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X 



WONDERS 

OF 

ARCHITECTURE 



WONDERS 



ARCHITECTURE. 



Cranslateb from % Jrmfr of P. 



TO WHICH IS A&DBD 



A CHAPTER ON ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE, 



R. DONALD. 



NEW YORK: 
CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., 

654 BROADWAY. 
1871. 



illustrated pbrary of Wonders. 



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Tides of Books. M>- of Illustrations. 

THUNDER AND LIGHTNING, . . * ' 5n 

WONDERS OP OPTICS, ... 

WONDERS OF HEAT, ...... 

INTELLIGENCE OF ANIMALS, ...... 

GBEAT HUNTS, ....' 

EGYPT 3,300 YEARS AGO, ....... 

WONDERS OF POMPEII, ....... 

THE SUN, BT A. GUILLEMIN, ...... 

SUBLIME IN NATURE, .......< 

WONDERS OF GLASS- MAKING, . .... 

WONDERS OF ITALIAN ART, . . . . . . : 

WONDERS OF THE HUMAN BODT, ..... 

WONDERS OF ARCHITECTURE, . 

LIGHTHOUSES AND LIGHTSHIPS, ...... 60 

BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN, ....... 

WONDERS OF BODILY STRENGTH AND HKILL, . 

WONDERFUL BALLOON ASCENTS, ...... 30 

ACOUSTICS, ......... 114 

WONDERS OF THE HEAVENS, ....... 48 

THE MOON, BY A. GUILLEMIN, ...... 

WONDERS OF SCULPTURE, ....... 61 

WONDERS OF ENGRAVING, ...... 32 

WONDERS OF VEGETATION, . . ..... 45 

WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WOULD, ..... 

CELEBRATED ESCAPES, . . . . . . .26 

WATER * 

HYDRAULICS, ........ 

ELECTRICITY, ........ 

SUBTERRANEAN WORLD, . . . . . 3T 

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PREFACE. 

THE object of the present work is to supply, in as accessible 
and popular a form as the nature of the subject admits, a 
connected and comprehensive sketch of the chief archi- 
tectural achievements of ancient and modern times. To 
give a history of the art treated of in the following pages, 
would require much more space than is here devoted 
to the subject. But whilst this has not been directly at- 
tempted, it may be said to be indirectly fulfilled. Com- 
mencing with the rudest dawnings of architectural science 
as exemplified in the Celtic monuments, a carefully com- 
piled and authentic record is given of the most remarkable 
temples, palaces, columns, towers, cathedrals, bridges, via- 
ducts, churches, and buildings of every description which 
the genius of man has constructed ; and as these are all 
described in chronological order, according to the eras to 
which they belong, they form a connected narrative of the 
development of architecture, in which the history and pro- 
gress of the art can be authentically traced. 

The book has been designed for the edification and 
amusement of the general reader, and not for the perusal 
of the professional student Care has been taken to 
popularise the theme as much as possible, to make the 



viii PREFACE. 

descriptions plain and vivid, to render the text free from 
mere technicalities, and to convey a correct and truthful 
impression of the various objects that are enumerated. 
Whilst, however, an effort has been made to place the 
architectural marvels of the world in a simple and easily 
recognisable manner before the mind of the reader, there 
has been retained sufficient of the professional phraseology 
to instruct the uninitiated in the rudiments of an art which 
is daily assuming a more prominent position. 

Although, as will be seen, the scheme has been carried 
out within very moderate compass, no building or structure 
that claimed, or still claims, to be ranked among the 
wonders of architecture, has been omitted. All the cele- 
brated structures that ever existed, or that are yet in ex- 
istence, from the Tower of Babel downwards, are described 
in connection with the various civilisations which gave them 

birth. 

It only remains to be added that the book is translated 
from the French. Many alterations have, however, been 
made in it, in order to make it more acceptable to English 
readers ; and a brief and sketchy chapter has been added 
upon the history and growth of English architecture. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER L 

CELTIC MONUMENTS. MGH 

The Men-hirs of Croisic, of Lochmaii.iker, and of Plouarzel 
The Cromlechs of Abury and of Stonehenge - Lines of Carnac 
Dolmens of Cornwall Covered Ways of Minister, Saumur, 
and Gavrinnis ...I 

CHAPTER IL 

PELASGIC AND ETRUSCAN MONUMEV'TS. 

Acropolis of Sipylus Ruins of Mycenae Monte Circello . . n 
CHAPTER III. 

EGYPT. 

The Pyramids Thebes Ipsamboul ...... 19 

CHAPTER IV. 

ASIATIC ARCHITECTURE. 

Jerusalem Nineveh Babylon Persepolis Ellora . . .29 
CHAPTER V. 

GREEK ART. 

Athens The Acropolis The Parthenon Greek Remains in Italy 
and Asia The Temples of Psestum The Temple of Diana at 
Ephesus .... 43 

CHAPTER VI. 

ANCIENT ROME. 

The Roman Forum Capitol Colosseum Temple of Peace 
Arches of Titus and Constantine Baths of Caracalla The 
Pantheon Trajan Column . 62 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE ROMAN WORLD. 

The West Square House of Nimes Roman Gate at Treves 
Arena of Nimes Amphitheatre of Aries Palmyra and 
Balbek 85 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

LATIN AND BYZANTINE STYLES. PACK 

Basilicas Roman Churches Mosque of St. Sophia at Con- 
stantinople Cathedral of Angouleme 103 

CHAPTER IX. 

ORIENTAL ARCHITECTURE. 

Arab Style Mosque of Omar The Alhambra Mosque of 
Cordova India Puri Juggernaut Monuments of Delhi 
Persia and China Ispahan The Chinese Wall The Por- 
celain Tower Central America "9 

CHAPTER X. 

ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 

Continental Churches and Cathedrals . . . . . .138 

CHAPTER XL 

GOTHIC ART. 

Characteristics of the Gothic Style Cathedrals of Amiens, 
Chartres, and Strasbourg The Florid Style Renaissance 
Gothic Military and Civil Structures of the Middle Ages . 153 

CHAPTER XII. 

ITALIAN RENAISSANCE. 

Pisa The Leaning Tower Florence The Cathedral of Milan- 
Roman Palaces St. Peter's at Rome 180 

CHAPTER XIII. 

FRENCH RENAISSANCE. 

The old French Chateaux Fontainebleau The Louvre . . 207 
CHAPTER XIV. 

CLASSIC ART AND THE DECADENCE OF ARCHITECTURE. 

Versailles The Palais-Royal The Bourse The Madeleine- 
New Opera House . 230 

CHAPTER XV. 

ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE. 

Stonehenge Westminster and Melrose Abbeys Pontefract Castle 

Holyrood Palace 239 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAQR 

1. The Temple of Neptune at Paestum, . . Frontispiece. 

2. The Pillars of Karnac, . . . . 4 

3. The Merchant's Tables at Lochmariaker, .... 7 

4. Ruins at Mycenae : i. Tomb of Atreus. 2. Gate of the Lions, 15 

5. Karnak (Egypt), 26 

6. Khorsabad Assyrian Temple Restored 33 

7. Temples of Ellora, 40 

8. The Parthenon, from a photograph, 49 

9. The Temple of Pandrosa, . . . . 52 

10. The Temple of Neptune at Paestum, from a photograph, . 57 

11. The Colosseum at Rome, from a photograph, ... 67 

12. Ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, from a photograph, . . 71 

13. The Pantheon at Rome, 75 

14. Trajan's Column at Rome, 79 

15. The Square House of Nimes, 86 

1 6. Roman Gate at Treves, 87 

17. The Arena of Nimes, 90 

18. The Amphitheatre of Aries, 92 

19. The Pont du Card, . 96 

20. Interior of St. Sophia at Constantinople .... 109 

21. Cathedral of Angouleme, . . . . . . . 116 

22. A View in the Alhambra, 123 

23. Interior of the Mosque of Cordova, 127 

24. The Cathedral at Spires, ....... 139 

25. Crypt of St. Eutrope de Saintes, 142 

26. Cathedral of Puy, 145 

27. Notre Dame de Poitiers ... ... 149 

28. Western Door of the Cathedral ot Mans 151 



Xll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

FAOX 

29. The Cathedral of Chartres, 157 

30. The Cathedral of Bourges, 160 

31. The Cathedral of Rheims, 161 

32. The Cathedral of Strasbourg, ...... 163 

33. Interior of St. Etienne de Metz at Paris, .... 169 

34. Walls of Carcassonne, . . . . . . . . 174 

35. Ruins of Coucy, 178 

36. Interior of the Cathedral of Sienna, 185 

37. The Vatican and St. Peter's at Rome, . . . . 194 

38. The Front of St. Peters, 197 

39. Interior of St. Peter's, 201 

40. Val de Grace, 203 

41. The Chateau of Blois, 206 

42. The Chateau of Chenonceaux, . . - . . . . 209 

43. The Chateau of Chambord, 213 

44. The Porte Doree of the Chateau of Fontainebleau, . . 215 

45. Gallery of Francis I. at Fontainebleau, .... 216 

46. Court and Dauphin Gate, 218 

47. The Louvre, 221 

48. Colonnade of the Louvre, 223 

49. Richelieu Pavilion of the Louvre, ... . 226 

50. The Turgot Pavilion (New Louvre), 228 

51. Viaduct of Chaumont, . 233 

52. Windsor Castle, 240 

53. Opera House at Paris, . ...... 236 

54. Stonehenge (restored), 242 

55. Guild Hall 246 

56. Westminster Abbey, ....... 249 

57. Pontefract Castle, 253 

53. Norwich Castle, 254 

59. Melrose Abbey, . 256 

60. Holyrood House, .... 260 



WONDERS 



OF 



ARCHITECTURE. 



CHAPTER I. 

CELTIC MONUMENTS. 

ON misty days, when sea and sky blend together on the 
grey horizon, a fitting spot for contemplation is the eastern 
extremity of the peninsula of Croisic a strip of bleak and 
unproductive land, which to the imagination looks like the 
world's end, so far does it stretch its low-lying and narrow 
tongue into the solitary seas. In that remote spot, a simple 
stone of unpretending dimensions raises its head from a 
gentle eminence, above purple granite rocks, beaten by the 
restless waves. Surrounded by soothing influences, and un- 
heedful of the passing hours, the reflective mind may there 
indulge in reveries of the past, under the shadow of this 
silent witness of the ancient times. Fancy, conjuring up 
visions of what has departed, may there picture once again 
the Druids and their strange life see them, with their long 
beards and their oaken wreaths, performing their mysterious 
rites, and hear the song of the gentle priestesses, sweeping 
past in picturesque procession, armed with their golden 
sickles. 

Of all ancient architectural remains, this stone of Croisic 
is perhaps the most insignificant, its proportions being very 

B 



2 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

small compared with some that may be mentioned. The 
great stone of Lochmariaker, for instance, is 70 feet in 
height an altitude as great as that of the Egyptian obelisks. 
Originally it formed one complete and imposing monumental 
pillar, but it is now overturned and broken into four 
pieces. 

Another pillar belonging to the same category, situated 
between Nantes and Larochelle, was still higher. That 
of Plouarzel, again, upon the highest point of Bas-Leon 
(Finisterre), is 36 feet above the level of the earth. 
It is of unwrought granite, its surface is covered with 
lichens and mosses, and it is of a form nearly quadran- 
gular. Upon two of its opposite sides a kind of bas- 
relief has been sculptured by a rude hand, which still is 
venerated by the peasantry of the country. This carving 
represents the cosmogonic egg of the great mythical dragon, 
the supposed source of all existing things, and is emblematic 
of the world, says Mr. Henry Martin. The same figure is 
to be traced upon other monuments. 

The upright stones which are to be found in France, 
England, ancient Germany, Scandinavia, Russia, Siberia, 
China, Thrace, Northern Africa, and even in the New World, 
are known by different names. In Brittany and the depart- 
ments of Western France, where they abound, they are 
called men-hirs or long stones, or stone pillars. They were 
often employed to mark the burial-place of persons whose 
memory it was desired to commemorate; they were fre- 
quently monumental in their character, having been erected 
merely to commemorate some notable event ; and occa- 
sionally they were purely religious in their signification. 

Not unfrequently these gigantic stones are found grouped 
around a central pillar of more than the usual height, and 



CELTIC MONUMENTS. 3 

form what are called cromlechs or sacred circles. These 
circles were in ancient times used as temples and assembly 
halls. Sometimes the cromlechs surrounded tumuli in 
which the dead were deposited, the idea having evidently 
been to place the tombs within the consecrated enclosure. 
Again, instances are found of two or three cromlechs grouped 
together surrounded by stone pillars arranged in straight or 
curved lines ; and in certain cases the stones bear evidence 
of having passed through the workman's hands. They are 
arranged in thriliths, each of which, as the name signifies, 
consisting of three stones, two of which are upright pillars 
supporting a third, which forms a kind of architrave, uniting 
the two pillars by the help of mortices and bolts rudely 
ornamented. 

This arrangement, unknown in France, probably existed 
at Abury, and is still to be seen at Stonehenge, in what is 
known as the Cor-Gawr or Dance of Giants, the original 
plan of which can be easily made out from the remains. 
This Cor-Gawr consists of two circles and two ovoids, the 
one within the other, and is 300 feet in circumference. 
The thriliths of the inner circle measure 30 feet high by 
about 8 feet wide. 

Combinations of stone pillars, which do not of them- 
selves form enclosed figures, go by the simple name of lines. 
Morbihan possesses admirable examples of these, the most 
beautiful of them being the Lines of Carnac, near the sea. 
In spite of the ravages of time, there still remain 1,200 up- 
right stones, ranged in distinct order, and easily distinguish- 
able from the other monumental remains spread over the 
district. Here must have existed an immense temple, up- 
wards of a mile in length, where the Druidic ceremonies were 
solemnised. The broken obelisks stand with their smaller 

B 2 



4 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

ends in the ground, and many of them are 18 feet in 
height, though a considerable number rise to only 3 feet. 
They are arranged in eleven parallel rows, forming ten 
avenues leading towards a semi-circle, which formed the 
sanctuary or inner temple of the enclosure. 




The Pillars of Carnac. 

Celtic architecture is not restricted to stone pillars 
indeed, these can hardly be said to belong to architecture at 
all. Different from these pillars is the dolmen or stone table, 
which has received a number of names, such as broad stone, 
covered stone, devil's table, fairy's table, and, in the Breton 
language, home of the fairies. The simplest dolmens con- 



CELTIC MONUMENTS. 5 

sist of three stones two placed upright, and one broad 
horizontal slab supported by the other two. Very often there 
are four or more stones ornamented at one end and forming 
a grotto. Sometimes there are two or three tables supported 
by a dozen upright stones of great size. The demi-dolmen, 
raised only at one end, presents a sloping surface. 

The dolmen may be said to resemble the monuments 
of rough stones which Arrian says he saw in Asia Minor, 
and also those of which Calpurnius speaks in one of his 
Eclogues. Strabo, the celebrated geographer, whilst travel- 
ling in Egypt, encountered some temples of Mercury com- 
posed of two rough stones sustaining a third, in all of which 
could be traced the main features and characteristics of the 
dolmen, or stone table. 

Dolmens, however, were generally tombs, not temples 
places of burial and not places of worship, as they have 
been long believed to be. Celtic altars do not appear to 
have taken the form of chambers or grottos. The greater 
number of those which can now be identified consist 
either of a table placed upon one or two blocks, or of a 
shapeless slab supported by others of a like character. The 
stone-basins, of which much has been written, belong to 
this category. Antiquaries have eagerly searched these 
basins, in hopes of discovering the grooves in which ran the 
blood of the sacrificed victim. Cornwall enjoys the dis- 
tinction of possessing the giant of the dolmens, a memorial 
structure crowned with basins, the largest of which has 
a radius of 3 feet. The table itself, placed upon two 
natural rocks of low elevation, measures about 40 feet long, 
20 feet wide, and 16 feet thick, and weighs upwards of 
700 tons. These, surely, are proportions worthy of a 
true dolmen. 



6 MARVELS OF ARCHITECl'URE. 

More extraordinary still, some altars have been found 
which have a hollow carved in them exactly the shape of 
the human body. In this holloa, as in a mould, the body 
of the victim was laid. Upon the tables of many dolmens, 
among others the celebrated Merchants' Tables, at Loch- 
mariaker, can still be recognised the form of a hatchet 
or mason's trowel traced upon the stone. This was a 
symbol that was very common in primitive times. During 
the Roman era, trowels were found pictured upon monu- 
ments, with the inscription Stib asria written beneath. The 
expression was meant to signify that the monument was yet 
under the trowel devoted to the purposes of a tomb ; the 
device, it is supposed, being resorted to in order to protect 
empty sepulchres from injury. 

Dolmens, or burial grottos, have in some instances 
groves or covered walks attached to them, which form 
avenues leading up to them. In the diocese of 'Munstcr, 
in Prussia, there is an alley of this kind where a hundred 
sheep can find shelter. Near Saumur, in France, another 
specimen exists in the shape of an entire gallery 55 feet 
long, and 6 feet high, the width beirg about 14 feet. Each 
of its huge sides is formed of four stones, the floor is 
composed of a single slab, and all of them are inclined 
towards the interior. Four stones also compose the roof, 
and one of them, split up through its whole length, is sus- 
tained by a single pillar. Such figures and measurements 
speak for themselves. 

The longest of these covered avenues is at Esse (Ille 
et Vilaine), and the most curious near Lochmariaker, in the 
little isle of Gavrinnis. Twenty-three upright stones placed 
together range themselves in walls under ten enormous 
slabs. Everywhere at Gavrinnis extend parallel lines, oval cr 



CELTIC MONUMENTS. 9 

semi-circular zigzags, fantastic labyrinths, and circles within 
circles, which it would be even more difficult to understand 
than to describe. Serpents, coins, and hatchet-heads can 
yet be distinctly traced among the carvings. 

Numerous sculptures are everywhere to be found upon 
the Celtic monuments, but in this respect Gavrinnis is 
unquestionably the most remarkable. Those dolmens which 
have covered ways were, perhaps, in former times, always 
sunk under ground, beneath the artificial hillocks that 
covered the dead, and to which the Latin name tumulus is 
applied. Primitive architecture in the West seems in these 
cases to have achieved its last and highest effort Walls 
are to be found made of stones placed the one above the 
other vaults, transverse ways, lateral chapels, transepts 
such remains, in fact, as we might find in the excavations of 
Egyptian burial-places. Both England and France possess 
curious specimens of ancient architectural art, that in their 
main features almost realise the principle upon which is 
based our modern system of construction. One of the most 
interesting is near Caen, at Fontenay-le-Marmion, where 
can be seen the remains of ten circular vaults from 12 
to 1 5 feet in width, which communicate by galleries at the 
circumference of the tumulus. Human bones have been 
found here in parts of the soil that have been excavated. 

All these monuments, stone pillars, cromlechs, lines, 
dolmens, covered ways, and tumuli are connected with an 
ancient religion to which the name Druidic has been given 
a religion that adored supreme power in the midst of savage 
nature, amidst forests, waters, and rocks, and contained 
within itself elevated conceptions, combined with practices 
of an extraordinary and cruel kind. The introduction of 
the Latin deities into the countries of Western Europe 



io MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

produced something like chaos in the religion of the Celts. 
Against Christianity the Druids held out defiantly for a long 
time. Councils of the Latin fathers were held, at which 
those who honoured trees, fountains, and stones were con- 
demned, and these objects of superstitious regard were 
ordered to be destroyed. King Chilperic threatened those 
that failed to destroy the sacred relics with heavy punish- 
ment. Later, however, the difficulty was wisely overcome 
by consecrating the objects to which the people were much 
attached to the Christian worship ; and when this was 
done the stone pillars were surrounded with crosses and 
ornamented with pious symbols. This procedure had, in 
course of time, the effect of uprooting the old Druidical 
system ; but the custom, in its turn, gave rise to superstitions, 
perhaps more enlightened, but not less enormous. In the 
centre and west of France, even at the present day, are to 
be found substantial traces, under new forms, of the religious 
rites and ceremonies of primitive times. The devotions 
paid to what are supposed to be the patron deities of Fear 
and Disease, the votive offerings suspended from the branches 
of trees, and the belief in fairies and goblins which is still so 
widely spread among the lower classes of society, form 
part of the legacy which has been handed down from this 
period. 



CHAPTER II. 

PELASGIC AND ETRUSCAN MONUMENTS. 

THE adventurous traveller advancing into the marshy, 
thickly-wooded lands, where lie buried the bones and the 
works of the Etruscans solitudes which terrible fevers 
seem to guard from the intrusion of human curiosity 
beholds, under the oaks and mountain olives, enormous 
stones ranged in the form of walls astonishing vestiges of 
the work of man. Leaving out of view the tumuli which 
enclose specimens of vaulted chambers and of masonry, 
the Celtic monuments, strictly speaking, ought not to be 
included at all within the pale of architecture. But the 
case is far different with the Pelasgic and Etruscan relics. 
Standing in their midst, the beholder cannot fail to recog- 
nise that they are based upon the system of true architectural 
construction, the predominant characteristics of which are 
extreme simplicity and power. And, taking into account 
the enormous size of the stones, and the solidity with which 
they are fitted together without cement of any kind, so that 
time has not been able to displace them, he may well be 
tempted to think that degenerate man in these times has lost 
much of the power of his ancestors. 

M. Petit-Radel, a Frenchman, enjoys the honour of 
having, at the commencement of the present century, dis- 
covered the Pelasgic monuments of Western Italy, and traced 
in them copies of those that were already known to exist in 
Tirynthia and Argos. His theory on the subject does not 



12 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

seem to have been ever shaken. He fixes the period of the 
great Pelasgic movement between the twentieth and the fif- 
teenth century before our era. The Pelasgi setting out from 
Asia at a time not determined, but without doubt at an 
epoch posterior to that of the Celts, appear to have traversed 
Asia Minor, leaving some settlement behind in Cappadocia. 
According to the opinion of ancient geographers, they 
peopled Ionia, ^Eolia, Caria, Thracia, Epirus, Macedonia, 
Thessalia, and overran all Greece. Gradually advancing 
either from one island to another, or crossing the mainland 
by way of Thracia and Illyria, they reached Etruria and the 
Roman States, and the wave of their emigration broke 
upon the coasts of France and Spain. 

Of the structures which they reared in Asia, mention 
need only be made of the Acropolis of Sipylus. This 
temple formed a double enclosure, very well built with rect- 
angular stones. Near the outer wall was a great tumulus 
280 feet in extent, the base of which was surrounded by 
many-sided irregular stones, well fitted the one to the 
other. Access to the top was gained by means of a great 
stair, of which some steps still remain. This acropolis 
formed the tomb of Tantalus, son of Jupiter and King of 
Lydia, who died about 1410 before our era; at least, 
Pausanias speaks of having seen the grave of Tantalus at 
Sipylus. 

Passing from Asia, Pelasgic ruins are seen to abound in 
ancient Argolis a land famous for the adventures of Pelops, 
of Thyestes, and of Atreus ; and for the assembly of the 
great Hellenic army under the command of Agamemnon. 
At Tirynthia, the town of Hercules, rises a powerful citadel 
which Pausanias has described, and which is fully 2,000 years 
old. Euripides has attributed its construction to the Cyclops, 



PELASGIC AND ETRUSCAN MONUMENTS. 13 

the mythical blacksmiths. The enclosure is formed of 
many-sided blocks placed the one above the other without 
cement, smaller stones being placed between the larger ones 
to fill up the spaces and bind the structures more completely 
together. Extraordinary labour is said to have been expended 
upon the work, no secoad stone being laid until the one that 
had already been placed was firmly fixed ; so that by slow 
and successive degrees a wall was at length made which even 
cannon-balls could only with difficulty destroy. The prin- 
cipal parts of this relic date from the eighteenth century 
before our era ; but some portions of the wall, more regular 
in construction, were built in the fifteenth century before the 
Christian era. 

Next in order may be noticed the acropolis at Mycenae, 
the double enclosure of which presents three different styles 
of workmanship, corresponding without doubt to three suc- 
cessive epochs. Here are to be found in all directions 
irregular polygonal blocks of stone, some rough on the sur- 
face, others smooth and well jointed. The most ancient 
part of this structure, supposed to have been raised by 
Mycenas (1700 B.C.), is in limestone; but the more recent 
part, built by Perseus (1390 B.C.), is in puddingstone. 

Entrance into the acropolis is obtained by the " Gate of 
the Lions." The blocks forming this are enormous in size, 
quadrangular and horizontal. They are 15 feet high and 
9 feet broad, and the opening is surmounted by a huge 
lintel of which the three dimensions are 15 feet long, 6 
feet broad, and 3 feet thick. A bas-relief, 7 feet high 
and 10 feet broad at the base, forms a sort of triangular 
pediment over the gate, within which are sculptured two 
lions standing on their hind-feet, resting their fore-paws 
upon a pillar placed between them, so as to face each other. 



14 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

Their heads, which have been broken, formerly reached the 
height of the capital of the pillar. This pillar increases 
gradually in diameter from base to summit, and its capital is 
supported upon four discs, which are supposed to represent 
the billets of wood meant to maintain the sacred fire. An 
explanation of this latter fact is to be found in the pillar 
itself, which has the form of an altar. 

This "Gate of the Lions" formed, as we have said, the 
chief entrance to the Acropolis. There were two others of 
which the smaller presented a triangular bay, formed by two 
stones inclined the one towards the other. 

" There is still to be seen at Mycenae," says Pausanias, 
"the fountain of Perseus, and the subterranean chambers 
where it is said Atreus and his children concealed their 
treasures. Near it is the tomb of Atreus and of all those 
whom Agamemnon brought back with him after the Trojan 
war, and whom ^gisthus destroyed at the feast which he 
gave them." Tradition points out a tumulus near the 
Acropolis as being the subterranean chamber in which Atreus 
kept his treasure. The facade of this chamber alone is 
visible, the vault itself being entered by a wide high door, 
the flat lintel of which is surmounted by an empty triangular 
space. Two mouldings ornament the architrave and the 
jambs. Of the two stones of the lintel, the largest must 
have weighed about 170 tons, seeing that in size it is 
nearly 210 cubic feet, and measures 26 feet long by 32 
broad. 

A long and wide passage, 60 feet by 18 feet, leads 
into a very large circular hall. All the courses in horizontal 
beds have been placed the one above the other, but projecting 
inwards. The angles, however, have been cut away, so that 
the wall from the foundation to the centre of the vault forms 



?'.. RUINS AT MYCEN.Ii. 




Ruins at Mycenae: I. Tomb of Atreus. 2. Gate of the Lions. 



PELASGIC AND ETRUSCAN MONUMENTS. If 

a surface regularly curved. In this way a vault, bold in its out- 
line, has been produced somewhat in the form of a bee-hive, 
the walls of which are 18 feet thick. Nothing obstructs 
the entrance to this subterraneous abode now, and no trace 
of iron-work, such as is used in the construction of gates or 
doors, has ever been found ; but notwithstanding this, it is 
possible that high palisades were planted in the soil in front 
of the entrance, or that the latter was concealed by masses 
of earth heaped up before it, which was removed when 
circumstances rendered it necessary. 

Among the forty-one Pelasgic monuments examined in 
Italy, those of Monte Circello, twenty miles from Rome, 
present a most picturesque appearance. They are placed 
on a mountain which, at seven different points, rises to the 
height of 1,500 feet above the sea. On the summit is the 
temple of Circe. Here is shown the tomb of Elpenor, 
one of the companions of Ulysses, whose figure Circe 
changed into that of a brute. It is a flattened cone, 
regularly formed of courses of quadrangular stones, and 
occupies a space of 39 square feet. 

In the houses and in the churches also of Alatri can be 
traced distinctly three successive periods. The Pelasgic has 
become Roman, and the Roman has become in turn Chris- 
tian ; but the original character still remains. St. Peter has 
only taken the place of the god Faunus. The Pelasgic 
epoch has preserved its aspect and character intact in a 
square Lupercal, dedicated to Pan, and more especially in 
certain gates that are surmounted by enormous lintels. 
Upon one of the architraves of the Acropolis are seen 
emblematic sculptures ; also in different places there are 
three very distinct figures of Pan, Hermes, and Faunus. 

At Cervetri or Caere again, the capital of the ancient King 



1 8 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

Mezence, there has been discovered a very large tomb, or 
rather a tumulus covered by another tumulus, where five 
burial chambers abut upon two very long and narrow halls, 
vaulted in the corbelling fashion, and pierced with elliptical 
excavations. In one of these halls a chariot, and also some 
arms, vases, and small graven figures, were found to have 
been placed beside the bronze bed upon which it was the 
custom to put the dead. The excavations that have been 
cut in the rock are of comparatively recent origin, and con- 
taining as they were found to do cinerary urns, in which the 
ashes of the dead were deposited, the deduction may be 
drawn that even at a very remote period the influence of 
Greek and Latin customs had begun to be felt 



CHAPTER III. 

EGYPT. 

ON either bank of the Nile ancient Egypt accumulated 
temples, palaces, and tombs, the vastness of whose ruins 
proves that a mighty civilisation existed upon the earth at 
a time when the Persians and Greeks herded their flocks 
on the shore of the Caspian Sea. Everybody has heard of 
the pyramids, from the summit of which " forty centuries 
look down upon you." Napoleon would have been more 
accurate had he said sixty, for their average age may be set 
down at 4,000 years dating from before Christ. These 
marvellous structures are said to have been erected by three 
kings of the fourth dynasty Cheops, Cephrenes, and 
Marinus. A hundred thousand men, who relieved each 
other in relays every three months, were employed for thirty 
years in excavating the tomb of Cheops in the rock, and 
covering it with a mountain of masonry which measures 470 
feet in height by 570 feet in breadth. Built wholly of per- 
fectly adjusted stones of the dimensions of thirty feet, the 
Great Pyramid rises to its summit by regular steps or grada- 
tions. Formerly it was covered by a reddish coating to 
which Herodotus refers, and its surface quite swarmed with 
inscriptions. The blocks composing it were smooth as a 
mirror, and its lofty and narrow point seemed to pierce the 
sky ; but at the present day its summit is terminated by a 
flat surface, created by the ravages of time. 

Situated two leagues from the Nile, and about the same 

C 2 



20 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

distance from Cairo, upon the exterior elevations of the 
Lybian chain of hills, the pyramids tower over all the sur- 
rounding country. They can be seen from a great distance, 
and the traveller journeying towards them imagines every 
moment that he is on the point of arriving at their base, but 
like the mirage they seem to recede as he advances. "At 
length, however, they are reached," says Volney, " and 
nothing can express the variety of sensations which they 
provoke. The height of their summit, the steepness of their 
slope, the vastness of their surface, their tremendous weight, 
the memory of the times they have outlived, and, above all, 
the reflection that these mountains of masonry have been 
reared by petty and insignificant man, who creeps at their 
feet all impress the beholder, and fill at once the heart 
and the mind with astonishment, terror, humiliation, admi- 
ration, and respect." 

Profound as is the impression created at the foot of the 
pyramid where the spectator, face to face with the enormous 
mass, loses the full view of the angles and the summit it is 
only after ascending to the top that he obtains a just idea 
of the whole, and finds expectation eclipsed by reality. From 
the summit the eye might traverse a distance of thirty-six 
miles, were the human vision capable of distinguishing 
objects so far away. A stone thrown with the greatest 
possible force does not clear the base, but usually falls upon 
some of the lower steps. Owing to a common optical 
illusion, he who casts the stone imagines that he has sent 
his missile to a great distance ; but, as the eye follows it, the 
stone seems to turn back and it falls only at the foot of the 
vast structure. 

The interior of the Great Pyramid seems to be full 
Only one long gallery, smaller in proportion than the 



EGYPT. 21 

burrowed passage of a mole under a hillock, has been 
discovered. A small opening, at the height of 45 feet 
above the base, gives access into a succession of obscure 
passages. Here locomotion is tedious and dangerous, the 
cold extreme, and the air thick and stifling. The traveller 
is compelled to advance in a stooping position, placing his 
feet as he goes upon narrow ledges which overhang a black 
abyss. This perilous path is succeeded by a low gallery, 
where he has to creep along a steep slope, and that in turn 
by a well without a parapet, which it is necessary to cross. 
Finally, pushed, dragged, carried on stout shoulders, the 
adventurous explorer succeeds in traversing the chamber 
called the Queen's Room, and arrives at the King's Hall. 
Nor is the return less difficult ; and when at last the traveller 
once more emerges into daylight, it is in a state of complete 
exhaustion. 

It is customary to shout aloud, and even to fire oft 
muskets in this subterranean quarter, in order to produce an 
echo, the reverberation of the pyramids being celebrated for 
the sound repeating itself no less than ten times. This echo 
owes its strength and its purity to the perfection of the 
ceilings and the points. The whole of the King's Chamber 
is wrought out of granite exquisitely polished, and the ceil- 
ing is formed of nine stones, each of which must be about 
2,coo Ibs. in weight. 

But the King's and Queen's Chambers, which are only 
from 1 6 to 32 feet wide, form quite an insignificant abode 
for such a formidable roof as that of the Great Pyramid 
which covers them. Can it be possible that there are 
not other spaces above and below these small rooms, or 
is it possible to conceive that this huge pyramid was 
piled up simply to contain two such chambers? Where 



,22 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

ends the abyss along which the explorer travels? Where 
would the well lead to if some bold spirit should suspend 
himself in it at the end of a rope ? Perhaps to that sub- 
terranean spot where Herodotus believed Cheops to lie 
interred. Diligent searches in the interior of this colossus 
might yet reveal much, for it is well known with what 
care the Egyptians concealed their places of sepulture. 

Three hundred feet in front of the Great Pyramid may 
be seen the mysterious Sphinx, the head of which is 27 feet 
high. This strange figure is carved out of the rock : it is 
sunk in the sand up to the shoulders, and has been partly 
eaten away by time, for its nose and lips are both broken. 

Squat as the figure at first sight appears to be, it yet rises 
to the height of 75 feet above its natural base. West- 
wards from this extends, in four ranks, an almost endless 
number of rectangular and oblong constructions, perfectly 
equal, and covering an area not less than that of the Great 
Pyramid itself. A rampart of smaller and ruinous pyramids 
surrounds the pyramid of Cheops en the south and east. 
Might not this have been the necropolis of Memphis, that 
great city, sacred and royal, the rise of which is now marked 
by a palm-grove ? 

Hundreds of miles south of the pyramids, where the 
valley of the Nile opens out, lie the ruins of Thebes, the 
ancient rival of Memphis Thebes with the Hundred Gates, 
as it was named by Homer. These vast ruins still overrun 
the lower slopes of the western mountains towards the gorges 
of Biban-el-Molouk, where are the sepulchres of the kings. 
Medinet on the left bank, Gournah, Luxor, and Karnak on 
the right, form a majestic collection of architectural remains, 
which the army of Desaix beholding, saluted with enthusiasm. 
Desolation reigns in the whole of this vast space, if a few 



EGYPT. 23 

villages or hamlets are excepted, the huts of which are 
miserable, the streets narrow, and the mud walls built 
upon rubbish. The whole place, in its relation to the 
extinct cities, is suggesive of unhealthy weeds growing 
around the feet of ancient oaks. 

The palace of Karnak, which is the first great ruin seen 
on the right bank of the Nile, originally covered an area of 
270 acres enclosed within a wall of unbaked bricks. This 
wall is still visible in parts, though what remains is not a 
tenth part of what has perished. Of these ruins the principal 
masses are grouped upon a straight line, which may be 
named the great axis, and which runs from north-west to 
south-east. This axis is cut by another line of architectural 
remains which runs from north to south, and consists of 
palaces and avenues of sphinxes. Upon the same bank, 
the remains of a vast staircase and numerous fragments of 
the sphinx and rams' heads show the site and dimensions 
of what was a magnificent avenue, terminated by two 
pylones tapering square towers, of gigantic proportions. 
These pylones form the entrance to a court, surrounded by 
ruined temples, obstructed by the shafts of vast votive 
columns, among twelve of which only one remains upright. 

Passing between two ruinous pylones and a propylone, 
a magnificent gate is reached, which would be a triumphal 
arch were it not that an architrave is found where the semi- 
circle should be. 

All that has been described formed only the vestibule of 
the great hall, which has been named the Hypostyle, or 
the Hall ot Columns. 

A symmetrical forest of oaks and beeches ten centuries 
old would not give an adequate idea of its thirty parallel 
ranks of columns. No tree, for instance, could attain the 



24 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

diameter, or the height even, of the twelve great columns 
that form the axis of the hall. Twelve columns like the 
Monument on Fish Street Hill might give the reader some 
idea of the vastness of these pillars. The enormous mono- 
lith capitals heavy enough, one would think, to crush any 
pillar oppress the imagination with their size. A hundred 
men could stand on one of them without crowding. Never 
have greater masses of stone been laid than these. A few 
statistics may give some notion of the vastness of these 
ruins. 

The hall itself is 422 feet long by 165 feet broad. The 
stones of the ceiling rest upon architraves supported by 
134 columns, which are still standing, and of which the 
largest measures 10 feet in diameter, and more than 72 feet 
in height. Sesostris and his two predecessors constructed 
the Hall of Columns, and the date of its construction was 
about the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries before Christ. 

Besides the ruins of the gallery or hall described, there 
are other pylones, another court with an obelisk, and the 
ruins of the gallery of the Colossi. Here is to be seen the 
largest obelisk in the whole of Egypt. It is over 90 feet 
in height ; its sculptures are perfect in execution, and 
some are more beautiful than the perfected arts of Europe 
could even yet produce. At its feet lie the fragments of 
another obelisk which was a sort of pendant to it. Gazing 
on what he sees around, the imagination of the traveller, 
as it were, reconstructs the building, and setting upon their 
bases once more the sixty-two sculptured pillars in the 
form of giant caryatides, he begins to have some idea of the 
grandeur and vastness of the original. 

Further on we come to a small temple in red granite, 
the site of which is rendered conspicuous by two obelisks. 



EGYPT. 37 

This temple was richly ornamented, and contained two 
parallel ranges of chambers in which the priests lodged. 
It lies at the portico of the palace of Mreris. Three of the 
walls of this vestibule sustain thirty-two square pillars and 
twenty-four columns, and present to the gaze four ranks of 
persons, seated the one above the other. This is the most 
ancient portion of Karnak, and it is also the most muti- 
lated. Courts full of rubbish, a chaos of columns and 
bassi-rilievi, are all that now remains of the palace of Moeris. 

Three or four hundred miles to the north we next notice 
a large propylone, raised by the successors of Alexander, 
which an avenue covered with debris connects with the 
central mass. On the south, a majestic temple dedicated 
to the divinity Kons, also connected with the Hall of 
Columns, commanded a long road which is now lost in 
plantations of sugar-cane and palm-trees, but the direction 
of which can still be made out. This triumphal way was 
originally bordered throughout all its length with monolith 
sphinxes, no less than 112 having been counted within a 
space of 650 yards. Taking the total, there must have 
been 1,000 sphinxes, seeing that the road along which they 
were ranged was upwards of a mile long. 

In ascending the Nile from Thebes to the first cataract, 
we pass numerous collections of ruins Hermonthis, Esneh, 
Edfou, Com-Ombos, Philse, Deboud, Kartas, Kalabche, 
Talmis, Dandour, Ghirch-Hussein, Pselcis, Maharakka, 
Seboua, Deer, Ibrim. At some distance from the cataracts 
of Ouadi-Alfa, the two temples of Ipsamboul are seen, 
worked out of the rock by the banks of the river, and form- 
ing wonderful caverns which will last as long as the world. 

The greater temple, 143 feet long by 140 feet high, has 
in front of it four sitting statues, leaning with their backs 



23 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

against the mountain of rock of which they form a part, 
and which are not less than 120 feet in height. Thirty-two 
seated figures decorate the cornice. There are a number 
of smaller figures in the interior, whose height is 25 
feet. The walls are covered with enormous bassi-rilievi. 
Upon the altars of the three demi-gods Ainmon, Phre, and 
Phta are found huge carvings representing Sesostris, the 
conqueror of Africa and Asia. His wife, Nofre-Ari, served 
as the model for the six colossal figures, 36 feet in 
height, which are ranged in front of the little temple dedi- 
cated to the goddess Hator. The severe gloom of these 
sanctuaries has been well described by Lamennais : " A 
single thought," says he, " dominates Egypt a grave and sad 
thought, not to be driven away, and which, from Pharaoh 
surrounded with the splendour of the throne to the humblest 
of his labourers, weighs upon man, preoccupies him inces- 
santly, possesses him entirely : this thought is the thought 
of death. This people, seeing time gliding onward like 
the waters of the great river that traverses their naked 
plains, were led to believe that what passes so quickly 
is unreal and evanescent; and regarding the present life as 
fleeting and unsatisfactory, they were prompted by their 
faith, by their desires and aspirations, to look forward to 
a life that is permanent and immutable. Existence, in the 
estimation of the Egyptian, commenced at the tomb and 
that which preceded death was only a shadow a fleeting 
image. Thus his religious conceptions, his philosophical 
speculations, his dogmas, all tended in the direction of this 
great mystery of death, and his temple became a sepulchre." 



CHAPTER IV. 

ASIATIC ARCHITECTURE. 

THE Temple of Jerusalem, built by Solomon about the 
tenth century before our era, reconstructed by Esdras in the 
time of Cyrus, and ruined by Titus, was a triple edifice ; being 
at once a place of assembly foi the people, a dwelling-place 
for the Levites, and a place of worship wherein the high 
priest officiated. In the centre was the temple, properly so 
called ; around it were the courts of the priests ; and on the 
outside the courts of the people, together with the galleries 
for strangers and proselytes. The people dared not pene- 
trate within the second wall; the priests were excluded from 
certain parts of the central portion of the temple; and the 
high priest alone and that only once a year, might pass 
within the veil to the Holy of Holies, and contemplate the 
ark of the covenant face to face. 

The temple was situated upon Mount Moriah and over- 
looked Jerusalem. A combination of walls and colonnades, 
it seems, like all the Phoenician and Jewish structures, 
to have excelled more on account of the richness of its 
decorations than its architectural merits. Precious metals 
were profusely used in its ornamentation. Josephus, who 
saw it in all its glory in the first century of our era, has 
described with pride its ceilings of polished cedar, enriched 
with gilded leaves; its columns of bronze, 18 cubits high; 
its cornices also of bronze, sculptured with lilies and 
pomegranates ; its wonderful doors of cedar, enriched with 



30 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

gold and silver; and its magnificent curtains of linen, 
embroidered with purple and scarlet. 

The central part of the temple, intended for the accom- 
modation of the high priest and the priests engaged in 
sacrifices, was 60 cubits long by 20 wide, and presented 
three tiers or storeys, rising above each other, surrounded 
by galleries and small chambers. Its height was equal 
to its length. A vast portico, access to which was gained 
from the east side, surrounded this lofty and splendid 
building. Both tradition and the Bible attribute the con- 
struction and furnishing of the temple to a great Tyrian 
artist, named Adoniram, who was at once its architect, 
sculptor, and builder. 

Perhaps an inexact idea will not be given of the Jewish 
structures if they are likened to the monuments left by other 
nations descended, like the Hebrews, from the Semitic stock, 
and who were continually mixed up the one with the other, 
either as enemies or oppressors. 

Nineveh and Babylon were the immediate predecessors 
of Tyre and Jerusalem. 

Nineveh, the ancient capital of Assyria, is said to have 
been founded by a legendary chief named Assur. Historians, 
however, declare that it is the town of Ninus or Ninias. 
At a period even earlier than Babylon the people of this 
city were the victorious enemies of the Jews. On a bas- 
relief still in existence can be recognised King Jehu of 
Israel, who was a tributary of the kings of Assyria. 

The inspired writers of the Bible speak with terror of 
Sargon, Sennacherib, and Salmanazar. Jonas, the Hebrew 
prophet, no doubt made prisoner in some invasion, went 
about the streets of Nineveh crying, " Yet forty days, and 
Nineveh shall be destroyed !" Enervating luxury, the weak- 



ASIATIC ARCHITECTURE. 3! 

ness of the kings, and the hostility of powerful Babylon 
combined to bring ruin upon this immense town. Besieged, 
taken, and sacked in 625 B.C., but still known in the time 
of Tacitus, who mentions its capture in the time of Claudius, 
49 A.D., it was at length so completely effaced from the earth, 
that till the year 1842 even its site remained all but un- 
known. According to Diodorus of Sicily, the city wall 
measured 18 leagues, was 95 feet high, and was flanked 
with gigantic towers. It contained 600,000 inhabitants. 

Long buried from human sight, its glory was, after many 
centuries, exhumed as it were and brought to light. A 
Frenchman, M. Botta, discovered at Khorsabad the palace of 
Sargon, of which the Asiatic Journal gave a full description; 
and some years after, Mr. Layard, in digging in the Hill of 
Nimrod, came upon the dwellings of Sardanapalus and 
Salmanazar. With the bassi-rilievi, and the inscriptions to 
which it is supposed the key has been found, it may be 
possible to reconstruct a civilisation that has disappeared, 
and to reinvest the heroes of that land with the environ- 
ments in which they lived, moved, and had their being. 

M. Botta commenced his researches in 1842, and the 
French government published the results in a magnificent 
work, illustrated from designs by M. Eugene Flandin. Funds, 
voted under the republican government of 1848, permitted 
M. Place, M. Botta's successor, to continue the researches. 
The result was that to the fourteen chambers already ex- 
plored he added 134 more. Among these were thirty-two 
courts or esplanades, of which the following is the general 
plan of distribution : 

i. The residence of the king, embracing chambers or- 
namented with bassi-rilievi. 2. The offices, whose princi- 
pal court, upwards of two acres in extent, communicated 



32 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

with the kitchens, stables, cellars, and the magazines, in 
which have been found 100 tons of instruments and iron 
tools. 3. The harem, the dwelling of the women, with 
all the furniture proper for this purpose. 4. The ob- 
servatory, a square block of seven storeys, painted in 
various colours, and more than 120 feet high. 

The king's palace at Khorsabad, with its vast offices and 
outhouses, was like the citadel of a great town. Explora- 
tions have resulted in the discovery of the wall of the 
enclosure. It was quadrangular in shape, about 80 feet 
thick; 150 towers were placed along it at regular intervals; 
and it covered a space of two leagues. 

The seven gates of the town have been exhumed, of 
which three veritable triumphal arches are adorned with 
sculptures. 

It was the custom of the Assyrians to build vaults both 
in brick and in stone. One colonnade has been discovered 
of an entirely new species. The columns are distributed in 
groups of seven, and each of these groups is buttressed by 
a double pilaster. Another range of columns, grouped by 
sevens in the same manner, was covered with black mastic. 
One of the gates of the town, constructed of great hewn 
slabs of limestone, has preserved its arch, which can be seen 
in the form of a plain semicircle made of bricks, and resting 
on piers also built of bricks. This gate, reckoning from 
summit to base, is 20 feet high and 10 feet wide. The 
brick of which it has been built has been handled with the 
greatest skill and intelligence. 

Large numbers of mounds, seen afar off on the left 
bank of the Tigris, opposite Mossoul, indicate with some- 
thing like exactitude the immense space of ground occupied 
by Nineveh. 




Khorsabad Assyrian Temple Restored. 



ASIATIC ARCHITECTURE. 35 

Babylon, the town of Nimrod, the mighty hunter, was but 
another Nineveh. Enormous masses of brick-work, covered 
with pictures in enamel ; vast halls ornamented with bassi 
rilievi, and covered to the ceiling with cuneiform inscrip- 
tions relative to contemporary events ; houses of three and 
four storeys ; fifty streets parallel to or at right angles with 
the Euphrates, and fields sufficiently large to produce food 
for the inhabitants in time of siege all this magnificence 
.overtowered by the temple of Belus, the Hanging Gardens, 
and the ramparts such, according to the historians, was 
Babylon, the city which was extolled and admired even by 
the founders themselves. 

Daniel, who from a prisoner came to be chief minister 
in Babylon, has preserved for us the words of Nebuchad- 
nezzar concerning it : " This is that great Babylon which I 
have made the seat of my empire, and which I have built 
in the grandeur of my power, and in the greatness of my 
glory." 

The walls of this gigantic city were 390 feet high and 98 
feet thick, and were flanked by two rows of towers, the one 
inside and the other outside the wall. Between the towers 
there was sufficient room for a four-horse chariot to turn 
easily. A ditch, wide and deep, banked with bricks and 
filled with water, surrounded the whole town. Twenty-six 
gates of massive brass gave ingress and egress on each of 
the four sides of the walls. 

Perhaps the tower of the great temple of Belus was 
among the most remarkable monuments of Babylon. Eight 
gradually diminishing storeys gave it the look of a pyramid 
with enormous gradients. Upon the summit stood the 
temple, surmounted by a platform, where the priests assidu- 
ously devoted themselves to the study of the celestial bodies. 

D 2 



36 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

They believed that science was the supreme aim of man, 
and was the crown of religion. This temple was still in 
existence in the second century of our era. 

A bridge, which Quintus Curtius, the historian of 
Alexander, ranks among the wonders of the East, united the 
two portions of the town on the respective banks of the 
Euphrates; and immense reservoirs received and turned 
aside the surplus waters during the time of floods. Finally, 
all antiquity has celebrated the praises of the Hanging 
Gardens, piled terrace above terrace, and supported by 
twenty large ramparts, crossed by conduits of water, and 
crowned by trees that gave them the appearance of a 
wooded hill. 

Babylon had a long and a glorious career. Founded, says 
a respectable tradition, by Nimrod, the mighty hunter, who 
disputed the possession of Chaldea with the lions and wild 
bulls, it was occupied at a very early date by the Arabs, or 
at least by those migratory nomads and shepherds who 
wandered about this time over the north of Egypt. Belus, 
King of Nineveh, captured the town, but did not injure its 
prosperity; on the contrary, he embellished and strengthened 
it. Regaining its independence after the fall of Sardanapalus, 
it became the capital of a powerful kingdom, and one of its 
earliest sovereigns, Nabonassar, inaugurated an era which 
bears his name, 747 B.C. When Nebuchadnezzar took 
Nineveh and destroyed it, 625 B.C., Babylon became the 
most powerful and dominant city then existing, and received 
the name of Queen of the East. Powerful, and without a 
rival, it held in subjection f .he regions of Bactria, Armenia, 
Media, Persia, Phoenicia, and India. Cyrus, King of 
Persia, after a siege of two whole years, made himself master 
of Babylon by a bold stratagem, and assumed the title of 



ASIATIC ARCHITECTURE. 37 

King of Kings. He it was who reduced the walls of the 
town to half their height. Darius, one of his successors, 
carried away the gates of brass, after a revolt. Alexander, 
on the return of his expedition from India, made a triumphal 
entry into the city, and died there at the very time he was 
resolving upon making it his capital. Soon after, weakened 
by the neighbouring town of Seleucia, on the Tigris, it 
rapidly fell, although in the first century of our era it was 
still inhabited. 

At the present day, according to an observant traveller, 
the plain of Babylon is covered to the extent of eighteen 
leagues with debris, mounds, aqueducts, canals, and rubbish- 
heaps. All these have been so intermingled that it is 
difficult to recognise the sites or the dimensions of even the 
largest buildings. Desolation bears undisputed reign around. 
Not a house, not a field, not a tree in leaf : the scene is 
completely deserted both by man and nature. Tigers, 
jackals, and serpents have taken up their abode in the 
ruins, and frequently the traveller is terrified by scenting 
the lion. 

Alexander saved Babylon by proposing to make it his 
capital, but he destroyed a city not less famous, which also 
deserves to be ranked among the Marvels of Architecture. 
Persepolis, the holy city of the enemies of Greece, he was 
compelled to sacrifice to the fury of his army. He himself, 
it is said, in a fit of drunkenness set fire to the palace of 
the king. His companions in the debauch, and after them 
the common soldiers of the army, followed his example. 
" Thus," says Quintus Curtius, " perished the capital of the 
East a city to which nations had come in search of laws 
a city that was the birthplace of kings, and the terror of 
Greece in former times a city that could send forth a 



38 ARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

fleet of a thousand vessels, and armies that inundated 
Europe." 

Istakhr the name by which Persepolis was known 
within comparatively recent times occupies at the present 
day a space of between four and five miles in circumference, 
the mounds of which show how much the surface of the earth 
in this region has changed. Under the upper layer of vege- 
tation antique masonry is still to be discovered. Alone in 
the midst of these remains rises a single upright column, 
with prostrate fragments lying around. This was the " town 
of the people," so named to distinguish it from " the city of 
the kings," where dwelt the monarchs. Crossing the canals 
and the marshes which intersect the plain, the traveller finds 
himself face to face with the most remarkable antiquities of 
the whole of Persia. 

That portion of Persepolis known as the palace of 
the kings rises and extends over a long rampart, divided by 
a gigantic double flight of steps. Above is a great group 
of columns, which still support vestiges of their elegant 
capitals. On the left are massive pillars, on which are still 
to be seen the imposing colossal figures which formerly 
guarded the entrance to the royal dwelling. On the right is 
the palace in ruins ; whilst afar off may be seen, through the 
spaces between the columns, masses of stone covered with 
symbolical figures ; and yet farther off, through the bluish 
haze of the motionless atmosphere, hollow tombs excavated 
in the flank of the mountain which serves as a background 
of this imposing landscape. 

Regarding the founders of Persepolis nothing is known. 
Cyrus and his successors dwelt for a long time at Babylon. 
The last kings of Persia preferred to stay at Susa and at 
Ecbatana. However, Persepolis remained the sacred city to 



ASIATIC ARCHITECTURE. 41 

which the kings came to be crowned. What Thebes was to 
Egypt that was to Persia the metropolis of the nation, and 
the cradle of the enormous power which Greece eventually 
crushed. Thebes, it is said, was built by the gods ; but if 
so, Persepolis was the work of the genii. We read in the 
" Book of the Kings " a long epic poem, written in the tenth 
century of our era, and which contains a multitude of ancient 
legends that Djemschid, the fourth king of the country, 
gave orders to the genii to mingle earth and water together 
and knead it into bricks for the building of the city. 

Like Persia, the peninsula of India was occupied more 
than 1,000 years before our era by a nation whose language, 
ideas, and general character bear a striking resemblance to 
those of nations now inhabiting Western Europe. The 
Aryan race, as this people was called, have left behind them 
but a confused history. But the books and the monuments 
of which they were the authors, and which have survived 
many ages and frequent devastations, bear witness to their 
genius. Among the latter may be mentioned the sculptured 
caverns and temples of Ellora in the Deccan, which are 
justly ranked among the Marvels of Architecture. Their 
character is antique, but their date is uncertain ; all that 
can be conjectured being that the more ancient portions of 
them belong to the ages before Christ. They are conse- 
crated to several divinities of the Brahminic Pantheon. 

The hills of Ellora extend a length of two miles in 
the form of a crescent, turning their hollow face to the 
west of the village of Rozah. Their flanks are pierced with 
subterranean galleries not less than two leagues in extent. 
Here is to be found a great hall, nearly square, which is 180 
feet long, 150 feet broad, and 18 feet high. The roof is 
supported by twenty-eight columns. Certain of the excava- 



42 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

tions disclose many storeys which communicate with each 
other. 

What the visitor especially admires, however, is the 
temple of Kailasa, a magnificent jewel in stone, as large as 
the Royal Exchange of London, made of a single isolated 
rock, Tiollowed within and magnificently carved without. 
Nothing is wanting to render its proportions, its grace, and 
its beauty perfect. The hand of a master must have 
fashioned this gorgeous structure, which comprises chapels, 
porticoes, colonnades supported by figures of elephants, two 
basilisks 39 feet high, a pagoda 100 feet high, flights of 
stairs and galleries, made solemn with a dim and almost 
a religious light. The whole structure covers a space of 340 
feet in length by 195 feet in breadth, and the exterior walls 
are separated from the cliff to which the rock originally be- 
longed by an excavated passage 26 to 32 feet in width; so 
that this wonderful rock temple is completely isolated in the 
centre of a court hollowed out in the flank of the hill. Time, 
passing over the walls covered with innumerable statues, has 
blackened them, but in robbing them of much it has also 
imparted to them a real beauty. And here it may be re- 
marked that the strange sculptures of Ellora are only to be 
compared to the shapeless works of our middle ages ; and 
though they are wanting in the repose of the Egyptian 
sculptures, they seem to live and breathe with a monstrous 
life. 



CHAPTER V. 

GREEK ART. I. ATHENS. 

ALL the elements of Greek art can be traced in the 
architecture of Egypt, Assyria, and Persia. Eastern tradi- 
tions and the tuition of Egypt had undoubtedly an influence 
upon the architects of Sicyon and Paestum ; but in this, as 
in all other instances, it is found that the character of archi- 
tecture is modified by that of the people. What the Greeks 
chiefly strove after was the application of architecture to the 
wants and tastes of man. Their great secret was that they 
knew the range of human vision. By the simple combina- 
tion of straight lines they achieved in architecture a grace, 
a harmony, and a great and prevailing sweetness. Their 
monuments resemble a man whom a rare combination of 
nobility of soul and perfect health of body elevates above 
his fellows. With none but ordinary proportions they create 
within us the sentiment of majesty. 

Before describing some of the masterpieces which have 
been destroyed or disfigured by successive devastations, it is 
necessary to refer at least to the salient points of the three 
orders of architecture transmitted by the Greeks to the 
Romans, and which we discern again among the peoples of 
Western Europe the pupils and heirs of antiquity. 

The Doric order, the most ancient, the most simple, and 
perhaps the noblest of all, seems to have been a reproduction 
in stone or in marble of the structures which the Hellenes, 
while yet barbarians, built not without a certain grace 



44 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

of the beams furnished by the Thessalian forests. Short, 
stumpy columns, thick at the bottom, generally lightened 
by flutings which softened their massive and somewhat 
clumsy look, rest without base upon a continuous sub- 
basement. The capital, austere and without ornamentation, 
supports a large flat stone called the architrave, also bare 
and unornamented. The extremities of the transversal 
joists and the spaces which separate them, have given 
birth to triglyphs and metopes, the attributes of the Doric 
frieze ; only the spaces are filled up and the metopes are 
covered with votive shields, trophies, and bassi-rilievi. 
Above the frieze projects a cornice of stern and simple 
outline, which sustains the pediment. 

The Ionic order, applied at first to the decoration of 
tombs, is more extended than the former; adds to its columns 
a base, which varies in dimensions ; divides its architrave into 
three plat-bands ; suppresses the triglyphs and metopes of 
the frieze, and enriches the cornice. This order draws its 
distinctive character from the form of its pillar-capitals, 
which are truly very beautiful. In shape the capital is 
oblong, and is formed by a sort of scroll, which curves 
outward, and falls in a large volute at both extremities. 

Still richer is the Corinthian capital, which belongs to 
the third order of Grecian architecture. It is a double 
corbel of the leaves of the acanthus, which throw out eight 
small and eight large volutes, intended to sustain an abacus, 
curved at its angles and hollowed out on its sides. The 
whole order is in keeping with the capital. The base 01 
the column is higher and bolder; the architrave is orna- 
mented with rows of beads ; the frieze is flowing and richly 
carved ; and the cornice is so developed as to combine the 
three orders, for the purpose of increased embellishment. 



GREEK ART. 



45 



It is supposed that the Corinthian order, much later than 
the two others, was invented at Corinth by the architect 
Callimachus. Few examples of it are now seen in Greece. 
Perhaps the Romans, who were very fond of it, transported 
to Rome all the capitals and columns which they could find 
in the original country. 

Having premised thus much, let us glance at Athens, 
the city of Themistocles, of Cimon, and of Pericles. Full 
of gratitude towards the mother of arts and sciences, the 
instructress of Rome and the world, the ideal country of 
genius and mind, let us, as it were, seek the remains of her 
past splendour as an affectionate son searches beneath the 
wrinkles of his mother's face for that youthful beauty and 
those beloved lineaments which are the first to impress 
themselves upon his memory. 

A little investigation enables the explorer to trace the 
still visible foundations of the long rampart built by The- 
mistocles to connect the town with the Piraeus. Passing under 
the lofty rampart, and under the black rocks which serve as 
the base of the Parthenon, our attention is first directed to 
the Acropolis. Neither at Corinth nor at Eleusis can the Pro- 
pylaeum be compared with the magnificent vestibule of this 
structure. It is the work of Menesicles ; it was raised about 
457 B.C., and cost an immense sum of money. In spite of 
the barbarous treatment which it met with at the hands of 
the Turks, the original structure may be still admired. Six 
columns sustain the pediments, and form the middle of the 
facade ; five doors are placed in the spaces between the 
columns, and richly-sculptured compartments divide the 
white marble ceiling. 

The grand flight of steps of the long Propylseum is on 
the right. A high rampart serves as the basement for 



46 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

the little temple of the Wingless Victory, demolished in 1687 
by the Turks, in order to give place to a battery, and after- 
wards built up again, stone by stone, by two German 
architects. Athens dedicated it to her divine protectress, 
Athena, or Minerva. The friezes represented the combats 
in which this goddess assured victory to her people, and 
upon the balustrade the Victories, her winged messengers, 
seemed to await her orders. 

The whole edifice is constructed of marble, the bases of the 
columns being composed of single stones. The bassi-rilievi 
of the south and west were taken away, and transported to 
England by Lord Elgin, and now form what are called the 
Elgin Marbles in the British Museum. Small and ruined as 
it is, this temple, with the interior of the vestibule of the 
Propylaeum, forms one of the most ancient examples of the 
Ionic order. It is attributed, with some authority, to the 
era of Cimon, the predecessor of Pericles. The orator 
Lycurgus afterwards added the decoration of the balustrade. 

These interesting relics, which have initiated us into the 
pure beauty of the Grecian architecture, appropriately pre- 
pare us for an examination of the Parthenon, which travellers 
and artists have unanimously placed at the summit of 
architectural art, as Ictinus and Phidias placed it at the 
summit of the Acropolis of Athens. " The appearance of the 
Parthenon," says Lamartine, " testifies more loudly than 
history itself to the greatness of this people. Pericles will 
never die ! What a civilisation was that which found a great 
man to decree, an architect to conceive, a sculptor to adorn, 
statuaries to .execute, workmen to carve, and a people to pay 
for and maintain such an edifice ! In the midst of the ruins 
which once were Athens, and which the cannon of the 
Greeks and Turks have pulverised and scattered through- 



GREEK ART. 47 

out the valley, and upon the two hills on which extends 
the city of Minerva, a mountain is seen towering up per- 
pendicularly on all sides. Enormous ramparts surround it; 
built at their base with fragments of white marble, higher 
up with the debris of friezes and antique columns, they 
terminate in some parts with Venetian battlements. This 
mountain seems to be a magnificent pedestal cut by the 
gods themselves, whereon to seat their altars." Here it 
was that the Parthenon towered nay, towers still, even in 
its ruins, above the Pentelic valleys, the plain of the Piraeus, 
and the sea, where shine the pediments of the temple of 
Jupiter /Eginus. 

" By what fatality," exclaims Chateaubriand, "is it that 
these masterpieces of antiquity, which the moderns travel 
so far and undergo so many fatigues to behold and admire, 
owe partly to the moderns themselves their destruction? 
Down to the year 1687 the Parthenon remained entire. The 
Christians converted it first into a church, and the Turks, 
jealous of the Christians, afterwards converted it into a 
mosque. Then came the Venetians, in the highly civilised 
seventeenth century, and cannonaded the monuments of 
Pericles. They shot their balls upon the Propylaeum and 
the temple of Minerva ; a bomb sunk into the roof, set 
fire to a number of barrels of gunpowder inside, and de- 
molished in part a building that did less honour to the 
false gods of the Greeks than to the genius of man. The 
town being taken, Morosini, with the design of embel- 
lishing Venice with the spoils of Athens, wished to take 
down the statues of the pediment of the Parthenon, and 
broke them. A modern succeeded in achieving (in the 
interest of the arts) the destruction which the Venetians 
had begun. Lord Elgin lost the merits of his commend- 



48 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

able enterprises in ravaging the Parthenon. He wished 
to take away the bassi-rilievi of the frieze ; in order to do 
so, he employed Turkish workmen, who broke the archi- 
trave, threw down the capitals, and smashed the cornice." 

Numerous descriptions of the Parthenon, by writers of 
antiquity as well as travellers of all ages, enable us to 
re-construct it for the mind's eye in its general aspect, and 
almost in all its details. 

The ancient sanctuary of Minerva had been so com- 
pletely annihilated by the Persians of Xerxes, that 
Themistocles did not hesitate to employ the remains in the 
construction of ramparts. Pericles charged Ictinus and 
Callicrates, under the direction of Phidias, to raise a new 
edifice worthy of the power of Athens, and of her goddess. 
The architects adopted the Doric style, on account of its 
nobleness and simplicity; but they reserved the privilege to 
themselves of lightening its somewhat squat proportions, 
and softening its rudeness by precise and finished work. 
Inspired with the idea of the object of the work the honour 
of Minerva herself they never lost sight of the divine virgin, 
whose glorious image Phidias fixed in marble, as she 
sprang from the forehead of Jupiter the issue of supreme 
thought an ideal in which strength did not exclude grace, 
In every part of the architecture the highest degree of 
elegance and serenity was conspicuous. Without sacri- 
ficing any of the traditional merits of the Doric order, 
they subordinated them to the idea which it was necessary 
to embody. Columns of greater length than formerly 
supported bolder capitals and a lighter entablature ; a richer 
and more delicate decoration was made use of in the friezes, 
and in the very smallest details the loftiest and most purely 
Attic spirit breathed. 



GREEK ART. 51 

The temple, 234 feet by 98 feet, entirely of white Pentelic 
marble, was surrounded by a peristyle, sustained upon forty-six 
columns, eight supporting each pediment. The columns, 
placed without pedestals upon three steps, measured 20 
feet high, and nearly 6J feet in diameter. Forty-six to 
forty-eight colossal figures, about 13 feet in diameter, admir- 
ably grouped, formed the pediments, and were relieved in 
pure white upon a reddish background. Below, between 
the triglyphs, painted in blue, ran upon the ninety-two 
metopes of the exterior frieze those famous alti-rilievi, the 
Centaurs and the Lapithae, Hercules and Theseus, Perseus 
and Bellerophon, by Phidias. Amidst the gods and heroes 
a place was reserved for men. The principal episodes of the 
battle of Marathon, won by the Athenians over the Persians, 
occupied the metopes of the western facade. Outside the 
colonnade, upon the exterior wall of the temple, ran a 
long frieze, embracing subjects treated in alto-rilievo, 
like cameos, and having a marvellous finish. There were 
religious processions coming from both sides at once to 
honour the figures of the gods upon the facade. In the 
sanctuary was a colossal Minerva, 46 feet in height, 
clothed in a tunic of gold, and holding a spear of ivory in 
her hand. 

The Acropolis of Athens also contains the united 
temples of the Erechtheum of Minerva Poliades "Great 
works also," says Lamartine, " but drowned in the shadow 
of the Parthenon." Mention may here be made of a small 
temple united to the Erechtheum, which presents a feature 
we have not hitherto noticed. The place of columns is in 
this instance supplied by statues. Six beautiful caryatides 
(figure -pillars) in white marble, and crowned with elegant 
capitals, support an entablature, lightened by having no 

2 



5 MARVELb OF ARCHITECTURE. 

frieze. A heavy superincumbent weight would have givei 
these figures a painful appearance of effort, than which 
there is nothing more foreign to Greek art. By the absence 
of this, however, and the skill of the designer, their ex- 
pression is one of unequalled serenity blended with that 
cold dignity and geometric arrangement which is more 




The Temple of Pandrosa. 

characteristic of architecture than of statuary. Their arms 
are cut off between the shoulder and the elbow, and the 
straight folds of their garments, especially behind, look like 
the flutings of columns. Their feet rest upon a pedestal 
equally high in all cases. Modern art can hardly equal 
them even in the case of the splendid caryatides of the 
tribune of the Louvre, in which grace, size, and charming 



GREEK ART. 53 

naivete are substituted for and supplement the astonishing 
nobleness and absolute purity of the feminine figure- 
columns that, in the small temple of Erechtheum, guard 
the celebrated olive the tre:: and present of Minerva, 
This little temple was dedicated to the nymph Pandrosa, 
one of the daughters of Cecrops, and it is generally called 
the Paiidroseium. 

Among the numerous monuments, the traces, or at 
least the sites, of which we can still discover upon the 
soil of Athens, there are few so entire as the temple of 
Theseus the most beautiful, after the Parthenon, which 
Greece has raised to her gods or her heroes. It is con- 
ceived in the same spirit, and presents a similar arrange- 
ment, to that great masterpiece. Combats of Centaurs 
and Lapithae decorate the frieze. Its harmonious mass 
and its beautiful columns stand out clearly relieved against 
the deep sky of Attica, crowning, as it does, an isolated 
cliff, wild and bristling with sharp rocks. Like the Pecile 
and the theatre of Bacchus, it is a work of Cimon. 

A little monument, formerly known under the name of 
the Lantern of Demosthenes, and of which a copy occupies 
at St. Cloud the summit of a tower well known to the 
Parisians, deserves attention as one of the rare specimens 
of the Corinthian order to be seen in Greece. It formed 
one of those small houses which were used to contain the 
tripods received by the victors in the scenic games those 
same tripods which were on high occasions employed for 
the decoration of one of the thoroughfares of Athens, 
called in consequence the Street of the Tripods. Above 
a rectangular pedestal rose a small round chamber, closed 
by six marble panels, that crowned the irieze and circular 
cornice, and of which the joinings were concealed by six 



54 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE, 

fluted columns partly sunk into the wall, and rising to the 
height of 13 feet. The cupola, delicately carved in the 
upper part, where it imitated a roofing of laurel leaves, 
supported an ornament in the shape of a piece of flower- 
work, full of caprice, and very artistic in the management 
of the foliage. Here it was that the tripod was kept. 



2. GREEK REMAINS IN ITALY AND ASIA. 

Psestum, the Poseidonia of the Greeks, owes its origin 
to the first Dorian immigrations into Italy. This celebrated 
structure was situated a short distance from the sea, and 
from the river Silarus. Its decline dates from three 
centuries before our era, though it existed still under the 
empire previously to its capture by the Saracens, who in 
915 burned it before abandoning it to the Italians. In 
addition to three famous temples of which it was com- 
posed, there still remains a fragment of the ancient wall, 
formed of enormous blocks. On the space of four miles 
which these ruins cover, are to be found fragments of 
columns, of cornices, and of pools of water where now 
grow only coarse reeds sad successors of the roses so 
much extolled by the ancient poets. In the low plain, 
where now are scattered the remains of this great temple, 
the soldiers of Crassus in former times crushed the almost 
invincible army of Spar.tacus. Even the dead have not 
fertilised this marshy tract of land. There is no appear- 
ance of life or of restless animation to disturb the solemn 
impression and the imposing effect of these old and solitary 
temples. 

The smallest of the three temples has lost every trace of 
interior walls, and preserves only its stout Doric columns 



GREEK ART. 55 

and two pediments. Nine columns rear themselves in 
its front, and thirteen at the side, which show to great 
advantage when gilded by the sun of the South. Above 
the entablature rests a frieze with modules. There are 
still three columns standing in the inside, and broken 
shafts and debris encumber the enclosure. 

Of the three temples of Psestum, the best preserved 
ranks among the most beautiful works of antiquity, and 
is situated between the two others. Neptune was the god 
to whom it was dedicated. Its fluted columns, of which 
there are six on the facade and fourteen on the sides, rest 
upon three broad steps of most harmonious proportions. 
They are short, their height not being more than 14 
feet. Their diameter gradually diminishes towards the top, 
and thus they present somewhat of the appearance of a 
pyramid. Between the columns the space is little more 
than the diameter of the pillars, and this helps to make 
the play of light and shade among them very striking 
and varied. The capitals spring boldly out, and the 
entablature is a little more than half the height of the 
columns. Below the capitals are four small fillets, fine 
and light ornaments, which are placed opposite each 
other, and give great delicacy to the ornamentation. 
Judging from what remains, a pretty correct estimate can 
even at the present day be formed of the arrangement of 
the sanctuary of the temple. It was ornamented with 
pilasters, and with two ranks of columns which supported 
an architrave on another range of columns of smaller 
size, destined to support the roof. Scarcely another 
example exists of this superposition of orders among the 
Greeks. 

Sicily was at an early date colonised by the Dorians, 



56 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

whose dialect it preserved. Notwithstanding the successive 
conquests which devastated it, it still contains architectural 
lemains which are well worthy of the mother country, the 
most complete of which is the temple of Segesta. 

The town of Egesta, or Segesta, the foundation of which is 
attributed to the fabulous Acestes, the companion of ^Eneas, 
was destroyed by the Saracens in the eleventh century. A 
temple, a theatre, and some shapeless debris situated at a 
shoit distance from Calatafimi, are all that now remain of it. 
Majestically based upon a promontory, as upon a great 
pedestal, the temple seems to have always been isolated from 
the town, which circumstance was, probably, the cause of its 
beibg preserved from the fury of the destroyers of the latter. 
Antiquarians do not agree as to whether it was consecrated 
to Ceres or to Diana. It has the form of a square, and is 
sunounded by thirty-six columns, its circumference being 
more than 500 feet. All the attributes of the Doric order 
are to be found in it. Columns without bases swelled out 
at the bottom, round capitals, an architrave, a frieze and a 
cornice, with triglyphs and metopes, a double pediment, 
and four steps at the spaces where the doors afforded entrance 
such are the main features of the temple of Segesta. 
The columns are in calcareous tufa, and were doubtless 
originally coated with stucco. Indentations upon some of 
the stones, which were doubtless made in order to facilitate 
the transportation of the great blocks, seem to indicate 
that this temple was never finished. No traces are to be 
found of an altar, of steps, or of interior porticoes. It is 
believed that the building was interrupted when Agathocles 
devastated the town during the Punic war. The preserva- 
tion of the edifice itself, so far as it was completed, is as 
perfect as possible. Its interior is completely unfurnished, 



GREEK ART. 59 

except with grass, upon which flocks browse in the shadows 
of the columns. No roof covers it but the vault of heaven. 
This solitary colossus towering over the mountains, with its 
reddish columns eaten away by time an abandoned ruin 
rising in the midst of the desert calls forth the admiration 
and respect of him who is fortunate enough to behold it. 

Asia is the cradle of Greece. The Hellenic race 
sojourned for a long time in Ionia; but the devastations of 
the Persians and the Turks have scarcely left there any 
memorials of their ancient architecture. Some columns at 
Ephesus, some tombs among others the famous Mausoleum 
are almost all that can be traced. 

According to Pindarus, the first temple of Ephesus was 
built by the Amazons at the time when they made war upon 
Theseus. Strabo attributes it to the architect Ctesiphon ; 
and Pliny informs us that before being burnt it was a type 
of architecture as much admired for the proportions of its 
columns as for its capitals. After Erostratus burnt it, in 
356 B.C., says Strabo, the gifts brought from all parts, the 
donations of pious women, the presents of the colonies, and 
the valuable articles deposited by the kings in the ancient 
sanctuary, enabled the people to rebuild the temple on a still 
more magnificent scale. All Asia joined in the undertaking, 
and the structure took no less than 220 years to raise. It 
was placed on a marshy soil, to ensure it against earthquakes ; 
and in order to obtain sufficiently strong foundations for 
such a considerable mass, a bed of ground carbon was laid 
down, and a bed of wool above that. The entire temple 
was 425 feet long and 220 feet wide. As many as 127 
columns were raised in honour of as many kings, which 
columns were 60 feet high. Of these columns thirty-six 
were sculptured. 



60 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

Perhaps the greatest marvel in connection with the 
whole enterprise was the raising of the architraves. The 
greatest difficulty was experienced with the frontispiece 
over the entrance gate. Such was the weight of this 
enormous mass that it could not be placed upright. The 
artist was on the point of committing suicide; but during 
the night, says Pliny, a goddess informed him that she had 
arranged the stone, and in the morning he found that the 
promise had been redeemed. Chirocrates is supposed to 
have been the architect, the same who built Alexandria. 
Works from the chisel of Praxiteles and of Trason covered 
the altar and walls. As for the wood-work, it was simply 
wonderful all the carpentry being in cedar. 

In the thirteenth century A.D. the Persians first, and 
afterwards the Scythians, pillaged and burnt the temple of 
Ephesus. What of destruction was left unaccomplished by 
these was completed by the Goths and Mahomet the Gieat 
The temple is represented upon ancient medals bearing the 
effigies of Diocletian and Maximin, with a frontispiece of 
two, four, six, and eight columns respectively variations 
to be attributed solely to the caprice of the engraver. This 
temple was the most perfect model of the Ionic order. 

Among the Seven Wonders of the World might with 
justice be ranked the Mausoleum, or tomb of the Carian 
King Mausole, at Epheais, rai.sed by his wife Artemisia. 
South and north its walls, according to the elder Pliny, 
measured 63 feet ; but the two others were not so large. 
The entire circumference of the remains is 411 feet, and 
the height 25 cubits. Thirty-six columns formed a peri- 
style around it. It was erected at different epochs the 
north side was built by Bryaxis, the east by Scopas, the 
south by Timotheus, and the west by Leocharis. Queen 



GREEK ART. 6 1 

Artemisia, who had designed the monument in honour of 
her spouse, died before it was completed ; but the artists, 
believing that it would redound to their glory and to the 
interests of art, determined to finish it. This was ac- 
cordingly done, and above the peristyle, or pteron, a 
pyramid was raised of the same height as the rest of the 
edifice, composed of twenty-four steps, which decreased in 
size as they ascended. Upon this summit is a quadriga, 
the work of Pythis, which accessory gave to the structure 
a height of more than 150 feet. 

Other Greek tombs at Alinda, in Asia Minor, in Sicily, 
in the isle of Santrim, present the form of a square tower 
sustained by Ionic and Doric columns. These monuments 
succeeded the tumuli of the Pelasgians, which we find among 
the Etruscans, and even among the Romans. 



CHAPTER. VI. 

ANCIENT ROME. I. THE ROMAN FORUM. 

ROME borrowed her chief architectural ideas from the 
Etruscans and the Greeks; but what she thus took she 
reconstructed in accordance with her own spirit, converting 
the whole into realisations of grandeur and ostentation, 
in response to the wants which arose from her conquests 
and her wealth. Captivated with the beauties of Grecian 
architecture, she quickly abandoned the Tuscan model 
she was following for the primitive Doric. She added 
even to the graces which she borrowed, and in order to 
enjoy at once the Ionic and the Corinthian, she combined 
the two into an order which has consequently been termed 
the Composite. In the external appearance and the deco- 
ration of those buildings can clearly be traced an imitation 
of Greece, and often the workmanship of Greek artists ; but 
they all possess at the same time that special individual cha- 
racter which at a glance declares that the structures are 
Roman in their essential principles. Roman architecture 
may be described as an original transformation of Greek 
architecture. Applying it to much larger structures, Rome 
introduced the superposition of orders in storeys, substituting 
the vault and the arcade for the ceiling and the plat-band. 
She employed the smallest materials, and enlarged the inter- 
vals between the points of support. The temples alone 
remain tolerably faithful to the Greek type. The trium- 
phal arches, the baths, the amphitheatres, and the aqueducts 



ANCIENT ROME. 63 

widely differ in their structure from the Greek model : these 
are all purely Roman works. 

The spectator could not walk ten paces in the ancient 
Forum without perceiving that he was not in Athens. Situ- 
ated at the foot of the Capitol, it formed one of the promi- 
nent objects of ancient Rome. Upon a height which cir- 
cumscribed the view rose the Tabularium, or palace of 
Archives, at the foot of the fortress of Romulus and of the 
temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Regarded at the present 
day, a number of protecting divinities are seen grouped to- 
gether, whose duty it was supposed to be to watch over the 
fortunes of Rome. The Capitol that cradle of an empire 
that has lasted 1,200 years is now a mere common hill 
garnished with mansions devoid of grandeur. Its height even 
Las been diminished, owing to the masses of rubbish that 
have gradually accumulated around the sides, and it was 
found necessary to dig up and remove the soil in order to 
restore to the half-buried ruins of the Forum the elegance of 
their proportions. 

The arch of Septimus Severus, the foot of which was for 
a long time buried underground, rises in front of the Capitol, 
near the Mamertine prison, where so many of the vanquished 
died after having marched in the triumphal procession of 
their conquerors. It was raised about the year 203 A.D., in 
honour of Septimus Severus and his two sons, Caracalla and 
Geta. A number of Corinthian columns separate the three 
unequal semicircles. Above the middle one recline two 
figures of Victory, while above the smaller arches are bassi- 
rilievi, representing combats between the Parthians, the 
Arabs, and other Eastern nations. Formerly the upper plat- 
form supported a huge chariot in bronze, conducted by 
Severus and his two sons around the figures of Victory. 



64 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

The Arc du Carrousel in Paris is a copy of this triumphal 
arch. 

Leaving the arch of Septimus, the spectator sees on the 
right and in front of him almost an entire side of the temple 
of Fortune, the three Corinthian columns of Jupiter Ton ens, 
and the beautiful remains of the Grecostaxium, where foreign 
ambassadors were lodged. In the same direction, towards 
the left, the visitor seeks in vain, in the pediments of the 
church of St. Adrian, for any vestiges of the Emilia basilica 
constructed towards the latter years of the republic, and 
restored by Tiberius. This structure enriched St. John de 
Latran with a gate of brass, and St. Paul with numerous 
pillars in violet marble. It is gratifying, however, to find 
that the high facade of the temple of Antoninus and Faus- 
tinus has been spared a fagade which Goethe always re- 
garded with great admiration. 

The edifices which enclosed the Forum on the east having 
fallen, gives an uninterrupted view on the right of the Palatine 
Hill, where Augustus and Nero had their palaces and gar- 
dens. It is at the present day merely a huge collection of 
open vaults, buried galleries, and halls paved with mosaics. 
Close at hand is the arch of Titus, on the Via Sacra. It was 
raised at the end of the first century to commemorate the 
taking of Jerusalem. In spite of its limited dimensions and 
its singular appearance, the beauty of its proportions and 
sculptures renders it a true model of the class of architecture 
to which it belongs. It has lost four of the eight composite 
columns that ornamented its facades. Two admirable bassi- 
ilievi are to be seen on it, but they are unfortunately muti- 
lated. One represents Titus on a chariot conducted by a 
female figure of Rome, crowned with victory, escorted by 
a multitude of soldiers, senators, and people. The other 



ANCIENT ROME. 65 

depicts the spoils of Jerusalem, the table of gold, the seven- 
branched chandelier, the sacred vases, and the Jewish pri- 
soners. On the frieze, on which is emblazoned the triumphal 
pomp, is the river Jordan figuratively represented and carried 
by two men. Four Victories decorate the archivolt. 

At some distance on the left may still be admired the 
enormous ruins of a basilica, called the temple of Peace, the 
astonishing vaults of which inspired Michael Angelo. This 
edifice originally formed an oblong more than 325 feet by 
212. Prodigious Corinthian columns sustained a long nave 
and two aisles. All the vaults shone with mosaics and orna- 
ments in bronze. There now remain only the bays of the 
left aisle and the commencement of the great vault. The 
only column that remained intact was transported to one of 
the squares of Rome, the centre of which it now decorates. 

Between the arch of Titus and the Colosseum, the im- 
posing ellipse of which looms grandly upon the spectator, 
only the shafts of overturned columns are to be met with. 
On the right, at the bottom of a lonely avenue, the arch 
dedicated to Constantine after his victory over Maxence 
opens its three semicircles, surrounded by eight beautiful 
fluted antique pillars of the Corinthian order. The bassi- 
rilievi of the lower part, executed in the time of Con- 
stantine, attest the decline of that art ; but others, to the 
number of twenty, placed higher up, are specimens of the 
best style, though these properly belonged to one of the 
arches which ornamented Trajan's Forum. 

Of the first great stone amphitheatre, constructed about 
the year of Rome 725, upon the Campus Martius, by Stati- 
lius Taurus, there now remains not a single trace. Augustus 
declared his intention of constructing another, but this task 
was left to be accomplished by Vespasian, who made his 

F 



66 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

Jewish prisoners work for him gratuitously. Titus built the 
Flavian amphitheatre, and dedicated it about the year 80 A.D. 
Struck with its immense proportions, the people called it the 
Colosseum. At the inauguration under Titus, 5,000 wild 
beasts were put to death, and 11,000 on the occasion of the 
games which celebrated Trajan's victory over the Parthians. 
Probus caused a little forest to be planted in the arena, in 
which he placed a thousand ostriches and a vast number of 
other animals. In the sixth century the practice of cele- 
brating the barbarous games for which the building was 
reared was disused. A fortress in the middle ages, and 
afterwards an hospital, the Colosseum finally became a sort 
of quarry, from which the Farnese and others took material 
to build their palaces. Leo X. put an end to these depre- 
dations, and consecrated the building to the memory of the 
martyrs that had been devoured within it by wild beasts. 
Walls and buttresses of support were latterly employed to 
arrest the decay of the building, and these accomplished 
the object in a large measure even after half the exterior wall 
had disappeared. 

The exterior of the Colosseum presented four storeys 
superposed: three arcades, with piers ornamented with Doric, 
Ionic, and Corinthian columns ; and one with pilasters orna- 
mented with a bold cornice, at which were fixed mats, to be 
stretched across for the protection of the spectators from 
the sun. Two subterranean storeys contained the animals, 
which were brought up by traps. Altogether, the building 
covered a space of 65,000 square feet. 

The oval arena, 260 feet long by 150 in width, had its 
two entrances situated at the two broad extremities of the 
circus. It was surrounded by gradually ascending steps, 
which formed seats for the spectators. On the first rank 



ANCIENT ROME. 69 

were placed, at one side the box for the imperial family, and 
on the other that of the consuls. Right and left were places 
reserved for ambassadors, first magistrates, senators, and 
other great dignitaries. The senators and equites occupied 
stalls of white marble, these "upper ten" being separated 
from the plebeians by a deeply cut division, forming a kind 
of fixed gulf between them. The amphitheatre terminated 
with a beautiful portico at the roof, formed of eighty marble 
columns. The Colosseum accommodated 90,000 spectators. 

Night is the time when one should contemplate the Colos- 
seum, when a beautiful, clear moonlight plays among the 
hollow vaults and on the broken steps, giving to what it 
lights up, and what it darkens with shadow, proportions more 
vast and shapes even stranger than their own. Then it is 
that the terrible scenes of the past crowd on the memory of 
the traveller. 

We imagine we see, says Chateaubriand, "the people 
assembling in the theatre of Vespasian ; all Rome gathered 
to drink the blood of the martyrs ; a hundred thousand 
spectators, some shaded by the hems of their robes, others by 
umbrellas, crowding the seats ; multitudes vomited forth, as 
it were, by the porticoes, descending and ascending the long 
stairs, and taking their places. Railings of gold ward off the 
senators' box from the attacks of the ferocious beasts. In- 
genious machines scatter a perfumed spray throughout the 
vast space, cooling the air and making it pleasant. Three 
thousand statues in bronze, an endless multitude of pictures, 
columns of jasper and porphyry, balustrades of crystal, vases 
of the richest workmanship, dazzle the eye and lend variety 
to the scene. In a canal surrounding the arena swim a 
hippopotamus and crocodiles. Five hundred lions, forty ele- 
phants, and tigers, panthers, and bulls, accustomed to the 



7O MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

slaughter of human beings, rage and roar in the caverns of 
the amphitheatre ; while here and there gladiators not less 
ferocious wipe their blood-stained arms." 

The Baths exhibit the life of the Romans even more 
intimately than the amphitheatres. Of these there were at 
Rome more than 800, which were frequented from mid-day 
till evening. Agrippa was the first who opened them to the 
people, and a great many emperors, wishing to eclipse their 
predecessor in luxury and magnificence, followed his ex- 
ample. We can still see the ruins of the baths of Titus ; 
those of Diocletian furnished to Michael Angelo the idea 
which resulted in the beautiful church of St. Mary of the 
Angels ; while those of Caracalla have been preserved from 
being put to other uses by the vast quantity of rubbish 
accumulated about them. 

At the foot of Mount Aventine, in a deserted region of 
Rome, in the midst of wild vines, are vast ruins which time 
has covered over with mosses. Here lizards sun themselves 
in peace, and here the humble guardian of the ruins has 
built himself a squalid hut, in which the huntsman of the 
Emperor Caracalla would not have kept his dogs. At 
certain places one can climb from stone to stone over green 
mounds, which were originally porticoes and colonnades. 
In these baths the bathers had 1,600 marble seats, special 
and common halls, and hot and cold baths of various 
degrees of temperature. 

One of these baths was no feet in diameter; another 
measured 126 feet by 78, exclusive of the niches around the 
sides and the halls at each extremity. The vaulted roofs 
were supported upon pillars 45 feet high, one of which was 
carried off to the Trinity Square at Florence, where it stands 
surmounted by a statue in red porphyry. 



Ruins of the Baths of Caracal \ a 




Ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, from a photograph. 



ANCIENT ROME. 73 

Taken in their entirety, the aspect of the baths was monu- 
mental. Upon the A'ppian Way rose two storeys of porticoes, 
and behind the long gallery of 1,170 feet formed by these, 
a vast platform, at the height of the first storey, supported 
the building, surrounded with plantations. Within were all 
sorts of appliances for the exercise of the body and amuse- 
ment of the mind, which the ancients always combined. 
Everything had its special purpose and character, and there 
was such an infinite variety that all wants and tastes might 
find their gratification. 

Looking at these baths, the spectator cannot help feeling 
that the impression caused by the Colosseum itself becomes 
weakened. Nowhere within the Eternal City do we trace 
more distinctly the vast accumulation of riches among a 
single people. 

In the refinements of these baths may be read, as in 
a book, the intense, luxurious, and delicate life of the 
Romans. It might be well to recall these baths, which were 
at once public baths, restaurants, gymnasiums, promenades, 
libraries, halls of declamation, and congresses, before we 
boast of our own civilisation and prosperity. 



II. THE PANTHEON, &C. 

On the other side of the Mount Aventine, near the 
Tiber, lie the inhabited quarters of Rome, containing curious 
ruins, which we can only mention. Here is the small temple 
of Vesta, a charming spiral edifice, formerly open on all 
sides, and covered with a white dome supported by twenty 
fluted columns of white marble ; but at present submerged 
in a heap of bricks, and hidden by the fallen roof. Here, 



74 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

also, are the arches of the four-fronted Janus ; and further 
off the opening of the Cloaca Maxima, a celebrated sewer 
which dates from the time of the Kings of Rome. Still 
further off lies the beautiful temple of Fortuna Viri/is, now 
converted into a church called the Egyptian Mary. 

Holding on in the same direction, we come next to one 
of the most beautiful and best preserved remains of ancient 
Rome the Pantheon of Agrippa. The ske of this build- 
ing is ugly and dirty. Its approach is guarded by a granite 
pillar, formerly an obelisk of Serapis, and a fountain, the 
water of which falls back into a basin of porphyry. So great 
is the accumulation of rubbish about the ruins, that only two 
out of the five steps leading up to the edifice are now- 
visible. 

Agrippa's Pantheon consists of two very distinct por- 
tions a rectangular portico and a circular body. Even in 
its present state of decay, a want of harmony can be detected 
between the ornamented facade and the high, red, bare \valls, 
which have lost all their exterior decoration. This is ex- 
plained by the fact that the portico and main body of the 
building are, in reality, different structures. The circular part 
possesses a facade independent of that of the portico ; and 
these differ from each other in style, that of the portico 
being superior to that of the Rotunda. 

Bestowing a few minutes' examination upon the details, 
we find that the superb peristyle is sustained by two 
ranges of eight columns 42 feet in height, irrespective of 
bases and capitals, the whole composed of white marble. 
Each column is hewn out of a single block of Eastern 
marble ; those in front being of white and black granite, and 
the others of red granite. There are very small spaces 
between the columns. The front columns sustain a noble 



ANCIENT ROME. 77 

entablature, but the mass of the pediment rests upon arches 
concealed by the architraves. Formerly, the bassi-rilievi of 
the pediment, the inscription, and the great gate of the 
temple were .of bronze. All this metal, however, was 
removed in the seventeenth century by Pope Urban VIII., 
and has since been used in constructing the immense canopy 
of the altar of St. Peter's. 

The great gate leading into the temple opens between 
fluted pedestals wrought in bronze, and the gate itself is 
covered with thick plates of the same metal. Furthermore, 
we note that the threshold is of African marble, and the 
sides and architrave of white marble. The interior of the 
temple is no less rich than majestic, its diameter being 
more than 13 feet, and the thickness of the wall 19 feet 
From pavement to summit the height is the same as the 
diameter. Light is admitted by a single circular open- 
ing, 29 feet in diameter, in the middle of the vaults. 
Access to the cupola is obtained by a flight of 190 steps. 

Passing to the interior, we find that the circumference of 
the Rotunda is decorated with Corinthian columns of rare 
marble, to which pilasters are attached, the bases and the 
capitals being of white marble, and the frieze of porphyry. 
Above these is a range of windows, now walled up, the 
entablature of which supports the cupola. Plates of silver 
and bronzes covered the ribs of the vault in former times; 
and bronze caryatides, the work of Diogenes of Athens, 
guarded the windows. 

In the year 27 B.C., on the occasion of the victory of 
Actium, when universal peace was declared, the great edifice 
was dedicated to all the gods, and figures of these in gold, 
in silver, in bronze, and in precious marbles were placed 
in niches within it, and hence the name Pantheon. 



78 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

To the same date as the Pantheon ought to be assigned 
the theatre of Marcellus, the remains of which are united 
to a particular house. It was a vast and superb edifice, 
more than 325 feet long, and could contain 16,000 spec- 
tators. Augustus dedicated it to his nephew, the poetic 
youth commemorated by the genius of Virgil. Of the four 
semicircular stages which constituted the wall, traces oi 
only two remain. Every one admires the equilibrium of 
its Ionic columns. These form the models which are fol- 
lowed by modern architects in designing structures wherein 
the orders are superposed. 

Among the monumental forms of which Rome has 
furnished us the type, the votive columns must be classed. 
There were two of these the Antonine, dedicated to Marcus 
Aurelius ; and the Trajan, of which the column in the Place 
Vendome, at Paris, is a bronze reproduction. The Trajan 
column had the immense pile of rubbish surrounding it 
cleared away for the first time in 1540, but it was not entirely 
*evealed till 1813. In height it has often been excelled, but 
it would be difficult to find anywhere an equal harmony of 
proportions. Its pedestal is admirable, and the spiral bassi- 
rilievi which twist around its shaft of white marble have 
been studied with advantage by Raphael. For the pedestal, 
the shaft, the capital, and the statue of Trajan, Apollo- 
dorus of Damas, the architect of Trajan's Forum, employed 
thirty-four blocks of marble, marvellously fitted together. 
Throughout its whole length the column is pierced by a 
staircase leading to the summit. What forms the parti- 
cular beauty of Trajan's column is the unity of conception 
which it displays. Everything is varied, but there is no 
incoherency. Underneath, in the earth, was the golden urn 
that contained the ashes of Trajan ; and upon the pedestal 



- 







Trajan's Column at Rome. 



ANCIENT ROME. 8 1 

garlands of oak, symbolical of peace, were suspended. Laurels 
gird the base of the pedestal. The shaft is enriched with 
a kind of endless scroll, which winds round its circumference 
from base to summit. Here may be beheld, ascending as it 
were from the bottom to the top, 2,500 figures of soldiers 
and prisoners, with an endless number of horses, elephants, 
weapons, and war-material. Standing on the top, the con- 
queror, as it were, looks down upon this triumphal cavalcade 
marching upwards in winding file, and is recompensed for 
his victory. Above the tomb is the trophy ; above the trophy 
the apotheosis ; and rare fortune for a monument nothing 
jars upon the mind of the spectator in gazing at this great 
memorial ; for he remembers that Trajan deserved all the 
honours that were paid to him. 

Only accidentally, as in the case of Trajan's column, 
were these votive pillars employed as tombs. Among the 
architectural forms which the Romans preferred for the pur- 
poses of sepulture, the tumulus and the tower were the richest 
and the most considerable. Adrian's Mole, that enormous 
mass which has so often served Rome as a citadel under the 
name of the Castle of St. Angelo, is simply the mausoleum 
of Adrian. " I have but little pleasure," writes Brosses, " in 
seeing the castle of St. Angelo fortified with its five bastions, 
when I remember that it was originally but a monumental 
tower of three storeys surrounded with porticoes and statues." 
The principal portion of the tomb is raised in a solid mass 
upon a square basement, ornamented with niches and Doric 
columns. In shape it was circular, and its two porticoes, 
superposed the one above the other, inclining inwards, sup- 
ported a dome surmounted by a hugh pine-apple in bronze, 
now to be seen in the Vatican. The exterior was wrought 
in white marble. The circuUife^ence of the square measured 

a 



87 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

1,170 feet, and that of the first portico was 580 feet, the 
total height being nearly 300 feet. After the Pyramids of 
Egypt this is the most stupendous sepulchre that ever was 
constructed. 

Adrian's Mole formed a pendant to that of Augustus, 
of which the ruins are still seen on the other bank of the 
Tiber, near the gate of Repette. The mole or tomb of 
Augustus, it is supposed, was destroyed by the Norman 
Robert Guiscard about the eleventh century. Nothing now 
remains of its cupola or of its porticoes. The two obelisks 
which were formerly placed before its entrance, at the pre- 
sent day decorate the apse of St. Mary Major and the 
square of Monte Cavallo. Within the arena formed by its 
lofty vault graduated seats and boxes were in ancient times 
constructed, for the accommodation of spectators to witness 
bull-fights and other spectacles of a similar character which 
there took place. 

Richness of conception and decoration was the distin- 
guishing trait of the Roman tombs, and this is explained 
by the purpose they were intended to serve the decoration 
of the principal streets of the city. The tomb of Augustus 
was in former times the centre of a vast necropolis. 

The Appian Way passed between two great rows of 
sepulchral monuments, of which the most famous and the 
best preserved is that of Cecilia Metella, wife of the triumvir 
Crassus. This latter formed a vast circular mass, the dia- 
meter of which was 98 feet. 

Not far from the gate of St. Paul stood the monumental 
pyramid of Caius Cestius, an obscure contemporary of 
Augustus. It was 130 feet high, 98 feet wide at the base, 
and entirely faced with white marble. The burial vault, 
19 feet by 13, had a plain circular roof, and was deco- 



ANCIENT ROME. 83 

rated with a number of pictures executed upon very hard 
stucco. 

In all these constructions arches, temples, amphitheatres, 
baths, columns, and tombs whatever was not positively 
enormous in size was at least solid and strong. It was the 
custom of the Romans to combine beauty with strength, 
but beauty was for them none the less an object of their 
efforts because they considered it should be combined v/ith 
utility. They may be said to have chosen by instinct out- 
lines, curves, and elevations that pleased the eye a custom 
from which modern architects might learn a useful lesson. 
The twenty-two aqueducts which, down to the time of 
Procopius, broi g'-t supplies of the purest and most whole- 
some waters to Rome, were not only admirable for the per- 
fection of their interior arrangement, but they also served 
as a decoration to the country through Avhich they passed. 
Nothing could be more noble or more simple than their 
innumerable files of arches which bore water to the Eternal 
City. At tfye present day their ruins are striking, and break 
the dead monotony of the desert plains, where rattle the 
many-coloured wings of the grasshoppers, and little is to be 
seen but parched herbage. Looking upon the remains of the 
Anio Nevus, the traveller can easily imagine what it was in. 
ancient times. It was the most important of all the aque- 
ducts, was nearly 60 miles long, and in some places the 
height of its arcades was 130 feet. Constructed under 
Caligula and Claudius, about 30 B.C., it carried to Rome the 
waters of the river Anio, which at present is known by the 
title of the Teverone, and forms the cascades of Tivoli at 
the foot of the circular temple of the Sibyl Albunea. 

Whilst Rome drew toward herself all the wealth arid the 
active forces of the countries she conquered, making use first 

o 2 



84 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

of Italy, then of Greece and the East, and eventually of Spain' 
and France, she gave an equivalent wherever she carried her 
eagles, and spread all around her genius and her arts. 
Edifices of every kind were reared upon the banks of the 
Tiber, the prevailing ideas of which were borrowed from 
other nations ; while foreign countries, on the other hand, 
were embellished with the products of the Roman genius. 

Italy was covered with aqueducts, and the highways were 
lined and ornamented with tombs. Towers and temples 
covered the land. Herculaneum and Pompeii, preserved 
and sealed up as it were in lava, still show us how great were 
the luxury and the good taste prevailing even in the smaller 
cities. Following the example thus set by Rome, almost 
every town in the ancient world came in time to have its 
arena, its triumphal arch, its columns, and its baths. Rome 
multiplied herself, yet remained ever unique. She has left 
recognisable imprints of her presence in Syria, Egypt, India, 
Africa, France, and Spain. From the second century every- 
thing became Roman in its characteristics, and ages have 
not sufficed to suppress the habit which became a second 
nature. 



CHAPTER VIL 

THE ROMAN WORLD. 1. THE WEST. 

FRANCE, which was under the domination of Rome for 
more than 500 years, still preserves some antique temules 
reared under the influence of the Romans. That of Ver- 
negues, some miles from Aix, recalls by its pointed leaves 
and Corinthian capitals the early times of the conquest. 
Vienne, in Dauphine', also possesses a temple which con- 
tains at the present day a rich collection of antiquities. 
The circumference is still entire, but the edifice is dis- 
figured by the efforts that have been made to restore it. 
Undoubtedly the best preserved and most important of 
these ancient structures which have escaped the devastations 
of barbarians, and the hostile zeal of early Christians, is situ- 
ated at Nimes. It is called the Maison-Carree, or Square 
House owing, doubtless, to its rectangular form. At the 
present day its interior is used as a museum. Fronting it 
rises a portico, placed on a beautiful basement; and its three 
other sides are decorated with engaged columns. A vas.t 
colonnade, the bases of which are still to be seen in the 
fosse facing the temple, formed at one time a forum. This 
beautiful edifice was attributed to Augustus ; but the exag- 
gerated richness of the frieze and the Corinthian cornices, 
and an inscription on the facade, fix the period of its con- 
struction in the time of Antoninus. 

Even before the conquest of Caesar, Nimes was quite a 
Roman town. An inscription attributes to Augustus the 



86 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

building of the walls. The line of walls can be traced for a 
considerable distance, and, judging from the remains, they 
must have been about 29 feet high, and from 6| to 9 in 
thickness. Like the gates, the town and upper parts were 
constructed of hewn stone. We can still distinguish the 




The Square House of Nimes. 

shape of the two gates, which were named the gates of 
France and of Augustus. 

Traces of Roman towers are still to be seen in the citadel 
of Carcassonne. Langres and Treves also have preserved 
remains of ancient walls and gates, but they are not in any 
way comparable to the gates of Arroux and of St. Andra at 
Autun. 



THE ROMAN WORLD. 87 

"When we see the remains at Autun," says Merime'e, 
" and recall the terrible disasters which that town has 
suffered, imagination can scarcely picture to itself what it 
must have been in the days of its splendour. At the end 
of the third century it was sacked and burnt, and its 




Roman Gate at Tr&ves. 

temples and edifices were for the most part levelled. Attila 
continued the work of devastation when he made himself 
master of it in the middle of the fifth century. Thereafter 
the Huns contributed towards the destruction of the remain- 
ing ruins, and finally Rollo and his Normans found some- 
thing still to destroy, their visit being the last and most 
terrible blow which was given to the unfortunate town." 



88 MARVELS OK ARCHITECTURE. 

Like those of Nimes, but higher and thicker, the walls 
formed a grand line, flanked by 220 round towers. The two 
gates still exist, and are among the most perfect that are 
known. They have two great bays, 13 feet high and 6| 
wide. They are of hewn stone, laid without mortar, and 
their style, strong and severe in its outlines, is very im- 
posing. 

In spite of its decay, the gate of Rheims, built in the 
year 360, is very interesting on account of some bassi-rilievi, 
and especially for its unique arrangement, which consists of 
three almost equal arches resting upon the same moulding. 

Whilst on the subject of gates, it may be mentioned that 
in France many Roman triumphal arches are to be found, 
but they are almost all in a state of decay. One only, which 
is very simple in its design, and is pierced with two equal 
semicircles, like the gates of a town, belongs to the Augustan 
age. It is to be seen at Saintes, on the banks of the Cha- 
rente, in a favourable spot to which it has been recently 
transported, stone by stone. Formerly it stood upon the 
middle of the bridge. 

The most celebrated Roman arch in France, however, is 
that of Orange. No traveller omits to pay it a visit, and 
contemplate its three circles and the sculptures which orna- 
ment them. It has been skilfully repaired, fortunately by 
architects whose object was to strengthen the general mass 
without touching its details. In this, as in other cases, man 
had humied on the work of destruction more than the 
elements. One cannot but specially admire the composition 
of the maritime trophies depicted upon the arch, and the 
beautiful execution of their details. Some antiquarians 
assign the erection of the triumphal arches of Provence, 
Orange, St Remy, and Carpentras, all to the same date, 



THE ROMAN WORLD. 89 

and the same purpose namely, to celebrate the victories 
of Marcus Aurelius in Germany and on the Danube. 

At Benevento, in Italy, we shall, however, find the 
most beautiful arch raised by the Antonines. Ancient 
tradition gives it the name of the gate of gold. It resembles 
the arch of Titus in its unique bay, its frieze ornamented 
with a triumphal procession, and its bassi-rilievi between 
the columns. Both in its entirety and in its details it has 
escaped barbarian hands, and has been very tenderly dealt 
with by time. It is constructed wholly of Parian marble, 
and is remarkable for the beauty of its proportions and the 
richness of its composite style. It does great honour to the 
reign of Trajan, whose victories it celebrates, and to its 
architect Apollodorus of Damas, the architect also of the 
famous column of Trajan. 

Passing from the triumphal arches, and coming next to 
monumental remains, we find among the Roman tombs of 
Provence two of an original form. One near Vienne bears, 
upon a basement vaulted and pierced by four arcades, a 
pyramid 50 feet high ; the other, at St. Remy, is raised 
upon two steps, and its square basement is ornamented 
with three beautiful bassi-rilievi, and with Ionic pilasters. 
The first storey rises above the moulding that terminates the 
basement ; in each of its fronts is worked a richly-orna- 
mented arcade, and four Corinthian columns are engaged in 
the four angles. Muses sport upon the frieze; the crown of 
the tomb is formed by an elegant circular colonnade, covered 
by a cone ornamented with imbricated scales. Within the 
columns two statues are preserved. 

France is rich in amphitheatres, and can show remains 
nearly equal to the renowned arenas of Verona and Pola 

Rousseau, in the last century, complained of the neglected 



9 o 



MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 



state in which the arenas of Nimes were allowed to lie. 
" This vast and superb circus," he says, " is surrounded by 
contemptible little houses, while huts still smaller and more 
contemptible fill up the arena ; so that a disagreeable and 
confused scene meets the eye, instead of one that might 
awaken pleasure and surprise." Not till the year 1810 was 




The Arena of Nimes. 



an act passed for the clearing of this great amphitheatre, 
and now there is no obstruction to the view. Situated in 
the middle of the town, and not far from the ancient wall, 
the arenas of Nimes have long been famous for their size 
and preservation. Their extent is 420 feet by 330. They 
are supposed to be contemporaneous with the Colosseum j 
and they could, like it, be transformed into a place large 



THE ROMAN WORLD. 91 

enough for a naval battle by the flooding of the canals 
surrounding the arena, but which were generally covered 
over. Two rows of porticoes, with arcades, form the exterior 
decoration of the amphitheatre, and are in a style of decora- 
tion at once compact and simple, somewhat akin to the 
Doric. The interior presents only a picturesque mass of 
ruins ; but the principal parts may even yet be easily dis- 
tinguished. Seats to the number of thirty-five were divided 
into four classes, each department of which was supplied 
with separate exits and entrances. A judicious distribu- 
tion of the galleries, staircases, and doors of egress, saved 
the 20,000 spectators whom it could accommodate the 
inconvenience and struggle which the architects of our 
modern theatres do not know how to avoid. 

Large as was the circus we have been describing, the 
amphitheatre at Aries was still larger, being, in fact, the 
largest in France. It was built upon lofty and very solid 
vaults. Nothing could have been more imposing than the 
interior of this edifice, built of enormous blocks, cut with 
true Roman precision. The two stages of exterior porticoes 
were separated by a cornice at the parts now hardly recog- 
nisable, which rested upon the engaged columns between 
each arcade. The first storey was in the robust Doric, and 
the upper was Corinthian, as is proved by one column, 
which is the only one that retains its capital. The top part 
of the building has long ago disappeared. 

M. Merimee has drawn a parallel between tne two struc- 
tures, which will be read with interest. 

He says : " At Nimes the arena, disencumbered of all 
obstructions, occupies the centre of a large space, where, at a 
single glance, we can take in the whole enclosure ; while at 
Aries the vicinity of the houses and the slope of the land 



Q2 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

permit us only to get glimpses and snatches of the ancient 
amphitheatre. 

" Although the exterior porticoes of Nimes greatly re- 
semble those at Aries, some differences are observable not to 
the advantage of the former. For example, the centre of 




The Amphitheatre of Aries. 

the interior archivolts of the second storey and that of the 
exterior archivolts are different, an irregularity which offends 
even the inexperienced eye, and which nothing justifies. At 
Nimes, as well as at Aries, the galleries of the first stage 
are formed by a suite of vaults enclosed between two 
bandeaux of a single stone resting upon piers ; but in the 
arena of Aries the eccentricity of this construction is less 
apparent 



THE ROMAN WORLD. 93 

"If the arena of Aries is better preserved in the interior, 
the wall of that of Nimes is more intact, and its crown has 
not suffered so much ; it still preserves the greater part of 
the corbels, where were implanted the poles used to support 
the awnings for the protection of. the spectators from the 
sun. Taken together, these two amphitheatres furnish 
almost complete details of the construction of these build- 
ings, the purpose of which, and their gigantic proportions, 
argue a state of things so different from our own." 

Leaving the amphitheatres, we turn next to the baths, 
and here again we find distinct traces of Rome in Western 
Europe. The best known are those of Julian, at Paris, the 
cold bath hall of which alone preserves its vaulted roof 50 
feet high, which has for many ages been covered with a 
layer of earth four feet thick, capable of nourishing great 
trees. The springings of this greatly admired vault repose 
on the prows of vessels carved in stone ; and altogether the 
remains of these baths are considered as the most ancient 
of the city of Paris. 

At Nimes also there exist important remains of baths, 
which contribute to the ornamentation of a charming garden 
in which they are situated. Specially may be mentioned 
the beautiful cold pool, surrounded by a low colonnade, 
and divided into chambers by partitions of stone. Several 
conduits of water meet in this pool, over which perhaps a 
nymph presided. For some unknown reason the place has 
received the name of the Temple of Diana. 

After the relaxations of the bath and excitement of the 
arena, the attractions of the theatre formed the next great 
amusement of the Roman world. We have described what 
remains of the theatre of Marcellus ; but, in this respect, 
France has been more favoured than even Italy itselL 



04 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

Orange contains an admirable theatre, very well preserved ; 
its facade is seen from a great distance, and towers over all 
the modern buildings, its wall being 330 feet long and no 
feet high. The nearer one approaches this wall the more 
prodigious it seems to become, and the more one is 
astonished that so simple a wall should produce so powerful 
an impression. Three gates or doors symmetrically arranged, 
a range of false arcades, two lines of corbels, and a bold 
cornice, are all that break up the monotony of this great 
wall. Beyond the wall the building is a chaos. Where in 
former times stood the stage, the retiring-rooms, and the 
machinery, are now to be seen merely remains of founda- 
tions, of basements, vestiges of corridors, and the debris 
of staircases. Three superposed colonnades of granite and 
white marble which decorated the interior facade have been 
destroyed or removed. Traces of a violent fire are dis- 
coverable, which has reddened the stones, calcined the 
marble, and left great heaps of ashes upon the soil. The 
stone seats curve round on a hill, partly artificial and 
partly natural ; they are numerous and high, but even 
when one has ascended to the topmost step the huge wall 
of the facade seems to tower as high as ever. For a 
long time encumbered with mean structures, the theatre 
of Orange is now cleared; but between the proscenium 
and the seats grows a little grove of fig-trees, which adds 
to the picturesqueness of the colossal ruins. 

Aqueducts, again, such as those which covered the 
Roman Campagna, and surround the greater number of the 
cities of Italy, are not wanting in France. Traces of them 
are to be seen at Frcjus, Luynes, Saintes, Jouy, Arcueil ; 
while of those at Lyons have been left important remains. 
Near the village Oullin* on the right bank of the Rhone, at 



THE ROMAN WORLD. 95 

the bottom of the valley of Bbnnant, extend these picturesque 
ruins. Here the entire arches and pillars are covered with 
ivy; at other places may be seen, still adhering to the 
Roman brick, the dried branches of other ivies long dead, 
and perhaps in their day contemporaneous with the great 
work itself. Those parts that are naked display marks 
of extremely beautiful construction. Portions of the aque- 
duct are built of white and black stones on the draught- 
board pattern, with courses and arches in red bricks 

Ascending towards the vicinity of the village of Chaponost, 
we notice still more considerable remains of the aqueduct 
that conveyed the waters from Mount Pilat to the ancient 
Lugdunum, a distance of forty miles. These waters 
were collected in admirable reservoirs, and distributed by 
means of a system of ingenious syphons, of which the one 
under notice is the only example to be found. 

The famous Pont du Card served the double purpose of 
a bridge and an aqueduct. It crossed the river Garden 
between two mountains some leagues from Niir.es. Three 
ranges of arcades, superposed, decreasing in size from the 
lowest range, and constructed of hewn stone laid without 
mortar or cement, constituted this marvellous work. No 
other ornaments, save great embossments, adorn these huge 
piles formed by enormous heavy blocks. Rain has not been 
able to penetrate the seams of this uncemented structure, 
nor has time been able to dislocate its joints. And yet the 
architect provided for such a contingency, for he erected 
certain piers which were intended to sustain scaffclding for 
the purpose of making whatever repairs might in time be 
necessary. " Such confidence," says Merimee, " had they in 
the stability of their empire, that they provided for the day 
when repairs might be necessary for the Pont du Card 1" 



o6 



MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 



The canal of this viaduct \vas between 5 and 7 feet 
wide. It was entirely covered with thick flag-stones, 
coated with a species of stucco cement to prevent evapora- 
tion. It was paved with impermeable mortar, and stretched 
along the summit of the topmost range of arcades, 160 feet 
above the earth. The Pont du Card is in the style of the 




The Pont du Card. 

best Roman epoch. It is attributed to Agrippa, who came 
to Nimes in 19 A.D., and who had the superintendence of 
the waters at Rome. No Roman monument is more admired. 
Rousseau says of it : " After partaking of an excellent 
breakfast of figs, I took a guide and went to see the Pont 
du Card. It was the first Roman work I had ever gone to 
see, and I did not expect to behold a monument worthy of 
the hands that constructed it. When I reached it, however, 



THE ROMAN WORLIX 



97 



I found that the object itself surpassed my expectations. 
This noble and simple work struck me all the more because 
it lay in the middle of a desert, where silence and solituda 
added to the general effect. I could not help asking myself 
what force it was that transplanted these enormous stones 
from their quarry, and assembled together thousands of 
workmen in an uninhabited region. I traversed the three 
storeys of arcades, of which the aqueduct is composed, and 
the echoing of my feet on these immense vaults made me 
believe I heard the strong voice of those who built it. I was 
lost like an insect in its immensity. And yet, though 
feeling myself altogether insignificant in body, something 
elevated my soul, and with a sigh I exclaimed, ' Would that I 
had been born a Roman !'" 

The bridge of Segovia, in Spain, deserves to be mentioned 
after the Pont du Card, although it is not its equal in 
majesty, having only two ranges of arcades. Its great grey 
blocks touched with black, and laid without cement so closely 
that not a weed has been able to strike its roots into their 
crevices, increase the grandiose appearance of the structure 
by their severe colour. It has been attributed both to Ves- 
pasian (69 A.D.) and to Adrian (117 A.D.). Isabella, the 
Catholic, removed thirty-five of its arches, but the aqueduct 
is still in use, and carries the waters of a little river called 
Rio Frio. 

The bridge of Alcantara, over the Tagus, is not an 
aqueduct, but simply a bridge 609 feet long, 26 feet wide, 
and 200 feet high. It is the work of Trajan, the first 
emperor of Spain (98 A. D.), and formed six arches of 
different heights, entirely constructed of granite without 
cement. One of the small arches, demolished by the 
Saracens in 1213, was removed by Charles V. in 1513. Set 

H 



98 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

up again in wood, it was burnt in 1836, and has not been 
rebuilt. The traveller has consequently to cross the Tagus 
in a ferry, at the place where it would be easy to repair a 
bridge which would last for centuries to come. 

Another town called Alcantara, situated in Africa, to the 
south of Constantine, has a bridge of a single arch thrown 
over a narrow and deep ravine, washed by a torrent. This 
site was probably chosen for its picturesqueness. From the 
bridge the view extends over a beautiful oasis in which 
75,000 palms flourish. 

All the north of Africa was as thoroughly Roman as 
France or Spain. Hippona, Carthage, and Alexandria were, 
under the empire, intellectual centres like Lyons or Cordova. 
Reflecting upon this great civilisation, which the years have 
trampled under foot and annihilated, we are forced to avow 
that all is not progress in the history of humanity. 



*. PALMYRA AND BALBEK. 

As we have seen, the architecture of Western Europe 
differed little in many respects from that of Rome. Jn Gaul 
the imported architecture of Italy had not to contend against 
a national style of art, for the skill of the Celts was limited to 
the construction of round houses in the earth, and their gods 
had only dedicated to them dolmens and covered ways. 

But it was quite otherwise in Africa and Asia, In these 
continents, it is true, Rome succeeded Greece, but the Greek 
influence was of too short duration to efface the marks of 
former dominations. Egypt, Assyria, Lydia, Phrygia, Cappa- 
docia, resisted Greece and Rome more by their persistent 
nationality than by their arms. The Ptolemies and the 



THE ROMAN WORLD. 99 

Antonines, men who repaired and constructed much in 
Egypt, adopted the traditional forms of the pilones and the 
hypogees, and nothing at first sight more resembles the palace 
of Sesostris than the colonnades of Philse or the ruins of 
Antinoe, the town of Adrian. The Egyptian style was 
changed only to be degraded. 

Asia Minor, on account of the affinity of its peoples and 
its proximity to Europe, was more docile, and took more 
kindly to the classic style. The temple of Ancyra, on the 
walls of which is inscribed the will of Augustus, is a building 
that would not be out of place in Italy. But the most 
famous examples of classic architecture in the East are pre- 
sented by the ruins of Palmyra and Balbek. Although 
remains of more ancient eras may be noticed in these 
places, yet the general character of the ruins is Grseco- 
Roman. 

Strabo does not mention Palmyra ; but Pliny describes 
it thus : " Palmyra is remarkable because of its situation, 
its rich territories, and its agreeable streams. On all sides 
a waste desert separates it from the rest of the world, and it 
has preserved its independence between the great empires 
of Rome and Parthia." But in the year 270 A.D., its queen, 
Zenobia, made war upon Aurelian, and the massacre of a 
Roman garrison brought about the destruction of the town. 
Aurelian rebuilt it, however, and restored the Temple of the 
Sun, which was one of its ornaments, and after him Diocle- 
tian and Justinian further embellished it 

The ruins of Palmyra or Tadmor were situated at an 
equal distance between the Orontes and the Euphrates. 
Behind an aqueduct and some high tombs, a pile of upright 
columns, the bases of which are higher than a man, stretches 
over a space of more than a mile and a half. In some places 

H a 



100 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

the fall of many of the columns has spoiled the symmetry 
of the porticoes, the palace, and the temples. In others the 
columns retreat away from the eye, in lines, like avenues 
of leafless trees. Overturned shafts, broken capitals, great 
blocks of stone lying higgledy-piggledy, friezes broken, entab- 
latures, violated tombs, and altars overturned in the dust, are 
what we see on and around the site of Palmyra. " Archi- 
tecture," says Volney, " was prodigal of its magnificence in 
the Temple of the Sun. Along the wall of the square ran a 
double range of Ionic pillars ; the peristyle was formed of 
forty columns, and the facade resembled the present colon- 
nade of the Louvre. The only difference was that at Pal- 
myra the columns were isolated, while at Paris they are 
grouped in couples. Everywhere was to be seen the winged 
disc, the emblem of the sun." 

"Balbek," continues Volney, "celebrated among the Greeks 
and Romans as Heliopolis, or the city of the sun, was situated 
at the foot of the anti-Lebanon range, exactly at the last undu- 
lation of the mountain upon the plain. Arriving from the 
south, the traveller discovers the ruins of the city, at the 
distance of a league and a half, behind a fringe of trees, 
above which rise the white domes and minarets. After an 
hour's travelling, we arrived at the trees, and found that they 
were very beautiful walnuts ; and after traversing ill-cultivated 
gardens, by tortuous foot-paths, we found ourselves conducted 
to the town. Arrived there, we saw a ruined wall flanked 
by square towers. This wall, which is only, ten or twelve 
feet high, allowed us to peep into the interior of the cit) , 
which we found consisted of desolate tracts encumbered 
with rubbish, which seems to be the distinguishing feature of 
all Turkish towns." 

When the traveller has ascended a terrace formed of enor- 



THE ROMAN WORLD. IOI 

mous blocks, his first glance naturally falls upon six magni- 
ficent columns at the end of a vast court, and he finds himself 
in front of the peristyle of a great temple. As a background 
we have the mountains, the flanks of which are of an ashy- 
red colour, and stand out clear against the sky. 

These magnificent columns, consisting at most of two or 
three blocks so perfectly fitted that we can scarcely distin- 
guish the joinings, are more than 7 feet in diameter and 
over 70 feet in height Nothing could be richer than theii 
capitals and their sculptured entablatures. 

On the left of these pillars is to be seen the most com- 
plete edifice in Balbek, namely, the temple of Jupiter Helio- 
politanus. Its columns, also of the Corinthian order, are 
almost as thick as those just noticed, but not nearly so high, 
nor are they comparable to the others for beauty of propor-. 
tions. Thirty-eight of them still remain, and the colonnade 
is entire, with the exception of a portion belonging to the 
southern facade. Capitals and drums have tumbled, and 
form a kind of stair of rough stones, by means of which we 
can reach the plauorm. One column has slipped without 
breaking from the height of the rampart, and remains sup- 
ported against the wall like the trunk of an uprooted tree. 
As soon as we arrive at the portico we are struck with the 
richness of the ceiling. Upon the compartments that com- 
pose it are designed alternately a hexagon and four lozenges, 
which enclose heads thrown out in bosses. Some blocks, 
covered with delicate ornaments, have become detached from 
the ceiling and fallen to the earth. 

Speaking of Balbek, Saulcy says : " A high terrace, built 
of prodigious masses of stone, raises its remains above the 
horizon. The largest block measures 65 feet by 16 in width 
and thickness. Haclger-el-Kiblah, or stone of the south, is 



109 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE 

the name given to it by the Arabs. It would require the 
force of 20,000 horses to move it, or the concentrated and 
simultaneous effort of 40,000 men to move it at the rate of 
three feet in ten seconds. Human intelligence is staggered 
at the thought of how such stones were conveyed into the 
desert, and by what machinery they were raised so as to 
form parts of gigantic edifices. But even greater wonders 
than these remain to be accounted for. We find that masses 
as large have been transported at least the distance of three- 
quarters of a mile ; and that at a distance of eighteen feet 
above these, other masses equally enormous are jointed with 
all the skilful contrivance displayed by the best workmen in 
laying stones of ordinary size." 

Considering the extraordinary magnificence of Balbek, 
it is certainly astonishing that the Greek and Latin writers 
have said so little about it. Wood, in his " Description of 
London," published in the year 1757, states that mention is 
made of it by John of Antioch, who attributed the construc- 
tion of the edifice just described to Antoninus the Pious. 
Inscriptions which still remain bear witness to this opinion ; 
but the inhabitants prefer to regard it as the work of the 
genii under the commands of Solomon. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

LATIN AND BYZANTINE STYLES. 

ABOUT the time of Constantine, a number of general laws 
were imposed upon all architects throughout the whole Ro- 
man world. But after the capital had been transferred to 
Byzantium, the bonds of tradition relaxed, and the Oriental 
taste, which had introduced at Rome the employment of 
mosaics and coloured marbles, again rose into the ascendant, 
and proportions were sacrificed to masses, and beauty of 
lines to conspicuousness of ornaments. Somewhat later a 
new style of architecture came into vogue, which, without 
inventing anything, changed everything. Taking up what 
was exceptional at Rome, namely, the cupola, architects 
forthwith made it the chief feature and best-known charac- 
teristic of their art Persian influence, it is supposed, had 
something to do with the development of this particular 
style, which was named Byzantine, and of which the church 
of St. Sophia at Constantinople remains the greatest model. 
While this occurred in the East, the West remained faithful 
to the rules of Vitruvius, and continued to obey the instruc- 
tions it had received. Even the triumph of Christianity did 
not bring about a sudden revolution in the arrangement of 
religious houses. The Christians contented themselves with 
choosing among the public monuments the form which was 
most suitable to their religious ceremonies. For instarce, 
the basilica introduced by the Romans for the transaction 
of negotiations or of judicial business an oblong building 



104 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

divided in the direction of its length into a nave and three 
aisles, was easily adapted to the Christian service. The 
aisles were set aside for the accommodation of the men 
and women ; while in the nave the catechumens, the choir, 
and the minor clergy tound accommodation. The upper 
part of the basilica was raised above the level of the other 
part of the building by a few steps, and here, when such 
buildings were converted into churches, divine service was 
performed. In the middle of the sanctuary was placed the 
altar; the seat of the praetor became the throne of the 
bishop ; and the priests were accommodated on a circular 
bench, leaning back at the extremity of the great nave, and 
terminating in a hemicycle which took the form of an apsis. 
Subsequently the apsis and the choir were elongated, and 
the low sides of the choir were extended like arms on each 
side in the form of a cross. This development took the 
name of the transept. The square of the transept the 
point of intersection of the transept and the nave was 
lighted by a tower or lantern. Afterwards the apsis was 
doubled by the addition of a collateral gallery, and chapels 
were pierced in the walls round the church. Thus was it 
that these successive transformations, by means of which the 
basilica became the Gothic cathedral, operated upon the 
primitive plan devised by the Roman architects. 

The faade of the basilica was decorated by a portico or 
porch which extended along all its length. In front of the 
portico extended a square court, whose interior was sur- 
rounded by a gallery. In the midst of the court stood a 
fountain, used for the purpose of ablution, and the gate of 
entrance was protected by a portal. These accessories have, 
however, gradually disappeared. 

Latin basilicas are no longer found in Gaul ; indeed, 



7,ATIN AND BYZANTINE STYLES. 105 

there scarcely exist any remains of them there. But Rome 
presents us with a good number, which, in spite of later 
alterations, have, in the interior at least, preserved their 
ancient physiognomy. Such, before its destruction by fire, 
was St. Paul's beyond the walls, a work of the time of 
Constantine; such still is St. Agnes beyond the walls, St. 
Croix of Jerusalem, and eight or nine more. We will 
briefly examine two or three of these edifices. De Brosses, 
who saw the basilica of St. Paul, was greatly struck by the 
view of its five naves or aisles, divided by four lines of 
columns in white Parian marble, in alabaster, in cipolin 
marble, in breccia, in granite, and in all sorts of precious 
material. Constantine raised these magnificent pillars as a 
mausoleum to Adrian. The whole interior shone with por- 
phyry. Theodosius and Honorius increased and aggrandised 
the edifice ; and after them, the Popes accumulated within 
it their treasures of mosaics, their pictures and statues. Set 
fire to and destroyed in 1823, it has since been re-constructed 
according to its former plan, and with equal magnificence. 

Sainte-Marie Majeure, one of the most imposing churches 
of Rome, is clothed exteriorly with all the magnificence and 
extravagance of the seventeenth century, but its great nave 
retains all the beautiful style of ornamentation of the antique 
art. It belongs to the fifth century, having been built by 
Sextus III. in 432, upon the ruins and with the remains of 
a temple of Juno. Here it may be noted that the greater 
number of the ancient churches have been erected on the 
sites of pagan temples. More than twenty in Rome belong 
to this class, and all are enriched with the spoils of antiquity. 
Their pillars were not carved for the use they are now put 
to : pagan Rome furnished them. At Sainte-Marie Majeure 
the visitor might believe himself in a Greek temple. He 



admires its lofty roof, sustained by two ranges of white 
columns. " Each of these," says M. Taine, " naked and 
polished, without othei ornament than the delicate curves of 
their white capitals, is purely and truly beautiful." 

St. Clement's is, perhaps, the church that has best pre- 
served all the constituent features of the Christian basilica. 
In it nothing is wanting. We find the square atrium sur- 
rounded by eighteen columns of granite ; the portico sup- 
porting the fa$ade ; the great altar, isolated in the apse ; and 
the marble slabs where the clergy took their seats. 

At a short distance from St. Agnes beyond the walls 
stands the circular church of St. Constance. The interior 
diameter of this edifice is 65 feet. Twenty-four Corinthian 
columns of granite, standing in couples, sustain the cupola 
above the great altar. Between the colonnade and the 
ancient wall are to be seen, on the ceiling, vine-branches 
and youths in mosaic the joyous appearance of the youths 
leading to the belief that the worship of Bacchus here 
preceded the rise of the Christian religion. The two 
Constances, the daughter and sister of Constantine, were 
baptised in this church. 

St. Jean in fonte is the church in which it is believed 
Constantine was baptised by Pope Sylvester. Deprived of 
its wealth by the barbarians, restored after the Renaissance, 
this Baptistery of Constantine, as it is called, has evidently 
preserved its primitive form and aspect. In the midst is the 
piscina, paved with beautiful marbles, and comprising a vase 
of green porphyry. The font is covered with a cupola which 
sustains two superposed ranges of brick columns. At the 
entry of the chapel there still exist two vast and rich columns 
of porphyry, of which the entablature is antique. 

St^ Etienne-le-Rond, to which we next turn, was con- 



LATIN AND BYZANTINE STYLES. IOJ 

strutted in the fifth century by Pope Simplicius, with the 
debris and on the site of a temple of Claudius. This 
religious edifice is little more than a baptistry. From the 
central part of the building, which is its highest part, rises a 
conical roof, relieved by another which surmounts the col- 
lateral aisle. Two circular ranges of columns, of different 
styles of architecture, support and divide the edifice. 
Originally there was a third, but it was destroyed in the 
fifteenth century. 

Turning eastwards, we find that at Constantinople the 
long naves of the religious edifices are metamorphosed into 
a series of square chambers surmounted by cupolas. Here 
the proportions of the antique basilicas are altered and lost ; 
but great beauties make up for the loss. The boldness of 
the cornices, the powerful relief of the supports, the pendants 
and corbels which connect the square nave with the circular 
cupola, the unity of the entire edifice, all parts of which bear 
upon the central mass, supporting and sustaining it, are the 
chief features of Byzantine art, and make it both original and 
captivating. The barbarity of the capitals in which the 
Corinthian acanthus degenerates into a meagre fillet, the 
strange mixture of figures in mosaic on a ground of gold 
which replace the breathing sculptures and the delicate 
ornaments of the ancient temples, are faults that are 
forgotten in the harmonious impression of the whole 
a harmony which has caused many travellers and artists 
to prefer St. Sophia's at Constantinople to St. Peter's at 
Rome. 

At the present day there remains no trace of the first 
St. Sophia, built in the fourth century by Constantine. After 
having been frequently burnt, it was totally reduced to 
ashes in the vear 532. Justinian caused it to be rebuilt by 



108 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

Anthemius de 'Tralles and Isidore de Milet. Ephesus, 
Palmyra, Pergamos, and a multitude of cities and temples 
were despoiled to enrich it, and furnished to the architects 
columns of porphyry and of granite, which were prodigally 
lavished upon its interior. Ten thousand workmen were 
employed in the construction of its brick ramparts, vaults, 
and mosaics. Its peculiar beauties were such that, notwith- 
standing the mutilations to which the Turks subjected it 
in 1453, we can still appreciate the proud exclamation of 
Justinian, referring to the Temple of Jerusalem " Solomon, 
I have surpassed thee !" 

The proportions of St. Sophia are by no means gigantic. 
It measures only 266 feet by 248. Its exterior is somewhat 
naked, and is disfigured by a number of buildings which 
hide the general outlines. Between the buttresses raised 
by Amurrath III. to sustain the Avails shaken by successive 
earthquakes tombs, schools, baths, stalls, &c., are crowded. 
But putting out of consideration this confusion, and for- 
getting the four hybrid minarets with which conquerors 
have flanked the great mass itself, the spectator cannot but 
admire the beautiful curves of the apse, and the central 
cupola, whose elliptical shape exaggerates its size. 

Two long covered porticoes lead up to the body of the 
church, the second of which communicates by nine gates 
with the interior. So soon as he enters the building, the 
visitor takes in at a glance the entire conception of the 
architect, and is forced to render homage to the genius which, 
casting aside the restrictions of the classic school, combined 
in such perfect accord the circle and the straight line. 
Around the basilica, up to the height where the vault springs, 
are vast rows of seats, supported by richly decorated circular 
galleries. Nothing can equal the majesty of these porticoes, 




if St. Sophia at Constantinople. 



LATIN AND BYZANTINE STYLES. m 

in the Corinthian capitals of which animals, allegorical 
figures, and crosses are interlaced among the leaves. 

St. Sophia has lost all its ornaments. The iconoclastic 
zeal of the Moslem has left it nothing but its precious 
pavement, which was always concealed under carpets. 
The statues have been removed; the altar, made of an 
unknown metal, which was a mixture of gold, silver, 
bronze, iron, and precious stones, melted together, is now 
replaced by a slab of red marble. Of the mosaics on a - gold 
ground, with which the building was at one time enriched, 
only the four gigantic cherubim have been preserved, but 
the heads of these figures are concealed under a rose of 
gold the reproduction of the human face being a horror to 
the Mussulman. At the end of the sanctuary may con- 
fusedly be perceived the lines of a colossal figure which 
time has not yet obliterated. This represents Sophia, the 
goddess of wisdom and patroness of the church, who, under 
her semi-transparent ve 1 looks down upon the ceremonies 
of a foreign worship. 

In the West, Byzantine art took root first in the posses- 
sions of the Greek Emperors in Italy. The church of St. 
Vital, at Ravenna, was constructed in the sixth century, at 
the same time as St. Sophia. This religious edifice is small 
and octagonal. Its cupola is supported upon eight large 
pillars resting upon eight apses ; and between the pillars 
and the apses runs an aisle, from which each apse is separated 
by three arcades. A gallery runs round the church, above 
which springs the cupola, pierced by eight windows. 

St. Vital is removed still further than St. Sophia from 
classic architectural traditions; none of its ornaments 
having been borrowed from the ancient monuments. Cer- 
tain capitals distinctly recall the Corinthian; but the volutes 



H2 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

and the foliage are very far from being pure. Most of them 
are square at the top, and assume by insensible gradations 
the circular form. Sculptured trellis-work helps to redeem 
the poverty of the outline. 

Like all the Byzantine constructions, St. Vital has, in 
spite of its limited dimensions, an aspect of decided 
grandeur and character. Very beautiful mosaics and mar- 
bles formerly lent to it a splendour of which it is how 
deprived, the choir alone having preserved its primitive 
decorations. Unfortunately some one has painted the 
cupola with a still life illusion, and visitors are shocked by 
seeing in the inside of the var'lt a representation of a 
Corinthian colonnade. 

The church which Charlemagne constructed at Aix-la- 
Chapelle, and which he considered superior to all the 
churches in the world, is but a barbarous copy of St. Vital. 
It is a curious specimen of the poor talent and depraved 
taste of the Western architects of that period. Astonish- 
ment need not be felt that Charlemagne, one of the most 
intelligent men of his time, knew much less about archi- 
tecture than a modern school-boy. At that time it was 
difficult to find a workman who could carve a capital or 
even square a monolith. Such was the poverty of skilled 
labour, that the common expedient was to rob an old edifice 
in order to furnish material for a new one. Proceeding 
upon this principle, Charlemagne caused certain columns to 
be transposed from Ravenna to Aix-la-Chapelle for the 
adornment of this church, which is interesting only for the 
memorials it contains, being a kind of historical sanctuary. 

" St. Mark of Venice," says The'ophile Gautier, " is a St. 
Sophia in miniature, a reduction on the scale of an inch to 
the foot, of the immense structure of Justinian. Nor is this 



LATIN AND BYZANTINE STYLES. 1 13 

to be wondered at. Venice, which a narrow sea only 
separates from Greece, was always in familiarity with the 
East, and its architects sought out and reproduced the type 
of church which was then considered the most beautiful and 
rich in the Christian world. St. Mark was commenced in 
979, under the Doge Peter Orseolo. Its architects had the 
advantage of seeing St. Sophia in all its integrity and splen- 
dour, before it had been profaned by Mahomet II., in the 
year 1453." 

Under the five small domes at the sides of the structure, 
open up the seven porches of the facade, of which five lead 
into the central atrium, and two into the exterior side 
galleries. The depth of these portals is garnished with 
columns in cipolin and pentelic marbles, in jasper, and in 
other precious materials. " The central door, whose outline 
cuts the balustrade of marble that runs above the other 
arcade, is, as it should be, richer and more ornate than the 
others. Besides the mass of columns in antique marble 
which support it and give it importance, three tiers of 
sculptured ornaments exquisitely carved bring out into bold 
relief its outline by their projection. Above this porch are 
placed the celebrated horses of Lysippus, which for a time 
ornamented the Arc du Carrousel at Paris. Mosaics upon 
a gold ground shine on all the porches in the midst of 
enamels, and numberless figures of every kind." 

The Atrium, whose round vault presents in mosaics 
the history of the Old Testament, leads to the nave by 
three bronze gates ornamented with silver, which it is said 
belonged originally to St. Sophia. 

" Let us enter," says an observer, " into the interior. 
Nothing can compare with St. Mark's, neither Cologne, nor 
Strasbourg, nor Seville, nor even Cordova with its mosque. 

i 



114 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

Its effect is surprising and even magical. The first impres- 
sion conveyed is that of a cavern of gold encrusted with 
precious stones which are at once splendid and sombre, 
sparkling and mysterious. 

" Cupolas, vaults, architraves, and walls are covered 
with little cubes of gilt crystal of unique form, among 
which the rays of light sparkle like the scales of a fish. 
Where the gold ground terminates, at the height of the 
columns commences a clothing of the most precious and 
varied marbles. From the vault descends a great lamp in 
the shape of a cross of four branches, whose points are de- 
corated with lilies, and which hangs from a ball of gold 
filigree. The effect is marvellous when the lamp is illumi- 
nated. Six pillars of alabaster with capitals in bronze-gilt 
of Corinthian pattern support elegant arcades, around which 
runs a gallery the whole length of the church. 

" In the area is the choir with its altar upon a dais 
between four columns of Greek marble carved, like a piece 
of Chinese ivory-work, by the most patient industry. The 
altar-screen, which is called the Pala d'Oro, is quite a con- 
fusion of wonders It blazes with enamels, cameos, pearls, 
sapphires, silver and gold, while pictures in precious stones 
represent scenes in the life of St. Mark. It was made in 
Constantinople, in 976. Finally, in the circle behind the 
.great altar is a colossal figure of the Redeemer." 

St. Front of Perigueux is a reproduction of St. Mark's, as 
St. Mark's is a reproduction of St. Sophia. It is executed 
upon the same plan minus the vestibule; and the dimen- 
sions of both are almost the sa.me. But in this instance 
one looks in vain for the wealth and splendour of the 
model. St. Front is poor and naked. Under the sad stone- 
colour of its walls there are no mosaics. And yet the 




Cathedral of AngoulSme. 



LATIN AND BYZANTINE STYLES. 1 1* 

edifice is grand in character. So much power is there in a 
simple arrangement conceived in a great spirit ! 

After the erection of St. Front, cupola-churches multi- 
plied themselves throughout France; but their architects 
abandoned in their construction the arrangement and style 
of the Byzantine works. Even at this early period a new 
character began to be manifest in the architecture o: the 
West. In St. Front itself we find that Byzantine traditions 
are departed from, and in its arches, instead of the round 
circle of the East, we begin to notice a tendency to point 
the arch. The pointed arch is the exclusive feature of the 
Gothic style, and from its introduction dates the era of 
French architecture. French architects in modifying their 
works, and adapting them to the colder climate of the West, 
changed the plan, aspect, and ornaments of their churches. 
Sculpture reassumed its place upon the capitals and the 
walls, instead of the many -coloured image -work of the 
mosaists. Churches, in short, became at the same time 
more severe and more ornate. 

The cathedral of Angouleme (1017 1120) is one of 
the most celebrated types of this transition between the 
Eastern or Byzantine and Romanesque order or Western 
style. To the former belong the three cupolas that cover 
the nave ; to the latter the general form of the building 
its Latin cross, its transepts and apses, its historic frieze, 
its crown of double arcades, and its corbelled cornice. As 
in St. Front, the arches that sustain the cupola are narrowed 
at the top. Moreover, there is no trace of the Byzantine 
school in the pillarettes flanked with columns, or in the 
carving of the capitals, which consists of leaves and gro- 
tesque figures of animals. 

The cupola placed at the crossing of the transept is 



Il8 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

the same in diameter as the cupolas of the other churches 
we have mentioned ; but raised as it is upon a drum which 
towers high above the roof, it looks larger than it is in 
reality. It is pierced with rich arcades of double columns, 
in four of which are openings for windows. The facade is 
a great square wall covered with bassi-rilievi, and divided 
horizontally by three rows of false arcades. Although it is 
no more than 60 feet high, its great proportions give it a 
majestic and powerful appearance. On the left flank we 
admire numerous windows in the centre of a high tower, 
recently restored. Of all the square towers which the 
traveller sees between Poictiers and Bordeaux, this is one of 
the most beautiful and the best situated. From a distance 
it looks heavy, rising as it does by numerous storeys irom 
an irregular tumulus; but this effect vanishes when it is 
observed close at hand. The town, in fact, crowns an 
abrupt height above a smiling and verdant valley, wherein 
rich pasturages alternate with considerable manufactories. 



CHAPTER IX 

ORIENTAL ARCHITECTURE. I. ARAB STYLE. 

" THE art of the Arabs," says Lamennais, " is like a bright 
dream. It is a caprice of genius, worked in rich work of 
stone, in delicate filigrees, in light fringes, in flowing lines, 
in lace-work, amidst all which the eye loses itself in pur- 
suit of a symmetrical form which it is about to grasp, when 
the fair illusion changes into other beautiful complications 
of forms, escapes, and is dispelled. The various forms to be 
iound in this species of architecture look like a strong vege- 
tation a vegetation luxuriant and also fantastic. Arab art 
is not nature ; it is a dream of nature." Still, if the Arabs 
rioted in fanciful decorations, they at the same time were 
careful to construct their edifices on the simplest and most 
natural plan. 

In dimensions and colours almost all their mosques are 
alike. Umbrageous courts of trees, refreshed by fountains 
surrounded by porticoes, stand in front of these sanctuaries 
which form halls square or round surmounted by cupolas. 
At the four corners rise beautiful minarets. The interiors 
are simple in structure, all the ornaments consisting in 
arabesque painted upon the wall, and in caligraphic inscrip- 
tions taken from the Koran. Lamps, ostrich -eggs, and 
bouquets of flowers hang in great numbers from the wires 
that stretch from one pillar to the other across the interiors. 
The flags of the flooring are concealed by rich carpets. 
"The effect," says Lamartine, "is simple and impressive. 



120 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

It is not a temple in which a god dwells ; it is a house of 
prayer and contemplation where men assemble to adore 
the one immortal God." 

One of the most ancient and celebrated religious edifices 
of the Arabs is the m-jsque raised by Omar in Jerusalem, 
within the wall of Solomon's Temple, and exactly upon the 
rock where they say Jehovah spoke to Jacob. It is called 
El-Sakhra, in memory of that event, and is octagonal in 
shape, each side being decorated with seven arcades of 
pointed arches. A second range of arcades, narrower and 
inclined inwards, supports a beautiful dome of copper, 
formerly gilt. The walls are covered with squares of blue 
enamel, and the gates, ornamented with beautiful columns, 
lead into the sanctuary, which is covered with white marble. 
Visitors walk upon a rich many-coloured pavement, between 
two circular ranges of pillars composed of grey marble, taken 
from Bethlehem and the Holy Sepulchre. In the seventeenth 
century, Mr. P. Roger counted in the mosque no less than 
7,000 chandeliers carved in copper or in iron gilt. All 
round the mosque branch off twelve porticoes placed at the 
same distance the one from the other, and irregular, like 
the cloisters of the Alhambra. They are composed of three 
or four arcades, and sometimes these arcades support a 
second range. This notable edifice was founded in the 
seventeenth century, and was embellished by the Califs 
Abd-el-Malek and El Louid. After the Crusades it was 
converted into a church by the Christians, but some hundred 
years later, Saladin gave it back to Mahomet. 

In early times Moslem art extended into Africa. Cairo, 
a town entirely Arabic, contains very ancient and very rich 
mosques, that of Ebn-Touloun especially being deserving 
of attention. It dates from the ninth century (870). Ahmed- 



ORIENTAL ARCHITECTURE. 121 

Ben-Touloun, the founder of a brief dynasty, who caused it 
to be constructed and gave it its name, wished its porticoes 
to be sustained by 300 columns ; but the architect was 
unable to construct such a great number. The mosque is 
built of brick, and stucco is used to conceal this material. 

The sanctuary is circular, and its dimensions are very 
limited, the court and the porticoes actually constituting 
the mosque. The enclosing wall is pierced with nine gates. 
Around the court, above the porticoes, runs a high and 
beautiful frieze, which crowns a highly ornamented cornice. 
The minaret and the cistern the usual accompaniments of 
every mosque are kept, in this case, outside the wall, 
opposite the sanctuary. 

We must not quit Cairo without visiting the Valley of the 
Califs, as the religious art of the Arabs shows itself alike in 
their temples and their tombs. 

In this Valley of the Califs, Mussulman dynasties repose 
in a marvellous necropolis at the foot of Mount Mokattam. 
Touloun and Biburs, Saladin and Malek-Adel, rest in a 
palace in which Oriental architecture has abandoned itself 
to the most delightful caprices. It is quite a Gothic town, 
with an air of extraordinary grace, and of devotion without 
gloom. The mosques are mingled with the tombs, and the 
minarets symbolical of hope rise from the midst of fune- 
real cupolas. 

Nowhere have the Arabs left greater proof of their 
architectural genius than in Spain, where their civilisation 
flourished for seven centuries. The Alhambra, which is 
perhaps one of their greatest architectural marvels, must 
at once occur to every reader. Specially worthy of admi- 
ration is the Court of Lions, belonging to this edifice a 
quadrangle 98 feet by 65 feet. This court is surrounded 



122 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

by a peristyle of light columns, ornamented on two sides by 
advanced porticoes, like the bold portals of some Gothic 
churches; and is carved with wonderful accuracy, skill, 
and elegance. 

In presence of innumerable vistas of courts and chambers, 
fantastic decorations of structures resembling the tents of 
the desert, and terminating in conical vaults, the spectator 
stands immovable and mute, and thinks himself transported 
to the entrance of one of those fairy palaces ot which we 
read in Arabian tales. 

" Airy galleries," says Chateaubriand, " canals con- 
structed of white marble, and bordered by citrons and 
flowering orange-trees, fountains and solitary courts, present 
;hemselves on all sides before the eyes ol the traveller, and 
across the long vaults of the porticoes he perceives other 
labyrinths and new enchantments. The beautiful azure of 
the heavens reveals itself between the columns that sustain 
a chain of Gothic arches. The walls, covered with ara- 
besques, seem to the view like those cloths ot the East 
which are broidered in the leisure of the harem by the 
industrious hands of a female slave. Everything luxurious, 
religious, warlike, seems to breathe in this magnificent 
edifice. It is a sort of bower of love in a mysterious re- 
treat, in which the Moorish kings enjoyed all the pleasuers 
and forgot all the cares of life." 

The decorations of the Alhambra consist of varnished 
tiles of all colours yellow, red, black, green, and white - 
forming mosaics which covered the walls with a kind of 
carpet-work in flowers, knots, zig-zags ; and inscriptions, 
sculptured in low relief upon the stucco and plaster. No- 
thing, for instance, could be more charming than the walls 
of the Halls of the Ambassadors, inscribed with verses of 




A View in the 



ORIENTAL ARCHITECTURE. 



125 



the Koran, and stanzas of poetry in the Arabic caligraphy ; 
while the ceiling of cedar-wood, a marvel of carpentry, 
presents an actual problem of geometric forms. 

If we except a number of columns, some flags, vases, 
basins, and little niches for placing Turkish slippers, there 
is not perhaps a single piece of marble employed in the 
interior decorations of the Alhambra. The same fact is to 
be observed respecting all the Arabic monuments of Cordova, 
Segovia, Seville, Valladolid, and Toledo. Stucco and plaster 
were found to suffice for all the Moorish ornamentation. 

The splendid and famous mosque of Cordova is com- 
posed of nineteen colonnades or porticoes in horse-shoe 
arcades. In front of the facade is a court surrounded with 
galleries, commenced in 786. This edifice, which was as 
dear to the Arabs of Spain as St. Sophia was to the 
Byzantines, and St. Peter's to the early Christians, was 
restored and enriched at different times. It received ex- 
tensions and additions as late as the tenth century. Its 
height is not extraordinary, being only 30 feet from its base 
to the woodwork at the roof; but its horizontal dimensions 
are colossal. The mosque properly so called is 400 feet 
long by 366 broad. Isolated columns to the number of 
646 support the arcade, exclusive of the engaged columns, 
or those that form the three porticoes of the court. Formerly 
they were much more numerous, before the mutilations 
which the building has from time to time suffered, took 
place. 

Exquisite is the characteristic of all Arab conceptions. 
While the walls of the old towns of the north of Spain are 
heavy and coarsely built, like the defences improvised by a 
people in extremities, the Moorish fortifications are light, 
graceful, and constructed with true artistic skill. For 



126 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

instance, the towers of the walls of Seville, embellished 
with brick lines, courses of white stone, and Arabic in- 
scriptions, were so carefully built, and with materials so 
well chosen, that their edges and ridges are still as sharp as 
when they were first constructed. The length of the walls 
is about six miles. Of their fifteen gates the most have 
been reconstructed and modified ; but the well-known 
" Gate of Cordova," among others, has preserved its high 
square fortress. In the neighbourhood of this gate there is 
an aqueduct of 400 arches, eighteen miles in length, which 
shows that the Arabs were equal to the Romans in the 
conveyance of water from place to place. 

It is in Spain that Mussulman art has displayed its 
boldest and most original invention. In the East it had 
often been inspired by Byzantine models ; and it is not 
therefore astonishing that St Sophia, that queen of mosques, 
was taken as the pattern for many of the lesser religious 
sanctuaries of Constantinople. The Turks brought with 
them lessons from Persia, which had some influence upon 
Byzantine architecture. The mosque of Achmet, of which 
Gauticr gives us a pleasing picture, was entirely vaulted 
in semi-domes, which supported a central cupola. In front 
of it was a court, surrounded by a quadruple portico, sup- 
porting columns with black and white capitals, and with 
bases of bronze. 

"The style of all this architecture," says he, "is noMe 
and pure, and recalls the best epochs of Arabic art, al- 
though its construction does not date further back th in the 
seventeenth century. A gate of bron/e gave access into 
the interior of the mosque. What struck us first were the 
four enormous pillars, or rather fluted towers, which bore 
the weight of the principal cupola. Ht'.e:;i men, it is said, 




interior of the Mosuue of Cordova. 



ORIENTAL ARCHITECTURE. I2Q 

could not embrace them. These pillars, with capitals carved 
in stalactites, were surrounded at middle height by a plain 
band covered with inscriptions in the Turkish character. 
They wore an air of robust majesty and indestructible 
power." 

The construction of the minarets, encircled with balconies 
wrought like bracelets, was the occasion of a curious debate 
between the Sultan and the Imam of the mosque. During 
the construction of the mosque the Imam cried out against 
the impiety and the sacrilegious pride of giving it the same 
number of minarets as St. Kaaba, and said that no other 
mosque should dare to rival the Holy Kaaba in splendour. 
The works were in consequence interrupted, the Sultan not 
knowing what to do. He wished to place six minarets on 
his own mosque, but he could not erect them because that 
was the number of the minarets of St. Kaaba, which it was 
sacrilege to rival. At length he fell on an ingenious plan to 
shut the Imam's mouth. He caused a seventh minaret to 
be built at Kaaba. 



a. INDIA. 

"Who does not know Puri? Puri, whose lofty temple 
serves as a landmark to navigators Puri, the grand ren- 
dezvous of the people, the ancient dwelling-place of the 
gods ! Come to Puri, come ; you will there see marvels 
without number ! " With this proclamation the Brahmin 
missionaries travel to the remotest tribes of India. Puri is 
situated 100 leagues from Calcutta, upon the coast of Bengal. 
It stands in the midst of a sacred country, and in this sacred 
town is situated the famous Temple of Juggernaut, the very 
sight of which is said to bring a blessing upon the head of 

J 



I$0 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

the spectator, to cure diseases, and ensure paradise to those 
that remain upon its sacred soil. 

Here twelve times a year devotees suspend themselves 
upon sharp hooks, throw themselves upon mattresses brist- 
ling with poignards, or have themselves crushed under the 
wheels of the great car which bears the Brahminic Trinity. 
Those who witness this immolation, gash themselves 120 
times (the sacred number) with knives, or content themselves 
with piercing their tongues, out of pure ecstatic joy. In 
these ceremonies the proud Brahmins mingle humbly with 
the lower classes, whom they consider impure. So great 
is the majesty of Juggernaut that all are equal before him, 
and all social distinctions disappear in presence of his 
immensity. 

The Asiatic Society has presented the French Govern- 
ment with a model of the temple and the processional 
car of Juggernaut. This precious specimen of Indian art 
of the Middle Ages (1198) is placed in the Louvre at 
Paris. 

The temple, or rather temples (for there are more than 
fifty) are enclosed by a rampart forming a square of 6,500 
feet. Each side is pierced by a large gate. Opposite the 
Gate of Lions, which is held in great veneration because it 
is supposed to serve as a passage for the gods, rises, in a 
street 130 feet wide, a fluted column of black basalt, 42 feet 
high, surmounted by a statue, and forming by its elegance a 
striking contrast to the stupendous enclosure. 

Above the entrance rises a square tower of five storeys. 
Upon its platform is a small pyramid fronted by a sort of 
terrace, guarded by two sculptured animals. At the side an 
opening allows us to perceive two hippopotami upon the 
summit of an interior edifice. In a second court rises a 



ORIENTAL ARCHITECTURE. 131 

grand gilt post bearing a gilt clock, and a little circular 
temple with a dome supported by columns. Here is to 
be seen all the confusion and wealth of Ellora. Besides 
these, there are winged genii, gods, goddesses, and fantastic 
animals sculptured at the gates of the temples, upon the 
walls, or at the summits of the pyramids. 

Upon the flanks of the enclosing wall are other two 
towers. At the bottom there are superb square pyramidal 
structures of eleven storeys, rising to a height of 210 feet; 
with ground-floors 130 feet in extent. Columns, pilasters, 
and an infinite number of statues, ornament the walls 
and surmount the terraces ; while in the interior are gal- 
leries and colonnades. It is in this temple that the great 
platform called the Throne of Jewels is found; and here, 
exposed from age to age, are huge images of painted wood, 
representing Juggernaut, Balarama his brother, and Chou- 
boudra his sister. Juggernaut has great round eyes, a 
pointed nose, black visage, and a wide mouth of the colour 
of blood. It is he who, from the summit of a tower of 70' 
feet, presides over the immolation of the faithful. 

The Temple of Juggernaut is a perfect type of that mon- 
strous Indian imagination, which unfolds itself in strange 
beauties in the midst of blood and cruelty. 

The Afghan and Mongol invaders engrafted on the 
Hindu fecundity the elegance of the Mussulman. From the 
fifteenth century an art rivalling the Moorish art continued 
to enrich Bengal with palaces, tombs, and mosques, of which 
scarcely anything but the ruins are to be seen. We can 
only glance at Delhi, where three distinct architectural types 
may be seen that of ancient Hindu Delhi, which has almost 
entirely disappeared ; that of Afghan Delhi ; and that of 
modern Delhi, which is the work of the Mongols, or, in 

I 2 



132 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

other words, of the Tartar Turcomans, who are of the same 
stock as the Turks. 

Among the temples, palaces, fortresses, and tombsof Delhi, 
the forsaken remains of which cover the soil, we may notice 
here the pillar or minaret of Koutab, a word signifying the 
polar star of religion the name of the first Afghan sovereign. 
The base of this singular monument is almost 143 feet in 
circumference. Its height is said to have been 312 feei 
before it was struck with lightning. At the present time it 
is 208 feet. It is constructed of stone, gradually diminish- 
ing in width from the base upwards, and divided into five 
storeys, crowned with galleries admirably carved and orna- 
mented with colossal Arabic inscriptions in relief. 

At a little distance shines the splendid dome of the col- 
lege of Akbar. Here is the vast mausoleum, in white marble, 
of Shamshadin-Altanish ; here are the tombs of the Nizam- 
ad-Din and the Begum Jehanira; here also is the sepul- 
chre of Houmaroun, a beautiful edifice in granite covered 
with marble, constructed with the simplicity of the best 
Roman style, and of which the vast dome, in white marble, 
overlooks the gardens, towers, minarets, and circular walls 
that enclose it. 

Days would not be sufficient to visit all the monuments 
of Delhi; but we must mention the Jumna-Mosjed, which is, 
in the opinion of most travellers, the most important mosque 
in the world. It is a vast monument, constructed of red 
stone encysted with beautiful white marble, which covers 
only the domes. Its square court in front is surrounded on 
three sides by covered colonnades, across which we see the 
town and the trees. It can contain 12,000 persons, and it 
is filled with the faithful on the day when, each year, the 
king comes to be present at the last hour of the Ramazan. 



ORIENTAL ARCHITECTURE. 133 

We here notice a superb flight of steps, and some minarets 
162 feet high. According to common opinion, the Jumna- 
Mosjed dates from 1560. 



3. PERSIA AND CHINA. 

The imposing ruins which the art of the Persians has left 
us, scarcely prepare us for the marvellous lightness of most 
Persian structures. The ancestors of the Persians gave proof 
of their native energy by the majesty of their colonnades 
and their stairs. An enervated and refined people, inhabit- 
ing a very hot country, thought only of air and perfume in 
the construction of their great edifices. Accordingly we 
find in Persia the most aerial of all architectural styles. 
There are to be found collections of slender columns, and 
immense open saloons, shining with all the colours of 
enamels. There also, sown with flowers and verdure, are 
to be found those painted galleries and pavilions which 
are described in the pages of the " Thousand and One 
Nights." 

Ispahan surpasses the chief works of the Arabs in 
elegance, and transcends the churches of Genoa or Rome in 
richness of interiors. Neither the grace nor the ornamenta- 
tion of its buildings interferes with their grandeur. The 
Mosque of the Congregation, the largest and one of the most 
ancient in all Persia, occupies a space of forty acres. It 
appears to have been constructed between 1000 and 1200 A.D. 
Its figure is square, covered with seven domes and sustained 
by forty pilasters. The lower part of its walls, to the height 
of 6 feet, are of porphyry, waved and marbled. Above that 
height squares of enamel form the coating, both outside and 



134 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

inside. Among the verses and proverbs which are written 
on the frieze and the cornices, Chardin notices this inscrip- 
tion : " This is the frontispiece of Paradise. Neither the 
avaricious nor hypocrites can enter here." 

The great dome is more than 100 feet in diameter. It 
is named the Choir of the Temple, and in front of it is a 
spacious court surrounded by arcades supported by large 
pilasters. A large square basin stands in the middle of the 
court, intended for ablutions ; and fountains and reservoirs 
everywhere abound, even under the cupolas. 

The Royal Mosque, raised by Abbas the Great at the 
end of the sixteenth century, upon the principal square of 
Ispahan, surpasses the one we have mentioned in richness, 
without, perhaps, equalling it in nobleness and dimensions. 
Its forms are less simple, the basins, courts, and cupolas 
being all polygonal in shape. Imagination itself seems 
almost lost in the attempt to enumerate the long porticoes 
open to the air of heaven, the balconies, the fountains, 
domes, and minarets. Precious metals and stones of the 
loveliest -colours, porphyry, jasper, plates of solid silver, 
gildings, blue enamels, and varnished tiles, are profusely 
used in the portals and walls. A large pavilion, upon 
arcades, covered by a cupola so high that it can be seen from 
a distance of twelve miles, occupies the central part of the 
mosque, while four other domes crown the neighbouring 
porticoes. The whole structure is constructed of stone 
covered with painted bricks. 

Without doubt, the most magnificent of the thirty-seven 
palaces which the Sophis possess in Ispahan is the Royal 
Palace. Few structures in the world equal it in extent. It 
is a vast succession of halls, kiosks, and open pavilions, 
situated amid gardens. In the Saloon of the Stable, on great 



ORIENTAL ARCHITECTURE. 131^ 

fete-days, the horses of the king, harnessed with precious 
stones and with bridles of gold, are exhibited. The Saloon 
of Vases, on the other hand, is carpeted with a fabric made 
of gold and silk. It is the gayest and most delightful of 
places, and is filled with vases, cups, bottles of all sorts, in 
gold, silver, porcelain, crystal, agate, jasper, onyx, and 
coral. 

The Persians did not attend less to works of utility than 
to those of pleasure, as may be seen from the Bridge of 
Jalfa. This bridge is 360 paces long and 13 wide. It 
is flanked with walls of bricks, and pierced from side to 
side with galleries. Two exterior cabinets suspended upon 
the water mark the middle of the bridge. Thirty-four arches 
of grey stone, harder than marble, support the structure. 
They are constructed upon a sub-basement that rises so 
high that one can walk across it when the water is low. 
There are so many galleries and arcades above arcades in 
the bridge, that eight persons going in the same direction 
might each have an arcaded path for himself. 

Such are some of the wonders of Ispahan ; but since the 
last century, Teheran has been the capital of the empire, 
and all the marvels of the former city are falling into 
ruin. 

Chinese architecture, which is still more varied and more 
capricious than Persian art, would present us with objects 
of admiration, if it did not also quite set aside our tastes 
and run counter to our habits. Two hundred years before 
our era this country had raised a wall 600 leagues long, 
flanked with towers, and so wide that six horsemen could 
ride abreast on its summit. About the same time it had 
spanned with a bridge of a single arch a valley 520 feet 
wide ; and it was familiar with viaducts and suspension 



I5 6 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

bridges. In the seventh century a prince caused to be 
placed before the gates of his palace two columns in copper 
and iron, 114 feet high, and erected upon bases of metal. 
When the introduction of Buddhism into the country 
necessitated the use of high towers, the Chinese achieved 
marvels in this kind of structure. For example, the great 
Porcelain Tower at Nankin, built in the fifteenth century on 
the site of a former one, dating from the fifth century, attains 
a height of 350 feet. Originally, eight chains of iron, fall- 
ing from the summit at each of the eight angles, sustained 
seventy-two brass bells. Eighty other bells hung from the 
roofs of the nine storeys, which were ornamented also with 
128 lamps. From the summit rose a great mast, surrounded 
with a spiral cage in open ironwork, and crowned with a 
globe of an extraordinary size. This Porcelain Tower is 
so named because of the brilliant porcelain ornaments with 
which its walls and roof are decked. 

We cannot quit the extreme east without glancing at 
the art of the Mexicans and Peruvians, who are supposed 
to have come from Asia. No date can be given to their 
Theocallfs or their ruined towns, yet two distinct epochs can 
be assigned them. One of these was prior to the Incas of 
Peru, and the second comprises the later centuries of the 
Middle Ages. All the buildings of the latter period have 
a character in common, and appear to have been of a 
pyramidal form raised upon steps. Their appearance is 
gigantic, their materials enormous, and their decoration 
monstrous. Palenque, Cholula, Tiaguanaco, and all the 
remains which explorers have discovered, look exactly like 
the works of Egyptian savages. The pyramid of Xochicalco 
is composed of five square buildings placed the one above 
the other, each decreasing in size as they ascend. It is 



ORIENTAL ARCHITECTURE. 137 

pierced with gates and covered with sculptures. A tube 
traversed it from top to bottom, which was used to conduct 
the rays of the sun when in the zenith, and cast them upon 
a sort of subterraneous altar. Here, as among many other 
nations of high antiquity, the saj *as the great object of 
worship. 



CHAPTER v 

ROMAN ARCHITECTURE (lOOO 1250). 

IN the pages of the old historian Raoul Glaber, it is stated 
that the year 1007 was supposed by the superstitious 
people who lived prior to that time to be the end of the 
world. The general belief in this idea had the result of 
bringing into existence a great number of churches. Old 
ones were demolished, though still useful, and new ones 
founded. Some unknown genius about this period solved 
the great problem of applying the vault to the great nave. 
As a plain arch the vault was known to the Romans, who 
even knew how to construct four vaults intersecting each 
other in the centre, but they only employed them to cover 
small spaces. 

The Latin people had their churches burnt down by the 
Normans, and these had to be reconstructed upon a new 
principle. Before vaulting the transept they proceeded to 
vault the aisles, and then the nave. This process, though 
simple in appearance, was a revolution in the art of building, 
and marked the inauguration of a new architecture, namely, 
the Romanesque. From this application of the vault to 
spaces of more than 50 feet flow all the innovations of 
the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The grotesque orna- 
mentations and manifold encroachments of the Gothic and 
Romanesque styles were simply the necessary supports to the 
vaults. The pointed arch, as being much more solid, was 
the last innovation. It is a mistake to suppose that the 



ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 



'39 



pointed arch was originally Gothic it was Romanesque. 
During the eleventh and twelfth centuries the products of 




The Cathedral at Spires. 

architecture were of almost unheard-of variety. Ro- 
manesque architecture received an early welcome in the 



140 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

Valley of the Rhine. The Cathedral of Spires, built 
between 916 and 1097, is the largest church in Germany. 
Its length is 478 feet. Like the cathedrals of Worms, 
Bonn, and Mayence, it belongs to the family of double- 
apsed churches magnificent products of the early architec- 
ture of the Middle Ages, which are rare in Europe and 
found mostly in the Rhine Valley. Terminated at both 
extremities with circular spaces, these churches have no 
fa9ade, the want of it being compensated for by lateral 
portals. 

At Spires, the two apses support two cupolas, flanked 
each with a like number of towers. The interior presents 
a somewhat severe aspect, prominent among the decorations 
being twelve square pillars, which separate the lofty nave 
from the two aisles. In the midst of the nave upon the 
floor are four stone roses, which mark the place where 
St. Bernard preached the Crusade, in 1146. A dozen 
steps conduct to the nave of the King's Choir, under 
which is the imperial vault, beneath which lie nine 
emperors. 

Under the eastern part of the cathedral is a crypt sup- 
ported by twenty short, massive pillars. Here are to be 
found baptismal fonts of the eighth and ninth centuries, 
and a tomb of Rudolph of Hapsburg, with a crowned 
statue. 

Returning to France, we find many early Romanesque 
buildings in the middle and south of that country. At 
Toulouse, Poictiers, and St. Gilles, for instance, the Ro- 
manesque is seen blent with the Byzantine ; while at 
Saintes and Caen, on the other hand, there are pure speci- 
mens of the former. 

St Etienne of Caen was commenced, i n 1064, by 



ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 143 

William the Conqueror. It is built on the plan of a Latin 
cross, the portal presenting three gates on the ground-floor, 
above which are two ranks of bays with round arches. On 
each side of the gable rises a high tower, terminated by a 
more recent addition. The whole building wears an aspect 
of austere elegance and monastic severity. 

St. Eutrope de Saintes, on the other hand, has in its 
architecture more grace and something of nobleness. Its 
vault is in the form of a cradle. From the exterior we see 
a high wall in Romanesque, whLh is admired for the ele- 
gance of its engaged colonnades. The storeys are divided 
by friezes enriched with circular flowers. There is still to 
be traced at the end of the wall a beautiful rotunda, with 
bays highly ornamented. This was the lateral chapel of 
the primitive apse. 

The crypt of the church prolongs itself under the choir 
and apse, and admits light by the semi-circles which or- 
nament the base of the building. Entering from the left 
side of the church, we remark misshapen pillars which be- 
long to the fifth century, as an inscription on their capitals 
proves. When the eyes become accustomed to the dim 
light of the crypt, the heavy, massive, severe lines of its 
architecture begin to disentangle themselves from the 
shadows, and the impressiveness of the vault commands 
the respect of the visitor. Here he is face to face with a 
structure not later than the eleventh century. 

The great nave rests upon magnificent pillars garnished 
with four columns and with thick groined vaults, which are 
sunk by time and the weight of the upper mass. The 
capitals are robust, and are formed of leaves and grotesque 
animals. Upon the whole interior wall the engaged pillars 
round the aisles correspond with those of the nave ; but their 



144 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

capitals appear to have been recarved in the fourteenth 
century. 

There is a beautiful church at Saintes of a rather later 
date, decorated in a style which has been called the Ornate 
Romanesque. Its interior, 320 feet long, now serves as a 
stable. It has still preserved intact, however, a very 
primitive apse, a very rich fa9ade, and a charming lantern, 
the two storeys of which are pierced with twelve double 
arcades rising above a conical stone roof. 

Nature has done much for the Cathedral of Puy, its 
situation adding much to its beauty. It displays three naves 
upon a narrow space, and its fagade over-runs it on either 
side. Space having failed the builder, the portal is placed 
on the slope of the hill. The south transept is decorated 
with a projecting porch, ornamented with round arches 
within a pointed arch. Besides a tower with rich arcades 
which crowns the choir, we notice an isolated tower, the 
base of which seems to have served as the baptistry. On 
the north extends a cloister formed by four porticoes, with 
capitals imitated from the ancient Corinthian. Passing to 
the interior, we are struck by the square form of the apse 
without its aisles, and by the eight cupolas that surmount 
the nave. Commenced probably in the fifth century, re- 
constructed in the ninth, finished between the eleventh and 
thirteenth centuries, the cathedral has nevertheless an har- 
monious aspect. All the modifications to which it has 
been subjected belong to the two intimately associated 
styles of architecture the Romanesque and the Byzantine. 

St. Sernin, of Toulouse, has been less fortunate. Addi- 
tions of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and still more 
an unskilful restoration, have altered the perspective of the 
great nave, and ruined the interior decorations. But the 




Cathedral of Puy. 






ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 147 

nobleness of its five naves, divided by four ranges of pillars, 
and especially the marvellous beauty of its apse, serve to 
sustain its ancient renown. These parts of the structure, in 
which ornaments of sculptured stone are set off by the rich 
deep tint of the bricks forming the base of the walls, 
seem to serve as a basis for a high brick tower, pierced 
with bays either round or slightly narrowed like mitres. 
The result of the whole is a pyramidal arrangement of a 
surprising eftect, at once majestic and light, elegant and 
strong. St. Sernin was consecrated in 1096, to which date 
we must assign the whole apse. As to the tower, it was not 
constructed till the fourteenth centuiy, but with the evident 
intention of harmonising with the general style of the 
structure a proof of taste the like of which it is difficult to 
find in our own day. 

In the south and south-west of France, about the twelfth 
century, the Romanesque architecture, at first so severe and 
simple, began to admit great prolusion of ornaments and 
sculptures, often barbarian but always ingeniously grouped. 
This gave rise to the more ornate Romanesque style which 
prevailed south of the Loire to the middle of the thirteenth 
century. 

This style has been employed in all sorts of edifices, one 
of the most beautiful specimens which remain having been 
discovered in the Prefect's Court at Angers. Here are to 
be seen great bays, with plain round arches sculptured, and 
apparently belonging to the galleries of a monastery. 

The ornate Romanesque is admirably suited for the 
decoration of facades. That of Notre Dame de Poitiers, 
for example, is an immense bas-relief which commences at 
the pavement and ends at the summit of the frontage. Two 
charming round towers in stone flank the conical roofs, on 

K 2 



148 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

the pediment of which Christ is sculptured within an 
aureole. Over the choir rises a beautiful lantern of many 
storeys. The interior is more ancient than the fa9ade, and 
is in a correctly simple style. 

Merime'e considers the church of St. Gilles (1150-1220) 
as the ne plus ultra of ornate Romanesque. Conceived 
on a gigantic plan, abandoned before being finished, muti- 
lated at the end of the last century, it still preserves a vast 
and beautifully lighted crypt, a famous staircase, and an 
admirable portal, covered with bassi-rilievi statues and friezes, 
upon which are depicted a flora and fauna unknown else- 
where. From the debris of this fagade one could decorate 
a dozen sumptuous edifices. So rich indeed is it, that at 
first sight the spectator is confused. Hi.s attention is called 
to every side at once, and not knowing where to rest his 
glances, he loses the general effect altogether. This is the 
inconvenience of all ornate styles, of which St. Gilles unites 
all the main features: "Width of base, appearance of 
solidity which merges into heaviness, excessive subdivision 
of parts, profusion of details, having evidently for their 
object the lightening of the general heavy effect." 

Among ornate facades we may also mention that of St. 
Trophime of Aries. Here we already find that the Gothic 
style, born as it were in the Isle of France, has begun to com- 
bine with the Romanesque, which it was destined to supplant. 
St. Trophime bears evident marks of this concord, or rather 
of this struggle. As we advance from the nave to the choir 
and the apse, the Gothic takes the lead and triumphs, and if 
it respects the square tower, it yet invades the cloister and 
decorates one-half of it. 

This cloister is one of the most beautiful that can be 
anywhere seen. Romanesque or Gothic, its arcades are 




Xotre Dame de Poitiers. 



ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. icj 

supported by double colonnades in marble, narrow, round, 
and octagonal, alternating with pillars ornamented with 




Western Do r of the Cathedral of Mans. 

Greek statues cut from the same block of stone. The 
Romanesque part is executed in much the better style, and 



152 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

is the more interesting on account of the costumes shown 
by the statues and bassi-rilievi. 

Many beautiful churches in the middle of France date 
from the time when the rising Gothic grafted itself upon the 
declining Romanesque. This period of transition is perhaps 
best illustrated by the beautiful cathedral of Mans. 

Upon an eminence fortified by Roman works, at the foot 
of which roll the gentle waters of the Sarlhe, at one of 
the extremities of the old town, in a deserted and appa- 
rently antique locality, are the remains of this cathedral. 
The history of the building is obscure, but it is probable 
that the Romanesque church, many times burnt down, 
was restored in Gothic at the commencement of the 
seventeenth century. The round arches of the arcade 
were supplanted by pointed arches to correspond with the 
new choir, which is wholly the purest and noblest style 
of Gothic. Above the great arches, supported by pillars 
alternately round and prismatic, runs a. narrow gallery of 
arcades with round arches. Eleven chapels disposed in a 
semi-circle surround the choir, separated by a double rank 
of columns. 

The nave measures 188 feet long by 78 feet broad, and 
the length of the transepts is 192 feet. The choir and aisles 
are 143 feet long by 104 feet broad. From the portal to 
the last chapel the length of the building is 490 feet, being 
40 feet larger than the cathedral at Amiens, and 6| more 
than that of Rheims. 



CHAPTER XI. 

GOTHIC ART. 

IN the twelfth century one of the Romanesque schools of 
architecture sprang into popularity, and introduced an inno- 
vation which became the principle of a new style of art. A 
mere artifice, namely, the application of exterior buttresses 
to narrow and high walls, enabled builders to carry their 
arches to great heights, and to multiply their windows. 
Hence the Gothic style, which is essentially nothing else 
than the Romanesque elevated, and with the addition of 
external supports. The buttress a sort of permanent 
scaffolding a superfluity, the imperfection of which the 
subtlest art can hardly disguise, is the most prominent 
feature of Gothic. A secondary feature is the employment 
of the pointed arch which, previously known to Roman 
architects, supplanted the round arch. This, like the but- 
tress, is co-relative and necessary to the increased eleva- 
tion of the structure. Finally, all the modifications which 
the Gothic style introduced have for their generating 
principle that mystic love which aspires to heaven, and 
finds its symbol in the singular loftiness of pillars and 
vaults. 

It was long supposed that the Gothic took from the East 
the form of its pointed bays, and the lightness of its orna- 
mentation. 

Without denying that there are certain resemblances in 
this respect, there can at the same time be no doubt that 



154 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

we must look to the West, and among ourselves, for the 
origin and parentage of Gothic. Gothic may be described 
as an entirely French architecture, the honour of origina- 
ting which is divided between Rheims, Amiens, and Paris. 
In the basin of the Oise. as early as the eleventh century, 
churches were to be found wiiose extinguishing charac- 
teristic was Gothic. Half- a -century sufficed to make all 
the Romanesque schools disappear, and in the thirteenth 
century the Gothic penetrated even to Germany and Italy. 

The cathedral of Laon (1114 1154) appears to be the 
most ancient of the Gothic churches. Next, in order of 
time, comes Noyon, the ancient church of St. Denis (1130 
1134) ; and the interior portion of Notre Dame at Paris 
(1163), which preceded by a few years the churches at 
Bayeux, Sens, and Langres. The cathedral of Paris is too 
well known for us to dwell upon the branches of its solid 
portal, the bold projection of its horizontal lines, its sober 
and majestic galleries, and its sombre buttresses which 
support the towers, and seem directly to rest on the soil 
itself. 

The cathedral at Amiens belongs to the succeeding 
period (1220). Its fi^ade and spire, rising respectively to 
the height of 165 and 440 feet, would, without doubt, have 
exceeded those dimensions if the original plan had not been 
modified after the death of the architect, its designer. Its 
larger vaults rise nearly 140 feet, and cover an expanse of 
45 feet, an achievement that is all the more astonishing, 
considering that the exterior walls do not exist, so to speak, 
but are replaced by piers or buttresses, between which 
are chapels. " Take," says M. Reynaud, " the columns of 
the central nave at Amiens, and it will be found that their 
elevation is equal to sixty-six times their diameter. On the 



GOTHIC ART. 155 

other hand, the supports of the baths of Caracalla, and of the 
Temple of Peace, are only ten times that of their diameter ; 
and at St. Etienne of Caen, the loftiest of the Roman 
esque churches, the pillars are only thirty-three times the 
height of their diameter. The height of the nave of 
Amiens is three times that of its width." 

The entire central length (nave and choir) is con- 
sidered not only the most beautiful part of the church, but 
a masterpiece of art. It comprises altogether five naves 
sustained by elegant circular pillars, furnished with engaged 
columns. Two lines of similar supports divide the tran- 
septs into three naves. The coup d'ceil is magical, and the 
ensemble marvellous, lightness and strength being blended 
into perfect harmony. But however admirable the cathedral 
at Amiens is for unity of conception, it is not equal 
in originality to the church of Chartres. Six centuries, 
counting fr^m the twelfth century, have been devoted 
to the completion and ornamentation of this structure. 
By rare good fortune the building betrays no offensive 
disparities in style or tone, and yet retains all the graces 
of variety. Its narrow and high fa9ade is surmounted by 
two unequal spires one sober and majestic, the other of 
astonishing freshness and considerable height. The latter 
belongs to the sixteenth century, and all florid as it is, it 
pleases less than the first, of which the bare spire rises in 
a single unbroken line towards heaven. Its two lateral 
porches are as ornate as the portal is simple. The most 
beautiful is that on the north. Raised on a basement of 
seven steps, it presents three grand arcades surmounted by 
gables, and containing piers and columns ornamented with 
a number of statues and bassi-rilievi. As to the vaults, 
they also are richly furnished with ornaments, The sides 



156 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

are covered with arcades. Abjve the porch, in retreat, 
rises the upper part of the portal, flanked by two small 
octagonal turrets, and surrounded by a triangular gable or. 
namented with a figure of the Virgin, and of which the 
base is supported upon a fine gallery. 

There is not in France a church so rich in sculptures. 
Calculating only the exterior, there are to be counted 1,800 
figures without including arabesques, gargoiles, corbels, masks, 
and consols. These stone figures narrate, as in an allegori- 
cal poem, the history of this world and the next. Add to 
the statues the thousand figures that shine in the coloured 
glass, and the beautiful groups which adorn the palings oi 
the choir, and we can comprehend why the cathedral of 
Chartres appeals more to the mind than its rivals, and why 
it seems animated with a mysterious life. 

The most ancient part of the building is the crypt, 
where are some columns in the antique style. The fa9ade 
dates from the latter part of the twelfth century, but the 
choir was added in 1260. This great building has a total 
length of 340 feet, and its other dimensions are : length of 
transept, 204 feet; height of vaults, no feet; total width, 
no feet ; width of the facade, 102 feet ; height of the old 
tower, 366 feet ; and of the ornamented one, 396 feet. 

Situated upon the highest part of the town. St. Etienne 
of Bourges towers afar over the vast plain of Berry. Its 
immense front, 162 feet wide, is pierced by five portals 
enriched by a multitude of excellent figures. Two towers 
which crown it are of later date than the body of the 
church, and are of unequal height and mediocre beauty. 
Upon the northern o.ie the sixteenth century has lavished 
ornaments, mouldings, bell-turrets, and pinnacles; but the 
eye loses itself amidst this confused decoration, and cannot 




Cathedral of Chartres 



GOTHIC ART. 1 5 9 

seize the solid lines, which are the chief characteristic of 
such important structures. Nevertheless, the renown of 
the edifice is fully justified by its portals, its fine majestic 
naves supported upon sixty pillars, its ancient coloured 
glass in beautiful preservation, its lateral gates, and its lines 
of short columns, which sustain the semi -circular crypt. 

With the exception of the lateral porches, no part of 
it is particularly attached to the Gothic style. We f.nd 
primitive traces of the Gothic style in the crypt and choir ; 
more ornate traces of it in the nave, and still more of it 
in the portal ; but on the northern tower we find it on the 
decline. 

Nothing remains to us of the various edifices raised, in 
the fifth and ninth centuries, upon the site of the cathedral 
of Rheims. Of the cathedral itself, Flodoard the historian 
tells us that the structure raised by Charlemagne was one 
of the most sumptuous in France. Completely destroyed 
by fire in 1210, it was rebuilt from the designs of the 
famous architect Robert de Coucy, and in the short 
space of three years the former building was replaced by 
another 500 feet long, 101 feet wide, and 120 feet high 
a building which was one of the most remarkable in 
France for its unity of aspect and harmony of proportion. 
It is formed upon the plan of the Latin cross, and owing 
to the transept being very near the apse, the choir pro- 
jects over three bays of the nave. This was done by the 
architect to enlarge the perspective and vary the unifor- 
mity of the walls. In order to increase the impression of 
the length of the building, he suppressed everything that 
might arrest the eye upon the walls. He wished the spec- 
tator to embrace at a single coup d'ceil the ranges of column?, 
the vault, and the apse, which, when looked at, seemed to 



i6o 



MAKVELS OF ARCHITECTURF. 



recede away into distance. A great number ol windows, 
and four rose-windows, which for the most part still 




Cathedral of Bourges. 

retain the ela?? of the thirteenth century, threw upon 
this long avenue all the colours of the prism, beautifully 



GOTHIC ART. 



161 



deepening into a purple light which resembles that of the 
setting sun. 




The Cathedral of Rheims. 

Four columns bear upon their capitals ornamented with 
poun curved volutes, a group of colonettes, which sustain 
the nerves of the vault. These elegant groups, cut vertically, 



j62 MARVELS OF ANCHITECTURE. 

are the simple and noble horizontal lines of this great 
edifice. 

Like the preceding church, the height of the fagade 01 
the cathedral of Rheims is much greater than its width, and 
its horizontal divisions disappear under the ornaments with 
which it is surcharged. Its towers rise to more than 270 
feet, and were intended to carry spires. 

The three portals surmounted by narrow gates are high 
and deep, while the capitals support great caryatides. Above 
the great portal, between the edicules and the double bays, 
spreads out above a rich arcade a magnificent rose-window, 
unhappily obstructed in its lower part by the flowered point 
of the porch. 

Statues of kings shelter themselves under the pinnacles 
of a long gallery, which rises above the roof of the great 
nave. All this superposition of pointed angles, which may 
be said to have inaugurated the exaggerations of the per- 
pendicular style, imparts to the fagade of Rheims an 
aerial lightness, a mystical elegance, a sort of extreme 
beauty, which we could not attempt to increase without 
danger. 

The cathedral of Strasbourg, on the other hand, does 
not present this unity of aspect ; but like those of Chartres, 
Paris, and Bruges, it partakes of those different charms which 
are the peculiar privilege of edifices that have been slowly 
built, and in which are to be found the architectural traces 
of many ages. The austere nakedness of its crypt, and the 
massive circle of columns that enclose its choir, contrast with 
the ingeniously carved pillars of the nave, and with a choir 
of the fifteenth century, and a baptistry which is like a piece 
of goldsmith's work executed in stone. That portion of the 
building which is near the facade much surpasses in height 




The Cathedral of Strasbourg. 



GOTHIC ART. 165 

the rest of the church, and forms a superb vestibule into 
which the great western rose-window throws all its fires and 
rich colours. 

The first stone of the portal was laid in 1277, the con- 
struction of the edifice .being undertaken by Erwin, a 
celebrated architect born at Steinbach. His son John, and 
his daughter Sabina, who carved many statues at the 
southern portal, should also be remembered. Their 
names, as well as that of John Hultz, who finished the 
spire in 1439, are among the number of those whom 
time respects. 

The facade is in complete disproportion to the church. 
Taken in itself, it is a work of genius. As high as the 
towers of Notre Dame, it presents three divisions in height 
and three in width. Above the three gates with deep 
carvings is the rose, as in an enormous niche. The third 
storey is illuminated by two beautiful windows. Equestrian 
statues of Clovis, Dagobert, Rudolph of Hapsburg, and 
Louis XIV., and depictions of scenes of revelry, and multi- 
tudes of persons in various attitudes, cover the buttresses, 
the frieze, and the archivolts. 

It is from the platform terminating the third stage on 
the left that there rises the famous tower which bears the 
spire a unique tower, a marvel of lightness and boldness, 
open to the light throughout its whole length, flanked with 
four turrets also in open work, and through which spiral 
stairs ascend to the top. 

The spire forms an octagonal pyramid, which looks 
as though it were composed of fragile lace-work. It bears 
a lantern surmounted by a crown, and a flower bearing 
a cross. In these giddy heights Goethe once remained 
for a quarter of an hour under the crown itself, upon a 



1 66 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

platform three feet square, without even the support of a 
hand-rail. 

The building of this tower carried the fame of the masons 
of Strasbourg into all lands. It is said that the Duke of 
Milan, in 1481, asked the magistrates of Strasbourg for a 
man capable of superintending the construction of the cupola 
of Milan. Vienna, Cologne, and Fribourg, among others, 
were built by the Strasbourg masons. But none of these 
surpassed their model in height or boldness. The spire of 
Strasbourg remains the highest of all known edifices, with 
the exception of the pyramids of Egypt, which are 9 feet 
higher. It reaches a height of 461 feet; and after it in 
their order of height, but from 30 to 60 feet less in height, 
come the spires of Amiens, Fribourg, Vienna, and Chartres. 

Space would fail us were we to attempt to describe all 
the beautiful churches which the Gothic style in its birth and 
prodigal youth has bequeathed to us. Notre Dame at Paris 
(a complete edifice), the cathedrals of Laon, Noyon, and 
Soissons, have only been incidently cited as examples. The 
astonishing cupola and spires of Coutances, the giant choirs 
of Beauvais and Cologne, might also have been mentioned 
as inimitable specimens of this class of religious edifices. 
But we have confined ourselves to some of the most cele- 
brated specimens, well knowing that to repeat necessarily 
curtailed descriptions would become monotonous to the 
reader. What we have striven to do has been to give at 
least some faint idea of the construction and decoration 
adopted by the great unknown architects of the thirteenth 
century. It now only remains to us to glance at the works 
of the two succeeding centuries, in the architecture of which 
frivolity and exaggeration strove their best to destroy nobility 
and grandeur. 



GOTHIC ART. 167 



3. THE FLORID STYLE RENAISSANCE GOTHIC. 

From 1250 to 1380 there prevailed a charming and striking 
style, which has been called the flamboyant or florid. More 
walls having openings supported by narrow arches, more 
capitals with wreaths of foliage, imitated direct from nature, 
more columns and high pillars ornamented with mouldings, 
were introduced, and yet no evil element marred the elegance 
of the style. Slender and delicate, without being emascu- 
late, the florid style did not disfigure the thirteenth century 
churches which it enriched and adorned. Traces of this 
style are everywhere to be found in the lateral naves, the 
apses, and the exterior bays ; for it is rare not to find the 
three epochs of the Gothic represented in a religious edifice 
of any importance the first by the general mass and the 
nave ; the second by the vaults and the ornaments ; and the 
third by the stalls, the jubes, and the bell-towers. Among 
the most beautiful specimens of this style are the aisles of 
the choir of Notre Dame at Paris, the facade of Bayeux, the 
cathedral of Metz, and St. Ouen of Rouen. 

Although the nave of St Ouen was not completed till 
the sixteenth century, and although its portal, built in our 
own times, does not realise in all its beauty the plans of 
the Gothic architect, still it presents all the features of the 
fourteenth. The whole of the eastern part of the choir 
and transept was finished in twenty-one years, the period 
extending from 1318 to 1339. In these may be admired 
great purity of lines and elevation, the effect of which is 
enhanced by the lightness of the supports. The great nave, 
of a considerable length and of great simplicity, makes the 
perspective of the choir recede indefinitely. There are 



1 68 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

higher vaults than are to be found in this church, but few 
more beautiful. 

In order to enjoy the exterior beauties of St. Ouen, 
the visitor must walk round the right flank of its walls, pro- 
fusely pierced with windows, and terminated by the symme- 
trical forest of lesser arches which support the parent vault; 
stand in contemplation before the portal of the transept, 
which is equal to the side doors of Notre Dame ; and from 
the bottom of a small garden which surrounds the apses, 
enjoy the harmonious aspect of twelve chapels with pyra- 
midical roofs, joined to the majestic apse, which serves 
as a pedestal for the great central tower. This tower is 
octagonal in shape, upon a square base, flanked by four 
charming detached turrets, terminated by an open crown. 
It is 266 feet high, but measurements in this instance lose 
their value, as everything lies in the excellent proportions 
which invest the tower of St. Ouen with something of the 
ideal and absolutely beautiful. The visitor mounts it by 
means of narrow stairs through obscure passages, and when 
he gains the summit he can behold the noble lines of the 
roof. 

If the justly-renowned beauties of what we have been 
describing somewhat throw into the shade the merits of St. 
Etienne de Metz, it is because they are not brought out in 
proper relief by unity of composition. The Louis XV. 
faQade, the florid chapels, choir, and nave, are portions of 
the building not sufficiently harmoniously united ; but 
many of its beauties are worthy of the first rank. Its 
nave is equal in height to that of Amiens, and its glass panes 
present quite a fairy aspect. There are three rows of win- 
dows : the first in the collateral spaces, and relatively low ; 
and the two others in the nave, separated by a species of 




Interior of St. Etienne de Mctz at Paris. 



GOTHIC ART. 171 

frieze. The higher bays are the largest, the intermediate 
ones being grouped four and four in each triforium. Nor 
must the large openings which lighten the transept, and the 
great rose over the portal, be forgotten. The choir, which is 
raised upon steps, belongs to the decadent Gothic period. 

After the florid Gothic comes the flamboyant, which 
under the pretext of slenderness and grace, strips the forms 
and proportions of some of the chief parts of this species of 
architecture of its ornaments. It dispenses with the hori- 
zontal lines, which form the windows of the great nave into 
two storeys, fills up the bays of the irregular compartments, 
softens down the angles of the pillars, or sharpens the bevel- 
ing of the mouldings, gives even to the most massive sup- 
ports only a fleeting form in which the shadows cannot fix 
themselves, and changes the flowers of the pinnacles into 
capricious volutes. It reserves all its riches for the acces- 
sory and the exterior decorations the stalls, the pulpits, the 
crowns of the arches, the crowning friezes, the pinnacles of 
the piers, the jubes, and the bell-towers. Visible general 
decadence corresponds with great progress in details. 

Among the churches, not very numerous, which have 
been completely built in the flamboyant style, may be men- 
tioned St. Wulfrand d'AbbeVille, Notre Dame de Clry 
sur Loire, St. Ricquier de Corbie, and the cathedrals of 
Nantes and of Orleans. The convex fagade of St. Maclou 
at Rouen is, however, perhaps the most beautiful specimen 
of this style. 

Even with this order the Gothic career does not termi- 
nate, and in France at least it is prolonged by the Renais- 
sance, which seems to impart a new life into this moribund 
style. Without doubt the Renaissance is a return towards 
the antique, but it is also a return towards purely civil life. 



172 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

If it changes the plan of palaces and houses, it preserves 
that of the churches. It grafts its pilasters, its columns, and 
its Greek frontals upon the pointed vaults, bent arches, and 
pendent crowns. This period of transition must not be dis- 
dained, and although the style may be disapproved, it must 
not be altogether condemned. 

Is not, for instance, the church of St. Etienne du Mont 
at Paris a stnicture full of fantasy and beauty ? or can there 
be found many churches comparable to St. Eustache at Paris, 
built in the sixteenth century ? 

The apse of St. Eustache still preserves the pointed 
arch, while the Corinthian colonettes, combined with prism- 
shaped pillars, have neither bases nor capitals. Among the 
souvenirs of the flamboyant Gothic we notice the bold 
pendant a vast crown supported by two angels above the 
sanctuary. 

3. MILITARY AND CIVIL STRUCTURES OF THE MIDDLE 
AGES. 

Churches and fortresses are the two signs of the Middle 
Ages two forces often found in rivalry, but oftener in 
alliance ; the one the consolation of souls alternately violent 
and despairing, the other the guardian of industrious cities 
or the defence of idle and rapacious barons. Military archi- 
tecture, as may be supposed, will not by any means offer us 
the same variety and interest as the religious edifices ; but 
even these unadorned masses have their beauty. Their 
ancient defences of towers round, square, and pointed 
their battlements and macchicolations, at the present day in 
ruins, show their outlines well against the sky, and represent 
upon the hills which they overlook that mural crown which 
the ancient sculptors gave to Cybele. 



GOTHIC ART. 175 

Above Carcassonne, for example, on a sterile hill, under 
an ardent sun that gilds the stones, is to be seen a double 
enclosure of walls flanked with towers. A strong castle and 
beautiful church occupy the highest point of the site. We 
can follow the circular way between the double enclosure, and 
mount to the summit by a tortuous path. It is on the north, 
and in the interior enclosure, that are to be seen the oldest 
fortifications, attributed for a long time to the Romans, but 
which were raised by the Visigoths, of whom Carcassonne 
was the last refuge. The visitor admires the fine solid towers 
of these ruins, built of alternate layers of brick and rubble, 
ior they have a Roman attraction quite distinct from antique 
architecture. We have hardly any record respecting Car- 
cassonne beyond the twelfth century. The twin windows of 
the citadel indicate that epoch. Destroyed by assault, and 
ruined, in 1209 and 1240, the Visigothic enclosure part was 
rebuilt by St. Louis and Philippe the Hardy, and surrounded 
by a second line of defences, which, like the inner one, is a 
model of construction. We may mention specially a round 
tower called the Bishop, and also some other towers which 
form detached forts on the side where the fortress was most 
accessible. 

This formidable body of defences, the most complete 
that has been left to us from the Middle Ages, will not, it is 
gratifying to think, perish like so many other interesting 
remains. Since 1855 the Committee of Historic Monuments 
have undertaken its restoration. 

Another interesting stronghold, still well preserved, is that 
of Aigues-Mortes, which is in the form of a rectangle. Cer- 
tain towers, semi-circular on the outside and square within, 
so as to make the interior projection as little as possible, 
rise above the parapet. The chief gates opened between 



176 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

two towers, the interval between these being occupied by 
a blind-covered chamber to protect those who worked 
the portcullises. Between the two portcullises there was a 
space or trough in the vault through which projectiles could 
be poured upon the enemy, who could, as it were, be 
enclosed in a species of cage. This structure bears the 
character of the era of the thirteenth century, and is also 
a work of Philippe the Hardy. 

The inhabitants of the French capital, however, have no 
need to travel more than a short distance in order to get an 
idea of the fortifications of the Middle Ages. Provins, about 
three hours' journey from Paris, furnishes a good-enough 
example of such ruins. The walls of the higher part of this 
fortress were raised for the defence of an abrupt promontory, 
narrow but long, which runs from the plateaus of La Brie 
into an oval valley, where modest streams unite to 
pour their waters into the Seine. Upon the north flank 
of the hill the ruins rise up solidly in a picturesque region, 
and seem to menace with their towers all who repose 
within their shadow. They run from the north to the 
south-west, then tending to the south they descend 
towards what formed the lower town of the enclosure. 
They are strongest at the weakest points of the position. 
Instead of opposing to assailants a single front in a straight 
line, they present at the narrow part of the plain the point 
of a formidable angle, armed with a strong cylindrical 
tower. A fosse, more than 100 feet long by 32 deep, 
protected by a glacis, guards the foot of the walls. The 
high part of the enclosure, like all skilfully devised feudal 
castles, was defended and cut off from the lower part by a 
suite of walls and forts erected upon the escarpments. Nor 
was this all. The palace of the counts, together with the 



GOTHIC ART. 177 

church and its cloister were separated from the rest of the 
citadel and occupied the point of the promontory. Again, 
a very strong tower connected with the walls, and serving the 
double purpose of a prison and a means of defence, rose at 
some 325 feet distance from the palace. This tower is 
raised upon a square sub-basement, is octagonal in shape, 
and is flanked by four little turrets. It has for a long time 
been known as the Tower of Caesar ; but although we can- 
not easily determine its date, it is not improbable that it 
was anterior to the twelfth century. 

As far, however, as a pure donjon is concerned there 
is scarcely anything comparable to Coucy, in which fortress 
everything is on a colossal scale. The steps of the stairs, 
the embrasures, the seats, and all the details seem to have 
been made for men of more than ordinary size. The 
circular donjon, 100 feet wide and 208 high, rises between 
four towers, at the angles of a quadrilateral measuring 58 
feet by 113. Originally it was divided by three vaults, now 
sunk in, into three great parts, and crowned with a cornice 
ornamented with four pinnacles. On the ground-floor the 
hall was vaulted by means of twelve demi-arches. No 
less than 1,200 or 1,500 men might be accommodated in a 
time of need in the upper rotunda. 

Built by Enguerrand III., about 1230, the castle of 
Coucy, one of the most imposing marvels of the feudal 
epoch, overlooks a rich valley between Noyon and Chauny. 
It has no longer to fear the depredations of the inhabitants, 
who used to remove its stones, as it has now become the 
property of the state. Since r856, the cracks in the great 
donjon have been repaired, which were caused by the 
springing of a mine in the seventeenth century, by order of 
Mazarin 



i 7 8 



MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 



It remains now for us briefly to glance at the civil 
Gothic buildings raised in the latter part of the Middle 
Ages. France possesses a certain number, among others 
the beautiful Palace of Justice at Rouen. But they abound 
especially in Belgium, a country of municipal and industrial 




Ruins of Coucv. 

life, where devotion to human interests is clothed with 
a pomp equal to that which acccmpanies the worship of 
the Divinity. 

Constructed in the middle of the fifteenth century, the 
Hotel de Ville of Louvain seems a Gothic shrine, laiscd in 
stone upon gigantic proportions. The sculpture, delicate 
and fine, resembles miniature work, and the statues are so 



GOTHIC ART. 179 

numerous that hours are not sufficient to count those on a 
single side. 

The fagade presents three storeys surrounded by a gallery, 
and a covering in which are pierced three storeys of dormer- 
windows. It is composed of three orders above a basement 
in stylobate. Ten Gothic windows, surmounted by counter- 
curves, are separated by elegant buttresses. Turrets orna- 
ment the three galleries resting at the angles. 

The Hotel de Ville, again, at Brussels, is considerable 
for its elevation and its extent. Constructed in the space 
of twenty-one years namely, between 1401 and 1422 it is 
in the same style in all its parts, and the houses in the neigh- 
bourhood are of the same epoch. Decorations and fillets 
of gold ornament this hotel. Its fagade, which presents a 
gallery of seventeen arcades supporting a species of balcony, 
is pierced with twenty windows upon each storey ; and a 
balustrade forms the crown as at Louvain. As in the former 
instance, the roof is decorated with ranges of dormer 
windows. The tower of the belfry is octagonal, and en- 
tirely composed of open work. It is much admired for its 
elegance and boldness. 

After Louvain and Brussels, Ypres, with its low fagade 
surcharged with colonnettes, and surrounded with open-work, 
and Gand, the Hotel de Ville of which combines Gothic 
ornaments with the proportions and classic columns of the 
Renaissance, may equally be admitted to the third rank of 
buildings of the kind we have described. 



CHAPTER XII 

ITALIAN RENAISSANCE. 

BARBARISM had but a short reign in Italy, and a Renais- 
sance followed close upon the wretched innovations of the 
tenth century. This re-awakening of true art, this day-spring 
of hope and of artistic life which manifested itself in the 
first years of the eleventh century, had, as we have seen, 
already flourished in France ; and it is to that century 
that the West owes the beauties of Romanesque art 
More rapid still, and more fruitful, was this revival among the 
Italians, a people who had only to excavate their ruins in 
order to procure models of antiquity a revival which was 
accelerated in consequence of the rivalry between Pisa, 
Florence, Sienna, Genoa, and Venice ; and which resulted 
in the production of architectural wonders in which Byzan- 
tine taste and Latin traditions formed a combination, at 
once full of power and grace. As supports to the cupolas, to 
the walls of the rotundas, and to the naves, the Italian 
architects introduced forests of colonnettes, and ranges of 
small arches which delighted the eye and gave grandeur 
to the edifice. 

Pisa contains the model of the style which we may call 
the Italian Romanesque. Upon a large open space stand 
four famous structures namely the Cathedral, the Baptistry, 
the Leaning Tower, and the simple and noble Cloister of 
Campo Santo. These beautiful buildings form a magnificent 
spectacle, rendered somewhat sad, it is true by the thought 



ITALIAN RENAISSANCE. l8l 

of the deep decline of Pisa, but a spectacle which assumes 
a magic power over the spectator, who is transported by 
thoughts of the time when Pisa, victorious over the Sara- 
cens, enriched herself with a multitude of capitals, bases, 
and antique columns, and raised the Cathedral at once to 
celebrate her triumphs and to make use of her spoils. It 
was in 1083 that the Byzantine architect Buschetto was 
commanded to construct the Cathedral, in which the 
ceilings, the vaults, the architraves, the arcades, the cupola, 
and the Latin cross combined to express an original idea, 
and create a new architectural form. This noble structure 
suggests the antique without its bareness, the Byzantine 
without its heaviness, and the Romanesque with all the 
life and fervour which it displayed in the West 

Five storeys of arcades cover the faqa.de of the Cathedral 
with their superposed porticoes. " All the antique forms 
are again reproduced, but treated differently. The exterior 
columns of the Greek temples are reduced, multiplied, 
elevated in the air, and placed in the category of orna. 
ments." The natural weight of the dome is lightened by 
a crown of five colonnettes. From the two sides of the 
great gate, guarded by two Corinthian columns, enveloped 
with a prodigality of foliage, calices and acanthus, the 
visitor beholds the church in all its magnificence, with its 
files of columns, its fine naves, and its multitude of graceful 
and brilliant forms. A second avenue the transept, also 
richly furnished crosses the nave, and above this Corinthian 
forest smaller files of columns prolong themselves and sup- 
port a quadruple gallery. A figure of the Redeemer in 
mosaic, with the Virgin, and a figure of one of the minor 
saints occupy the base of the apse, all of which are the 
work of Jacopo Turrita, the restorer of mosaic art. The 



jSa MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

whole of the decorations of the walls, outside and in, consist 
of mosaic work in black and white marble. 

The Baptistry is a simple pear-shaped isolated dome 
placed upon walls, furnished also with colonnettes, and 
sustained by Corinthian arcades, with capitals and antique 
bassi-rilievi. Under the cupola is a rich basin with eight 
sides ; and on the left a marble throne decorated with grand 
and simple figures, the work of Nicolas of Pisa, a sculptor 
of the thirteenth century. 

Next in order of the marvels of Pisa comes the Leaning 
Tower, which looks like a strong round pillar, 88 feet 
in diameter, surrounded by seven storeys of round arched 
arcades. It was commenced in the second half of the 
twelfth century. A plumb-line suspended from the summit 
hangs out about 12 feet from the base, showing how far 
the tower leans off the perpendicular. This singular inclina- 
tion, which is observable also in the two towers of Bologna, 
is perhaps attributable to the unequal sinking of this struc- 
ture. It appears that the singularity showed itself as soon 
as the building was above ground; but the architects 
determined to proceed with their work in open defiance of 
the laws of equilibrium. The architects proved right, for 
hundreds of years have passed since it was expected this 
tower would fall, and yet it remains standing. 

In the course of the thirteenth century Gothic art pene- 
trated into Italy, and revealed itself there all at once in the 
shape of two architectural masterpieces. These, however, 
were instances of a somewhat peculiar Gothic, such as 
could be comprehended only by Italy, the direct heir 
of Rome. This Italian Gothic displayed forms rather 
different from ours, and polychromic decorations such as 
would be quite unsuitable for a cold climate. At Assise 



ITALIAN RENAISSANCE. 183 

this style approaches ours more than at any other place 
in Italy. 

In this instance there are three churches, the one above 
the other, like the various storeys of an architectural shrine. 
The lowest is a black crypt, like a tomb, into which we 
descend with torches. The second church is long, low, and 
sombre also ; but covered with fringes, foliage, and painted 
figures, and remarkable for a winding staircase, and for its 
sheafs of slender colonnettes. Overhead, the third church 
rises as aerial as the others are sombre and obscure. Every- 
thing here rises into air and light. The church narrows its 
vaults, points its arches, and mounts, and still mounts, 
illuminated by the rose-windows, and the coloured glass 
windows which glitter with bands of gold and stories from the 
Inspired Book. It is said that in the three churches the 
architect intended to represent the three worlds. In the 
losvest he strove to depict the shadow of death, and the 
horror of the grave : in the middle, the passionate anxiety of 
the Christian in our world of troubles ; and in the highest, 
the joy and glory of paradise. 

Adjoining this wonderful church is a monastery, enclos- 
ng an elegant square cloister consisting of two storeys of 
galleries. Here in this beautiful retreat, scholastic abstrac- 
tions were transformed into ideal apparitions by the con- 
templative monks. 

The cathedral of Sienna commenced about the same 
epoch, but made for a public worship and a religion less re- 
fined deviates more from the Gothic character, and returns 
to the regular strong Pagan method which is seen in so 
many Italian edifices. Like the inferior arches of the nave, 
the arch of the portal is pointed ; but the arcades are round- 
headed. The upper galleries are composed of Corinthian 



1 84 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

architraved colonnades, while the capitals of certain pillars 
of the nave are composed of figures of birds. 

The fa9ade, bordered with statues, rises above the three 
gates in three pointed pediments ; above these pediments 
are three pointed gables ; around these gables are four 
pointed towers ; and all these points are notched with 
indentations. But if the architect loves the long slender 
forms that have come to him from beyond the sea, he loves 
also the solid forms which ancient traditions have left to 
him. He carries high in the air the aerial globe of the 
dome ; and he clothes the shaft of his columns with naked 
figures, with hippogriffs, birds, acanthus and flowers, which 
interlace and twist at the summit. The same blending of 
architectural ideas is seen throughout all its details. 

After the facade, the marvel of the cathedral of Sienna 
is the pavement, decorated with inlaid enamel -work by 
Becafumi. It is covered with a movable flooring, but the 
visitor, by giving a gratuity to some of the attendants, can 
have the flooring partly raised, and can inspect this artistic 
work. At certain annual fetes the deal flooring is alto- 
gether removed, and the wonderful work can be seen in 
its entirety. 

Among the other things to be admired is the celebrated 
pulpit of Nicolas of Pisa, on which that artist has sculp- 
tured the life of Christ, with a chisel which has none of 
the stiffness of the Middle Ages. 

The church was built at successive periods, and it is 
impossible to mention the different times at which it was 
enlarged. Some obscurity hangs even over its origin, all 
that is known for certain being that it was rebuilt in the 
fourteenth century. A document of 1012 places the dome of 
the cathedral of Sienna on the site which it occupies to-day. 




Interior of the Cathedral of Sienna 



ITALIAN RENAISSANCE. 187 

Its re construction commenced only in 1322. Everything 
proves that the plan was then changed, and that the 
proportions, still vast, were considerably reduced. 

Only the shadow of the Middle Ages glided over 
Florence, the religious sentiment in that city being almost 
always placed behind patriotic pride and love of beauty. 
The decree by which she charged the architect Arnolfo di 
Lapo or di Gambio to build St. Mary of the Flowers, reads 
like an ancient inscription, or rather the prelude of the 
great Latin Renaissance. " Listen ! " she siys : " As it is 
the highest prudence in a people of great origin to proceed 
in their affairs in such a manner that their works will 
bear witness to their wisdom and magnanimity, it is decreed 
that Arnolfo, the master architect of our city, shall make 
models for the repair of Santa Maria, with the greatest 
and most prodigal magnificence, and in such a way that 
the industry and wisdom of man will not invent, nor ever 
be able to undertake, anything that may be greater or more 
beautiful." 

We cannot consider this announcement ridiculous when 
we behold the work to which it re'ers. The nave measures 
448 feet, the transept 325 feet, and the vault 150 feet in 
height. The cupola is 136 feet wide, and the cross which 
surmounts the dome rises to the height of 387 feet. The 
exterior commands our admiration for its ornamentation in 
many-coloured marbles ; for the vastness of its immense 
octagonal dome, which rises towards heaven with as much 
beauty, and evinces more power than the towers of Gothic 
architecture ; and for the minor domes that group them- 
selves around the apse. Except the shape of the windows, 
there is nothing Gothic in this structure, strong walls being 
made to support themselves without the aid of buttresses. 



l88 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

But the want of a facade disappoints the traveller. Giotto 
had one built in the fourteenth century ; but it was after- 
wards destroyed, and has never been replaced. Glancing at 
the interior, we find its aspect grandiose but very simple, 
though the pavement is so rich that it looks like a parterre 
of flowers. The arcades are sustained by pilasters, supports 
which cannot be compared to the Greek columns or the 
Romanesque or Gothic clusters ; but the height of the dome 
and its beauty make up for every imperfection, and persuade 
us to overlook the pompous and tiresome frescoes of Vasari. 
The history of this dome beholding which Michael 
Angelo exclaimed, " It would be difficult to equal it, it is 
impossible to surpass it!" deserves to be briefly given. 
Arnolfo di Lapo, Giotto, Orcagna to mention only the most 
famous of the architects of Santa Maria worked each in 
succession upon the church without advancing it so far as to 
prepare it for the roof. Brunelleschi offered to execute a 
dome which should at a considerable height sustain itself by 
its own weight, without the additional support of buttresses, 
of iron girdings, or of a central pillar, which were the artifices 
proposed by his collaborateurs. He was treated as a fool ; 
but no other practical plan being offered, he was asked to 
execute his plan, which he did not wish to divulge. He was 
then a little more than thirty years of age. The construc- 
tion of his dome occupied him (concurrently with other 
famous works) the whole of his lifetime, and when he died it 
was not quite finished. It was completed, however, accord- 
ing to his designs. Thus was raised the first dome properly 
so called. Up to this time cupolas were only circular roofs ; 
after this they were structures apparently hung in space above 
the lower building. In later times Bramante and Michael 
Angelo spoke of raising the Pantheon of Agrippa upon the 



ITALIAN RENAISSANCE. 189 

vaults of the Temple of Peace. Such a feat had already 
been accomplished by Brunelleschi. 

On the right of the cathedral rises the isolated campanile 
built by Giotto, a square tower, semi-Gothic, that would 
be severe in style but for its rich and varied colours, which 
form the distinguishing feature of Tuscan architecture. It 
is extremely simple in outline. We cannot say that it has 
not been surpassed ; but its beautiful proportions and its 
height, 263 feet, are in perfect harmony with the cathedral 
near it. The celebrated baptistry, the gates of which 
Ghiberti sculptured in bronze, built upon the site and with 
the remains of an ancient temple, completes the decoration 
of the square of the cathedral. Chains of iron, a trophy 
won from Fisa, are here to be seen ; for Florence had con- 
quered the other city in a political as well as in an artistic 
sense. 

While the Gothic seemed about to disappear from Central 
Italy about the end of the fourteenth century, it still held its 
ground in Lombardy, producing all its perfections in the 
cathedral of Milan. But this edifice, in spiteof its magnificence, 
its vastness and renown, cannot be compared with the marvels 
of Gothic architecture, as these are to be seen in France. 
Such is the impression of most travellers. The cathedral of 
Milan is thus spoken of by Heine : " From some distance it 
looks like white paper cut into endless fantastic and orna- 
mental shapes, and on approaching it we are astonished to 
find that it is composed not of paper but of veritable white 
marble. The innumerable statues of the saints that cover 
the edifice, standing in all attitudes under their little Gothic 
niches, form a collection of people which agitates the mind 
of the beholder. On closer examination we find the build- 
ing beautiful throughout, a colossal architectural cet, a play- 



190 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

thing for children of the giants." The interior is more austere 
Its five naves are sustained by pillars flanked by columns 
and covered with immense capitals surmounted with colossal 
statues. The vaults, beautiful and bold, are 153 feet from 
the ground. Everything in the building, which measures 
520 feet by 182 feet, is in white marble, not a fragment of 
wood being seen. Numerous spires crown it, the chief or 
which, in white marble, rises to the height of 350 feet, and 
supports a large statue of the Virgin. Access to the top of 
this is gained by means of a stair, and from the summit is 
obtained a fine view of the varied scenery of Lombardy. 
The outline of the white Alps is seen against the blue 
horizon on the north. On the south and west are the 
Apennines, while all round seems a sea of verdure dotted 
here and there with white spots, which are the towns and 
villages. Commenced in 1386, under Jean Galeas Visconti, 
by French and German architects, continued for four 
hundred years, almost finished by Napoleon, this great 
edifice remains to the present time incomplete. 

There is a large number of admirable structures which 
we must leave unnoticed. Among these are the palace- 
fortresses of Sienna and of Florence, numerous churches, 
the Chartreuse of Pavia, and especially the famous ducal 
palace of Venice, wherein the Saracen taste blends with the 
Greek style, and the whole is enhanced by Gothic ornament. 
This first Renaissance style possesses wonderful charm and 
grace. But we are now about to see the architectural mind 
ridding itself more and more of the influence of the Middle 
Ages, and becoming more and more inspired with the spirit 
of antiquity. San Gallo, Bramante, Michael Angelo, and 
twenty others covered Rome with palaces and churches, 
which we shall next briefly glance at. 



ITALIAN RENAISSANCE. 



2. RENAISSANCE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 

The greater number of the palaces with which the most 
famous architects of the sixteenth century have filled Rome 
and its neighbourhood, are not equal in originality to the 
works accomplished by their predecessors one or two cen- 
turies before. The palaces of Doria, Chigi, and Barberini 
are all magnificent structures, but their interior riches eclipse 
their architectural beauties. The noble Florentine mass of 
the palace of Venezia, built in 1464; the interior colonnade 
of the palace of La Chancellerie, the work of Bramante ; 
the Court of Loges at the Vatican, arranged and decorated 
by Raphael ; the ingenious portico of the Massini palace, 
and the celebrated Farnesi palace, these are almost the 
whole that will leave a durable impression upon the 
' memory. 

The Massini palace, an object of admiration and study 
among architects, shows what talent can make out of an 
irregular and narrow space. Its curved facade has a Doric 
vestibule leading to three courts of exquisite elegance. 
Raised in 1532, it is considered the chief work of Baldassare 
Peruzzi of Sienna, who has been called the Raphael of 
architecture. 

The Farnesi is, however, the most beautiful and superb 
palace in Rome. Its formation is a perfect square. Each 
of the four sides is paved with three ranks of crosses. By 
the great exterior gate we enter into a vestibule ornamented 
with twelve Doric columns, in granite, mounted on bases. 
The court is exactly square. It is decorated all round with 
the three orders Doric, Ionic, Gothic superposed. The 
two first support the arcades of open porticoes. Pilasters 



IQ2 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

separate the windows. A magnificent staircase conducts to 
the gallery on the first storey, the vault of which was painted 
by Ann.bal Carrache and his pupils. It is a splendid de- 
coration, compared by Poussin to the works of Raphael. 

Antonio de San-Gallo, the first architect who connected 
his name with the Farnesi palace, designed its plan for 
Paul III., when that pontiff was still a cardinal. He raised 
the principal facade as high as the second storey. In 1544 
the crown of the edifice was commenced, and was executed 
according to Michael Angelo's improvements upon San- 
Gallo's designs. It is supposed that Michael Angelo was 
assisted by Vignoli. It is to the combination of incorrect 
genius and classic talent that we ov. c the wonderful cornice 
admired by architects and travellers. Vignoli, who succeeded 
Michael Angelo, died in 1564. Jacques de la Porte com- 
pleted the back facade of the palace in 1589. It is built 
of brick the entablature, the bosses, crosses, columns, and 
pediments being, however, wrought out of Italian stone, 
taken partly from the Colosseum and the theatre ot 
Marcellus. 

Beautiful churches of the modern Renaissance style are 
not wanting in Rome, but they inspire neither the interest 
of the ancient basilicas, nor have they the grandeur of our 
Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals. St. Maria of the 
Angels, St. Louis, the Jesus church, on which Michael 
Angelo laboured, as well as Jacques de la Porte and Vignole, 
are certainly remarkable for their great dimensions, the 
beauty of their fagades, and their ornaments, which, how- 
ever, are more pompous than beautiful. But it is useless to 
enumerate these when we have the basilica of St. Peter, 
surpassing them in all their greatest qualities, and even 
rivalling them in their defects. 



ITALIAN RENAISSANCE. 



'95 



The ancient basilica of St. Peter was threatening to sink 
into ruin, when Julius II. commanded Bramante to recon- 
struct it. The first stone was laid with great pomp on the 
1 8th April, 1506. In 1514 the hemicycles were finished, 
and the four great arches destined to support the dome (for 
the dome was conceived by Bramante). This architect, who 
died before the work was completed, was succeeded in 
turn by Giocondo, Julien de San-Gallo, Raphael, Peruzzi, 
and Antonio de San-Gallo. The year 1546 arrived, and not 
only was nothing finished, but considerable indecision 
existed as to what ought to be done. Then it was that, at 
the entreaties of the Pope, Michael Angelo, then an old 
man 72 years of age, with great reluctance consented to 
take the work in hand. His predecessor had always hesi- 
tated between the Latin and Greek cross. Angelo decided 
in favour of the latter, being rightly of opinion that the 
dome must be in the middle of the building. At the time 
of his death, which occurred in the year 1564, when he was 
about 90 years of age, the drum of the dome was raised. 
There remained thereafter to be constructed, according to 
his designs, the double spherical vault, the anterior branch of 
the cross, and the portico of the fa9ade. The cupola was 
not finished till the time of Sextus V. Charles Maderne 
was commissioned by Paul V. to complete the nave and 
fs.qa.de upon a new plan, more suitable to the necessities of 
the liturgy. He changed Michael Angelo's Greek cross into 
a Latin cross, by prolonging the nave, and applied those 
superposed porticoes which give the church the appearance 
of a palace. Finally Le Bernin, a man of true genius, 
enclosed this magnificent perspective with two rows of 
carved colonnades, surrounding a vast square, decorated 
with two monumental fountains and a lofty obelisk. 

N 2 



196 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

" The building of St. Peter's at Rome, with the excep- 
tion of some sacristies and mosaic work executed in the 
eighteenth century, lasted for a century and a half. Whilst 
it was being erected it saw twenty popes come and go. Its 
works were successively directed by thirteen architects, from 
Bramante to Bernin ; it cost a sum which, in 1693, amounted 
to no less than 251,450,000 francs, and the expense must 
have doubled from 1692 to the present day, so that the cost 
of the building may be set down at 500,000,000 francs." 

Its dimensions are colossal ; the exterior length is 712 
feet ; that of the transept is 500 feet ; the width of the great 
nave is 88 feet ; the vault begins to spring at 1 1 1 feet above 
the soil, and from this to its highest point there is a distance 
of 71 feet; the pillars of the nave are 30 feet high ; the 
arcades, of which they receive the support, have an opening 
of 43 feet ; while the dome is 137 feet in interior diameter, 
the pillars which support it being 70 feet in thickness. 

The cathedrals of Milan, of Mans, of Rheims, the largest 
that exist, are dwarfed by the side of St. Peter's ; and as for 
Notre Dame at Paris, and the cathedrals of Bourges and 
Chartres, they could stand very well in the transept of the 
great structure at Rome. 

The vestibule of St. Peter's is 233 feet long. The height 
under the arch of the great nave is 153 feet ; that of the 
summit of the cupola is 43 1 feet above the ground. The 
Great Pyramid of Egypt, the Spire of Strasbourg, and the 
Tower of Amiens, exceed this height by 42, 32, and 6| feet 
respectively. Again, the surface covered by St. Peter's is 
said to be 74,700 square feet, exclusively of the area 
covered by the sacristies and the galleries in front of the 
building. 

The decoration of the interior is of the greatest sumptu- 



ITALIAN RENAISSANCE. 199 

ousness. The whole pavement is of coloured marble, and 
the vault is of stucco and mosaics on a gold ground. All 
round are tombs, statues, and carved works in bronze, while 
especially famous is the canopy of the chief altar by Bernin. 
The large pilasters which support the arches of the four 
enormous triforiums of the nave, are covered with arabesques, 
and niches. From each arcade opens up the unexpected 
arcade of a chapel, which is often of the dimensions of a 
regular church. 

Above these arches, resting upon the four enormous 
pillars, runs a great frieze, on which is carved the inscription : 
1u es Petrus, et super hanc petram, &c., the letters of which 
are about the size of a man. Above the frieze rises a great 
range of composite pilasters which enclose high windows, 
and these are surmounted by an attic from which springs the 
superb dome. Finally, a gilt ball and a cross crown the 
lantern, pierced all round with sixteen windows, from which 
we look down into the area of the church as into a profound 
abyss. 

In spite of its magnificence, St. Peter's is not penect 
Some lay its imperfections upon the abandonment of 
Michael Angelo's plan, while others say that that plan itself 
was the cause of them. The basilica is wanting in religious 
tone there is nothing of mystery about it, and the small 
number of its divisions diminishes its apparent grandeur. 
Gothic or Byzantine cathedrals, it must be confessed, exhibit 
rarer and more striking beauties than this gigantic edifice. 

It was not long before St. Peter's became a type for 
ecclesiastical edifices. Almost all the churches of the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries adopted the form of the 
Latin cross, the employment of pilasters, the groined vault, 
and the central dome. Most of these churches have the 



MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 



faults of St Peters without its good qualities ; they are 
heavy and cold, and wanting in religious character. Thus 
the church of Val de Grace at Paris, dating from about 1645 
or 1665, built after the designs of Mansart, Lemercier, and 
Gabriel Leduc, is in excellent style, and would produce as 
great an effect as its great model, if it were only built on 
the same scale as to size, and decorated with as much pro 
fusion and taste. The two orders Corinthian and Compo- 
site which form its fagade, rise with an elegant simplicity. 
The drum of the dome, decorated and sustained by very 
beautiful pilasters which give it a singular lightness, takes its 
spring from a number of small turrets. Caryatides and 
vases crown the pilasters and enclose the medallions of the 
attic which supports the beautiful curve of the dome, divided 
by two ranges of dormer-windows, and by rich vertical ribs. 
In order to estimate the merit of this original conception, 
one must move a little to the north-west, upon the declivity 
of the hill, where the dome becomes isolated and seems to 
increase in size. It surpasses the Pantheon in the choice 
character of its proportions and ornaments. It has only 
one rival in Paris, and that is the dome of the Invalides. 

The dome of St. Paul's in London, on the other hand, 
though much more important and ambitious, can scarcely be 
compared to it, though taken in the mass it reflects great 
credit on its architect Sir Christopher Wren. It has a height 
of 350 feet, and rises most majestically above a colonnade 
which surrounds its base, but which gives to it an appearance 
of heaviness. The same defect is to be remarked in the 
Pantheon at Paris. Every colonnade encircling the dome, 
and of a larger diameter than it, always has the effect of 
dwarfing it Nothing is gained by attempts to improve 
upon Michael Angelo. 



ITALIAN RENAISSANCE. 



203 



Before definitively quitting Rome and Italy to trace the 
development of the second Renaissance and classic art in 




Val de Grice. 

France, we must mention two kinds of architectural decora* 
tions, which excelled the pompous school that succeeded 



204 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

Raphael, San-Gallo, and Michael Angelo in naves, squares, 
and fountains. Nothing could be more nobly conceived 
than the square of St. Peter, but, on the other hand, nothing 
could be more ridiculous than the long square of Navone. 
Modern art is not to blame for this device ; it was supplied 
by the site of the circus of Alexander Severus. Three foun- 
tains rise at the extremities and in the middle. " Figure to 
yourselves," says De Brasses, " at the centre of a square a 
block of rocks pierced and open to the daylight, with four 
colossal figures of river deities crouching at the corners of 
this block, pouring torrents of water from their urns. Here 
a lion, there a horse, are to be seen, that have come to 
drink at this fountain, while reptiles creep on the rock, which 
is surmounted with a temporary little obelisk in granite, 
which looks either like a toy or a mockery. Such is the 
Navone fountain." 

Among monumental fountains we must mention St 
Peter in Montorio, a triumphal arch of five bays, which 
crowns the Janiculine Hill, and of which the gates are de- 
corated with pools of water presented perpendicularly ; that 
of the Termini, built under Sextus V. ; the Acqua Trevi, 
a vast Corinthian composition, in which groups of sailors 
stand upon a mass of rocks above the basin, into which runs 
a stream famous in antiquity, the Acqua Vergine. The 
fountain of Trevi has all the defects of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, with all its character and decorations. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

FRENCH RENAISSANCE. 

WE have seen the Gothic, which came into existence in 
France, prolonging its reign during the whole of the six- 
teenth century, and pervading the ecclesiastical architecture. 
Under this influence, palaces and mansions soon began to 
be affected by a new power. Civil life, which gradually 
supplanted the influence of purely religious life, began to 
throw off the sombre forms of the past, and found in the 
bright style of the Renaissance the appropriate expression 
of its gladness and strong youth. Everywhere dwellings 
were built in a lighter and more elegant fashion. The Italian 
artists, doubtless, contributed to the decoration of many 
palaces ; but a French school of architects was rapidly 
founded, and soon led architectural art in Europe. It is 
sufficient to name Pierre Lescot, Bullant, Philibert Delorme, 
and Ducorceau, who rendered the reigns of Francis I. and 
Henry IV. illustrious by their works. 

The first celebrated French chateau built in the sixteenth 
century was Gaillon. All that now remains of it may be 
seen at Paris, in the court of the Palace des Beaux-Arts. 
Its charming portal, which is called the Arch of Gaillon, 
shows all the characters of the French transition from the 
Gothic to Renaissance. It is attributed to an artist named 
Pierre Fain. 

The chateau of Blois, parts of which date from the thir- 
teenth century, passed through all the phases of this trans- 



208 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

formation of architecture, and bears the marks of them. 
Louis XII., who was born there, was the first to dream of 
altering it to suit the altered times. From his reign dates 
the body of the building which forms the east side, where 
are the principal entrances. In the interior of the court the 
portico on the ground-floor is composed of arcades in seg- 
ments of a circle, supported by columns covered with ara- 
besque ornaments and fleurs-de-lis. The composition of 
this portico recalls the style of the castle of Gaillon, and 
deserves to be classed beside the rich decorations of Valois. 

To the reign of Francis I. belongs the north-west fa9ade, 
with its two beautiful galleries ; its balconies, looking as if 
suspended from long pendants ; its friezes, in which sala- 
manders alternate with birds ; its superposed pilasters, with 
varied capitals ; and the short Ionic columns of the third 
storey. 

In the middle of the fa9ade, the extent of which has 
been diminished by the addition of Gaston d'Orleans, rises 
a stair open to the daylight. Each opening in the balcony 
is ornamented with a balustrade formed by bunches of leaves 
in the first storey, and of salamanders in the higher storey. 
Above the cornice rises an attic terminating in a terrace, the 
entablature of which is ornamented with all the sumptuous- 
ness which the imagination of the Renaissance architects 
could heap upon it. The balustrades of the terrace, and the 
salamanders placed at the summits of the buttresses, com- 
bine the separate styles of decoration of the balconies and 
the stairs. Arabesques of exquisite taste, and beautiful 
niches in which allegorical statuettes are placed, ornament 
the buttresses. The stair is decorated with carved ribs, the 
points of intersection supporting medallions varied in every 
possible way. 



FRENCH RENAISSANCE. 211 

As to the interior of this abode of the Valois, it is like 
the genius of that family as simple and unpretentious 
as it is noble. Only long, low halls are to be seen, paved 
with varnished tiles, along which you are led by the cice- 
rone, who recites in monotonous voice the names of the 
kings and princes of the house, and narrates the death of 
the Duke of Guise, who was assassinated in the vestibule of 
the closet of Henry III. 

That part of the chateau which was the work of Francis I. 
was seriously damaged by the Revolution. Its restoration 
was owing to the exertions of Louis Philippe and the talent 
of M. Duban. 

Next in order may be mentioned the chateau of Chenon- 
ceaux, which was founded in 1515 by Thomas Bohier, a 
chamberlain under four kings. It was acquired in 1535 by 
Francis I., given by Henry II. to Diana of Poictiers, embel- 
lished by Catherine de Medicis, surrounded by gardens, trans- 
mitted to several members of the royal family successively, 
and, finally, is at present inhabited by a rich private person. 
It has been spared by time and revolutions, and is one of the 
productions which do the greatest honour to French art. 
Specially admirable are the two galleries which connect the 
bridge of the Cher with the apartments, the kitchens placed 
in the towers which form the piles of this bridge, the beau- 
tiful chimney of the Hall of Catherine de Medicis, made 
by Jean Goujon for Diana of Poictiers, and the unrivalled 
ceilings, covered with figures of Charles IX. and his mother. 

The chateau of Chambord, which also dates from the 
time of Francis I., is not in such good taste as the bridge of 
Chenonceaux or the charming galleries of Blois; but still 
it is extraordinary enough to merit attention. A donjon, 
flanked by four strong towers, forms the middle of the fagade. 

O 2 



212 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

With this Gothic mass are combined the pilasters and hori- 
zontal lines of the Renaissance. There is but little sculp- 
ture, all the ornamentation being heaped on the roofs. These 
consist of chimneys, dormer-windows, towers, and turrets, 
diversified with embrasures and curious sculptures. Amid 
these fantastic structures rises a lantern upon a staircase 
unequalled in France, and which can be seen from the 
heights of Blois. In this complicated staircase many per- 
sons can mount and descend at the same time, and yet be 
unseen by each other. Its crown is formed of four orders. 
The first is an elegant Corinthian portico, circular, and 
decorated with columns and pillars. Across the high arches 
of its arcades we see the spiral stair. The archivolts are 
surmounted by a cornice, an entablature, and a balustrade. 
On the second stage the turret is pierced with square win- 
dows ; it rises, boldly sustained by buttresses, in the form 
of demi-arches. Above the demi-arches is an entablature 
and cornice. It terminates in a pointed ornament like a 
pinnacle. 

The most important parts of the chateau of Fontaine- 
bleau date from the same period. It was commenced by 
Francis I. and Henry II., ornamented by Charles IX., 
doubled by Henry IV., enriched by Louis XIII. with a 
beautiful stair, mutilated by Louis XV. and Louis XVI., 
repaired by Napoleon and Louis XVIIL, and completely 
restored by Louis Philippe. 

Before the sixteenth century Fontainebleau was only a 
place of assembly for huntsmen, having only a donjon, a 
chapel of the time of St. Louis, and divers buildings occu- 
pying the circumference of an irregular court called the Oval 
Court. Francis I. razed the ancient building, with the ex- 
ception of the donjon ; replaced the massive gate with an 



FRENCH RENAISSANCE. 21$ 

elegant pavilion, called the Porte Dore'e, consisting of two 
storeys of alcoves ; raised in front of the chapel a portico 
surmounted by a monumental throne, where the great per- 
sons could sit and behold the tounieys held in the court 
below; and constructed the gallery that bears his name. 




The Porte Dor^e of the Chiteau of Fontainebleau. 

The buildings of the Court of the White Horse, where 
Napoleon bade adieu to the guard, were also commenced 
by Francis I. 

A few words on the interior of the Galleries of Francis I. 
and Henry II. will give an idea of the marvellous taste of 
the decorations of the French Renaissance at the time when 
Primatice, Rosso, Nicolo dell' Abbate, Cellini, and Serlio 



216 



MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 



painted the ceilings and walls, designed the arabesques, and 
traced the outlines of the fire-places and wainscotings. 

The Gallery of Francis I. measures 208 feet by 20. Its 
ceiling, in gilt walnut, is divided into rich compartments. 




Gal.ery of Trancis I- at Fontaintbleau. 

Armorial bearings, trophies, salamanders, and interlac -d 
monograms shine out from the rich panelling that orna- 
ments the walls to the height of 6| feet. The spaces 
between the windows are partly filled up with paintings 
and partly with alti-rilievi, representing all the fictions of 
the ancient mythology, such as chimeras, nymphs, and fawns, 
encompassed with emblems and garlands. The inlaid floor 
corresponds with the riches of the ceiling and the panelling. 



FRENCH RENAISSANCE. 2IQ 

The Hall of the Fetes is 85 feet long, and the width 
between the piers is 30 feet ; though from window to window 
the width would be considerably wider, as the walls are very 
thick and the embrasures deep. This arrangement was 
very suitable for the kind of entertainments formerly given 
here, for those who were not actually engaged in the amuse- 
ments of the hour could stand within the embrasure, looking 
on from their retreats upon the ballets and dances. Ten 
great arcaded bays, i o feet high, light this magnificent hall, 
and from it a splendid view of the gardens and flower-plots, 
and further off the massive foliage of the great forest, may 
be obtained. 

On the ceiling, great octagonal compartments, decorated 
with devices, profusely ornamented with gold and silver, 
shine out from the colours of the background. As to the 
woodwork, it is magnificent. The carving of the tribune, 
the paintings by Nicolo under direction of Primatice, the 
stucco mouldings that enrich the arcades, all combine to 
make this great hall a work of art that commands admira- 
tion. Let the reader imagine himself in these gorgeous 
apartments when in their prime, amid all the splendour of 
the costumes of the sixteenth century, let him people this 
immense conglomeration of courts, saloons, and peristyles 
with the busy life of a former time, and Fontainebleau would 
truly appear to be one of the most magical abodes ever 
erected by human art. 

The reign of Valois may be said to be the culminating 
point of the French Renaissance. To this house do we owe 
the greater part of the beauties of the Louvre, which forms 
with the Tuileries the richest contribution of palaces of 
which any European nation can boast. 

Historians do not agree as to the origin of the Louvre. 



22O MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

It is supposed that a donjon occupied the site before the 
time of Louis le Gros, who fortified it with ditches, towers, 
and walls. Charles V. inhabited the Louvre raised it, for- 
tified it, crowned it with platforms, and made in fact what 
we see it in the picture preserved at St. Denis. 

After the great repairs made on the Louvre in 1539, 
Francis I. commanded Pierre Lescot to rebuild it. The 
new Louvre, which we now call the old Louvre, was com- 
menced in 1541. At the death of Francis I. the works 
were but little advanced, and in 1548 there only existed two 
wings of the square on the south and west. Nothing is 
better conceived, or more richly ornamented, than the 
pilasters of the ground-floor and the two storeys decorated 
by Jean Goujon and Paul Ponce, a pupil of Michael 
Angelo. 

Especially in the composition and proportions of the 
roof has Lescot shown himself a consummate artist. Just 
as a woman reserves all her resources of the toilet for her 
coiffure, so this architect arranged his work in such wise that 
the luxuriousness of decoration should go on increasing as 
the building ascended, and should be most abundant and 
beautiful at the roof. Nor did he even stop here. Frankly 
accepting the necessities which the high roofs and roans 
placed upon him, he threw so much art and taste into the 
composition of the leaden pipes and the chimneys, he 
imported such research into the ornamentation of the gilded 
ridge-leads which crowned the summits of the roofs, that 
the highest parts of the building might well pass for the 
most beautiful. 

"Consider the attic alone," says Reynaud, "and you 
will see pilasters supporting a roof in perfect harmony with 
them, and above the cornice a chimney ot the most elegant 



FRENCH RENAISSANCE. 225 

shape. Glance over the whole edifice all these separate 
divisions seem to form only one whole and you are filled 
with admiration at the view of the roof, which contains most 
character, is the most elegant and rich, and in one word the 
most beautiful in modern architecture. What strikes you 
in this masterpiece is that execution has not shown itself 
inferior to conception, that the style corresponds with the 
thought sought to be embodied, and that both idea and 
expression are harmonious." 

While Philibert Delorme constructed the Tuileries for 
Catherine de Medicis, Charles IX. commenced the gallery 
with alternate courses of stone and marble which runs 
along the garden of the "Infante." The first storey was 
only raised by Henry IV. The Gallery of A j olio, as we see 
it to-day, dates only from 1662. 

The sixteenth century one does not know why was 
occupied in putting an end to the work of Lescot ; that is 
to say, in shutting up the court of the Louvre, so admirably 
commenced. It was proceeded with only under Louis XIII. 
Lemercier had the idea of giving to the court its present 
dimensions by doubling the length of the aisle ; he con- 
ceived also the four great pavilions which occupy the centre 
of each side ; but as public taste changed, he renounced in 
part the designs of Lescot. He lavishly adorned the three 
sides of the court. He did not achieve the completion of 
the work, but his plans were highly respected. 

Eernin was called from Italy to continue and complete 
the undertaking. His plans entirely nullified and stultified 
what had already been done, and it was fortunate for the 
Louvre, whatever it was for the architect himself, that he was 
obliged, on account of ill-health, to return to Italy. Pernuilr, 
whose ideas about this work had always pleased Louis XIV., 

p 



226 



MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 



next obtained the chief superintendence of the building. 
He carried out his ideas to some extent, but did not live 




Richelieu Pavilion of the Louvre. 



to see the building completed. The court of the Lonvre 
was nnished under Louis XV., according to the designs 
of Perrault. The works, interrupted during the end of the 




The Turgot Pavilion (New Louvre). 



FRENCH RENAISSANCE. 229 

eighteenth century, were recommenced under Napoleon 
with great activity. Several pediments, vestibules, and the 
fa9ade of the quay, date from this reign. Percier and 
Fontaine had the good sense to follow in the footsteps of 
Lescot and Paul Ponce, and the beautiful Hall of the 
Caryatides was completed almost exactly as it was conceived 
by the original artist 

Decrees of the Provisional Government in 1848, and 
of the President of the Republic in 1852, resulted in an 
Act for the junction of the Louvre and the Tuileries. The 
plans of MM. Visconti and Lefuel were the best that could 
be adopted, and the new Louvre remains to the present the 
largest architectural structure of our time. 

Thus was finished, in 1858, the work of four centuries. 
The Tuileries and the Louvre combined cover a space of 
61,500 square feet. At the exterior the mass of the 
Louvre extends 536 feet, and each interior face of the court 
is 390 feet. The long Gallery of the Quay, from the Pavilion 
of Charles IX. to that of Flore, is more than 1,650 feet. 
There are also two parallel lengths of 2,270 feet, which are 
covered with superb edifices, the construction of which has 
been an indication of the increasing power and glory of 
France. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

CLASSIC ART AND THE DECADENCE OF ARCHITECTURE. 

NIPPED in the bud like a new spirit in its birth, the archi- 
tecture illustrated by Peruzzi, Lescot, Philibert Delorme, 
gradually declined, became heavy, and gave way to a re- 
vival of heavy classic art ; although it still preserved in the 
seventeenth century a certain measure of majesty in its 
monotony. 

Three sides of the court of the Louvre, and the colon- 
nade of Perrault, have, as we have seen, given us beautiful 
specimens of the classic style of that regular and cold art, 
of which Mansart and his nephew were the unquestionable 
masters. Versailles is the most complete type of it. That 
palace was the seat and tomb of the old dynasty of French 
monarchs, and has held a great place in the history of 
France. 

Louis XIII. built at Versailles a sort of feudal chateau, 
flanked by four large pavilions at the angles, encircled by 
ditches with draw-bridges. Louis XIV. continued his 
father's labours, but in his additions the feudal character is 
no longer seen. The modest hunting rendezvous of Louis 
XIII. presents toward the town a fa9ade in stone and brick, 
the arrangement of which forms an agreeable perspective. 
At the end of the Court of Statues are three other courts, 
all smaller in size, and of which the last, the Marble Court, 
composes the sanctuary, around which were the apartments 
set aside for the royal household. 



CLASSIC ART. 23 I 

The buildings were commenced a little after the death 
of Mazarin, in 1661, under the direction of Levau, and were 
continued by Mansart from 1670 to 1684. They were 
severely criticised by court retainers. Saint Simon declared 
that the place chosen was " unpleasant, sad, without view, 
without wood, without water, without land, because the 
ground was sandy and marshy." To this complaint the 
finished structures are a victorious answer, opening as they 
do upon beautiful gardens, with a thousand fine views and 
vistas, and numberless sheets of water. It is only fair to 
say that the architects themselves experienced a hundred 
difficulties in carrying out this undertaking. The chief 
difficulty was to obtain funds. Ninety millions of francs 
(which at the present day would be worth four hundred 
millions) were sunk at Versailles under Louis XIV. ; and 
Mirabeau valued the total expense at twelve hundred 
millions. There is no doubt that these enormous expenses 
affected the economy of the public finances, and largely 
contributed to the embarrassments which resulted in the fall 
of the monarchy. 

The facade overlooking the garden was a repetition of 
the arrangements common to all the great buildings of the 
reigns of Louis XIV. and L.ouis XV. a storey richly 
decorated placed upon a sub-basement, which serves as the 
ground-floor. Here the great length takes away from the 
effect of the height, and the eye is fatigued by a uniform 
line. Yet, seen at sunset from near the Swiss lake, the 
profile of the faade produces a grand impression of noble- 
ness and simplicity. 

The interior arrangement, which has been subordinated 
to the preservation of the ancient chateau, is imperfect ; the 
vestibules are ill-placed ; and the stairs do not correspond 



23 a MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

with the richness and grandeur of the apartments. But 
these defects are more than compensated for by the splendid 
pictures of Lebrun, Audran, Coypel, Philippe de Cham- 
paigne, Jtmvenet, Lafosse, and Lemoyne. Ancient statues, 
the rarest marbles, fine specimens of the goldsmith's art, 
jewels, and curiosities of every description were formerly 
lavished on these empty saloons. We may still judge of 
the former splendour of Versailles by the famous Mirror 
Gallery. It is 228 feet long by 33. Its seventeen great 
crosses correspond with the mirrors, which reflect the 
gardens and the lakes. Forty-eight pilasters in marble, of 
the Composite order, enclose the windows and the arcades. 
Monograms, devices, trophies, garlands, and figures of 
children appear on the entablature and the cornice. 

The chapel, the last work of Mansart, was described by 
St. Simon as a sad catafalque, and by Voltaire as a magnifi- 
cent nick-nack. We cannot subscribe to these criticisms. 
Among the religious edifices raised on the classic model, 
none perhaps produce such an imposing effect 



As far as architecture is concerned, the present century 
fluctuates from Greek to Romanesque, and from Roman- 
esque to Gothic, constructing churches without character, 
and many palaces which are more like common houses or 
barracks. Yet it is necessary to guard against premature 
criticism. Posterity will judge our works better than our- 
selves. 

The New Opera will perhaps take rank, who knows? 
among the Marvels of Architecture. We will glance very 
briefly at a few specimens of French imitative brilliancy. 



CLASSIC ART. 



233 



The Madeleine that false, ancient temple, the de- 
corated perspective of which so well adorns the axes of the 
Place de la Concorde, and seems reproduced as if by miracle 
on the other side of the Seine in the facade of the Corps 




Viaduct of Chaumont 

Legislatif is not, it must be confessed, without grandeur 
and beauty. If we forget for a moment that it is only an 
imitation of Greek work, a Parthenon or Corinthian temple of 
Theseus, we shall admit the noble proportions of its colon- 
nades and its front, and the good effect of the vast stairs in 



234 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

front of it. It is more than 325 feet long by 130 feet broad. 
It is a single rich nave without any windows, and lighted by 
gilded cupolas. The greatest sumptuousness characterises 
this Greek sanctuary. Every sort of ornamentation the 
arches of St. Sophia, the Corinthian arrangement of Greece, 
the pilasters of the Renaissance, the gildings of Versailles and 
Genoa, are all to be found in its composition. But why, it 
may be asked, make a church like an ancient temple ? No 
two things are more at variance than the genius of Greece 
and the spirituality of Christianity. Napoleon conceived a 
more just idea of the thing, for he wished to dedicate the 
Madeleine to the glory of the French army. The foundations 
date from 1764, but the Greek form belongs to the architect 
Pierre Vignon, who worked upon it from 1806 to 1828. The 
building was not finished till 1832. 

The plan of the Bourse belongs to M. Brongniart, who 
superintended the building of it between the years 1808 and 
1813. M. Labarre continued and finished it in 1827. In 
spite of its great faults its gloom, want of air and light in 
the great central hall, and also its peristyle open to wind, 
rain, and sun this work is by no means to be disdained. 

The Columns Vendome, Juillet, and Palmier belong to 
ancient art. The first, famous through the odes of Victor 
Hugo, trophied with French victories, nobly decorates the 
square of the same name. It is an imitation in bronze of 
Trajan's Column, but very inferior to its model in the 
sculptures. 

The Column of Juillet is simple and naked, but in a 
beautiful style. Its base is of bronze, but the pedestal is 
of stone. Under the base reposes the combatants of July, 
1830; and uoon the capital stands a bold, spirited figure 
of Liberty. 



CLASSIC ART. 237 

The Column du Palmier is circled with rings to represent 
the knots of the tree, and surrounded at its base with 
allegorical figures. 

The triumphal Arch d'Etoile belongs like the other 
columns to the first empire. Commenced in 1826 by 
Chalgrin, it was finished in 1836. Its inscription bears the 
words Aux Armees Francaises. It is 142 feet wide, 150 feet 
high, and 7 2 feet broad. The grand arch of its facade mea- 
sures 84 feet by 45 feet. It is the greatest structure of its 
kind. Nothing is more simple than its arrangement. It 
consists of four openings surmounted by a richly sculptured 
frieze, a very bold entablature, and a sloping roof, on which 
are thirty shields bearing the names of great French victories. 

Before quitting this part of our subject we must not 
forget to mention the aqueduct of Chaumont, which crosses 
a valley 1,950 feet wide. It is absolutely bare of orna- 
ments, and its high and light arcades, which reach a height 
of 165 feet from the valley, and the flanks of which are 
pierced with two galleries parallel with the upper way, are 
supported upon great piers. 

The New Opera House, at Paris, has been built by M. 
Gamier. The principal fagade, unhappily blocked from 
view by its situation, is composed of a basement of arcades, 
a Corinthian colonnade forming a gallery on the first storey, 
and a very bold projecting entablature, with circular front 
Elegant cylindrical pavilions are applied to the lateral 
fagades. 

The New Opera is composed of eleven storeys, is 234 
feet high, 332 feet wide, and 494 feet from front to back. 
It is in fact a cathedral. From the bottom of the boxes 
to the top of the stage is 260 feet. 

It is in the roofs that the great originality of the building 



238 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

consists. All the different divisions have been severely 
commented upon, but in the mixed character of the roofs 
there is nothing, in our opinion, incompatible with beauty. 
Behind the peristyle, which comes before the green-room, is 
seen the cupola of the hall ; and behind it again, above the 
cupola, the grand triangular frontage, decorated with groups 
of colossal figures. 



240 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

far from being an aim worthy of achievement What the) 
strove after and desired, was to subdue them to the practice 
of the peaceful arts, and to the cultivation of those habits 
of industry and dignified ease which had made Rome the 
object of the fear and admiration of the world. Gifted with 
such feelings, and endowed with the insatiable desire to 
promote civilisation wherever they went, it is not to be 
wondered at that, even in so remote and barbarous an isle 
as was Great Britain when they first took possession of it, 
they should carry their traditions with them, and strive to 
impress upon its rude inhabitants the character of their 
own genius in the arts that elevate and humanise man- 
kind. 

Accordingly we find that, during the occupation of 
the Romans, many small towns and forts were erected, 
and a variety of structures raised, some of which, in the 
shape of the celebrated walls, are still reckoned amongst 
our architectural marvels by antiquarians and men of 
science. Evidences exist to prove that considerable edifices 
were built during this period, which, after the religion of 
the country was changed, were devoted to the purposes 
of Christian worship'; but the style of these buildings, their 
number, and the sites which they occupied, have alike 
perished from recollection. Thus much is certain, however, 
that they were, both in dimensions and execution, of a 
character sufficient to sow, as it were, the seeds of architec- 
tural art in England. Had circumstances been favourable, 
there can be no doubt that the Britons would very materially 
and immediately have profited by the structures bequeathed 
to them by the Romans, after the latter ceased from their 
occupation ; but their attention was drawn off from these 
by the peculiarity of their own position. Subject to 



ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE. 243 

frequent incursions of enemies, compelled to wage ceaseless 
war to maintain their own existence, they had neither the 
time nor the inclination to devote themselves to the cul- 
tivation of those arts of civilisation into which they had been 
initiated by their Italian conquerors. Architecture lan- 
guished in consequence, and little or no progress was made 
for a very considerable time afterwards. The conversion of 
the Saxons to Christianity, however, towards the close of 
the sixth century, had among its other great and lasting 
results, the effect of giving quite an extraordinary impulse 
to building ; and in the necessity that arose for providing 
religious houses for the celebration of the rites of the new 
religion, sprang up a zeal for building and ornamentation 
which led to general attention being directed to architecture- 
True, the structures that were then raised were composed 
almost entirely of wood ; but the construction of these 
rude dwellings gradually familiarised the minds of the people 
with edifices for the purposes of religious worship, which 
led about a century later to the introduction of the art of 
working in stone ; and this in its turn was not long in 
developing into noble monasteries, abbeys, and cathedrals. 

As we have seen, the first rude dawnings of architectural 
science arose out of the Druidical custom of placing huge 
stone pillars upon end, and uniting these at the top by 
means of a third horizontal slab. France, as we have 
already described, possesses abundance of these ancient 
remains, and England is also rich in them. Stonehenge is 
perhaps the most celebrated specimen of such monuments 
that exists in the world, and has for centuries been the 
object of the admiration and inspection of archaeologists, 
historians, and travellers. Some idea of what its aspect 
must have been in the olden time may be gleaned from 

Q 2 



244 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

the illustration which we append, representing it after an 
ideal restoration 

The Roman influence would seem to have been the 
first to weaken the veneration with which these Druid ical 
remains were regarded by the simple and ignorant inhabi- 
tants ; and the introduction of Christianity completed the 
great work which was thus so auspiciously commenced. 
Following these two came the Norman conquest, which 
introduced a new era and exerted an influence upon archi- 
tecture which was more wide-spread and more immediately 
direct. Great improvements were introduced into the art 
of building by the latter event, and the Norman taste soon 
began to prevail. Architecture made great strides, and 
from the year 1066 to that of 1154, many structures were 
erected, the design and ornamentation of which were richer 
than anything which had previously appeared. Numerous 
castles and castellated mansions of the nobility took their 
rise during this period ; and more than one-half of the 
English cathedrals show traces to this day of the influence 
of the Norman style of workmanship and design. 

Those countries which received their religion from 
Rome, and which did not contain imposing pagan temples 
like that nation, capable of being transformed into edifices 
for Christian worship, constructed churches in imitation of 
those that were to be found in the then capital of the 
world. Hence arose the Gothic style of architecture, 
which sprang into ascendency during the Middle Ages, 
and in no country, perhaps, took such deep root and 
developed so largely and magnificently as in England. 
This style is also widely known as the Pointed style of 
architecture, and is very largely to be found in the Saxon 
and Norman edifices of this country. What is known as 




Guild Hall 



ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE. 247 

the Corinthian order of Pointed architecture is, indeed, 
almost peculiar to England ; neither Fmnce nor Germany 
in both of which countries Gothic architecture was eagerly 
accepted being able to produce anything equal in their 
several styles to St. George's Chapel at Windsor, King's 
College Chapel at Cambridge, and Henry VII.'s Chapel 
at Westminster. 

Though the Gothic and * Pointed styles are often con- 
founded, there is considerable distinction between them. 
In Gothic, the general running lines are horizontal, as in 
entablatures and single cornices ; in Pointed, the general 
running lines are vertical. Arches are not necessary in 
the former, whilst in the latter they are essential. The 
Pointed style began to assume prominence during the 
reign of Henry II. ; but perhaps the most correct epithet 
to apply to the Gothic buildings which sprang up in 
England after its first introduction in such profusion, is 
Anglo-Gothic. Impressive grandeur is perhaps the per- 
vading character of this style a grandeur arising at once 
from the simplicity and massiveness of its proportions. 
The interiors of Norwich, Durham, Chichester, Canter- 
bury, and numerous other cathedrals, are fine specimens 
of the beauties of this particular style, exemplifications of 
the excellencies of which are also to be found in the ruins 
of abbeys, monasteries, priories, and churches of various 
descriptions which are scattered more or less over every 
part of the United Kingdom. 

Pointed architecture has very properly been divided 
into three particular styles, each instituted at a different 
period, and each of which possesses distinct peculiarities 
and excellencies. The first took its rise with the invention 
of the pointed arch, towards the latter part of the twelfth 



248 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

century, the second towards the beginning of the fourteenth, 
and the third towards the close of the same century. The 
chief characteristics of the first style are : pointed arches, 
long narrow windows without mullions, and a peculiar orna- 
ment resembling the teeth of sharks. Salisbury Cathedral 
is the most perfect specimen of this style. A large por- 
tion of the venerable Westminster Abbey, the transepts of 
,York Minster, the fronts of several of the southern cathe- 
drals, and numberless monastic edifices, also belong to this 
style. 

Westminster Abbey is so familiar and so well known, 
that any detailed description of it is needless. Even those 
who have not had the privilege of seeing it and it has 
perhaps received within its walls as many pilgrims from all 
parts of the world as any ecclesiastical building in Great 
Britain are well acquainted with it through the medium 
of prints and pictures, and know its towers and multi- 
tudinous buttresses as well as the spire of their own village 
church. Apart altogether from its architectural pretensions, 
it has to the people of every civilised nation a charm and 
attraction peculiar to itself, and which no other building 
in the world perhaps shares with it to an equal degree. 
The dust of England's most celebrated warriors, statesmen, 
philosophers, poets, and men of intellect, reposes within 
its sanctuary, and lends a lustre and dignity to its fame. 

The second style of Pointed Gothic architecture differs 
materially from the first. It has large windows and pointed 
arches, divided by mullions and flowing lines of tracery 
forming circles, and it is very rich in ornamentation. Un- 
like the first order, the second does not possess a single 
complete ecclesiastical edifice as a specimen of its style ; 
but nearly all our pointed buildings display rich evidences 



ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE. 251 

of its prevalence and influence. Perhaps the best existing 
specimens are to be found in St. Giles's Cathedral at Edin- 
burgh, and in Melrose Abbey. The latter edifice is, taking 
it all in all, perhaps the chief architectural pride and boast 
of Scotland. No other ancient structure in the northern 
part of the kingdom is better known, or attracts such hosts 
of tourists and admirers. This popularity is undoubtedly 
due primarily to its wonderful architectural details, its 
history, its beautiful proportions, and its minute sculptural 
achievements ; but it is also in a large measure attribut- 
able to the charm which the genius of Sir Walter Scott has 
thrown around the structure. The wonderful fancy of the 
great Wizard of the North invested it with even more than 
its ancient attractions, and has caused many who are 
familiar with his prose and verse to reconstruct it mentally 
with more than its original splendour. i;uated in a lovely 
cou itry, within easy reach of the classic Tweed, it has long 
been the pride of the natives and the object of the admira- 
tion of visitors. Descriptions of its pointed arches, roses, 
buttresses, entablatures, architraves, mullions, and spires, 
would fail to give the reader so correct and vivid an idea 
of the ruin as the accompanying illustration, which repre- 
sents it with singular fidelity. Sir Walter Scott, who loved 
it well, says 

" If you would see fair Melrose aright, 
Go visit it by the pale moonlight. " 

But whether seen under the mellow influence of the moon 
or the richer ra liance and more searching splendour of the 
sun, it is alike beautiful, striking, and impressive. 

The third style of Pointed architecture is known as the 
Florid Gothic. This style is very distinct from the others. 



252 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

The mullions of the windows and the ornamental panellings 
run in perpendicular lines. Its chief characteristics are : 
increased expansion of the windows; gorgeous, fan-like 
tracery of the vaultings ; heraldic elements in the enrich- 
ments, the horizontal lines of the doorways, the embattled 
transoms of the windows ; and the enrichment of the flat 
surfaces. Briefly, the difference between this and the other 
styles may be said to lie in the form of the arches, the 
arrangement of the tracery, and the mode of enrichment. 
Bath possesses the only entire specimen of this style, though 
many cathedrals display portions of it. ^The quaint front of 
Westminster Hall, for instance, is a good specimen, as also 
the west fronts of Gloucester, Winchester, and Chester 
Cathedrals. Illustrations of this style are also to be found 
in St. George's Chapel at Windsor, Henry VII. 's Chapel at 
Westminster, and King's College Chapel at Cambridge. 

Pointed architecture prevailed, and increased in popu- 
larity, up till the time of Henry VIII., and during the time 
it held the ascendency numbers of ecclesiastical edifices, 
that have since been the admiration alike of the ignorant 
and the learned, were erected. During the reign of that 
monarch, however, this style collapsed, and although it did 
not immediately fall out of fashion, it was so seldom 
employed thereafter that it may be said to have gone out 
of existence so far as its national character is concemed. 
About this time the Italian architects were beginning to 
make their influence be visibly felt, and the decay of the 
Pointed style gave rise to a composite order, in which the 
vagaries of the Italian school had full scope to display them- 
selves. Accordingly, during the reign of Elizabeth there 
sprang up a new style, which was a singular admixture of 
the Italian and Pointed schools, and which has since 



ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE. 



253 



become widely known after the name of that monarch. 
Some writers have declared that the introduction of this 
style into England was owing to the influence of the 
Reformation ; but it is with greater show of reason to be 
traced to the reform in architecture which took place in 
Italy about that time. Whatever the merits of the 




Pontcfract Castle. 

Elizabethan school may have been supposed to be, it 
certainly displayed qualities and attributes that were both 
original and admirable compared with that which imme- 
diately followed. Colourless alike in politics as in art, the 
reign of James I. may almost be passed over without 
comment, for it produced nothing in architecture worthy 
either of the national character or of the traditions which 



254 



MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 



previous generations had handed down. All that was 
achieved was executed by the celebrated Inigo Jones, who, 
having graduated deeply in the Italian school, and having 
been taken into the royal favour, exerted himself to trans- 




Norwich Castle. 

mogrify architectural art as it then existed in England. He 
introduced the Italian Pointed style into many of the then 
religious edifices, executed the well-known banquetting 
house at Whitehall, and designed the church of St. Paul in 
Covent Garden. 

The period from the accession of Charles I. to the 
Restoration was too troublous and momentous in a 



ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE. ' 257 

political sense, to allow of much time being devoted to 
those arts of which architecture forms one of the most 
distinguished. When the merry monarch ascended the 
throne, however, attention again began to be seriously 
directed towards them, and amongst those who then rose 
into prominence the name of Sir Christopher Wren stands 
out unique and pre-eminent. He it was who prevented 
English architecture from being depraved by French taste, 
and who executed works which to the present day remain 
the monuments of his genius and perseverance. The great 
fire of London, which happened in 1666, sweeping away so 
vast a portion of the metropolis, afforded to his genius an 
almost unexampled field for the display of original gifts of 
construction. Fired by the prospect which it opened to his 
invention, he drew out plans for the restoration of the city 
on a scale worthy of his great fame. These were not 
adopted ; but, although he was baulked in the execution of 
his great enterprise, sufficient scope was given him to enable 
him to design works that have since been the admiration of 
the educated. His labours lay chiefly in the field of eccle- 
siastical architecture, and here he achieved triumphs that 
have not since been surpassed. He may be said to have 
been the inventor of the tapering steeple, which now forms 
so prominent a characteristic of our churches, and in the 
originality and elegance of which he is still unrivalled. Bow 
Church, and St. Bride's, Fleet Street, in London, may be 
cited as among his best specimens. 

The masterpiece of this distinguished architect, however 
that by which he is best known, and which may be called 
one of the crowning glories of English architecture is St. 
Paul's Cathedral, which so appropriately occupies the ascent 
of Ludgate Hill, and attracts so large a share of attention 

R 



258 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

from all visitors to the metropolis. St. Paul's, as it at 
present stands, is not the building which was originally 
designed by Sir Christopher Wren, several material altera- 
tions having been made upon his plan, which were contrary 
alike to his judgment and determination. Even in its 
present proportions, however, it is sufficiently bold, impos. 
ing, and original to attract the gaze of every beholder, and 
elicit the admiration of all who love massiveness, symmetry 
of design, and imposing effects. The first stone of the 
building was laid in 1675, and the edifice was completed in 
thirty-five years, the last stone being placed in its position 
in the year 1710, by a son of Sir Christopher himself. 
Taken altogether, St. Paul's is a really glorious archi- 
tectural effort, its cupola especially being of surpassing 
beauty. 

Sir John Vanbrugh may be said to have succeeded 
Wren as the custodian of the national architecture, and 
he introduced an Italian school that was characterised by 
great massiveness, which was largely employed in the con- 
struction of noblemen's mansions. 

So far as architectural effort is concerned, there is 
nothing to note during the latter half of the eighteenth 
century. Sir William Chambers and Sir Robert Taylor 
were among our most prominent architects, and their style 
was based upon the Roman, or rather the Italian. Some- 
what later, however, something of a revolution was effected 
by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett, who, by means of 
drawings and illustrations, familiarised the public mind with 
the great architectural masterpieces of Greece. This caused 
the Greek style of architecture to come into fashion in 
England, grow in popular esteem, and ultimately, to a 
considerable degree, revolutionise our taste in public build- 



ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE. 26 1 

ings. The beauties of the Greek style being once recog- 
nised, our architects came also in time to give due promi 
nence to the excellencies of the Gothic and Pointed styles, 
and many specimens of all these styles of architecture are 
now to be found in our chief cities. 

The new Houses of Parliament at Westminster form 
by far the largest and most important pile which has been 
erected in this country for centuries. The old building was 
destroyed by fire in 1834, and the first stone of the present 
edifice was laid in April, 1840. Fully twenty years were 
occupied in its completion, if a structure can be said to be 
complete which is still receiving wings and additions. 

In a country like England, where the feudal system so 
long prevailed, where border feuds and family strifes were 
constantly taking place, and where the superiority of the 
chief or baron was so constantly and so forcibly asserted, 
it was to be expected that there should be many remains of 
old castles and castellated mansions. Almost every county 
can show some ruin more or less celebrated, more or less 
complete, which in former times was the stronghold of rival 
garrisons, or the home of the local potentate whose power 
was universally acknowledged within the district over which 
he held sway. Such castles were of all sizes, and of every 
style of architecture, and played a part more or less pro- 
minent in the history of the country. Perhaps one of the 
most extensive and massive of those that remain is Ponte- 
fract Castle, which is remarkable, among other things, for 
the number and disposition of its towers. 

Curiously opposed to this in style, dimensions, and 
design, is Norwich Castle, which belongs to the plain, 
square, monotonous school of strongholds, that prevailed 
to so considerable an extent upon the Borders. 



262 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

Holyrood Palace, which has played so important a part in 
the history of Scotland, and which forms an object of such 
interest to all tourists and visitors to the northern metro- 
polis, may be said to belong to the baronial or castel'ated 
style of edifices. Situated at the foot of the old classical 
Canongate of Edinburgh, under the shadow of picturesque 
Arthur's Seat, it forms a pleasing feature in the landscape, 
and awakens strange thoughts in the mind of the observer 
by reason of the historical associations connected with its 
name. Most of the stormy scenes, during the stormiest 
period of Scottish history, are connected either directly or 
indirectly with old Holyrood, which has been graphic- 
ally described by Sir Walter Scott in his " Marmion." 
Popularly, however, it is chiefly known from its connection 
with Mary Queen of Scots, and the scenes with which the 
life of that beautiful but unfortunate princess was mixec* 
up. Here the notorious Rizzio was murdered, and here are 
yet to be seen some of the veritable furniture which formed 
part of the decorations of the palace in those ancient and 
troublous times. Recently the palace has been inhabited 
by Queen Victoria, on her way northwards to her Highland 
residence at Balmoral, but the building now is merely used 
as the dwelling-place of certain officials connected with the 
Royal household. 

Among the other features of English architecture worthy 
of note, are the interiors of certain of the halls which belong 
to the metropolis and the other great cities of the empire. 
Those of Westminster and the Guildhall are especially 
worthy of admiration on account of the loftiness of the 
roofs, the graceful arches of the rafters, the richness of the 
oaken decorations, and the solidity and variety of the 
carving. 



ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE. 263 

As regards domestic architecture, England has made 
great progress of late years a progress which is most 
observable in the dwellings of the middle and lower classes. 
The country seats of the nobility are for the most part 
edifices that have been raised in former generations, and 
not a few date back to periods of historic interest. The 
growing wealth of the country having recently greatly 
increased the number of the wealthy middle classes, has 
made them a great social power in the state, and caused 
them to imitate the pomp and luxury of their superiors. 
Mansions of almost palatial stateliness have accordingly 
been raised by them, which, in addition to exterior 
architectural pretensions, are fitted up inside with great 
splendour. 

And while the rich have thus been improving and ex- 
tending their dwellings, a corresponding improvement has 
taken place in those of the working classes. Private 
enterprise, joint-stock companies, and public associations j 
have all aided in the good work of pulling down the 
rotten, ill-ventilated, and inconvenient old houses that have 
so long been the reproach of our large cities, and erecting 
in their stead buildings suitable in every way for the wants; 
of human beings. Great alterations in this respect have 
been made in most of our centres of population ; and 
although very much yet remains to be done, the lower classes 
of to-day are, as regards wholesome house accommodation, 
immeasurably better off than were the generations imme- 
diately preceding them. Public enterprise and capital have 
done much towards the achievement of this object, but 
private benevolence has done much more. Mr. Peabody, 
Miss Burdett Coutts, and other noble-minded ladies and 
gentlemen, have given enormous sums of money towards 



264 MARVELS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

the erection of workmen's dwellings ; and the success they 
have achieved in this direction cannot be over-estimated. 
The good they have done will live after them, and their 
names will long be held in remembrance by a benefited 
and grateful people. Well may these eminent philan- 
thropists say to others who have the means "Go and 
do likewise 1" 






THE 



THE TROW A SMITH BOOK MAM'FAOTCKINO CO., 206 213 K. 12TH 



(SElwcattottal 



of 



to of jStabtnts in Stools, ^tataies, ana Colleges 



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A LEXANDER. OUTLINES OF MORAL SCIENCE. 
** By ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER, D.D., late Professor in the 
Theological Seminary at Princeton, N. J. One volume, i2mo, 
cloth .......... $i 50 

This work is the last which proceeded from the lamented author's hand. 
Ethical philosophy engaged his mind for at least threescore years, and was 
his favorite study. During nearly forty years he lectured on the subject at 
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treatise is elementary in its character. It is intended to lay foundations and 
elucidate principles ; in other words, it is upon the Philosophy of Morals 
The great simplicity and clearness of the author's style will commend it 
as a suitable text-book for colleges, theological seminaries, and other institu- 
tions of learning, for which purpose indeed it has for many years been 
widely used. 



II) AUTAIN, PROF. ART OF EXTEMPORE SPEAKING 
*-* (THE). Hints for the Pulpit, the Senate, and the Bar. By M. 
BAUTAIN, Vicar-General and Professor at the Sorbonne. Edited 
by a Member of the New York Bar. With Additions, Rules of 
Debate, etc. One volume, I2mo, cloth . . . . $1.50 

Himself one of the most eloquent of Frenchmen, Prof Bautain in this 
manual lays down the rules and principles which must guide those who 
expedl to gain distinction as ready speakers and debaters. The treatise is 
divided into two parts. In the first part, the " exposition of the subject," 
the qualifications necessary for public speaking, " the mental aptitudes " 
for it, and "the physical qualities of the orator, natural and acquired," are 
discussed. In the second part, M. BAUTAIN treats at length of " the divi- 
sion of the subject," " its conception," " the final preparation before speak- 
ing," both intellectual, moral, and physical, and of the discourse itself, with 
its exordium, peroration, etc., etc. The translator of the volume, a distin- 
guished member of the New York Bar, has admirably adapted it to the use 
of the American public by adding several chapters, giving some practical 
directions regarding the use of the voice in public speaking, and summarizing 
the more important rules of order and debate. The treatise is popular in 
style, and dire5l in its treatment of the important subjeft which it discusses. 
The American editor very justly remarks in the preface that his work " has 
n counterpart or rival in the English language, so prolific of treatises upon 
rhetoric and the separate portions of the arts of composition and deli?' 



Charles Scribner & Co.s Text-Books, etc. 



/T-.ARK (N. G.). AN OUTLINE OF THE ELEMENTS OF 
V" THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, for the Use of Students. By H, 
G. CLARK, Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in Union 
College. One volume, I2mo, cloth ..... $i 25 
Originally prepared as a manual for the use of students in the college 
with which its author is connected, this volume, from its method, will attract 
the interest of the general reader. It is peculiar in aiming to bring out more 
fully than has hitherto been done the language and the physical and intellectual 
elements of English character. The influence of the Celtic and Roman, the 
Anglo-Saxon, Danish, and Norman elements respectively, are traced 
succinctly, and the modifications through which the language has passed are 
clearly sketched. The volume closes with a number of extracts from the 
authors of the different periods, which serve as specimens to illustrate the 
changes of the language under the influences referred to. 



COLLIER. A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL Ac- 

^-" COUNT of the Rarest Books in the English Language (alpha- 
betically arranged) which during the last fifty years have come under 
the observation of J. PAYNE COLLIER, F.S.A. In four volumes, 
cloth ........... $12 oo 

These volumes are the result, or rather they are one of the results, of fifty 
years' untiring labor, by one of the most conscientious, industrious, and per- 
severing of English bibliographers. In the preface Mr. Collier states that 
during his whole life and he was nearly eighty years of age when this work 
was produced he has been a diligent reader of all works connected with 
early English literature, and that it has been his custom to lighten his severer 
labors by making extracts from and criticisms upon these productions 
whether they may have been in prose or verse. These volumes have been 
mainly derived from the immense mass of material accumulated in this way. 
The student of English literature can nowhere else find such a remarkable 
collection as this of the interesting, the curious, and the rare. 

** The remainder of the edition of this valuable work, having passed en- 
tirely under the control of Messrs. Charles Scribner & Co., is now offered at 
a price much lower than that originally fixed. 

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historian would look through Mr. Collier's collection and see at once from his account what 
books would be useful for his purpose, and what would not" London Saturday Review. 

" The most importaut work ever repoolisfied ID this country." Rouna Tib<* 



Charles Scribncr & Co.'s Text-Books, etc. 



. RELIGION AND CHEMISTRY ; OR, PROOFS OB 
^-' GOD'S PLAN IN THE ATMOSPHERE AND ITS ELEMENTS. 
De.ivered at the Brooklyn Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y., on the 
Graham Foundation. By JOSIAH P. COOKE, JR., Irving Professor 
of Chemistry and Mineralogy in Harvard University. One volume, 
crown 8vo, cloth ........ $2 50 

The chief aim of these le&ures is to show that " there is abundant 
evidence of design in the properties of the chemical elements alone, and 
hence that the great arguments of natural theology rest upon a basis which 
no theories of organic development can shake." It will be seen, therefore, 
that they directly refute the Darwinian theory as to the origin of species, at 
least from one point of view. The arguments advanced are some of them 
novel, and all exceedingly forcible. In consequence of the large popular de- 
mand for the work, a new and revised edition, in cheaper form than that in 
which it originally appeared, has been issued. 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

" Viewed as a scientific book alone, on its special subjeft, we know of none that can come 
in competition with ' Religion and Chemistry,' while the polished and elegant style of the 
author, and his earnest conviction, everywhere apparent, that the truths he explains owe their 
chief value to the glimpses they afford us of the Divine economy of creation, impart to it a 
peculiar and signal value." New York Times. 



/^OOLEY. A TEXT-BOOK OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 

7"* An accurate, modern, and systematic explanation of the Elemen- 
tary principles of the Science, adapted to use in High Schools and 
Academies. By LE ROY C. COOLEY, A. M., Professor of Natural 
Science in the New York State Normal School. One volume, 12010, 
with over 150 illustrations ...... $i 50 

In dealing with the various problems coming within the range of the 
science which he expounds, Prof. COOLEY uniformly proceeds from the 
cause to the effect, thus pursuing the only natural method, and that which ia 
the simplest In form the work is striftly logical, and in matter it is concise, 
dear, and distinct, while it is brought down to the latest developments of the 
cience, 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

"I think it will be found to be well adapted to the purpose for which it was written." 
t'rof SCHANCK, Princeton College, New Jersey. 

" I am pleased with the work, and have recommended it to the noti:e of teachers of that 
department in the Maine State Seminary, connected with the Co]ege." Prof. R. C 
STANLEY. Bates College. Leiviston. Me. 



Charles Scribner & Co.'s Text-Books, etc. 5 

^Literature. 

A COMPENDIOUS HISTORY OF ENGLISH LIT- 
^" ERATURE, and of the English Language from the Noitnan 
Conquest. With numerous Specimens. By GEORGE L. CRAIK, 
LL.D., Professor of History and English Literature in Queen's Col- 
lege, Belfast. Two volumes, 8 vo ; half calf, $12 oo ; cloth . $7 50 

In extent and exhaustiveness of reseai ch, in breadth of scope as well 
as in minuteness and accuracy of detail, Professor Craik's great work stands 
without a rival among similar treatises. Prof. Craik's method of treating 
this subject is peculiarly his own. Combining the history of English litera- 
ture with that of the English language, he takes the ground that " in the 
earliest state in which it is known to us the English is both a homogeneous 
and a synthetic language, homogeneous in its vocabulary, synthetic in 
its grammatical structure. It has since, though of course always operated 
upon, like everything human, by the law of gradual change, undergone only 
two decided revolutions ; the first of which destroyed its synthetic, the 
second its homogeneous character. Thus, in its second form, it is still a 
homogeneous, but no longer a synthetic language ; in its third it is neither 
synthetic nor homogeneous, but has become both analytic in its grammar 
and composite in its vocabulary. The three forms may be conveniently 
designated : the first, that of pure or simple English ; the second, that of 
broken or semi-EngHsh ; the third, that of mixed or compound or com- 
posite English. The first of the three stages through which the language 
has thus passed, may be considered to have come to an end in the eleventh 
century ; the second in the thirteenth century ; the third is that in which it 
sti 1 ! is." Prof. Craik's treatise is devoted to this " third form of the lan- 
guage," as he defines it, and which he regards as commencing with the 
poetry of Chaucer, in the middle of the fourteenth century. Following 
down English literature from the time of Chaucer, he gives us accounts not 
only of writers known to all scholars, and the names of the majority of whom 
still live, but he furnishes specimens of the productions of a large number 
long since forgotten, but whose style illustrates most forcibly the transi- 
tions through which our language has passed. In fulness of information 
and in critical accuracy Prof. Craik's work, as we have already said, sur- 
passes all that have preceded it in this fascinating field of investigation. 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

" Protessor Craik's book, going as it does through the whole history of the language, pro- 
perly takes a place quite by itself. We have philological books treating of our earliest 
literature, but we do not know of any book which, like the present, embraces both, Tht 
great value of the book is its thorough comprehensiveness." London Saturday Review. 

"As a record or chronicle of English literature, Mr. Craik's bcoic is by far (lit best thai 
has yet been published." North A tterican Rnitiu. 



Charles Scribner & Co.'s Text-Books, etc. 

cmb '3Jlhef0ric, 

DAY. ART OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION ~ ; THE). By 
Prof. HENRY N. DAY. One volume, i2mo, cloth. Free, $i 50 

ART OF DISCOURSE (THE). A System of Rhetoric 

adapted for use in Colleges and Academies, and also for private 
study. By Prof. HENRY N. DAY. One volume, i2mo, cloth. 

Price, *i 5 

The Art of Composition and the Art of Discourse are complementary 
treatises designed to cover the whole field of text book instruction in 
composition and rhetoric. They arc both characterized by beginning with 
the thought to be expressed as the vital element in all good speaking and 
writing, and by proceeding from that to the verbal expression. They arc 
both unfolded in a method carefully conformed to the principles of thought, 
progressive and exhaustive. They, also, are both designed to train the 
pupil in the art of writing, and are furnished with copious exercises on 
each form of thought, each process of representation, and each mode of 
verbal expression. 

OPINIONS OF PRACTICAL INSTRUCTORS. 

" Day's ' Art of Discourse ' is now used as the Rhetorical Text-Book in Yale College, and 
I think no better work, for the class, has yet been published." CYRUS NORTH 'ROP, 
Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in Yale College. New Haven, A uftai 

IQtll, 1868. 

" Recognizing the importance of method in learning the art of composition, he begins at 
the simplest elements of grammar. Training, under such a system, cannot fail to produce 
method in thought, and to open to the student hitherto unprolific avenues to thought of 
which he has had no conception. In this belief, we cannot but express the hope that 
these works of Professor Day may come into general use in our schools and colleges." 
Hew Englander. 

" Having for some time made use of ' Day's Art of Composition ' as a class-book, I can 
without hesitation affirm it to be the best book of the kind I have met with. The author has 
struck out a new path for himself, presenting the principles of the language on a system pe- 
culiarly his own. By rightly perceiving that composition is the complement to grammar, ha 
simultaneously makes the learner acquainted with the fa&s and principles of the English lan- 
guage as it is, and, by carefully devised exercises, habituates him to the use of it as an instru- 
ment for the expression of thought. Grammar and composition taught in this manner be- 
come, instead of ahhorred and mechanically executed tasks, an exercise pleasant to the pupil, 
and an important means of mental training." HENR Y W. SIGLAR,NeTvburgh\t?e*> 
York) Institute. 

" 'The Art of Composition,' and the ' Art of Discourse,' by Prof. Henry N. Day, are ex- 
cellent examples of text-books on the subjects of which they treat The author's principles are 
thoroughly philosophical, and are stated with great precision and clearness, while at th 
ame time he brings every topic to the test of practical rules and examples. If his books are 
not of the kind which may be called easy, they are yet such as command the corfiderw of 



Charles Scribncr & Go's Text-Books, etc. 7 

the best class of teachers. They are books which afford good mental discipline, and ait 
likely to insure sound scholarship, and to ciake good writers and speakers." yOHN 6. 
HA R T, Principal State Norrtal School, Trenton. 

" I cannot ha- the slightest hesitation in pronouncing it the best work on English Gram- 
mar (in its own ^ partment) with which I am acquainted. The principal peculiarity of the 
work the reducing language to its proper subordination to thought is a feature that must 
commend itself to every intelligent mind.." J. Q. FRENCH, Atkinson, New Hampshire. 



of 



"P\AY. ELEMENTS OF LOGIC. Comprising the Doc- 
*** trine of Laws and Produces of Thought and the Doctrine ol 
Method, together with Logical Praxis. Designed for classes and 
for private study. By Prof. HENRY N. DAY. One volume, I2tno. 
Price ........... $i 50 

Professor DAY'S long experience as an instructor has enabled him to 
fully appreciate the necessities of the student and teacher, and this work 
with those upon the Arts of Composition and of Discourse, which supple- 
ment it, make a series of text books of unsurpassed practical value. The 
Logic is designed for learners, and the aim has been to develop the science 
in strict method. From the determination of the single radical principle of 
thought, its laws and the frxms of its products have been methodically 
evolved ; and the doctrine of method with the exercises is but the end 
and result toward which the unfolding of the doctrine of the elements of 
thought have steadily tended. The exercises are prepared specially for 
the help of the teacher. Recognizing fully all that Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON 
and others have done for the science, Professor DAY does not confine himself 
strictly to any one method. Various new points are introduced which have 
already been approved and accepted by the numerous instructors who have 
adopted the work as a text book as valuable contributions to the advance- 
ment of the science. 

OPINIONS OF PRACTICAL INSTRUCTORS. 

No person who studies this book can well fail to understand logic. Dr. HORA CB 
WEBSTER, of the College of the City of New York. 

A work of decided merit and well worthy a place as a text book in our higher institution* 
of learning. E. J. RICE, President University of Kansas. 

I am most favorably impressed with its suitableness for a text book J. If. LIND- 
SA Y, President o/ Geneva College. 

An excellent treatise and is well adapted for a text book in the higher institutions of 
>earning. C. NUTT, President Indiana State University. 

I have looked over DAY'S Logic and am very much pleased with the method and the 
fulness of the author's discussion of the subject. The points which he specifies in his 
introducftorv pages give it peculiar excellence and fit it to be a text book in pure logic, I 
shall take great pleasure in commending it to students The lite Professor DUNN, cf 
Brovm University. 



Charles Scribner & Co's Text-Books, etc. 



. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF ENGLISH 
LITERATURE. By Prof. H. N. DAY, of New Haven. One 
volume, I2mo, uniform with DAY'S " Logic" " Art of Discourse? 
and " Art of Composition.'' 1 Cloth $2.25 

The distinguishing characteristic of this text-book is that it directs tb.3 
study to the literature itself as a growth, not to authorship, not to history, 
not to criticism. It presents, in the first part, a selection of the master- 
pieces of our literature, most worthy of special study in themselves, while 
best representing the successive phases of the language and literature. 
These selections are accompanied by copious notes, philological, historical, 
and aesthetical, indicating and explaining the changes in the forms and 
meanings of words, the structure of the sentence, and the verse-forms in our 
language. It thus presents a study that can be prosecuted with as definite 
an aim and object in each successive lesson as the ordinary study of a Greek 
or Latin classic. It guides the learner to what he is to learn, and the teacher 
to what he is to teach. Besides the concrete presentation of our literature 
in these representative selections, in the second part it presents, in a strict 
analytical method, a full detailed view of the elements of the language, and 
of the departments of the literature, with the leading authors in each depart- 
ment To this part the notes or the selections refer throughout The rise 
of language, the origin and affinities of the English tongue, its elements 
and characteristics, the principle? of its orthography, pronunciation, word- 
formatiou, versification, etc., are here systematically treated for thorough 
study or for incidental reference. 



F)AY. THE AMERICAN SPELLER. By Prof. H. N. DAV, 
*~* Author of "Logic," "Art of Discourse," "Art of Composi- 
tion,' 1 and " Introduction to English Literature." 

In preparing this work, the entire vocabulary of the language has been 
ranged word by word, and distributed into classes under the orthographic 
principles which have determined the spelling. The pupil thus, while 
learning comparatively few individual words, comes unconsciously to a 
practical acquaintance with the classes of words, and so to the principles of 
the orthography. The work is of the medium size of spelling-books in use, 
and of the ordinary size of type Hut by its compactness, its methodical 
arrangement in groups and classes, and its omission of foreign matter, it 
contains more words than ordinary spelling-bi >oks, besides a primer sufficiently 
ample to introduce adults to the more advanced reading lessons, and also a 
large selection of choice sentences for dictation exercises. 



Charles Scribner & Co.'s Text-Books, etc. 9 

Sfceberctiisi. 

T"\AWSON. THE FCEDERALIST : A Collection of 
^"^ Essays, written in favor of the New Constitution, as agreed 
to by the Federal Convention, September 17, 1787. Reprinted from 
the original text. Under the editorial supervision of HENRY B. 
DAWSON. University edition. One volume, 8vo, cloth . $3 oo 

THE SAME ; with Bibliographical and 
Historical Introduction, Notes and Portraits. By HENRY B. 
DAWSON. One volume, 8vo, cloth ..... $3 75 
One of the first and most striking results of the late war was the develop- 
ment of an eager desire among all intelligent persons to investigate the theory 
and principles of our Government ; and as an aid to the proper understand- 
ing of the great questions which these involved, there is no work in exist- 
ence to be compared with the Fuederalist " The text employed in this edi- 
tion," as Mr. Dawson states, " is that which the distinguished authors them- 
selves originally gave to the world, without addition or abridgment, or the 
least alteration, except where typographical errors were subsequently cor- 
rected by the authors themselves." 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

" Mr. Dawson has performed the task with evident zealous interest in the subjec% with * 
painstaking and minute thoroughness of research, which is as uncommon as it is commenda- 
ble, and with unmistakable explicitness in the statement of its results. " ff. Y. Tribune. 

" Mr. Dawson's edition is the best that has been published." ff. Y. Independent. 

" Altogether, this stands as the best edition of the Fcederalist ever issued in all its particu- 
lars." Boston Past. 



m 

T\E VERE (PROF. M. SCHELE). STUDIES IN ENG- 

*-^ LISH ; OR, GLIMPSES INTO THE INNER LIFE OF OUR 
LANGUAGE. By M. SCHELE DE VERE, LL.D., Professor of 
Modern Languages in the University of Virginia. One volume, 
crown 8vo, cloth ........ $2 50 

Nearly fifty years ago Thomas Jefferson, the founder of the University o/ 
Virginia, inserted Anglo-Saxon among the subjects on which a course of 
ledures was to be delivered by the incumbent of the chair of modern 
languages. ProC Schele De Vere, who has for many years filled the chaii 
in question with marked ability, has gone beyond the wishes of Mr. Jeffer- 
son so far as to embody in this volume the results of his extensive 
V rilo'.ogical studies and researches. The volume is written in an exc'd- 



_1O Cliarles Scnbner & Co.'s Text-Books, etc, 

ingly attractive style ; it <s entertaining in matter, fall of curious information, 
and forms an admirable introduction to the more profound works of Miiller 
or Marsh, while it is in itself an admirable compend. 
CRITICAL NOTICES. 

" No one will read it, still less will any one study and take its lessons, without finding his 
comprehension greatly enlarged of the manifold origin, th vast variety, and the incompai- 
able excellences of our English language. It is withal an aid to the etymology of a 
multitude of words or classes of words, of which any scholar, however well-informed, will be 
glad to avail himself in the study of his mother tongue." New York Examiner. 

" The work may be read to advantage by all who have any respect for sense or conscience 
in the use of words, and who believe that justness of thought is closely connefted with pro- 
priety of expression." New York Tribune. 



"P\ WIGHT. MODERN PHILOLOGY : ITS DISCOVERIES, 

*"^ HISTORY, AND INFLUENCE. With Maps, Tabular Views, 
and an Index. By BENJAMIN W. DWIGHT, Author of "The Higher 
Christian Education." Two volumes, 8vo, cloth . . . $6 oo 
The topics discussed in these volumes, the author remarks, "spread over 
a wide area of the most deeply interesting and intimately related subjects." 
" Their very titles," he adds, " bear inspiration in them to a mind of scholar- 
ly tastes and habits : ' An Historical Sketch of the Indo-European Lan- 
guages ;' 'The History of Modern Philology;' 'Etymology as a Science ;' 
' Comparative Phonology,' and ' Comparative English Etymology in its 
Classical Aspecls.' In volume first the historical, ethnographic, and biblio- 
graphical elements of comparative philology are presented, although brief- 
ly, yet, it is believed, in adequate detail ; while in the second volume its 
more scientific and practical characteristics are offered to the view. From 
them both as one whole, any student of moderate classical attainments, and 
of but ordinary force of will, can obtain, not only a competent introduction 
to the treasures of the new philology, but also a sufficiently strong sense 
of having mastered its comprehensive array of materials and deductions to 
be both able and, as the author would hope, eager to pursue his studies, 
effectively for himself, in this most inviting field of research." The work is 
one of the most scholarly, profound, philosophical, and comprehensive in 
the whole range of our philological literature. 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

" This volume is written in plain, intelligible, and unpretending language, and is the pro- 
duction, evidently, ef a man of very considerable learning, unremitting diligence, and large 
and discriminating powers of research. It is destined, if we mistake not, to enjoy the com- 
paratively rare merit of being at once the text-book of the student, and the hand-book of the 
philosopher." Bookseller (Londfm). 



Cljovlcs 0cvtbnct & Co., 

654 Broadway, New York, 

HAVE JUST COMMENCED THE PUBLICATION OF 



Ijp lilus^rehb ikerg of 



This Library is based upon a similar series of works now in course of issue 
in France, the popularity of which may be inferred from the fact that 

OVER ONE MILLION COPIES 

have been sold. The volumes to be comprised in the series are all wriucn 
in a popular style, and, where scientific subjecls are treated of, with care- 
ful accuracy, and with the purpose of embodying the latest discoveries and 
inventions, and the results of the most recent developments in every de- 
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striking phenomena in nature, and of the various operations and processes 
in .science and the arts. Occasionally notable passages in history and re- 
markable adventures are described. The different volumes are profusely 
illustrated with engravings, designed by the most skillul artists, and execu- 
ted in the most cart-ful manner, and every possible caie will be taken to 
render them complete and reliable expositions of the subjects upon which 
they respectively treat. For THE FAMILY LIBRARY, for use as 
FRIZES in SCHOOLS, as an inexhaustible fund of ANECDOTE and 
ILLUSTRATION' for TEACHERS, and as works of instruction and 
amusement for readers of all ages, the volumes comprising THE ILLUS 
TRATED LIBRARY OF WONDERS will be found unexcelled. 
'The following \olumes of the series have been published : 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



Optical 

'"THE WONDERS OF OPTICS. By F. MARION. 

* Illr.strated with over seventy engravings on wood, many of 
them full-page, and a colored frontispiece. One volume, i2mo. 

Price $i 50 

For specimen illustration seepage 13. 

In the Wonders of Optics, the phenomena of Vision, including the struc- 
ture of the eye, optical illusions, the illusions caused by light itself, and the 
influence of the imagination, are explained. These explanations are not at 
all abstract or scientific. Numerous striking facts and events, many of which 
were once attributed to supernatural causes, are narrated, and from them the 
laws in accordance with which they were developed are derived. The closing 
section of the book is devoted to Natural Magic, and the properties of Mir- 
rors, the Stereoscope, the Spectroscope, &c.. &c., are fully described, to- 
gether with the methods by which "Chinese Shadows," Spectres, and nu- 
merous other illusions are produced. The book is one which furnishes an 
almost illimitable fund of amusement and instruction, and it is illustrated 
with no less than 73 finely executed engravings, many of them full-page. 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

"The work has the merit of conveying mi'fh useful scientific information in a pnimlar 
manner." PhiUi. North American 

" Thoroughly admiraDie, and as an mtroclL"Sion to tfiis sciencs fur the general rea.lcr. 
leaves hardly anything to be desired." .V. ) '. Kvenine Post. 

"Treats in a charming, but scientific ana exhaustive manner, nie woinierful subject of 
optics." Cleveland Leant-'- 

" AH the marvels of light and of optical illusions are made clear." N. Y. Observer. 



T^HUNDER AND LIGHTNING. By W. DE Fox- 

* VIELLE. Illustrated with 39 Engravings on wood, nearly 
all full-page. One volume. i2mo . . . . $i 50 

For specimen ittwdration* fee page 14. 

Thunder and Lightning, as its title indicates, deals with the most star- 
tling phenomena of nature. The writings of the author, M. De Fonvielle, 
have attracted very general attention in France, as well on account of the 
happy manner in which he calls his readers' attention to certain facts hereto- 
fore treated in scientific works only, as because of the statement of others 



Illustrated Library of Wonder*. 



often observed and spoken of, over which lie appears to throw quite a new 
light. The different kinds of lightning forked, globular, and sheet light- 
ning are described ; numerous instances of the effects produced by this won- 
derful agency are very graphically narrated ; and thirty-nine engravings, nearly 
all full-page, illustrate the text most effectively. The volume is certain to 
exrite popular interest, and to call the attention of persons unaccustomed to 
observe to some of the wonderful phenomena which surround us in this 
world. 

CRITICAL NOTICKS. 

" In the book before us the dryness of detail is avoided. The author has given us all 
the scientific information necessary, and yet so happily united interest with instruction that 
no person who has the smallest particle of curiosity to investigate the subject treated of can 
fail to be interested in it." A'. Y. Herald. 

Any boy or girl who wants to read strange stories and see curious pictures of the do- 
ings of electricity, had better get these books." Our Young Folks. 

" A volume which cannot fail to attraft attention and awaken interest in persons who 
have not been accustomed to give the subject any thought" Daily Register (New 
1-faven}. 



WONDERS OF HEAT. By ACHILLE CAZIN. 

With 90 illustrations, many of them full-page, and a colored 
frontispiece. One volume, I2mo . . . . . $i 50 

far sfiidmen illustratwn see page \ <;. 

In the Wonders of Heat the principal phenomena are presented as viewed 
from the standpoint afforded by recent discoveries. Burning-glasses, and the 
remarkable effects produced by them, are descril>ed ; the relations between 
heat and electricity, between heat and cold, and the comparative effects of 
each, are discussed; and incidentally, interesting accounts are given of the 
mode of formation of glaciers, of Montgolfier's balloon, of Davy's safety- 
lamp, of the methou* of glass-blowing, and of numerous other facts in nature 
and processes in art oependent upon the influence of heat. Like the other 
volumes of the Library of Wonders, this is illustrated wherever the text 
gives an opportunity iur explanation by this method. 

CRITICAL NOT1CKS. 

" From the first to \if. very last page the Interest is all-absorbing." Albany Kvtning 
Ti'tes. 

" The book deserves, a.; it will doubtless attain. A wide circulation." f'itts6urtr Chron- 



Ill-list rated Library of Wonders. 



"This book is instructive and clear." Independent. 

" It describes and explains the wonders of heat in a manner to be clearly understood by 
non-scientific readers." r/iila. Inquirer. 

gnfmal Jrutclitflcnce. 

HTHE INTELLIGENCE OF ANIMALS, WITH 

ILLUSTRATIVE ANECDOTES. From the French of ERNEST 

MENAULT. With 54 illustrations. One volume. i2mo . $i 50 

For specimen illustration see page 1 6. 

In this very interesting volume there are grouped together a great num- 
ber of fa<5ts and anecdotes collected from original sources, and from the 
writings of the most eminent naturalists of all countries, designed to illus- 
trate the manifestations of intelligence in the animal creation. Very many 
novel and curious facts regarding the habits of Reptiles, Birds, and Beasts 
are narrated in the most charming style, and in a way which is sure to 
excite the desire of every reader for wider knowledge of one of the most 
fascinating subjects in the whole range of natural history. The grace and 
skill displayed in the illustrations, which are very numerous, make the vol- 
ume singularly attractive. 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

" May be rftommended as very entertaining." London Athenceum. 
" The stories are of real value to those who take any interest in the curious habits of 
animals." Rochester Democrat. 



P GYPT 3,300 YEARS AGO ; OR, RAMESES THE 
* ' GREAT. By F. DE LANOYE. With 40 illustrations. One 
volume, i2mo . . . . . . . . . $i 50 

For specimen illustration see page 1 J. 

This volume is devoted to the wonders of Ancient F.gypt during the time 
of the Pharaohs and under Sesostris, the period of its greatest splendor and 
magnificence. Her monuments, her palaces, her pyramids, and her works 
of art are not only accurately described in the text, but reproduced in a 
series of very attractive illustrations as they have been restored by French 
explorers, aided by students of Egyptology. While the volume has the 
attraction of being devoted to a subject which possesses all the charms of 
novelty to the great number of readers, it has the substantial merit of dis- 
cussing, with intelligence and careful accuracy, one of the greatest epochs 
in the world's history. 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



CRITICAL NOTICES. 

" I tnink thi; a good book for the purpose for which it is designed. It is brief on each 
head, lively and graphic, without any theatrical artifices ; is not the work of a novice, but 
of a real scholar in Egyptology, and, as far as can be ascertained now, is history." 
JA MES C. MOFFA T, Professor in Princeton Tlu-olog-cal Seminary. 

"The volume is full of wonders." Hartford Coiirn'it. 

" Evidently prepared with great care." Chicago Evening Journal. 

" Not merely the curious in antiquarian matters will find this volume attractive, but the 
general reader will be pleased, entertained, and informed by it." Portland Argus. 

" The work possesses the freshness and charm of romance, and cannot foil to repay all 
who glance over its pages." Philadelphia City Item. 



ADVENTURES ON THE GREAT HUNTING 
GROUNDS OF THE WORLD. By VICTOR MEUNIER. 
Illustrated with 22 woodcuts. One volume I2mo . . $i 50 

For sfecimcn illustration see page l8. 

Besides numerous thrilling adventures judiciously selected, this work con- 
tains much valuable and exceedingly interesting information regarding the 
different animals, adventures with which are narrated, together with accu- 
rate descriptions of the different countries, making the volume not only 
interesting, but instructive in a remarkable degree. 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

"This is a very attractive volume in this excellent series." Cleveland Herald. 
" Cannot fail to prove entertaining to the juvenile reader." Albion. 
" The adventures are gathered from the histories of famous travellers and explorers, and 
have the merit of truih as well as interest." N. Y. Observer. 

"Just the book for boys during the coming Winter evenings." Boston Daily Journal. 



WONDERS OF POMPEII. By MARC MONNIER. 
With 22 illustrations. One volume I2mo . . $1 50 

for specimen illustration see page 19. 

There are here summed up, in a very lively and graphic style, the results 
of the discoveries made at Pompeii since the commencement of the exten- 
sive excavations there. The illustrations represent the houses, the domes- 
tic utensils, the statues, and the various works of art, as investigation gives 
every reason to believe that they existed at the time of the eruption. 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



CRITICAL NOTICES. 

" It is undoubtedly one of the best works on Pompeii that have been published, and has 
this advantage over all others in that it records the results of excavations to the latest 
dale." .V. Y. Herald. 

"A very pleasant and insir::flive book." Bait. Mtth. Prat. 

" It gives a very clear and accurate account of the buried city." Portland Transcript. 

SufJlime fn "Nature. 

THE SUBLIME IN NATURE, FROM DESCRIP- 
TIONS OF CELEBRATED TRAVELLERS AND 
WRITERS. By FERDINAND LANOYE. Illustrated with 48 wood- 
cuts. One volume I2mo ...... $i 50 

For specimen illustration see page 2O. 

The Air and Atmospheric Phenomena, the Ocean, Mountains, Volcanic 
Phenomena, Rivers, Falls and Cataracts, Grottoes and Caverns, and the 
Phenomena of Vegetation, are described in this volume, and in the most 
charming manner possible, because the descriptions given have been selected 
from the writings of the most distinguished authors and travellers. The 
illustrations, several of which are from the pencil of GUSTAVK DUKE, re- 
produca scenes in this country, as well as in foreign lands. 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

"As a hand-book of reference to the natural wonders of the world this work has no 
superior." rhiladelphia. Inquirer. 

" The illustrations are particularly graphic, and in some cases furnish much batter ideas 
of the phenomena they indicate than anything short of an actual experience, or a pano- 
ramic view of them would do.'" N. Y. Sunday Times. 



THE SUN. By AMEDEE GUILLEMINT. F>orn the French 
by T. L. PHIPSON, Ph.D. VV ith 58 illustrations. One 
volume 121110 ......... $i 50 

Far specimen illustration see page 21. 

M. GUILLEMIX'S well-known work upon The Heavens has secured him 
a wide reputation as one of the first of living astronomical writers and ob- 
servers. In this compact treatise he discourses familiarly but most accu- 
rately am' entertainingly of the Sun as the source of light, of heat, and of 
chemical adrtion ; of its influence upon living 1 eings ; of its place in the 
Planetarv World ; of its place in the Sidereal \V< rid ; of its physical and 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



chemical constitution ; of the maintenance of Solar Radiation, and, in con- 
clusion, the question whether the Sun is inhabited, is examined. The work 
embraces the results of the most recent investigations, and is valuable for 
its fulness and accuracy as well as for the very popular way in which the 
subject is presented. 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

"The matter of the volume is highly interesting, as well as scientifically complete ; the 
style is clear and simple, and the illustrations excellent." N. Y. D.iiiy Tribune. 

" For the first time, the fullest and latest information about the Sun has been comprised 
in a single volume." Philndelfkia /'trss. 

"The work is intensely interesting. It is written in a style which must commend itself 
to the general reader, and imparts a vast fund of information in language free from astrono 
mical or other scientific technica!ities." Albany Evening Journal. 

"The latest discoveries of science are set forth in a popular and attractive style.'' I'vrt- 
land Transcript. 

" Conveys, in a graphic form, the present amount of knowledge in regaid to the luminous 
centre of our solar system." Boston Congregationalist. 



WONDERS OF GLASS-MAKING ; ITS DESCRIPTION 
AND HISTORY FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE 
PRESENT. By A. SAUZAY. With 63 illustrations on wood. One 
volume I2mo . . . . . . . . . $i 50 

For specimen illnttration see page 22. 

The title of this work very accurately indicates its character. It is writ- 
ten in an exceedingly lively and graphic style, and the useful and ornamen- 
tal applications of glass are fully described. The illustrations represent, 
among other things, the ;nirror of Marie de Medici and various articles 
manufactured from glass which have, from their unique character, or the 
associations connected with them, acquired historical interest. 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

"All the information which the general reader needs on the subject will be found lieie 
in a very intelligible and attractive form."' N. Y. Evening Post. 

"Tells about every branch of this curious manufacture, tracing its progress from the re- 
motest ages, and omitting not one point upon which information can be desired " Boston 
Pest. 

" A very useful and interesting book. 1 ' N. Y. Citizen. 



8 Illustrated Library of Wonders. 

" An extremely pleasant and useful little book." A^. Y. Sunday Times. 
" The book will well repay perusal." N. Y. Globe. 

A most interesting volume." Portland A rgui. 
" Graphically told." N. Y. Albion. 

" Young people and old will derive equal benefit and pleasure from its perusal."- - 
pf. Y. C/t. Intelligencer. 

Ktalfan &rt 

WONDERS OF ITALIAN ART. By Louis VIARDOT. 
With 28 illustrations. One volume I2mo . $i 50 

For specimen illustration see page 23. 

As a compact, readable, and instructive manual upon a subject the ex- 
position of which has heretofore been confined to ambitious and expensive 
treatises, this volume has no equal. In style it is clear and attractive ; its 
critical estimates are based upon thorough and extensive knowledge and 
sound judgment, and the illustrations reproduce, as accurately as wood 
engravings can do, the leading works of the famous Italian masters, while 
anecdotes of tl:ese great artists and curious facts regarding their works 
give popular interest to the volume. 

f)t fgttttum $0&s 

WONDERS OF THE HUMAN BODY. From the 
French of A. LE PILEUR, Doctor of Medicine. Illustrated 
by 45 Engravings by LEVEILL^. One volume i2mo . $i 50 

For specimen illustration set page 24. 

While sufficiently minute in anatomical and physiological details to satisfy 
those who desire to go deeper into such studies than many may deem 
necessary, this work is nevertheless written so that it may form part of the 
domestic library. Mothers and daughters may read it without being re- 
pelled or shocked ; and the young will find their interest sustained by 
incidental digressions to more attractive matters. Such are the pages re- 
ferring to phrenology and to music, which accompany the anatomical 
description of the skull and of the organs of voice ; and the chapter on 
artistic expression which closes the book. Numerous simple but at- 
tractive engravings elucidate the work- 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



ilrcfjttrctuvr. 

WONDERS OF ARCHITECTURE. Translated from 
the French of M. LEFEVRE ; to which is added a chapter 
on English Architecture by R. DONALD. With 50 illustrations. 
One volume i2mo . . ... . . . $1 50 

For specimen illustration see page 25. 

The object of the Wonders of Architecture is to supply, in as accessible 
and popular a form as the nature of the subject admits, a connected and 
comprehensive sketch of the chief architectural achievements of ancient 
and modern times. Commencing with the rudest dawnings of architectural 
science as exemplified in the Celtic monuments, a carefully compiled and 
authentic record is given of the most remarkable temples, palaces, columns, 
towers, cathedrals, bridges, viaducts, churches, and buildings of every 
description which the genius of man has constructed ; and as these are all 
described in chronological order, according to the eras to which they belong, 
they form a connected narrative of the development of architecture, in 
which the history and progress of the art can be authentically traced. 
('are has been taken to popularize the theme as much as possible, to make 
the descriptions plain and vivid, to render the text free from mere techni 
calities, and to convey a correct and truthful impression of the various 
objects that are enumerated. 



BOTTOM OF THE SEA. By L. SONREL. Translated 
and edited by ELIHU RICH, translator of " Cazin's Heat," 
&c., with 68 woodcuts. (Printed on Tinted Paper) One vol I2ir.o 

$i 50 

For specimen illustration see page 26. 

Written in a popular and attractive style, this volume affords much use- 
ful information about the sea, its depth, color, and temperature; its action 
in deep water and on the shores ; the exuberance of life in the depths oi 
the ocean, and the numberless phenomena, anecdotes, adventures, and 
perils connected therewith. The illustrations are very numerous, and 
specially graphic and attractive. 

CRITICAL NOTICE. 

Tills book is well illustrated throughout, and is admirably adapted to thouc who 
roqnire !':;bt scientific re:idinrj. Xatuart, 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



%f&!)tf)ott&r0 antr 

LIGHTHOUSES AND LIGHTSHIPS. By W. H. D. 
ADAMS. With sixty illustrations. One volume I2mo. 
Printed on tinted paper ....... $15 

The aim of this volume is to furnish in a popular and intelligible form a 
description of the Lighthouse as it is and as it was, of the rude Roman 
pharos, or old sea-tower, with its flickering fire of wood or coal, and the 
modern Lighthouse, shapely and yet substantial, with its powerful illumina- 
ting apparatus of lamps and lenses, shining ten, or twelve, or twenty miles 
across the waters. The author gives a descriptive and historical account of 
their mode of construction and organization, based on the best authorities, 
and revised by competent critics. Sketches are furnished of the most re- 
markable Lighthouses in the Old World, and a graphic narration is presented 
of the mode of life of their keepers. 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

"The book is full of interest." A^. Y. Commercial A d-, 'ertiser. 

" The whole subject is treated in a manner at once interesting and instructive." 
Rochester Democrat. 

" The illustrations are full, and excellently engraved." Phil. Morning Post. 



WONDERS OE ACOUSTICS; or, THE PHE- 
JL NOMEMA OF SOUND. By R. RADAU. With Ho illustra- 

tions. One volume 121110. Printed on tinted paper . . $i 50 

For specimen illustration see page 27. 

No overweight of technicalities encumber the author's ample and exceed- 
ingly instructive disquisition ; but by presenting the results of curious inves- 
tigation, by anecdote, by all manner of striking illustration, and by the aid 
of numerous pictures, he throws a popular interest about one of the most 
suggestive and beautiful of the sciences. The book opens with an attractive 
chapter on "Sound in Nature," in which the language of animals, nocturnal 
life in the forests, and kindred subjects are discussed. Among the topics 
treated of later in the work are such as " Effects of Sound, on Living 
Beings," "Velocity of Soun:l," "The Notes," "The Voice, Music, and 
Science." This volume forms a valuable addition to the series. 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. u 

Strcnstf) an* Sfcill, 

WONDERS OF BODILY STRENGTH AND SKILL. 
Translated and enlarged from the French of GUILLAUME 
DEPPING, by CHARLES RUSSELL. Illustrated with seventy en- 
gravings on wood, many of them full page. (/// October?) One vol. 
I2mo. Printed on tinted paper ..... $15 

For specimen illustration fee page 28. 

This is decidedly one of the most interesting volumes of the Library of 
Wonders. In it the author has collected, from every available source, 
anecdotes descriptive of the most remarkable exhibitions of Physical Strength 
and Skill, whether in the form of individual feats, or of national games, from 
the earliest ages down to the present time. The author has simply endea- 
vored to make a collection of " Wonders of Bodily Strength and Skill," 
from the Literature of all countries, and if any of them may be assigned to 
the region of the improbable, he most respectfully refers doubting inquirers 
to the original sources. The grace and skill displayed in the illustrations, 
which are numerous and striking, make the volume singularly attractive. 



WONDERFUL BALLOON ASCENTS, From the 
French of F. MARION. With thirty illustrations on 
wood, many of them full ] N are. (In October?) One volume I2mo. 
Printed on tinted paper . . . . . . . $i 50 

For fpecimtM UltirtratieH see page 29. 

This volume gives an interesting history of balloons and balloon voyages, 
written in an exceedingly readable and graphic style, which will commend 
itself to the reader. 

The history of the balloon is fully narrated, from its first stages up to the 
present time, and the most memorable balloon voyages are herein described 
in a most thrilling manner. The illustrations are exceedingly taken in char- 

acter. 

CRITICAL NOTICE. 

"Written in a popular style and with illustrations that give completeness to the text, 
...... beautifully illustrated, and w.l! be a fascinating reading book, especially for the 

young.'' London Books der. 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



\ T 7ONDERFUL ESCAPES. Revised from the French 

V V of F. BERNARD, and original chapters added by RICHARD 

WHITEIXG. With twenty-six full-page plates. (/;/ November?) 

One volume I2tno. Printed on tinted paper . . $i 50 

For specimen illustration see page 30. 

This volume of the " Library of Wonders" is an exceedingly interesting 
addition to the series, narrating as it does in the most thrilling manner the 
wonderful escapes of noted prisoners, political as well as criminal. The 
escapes of over forty well known personages are described in this book, and 
their history may be relied upon as entirely accurate, obtained from official 
sources. Among the characters treated of we may mention Marius, Ben- 
venuto Cellini, Grotius, Cardinal de Retz, Baron Trenck, and Marie de 
M edicts. A number of full-page plates picturing the prisoners in the most 
fearful moments of their escapes accompany the volume. 



w 



ATER. By GASTON TISSANDIER. With numerous 
illustrations. {In press.) One volume I2mo . $l 50 

For specimen illustration see J>age 31. 



In this volume, we are not only most entertainingly told of what water is 
composed, and what singular transformations it undergoes ; but its manifold 
uses, nutritive, medicinal, agricultural, commercial, &c., &c., are explained, 
as well as its part in the general economy of nature. The movements of the 
sea, the arteries of the continents, torrents, rapids, glaciers, and the whole 
circulatory system are besides described, and every division of the subject is 
presented in the most picturesque and interesting manner. 

ALSO IN PRESS : 

WONDERS OF ENGRAVING, WONDERS OF VEGETATION, 

WONDERS OF SCULPTURE, THE INVISIBLE WORLD, 

ELECTRICITY, HYDRAULICS, 

WONDERS OF THE HEAVENS, SUBTERRANEAN WORLD. 

Due announcement of the appearance of the above new issues of this series will 
be fijvn hertafter as they abroach completion. 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



THE WONDERS OF OPTICS. 

By F. MARION. 
With over seventy engravings, and a colored frontispiece. One vol. i2mo. Price ?t 50. 




For description of book, see page a. 



14 Illustrated Library of Wonders. 

THUNDER AND LIGHTNING. 

By W. DK FONVIELLE. 
With 39 engravings, nearly all full-page. One volume, iztno, i y-> 




Bell-ringer struck by Lightning. 
For description of book, see page a. 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



<5 



THE WONDERS OF HEAT. 

By ACHILLE CAZIN. 

With 90 illustrations, and a colored frontispiece. One vol. i2ino Si 50 




For description of book, see page 3. 



i6 



flliistrated Library of Wonaers. 



THE INTELLIGENCE OF ANIMALS, 

WITH IMilJSTKATIVE ANKCIJOTES. 
With 54 illustrntions. Qn volume, izmo, $i 50. 







THE DRAKE LEAU'.NG THE LADY TO THE RESCUE. 
For description of book, see page 4 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



EGYPT 3,3OO YEARS AGO. 

By F. DE LANOYE. 
With 40 illustrations. One vo'ume. lamo, $i 50. 




Tho Sphinx of Ramcses II. (according to the Sphinx at the Louvre) 

For description of book, see page 4. 



i8 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



ADVENTURES ON THE 



GREAT HUNTING GROUNDS OF THE WORLD. 



Illustrated with 22 woodcuts. One volume, izn 




For description of book, see page 5. 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



POMPEII AND THE POMPEIANS. 

By MARC MONNIER. 
With 30 Illustrations. One volume, i2mo, $i 50. 




For description of book, see page 



20 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



THE SUBLIME IN NATURE 

From Descriptions of Celebrated Writers and Travelkis. 
Illustrated witli 38 full-page engravings. One vol. 12010. Price, Si =, 




A GOHUK IN T1IE 

For description of be ok, see page 5. 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 21 

THE SUN. 

BY AMEDEE GUILLEMIN. 
From the French by T L. PHIPSON Ph.D With 58 illustrations. One vol. i2tno. $i so. 



The Sun and the Planets; comparative Dimensions 
For description of book, see page 6. 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



WONDERS OF GLASS-MAKING; 

Its Description and History from the Earliest Times to the Present. 

BY A SAUZAY. 
With 67 illustrations on wood. One vol. i2mo, $i 50. 




VENETIAN BOTTLE. 

For description of book, see page 7. 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



THE WONDERS OF ITALIAN ART. 

BY LOUIS VIARDOT. 
With 28 illustrations. One vol. 121110, $i 50. 




PEATTI OF ST. PETER MARTYR. BY TITIAN. 

Formerly in the Church of St. John and St. Pan', Venice. 

For description of book, see page 7. 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



WONDERS OF THE HUMAN BODY. 

BY A. PILEUR, M.D. 
With illustrations, and a colored frontispiece. One vol. izmo, $1 50. 




AI'OLLO BELVEDERE. 

For description of book, see page 8. 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



WONDERS OF ARCHITECTURE. 

BY ANDRE LEFEVRE. 

With a Chapter on English Architecture, by R. DONALD. 
One vol. 121110, with 56 illustrations. 




NOTKE b.V.lfc. DE POITIERS. 

For description of book, see page 8. 



26 Illustrated Library of Wonders. 

THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA. 

BY L. SONREL. 
Translated and edited by ELIHU RICH, with 67 illustrations. One vol. i2mo, $ i 50. 




w-iiLuii^J 



For description of book, see page 9. 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



THE WONDERS OF ACOUSTICS 

BY R. RADAU. 

With no illustrations. One vol. tzmo. Price, $i 50. 




For description of took, see page 10. 



28 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



BODILY STRENGTH AND SKILL. 

FROM THE FRENCH OF GUILLAUME DEPPING. 
With 70 illustrations, many of them full-page. One vol. i2rao. Price, $i 50. 




VENETIAN GAMES IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 

For description of book, see page n. 



Illustrated Library -of Wonders. 



29 



WONDERFUL BALLOON ASCENTS. 

BY F. MARION. 

of them full-page. 




THE FIRST AFRIAL VOYAGE. 

For description of book, see oao^e IT. 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



WONDERFUL ESCAPES 

BY F. BERNARD. 

With 26 full-page plates. One vol. 121110. Price, $1 50. 





OSMOND RL'NS OFF WITH THE PRINCE. 

For description of book, see page 12. 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



WATER. 

BY GASTON TISSANDIER. 
With numerous illustrations. One vol. izmo. Price, $i 50. 




For description of book, see page n. 



Illustrated Library of Wonders. 



THE MOON. 

By AMEDEE GUILLEMIN, Author of "The Sun." 
Will) numerous illustrations. One vol. 121110. (In press.) Price, 




->K THH MOON. 



m 

?oo. 



THE LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 

Santa Barbara 



THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
STAMPED BELOW. 



CIRC. AFTER JUL1 1971 

1988 
RETQDEC 7 1388 E 



3 1205 00439 3706 




A 000 648 238 4