaces were encrusted' with
exquisite marbles or with brilliant arrangements
of tiles, in which the Arab showed his fertility of
invention equally with his feeling for colour.
In accordance with the rules laid down in the
Koran, no imitation of natural objects was per-
mitted in the decoration ; the designers were there-
fore restricted to the use of flowing and geometric
patterns, which thus became characteristic of their
work. In many cases inscriptions from the Koran
were introduced, the ornamental Arabic lettering
forming a very effective embellishment. An in-

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 99

teresting feature, which marks the architecture
of the Arabs to the present day, was the deHcate
tracery which frequently filled the windows and
the wall-openings with complicated geometric
designs.

In addition to the semicircular arch, three

\ other forms are found in Mohammedan buildings

; for the arcades and door openings. In Syria and

■. Egypt occurs the pointed arch, similar to that

/ used by the Gothic architects of Western Europe.

In India and in Persia the most common form has

the curves near the apex bent slightly upwards,

giving to the arch an outline like the keel of a

' vessel; this form is sometimes called the keel

arch. The third form, the horse-shoe arch, is

most frequently met wnth amongst the works of

the Moors in Spain.

Mention of the Moors recalls the fact that some
of the most splendid examples of Arabic architec-
ture are found farther west and in the continent
of Europe. With the exception of the mosques
of Cairo, few important works were produced in
Northern Africa. When, however, the • Moors
invaded Spain in 710, there sprang up in that
country a new Arabian empire whose architecture
was destined to rival that of the East.

^The first important building w^as the mosque
at Cordova, begun in 786 by the Caliph Abd-er-
Rahman. ^rhis consisted of an arcaded hall in the
form of a parallelogram 420 feet by 375 feet — thus
covering a larger area than any Christian church
with the exception of S. Peter's at Rome. The
height, however, was not more than 30 feet ; the
ceiling was of wood richly carved and decorated,
and was carried upon seventeen rows of thirty-
three columns each, all having two tiers of horse-

lOO STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

shoe arches. The mihrab-niche, indicating the
direction of Mecca, was richly encrusted with
delicate carving and with mosaics. This sanc-
tuary at Cordova, which was rebuilt in the tenth
century, is considered by Fergusson to be '*the
most beautiful and elaborate specimen of Moor-
ish architecture in Spain, and of the best age."
Unfortunately but little of the great mosque re-
mains in its original state.

■Fate has been kinder to the great citadel pal-
ace at Granada known as the Alhambra — the
Mecca of travellers in Spain at the present day.
This great work was begun in 1 248 by Mohammed-
ben-Alhamar, after his expulsion from Seville, and
was completed in the beginning of the fourteenth
century. Those who have not been able to visit
the Alhambra are afforded the opportunity of
studying the wealth of its design in the magnifi-
cent illustrations and drawings of Owen Jones;
interesting reproductions of parts of the building,
by this artist, may be seen at the Crystal Palace.

The Alhambra is considered the gem of
Hispano-Moresque art — a distinction due as much
to its excellent state of preservation as to the
delicate beauty of its work. Two -large courts
occupy the greater portion of the ground-plan :
the more celebrated of these, the Court of the
Lions, is surrounded by light arcades, with a
central fountain supported by twelve lions, from
which it takes its name. The whole of the in-
terior is covered with delicate ornamentation of
exquisite beauty, to which the harmonious col-
ouring adds wonderful richness and charm.

* The Alcazar (castle) at Seville, an earlier build-
ing than the Alhambra, was probably even more
magnificent, but it has become much dilapidated,

STORY OF THE ART -OF BUIL^qi^NQ. loi

and Its character has been desfrdyed by altera-
tions. Of greater interest, in the present day, is
the Giralda in the same city, a building in the form
of a massive square tower, not unHke a minaret
on a grand scale. Unlike the Moslem builders in
the East, however, the Moors in Spain never built
minarets in connection with their mosque archi-
tecture, and the Giralda appears not to have
been constructed for the purpose of the call to
prayer.

\ Mohammedan architecture flourished in Spain
until the reconquest of the country by the Chris-
tians and the expulsion of the Moors in 1492/
The Moors had obtained a footing also in Sicily,
whence they were driven out at the end of the
eleventh century, leaving behind them buildings
which very strongly influenced the architecture
of the Christian builders who succeeded them in
the island.

Upon the capture of Constantinople by the
Turks in 1^53, the Christian churches there fell
into the hands of the Mohammedans. The
church of Hagia Sophia, the masterpiece of the
Byzantine builders, was at once converted into a
mosque, and, strange to say, served as the model
for the architecture which sprang up to meet the
new religious requirements. This new style cul-
minated, just a century later, in the Suleimaniyeh,
the great mosque built by Soliman the Magnificent
in 1553.

I.02 STORY QF THE ART OF BUILDING.

VI.

ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE,

We must now hark back to Italy, where the
early Christians were left at work upon their
basilicas.

The transference of the seat of government
by Constantine to Byzantium, and the consequent
decay of the Roman empire, checked intelligent
building for a period in Italy. But as Christianity
continued to spread, there was an increasing de-
mand for accommodation on the part of its ad-
herents, and builders were called upon to provide
It, first in this town, then in the other. JVThrough-
out the Dark Ages — from the fifth to the tenth
century — a considerable amount of building was
done, but very little architecture was produced
worthy of the name, except in those cities in
which, as at Ravenna andVenice, it was developed
under Byzantine auspices. Meanwhile, however,
the Church was strengthening her authority and
broadening her influences, and a new style of
architecture slowly developed, ^ with natural
modifications arising out of climatic and other
local conditions — and gradually spread through-
out Western Europe. This new architecture,
based upon the/traditions of Rome and of the
early Christian builders of that city, received the
name of Romauesqiie,

Although "Kome's influence was impressed
upon the Byzantine style of architecture as well
as upon that which we here call Romanesque,
it is desirable to keep one style quite distinct
from the other. The two showed marked differ-

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 105

ences from the beginning ; and when the Churches
of Rome and of Byzantium diverged upon ques-
tions affecting the ritual and the creed, the di-
vergence became still greater in the architecture
of the Eastern and the Western Churches. That
of the Eastern Church — the Orthodox Church,
so-called — has never departed from the Byzantine
models, and the influence of Byzantium has thus
spread throughout Greece, Asia Minor, and Rus-
sia. On the other hand, the Western Church has
always looked to Rome for her earliest inspira-
tions and has drawn upon the mother-city for her.
architecture, though different countries have, nat-
urally, developed their own characteristic fea-
tures.

-i-To deal first with Italy. During the forma-
tive period, which may be said to have ended
with the tenth century, architecture — such as it
was — was almost entirely ecclesiastical. The
basilican churches were the natural outcome of
the situation in Rome, where basilicas were to
hand to serve as models, and where on all sides
classic temples, with their choice columns and
marble wall-l]nings, were available for the Chris-
tian ^espoTTer. But away from Rome other con-
ditions prevailed : materials were necessarily sim-
pler, and greater originality was required on the
part of the architects, in order to invest their
designs with dignity and interest. Bitter experi-
ence also had taught the need of replacing the
low wooden roofs of the basilica by a more endur-
ing form of vaulted construction.
\ In due course, then, it came about that in
Italy three distinct styles of Romanesque archi-
tecture were developed : /the Basilican, or Early
Christian — which, as we have seen, continued to

I04 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

prevail in Rome — the Lombard, and the Tuscan,
or Pisan.

The Lombard style, as the name denotes,
flourished chiefly in the cities of the Lombardy
Plain, in the north of Italy, from Milan on the
west to Bologna on the east. These two cities,
and their neighbours, Piacen^ja, Verona, and
Pavia, all contain good examples of the style in
S. Zeno (Verona), S. Ambrogio (Milan), the ca-
thedral of Piacenza, and others.

The old church of S. Zeno at Verona, of the
twelfth century, shows many characteristic fea-
tures. The facade was simple in composition,
with a fine breadth of flat surface, emphasised at
intervals by a series of arcades filled in with slen-
der columns and arches, or by arcaded corbels
carved under the slopes of the gable. Long,
slender pilasters divided the front into three parts,
thus suggesting the interior nave-and-aisle divi-
sion of the basilica ; in other respects the basilican
form was lost externally, for the vaulted roof was
wholly concealed by a simple low-pitched gable.
A rose-window occupied the space under the cen-
tre of the gable, and beneath this a projecting,
porch marked the doorway. The columns of
the portico rested upon the backs of crouching
lions — familiar features to all who have visited
the old cities of Lombardy. Elaborate, gro-
tesque carving enriched the entrance, and atoned
somewhat for the severe treatment of the upper
portion of the front. -f-The fagades were always
solemn and dignified, and, with their slender col-
umns and lightly projecting arcades, relied upon
the crisp Italian sunlight for relief and for vigor-
ous effects of light and shade ; else they were
inclined to gloominess and severity. Tennyson,

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 1 05

visiting these cities under a dull sky, noted

how —

Stern and sad (so rare the smiles
Of sunlight) look'd the Lombard piles ;
Porch-pillars on the lion resting,
And sombre, old, colonnaded aisles.

\ In connection with many of the churches, as
at S. Zeno, Verona, and the cathedral at Piacenza,
was found a square campanile or bell-tower, sim-
ple in form and always well-proportioned.

^ Internally the plan of the Lombard churches
resembled the old basilicas, with such modifica-
tions as were required by the introduction of the
massive vaulted roots — e.g. the reduction in width
of the nave and the substitution of sturdy piers
for the rows of graceful columns. Sometimes a
crypt and shrine were found beneath the choir,
the floor of the choir being raised a few steps
above the general floor level.

The Tuscan-Romanesque was not unlike the
Lombard, modified by the different social condi-
tions which existed in Florence, Pisa, and the
' neighbouring cities of Tuscany. The finest exam-
ples are found at Pisa, where the Romanesque
buildings in the Piazza — the cathedral (a.d. 1063-
iioo), the baptistery (a.d. 1 153), and the leaning
tower (a.d. 1174) — form one of the most interest-
ing architectural groups inTtaly.

The Tuscan designs are lighter and more ele-
gant than those of the northern cities. Timber
ceilings were adhered to, in connection with the
basilican forms, permitting the use of columns
instead of piers for the interior nave-and-aisle
divisions. The facades were almost entirely cov-
ered with a lavish arrangement of wall-arcades
and galleries, as seen in the Pisan buildings; or

io6

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

they were divided into panels of dark and white
marbles, as at S. Miniato in Florence. The arcad-
ing was highly decorative, the tendency to become
monotonous being in most instances averted by
skilful and varied treatment of the different tiers.
The tower at Pisa forms an exception, for the
constant repetition of bands of arcades, all of
equal height, from the base to the summit, de-
stroys the interest of the building as an archi-

FlG. 33. — Cathedral and leaning tower, Pisa.

tectural design, and almost justifies Mr. Ruskin's
description of it as " the one thoroughly ugly
tower in Italy."

Tuscan-Romanesque was much influenced by
the Byzantine methods of building and of decora-
tion, for Pisa was a port maintaining an extensive
trade with Byzantium. This fact probably ac-
counts for the use of the marble panelling, which
became characteristic of Florentine architecture,
and influenced that of the later Gothic period.

Lucca and Pistoja, neighbours of Florence,
have good examples of the Pisan style; and in

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDINGo 107

many parts of Italy churches were erected to
which the generic term Romanesque may be ap-
plied, in which were blended the methods and
traditions of the Byzantine, the Lombard, and the
Tuscan builders.

In Sicily the rule of the Mohammedans, which
began a.d. 827, and lasted through two centuries,
left its impress upon the island's architecture, so
that we find Arabic influences mingled with those
of Byzantium and of Italy. The beautiful cathe-
dral of Monreale, near Palermo (a.d. 1175), is
built upofPThe plan of a Roman basilica, and
reveals a picturesque mixture of the different
styles. The nave columns have finely carved
capitals of the distinctive Byzantine form with
the dosseret supporting pointed arches. A dado
of white marble lines the lower portion of the
walls, above which they are richly encrusted wath
mosaics representing Biblical stories. The timber
roof is somewhat elaborate, and is richly treated
with colour decoration, after the manner of the
Mohammedan interiors.

During the first ten centuries of the Christian
era architecture made little progress in Europe,
outside of Italy and of the eastern countries which
came more directly under Roman influence. Spain
alone, in the West, had become a flourishing centre
of the art, thanks to the incursion of the Moors.
Throughout this period society in Western Europe
was in a state of chaos; lawlessness was rife, and
progress in architecture or in any of the fine arts
was impossible. The church alone, as an insti-
tution, showed some little vitality, for within its
monastic walls prevailed a peace which was un-
affected by the external turmoil and unrest.

Io8 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Building on an extensive scale was, moreover,
checked by a very wide-spread belief in the theory
of the impending end of the world in the year
looo; but this check was a temporary one, for
the fear of the dread event led many an uneasy
conscience to contribute liberally to the monas-
teries, or to seek refuge in them; the new cen-
tury, therefore, found these institutions wealthy
and powerful as they had never been before. A
period of great activity ensued, and architecture
at once began to make considerable progress in
all directions.

Almost all the new buildings of importance
were ecclesiastical, and the builders naturally
looked to Rome as their centre and their source
of technical help and inspiration. But, to many,
Rome was a far-off country, and the new occa-
sions taught new methods and devices which soon
made the term Romanesque a very comprehensive
title, for under this head may be conveniently
classed all the "round-arched Gothic" which pre-
vailed throughout the west of Europe before the
introduction of the true Gothic, and which in Eng-
land culminated in the " Norman " buildings of
the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

The architecture of each country, governed by

local conditions and traditions, was marked by its

own distinctive features, but showed at the same

time a general similarity of style. Almost all the

'buildings were constructed with the same object,

land it became a question of solving the same

f problem in different ways — the problem, namely,

of combining the vaulted roof construction with

the basilicia^n plan. The heavy *' barrel-vault " of

the p^4f demanded massive walls and piers, and

the use of the semicircular arch required piers or

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. I09

very sturdy columns at frequent intervals. The
resulting style was of necessity somewhat pon-
derous, so that relief was sought in rich carving
and in a multiplicity of recessed spaces; and the
architects did not successfully grapple with the
difficulty until the introduction — m the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries — of ribbed vaulting, which,
with the pointed Gothic arch, revolutionised the
conditions of construction, and gave the builders
a happy and complete solution of their problem.
^vVVhat is called " Gothic " architecture is in reality
^ jiothing more than the logical outcome of the
progressive Romanesque; the transition is a nat-
ural one, just as, in English architecture, is the
transition from the round-arched Norman to the
pointed style of the thirteenth century. The
name ** Gothic " is an unfortunate one, for readers
are apt to regard it as a foreign and distinct style,
breaking in upon, and interrupting the continuity
of, the architecture of the period. It is only by
following the Romanesque architects in their con-
structive difficulties with the round arch that we
are able to appreciate what the Gothic principles
did for their architecture, and the extent to which
they enlarged its scope.

To turn first to France. In the Romanesque
buildings of that country may be traced the re-
sults of various influences. Many of the southern
churches possess marked Byzantine features, the
outcome of a very considerable trade which was
carried on between the ports on the south coast,
Venice, and the east. In the church of S. Front
at Perigueux (a.d. 1047) the plan strikingly re-
sembles that of S. Mark's, Venice: the interior is
roofed over with domes in a similar manner, but
they are constructed externally in stone, instead

no STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

of having false wooden roofs as the domes of S
Mark's. The interior of the building is finished
in stone, with none of the rich interior decoration
of the Venetian church. At Cahors is a domed
cathedral of the same date, undoubtedly copied
from a church in Byzantium. In other parts of
the country the designs were influenced by the
examples of classic Roman buildings, such as
those found at Nimes, Aries, Avignon, etc* In
the churches of Notre Dame at Avignon and
S. Trophime at Aries we find Corinthian capi-
tals, pilasters, enrichments, and other features bor-
rowed directly from the classic models.

Auvergne contains some excellent examples of
Romanesque churches, built of the lava of this

Fig 34. — Plan of Notre Dame du Port.

well-known volcanic district. Let us consider
the church of Notre Dame du Port at Clermont,
an excellent and typical example of the style.
Lava is used in the construction, and some effect
is gained by the use of lavas of different colours.
\Vhe plan of this church shows a long nave covered
by barrel vaulting, with small transepts and an
apsidal end. \Round the apse is carried a series
of small apsidal chapels, yrhese small apses,

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Ill

built round the main apse, form what is called
a chevet^ which became an essential feature in
French cathedral plans. Such a group of small
chapels, ranged round the end of a lofty cathe-
dral, produces a singularly interesting and digni-
fied interior effect. The feature was introduced
by the Romanesque builders, and probably origi-
nated in the Auvergne district, where it is found
in the Romanesque churches at Issoire, Le Puy,
Clermont, and elsewhere. The Gothic architects
retained the chevet^ so that it figures in the
plans of most of the great French cathedrals of
that period.

\ The chief constructional difficulty with which
the Romanesque builders had to contend was
the method of support for
the massive barrel-vaulted
roofs which covered the
naves. The old Romans,
as we saw, escaped the
trouble of side-thrusts and
strains by building up
their vaulted roofs and
domes in solid concrete,
so that the mass rested
securely upon the walls
without any lateral thrust,
just as a lid rests upon a
box. \But stone vaulting exerted a lateral thrust,
which required to be counteracted by means of
heavy abutments, or buttresses. The illustra-
tion shows an outline section of Notre Dame du
Port, which indicates the method of buttressing
adopted. VsHere the thrust of the great barrel
vault over the nave wQuld tend to push apart the
walls upon which it rests. Sf his thrust is coun-

FiG. 35. — Section through
Notre Dame du Pon.

112 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

teracted by the use of half-barrel vaults over the
aisles, A glance at the section will show that
such an arrangement made it impossible to light
the upper part by means of clerestory windows ;
the nave vault was therefore dependent upon
brilliant weather to relieve it from a state of
gloom. In some examples, as at Autun (a.d.
1 150) clerestory windows were introduced, the
nave vault being raised sufficiently high for the
purpose above the roofs of the side aisles ; but
the constructive methods were not equal to the
task, for in almost all cases the vaults gave way
and required to be reconstructed, \rowards the
end of the twelfth century the use of flying but-
tresses to resist the lateral thrusts made it possi-
ble to combine clerestory windows with barrel

Vvaults; but the difficulty was not satisfactorily
surmounted until the introduction of groined

/Vaults in the thirteenth century.
x^^ We cannot take leave of the Romanesque
buildings of France without ouching upon the
works of the great Norman dukes — so intimate-
ly connected with the architecture of Great
Britain.

The best-known example among the abbey
churches of Normandy, and one of the noblest
buildings of the time, was the Abbaye aux-
Hommes, or S. Etienne, at Caen, begun in 1066
by William of Normandy — better known to us
as William the Conqueror — in commemoration of
his victory at Hastings. The church is lofty in
its proportions, with nave, aisles, and transept.
Its east end was originally in the form of a simple
apse, but this has been superseded by the chevet\
the west front is finely proportioned and is flanked
by two towers, between which the nave rests.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 113

The spires which crown the towers are later ad-
ditions. The nave and aisles are vaulted, and
a clerestory is obtained by a series of flying
buttresses. The system of vaulting is of interest
as illustrating the stage which preceded the in-
troduction of the pointed arch, and the conse-
quent solution of the constructive difficulties
which were constantly baffling the builders of
this period.

Another Norman church of note is the Abbaye-
aux-Dames, or S. Trinite, at Caen (1083). The
fine church of Mont S. Michel has undergone
many alterations in later times, and, like many
cathedral and other churches in Normandy and
Brittany (and in England), has lost much of its
original character.

Germany. — Romanesque architecture in Ger-
many followed somewhat closely on the lines of
that of North Italy, as might be expected, for
there was constant; communication between the
two countries, and'^ a large. German population
in Milan. Indeed, the Lombard-Romanesque of
North Italy may be said to have emanated from
Germany.

Of the earlier buildings the cathedral at Aix-
la-Chapelle, built by Charlemagne (about 800)
is interesting, architecturally as an imitation of
S. Vitale at Ravenna, and historically as the crown-
ing place of the Western emperors. It is a po-
lygonal building of sixteen sides, surmounted by
an octagonal dome.

Before the thirteenth century the art of build-
ing did not make great progress in any parts of
Germany other than Saxony and the Rhenish
provinces; in the districts of the Rhine, however,
8

114

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Romanesque architecture may be said to have
developed more fully than in any other country
in Europe. The exterior of the Rhenish church-
es was characterised by picturesque grouping of
octagonal turrets, the introduction of arcaded re-
cesses to decorate the lower portions of the wall-

FiG. 36. — Church of the Apostles, Cologne.

space, and of open arcaded galleries under the
gable-ends and the cornices of the apses and tur-
rets. The Church of the Apostles at Cologne
(i 160-1200) is a successful example of this treat-
ment. The view in the illustration shows the
arrangement of the eastern portion with three
apses opening off the central space of the choir

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

115

— an arrangement productive of dignified and
noble effect both externally and internally. The
plan of the building shows a tri-apsidal end and
a broad nave, flanked on either side by aisles of
half its width. The transepts are at the west
end, and the crossing is covered with a Byzantine
dome carried on penden-
tives; the nave has been
vaulted at a later period.
S. Maria in Capitolio and S.
Martin (1150), both in Co-
logne, show similar char-
acteristic features, and r?.^ ^, ,,., , ,

1 -.u ^u r^u u r FiG. 37.— Plan of Church of

make, with the Church of the Apostles,

the Apostles, one of the

most interesting groups of churches which the
Romanesque period produced. Other good Ger-
man examples are the cathedrals of Mayence
(tenth and eleventh centuries). Spires, and Worms
(both of the eleventh century), each of which has
a vaulted nave of the twelfth century.

Spain. — Comparatively little Romanesque
work is to be found in Spain, for throughout this
period a great part of the country was under
the dominion of the Moors. The capture of To-
ledo in 1062 paved the way for a series of suc-
cesses of the Christians ; but it was not until 1492
that the Moorish rule was entirely destroyed by
the fall of Granada. Such churches as were built
appear to have been constructed on the lines of
the French churches of Auvergne.

The church of S. lago at Compostella (1080)
is a good example, with nave and transepts, choir
and chevet. In most instances, however, a depar-
ture was made from French tradition by the erec-
tion of a dome on pendentives over the crossing

Ii6 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

of the nave and transepts, as in the old cathedral
at Salamanca (twelfth century). It is strange
that no details of the Romanesque churches of
Spain show traces of influence of the Moorish ar-
chitecture which abounded on every side, though
this may be accounted for by the fact that the
Christians heartily hated the Mohammedans and
everything that belonged to them.

England. — The inhabitants of Great Britain
appear to have troubled themselves little about
architecture before the Norman conquest. Prior
to this period numerous churches were erected by
the Saxons and the Celts, but the remains are
sufficient only to prove that these early builders —
of the '' primitive Romanesque " period — were
endowed with little technical skill. The tower of
Earl's Barton, in Northants, and the little church
at Bradford-on-Avon are perhaps the best exist-
ing examples of the work of the Saxons. I'he
rare occurrence of Saxon remains at the present
time is probably due to the fact that, with the
advent of the Normans, the ruder primitive build-
ings were destroyed to make way for the new
style which swept so rapidly over the country.
Possibly, too, the generous use of wood in the.
construction led to decay. Timber was much in
vogue among the earlier Saxons, and its use
appears to have influenced the details of their
later stone work. Their triangular-headed win-
dow openings and *' turned baluster" window
muUions are certainly suggestive of timber con-
struction.

Before the landing of William the Norman,
the influence of the Normans was beginning to
make itself felt, for — England's insular posi-

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 117

tion notwithstanding— it was impossible that the
country should be unaffected by the art which
was making such gigantic strides within a few
miles of its seaboard. The Norman conquest
(1066), and the sub-
sequent occupation
of the country by
the barons and ec-
clesiastics of Nor-
mandy, effected a
rapid social revolu-
tion, and speedily
transformed the po-
litical organizations
of the island. As
an immediate result
of the change there
set in,^a period of
extraordinary activ-
ity in the building of churches, abbeys,. and cas-
tles, by means of which the invaders were ena-
bled to establish themselves more securely upon
the lands plundered from the con(|uered Saxons.
Many churches were founded by the Norman him-
self, while his followers vied one with another in
their efforts to surpass all that had been seen on
the other side of the Channel.

The Romanesque, or — to use a more familiar
term — the Norman period, during which the ar-
chitecture imported by the invaders prevailed in
England, lasted for a little more than a century
— i.e. from the conquest until the accession of
Richard I. in 1189. Between these dates building
operations were carried on throughout England
with almost incredible activity. Not only in many
great English cathedrals do we find extensive re-

FiG. 38.-

-Saxon window, Earl's
Barton.

Il8 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

mains of Norman work, but in a vast number of
churches in every part of the country fragments
and details are found, pointing to the fact that a
complete Norman structure once occupied the
site, from which almost every trace of the original
work has disappeared. It has been computed
that no less than 7,000 churches were built within
a century after the conquest.

The Romanesque, or " Norman," cathedral of
England is marked by features similar to those
which characterise the Romanesque buildings of
Normandy. Its general appearance is sturdy, with
solid walls, cushion-shaped capitals,

Massive arches, broad and round

On ponderous columns, short and low.

Compared with its Continental prototype, the
typical Norman cathedral, such as that of Dur-
ham or Peterborough, is longer in proportion to
its width, the length being especially marked in
the choir. A square east end takes the place of
the apse or chevet of French cathedrals, and the
transepts are rhore important. A great central
tower, carried over the crossing of the nave and
transepts, is also characteristic of the English
plan.

Internally there was generally the intention —
suggested by the massive piers and columns — to
vault over the aisles and the nave. The vaulted
roofs, however, through lack of funds or other
considerations, were seldom completed. Flat,
low-pitched roofs and wooden ceilings were sub-
stituted ; and as these were light and easily sup-
ported, the builders were able to insert large
clerestory windows, and to secure light and lofty

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 119

effect at little cost. The wooden roofs, however,
were liable to injury from fire, and, in many in-
stances, were burned or destroyed, so that in
several cathedrals, as at Gloucester, Durham, and
Exeter, they were replaced at a later date by stone
vaulting.

The details of the Norman churches in Eng-
land, with few exceptions, are extremely simple.
The piers were often perfectly plain and round, as
at Gloucester; sometimes clustered, as at Peter-
borough ; or, as at Durham, clustered and round
piers were used alternately. Doorways were sim-
ple in outline, circular-headed, and with little of the
added ornamentation which appeared in the gables
of the later Gothic entrances ; richly carved capi-
tals decorated the clustered columns of the open-
ing, and a profusion of carving covered the arch-
mouldings. The design showed little variety;
the zig-zag ornamentation, easily shaped with
the axe, occurred with endless repetition, varied
occasionally by the well-known ** birds'-beak "
moulding, familiar to the most casual observer
of Norman work. Window openings were treated
more simply than doorways, but were sometimes
enriched with the zig-zag, as at Iffley Church,
near Oxford. The cushion shaped capitals, sug-
gestive of the sturdy echinus of the Greek Doric
column, were usually left quite plain, though the
Norman mason took pleasure in carving quaint
devices or grotesque faces upon the caps, or
upon the projecting stones of the external corbel
courses, after the buildings had been completed.
In the staircase at Canterbury Cathedral, shown
in the frontispiece, we have a good illustration of
the Norman's method of treating the arched
openings.

I20 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Portions of many of the old Norman structures
have been rebuilt at a later date. The following
list includes the principal monuments of the period
in England. Less important, though not less inter-
esting, are the examples found among the parish
churches throughout the country:

Canterbury Cathedral . Crypt.

Carlisle Cathedral . . Nave.

Ely Cathedral . . . Nave.

Winchester Cathedral . Transepts.

Waltham Abbey . . Choir.

Durham Cathedral . . Galilee Porch, Nave, and

Chapter-house.

Peterborough Cathedral . Nave.

Rochester Cathedral . . Nave.

Norwich Cathedral . . Nave.

Hereford Cathedral . . Nave.

Christ Church, Oxford . Nave and Transepts.

Gloucester .... Nave.

Tower of London . . White Chapel.
S. Alban's Abbey.
Church of S. Bartholomew the Great, London.

VII.

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE,

The Romanesque architects on the Continent,
as we have seen, had made great progress in the
art of building by the middle of the twelfth cen-
tury, and had mastered most of the problems
which had puzzled their predecessors, so that
their architecture throughout Europe — especially
in the north and west, had regained much of its

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 121

tost dignity. But they had not yet arrived at a
successful method of roof treatment. The wooden
roof was unsatisfactory, and led to destruction by
fire of many a substantial building; while the
alternative to this, the barrel-vaulting, which had
been used in the buildings of the old Romans, was
too ponderous. True, the " lids " of solid con-
crete with which the Romans covered their vast
buildings exerted, no lateral pressure upon the
walls, but their enormous weight required equally
massive walls to carry them. When masonry
took the place of concrete, the vaults were still
more difficult to support, for the arched form of
the heavy vault tended to force the walls apart —
exerted a lateral thrust, as we say — so that it was
necessary, not only to make the walls massive and
strong, but also to reduce the span, or width of
the vaulted spaces.

1-^ It was in their efforts to find a solution to
these difficulties that the builders hit upon a new
principle which brought about nothnig less than a
revolution in the art of building — the principle of
ribbed vaultings which, in fact, formed the struc-
tural basis of the style of architecture known as
'' Gothic."

J. The term Gothic is as unfortunate as it is
inapt. Gothic architecture is the natural outcome
of Romanesque, though the term seems to sug-
gest a break in the progressive character of the
art, and has doubtless proved a stumbling-block
to many students, by leading them to regard the
styles as distinct from, and possibly opposed to,
one another. '' Gothic " was merely a contemp-
tuous term applied to the style by the classical
enthusiasts of the seventeenth century, who
looked upon a Goth as a typical barbarian, and

122 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

who regarded anything non-classical as bar-
barous; but the name has stuck, as bad names
have a habit of doing, and is still in general use
to denote the pointed style which developed in
the twelfth and flourished in the succeeding cen-
turies. The pointed arch, it should be noted, was
in reality incidental to the development of Gothic,
though it is usual to consider it the characteristic
feature of the style.

"In ribbed vaulting, a skeleton vault is formed
of ribs carried transversely and diagonally across
the nave, so as to form a strong open framework,
and to concentrate the weight and pressure of the
roof upon the isolated points of support from
which the ribs spring, the spaces between the ribs
being then filled in with lighter masonry. The
advantages of this form of construction are read-
ily seen : the roof became lighter, and could span
larger areas; and, as the pressure was concen-
trated upon certain pomts, it was necessary only
to strengthen the wall at these points, instead of
making it thick and massive throughout. But-
tresses were introduced for this purpose; and as
the wall between the buttresses, relieved from the
pressure of the roof, became now of secondary
importance — for it was merely a screen to keep
out the weather — it could be constructed of light
materials, or opened up in the form of windows.
With this innovation, then — the application of the
principles of amccntration of s/rains and of balanced
thrusts — the Early Gothic builders took up the
constructive pr6blems just where the Romanesque
builders were being baffled by them, and soon
added fresh dignity and grandeur to their work.

Let us see to what extent these new princi-
ples affected design and construction. The illus-

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 123

tratioii shows the plan of a highly developed
Gothic building of simple form, Sainte Chapelle
in Paris, built by Louis IX. (1243-1247). The
upper chapel here is an unbroken room, 100 feet
in length, ^^ feet wide, and 60 feet in height,
roofed over with a series of groined vaults spring-
ing from slender columns. The thrust of the
columns is taken by buttresses — very sturdy, as
we see in the plan — and carried up the entire
height of the exterior walls. Now note that the
massive walls, which would have been necessary
to support such a superstructure in Romanesque

Fig. 39. — Plan of Sainte Chapelle.

work, have disappeared. The wall lengths be-
tween each vault have, so to speak; been turned
round upon their axes, and placed at right angles
to their original direction, so as to form a series
of buttresses, with abutment sufficient to with-
stand the thrust of the groined roof-vaulting.
These wall spaces between the buttresses are no
longer required for constructive purposes, and
can therefore be filled with large windows, des-
tined soon, as a natural further development, to
become rich with the glories of stained glass.
Jr-dn a design such as Sainte Chapelle, a Gothic
church without aisles, the problem of dealing with
the thrusts is presented in its simpler form, as the
walls which take the thrusts are external walls.

124

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

But when aisles are introduced at the side of the
nave, a fresh difficulty arises. The buttresses
cannot now be carried vertically down, for they
would block up the aisles with their mass. To
permit of their-being ranged along the ^external
face of the aisle-walls, a new feature is brought
into play — the flying buttress, which bridges over

the intervening
space, and supplies
at once the neces-
sary counter-thrust
to the roof-vaulting
of the nave, ^^the
nave piefs and the
walls over th-exfTare
now relie^rcd, by
the buttress£Sj_jDf
the more "se^rious
part of the+r''t)ur-
den, and have to
perform only — the
simple task^oX^ car-
rying the' y^eftrcal
weight, the builders are enabled to makej^elh
not only lofty, but slighter anymore graceful.

\ The flying buttress, fhen^soon became a char-
acteristic feature of Gothic building. True, its
necessary presence hampered the exterior design
in some respects, but its decorative possibilities
were speedily recognised and seized upon. So
ornate and ornamental did it become that in
many French cathedrals it has the appearance of
being a purely decorative feature, placed in its
position for no other reason than to delight the
eye and to endow the design with grace, and with
that suggestion of aspiration — rather than re-

FiG. 40.T»r-Romanesque contrasted
with Gothic.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 125

pose — which is inseparably connected with true
Gothic:

The Grecian gluts me with its perfectness,
Unanswerable as Euclid — self-contained ;

But, ah ! this other, this that never ends,
Still dflimbing, luring fancy still to climb,
Imagination's very self in stone.

While the buttress enabled the builder to intro-
duce height into his design as one of the chief
elements of effect, the pointed arch solved the
difficulty of bridging over varying widths at any
required heights The Go t h i c"''archi tecFcotncTth u s
give'^lay^ to his fancy antt^-rrrrargirration, little
troubled by problems of construction, and unfet-
tered by considerations of precedent.
J, The Gothic cathedfaT has been styled "a roof
of stone with walls of glass," and not inaptly;
for the walls no longer required to be of massive
construction to carry the weight, became little
more than screens, either of masonry or of glass,
filling in the spaces between the buttresses, to
keep out the weather and to give effect to the
design ; and no treatment of these spaces could
secure so glorious a result as did the introduction
of great traceried windows filled with richly
coloured glass. So beautiful was the painted
glass of the period that it at once made its in-
fluence felt upon the architecture: the windows
were increased in size, and the walls, as far as
possible, were illuminated. " Far more impor-
tant," remarks Fergusson, ^' than the introduction
of the pointed arch was the invention of painted
glass, which is really the important formative
principle of Gothic architecture ; so much so,
that there would be more meaning in the name

126 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

if it were called the 'painted glass style' instead
of the pointed-arch style. . . . We must bear in
mind that all windows in all churches erected
after the middle of the twelfth century were filled,
or were intended to be filled, with painted glass,
and that the principal and guiding motive in all
the changes subsequently introduced into the
architecture of the age was to obtain the greatest
possible space and the best localities for its
display."

-}■ The extensive use of glass soon led to a great
development of another feature — window tracery.
The nature of the glass required that the window
areas which it filled should be divided up into
a number of smaller spaces. Thus, although
perhaps no feature of Gothic design appears
more purely ornamental than the elaborate tracery
of the windows, it has, like almost all decorative
parts, a constructional raison d'etre, forming, in
fact, part of the skeleton of the Gothic frame.
The attention given by designers to tracery led
it, by gradual stages, from simple beginnings to a
period of florid elaboration, so that by this fea-
ture, more readily than by any other, it is possible
to trace the various periods in the history of
Gothic architecture.

France. — Gothic architecture in France, the
country of its birth, may be divided into three
periods, of which the approximate dates are:

Early Period (cij\ 1 160-1270).

Middle Period \cir. 1270-1370).

Florid or Flamboyant Period (cir. 1370-1550).

The second half of the twelfth century was a
period of extraordinary activity with the French
cathedral builders. The Church at this time was

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 127

a strong and popular institution. Many of its
cathedrals, built by the careful but unscientific •
Romanesque builders, were collapsing under the
weights of their ponderous vaults, and were in
urgent need of renovation. In other parts new
structures were required, and with such energy
did the bishops, backed up by the people, set to
work, that, at the end of the twelfth century, as
many as sixteen cathedrals were being built or
entirely reconstructed, among them — to give only
the more familiar names — being those of Bayonne,
Lisieux, Laon, Tours, Poitiers, Troyes, Chartres,
Bourges, and Notre Dame at Paris.

uThe buildings of this date were marked by
simplicity of treatment of the groined vaulting,
of the arrangement of parts, and of the detail:
the carving was simple and vigorous, the windows
long and narrow, and frequently grouped in
pairs beneath a pointed arch, the head pierced
with a circular light, as in our plate-tracery. The
interior division into bays was marked on the
exterior by a uniform series of pinnacled flying
buttresses. A steep wooden roof, covered with
lead or tiles, completed the structure, protecting
and allowing space inside for the lofty stone
vaulting.

Notre Dame at Paris (i 163-12 14), one of the
earliest, shows a perfectly symmetricaP plan with
semicircular east end, richly sculptured triple
western portals,Vose-windows in the chief gables,
and most of the characteristic features of the
French cathedral of the thirteenth century.

Later in date than Notre Dame was the grace-
ful cathedral of Chartres (i i94-i23o)^he richly
decorated northern spire^of which, added in the
sixteenth century, contrasts in an instructive

128 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

manner with the simple and beautiful lines of its
southern companion. The magnificent windows —

Pride of France,
Each the bright gift of some mechanic guild,
Who loved their city, and thought gold well spent
To make her beautiful with piety —

are filled with a glorious setting of stained glass,
a lasting memorial of the interest and enthusiasm
which all classes displayed in the building of
their temple.

In the beautiful cathedral of Amiens (1220-
1288), pure Gothic found its highest expression;
" in dignity inferior to Chartres, in sublimity to
Beauvais, in decorative splendor to Rheims, and
in loveliness of figure-sculpture to Bourges. It
has nothing like the artful pointing and moulding
of the arcades of Salisbury — nothing of the might
of Durham. And yet, in all, and more than
these, ways, outshone or overpowered, the cathe-
dral of\Amiens deserves the name given to it
by M. VioUet le Due — 'the Parthenon of Gothic
Architecture.* "^

As the type of French Gothic, the cathedral of
Amiens is contrasted later with that of Salisbury

(P- 139)-

"^ Almost invariably the French cathedral plan
showed a semicircular or apsidal arrangement of
th-e east end. At Laon and Poitiers we find the
square end, so general in England; but in the
typical plan the east end had a series of radiating
chapels, forming a chevet — an arrangement already
noticed in the Romanesque church of Notre Dame

* Ruskin, " The Bible of Amiens.'*

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 1 29

at Clermont, and seen in the illustration of Amiens
Cathedral.

The transepts were not so fully developed as
in England : Bourges has none, and Notre Dame
at Paris has only rudimentary ones. ^ The main
(west) front usually contained a triple portal,

Fig. 41. — Plan of Amiens Cathedral.

and over this ran a frieze of niches filled with
royal statues. The superb porches, with elabo-
rately sculptured, deeply recessed archways, en-
riched with '' dedicated shapes of saints and
kings," are specially characteristic of French de-
sign, and form the richest feature of the exterior.
rn many examples they project a considerable
distance in front of the main wall and are roofed
with massive gables. Magnificent examples are
found at Bourges, Chartres, Amiens, and, perhaps
finest of all, at Rheims; witness the old couplet —

Clocher de Chartres, nefd' Amiens,
Choeur de Beauvais, portail de Rheims —

which puts before us the popular idea of the four
grandest features to be found among the Gothic
cathedrals of France.
v^The French buildings are generally on a vaster
and more imposing scale than the English cathe-
9

130 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

drals. '^ There is no Gothic design in England
comparable in these respects with the giants at
Siieims, Paris, BmH:ges, Amiens, or Chartres, all of
which were in course of erection in the early half
of the thirteenth century. In respect of length
the cathedrals of France did not differ greatly
from the English examples, for the longest
(Amiens, 520 feet) is exceeded by the cathedrals
at Winchester and Ely ; but they surpassed the
English in width and area, and especially in bold-
ness and loftiness of the vaulting.

To the First Period belong several monastic
buildings, amongst others the picturesque Mont
S. Michel, portions of which, however, have been
rebuilt later.

Of the buildings of the Second Period the most
noteworthy is the unfinished cathedral of Beauvais.
The foundation dates from 1225, but the greater
portion of the design of this — the loftiest and
slenderest of all French cathedrals — w^as not car-
ried out until the second half of the thirteenth
century. In this design the builders carried the
Gothic principles to the extreme limit of daring,
and in a few years the slender supports collapsed,
and the building required to be almost entirely
reconstructed. As it now stands, the height from
the pavement to the top of the vaulting is; not
less than 160 feet ! Similar measurements at Ely,
a long cathedral of the English type, give less
than 75 feet.

-^ Few cathedrals of the Middle Period were com-
pleted, except after long delays, for the enthu-
siasm had waned. In S. Ouen at Rouen, built
between 1320-1350, we have a fine example, with
additions of a later date. Limoges (1272) was
begun on an extensive scale, but is still incom-

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 13 1

plete ; Toulouse, begun in the same year, was not
completed until the sixteenth century; Narbonne
is still unfinished. Yet there was no inconsider-
able amount of building carried on, and many
additions were made to the earlier designs which
have greatly enhanced their beauty and interest.
The great rose-windows, as at Rouen, are fea-
tures of this period.

Profusion of rich detail and florid elaboration of
tracery curves marked the Third, or Flamboyant,
Period. Such work is seen in the church of S.
Maclou at Rouen; finer still in the rich fagade
which was added to the older cathedral of Rouen
at the beginning of the sixteenth century. \ In
each of these examples may be noticed the striking
development of elaborate tracery; the gables over
the porches are an open network of stone, sug-
gestive of windows without glass. Notable ex-
amples of the flamboyant work are the fagades of
Troyes and of Rheims, the church of S. Jacques
at Dieppe, and the Hotel de Ville at Rouen, of
the same date as the cathedral front (1500). The
florid architecture of the sixteenth century cul-
minated in such fantastic work as the sepulchral
church of Brou, in which almost all dignity of
composition is frittered away in a dazzling pro-
fusion of lacelike carving, marvellous master-
pieces of the craftsmen's art —

Flemish carvers, Lombard gilders,
German masons, smiths from Spain —

but a decadent form of architecture.

\ The Gothic spirit in France was not confined
to ecclesiastical buildings, but pervaded every
branch of secular and domestic architecture.
Many a French town, as Troyes, Provins, or

•

132 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Bourges, retains fine specimens of the later Gothic
house: witness the picturesque house of Jacques
Coeur at Bourges (1443)'. 'The more important
buildings were of stone; but in shop-fronts and
designs on a smaller scalfe the half-timbered fagade,
with its overhanging, steep-pitched gables and fully
moulded beams and brackets, was more frequently
seen. With later domestic buildings details be-
come less distinctly Gothic, but the high gables
and steep roofs and other Gothic traditions sur-
vived, and, as we shall see, strongly influenced the
designs of the French Renaissance builders of the
sixteenth and later centuries.

Great Britain. — Gothic architecture in Great
Britain is usually divided into three periods — Early
English, Decorated, and Perpendicular — the dura-
tion of which coincided fairly accurately with the
thixt43enth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries re-
spectively. We shall, therefore, not be greatly at
fault in regarding Early English Gothic as the typi-
cal styleof the thirteenth century. Decorated of the
fourteenth, and Perpendicular of the fifteenth and
later centuries. Needless to say, the periods over-
lapped one another to some extent, and the style
did not suddenly change with the advent of each
new century. The course of architecture through-
out the periods was uninterrupted, as we shall see
by noting the leading characteristics of each : —

Early English^ or Thirteenth Century. — Long,
narrow, lancet-headed windows; angle-buttresses
set squarely ; deeply undercut mouldings to the
arches; slender, detached columns to doors and
windows; circular capitals, with crisp, bulbous
foliage; 'clustered piers; little ornament, except
the dog-tooth.

?TORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 133

^Decorated, or Fourteenth Century. — Greater rich-
ness of detail; buttresses enriched with crockets,
niches, etc., and often set obliquely at the angles;
windows wider and more important, and divided
by mullions, the upper part filled in with geo-
metrical or (later) elaborate flowing tracery ;
mouldings shallower and less numerous; carved
foliage in the capitals less crisp, with natural forms
of oak leaves, etc. ; finely carved figures and boss-
es; ball- flower oxx).2iVi\^wX..

^PerpeJidicular^ or Fifteenth Century and Later. —
vLarger windows with numerous mullions, and with
vertical tracery carried through to the top of the
arch, often intersected by horizontal transomes;
almost all wall surfaces panelled, in imitation of
the window treatment ; doorways frequently fin-
ished with a square label over the arch ; weak,
shallow mouldings ; octagonal piers ; arches, at
the later period, flattened at the apex, and struck
from four centres ;\open timber roofs of elabo-
rate construction, with carved figures of angels;
more elaborate vaulting ; richly ornamented para-
pets with battlements ; Tudor-rose ornament.
-^'There was no Gothic cathedral-building era
in England to compare with the early part of the
thirteenth century in France. We have seen that
the period following the Norman Conquest had
been a very active one, and had covered the
island with such ecclesiastical buildings as were
unrivalled even in France at that time. These
grand structures were sufficient for the people's
immediate wants. But as the Gothic tide began
to make its presence felt, the new features were
gradually introduced into new work which was in
progress, and, after a period of transition, began
to supplant the sturdy Norman details and the

134 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

round arch ; though there was no wholesale pull-
ing down and rebuilding of cathedral churches,
such as was witnessed in France. Thus it comes
about that the cathedrals of England are less
homogeneous than those of France, for, with one
or two exceptions, they represent a mixture of
styles, and are in reality Norman structures which
have been remodelled and enlarged by the Gothic
builders.

\This fact tended to emphasise a characteristic
peculiarity of the English cathedral plan — its re-
markable length in proportion to its breadth. The
Anglo-Norman builders, probably for constructive
reasons, showed a preference for narrow naves;
and as it would have been impossible to widen
the naves without pulling down the buildings, the
subsequent Gothic additions were all in the direc-
tion of emphasising the length rather than the
width, so that in several of the English plans we
find the proportions of length to breadth as great
as 7 to I. \At Salisbury, an entirely Gothic build-
ing, the dimensions are 450 feet and 78 feet re-
spectively— almost 6 to i. The long, narrow
naves of the English cathedrals are ill-adapted
for a service, or for enabling a congregation to
see what was taking place at the altar; but there
were compensations, for, as Fergusson points out,
"in pictorial effect they surpass everything erect-
ed on the Continent, unless with greatly increased
dimensions of height or width. Whether, there-
fore, it were hit upon by accident or design, its
beauty was immediately appreciated, and formed
the governing principle in the design of all the
English cathedrals. It was a discovery which
has added more to the sublimity of effect which
characterises most of our cathedrals than any

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 135

Other principle introduced during the Middle
Ages."

vThe earliest traces of Gothic in England are
found in Norman buildings which were in course
of erection during the middle of the twelfth cen-
tury. Pointed arches were introduced at Malms-
bury Abbey (i 130) and at Kirkstall Abbey (1160),
and almost equally early examples of ribbed
vaulting are found at Furness Abbey, Worcester
Cathedral, and elsewhere. The ideas were no
doubt imported from France, but they developed
in a different manner, and probably owed much
of their development to English architects. \It is
to Canterbury, however, that we must look for
the first application of Gothic on a complete and
extensive scale.

Canterbury at this early date had already seen
much history. The cathedral had been rebuilt in
the tenth century by Odo, but the archbishop
appointed by William the Norman, Lanfranc,
destroyed the whole of the old building, and
rebuilt it on a larger scale in 1070. \But, like the
old Roman emperors, the abbot-builders of those
days had little respect for their predecessors' work,
and within twenty years it was again pulled down,
and rebuilt by Ernulph. His successor, Conrad,
built it on a more extensive scale, including in
his design the '* glorious choir of Conrad," the
finest work that had been executed in England
at that date (mo). When this choir was again
destroyed — by fire in 11 74 — the monks commis-
sioned a Frenchman, William of Sens, to superin-
tend the work of restoration. \The new choir,
designed by him, affords the earliest example of
the Gothic style carried out in an important Eng-
lish building and in a complete manner. Four

136

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

years after the work had been put in hand, Wil-
liam of Sens was killed by a fall from a scaffold,
and his place was taken by an English architect,
who carried out his predecessor's design with
little variation. The new choir, thus completed
(1175-1184), bears some resemblance to the
cathedral of Sens, and is distinctly French in its
plan and details, with an apsidal arrangement of
the east end, and a stone vaulted roof.

The difference between the new and the old
work — the Gothic of 11 75 and the Norman of
mo — is very marked, and may be studied at the

point in the area-
ding where the
new abuts against
the old. The il-
lustration shows
the plain, cush-
ion shaped Nor-
man capital at
this point, sup-
porting on the one
side the sturdy
roundarchwithits
roughly axed zig-
zag, on the other
the Gothic work
with its chiselled
mouldings and
carved ornament.
The great progress which the art of building-
had made between these dates is emphasised by
Gervase, a contemporary writer, who ,was an eye-
witness of the progress of the work. *^ The pillars
of the old and new work," he says, '* were alike in
form; but in the old capitals the work was plain,

Fig. 42. — Part of arcade, Canterbury.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

137

in the new ones exquisite in sculpture. There the
arches and everything else was plain, or sculptured
with an axe and not with a chisel ; but here, almost

throughout is appropriate sculpture. No marble
columns were there, but here are innumerable
ones. There, there was a ceiling of wood, deco-

138 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

rated with excellent painting ; but here is a vault,
beautifully constructed of stone and light tufa."
And all this, he wisely remarks, will be better un-
derstood by inspection than by any description.

When Gothic had once been used throughout
a design of such importance, it soon became gen-
erally adopted. In 1185 Hugh of Burgundy was

Fig. 44.— Plan of Salisbury Cathedral.

appointed Bishop of Lincoln, and at once set to
work on his cathedral, the east end of which —
S. Hugh's choir — he rebuilt in pure Gothic style.
But in various parts of the country the Norman
round arch continued in use, in conjunction with
the pointed arch, until the beginning of the thir-
teenth century, from which period the commence-
ment of the sway of Gothic in England may be
said to date.

Within the early years of the century many
cathedrals were enlarged in the style, and the
period gave England, among others, such works
as the magnificent west porch of Ely, the presby-
tery of Wmchester, the choir of Rochester, Foun-
tains Abbey, and the choir of the Temple Church,
London. \But for the typical church of this date
we look to Salisbury (i 220-1 258), an entirely

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 139

new foundation, which was designed and built
throughout in the Early English, or thirteenth
century, style. A comparison of this with the
plan of a typical French cathedral of the same
date — Amiens (1220-1275) (p. 129) — brings into
relief the points of divergence between the Eng-
lish and the Frencjii. models : — ^ l^-y^O

«>i^J?^i>

Salisbury

Proportion of length to Proportion of length to

breadth, about 3 to i. breadth, about 6 to i.

Semicircular east end with Square east end.
chevet.

Transepts unimportant, with Double transepts, with deep

very slight projection. projection.

Imposing and richly decorated West porch small, almost

triple west porch. mean.

Lofty vaulting (140 feet in Low vaulting (84 feet), with

height), requiring an elabo- simple exterior treatment,
rate system of flying but-
tresses for support.

Circular rose-window in the Lancet-headed windows, with

west front, and elaborate little tracery,
tracery.

The central tower, rising above the crossing of
the nave and transepts, was a leading feature in
the English cathedral design, as at Salisbury,
where the spire rises to the height of 424 feet,
and dominates the whole design. Such an effect
was impossible in the French building, for the
lofty vaulting and the high-pitched roof gave
such height to the structure that any attempt at
a dominating feature was rendered futile by rea-
son of the immense mass of the building. The
central spire of Amiens appears insignificant, yet
in height it is almost equal to that of Salisbury,
the loftiest of our spires; while the north and
south towers, more than 200 feet high, which

140

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

would add dignity to an English cathedral, do
not rise above the ridge of the roof. The lofty
French cathedral, in fact, was designed to be seen
from the inside^ as Ruskin, in his eulogy of French
Gothic, and of Amiens cathedral in particular,
admitted: ^' The outside of a French cathedral,

Fig. 45. — Durham Cathedral.

except for its sculpture, is always to be thought
of as the wrong side of the stuff, in which you
find how the threads go that produce the inside
or right-side pattern." In England the designs
are less ambitious, but there is no *' wrong side"
to them; and there is something as essentially

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 14I

English about the mighty pile of Durham, with
its three dominating towers, \as there is about
Wells with its charm and quiet dignity, or Salis-
bury and its close of —

Red brick and ashlar long and low,
With dormers and with oriels lit.

We must not overlook one fact, however, which
further helps to explain the emphatic differences
between the French and the English Gothic ex-
teriors, '['he French building was essentially a
cathedral church, the seat of the bishop, who rep-
resented the active religious life of the commu-
nity: it was desirable that his seat, his cathedral
church, should be placed in the midst of the busy
life of the city, just as would be the case with an
important civic building. The English building,
on the other hand, was in many cases not prima-
rily a cathedral, but an abbey church, attached to
a monastery. The monks, to whom the abbey
owed its foundation, sought for their habitation
a secluded spot, rather than the busy city, so that
they might meditate undisturbed in their cloisters,
pray in their church, fish perhaps in their stream.
As years went on, the old order changed; but the
cathedrals of England, in many of their features,
have always retained the impress of these earlier
days.

xThe abbey of Westminster (i 245-1 271), whose
originally quiet surroundings have now given
place to the bustle of London life, presents a
curious blending of the French and English plans.
The nave, and deep, square transepts, are as
thoroughly English in arrangement and detail as
the east end, with its chevet and apsidal chapels,
is French. The unusual height of the vaulting —

142

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

loo feet — and the consequent development of the
flying buttress, are also suggestive of French in-
fluence.

Towards the close of the thirteenth century
the desire for additional richness and ornamenta-
tion brought about a
gradual change in the
character of the archi-
tecture. This was
most marked in the
treatment of the win-
dow openings, which
were increased in size
and divided into sep-
arate lights by mul-
s4K)ns, formed in the up-
per part into geomet-
rical tracery. These
geometrical designs'
soon gave place to
lines of double curvature, or flowing tracery, which
the English architects treated with great skill, and
which became the characteristic feature of the
Decorated style during the fourteenth century,
culminating magnificently in such works as the
west window of York Minster and the east win-
dow of Carlisle Cathedral.

\ Hand in hand with the increasing importance
of the window openings we find, as in France,
considerable development in the art of decorative
glass-staining. "^ Jn the fifteenth century the ma-
jority of the great church windows of England
were filled with richly coloured stained glass, but
the iconoclasts of the seventeenth century did
their work only too thoroughly. The glass was
too "idolatrous" for the taste of the Puritans,

Fig. 46.— Geometrical tracery.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

143

and met with no quarter at their hands. A para-
graph from the '' Petition of the Weamen of Mid-
dlesex," in 1641, which bore 12,000 signatures,
helps to explain the extraordinary disappearance
of most of the glass from our English churches.
" We desire," it says, *' that prophane glasse win-
dows whose super-
stitious paint makes
many idolaters may
be humbled and
dashed in pieces
against the ground;
for our conscious
tels us that they
are diabolicall and
the father of Dark-
nesse was the in-
ventor of them, be-
ing the chief Patron
to damnable pride."
•"^he change from
the graceful win-
dow forms of the
Decorated to the
stiff rectangular
lines of the Per-
pendicular period
seems almost like a reaction. * Gothic builders at
the end of the fourteenth century were seized
with the desire to emphasise in every possible
way the vertical lines of the design, so that the
*' perpendicular " line became the dominating fea-
ture of every detail. The whole wall surface, in-
side and out, was divided into a series of rectan-
gular panels, and as the enormous windows occu-
pied the whole' space at the east and west ends,

Fig. 47. — Perpendicular window.

144 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

as well as the wall spaces between tlio buttresses,
they were treated as a series of gui/.cd panels.
The exterior of King Henry VII. 's Chapel at
Westminster Abbey is an elaborate example of
this method of treatment. ^Simultaneously with
this was developed the beautiful, and essentially
English, form of vaulting known as fan-tracery,
occurring in the ceilings of King Henry VII. 's
Chapel, Westminster ; S. George's Chapel, Wind-
sor ; and the chapel of King's College, Cam-
bridge,—

That branching roof
Self-poised, and scooped into a thousand cells,
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells
Lingering— and wandering on ^s loth to die.

\The chapter-house, which forms a graceful ad-
junct to many of England's cathedrals, is another
feature peculiar to the architecture of that coun-
try. In Norman times this was rectangular in
form, as at Bristol (1155); but shortly after this
date the circular or polygonal plan, with a central
column, came into use. The first to adopt this
form was the architect of the chapter-house at
Worcester, a building which became the recognised
type for later designs at Lincoln (1225), Salisbury,
Westminster (1250), and Wells (1300). In each of
these a central column gives the necessary support
to the vaulting of the roof. At York the central
pillar has been dispensed with, and the Gothic
ceiling is carried entirely upon the walls of the
octagon. The design gains immeasurably by the
removal of this defect, and the beautiful work
almost justifies the builder's inscription: —

Ut Rosa flos florum,

Sic Domus ista Domorum.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 145

The ceiling, in the form of a dome, is beautiful in
detail, but executed in wood.

\ Cathedral building did not monopolise the at-
tention of English architects, as it did in France.
\ A most complete record of the progress of Gothic
is to be found in the beautiful parish churches
which are scattered over all parts of England.
Many of these show a beauty and variety of de-
tail equal to the foremost of the cathedrals. All
periods are represented, but the churches of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries abound with
the finest examples. The typical English Church
plan has a nave with si(}»e aisles and a clerestory,
a long, narrow chancel with square east end, west
tower, and south doorway. The most important
churches, as those of Boston, Grantham, Coventry,
etc., almost rivalled the cathedrals in dimensions,
and frequently had a south door enriched with
a vaulted porch, with a library or other rooms
over it.

S^Except on a small scale, as in these porches,
or in isolated instances, vaulted ceilings were not
found in the parish churches. Instead of them we
find "open timber roofs, treated with remarkable
ingenuity, and often with great elaboration. By
means of a skilful development of roof-truss the
outward thrust of the ceiling against the walls was
reduced to a minimum; the roof was thus easily
carried and the exterior design was not hampered
by structural difficulties. The trusses and brackets
were richly moulded, and the ceiling spaces treated
in a highly decorative manner. Fine examples of
these roofs are found in the Perpendicular churches
of Norfolk, in the halls of many of the old castles
and of the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge,
notably that of Christ Church, Oxford. ^v^Largest

146

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

and most famous of all is the great roof of West-
minster Hall, London (1397), covering a space
239 feet in length by 68 feet in width.

There are few fields of study more full of in-
terest than these old parish churches. Much his-
tory, that w^ould oth-
erwise have been lost,
may be found written
upon the walls by
those who have eyes
to see it ; nor is more
than a slight acquaint-
ance with the charac-
teristic features of
each period necessary
to enable the student
to read the history
and to assign a date
to the construction of
the work. In distinguishing the periods, all
mouldings and ornaments are of very great value.
Mouldings of the thirteenth century were seldom
decorated with any ornament other than the dog-
tooth, which took the place of the
axed zig-zag of the Normans. The
bold, undercut mouldings gave strong
effects of light and shade, and re-
quired little enrichment ; the carved
foliage was crisp, bulbous, treated
conventionally, and curved boldly
outwards, appearing to grow out of
the surface. The mouldings of the
Decorated period were less defined,
and were seldom undercut ; the foliage was nat-
uralistic, representing oak and vine leaves, or sea-
weed, and the ball -flower supplanted the dog-

FiG. 48. — Early English capital.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 147

tooth ornament. \ In Perpendicular work the
Tudor -rose, portcullis, and fleur-de-lys appear
as ornaments upon richly panelled wall sur-
faces ; mouldings were wide and shallow, and of
secondary importance. In Norfolk and Suffolk
the panels on the exterior wall surfaces were
frequently filled in with flint work. Wooden
screens with elaborate tracery shut off the chan-
cel.

In striking contrast to later times is the almost
entire absence of municipal buildings throughout
the four centuries succeeding the Norman con-
quest ; " the king, the baron, and the bishop were
the estates of the realm; the people were no-
where," and neither municipalities nor guilds
could assert an independent existence.

In addition to the buildings mentioned above,
the following are good examples of the respective
styles: —

Early English.

Worcester Cathedral

Choir.

Fountain Abbey.

York Cathedral ....

Ely Cathedral ....

Transepts.
Choir.

St. Saviour's Church, Southwark.

Peterborough Cathedral
Glasgow Cathedral.
Boxgrove Priory, Sussex.

West Front.

Decorated.

Ely Cathedral . . . .

Lady Chapel and
Lantern.

York Cathedral ....

Nave.

Merton College Chapel, Oxford.
Tintern Abbey ....

Choir and Tran-

Ripon Cathedral ....

. septs.
East End.

Lichfield Cathedral.

148 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

•Perpendicular.

Gloucester Cathedral . . . Choir and West

Front.
Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick.
Bath Abbey.
Manchester Cathedral.

Winchester Catfiedral . . . West Front.
Magdal^ College, Oxford.

iTA^W.—.-l^otmr architecture, from causes which
are nottar to -seek, never took deep root in Italy.
In the first plsace, the style was utterly unsuited
to the brilliant climate of the counky. The Italian
regarded his church as a cool resort from the
eternal glare of the sun ; and the small windows
of the basilica, with its grateful gloom, were more
to his liking than the '* walls of glass " of the
style in vogue amongst his neighbours. Again,
from the time of the Roman Empire, classical
tradition had been very strong throughout the
country, and had permeated its architecture. The
Italian was familiar with, and justly proud of,
the classical forms of Rome, upon which the
architecture of Western Europe had been modelled.
The works of his ancestors, the Romans, had been
marked by breadth, solidity, simplicity of parts,
and by emphatic treatment of horizontal lines;
it was hardly to be expected that the narrow,
lofty aisles,iyie multiplicity of vertical lines and
mouldings^and the minuteness of detail of the
Gothic btiiKws should find favour with him.
Moreover, the sci^tific principles of Gothic con-
struction did not appeal to him, for the mediseval
Italian was never a constructive designer. He
relied for interior "Effect upon large unbroken wall
surfaces, which were decorated with frescoes or
mosaics, or veneered with rich and rare marbles.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 149

^ When Gothic was introduced, therefore, it was
received as a foreign or imported style, which was
grafted upon the older forms, with the result that
Italian Gothic never divested itself of the influence
of Roman traditions. \lt owed its introduction to
the mendicant monks, whose travels brought them
into contact with the outer civilisation. \Many
of the earliest and largest churches were built
by these monks — Dominicans or Franciscans. S.
Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscans,
died in 1226, and the church which enshrined his
body was one of the most remarkable examples
of Italian Gothic, as well as one of the earliest.
Although designed by a German architect, the
church of S. Francesco at Assisi (i 228-1 253)
shows strong Italian influence in its composition.
Internally the architecture is quite subordinate to
the decorative paintings, for which the wall spaces
were intended, and with which they have been
filled.\Xhe church is built in two stories: in the
lower church the vaulting over the high altar is
enriched with frescoes by Giotto ; so small, how-
ever, are the window-openings, and so dim the
light, that it is not possible to fully appreciate the
detail of the paintings, unless it be for an hour or
two on the brightest days.

v.S. Francesco contains the shrine of S. Francis.
His followers, the Franciscans, and the Dominican
brotherhood (founded 12 16), were responsible for
many of the earliest and most important Gothic
churches, including S. Francesco at Bologna, the
Church of the Frari at Venice, S. Anastasia at
Verona, S. Maria Novella at Florence, and S.
Maria sopra Minerva (1280), the only important
Gothic church in Rome.

The most successful examples of the style in

150 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Italy are the cathedrals, built upon an imposing
scale, and showing, in almost every instance, the
V peculiarities of the Italian treatment of Gothic: —
Milan (1385-1418), the largest of all mediaeval
churches except >$eville ; Siena (1243), Orvieto
(i29o),\plorence (1294), Ferrara, and the church
of S. Petronio, Bologna (1390), projected upon
a vaster scale than the cathedral of Milan, but
never completed. Vjn some of these designs there
is little, with the exception of the details, to dis-
tinguish them from the earlier Romanesque build-
ings. At Siena and Orvieto the round arch is
freely used, while a striking interior effect is
gained by the use of alternate bands of black and
white marbles. The fagade in each case is a
rich composition of coloured marbles, with three
gables, and a deeply recessed triple porch, en-
riched, at Orvieto, with gorgeous mosaics. The
love of the Italians for colour decoration in prefer-
ence to the brilliancy of stained glass finds ex-
pression at Orvieto, where small window-openings
are filled with slabs of rich translucent alabaster.
N^The cathedral of Florence, begun inJlz^Jby
Arnolfo del Cambio, was not completed until the
-^fifteenth century, when the dome was ^tife^\}''1)y
^^^^ruruelle^chi. Here everything is on a colossal
A^cale; but the architect made the mistake of
thinking that largeness of parts would invest the
whole with dignity and grandeur. The vast nave,
which, in a French design of similar importance,
would have been subdivided into ten or twelve
bays, is here spanned by four great arches, which
are left bare, with hardly a moulding or a vestige
of detail to give scale to the composition. The
walls above are bare and colourless, and cannot
fail to disappoint. Of the dome we shall speak

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 151

later, when dealing with the architecture of the
Renaissance. ^^Jt^A'^^^

^^^^n direct contrast to the*Duomo at Florence
is the remarkable cathedral at Milan, bewildering
in the multiplicity of its parts and the elaboration
of its detail. \The exterior design is lost in a per-
fect forest of pinnacles, decorated with rich and
intricate tracery, —

A mount. of marble, a hundred spires!

In the interior a belt of niches, filled with statuary,
crowns the nave-piers, in place of the usual cap-
itals. The ceiling is painted in imitation of elab-
orate fan-tracery, f iS- ^-D

\ Milan Cathedral (1385-1418) was one of the
latest of the important Gothic buildings erected
in Italy, but the style was still regarded as a
foreign importation, and had not become, in any
sense, a national one. In proof of this we find,
within a few miles of Milan, a building contempo-
rary with the cathedral, yet dissimilar in every
feature, and showing hardly a trace of Gothic in-
fluence. The famous Carthusian monastery, or
Certosa, at Pavia, begun in 1396, was built en-
tirely of brick and terra-cotta. \Here the vaulting
is Gothic, but in other respects the external design,
with its picturesquely grouped turrets, round
arches, and arcaded galleries, is thoroughly Ro-
manesque in character. The marble fagade is a
Renaissance addition.

" The Italians, as we have seen, were great dec-
orators rather than constructors, and Gothic art
found natural expression in small decorative works .
such as porches and tombs, or in secular monu-
ments. The porch of S. Maria Maggiore at Ber-
gamo is a characteristic specimen of this work —

152 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

fascinating in its clothing of Gothic detail, yet
built up in so unscientific a manner as to rely for

, security upon a system of iron ties and clamps.
And here it may be mentioned that the use of iron
tie-rods, which was almost universal in Italy, indi-
cates that the builders did not appreciate the true
principles of thrust and counter-thrust, which
were the essence of Gothic construction. No
doubt this lack of constructive genius hampered
them in their more important designs, so that we
must look to decorative works, such as the tombs
of the Scaligcrs at Verona, for the purest expres-
sion of Gothic feeling. Giotto's campanile, ad-
joining the cathedral at Florence, is another
beautiful example of Italian decorative Gothic.

vThe smooth wall surfaces are entirely faced with
panelling of coloured marbles, much of it deli-
cately sculptured in low relief, and the windows
are unsurpassed for their exquisite detail and
grace; but there is no Gothic back-bone in the
design.

The civic life of the great towns in Italy is
reflected in their municipal buildings. Cities,
forming independent principalities, were constant-
ly at war with one another, or with themselves,
and the town-hall of necessity partook of the
character of a fortress. Elegance was sacrificed
to security, and few features were introduced,
save the lofty tower and the frowning cornice,
each of which fulfilled a definite purpose. ^In
Venice alone, all-powerful, and therefore peace-
ful, the architect was able to give full play to his
fancy, and produced examples of domestic Gothic
art unrivalled in any country in Europe. \ Carry-
ing on an extensive trade with Byzantium and
with many Eastern ports, Venice developed a

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

153

unique style in which much of the Byzantine grace
and richness were blended with the Gothic details
of the West, and which found its highest expres-
sion in the remarkable Doges' Palace (1354) ad-
joining the church of S. Mark, "the centre of the
most beautiful archi-
tectural group that
adorns any city of Eu-
rope or of the world."
The design, witU its
double story of arcades
and traceried arches,
is familiar, from illus-
trations and photo-
graphs, to readers in
all parts of the world,
and has received added
fame from the loving
pen of Ruskin, to whom
it represented "a mod-
el of all perfection."
" The front of the
Doges' Palace," he
writes, ^' is the purest
and most chaste model
that I can name (but
one) of the fit applica-
tion of colour to public
buildings. The sculp-
ture and mouldings are
all white; but the wall
surface is chequered with marble blocks of pale
rose, the chequers being in no wise harmonised,
or fitted to the forms of the windows; but look-
ing as if the surface had been completed first,
ancj the windows cut out of it, . . . It would be

Fig. 50.
Facade of Doges' Palace.

154 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

impossible, I believe, to invent a more magnifi-
cent arrangement of all that is in building most
dignified and most fair."

Many choice examples of Venetian Gothic are
found along the banks of the Canal, none more
beautiful than the refined and ornate Ca d'Oro,
and the Pisani and Foscari Palaces.

Germany.! — In Germany Gothic architecture
was borrowed directly from France. ^ Its develop-
ment was irregular, and the style, with one or
two exceptions, produced nothing to equal the
fine Romanesque churches of the earlier centuries.
For many years after its introduction it was merely
grafted upon the Romanesque stem, — a fusion of
styles which is seen in Magdeburg Cathedral (be-
gun 12 lo), constructed on the massive lines of
the twelfth-century churches, and clothed with
the more graceful Gothic details. A little later,
in the church of S. Elizabeth at Marburg (1250),
we find an essentially German type of building,
the ** hall-church," in which the clerestory of the
nave disappears, and the side aisles are raised to
the same height as the nave.

Strasburg Cathedral, designed upon French
principles, has a rich fagade, and a large rose-
window in the west gable. jCXhe magnificent
cathedral at Cologne, finest of all, is an enlarged
edition of a French plan, differing little from that
of Amiens, but with double aisles to the nave.
The work of building this cathedral was carried
on very slowly. Begun in 1248, the choir was
completed in 1322, and the remaining works, after
being proceeded with intermittently, were entirely
suspended until the middle of the nineteenth
century. The nave, aisle, and transepts were com-

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 155

pleted, from the original designs, in 1848, and in
1863 the church was complete in all respects, with
the exception of the great Western spires, 500 feet
high, which were added in 1880. The style is
uniform throughout, but the later details lack the
vigour of thirteenth-century Gothic. Cologne is
the largest of all Gothic cathedrals, with the single
exception of Seville.

^Fine examples of fifteenth-century Gothic are
found among the German town-halls.

Belgium, Spain, Exc.^ln Belgium the most
important church of the period was the cathedral
at Antwerp (1360), with a remarkable plan, show-
ing three aisles upon each side of the nave, and a
total width of 160 feet, equal to one-half the entire
length of the building. The florid west front
(fifteenth century) is a rich example of the later
Flemish treatment. Other cathedrals of interest
are found at Brussels, Ghent, Liege, and Louvain,
all of which show the influence of France.' It was
in the municipal buildings, however, that the new
style became more thoroughly nationalised. Bel-
gium has some famous examples of trade-halls
and town-halls, erected by the burghers during
the most prosperous period of their cities' history.
The cloth-halls at Ypres and Ghent, and the
town-halls of Brussels, Ghent, Bruges, and Lou- .
vain are notable examples. The rich facades are
treated somewhat floridly in the manner of the
fifteenth-century Gothic, and are surmounted by a
steep roof, broken by several stories of dormer
windows. A lofty tower generally forms part of
the design.

In Spain the earliest Gothic churches were the
cathedrals of Burgos (1220) and Toledo (1227),

156 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING..

which both show the influence of the French
cathedral at Bourges. At Barcelona and Gerona
internal buttresses take the thrust of the vaults,
as they do at Albi in France. \Seville Cathedral
( (401-1520), the largest of all mediaeval churches,
was built upon the site of a Moorish mosque
of similar dimensions, a fact which explains the
peculiarity of its plan — a huge rectangle,; with
square east end, measuring 415 feet by 298^ feet,
and covering an area of 12,400 feet..

The later works in Spain are marked by great
elaboration of detail. \Possibly the decorative
influence of the Moors (expelled in 1492) con-
tributed to this, and accounted for such profusion
of ornament as is found in the sepulchral church
of San Juan de los Reyes at Toledo, and in many
additions to the churches and cathedrals through-
out the country.

VIII.

RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTU'RE, \ ^ ] 5 (

In the preceding chapter we have seen that ^
classical tradition — derived from the days of the
Roman empire — was too strong in Italy to allow
the principles of Gothic to be received there with
any degree of favour. The Italian never .ceased
to look upon the style as a foreign or imported
one. The very name with which they branded it,
'* Gothic," which has now lost its original meaning,
was intended to distinguish the " barbarous " style
from their own national architecture. When the

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Gothic style was used, it was so modified by the
Italian architect that many of its characteristic
features quite disappeared. As an example, the
great cathedral at Florence was noted, in which
the nave was divided into four colossal bays, each
with a span of almost 60 feet. The designer did
not realise that these classical ideas of spacious-
ness and largeness of parts were fatal when ap-
plied to Gothic designs.

\^ Yet Arnolfo del Cambio, the architect of the
cathedral of Florence,] was one of the greatest
builders of the Middle 'Ages. *' No Italian archi-
tect has enjoyed the proud privilege of stamping
his own individuality more strongly on his native
city than Arnolfo. When we take our stand upon
the hill of Samminiato, the Florence at our feet
owes her physiognomy in a great measure to this
man. The tall tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, the
bulk of the Duomo, and the long, oblong mass of
S. Croce, are all his. Giotto's campanile, Brunel-
leschi's cupola on the dome, and the church of
Orsammichele, though not designed by him, are
all placed where he had planned.' x

Arnolfo's plan of the cathedral embraced a
huge dome — a classical feature — to be carrT^
upon an octagon, 143 feet in diameter; but he
died before the dome, as he had designed it, could
be constructed, and he left behind him no infor-
mation as to the method he had intended to adopt
for covering the octagon. Nothing further was
done until, in 141 7, as the result of a public com-
petition,\the task of constructing the dome was
intrusted to a young competitor named Brunel-
leschi. \Now, the story of Brunelleschi is the

* Symonds, **The Renaissance in Italy."

158 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Story of the origin and growth of Renaissance
architecture in I^ly.

\ The Renaissance, or revi¥al ofxlassics^l forms
in art' and" Hteratdre, was the result of a great
intellectual movement which manifested itself in
^ Italy during the fourteenth century, and thence
spread over the whole of Western Europe. Many
causes contributed to. the revival: — the fashion,
which became general, of reading and^ studying
the ancient Greek and Latin authors ; the existence,
^ in Italy, of old classical monuments, from which
J the styles and details might be studied ; the
inherited classical tradi.tion ; "perhaps, too, the
asceticism of the Middle Ages, against which
the freedom of the Renai'ssance was a -reaction.
Added to this, the Go>tbic_gt0e of- architecture,
whith builders were endeavdtiring to introcUTc^
into Italy, was, as we haue~~seen^ unpopular, and
uusuitable'to the brilliajit Italian climate;

v^These conditions gave Brunelleschi his oppor-
tunity. At the age of twenty-two he had unsuccess-
fully competed with Ghiberti for the great bronze
doors of the Baptistery. Having left Florence
after this, with his friend Donatello, he made his
way to Rome, where he worked as a goldsmith,
giving all his spare time to the study of the
architecture of the old Roman empire, in an
endeavour to grasp the true principles of the
classical style. On his return to Florence his
mind was full of the great scheme for completing
the Duomo, which, though it had been in course
of erection for more than no years, was still
unfinished. Amongst those in authority there
was much difference of opinion as to the best
manner of covering the great octagon and the
apses. It was not, as we have said, until 1417

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 159

that the council was held in Florence which
definitely settled this great question, when the com-
petitors submitted some extraordinary schemes.
One advised that the dome should be supported
by a central pillar; another suggestion, which
seemed to find favour, was that the space over
which the dome was to be built should be covered
with a huge mgund of earth. Coins were to be
mixed with the earth, so that the people — after
the dome was complete — might be willing to
remove the soil from the site for the sake of the
money they would find in it! Brunelleschi ap-
pears to have been the only architect who felt
confident of being able to construct the dome
without the use of internal supports, and the work
was accordingly intrusted to him ; but so little
confidence had the authorities in him that they
appointed Ghiberti — his successful rival of the
bronze doors, who knew nothing of architectural
construction — to be his colleague. Ghiberti was
quite unfitted for the task, and Brunelleschi made
many unsuccessful attempts to get rid of his
partner. Vasari amusingly describes his last,
successful ruse :

"One morning," he says, *' Filippo [that is,
Brunelleschi], instead of appearing at work,
stayed in bed, and calling for hot fomentations,
pretended to have a severe pain in his side.
When the workmen heard of this, while they
waited to know what they were to do that day,
they asked Ghiberti what was the next thing.?
He answered that it was Filippo who arranged all
that, and that they must wait for him. * But do
you not know his mind?' they asked. * Yes,*
said Ghiberti, * but I will do nothing without
him.* And this he said to cover himself; for not

l6o STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

having seen Filippo's model, and never having
asked of him how he meant to conduct the work
(for fear of appearing ignorant), he was now
obliged to remain inactive. This lasted two days,
and the workmen at last betook themselves to the
Commissioners who provided the materials, asking
what they were to do. * You have Ghiberti,' was
the reply; Met him exert himself a little.* The
Commissioners then went to see Filippo, and
having condoled with him in his illness, told him
of the harm which his absence was causing to the
work. * Is not Ghiberti there ?' he asked passion-
ately. * Why does not he do something ? * * He
does not wish to do anything without you.' *I
could do very well without him,' said Filippo.
The hint was not taken, however, for Ghiberti
continued to draw his salary, without doing any
work, although his removal was promised.

" Filippo then tried another expedient. He
presented himself before the Commissioners, and
addressed them as follows: 'The sickness, which
has now passed,' he said, ' might have taken away
my life, and stopped this work : therefore if it
ever happened that I got ill again, or Ghiberti —
whom God preserve! — it would be better that
one or the other should continue his own work:
therefore I have concluded that, as your excellen-
cies have divided the salary, it would be as well
to divide the labour, that each of us, being thus
stimulated to show how much he knows, may be
honourable and useful to the Republic. There
are two difificult things to be done — the bridges
upon which the masons must stand and the chain
which is to bind together the eight sides of the
cupola. Let Ghiberti take one of them, and I
will take the other, that no more time be lost,' "

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. I^I

This arrangement settled Ghiberti. He took
in hand the chain, but could make nothing of it,
and was at last removed from the works.

Great difficulties were experienced in the con-
struction of the dome, and the work was frequent-
ly delayed in progress, so that, in the words of an
old writer, the vain Florentines considered that
" the heavens were jealous of their dome, which
bade fair to rival the beauty of the blue ethereal
vault itself." It was completed in 1434, the lan-
tern being added in 1462, after Brunelleschi's
death.

While the dome was in hand Brunelleschi
carried out several smaller works in Florence,
which had considerable influence with his con-
temporaries, and turned their thoughts in the
direction of the new style. One of the most de-
lightful examples is the Pazzi Chapel (1420) of S.
Croce, perhaps the earliest building completed in
the Renaissance style. Other well-known church-
es of his are S. Lorenzo and S. Spirito, each of
which has a small dome over the crossing of the
nave and transepts. >A11 the details are copied
from the Roman models, with which careful study
had made him familiar.

"v^The second great exponent of Renaissance
architecture in Florence was Alberti (1404-1473),
who was a young man while Brunelleschi's dome
was swelling out against the sky. Alberti was
an ardent scholar, and the author of a valuable
treatise on the art of building, a book which was,
perhaps, the most important work of his life,
for it became very popular, and greatly influenced
the designs of his contemporaries and successors.
Brunelleschi, as we have seen, had made a careful
study of the imperial architecture of Rome, but

f (r

l62 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

in his own designs be in no way reproduced it.
He merely borrowed the great leading principles
of Roman construction, and carried out the designs
in accordance with his own ideas. Alberti was
different : he was pre-eminently a scholar, and
had a distinct leaning towards everything Latin.
Even his great work was written in Latin, and
his partiality for pure Roman details and models
is evident in his buildings. In his Ruccelai
Palace at Florence, for example (1460), we see
the first instance of pilasters applied to the fagade ;
these are introduced into each story (as in the
Colosseum), the orders being superimposed, and
each carrying an entablature.

Another important work by Alberti was the
fagade of S. Maria Novella in Florence — an ap-
plied-marble facing, in which he introduced pilas-
ters and a true classical pediment. In this church
we see the earliest instance of the use of vo-
lutes for connecting the higher walls of the nave
with those of the aisles, a feature which was
constantly imitated by later designers. The treat-
ment of the church facade was one of the most
difficult problems which the early Renaissance
architects had to solve, and in many of the churches
no attempt was made to solve it. * The problem
was a new one, for the architects could get no
help from the ruins of the baths, theatres, or
temples, but found it necessary to invent their
own facades and to clothe them with classical
details. The result was a lack of sincerity, for
the external casing had no structural connection
with the building which it was designed to mask.

The churches of S. Andrea at Mantua and
S. Francesco at Rimini are important works by
Alberti. The latter is worthy of careful study as

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 163

an illustration of the methods of the Renaissance.
In this instance the Gothic church was entirely
remodelled, and was dressed up with a profusion
of classical detail and ornament. Alberti's in-
complete work, while very beautiful, exposes the
falsity of principles of the Renaissance methods :
there was a tendency among the builders to dis-
regard '^ that only law, that Use be suggester of
Beauty," and at Rimini this fact is borne home
upon the visitor. The pilasters, architraves, and
other classical features with which Alberti has
clothed the interior are merely a series of surface
deceits, having nothing more to do with the
structural strength of the design than the paint-
ings upon the walls.

Architecture at this period was having a great,
time at Florence under the patronage of Cosmo
de' Medici, a nobleman of vast influence and
more than regal wealth. Under Brunelleschi's
lead there soon sprang up a band of architects
imbued with the same spirit, whose genius created
ttix)se magnifice^nt^monuments of the Renaissance
— blie Florentine ^palaces. Chief among these
are the\Riccardi (1430) by Michelozzo^'e Strozzi
(1489-1553) by Cronaca, and the Palazzi Antinori,
Guadagni, and PandoKini, the latter from a
design by Raphael. Vrhese are all characterised
by solidity and strength, for they required to
be fortresses as well as palaces: the walls were
of masonry, in large blocks, heavily *' rusticated."-
In this rustic work, as it is inaptly named, a deep
channelling marks the joints, from which the face
of the rough stonework projects boldly. In
some cases the rustication extends over-the whole
fagade^ but it was generally confined to the lower
story. XJ'his treatment gives a pleasing variation

164

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

of light and shade, suggesting at the same time
a note of sturdiness which is in harmony with the
spirit and temper of mediaeval Florence.
\ In the Palazzo Strcfzzi, which is a good type
of the Florentine palace, the rustication is treated
simply, but covers the whole fagade. A serious
defect in the design of many of these buildings
is apparent here — the uniform height of the
stories, as indicated by the string-courses at the
level of the window-sills. This, together with
the somewhat monotonous repetit on of uniform
windows, tends to detract from the grandeur of the

design. ^To some
extent the defect is
redeemed by the
great, finely pro-
portioned cornice,
which crowns the
building, and makes
every other feature
subordinate and of
secondary impor-
tance.

\ These heavy
walls, and narrow
windows reflect the
disturbed civic life
of this great republic. \ The torch-rests of wrought
metal, the dim courts, and the gloomy entrances,
all tell their own history ; in them we trace the
habits of caution which, of necessity, characterised
the Florentine leaders. And as designs they must
be studied, and their merits weighed, amidst their
own sunny surroundings, and in connection with
the history which they helped to make ; for it is
impossible to judge them from their reproductions

Fig. 51.— Renaissance capital.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 165

in the form of West-end clubs in sunless London.
VSeen in Florence, these buildings are great pages
of history, which he who passes may read. ^ Fit-
ness is indeed one of the elements of true archi-
tecture, and few buildings can lay greater claim
than these to represent the fit expression and the
embodiment of the spirit of the times which pro-
duced them.

In Florence many of the architects of the
fifteenth century were trained in the workshops
of the craftsmen — rooms in which were carried
on, under one roof, the arts of the painter, the
goldsmith, and the sculptor. \ By these crafts-
men the new details were developed in decora-
tive accessories, such as altars, pulpits, and
monuments, in many of which the work is most
delicate and refined ; indeed, in many cases, the
subordinate architectural works are artistically
much finer than the buildings, in which they are
placed. .These details were invariably worked in
marble, with delicate mouldings, and exquisite
carving in low relief. The pulpit of S. Croce in
Florence is a fine example — beautiful in form,
and in the execution of every detail.

Great activity in building prevailed in other
cities of Italy, outside Florence, during the fif-
teenth century, and notably in Milan and Venice.
Rome at the earlier period was almost entirely
dependent upon second-rate Florentine artists,
and much of the work there was unimportant.

Milan was the first of the cities in which the
new architecture took root ; and here, for the
first time, we come into contact with thej third
great Renaissance architect, Bramante, whose
work eventually culminated in the great design
of S. Peter's in Rome.

1 66 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Bramante was not born until 1444, when
many of the great Florentine buildings which
we have noticed were already in existence. Like
his nephew, the great Raphael, he was a native
of the small town of Urbino. His chief works
were in Rome, but among his buildings in Milan
may be mentioned a considerable portion of the
church of S. Maria delle Grazie, and the little
octagonal sacristy of S. Maria presso San Satiro.
The most interesting example of the Renais-
sance style near Milan is to be found at Pavia,
where, in 149 1, a facade was added to the Gothic
certosa, or monastery. This front is covered with
a profusion of marble ornament, richly and deli-
cately wrought, like the ivory carving of a cas-
ket, but quite inappropriate for its position.

The Renaissance movement in Milan was about
half a century later than in Florence, having, in
fact, been introduced there by Florentine artists.

^In Venice the style was still later in appearing.

*^The Venetians at this period were well satisfied

with their architecture, and well they might be,

for, as we have seen, the Gothic style, tinged and

enriched by Byzantine influences, had produced

/v buildings of exquisite beauty and design. The
\^^ security and prosperity of the city rendered such
fortress-like architecture as that of Florence un-
necessary ; moreover, there was a state of war
between the Florentines and the Venetians, and
the two cities hated one another cordially. It is
not surprising, then, that Venice should be slow
to borrow her forms of architecture from her
neighbour. She adopted the style somewhat re-
luctantly; at first in small details, grafted upon
the Gothic forms, as in the Porta della Carta of
the Doges' Palace. The design of this gateway

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

167

is wholly Gothic in composition, but the mould-
ings, and the sportive Cupids appearing amidst
the foliage, are classical suggestions. In the

Fig. 52. — Spinelli Palace.

internal quadrangle the Renaissance forms are
more evident, mingled with the Gothic pointed
arches.

In the delightful little church of S. Maria dei
Miracoli, one of the earliest examples of the new
style, we see the influence of Byzantine tradition.
This influence is suggested, externally, in the
cupola and the semicircular roof and pediment,

1 68 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

all of which would seem to be borrowed from
the neighbouring S. Mark's. Inside, the walls
are incrusted with an inlay of coloured marbles.
The fagades of the school of S. Mark, and of
S. Zaccaria, show features manifestly borrowed
from the same source.

V, Under the strong influences of the Byzantine,
and of the characteristic Venetian Gothic, we find,
as would be expected, a great divergence from
the Florentine model in the Renaissance palaces,
which are chiefly found along the banks of the
" finest curved street in the world," the Grand
Canal. The Spinelli Palace is a good type of the
Venetian building. Here the fa9ade has three
well-defined stories, crowned by a bold cornice.
The lower story has a central door, with steps
leading down to the canal ; on the first, or princi-
pal floor, is a balcony, an almost indispensable
adjunct. The windows are grouped irregularly,
in a manner common to most Venetian palaces,
the central ones being massed together, while
those on either side stand free — a notable im-
provement upon the monotonous spacing of the
Florentine and Roman palaces. The Vendra-
mini Palace (1481) shows similar features.

Rome during the greater part of the fifteenth
century was stagnating, and Renaissance archi-
tecture made practically no headway there. But
in the first half of the sixteenth century so great
an impetus was given to the Renaissance move-
ment that this short period witnessed its culmina-
tion in the city. The causes which contributed
chiefly to this result were the succession of the
strong and ambitious Julius II. to the Papal
chair, and, with his accession, the great increase
in wealth and power of the Church in Rome.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

169

Wealthy families, whom the troublous times of the
preceding century had driven out, returned to
the city, and soon began to vie with one another
in palace-building. Among the architects the new
style found a great exponent in Bramante, who
became to Rome what Brunelleschi had been to
Florence.

Bramante appears not to have been an espe-
cially original genius; but he had, before coming

Fig. 53, — Court-yard, Car.cellaria T'alace.

to Rome, the advantage of profiting by the origi-
nality of his predecessors in Florence and Milan.
"^sJIis work is marked by great variety of treatment,
and, in general, by simplicity and good propor-
tions. One of his earliest designs, the Palazzo
Cancellaria, has a simple facade rather monoto-

lyo STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

nously treated, with strips of pilasters spaced in
1 i\ pairs between the windowsT^XThe arcading of the
^ ^ court-yard shows a composition of arches and col-
umns, borrowed from the Florentine architects,
which became popular with later Renaissance
builders.

These columns, by-the-bye, like so many other
details of Roman buildings, have a strange history.
They are monolithic shafts, and originally formed
part of the great theatre of Pompey — the first
stone theatre of Rome, built about 55 b.c. Dur-
ing the Middle Ages this building suffered the
usual fate, and was used as a quarry for stone
and marble, from which the basilican church of
S. Lorenzo was almost entirely built. Bramante
pulled down the greater portion of the basilica,
in order to build the great Cancellaria palace for
Cardinal Riario, using, amongst other materials,
fifty of the old columns for his two-storied arcade.
Bramante's work culminated later in the great
design of S. Peter's. Julius II. had employed
Michelangelo to design a colossal monument for
himself, and the ambitious pope next set his mind
upon the erection of a vast mausoleum to cover
the monument. Bramante was entrusted with the
work, and began his great task in 1506. His de-
sign took the form of a Greek cross — a cross with
four equal arms — with an apsidal end to each
arm, and a dome over the crossing. The haste
with which the work was carried on led to a col-
lapse of some of the main walls, a catastrophe
which was followed by Bramante's death in 1514.
After this the original design underwent many va-
riations in the hands of a succession of architects
— Raphael the painter, Giulianoda San Gallo, and
Peruzzi, among others. Each of these devised a

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 171

new plan and made fundamental alterations to
the original scheme, so that little real progress was
made with the structure for many years. At last,
after a chequered career, the building was handed
over in 1546 to Michelangelo, then more than
seventy years of age. Under his energetic con-
trol the work progressed without interruption for
eighteen years. He reverted, in the essentials, to
the original plan of Bramante, a Greek cross, but
with a square projecting portico to the front, and
with the mighty dome over the crossing. With
such energy did he prosecute the work that, at
his death in 1564, the design was completed, with
the exception of the east front and the dome cov-
ering. He left behind him a complete model of
all the unfinished parts, which were completed
under Vignola, Giacomo della Porta, and Fonta-
na, before the end of the century.

So far, the design of Michelangelo, based upon
that of Bramante, had been adhered to with little
variation ; but in the seventeenth century Maderna,
the architect to Pope Paul V., set himself the task
of improving upon it. He added two bays to the
nave,— *-thus transforming the plan from a Greek
into a Latin cross, and destroying the propor-
tions,— and he erected the existing tasteless
facade, which completely shuts off the view of
the dome from the front. The splendid colon-
nade, which encircles the piazza, was added later
by Bernini (1629-1667).

S. Peter's, thus completed after an interval of
160 years, is the largest church in existence. The
vast central aisle, nave, 'and choir, almost 600 feet
in length, are divided into only six bays ; the nave
itself has four bays only. (Jver the crossing of
the transepts hangs the great dome, 140 feet in

172 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

diameter, rising to a heiglit of 400 feet. With so
few parts, in a building of sucii colossal dimen-
sions, it follows that all the parts must themselves
be on a vast scale; Internally there is nothmg to
give scale to the building, and to enable the eye
to form an estimate of the size; there is no mul-
tiplicity of parts, as in a Gothic design, to confuse
the eye, and so increase the apparent size. Herein
lies a serious defect in the design. " Rome dis-
appoints me much; S. Peter's, perhaps, in es-
pecial," writes Clough, and this impression of S.
Peter's must be shared by almost every visitor,
for the colossal scale of the interior, in the absence
of smaller details, is lost upon the observer. Ex-
ternally, the fagade is ruined by the clumsy work
of Maderna ; but from a distant point of view the
mighty dome, dwarfing all other buildings, and
seemingly suspended in mid-air, is an impression
that can never be forgotten. "There's a kind of
miracle in it. Go where you will, that dome fol-
lows you. Again and again, storm and mist may
blot out the rest— that remains." And it is per-
haps only in this dim, blue distance, when one is
enabled to contrast the great mass with the sur-
rounding buildings, thatnhe mind can fully gauge
the immensity of this great work of Michelangelo.
The story of the building of S. Peter's carries
us down to the seventeenth century. During the
150 years that the work was in progress. Renais-
sance architecture passed through various phases.
■ In the middle of the sixteenth century a treatise
*by Vignola upon the classical orders had great
influence upon his contemporaries, and led t6 a
more formal and direct imitation of the classical
details of old Rome. Many notable buildings by
the greatest architects of the time — Vignola,

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 173

Michelangelo, Palladio, and Sammichele — were
studiously correct and simple in detail, unlike the
free and inventive work of the earlier period.
The desire for simple and grand effect led to a
new method of treatment, the use of one colossal
order embracing two or thre^ stories — the Palla-
dian order, as it is called. Palladio was not the
first to introduce this treatment, but it was made
familiar by a book which he wrote upon the sub-
ject, which was widely read in England, and
greatly influenced English architecture in this di-
rection. No Italian architect has left his impress
so strongly upon English architecture as Palladio.
Possibly his influence was, in part, due to the fact
that he taught, better than any one else, the
method of obtaining good effect cheaply and sim-
ply,— that he could make a design ^' grand with-
out great dimensions and rich without much ex-
pense," by the somewhat unworthy use of plaster
or stucco with which he coated his buildings.

France. — While the Italian architects were
busily reviving the old national architecture in
their own country, the Gothic style in France was
vigorous and full of vitality; and for a long time
the Renaissance movement had no effect upon it.
But at the end of the fifteenth century, when the
wars of the French kings brought them into con-
tact with the Renaissance palaces of Italy, the
monarchs became fired with ambition to imitate
these splendid residences, and brought back in
their train several Italian architects, whom they
employed to reproduce, to some extent, the great
palaces of their own country. In France, how-
ever, the foreign artists could not have things
their own way. They introduced many classical

174 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

details, but the national Gothic traditions were
very strong, and for a long time only the minor
details could be introduced, while the general
plan and composition of the designs continued to
be unaffected.

There ensued, then, a long period of transi-
tion, when classical details were grafted upon
Gothic designs, in the way we find them at the
chateau of Blois. Here the portion which was
built for Louis XII., about 1500, shows a curious
blending of the styles: the general impression is
of a Gothic building, but the new influences are
distinctly seen in the mouldings and in the strongly
emphasised horizontal lines. It was not until the
reign of Francis I., when the new architecture be-
came fashionable, that the classical forms began
to assert themselves and to dominate the design.
The beautiful Transitional work of this period,
the "Francois Premier," as it is called, is full of
charm, differing from the Renaissance of Italy in
three characteristic features, as the result of the
influence of Gothic tradition in France. These
special features are (i) a picturesqueness of com-
position and of outline ; (2) the steep-pitched roof,
with the natural development of dormers and
high chimneys; and (3) lack of symmetry and ef
formality of plan.

The best examples of the Frangois Premier
style are the palaces built by the king himself —
the north wing of the chateau of Blois (1525) with
its famous external staircase, the great palace of
Fontainebleau, and the chateau of Chambord.
At Chambord (1526) we find greater formality of
plan than was usual during the earlier period,
and an elaborate roof — almost overweighting the
design — with a multitude of dormers and tall

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

175

chimneys, crowned in the centre with a fantastic
lantern.

At Chenonceaux, Azay-le-Rideau, and else-
where dotted throughout the district of Touraine,
the delightful chateaux of the nobility bear wit-
ness to the memorable times when Francis held
his court on the
banks of the Loire.
In most of these we
find the same char-
acteristics — steep
roofs and elaborate
dormers, angle tou-
relles, and emphatic
horizontal string-
courses and cor-
nices. The greatest
undertaking of the
reign, however, was
the rebuilding of the
Louvre in Paris,
which was put in
hand about 1545,
shortly before the
death of Francis.
Serlio, an Italian,
had been consulted
about tho designs,
but the work was
entrusted to a French architect, Pierre Lescot,
under whom half the palace — comprising two
sides of a vast court-yard — was erected. The
work progressed throughout various reigns down
to the time of Louis XIV. (1660), and was not
actually finished until the middle of the nineteenth
century, when Napoleon III. added the north and

Fig. 54. — Azay-ie-Kitieau.

176 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

south facades. Thus completed, the Louvre is
the most extensive of all European palaces, and
supplies an excellent record of the progress of
French Renaissance. The design has two main
stories, with Corinthian order of pilasters below
and composite above ; over these is a low attic
story. Some of the sculptured work, by Jean
Goujon, is especially good. The well known im-
posing Corinthian colonnade of the east front, al-
most 600 feet in length (1688), was the work of
the court physician Perrault.

Another building of the early period was the
Hotel de Ville in Paris, begun about 1550 from
the designs of an Italian, but since destroyed by
fire. In the great palace of the Tuileries, designed
for Catherine dei Medici by Philibert Delorme
(1564), several features were introduced for the
first time in French architecture; two of these —
the bands of rustication carved at intervals across
the pilasters and the walls, and the broken pedi-
ments of the attic story crowned with statuary —
became specially characteristic of later French
Renaissance. The introduction of the broken
pediments, in imitation, perhaps, of Michelangelo's
work in the Medici chapel at Florence, was prob-
ably due to Catherine's suggestion. Be that as it
may, the idea found favour with the French, and
the feature has remained popular with them to
the present day.

Towards the end of the sixteenth century the
architecture had lost much of the early charm of
the Transitional period, and many of the buildings
of Henry IV. (1589-1610) are coarse in detail and
inferior in design : the least interesting portions
of the Louvre and of the Tuileries date from this
period. Of a little later date are two great French

STORY OF TH^: ART OF BUILDING. 1 77

palaces which should be noted — the Luxembourg
(1615), with a fagade rusticated like the garden
front of the Pitti Palace in Florence, and the pal-
ace at Versailles, built at enormous cost for Louis
XIV. by J. H. Mansard (1645-1708), a vast, un-
interesting pile, with singularly monotonous fa-
cades, and — if we except the chapel — with hardly
a redeeming feature in its design. By the same
architect, but a more successful design, is the
Hotel des Invalides in Paris, w^ith a great central
dome like that of S. Paul's in London. The lofty
external cupola is constructed of wood covered
with lead ; the true dome, of stone, is built on a
smaller scale inside. In all these designs of the
later Renaissance it wnll be noticed that there is
greater formality, symmetry, often stateliness of
design, but a lack of the picturesque charm of the
earlier period. One special feature of the Gothic
style, however, was always retained in the French
buildings — the steep-pitched roofs; and in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the massive
" Mansard *' roof formed a very prominent feature
in the design.

England. — Gothic architecture, we have seen,
had run its course uninterruptedly in England
for many centuries, little disturbed by foreign
influences. True, the "Tudor" Gothic of the
sixteenth century was a somewhat degenerate
form, but it was producing many fine buildings,
and the domestic mansions of the style — such as
we find at Haddon Hall, in Derbyshire (about 1540)
— were well suited to the hospitable requirements
of the time. It was natural, therefore,' that there*
should have intervened, as in France, a long and
interesting period of transition before the newly
12

178 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

imported classical details could displace the older
Gothic forms.

This Transitional period commenced practically
with the reign of Elizabeth (1558), when the court
began to give much attention to classical studies,
and to introduce numerous foreign artists and
craftsmen. At this time, and especially during
the early part of the century, there were enor-
mous numbers of foreigners in England — French,
Dutch, Italians, and others; in fact, the presence
of so many aliens led to a good deal of unpleas-
antness and even to riots. The native workmen
complained then — as they have complained ever
since — that the foreigners brought over numbers
of ready-made articles, which they sold, and thus
lessened the amount of work to be done by the
native craftsmen. In this way, in the first in-
stance, foreign ideas and minor classical details
began to find their way into the country. Per-
haps the first important step in this direction,
however, was the employment of the Italian
artist Torrigiano, in 15 12, to design the tomb
of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey, a design
which he carried out in the style of his na-
tive country. Similarly an Italian would design,
in his own Renaissance style, a chimney-piece
here, a monument there, so that the classical forms
became, as in France, familiar first through the
medium of such accessories. As classical culture
came more into vogue, books upon Renaissance
art and architecture were translated from Italian
into English, and were freely read. Under these
influences the Gothic features tended to disappear,
and a clothing of classical orders began to adorn
the wall surfaces and entrance doorways. Soon
these became incorporated in the design, while

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 179

the forms and details underwent a gradual change,
as the builders came more and more under the
sway of the new movement.

The noble mansion of Elizabeth's time, the
familiar '^ Tudor-chimnied pile of mellow brick-
work," belongs to this Transitional period. In
examining one of these buildings it is interesting
to note how the classical details gradually crept
in, while the general Gothic disposition was at
first unaffected. At Haddon Hall (1540) the Tudor
element predominates, passing, in the later addi-
tions and alterations, into the earliest Elizabethan.
Here we see the characteristically English feature,
the great square bay window, divided into smaller
lights by a number of muUions and transoms.
The influence of the Perpendicular Gothic is seen,
too, in Hardwicke Hall, where the design is
almost overpowered by the enormous windows, so
that the rhyme,

Hardwicke Hall,
More glass than wall,

seems to be literally true. The pierced parapet,
which crowns the building, is a feature of frequent
occurrence: in places we find it pierced into
patterns; sometimes the piercing takes the form
of a sentence or motto. At Hardwicke the design
shows the initials, E.S., of Elizabeth, Countess of
Shrewsbury, who built the mansion. Wollaton
Hall, Notts (1590), has an early example, in the
parapet, of the fantastic *' strap " ornament, a
feature quite peculiar to English Renaissance.
The angle tower of Wollaton, in the illustration
on page 180, shows also the free use of the three
orders, and the method in vogue of clothing the
wall surfaces with classical details.

i8o

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Inside the Elizabethan mansions the prominent
features were the broad, massive staircase of oak

Fig. 55.— Tower, Wollaton Hall.

or, less frequently, of stone, and the great hall,
panelled or hung with tapestry, with open timber
roof, bay windows, and minstrels' gallery. In
larger mansions a great gallery was often found on

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. l8l

the first floor, extending, in some cases, the whole
length of the building, as at Montacute House,
near Yeovil, where the gallery is 20 feet wide and
no less than 170 feet in length.

Few mansions of the period are more interest-
ing than Burghley House, in Lincolnshire, built for
the celebrated Lord Burghley. On the building
there are several dates, ranging from 1577 to 1587,
so that it probably took about ten years, between
these dates, to build. Letters which have been
found referring to the building, from Lord
Burghley to the builders and workmen, throw
some light upon the manner in which building
operations were carried on in those days. The
workmen wrote direct to the employer for instruc-
tions, and all the details of the design were
referred, not to the architect, but to the employer
himself. The latter would settle many questions
without outside assistance, but for some of the
more important features he would obtain sketches
or suggestions from different architects in London,
so that the ideas of several architects might thus
be embodied in the same building. In Burghley
House the greater part of the design is the work
of John Thorpe, an architect who was at the time
head of his profession. The employer appears to
have been personally responsible for much of the.
detail ; he would naturally glean most of his
information from books, and, in this instance, was
thoroughly imbued with the "orders," which are
superimposed in the Italian manner. The craze is
carried to excess in the treatment of the chimneys,
which are shaped like columns, with bases and
caps, and carry small entablatures.

In many of the designs a good deal of the
personal element was introduced; the builders

1 82 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

were not hampered by restrictions, and if a de-
signer had what he considered a happy idea, he
was free to embody it in his design, so that we
occasionally find quite childish freaks perpetrated.
In an interesting collection of sketches and notes
by John Thorpe, in the Soane Museum, London,
there are some careful studies of the orders, and
some plans and drawings of a house which Thorpe
designed for himself. The plan of the building
is in the form of the designer's initials, J. T.,
the two portions of the building being connected
by a corridor. Beneath the plan he had written :

These two letters, J and T,

Joined together as you see,

Is meant for a dwelling-house for me.

Although in some of the more classical designs
the plans were symmetrical, in other cases the
arrangement was quite fanciful. Montacute House,
with its vast gallery, already referred to, showed
a plan not uncommon in those days, in the shape
of the letter E — perhaps a courtier's graceful
compliment to Queen Elizabeth. But the cour-
tiers took care, whatever the plan, that comfort
was not sacrificed to appearance, believing, with
Bacon, that houses were made "to live in, not to
look on," and the interior arrangements were
excellently designed to cope with the lavish hos-
pitality which prevailed in the "spacious days"
of Elizabeth. Very suggestive of the open house
are the legends often found carved amongst the
ornament; thus, over the front entrance at Mon-
tacute: "And yours, my friends"; while round
the garden porch run the words: "Through this
wide opening gate, none come too early, none re-
turn too late."

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 1 83

Among other famous Elizabethan mansions
may be mentioned Longleat in Wiltshire, Pens-
hurst and Knole House in Kent — the latter re-
modelled in the reign of James I. — and Kingston
House, Bradford-on-Avon, a replica of which fitly
represented English architecture in the Rue des
Nations at the Paris Exhibition of 1900.

During the reign of James I. (1603-1625), —
the '' Jacobean " period, — classical forms were
used more freely than ever ; or perhaps we
should say, forms of classical origin, for the
details were so distorted and caricatured as to
be barely recognisable. Audley End (1603-1616),
erected by the Earl of Suffolk, in Essex, one of
the most notable mansions of the period, is said
to have been designed from a model brought
from Italy at a cost of ;^5oo ; but the style was
so modified in transmission that, in 1669, we find
Prince Cosmo's secretary — an Italian — criticising
the design, and failing to recognise in it the archi-
tecture of his native land. " The architecture of
the palace," he says, *' is not regular, but inclined
to Gothic, mixed with a little of the Doric and
Ionic." If, then, a contemporary Italian failed to
recognise the style of the period, though it had
been introduced from his own country, it is small
wonder that we find difficulty in tracing and ac-
counting for all the forms and features. Certainly
this Elizabethan and Jacobean work is one of
the most curious and puzzling transitional styles
known in history. Buildings of the same date
show an extraordinary diversity in both the
amount and the character of the classical fea-
tures introduced. In some cases the designs are
medioeval buildings, with the Gothic details left
out, and a good deal of uncertainty as to what clas-

184 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

sical forms should be put in their place. Evelyn,
when visiting Audley End, noted it in his diary as
*' a mixed fabric betwixt ancient and modern, and,
without comparison, one of the stateliest in the
kingdom " ; and Samuel Pepys was puzzled by the
architecture, but admired "the stateliness of the
ceilings and the form of the whole, and drank a
most admirable drink, a health to the King."

It was but natural that this confusion should
end in a reaction, and a return to the more cor-
rect and dignified use of the classical orders.
The man under whose influence the disorder gave
way, and who may be styled England's first great
Renaissance architect, was Inigo Jones.

Inigo Jones (1572-1652) had studied in Italy,
especially at Vicenza, the birthplace of Palladio,
where he came under the influence of that great
master's work. Returning to England, he en-
deavoured to introduce the monumental style of
Palladio, and in the Duke of Devonshire's villa
at Chiswick, one of his first works, he repro-
duced, on a smaller scale, Palladio's Villa Capra
at Vicenza. His great opportunity appeared to
have arrived when he received the commission
to design an immense palace at Whitehall for
Charles I. The designs for this great building,
and the rioble composition of the Banqueting
Hall — the only portion erected — are sufficient to
place Inigo Jones amongst the foremost masters
of the Renaissance." The treatment of this facade,
with its two rusticated stories ornamented with
pilasters and engaged columns, is suggestive of
Palladio, who, as we noticed, frequently super-
imposed his orders, instead of grouping two
stories under one order in the so-called Palladian
style.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 185

More fortunate in his opportunities than Jones
was his great successor, Sir Christopher Wren, the
central figure in EngUsh Renaissance history, who
left his impress so unmistakably upon the new
London which sprang up after the great fire.
Wren was thirty-four years of age, and had just
made a name for himself as an architect, when
the great fire of London in 1666 cleared the field
for him. One of his earliest works completed
after the fire was Temple Bar, erected in 1670, and
removed two centuries later (in 1878), in which
was had an excellent example of his style, and of
his judicious use of ornament. In connection
with his ecclesiastical work it must be remem-
bered that Wren was called upon to build large
churches hurriedly, and at a very small cost. His
church designs were hampered by various con-
siderations, and invariably by lack of funds, but
he succeeded, almost without exception, in ob-
taining good effect in a simple and inexpensive
manner.

Before the old Gothic cathedral of S. Paul was
destroyed by fire. Wren, who had been instructed
to survey it, had given an adverse report, in which
he stated that the columns were giving way under
the weight of the heavy roof. He made various
recommendations, but the debate upon his report
dragged out, in the usual way, for many months,
and nothing was really done until the question
was finally settled by the great fire and the total
destruction of the building. In a striking pas-
sage in Evelyn's diary, dated August 27th, 1666 —
six days before the fire broke out — he states that
he, with Wren and several experts, surveyed the
structure that day, and concluded that a new
building was necessary ; " and we had a mind,"

i86

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

he says, '* to build it with a noble cupola, a form
not as yet known in England, but of wonderful
grace." Some years passed, however, before the
committee could settle whether the ruins should
be restored on their old lines, or whether an en-
tirely new design should be erected ; and it was
not until 1675 that the new cathedral was put in
hand.

As with S. Peter's at Rome, Wren's original
plan was a Greek cross, with four equal arms ;
but the authorities would not
agree to this departure from the
ecclesiastical form, and it was
accordingly extended unto a
Latin cross. In the exterior de-
sign we see two stories of the
Corinthian order, but the upper
story is a sham, for it is merely
a screen with nothing behind it.
A deceit such as this detracts
from the architectural merit of
the design, though it adds a dig-
nity which would otherwise be
lacking to the composition. The
west front, and the dome, rest-
ing upon a lofty drum, sur-
rounded by a fine peristyle, are
the most successful features, leading most critics
to endorse Fergusson's encomium. '* The exteri-
or of S. Paul's," he says, " surpasses in beauty of
design all the other examples of the same class
which have yet been carried out ; and, whether
seen from a distance or near, it is, externally at
least, one of the grandest and most beautiful
churches in Europe." S. Paul's has the advantage
over S. Peter's in that it was completed within

Fig. 56. — Section
through dome, S.
Paul's.

SrORV OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 187

the space of thirty-five years, under the superin-
tendence of one architect. S. Peter's, on the
other hand, suffered from various interruptions,
and occupied a century and a half in building,
while twenty popes and a dozen architects had a
hand in its construction.

The illustration shows the method by which,
in S. Paul's, the dome is built up. The inner
cupola is carried up in brickwork almost in the
form of a hemisphere, with an opening 20 feet
wide at the top. The dome, as,we see it from the
outside, is constructed on a much more imposing
scale, in woodwork covered with lead ; a brick
cone, built up between these two, carries the
heavy stone lantern. Thus the ^* dome," which
forms so conspicuous a feature, is, in reality,
merely a sham ; the true masonry domes — the
structural portions — are the inner cupola, and the
central cone, which is invisible.

As construction, and, indeed, as architecture,
this feature in S. Paul's cannot compare with the
domes at Florence and at Rome ; there is not the
same honesty of treatment. Wren had never
seen either of these Italian domes, but he was
doubtless familiar with the method of their con-
struction. Had he been given a free hand, he
would probably have built upon these earlier
Italian principles; but he was influenced by con-
siderations of expense, and his method was cer-
tainly the cheaper of the two.

The interior of S. Paul's is hardly so impres-
sive as the eixterior, but this is the fault of the
style. It does not disappoint in quite the way
S. Peter's does, for it is on a smaller scale, and
one does not expect such great impressions from
it. The internal effect of the dome is marred by

l88 STOKY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

the excessive relative lengths of the nave and of
the choir. At first, on entering, one is hardly
conscious of the dome; after approaching it,
the great length of the choir detracts from its
grandeur.

In Wren's numerous London churches he
showed great skill in the use of simple materials
and in making the most of the limited funds at
his disposal. In many designs the most success-
ful features were the steeples, which he may
claim to have been the first to introduce to Eng-
lish Renaissance architecture. A notable ex-
ample is the beautiful and finely proportioned
steeple of Bow Church, Cheapside. But the
steeple belongs more truly to Gothic architecture,
where it forms an appropriate crowning feature
of the whole design. The emphatic horizontal
lines which mark all classical compositions render
the Renaissance steeple, with its diminishing
stories piled one upon the other, somewhat of an
anomaly.

The Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford, the south-
ern portions of Greenwich Hospital, Trinity Col-
lege library, Cambridge, and the garden front of
Hampton Court Palace, are among Sir Christopher
Wren's most important secular works. His genius
is more evident in such buildings as these than in
his London churches. It would be too much to
expect of any man that he should be successful in
the designs of half a hundred churches, all built
at the same time, and from limited funds. It
would seem that Wren monopolised the work of
the. latter half of the seventeenth century, for
during this very active period there was hardly a
building of any importance which did not come
from his hands. With the eighteenth century

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

iSo

new names come into prom-
inence, notably Hawksmoor,
Wren's pupil, who suc-
ceeded to his practice, Van-
brugh, and Gibbs. Hawks-
moor gave the London
churches of S. George,
Bloomsbury, and S. Mary
VVoolnoth; Gibbs, the in-
teresting designs of S.
iMary-le-Strand and S. Mar-
tin's - in - the - Fields. The
greatest work of Sir John
Vanbrugh was the mansion
of Blenheim — the nation's
gift to the Duke of Marl-
borough— designed in the
ponderous symmetrical

style which the architect
affected, and which is seen
again in Castle Howard,
Yorkshire.

Architecture in England
during the greater part of
the eighteenth century was,
to a large extent, a matter
of names. The architects
were greatly under the in-
fluence of Palladio, whose
drawings had been pub-
lished and were much in
vogue. Under his lead
there was a tendency, even
in domestic buildings, to
sacrifice everything to sym-
metry and stateliness. Ba-

FiG. 57. — Steeple of S.
Mary-le-Bow.

IQO STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

con's dictum was reversed, for the houses were
now "built to be looked on, not lived in." With
all this, however, there was comparatively little
noteworthy architecture produced. The work of
the century, taken as a whole, shows little origi-
nality or high artistic merit ; nothing more can be
said of it than that it was a respectable sort of
architecture, hovering between dignity and dul-
ness.

Among the later architects of the century. Sir
William Chambers designed the most important
building of the time, Somerset House, which he
remodelled from designs of Inigo Jones, and
treated in the refined style which marked every-
thing that left his hands. A greater work —
through its wide influence over successive gen-
erations of students — was his book, a " Treatise
on Civil Architecture." Of this period also are
the Mansion House, London, by George Dance,
senior; the Bank of England, by Sir John Soane ;
Keddlestone Hall in Derbyshire, by Robert Adam
— one of the four brothers who gave their name
to the elegant " Adam " style of interior decora-
tion which they introduced — and Newgate Prison,
by the younger Dance, a vigorous and appropri-
ate design, shortly to be replaced by the new
Assize Courts.

IX. o

MODERN ARCHITECTURE. "^"^ .v"^

There is little to add to what has already
been said regarding the architecture of the
eighteenth century. An interesting development

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 191

took place in the American colonies, into which
the English settlers introduced the classical forms
of Wren and other Renaissance architects. In
the new continent the early buildings were almost
entirely of wood, and the details were gradually
modified to suit the new requirements.

^ In comparison with the enormous strides
which have been made during the nineteenth
century in all branches of science, the progress
of architecture during this period is hardly worth
consideration. \ Throughout the continent of Eu-
rope comparatively few notable buildings have
been produced during the past century. ^ In '
France, as we have noted, the Louvre and the
Tuileries were completed, and the new Opera
House was built in Paris (i 863-1 875). Austria
has produced, among several fine public halls and
theatres, the great Opera House, and the House
of Parliament (1843) in Vienna, and the Dresden
Theatre, all designed more or less on classical
lines. \ German architecture in the early part of
the century received an impetus under Schinkel
(d. 1841), who designed the Museum at Berlin,
with its great portico of Ionic columns, and the
Court Theatre, also in Berlin, in which the Greek
forms are admirably adapted to the requirements.
Other well-known buildings are the Propylaea at
Munich, and the Walhalla at Ratisbon — a copy of
the Parthenon, by von Klenze (1784-1864). V << In
general," writes Hamlin, *' the Greek revival in
Germany presents the aspect of a strong striving
after beauty, on the part of a limited number of
artists of great talent, misled by the idea that
the forms of a dead civilisation could be gal-
vanised into new life in the service of modern

192 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

needs. The result was disappointing, in spite of
the excellent planning, admirable construction,
and carefully studied detail of these buildings,
and the movement hefe,'jas elsewhere, was fore-
doomed to failure."

Mn England the past century has been one of
( successive revivals. Each of the three great
^ styles — Qrrr'^, PoHTJ^^^amj ,1g^j2f2f:f^j;;f — ^^^ ^^^
its day ; but it is only within comparatively recent
years that any definite progress has been made
towards the formation of a distinct national style
of architecture. In the early part of the century
the interest aroused by the publications of Stuart
and Revett and others upon the monuments of
Greece, and theyimportation of the Parthenon
sculptures by Lord Elgin, led to a craze for
Greek details. Doric and Ionic orders were
used in connection with every design, without
any regard to propriety, provided only they were
of strictly correct detail and proportions. Every
house had its classical portico, every church was
a slavish copy from a Greek model. In the
church of S. Pancras, London, the architect re-
produced the Caryatid Porch of the Erechtheum
at Athens, and copied his steeple from the Tem-
ple of the Winds. The revived Greek style found
its highest expression in S. George's Hall, Liver-
pool, by Elmes and Cockerell ; and so closely
were the classical details adhered to in this build-
ing that, in Fergusson's words, " the architect
failed in his endeavours if you are able to detect
in S. George's Hall any feature which would lead
you to suppose the building might not belong to
the age of Augustus."

\ Meanwhile, a small band of enthusiasts had
been preparing the way for the revival of the

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 193

neglected and almost forgotten Gothic architec-
ture. The publication of Britton's great work on
"The Cathedral Antiquities of- England" caused
many people to reflect that, after all,\Gothic was
the great national style, and, as such, was more
suited to the English requirements than the Greek
temple forms could possibly be. Rickman's book
upon the Gothic styles followed, and the move-
ment, once in progreiss, soon gained strength. It
did not lack great leaders — writers as well as
designers : Pugin, Street, and, weightiest of all,
vRuskin, threw their influence into the scale, and
the Gothic r^fiYiyal became an established fact. \It
produced many notable buildings ; chief among
them the Houses of Parliament^at Westminster,£^^
begun by Sir Charles Barry in 1839, in the Per-
pendicular style, and the New Law Courts in
London, jby Street.

But ^hile the Gothic movement was at its
height, the Greek school had by no means become
extinct. The two styles were being worked out
simultaneously in a way that was quite unprece-
dented. At Liverpool the classical style was cul-
minating in S. George's Hall, begun in almost the
same year (1840) that saw the inception of the
Gothic Houses of Parliament in London ; more-
over, the architect of the Gothic building was at
the same time busy with such classical designs as
the Treasury buildings and the Reform Club.
Small wonder, then, that there resulted a great
"Battle of the Styles," which was waged fiercely
between the opposing parties. It was especially
bitter over the great competition for the Govern-
ment Ofiices in 1857, the result of which, to quote
the late J. M. Brydon's words, " was quite typical
of the ding-dong of party warfare. Won by a
13

194 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

classical design, the decision was annulled in
favour of a Gothic building, to be reversed again
in its turn, and finally carried out in classic by a
Gothic architect against his will.*'
-4^The last part of the century has witnessed in
England and, indeed, through Europe, a return to
the Renaissance principles, seen in a large num-
ber of designs in which the classical forms are
treated with freedom, and often with skilful
adaptability to new materials and new methods of
construction. The closing years of the nineteenth
century foreshadowed the vast influence which
the extensive use of iron is to exercise in the
future upon architectural works and upon all
forms of design. Commercial buildings are now
becoming nothing more than gigantic frameworks
of iron and steel, covered with a clothing of
masonry. " For thousands of years," as a recent
writer puts it, "every large building in the world
was constructed with enormous walls of masonry
to hold up the inner framework of floors and
partitions. It was a substantial and worthy
method of construction, and there seemed no need
of changing it. But one day a daring builder,
with an idea, astonished the world by reversing
this order of construction, and building an inner
framework strong enough to hold up the outside
walls of masonry. The invention was instantly
successful, so that to-day the construction of a
tall building is * not architecture, but engineering
with a stone veneer.' " The result of all this, and
the outcome of the utilitarian requirements of
the day, is the American '' sky-scraper " — " a steel
bridge standing on end, with passenger cars run-
ning up and down within it " — which, within the
last ten years, has become a familiar feature in

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 1 95

Fig. 58. — Park Row Building, New York City.

196 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

almost every great American city. The illustra-
tion shows the-tailest and ode-ol^the largest of
these extraordinary structures — the Park Row
Building in New York city. Comprised in the
thirty stories of this building are no less than
950 rooms, designed to accommodate a popula-
tion of 4^00 people ! "^From twelve to twenty
weeks* work suffices to complete one of these
gigantic structures, which illustrates the wonder-
ful rapidity with which such a building may be
completed when the construction is carried out
in accordance with the methods of the twentieth
century.

ARCHITECTURE IN AMERICAN \^^

\ Regardless of their interest to the ethnolo-
gist ami the archaeologist, the wigwams and pueD-^ '"^
Joslid^^the North American Indians were not of
a nature permanently to influence the architec-
ture'of the United States. The strong races —
English, Spanish, French, and Dutch — that poured
into the colonies like the Romans into Gaul and
the Normans into England, brought with them
the manners, customs, and traditions of their na-
tive countries, and built their new homes accord-
ing to the fashions prevailing in seventeenth and
eighteenth century England, Holland, France, or
Spain. At first many of their building materials

* This chapter has been prepared by the American pub-
lishers.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 197

were imported from the old countries; but, while
unhampered by aboriginal tradition, partly through
the character imposed upon them by the social
and economical conditions of the colonies, but
chiefly through their adaptation to the climate
and the gradual introduction of native materials,
the new structures almost at once bega?<i to differ
from their European models. Thus arose what
modern architects are pleased to call '* colonial
architecture " — a designation equally applicable
to all the colonial styles, but by usage now con-
fined to the old English forms; for the tastes
and prejudices of the English followed their po-
litical successes throughout the Eastern colonies.
y>C At the time of the settlement of the Ameri-
can colonies, the immediate successors of Wren —
Hawksmoor, Vanbrugh, Gibbs, Sir William Cham-
bers, and the brothers Adam — were building Blen-
heim, Castle Howard, and Somerset House ; and
the designs for some of the earliest work in
New England, particularly the churches, are said
to have been by these masters. The style was
the Italian Renaissance, as it was then understood
and interpreted in England and adapted to Eng-
lish use. The Roman orders, rigidly and pedan-
tically adhered to, were the basis of all architec-
tural design. But where in England the building
was in stone or in brick with stone details, in
America it was ordinarily in wood or in brick
with wooden details. The proportions of the
stone building were too massive to be carried out
in the lighter material, but the facile nature of
the wood gave to the details a greater delicacy
than could be attained in stone. Thus gradually
it became common in the provincial work to at-
tenuate the orders. Columns and pilasters be-

198 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

came higher in proportion to their diameters, en-
tablatures lower in proportion to the height of
the columns or pilasters supporting them.

The interiors of the churches followed the
traditions established in S. Stephen's, Walbrook-;
in S. Mary-le-Bow; in S. James, Piccadilly; and
in other contemporary English churches; and
their exteriors, depending almost entirely on their
towers for architectural character, were in imita-
tion of the steeples and lanterns of Wren.

' The formal and stately beauty of the great
mansions, some of which are fortunately preserved
to us, was carried out with as studied symmetry
and as fastidious precision of detail in the domes-
tic work of the humbler sort. This state of affairs

Fig. 59. — Longfellow's house, Cambridge, Mass.

existed up to the beginning of the nineteenth cen-
tury, and what was accomplished is perhaps best
illustrated by the following extract: *' In respect
to decoration, they used the Roman formulas of
columns, pilasters, and entablatures, together
with the architraves, window-caps, and balus-

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 199

trades of the Italian Renaissance, all as they
were understood in England in the eighteenth
century. . . . These formulas, however, were not
developed from the structure, but applied to
it. Thus the characteristic mansion of colonial 1
times was usually a construction of square plan j
in brick or wood, with a wide hall or passage-
way dividing it into equal halves. As a structure
it was complete in all its essential parts before
it had begun to assume architectural character.
For this it depended upon a pompous portico at
the main entrance; upon a great cornice, con-
structed in the form of a full entablature, some-
times supported at the angles by pilasters; its
windows were framed by moulded architraves,
surmounted by carved or moulded pediments or
frontispieces, and the roof was crowned with a
belvedere or with a balustrade decorated with
vases. All these details were apt to be of wood,
but they were correct according to the established
dogmas of the orders adopted. No builder had
imagination enough or audacity enough to at-
tempt to improve them. If there was a necessity
for attached outbuildings, these were equally
arranged on each side of the main structure so as
to form a symmetrical composition. The neces-
sity of securing such a composition was para-
mount to any considerations of practical conve-
nience or necessity. The test of ingenuity in the
builder was to obtain this result with the least
sacrifice of personal comfort. They obtained in
their interiors bountiful spaces, grand staircases
with easy ascents and wide landings; carved and
twisted balustrades; apartments of state whose
walls were panelled in wood from floor to ceiling ;
chimney-pieces delicately moulded and carved

200 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

with prim festoons, garlands, and sXvags of buds;
ceilings crossed by finely moulded beams and
decorated with the sort of stucco-work made fash-
ionable in the old country by the brothers Adam;
panelled wainscots crowned with moulded caps,
which were embellished with dentils, rosettes, or
triglyphs."

)C In recent years the English colonial has been
revived with good effect ; but the interest in it is
rather a patriotic than an artistic or archaeological
one, and promises to be only transitional. NThe
style in its simplicity and daintiness offers a pleas-
ing relief from the highly wrought creations of
former years, especially in the Western cities ; and
if it is teaching nothing else it is showing the im-
mense advantage, artistical and practical, of hon-
est building over the striving after outlandish and
surprising effects carried out in wood, stamped
iron, and plaster. KxiK, -
y. A century before the settlement of New Eng-
land Spanish missionaries were preaching their
way into California and the Southwest, and build-
ing there mission-houses and churches with the
arcades and belfries of rural Spain. In Mexico
this type, adjusted to local conditions of climate
and use, has developed itself into a style that
we recognise as peculiar to the country, and as
distinctly different from contemporaneous archi-
tecture in the mother-country, whose tradition it
so faithfully preserves. No systematic attempt
ever has been made to revive this style in the
United States, or even in those States where it is
most nearly indigenous, although the adoption of
it for the extensive buildings of the Leland Stan-
ford Junior University, for the California Building
at the World's Fair in Chicago, in 1893, and for

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 20 1

the buildings of the Pan-American Exposition in
l)uffalo, in 1901, betokens a serious interest in
the many possibilities that it offers. In Florida,
the centre of the Spanish colonies on the Atlantic
coast, the design has been carried into effect in
several of the great modern hotels with signal
success.

The old-fashioned provincial French buildings
in New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana, and
the stepped gables, the fantastic finials, and
weather-cocks of New Amsterdam are architec-
turally chiefly memories, and while now and then
used with effect in decoration, no serious attempt
ever has been made to revive them.
J-iJntil recent years the architectural history of
tne United States is largely a reflection of that of
Paris and London. All the great English revivals,
classic, mediaeval, and Renaissance, tempered, it
is true, by many American characteristics, were
closely followed on this side of the water until
perhaps within a quarter of a century. The craze
for Greek architecture and ornament that followed
upon the publication of the great work of Stuart
and Revett, "The Antiquities of Athens," and
which supplanted the Roman forms of Wren and
his followers, early made its way into America.
The columns of the Parthenon were imitated in
wood and set up in front of public buildings and
the more pretentious residences; belvederes and
cupolas were painted parodies of the Temple of
the Winds and the Choragic Monument of Lysic
rates; and carpenters applied the new formulas
to mantel-pieces, doorways, and window-frames.

The most distinguished disciple of this Greek
revival in the United Slates was Thomas Jeffer-
son, who made interesting applications of this

202 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Style at his seat at Monticello and in the old
buildings of the University of Virginia, of which
institution he was the founder. ^Vhile he was in
the Cabinets of Washington and Adams, and while
himself President, the plans for the national Cap-
itol and presidential residence took definite shape,
and he lent all his interest and effort towards hav-
ing them built according to the best architectural
tradition of the time.

The first designs for the Capitol, or, more cor-
rectly, for what is now but the small central part
of it, were submitted in a public competition by
Dr. William Thornton (died in 1827), an English

Fig. 60. — The Capitol at Washington.

amateur residing in America, and were afterwards
developed and practically redrawn and the build-
ing built by the gifted architect and engineer
Benjamin H. Latrobe (i 764-1 820). After the
burning of the Capitol by the British, Latrobe was
given charge of the reconsjt^uction, but he was
succeeded in 1817 by Charlcsffulfinch (i 763-1844).
Bulfinch was one of the strongest factors in shap-

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 203

ing the architectural tastes of the country. He
was a graduate of Harvard, and his state-houses
in Boston and in Augusta, Maine, and his churches
and monuments in Boston strongly influenced the
public and domestic architecture of New England
for many years. His work is characterised by
its seriousness and its absolute correctness of
style, t? Thomas U. Waltero(i8o4-i887), the sec-
ond president of the Institute of Architects, added
the great wings and built the great dome of the
Capitol as we know it to-day, completing the
work in 1865.

The overworked supervising architect of the
Treasury Department has more or less faithfully
followed the style of this first great building in
the greater part of the public buildings of the
United States. With rarely less than fifty such
buildings under construction at the same time,
these national monuments have become mechan-
ical and monotonous, and, unlike other civilised
nations, it is impossible to point to the later na-
tional architecture as representative of the best
skill of the republic. It is only recently, through
legislation prompted by the American Institute
of Architects, that this important public service
has been thrown open to the best talent of the
country.

^The English Gothic revival was followed
through all its phases in the United States, and
the "battle of the styles" was waged as fiercely
on the western shores of the Atlantic as on the
eastern. As was natural, by reason of the char-
acteristic want of respect for historic precedents,
the style in America was far less correct and lent
itself to many conceits and inventions; but for
many years it dominated the field,] drawing its

204 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

inspiration from Pugin, Ruskin, and the other
writers, moral and artistic, that gave the revival
its remarkable strength in England.
\ The Gothic revival was followed by the move-
ment begun in England byOMr. Norman Shaw,
and known there as " the Queen Anne revival,"
which strove to revive the form of the Renais-
sance in vogue in the early part of the eigh-
teenth century. Its effect in America was chiefly
upon wooden domestic architecture, and, affect-
ed and capricious, was justly ephemeral. \Its
characteristics were a common purpose to use
small panes of glass, to caricature the sunflower,
and systematically to degrade certain classic
types.

In 1857 a few architects of New York city
united to form the first architectural society. In
1866 this society was reorganised as the Amer-
ican Institute of Architects. It established chap-
ters in all the principal cities of the East, and has
been one of the greatest influences for good, both
in the practice and appreciation of architecture.
The Western Association of Architects, with its
chapters in the Western cities, united with the In-
stitute in 1890. Each of these chapters has a
stated monthly meeting, and there is an annual
convention of the national body.

Its first president, Richard Upjohn (1802-
1878), of New York, has been called the father of
American architecture; and certainly no single
man of the second and third quarters of the cen-
tury exerted so lasting an influence, either from
the standpoint of his art or his personality. His
great works, Trinity and S. Thomas in New
York, Grace Church and Christ Church in Brook-
lyn, Grace Church in Providence, S. Paul's in

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 20$

Buffalo, S. Peter's in Albany, the Cathedral in
Bangor, S. Paul's in Baltimore, and numerous
other churches and many secular buildings, are
mainly in pure archaeological Gothic; and they
were the first monuments of pure romantic style
in America, and built at a time when America,
breaking away from colonial and classical tradi-
tions, was most in need of just such examples.
Speaking of his influence in the Institute of Ar-
chitects, a fellow-member says: "He did more inj
his day than any other one man to awaken a fra-
ternal feeling in the profession, and to break
through the isolation created by that mutual jeal-
ousy and unreasoning distrust which unhappily
divided the architects of that time and prevented
them from enjoying the fruits of united and har-
monious action."

T^An even more potent influence for the better-
ment of architectural ideals has been the estab-
lishment of the American architectural schools.
The first was founded through the generosity and
public spirit of Richaid M. Hunt (1828-1895), the
third president of the Institute. He assented to
become the teacher of several young men who
desired better and more liberal instruction than
could be obtained by the usual office appren-
ticeship or by infrequent and expensive study
abroad. In his methods of instruction he fol-
lowed the plan of the^rench School of Fine Arts,
of which he was one of the earliest American
graduates.

His work has been followed up by the suc-
cessful establishment of schools of high standard,
at the^^assachusetts Institute of Technology^ ^'
now under Prof. Francis Ward Chandler (1844-
) ; Yolumbia University, under Prof. William

i;>Co

£.{'< (A

2o6 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Robert Ware (1832 ); Cornell University,

under Prof. Charles Babcock ; and many others.
These schools, with their curricula modelled on the
broad lines of American educational methods, have
taken the instruction out of the hands of " half-
instructed practitioners " and are raising it to a
high plane.

American architectural periodicals have large-
ly supplanted those of foreign publication; and
the reproduction of the best current work, built
for and adapted to American uses, together with
the ease of intercommunication, are tending to
create a unity of architecture over the entire
country.

fThe construction of the American " sky-scrap-
er " has been referred to in a previous chapter.
The vast number built and building, not only in
New York and the larger cities of the country,
but in many of the smaller cities as well, attests
to their practicability and their permanency as a
feature of American architecture. While strain-
ing far the traditions of the schools, many of
these structures are not unbeautiful, and the skill
and courage with which American architects meet
these harsh though practical requirements argues
well for what may perhaps in the future produce
a national architecture growing out of the spirit
of the people.

i3'he World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago,
ana the others that have followed it in various
parts of the country, culminating in the Pan-
American at Buffalo ia. 1-901, in addition to prov-^Q^
ing "that the art in this country has passed the^^
time of its pupilage, and that it is capable of v
meeting the largest demands ever made upon
architecture as a purely decorative art in a sym-

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 207

pathetic and adequate manner not only with pure
classic but with romantic and picturesque forms,
so treated as to reflect at the same time our re-
spect for the past, our confidence in the future, and
the innate independence of the national charac-
ter," they have been great and useful object-les-
sons to the country at large.

V'ln a smaller but a similar way the building
of great country-houses, which is in a way the
most recent addition to American domestic life,
the replacing of the older churches crowded
out by the advancing business of the great cit-
ies, and the building of handsomely endowed
library buildings in almost every city of conse-
quence in the land, give to the American arch-
itect an opportunity to teach his great lesson
to the people unrivalled in any country in the
world.

But one revival remains to be considered, and
one so broad and honest in its principles, and so
worthy and capable of development, that it bids
fair to give a lasting m,ark of distinction to Ameri-
can building. This was the introduction more
than a quarter of a century ago of heavy Roman-
esque forms from the south of France, " low-
browed round arches, stone mullions and tran-
soms, wide-spreading gables, severe sky-lines, ap-
sidal projections, rounded angles, and towers
with low, pointed, domical roofs ; great wealth of
carving where the work is rich ; a general aspect
of heaviness and strength, frequently degenerat-
ing into an affectation of rudeness; columns are
short and stumpy, and capitals show Byzantine
influence; colonnades and arcades of windows
are frequent, and all are free from the trammels
of classicism." This revival is distinctly Ameri-

2o8

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

can, and its influence has been as strongly marked
upon the older as upon the younger members of
the profession.

The man who stood at the head of this great
movement was Henry Hobson Richardson (1838-
1886), whose career was one of the most interest-
ing and perhaps one of the most distinguished in
the history of modern architecture. He was gradu-
ated at Harvard College in 1859, and at the School
of Fine Arts in Paris. He returned to America in
1865, but the first of his great work was the build-
ing of Brattle Stree-t and Trinity Churches in Bos-
ton in 1871-1875.
His influence be-
gan to be felt
/^#^ «- Jk -^ '^ very soon and

#^^l^"'* 4jAl. very widely, and,

without anyeffort

or desire to found

a school, he drew

about him a large

number of young

men, on whom the

impress that he

left was very

strong. His work

was characterised

by breadth and

simplicity, andthe

disposition to pro-

ll'ce effect rather by the power of great mass and

)iMti than by elaboration of detail. He drew

^Jiiefly on the Romanesque of Auvergne, but was

^argely indebted for detail to Anjou, Aquitaine,

/r Provence, and Normandy. He collected all the

' books, prints, and photographs that bore upon

Fig. 61. — Trinity Church, Boston, Mass.

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING. 209

the subject, and made thorough and conscien-
tious personal studies in the byways of southern
France for examples and details. The result of
it has been a strengthening of the architecture of
the country, which must always mark an epoch
in its history.

•

SELECTED LIST OF BOOKS.

Fergusson
Hamlin

Fletcher

Stratham

Lanciani

Roger Smith & Slater

Roger Smith

Parker

Ruskin

Anderson

Oliphant

Symonds

Blomfield

Gotch

Bond

Phythian

2IO

History of Architecture.
Text-book of the History of
Architecture.

History of Architecture for the
Student, Craftsman, and Ama-
teur,

Architecture for General Read-
ers.

Ancient Rome in the Light of
Modern Discovery,

Classic and Early Christian
Architecture.

Renaissance and Gothic Archi-
lecture.

Introduction to the Study of
Gothic Architecture.

Stones of Venice.

Seven Lamps of Architecture.

Architecture of the Re7iaissance
in Italy.

Makers of Florence.

The Renaissance of the Fine
Arts in Italy.

Short History of Renaissance
Architecture in England.

Early Renaissance Architecture
in England.

English Cathedrals Illustrated.

Art in the British Isles.

INDEX.

Adam, Robert, 190.

Agrigentum, temple at, 37, 46.

Aix-la-Chapelle, cathedral of, 113.

Albert!, 161.

Alcazar, Seville, 100.

Alhambra, The, 100.

American Institute of Architects,

204,
Amiens Cathedral, 128, 139.
Anthemius of Tralles, 91.
Antwerp Cathedral, 155.
A/se, development of the, 81, 83, 85,

no.
A rch^ Assyrian, 29 ; Egyptian, 18 ;

Etruscan, 55 ; Greek, 53 ; Roman,

56, 71-
Arnolfo del Cambio, 150, 157.
Assyrian architecture, 28.
Atreus, Treasury of, 34.
Attic ^ Roman, 71.
Audley End, 183.
Azay-le-Rideau, Chenonceaux, 175.

Ba//-J^ower omsimentatlon^ 132, 146.

Barrel-vaultings in.

Basilica of Constantine, 76.

Basilica Julia, 66, 74.

Basilica Ulpia, 75,

Basilicas, Roman, 74, 80, 103.

Bassse, temple at, 46.

Baths, Roman, 73.

Bayonne Cathedral, 127.

Beauvais Cathedral, 128, 130.

Beni-Hasan, tomb at, 16, 17, 27, 41.

Bernini, 171.

Blenheim, 189.

Blois, Chateau of, 174.

Bourges Cathedral, 127, 128.
Bow Church, Cheapside, 188.
Bradford-on-Avon, Saxon church at,

116.
Bramante, 165, 169.
Bristol, chapter-house at, 144.
Bruges Cathedral, 15-.
Brunelleschi, Filippo, 1-0, 157.
Brussels Cathedral, 155.
Burghley House, 181.
Burgos Cathedral, 155.
Byzantine architecture, 88, 89.

C^ d'Oro, Venice, 154.

Callicrates, 46.

Cancellaria Palace, 169.

Canterbury Cathedral, 119, 120, 135.

Capitol, United States, 202.

Caracalla, baths of, 74.

Carlisle Cathedral, 120, 142.

Carving, Egyptian, 28.

Caryatids of the Erechtheum, 49.

Castle Howard, 189.

Castor and Pollux, temple of, 64.

Certosa, Pavia, i.j6, 151.

Chambers, Sir William, 190.

Chambord, Chateau at, 174.

Chapter-houses, 144.

Chartres Cathedral, 127.

Cheops, pyramid of, 12.

Chevet^ in, 128, 141.

Chiswick, i8<i.

Christ Churcn, Oxford, 120.

Churches, early, 79, 103 ; English

parish, 120, 145.
Church of the Apostles, Cologne^

114.
Circus Maximus, 69.
Classical revival, 192.

211

212 STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

" Cleopatra's Needle," 21.
Cloaca Maxima, 55-
Cologne Cathedral, 154.
Cologaie,^ Church of the Apostles,

114.
Colonial architecture, American,

197.
Colosseum, the, 65, 67. .

Colour decoration, Egyptian, 28 ;

Greek, 44.
Columbian Exposition, 200.
• Columns, Assyrian, 29 -Corinthian,
51 ; Doric, 17, 39, (Roman), 61 ;
Egyptian, 17, 26 ; Ionic, 29, 31, 47i
(Roman), 61 ; at Mycenae, 35 ;
Norman, 119; Persian, 31, 46;
Roman, 71 ; Tuscan, 61.
Composite order, 61.
Concrete, Roman use of, 58.
Constantine, Arch of, 70.
Cordova, mosque at, 99.
Corinth, temple at, 35, 38.
Corinthian order, 38, 50, 61.
Cronaca, 163.
. *' Cyclopean " masonry, 33, 35.

Dance, George, 190.

Decorated architecture, 132, 142.

Delorme, Philibert, 176.

Denderah, temples at, 26.

Diocletian, baths of, 74.

Doges' Palace, Venice, 153.

Domestic architecture, Greek, 53;
Roman, 76; Egyptian, 78; French,
131 ; Venetian, 152 ; Florentine,

163. ^
Doric orders, 17, 35, 37.
Doric (.Roman) order, 61.
Dosseret, the, 88, 93.
Durham Cathedral, 82, 118, 120, 128,

141.

Earl's Barton, tower of, n6.
Edfou, temples at, 26.
Egyptian architecture, to, 78.
Elgin marbles, 43, 46, 192.
Ely Cathedral, 120, 130, 138, i47-
Ephesus, temple at, 50.
Erechtheum, the, 48.
Etruscan architecture, 53.

Fan-tracery, 144.
Farnese Palace, 74,

Ferrara Cathedral, 150.
Flamboyant Gothic, 126, 131.
Florence Cathedral, 150, 151, J-Sl'
Florentine architecture, 164.
Flying buttress, 124.
Fontainebleau, 174.
Fontana, 171.

Fortuna Virilis, temple of, 62, 67.
Foscari Palace, Venice, 154.
Fountains Abbey, 138, 147.
Furness Abbey, 135.

Ghent, cathedral at, 155.
Ghiberti, 158.
Ghizeh, pyramids of, 12.
Giacomo della Porta, 171.
Gibbs, 189.

Giotti's Campanile, 152, 157.
Giralda, Seville, loi.
Giuliano da San Gallo, 170.
Glasgow Cathedral, 147.
Glass, painted, 125, 142.
Gloucester Cathedral, 119, 120.
'* Golden House " of Nero, 65.
" Gothic " architecture, 109, 120.
Gothic cathedral plan, 84.
Greek architecture, n, 32, 35, 53,
56, 60, 78.

Haddon Hall, 1771 i79-

Hampton Court Palace, 188.

Hardwicke Hall, 179.

Hawksmoor, 189.

Heliopolis, temple at, 21.

Henry VII 's Chapel, Westminster

Abbey, 144
Hereford Cathedral, 120.
Hotel des Invalides, Paris, 177.
Hotel de Ville, Paris, 176.
Houses of Parliament, 193.
Hunt, Richard M., 205.
Hypostyle Hall at Karnak, 22, 30.

Ictinus, 46.
Ionic order, 38, 46, 52.
Ionic (Roman) order, 61.
Isidorus of Miletus, 91.

Jones, Inigo, 184.

Jupiter Olympius, temple of, 72.

INDEX.

213

Kaabah, at Mecca, 96.
Karnak, temples at, 17, 21, 22.
Keddlestone Hall, loo.
Khorsabad, architectural remains at,

28.
King's College, Cambridge, 144.
Kingston House, Bradford-on-Avon,

183.
Kirkstall Abbey, 135.
Knole House, 183.

Laon Cathedral, 127, 128.

Latrobe, Benjamin H., 202.

LeaninjT Tower of Pisa, 105.

Lescot, Pierre, 175.

Lichfield Cathedral, 147.

Limoges Cathedral, 130.

Lincoln Cathedral, 144.

Lion Gate of Mycenae, 34.

Lisieux Cathedral, 127.

Lombard architecture, 104.

Longfellow's house, ig8.

Longleat, 183.

Louvain Cathedral, 155.

Louvre, 175, 191.

Luxembourg, 177,

Luxor, temple at, 21.

Lysicrates, choragic monument of,

51-

M.
Maderna, 171.
Magdeburg Cathedral, 154.
f Maison Carrce, Nimes, 67.
; Malmsbury Abbey, 135.
Mansard, J H., 177.
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, 32.
Mayence, Cathedral of, 115.
Memnon, vocal, 21.
Memphis, 16, 20.
Michelangelo, 170, 171, 173.
Michelozzo, 163.
Milan Cathedral, 150, 151.
Mohammed, 95.
Mohammedan architecture, 95.
Monreale, Cathedral of, Sicily,

107.
Montacute House, 181, 182.
Moorish architecture, 99.
Mosaics^ 86, 91, 92, 150.
Mosque architecture, 97.
Mouiding-s^ Egyptian, 28 ; Gothic,

146 ; Norman, 119.
Mycenae, remains at, 33, 34.

Narbonne Cathedral, 131.

Narthex^ the^ 81.

Nave^ the^ 82.

Nineveh, remains at, 28.

Norman architecture, 112, 117, 133.

Norwich Cathedral, 120.

Notre Dame, Clermont, no, 129.

Notre Dame, Paris, 127.

Olympia, Temple of Zeus at, 46.
Opera House, Paris, 191.
Opus Alexandrinum^ 86, 93.
Orvieto Cathedral, 150.

Paestum, temple at, 46.

Painted glass, 125, 142.

Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, 157.

Palladio, 173, 184.

Pan-American Exposition, 201, 206.

Pansa, House of, at Pompeii, 76.

Pantheon, 59, 72.

Parish churches, England, 120, 145.

Parliament, Houses of, 193.

Parthenon, 37, 38, 41.

Pavia, Certosa of, 151, 166.

Penshurst, 183.

Perpendicular architecture, 132, 143.

Persepolis, remains at, 30, 46.

Persian architecture, 29.

Peruzzi, 170.

Peterborough, Cathedral of, 118,

120, 147.
Pheidias, 44, 46.
Philae, temples at, 26.
Piacenza, Cathedral of, 104, 105.
Pisa, cathedral and tower, 105.
Pisan architecture, 104.
Pisani Palace, Venice, 154.
Podium^ of Roman temples, 63.
Poitiers Cathedral, 127, 128.
Pompeii, domestic architecture at,

53i 76-
Pompey, Theatre of, 170.

Pyramids, 12, 34.

Ramesium, 21, 24.
Raphael, 166, 170.
Ravenna, Cathedral of, 87, 92.
Renaissance architecture, 156.

214

STORY OF THE ART OF BUILDING.

Revett, 192.

Rheims Cathedral, 128, 131.
Riccardi Palace, Florence, 163.
Richardson, Henry Hobson, 208.
Ripon Cathedral, 147.
Rochester Cathedral, 120, 138.
Roman architecture, 53.
Romanesque architecture, 102 ; in

America, 207.
Rouen Cathedral, 130.
Ruccelai Palace, Florence, 162.
Rustic ivorky 163.

S. Alban's Abbey, 120.

S. Ambrogio, Milan, 81, 104.

S. Andrea, Mantua, 162.

S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna,

87, 92.
S. Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, 87,

92.
S. Bartholomew the Great, London,

120.
Sainte Chapelle, Paris, 123.
S. Clemente, Rome, 81, 87.
S. Croce, Florence, 157, 161, 165.
S. Elizabeth, Marburg, 154.
S. Etienne, Caen, 112.
S. Francesco, Assisi, 149.
S. Francesco, Rimini, 162.
S. Front, Perigueux, 109.
S. lago, Compostella, 115.
S. Jonn Lateran, 71, 81, 86.
S. John, Ravenna, 92.
S. Lorenzo, Florence, 161.
S. Maria degli Angeli, 74.
S. Maria dei Miracoli, Venice, 167.
S. Maria delle Grazie, Milan, 166.
Sta. Maria Maggiore, Rome, 86.
S. Maria Novella, Florence, 162.
S. Mark's. Venice, 93, 109, 153.
S. Martin s-in-the- Fields, 189.
S. Mary-le-bow, 189.
S. Mary-le-Strand, 189.
S. Michel, Mont, 113, 130.
S. Miniato, Florence, 106.
S. Pancreas, London, 192.
S. Paul's, London, 185.
S. Paul Outside the Walls, 81, 87.
S. Peter's, Rome, 84, 170, 186.
S. Petronio, Bologna, 150.
S. Sophia, Constantinople, gi, loi.
S. Spirito, Florence, 161.
S. Trinite. Caen, 113
S. Vitale, Ravenna, 92, 113,
S. Zeno, Verona, 104, 105.

Salamanca, Cathedral of, 116.
Salisbury Cathedral, 128, 134, 139,

144- .
Sammichele, 173.
San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo,

156. ^

Saxon architecture, 116.
Schools, architectural, 205.
Selinus, temple at, 46.
Septimus Severus, Arch of, 70.
Serlio, 175.

Seville Cathedral, 156.
Seville, Moorish buildings at, 100.
Siena Cathedral, 150.
" Sky-scrapers," 194, 195, 206.
Soane, Sir John, igo.
Somerset House, 190.
Spanish-American architecture, 200.
Spinelli Palace, Venice, 168.
Spires, Cathedral of, 115.
Steel building. 194.
Strasburg Catnedral, 154.
Strozzi Palace, Florence, 163, 164.
Stuart, 192.

Temple Bar, 185.

Temple Church, London, 138.

Temples, Egyptian, 11, 19, 26, 36;
Etruscan, 55 ; Greek, 36, 46, 49 ;
Roman, 61.

Terra-cot,ta^ use in Etruscan archi-
tecture, 56.

Theatres, Greek, 52.

Thebes, 20, 24.

Theseum, 38, 46.

Thorp, John, 181.

Tintern Abbey, 147.

Tiryns, remains at, 33.

Titus, Arch of, 70.

Toledo Cathedral, 155.

Tombs, Egyptian, 11, 15 ; Etruscan,
55 ; Greek, 52.

Toulouse Cathedral, 131.

Tours Cathedral, 127.

Tower of London, 120.

Tracery^ window, development of,
12";, 126, 142.

Trajan, Arch of, 70.

Trajan, Forum of, 70, 75.

Transepts, development of the, 81.

Trinity Church, Boston, 208.

Trinity Church, New York, 204.

Troyes Cathedral, 127, 131.

Tuileries, 176, igi.

Tuscan architecture, 104, 105.

Tuscan order, 61.

INDEX.

215

Upjohn, Richard, 204.
V.

Vanbrugh, i8g.
Vaultings barrel,
Vesta, Temple of, 63.
Versailles, 177.
Vignola, 171, 172.
Von Klenze, 191.

Walhalla, Ratisbon, 191.
Walter, Thomas W., 203.

; ribbed, 120.

Waltham Abbey, 120.

Wells Cathedral. 144.

Westminster Abbey, 82, 86, 141, 144.

Westminster Hall, 146.

Whitehall, Banqueting Hall at, 184.

Winchester Cathedral, 120, 130, 138.

" Wingless Victory," Temple of, 49.

WoUaton Hall, 170.

Worcester Cathedral, 135, 147.

Worms, Cathedral of, 115.

Wren, Sir Christopher, 185.

York Cathedral, 144, 147.
York Minster, 143.

(7)

THE END,

^^Bs^no— QaL_

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