GIFT OF SEELEY W. MUDD and GEORGE I. COCHRAN MEYER ELSASSER DR. JOHN R. HAYNES WILLIAM L. HONNOLD JAMES R. MARTIN MRS. JOSEPH F. SARTORI to Ike UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SOUTHERN BRANCH JOHN FISKE ... r ^ HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE, EDWARD A. FREEMAN, M.A., I, ATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD. "The surest test of the civilization of a people at least as sure as any afforded by mechanical art is to be found in their architecture. ***** There is no object * * * which calls out more effectually the inventive talent of the artist. The painter and the sculptor may display their individual genius in creations of surpassing excellence, but it is the great monuments of architectural taste and magnificence that are stamped in a peculiar manner by the genius of a nation." Prkscott's Cuivjuest of Peru. LON DON : JOSEPH MASTERS, ALDERS GATE STREET, AND 78, NEW II O N D STREET. m rtcccxi IX. i.ovnov : l'RINTKD BV JOSEPH MASTERS, AI.DKRSGATK STRKET. Z GO TO THE REV. WILLIAM BASIL JONES, M.A., FELLOW OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD, (FORMERLY SCHOLAR OF T1UNITY COLLEGE,) THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED, IN MEMORY OE THE PLEASURE AND INSTRUCTION DERIVED FROM MANY HAPPY HOURS SPENT IN HIS SOCIETY. P R E F A C E. The present work was originally designed to form a volume in " Burns' Select Library/' and was written at the suggestion of the proprietor of that scries. Circumstances which have since occurred have caused it to appear in another form, and be transferred to another publisher. These would not have been alluded to even in this brief manner, had it not seemed advisable to account for the delay thus caused in the publication of a work which was advertised full two years ago, and the manuscript of which was actually complete in January, 1848. And still more, the circumstances under which the work originated, and those which have since occurred, have had a considerable effect upon the character of the volume itself. Had not its composition been proposed to me from a com- pletely external source, without any suggestion or thought on my part, I do not say that a work of this kind might not at some time or other have appeared from my hand, but it might not have been for many years, and would probably have been on a somewhat different plan. Indeed it was not without delibera- tion that I undertook a work that might seem presumptuous in one who has indeed given his best attention to architectural study, and lias some familiarity with the examples of his own country, but to whom those of other lands are known by report alone, and to whom several branches of the subject were total darkness. To Hindoo, Egyptian, or Saracenic architecture I had then given no attention whatever. A work projected by myself would have probably contained no reference to the two Vlll PREFACE. former, and regarded the latter only in its relation to the Gothic style. These then I had, in familiar phrase, to get up for the purpose, as some notice of every definite style of architecture was required by the plan as proposed to me. But I considered that there was probably no person familiar alike with every branch of the subject ; any one would have had specially to get up some part of the work ; the only difference would be as to the extent and importance of the portions so to be treated. This division of the subject, coinciding nearly with the First Part of the First Book, will be found, I am afraid, not very satisfac- torily treated. It was a wearisome task, as I had to search through volume after volume 1 containing copious dissertations on the antiquities of the different nations referred to, but with very little direct information as to their architecture considered in the point of view in which I regarded it. It is astonishing, for instance, how little knowledge of Egyptian architecture is to be gained from the numerous recently published travels in the east. The information on the subject which they do contain is involved in such a mass of historical and ritual speculation as to be almost impossible to unravel. Not that I mention this in dis- paragement of the authors, who were not bound to adapt their works to my requirements, but simply to explain the difficulties of my own position. And after all, the direct architectural infor- mation which they contain appears immense, when we consider what our knowledge of Gothic architecture would be, were we left to derive it from books of travels in western countries. In the case of Egyptian architecture, by far the most important of the ante-Grecian forms, I should have been in great per- plexity, but for the help afforded by the excellent little manual of Egyptian Antiquities which will be found so often referred to. 1 Among these were many books most of the works will be found of travels, &c, not especially de- quoted or referred to. "Stephens' voted to architecture or antiquities, Researches in Central America'' besides others, as the works of Sir is the only book occurring to me C. Fellows and Mr. Fergusson, at this moment, from which I de- and Professor Orlebar's Paper on rived much information, which is Saracenic Architecture, more di- not directly alluded to in the text rcctly connected with the subject or notes. in hand. I have not made a list, as PREFACE. IX This portion of the work was unavoidably written while I was absent from Oxford, and had but few books at hand. I had in- deed taken notes, of which the reader will occasionally see the results, from Wilkinson, Eelzoni, and the great French work on Egypt, but the other was the only one which I had actually with me, and I found it indeed invaluable. After all I must profess my opinion that researches into these forms of art are of comparatively little value. 1 "The monu- ments," says the author quoted in my title page, "of China, of Hiudostan, and of central America" Egypt might fairly have been added " are all indicative of an immature period, in which the imagination has not been disciplined by study, and which therefore, in its best results displays only the ill-regulated aspi- rations after the beautiful which belong to a semi-civilized people." But this is not all ; they are aspirations never to be gratified ; these styles, like the nations among whom they arose, stand isolated and disconnected from each other, scarcely at all influencing the arts of other races. The true history, as a con- tinuous stream, of architecture, just as of politics, philosophy, and literature, commences with "immortal Greece." From that source, traced on through Roman, Arab, and Goth, every event influences every other that succeeds it, and the latter ones cannot be understood without the study of those which preceded them. But the preceding forms, excepting so far as they throw light on the origin of the arch, excepting also the Pelasgian remains, which are historically, though not artistically, in close connection with Grecian architecture are little more than mere objects of curiosity, with only an occasional and incidental bearing upon the general history of architecture and of the human mind. 2 The other difficulty, that only a small portion of the subject could be treated of from personal observation, is of the same 1 Of course I do not here mean field of research in this direction. to include Arabian Architecture, I lis work I have not yet had an op- vvithout which Gothic cannot be portunity of seeing ; the account of understood. it in the Quarterly Review con- - While this volume was passing tains a mass of information relating through the press, Mr. Layard's to sculpture, but very little bearing discoveries at Nineveh have opened directly upon architecture. a most extensive and interesting X PREFACE. kind ; though I may have seen less than many others, no one not even the late Mr. Hope could have seen everything to which it would be necessary to allude in a work of this kind. Of many even Christian 1 countries the architecture cannot be said to be explored at all. But all the most important forms may be well studied in engravings. And I have never hesitated to criticize a building from engravings, with as little hesitation as if I had myself seen it, because in the case of the very many English churches which I have first studied in this manner, and after- wards visited, I have never found the judgment which I had formed by the more imperfect process, altered upon personal in- spection. When I commenced this work, Lincoln and Exeter were known to me only as Amiens and Cologne still are ; since then I have visited both, and the result of the examination has been the confirmation of the opinions which I had previously formed. The real difficulty is not in the criticism of particular build- ings, but in the danger of not having the most typical struc- tures, or a sufficient number of them, brought before the critic, and of his consequently generalizing from insufficient premises. But this applies equally to all information in every study not derived from personal examination, to any opinion on an historical character pronounced by one who has not himself laboured through the treasures of the State Paper Office. I state the facts say of German Romanesque on the authority of Mr. Petit and Dr. Whewell ; if I differ from the former as to the comparative merit of German and Norman architecture one of the very few points in which I have the bad luck to differ from the first of all architectural critics I form my opinion from the testimony of him from whom I disagree, necessarily the most favourable for his own side. In one respect I find myself widely differing from the author who has done most to elucidate the particular subject at issue. I allude to Mr. Webb's favourable estimate of the Italian Gothic contained in his Continental Ecclcsiology, 2 and in a paper on the 1 Of the buildings of Poland, obtain any information at all, and Hungary, and even eastern Ger- of those of Russia and Scandinavia many, (with the single exception of only a few disjointed fragments. Vienna) I have not been able to - This work, as well as Mr. PREFACE. XI adaptation of Gothic architecture to tropical climates previously printed in the Transactions of the Cambridge Camden Society. On my side I have Mr. Hope, whom I have quoted at length, and implicitly Mr. Petit, who appears to have considered Italian Gothic as hardly worthy of notice. The entire forsaking of the principles of the northern Gothic which that style exhibits is simply a matter of fact ; only Mr. Webb argues that it is the necessary result of the climate. This is extremely proba- ble ; but the inference which I should thence make is, not that Italian Gothic is a legitimate style, to be approved, and even (in our tropical colonies) to be imitated : but, that Gothic architec- ture is a style only to be employed in northern countries, and not to be introduced into lands where the necessities of the cli- mate require a complete departure from its first principles. And now, at the risk of repeating what I have said in the General Introduction, I cannot help making a few remarks on the principle which I have pursued in the treatment of what is the real staple of the work, the parts devoted to Romanesque and Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture. The general idea which I have all along kept in my mind during the composition of the present work is, briefly and simply, the Historical Study of the Art of Architecture. This was the view which I have always set before myself in my own studies, and as it is one which I could not but see had been neglected, I was proportionably glad of the opportunity offered me of drawing it out in a more formal and public manner. Architecture, in some of its forms, has been of late years a very popular study ; in fact I am by no means clear that its popularity has not been injurious to it. The other arts, from the very circumstance of their being less popular, have been pursued in a way much more calculated to evolve a genuine knowledge of their principles. Painting and sculpture, among the comparatively few who have devoted their attention to them, have never lost the character of arts, they have never been reduced to matters of antiquarian or ecclesiolo- Poole'a "History of Ecclesiastical ferred to them in several places. Architecture in England," was Had they appeared sooner, my ob- published alter my manuscript was ligations would have been very cx- in the printer's hands. I have tensive, however, as tin: reader will see, re- XU PREFACE. gical research. Now architecture has ; of all the standard works on the subject I can point to two only which at all approach to that treatment of it for which I am contending. Mr. Hope's " Historical Essay," with all the additional light which has been since thrown upon the matter, and notwithstanding some ques- tionable views, must undoubtedly remain the foundation of all future architectural inquiries. Not only was it the earliest work manifesting any grasp of the subject, but it manifested such a grasp, so wide and enlightened, as but few who tread in the same path can expect to rival. On a different plan, but equally valua- ble to the architectural student, is the first volume of Mr. Petit' s " Church Architecture." Mr. Petit has not taken altogether the same broad view of the subject, nor so directly connected it with other kindred studies, and with general history, but he is per- fectly unrivalled in his appreciation of the real meaning and principles of successive styles, and his skill in distinguishing what is really an essential feature, what is merely accidental; a dis- tinction requiring a keen philosophical eye, and which can never be gained from the most complete collection of antiquarian facts. And where Mr. Hope fails us, Mr. Petit supplies his place. The strength of the former is in the history of Romanesque ; on the subdivisions of Gothic architecture he supplies but little, and he manifestly undervalues the contributions of our own country to its development. In his treatment of the former branch lies the first of Mr. Petit' s many excellences ; and the latter charge can only have been brought against him by the merest insular pre- judice. From these two authorities I have learned far more than from all other architectural writers put together ; how conti- nually they have been in my hands and thoughts the reader will at once perceive from frequent references, and from the nume- rous cases where I have preferred using their words rather than my own. And I confess my obligations to Mr. Petit' s work the more readily, because from most of the suggestions contained in the second volume, I must, as an ecclesiologist, dissent. These two great works I consider to form the sum and staple of our direct architectural literature ; the labours of other writers are often of immense subsidiary value, but do not in the same way grapple with the subject itself. Next to Mr. Hope and Mr. Petit, none can hesitate to place the elaborate productions PREFACE. Xlll of Dr. Whewell and Professor Willis; but though of equal merit in their own line, I cannot consider that line quite such a high one ; at all events it is not the same, nor so directly connected with my own view. Their writings treat as much of building as of architecture; their aim is to exhibit the mechanical rather than the artistic view. It may be that, such not having been the direction of my own studies, I am not attracted by mathemati- cal figures and diagrams ; but I hope every one will acquit me of any wish to undervalue authors to whom the present work is deeply indebted, though in a less degree than to the two great masters of strictly architectural science to whom I have already referred. Of works dedicated to the elucidation of detail, as the Glos- sary, and those of Rickman and Mr. Bloxam, it is almost need- less to say, that while myself, in common with every other architectural student, would have found it no easy task to ac- quire much architectural knowledge without their aid, they do not bear directly upon the present stage of my investigations. Of Mr. Hickman no one can speak without respect ; I think some late writers have undervalued the importance of his re- searches ; but if so, it is but a natural re-action from the exag- gerated praises of injudicious friends. To say, with his recent Editor, that " notwithstanding the numerous works which have appeared within the last five or six years, it is surprising to ob- serve how very little real information has been added to that which Mr. Hickman collected and digested/' almost implies forgetfulness that the four distinguished authors enumerated in the two last paragraphs had ever penned a line. On the other hand, Mr. Palcy's " Manual of Gothic Architecture," though somewhat unsystematic and ill-digested, has afforded me many most valuable hints ; and I must not omit to mention the collateral help afforded by many collections of examples, and descriptions and illustrations of particular buildings, though of course such works do not bear directly upon the main subject. And there are also numerous works, relating to individual branches of the study, whose aid, in the investigations of those portions, has been invaluable. I would especially mention the writings of Mr. Petrie and Mr. Gaily Knight. I am persuaded that tin; Ecclesiological movement, deeply as I sympathize with its most important bearings, has been in XIV PREFACE. some respects prejudicial to the view of architecture for which I am contending. Young as it even now is, it has gone through many phases, and though it has now quite overgrown, at least in the hands of its leading supporters, that narrow insular ex- clusivcness with which it set out, the tendency of those times is not yet altogether worn away. It was a natural re-action at the time when it arose to carry the feeling in favour of Gothic architecture too far, and almost to anathematize even the study of any other ; Norman Romanesque happily escaping by being considered as a Gothic form. But the mere historical study of Grecian and Roman architecture is still viewed by some with suspicion, although it stands to reason that an acquaintance with it is absolutely necessary to any real knowledge of our own styles. And as to the comparative merits of the different forms of Gothic, much narrowness and prejudice still exists in many quarters. Which style is the best is surely a matter of taste ; I have myself a very strong opinion that on the whole Perpendicular is the best, and I have given my reasons for that belief; but I have endea- voured to do justice to every form of the art, and I flatter my- self that I cannot be fairly charged with running down any style. But I am often sorry to see writers for whom I have a high respect, going out of their way to express their dislike of a particular form of art, and appearing hardly capable of mention- ing any one Perpendicular building without dragging in some uncalled for expression of depreciation. These evils are however entirely incidental ; and no one can deny the direct and most important benefits conferred upon ar- chitectural science by the Eeclesiological school. T do not think they can be fairly charged with introducing into architectural studies matters unconnected therewith ; architecture is only an incidental feature in their pursuits, just as it is in those of ar- clueologians. The two studies, differing in other respects, have a common point, and each, viewing that common point from its own position, treats it accordingly. If I consult the " Ecclesi- ologist " on an architectural question, I have no right to com- plain if I find the information I am searching for side by side with an article on Gregorian Chants, any more than if a similar search in the " Archaeological Journal " brings rne into the vi- cinity of a discourse on bronze celts or Roman pottery. Neither the chants nor the celts have any interest for myself personally, PREFACE. XV but both are legitimate objects of study treated of in their proper places. For I would repeat, at the risk of weariness both to myself and my reader, that it is not to archaeology or archneologians that I object, but to the position which they assume. Their re- searches are valuable and necessary : it is only to the hostile tone which they often assume, the uneasiness and jealousy which their organ invariably displays at any thing like the deduction of a principle or a theory, that any objection can be brought. And against this hardly any objection can be too strong. I may allude to one subject in which I certainly have no sort of personal bias. The nomenclature of the Ecclesiologists I neither employ nor approve ; but the manner in which any use of it is met with in certain quarters, the frivolous, contradictory, often spiteful objections which I have seen and heard brought against it, would be almost enough to make me introduce it even now into every page of my book, had I not myself objections to it far stronger, as I hope, than those to which I refer. It is not archaeology in its right place, as something subordi- nate and ancillary, but archaeology exclusive, assuming, claiming a rank which docs not belong to it, which is at this present mo- ment the bane not only of architecture, but of a yet nobler study, of history itself, as relating to the times and people most deeply interesting to us. A newly discovered Anglo-Saxon charter is recorded as a curiosity side by side with a newly-discovered " low-side window ;" contributions to early history which can- not be too highly valued, daily accumulate ; documents, facts, customs, are continually discovered and elucidated ; but that to which these are but the means, the enlivening of the dry bones, the connection of the scattered fragments, is yet wanting ; a history in short of our own early days which may rank with that first of all records of the past, Dr. Arnold's History of Home, is not so much as promised. Indeed within the last month or two its name has been monopolized by a treatise of antiquities, most important indeed as such, but very far from being a " History of the English Commonwealth." 1 1 Mr. Kcmble's " Saxons in Eng- the Norman Conquest." I ought in land; a History of the English the above remarks to except the Commonwealth till the period of name of Sir F. Palgrave, but even ritElACK. Between these two views, the ccclesiological and the archaeo- logical, I have endeavoured to steer clear. For a justification of my view with regard to the former, I would again refer to the first chapter of the work itself; hut I think that a few words may perhaps be necessary with regard to the directly ecclesias- tical tone adopted in these pages. The case is simply this ; the subject was one which necessarily involved many ecclesias- tical allusions ; and in the mode of making them it was alto- gether repugnant both to my feelings and principles to affect an indifference which did not exist, or in any way to conceal ray real mind. But every expression of this kind which the work contains, will be found to be merely in the nature of allusions; controversy or dogmatic statement there is none ; and the allu- sions are almost entirely to those broad facts of Church history necessarily introduced by the subject, without reference to theo- logical and ritual minutiae which would certainly have been out of place. And, after all, I have done no more in speaking in that way which I hold to be just of certain systems and indivi- duals, than is done by w r riters of contrary opinions, who take every opportunity of decrying and undervaluing them, often going very far out of their w r ay for that purpose. At the same time I must freely confess that, on reviewing my book, I have found passages whose literal sense 1 should be sorry to have pressed too far. I chiefly refer to expressions of admiration for, perhaps even, in some degree, of regret for the loss of, mediaeval systems and feelings. These come almost naturally from an architectural student, who deals almost ex- clusively with the brightest aspect of those days, and is strongly tempted to look upon the times which witnessed the noblest de- velopments of his own art, with a view which a calmer and more extended view of history will not justify. I am inclined to think that every age has its own virtues and its own vices; and if the middle ages, ages in which every thing was on a grand scale, exceeded us in the former, they did so in the latter also ; if richer in deeds of heroism and saintliness, they are more pro- his greatest work is hardly a his- Still it were almost better to err tory, and many of his brilliant the- in his company than to be correct ories are undoubtedly questionable. with the merely antiquarian school. PREFACE. lific also even after the events of the past year in blood, rapine, and general disorder. If modern Europe hardly admits of a St. Louis or an Alfred, neither is any Christian throue likely to be now disgraced by a Rufus or a John. The reader will probably remark that in the consideration of Romanesque and Gothic architecture, nearly all the references and examples are confined to ecclesiastical buildings. The cause of this is to be traced to a process of abscission which it was found necessary for the work to undergo before its appearance in its present form. In order to reduce the size of the volume some omissions were absolutely required. Accordingly, besides smaller retrenchments, I expunged five whole chapters, which bore the headings, " Of General Architectural Nomenclature," " Of the Nomenclature of Churches/' " Of the Secular Architecture of the Romanesque Period," " Of Gothic Churches," " Of Gothic Secular Architecture." These chapters were, on the whole, less connected with my design as a History of Architecture than any others, though the two latter were upon some of the most inte- resting subjects in its whole compass. They contained a review of the general principles of the two classes of structures, regarded directly as buildings, as to their outline, proportion, and general effect, with as little reference as possible to considerations of particular styles. This was a view which I thought was better kept separate from the historical sequence of styles ; and it is almost self-evident that this last must be studied in the churches of each period. From these only can we learn the real princi- ples of the style, as nowhere else, not in the most gorgeous secular erections, is the same free scope afforded for their de- velopment. This is true of Gothic, notwithstanding the stately monuments of secular architecture which remain to us in that style, the halls of our own royal palaces, and the more superb Hotels dc Villc of the Netherlands. And much more it is the ease with Romanesque, a style of which nearly all the existing remains are either ecclesiastical or military, and from the latter class of buildings, deeply interesting as they are on many other grounds, scarcely any strictly architectural lessons can be derived. If any one should ask why, instead of sacrificing these far more interesting portions of the work, I did not rather decide on the omission of those early chapters which 1 have already stated to h PREFACE. contain much less important matter, I can only answer that, had I myself originally designed the book, such would probably have been the arrangement adopted, but in the scheme of the treatise, as actually written, these chapters formed an integral part, which the others hardly did, and could not have been omitted without changing the whole plan, and making far greater alterations in detail than were involved in the course which I have followed. Several of the views contained in this volume had been pre- viously propounded by me in papers read before the Oxford Architectural Society, and letters inserted in the "Ecclesiolo- gist." In some cases, where I had seen no occasion to change the sentiments thus expressed, I have embodied the entire pa- ragraphs in the present work. One idea however which I had imagined was here promulgated to the world for the first time, either by myself or by any one else the view of rest and immo- bility as the leading principle of Romanesque, in opposition to the horizontal and vertical extension of Grecian and Gothic respec- tively is, I have been informed, to be found in Lord Lindsay's Letters on Christian Art, a work which I have not as yet read, and from which I certainly did not borrow it directly or indi- rectly. I will not add either the uncharitable Latin, or the boastful English, proverb adapted to such occasions ; coincidences of idea of this kind can hardly fail to arise among writers treating on the same topics. One subject, one of the most inter- esting branches of the study of Gothic art, is purposely omitted. Of the tracery of windows, the point which has always most especially attracted my own attention, I have said no more than was absolutely necessary. This was because I have in hand, and have nearly completed, a minute treatise on that subject, the substance of several papers read before the Oxford Society, which, but for the peculiar circumstances attending the publica- tion of this volume, would probably have now been before the world, and which, if the present undertaking prove in any de- gree successful, may still, I hope, some day appear. The present work is not illustrated ; there was at one time an intention of adding engravings, but the idea was relinquished, as to illustrate it completely was altogether out of the question, and a partial and inadequate illustration seemed even more objec- tionable than none at all. The public has thus lost, to my PREFACE. XIX great regret, some of Mr. Petit's beautiful etchings, the use of which he most kindly offered me, and which would have adorned one of the omitted chapters. But, though a complete illustra- tion of the work would have been highly desirable, the way in which the subject is here treated renders its loss less objection- able than it would be in a treatise of detail, or a record of existing specimens. A single engraving has been retained as a frontispiece, representing one of the noblest specimens of parochial Gothic architecture in all England, and exhibiting, what is so rarely met with in parish churches, even of great pretensions, a west front really deserving the name of an architectural composition. Besides my obligations to Mr. Petit, my acknowledgments are also due to G. W. Cox, Esq., S.C.L., Scholar of Trinity College, and Secretary of the Oxford Architectural Society, for many beau- tiful and elaborate drawings made when the idea of illustrations was entertained. And I must also express my best thanks to the Rev. W. B. Jones, M.A., Fellow of Queen's College, for ac- cess to the magnificent Library of that Society, without which I should have been involved in great difficulties in the earlier part of my undertaking. My work is now done ; and if it be accepted as any contribu- tion towards fostering the study of architecture in its proper posi- tion as a branch of mental philosophy, it will have been effectually done. I need not describe the anxiety with which I commit to the world my first production of any consequence ; but, what- ever be its destiny, I shall at least carry with me the satisfaction of having honestly laboured, to the best of my powers, to pro- mote an end which I believe to be of no slight importance to the highest of all human sciences, that of the human mind. Oaklands, Duuslky, February 10, IS 10. CONTENTS. GENERAL INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER I. DESIGN AND SCOPE OF THE WORK. 1'AGE Difference of origin between Architecture and the other fine arts Preva- lent disinclination to allow it its due rank Different modes of its pursuit the merely Archaeological the Ecclesiological neither directly view it as Art Difference between Architecture and Building View of Architec- ture as Art designed in the present work antiquarian speculations avoided reasons for studying the Architecture of all ages and nations . . 1 CHAPTER II. CAUSES of the diversity OF STYLES IN" ARCHITECTURE. Different styles peculiar to different ages and nations effect of circum- stances manners race Changes in architecture more easily traced than in other arts influence of physical causes each style retains traces of its first origin Character of Transitional periods . . . . . . . . 1 1 CHAPTER III. DIVISION OF STYLES IN ARCHITECTURE. Impossibility of dividing on a single principle comparative importance of different styles Constructive division according to the use of the Entab- lature or the Arch origin of the arch an occasional use of the arch does not constitute an arched style Division of styles Celtic Pelasgian Hindoo Central American Egyptian Grecia n Roman Romanesque Saracenic Gothic Revived Italian .. .. .. .. ..17 BOOK I. ARCHITECTURE OF THE ENTABLATURE. PART I. OF THE EARLIER AND RUDER FORMS. CHAPTER I. OF PELASGIAN ARCHITECTURE. Interest of the Pelasgian monuments propriety of the name masonry gateways approximations to the arch apparent domes Treasuries style of ornament remains at Mycenae Grecian architecture not derived from Pelasjnan connection of the latt.:r with Roman .. .. . . .' XX11 CONTENTS. CHAPTER II. OF EARLY COLUMNAR ARCHITECTURE. PAGE Importance of the use of columns the same stages in architecture often re- peated origin of columns Remains in Central America derived from a stone construction approximations to the arch Chinese and Siamese architecture . . . . . . . . . 43 CHAPTER III. OF THE ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE OF INDIA. Supposed connection between India and Egypt Distinction between native Hindoo and Mahometan architecture Hindoo columns roofs cave- temples resemblance to Christian Churches Pagodas of northern India of southern of the Jains Hindoo architecture derived from excavations 5 1 CHAPTER IV. OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. Importance of the subject the Pyramids occasional use of the arch not an arched style Egyptian porticos absence of the pediment sloping sides intercolumniary walls use of sculpture the de columns and capitals ground-plan of temples use of brick in civil architecture Egyptian architecture derived from excavations traced out in detail connection of the pyramidal form with excavations comparison of Hin- doo and Egyptian buildings objections answered Later Egyptian Ar- chitecture Greek influence . . . . . . . . . . 63 CHAPTER V. OF THE ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE OF WESTERN ASIA. Persian remains more valuable for sculpture than architecture Persepolis character of the columns excavations timber origin of the style character of the nation and their architecture Lycian remains rock tombs intermixture of Grecian notions .. .. .. .. ..85 l/PART II. OF GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. CHAPTER I. OF THE ORIGIN OF GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. Greece and her architecture all subsecpaent styles derived from it Grecian architecture purely native not borrowed from Egypt origin in the tim- ber construction objections answered Grecian architecture of Dorian invention . . . . . . . . . . . . , , . . . . 95 CHAPTER II. OF THE THREE ORDERS OF COLUMNS. The division not exhaustive the Doric order the most perfect of all the Ionic its connection with the Ionian character its inferiority to the Doric the Corinthian diversity of its forms its superiority to the Ionic 105 CONTENTS. XX1U CHAPTER III. OF TEMPLES AND OTHER BUILDINGS OF GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. PACK Chief kinds of temples in antis peripteral dipteral Hypathral temples Paestum engaged columns caryatides Choragic monument of Lysi- crates of Thrasyllus tower of Andronicus Cyrrhestes propylaea theatres 114 CHAPTER IV. w GENERAL REVIEW OF GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. Simplicity of construction uniformity of design the two not identical, though allied beauty of simplicity connection of Grecian architecture wi th th e Grecian ch aracter and religion contrast of Grecian and Gothic Rules of Grecian architecture its excellence not adapted to modern uses 1 23 it aaapw z (0- BOOK II. ARCHITECTURE OF THE ARCH. PART I. OF THE ROUND ARCH, OR ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. CHAPTER I. OF THE CLASSICAL OR TRANSITIONAL ROMAN. Roman architecture the first instance of a systematic use of the arch its origin how far Etruscan the native Italian style without ornament its excellence its expression of the Roman character existing Roman architecture practically transitional from Grecian to Romanesque Roman corruptions of the Grecian orders attempts to combine the arch and the entablature Roman remains in the East excavations at Petra finest Roman structures unadorned amphitheatres aqueducts .. ..135 CHAPTER II. ORIGIN OF ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE. Office of Christian Rome as to religion as to architecture steps by which Roman architecture cleared itself of inconsistencies value of later Ro- man architecture .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 146' CHAPTER III. OF HASILICAN ARCHITECTURE. Two forms of pier the mass of wall, and the pillar greater propriety of the former greater importance of the latter Palace of Diocletian at Spalatro the early Basilicas their interest their origin, and adaptation to ecclesiastical uses late retention of the type in Italy its influence out of Italy characteristics of Basilican architecture arcades apses St. Paul at Rome imperfections of the style . . . . . . . . . . 151 Xxiv CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. OF OTHER EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY. FA OK The Basilicas a style of themselves other buildings exhibit different stages round and polygonal churches baptisteries St. Constantia Baptis- tery of Constantine tomb of Theodoric Palace of Theodoric . . . . 1 61 CHAPTER V. OF BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE. Its historical interest unique position of the Byzantine Empire its orien- tal character necessity of a new style the dome first period of Byzan- tine architecture second period St. Sophia other examples piers and arches value of the style .. .. .. . .. ..164 CHAPTER VI. DIRECT INFLUENCE OF BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY. Churches at Ravenna St. Fosca, Torcello St. Mark St. Ciriacus, Ancona .. ..174 CHAPTER VII. OF THE ROMANESQUE OF ITALY OR LOMBARD STYLE. Its introduction an era in art proportions of columns ornamental arcades sculpture doorways ground plan and outline of churches campaniles three periods of Lombard architecture .. .. .. .. ..176 CHAPTER VIII. OF THE ROMANESQUE OF GERMANY. The Germanic Empire Carlovingian remains Lorsch Lombard origin of the style Byzantine element outlines of churches apses vaults piers triforia arcades different kinds of Romanesque surface ornament value of the style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 80 CHAPTER IX. OF THE EARLY ROMANESQUE OF IRELAND. Researches of Mr. Petrie derivation of the Irish Romanesque from the first Christian Churches small size of churches two ante-Norman periods decorations of the second period not distinctively Norman introduction of Norman architecture into Ireland . . .. .. .. 195 CHAPTER X. OF THE F.ARLY ROMANESQUE OF ENGLAND, OR ANGLO-SAXON STYLE. Obsolete notions of Saxon architecture excessive reaction sophistical ar- guments brought against the Saxon theory importance of Mr. Petrie's dis- coveries Anglo-Saxon architecture of Lombard origin difficulties arising from the paucity and rudeness of existing remains Anglo-Saxon architec- CONTENTS. XXV PAGE ture has distinguishing characteristics piers arches style of ornament doorways windows towers Saxon towers derived from the campanile, Norman from the cupola Earl's Barton finish of towers difference be- tween Saxon andNorman styles stone carpentry three periodsof Anglo- Saxon art First, Debased Roman Brixworth Second, most purely Saxon the Bartons Third period, designated by Mr. Paley, Ante- Norman extent of Saxon remains. . . . . . . . . . . . 202 CHAPTER XI. OF THE ROMANESQUE OF SOUTHERN FRANCE, OR PROVENQAL STYLE. Romanized character of southern Gaul native development of its architecture retention of classical notions outlines of churches piers and arches early use of the pointed arch doorways Byzantine churches in France their origin St. Front at Perigueux character of the style .. .. 219 CHAPTER XII. OF THE ROMANESQUE OF NORTHERN FRANCE AND ENGLAND, OR NORMAN STYLE. Importance of the style extent of remains in England Norman architec- ture not transitional its introduction into England Westminster Waltham no essential difference between Early and Late Norman Outlines of churches preserved by the Gothic builders of great churches St. George Bocherville west fronts transept fronts apses towers capping of towers spires internal arrangements piers cy- lindrical piers in England not columns, but identical with the square pier arches triforia rcofs shafts small interiors chancel arches mouldings doorways windows decorative arcades shafts and columns Note on Norwegian churches . . . . . . . . . . 228 CHAPTER XIII. OF THE INFLUENCE OF LATE ARCHITECTURE IN THE EAST. Latin conquest of Constantinople Venetian conquests Latin ideas in later Greek Churches The Holy Sepulchre Church . . .. .. 251 CHAPTER XIV. GENKRAL REVIEW OF ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE. Romanesque Architecture, whether a perfect style questions to be distin- guished from this Romanesque the perfection of the round-arched con- struction no objection to be drawn from its history supposed " Pagan origin" no difficulty incongruity between Romanesque and Modern Ita- lian the cause chiefly ecclesiastical Romanesque not imperfect Gothic leading idea of the style, Rest carried out in detail agreement of the different forms of Romanesque their difference rather in outline than in architecture Basilican Byzantine Lombard German Norman comparison of the two last superiority of the Norman Symbolism and teaching of Romanesque of Gothic of Revived Italian .. .. 25 1 XXVI CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV. OF ARABIAN ARCHITECTURE. PACK Value of the style historical rather than artistic gorgeousness without taste Byzantine influence inadequate supports Arabian architecture in Egypt tendency to anticipate isolated Gothic features in Spain Mos- que of Cordova the Alhambra the Giralda at Seville Architecture in Hindostan its superiority to other Arabian styles use of the cupola gateways Persian and Turkish architecture . . . . . . . . 270 CHAPTER XVI. OF THE DIRECT INFLUENCE OF ARABIAN ARCHITECTURE IN WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. Pointed buildings in Sicily mixed origin of the people Norman con- quest Byzantine remains Arabian Norman buildings in the Saracenic style Palace Chapel at Palermo Cathedral of Cefalu of Palermo of Monreale secular buildings intermixture of Norman forms the style really Arabian Arabian influence elsewhere Venice Spain . . . . 286 PART II. OF THE POINTED ARCH, OR GOTHIC ARCHI- TECTURE. CHAPTER I. DEFINITION AND ORIGIN OF GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. Gothic architecture its perfection its former contempt propriety of the name Gothic Definition of the style the vertical principle develop- ments of the principle First, the Pointed Arch its necessity to carry out the style Second, the round or polygonal abacus its importance Third, the clustered pillar its octagonal substitute Fourth, mouldings chamfers Other vertical developments use of horizontal lines princi- ple of contrast Vaulting its necessity imperfection of the timber roof Origin of the style individuals at work in architectural developments theories as to the origin of the Pointed Arch not the question at issue the real question as to the origin of its systematic use probably from the east difficulties answered other features followed the adoption of the Pointed Arch Vegetable origin of the style how far correct ideas bor- rowed both from natural and artificial combinations objections answered general Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 CHAPTER II. OF THE TRANSITION FROM ROMANESQUE TO GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. Opposition between the two styles length and severity of the struggle the Pointed Arch the first feature introduced employed first as an arch of construction then as one of decoration retention of the round arch, especially in English doorways changes in abaci pillars mouldings nse of classical capitals Attic base arcades windows Transition in CONTENTS. XXV11 PAGE France an imperfect Gothic Transition .in Germany late retention of Romanesque retention of the round pier-arch vaulting triforia piers windows changes in outline polygonal forms German Transi- tion " a modified Romanesque" Comparison of the Transition in Eng- land, France, and Germany .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 321 CHAPTER III. OF THE SUBDIVISIONS OF GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. Difference between the subdivisions of Romanesque and of Gothic Three- fold division nomenclature of the Ecclesiological Society its defects Twofold division into Early and Continuous extract from Mr. Petit cha- racteristics of the two destruction of separate existence in the Continu- ous foliation shafts panelling window-tracery objections brought against the Continuous really lie against late Decorated as well as against Perpendicular horizontal line principle of contrast carried out in low roofs towers four-centred arches where allowable points objected to not essential to the style Fourfold subdivision Lancet Geometrical Flowing Perpendicular Flamboyant no such thing as a Decorated style in a philosophical sense the arrangement convenient in practice . . 338 CHAPTER IV. OF THE EARLY GOTHIC. Lancet or Early English its definition the lancet window composi- tions of lancets east end of Ely western triplets other forms of win- dows beauty of detail detached shafts mouldings Geometrical style origin of tracery first in couplets retention of the triplet gradual change in other details Early Gothic towers spires absence of clere- stories even in large churches doorways interiors distinctiveness of parts pillars triforia clerestories Comparison of Westminster and Ely advantage of the large triforium Lincoln Lichfield York the nave a transition to the Continuous -vaulting chapter-houses small churches intermediate examples choirs of Stafford and Dorchester French Early Gothic Romanesque features retained Continuous lines Geome- trical traceryLancet style abroad only in Normandy German Early Gothic superiority to the French their resemblances German tracery outlines interiors Comparison of German, English, and French Early Gothic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355 CHAPTER V. OF THE LATE OR CONTINUOUS GOTHIC Difficulty of exact demarcation between this style and the last Perpendi- cular element in Flowing tracery William of Wykeham, how fir the in- ventor of Perpendicular transitional forms of tracery peculiarities of Continuous windows mouldings pitch of gables buttresses clere- stories - spires towers octagons doorways porches Interiors Comparatively little difference between Collegiate and I'aroehial Churches XXV111 CONTENTS. PACE retention of Early ideas in pillars true Perpendicular form absence of the triforium roofs elaborate vaults fan-tracery wooden roofs trefoil roof low roof coved and flat roofs Winchester Cathedral advantage of great length Gloucester its inferiority Canterbury King's College Chapel French Flamboyant its capabilities its practi- cal vices discontinuous imposts excessive richness windows door- ways towers triforia vaulting St. Ouen's the first of all churches- German Flamboyant its faults tracery fantastic steeples vaults St. James, at Liege Comparison of Perpendicular and Flamboyant . . 37G CHAPTER VI. OF THE GOTHIC OF SOUTHERN EUROPE. Gothic only native in the north Italian Gothic alien to national feeling works of foreigners St. Andrew, Vercelli St. Francis, Assisi works of Italians their imperfections want of Gothic outlines sham fronts round arches wide span of pier-arches secular buildings Arabian in- fluence especially at Venice Milan Cathedral a style of itself its splendid interior Campaniles Spanish Gothic character of the people Arabian influence Superiority of Spanish to Italian Gothic Spanish architecture imitative Burgos Toledo Seville Arabian details in- creased Arabian influence at the time of the Renaissance Church of Batalha its importance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403 CHAPTER VII. OF THE DECAY OF GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. Henry VII. changes marked by his accession his Chapel his tomb Italianisms first introduced on tombs causes for this perfection of the earliest forms of sepulchral architecture its gradual declension The suppression of monasteries its effects on architecture indirect The Renaissance its origin in Italy gradual corruption of art struggle even in Italy Cinque-cento Brunellesclii the dome of Florence Bra- mante Michael Angelo severe struggle in northern countries in France Beauvais Orleans Churches with Gothic outlines and Italian details St. Eustace In England revived Gothic of Oxford its excel- lence connection with the Laudian movement decline of art elsewhere "Elizabethan" style furniture late examples of Gothic Lichfield Revived Italian its worthlessness perverted skill of some of its profes- sors School of Wren St. Paul's his appreciation of Gothic outlines Revived Italian towers successors of Wren Radcliffe Library Revived Grecian its absurdity Taylor Buildings at Oxford revival of Gothic architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423 a tstorp of architecture^ GENERAL INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER I. DESIGN AND SCOPE OF THE WORK. It is a truth which seems at last to be generally admitted, that every effort of human art must seek for richness and beauty, not in extraneous sources, but in the due adorning of those features which are required by the necessities of construction or utility ; it is a principle grounded on the analogy of the natural and moral world, and confirmed by the evidence of the greatest works of every art. But it is architecture that has ever afforded the widest scope for its development, and it is farther an art whose very existence depends upon this principle ; on this ground alone must architecture rest its claim to the place it holds among the noblest arts. / Painting and sculpture owe their ori- gin to the higher cravings of man's nature ; their bare existence implies some sort of mental refinement, some feeling, how- ever rude and uncultivated, of taste and elegance, in a word, some appreciation of beauty. But these feelings, which to the subordinate arts are the very sources of existence, arc to archi- tecture only the causes of superadded excellence. Its primary source is to be found in our merest physical wants, in those in- deed which we share with the inferior animals. As most of these seek out some dwelling, natural or artificial, so man, even in his ii A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. most unpolished state, requires a shelter from the midnight chill and the noon-day heat, though it be no better protection than can be afforded by tjie. rudest tent or hut, or even by the natural caves of the earth. [Architecture then, in its widest sense as the building art, differs irom other arts, in being not merely essen- tial to man for the full scope of his highest faculties, but required for his physical comfort, almost for his very existence.! And surely it is a wonderful application of the principle above'aTIuded to, that from such an origin should arise the very first of arts, that which has produced the most thrilling and awful works of human genius; which at once requires the least technical knowledge for its general appreciation, and opens the widest field for minute inquiries and philosophical speculation. The art whose name bespeaks it the chief and queen of all, which presses the noblest of other arts into its service and bends them to its will, is thus at once their beginning and their end ; the most lowly in its origin, the most glorious in its perfection ; slowly and gradually has it risen, enriched by the contributions of every age, and creed, and nation, from the log-hut of the savage, we might say from the lair of the wild beast, to the fairest works of mere human and heathen beauty ; and by a more soaring flight has attained to the unearthly majesty of the Christian Minster, to the lordly tower of Canterbury, the heaven-bound spire of Freyburg, and yet more glorious still, to the mighty canopy of pillar, and arch, and vault, spread as though by angelic hands over the shrine of England's royal Confessor. It is however to this difference of origin between architecture and the other fine arts, and to the practical consequences to which it has given rise, that we must attribute the still pre- valent disinclination to allow the art and its professors the lofty place which they may rightly claim. The professors of the art are commonly looked upon through an atmosphere of bricks and mortar, estimates and contracts, which almost wholly obscures their character as artists in the very highest sense. And with architecture considered as a subject of amateur study, it cannot be denied that it does not at all hold in public estima- tion the position which is so justly allowed to painting and sculpture. The latter are recognized as matters of taste and in- tellect, as subjects of the higher powers of the mind, while DESIGN AND SCOPE OF THE WORK, architecture is still looked upon as a mass of dry, technical de- tail, a subject to be got up as a lesson, not to be taken in by the noblest faculties of the understanding and the heart. The so- called classical architecture which was so long exclusively in vogue had been so incumbered by cramped and rigid rules that it could offer but few charms to those who would embrace the pursuit as an elegant accomplishment. And now that men's eyes are beginning to be opened to the far higher beauties which adorn the works of our own race and our own religion, archi- tecture is still seldom looked upon in its true light. The pur- suit has been almost exclusively confined to two classes, neither of whose views has any necessary relation to its study as an art. First come the mere antiquarians, who look on buildings solely in the light of antiquities, with whom the most sumptu- ous display of Grecian or Gothic art has, after all, scarcely any other interest than that raised by a barrow or a kistvaen, a rusty dagger, or an antique potsherd. Much has been said with great justice as to the positive irreverence to which this treatment of the subject has led, where consecrated buildings have formed the mat- ter of inquiry. Antiquarianism certainly exposes its professors to many temptations on this score, but they are merely tempta- tions, and do not imply any inherent vice in the study. The elder school of antiquaries numbered among its members many of the best men of their days, those who cherished whatever love and reverence remained for the mediaeval Church. It is only in quite recent times that what deems itself a more enlightened archreology has taken up a position which must be looked upon as distinctly and formally hostile to religion. And it is clear that this line of study must be equally void of fruit, when we look to its influence on the scientific and artistic study of architecture. It is manifest that to the mere arclneologian the antiquity is everything and the art nothing; the charm is not found in beauty of form or richness of execution, but in the number of years which the specimen has existed; a modern work, even of the most consummate excellence, is of course looked on as valueless. I am far from attributing this feeling to all who call themselves arclncologians, but I say without hesi- tation that it is the natural tendency of simple archrcology thus to confine its view ; wherever archrcologians rise above i(, it is b 2 4 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. not as archreologians, but by virtue of some other character which is united therewith in their own individual persons. From those then whose architectural studies are thus limited we cannot look for the discovery of principles of art, but at best for an his- torical science of detail, classified according to dates. And it would be most ungrateful in the architectural student to deny the immense benefits conferred on his pursuit by such diligent inquirers as the late Mr. Bickman, and the author of the Glossary of Architecture, who have with such perseverance cleared away the difficulties from his path, and paved a way to the highest summits of his inquiry. Our only ground of com- plaint is, that some writers of this school forget that they have only paved a way for others ; they not only stop short at a certain point themselves, but grudge that any one else should go farther ; they have supplied facts, and quarrel with those who would thence develop principles ; they have provided a com- plete but lifeless body, and look with suspicion on any attempt to infuse a vital principle into the inert mass ; they are like a dry plodding annalist shaking his head and looking grave at the " fanciful" reflections of a Thucydides or an Arnold ; or a peda- gogue whose mind had never taken a flight beyond accidence and birch, looking aghast at the extended philology of the Comparative Grammar. On the other hand is a nobler race, the authors of the great ccclesiological movement ; the men who have fought the battle of the Church in her material sanctuaries, and have, amid sus- picion and slander, stood forth so manfully to convert the modern preaching-house into the Catholic temple of prayers and sacra- ments. Nothing is farther from the thoughts of the present writer, himself a humble fellow-labourer in the great work, than to cast a moment's slur upon their high and holy cause. But still it is manifest that their efforts do not necessarily tend to promote the study of architecture as an art. The first phase of ecclesiology was simple antiquarianism, raised indeed by the end at which it aimed, and the objects with which it was conversant; but still, in its theory a mere technical acquaintance with the sacred buildings of a particular age, in its practice a careful reproduc- tion of their features. The science has now taken a bolder flight ; Christian temples of all ages and all countries are to be studied ; DESIGN AND SCOPE OF THE WORK. 5 painting, sculpture, music, history, are all pressed into its ser- vice; a single period is no longer put forward as the necessary standard of perfection, but new developments of Christian art are confidently looked for. But it is manifest that this is not the direct study of architecture, but one which I freely allow has a much better and higher scope ; it is essentially religious, and only incidentally artistical. It occupies a field at once too wide and too narrow for our present purpose ; it of course ex- cludes all direct attention to any but ecclesiastical architecture ; and moreover includes a large variety of subjects which have no place in our present investigation. Everything that can add fresh solemnity to the Christian temple and its worship comes within the natural and legitimate scope of the ecclesiologist ; every fine art, almost every mechanical one, has there its place : the painter, the sculptor, the glass-stainer, the goldsmith, the worker in brass and iron, all contribute their share ; the pro- prieties of Church-arrangement, the refinement of Church-sym- bolism, the splendour of vestments, the harmony of music, the deep treasures of ritual antiquity, are all appropriate branches of his studies. But it is manifest that while our present design opens on the one hand a wider field for investigation, as includ- ing the architecture of all ages and nations, it is on the other more narrowed in its range, as it has no connection whatever with any of these latter pursuits unless when they happen inci- dentally to affect the style and proportions of strictly architec- tural works. / I will now endeavour to define the view of architecture which I propose to take in the present work. The origin of this art being, as was before said, to be found in the simplest necessities of life, it is at once brought in close connection with what are some- times called the industrial, as opposed to the fine arts.J Tn painting or sculpture these have no share, or if any, it is one almost as purely subservient and as utterly lost sight of, as paper- making or printing, considered as subsidiary to the production of a poem or a history. But the architect's design, though itself the creation of pure intellect, is carried out by mere manual and mechanical labour, the designer himself has no share in its execution, nor need he, as far as his art is concerned, know anything of the means whereby it is effected. Though HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. from prudential reasons, it is expedient that an architect should be at least a theoretical builder, though in point of fact he cannot otherwise originate a good design ; still the two characters are in idea entirely separate. I Hence then building and architecture are totally distinct ; the former is mechanical, industrial, depend- ing wholly on physical laws of construction ; the latter intellec- tual, refined, depending on the laws of taste; the one is a matter of bricks and mortar, strains and pressures ; the other of grace, harmony, and proportion. Architecture then is itself, like all fine art, the creation of the higher part of man's nature, and subject to the influence of the intellectual and moral workings of individuals, ages, and nations; there must therefore be a science of architecture as a branch of the general science of the human mind ; there is of course also a science of building, of construction ; but while the science of architecture is mental and even moral, that of building is merely mathematical and physical. Architecture then is the soul, building the body ; and as the body influences the soul, hs bodily health conduces to high spirits, if not to intellectuaTvigour, while bodily sickness often weighs down and paralyses its spiritual companion, so is the in- tellectual art of the architect liable to be improved or deterio- rated by the mechanical art of the builder. Without its aid he cannot place his own conceptions before the eyes and minds of others ; hence architecture is ever liable to be influenced by phy- sical as well as by moral causes ; the requirements of the particular use for which an edifice is designed, the necessities of climate, the nature of materials, the state of physical and con- structive science, even that of the mere mechanical skill of work- men, all influence the architect, and produce most important effects upon the nature of his composition. High moral causes, political and religious circumstances acting on the mind of the age as well as of the individual, give the quickening spirit of the style ; to these we owe the mystic awe of Indian and Egyptian art, the pure but still earthly beauty of the Grecian temple, the solemn massiveness of the Romanesque Cathedral, the soaring majesty of its Gothic successor : all these spring from the trea- sures of the heart ; but lower causes may act either for good or for evil upon their development in construction and detail. The historical philosophy of the science, the arrangement of succes- DESIGN AND SCOPE OF THE WORK. 7 sive styles, not by mere dates, but by the pervading and animat- ing principle of each, must be conversant with both classes, and trace how their workings on the mind of successive peoples are exhibited in their architectural works. [Granting then the claim of architecture to rank among the fine arts, and therefore of its science to have a place among the branches of mental philosophy, it would appear to follow that there is room for another mode of treating the subject, totally distinct from both archaeological and ecclesiological researches, and yet of course involving much that is common with both. And it is this that I shall endeavour to carry out in the present work ; it will be an attempt to trace, as simply and popularly as the subject will admit, the history of the art of architecture in its developments among all nations. It will look at once to the artistic principles of successive styles, and the manner in which they are carried out in their more prominent details, and will far- ther seek to be a general contribution to the history of man and his natureTJ For it will be at once concerned with the philosophy of a most noble art, and with the effects produced on that art by the events of history, as exemplifying the character and position of nations, and the working of political and ecclesiastical cir- cumstances. The former branch of the subject has been ably treated with regard to the ecclesiastical architecture of west- ern Europe, by Dr. Whewell, Mr. Petit, and the late Mr. Hope; and the latter path has been opened, though not to any very great extent, by the last clear-sighted and indefatigable author. Still more has been drawn out incidentally in the works of strictly ecclesiological writers ; but it is still merely incidental ; the actual aim of their writings, as was stated above, is different and indeed higher, and of course their speculations must be in the main confined to Christian architecture. In the present work, on the other hand, the aim will be to give in the strictest sense a history of the science of architecture, as a contribution, however humble, to the philosophy of art ; it will not be, unless incidentally, either arch geological or ecclesiological ; its aim will be in short to trace, with as little reference as possible to extraneous matter, the historical sequence of styles as dis- tinguished by their pervading principles, and the influence wrought upon them by those circumstances which mould the 8 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. mind and manners of a nation. Attention will be rather given to the grand features of outline and composition than to the minutiae of detail, unless when the latter really illustrate principles of art. Detail has been already sufficiently treated of in several works, all of which have their use, while no popular work unless the thoughtful and truly original volumes of Mr. Petit can be ranked under that head has yet paid much atten- tion to the former. It is intended to embrace, as far as possible, the architecture of all nations which have any pretence to a regular or definite style. But a few remarks will here be necessary, lest undue ex- pectations should be raised from these words. It has been the ecclesiastical architecture of western Europe, the Romanesque and Gothic styles, to the elucidation of which the writer's time and thoughts have ever been chiefly devoted. Both from this cause, and from the greater interest which they possess to our- selves, both on account of their supereminent merit, and of their being the architectural language of our own race and religion, the consideration of these forms of the art will form the most prominent feature in the work. The author's remarks on other styles which have engrossed comparatively little of his attention, and whose monuments he has had no opportunity of investi- gating personally, will be little more than a compilation from other writers ; while the architecture of Christian and Teutonic Europe will demand all that his own diligent observation and reflection will afford. On the same principle that I abstain from entering on the fascinating field of pure ecclesiology, I endeavour to avoid di- gressions to those subjects which stand in nearly the same rela- tion to Pagan architecture as that science does to that of Christ- endom. Where, as in Greece and Italy, the purposes of a religion and habits with which we are generally familiar exercise a visible effect upon architecture, a brief notice of those purposes mani- festly comes within the scope of this treatise. But to involve himself, as there is great temptation to do, in recondite and doubtful speculations as to the exact nature and design of Celtic, Egyptian, and Indian monuments, and in the mazes of those distant mythologies which to the majority even of highly educated people are almost entirely unknown, would be profitable neither DESIGN AND SCOPE OF THE WORK. 9 to the author nor to his readers. I must confess that though these are subjects for which, as for all knowledge of the mind and history of man, I entertain a high respect, I have as yet been content to admire them at a distance ; mere allusions more- over to matters not fully understood are profitless, and the ques- tions themselves are such that a real explanation of them could not be fairly looked for in a treatise on architecture, even were the writer as competent to elucidate them in all their bearings as he feels himself to be the reverse. In like manner I take the main outlines of European history for granted, and allude to events in their results ; as, though I have here the greatest pos- sible temptation to diverge from my subject, the direct teaching of history is clearly no part of my present province. The author can imagine that some persons for whose opinion he has a high respect, may object to the plan of combining hea- then and Christian architecture in a single work, perhaps even to any investigation whatever with regard to the former. But the history of any art would be manifestly imperfect, were it con- fined to one of its forms, even though that one be the noblest and most sacred of all ; art does not cease to be art and to demand investigation as such, because it has been sanctified to a higher use ; any more than the new birth of the Christian precludes the examination of his merely human nature in the science of moral philosophy. The historian of a Christian state does not consider himself precluded from treating of its secular affairs, the universal historian is not debarred from recording the fate of heathen nations, because the fortunes of the Church should be the thought uppermost in the mind of every Christian writer. A treatise of ecclcsiology is like a formal theological work, in which secular affairs may indeed be alluded to, or even, under some circumstances, occupy a prominent place, but arc still something purely incidental, and subordinate to the main object; a treatise of architecture is like a work of general history or phi- losophy, which has no direct theological aim, but which, when- ever it has occasion to allude to the history or dogmas of the Church, will be careful to treat them with becoming reverence. And this, or something analogous, will be the aim of the present volume ; though not a treatise on religious buildings, but on buildings generally, churches, when they have to be introduced, 10 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. will have their holy use fully recognized. The one view cannot be rightly made to exclude the other ; and farther, a perfect knowledge of ecclesiology can hardly be obtained without a cer- tain acquaintance with some at least of the Pagan styles ; the development of Horn an and Gothic architecture is almost a ne- cessary branch of ecclesiological science, and this cannot be rightly understood without estimating the great importance of Grecian art as in some sort the parent of both, and the probable influence of Saracenic models on the formation of the Gothic style. There seems in truth to be some danger of the ecclesiological movement leading in one class of minds to a narrowness not unlike that which it has supplanted. As the last generation despised all architecture except that of the Greeks and Romans, and was content to abide in ignorance of what it despised ; there is now a tendency at work to make the ecclesiastical architecture of the middle ages the centre of an equally confined view. That Gothic architecture is beyond all comparison the noblest effort of the art, that it is the only style to be adopted for modern structures in western Europe, the present writer would never dream for a moment of calling in question ; but this surely does not preclude us from looking on the architecture of other na- tions as being at least as curious and valuable a study as other researches of the like kind. It is only a very prejudiced eye that can look with suspicion on the historical study of the science, and the elucidation of its general principles ; the archi- tectural monuments of every nation cannot fail to throw light upon its history, institutions, and modes of thought ; of some indeed, their architectural works are all that remain. Unless the page of history is to be for ever closed, unless the classical student is to be deemed a real restorer of the heathen world in which he dwells; unless the works of Homer and iEschylus are to be cast from us as an idolatrous defilement; the legitimate study of the architecture of heathen nations, along with their history, poetry, and philosophy, cannot be consistently pro- hibited. We may gaze with awe on the mystic circles of Celtic antiquity, and the gigantic piles of India and Egypt ; we may contemplate the palmy days of Athens, and view in imagination her agora thronged with heroes, bards, and sages, as we trace the CAUSES OF THE DIVERSITY OF STYLES. 11 parallel development of her intellect in the matchless grace, the calm serenity of her Parthenon ; we may in contemplating the magnificent though corrupted structures which Roman art has scattered through so many lands, bring more vividly before us the mighty power of the eternal city, we may dwell among her consuls and her Cresars, her warriors and her orators ; without a wish to deprive our own yet more glorious style of its para- mount sway over Teutonic Christendom ; we may still hold that all that Athens or Rome could rear must yield to the far higher and holier splendours of Rouen and Cologne; and that the portico of the virgin goddess, with all its stately columns and living friezes, is to be admired, but not imitated, in a land which has reared and consecrated the tall arcades and soaring vaults of our Lady's church of Salisbury. The general design then of the present work is an attempt at a philosophical history of the science of architecture ; it will be its aim to exhibit its artistic principles, and their political and reli- gious symbolism the symbolism I mean of styles and whole edifices, not that of mere details. Construction, detail, archaeo- logy, ecclesiology, will only occur as subordinate and incidental ; and technicalities will be avoided as much as possible. To form cither a hand-book of details, or a catalogue of particular build- ings, is no part of my design, but to exemplify the successive de- velopments of the art ; to challenge for it a higher place in the history of the human mind than can be claimed for mere anti- quarian curiosity, and a more extended field than the philoso- phically confined, though morally beautiful and ennobling, scope of pure ecclesiology. CHAPTER II. CAUSES OF THE DIVERSITY OF STYLES IX ARCHITECTURE. The most remarkable feature in the history of architecture, and that which, more than any other, renders its study at once a field for anticpiarian research and an important branch of 12 HISTORY OP ARCHITECTURE. mental philosophy, is the fixedness with which each age and nation adhered to its own form of the art. At some periods, indeed, as in the best days of Gothic skill, architecture was in a state of almost incessant flux, new forms were continually introduced, and each was consequently of short duration ; still these forms were but developments and applications of a higher and more widely extended principle, and each had a period of predominant, if not universal, prevalence, however soon it may have yielded to another. In short, every architectural work, both in its general conception and in its remotest detail, bears on it the stamp of its own age and country ; not only is it often possible at once to recognise their impress with almost the cer- tainty of historical testimony, but a deeper investigation will show that these forms are not merely so many antiquarian facts, but the exponents of some pervading principle, to be sought for in the peculiar circumstances of the age and country whose stamp they bear. Not that this is at all peculiar to architecture ; it is common to it with all works of imaginative, and some even of mechanical art. The great works of the painter and the sculptor, the inspired effusions of the poet and the orator, all bear the impress, not only of his own mind, but of that of his age and nation. The ne- cessities of climate and differences of geographical position pro- duce no inconsiderable influence on manners, arts, and intellect ; the mountaineer and the inhabitant of the plain, the rustic and the dweller in cities, have each their distinguishing and unmis- takeable characteristics. But, beyond all this, an unfathomable law of Divine Providence has divided the offspring of our com- mon parents into widely distinguished races : there are certain definite marks stamped deep upon the physical and moral con- stitution of each, upon their habits, their tone of thought, and, above all, their language, by which individuals and nations may be at once referred to their respective branches of the great human family. And a yet more deep and mysterious decree directs the fates of these several races and nations ; one great law, indeed, of progress and decay marks out for the people, no less than for the individual, the successive stages of existence, its youth, its manhood, and its age, but the circumstances of nations at different periods are almost infinitely varied ; habits, CAUSES OF THE DIVERSITY OF STYLES. 13 constitutions, religions, rise and fall; themselves the offspring of national character, they strongly re-act upon the expression of that character in philosophy and art. Many of the diversities in art have, of course, a more direct and palpable source in intentional adaptations to outward circumstances ; but deeper causes than this are at work. We can trace in the arts and literature of a nation the mysterious symbolism of its inner mind, the un- conscious expression of its position and tone of thought, accord- ing to the same hidden law which has caused those very diversities of which these works become the visible and tangible expression. Thus far all that has been said is equally true of all intellec- tual works ; and the history of architectural diversities is but one instance among many of the working of a general law. There are, however, one or two circumstances more peculiarly connected with our present subject which may require a more extended mention. The successive changes in architect are are certainly more easily traced than those of the kindred products of the human intellect. The influences above described, although equally cer- tain in all, and following in the main the same general laws, cannot be so clearly and definitely marked in those productions whose origin and seat are wholly in the mind, and of which the senses are nothing more than conditions of their communi- cation to others, as in those which are altogether confined to a sensible expression. Such are the arts, and of these architec- ture affords a more easy means for the recognition of this in- fluence than painting or sculpture. Not that the changes and their causes are known with less certainty to scientific students of the two latter arts, but simply that in the case of architecture the fact of their existence is more prominently brought before the mind of an unscientific person of ordinary observation. The public eye is necessarily far more conversant with works of architecture than with either of the others, so that men cannot fail to be more in the habit of observing and criticising them. But besides this, the features of outline and proportion, and the main character of a style as exemplified in a church or other large building, are in themselves such as to strike more readily upon the eye than the characteristics of the several schools of painting 14 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. and sculpture ; even the minute detail, I should imagine, is some- thing more tangible and definite, and more readily reduced to rule than the differences of tint and expression in a picture or a statue. Hence, among other reasons, we find persons who have given no special attention to the subject more inclined to form opinions upon the merits of architectural designs, and even to dictate to the professional artist, than is commonly the case with regard to the other two branches of the fine arts. T And farther, architecture is, partly from its being the only one directly grounded upon utility, partly from its more close connec- tion with purely material and mechanical processes, more liable than the rest to be influenced by strictly physical causes, by mecha- nical discoveries, and by the direct requirements, as distinguished from the unconscious working, of habits and religion. To these causes the more plain and tangible diversities in architecture those by which the dates of buildings are generally ascertained are in most cases to be referred. Let us take for instance two purely physical causes, climate and material. It is manifest that a hot and a cold, a moist and a dry climate require different kinds of edifices ; so different kinds of materials wood, stone, brick require different modes of construction. Climate has thus a direct influence ; it also influences habits, and these again have an effect on architecture. Religion again exercises a still more powerful effect over the highest developments of the art, as in almost every age and nation the temples of its worship have been the buildings to which the noblest efforts of architec- ture have been devoted. Different forms of worship require different plans and arrangements ; and these not only exercise a most powerful influence upon outline and proportion, but farther tend to mould the actual style of architecture, by bringing for- ward such forms as will best harmonise with their necessary re- quirements. Mechanical discoveries also affect style ; they may be first introduced from mere convenience, perhaps even with an endeavour to engraft them on a style to whose principles they are altogether repugnant ; yet the living plastic skill of the true archi- tect soon seizes on them, works them into his system, clothes utility with beauty, and makes the feature which is of the main importance in construction contribute a proportionate share to the decoration of the building. The old system, now worn out, falls CAUSES OF THE DIVERSITY OF STYLES. 15 to the ground, and the new one, just grown to maturity, springs forward into perfect life, in all the freshness and brilliancy that bespeaks the latest-born offspi-ing of the Divine spark within the mind of man. We see in the heart of man two discordant principles holding his actions as it were in equal balance between them : the love of novelty which ever gives so unspeakable a charm to the fresh, the unknown, the wonderful ; and that power of habit and associ- ation which is found sufficient to endear to us even objects which otherwise would have but little claim upon our affections. And this latter power has not been without its influence on architec- ture ; combined with its antagonist it has even proved a fresh source of variety. For every nation, as has been powerfully traced out by Mr. Hope, 1 continues to reproduce under fresh circumstances, with fresh materials, the one original type to which it was at first habituated ; a process which produces a third form, differing from that in which either material would naturally be treated. Thus, after so many ages, the Chinese re- produces in wood, stone, or porcelain, the tent of his nomad ancestors ; the temples of Egypt and Ilindostan still recall the subterraneous cavern ; Greece in her most glorious days, in her most sumptuous temples, in all their stately columns of the choicest marbles, amid the elaborate grace of their mouldings, the living foliage of their capitals, the friezes where Lapithrc and Centaurs are called to breath and motion by the chisel of a Pheidias, did yet preserve unchanged, undisguised, the one un- varying model, 2 the wooden hut of Pelasgus ; yet more, the soaring nave of a Gothic minster, in the clustered and banded stalks of its lofty pillars, the curling leaves of its capitals and cornices, the interlacing arches of its fretted vault, the intermi- nable entwinings of its tracery, the countless hues that sparkle from roof, and chapiter, and wall, and window, recalls no work of man indeed, no tent, or hut, or cavern, but the sublimcst temple of natural religion, the awful gloom of the dee]) forests of the North ; the aspiring height of the slender pine, the spread- ing arms of the, giant oak, rich with the varied tints of leaf a7id blossom, with the wild birds' song for its anthem, or the rustle 1 Historical Essay, Chap. IV. " Id., p. 27. 16 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. of the breeze in its waving branches for the voices of the mighty multitude or the deep notes of the solemn organ. These forms and associations naturally remain stamped upon the mind of the art, till some great mechanical discovery, some mighty revolution in politics or religion, some complete revulsion in taste and feeling, brings its influence, whether sudden or gradual, whether by violent change or slow develop- ment, to bear alike upon outline and detail. Hence arise tran- sitional styles, periods of progress from one principle to another, which will in most cases be found to consist in an attempt to engraft a new principle of construction on an old principle of decoration. The building enjoys the mechanical advantages of the new discovery, while the forms of ornamental detail remain as before, until the new constructive principle has worked out for itself a more harmonious system of decoration. The forms produced by these transitional periods are generally, in an sesthetical point of view, the most unsatisfactory of all : it is only great size and magnificence, or great excellence of propor- tion and detail, which can at all counterbalance the inharmonious and inconsistent foundation on which they are reared. But in an investigation of the history of the art no periods are so re- plete with interest ; every stage, every minute detail, illustrates the combat of antagonist principles ; the struggles of the de- nying style, receding step by step from the scene of its ancient sovereignty ; the sure though slow inroads of its successor, first grasping the main features of construction, then gradually bringing within its power the details of shaft, and capital, and moulding, till all are fused into a perfect whole ; are at once a sub- ject of most curious inquiry, and one tending to point out more strongly than any other part of their history, the real animating principles of successive styles, and to supply also a valuable commentary on the two great rival principles in the human mind itself. Having thus endeavoured to point out the principal causes to which the diversities of architectural styles are to be referred, I shall next endeavour to divide and group together upon consis- tent principles the styles employed by the chief nations of the world, from the earliest works that can pretend to anything like an architectural style to the ever-varying productions of our own day. 17 CHAPTER III. DIVISION OF STYLES IN ARCHITECTURE. The term style is one in itself not very easy to define, and its use in architecture is more especially vague, as it serves to denote alike the most comprehensive and the most minute divisions under which architectural works may be arranged. These classes too, both great and small, may be considered under several aspects ; they may be regarded as simple chronological and geographical landmarks, merely denoting, as an archaeological fact, what sort of buildings were erected in a particular country at a parti- cular time ; or they may be looked upon as arrangements of such facts according to some easily recognized circumstance of con- struction or detail ; or finally as exemplifications of some per- vading principle, of which details are merely more or less per- fectly developed instances. These three principles of division constitute a gradually ascending scale ; and the last is undoubt- edly the highest and most scientific, and should, wherever it is possible, be the only one employed. But it is equally cleai', from a general view of the science of architecture, that none of the thi*ee will admit of an universal application; we cannot make an arrangement wholly philosophical, and it would be undesirable to make one wholly historical and antiquarian. The architecture of some ages and countries is far less known to us than that of others ; for instance, we have not, and cannot have, the same in- timate acquaintance with the details and historical sequence of Indian or Egyptian architecture, as with those of Grecian, Ro- man, or Gothic. Distance of time and place, want of records, destruction of actual monuments, comparative ignorance of the manners, feelings, and institutions of the ages and nations whose works we arc examining, all tend to affect the accuracy of our investigations into the varieties of architectural detail. But be- sides this purely relative view, the respective characters of the styles themselves make some far more valuable than others, as a field for scientific investigation, and actually more capable of being made so. In a survey of the world's history some periods, c 18 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. some nations, stand forth conspicuous above others for their in- trinsic splendour, and their influence in moulding the minds and institutions of other lands and peoples. Some nations draw at once all eyes to them as the centres of political and moral learn- ing; their history is full of life and activity, mighty events des- tined to influence the fates of future ages crowd upon us in every page ; others present a long dreary catalogue of men with- out actions, or of actions without effects, and belong rather to the ethnological and philological inquirer, than to the his- torian or the moralist. What is the whole history of the East, the countless dynasties of China, India, and Egypt, with all their vast dominions, their early civilization, their fixed and ancient institutions, but a barren catalogue of kings, and priests, and conquerors, when it is viewed side by side . with one living and stirring page of Greece, or Rome, or mediaeval Europe ? One word from one man in a little town of Greece or Italy, had ofttimes more effect on the future destinies of the human race than all the laws and victories of a thousand Shahs or Pharaohs. And thus too with their architecture ; all styles are not of the same merit, all do not equally contain a principle of life, all are not equally the expression of an idea ; partly from these inherent differences, partly from external causes, all have not the same historical importance in influencing the arts of future ages. It hence follows that all do not present the same facilities for an investigation of their pervading prin- ciples of construction, decoration, and symbolism. The vivid, piercing intellect of the Greek, his inherent perception of grace and loveliness, have given birth to a style of art unrivalled for simple elegance and dignity; the stern practical mind of the Roman, his calm, deliberate, unyielding energy, could by the moral power of his institutions, and the very name of his mighty empire, mould alike the institutions and the arts of Europe for ages after his political power had crumbled in the dust. These were the works of heathendom, the breathings of unrenewed, though not abandoned nature; the offspring of the keen intellect, and the indomitable will. It was for other lands and another race to manifest the influence of a higher and a holier principle, to give birth to a style that speaks not of the things of earth, but whose every stone should breathe of the religion of heaven. As the DIVISION OF STYLES IN ARCHITECTURE. 19 art of ancient Greece was the purest and loveliest child of mere intellect and taste, of mere human aspirations after the noble and the beautiful, that of mediaeval Christendom is the holiest offspring of moral power, the yearnings of a heart renewed from above, and in every thought and affection soaring heavenwards. These then are the two points which irresistibly draw our thoughts towards them ; the Greek, with his earthly loveliness, the Teuton with his almost heavenly awe; the one faultless grace, the other soaring majesty ; the one telling of the faint glimmer- ings of heathendom, the other kindled by the full blaze of the Church's light ; the one in a word human, the other divine. These two styles then, as being beyond all others the true ex- pression of a great pervading idea, must ever remain the centres of deep and philosophical investigation in architecture ; and of the two, Gothic, as the expression of the deeper and nobler idea, even more so than its rival. The productions of other styles, as being less full of thought and meaning, cannot be equally suscep- tible of such an examination ; other forms of art strike rather from the result of adventitious circumstances, from the bulk and pro- portion, the grandeur of outline and richness of detail, displayed in individual buildings, or even by some remarkable characteris- tic of the style of itself, than directly as the produce of mind. We must therefore in a general arrangement of styles of archi- tecture, call in other considerations ; and the two great princi- ples of mechanical construction which pervade all architectural works, may be most conveniently taken as the types of the two groups under which we may primarily arrange all styles of architecture. These are the entablature and the arch, two forms of construction which will be found to form an abso- lutely exhaustive division; and of which the two great and prominent styles before referred to arc respectively the most perfect developments. As two straight lines cannot form a mathematical figure, so two uprights, be they walls, posts, or pillars, can hardly constitute an architectural work ; circum- stances will continually occur, in which two points must be con- nected, and that not by a third wall, but by something supported by the points to be connected. The different ways of effecting this constitute the grand distinction which is at the root of all varieties of architectural style. The entablature effects the union 20 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. by simply laying on the top of the two uprights, a third horizontal mass, held together by mere cohesion; the up- rights being placed, as Mr. Pugin says, 1 "just so far apart that the blocks laid on them would not break by their own weight/' It is manifest that this is totally independent of ma- terial ; the construction is precisely the same, whether the materials be beams of wood or blocks of stone. In the other form, that of the arch, the connection is effected, not by a single block kept together by cohesion, but by a series bound together, without visible support, by a wonderful law of the mechanical powers. This again is abstractedly independent of material ; we might conceive an arch whose voussoirs should be wedges, not of stone or its substitute brick, but of wood ; practically how- ever it is confined to the former, as to employ timber in this manner would be a useless expenditure of labour, when the en- tablature construction offers so much greater facilities for the employment of this material. For it must be remembered, that it is not the form, but the construction, of the arch which we are here considering; the arched form is common in timber-work, but it will be found that such an arch is not formed of voussoirs, but is merely cut out of one or two pieces of wood, supported by their own cohesion ; so that what in the decorative construction is treated as an arch, is in the mechanical, really an entablature. As all buildings must be constructed on one of these two prin- ciples, architectural styles may be most naturally divided accord- ingly ; and I shall therefore make these two grand divisions the basis of the arrangement to be pursued in the present work. Every definite style of architecture has for its animating principle of construction either the entablature or the arch ; its forms and de- tails adapt themselves to this construction, and it is the differ- ent ways in which this construction is sought to be decorated, and the different degrees of excellence attained by each, which constitute the subordinate distinctions among the members of the two main groups. All architecture which does not disguise its construction, but seeks for ornament in the enrichment of its real mechanical features, is so far good ; it is honest and therefore satisfactory, however rude may be the construction, however un- comely the style of ornament. A transitional period, which 1 True Principles, p. 9. DIVISION OF STYLES IN ARCHITECTURE. 21 employs one system of construction and another of decoration, is thus far inconsistent and unsatisfactory ; whether it be dis- honest or not, depends on the question whether the inconsis- tency arises from intentional deception, or from the mere force of previous habit. The question of the first introduction of the arch is one of the very greatest interest, and at the same time of the greatest difficulty. We are so accustomed to the employment of this feature on all occasions, and have every day before us spaces of such vast extent connected by its means, from the railway tunnel to the vaulted roof of the Minster, that we find it hard to realise the position of civilised nations, possessing a finished and graceful style of architecture, employing it on the erection of sumptuous and magnificent edifices, and yet totally ignorant of any mode of connecting walls or pillars save by the mere hori- zontal block of stone or timber. Still more incomprehensible does it seem to us that any people should have been aware of so great a mechanical advantage, and yet have but rarely employed it, and never allowed it to become a leading feature of construc- tion, or enter in the least degree into the system of decoration. Yet our subsequent inquiries will show us that such was the case with some of the most famous nations of antiquity ; the bare knowledge both of the arched form and the arched con- struction seems certain in Egypt, probable in Greece ; yet it never entered into either style of architecture : it remained only an occasional and incidental feature, never enriched, or in any way wrought up into the decorative system. The date of the first invention of the arch will probably never be ascertained; we may indeed rest assured that it had no one inventor, but that it arose in different countries at different times, as circumstances occurred to require it. Thus the Egyp- tian researches of Sir Gardner Wilkinson have discovered real arches, both in form and construction, of a date anterior to the Exodus. There are perhaps no existing structures in Greece of so remote a period; in the earliest Pelasgian or Cyclopean monuments of that country, wc see forms evidently exhibiting a sort of yearning and striving after the arch principle, without ever actually reaching to the arch itself. And these, one would think, must be purely indigenous, as if the arch had been introduced from 22 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. another country, it could hardly fail to be introduced in its perfect form. And, what is still more remarkable, we find precisely the same imperfect forms in those mysterious ruins in central Ame- rica, which will probably long afford a subject for speculation to the historian and the antiquary. Here, at least, whatever view be taken as to the source from whence the population of that vast continent was derived, we can hardly imagine these forms to be owing to imitation of any erections of the old world. But these instances, whether they did not go beyond this rude ap- proximation to the arch, or attained its form without its mecha- nical construction, or succeeded in developing the perfect shape and construction, (of all of which stages examples will be found in the course of the present history,) are still mere isolated facts, of no importance in the general history of architecture. They contributed nothing to the formation of an arched style ; one, that is, in which the arch is at once a main feature of the con- struction, and appears equally prominent in the decorative system. Both the Grecian and the Egyptian architecture has its main fea- tures, alike of construction and decoration, formed solely on the principle of the entablature; it is not, like so much Roman work, an entablatured mask cloking an arched body ; the arch is so far from being the principal feature, that in Egyptian build- ings it only occurs sufficiently often to prove its existence, while in Greece its very existence is problematical. In neither does it exercise the slightest influence upon the general style. It is undoubtedly to the nations of ancient Italy, to the in- habitants of Etruria, and the Romans to whom they communi- cated their arts, that we owe the first regular and systematic employment of the arch. It is now no occasional feature, but the very life of the whole building, standing out in all its bold- ness and majesty, unless where Grecian forms are introduced as an incongruous mask. In the very earliest days of her existence, when her name was scarcely known to the proud republics of Greece, the barbarian state by the banks of the Tiber had already, by means of the power given by this mightiest of mecha- nical discoveries, displayed the greatest architectural boldness in her public works, and roofed in vast spaces with stone or brick, while, through ignorance or contempt of it, the most glorious piles of Greece remained exposed to the passing shower and the DIVISION OF STYLES IN ARCHITECTURE. 23 noon-day heat, or were only sheltered by an awning, or at best a covering of wood. The sewers of Home were a vast advance in mechanical architecture over the temples of Athens; and had not the denationalizing spirit of the later Romans striven, with so egregious a failure, to engraft Grecian elegance upon Italian vigour, a simple, noble, and majestic style would doubtless have been speedily developed. As it was, their less ornamental build- ings display those rudiments of excellence and consistency which were denied to more enriched structures ; and Rome had the honour of transmitting her great invention to other nations, and thus mediately of giving birth to that architecture of the Medi- aeval Church which may fairly claim to be considered as the noblest and holiest offspring of the human mind. We thus see the architecture of the entablature prevailing among all nations until the days of the universal influence of Rome ; from the Druidical circle to the portico of the Parthe- non, the same great principle pervades all. The same forms are found, under varieties not affecting this great rule, in the far west and the remotest east ; but it is only in a very few countries that they attained any considerable degree of excellence, The first structures which may be reckoned under this division, are the Celtic remains of north-western Europe, the wonderful Druidical temples of Stonehenge, Avebury, and Carnac. These, however, interesting as they are in an antiquarian point of view, as connected with the history and religion of the earliest inhabi- tants of Gaul and Britain, are altogether valueless in the regard of an architectural historian. Mere stones piled together with- out any attention to proportion or to any of the laws of design, and merely adhering by their own weight, can barely challenge the name of a building, and though exhibiting the mechanical construction of the entablature in perfection, have no title to be considered as works of architecture, and therefore cannot claim a distinct consideration in the present volume. Far more valuable to the historian of architecture, and equally shrouded in the mysterious interest of unknown antiquity, are the Pelasgic or Cyclopean monuments of Greece and Italy. These manifest a very considerable advance in the art of con- struction, and are far from being devoid of a rude majesty of their own. They are also very valuable on account of the light 24 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. they throw upon the invention of the arch; and, on these grounds, combined with their high historical interest, though they present but very little detail, they may fairly claim an atten- tive examination. The different nations of Asia, from the iEgean to the Pacific, afford numerous scattered examples of distinct and apparently indigenous styles of entablature architecture; though in the western portion of that continent, the later examples are often much affected by the direct influence of Grecian art. All these will require a more or less extended notice, though, as not attain- ing any very great perfection, and standing isolated, without much influence on the history of art, the strictly architectural interest attaching to them is comparatively small. Of these forms the native architecture of the Hindoos is decidedly that which has the greatest claims on our attention. Even in the western world, as has been before hinted, a dis- tinct and indigenous form of the entablature construction has been discovered in the ruined cities of Yucatan. Their date, and the history of the extinguished nations which reared them, have yet to be explored. Still the very darkness in which they are shrouded invests them with a romantic charm, and they will be found to present several remarkable features and some incidental similarities with buildings of the old world. Passing by these styles, which, after all, are but imperfect and isolated, we come, at the expense of chronological order, to the nation among whom architecture appears to have first attained any degree of perfection. In the mysterious land of Egypt may be found regular erections, evincing a high development of art, which are probably of equal antiquity with the very rudest structures remaining in any other country. These astonishing monuments contain, indeed, much to offend the critical eye of a refined taste ; still there is nothing in them rude or imperfect. Egyptian architecture is a regular and fully developed style of art, designed and executed upon fixed principles ; and as it is unquestionably the most ancient example of such a definite style, the buildings of Egypt form a most important epoch in the his- tory of architecture, and would possess a further interest could we regard them as in any sense the parents of the immortal fabrics of Greece. DIVISION OF STYLES IN ARCHITECTURE. 25 Our last words have brought us to the very noblest and purest embodyings of mere human grace and loveliness. In Grecian architecture we have the entablature system completely deve- loped ; the mechanical structure, common to it with the rudest cromlech or the most unadorned Cyclopean gateway, is now enriched in the most simple and consistent manner ; a perfect system of ornament embraces every feature, and refines all into consummate dignity and beauty. The three orders of Grecian architecture afford forms of perfection unsurpassed by mere human skill; it was only the yearnings of the heavenward spirit, the inspiration of the Church's ritual, that could conceive aught more noble ; not purer, not lovelier, but vaster in concep- tion, more majestic in execution, and holier in its end. Yet even here we see the inherent incapacity of the entablature sys- tem to attain the highest perfection either of building or archi- tecture. The exceeding difficulty, verging on impossibility, of roofing a large space by its means, unless with materials then unknown, presents insuperable difficulties. Grecian archi- tecture produced one form of the most perfect beauty, but it could produce one only : every structure is cast in precisely the same type, with the same outline, the same features both con- structive and decorative. Diversities of detail, and, to a very limited extent, of proportion, are the only sources whence variety could be attained ; and it shows the consummate skill of that wonderful nation that they could hinder such simplicity, or rather poverty, of type, from degenerating into the most mono- tonous and wearisome sameness. Yet such a charge would be altogether futile ; though all arc cast in a single mould, still every order, every building, expresses an idea of its own and is endeared by a charm peculiar to itself. And this, too, in a style totally horizontal, which absolutely creeps and grovels on the earth, with- out a single upward aspiration ; which, when it has reared aloft the majestic portico of its temples, has done all that it can ac- complish, and has nothing left wherewith to produce that con- trast which should strike the worshipper as he enters within the hallowed walls. These, then, are the principal forms which have been assumed by the architecture of the entablature : we now turn to that of the arch. The regular and systematic employment of the arch, 26 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. originally of Etruscan or Roman birth, spread itself through all the countries which were subject to the universal sway of Rome, and it is from some of them that all subsequent developments of architecture took their origin. We have first the classical Roman, the style of Rome herself in her days of greatest power, in which the aboriginal arch system of the Italians and the entablature of the Greeks are mingled together in a style of great boldness and splendour, but utterly devoid of architectural consistency. The Romans, in the most splendid days of their empire, were among the best builders the world has ever seen, and among the worst architects. The magnitude of their great works, the vastness of design, and the wonderful mechanical skill and boldness of execution, displayed in their existing monu- ments, must ever fill us with the deepest admiration ; at the same time it is impossible to conceal our contempt for architects who threw away the opportunity of completing a national round- arched style, bold, simple, and majestic, for the sake of a fantastic and incongruous debasement of the beautiful forms of Greece. When towards the close of the empire, the entablature began to be dropped, and the arch made the principal feature, a consist- ent round-arched style at once reappears ; we have now the germ of Romanesque, a style subsequently developed by the northern nations into many forms of great splendour, and of the highest interest equally for the Churchman and the antiquary. This exhibits Roman architecture, corrupted according to pedantic / classicalism, but, in an enlarged and philosophical view of the subject, improved and developed, though possibly never brought Vto an ideal perfection. This great family includes many national varieties ; Byzantine, Lombard, German, Provencal, Saxon, Nor- man : presenting great diversities among themselves, but agreeing in several general features of Roman origin, of which the most prominent, and the true badge of the style, is the round arch, which is employed in all important positions, and made, as it . should be, the chief feature of the decorative system. The architecture of the Saracens, which from them has spread, under certain modifications, into all countries which have bowed to the faith of Mahomet, is of Roman origin, and ' its earlier forms might in strictness be considered as varieties of Romanesque. It is a style highly enriched and magnificent, yet DIVISION OF STYLES IN ARCHITECTURE. 27 mixed, fantastic, and incongruous, and not easily admitting of a comprehensive definition. It is chiefly valuable from some of its forms being a sort of dead Gothic, presenting the pointed arch and other characteristics of that style, but without any trace of its pervading spirit. AVe shall see however that many of these dead forms were grasped by the Teutonic architects, and by them endued with true life and vigour. To the Romanesque, after a transitional period, succeeds the Gothic architecture. We now feel at once that we have arrived at the most perfect form which the art can assume. Our nomen- clature and definitions, which have hitherto been unavoidably somewhat vague, confused, and fluctuating from one principle of division to another, now become, or might be made to become, fixed, consistent, and philosophical. We have no occasion for mere national or chronological landmarks, or for definitions based only on some easily recognised external feature. All the different forms of this matchless style, all the countless varieties of outline and detail for which it is so conspicuous, aim, each of them with greater or less success, at the carrying out of the one idea which is the soul of all, that of vertical extension. To the upward aspiration of every feature, we owe, not indeed the in- vention, but the adaptation and general employment of the out- ward badge of the style, the pointed arch ; from the same source, as will be hereafter shown more at large, arise its accessories, the round or polygonal abacus, the peculiar style of moulding, the clustered pillar, the confirmed use of vaulting. Then again, externally, the high gable, the spire, the pinnacle, the flying but- tress, the pyramidal outline which in the best examples is given to the whole structure, are all expressions of this one great idea. And in the minuter subdivisions of the style, we shall have no longer, as in the case of Romanesque, simply to recount the con- temporary diversities of the style in different countries. The different forms of Gothic architecture may be well and scientifi- cally defined, as different modes, more or less nearly approaching perfection, in which it is sought to express the one idea of the style. National varieties, of the most curious and instructive nature, will be found to exist, but they do not disturb the general law of the identical, or at least analogous, sequence of the more important forms which the style has assumed. The form 28 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. of architecture which should be endeared to us above every other by its intrinsic beauty and its religious and national associa- tions, will thus be found to afford the most perfect lesson in the philosophy of art. But it must not be denied that even this, the highest merit that a style can possess, not unfrequently proves detrimental to the excellence of individual buildings. The Grecian architect had but to produce certain forms of beauty, well marked out and recognized ; his foliage might be less boldly carved, his columns less smoothly hewn, than his neighbour's, but he could hardly fail in the general proportions either of the whole portico or of its component parts. But the Gothic architect was bound by no such fixed rules : he was tied down to no fixed proportion of pillar and arch, or even of nave and chancel ; his structure might be as massive as Winchester, or as soaring as Westminster ; aiming not at individual forms, but at an idea not, doubtless, a fixed and defined one, but a dim and shadowy conception of aspiring majesty his works were but a series of experiments ; they might succeed, and surpass every production of human art, on the other hand they might egregiously fail. Hence the best Gothic structures do indeed immeasurably surpass the noblest monuments of Greece ; yet, on the other hand, every pure Grecian building is beautiful, while the most sumptuous of our churches are sometimes abso- lutely unsightly. Ictinus and Callicrates might have sunk to the earth abashed at the littleness of themselves and their works, before the overwhelming grandeur of Peterborough's soaring portico, while their feeblest imitator might have laughed to scorn the unutterable meanness of the sham facade of Lincoln. With the gradual extinction of the Gothic style, the history of good and consistent architecture terminates, or rather becomes dormant till the happy revival of ecclesiastical art in our own day. Not that great genius, sometimes real beauty, is not dis- played in many specimens of the Revived Italian; but as a style it is, except as a warning, completely valueless. It is, in the first place, open to every objection to which the Classical Roman is liable, and is besides loaded with every species of fan- tastic vagary, of which imperial Rome, amid her worst corrup- tions, had never dreamed. Then, as not being a real development, but a violent re-action, a return to worn-out and abandoned DIVISION OF STYLES IN ARCHITECTURE. 29 forms, it lacks in this resembling even the best Gothic of our own day, the interest which attaches to every natural and original phase of the art. And, above all, when we consider that this corrupted style was deliberately, by a formal purpose, in contempt of all ancient precedent and tradition, and in despite of every religious and national feeling, substituted for the most glorious forms that Christendom has ever beheld, it is impossible but that our admiration for the genius and skill of many of its authors must be altogether overbalanced by a feeling approach- ing to disgust at the utter perversion of their mighty powers. St. Peter's at Rome and St. Paul's in London might, a thousand years sooner, have commanded feelings of unmixed homage, and might have ranked side by side with St. Sophia and St. Mark's ; but when we know they were reared in contempt of Cologne, and Westminster, and St. Ouen's, our feelings of admiration at the vast conception of the whole, the wonderful mechanical skill displayed, the real majesty and beauty which cannot be denied them, are lost in the shock sustained by our best ideal of a Christian temple, and in the moral condemnation which a high view of Christian art must of necessity pronounce upon their authors. BOOK I. ARCHITECTURE OF THE ENTABLATURE. PART I. OF THE EARLIER AND RUDER FORMS OF THE ARCHITEC- TURE OF THE ENTABLATURE. CHAPTER I. OF PELASGIAN ARCHITECTURE. Among the earliest human erections now remaining which have any claim to be considered as examples of the art of architecture, would seem to be those mysterious relics of dim antiquity, which have been found scattered through Greece, Italy, and Asia Minor, and on which the names of Pelasgian and Cyclopean have been be- stowed. Without dogmatically asserting that they are abso- lutely the most ancient structures in existence, an assertion which, as relating to days anterior to historic record, can be neither proved nor disproved, it is sufficient that they present the art of architecture in its earliest conceivable form. Whether any other country may have exhibited the same stage at a yet more remote period, is a question which cannot be solved, and which, if solved, would be of no importance in our present in- quiry. These awful remains of the world's youth stand before us as the relics of unrecorded days, of the dim times of poetic legend, enveloped as they were in religious mystery for ages before a line of what we deem ancient history was penned. The historians and philosophers of the days of Pericles knew no more of the authors of these gigantic fragments than our- selves ; all that survived, even to them, were the shadows of i) 34 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. fallen greatness, the feeble echoes of a voice long since hushed in death ; our ancients had to explore the remains of these far earlier days by the same faint glimmerings of legend and tra- dition as ourselves ; all that Thucydides himself could recover would be a few scattered fables, a.Trlvaovs opav." There yet stands, whole and perfect, that wondrous vault, alike the treasury in which was gathered the wealth " of many islands and of all Argos," and the tomb over which the " orphan brood of the eagle father " raised the shrill voice of wailing for the slaughtered king. Each mighty ruin brings crowding on our sight the gathering hosts of the Achseans, the stern omen, and its sterner cure, the " father's hands reeking with the streams of virgin gore," and the dark avenging Curse thence rising to track him back to the home and throne denied him; we see the triumphal return of the conqueror, victims blazing around him, his path strewed with purple, and his ears gladdened with the pseans of victory ; we hear the wild shrieks and fearful predic- tions of the doomed prophetess, and the thrilling groan of the 1 AiQpdvov AiSdev ko\ SiaKrjiTTpov ~ Soph. Elect. 9. Ti/ifjs. Again. 43. OF PELASGIAN ARCHITECTURE. 35 murdered king : we see the stern form of his murderess standing " like a raven " over the corpse of her bleeding lord, girt with all the fearful majesty of the avenger, and calling on ancestral Furies to share and vindicate her deed. Without at all entering into the mysticism and misapplied learning which has been expended upon the Pelasgians, a people of whom, after all, we have no authentic history, and can ascer- tain little beyond the name, it would appear that the title of Pelasgian, as applied to these buildings, is by no means inap- propriate. It seems clear that, long before the days of Italian and Hellenic civilization, there was a race widely diffused through the regions bordering on the Mediterranean, which formed a common element in the mixed population of Greece and Italy; and this race it is which we understand by the name Pelasgian. And as these remains probably belong to a similar early period, and have been traditionally ascribed to this Pelasgian race, that name is certainly more appropriate than any other which could now be substituted. The monuments of these early days consist for the most part of walls and gateways, the defences of those numerous inde- pendent cities of early Greece and Italy, which form so striking a feature in their political aspect, and whose history often affords more instruction than that of the mightiest empires. Latium now desolate, but once swarming with these little states, and many widely distant parts of Greece, are full of these vene- rable fragments. The walls are built of vast stones, in the arrangement of which three varieties, most probably marking distinct epochs, have been observed, and all three are found in the acropolis of Myccna?. The first consists of large rude stones, chiefly approaching to the rectangular form, but put together without order or symmetry ; the joints of three or four courses are often exactly vertical. The second period presents stones of irregular polygonal forms, but fitting into each other with much greater regularity. The third has good masonry, consisting of rectangular stones built in horizontal courses, with the joints in- terrupted in the same way as in modern erections. In some Italian specimens, as at Terracina, the square stones are orna- mented by a sort of groove round the rim, leaving a raised sur- face in the middle. i) 2 36 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. But it is manifest that mere walls, in which this last feature is the greatest attempt at ornament, can be of little value in the history of architecture, and indeed have but a dubious claim to be considered as genuine specimens of that art. The gate- ways, of which numerous examples remain, are of course far more valuable, and are indeed among the most interesting fragments of antiquity which have been preserved to us. They exhibit the en- tablature system in every stage, from the very rudest attempt, to a form exhibiting considerable progress in the art of construction ; and they are still more valuable from the light they throw upon the origin of the arch. Some of the rudest, and probably earliest, examples have advanced but very little beyond the cromlechs of the Celt, being merely two upright stones of no great height, with a third of vast length laid over them, as in one of the gates at Mycense. Most of them are merely openings in the wall, the jambs being formed by the terminations of the rude blocks of which it is built, without any attempt at polish or decoration. At Norba in Latium is one of the rudest construction ; and several intermediate steps may be traced between these, and the square masonry of the famous Lion Gate at Mycense, or the doorway of the Treasury of Atreus, which has a recessed jamb and lintel, built of smooth and regular stone. But even the other examples, rude, massive, and unornamented as they are, possess not only the awe inspired by the immense antiquity, and the majesty of their gigantic proportion, but that real dignity, we might almost say, beauty, which attaches to every construction treated without disguise or pretence. And this, in the earlier stages of art, before really graceful ornaments were introduced, is more conspicuous in examples left, like these, in the grandeur of un- adorned simplicity, than in walls and pillars overlaid with the uncouth and unseemly decorations of Indian and Egyptian art. The real arch seems never to occur ; but the approximations to it are numerous and most interesting. In most of the Pelas- gian gateways the jambs incline inward, so that the aperture is narrower at the top than at the bottom. This was most probably done in order to diminish the size of the lintel, without nar- rowing the space required for passengers. It is easy to imagine jambs of this sort inclining to a point without any lintel, and this is actually an existing arrangement. It is found among OP PELASGIAN ARCHITECTURE. 37 the remains of Tiryns in the rudest possible form, being a mere piling together of huge and shapeless stones. At Messalogion in iEtolia are several examples of much better construction, the gateways forming a sharp angle, and the straight-lined jambs being well defined. But besides this, in an example at Thoricos the jambs are not only inclined but curved ; so that we have the form of the pointed arch as perfect as in the best Gothic Cathedral. It was doubtless felt to be a more graceful shape than the straight-lined sides just described, and one moreover which allowed the diminution of width to be more gradual. We have thus discovered the form of the pointed arch at a period of unknown antiquity, apparently earlier than any instance in Europe of the employment of its semicircular rival. This shows at once how futile are the searches which have been made for the origin of that shape in intersecting arcades, or the figure called vesica piscis, and how little light the discovery of its origin, when effected, can throw upon the history of Gothic architecture. But in these examples we have not the arch at all in reality, but only its form ; these pointed gateways are not formed of real voussoirs supporting each other upon the principle of the arch, but merely of overlapping stones 1 cut into the semblance of an arched form. They are not arches, but there can be little doubt of their being the parents of the arch ; they exhibit a dissatisfaction with the mere posts and lintel of the entablature construction, and a hankering after one more compact, and not involving the em- ployment of such vast blocks. By what means, or at what period, the full light broke in upon the authors of these experiments, we know not ; there were, doubtless, many such successive at- tempts made after some better construction ; many wearisome failures, many close and yet unsuccessful approaches, may have preceded the full completion of the discovery; till at last the principle of mutual support was fully developed, and the true arch sprang self-balanced from impost to impost. If one may attempt to establish a chronological sequence among these remains of mythical days, one might almost think that 1 Another form, less frequent, but cut into the pointed form, but left analogous and probably contempo- like steps. There is such a one at rary with the inclined gateway, has Caere or Agylla. the stones actually overlapping, not 38 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. the first attempts had failed, and, in Greece at least, had not been repeated. The rugged gateway at Tiryns is a nearer ap- proach to a real arch than the better built examples at Messalo- gion and Thoricos. It shows a visible attempt, though of course a very rude and clumsy one, at mutual support among the stones ; it has even something like a key-stone, though the endeavour to place it as such has evidently failed. It is possible that such failures may have discouraged future attempts ; and we may even find here the cause of the non-appearance of the arch in Grecian architecture. These circumstances may have hindered its native development : and as the Grecian system had been brought to perfection long before Greece had any intercourse with nations employing the arch, no opportunity was afforded for its intro- duction from external sources. But in Italy, as we all know, the case was far different ; there the arch worked its way to supremacy, and became the animating principle of the national architecture. There can however be little doubt that it was developed by a series of similar experiments out of the rude attempts of the old Pelasgian builders. Arches frequently occur in connection with Pelasgian work : sometimes indeed they are manifest additions, sometimes the jambs of a Cyclopean gateway are taken to sup- port a lloman arch ; but how great or how small an interval elapsed between the two can hardly be ascertained. And we find such rude and apparently early specimens of the arch in so close a connection with the old masonry, that one is led to sup- pose that we have here found its first appearance, its first com- plete development out of the primitive inclining gateway. We have seen at Tiryns something very like a pointed arch, at least a manifest attempt at constructing one, and at Thoricos we have the complete form, though with no attempt at its con- struction. Indeed the old overlapping stones would suggest the pointed form more readily than the round, and most of the early false arches, or attempts at arches, are pointed ; a round example however occurs at Assos, and we shall again meet them when we come to the architecture of Egypt. But on the other hand, the round form was certainly predominant among real arches in early times. The greater perfection and security which it seems to possess, might account for its being introduced, as soon as the stones began really to be arranged on the principle of mu- OF PELASGIAN ARCHITECTURE. 39 tual support ; and the figure itself, the semicircle, is the simplest and most likely to occur to the mind. More especially, if ignorance and inexperience had caused failures in the attempt to construct a pointed arch, this would be an additional reason for the early prevalence of the round. It would seem then that the Etruscans and other early inha- bitants of Italy developed the arch for themselves out of the old Pelasgian gateway, which the Achseans failed to do. We shall soon find the same or a closely analogous process pursued in other nations. A rude transition almost everywhere occurs be- tween the timid lintel and the bold soaring arch, and in more than one country the development has stopped short of the latter. But the Pelasgians of Greece, or their Achaean successors, or the people, whoever they may be, to whom the Treasury at My- cenae is to be attributed, must have made very great advances in the use of the overlapping stones. They had learned to con- struct not only an apparent arch, but an apparent dome. Such a work implies not only a high degree of mechanical skill, but a great confidence in the mode of construction which they prac- tised ; one indeed which they carried to so great perfection as quite to impart the general effect of the true vault ; it even seems probable that Pausanias mistook its character, 1 and looked upon it as a real cupola. But it is. really " formed by horizontal, not radiated layers, which, advancing over each other, and having the lower angle cut off, - gives the structure the appear- ance of a Gothic dome." 2 The form differs from a spire or pyra- mid in the curved shape into which the inner line of the masonry is cut, and from which the domical appearance results. This roof manifestly bears the same relation to the pointed gate at Thoricos, as the true cupola does to the true arch, and shows that the arts both of design and construction must have made no contemptible progress at the time when it was erected. The Treasury at Mycemc was by no means the only edifice of the kind in Greece ; that of Minyas at Orchomcnos was of the 1 That is, if the Treasury at looked on the latter as a true dome. Mycenae and that at Orchomenos 9, 38, 2. were, as is most probable, of the - Dodwcll's Classical Tour, ii. 21. same construction. He evidently 40 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. like nature, and equally famous; and several others of less note are also recorded. Their use has heen called in question, but both tradition and antecedent probability unite in testifying to their destination as treasuries ; they seem admirably adapted to receive the wealth which all legends agree in attributing to the early Grecian princes, and which they equally assure us was stored in buildings of the kind. And as their possible use as places of sepulture, which has been contended for, 1 does not exclude their employment as treasuries ; so neither would their primary destination as treasuries necessarily exclude their occa- sional use as the sepulchres of kings. There can be no doubt that a very considerable amount of decoration was employed upon these later works of Pelasgian or ancient Hellenic art. Brazen chambers are mentioned in nu- merous legends, and the occurrence of nails of bronze, which yet remain, would seem to show that the description was an- swered by these treasuries being internally lined with plates of brass. Fragments of marble of different colours have been found, which show that the polychromatic effect obtained by* their arrangement was sought after in these eai"ly times, no less than in the Saracenic and Italian Romanesque, and in not a few of our own churches. Nor was sculpture neglected in these palaces of the house of Pelops ; the famous Lipn-gate, the entrance to the Acropolis of Mycenae, is well known. The triangular space over the lintel is occupied by two mutilated lions standing on each side of a small column, almost like supporters in modern heraldry. The column thus curiously employed has the proportions of no Grecian order, and is crowned with a capital of its own, with an orna- ment of round knobs or pellets, more like what are found in Romanesque architecture. A similar space over the entrance to the Treasury is now left open, but is generally supposed to have been filled with a composition of the same kind. It is therefore clear that, even at so early a stage of architecture, the relations of the subsidiary arts were already well understood. But the fragments discovered at Mycense afford materials for inquiries still more interesting to an historian of architecture. 1 Thirlwall's Greece, i. 225, note. Their twofold use is distinctly stated by Pausanias, 2, 16, 6. OF PELASGIAN ARCHITECTURE. 41 Some of those mentioned above are covered with a sort of Ara- besque sculpture ; and a fragment of a column has also been pre- served, whose shaft and base are richly adorned with the chevron or zigzag moulding. It might indeed, at first sight, be readily mistaken for a specimen of Romanesque work. This and the other sculptures are considered by Mr. Dodwell to be of "an Egyptian rather than a Grecian character m " he goes on to connect this supposed resemblance with the vague stories of Egyptian immigrations in the early days of Greece, and thus endeavours, as so many others have done, to refer all the arts and civilization of Greece to an Egyptian origin. But we shall soon see that these ornaments are common to almost every country, even in cases where derivation from one to another is altogether out of the question. They seem in fact to belong naturally to a certain stage of art, the earliest in which ornament is sought for in the simple and natural process of merely carving the surface of the architectural members. That this system of ornament attained its widest application and greatest perfection in the Norman buildings of England is certain ; but to define the zigzag as " a decoration peculiar to the Norman style of archi- tecture," 1 is one of the most palpable fallacies ever put forth in support of a favourite theory. 2 The whole character of the ornamental fragments found at Mycense, the style of sculpture and enrichment, and the peculiar construction of the false arch, appear to show that they belong to a really distinct style, and arc not a mere barbarous germ of the future Grecian. The subject has been investigated at some length by the learned historian of the Doric race, to whom I shall again have occasion to refer. The later style is essentially wooden, while the earlier seems one essentially of stone. This clearly appears both from the fragment of a column at Myccnse being furnished with a base, and from the numerous attempts at the formation of arches. The true Grecian architecture, as we shall hereafter see, was not a development or improvement of the old Pelasgian manner of building, but a distinct inven- 1 Glossary of Architecture. Christian buildings, as will be seen 2 The inclination of door jambs when we come to speak of the an- is another feature in which the Pe- cient churches of Ireland, lasgian remains coincide with early 42 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. tion, as inferior in construction as it is superior in beauty. " We have given/' says Muller, 1 " this description of a style of architecture not strictly belonging to our subject, in order to direct the reader's attention to these most remarkable remains of Grecian sculpture, which are quite sufficient to convince us that the building to which they belong, thus adorned with party- coloured stones, and probably covered in the interior with plates of bronze, may be reckoned as the monument of a time when a semi-barbarous style of architecture prevailed throughout Greece." In conclusion, it may be remarked, that in the whole spirit and air of these erections we may trace the impress of a character akin rather to the unyielding energy of Rome, than to the light grace- fulness of the Grecian mind. There is graven on these venera- ble fragments the stamp of the same iron greatness, the same indomitable will, the same perfection of physical and moral vigour, combined with carelessness of intellectual grace and beauty, which bent alike the physical and the political world beneath the yoke of the old Roman. We see the vain striving after that great invention which Rome brought to its perfection, but which re- fined and intellectual Greece knew not or despised. As a Grecian temple is the purest product of mind, a Gothic church the loftiest creation of the heart, so is a genuine Roman structure the most perfect development of mere power, the true offspring of the never-yielding will. And similar, though far inferior in degree, is the spirit of these remains, the monuments of a race closely allied to an important element of the Roman nation. This character may have been altogether latent among them, circumstances may not have called it out ; but it is to be remembered that of their history we know nothing. How much is Pelasgian, how much Latin or Achaean, how far those names really express any im- portant national distinction, we know not. All that we can safely say is that both Greece and Italy still retain relics of an age when the Dorian lance had not yet glimmered over the isle of Pelops, and when the Seven Hills still remained the pasture- ground of Alba, and the she-wolf made her unmolested lair under the shadow of the fig-tree of the Palatine. 1 Dorians, ii. 268. 43 CHAPTER II. OF EARLY COLUMNAR ARCHITECTURE. The employment of columns is the greatest step towards bringing the architecture of the entablature into a definite and artistic form. It is manifest that when anything like a series of openings is required, it is not sufficient for them to consist of mere breaks in a continuous wall ; the eye requires some more graceful and finished support than the masses of masonry left by such a process. The column is the appropriate substitute, and we consequently find it in use even at a very early stage of the art. The facts recorded in the last chapter leave no doubt of the extensive use of columns in the architecture designated as Pelasgian ; not only has a fragment of a highly enriched one been discovered, but the employment of a column as a merely decorative feature over the Lion-Gate at Mycense seems to prove still more. Enrichments of this nature, minia- ture representations of the great constructive features of the building, can only reproduce those which belong to the style, and moreover their appearance can hardly be expected till long habit has induced a thorough familiarity with their employment. But the columnar architecture of mythic Greece has its existence simply proved ; as to the manner in which it was applied, its rules, proportions, and general effect, we are totally in the dark. For the earliest forms of columnar architecture we must look elsewhere. And I would here observe, that by earliest I do not at all mean necessarily to imply earliest in actual chronological pre- cedence. Architecture is so necessary an art, that it cannot fail to arise, in some shape or other, among all nations, as soon as they are established in settled abodes and present the very re- motest approach to civilization. Those nations who have the opportunity will derive it from some people more advanced in the scale of humanity ; those who arc debarred from such inter- course will be driven to invent and develop for themselves. The first stages of architecture must therefore, almost in the nature of things, have been gone through over and over again in 44 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. different ages and countries, altogether independently of each other. The entablature undoubtedly, and probably the arch also, has been invented several times in distant corners of the world. And as nations come upon the stage of history at differ- ent periods of the world's existence, as the political and social infancy of one coincides with the old age of another, so is it with their progress in the building art. The Egyptian structures, to be hereafter treated of, have probably stood for more years than any that will be mentioned in the present chapter ; nevertheless they do not exhibit the art in the same early form, but in one very much developed and enriched. We have already observed to how great an extent each style of architecture retains the character of the material in which its first examples were constructed : a fact of itself sufficient to prove their independent origin. But the column, in some form or other, pervades all ; the cave, the tent, the wooden hut, alike develop into it ; each leaves its impress upon some of its nume- rous varieties. The column indeed is the most natural shape for any attempt at an ornamental support ; a decorative imitation of a trunk or a tent-pole could hardly assume any but the cylin- drical form ; and when the rock was hewn out, or when the mass of wall between two openings began to be reduced into more graceful proportions, the same form is equally the most natural for such a diminished mass to assume. It might, indeed, at first be square, 1 but beautyand convenience alike would suggest chamfering or roun ding-off the angles, and by this process the genuine column is at once produced. The capital and base are such natural finishes, that they could hardly fail soon to be added, and that without doubt at a much earlier stage of a style originally stone, than in those which are to be traced up to erections of timber. Such an one, as we shall hereafter see, is the architec- ture of Greece ; the earliest form of its column was a post driven into the ground or floor ; consequently a base for it to rest on could have no place until the original type was somewhat oblite- rated. We consequently find that the simplest and purest of the ancient orders is worked without that feature. Similarly in the Chinese architecture, which reproduces a tent just as the Grecian does a hut, (though an apology is due to the shades of J See below, pp. 53, 71, 79. OF EARLY COLUMNAR ARCHITECTURE. 45 Pericles and Pheidias for mentioning the two in one sentence,) the capital is wanting, the wooden pillar being actually pierced, as in the original construction, by the beam, which must in courtesy be looked upon as an entablature. In an original stone construction, whether of erection or excavation, there would be nothing to hinder the introduction of features so needful to com- plete the finish of the whole, and to effect a due cohesion between the several parts. The extensive ruins which late researches have brought to light in central America, will afford as good a notion of a very early stage of columnar architecture as any monuments which have been preserved. Their history, and that of the race by whom they were erected, is shrouded in impenetrable darkness. Of the fragments recorded in the last chapter we have indeed no cer- tain dates, no records on which we can implicitly rely, but we have at least legend and tradition to occupy their place. If we cannot repeople them with their real founders and inhabitants, we can at least people them with those whom successive ages have regarded in that light ; at all events we have, or suppose that we have, a tolerably correct general notion of the race, lan- guage, and social condition of those who reared them. But here all is midnight : the structures themselves exist, but their authors are as though they had never been. Not only their his- tory and institutions, but their very race and name have vanished ; and the imagination is left to wander unrestrained among the mighty fragments of an unknown world. Many deep thoughts might be raised in the breast of the poet or the moralist, at the contemplation of these sumptuous structures now untrodden by the foot of man, but which may perchance have once rivalled the wealth of Sardis, or Babylon, or Persepolis, cities which have perished with them, but have left a name behind. The ruins however do not say much for the state of art among the people, whoever they may have been, to whom they owe their origin. They are essentially barbarous, and like all barba- rous structures, seek to supply by cumbrous magnificence and superfluous ornament, the want of the higher beauties of grace and proportion. And we cannot fail to remark, even at the onset, that the same system of ornament which everywhere marks this stage of art is found here in great abundance. The 46 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. ubiquitous chevron, which we have already seen at Mycenae, meets us again at Uxmal and Chichen, where the presence of the followers of William the Norman is no less problematical than in the halls of the Atreidse. The general notion conveyed by these remains is decidedly that of a stone construction, although some of the details appear to point to a wooden origin. There seems indeed no absurdity in supposing a simultaneous employment among a rude people of the cave and the hut ; and if so, the ideas borrowed from the two constructions would doubtless be intermingled in their attempts to bestow somewhat of an ornamental character upon their buildings. Many of the larger erections exhibit long and rich facades with many columns, but the genuine colonnade hardly occurs ; the columns are merely incidental, not occurring in continuous ranges, but merely here and there, just as one or two openings were wanted, which might be most conveniently treated in this manner. The wall is the essential feature ; the intercolumniations, if we may dignify them with such a name, are merely certain of its apertures, which happen to be divided by a column instead of by a mere mass of wall. The two modes of division are used in the very same facade, and other fronts occur without any columns, none of their openings having advanced be- yond the character of doorways. The entablature too, if it may be so called, is preposterously heavy, and its form is in no de- gree influenced by the pillars below, or regulated by their pro- portions. It occurs indeed equally whether its supports are columnar or not. This might almost look as if the arrange- ments of a colonnade had been transferred to a wall, as in so many facades of Italian architecture, yet the whole appearance of the style seems to countenance the idea of an original mural construction. The notion is rather that of a continuous mass, occasionally interrupted by apertures and pillars, than of the genuine portico, where the columns are conceived as first existing, and the entablature as laid upon them. Of course such a style as this does not employ a feature so essentially wooden as the pediment; and thus additional heaviness is procured. How different is all this disproportion and confusion from the perfect and harmonious symmetry which pervades the simplest Doric temple. OF EARLY COLUMNAR ARCHITECTURE. 47 And in the details the same unskilfulness prevails throughout, its only disguise being the lavish employment of every kind of uncouth and barbarous enrichment. The columns by them- selves might recal for a moment that glorious conception of simple unadorned majesty, the uncorrupted Doric; but it is only in simplicity that they agree, and simplicity without grace is mere rudeness. These pillars are mere perpendicular masses, not only without fluting, which may be excused, but without any diminution of diameter. Some of the ornaments, as was before said, seem to bear about them traces of a timber origin, being very like what we see among ourselves in summer- houses and such like structures of wood, where ranges of small cylindrical logs are placed close together. Some of these are furnished with what may be called bases, Capitals, and bands ; though their air is rather that of an elongated baluster than of a genuine banded shaft. But the circumstance of most real interest connected with these ruins is, that w r hile the arch does not occur in a pure state, far less enter into the decorative system, we find the same at- tempts at it which we have traced among the early inhabitants of Greece and Italy. It is certainly most remarkable to see exactly the same process, the same strivings after the ad- vantages of an arched construction, going on in two such distant regions, where the idea of borrowing one from another is alto- gether out of the question, even were it not antecedently pre- cluded by the improbability of a mere fruitless experiment being imitated. These, and other instances which we shall have to mention, show that architecture is in most countries a plant of indigenous birth, and has everywhere passed through the same, or at least analogous, stages. The want of the arch was almost universally felt, though it was not every nation that had the ability, or the good fortune, to bring their endeavours after it to a successful issue. Such at least was not the case with the people of Yucatan, 1 who seem to have remained at even a greater distance from suc- 1 Similar strivings after the arch arches, hardly deserves a separate appear also in the architecture of place in the present history. See the ancient Peruvians, which, as Prescott's Conquest of Peru, i. affording neither columns nor 142. 48 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. cess than the old Pelasgians. The form most usual in their structures is an opening with inclining jambs, straight or curved, not joining in a point, though approaching very nearly to it, but with a lintel laid across the top. This mode of construction is here, as well as in Greece, applied to the erection of quasi- vaulted roofs. In other cases the roofs are supported on square pillars. From these remains, which, rude and uncouth as they are, are not without interest, both on architectural grounds, and from our very ignorance as to their history, we will turn to the oppo- site quarter of the globe, and take a brief view of the architec- ture of the nation which may fairly lay claim to a greater antiquity and an earlier civilization, than any other now existing as a distinct people. * Not that there is any resemblance whatever between Chinese and primitive American architecture ; but simply that it is a convenient arrangement to dispose of these forms of less beauty and importance, before we commence the series which will lead us by a gradually ascending scale to the full glo- ries of Poseidonia and of Athens. The buildings of the celestial empire have but very little claim to architectural beauty or propi'iety; and in this case, as in all the other institutions of that extraordinary race, it is not owing to mere rudeness and barbarism, but to a fixed depravity of taste. Their erections are not the huts of savages, but the dwelling-places of a people whose civilization is older than that of Greece or Italy, and whose architecture, like their other arts, laws, and manners, has stiffened for thousands of years in the same mould of rigid immobility. China seems to occupy in the modern world a position analogous to that of Egypt in the ancient ; both nations up to a certain point had made greater and more rapid advances than any other people, and had from some unknown cause become fixed at that point for ever. The two civilizations were probably contemporary, and that the Egyptian has not been handed down to our own days as a living system, as well as the Chinese, appears to be wholly the result of external circumstances. The Chinese are acquainted with the arch, and use it in their bridges ; and, when we consider that they alone possessed for ages three of the great discoveries of modern Europe, there is OF EARLY COLUMNAR ARCHITECTURE. 49 no improbability in supposing that they boldly threw it over their great rivers in all its mechanical perfection, before the Pelasgian builder had even ventured to make his overlapping stones pre- sent some feeble approximation to its outward form. But they have never made it a decorative feature, nor does it seem to be at all introduced into those structures which are designed to be ornamental, with the exception of what are called triumphal arches, though their claim to that title is not always very valid. The general outline of Chinese buildings is tolerably familiar to us : the manner of building in stages, often diminishing in size, and each furnished with a roof and balcony, as well as the extraordinary hooked form given to the angles of the roofs. This is found both in the larger houses and in the towers or pa- godas. These erections can certainly make no claim to the smallest share of beauty ; indeed their outlines must be consi- dered as positively ugly, and the bright colours and decorations in which their builders delight must be but a poor substitute for graceful composition and harmonious proportions. The columns employed by the Chinese have been incidentally mentioned in a former part of this chapter. They are com- monly of wood, fixed on stone or marble bases. Their being pierced with the beam most incontestably proves their direct 1 origin from the tent ; such an arrangement would never have occurred in an original stone architecture, nor yet in the repro- duction of a timber hut. Their height is from eight to twelve diameters ; and they gradually diminish towards the top. Their bases exhibit a variety of profiles, but none of any great elegance. Another form of architecture in Eastern Asia presents some analogy with the Chinese, though with considerable diversities. These are the buildings of Siam ; 2 whose outlines partake of the same character as the Chinese, so far as that both possess that re- markable pyramidal rising of the whole structure to a crowning and, as it were vanishing, point. But instead of the balconies and curling angles of the Chinese roofs, the Siamese struc- tures display a profusion of peaked roofs and gables. When a number of the latter, gradually ascending, encompass a sort of spire perched on the ridge, as is sometimes the case, the outline, barbarous as it is, must be confessed to be something very supe- 1 See Ileeren's Asiatic Nations, ii. 87. : See Crawfurd's Siam, p. 112. E 50 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. rior to anything in Chinese architecture. On the other hand a high roof over a colonnade, which is also seen, must be confessed to be not a little out of place. The outward resemblance which the religion of Buddha " a diabolic mimicry of Christianity," as Frederick Schlegel ex- presses it 1 bears to some of the doctrines and ceremonies of the true faith, (rendering it thereby a more thoroughly hostile system than any other false worship,) has been often remarked, sometimes with evil purposes. But it may be allowable to compare the undoubted fact with the circumstance that some features in the Buddhist temples of Siam present an exactly similar resemblance to the architecture of the Christian Church. The gables just mentioned may be considered as an instance; and it is still more strikingly shown in the sacred spires. These are of divers forms and outlines, but all of the same aspiring tendency, and all seem to cry aloud for the cross as their natural finish. The most remarkable is that of a tem- ple called Wata-naga, which in its general outline most vividly recalls the appearance of such erections as the Eleanor crosses or the market cross at Winchester, its open character assimilat- ing it more closely to the latter. But upon examination it will be found, as I have heard it expressed, literally living with demons. Pointed arches, or their appearance, occur in two stages, but the lower range, as if in direct mockery, are actually formed by the extended legs of some monstrous portent of de- praved idolatry. If Buddhism really be a Satanic burlesque of our religion, one might be almost tempted to consider such erec- tions, of the age of which I can give no information, though there are reasons 2 for supposing none of the Siamese buildings to be very ancient, to be in truth a similar burlesque upon Christian architecture and Christian emblems. All these structures, Chinese and Siamese, show a very low state of real art. Mere rudeness in execution is a necessary stage in its development among any nation, and does not exclude majesty of proportion, or even a kind of beauty ; but we here see a manifest attempt at architectural splendour, without any per- ception of beauty whatever, but with a taste thoroughly depraved alike in composition, detail, and decoration. Real art is sacri- 1 Philosophy of History, p. 137. 2 Crawfurd, ut supra. OF THE ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE OF INDIA. 51 ficed to gaudy frippery, and, in China at least, fixed laws have for ever bound down every effort of genius, so that no improve- ment or development can be looked for. Our next chapters will open to us a much wider scope for contemplation, in the works of nations with whom architecture had made infinitely greater advances, though we shall still find the art very far removed from the perfection of Grecian or Teutonic skill. CHAPTER III. OF THE ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE OF INDIA. In no part of the present work shall we have more need of the caution given in the Introduction, than now that the course of our history has brought us to the mysterious remains of ancient Hindostan. It is no part whatever of the author's design to plunge for a single moment into those depths of controversial speculation which seem to involve the remotest approach to the antiquities of that wonderful land. Even into the inquiries which have been raised as to the connection between the ancient Indians and Egyptians, and the derivation of learning and phi- losophy from one to the other, this is not the place to enter ; but a question intimately connected with them is of the greatest consequence in our present inquiry ; namely, what amount of connection may be supposed to exist between the architectui-e of the two countries. This connection has by some writers been exaggerated almost into identity, while on the other hand, Mr. Fergusson denies, with every appearance of truth, any such resemblance between Indian and Egyptian architecture as could justify a supposition of either being borrowed from the other, and asserts, what cannot be reasonably doubted, that the former is an original production of the country. 1 There is clearly no such resemblance as exists between Grecian architecture and the divers styles which have borrowed from it, or even such as that, whether accidental or otherwise, which may be found between our own Gothic and the style transplanted into India by its Mahometan conquerors. But surely a more subtle resemblance may be traced 1 Ancient Architecture of Hindostan, p. 11. E2 52 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. between the buildings of these two extraordinary nations ; one not of detail, but of character, not to be assigned to imitation, but to analogous origin. Without dogmatically asserting that either people has borrowed from the other, still less pretending to decide which civilization is the more original of the two, it can hardly be denied that a general resemblance exists between the character and institutions of the two peoples, and the same vague sort of resemblance evidently appears in their architecture. But besides this, another extensive source of similarity may be found in their mechanical origin. Both have their probable origin in excavations, the effect of which origin on the styles themselves will be presently entered into more at length. The Persian monuments on the other hand, which Mr. Fergusson connects with the Indian, have as I shall hereafter attempt to show, a totally different origin, one derived from timber structures ; consequently, while any amount of resemblance might exist in detail, any expressions of symbolical or religious notions which might be supposed common to the two nations, any marks of their connection as members of the great Indo- Germanic family, the same similarity in composition and general architec- tural effect could not be looked for as between the Egyptian and Indian monuments. Persian and Grecian architecture have, just like Egyptian and Indian, a common origin, and conse- quently have the same sort of general resemblance, one which would be sought for in vain in the details of the two styles. A caution may here be necessary, which, if not attended to, would involve the most inextricable confusion ; namely, as to the wide and total difference between the native Hindoo style of architec- ture, which is the subject of the present chapter, and the Maho- metan style in India just now alluded to, which will be treated of in a more advanced stage of the work. It is the more needful, as the two stand side by side, and are often contemporary ; indeed their features have, in not a few cases, been actually intermingled. It will here be sufficient to remark that the one is a native style of entablature architecture of unknown antiquity, the other an arched style, a distant offshoot of the great Romanesque family, and not introduced into India till many centuries after the Christian era. It is highly interesting to find the two great forms of archi- tecture thus placed side by side and actually maintaining a hostile OF THE ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE OF INDIA. 53 position. The arch, as a construction, is utterly unknown 1 in the genuine Hindoo style, though its form, or an approximation to it, is not uncommon ; apparently the same overlapping of stones which we have already so often met with, and which Mr. Fer- gusson not inaptly calls " the horizontal arch." But more than this, it seems that the Hindoos retain to this day what he calls their " abhorrence of an arch." He mentions several buildings of different dates, from a.d. 1210 to within the last fifty years, in which buildings have been erected by Hindoo architects, for their Mahometan masters or in imitation of the forms employed by them, in which apparent arches and even apparent vaults are common, but whose real construction is always formed on the horizontal principle. Of the antiquity of the Hindoo buildings much has been said, some authors being desirous of tracing it up to some almost im- measurably distant period. Mr. Fergusson considers the cave tem- ples, which he conceives to have belonged to the Buddhist religion, to be the oldest remains in India, the earliest dating from the second or third century B. C, and continuing in an uninterrupted series for several centuries. The earliest structural monuments now existing he assigns to the seventh century of our era, but as he supposes the caves to have been excavated in imitation of struc- tural and even of wooden buildings, the style is carried backward into an almost illimitable antiquity. And though this view of their origin is one to which the present writer cannot accede, there is no reason for supposing these caves to be the earliest monuments that ever were produced in Hindostan. Buildings infinitely ruder must have preceded them ; and though excavated temples are free from many causes of destruction which affect structures above ground, yet they are exposed to other sources of decay, and are not a whit more imperishable than the others. In the Indian architecture of every kind we find the con- struction of the entablature prevailing throughout. The column is for the most part heavy and massive ; its original form is a square block, a shape which it sometimes retains ; but it is more frequently subdivided into eight, sixteen, or even thirty-two sides ; sometimes it has its angles actually rounded off. The bases and capitals however always retain the square form. 1 See Ileeren, ut supra. 54 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. These pillars were not used, like those of the Greeks, in the construction of extensive and airy porticoes as external orna- ments to their temples ; these are indeed sometimes fronted by small open porches with columns : but the principal use of the Hindoo pillar is for the internal support of ponderous roofs of stone. They are therefore arranged in numerous rows at small distances from each other, and consequently branch out in every direction in an interminable perspective. In order the better to support the enormous weights laid upon them without bringing the colonnades into an inconvenient proximity to one another, a strange invention is employed, which Mr. Fergusson aptly calls the " bracket-capital ;" the capital consisting, in the most com- plete and decorative form, of four brackets diverging from a centre, each being of the diameter of the column. This allows the supporting masses to be brought nearer to each other by two diameters, without diminishing the actual intercolumniation. Sometimes a series of these are placed on one another, so that the horizontal arch is substituted for the genuine entablature ; for in such a case the successive bracket-capitals are in truth the overlapping stones of a Pelasgian gateway, with each indivi- dual stone cut into what is looked upon as a decorative form. The roofs are sometimes flat and sometimes arched; the former kind appear to be enriched with a sort of panelling, of this the more strongly marked lines immediately over the columns, the horizontal ribs, so to speak have been considered as imitations of the beams of a wooden roof. Yet there seems to be no necessity for this supposition ; it is evidently much more natural to mark the lines of the colonnades by this sort of pro- jection, than to place an unrelieved flat roof immediately upon the columns. The arrangement seems exactly analogous to that of vaulted roofs ; a flat expanse having the same relation to a simple entablature which a vault has to a simple arch. As in cross-vaulting the line of each arch is generally marked by a rib, and in a barrel-vault a rib frequently rises from each pillar or pilaster below, it is but natural that in the kind of roof which occupies an analogous place in the other system, some similar decoration should mark out the more immediate en- tablature, the portion namely directly over the columns. This panelling seems quite the same in principle as the ribs in OF THE ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE OF INDIA. 55 the arch-roofed temple 1 at Ellora, which differ in nothing from those of a barrel-vault. And if these features should occur in other parts of the roofs besides those directly over the colon- nades, it may be accounted for by the usual custom of intro- ducing decorative imitations of the larger constructive features. By far the most interesting of the Indian monuments, and those presenting the finest architectural display, are to be found among the rock-cut temples of Ellora and Elephanta. Besides the idea of immense labour which it involves, there is something striking and awful in the very conception of this kind of architec- ture, where the materials are provided by the hand of nature, and the building is not reared by the work of man, but hewn in the living stone. Nowhere do the domains of nature and of art trench so closely upon one another. The character of the process seems to remove us more than any other from the ordi- nary world, and make us feel as if penetrating into the dominion of beings of another race. Any excavation, natural or artificial, an ordinary mine or cave, is not without a degree of awe ; the removal from the broad glare of day and the vault of heaven above us, into the bowels of the earth or the heart of the solid rock, is in itself a solemn thing, and one which seems to bring us into an unusual proximity to the world of spirits. And much more, when the excavation is one not designed for the common purposes of life, but the very shrine of evil beings, replete with their images, and set off with all the effect of a strange and wild, yet awful and solemn architecture. Truly these were places where the actual presence of the demons of hell might have been looked for among the dark rites of their deluded worshippers. The cave-temples of Hindostan derive a great advantage over the analogous excavations at Petra and Nakshi-Rustam, from their style of architecture being one which probably owes its origin to this mode of construction, or at least one which is well and completely adapted to it. We here see rock-architecture in its genuine and natural form, and not, as in those instances, the mere application of a style nurtured and brought to perfec- tion by a quite different process. 2 The strange pillars in the cave of Elephanta are just what such a mode of construction demands. Their uncouth and fantastic forms would be equally out of place 1 See p. 5G. - See Hccren's Asiatic Nations, i. 74. 56 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. as supports to the frieze of a Greek portico or to the tall arches of a Gothic church, but the wit of man could not have devised anything more thoroughly appropriate for an idol-temple hewn in the rock. The pillars have, just as they should, a sort of stalactite character ; they do not seem built there to support a weight laid upon them, but, as they are, of a piece with the roof. Their form is rather that of balusters than of columns, and they are supported by vast pedestals ; or, to speak more accurately, the operation of cutting into what was held to be an ornamental form was not extended to the lower part of the square mass, which was probably first disengaged. The capital, though formed merely of mouldings, is complicated, and not easily described. But we must remark the stilt or de above the capi- tal, and the manner in which it spreads into the roof; this would seem to be the rudest and most primitive form of the bracket- capital, though it has less projection, and extends only in two directions. The pillars or balusters are fluted, a very natural source of decoration for any monolith or quasi-monolith column, whether excavated or structural. One of the temples at Ellora is on some grounds a more re- markable production than that of Elephanta, though the latter seems more typical of excavated architecture. Instead of the multiplied and flat roof colonnades of Elephanta, we have here the entire arrangements of a Christian Church ; the remark be- fore made, that Buddhism presents in its buildings, as well as in its tenets, a Satanic mimicry of the coming Gospel, applies with still more force to the long aisles and apsidal termination of the present temple ; even so minute an arrangement as the two de- tached pillars in front find their like in the plan of many an early Basilica. The nave, for so one cannot help speaking, is divided from its aisles by tall and massive octagonal pillars, without bases or capitals, but with a sort of band of sculpture placed rather higher than the centre. These pillars immediately support a kind of entablature of very bold projection ; from this rises the roof, which is exactly of the pointed-barrel form, and marked by ribs. The apse is filled with the shrine of the deity of the place, covered with diabolical sculptures, and crowned with the bulbous top to be hereafter mentioned. This, which is manifestly the centre-point of devotion, occupies ex- OF THE ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE OF INDIA. 57 actly the position of the high altar in a Christian temple. The two detached pillars are different from the last; the upper part only is octagonal, and richly sculptured ; the lower portion is left square and plain, with a curious finish at the point where the chamfer, as one may call it, commences. Another Basilican temple occurs at Salsette, which appears designed in a more en- riched style, the pillars being described as fluted, with sculp- tured capitals, and representations of elephants on the abaci. At Karli is another example of an arched roof supported by columns ; their capitals are described 1 as surmounted by a well sculptured male and female figure with their arms encircling one another ; these are seated on the backs of elephants which are represented as if crouching under the weight which they sustain. Of structural remains in Hindostan, the principal are those temples with which we are familiar under the name of Pagodas. It will not be needful to enumerate their several classes and varieties which will be found enumerated in Mr. Fergusson's work, as they are for the most part rather "naological" than archi- tectural. A general character runs through all ; great massive- ness of outline, relieved chiefly by external sculpture, a lack of windows, and a general want of all feeling of the beautiful. In- deed, if the Greeks be truly said to be worshippers of the ku\6v, it must be confessed that the Hindoos were equally devout vota- ries of the alaxgov. As long as the Taylor Building at Oxford is not the type of a genus, the pagodas of Northern Hindostan must be allowed to present, in their external lines, the most perverse and unsightly form of any class of human erections; and those of the southern provinces may fairly rank second in the scale. The Chinese buildings have at least the merit of being grotesque, the Indian are simply ugly. And this utter want of taste of outline is the more remarkable in a people who in their internal architecture, their colonnades and roofs, had certainly made no mean progress. At the same time the hideous shape of the temple must be allowed to be highly appropriate to the uncouth and monstrous images to whose service it is dedicated. The most apparent difference between the temples of Northern and Southern India, consists in the form given to the Vimana, a square building or tower which forms their most important 1 Seeley's Wonders of Eliora, p. 71. 58 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. portion. In the former this is perpendicular for a very small portion of its height, the rest consisting of what has been some- times dignified with the name of a spire, a preposterous thing with curved sides, but which yet retains its square section. In the older examples the diminution at the top is inconsiderable ; in more modern structures the spire, if we are so to degrade that name, becomes more and more pointed. It is finished with a kind of bulbous cupola. In the pagodas of southern India, the form is essentially a pyramid, although broken into numberless little stages, so that the pyramidal outline is more or less lost, according to the ex- tent of their projection. Moreover, it does not rise directly from the ground, the lower part being perpendicular, as in the northern temples. In fact the pyramidal portion answers to the spire of the northern vimana, and assuredly has the better claim of the two to that title. The difference between the uninter- rupted ascending line at the angle of an Egyptian pyramid, and the perpetually broken one of a Tamul pagoda, is exactly analo- gous to that between the bold sharp outline of the spires of Salisbury or Freyburg, and the broken, jagged, uncertain line which has usurped its place at Strasburg and Antwerp. The stages are marked by bold horizontal cornices, and are richly decorated with statues in niches, columns which often support the cornices, and other ornaments, which bring before our mind the general effect of the cinque-cento style. 1 There is the same multiplicity of parts, the same system of small decorative columns and entablatures, the same imposing, though barbarous richness. The whole is finished with the same domical ornament as in the northern variety, to receive which the pyramid is truncated. To the Vimana is attached a Mantapa, usually square, of about equal size, but of less height, and diminishing towards the top, not by curved lines, but in successive ranges of little terraces. These structures seem at first sight to have somewhat of a Chinese aspect ; but the buildings of the latter people have not the same excessive multiplication of parts ; their divisions are really the roofs of different stories : and the Hindoo erection, 1 This is not infrequent in Hindoo has quite the effect of a large buildings ; the Kailasa at Ellora cinque-cento chest. OF THE ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE OF INDIA. 59 happily for itself, wants the strange treatment of the angles of the roof, which distinguishes the architecture of the Celestial Empire. These little projections are rather to be considered as a carrying out of the same principle as the bracket-capital. Another variety of Hindoo architecture, that of the Jains, presents a remarkable feature in the employment of the apparent dome. The prevalence of this form, especially when we take into consideration the Indian dislike to the arch, appears a most curious phenomenon. An objection to a form may be easily un- derstood when it rests either on sesthetical or on symbolical grounds; but a rooted antipathy to the most natural, appropri- ate, and secure method of constructing a favourite form is some- thing unintelligible, and apparently irrational. But be this as it may, the apparent dome, precisely the same form, it would seem, as that of the treasury at Mycenae, is a most popular feature of this architecture. 1 These domes occupy the centre of their halls or mantapas, being supported on eight columns placed so as to form an equilateral octagon ; their entablatures support a story of sixteen sides, on which in most cases the dome imme- diately rests, though sometimes another stage of thirty-two sides is interposed. The doorways of all these structures seem to be square-headed, with jambs and lintels more or less richly adorned. But a very curious feature, and one which again brings cinque-cento to our mind, is the very frequent occurrence of a decorative pair of columns, one on each side the aperture, and evidently intended to be taken in connection with it. In some cases the stilt, or something analogous, appears, and calls up the notion of the little bit of entablature which architects of that date (as, indeed, others too, both before and since,) were so fond of inserting over columns in similar situations. It has been implied in several places of the present chapter, that this ancient Indian architecture 2 owes its origin to that excavation of the solid rock b ywhich so many of its noblest monuments are actually formed. If so, the caves of Elephanta, Salsette, and 1 Fergusson, p. 18. scarcely be maintained that a people 2 This view is confirmed by the who had already been accustomed authority of Ileeren, (Asiatic Na- to build in the open air. should sub- tions, ii. 55,) who says, with every sequently begin to lodge their di- appearancc of probability, " It can vinities in under-ground temples." 60 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. Ellora, though probably far from being the earliest executed, must be considered as the prototypes, or representatives of the proto- types, of the structural remains. This opinion is contested by Mr. Fergusson and also in the work on Egyptian Antiquities published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, both of which writers suppose the cave architecture of India to be merely a reproduction of anterior structural buildings. The grounds on which I maintain the contrary view will be more largely dis- cussed, after that an examination of the style which is more gene- rally allowed to have a similar origin, that of ancient Egypt, shall have enabled us to class together those common features in the two forms which seem to refer them to this excavatory parentage. A few remarks, however, which have especial reference to Hindo- stan, will not be out of place at the present stage of our subject. The fact of a style having one particular origin is very far from preventing forms and details borrowed from other sources being incorporated with it. Wooden structures must have ex- isted among almost every nation, and, as was observed in the last chapter, 1 may coexist with the employment of caves. An archi- tecture then, which borrowed its principal forms, and above all, its general effect and character, from the one source, might, in the gx*adual progress of its development, derive both ornamental and constructive features from the other. Thus in Egyptian architec- ture, details, and even forms of columns, are found manifestly traceable to a totally different origin from that which gave birth to the general style. And in the Indian monuments also several details are clearly wooden. Mr. Fergusson mentions what he calls a flying buttress, a sort of twisted twig leaping to the en- tablature from a bracket-capital placed some way down the column ; nothing can be more wooden than the whole notion, and it has pendants which look in his engraving as if they had absolutely been turned in wood. So too, the appearance of beams at Elephanta, though it has been otherwise accounted for, need be no obstacle to our theory, if we suppose that, between the time of the earliest excavations and of those at Elephanta, structures had been reared in which the wooden roof had been introduced. The old cave architecture might have returned to its original material, bringing with it some features of the build- Page 46. OF THE ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE OF INDIA. 61 ings which had in the meanwhile been raised above ground. At the same time it is difficult to see how, under any circumstances, the wooden origin of the Elephanta roof is compatible with the universal prevalence of stone roofs in Hindoo structures. Still less extraordinary is it that the outlines of buildings should receive new forms unconnected with the original source of their architecture. Grecian architecture is not less truly to be referred to a timber origin, because there is nothing distinc- tively wooden about its theatres, or about the choragic monu- ment of Lysicrates. Forms of outline do not necessarily depend upon styles of architecture ; intimate as is their connection, con- stant and extensive as is their mutual influence, they are still in themselves independent, and the origin even of those of each class which are most intimately bound together, may yet be al- together distinct. Many other circumstances have at least as much sway over the outline of a structure as the direct require- ments of the style in which it happens to be built. This must take place even when, as in Chinese and Grecian architecture, the origin of the style supplies an outline for the building, as well as a particular system for its construction. But much more would the necessity be felt in a style whose origin was that which we attribute to the architecture of Egypt and India. Excavation can supply little more than an internal system ; it may give a facade cut in the rock, but it cannot supply an outline ; such a work as the Kailasa, where the rock is cut away all round, seems to belong to a later stage, and almost implies the previous existence of structural buildings. The excavatory architecture then, when it came up into daylight, brought with it the elements of a style of architecture, the columns, architraves, roofs, &c. ; but its subterranean sojourn had not provided it with a system of exter- nal outlines : for those it had necessarily to seek above ground. And it is therefore not to be wondered ;it, if the architects adopted any outline which suited their requirements, whether by drawing upon their own imagination, or by imitating any objects, natural or artificial, which were most adapted to their purpose. We may therefore grant the form of the vimana to be, as has been supposed, an exaggerated altar, or a copy of the native hut, without at all impugning the excavatory origin of its architectural style. 62 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. With regard to the pyramidal form, it is admitted even by authors 1 opposed to our view, that it is probably derived from artificial mounds of earth, an origin which seems at once to connect that kind of outline with excavatory architecture. For if we conceive excavations to have been the real origin of the style, if we suppose its construction and internal system to have been developed in the cave temple, it is almost a part of the same process, that, as soon as it was released from its imprison- ment in the bowels of the earth, it should adopt for its favourite outline an imitation of the external appearance of its former dwelling-place, the rocky hill. Without, we have an artificial mountain; within, we have a representation of that mountain scooped out, as in the first form of the architecture, into inter- minable colonnades and passages. No better analogy can be wished for to defend the theory here maintained as to the origin of Indian architecture. But even granting every variety of outline which Indian buildings assume to have an origin totally irreconcilable with the idea of excavations, it would prove nothing. We are now concerned with the origin, not of the outlines of Indian pagodas, but of the forms of Indian architecture. Those who, with the pre- sent writer, see in the interlacing arches and vaults of a Gothic minster a stone copy of a Northern forest, do not attribute to that source its outline and proportion, its cruciform shape, its high roofs, its transepts, chapels, and apses. And though many arguments have been brought against that theory, I am not aware that this has been alleged as any inconsistency in its sup- porters. And it is no more than is here assumed with regard to the architecture of India. Its distinguishing architectural features are traceable to one source, its outlines are borrowed from many others. Such are the remains of ancient Hindostan : structures which indeed exhibit a vast improvement on the rude forms described in the last chapter, but which are still essentially barbarous, devoid of fixed principles, and lacking all perception of beauty. Our next inquiries will introduce us to a style which, though neither its parent nor its offspring, is undoubtedly kindred, and in which 1 Egyptian Antiquities, i. 200. See Heeren, ii. 87. OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 63 its leading idea, so far as it has one, is far better and more artis- tically carried out. The Indian monuments, those at least which now exist, appear to be of much more recent date than the Egyptian ; their chronological series begins about the point where that of Egypt ends, and reaches down to our own day. Yet in a scientific inquiry they claim an earlier place ; they re- present an analogous style in a less advanced stage, so that the temples and palaces of the Pharaohs will form the appropriate sequel to buildings many ages their juniors. Such is the diver- sity of the fate which art experiences ; in one nation it springs at once to perfection, in another it drags on a lingering exist- ence for centuries, and never attains any high degree of merit. The Hindoo and the Chinese still labour on models which were essentially the same when the architecture of the Dorian was yet in its infancy, while the fluted column was still a post, and its architrave a horizontal beam. In the mean time Europe has seen the frieze of the Parthenon, the dome of the Pantheon, the endless arcades of the Basilica of St. Paul, the cupola of St. Sophia and the minarets which profane it, the lantern of Worms, the dome of Florence, the spires of Coventry and Freyburg ; and all these the types of styles, the models of countless other edifices. The arts and institutions of the East were found essentially the same by Alexander, by Mahmoud, and by the conquerors of our own day. Who can trace the countless revo- lutions which have been experienced by those of nations west of the Euphrates ? CHAPTER IV. OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. The architecture of the ancient Egyptians, as was remarked in the General Introduction, is one that marks a most important epoch in the history of the art. Taken merely as representing a stage in the development of architecture, it is highly interest- ing, being the first mode of building which is really deserving the name of a style ; the earliest form constructed on definite 64 HISTORY OP ARCHITECTURE. and scientific principles, or seeking to realize an ideal of its own. Compared with the Indian monuments, the difference is immense. The Hindoo architecture has no meaning, no idea, no leading principle ; it is a wild product of mere fancy, unchastened by any certain laws of taste. But the Egyptian buildings, barba- rous and uncouth as they seem beside the meridian splendours of Athens, and disfigured by sculptures hardly less monstrous than those of the Hindoos themselves, are manifestly the work of no despicable intellect. An Egyptian temple has its type as truly as a Grecian one, it is the carrying out of an idea to which all the parts subserve, it is a genuine whole, a great harmonized creation. Hindoo architecture is hardly a style at all in the highest sense ; Egyptian is as truly a style as a Grecian, though one of infinitely inferior merit. But when we consider the history of these monuments, their claim to our study and admiration grows immeasurably upon us. Among their number are found the most ancient of existing buildings; the cities of Egypt supply examples betokening a matured style of art, and exhibiting the greatest richness and magnificence, at a period when the rest of the world can afford nothing beyond a few scattered and uncertain fragments. The sumptuous and highly finished temples of Thebes are possibly of higher antiquity than the rudest fragment of wall at Tiryns or Messalogion. And when we further reflect upon the charac- ter and history of the extraordinary nation by w T hom they were reared ; their early learning and civilization ; their institutions and philosophy, combined with their strange and degrading idolatry ; when we remember the prominent and awful position w T hich Egypt occupies in Holy Scripture, the land of Ham the outcast and accursed, the very type of all darkness and spiritual bondage, and the scene of the most awful judgments which revelation has recorded ; when we pursue the investigation through profane history, and see Egypt the central point of Grecian wonder and speculation, a nation marked out from all others as the very land of marvels in nature, art, and manners ; retaining too its arts and its worship under the successive domi- nation of Persian, Macedonian, and Roman lords ; when we look on still further to Christian days, to Alexandria with its famous Patriarchs, and the desert blooming like the rose with the virtues OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 65 and miracles of saintly hermits, and reflect how many of the temples of the old idolatry were consecrated to a holier worship ; when finally we see how all alike have perished, how the idol temple and the Christian church have alike fallen beneath the wasting grasp of the False Prophet, and behold a few wandering Arabs the only tenants of the palaces of the Pharaohs and the mighty shrines of their dark idols : when we thus compare ancient grandeur and present desolation, ancient empire and present slavery, the picture is one which no other land can rival, and the imperishable monuments of Egyptian art remain as witnesses of more and mightier changes than any work that human power has ever reared. The first idea raised in the mind at the mention of Egyptian architecture is probably that of the pyramids ; those marvellous productions of human labour which will probably afford food for curious speculation as long as the world remains. But though they have their value in elucidating several points to which we shall soon have to refer, they are hardly, in the strictest sense, specimens of Egyptian architecture ; they are the most gigantic efforts of building that the world has ever seen, but the process which reared them could scarcely be, in the highest view, an architectural one. As in almost every other country, the buildings dedicated to religious worship afford the most extensive and the most typical specimens of the art as practised in ancient Egypt. It is very remarkable that, although the construction of the entablature is the only one practised in the enriched Egyptian structures, which indeed exhibit that mode of building on a vaster and bolder scale than any others, there can be no doubt but that the architects of that country were well acquainted with both the form and principle of the arch. The apparent or hori- zontal arch, both semicircular and segmental, is found at Thebes and Abydos ; and at Syout or Lycopolis arc several segmental arches cut in the rock. But besides this, Sir Gardner Wilkin- son gives an engraving of a genuine arch of stone of the date GOO B.C., and considers that arches and vaults were constructed of brick as early as 1540 B.C. The country possesses but little timber; a want which led to a common employment of brick, and especially of brick vaulting, in domestic architecture. A true T 66 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. arcli of the horse-shoe form, and another of the common semi- circular kind, both constructed of bricks, exist at Thebes. The pointed arch, 1 of stone put together without cement, and without a key-stone, is found at Djebel-el-Barkal. And more than one pyramid exhibits that substitute for an arch, constructed of two inclined stones, which is familiar to the students of the first ecclesiastical architecture of our own island. The invention of the arch in Egypt was doubtless an effect of the use of brick ; in that material, it is impossible to unite dis- tant points without some such contrivance ; so that its want is more felt than in a stone architecture, where blocks of almost any size may be employed as architraves. In the latter the arch is merely a convenience, as dispensing with the vast labour re- quired to move and adjust such masses ; in a brick architecture it is absolutely necessary, if anything beyond mere walls is to be erected. We may thus easily account for the peculiar position of the arch in Egyptian architecture. The great temples are built of stone ; and their style was, probably matured, or at least greatly advanced, before the introduction of bricks as a building material ; and this style was doubtless one that was at once prized and admired as mere art, and consecrated by religious symbolism and associations. We can, therefore, readily imagine that the kings and priests of Egypt, to whom the diminution of their subjects' labour was certainly no very important consideration, might forbear to innovate upon the accustomed forms of their temples by the introduction of even so great an improvement as the arch. Hence it is that the arch, though known in its per- fect development, remained only in occasional use as convenience might dictate, but never became a feature in the decorative sys- tem of Egyptian architecture. That architecture is, on the contrary, as complete a carrying out of the rival construction as can be imagined ; and shows a thorough grasp of its capabilities, both mechanical and ornamen- tal. It is only the immeasurable difference in point of taste that at once places it so far below the products of Grecian skill. Boldness, vigour, and consistency are there in no less perfection, but the refined and delicate perception of beauty is absent. 1 Itainee, Histoire de l'Architecture, i. 306. OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 67 As in all entablature styles, the fullest development of Egyp- tian architecture is to be found in the portico ; and as the gene- ral outline of that feature, as exhibited in perfection by the Greeks, is so familiarly known, I may be perhaps allowed to an- ticipate in some measure a subsequent chapter, in order to com- pare the less known and less perfect forms of Egypt with the typical productions of Hellas. The character of an Egyptian portico is heavy and massive ; it has indeed been 1 shown by admeasurements that its proportions arc not actually more so than some of the earlier and more mas- sive specimens of the Doric order; but the Grecian examples are merely firm and substantial, in the Egyptian both the compo- sition and the details seem not only massive, but actually clumsy and uncouth. The first great difference in the main outline is, the entire absence of that most beautiful and necessary finish of a Grecian portico, the pediment, which of itself gives a flat and unfinished appearance to the building. Grecian architecture is indeed horizontal, and rendered so by the very principles and genius of the style, but there is never any feeling of incom- pleteness ; an Egyptian portico without a pediment is an object to which the eye can never be reconciled ; the flat line is so pain- fully and abruptly marked, that wc can never divest ourselves of the idea that a pediment has been destroyed. The sides present also a most important difference. The most satisfactory form of a Grecian temple is certainly the peripteral, which has colon- nades all round ; but even in the form called in antis, when the columns do not extend along the whole front, the ends of the side walls are brought into harmony with the colon- nade by being made to assume the form of pilasters. But the Egyptian portico is terminated by the ends of two im- mense walls, without any attempt to harmonize them with the pillars ; and these walls moreover in many cases slope inwards at a very perceptible angle, in a manner very far from agreeable to the eye, or satisfactory upon any principle of taste. The result is simply the entire destruction of the genuine idea of a portico. This we conceive as composed of an entablature and pediment, resting on a colonnade, which forms the predominant feature of 1 Egyptian Antiquities, i. 101. 68 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. the whole ; but in an Egyptian portico, the colonnade is some- thing secondary, and seems merely a relief or interruption to the wall, which exists above and on each side. And as if the Egyptian architects endeavoured of set purpose to hinder their colonnades from standing out as bold and prominent objects, a still more perverse and barbarous method of effecting this intention did not fail to occur to them. This was no other than actually building up the intercolumniations, sometimes up to more than two-thirds of the height of the pillars. Thus while the Grecian column stands forth, free and unencumbered from base to abacus, in all its pure and simple grandeur, the lower part of the Egyptian shaft peeps forward with difficulty from out of the mass of wall by which it is choked. And this uncouthness leads to another ; as a passage is necessarily required to the interior of the portico, we might have expected that, though not allowed equally by every intercolumniation, one at least might have been left free to supply the necessary opening ; but no, the wall has taken possession of every thing, the central intercolumniation is filled up with a doorway, with its jambs built up against the pillars. Sometimes this would seem to arise from simple perverseness, for " the doorway of the portico of Denderah, and of other tem- ples similarly constructed, is formed by two upright jambs, with- out a lintel to unite them at the top." 1 The judgment of charity, in one who has had no opportunity of observing whether they exhibit any signs of mutilation, would be that such a lintel may have been destroyed. At all events, this strange practice helps very much to produce the apparently desired effect of giving the portico the look of a perforated mass of masonry, and reducing the intercolumniations to little better than holes in the wall. From this insertion of a doorway results yet another violation of beauty and proportion. An entrance becomes a central point, and must be treated as such ; it requires to be marked out as something conspicuous, around which the other features may group ; hence the central intercolumniation, as containing the doorway, is made of much greater width than the rest. Now the whole idea of a portico absolutely repudiates any such cen- 1 Egyptian Antiquities, i. 100. OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. G9 tral point ; its whole beauty is derived from a quiet and equal harmony, admitting no commanding centre, but rather requir- ing a democratic equality among its members ; its unity does not consist in the predominance of any one point, but in the accurate adjustment of all. And after all, this attempt of the Egyptian architects to provide the portico with such a central point is eminently unsuccessful ; all that their device effects is separation rather than unity ; they do but divide their colon- nade into two unconnected parts with an awkward gap between them. Another important difference between the buildings of the Greeks and the Egyptians will be found in the habit indulged in by the latter of covering almost every foot of their structures with sculptures, human, animal, and otherwise. Not only does the frieze, the seat of so many glorious emanations of the Grecian chisel, come in for its share, though merely in an incidental manner, as one portion of the wall; but the very pillars are loaded with these preposterous and hideous representations. This again is a sign that the portico is merely a perforated wall ; even the columns are merely a part of it, w r hich happen indeed to stand to a certain extent detached, and to have an approach to the cylindrical form, but which have no distinct existence, and are consequently brought under the same general laws as the other portions of the masonry. If a Grecian architect had chosen thus to enrich his external w r alls, we may still be sure that he would never have thought of extending this source of decoration to the detached and totally " self-contained " blocks of his colonnade. To look further into details, we find the beautiful gradations and projections of the Grecian entablature quite absent; we have little more than a piece of the wall assuming its form. This is crowned with a rude cornice, a large round moulding, which at Denderah is actually continued down the sloping sides of the facade, (once more identifying the wall and the entablature,) and finally finished with a vast projecting hollow, which again occurs at the top of the intercolumniary walls. JJut, what is perhaps strangest of all, a large block, called the de, is inserted above the capital, forming a distinct and prominent member, and utterly destroying the connection between the column and its architrave. 70 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. It seems almost to forestall the barbarism of Roman and Revived Italian architecture, 1 by which a detached fragment of entablature is stuck upon a column, with no purpose but to outrage propor- tion, and, moreover, if it chance to be in an arcade, to separate the column from its arch. It would appear however that this strange perversity, which appears altogether unaccountable, has met with admirers. Denon, as quoted in the little work from which we have borrowed so much, observes, " This architectu- ral member, which I have never seen but in the Egyptian column, gives freedom to the capital, prevents it from appearing crushed by the architrave, and produces so good an effect to a person who approaches the pillar, that I am surprised it has never been imitated." This arrangement has its parallel, one perhaps not altogether accidental, in the stilting of arches, which is in most cases almost equally unsightly. The forms of Egyptian columns and their capitals are very various. In the latter, which certainly in many instances pos- sess no small degree of beauty, the architect seems to have been altogether unrestrained, and to have given no less scope to his fancy than the designers of our own Gothic buildings. Especially does every form of vegetable life seem to have been called into requisition ; the capitals of the Egyptian temples might al- most serve as a hortus siccus for the botanical traveller, as scarcely any plant of the country has failed to obtain admission among those called upon to add richness to the temples of its divinities. And though they can seldom or never be put in com- petition with the luxuriant richness of the Corinthian acanthus- leaf, or with the exquisite grace and delicacy of early Gothic foliage, the vegetable capitals of Egypt are very far from despi- cable. The usual form is nearly the same, namely the reversed bell, evidently borrowed from the calyx or cup of a flower. But, while in the Gothic capital this is merely the nucleus from which the foliage projects with such free and luxuriant elegance ; in the Egyptian it is the whole capital, the representations of leaves and fruit being simply carved in relief upon its surface ; at most the circular outline of the rim is broken up into a scolloped form by a series of large leaves bending outwards. The lotus is 1 Compare, for a sort of acciden- Martin's church, in Egyptian An- tal testimony, the remarks on St. tiquities, i. 116. OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 71 one of the chief sources of these enrichments, and occurs in every conceivable variety of bud, flower, and leaf; the palm, the bulrush, the vine, also occur in every stage of their development. In their whole character, and especially in exhibiting little beyond surface-carving, they bear some analogy to the capitals of the Romanesque style, to which they sometimes present a strong incidental resemblance. But the representations on the capitals are by no means all of this nature ; they are indeed almost infinitely varied. In one form which frequently occurs, though under several varieties, some inquirers have ventured to recognize the original of the Doric order. 1 The de in this form is much smaller than usual, being more of an abacus, and indeed not more heavy than many Ro- manesque abaci. Another form, occurring in the magnificent temple of Denderah and several others, is what is called the Isis-headcd capital ; this is quadrangular, and represents in each face the head of that goddess. The capitals however, with all their diversities, agree in one or two very important points, which at once distinguish them from the Grecian and its derivative forms. They have not that sepa- rate character of their own, as distinct parts of the order, which is possessed by the latter. The de comes immediately down upon the capital in a very awkward manner; in some examples, where the capital is of foliage, and consequently an abacus es- pecially necessary, the de, of less diameter than the capital, rises out of the midst of the leaves in a most unsightly way. The pillars themselves arc in some instances square, especially in excavated buildings, and when they have caryatid figures at- tached ; in this latter case they appear to be simple square masses without any pretence to the character of a regular column. They seem to exist solely for the sake of the figures, 2 to employ which as the actual supports of the entablature would hardly have been in accordance with so massive an architecture. Most of the columns however arc round, though not worked to their form with much accuracy. They have round or square 1 Sec Belzoni, p. ITS. Egypt. occur, though rarely. Sec Egyp- Ant. i. 1G8. Rarru'e, Histoire de tian Antiquities, i. 10.3. Cf. Diod. 1' Architecture, i. 288. i. 47. "T-nripuaOui. avj\ rwv ki6vwv - Actual caryatides do however v'5ia. 72 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. bases, and strange to say, the shaft is in many cases narrower just above the base than in its upper part, and is united to it by a kind of reversed capital, curving outward from the base like the Doric echinus. Another form of columns presents a rude resemblance to the clustered pillars of Gothic architecture. The effect, however, is little more than that of convex fluting, if I may be allowed the expression ; as these are crossed by a num- ber of concentric rings, they may be considered as an imitation of palm trees bound together. 1 I have thus endeavoured to explain the principal points to be remarked in the elevation of an Egyptian portico, as contrasted with the purer and more graceful forms of Greece. It may not be out of place to give a brief description of such other parts of a temple as throw light upon the style of architecture, avoiding all ritual and symbolical speculation. The sacred precinct, which is sm*rounded by a wall, is entered by an enormous gateway or propylsea, sometimes of greater height than the temple itself, and extending in breadth on either side beyond the extremities of the precinct. This is composed of two huge artificial mountains of oblong form, with all their sides inclining; but at a more obtuse angle than the pyramids; and they are truncated at the top so as to present a long horizontal line. Between them is the actual doorway, of comparatively small size, and square-headed. Above it is an enormous lintel, if we may so call it, nearly in the same plane as the rest of the front ; it is of immense depth, and finished with a very project- ing cornice. The whole of the facade is covered with colossal figures. The outline is, of course, most barbarous and uncouth, as nothing can well be more unpleasing than the sloping walls in such a position, but the general effect of such a prodigious bulk of masonry living with images must be awfully magnificent. These propylsea lead into a large open court in front of the tem- ple, calling to mind the western cloisters of the early basilicas, to which it is exactly analogous ; this is hypostyle or surrounded by columns, on three sides, the portico itself forming the fourth. The central part is hypsethral, but the pillars support a stone 1 Egyptian Antiq. i. 103. So Hero- SeVSpea /j.eixip.ri/j.evoi(n ko.1 tjJ' &\\tj dotus speaks of waa-Tat KiQlv r\ [xcyaX-q tio.Ttd.vri. ii. 169. ko\ i)(TKr]fx4vTi (TTv\otui re (poiftKas ra OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 73 roof connected with the surrounding wall, so as to form a covered passage all round. At the end of this court rises the portico itself; besides the colonnade forming the grand facade of the temple, there are several rows of pillars behind it, supporting a fiat roof of stone. The combination of the huge columns in different points of view is magnificent in the extreme ; heightened as the effect must have been by the lavish profusion of sculptured and coloured decorations. One of the magnificent engravings in the great French work on Egypt gives a vivid idea of what an Egyptian temple must have been in the days of its glory ; representing the whole architecture and enrichments accurately restored. From the portico we come to the cella or actual temple, divided into several apartments ; but the only one of any importance in our present view is that next to the portico and entered from it by a doorway ; this is a hypostyle hall with columns supporting a fiat roof of stone. The others, divided from each other by dead walls, afford but little scope for architectural embellishment, though a wide one for the kindred arts of sculpture and painting. In the civil architecture of Egypt, the most important fact to be remarked is the constant use of crude brick ; the scarcity of timber, as was observed above, 1 occasioned its employment in the construction of the roofs, many chambers having barrel-vaulting of that material. The ceilings were much enriched with coloured ornaments, among which we again meet with the chevron and other decorations similar to those which arc so familiar to us in ltomanesque architecture. Such was the architecture of ancient Egypt, the style both of the gigantic remains of the hundred-gated Thebes, where we may best learn what Egypt was in the clays of her might, before Per- sian or Macedonian had crossed her border, and of the compara- tively modern, but no less magnificent, piles of Dcnderah and Edfou. All these, with those of Phihe, Esneh, Syout, Elephan- tine, and numberless others, are made known to us in their minutest details by those superb volumes which owe their birth to the wild expedition of revolutionary France, and would seem to be almost the only recompense made to the scientific world for the Page 65. 74 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. crimes and follies of an outbreak, which at first proclaimed a no less deadly war against intellect and learning, than against religion and civil government. Our next inquiry must be into the origin and history of the style of architecture in which these wonderful monuments are reared ; one which can scarcely fail to induce the conclusion that it is derived 1 from those excavations in the rock, of which Egypt itself, and Nubia still more extensively, presents so many examples substantially the same in style as the structural buildings. All the distinctive features of the architecture point to this origin, and we may more especially observe that we here find the key to all those peculiarities which stamp upon it a character of barbarism. First of all, its great massiveness may be well derived from this source. In a con- structed building, such massiveness implies a greater expenditure of time, labour, and material, than is required in a lighter style; in a mechanical view at least it is a sign of rudeness and imperfec- tion, occasioned either by the mistaken idea that greater strength is thus necessarily obtained, or by an actual want of sufficient skill to produce the same strength with a less amount of material. Hence in the development both of Grecian and Gothic architec- ture there is a constant tendency towards increased lightness, both as giving, when not carried to an extravagant excess, addi- tional elegance, and as actually saving materials, and thereby time and labour. In an excavated building the sesthetical con- sideration might indeed possibly have some weight, but the others would have an exactly contrary effect. Where a building is raised from the ground, the more massive its style, the more laborious is its construction ; but where the material is a rock to be excavated, the greater massiveness is the product of the less labour ; the greater the lightness obtained, the moi*e of the solid rock has to be hewn away. Here we at once have the explana- tion of the enormous heaviness which the Egyptian architecture always retained ; the excavator cut away as little of the rock as was necessary for his purpose; the constructor who reproduced his work naturally exhibited the same massiveness of compo- sition in his first efforts ; and moral causes sufficient to account for its retention during the whole continuance of the style, may be 1 See Heeren's Asiatic Nations, i. 152. OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 75 found in the appropriateness of such an architecture, both to the "scale of the country around, presenting no features but monotony and extent/' and to " the unchangeable rules of the Egyptian religion." x To the same source we may also trace most of the peculiari- ties in the elevation of the portico. It was observed above, that, while the Grecian portico is an assemblage of architectural mem- bers having a distinct existence, the Egyptian is a wall of which parts are left unfinished or perforated, the pieces of wall between the openings happening to assume the form of columns. This is exactly what we might naturally look for in a style owing its origin to excavations. It is not like the structural building, an assemblancc or alliance of distinct parts ; it is an essential unity, wall, pillar, entablature, are all physically one thing, parts of one natural block. The temple is not peripteral, for an excava- tion can rarely have sides ; only so much of the rock is cut away as is necessary, hence the colonnade does not extend along the whole length of the fa9ade ; a portion of the solid rock is left at each end, which remains in the form of the structural imitation a piece of wall, without any attempt to harmonize it with the columns. And as a piece of rock is left at the sides, so is another piece of the same rock left above ; this in the structure becomes an entablature, but still remains a piece of wall, with no particular reference to the columns, but left continuous with the rest of the wall, just as it had been before with the rest of the rock. Hence again the intercolumniary walls ; the Greek brought his columns one by one, and set them up as a colon- nade ; to build a wall between them was not only ugly, but, unless some crying necessity demanded it, a foolish expenditure of labour and material ; the Egyptian hewed his columns out of the one solid rock ; to leave them free during their whole height, unless it were absolutely necessary, would liave been in his case an equally foolish extravagance. He only made such apertures as were necessary for light and entrance, and for the production of something like a decorative front. And we may even carry out the same line of reasoning into the minuter details of the style. We can in this way account for that otherwise unaccountable feature, the de. It may have 1 Gau, quoted in Egypt. Ant. i. 149. 76 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. been found more easy to carve out the capital, if it were first made comparatively free, than if the whole mass were left immediately above it. A square block would probably be first hewn out, and afterwards carved into the capital, and it is clear that its upper part, left in the block, would not form the same impediment to so delicate an operation as if the entablature itself were close at hand. To the same source is probably owing the omis- sion of the abacus, a feature which marks the division of mem- bers distinct both physically and in idea. The capital is a sepa- rate block, so is the abacus, it is a tile or flat piece of wood laid upon the capital. But where the building is hewn out of one mass, there is no junction of parts, and consequently no occa- sion to mark that junction ; hence the members which serve that purpose in a structural building do not appear. We may go on to mark the absence of diminution, or rather the strange perversion of it by which the lowest part of the column is often- times made also the most slender. Now though this does not result immediately from the process of excavation, but from some principle of taste, however unintelligible ; it is difficult to con- ceive how it could have arisen in a style having any other origin. In a structural building it violates the great rule that every por- tion should have a support both mechanically and apparently sufficient ; it substitutes an appearance at least of weakness where strength is most requisite. But in an excavation, where the members do not support each other, but are kept together by cohe- sion, this is a consideration which would have but little weight. The connection of two other peculiarities of Egyptian archi- tecture with the origin here assigned to it hardly needs to be pointed out ; these are the square pillars, and the absence of the pediment. The origin of the former is at once shown by the fact that they are of frequent occurrence in the cave tem- ples, and comparatively rare in structures. The square form is naturally that which would be produced by the first efforts to hew a building out of the rock, but it is in the great majority of positions so manifestly unsightly, that to round or chamfer its angles, and thereby produce the cylindrical or polygonal shape, is one of the first processes that would occur in any attempt to form an ornamental style. The lack of the pediment is yet more obviously derived from the same source ; as that feature OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 77 results from the inclination of the rafters in a timber buildin b> there could of course be no place for it in one hewn out of the rock. It has been said, that " Egyptian architecture had its origin in two types which were combined the pyramidal form and the excavation in the rock." 1 A little reflection will show that these two types are in reality identical, that the pyramid is itself the offspring of the excavation. The connection of the mere pyramidal form with this kind of architecture has been alluded to in the last chapter ; 2 but the Egyptian pyramid must not be taken alone, it is but the most perfect development of a tendency which pervades the whole style, namely that of sloping every surface that can by any possibility be made to slope. Thus we have the slanting walls at the side of the portico, the pro- pyls with their four converging walls ; we may even add the doorway, whose jambs so frequently incline inwards. The pyra- mid is only one application of this principle, though doubtless its most complete carrying out. The author just quoted reverses this opinion, and looks on the pyramid itself as the origin of the other instances of slanting lines. On the other hand, these lines may be fairly looked upon as one of the earliest and most natural features of an original rock architecture. To excavate a facade of any kind a plane surface is required ; so that before the architectural decorations are commenced, the portion of the rock where they are to be cut must be smoothed down to receive them. Now few rocks arc absolutely perpendicular, most of them have sufficient inclina- tion to suggest that such a plane surface should be made in a slanting direction, both as requiring less labour, and as better harmonising with the external form of the mountain side itself. This, then, seems to be the most natural way of accounting for the great predilection shown by the Egyptian architects for the inclined plane; and "the facade of Ipsambul," or an earlier one of similar character, may be looked upon not only as the "type of the propyla of Luxor," but of the pyramids themselves. The numerous instances of slanting walls an; all referable to this one source, which seems to have had a most indelible influence on Egyptian architecture; the only part escaping is the front of 1 Egypt. Ant. i. 202. Page 62. 78 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. the portico. A colonnade with its pillars sloping inwards would be too ludicrous, and too great a violation of apparent, and per- haps real, safety even for Egyptian taste. In the positions where it does occur, the inclination, unsightly as it is, seems rather to give the idea of additional security. We thus see how every feature of Egyptian architecture may be most naturally derived from excavations in the rock. We may even go a step further. The diversities to be observed in styles of sculpture, and the peculiar character of that prevalent in ancient Egypt, are subjects which do not come within the scope of the present volume ; but the manner in which that art is applied to architecture is an important part of our investiga- tion, and may in this case be easily referred to the same origin as the architecture itself. The number of statues in relief which load an Egyptian temple, and their application to the columns as well as to the walls, have been already alluded to. May we not trace this whole system to the rock temples ? Figures, large and small, carved in the rock naturally abound among their adornments, and these of course do not stand detached, but are still part of the rock. Consequently the architect who loaded his wall with imagery in relief did in this respect also only re- produce the features of the elder excavator. In Greece, on the contrary, where images were not, any more than columns, hewn out of the rock, this kind of ornament is chiefly confined to one portion, namely the frieze ; here, if statuary were to be employed at all, it could hardly be introduced in any other way. And we see the same in the fact that caryatid figures, when they occur, are generally found attached to square pillars, instead of standing free, as they do in Grecian architecture. There the statue, like the column, exists of itself, and its burden is laid upon it ; and if it be sufficient for support, no particular object would be gained by building a piece of wall just behind it to destroy the perfection of its outline. With the Egyptian excavator, on the other hand, it was manifestly an important economy of labour to leave such a square mass, instead of finishing the statue all round. The actual caryatides already mentioned may either have been an ex- periment which failed to meet with general approbation, or an instance of that Greek influence which affects so many of the later monuments of Egypt. OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 79 This theory of the origin of Egyptian architecture is one which, as far as I am aware, is not generally contested. The subject is, however, so interesting and important as to demand a somewhat more lengthened examination, the more so as the origin of the analogous Hindoo architecture has been a good deal disputed. In this, as stated in the last chapter, no less than in the more advanced structures of Egypt, I recognize a similar de- velopment of rock architecture. We have a similar massiveness of construction, and the same square columns, the infallible marks of an excavated style. For the square form, though so much mo- dified by infinite ehamferings, is even more completely the source of the Hindoo pillar than of the Egyptian. It is the germ of the Elephantan balusters, the whole extent of whose height has not been set free from it. And these balusters might afford an argument that the caves in India exhibit a genuine excavated architecture, and not an imitation of structures. They show the same unity between the supporters and the supported mass, and the same consequent disregard of the laws which ordinarily regulate their relations. This was shown in the reverse dimi- nution of the Egyptian column, of which form the baluster is only a fuller development. The bracket-capital, too, re- tains traces of the like principle ; to leave such a projection would be much more natural in an excavatory than in a structu- ral architecture. Nothing can be more completely built upon the idea of original cohesion between the support and the mass supported ; making the break gradual tends greatly to diminish the notion of a " huge body ready to fall and crush the occu- pants," 1 which seems inherent in the vast flat roof of an exca- vated chamber. In a constructed style, on the contrary, where the weight simply rests on the pillar, it does not add to the appearance of security, but rather the contrary, by seeming to throw an additional and unnecessary weight upon the shaft. And in Hindoo, as well as Egyptian, architecture, the whole building, including the pillars, is treated as a block for the hew- ing out of sculpture. The application of this enrichment 2 to the pillars seems an incontestable mark of this origin ; it so 1 Egypt. Ant. i. 142. first call to mind, are of a different - The decorations of Romanesque character, and seem derivable from shafts, which this remark might at fluting. 80 HISTORY OP ARCHITECTURE. completely destroys their separate existence and reduces them to mere portions of the aggregate mass. In one respect however the probable origin of the two styles presents a slight difference. E gyptian architecture, at least as a decorative art, is wholly derivable from artificial excavations in the rock ; that of India retains at least one important feature which appears to be borrowed from natural caves. The two are of course closely connected, as artificial excavations were doubt- less suggested by natural ones, and were probably in many cases improvements or enlargements of them : still they are distinct in idea, and especially with regard to the feature where the pre- sent difference is found, namely the roof. The genuine roof of the Egyptian style is flat ; the arched examples are referable to the introduction of brick, and besides do not occur in the most typical edifices. But the arched roof, in the form of the appa- rent barrel vault, is found in some of the most splendid excavated temples of Hindostan. 1 Now this is a manifest imitation of na- tural caves : most natural perforations exhibit an approach to the arched shape, and the deep rocky cavern, the 7rsrg>]oj cx.vtox.tit' civTgct, might well supply the rude conception of at least the form of vaulting, But in an artificial excavation, the roof is most naturally made flat, as hewing out the rock so as to produce such a vault implies a great additional outlay of labour. This doubt- less accounts for Indian flat roofs as well as for Egyptian, as the form would naturally be soon introduced ; but the simultaneous, though probably more ancient, occurrence of the arched roof points to the natural cavern as its origin. These excavated vaults might easily give birth to the dome, which, as we have seen, is very frequent in at least one style of Indian architecture. At the same time the dome is so natural a representation of the con- cave heaven, that it may as naturally be referred to that source. We may therefore conclude that Egyptian and Indian archi- tecture are two separate products of the excavatory process ; historically distinct, neither being imitated from or influenced by the other, but presenting only that analogy and resemblance which might be looked for in two styles of similar origin, how- ever far removed from each other in point of time and place. The birth-place of Egyptian architecture is certainly to be 1 See Heeren, ii, 8/. OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 81 looked for in the rock excavations of Nubia, which stretch from the frontier of Egypt as far as the ancient Meroe. Without attempting to plunge into the early history of Egypt, and the interminable series of its kings, it is clear that there was suffici- ent connection between that country and the kindred land of Ethiopia to allow of an easy transmission of a style of architec- ture from one to the other. Some of the Nubian monuments are marked with the names of the Egyptian Rameses, and we also know that Ethiopian princes ruled in Egypt. We might even suppose that the original seats of the Egyptian nation had been higher up the Nile, and that they had gradually descended to the lower part of its course. At all events, it is certain that Nubia contains monuments of every style and date of Egyptian art, as well as those excavated temples which are its first originals. Some of these are of the rudest character, and may be considered as among the very earliest attempts at excavated architecture. Others manifest a great advance in art ; in some cases it is even clear that improvements have taken place in the fabric since the period of its original excavation. In others the structures which usually surround an Egyptian temple have been built around the primitive excavated shrine. No difficulty in the way of receiving this subterranean theory need be found in the fact that the details of Egyptian architec- ture not only lay all nature under contribution, but even some- times appear to imitate artificial constructions of other kinds. 1 Those who sought to add decorations, either to the excavations themselves, or to the structures afterwards reared in imitation of them, would naturally seek for ornament wherever it could be found. The native rock might be hewn into an imitation of any natural or artificial object which struck the artist's fancy as appro- priate for a column or a capital, as naturally as were the blocks de- signed for a constructed building, when architecture had ascended from its original dwelling in the rock. No perplexity need be caused by such forms as pillars directly imitating the group of palm trees connected with hoops, and other apparent borrowings from tents or huts. The belief that an architecture originated in excavations docs not imply that even while it was confined to opc- 1 Compare above, p. 01. 82 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. rations of that kind, the nation who practised it possessed no other dwelling-places than such holes in the rock. 1 Excavated architec- ture has been often practised by nations in a high state of civiliza- tion, while dwelling in caves seems expressive only of the most utter and degraded barbarism. The tomb, the treasury, the temple, whatever was designed for duration, security, or beauty, would be hewn in the mountain, while the people themselves would dwell around in such huts and sheds as they could provide. And if any forms which might arise in such structures, any groupings of natural objects, or shapes given to artificial ones, appeared to the artist to be adapted for his purpose, they would be as unhesitatingly transferred to the excavated rock as flowers, fruit, and leaves, or representations of human and animal life. The development of Egyptian architecture appears to have been rapid, though probably not more so than that of our own Gothic, which endured but three centuries and a half. When we consider that Earls Barton is separated from Whiston by a space of no more than seven centuries, we need not be surprised at the former part of Sir J. G. Wilkinson's assertion that about B.C. 1740, six hundred years after the flood, "the style of architecture was grand and chaste, and the fluted columns of Beni- Hassan are of a character calling to mind the purity of the Doric, which indeed seems to have been derived from Egypt." 2 At this time it is clear from Scripture that Egypt was a powerful and civilized state, with a regular govern- ment under kiugs and priests, officers whose existence among a civilized people seems to imply, as its necessary consequence, the existence of palaces and temples. The sacred writings also 1 See above, pp. 46, 60. apparently Romanesque shaft at 2 Ancient Egyptians, i. 44. As Mycenae, for example than to look to the Doric columns, see above, p. upon Doric or other Grecian forms 71. The author must of course as borrowed from Egypt. Still less decline any controversy as to the is the explanation to be sought for dates of individual buildings. But in the wild and infinitely more im- admitting those given by Sir J. G. probable theory of M. Ramee, "Wilkinson, it seems more reason- (i. 291,) of Grecian colonies in able to suppose an accidental resem- Egypt at some interminably distant blance, such as we have already period. met with in several instances the OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 83 throw some light upon Egyptian architecture at a somewhat later period, when the Israelites are described as building " treasure- cities/' besides which it has been generally held that some at least of the existing pyramids are the fruits of their compulsory labour. The use of brick at this time in Egypt is also distinctly mentioned. The invention of that material was certainly older j as it is described as that of the tower of Babel, which, from the ex- pressions made use of, would seem to have been the first instance of its employment. It is then very possible that the arched architecture of brick employed by the Egyptians for those com- mon purposes out of whose necessities it grew, may be as old and more strictly of native growth than the more sumptuous style of their sacred and royal buildings. The period of the greatest splendour attained by the latter appears to include from about 1600 to 800 B.C., which includes the most brilliant epochs of Egyptian history, and those to which writers who have given their attention to the inscriptions and other points of national archaeology assign most of the great monuments of Thebes. The series of the native Pharaohs continues much longer, down to the Persian conquest under Cambyses ; but with Psam- metichus, B.C. 650, a Greek influence commences, which may possibly have had some effect upon architecture. With Psammenitus the line of native kings ceases, and since that time, with the exception of a few revolts against the Persian government, Egypt has always been subject to rulers of foreign race. With the invasion of Cambyses, who consumed many of the Theban buildings by fire, the destruction of Egyptian monu- ments commences, unless we accept the rumour, certainly un- contradicted by Scripture, which lays an earlier devastating invasion to the charge of Nebuchadnezzar. But the Persian monarchs who succeeded the frantic son of Cyrus pursued a more liberal policy towards Egypt and other conquered countries ; no further interference appears to have taken place with the institutions, religion, or arts of the van- quished people. A few remains of Persian antiquities have indeed been discovered in Egypt, which only proves that the Persians who might be resident in the country, like Europeans in India, followed their own fashions, and allowed the natives to follow theirs. a 2 84 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. With the conquests of Alexander the Great, a new state of things commences. The foundation of the Greek city Alexan- dria, and the establishment of the Greek, or rather Macedonian, dynasty of the Ptolemies, brought Egypt within the compass of the Hellenic world. The Greek language and Greek arts now extended not only throughout Egypt, but even to the remotest parts of Nubia. Many Grecian buildings were doubtless erected, and the proximity of their faultless details and proportions was not without influence on the ruder architecture of the country. Both Egypt and Nubia afford examples in which Grecian notions are unquestionably mingled with the pure Egyptian forms. The island of Philse, which is full of ancient remains, affords, in a temple imitating the peripteral form, a very remarkable instance of the imitation of Greek models being extended even to the ar- rangement of sacred structures. But neither the Ptolemies nor the Iloman emperors interfered with the Egyptian creed ; and they probably promoted, certainly they did not hinder, the erection of temples to the native gods in the native style. The superb temple of Denderah or Tentyra, pronounced by Belzoni 1 to be "the most magnificent in Egypt," is a memo- rable instance, being erected under one of the Ptolemies, and repaired under Tiberius Csesar. Its style is Egyptian through- out, unless a Greek tinge is to be seen in the columns, which rise without diminution from their bases. As long as the Egyp- tian idolatry survived, the form of architecture to which it gave birth survived also. With the predominance of Christianity it fell ; and when the Patriarchate of Alexandria took the place of the hierarchies of Thebes and Memphis, the Roman architecture of the early Church succeeded in all new religious structures to the forms which for two thousand years had been reared in honour of the gloomy heathenism of Egypt. Many ancient buildings were however converted into churches ; several tem- ples have been found where the demon form has been erased to make room for the triumphant cross and the saintly effigy. And now the candlestick is removed from the church of St. Mark and St. Athanasius ; and the wandering Arab desecrates, and the traveller gazes with amazement, on the shrines which have wit- nessed a false and a true religion alike perish from among them. 1 Page 34. 85 CHAPTER V OF THE ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE OF WESTERN ASIA. There is no part of the world in which more splendid remnants of antiquity might naturally have been looked for, than in the regions which beheld the rise and fall of the mighty empires of the East. There it was that man first stepped forth upon the renewed earth, when the waters of the deluge had retired ; there arose the first kingdoms the world beheld, and their imperial cities, the most ancient and the mightiest of the works of man. While Sparta, and Argos, and Athens had as yet no being, the kings of the East dwelt in palaces on which the spoils of nations were lavished ; and reared temples to the service of their idols, whose erection might have drained the wealth and the labour of the whole Hellenic world. But Nineveh, and Babylon, and Tyre, have vanished like a dream beneath the stroke of ven- geance ; they are become " heaps " for the halls of Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar, for the tower whose summit was to reach unto heaven, there is now only desolation without an inhabitant, where the visible witnesses of heaven's truth and justice, u(jjwva arj^uivoixjiv ofifiuat fipojwv, wpoveiv. But if " the golden city has ceased," the race to which it yielded, and which founded a wider and nobler empire, called down no such utter extermination ; princely ruins remain to tell of the splendour of the Great King, who " reigned from India even unto Ethiopia." As we have seen the vast remains of early Greece, the everlasting ruins of Argos and Mycenae, so enough is yet left to witness the greatness of their fabled kinsmen ; the " harbour of wealth " 3 may still be traced in the palaces and temples of the race sprung, like them, from the golden shower, 1 The author fears that he has Indus, as opposed to India, China, employed this phrase in a sense Sec. more extended than its usual accep- - JEsch. Pers. 815. tation ; but he knows of no other ' lb. 2-1G, no\bi tt\ovtov Aij^v. to express the regions west of the 86 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. and where gold 1 still glittered in untold profusion wherever the sons of Achamienes had fixed their throne. It is not however so much in an architectural point of view, as in their bearings on general archaeology, and especially philo- logy, that the monuments of ancient Persia are valuable. The re- mains of sculpture are far more extensive than those of architec- ture ; and some of them are of the highest historical interest, having been recently proved to belong to the first Persian dynasty, and to commemorate such events as the accession of the first Da- rius. These sculptures, carved for the most part in relief upon the rocks, betoken no contemptible progress in the art, perhaps greater than they had attained to in architecture. In that art, the Persian taste, though very far advanced above that of China, India, or even Egypt, still retains much of that fantastic charac- ter which seems to affect all the Oriental nations ; it is as far re- moved from the purity of the Greek, as the barbaric splendours which dazzled Pausanias after the fight of Plataea, were from the simple fare and habits in which he had been bred among the people of Lycurgus. It appears probable that the arch was very early known in at least some parts of western Asia. Mr. Petit says most truly, "We know that brick was used in the construction of the tower of Babel, and in the cities built by Pharaoh during the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt ; and it is not easy to con- ceive a brick building of any importance that does not in some part or other involve the principle of the arch/' 2 It has also been stated that arches actually occur in abundance among the re- mains of Nineveh. But from what we have seen of the second instance referred to by Mr. Petit, we may learn how little is implied in the mere knowledge and occasional constructive employment of the arch. There is no evidence whatever to show that the Assy- rians or Babylonians 3 at all anticipated Rome in carrying out the arched construction as the basis of a style of architecture. And in the Persian monuments, of which so much more ex- tensive remains have been preserved to us, the arch does not seem to appear at all. We might indeed reckon as exceptions 1 JEseh. Pers. passim. the complete absence of evidence as 2 Church Architecture, i. 17. to the characteristics of Babylonian :i On the supposed vaults of the architecture, see Ramee, i. 144, 147. hanging gardens at Babylon, and ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE OF WESTERN ASIA. 87 some arched excavations at Nakshi-Ptustam, and a window among the ruins of Shah-poor, in which an apparent arch occurs, the head being formed by cutting the upper stone into an arched form. But how little value is to be attached to the former case, our investigations into the cave-temples of India have already- shown ; and the latter, though a nearer approach, and probably implying a knowledge of the arch, is not in truth an arch at all, and certainly cannot be brought to prove the existence of an arched style. Besides, it belongs to a later period, Shah-poor having been founded by the Sassanid prince of that name, whose erections can throw no light on the state of the arts under the immediate successors of Cyrus. Persepolis, the most ancient seat of Persian dominion, re- tained together with Pasargada3 1 its place as the religious centre of the monarchy and the burial place of kings, after the seat of empire had been removed to the conquered cities of Susa and Ecbatana. Here it is that we find the most extensive and mag- nificent remnants of the splendour of ancient Persia, which have indeed been spoken of as "the most magnificent re- mains of a palace or temple that are to be found through- out the world." 2 Here we "have no arches, but fiat gateways of immense height, and of a very rude form, the gateway itself being merely an aperture in a tall mass of masonry ; but the whole is enriched with a profusion of sculptures and inscrip- tions, and crowned with a singular projecting cornice, formed by a sort of prodigious cavetto. But the most striking features of these ruins are the numerous lofty columns from which they derive their present name of Tschil-Minar, or the Forty Pillars, the numeral being used indefinitely, according to the Persian habit, as in fact they greatly exceed that number. These possess a character quite their own, both their propor- tions and their details bearing but little resemblance to any other known style of architecture. The height of the column is much greater than in any of the Grecian orders ; the part especially which must be considered as the capital is of enormous altitude, assuming in some eases a sort of bulbous form, in others that of 1 Grote's History of Greece, iv. - Encyclopaedia Britannica, Art. 2S9. Sec Ilccrcn's Asiatic Nations, Persepolis. i 1 '5.3 et seqij. 88 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. several capitals ranged one upon another. In fact it is hardly a capital in the Grecian sense of a distinct member placed upon the shaft, but is rather a portion of the shaft itself assuming these fantastic forms. In others again animal life is introduced, and the capital consists of two bulls. Besides pillars, ornamen- tal balusters with a single swell are found : both these and the columns are richly fluted. The principal ruins at Persepolis are attributed to the reign of Xerxes. Besides architectural remains, they are rich in sculpture, both human and animal. The occurrence of colossal sphinxes has been often noticed, but they do not seem to have any connection with the Egyptian sphinxes, with which they are not identical in form : such monstrous combinations of animal forms are altogether in the oriental taste, and were in general use among the ancient Persians, not only in their architecture, but in decorations of other kinds. Thus Aristophanes 1 compares the animals mentioned by iEschylus in his tragedies with those wrought on Median tapestries. The chief remains of Persian art, beside the ruins of Perse- polis, are the royal tombs hewn in the neighbouring rocks, among which recent inquiries have discovered the actual resting- places of the kings most famous in the Grecian wars, Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes. The facade of one of the tombs at Nakshi-Rustam exhibits a style of columns somewhat different from those at Persepolis, and approaching more nearly to Grecian ideas ; the pillars being shorter, and having something more like a distinct capital, but one still very heavy, and formed of two horses. The entablature is here preserved, which does not seem to be the case with any of the Persepolitan fragments. It is very plain, and, according to Grecian notions, far too heavy for the supporting colonnade. The upper part of the composition, above the entablature, is loaded with sculptures both human and mon- strous. It should be remarked that this is not, like the front of the cave at Elephanta, a genuine open colonnade, itself the ap- proach to the excavations, but a mere mask in the Italian fashion, the real entrance being a doorway placed between the two central pillars ; this is flat-headed, and crowned by a heavy cornice of the same sort as those already mentioned at Persepolis. 1 Frogs, 937. ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE OF WESTERN ASIA. 89 With regard to the origin of this style of architecture, there is no reason to suppose it otherwise than in the main indigen- ous, though, like the arts of all other nations, it may have been in some degree affected by external influences. More especially might this be expected from the national character of the people, who, according to Herodotus, 1 were of all men the most given to adopt foreign customs. Yet besides this antecedent probability that a Persian architecture might be of other than native design, there does not seem any cause for supposing that it was so in point of fact. M. Ramee mentions, and refutes, an opinion which derives the airy and slender columns of Persepolis from the massive piles of the Pharaohs ; 2 but he gives some counte- nance to one hardly less extravagant which seeks their prototype in the temple and palace of Solomon, and supposes that the arts were derived into Persia from the captive Hebrews, found by Cyrus on his conquest of Babylon. This is the more singular as in another part of his work 3 he shows that the most essential features of the Hebrew architecture, were, as might be expected, of Egyptian origin. There seems no reason to suppose that this Persian style is, as he expresses it, 4 composed of Phoenician, Egyptian, and Indo-Persian elements. How far it may be Median 5 rather than Persian, and what exact amount of national distinction is expressed by those two names, is another question, and one more difficult to answer. " That which is certain," as M. Ramee says, "is that the architecture of ancient Persia seems de- rived from a timber construction, like the Grecian architecture. The arts of the eastern provinces of central Asia, of Media es- pecially, have served to give a character to the style of the palace of Tschil-Minar." The timber origin of this style seems highly probable; it must be considered as a development parallel and analogous to the Grecian architecture ; each starting from the same primitive original, but one of which derived from the superior genius of the people an elegance and sublimity which it never attained among the other. The Persian architecture seems to occupy a middle place in the scale of merit between what we must consi- 1 I. 115.3. 4 I. 127. 2 So Heeren, i. 148. 5 Ileeren, ut supra. :i I. 1GS. 177. 90 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. der the barbaric edifices of India and Egypt, and the full perfec- tion of Grecian art. If they are very far removed from the uncouthness and clumsiness of the former, the entire want of taste which is clearly distinguishable among all their splen- dour; they still remain equally remote from the perfect re- finement of the Greek, the mind attuned to grace and harmony, the sensibility which detects in a moment the slightest violation of their laws. The Persian character, comprising as it did much that was noble, was still, in the Greek sense, essentially barbarous ; it belongs to a state of society distinct at once from the civilization of modern Europe, and from the elder forms of ancient Greece and Italy. The Persians were not, like so many Asiatic nations, mere destroyers, mere momentary conquerors, either sweeping over lands like a flight of locusts, or founding tran- sient empires like Babylon and Nineveh. The people of Cyrus, unresisting slaves of a despot as they may have been, had in them a spirit of national vigour and independence which led to that phenomenon, almost unique in history, the restoration of their monarchy after a foreign domination of nearly six hundred years. After a period of Macedonian and Parthian oppression lasting for more than double the time which elapsed between the first Cyrus and the last Darius, the old Persian empire sprang up afresh to renewed existence, with its government, feelings, and religion as unchanged as if no Grecian torch had ever been hurled against the palace of Persepolis, and no Parthian horse- man had ever trod the people of Achsemenes under foot. And in modern days, after the further invasions of Saracen, Mongol, and Tartar, we still see Persia remaining a distinct and indepen- dent kingdom, after Sardis, and Nineveh, and Babylon have for ages vanished from the earth. But though the Persian people is certainly not to be con- founded with the ordinary rabble of Oriental despots and con- querors, they were very far from having attained a position equal to that of the nations of Greece and Italy. In what the differ- ence consisted, to what causes the superiority was owing which those two lands exercised, each in its own way, over the other nations of antiquity, is a difficult question to determine ; still something there is, undefined it may be, but clearly marked and easily to be recognized, which invests them from their very earliest ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE OF WESTERN ASIA. 91 days with a marked character of superiority even over nations, like the Egyptians and Phoenicians, far more advanced in actual skill and knowledge. And this at once separates Greece from Persia also, though I cannot but think less widely than some have thought, or than actually was the case even with regard to nations, like the two mentioned above, whose formal aspect was much higher than that of Cyrus and his conquering followers. Not to pursue this digression further, the same distinction maybe at once perceived in the architecture of the two nations. The Persian monuments lack that perfect purity of taste, that refined and chastened intellect, which distinguishes those of Greece. Yet they must be considered as presenting a close approach to it, when compared with the Indian and Egyptian remains. The genuine column 1 has been drawn out more purely and completely than in either of those styles. It is not the fragment of rock left when the rest is hewn away, nor yet the massive piece of wall, almost as much a turret as a pillar ; but the real column, the shaft, with its diminution, and all the other elements of the Grecian architecture, are present, only wanting the genius of that wonderful people to work them into perfection. Persian archi- tecture has not the same unity, the same fixed principles, the same carrying out of an idea in a word, it is not so completely a definite style as Egyptian ; but it surpasses it in delicacy and in general rcsthetical beauty. The remains of Persepolis, fantastic, irregular, unchastened as is the style they represent, must, when in their full splendour, have been only second in general effect to the faultless structures of Greece. Their approximation to the Grecian style is doubtless owing, not to any imitation on either side, but to their common timber origin. Though employed in rock excavations, the Persian ar- chitecture does not seem, like the Hindoo, thoroughly at home in works of that kind. The facade at Nakshi-llustam is, as was ob- served above, a mere mask, an application of the principles of another construction, such a front as an original rock architecture would hardly have produced, but which is perfectly natural, if we suppose a style already matured by a totally different process to 1 "The columns of Persepolis of the stems of the lotus and palm, shoot upwards with a slender, yet from which they were prohahly firm elevation, conveying a fit image copied.'' Hceren, i. lu'2. 92 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. have been applied to an unwonted material. The style then of these excavations is not to be classed with the original excavatory architecture of Ipsambul or Elephanta, but with that of the re- mains of Petra, where the Grseco-Roman architecture, which had grown up under other circumstances, and out of other materials, is similarly applied as a mere mask to excavations in the solid rock. The occurrence of bases throughout the Persepolitan remains, and the very great proportion given to them, might seem at first sight to militate against any theory of their timber origin ; as it is manifest that the first development of a wooden architecture would be, like the true Doric, without a base. But the progress of Grecian architecture itself is sufficient to show that it will not always continue so ; as the style advances, and the original ma- terial is gradually forgotten, it 1 provides itself with a feature which appears to be so necessary a finish to a stone construction. And we must remember that we are not acquainted with the first beginnings of Persian architecture ; 2 we have no trace or knowledge of the first rude efforts to reproduce the features of the timber erection in the new material. Our knowledge of the style is confined to a period when it had probably attained its greatest perfection ; the existing ruins belong to the most pros- perous days of the Persian empire. We know not what was the form of the rude dwellings of the shepherd princes who may have preceded the great Cyrus ; we see only the palaces and tem- ples of the religious meti'opolis of the greatest empire which the world had seen; fabrics which rose at the command of a prince whose word was law from the Indus to the iEgean, and who boasted of sovereignty 3 from lands uninhabitable by cold, to re- gions which heat rendered as inaccessible to man. What may have been the earliest state of the art, what details were exhibited in its first glimmerings of decoration, and by what steps it arrived at its full development, are subjects upon which we can pretend to no information whatever. From the home and palace of the Great King, " the rich and all-golden seats " of his immediate dominion, we have to turn to 1 See above, p. 44. higher degree of perfection than 2 " The arts of architecture and men have been generally disposed sculpture must, long before the Per- to admit." Heeren, i. 151. sian dynasty, have attained a much 3 Xen. Anab. i. 7. ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE OF WESTERN ASIA. 93 the western extremity of his realm, and take a brief survey of the monuments which recent discoveries have brought to light in the land of Glaucus and Sarpedon. The investigations of Sir Charles Fellows and, still more recently, of Messrs. Spratt and Forbes, are, as far as concerns philological and ethnographical science, among the most interesting researches of our age. But in an architectural point of view, their value is but small ; the remains which may be most safely attributed to the native Lycian people, have but little artistic character. The opinion of Messrs. Spratt and Forbes that no such exist, and that the whole of the rock tombs and inscriptions of Lycia are to be ascribed to its Persian conquerors, has been refuted with a profusion of his- torical and philological learning in an able review of their volumes. 1 It is there satisfactorily shown that the native Ly- cians were an original Pclasgian people, and that the inscriptions found in their country are in an independent Pelasgian language and character. Besides this convincing proof, there is no reason to suppose that the Persian residents ever formed a population of any extent either in Lycia or in any of their western conquests ; and, above all, the rock tombs of Lycia at once strike us as some- thing totally different from the undoubtedly Persian works in the same material. It is impossible to believe that the same age and nation could have produced the tombs at Nakshi- Piustam and those of which so many examples are given by Sir Charles Fellows. We do not here find a whole colonnade trans- ferred bodily to the side of a rock; the forms are totally different ; more adapted to the material, and yet at the same time bear- ing no less distinct traces of being borrowed from another spe- cies of construction. Some of them arc, as the author remarks, directly imitative of the timber construction. The most re- markable varieties are of two kinds, of which one exhibits the form of the pointed arch as a finish, while the other has a sort of panelling of horizontal and perpendicular lines crossing : some- times it exactly resembles a modern door, and is crowned with a pediment of Greek proportions. These two Sir C. Fellows respectively designates Gothic and Elizabethan, terms cer- tainly inadmissible in any formal treatise, but which may serve to 1 The Ecclesiastic for January, 1817. Art, Lycian Antiquities. 94 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. express the incidental resemblances occasionally to be found in the works of distant ages and countries. Besides the excavated tombs, Pelasgian walls are also found in Lycia and the adjacent countries. One of the Pamphylian ex- amples exhibits the two in close juxtaposition. One can hardly fail to take this fact in connection with the occurrence of the ap- parent arch, especially as its form is so constantly pointed. The strivings and yearnings of the Pelasgian builders after both the form and the construction have been already spoken of; it would seem that in this country they lighted upon the most graceful variety of the mere shape, without ever attaining to the construc- tion, and were content to apply the form as a source of decoration. It is hardly necessary to state that the whole of western Asia Minor contains many splendid monuments of Grecian and Roman architecture, which have only a local connection with the original inhabitants or their erections. The most interest- ing for our present purpose are those which have the least claim on the score of real merit, namely, those where Grecian architec- ture is exhibited in a debased form, corrupted by intermixture with native styles. The works of Sir C. Fellows exhibit many specimens of this sort, which we may most probably attribute to the rude attempts of the native tribes to reproduce the statelier forms of their more polished neighbours. Columns occur in which Greek proportion is violated both by excess and by defect, and capitals in which the genuine forms of the several orders are but clumsily imitated. An example occurs in a tomb at Mylasa, in Caria, the upper part of which is adorned with quasi-Corinthian pillars of very low proportion, which would really be far from out of place as the piers of an early Romanesque church. We have now traced the comparatively rude and unformed ar- chitecture of early times through nearly the round of the world, and have concluded, as we set out, with that mysterious and ubiquitous Pelasgian race who seem to have been the precursors, if not progenitors, of so many nations, and are yet unthankfully rejected by all. We must now turn to the most illustrious of their successors, and behold heathendom, in its most glorious days, enthroned over the twin harbours of Corinth, and on the Acro- polis whence the virgin goddess of Athens looked yet more proudly over her subject seas and islands. PART IT. OF GRECIAN .ARCHITECTURE. CHAPTER I. OF THE ORIGIN OF GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. Hitherto we have traced the progress of architecture among nations whose influence has been comparatively slight upon the arts and institutions of the world. We have seen empires of vast extent, political and religious systems of almost immeasura- ble antiquity, architectural works which for vastness and magni- ficence, for awful and unearthly grandeur, have seen no rivals; piles which seem to surpass the utmost exertions of human strength and skill, and which we might almost deem the workman- ship of the demon powers to whose worship they were reared. The pervading idea of all is that of mere physical power; they tell of the inexhaustible wealth and lavish munificence of the rulers at whose bidding they arose ; they tell of the unresisting, un- reasoning submission of thousands to the caprice of a single despot ; they breathe the spirit of gloomy and mysterious su- perstitions, of ancient and powerful hierarchies rich in hidden and wondrous learning ; but the soul of art is wanting. They exhibit man's sway over external nature, calling into his service the proudest trees of the forest, and the mountain rock of the desert, putting forth every mechanical energy, and sparing no riches that human power could supply. But they show not his 96 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. sway over the intellectual world, that creative power which needs not the wealth of kings or the labour of slaves, which aims not at mere size and gorgeousness, nor is fettered by the lack of costly materials ; but which works from the treasures of its own mind, and brings forth order, harmony, proportion, in a word, Beauty. Indian, Egyptian, even Persian art, is grand, striking, awful, but it is not, in the highest sense, beautiful : it exhibits power, and even genius, but genius coarse and unrefined, unfet- tered by the laws of taste and the perception of elegance ; its ornaments are grotesque and fanciful, its magnificence cumbrous and excessive. For grace, simplicity, and loveliness, we have sfeiit- to look to that wonderful people, jwho, after the revolutions of so many ages, yet remain the centre of all intellectual greatness, whose history still furnishes the best lessons in the science of man's political and social being ; whose literature must remain to every age as the ground-work of every intellectual study ; from whose poets we derive our first ideas alike of all that is lovely, and all that is sublime : from whose philosophers we learn the first principles of the first of sciences, the laws of thought, and of the passions which stir the human breast. Such was the glorious land of Greece, the land where The Poet yes, after all the cavils of philosophical inquiry, the real blind minstrel that we dreamed of in our childhood, the living personal Homer, breathed forth those songs to which six and twenty centuries have not produced a rival; where Pericles ruled supreme in the first of her cities, not by the spears of mercenaries but by the magic influence of mind ; where Aristotle first looked into the heart of man, and learned to analyze its deep and mighty workings ; and whence his royal scholar, the best and greatest of universal victors, went forth on the errand of conquest, not to plunder and destroy, but to spread the arts, and language, and manners of immortal Greece to the utmost limits of the civilized earth. The three centuries of Grecian greatness, the single century of its meridian splendour, have had more effect upon the subsequent destiny of the world than all the countless dynasties of Egypt and the East. The latter have fallen, and have left their names alone behind them. Greece is no less fallen, but her possessions have become the inheritance of the world throughout all time. And this is especially true of her admirable architecture ; as it was in OF THE ORIGIN OF GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 97 Greece that tlie art first attained perfection, it was in Greece too that it first acquired a character worthy to be transmitted to other lands. The styles which we have hitherto considered are, on the whole, isolated ; they have but little connection with each other, and have had still less influence upon the architecture of more recent times. As our civilization and literature is in no degree borrowed from China, India, or Egypt, so neither is any form of architecture which has ever prevailed in Europe ; but as a Greek influence has in other respects pervaded the intellect of every European nation, so in architecture it has been especially pervading ; every succeeding form of the art is to be traced up to the Grecian model as its primary source. Its character indeed has been totally changed ; new ideas and principles, constructive, pesthetical, and religious ; have been continually introduced, till all trace of the original pattern has vanished from the most essential features. Still all has been gradual and gentle development and improvement ; dissimilar as are the colonnades and horizontal entablatures of the Parthenon to the clustered shafts and soaring arches of Westminster, the steps between them may be dis- tinctly traced ; the resemblance becomes gradually fainter, but is not effaced by any sudden or violent shock. To trace the course of this mighty development is the object of the remainder of this volume. Are we *to believe that the architecture of ancient Hellas was a native or a borrowed possession ? Many authors of note assert the latter, and look upon the graceful forms of the Grecian portico as derived from the clumsy and cumbrous architecture of the Pharaohs. This belief is attributable to two causes. Men who have devoted themselves to the study of one particular nation, and have made really great discoveries in its history and archaeology, are frequently disposed to exaggerate its importance in the general history of mankind, and to look upon it as the one centre from which all improvement has been derived to the re- mainder of the world. Some who have plunged deep into Indian antiquities have traced up all human knowledge to the votaries of Brahma, and others have done the like by the equally wonderful people of ancient Egypt. There is something very tempting about this latter view, when we consider the immense antiquity and early civilization of that nation, and the eminence ii 98 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. which it had acquired in the arts, perhaps even before the Pelas- gian period of Greece. And nowhere did the wonderful charac- ter of the Egyptian civilization effect a deeper and more lasting impression than upon the minds of the Greeks themselves. From the first moment that the land of marvels became ac- cessible to them, they became possessed with a regular passion for attributing their own civilization and religion to an Egyptian origin. The second book of Herodotus bears ample witness to the open-mouthed credulity with which his countrymen swallowed down any tale that traced a Grecian custom to the banks of the Nile, and to the effrontery with which the Egyptian priests palmed upon them the most palpable inventions, and artfully wrought in the authorized mythology of Greece to attract more credence to their fraud. The unsuspecting innocence with which the good-hearted old traveller received the most manifest prac- tising upon his powers of belief, and the simple good faith with which he throws himself into the system, honestly labouring to show that Greece had nothing of her own, nothing unborrowed from some barbarian source, must totally disqualify the mere statement or opinion of Herodotus, though himself the most trustworthy of men, from being adduced in evidence of the Egyptian origin of any Grecian rite or institution. Herodotus nowhere distinctly states that Grecian architecture was borrowed from Egypt ; but the idea has been frequently de- fended in modern times in a purely Herodotean spirit. Egypt has been assumed as the necessary civilizer of Greece, and the tales of Danaus and Cecrops pressed into the cause as so much authentic history. But an investigation into the real facts and probabilities of the case, apart from any preconceived notions, can hardly fail to show that Egypt contributed nothing whatever towards the formation of the architecture of Greece. First of all, there does not appear to be any resemblance between the two styles, beyond that which cannot fail to exist between any two which employ the same construction. The pervading spirit of each, and all their leading features, are totally distinct from each other. From the general outline of a portico to the presence or absence of an abacus, the two forms of architecture are as completely dissimilar as can be imagined. A few details, com- mon in Greece, rare in Egypt, make up the sum of the resem- OF THE ORIGIN OF GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 99 blance, and have been already considered. But it is not even pretended that the distinctive features of Egyptian architecture can be traced in that of Greece. Every principle of Grecian art is violated in the Egyptian structure; and to suppose such an opposite style to have grown up out of a direct and formal imi- tation, without any great innovation, like the arch, to revolu- tionize the whole, is contrary to all probability. The construc- tive origin and the sesthetical expression of the two styles are altogether foreign to each other : the one is the offspring of a religion 1 whose essence consisted in dim and mysterious specula- tions into the processes of the natural world ; in the other we hail the light and brilliant emanation of the worship of pure beauty. This leads to a second consideration, that there never was a people whose whole institutions more completely bore the stamp of national originality than the ancient Greeks. They possessed a most strongly marked national character, 2 which, among all diversities of government and dialect, never failed to bind Greek to Greek as fellow-countrymen, in distinct opposition not only to Phoenicians or Egyptians, but to the kindred inhabitants of Lydia, Italy, or Macedonia. Their poetry, their philosophy, their politics, are all the pure growth of the soil ; the least tinge of foreign influence is at once discernible. No one can for in- stance confound the strange mysticism which was imported from Asia in later times with the pure theology of Homer. Grecian architecture, like Grecian poetry, was the natural expression of the national mind ; the development of which was influenced 3 in many respects by the character of the land in which it rose. It is more than national, it is local, it is bound to the soil and sky of Hellas ; Greeks in other lands had their day of splendour, but they never preserved 4 cither their political or their intellectual independence so undehled as the inhabitants of the mother country. Finally, genuine history affords not one tittle of evidence in favour of the supposition, and hardly admits its possibility. 1 See Maurice's ISoyle Lectures, :i II). ii. 203 et seqq. p. 112, and the review of them in < See Mr. Grote's Chapters on the" Ecclesiastic," forAugust,1847. the Grecian Colonies. 2 See Grote's History of Greece, ii. 337 ct seqq. ii :i 100 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. Now that ancient history is really beginning to be understood, but little weight will be attached to reasonings based on the myth of Danaus, or on the tale of Cecrops, whose Egyptian origin is not even so much as a myth. The intercourse between Greece and Egypt dates only from the reign of Psammetichus in the seventh century B.C., and for some time was as jealously guarded on the Egyptian side as that of modern Europeans with China. It is impossible to suppose that the very first rudiments of Grecian architecture are of later date than this epoch ; indeed this has never been pretended by either ancient or modern supporters of the Egyptian theory. They invariably go up to mythical antiquity, and suppose Egyptian colonies to have settled in Greece when its inhabitants were in a half-savage state ; an idea which was the mere dream of speculative phi- losophers, and finds not the slightest authority in the Homeric poems. The effect of the intercourse between Greece and Egypt was all on the Egyptian side ; a slight Hellenic tinge was infused into the really inferior nation, to which we may probably attribute some at least of the few approximations to Grecian architecture which have been found in Egypt. We may then unhesitatingly conclude that the architecture of the Greeks is not to be ascribed to an Egyptian, or to any other foreign origin, but that it is the genuine, unborrowed creation of Grecian intellect. Such an expression as that which commences the article on Grecian Architecture in the Glossary " The Greeks undoubtedly derived much of their skill in architecture from Egypt/' is peculiarly unfortunate. Whatever the Greeks derived from Egypt, their skill was surely their own ; if any one can sup- pose, against all evidence, that the Greeks learned from the Egyptians the bare notion of columns supporting an entabla- ture, or even some rude conception of the Doric order, the skill with which they worked their borrowed materials into order, harmony, and beauty was at least as unborrowed as it was un- rivalled. But in reality the Greeks learned nothing from the Egyptians ; they had neither the necessity nor the opportunity of so doing ; their architecture is their own, and is not only not derived from Egyptian models, but has its origin in a totally different material. The one is derived from an excavated rock, the other from a wooden hut. Notwithstanding all the fanciful OF THE ORIGIN OF GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 101 nonsense which has been written upon Grecian architecture, from the days of Vitruvius downward, the class of writers of whom he is the great ancestor have at least preserved to us the most important and indisputable fact of its timber origin. E very- circumstance of the style distinctly proves it ; the features in which Grecian architecture differs from Egyptian as evidently point to this origin, as the corresponding Egyptian forms do to their own totally different source. The distinctive nature of the parts in Grecian architecture alone affords conclusive proof of its non-Egyptian origin, but would hardly be sufficient to demonstrate its derivation from the timber construction. But such evidence as it supplies decidedly tends that way. A building constructed of stone preserves more dis- tinctness in its parts than one formed by excavation, but less than is found in one constructed of timber. The latter allows an exact coincidence of the physical and the decorative parts; the shaft may be a single post, the architrave a single beam ; it is indeed most convenient to make them so. But to provide a block of stone of sufficient length for a column involves much additional labour and expense, while to construct a whole architrave of such a single stone would appear to be altogether beyond the power of man. The tendency of a genuine stone architecture is to diminish the size of its blocks ; hence the physical and the decorative parts cease to coincide ; one of the latter is continually composed of many stones ; and it often happens that the same block may most conveniently form a part of two decorative por- tions. One can hardly conceive that an architecture thus pro- duced could ever have attained, much less have palpably sought for, that marked distinctness of parts, that completeness of each part in itself, which pervades alike the severest Doric and the most florid Corinthian. A pillar originally built of small stones would probably have been square, and might not have assumed the distinctive form of the capital ; it would most likely have been a less massive form of the Roman pier, and, like that, have been bounded by a mere impost. At any rate it could hardly have failed to remain a detached portion of the wall, and would never have assumed the individuality of the Greek column, which, in idea at least, is so essentially monolithic. The round form alone is not sufficient ; 102 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. the square pier may become round, like those of Egyptian and Norman architecture/ but it does not thereby become a column, it still retains its own character. But in Grecian architecture the true column is everything ; instead of the column being a rounded mass of wall, the square support or pilaster, whenever it does occur, is a flattened column, imitated from, and harmonized with the genuine cylindrical one. The true column then is a post, it is a trunk driven into the ground, and consequently remains, in its first and purest form, without a base ; it also tapers towards the top, as the trunk of a tree does ; it retains the severe individual unity betokening such an origin ; it stands of itself, totally independent of wall or en- tablature. Another long beam laid on the top of the posts, or rather several such placed over each other, form the entablature ; it therefore becomes a distinct portion of the building, and is not, as in Egyptian architecture, merely the piece of wall which happens to be over the columns ; and it is farther divided into parts of its own, architrave, frieze, and cornice. From these elements we speedily arrive at the simplest form of the Doric temple ; the order which arose first in point of time, and which consequently exhibits the wooden construction in its greatest purity. " It appears certain," says the historian of the Doric race, "that the first hints of this order were borrowed from buildings constructed of wood, a fact which I cannot reconcile with the supposition of a foreign origin. For we should thus lose sight altogether of the gradual and regular progress by which it advanced to maturity, and suppose that the improve- ments of foreign artificers, with their peculiar principles, and those of native architects, looking only to the original structure of wood, were blended, or rather violently confused together. Could anything be more natural than that the long surface of the principal beams should be imitated in stone, that the cross- beams with the Doric triglyph should be laid over these, the in- tervals or metopes being by degrees covered with marble, whilst the cornice, in imitation of carpenter's work, was allowed to project in bold relief?" 2 ) The pediment just mentioned is an essentially wooden feature : 1 See the Chapter on Norman 2 Miiller's Dorians, ii. 270. Architecture. OF THE ORIGIN OF GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 103 like the Gothic gable, it marks the inclination of the rafters of a timber roof; but, as such a roof may be, as in our own build- ings, supported by stone walls, it would not of itself prove the wooden origin of the whole style. The only argument having any appearance of weight, which I have ever seen adduced against the wooden origin of Grecian architecture, is one contained in the article " Civil Architec- ture," in the "Penny Cyclopaedia," and which at first sight certainly appears to have considerable force, namely that a tim- ber style would have been much lighter, with wider intercolum- niations, and in fact more like the later Corinthian than the primaeval Doric. The answer to this however is manifest ; the architect of the earliest stone portico would be compelled greatly to diminish the width of his intercolumniations, from, the difficulty, or rather impossibility, of procuring blocks of stone of sufficient length to allow the columns to remain at the same distance from each other as while their material was timber. The greater beauty thus attained, as well as the notion of security which leads almost every eai*ly style to affect consi- derable massivcness, would also tend to the same result. A similar cause would also account for the production or retention of the massive columns which distinguish the first Doric ; their heaviness does not really seem greater than might be reasonably expected in a wooden column. The subsequent increase in lightness proves nothing to the contrary ; it is a natural result of the discovery that constructive necessity docs not really re- quire such massive forms, for when the choice is open between them, rcsthetical reasons will usually decide in preference of the lighter proportion. If the timber construction be allowed to be the origin of Gre- cian architecture, it necessarily follows that that style is essentially distinct from the anterior Pclasgian architecture. The latter, with its apparent arches and apparent domes, is as purely and essen- tially a stone architecture as the Grecian is a timber one. The Pclasgian buildings, moreover, appear to have been distin- guished by a barbaric excess of ornament, and by the greatest splendour that the rude arts of those early times could produce. 1 " In direct contrast with the above," says M tiller, " is the 1 Muller, ii. 2G0. 10-1 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. simple unornamented chavacter and unobtrusive grandeur of the style unanimously called by the ancients the Doric/' 1 It is in- deed difficult to believe that the plain, sturdy, baseless column of the latter order could have been developed out of the Mycenrean shaft, adorned with the chevron, and resting on a fully developed base. The latter betokens at least an equal progress in the de- velopment of its own principles, but it also shows that those principles were altogether distinct. To omit the base, where it had been previously known, would be an unaccountable retro- gression ; to omit, or rather not to introduce it, is the natural course of an original timber development. And it is hard to conjecture in what position of a Doric structure the Romanesque- looking ornaments of the preceding style could find an appro- priate resting-place. The earlier Pelasgian style of Greece was then in no sense the parent of the glorious forms which afterwards adorned its cities ; these were the native invention of that race which so worthily became the ruling spirit of her historical ages. The Dorians, says Herodotus, 2 were the true Hellenes, the Ionians were Pe- lasgian; and if so, the mythic genealogies justify us in adding that the Achseans were Pelasgian likewise. The Doric architecture is confessedly the oldest of the Grecian styles ; it is that of which the others were modifications, we may add, corruptions. The Dorians, whom Miiller has so successfully rescued from the charge of neglect of literature and art, were the first parents of genuine Grecian architecture, and brought this their own crea- tion to perfection, without borrowing any ideas from the fallen palaces of the Atreidte. The only question is as to the date of the glorious invention. Without attempting to dig detailed history out of the mythical mine, still less to assign exact dates to King Pelasgus and King Hellen, or even to Aristodemus, Temenus, and Cresphontes, it certainly implies a degree of scepticism which the evidence of architectural remains alone would be sufficient to refute, to doubt that the Dorian migration, however disguised by poetry and tradition, is a true and most important event in early Grecian history. The Dorian stone architecture can hardly be much later than the time of the conquest of Peloponnesus ; we cannot conceive that the invaders 1 Miiller, ii. 269. ~ In the famous passage, i. 56. OF THE THREE ORDERS OF COLUMNS. 105 would continue to ex*ect wooden edifices alongside of the great and sumptuous works which the vanquished had reared in stone. If in none of their previous habitations they had learned to convert their wooden architecture into a stone one, the sight of the great Achaean monuments must have been sufficient to im- press upon their minds the constructive advantages of the latter material. At the same time they may have preferred, and, as the event proved, wisely, to apply the principles of their existing tim- ber architecture to the new material, rather than proceed by a ser- vile imitation of the monuments of a foreign and conquered race. CHAPTER II. b OF THE THREE ORDERS OF COLUMNS. > ^ There is perhaps no subject upon which more unreasonable writing has been given to the world than upon " the Orders of Architecture." So many and so stringent rules have been laid down for the exact dimensions of the minutest moulding, so many theories have been propounded to account for observances existing only in the imagination of the theorist ; above all, such infinite confusion has been produced by not distinguishing between the purity of Greek architecture and the innumerable corruptions of ancient and modern Italy ; that, were it not for the intrinsic charm of the subject, the superstructure with which it is overlaid would be almost enough to make the historian of architecture revolt altogether from this portion of his undertaking. Oue point however at least has been gained within comparatively late years ; both theoretical and practical architects have, since the days of Stuart, devoted themselves to the study of true Grecian art, and we are now enabled to set before us its pure concep- tions, unmarred by the corrupting and enervating touch of a Vitruvius or a Palladio. The true Doric and the true Ionic are now as familiarly known as the degraded substitutes which had so long usurped their titles; and we have learned that Tuscan and Composite were names and things of which Phcidias re- mained in that ignorance which is bliss. But it is only in a 106 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. theoretical view that this increase of knowledge can be consi- dered an advantage. One had rather see the deluded votaries of pagan art load their shop-fronts or their palaces with the per- versions of Italy than with the pure conceptions of Greece. The products of Grecian heathenism neither can nor ought to be re- produced in Teutonic Christendom ; and every lover of art must mourn to see the noblest creation of mere human nature made ludicrous by some villainous abuse ; the columns of the Parthe- non forming a mask for a chandler's shop, or " sash-windows and Prcstum," as a traveller somewhere exclaims in indignation. It is only as one of the loveliest pages in the history of the art, without a wish to reproduce a single architrave or capital other- wise than on paper, that we must give ourselves up for a while to the passing beauty of the shrines where Leonidas and iEschy- lus breathed forth the pure outpourings of an erring yet not unfaithful heart. It must first of all be premised that the binding laws which generation after generation of paganizers have set down for the proportions of columns, are, as far as regards Grecian architec- ture, utterly worthless. The old Hellenic builders had as little notion of fettering their genius by such pedantic stiffness, as their brother poets had of shaping the scheme of their tragedies by the laws of the " three unities," or bending their versification beneath the yoke of the canons of Porson. A dilettante of the last century summoning a Grecian architect before the Palladian tribunal would be a fit companion-piece for a French critic, " in the style of Louis Quatorze," sitting in judgment upon Homer. The Grecian genius certainly tended more to rule and order than the Teutonic, but the pedantry of minute accuracy was un- known to both ; both were too much the free children of nature to crouch beneath the unnatural shackles of such an artificial bondage. The three orders themselves are by no means an ex- haustive division ; the luxuriance of Grecian imagination indulged itself in many forms of beauty which cannot be strictly classed under any of them. I shall now endeavour to give, with as little technicality as possible, a view of the three principal phases of grace to which the consummate taste of the Greek gave birth. The Grecian Doric, the eldest, the plainest, and yet the most OF THE THREE ORDERS OF COLUMNS. 107 thoroughly faultless and beautiful of all, is the very masterpiece ^ of dignified simplicity. A shaft of massive proportions, without a base, crowned with the simplest of capitals and the heaviest of abaci, supports an entablature massive like itself, and composed of a very few bold members. Yet out of these few and severe elements a composition is produced, not merely sublime, but the very perfection of vigorous and manly beauty. It thoroughly realizes the Aristotelian conception of the latter, the rfiv psra. \ 132 niSTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. willingly admit, while we pronounce them utterly inappropriate to our country, our race, and our religion. For the reasons just given distinctly prove that the Grecian architecture is one which cannot be adopted in any modern build- ing. National feeling, if we had any left, any real love for the true glories of Teutonic England, would repudiate it even for secular buildings ; united national and religious feeling pro- nounce it unfit for a Christian temple. A pure Grecian build- ing cannot be made to serve any purpose, ecclesiastical or civil, in our country ; it would be a mere toy, a model for study, a mere gratification of the eye. It cannot be adapted to any of our uses without utterly losing its own nature and beauty. In our northern land our main design is not to walk about under colonnades ; whether we assemble for prayer, for legislation, or for merchandize, we need an interior; we want walls and roofs, doors and windows. These we must have, and consequently all V that any Grecian structure can do is but to surround them with \ a peristyle, which serves little or no purpose, and which is after all a mere mask ; whereas the real Grecian portico was not only a source of external splendour, but the most important fea- \ ture of the fabric. J BOOK II. ARCHITECTURE OF THE ARCH. PAET I. OF THE ROUND ARCH, OR ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. CHAPTER I. OF THE CLASSICAL OR TRANSITIONAL ROMAN. We have now arrived at the era when the great invention of the arch began gradually to assert its claims to predominance in architectural designs. Hitherto we have found its existence barely proved, we have seen it occasionally employed where construc- tive necessity required it, but never made a prominent feature, far less introduced into the decoration of the building. In lloman architecture we find the arch the predominant mechanical feature, but it is still merely mechanical, and does not assert its full rights till the time when, as we are commonly told, the art began to decline, but when in truth it began for the first time to display a simple and consistent construction according to the principles involved in the employment of the arch. The origin of Roman architecture is involved in inextricable obscurity ; the chief difficulty being whether anything like a native Italian style existed at a time when Grecian influences were unknown. A strictly Roman style there hardly could have been, as direct Grecian colonization in the West had commenced long before Rome attained to any importance among the states of Italy. And besides this, how much is to be attributed to the common element in the population of Greece and Italy, and is consecpicntly to be considered, if not Grecian, at least not dis- tinctively Italian, would be a very difficult question to unravel. 136 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. The mysterious Etruscan race have also had their share in adding confusion to confusion; there is great probability that Rome borrowed much from Etruria, but till we know for certain who the Etruscans were, and whence they came, this fact can add but little to our stock of real information. The probability would certainly seem to be in favour of Niebuhr's opinion that much that we call Etruscan does not belong to the real Rasena, the conquering and dominant race in Etrnria, but to their subjects the Tyrrhenians. The acceptance of this theory will perhaps clear up several points in the history of Roman architecture. These Tyrrhenians were a branch of the great Pelasgian race, kinsmen both of the Latins and of the Pelasgians of Peloponnesus ; and we have seen the same forms of architecture prevail amongst the whole race, especially the numberless attempts at the form and construction of the arch. Nothing can be more probable than that these attempts were at last successful, and that the arch was discovered at some very early period among the Pelasgians of Italy. Etruria may well have been the locality of the invention, and yet its authors have been, not the Rasena, but their Tyrrhenian subjects, whether before or after the time that they passed into subjection. If this be correct, the arch belongs to the Pelasgian element which Greece and Italy had in common, and a genuine Roman building must be looked upon as owning a kindred origin with the remains of Tiryns and Mycenae. 1 But whether anything that can be called a style, any consistent system of construction and decoration, had been formed anterior to the introduction of Grecian architecture, is another question, and which is probably to be answered in the negative. That such was the case in Greece is clear ; we know that the ante- Dorian inhabitants had an ornamental style, and one that ad- mitted of the column, though how harmonized with the arch does not appear. But we have seen that this style had no influence whatever on the subsequent Doric architecture, which was substituted for it as a whole, and in no degree inter- mingled with it. But the native Italian style had a most powerful influence upon the later Roman, which retained nothing less than its whole system of construction. Had it possessed any system of decoration, it is probable that some traces 1 See above, p. 42. OF THE CLASSICAL OR TRANSITIONAL ROMAN. 137 of it would have survived, at least in application to its great con- structive feature. The only architectural member which has the remotest claim to be considered as of native growth in Italy, is the Tuscan column ; but of this order we have no ancient ex- ample, and can say nothing as to its origin. It may be an un- borrowed Italian feature, analogous to the Pelasgian columns at Mycenae, or it may be merely an uncouth perversion of the matchless Boric. 1 We may then safely conclude that an original arched style did exist in Italy at a period earlier than the general direct imitation of Greek art, but that it was a style without ornament, such as we see in those Roman structures which are designed simply for use ; a style pure and vigorous, and of the greatest mechanical boldness, but which had not wrought out for itself any system of ornamental details. Grecian details, belonging to a totally different system, were subsequently introduced as an ornamental mask; an unnatural bondage which had to be shaken off, and which at last was shaken off, and a legitimate system of orna- ment devised. The period of classical Roman architecture is therefore one of retrogression, it is an unnatural state}; consist- ent round-arched architecture took a leap from Etruria to Ger- many and England. Brixworth church, strange as it may seem, better represents the architecture of primeval Italy than the structures of the Csesars ; and the palace of the Conqueror was a true development from those of King Latinus and Lars Porsena. Such an architecture as this, however void of decoration, is grand in the highest degree. Few human productions are nobler than a genuine Roman building altogether free from Grecian ideas, such, for instance, as the Pont du Gard in Lan- guedoc, or the Aqueduct of Segovia. We here sec only the square pier and the round arch standing forth, tier upon tier, in all their native boldness and purity. And the bold, unbroken sweep of the round arch is in itself exceedingly striking, and can better dispense with decoration than any other architectural form. Roth Grecian and Gothic buildings require a certain degree of ornament, the mere unadorned mechanical construction will not suffice ; but a Roman arch is perfectly satisfactory, 1 "The Tuscan . . . was cvi- of its ornaments." Diet, of Ant. dently nothing more than a modifi- art. Columna. cation of the ltoman Doric, stripped 138 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. though not a particle of moulding or other enrichment is be- stowed upon itself or its pier. This genuine Roman architecture is essentially and pre-emi- nently the architecture of strength, the material expression of the steady, undaunted, unyielding willy But it is the architec- ture of strength in another and a higher sense than that in which we have asserted the like of Indian and Egyptian monu- ments. These tell of mere physical power, of the mere sub- mission of slaves, but they convey no great moral lesson ; they are the mere piling together of vast masses at the caprice of a royal or sacerdotal despot ; they do not express mind. The difference between them and the Roman architecture is at once manifest in the circumstance that, while they are overloaded with a superabundance of what would fain be ornament, the Roman builder rejects all ornament what- soever with a contempt worthy of his own Curius or Fabricius. No style better speaks the mind of its authors ; the whole course of Roman history is but an expression of the one idea of the indomitable will. What our own land has occasionally seen in an individual William or Edward was the animating spirit of the great republic during the whole period of its existence. The destiny of Rome was one simple but magnificent, the effectual conquest of the world. It was not to overrun it in one sudden assault, like a Jenghiz or a Tamerlane, an individual conqueror, whose conquests more or less died with him, but to subject all na- tions to the gradual advance of a single one destined to universal empire. From the first moment that Rome appears on the political stage, this one great purpose is manifest in all her actions. Never was any greatness so truly national ; Rome has no Alexander, or Charlemagne, or Napoleon ; with a longer list of great men than any other nation, their personal being is lost in that of the state : Camillus, and Curius, and Scipio had no end or aim of their own ; they existed but to further in their generation the one great purpose of Rome, and to transmit the like calling to their successors. The greatness of other lands centres round some one period, often round some one man ; Carthage has her Hanni- bal, Athens her Pericles, Thebes her Epaminondas, on whom her hopes rested, and in whose fall she perished. But Rome is an animating genius, the state has a personal existence; her bravest sons might fall, but herself, the eternal city, is unmoved ; OF THE CLASSICAL Oil TRANSITIONAL ROMAN. 139 others arise to take their part in the work of seven centuries, the subjugation of a world. Not even Sparta herself could return thanks to a vanquished general for not having despaired of the republic. Little, in the days of her true dignity, did she reck of mere art and beauty ; her later elegance and refinement were a borrowed gift which she knew not how to exercise ; her great- ness was her own. The familiar words of her own poet cannot be too often borne in mind : " Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera, Credo equidem, vivos ducent de marmore vultus ; Orabunt caussas melius, ccelique meatus Describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent ; Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento." Truly did such an architecture befit such a nation ; it is in the physical world what Rome herself was in the moral, the display of that unyielding energy which overcomes every obstacle by the mere force of the indomitable will. The works of Roman archi- tecture were, in point of mere greatness, of vastness of size, of difficulties overcome, of mechanical and constructive daring, in- comparably beyond all that had preceded them. Compare the Grecian pillars, cowering close together to support the dead weight of the entablature, with the massive piers of a Roman building, boldly throwing out arch, and vault, and cupola, to distances which a Greek would as soon have thought of connect- ing by a supported mass as of bridging the stream of ocean. But after all, with the exception of a few structures in which utility was more aimed at than beauty, this true Roman architec- ture has only an ideal existence. Its remains are just numerous enough to make us wish to know what it would have been, if the mad desire of imitating Greece had never taken possession of the Roman mind, and extinguished alike national poetry and na- tional architecture. To have rejected the immense mechanical advantages of their own style for the mere resthetical superiority of the Greek, would have been simple folly ; the attempt to combine the two gave rise to a style, not without its merits, but absurd and inconsistent to the last degree. Hence, whatever may have been the true origin of this futile attempt to combine the arch and the entablature, the Roman 140 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. style is practically a transitional one; paradoxical as it may seem, the architecture of the palmy and splendid days of the impe- rial city is but a transition to one which arose in the days of its decline, and came to its perfect development among nations of whom the Caosars had scarcely heard. It is a transition from Grecian to Romanesque, from the consistent system of the en- tablature to the consistent system of the round arch. It strives to engraft its own principle of construction upon that of Greece, the latter being consequently reduced to a mere source of adventi- tious decoration. The decorative, merely decorative, entablature is thrust prominently forward, and the arch, the real construction, is obscured, and thrust, as far as was possible, out of sight. No architecture can, as mere art, be more thoroughly worth- less than such a hopeless confusion as the Roman style hence- forth presented. It is simply the exceeding excellence of the two elements the perfect loveliness of Grecian detail, corrupted as it was by its Roman imitators, and the magnificent boldness of the genuine Roman construction that saves any of its pro- ductions from absolute hideousness. It will therefore be unneces- sary to treat of it at the same length either as the pure styles, or as those transitions, which are not a commixture of two ready- made systems, but a real development of one style out of another. I shall only briefly allude to some of the strange 1 and often ludi- crous ways in which the two principles are sought to be com- bined. The Grecian column, except in such rare instances as the temple of Athena Polias, had always been a real support. It was now converted into a mere decoration. The arch springs from its own massive piers, while a column, perhaps a pair of columns, is set up on each side, supporting a merely decorative entablature, and sometimes even a pediment. And even these columns were not allowed to stand simply on the ground, but are cut off from it by a thing called a pedestal, the use or beauty of which it is not easy to understand. These pillars were some- times free, sometimes engaged, in other cases they sank into mere pilasters. Sometimes, by way of diversity, as in a structure at Pompeii, a kind of pilaster adorns the pier of the arch below the 1 They will be found more fully Mr. Hojie's Historical Essay on drawn out in the eighth chapter of Architecture. OF THE CLASSICAL OR TRANSITIONAL ROMAN. 141 impost, while another supported on its capital, bears the entabla- ture. But the strangest device of all was to destroy the continuity of the entablature, the bold horizontal line of Grecian architec- ture, and break it up into a number of ins and outs most fo- reign to its spirity The entablature becomes a mere string against the wall, unsupported by the columns which stand out in front, and over each of which a small portion of entablature projects, to lengthen the column at the upper end, as the pe- destal had already done at the other. Then come pediments stuck here and there without meaning, pediments too broken and curved, and jagged into divers fantastic forms. And com- bined with all this is the most utter confusion and corruption of the minuter details. It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the striking boldness and simplicity of their own construction, the Romans did not, even in supplanting it by other forms, appreciate in the least the purity and simplicity of the Greeks, but everywhere substi- tuted florid, and yet often meagre, ornaments for the chaste elegance of their boasted models. This is most manifest in the transformations which the Grecian orders received at their hands. . The sturdy Doric, though not capable of being harmo- nized with the members of another constructive system, was at least in some sort analogous to the Roman pier and arch, as possessing a common element of dignified and masculine simpli- city. But this noble order received but little favour at the hands of the Roman builders. The remains of Pompeii indeed exhibit it in something like its original purity, but these can hardly be con- sidered as fair Roman examples, being rather vestiges of the better times of Magna Gratia. The pure form was not employed by the Romans, who substituted for it a thing which they ventured to call Doric, but from which every characteristic of the old Greek form has vanished. The magnificent boldness of the abacus and echinus is frittered away in a scries of petty mould- ings, and the shaft, ruthlessly elongated and attenuated, is made to rest on a base, which is often, according to the Roman fashion, further stilted on a pedestal. The Ionic order suffered in like manner ; the volutes being now set diagonally. There is indeed, as we have seen 1 reason to believe that this was the earliest form which the voluted capital 1 Page 110. 142 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. assumed ; still it was one which the better taste of the Greeks rejected ; and the effect was that in Roman hands, " the Ionic had in its capital the beautiful variety and contrast between the front and sides of the volute changed into perfect sameness." 1 The Corinthian was the order which they most usually employed, and not having that inventive power by which the Greeks were enabled to diversify the forms of its foliage, they attempted va- riety by a monstrous combination of the Ionic volute and the Corinthian acanthus. This, under the name of Composite, stands last in the array of " the five orders of architecture," as if even Roman perversity could go no farther. The utmost that can be said in favour of this mixed style is that, when the incongruity of its component parts is not carried to such a degree as to be painfully thrust upon the eye, it pos- sesses a sort of wild and fantastic richness, and is consequently capable of producing a striking effect. It is something like Arabian architecture, a display of capricious and whimsical forms, combined together with the most lavish splendour, but disdain- ing to be bound by any laws of just taste. But it will not, like Grecian or Gothic architecture, bear the test of a minute exami- nation. It must be taken as a whole, and, if subjected to detailed criticism, it fails at once. And though a building is meant to be viewed as a whole, yet that cannot be considered as good archi- tecture which is not also satisfactory in its parts. Roman architecture can only take its stand on the ground of mere vast- ness and magnificence ; it cannot even claim so high a place as those specimens of cinquecento and debased Gothic, which often exhibit the most perfect grouping combined with the most barba- rous detail. Even where Grecian buildings were more directly imitated, and as no arches were introduced, there was consequently no room for any attempt to combine them with the entablature, the immense difference between Grecian and Roman art is still most percep- tible. The declension in point of skill is worthy of that moral declension by which the frieze, once the receptacle for the sculp- tured deeds of gods and heroes, is defaced by the fulsome titles of some deified monster. 2 If we take two of the most favourable specimens of Grseco-Roman art, the temple of Fortuna Virilis at Rome, and the Maison Carree at Nismes, the most fastidious 1 Hope, p. 75. 2 Witness the temple of Faustina ! OF THE CLASSICAL OR TRANSITIONAL ROMAN. 143 taste could hardly find any grounds of objection in the architec- ture of their porticoes ; the latter is an exquisite example of Corinthian, the former of Ionic, preserving too the Grecian form of the volutes. But in a lateral view the rows of engaged columns are but poor substitutes for the majestic peristyle, and are in point of reality inferior to the honest blank wall of the temple in antis. The Romans introduced much greater variety of outline than the Greeks, and as thejscendancy of the horizontal line was de- stroyed by their system of building, this must certainly be con- sidered as an improvement. The circular form, employed by the Greeks only in such toys as the monument of Lysicrates, 1 now be- gan to be used in structures of great extent. The bold sweep of the outline in a Roman amphitheatre harmonizes well with that of the arcades which pierce its walls, And it is even found to har- monize with the use of columns, as in the temple of Vesta or of the Sibyl at Tibur, where the very great beauty of the circular peristyle cannot be denied. The great Pantheon however, with its portico stuck on to a circular body, seems somewhat difficult to defend ; and the portico itself, much as it has been admired, will be found altogether wanting, when judged by the true prin- ciples of Grecian art. Unfiuted Corinthian columns, an entablature of meagre elevation, with its frieze devoted to a mere inscription, and all crushed by a bare pediment of preposterous height, are a sad falling off from the Parthenon and the temple of Theseus. But the structures which, after all, serve to set before us in the most vivid manner the wonderful extent of the dominion of Rome, and the spirit of energy and magnificence which she communicated to every portion of her empire, are not to be sought for in Rome herself or in the neighbouring lands which she had completely imbued with her system, but in her depen- dencies in the farthest east. The fallen cities of Syria, the wonderful remains of Palmyra and Baalbec, still tell in their most splendid monuments, not of their own ancient rulers, but of the undying power of the mighty city of the west. The palaces of Solomon and Benhadad have vanished, but the works 1 With this we may class the has a miniature circular peristyle, monument at St. ltemi, figured by really open, and not, like the Athe- Mr. Petit, a gem even prettier than nian example, engaged, that of Lysicrates, as the upper part 144 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. of the C.xsars still remain, rivalling in extent and magnificence the proudest fabrics of their own imperial home. Everywhere that the Roman power was established, from the shores of the ocean to the banks of the Euphrates, we shall find the same spirit impressed upon its gigantic works ; the same sumptuous gorgeousness, regardless of cost and labour, and we must add, the same incapacity for grasping the highest beauty. Of these remains by far the most interesting, as exhibiting the phases taken by the style when applied to an unwonted mode of construction, are the wonderful excavations at Peti"a. They are not indeed exclusively Roman, their architecture being in many cases, like that of the Grecian structures in Asia Minor, inter- mingled with oriental ideas. Thus we find many deviations from the established forms of the west in the proportions and enrich- ments of columns and entablature, especially several species of capitals which cannot be referred to any of the regular orders. Indeed M. Leon de Laborde states that those monuments are " far the most numerous, which do not owe their origin to the domination or the taste of the Romans." 1 Some on the other hand, including the most magnificent of all, called the Khasne, are undoubtedly Roman, and there are several points of resem- blance between these and the native structures. In all we see, as in the Persian excavations, a style applied to a purpose for which it was not originally intended, and which consequently evaporated in flat, though gorgeous, external decoration ; utterly opposed to the free and bold treatment of the Egyptian and Indian excavations. There is but little beyond a superficial imitation of the forms of constructed buildings; facades of the greatest magnificence being carved in an unmeaning manner upon the surface of the rocks. There is a great tendency to pile order upon order, and thus to accumulate almost innumerable rows of columns and pilasters, often intersected by strongly 1 Page 164. The author does not Some of the buildings which are distinctly state whether he looks on otherwise decidedly Roman, exhibit these monuments as being actually nondescript columns, and, even anterior in point of time to the Ro- when the classical orders are em- man domination, or as simply re- ployed, they are frequently shorn of taining an elder style. In some cases their full proportions, there is a palpable intermingling. OF THE CLASSICAL OR TRANSITIONAL ROMAN. 145 marked entablatures and other horizontal lines. These produce an effect very much resembling cinque-cento, a style of which we have already seen somewhat analogous foreshadowings among the remains of Lycia and Hindostan. But even the most distinctively Roman works at Petra exhibit the inherent faults of the style as fully as those by the banks of the Tiber. Broken and projecting entablatures, useless columns, porticoes cut in halfj and all the other perversities of the Roman mind, appear in full force. An engaged representa- tion of the Choragic monument of Lysicrates, or something similar, appears to be a favourite ornament. It appears in the Khasne, over the great portico which forms the entrance to the excavation, with a second half portico on each side of it. After all, for the really grandest monuments of Roman art, we must turn to those structures whose style most nearly approaches to the naked arched construction, where the Grecian features are cast away, or made entirely secondary. In the' ex- terior of amphitheatres the importance of the Grecian members is very small, the arches are decidedly the main features, the columns and entablatures being quite secondary. This is to a certain extent the case with the great Colosseum itself, and much more with the provincial structures at Aries and Nismes; Flat Tuscan or Doric pilasters very soon sink into the pilas- ter-buttress of the Romanesque. In the lower stage of the amphitheatre of Nismes this is decidedly the idea which they present ; at Bourdeaux the courses of masonry in the wall are carried through the pilasters, which consequently lose all separate existence, and are no longer columns in any sense, but mere projections from the wall, buttresses with quasi-capitals. From this the transition to the genuine pilaster-buttress is easy, and we sec it without any capital, and with all trace of classical proportion vanished, in the palace of Constantine at Treves. / From these examples we easily come back to the most truly Roman of all structures, their aqueducts. Here we have no Grecian members at all, but arches supported by square piers. 1 1 Architecture nowhere presents the sublime arcades, and the cas- a more striking contrast than in tellum,* assuming the form of a the aqueduct at Evora, between circular temple. * See Diet, of Ant., Art. Aqweductus. L 146 HISTORY OF AIICHITECTURE. Sometimes, as in that at Luynes, these are of an extravagant height, which is avoided in the noble Pont du Gard, by raising tier upon tier, In the words of Mr. Petit, 1 "as in Roman buildings the Grecian members of the system often took the character of mere ornament, the arch with its piers and imposts constituted the real framework of the fabric ; so when strength and solidity alone were required, the Grecian members altoge- ther vanished, and a pure system of arches was retained." These instances are certainly to be regarded as examples of a pure and perfect style of architecture, and are among the most suc- cessful developments of the great idea of that style. Construc- tively they present no deficiency ; every mechanical feature stands forth complete and undisguised. What is wanting in Roman architecture is an appropriate system oFclecoration. This was not needed for a bridge or an aqueduct; consequently in such erections the style is left to develop itself naturally. In its ornamental structures the enrichment is not part of the natural architecture : wherever this latter is preserved, it is only by the absence of all ornament. Under whose hands, and by what process, the Roman construction was provided with such an appropriate system of decoration, must be the subject of our next investi- gations. CHAPTER II. ORIGIN OP ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE. Thus far have we traced the history of architecture through the different ages and nations of what is commonly known as the ancient world ; the old world of heathendom in all its countless forms, from the dark mysteries of Egypt, to the sunny bright- ness of Greece ; from the low and grovelling idolatry that bowed before an ape or an onion, to the soul of art and poetry that kindled the glittering splendours of Olympus ; from the dim and awful vastness of the shrines of an Apis or an Anubis, to the living grace that befitted the pure Apollo and the Athenian 1 1.47. ORIGIN OF ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE. 147 Maid. We have also seen how conquered Greece led captive her conquerors : how, while the Pnyx no longer echoed to the voice of Pericles, and the groves of Colonus were no longer vocal with the song of Sophocles, the spirit of Homer and Callicrates had found an empire in the land of their bondage, in the forum of Ro- mulus, and by the banks of the yellow Tiber. "We have seen too how little kindred was the soil on which they had lighted ; how the grace and buoyancy of the Greek proved but an incongruous garb for the stern greatness of Roman energy ; how his poetry was but the feeble echo of the harp of Chios and the lute of Lesbos, his architecture a vain attempt to bring the massive piers and pon- derous vaults of his own land into harmony with the tall columns of the matchless shrines he vainly sought to imitate. The beau- tiful forms of Grecian art were a mere yoke, which kept the genuine spirit of Roman building from its legitimate expression. It is, as we have seen, in the buildings least affected by it that the real Roman construction, the pier and the round arch, comes out in all its purity and majesty, and it was by these elements, more than by the Grecian system unnaturally united to them, that Rome has exercised so wide and lasting an influence upon the architecture of the whole civilized world. But it was not the old Rome of Pontiffs and Augurs, of Con- suls and Emperors, that was to mould the arts of Teutonic Christendom. Before she could influence the race on whom the spirit of the Church was to take the firmest hold, she had her- self to bend before the Cross. The greatness of Rome is indeed exclusively heathen; the adherents of the old pagan creed might truly say, that when the altars of Victory ceased to smoke on the Capitol, she herself ceased to wait on the imperial eagles ; the existence of the Eternal City seemed bound up in the worship of the Gods to whom the Tarquins had bowed, and under whose auspices Camillus and Scipio had marched forth to conquest. Emperors might preside in the Councils of the Church ; holy Fathers might exhort the successors of Augustus in the tongue of Cicero; bishops, and monks, and virgins might adorn their pro- fession with every virtue that could grace the Christian name ; no victim throughout the Roman world might bleed on an idol altar ; but the life of the nation, its history, its greatness was still heathen ; its Christianity was but the precursor of its fall. It l2 148 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. endured but to pass the torch of truth to a race springing into life with all the fervency of youthful vigour, whose greatness might be cradled in the lap of the Church, and during its his- toric being have known no other faith. This was the work of Christian Home, to lay the foundation among another people of a truly Christian commonwealth ; and, this its work accom- plished, it passed away. Constantine and Theodosius might be Kings and Christians ; it was reserved for Charlemagne and St. Louis to be truly Christian Kings. And so too in art; Christian Rome gave only the faint foreshadowing of a style, which herself had not vigour to bring to perfection ; a germ which other nations developed into its full glory. The long arcades of her basilicas contained an element which other lands wrought into all the splendours of Spires and Peterborough, we may add even of the tall aisles of Westmin- ster, and the peerless nave of Canterbury ; but on the soil where they first arose the germ was lifeless and unexpansive ; her own noblest piles are but the tribute which Teutonic or Byzantine art paid back to the land of their birth ; while Rome herself, amid the glories that others had built on her foundation, was like the beacon that points out the path which itself may never tread ; like her own poet, whose profession was, . . . fungar vice cotis, acutum Reddere qua? ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi. We have already seen that the classical Roman style is a mere transition, an inconsistent jumble of contrary principles. The first dawnings of better things are to be looked for in times on which the classical purist looks down with unmiti- gated contempt. The architects who, in the later days of the empire, cast aside the useless entablature altogether, brought the arch forward into notice, and made it and its pier whether a square mass of wall or a Corinthian column, it matters not, the chief features of the building in appearance as well as in reality, were those who gave to Roman architecture its first ap- proach to a consistent form. It may be true that the art of detail was then miserably debased, or rather lost, that the sculp- tures of one building were often actually removed to ornament ORIGIN Or ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE. 149 new ones ; still the building itself was constructed on a rational and consistent principle. But the style was as yet far from being brought to perfection ; a reluctance still existed utterly to forsake the beautiful forms of Grecian art, incongruous as they were with the principles of Roman building. As long as anything like a lloman empire lasted, and even still later, the influence of Grecian skill yet lingered ; the buildings of Home itself never quite cast it off; it is to the Romanesque styles that we are to look for the perfect development of the round-arched form of architecture. Thrown back as were the arts by the incursions of the Northern tribes, fallen as may have been the minutiae of detail, the ele- gancies of sculpture and painting, yet most certainly the true principles of architecture, superior to any such minuter conside- rations, revived after a season under the hands of the northern builders ; and the Romanesque style, under the different forms which it assumed in different lands, was developed into its full excellence in the majestic piles which bear witness to the skill and munificence of the builders of the eleventh and twelfth cen- turies. Beautiful as were many of the churches already pro- duced in Italy by the Lombard builders, they were far surpassed by those of Rhenish Germany ; and I apprehend we must go on still farther, and that it is in our own Norman structures that we are to look for the perfection of the round-arched style; the piers and arches stand forward boldly as the main features, and a system of ornament is introduced which, whatever be its ori- gin, and whatever opinion may be held as to the beauty of its individual parts, must be allowed to harmonize well with the forms of the building, and to add greatly to its general effect. Such is a rapid sketch of the progress of the Roman or round- arched style from the time when its legitimate system of orna- ment supplanted the incongruous combination of arch and entablature, to that when it had itself to yield in turn to the pointed arch and the ornamental forms adapted to that construc- tion. We shall, in subsequent chapters, trace out at greater length the various and, as they have been well called, Protean forms, which architecture assumed during this most important period. The greater part of its duration extends through a period too commonly neglected as a mere chaos of darkness 150 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. and barbarism ; but it was a darkness out of which a self- born light was soon to arise, a healthy, vigorous barbarism containing the latent seed of civilization. Wherever the two races are brought into contact with each other, the stern and hardy virtues of the Northern conquerors bespeak a far higher standard, physical, intellectual, and moral, than the worn out and enervated system of Home could supply. It was a con- tused mass indeed, not however of dead matter, but of living and moving germs ready to rise into full being at the first touch of creative power. As from the primeval chaos the light, and life, and order of the universe gradually arose, so the poli- tical and religious institutions of the Teutonic race, the mighty fabric of mediaeval Christendom, the manners, government, and languages of modern days, sprung from the inborn vigour of these times of noble barbarism. So too in their palaces and temples, the style which Home had just vigour enough to free from absurdities, but not to bring to real perfection, was seized by the plastic hand of the Northman, and soon gained in real grandeur and majesty, in true artistic and religious feeling, far more than it lost by casting to the winds the pedantic precepts of an effete and incongruous system. But though we must boldly challenge the perfection of the Roman style as belonging to the buildings of England, France, and Germany, rather than to those of its parent Italy, it must not be concealed that even in Rome itself, the light of Christianity kindled anew for a moment the embers of its decaying greatness. \Vhen the lord of the lloman world bowed beneath the crozier of St. Ambrose, a nobler example of moral dignity was shown than the mightiest deeds of Manlius or Fabius could boast ; so when once the breath of truth had touched the falling pile, the rude structures of a decaying and degraded style of art gained from the holy inspiration a truer beauty than had adorned even the proudest works of heathendom. " The early basilicas, generally little more than a patchwork of odd fragments, agreeing neither in material, colour, substance, form, proportion, nor workman- ship, eked out next to that which was most elegant by that which was most rude they yet, through the simplicity of the general form, and the consistency of the general distribution, display a grandeur produced neither by the last architecture of OF BASILICAN ARCHITECTURE. 151 Pagan Rome, after it had, in that architecture, dismissed all its Grecian consistency ; nor, above all, by what has been called the later restoration of that architecture, loaded with all the addi- tional extravagance of modern Italy." 1 CHAPTER III. OF BASILICAN ARCHITECTURE. In tracing the several transmutations of the round-arched style, we can at once class them under two great divisions, according to a very important difference in their decorative construction, namely the form assumed by the pier 2 on which the arch is sup- ported. This may either be a mere mass of wall, whether left square or otherwise decorated, or a real pillar, whether actually assignable to one of the classical orders or not. The two forms will be often found co-existing in the same age and country, but their origin is quite distinct. The first is the natural and legiti- mate treatment of the arch, and best harmonizes with the solidity and sturdiness of a round-arched style; the other is adopted from the Grecian system, and we shall consequently find that it is only under great modifications that it becomes really imbued witli the spirit of the style. Yet, as the piers and arches of the less ornate Roman structures had received but little change from the imitation of Grecian forms, it is to columnar architecture that we must look for the most instructive lessons in the process by which those forms were gradually cast aside. It is to an edifice which to the mere classical eye is simply the work of a degenerate age, and a thoroughly debased style of art, that the historian of architecture must look for the earliest ex- isting specimen of the legitimate combination of the column and the round arch. The architecture of Diocletian's Palace at 1 Hope on Architecture, p. 112. which "column" is a subordinate 2 I use this term as one of con- variety, namely a pillar belonging struction, to express any support or approximating to one of the Gre- for an arch ; that of " pillar " to ex- cian orders. press one of its decorative forms, of 152 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. Spalatro cannot be called faultless, or even good ; but it is, on the whole, consistent and intelligible, and has in many parts worked itself entirely clear of absurdities. In almost all its ar- cades, the arch and its column arc the prominent feature ; the arch springs boldly from the capital ; the entablature has nearly vanished ; a mere cornice over the arcade, channelled with its members, is quite harmless. The arches too are channelled with architrave mouldings, which are of course incongruous ; the forms which suit the horizontal entablature cannot in such a po- sition display their peculiar beauty, and become meagre and unmeaning. Still the circumstance is valuable ; it shows how fully the architect had grasped the great fact that the arch must be to the new style what the entablature had been to the old ; that the arch is a curved entablature, the entablature a straight arch ; as the arch had not yet worked out a system of decoration of its own, he naturally enough transferred to it the decorations of the entablature. The general style of this building does not differ materially from that of the early basilicas. The mention of these buildings at once brings before us the first triumphs of our religion, the days when the powers of the world first bowed before the Cross. It was not merely that one religious system displaced another ; it was not the temple of idols that became the Temple of the True God ; but the hall of the imperial palace, the throne of this world's power, the judgment-seat of Caesar, that became the shrine of His worship Who at that judgment-seat had been con- demned. There, in the very tribune where the proud heathen had so often sat to deliver over the patient martyr to the sword or to the lions, was upreared the altar where the holy gifts were offered over that martyr's relics. Foreshadowing, indeed, of the days when the Church should lead captive every earthly power, when Kings and Caesars received from her their crowns, and the sword of the earthly warrior was blessed at her altars and bared for the ransom of the Holy Tomb. The lordliest pile that Christians ever reared could not raise such a throb of triumphant gratitude as when the Church first entered upon the treasures of vanquished heathendom ; when the might, the learning, the art of the Pagan world became her servants to .do her will, and the halls of her oppressors were sanctified by her holiest worship. It is this OF BASILICAN ARCHITECTURE. 153 spoiling of the adversary, this entering into other men's labours, that makes Cologne and Ely names less dear to Christendom than the first fruits of its triumph in the palace of the Lateran, or than those more glorious spoils of Gothic victories, than proud Seville with her " tower of giants old," or the wondrous " forest " of innumerable pillars in the rescued mosque of Cordova. " It was a fearful joy, I ween, To trace the heathen's toil, The limpid wells, the orchards green Left ready for the spoil, The household stores untouched, the roses bright Wreathed o'er the cottage walls in garlands of delight." 1 And as with the fabric itself, so with the style wherein it was reared ; as long as Imperial Home was in moral influence the ruling centre of Christendom a period extending very long- after the days when Herulan, and Goth, and Lombard had swept away her political power ; as long as the aspect of Christendom was that of a triumphant conqueror enthroned in the dwellings of a vanquished foe, so long was it natural that Christian builders should cling to the very forms and details that told of the conquered Paynim. " The olive wreath, the ivied wand, ' The sword in myrtles drest,' Each legend of the shadowy strand, Now wakes a vision blest." The grace of the curling volute, the richness of the acanthus- leaf, which once had decked the shrines of idols, now uplifted the canopy that overshadowed the altar of the Most High. The very symbols of the fallen worship received a holier mean- ing ; 2 the sculptured harvest and vintage now told not of Eleu- sinian mysteries and Bacchanalian revelry, but of the bloodless sacrifice to which the cornfield and the vineyard supplied the pure oblation. The beasts of the forest charmed by the min- strel's lyre, the Thunderer's eagle bending in homage to the soothing power of song, told no longer of Phoebus, of the Muse, or of their Thracian son; but of Him of Whom the "pure 1 Christian Year. Sec Hope, chap. xvi. 154 HISTORY OP ARCHITECTURE. God " may without irreverence be deemed a dim foreshadowing, "Whose power can curb the wild passions and bend the savage will, and in "Whose kingdom "the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid." Not shame then should we deem it, but the glory of the Church, that she bends to her will every feeling, and art, and institution that human power may devise ; that the triple splen- dours of her long-drawn nave and aisles, the branching tran- septs, the mighty apse canopying the gorgeous altar, are but the spoils of her enemies ; that each and all are but developed be- neath her living breath from the colonnades, chalcidica, and tri- bune of the heathen hall of judgment. At Rome, during the reigns of Constantine and his immediate successors, Christianity was indeed the religion of the sovereign, and had all the weight of royal influence and example, but it was as yet only his personal religion, supportedby his personal in- fluence, and could not be in any sense considered as an established or national worship. Victims still bled to the gods of heathen- dom, and Christian Emperors scrupled not to wear the insignia of the high pontiffs of the old religion. When, therefore, Con- stantine first looked around his capital for edifices to consecrate to his new faith, the temples of the still prevalent idolatry could not, for this reason alone, that they were still frequented by their former worshippers, be the structures assigned for that purpose. But reasons of deeper import would have prevented a gene- ral metamorphosis of heathen temples into churches. Pagan worship did not seek to throng the interior of its holy places with adoring crowds ; their position was within the sacred pre- cinct indeed, but only within its courts, or beneath its spacious porticoes. Hence it was without that its splendours were dis- played, the rich extended facade is all that the heathen shrine can boast ; the actual temple itself, pent in by four blank walls, was of small extent, dark or hyprethral, and accessible to the priesthood alone. But the very essence of Christian worship requires, as a general rule, the presence of the worshippers within the temple ; it is inside that all the holiest things are placed, and here accordingly the full glories of its architecture are deve- loped. The outside is but the shell and husk of the material symbol of her " who is all glorious within ;" the tower is but OF BASILICAN ARCHITECTURE. 155 the guiding landmark, the west front the mere portal, to the glorious vista of pillar, arch, and vault, leading gradually onward to the crowning point of all, the altar. Hence the basilica offered far greater facilities for conversion to ecclesiastical uses than could be found in any idolatrous temple. It already pos- sessed the long nave separated by arcades from its smaller aisles, sometimes a single one, sometimes two on either side ; in some cases a kind of transept, called chalcidica, crossed them at one end ; in most cases the central avenue was terminated by a se- micircular apse, which in those which were still employed as courts of justice, (for some had been applied to mercantile uses,) contained the seat of the presiding magistrate. In all this it is plain that we have the complete type of a Christian Church ; " the transept," says Mr. Hope, " already in heathen times seeming, by its disposition with regard to the nave, to have fore- told the future triumph of the cross." 1 The necessary arrange- ments for Christian worship were readily made ; the altar was placed at the end of the nave, on the chord of the apse ; the Bishop's throne behind it took the place of that of the judge, while the subordinate seats of the presbytery were ranged on either side of him along the walls of the semicircle. The choir for the inferior ministers, not marked in the construction, was formed in the nave by screening off a sufficient space in front of the altar ; while the long nave and aisles accommodated the congre- gation, the lateral division maintaining the requisite separation of the sexes. To the west end to use the most familiar nomenclature, for of course the basilicas of heathen construction pointed divers ways, and orientation, 2 in our sense, was not the universal rule of the Church till a later period was attached a portico. This in Christian churches was the place for catechumens and peni- tents, and as the place of discipline, was called the narthex, that is scourge or ferule. This seems to have soon developed into a cortile, or cloister, an open square surrounded by pillars, which is found in many early churches. The two basilicas converted into churches by Constantine, and 1 Page 89. cussed at some length in Webb's 2 See this curious question dis- Continental Ecclesiology, p. 480. 156 HISTORY OE ARCHITECTURE. the churches which lie erected at Home ou the same type, and bearing the same name, were soon demolished. The series of existing basilican churches in Italy extends from the reign of Theodosius to the Lombard invasion ; in some instances they are found even of later date. Home itself never fully adopted the Lombard style, but constantly adhered with more or less success to her classical models. So late as 1139, 1 we find in the church of St. Mary in Trastavere, at Home, built by Pope Innocent II., an actual return to all the absurdities of the combined arch and entablature. We see here the colonnade of a Grecian tem- ple transferred to the interior of a church, only to show how utterly inappropriate it is in such a position ; and, after all, the entablature is a mere pretence, as a row of low segmental brick arches peeps out through the frieze. And even in other parts of Italy we find many churches adhering to the old tradition, in spite of all the splendid innovations of the northern builders. St. Mi- niato 2 near Florence, (1013,) St. Nicolas at Bari in Apulia, (1103,) and the very beautiful church of St. Mary at Toscanella, (1216,) are all rather Basilican than pure Romanesque. They deviate in many respects from the purity of the elder basilicas, but still they completely belong to them ill spirit, and stand totally distinct both from the more fully developed Romanesque of Northern Italy, and from the revived Italian of later days. It is the old classical and imperial feeling surviving after the lapse of so many ages and so many revolutions in art, politics, and religion. Even out of Italy strong traces of basilican influence are often to be found. The student of ecclesiology will recognize its in- fluence in the ritual arrangements 3 of many Cathedral and Con- ventual Churches ; while the architectural inquirer will readily perceive its traces in not a few scattered edifices of early Roman- esque date. Indeed even the Norman of not a few of our own smaller churches is in many respects a return to it. The cele- brated Church of St. Peter at Northampton, did it but termi- nate in an apse which may probably have been the case at first, 1 So Mr. Knight. Mr. Webb much altered since as to plan and (Continental Ecclesiology, p. 530,) shell." says, "This very ancient basilica was 2 See Webb, p. 346. rebuilt by St. Gregory III., between :! See the " Ecclesiologist," Vol. 731 and 741, and has not been V., p. 137. OF BASILICAN ARCHITECTURE. 157 as its east end has been long destroyed presents in its long co- lonnades of slender pillars a plan and idea completely basilican, though its details are of course of a quite different and much later character. But omitting these later structures, and confining ourselves to those Italian churches which have the best claim to the title of basilicas, we shall find that among an immense variety of de- tail, their essential features correspond most remarkably to one unvarying type. The plan and arrangement of the Christian basilica remained identical with that of its heathen predecessor ; little or no change was introduced in architecture, that art being naturally far less open than painting and sculpture to in- novations directly originating in the new faith. The exterior of these primitive churches has little to attract, not one of the features which give majesty or elegance to the external out- lines of other styles being allowed by the basilican type. The spreading dome of the Byzantine, and the soaring spire of the Gothic minster are alike unknown ; instead of the wonder- ful groupings of the Rhenish churches, we have nothing but a long dead wall, unbroken by porch or buttress,, by cupola or tower; for the tall campanile of later Italy was not yet. "The walls," says Mr. Gaily Knight, (p. iii.) "were sub- stantially built of thin bricks, mostly put together with little cement, but they were left perfectly plain. The only attempt at external ornament was a low portico, which did not ascend above half the height of the front. Above this portico there were usually three long, round-headed, undivided windows, symmetrically arranged, and, above these, a round window in the pediment/' Yet it is clear that in this arrangement we mav find the rude element which was afterwards developed into the richest fronts. " Windows," he continues, " of the same kind were introduced on either side of the church, immediately under the eaves, and if they added little to the appearance of the building, they admitted abundance of light. The portals, like those of the classical models in their neighbourhood, were uni- formly square-headed, and were often enriched with sculptured architraves taken from earlier buildings." Such were the external features of an ancient basilica; rude, mean, and unornamentcd, but still honest and consistent. In 158 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. the above description we read of nothing paltry or deceptive ; no sham facades or unmeaning columns. Its own system of decoration not being as yet developed, the new style at all events scorned an incongruous borrowing from the old, and exhibited its own constructive features in a garb of simple reality, on which after ages might superinduce an appropriate form of decoration. Within, however, the new form of building possessed much greater capabilities ; the long rows of columns are always strik- ing, and often really beautiful. They were generally taken from the numerous buildings of heathen Rome, which by the triumph of the new faith were rendered useless. Being of different sizes and orders, they were shortened, stilted on pedestals, or other- wise by Procrustean violence brought to the requisite height ; and their bases and capitals were frequently replaced by others in the debased style of the times. Still however the classical models and proportions are always aimed at, and more or less successfully followed. The original form of the heathen basilica was an " insulated portico," 1 with a peristyle, and remained open to the air. The columns of course supported a continuous entablature : and over them was a second similar tier, as appears from the representa- tion on a medal pf Lepidus, of the iEmilian Basilica. Subse- quently a wall was substituted for the peristyle, and the use of columns was confined to the interior ; when they still supported an entablature. In this form it came under the influence of Christian requirements, as is shown in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem erected by Constantine at the request of his mother, St. Helena. But the employment of the entablature was not likely to be of long continuance, while the arch offered so much greater advantages. Besides its direct constructive advantages, it would diminish the requisite number of columns, and consequently present a less impervious barrier between the nave and its aisles. Hence in the Christian basilicas of Italy the columns support round arches ; and the construction is treated with infinitely greater good taste than in most churches of the "Revival." The arches retain the purity of 1 Diet, of Ant., Art. Basilica. OP BASILICAN ARCHITECTURE. 159 their continuous sweep, unbroken by the fantastic and sense- less key-stone; and rest, simply and naturally, on the capi- tals of the pillars ; the thousand shifts by which modern archi- tects endeavour to thrust in an entablature are altogether dispensed with. A few mouldings occasionally found above the regular capital hardly contradict the above general rule, and amount only to a heavier abacus. The arches are of one order, channelled generally with but few and not very decided mould- ings ; the square section being retained, and ornament found in surface carving or colour. The soffits also are frequently panelled or painted. Above the arcades the wall rises to a considerable height ; the gallery, though occasionally introduced, is more frequently ab- sent, and the space immediately above, answering to the triforium of later churches, is not pierced. It most commonly has a kind of entablature running along it, but not so marked as to inter- fere with the due prominence of the arcade. Its frieze is often superbly decorated with painting and sculpture ; the compart- ments of which are sometimes divided by flat pilasters. The clerestory consists of round-headed windows simply pierced where they are wanted ; in some cases, as in the later styles, two are grouped under a single arch. A wall of any height supported by columns of classical pro- portions could hardly be of thickness sufficient to sustain a vault; hence that most beautiful and appropriate covering for a church does not appear in the ancient basilica, except in the conch of the apse, which could hardly be otherwise treated. " In the churches built by Constantino, and some other of the earlier churches, the beams and rafters were concealed by a flat ceiling of gilt panels. This however was soon discontinued, and the wooden roofs of ancient churches, neither concealed nor carved, as are the roofs of buildings in the Pointed style, became, and for long continued, an unsightly part of the fabric." So Mr. Gaily Knight ; and nothing certainly can better answer the de- scription than the bare low-pitched rafters and tie-beams of even the most magnificent basilicas figured in Lis splendid work. The apse is naturally entered by an arch, a feature eagerly seized upon for decoration, under the name of the Arch of Triumph; in transeptal churches two such, like tin" nave and chancel arches 1G0 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. of our own lanterns, arc necessarily introduced. The apse is generally enriched with every kind of decoration that the acces- sory arts can supply, and is often surrounded by pilasters. The altar, on its chord, is surmounted by a tall canopy on four pillars, known as the ciborium. The pride of basilican architecture is doubtless the glorious Church 1 of St. Paul without the walls of Rome, the work of the fifth century. Its unbroken rows of columns rival in length our vastest Cathedral naves, with the additional splendour and spaci- ousness of the double aisles. The immense number of the pil- lars, and the consequent small span of the arches, produce a degree of richness unsurpassable, and which perfectly disarms all criti- cism. Perhaps, however, it might almost seem to be the work of an architect whose thoughts were hardly weaned from the old construction, and who did not wholly realize the capabilities of the arch. And this circumstance is the more remarkable, as the later Italian churches are in so many instances distinguished by the disproportionately wide span of their pier-arches. On a general review of Basilican architecture we shall find that it contains all the main elements, both ritual and architectural, of the most perfect Gothic Minster. All the essential parts of a church nave, choir, sacrarium are as clearly found in the Basilica of St. Clement at Rome as in the Abbey of St. Peter at Westmin- ster. Architecturally too, w T e have the complete elevation of pier- arch, triforium, and clerestory. What then is wanting ? w r hat so widely distinguishes these early buildings from our own Gothic, or even Romanesque, churches ? Simply that these essential parts do indeed exist, but in a mere lifeless juxtaposi- tion ; they are connected physically, but not artistically ; there is no attempt to combine them into an harmonious whole. The triforial entablature surmounts the arcade, is itself surmounted by the clerestory, and the whole by the roof, simply because each of these was required by the necessities of the building ; but they are in no degree fused together ; all are independent, and might be conceived apart. The division is purely horizontal; a bay of a basilica is a thing which cannot be imagined. Size, splendour, 1 This magnificent church was unsatisfactory manner. See Webb, nearly destroyed by fire in 1823, p. 53S; Pictorial Hist, of Eng. i. and is now being rebuilt in a most 311. EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY. 161 even proportion, may make basilican architecture pleasing to the eye, and no other style has associations which can speak so powerfully to the heart ; but the living soul of art is wanting. It has freed itself from the absurdities and inconsistencies of heathen Rome, and has become constructively honest, simple, and natural. This was indeed no mean step in the right direction, but it was all that Rome could effect ; combination, harmony, and unity were to come from another source. CHAPTER IV. OF OTHER EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY. The Basilica so soon worked out for itself a completely distinct type that its name may be legitimately given to a style of archi- tecture. Basilicas however were not the only ecclesiastical build- ings erected in Italy during the prevalence of that style ; and upon secular erections its influence seems to have been compa- ratively trifling. In some buildings of this kind we find the style more advanced, in others less so, than in the basilican churches. The oblong and the cross, in their several varieties, have been in all ages the ordinary forms of churches ; some however, at all times, have been circular. Such was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, erected by St. Helena; and such has been in most ages the form of a few occasional erections, having by dedication or otherwise, an especial connection with that sacred spot, or "directly intended for sepulchral chapels." 1 The round and polygonal forms are closely connected, so much so that the clerestory of a round church sometimes becomes oc- tagonal without greatly altering the general effect ; and we shall soon see how the two shapes run into each other in the case of an almost identical feature, the dome. We may therefore class to- gether the round sepulchral chapel and the polygonal baptistery. The last was in the early ages of the Church a distinct build- ing in which the baptismal service was performed, and many 1 Hope. M \(Y2 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. Bplendid examples of such structures of all dates still remain in Italy. In more northern countries this practice does not seem to have been at any time very prevalent. Anions: circular Christian buildings the precedence is due to what is now the Church of St. Constantia at Rome, 1 originally erected by the Emperor Constantine as a baptistery, but employed as a sepulchral chapel for his daughter. Its architecture is by no means so advanced as that of the basilicas, the absurdities of the classical Roman being retained in full force. The piers are each formed of two detached Composite columns placed in the direction of the radii of the circle, and supporting an entabla- ture, from which rise the arches, which, being absurdly stilted and cut off from their supports, have a painful appearance of inse- curity. Above is a range of clerestory windows; the roof is domical within, with an external cone ; the aisles arc vaulted. It is hardly necessary to remark the exact correspondence be- tween this building and our own round churches. The building at Rome usually known as the baptistery of Constantine, but attributed by Mr. Gaily Knight and Mr. Webb to the Pontificate of Sixtus III., who died in 440, is of a character still more classical; eight porphyry columns of the Ionic order divide the inner octagon from the surrounding aisle, and support an entablature without any arches. Above these is now another smaller tier supporting the dome and the flat ceilings of the aisles ; but these are supposed by Mr. Knight to be an addition of the time of Pope Anastasius III., who is recorded to have raised the walls and added a new roof, in the year 1153. To these we may add a building slightly analogous and equally classical in design, the circular mausoleum of the great Theo- doric, near Ravenna, now also a church ; 2 it is famous for that wonder of mechanical skill, its monolith dome. On the other hand we may quote the remains of the palace of the same monarch in the same city, 3 as infinitely in advance of their age. It may indeed be true that this illustrious prince encouraged in every way those arts which he found already exist- 1 See Webb, 504. this building to the Lombard kings. Ditto, 4.'54. The inference is in either case the It should however be men- same. tinned, that Mr. Hope attributes EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY. 163 ing : but that can be no proof that new life was not given to them by their first contact with the Teutonic stock. A Gothic king, the head of a free and victorious people, revelling in all the youthful vigour of their national existence, must have been a very different patron of art from the degraded Caesars of the worn- out empire. 1 In this first of Teutonic buildings, every mind not quite warped by the pedantry of classicalism must at once recog- nize not only a wonderful change, but a wonderful improvement. The architect at once grasped the great law that the construc- tion and the decoration must be derived from the same source. The chief constructive principle of Roman architecture is the round arch ; here it becomes for the first time the great source of decoration. We have here no ancient or modern Italian mock facade, with useless colonnades, unmeaning entablatures, and sham pediments, but a front which at first sight might be the work of Gundulph or Walkelyn. The ornamental arcades, the double window divided by the shaft, the shallow buttress with its pcdimental finish, are almost identical with what we are fa- miliar with in the Romanesque of our land. Let us again hear Mr. Knight, a judge not disposed to look too favourably on any departure from the antique. " It was the first time that small pillars, supported by brackets, had been used in Italy as exter- nal decorations : and the first time that small pillars had been introduced as divisions of windows. The great change however, is in the doorway, which, in classical buildings, had always been square-headed, and which, in this building, is round." In fact, this building, and this doorway, notwithstanding its awkward impost, perhaps a lingering vestige of the entabla- ture, form an epoch in the history of architecture. We do not here see the five orders in their purity, cither alone or separate, but we have for the first time a simple and consistent form of decoration. The designer of this doorway might contradict the pedantic stringency of would-be classic rules, but he first ap- plied to that feature the great laws of consistency and reality; he planted a germ which was to fructify into the western door- way of Rochester, and the more glorious portals of Rheims and Reauvais. 1 Sen Schlegol's History of Literature, p 189. English Translation. 10-t HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. CHAPTER V. OF BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE. We have now to contemplate architecture in an entirely differ- ent land, and developing, under its changed circumstances, into forms altogether dissimilar from what we have hitherto beheld. Basilican and Byzantine architecture are two starting points from which almost all subsequent forms may be derived ; their influence runs in two streams, sometimes remaining parallel and distinct, sometimes converging and commingling. Indeed the chief value of Byzantine art is derived from the results of this commixture as seen in the later buildings of Italy and Germany. As a form of art, it cannot claim a place equal to those of west- ern Europe ; its chief, we might say its only, glory is the general and successful application of that splendid feature, the cupola. Yet Byzantine architecture has an historical interest peculiar to itself, as exhibiting the forms assumed by ecclesiastical art among a people separated from the great family of European Christendom. Every other form that we shall have to consider belongs to the system formed by a commingling of the Roman and Teutonic elements. The Byzantine empire derived nothing from the latter source, and little more than a name from the former. It is the only great Christian power that has as yet arisen under similar circumstances ; it possessed therefore a cha- racter of its own, distinct from every other, alike in government, literature, and art. In describing this we must desex"t the national for the geo- graphical mode of speech. We have not to deal with Greeks or Romans, Celts or Teutons, but with the East. It is a character not marking a single race or creed, but all who chance to fix their abode within a certain extensive portion of the globe. In these lands nations seem to desert their own character and as- sume that of the soil. In Europe a more marked distinction exists between the Teuton, the Celt, the Slave, almost between the mere national forms of each, than can be found in the East be- OF BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE. 165 tween the primary divisions of the human race. It is a charac- ter fixed, staid, and immutable; it is not Persian or Arabian, not even Caucasian or Mongolian ; it is not ancient, modern, or mediaeval ; but, a term of all ages and races, it is Oriental. Such an Oriental character the Byzantine empire had from its very beginning ; and it became gradually stronger, as its connec- tion with Western Christendom was constantly weakened. At last Byzantium stood by itself, Christian indeed, and locally European, but hardly a member of the system of the European and Christian states ; esteemed heretical in faith, and alien in language, government, and general feeling. Of the two stocks of Western Europe, the Teuton appeared only as a foreign guard or a foreign conqueror ; Borne contributed the lofty titles of her empire, but could not even communicate her language. The government established by Constantine in the New Borne was the very opposite to that which Romulus was deemed to have founded in the old. Dioclesian had swept away the feeble relics of the old commonwealth ; Constantine gave the empire the consistent form of an Oriental despotism, i One feature alone is wanting of the courts of Nineveh or Susa ; Christianity forbad the open seraglio ; but in every other respect the Eastern Caesar was a counterpart of his Persian antagonist, or his Turkish conqueror. Like him he had viziers, slaves, and eunuchs, holding sovereign and subject alike in thrall. The family feuds, the murderings and Windings of sons and brothers, the perpetual change of the tyrant, without the slightest inter- mission of the tyranny, the fixed unmoveable character of litera- ture, science, and art, the utter moral and political vacancy of the thousand years of the Byzantine empire, mark it as Roman, us European, in name only, but as in truth one of the countless dynasties which, from the earliest times have risen and fallen in Eastern lands. Byzantium then founded an architecture of its own under its peculiar circumstances, it would have been wonderful had it not and transmitted it to the whole East ; but kept and trans- mitted it unchanged in its most essential forms. On an art so liable to mutations as architecture, fourteen centuries must pro- duce many diversities, even in the East ; but the structures reared to this dav bv the Mahometans in India exhibit far less l(i() HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. deviation from the type of St. Sophia, than exists between the Basilica of St. Clement and the Cathedral of Sarum. The condition and circumstances of the city founded by Con- stantine were such as almost inevitably to produce a style of ecclesiastical architecture peculiar to itself. The spot was prac- tically new, for the small provincial town of Byzantium was as no- thing in the plan of the vast city designed as the new metropolis of the world ; it had none of the political, religious, and artistic associations of the Eternal City ; the field was open for the carry- ing out of a new government, a new religion, a new style of art. The two first would be the result of design, the latter developed by circumstances. The system of government, covertly intro- duced by Augustus, and fully organized by Dioclesian, could be better carried oixt in a new and an Eastern city than under the once free sky of Rome ; the spirit whose last expiring flashes blazed forth under Arnold of Brescia and Cola di Bienzi, could hardly have been quite extinct while the old republican forms existed. Constantine had in his eye both the facilities which a new position would afford for the full establishment of despot- ism, and the superior advantages of the Eastern capital in the struggle with the restored power of Persia ; and his conduct also was probably further influenced by what Mr. Hope suggests as his only motive, namely " to evade the restraints with which in his old capital, paganism still surrounded his new creed, and to afford Christianity, in his new creation, more room for deve- lopment." 1 At Byzantium there was no such feeling as at Borne must have induced conformity to the elder form; nor was there the same store of elder edifices which at Borne supplied both materials and models for Christian churches ; there were neither basilicas enough to convert unchanged to ecclesiastical uses, nor yet temples whose columns might supply the increasing want of " church accommodation " in the first Christian city. The By- zantine builders were then, in the words of the author just quoted, " disencumbered of the restraints which accompanied the superior resources they could command in Rome " they were not only at liberty, but were absolutely driven, to find their own materials and their own architecture ; and a style arose, which lacks indeed the simplicity and elegance of heathen Greece, the 1 Page 121. OF BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE. 1G7 awful majesty and vastness of mediaeval France and England, but which must be allowed to possess in the highest degree a cha- racter both original and enduring, vigorous alike in intellectual conception and mechanical execution. 1 The oifspring of the arch is the vault; of the vault the cupola ; and this majestic ornament is the very life and soul of Byzantine architecture, to which every other feature is subordinate. Its use had hitherto been mainly confined to circular buildings ; to make it the central point of a Christian temple was a grand and bold idea, and one which involved a complete revolution in the existing principles of architecture. Avast rotunda of this kind could find no place in the basilica ; let it occupy the crossing of the transepts it has neither due mechanical support, nor can any principle of Aesthetics endure its position, when thus thrust to one extremity of the building. It must be the centre, the crowning point of all, to which every other portion of the pile converges, and rests under the shadow of its majestic canopy. The western limb of the basilica is too long, the others too short ; its oblong form is therefore rejected, and the church assumes a square or octagonal form ; the surrounding portions only radiat- ing around, and supporting the vast central cupola ; nave, choir, transepts, chapels, being little more than its supports and acces- sories, existing only to lift it soaring above them. And not only did the grand cupola crown the whole pile, but the smaller portions are often covered with smaller domes and semi-domes, so as to render the outline of a large Greek church totally un- intelligible to one accustomed only to the buildings of the west. The eye habituated to the long naves and triple towers of our own great churches is totally bewildered in contemplating so huge a pile, with apses and semi-domes " sprouting out," to use the ex- pression of Mr. Hope, in every direction, and all circling round the vast central cupola, swelling its majesty, like tributary rulers encircling an imperial throne. Such was what Frederick Schlcgcl 2 calls " that first model of all Christian architecture, the Creek church of St. Sophia;" not surely that later erections did not far 1 The existence of several Basili- tinoplc, p. 002; Bourasse, Archeo- can churches in the East only proves logic Chrcticnne, pp. 100, 1. the rule by the exception. See - History of Literature, p. 188. Hope, p. 124; Dallaway's Constan- 1G8 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. surpass it in grace and splendour, or that, even among buildings of its own class, its low and spreading covering does not sink into utter insignificance before that matchless glory of domical architecture, the soaring cupola of Florence : but because the style of which it is the type was the first truly Chi'istian archi- tecture that the world had seen. The emblem of our faith, which the basilica half concealed in its comparatively insignificant tribune and chalcidica, is boldly displayed in the four vast arms which, in the most perfect churches of this style, rear the dome on high, hanging, as it were, self-balanced on its centre. All this is the creation of Christian minds; the traces of heathenism remain but in insignificant details ; it is the first great tribute which the arts laid at the feet of the Church, the glorious and royal offering of the first of Christian commonwealths. M. Couchaud, whose work 1 contains the most lucid, though a very brief, account of Byzantine architecture with which I am acquainted, divides the churches of this style into three classes, chronologically arranged ; the two first of which will come within our present scope ; the third, as having been affected by Western influences, will be more appropriately treated of at a somewhat later stage of the work. Of the first period, extending from the time of Constantine to that of Justinian, but few examples remain. The churches were at first universally round or octagonal, for which the square form was afterwards substituted. The nave was but little ex- tended in length. Four columns, occupying the centre of the building, served to support the cupola, the use of which is universal. Being raised on a square ground plan, the angles were connected by pendentives, whose ingenious and varied combinations are especially remarkable. The lower part of the dome was* pierced with a great number of small openings for light. The extremities of the nave were covered with hemi- spherical cupolas. The facades are square, without gables, terminated by a cornice of stone or brick, with salient and re- entrant angles. Apses were in use, more usually semicircular than polygonal, and often three in number. Doorways were square-headed, with an arch of construction to relieve the lintel. 1 Choix d'Eglises Bysan tines en Grece. Paris, 1842. His arrangement U followed by Ilamee, ii. 81. OF BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE. 169 The second period of Byzantine architecture extends from the sixth to the eleventh century, and exhibits the improvements in- troduced into architecture under the patronage of the great Justinian. The domes are now multiplied, and finally occupy the summit even of the porch. Those which belong to the latter part of this period differ from those which precede them, in the circumstance that the arches of the windows which sur- round them penetrate into the spherical part of the cupola. In many cases, to judge by M. Couchaud's specimens, these domes are not of a very commanding character, being often hardly more than a round central tower with a domical roof. The apses become polygonal ; in the interior square piers gradu- ally supplant the use of columns. The great type of this period, and of the whole Byzantine style, is of course the mighty cathedral dedicated by Justinian to the Divine Wisdom, and which, whatever may have been the errors of its builders, hardly deserves the severe remark of Mr. Hope 1 that it was erected u on a plan in which that of man shone but little." St. Sophia has perhaps had more influence on architec- ture than any other single building ; as the first great example of a central lantern, all styles have borrowed more or less from its example. While it is the direct parent of all the subsequent architecture, Christian and heathen, of the whole eastern world, from Delhi to Moscow, its influence on Western buildings had been equally sure, though less immediate. " The first attempt," says Dallaway, " to construct a dome of so vast an expanse was unsuccessful ; in 558, twenty-one years after the dedication, an earthquake nearly destroyed it. The Emperor Justinian, still reigning, employed another Isidorus, nephew of the former, to repair it. The new architect gave the dome an elevation of twenty feet more than it had before its fall, and changed the originally circular into an elliptical form. In order to give security to it, he set up on the north and south sides four columns of granite, each of a shaft forty feet long. By means of arches he placed a wall on them, and over it six shorter columns ; and by this arrangement he destroyed the effect of the Greek cross, by shortening two of its extremities. The piers are encrusted with marble, but no pilaster is seen in the whole church, 1 Page 120. ]70 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. nor is the slightest attention paid to the rules of ancient architec- ture. The dome is constructed with so small a curve, that the perpendicular concavity docs not exceed one-sixth of the diameter, which measures one hundred and fifteen feet, and one hundred and eighty in the centre above the floor. The flatness, to which many critical objections are made, has, it must be acknow- ledged, a most imposing effect ; and. if the great vault of heaven be the idea intended, with a happier imitation than at St. Peter's at Rome Certain critics allow to the dome of St. Sophia the merit only of superior mechanism. The idea of placing a cupola in the centre of a Greek cross they admire in general, but contend that it was adopted four cen- turies too late to hare reached its highest perfection. They remark many solecisms in the architecture, uncorrected by the Grecian or Roman schools, and that the columns are irregularly disposed, having capitals without style or entablature. Procopius says that 'such is the lightness of the dome that it appears to be suspended by a chain from heaven.' . . . Beside the grand cupola arc two larger and six smaller semi-domes. The whole ground-plan describes the figure of a Greek cross within a quad- rangle, but on the inside is oval/' 1 Among the smaller examples in M. Couchaud's work, perhaps the most striking are St. Nicodemus at Athens a fine lofty pile, with a low spreading cupola, no gables, three trigonal apses, and massive piers within and the Thcotocos at Constantinople, 2 a structure of the ninth or tenth century, which has a magnificent facade, with a domical tower at each end, another over the chief entrance, and some fine open arcades. The type of the Greek Church is one that appears very singular to western eyes ; it presents such an extraordinary union of con- tending principles ; in its ground-plan usually a mere square, flat, same and uniform, it nevertheless preserves the cross form as dis- tinctly as the finest Latin Cathedral. The square is broken up by the four limbs rising above the portions which fill up its angles : these again converge and support the circular cupola crowning the whole. In minor features this principle of cutting up the fiat outline is as diligently carried out, curved lines are sought 1 Dallaway's Ancient and Modern 2 Gailhabaud's Ancient and Mo- Constantinople, p. 52. dern Architecture. OF BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE. 171 for everywhere,, till even the outline of the cupola itself becomes interrupted in this manner. The Byzantine style is perhaps the purest offspring of the arch that ever existed, as if in actual op- position to the purely horizontal forms which had once adorned the same regions. 1 As far as I can gather from M. Couchaud's work, and from the few other engravings of Byzantine churches to which I have had access, the minuter forms of the architecture do not differ very materially from the Romanesque of other parts of Europe. The windows, arcades, &c. might be found almost unaltered in any Norman church in England ; it is the peculiar system of group- ing and arrangement that constitutes the great distinction. The entablature is quite cast away ; decorative columns occasionally support a cornice without arches, but the like may occasionally be seen in our own buildings. If in any particular they are less advanced, it is in the doorways, where the square head is often strongly marked; in our own the actual opening is often square- headed, but the arch above is always the predominant feature. The pillars and arches arc far more like Romanesque than Italian. It was before stated that the square pier (which is often decorated with tiers of arches) gradually supplanted the column ; even where the latter form is retained, the shafts gradually lose their classical proportions, and settle down into the sturdy pillars of our own Romanesque. This change is one which naturally fol- lows from the real requirements of an arched architecture. In such a style the piers have no separate existence like the Grecian columns ; they are simply the piece of masonry between two arches, and can no more be conceived alone than any other part of the walls. The impost of an entablature is a sharp angle where two lines cut one another; that of an arch in its purest form, whether round or pointed, is a gentle and gradual change in direction, the exact turning point of which is hardly to be recognized, unless marked in the decoration. Hence the column, which can never lose its separate existence, is a less proper sup- port for the arch than the rectangular pier; it belongs to another system, and is only tolerable, as possessing in itself a degree of actual grace sufficient to counterbalance a considerable amount of inconsistency. If is from this cause that we find that the most 1 See Hope, !:>!). \J2 HISTORY ARCHITECTURE. truly Roman buildings employ the pier and not the column, and that the tendency throughout the Romanesque and Gothic periods has always been to discard the column, and to substitute the pier, moulded indeed in the best examples into graceful forms and en- riched with decorative shafts, but still essentially a mass of wall. And in Byzantine, that purely domical architecture, there would be an additional tendency to substitute the pier for the column. The latter can hardly form an appropriate support for cupolas, and the same feeling which led to their importance and multiplication might also be expected to introduce a similar prevalence of their appropriate support. From a like cause, where the column is employed, the classical proportions are soon disregarded. The arch being but a curved entablature, it would seem most natural that its apex should be taken as the determining point. Hence the proportion of column which suits the flat entablature is not adapted to the arch, whose summit is thereby unnaturally stilted. This was perhaps the reason why among the Roman attempts to combine the two forms, the most common device is that of placing an entablature supported by columns of due elevation over an arch rising from piers of lower, and usually very just, proportions. Basilican architecture, in resting its arches on classical columns, sacrificed proportion to consistency. The proportion of a columnar pier which is most in accordance with the rule above stated, and which, I imagine, will be found pretty nearly that of the most satisfactory Roman- esque specimens, is attained by diminishing the elevation of the pil- lar by the height occupied by the curve of the arch. The capitals of these pillars also gradually deserted the earlier models : in St. Sophia they still retain " a poor imitation of the Corinthian and its acanthus ; in most Greek buildings they become a still poorer squared block, with unmeaning scroll or bracket work." 1 The arches in the Byzantine style do not by any means adhere so closely to the pure semicircular form as in the Basilican. The stilted arch is common, the horse-shoe not unfrequent, and even the pointed arch appears in many cases as an isolated detail, though never influencing the general style of the building. It were greatly to be wished that the architecture of Byzan- tium, so important in itself, and still more so in its influence 1 Hope, 135. OF BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE. 173 upon that of other nations, were made more known to us, and the labours of M. Couchaud followed up by the publication of a greater number of examples. But unfortunately the great ma- jority of those who investigate what is called " classic ground " devote their whole attention to the remains of heathen antiquity, to the utter exclusion of monuments which are of the highest importance in architectural history, and which may in many cases have been the actual seat of some of the most renowned fathers of the Church. The way in which the Christian relics of the east are overlooked by most of our tourists and antiqua- ries makes one almost inclined to exclaim, " Let others sing thy heathen praise, Fallen Greece, the thought of holier days In my sad heart abides ; For sons of thine, in Truth's first hour, Were tongues and weapons of His power, Born of the Spirit's fiery shower, Our fathers and our guides." 1 The associations which bind us to the early Eastern Church, the names of her great Bishops and Doctors, seem to be held as no- thing compared with the smallest fragment of worn-out heathen- dom. This exclusive care for what is pagan is at once a mark of an irreligious tendency, and of a forgetfulness of the real nature and value of art. A broken capital or a shivered bull's head is disinterred, and preserved with reverential care ; while examples which might throw light on some of the most important questions in the whole history of architecture, and thereby in the philosophy of the human mind, arc passed by unnoticed, or alluded to with a sneer. An author to whom the present writer, as well as all interested in these subjects, is most deeply indebted for his dis- coveries in a new and untrodden field of heathen antiquity, can thus express himself with regard to remains whose sacred charac- ter has a claim upon our reverence, and which belong to a style of art which has produced the majesty of St. Sophia, the graceful outline of the Theotocos, and the varied wonders of St. Mark's. " How much it is to be regretted that the introduction of a divine religion should have unnecessarily put to night all the divinity of 1 Lyra Apostolica. 17-i HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. art. The language of Demetrius of Ephcsus was prophetic. In architecture and in sculpture, the cross is a brand always attended bv deformity in proportion and total want of simplicity in orna- ment." 1 Yet this very brand has itself produced nobler forms of outline than Ictinus and Callicrates could bestow on their most sumptuous works, its spreading arms rear aloft the airy steeple of Sarum and the mighty lantern of Worms; it once was lifted in triumph over the gorgeous cupola of St. Sophia, and still it soars, far above shaft, and architrave, and pediment, on the match- less dome of Florence, and the heaven-bound spires of Freyburg and Vienna. CHAPTER VI. DIRECT INFLUENCE OF BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY. In future chapters we shall have to trace the gradual and less direct influence of Oriental architecture upon the structures of Italy and other western countries. I will now mention a few examples in which there is reason to believe that Grecian archi- tects were employed, or direct imitation of Grecian buildings intended. The pure style of the east must not be looked for ; in all, with perhaps one exception, we shall trace more or less of the contemporary forms which prevailed in more strictly Italian structures, so that chronological and artistic propriety is somewhat violated by throwing them together here. Still, as they cannot be called pure examples of any other style, it appears most natural to place them as an appendix to the last chapter. At Ravenna is the Chapel of St. Nazario and St. Celso, erected in the fifth century as a sepulchral chapel by Galla Placidia, a pleasing specimen in itself, and remarkable, as Mr. Knight ob- serves, for containing " the only tombs which remain in their places of the whole line of Ca3sars, whether oriental or occiden- tal." It is not a pure Greek cross, 2 the western limb being double the length of the others ; there are no aisles, and the four arms support a cupola. 1 Fellows' Asia Minor, p. 1C9. - Webb, p. 428. BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY. 175 Far more decidedly Byzantine is the noble Church of St. Vital in the same city, consecrated in A.D. 5 17, in the presence of the Emperor Justinian. This is perhaps the most completely orien- tal building in western Europe, and may be taken as the best existing specimen of the octagonal churches erected during the first period of Byzantine art. Eight arches on rectangular piers support the clerestory. The roof is a magnificent cupola, with a low external cone. Round the arcade arc a succession of small apses, divided, 1 after the Oriental manner, into galleries supported by columns of a completely Byzantine character. St. Fosca, at Torcello, in the Venetian territory, belongs to the second period of Byzantine architecture. It is in the form of a Greek cross, but with the eastern limb prolonged, so as to form a complete chancel with aisles and three apses. The cen- tral dome is very plain externally, and covered with a cone. It is difficult to recognize at first the true plan of this church, by reason of an octagonal portico a development of the narthex surrounding it on all sides except the east. This is formed of pillars, most of whose capitals have the scmare block and low carving of the Byzantine school, and support stilted arches. The magnificent cathedral of St. Mark at Venice, commenced at the end of the tenth century, can hardly be referred to any one style ; without, its perfectly anomalous, though gorgeous, facade, in its pointed arches and pinnacles seems to forestall the Gothic age; within are the noble basilican columns and arches; but above all soar conspicuous the five cupolas, placed over the in- tersection of the Greek cross, and over each of the four great limbs. Such a form is completely Byzantine, and as it is certain that Grecian architects and Grecian materials were employed to a great extent, we cannot fail to acknowledge a strong Oriental influence. The domes of St. Mark's arc however very different from thai of St. Sophia, and, if we may not actually refer them to a Saracenic origin, we must allow the Western Christian and the Eastern infidel to have developed in the same path from the com- mon Bvzantine source. The external domes of wood covered with lead, rise to a vast height, and assume a fantastic and bul- bous outline, approaching to those which wc shall soon have to trace among the Mahometan nations. Developments of the 1 See Mr. Webb's plan, p. 433. 176 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. same great principle, they arc totally different either from the spreading cupola of St. Sophia, the domical towers of the Theo- tocos and the pointed dome of Florence. The cathedral of St. Ciriacus at Ancona, erected in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, might be fairly expected to possess much Byzantine character, as that city was the last possession retained in Italy by the Emperors of the East. It is in the shape of a Greek cross, so far at least as that the arms are equal, but it has not the squareness of the genuine Byzantine church ; the arms are longer than usual, and their angles not filled up. They are also treated quite on the Latin method, with low roofs, -ablcs, a genuine clerestory and aisles ; there are no smaller cupolas or conchs. In short, none of the genuine Eastern pe- culiarities appear ; it is merely a Latin church with an unusually short nave, and a central dome, and therefore hardly answers the description of Mr. Knight, that " it is Greek in all its parts." The dome is not the one commanding feature, but only a cen- tral lantern assuming that form. CHAPTER VII. OF THE ROMANESQUE OF ITALY OR LOMBARD STYLE. Justinian the Great destroyed the Gothic kingdom in Italy, and set his restored dominions the example of a new, and in many respects excellent, style of architecture. He was hardly in his grave before a new race of conquerors came to overthrow his political institutions, and to give Italian architecture yet another and a more perfect form. These were the Lombards, who in A.D. 568, five years after the death of that famous emperor, crossed the great Alpine barrier, and remained possessed of the greater part of the peninsula for two centuries, till the empire of the West rose with renewed splendour in the person of the first Teutonic Csesar, the ever-memorable Charlemagne. As before under the rule of Theodoric and his Goths, (though the Lombards were a race in every respect inferior to that noble people,) there can be no doubt that Italy, could she have recon- OF LOMBARD ARCHITECTURE, 177 ciled herself to the idea of a barbarian sovereign, might have en- joyed far more real happiness under the royal house of Alboin than the turbulent, unsettled days of her own later emperors had ever afforded. And when the Lombard kings, to vigour in war and just government in peace, added, under their fourth prince Agilulfus and his famous wife Theodolinda, an adhesion to the orthodox faith, a new era in ecclesiastical architechire could hardly fail to arise, and the glimpse of Teutonic vigour given under the brief empire of the Goths became a brighter and more enduring day under the more lasting power of the Lombards. " The Lombards/' says Mr. Knight, " had no architecture of their own ; they imported no architects from the north ; they employed the architects and masons of the conquered country ; and, if they required them to introduce any thing which was not of Italian growth, it was only in details. The style was still an imitation of the Roman, though, by this time, it had assumed some new features." That is, they inspired new life into the dying embers, and added harmony to the yet disjointed parts ; Basilican and Byzantine architecture each contributed its choicest beauties to form a style, which in Italy itself produced far from despicable fruits, and gave birth to a yet more glorious offspring in the wondrous churches of Rhenish Germany. The chief characteristics of Lombard architecture are the new forms given to the pillars, and their more extended application as decorative features ; a new style of sculpture ; a more ex- tended use of vaulting ; an entirely new ground-plan and out- line of churches; and finally, by no means the least important innovation, the introduction of steeples or belfries. The classical proportions of the column arc disregarded, and pillars are now met with of any length required by their posi- tion ; those which act as piers are shorter than the Roman models, while purely decorative ones arc prolonged to an indefinite length, becoming mere slender stalks. 1 In the interior of churches, piers formed of clustered columns are often introduced; these of course exhibit both these processes ; the whole pier being lower, while each separate shaft is frequently longer, than was allowed by classical precedent. The capitals are sometimes 1 Sec Moller's German Architecture, p. 20, English translation. N 178 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. imitations of the antique, but are more commonly blocks covered with imagery of various kinds ; representations of grotesque monsters, of scriptural scenes, sometimes of devices apparently derived from the northern mythology. Decorative shafts, as those of doorways and of ornamental arcades, not unfrequently rest upon the backs of monsters. These ornamental arcades are perhaps the greatest of the im- provements introduced by the Lombard architects. Hitherto the exterior of the Basilica had been bare and unsightly ; the incon- gruous Grecian ornaments had been rejected, but no consistent system substituted. The Lombards carried out to a great extent the idea which had already appeared in the palace of Theodoric, and applying the great constructive features as a source of decora- tion, covered the exterior of their richer buildings with an infi- nity of small arcades resting on ornamental shafts of various forms and proportions. In many cases these are detached, and form actual galleries, but they are often merely decorative enrich- ments of a blank surface. This latter class might at first sight appear open to the same objection as the sham columns, pedi- ments, and porticoes of Roman and modern Italian. But in truth the great fault of the latter is, not that they are merely ornamental, but that they are of such an importance in the general effect as to look like the main features of the building, and so are really deceptive. This fault is shared by some of the Byzan- tine churches in M. Couchaud's work, which exhibit ornamen- tal arcades on so large a scale as to look like a constructive portion walled up. But when the ornamental features are at once seen to be intended for ornament and nothing more, and do not in any v/ay mask the real construction, no way of relieving a blank wall can be more appropriate than this ornamental imitation of the constructive members. The number, richness, and variety of these arcades with which the Lombard architects decorated their sumptuous churches is perfectly astonishing. A whole facade is sometimes covered with row upon row, enriched with an infinity of sculp- tured ornament, and resting on shafts, single or double, detached or engaged, plain, fluted, twisted, as suited the taste and caprice of the designer. The eaves, and often the stringcourses mark- ing the stages of the building, rest commonly on small arcades OF LOMBARD ARCHITECTURE. 179 or corbel-tables without shafts, but among which ever and anon there shoots up from the ground, now a fiat broad pilaster, now a tapering reed-like shaft, to bear a part in their decorative sup- port, and to break the uniformity of the front by dividing it into narrow vertical compartments. Now and then, as in the bap- tistery at Parma, instead of arcades, rows of small shafts support the strings of the different stages after the manner of an en- tablature. The arch is commonly round, in pier-arches perhaps univer- sally so, and the flatness of the broad soffit begins occasionally to be relieved, not by mere flat panelling or painting, but by making the arch of two orders, which alone takes off greatly from its uniformity, and affords a great contrast of light and shade. In the vaulting, pointed arches occur at a very early period ; and in decorative arcades sometimes the straight- sided arch. The horse-shoe and stilted arches are not unknown, as well as that curious form, half-arch, half-entablature, with a flat head, and shoulders bowing outwards. But the common semicircular arch is decidedly the arch of the style, and is generally used in the more important features of construction. The Lombard builders seem absolutely to have revelled in the use of sculpture in every form. The outside of the church is loaded with imagery \ saints, founders, scenes of history or legend, are strangely intermixed with all the strange beasts of the natural creation, and others passing any that Herodotus 1 records as infesting the Libyan desert, not only lions, peacocks, serpents, but sphinxes, griffins, chimeras, xocl ol uyqioi avlqsg x.'A y'jvuix.?; oiygicti, xu) AA -nXr^ii 7roAAa 0]fli'a xaT4>?ua"T. These arc found both independently, and as bas-reliefs on walls, capitals, and wherever else a void space was found to receive them. And not only doorways, but windows, strings, abaci, arc loaded with numberless varieties of surface ornament, as medallions, foliage, chevrons; all of that kind which marks no particular style, but seems in its general character, and often in its actual details, to belong to a particular stage of almost all. The Lombard windows arc generally small, narrow, round- headed openings, placed either singly, or in combination ; but the 1 IV. 191. N 2 180 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. genuine triplet with the higher central light seems hardly to be found in Italy. Their jambs and archivolts are often richly or- namented with the small shafts and other decorations of the style. But large wheel-windows are common in the west fronts of churches, perhaps, as Mr. Hope suggests, to represent the setting sun. They present of course the simplest form of this kind of window, that of " spokes radiating from a centre, con- nected at their extremities by arches." 1 The doorways are perhaps, of single features, the most re- markable instance of the improvements effected by the architects of this period. We have seen how the square portal with an arch of construction over it burst forth, in the palace of Theodo- ric, into a real round-headed doorway ; but this was a very rude example, and in this respect the Byzantine builders effected but little, as they still made the square opening predominant. But the Lombards, while they retained the square opening, (probably because the semicircular stone, called the tympanum, afforded such an opportunity for sculpture) made the arch the conspicu- ous feature. It now stands boldly forward as a gradually reced- ing arch of many orders, each adorned with all the gorgeous decorations of the style, and resting on shafts often themselves greatly enriched. They greatly resemble our own Norman door- ways, but are of more lofty proportion ; and of the forms of ornament common to both the Norman specimens have a greater tendency to mere surface ornament, the Lombard to bas-reliefs, in the decorations of the receding arches and jambs. Some doorways, as the magnificent example at St. Zeno, Verona, retain much more of classical character, the square portion being strongly marked, and the arch made to form a sort of canopy supported by two detached columns. In the eleventh century, according to Mr. Knight, porches in our modern sense, as opposed to the ancient narthex, were introduced into Lombard architecture. The sturdy piers of the Lombard churches were able to bear a greater weight than could be supported on the slender columns of the Basilicas; hence stone vaulting was resumed, but though de- cidedly a characteristic of the style,it occurs only just often enough to show that it is so. Many of the finest Italian churches of this 1 Page 267. OF LOMBARD ARCHITECTURE. 181 time are covered with wooden roofs, but they are oftenflat, or other- wise panelled, ceilings instead of the barn-like frames of the old Basilicas. The first form of the stone roof was plain barrel- vaulting ; afterwards cross-vaulting with groined ribs was intro- duced. These roofs, often supported by tall shafts rising directly from the ground, would alone assign to the Lombard churches a great superiority in internal effect over their Basilican prede- cessors. The ground-plan ordinarily combines the Basilican and By- zantine forms, engrafting the central dome of the latter on the long nave of the former. The shape of the Latin cross is com- pletely carried out ; four arms, of which the western is conside- rably the longest, meet and support a variety of the dome more suited than that of St. Sophia to the general proportions of the church. The commonest form is an octagon reared on a square base, which forms an internal dome, but has in most instances merely a conical roof without. The actual external dome is sacri- ficed, and that with good judgment, as the length of the nave pre- cludes it from that overwhelming predominance over the whole building which alone can give it a good effect. The Lombard octagon is not the whole soul of the building, for the sake of which alone every other part exists; it is but one feature among many, though by far the most conspicuous and commanding one. Still, as the base is square, a great width in the four arms is required to give the lantern its due prominence; hence the Lombard churches arc precluded from that predominance of height over the other proportions which adds so much majesty to even the Romanesque, and much more the Gothic, structures of other lands. At the cast end is an apse, sometimes three apses, which are generally semicircular; they arc distinct buildings, inferior in height and breadth to the chancels to which they are attached. A gallery of open arches often runs round the upper part, which is frequently a predominant, as it is always a very beautiful, feature. The triple elevation of the nave is more distinctly marked than in the Basilicas, but is not always fully developed. Some- times, as in the two noble churches of St. Michael at Pavia and St. Ambrose at Milan, there is no clerestory, but only a trifo- 182 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. rium-gallcry over the arcade; in others, as in St. Zeno 1 at Verona, there is a clerestory, but the space which should be occupied by the triforium is left quite blank, to the great dis- figurement of the building. Perhaps that feature was only in- troduced when it was designed for actual use as a gallery. The roofs are low; hence the churches have no prominent gables, and buttresses and pinnacles being hardly in use, aud the towers not being integral parts of the building, the facades are flat, and the whole outline not very marked or varied. Still the more complete development of the cross form, and especially the central lantern, give these churches a very great superiority over the basilicas, even without taking into consideration the gorgeous details. The west fronts are generally much laboured and decorated, but, from the want of projection, they are not very pleasing as compositions. When there is no clerestory, and a single low gable includes both nave and aisles, the effect is still less satisfactory. The round or octagonal nave, with a projecting chancel, is a form far from uncommon ; some noble examples are given by Mr. Knight ; amongst which the Cathedral of Brescia is re- markable for a majestic boldness of design. But the feature for the introduction of which the Lombard architects, great as were their excellencies in other respects, most deserve the gratitude of posterity, is undoubtedly that noble addition to a Christian temple, the campanile, bell-tower, or steeple. They do not indeed seem to have developed all the capabilities which even their own style of architecture allowed, much less those additional ones which it received when the splendid inventions of Gothic art were brought to bear upon it. Still the introduction of so sticking and characteristic a feature m any form was a very great step. It is one which owes its origin to Christianity ; a campanile was never attached to an idol-temple, and is equally forbidden at this day to the proudest mosques of the false prophet. It is to Christian worship alone that the joyful sound of bells gathers the multitude of the faith- ful ; it is therefore to Christian temples only that the lofty towers For an account of this extra- vast independent arches spanning ordinary church, remarkable for the the nave, see Webb, p. 252. OP LOMBARD ARCHITECTURE. 183 are attached which rear them on high to convey their clear voice more distinctly and uninterruptedly. The use of bells involved that of belfries as a matter of necessity : having thus its origin in real use, and no classical models existing to mislead the architects, the belfry, unlike most other features, rose at once, not indeed to its full perfection, but to a very considerable degree of excellence. Indeed there is no kind of edifice on which more care was bestowed throughout the Romanesque and Gothic periods, or in which the respective peculiarities and beauties of the successive styles are more clearly marked. It is not merely in details that this is shown, but every period, every country, almost every district, has its own peculiar form of steeple, and that, in nearly every case, its most beautiful and most distinguish- ing feature. The Lombard campanile usually stands apart from the church, or is at least merely connected with it as an adjunct, not an in- tegral part ; it never rises from the crossing, or forms the cen- tral compartment of a facade. Even flanking towers to a front, as at St. Ambrose, are rare. It is ordinarily square that of Pisa and those at Ravenna, which are round, being the prin- cipal exceptions and always tall, thin, and unbroken by but- tresses. These characteristics are common to all, but many, especially local, peculiarities, may be observed among them. They are usually covered with a pyramidal capping, which some- times swells into a low quadrangular spire; octagonal stages crowned with spires are often found, but are in many cases later additions. It is an invariable rule, with the single exception of that at Pisa, that the " quantity of decoration and aperture is in- creased in the upper part " sometimes the only windows of any importance arc quite at the top ; in others each stage has a win- dow, or a row of three or four united by shafts, or sometimes two distinct pairs in a stage. This style, which is rightly called Lombard, was one of very long duration in Italy ; the shortest computation would reckon from the Lombard invasion till the beginning of the thirteenth century, when the forms, though not the spirit, of Gothic archi- tecture were partially introduced into Italy. During this long period Mr. Knight makes three epochs. The first extends from the invasion of the Lombards till the 184 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. extinction of their dynasty by Charlemagne at the end of the cightli century. During this time the Lombard style, as it has been above described, became predominant in many parts of Italy. The chief exception is Home, where there is but one ac- tually Lombard church, that of St. John and St. Paul, 1 though campaniles of that style were added to many of her existing ones. Of this period are numerous churches at Pavia, the seat of the Lombard kings, and other cities of northern Italy. Of those given by Mr. Knight, St. Michael at Pavia 2 is perhaps the most striking cruciform specimen ; the cathedral of Brescia, and St. Julia in the same city, of the round and octagonal respectively. The ninth and tenth centuries may be considered as continua- tions of this period, but the state of Italy was not such as to allow of much attention to the arts, and consequently there is a positive dearth of churches of this date. The chief structure of this period is St. Ambrose at Milan, completed before 861, which has been already alluded to, and which is farther remark- able as retaining the atrium or cortile before its west front, a noble cloister of the purest Lombard architecture. The second period comprises the eleventh century, during which, especially at Florence and more to the south, there was a considerable return to the antique. " There and then," says Mr. Knight, " a return to good taste evinced itself in a return to greater simplicity. The grotesque images and crowded orna- ments were rejected. Single pillars, instead of piers, again made their appearance, and capitals that sought to imitate the capitals of better times." This, which of course, with our view of the subject, is in every respect a retrogression, extended itself in some degree to northern Italy also, and for a while obscured, though by no means obliterated, the genuine Lombard style. " The pillars," says the same author, " were less stunted ; the wild and monstrous imagery, if not altogether discarded, was kept within bounds. In some instances the dragons and the demons gave way to groups of figures in low relief, that at- tempted something more in the Roman way." In the same 1 See Webb, 511. of the seventh century. I should 2 " A church of extreme interest. have fixed a much later date." Mr. Gaily Knight considers it to be Ditto, 227. OF LOMBARD ARCHITECTURE. 185 century a custom commenced of decorating the exterior of churches with courses of stone or marble of different colours. The glory of this form of Italian architecture is that from which Professor Willis 1 seems to have given a name to the style, the cathedral of Pisa, erected by Busketus, between 1063 and 1113; though the rich western facade, probably the last finish to the building, belongs rather to the next period. Its archi- tecture is a mixture of classical and Lombard forms ; the tall Corinthian columns, many of them antique, support plain round arches, above which is a string so prominent and so evidently copied from the antique, as almost to deserve the name of an en- tablature. Above is a triforium, and a clerestory ; with a blank space awkwardly intervening between them, and not even relieved by a string. The proportionate height is much greater than usual, almost forestalling the Gothic of the north ; the roof is a flat ceiling. "There is no large west window in the Pisan style, but merely small round-headed lights, like those in the west of the church." 2 The third epoch of Lombard architecture includes the twelfth century, and beginning of the thirteenth. This style Mr. Knight calls the Florid Lombard, its chief characteristic being " external decoration carried to excess." The fronts are either overloaded with arcades, frequently as detached galleries, to a prodigious extent, or, with an equal amount of decoration, have fine wheel-windows. " The use of brick was very generally re- sumed, but the bricks alternated with stone or marble, and the walls continued to exhibit stripes of different colours." The cam- paniles were generally of this material. Of the many rich facades of the kind, St. Michael at Lucca may be cited as one of the most admirable. The two fine baptisteries of Pisa and Parma are also mainly of this period, though finished in the Italian Gothic. And the grand campanile at Pisa, the famous leaning tower, commenced in 1 1 74, must not be omitted ; it is round, covered with arcades, and crowned with a small circular lantern. Such is a rapid view of the Romanesque of Italy, certainly one of the most interesting pages in the history of architecture. We learn from it how readily a consistent and beautiful form might 1 Architecture of the Middle Ages, p. 2G. - Webb, 354. 186 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. be wrought out of the classical elements ; the Byzantines were the bolder innovators, the Lombards the more diligent develop- ers. Still, besides the ever-recurring stumbling-block of classi- cality, the style has not reached perfection ; even within, the parts arc not well arranged and harmonized, and amid all its gorgeous- ness of decoration, there is extreme flatness and poverty of exter- nal outline. We shall now have to trace its rapid and wonder- ful improvement when transplanted to a more genial soil, where the great race who were to develop all the most glorious forms of Christian architecture, were not only politically dominant, but dwelling in their own land, cradled among the free institutions and chivalrous associations of the North. CHAPTER VIII. OF THE ROMANESQUE OF GERMANY. Amidst all the confusions which immediately followed the over- throw of the old Western Empire, while the city of Rome itself had utterly fallen to decay, and the name of Roman was a by- word of contempt among the Lombard lords of Italy ; still the prestige of a thousand years of glory, the wide-spread influence of her laws and language, the power, mightier than that of her Caesars, which gradually gathered round her as she became the ecclesiastical centre of Christendom, all combined to keep up the remembrance of the Eternal City and of the universal empire of which she had been the head. Hence, when Charles, truly called the Great, conceived the vast idea of restoring that em- pire, not amidst the ruins of the worn-out system, the shadowy relics of classic heathendom, but with all the stability that Northern vigour and a thoroughly Christian basis could bestow, when in conformity with this glorious conception, the first Teu- tonic, we may almost add the first Christian, Caesar of the West received his imperial crown from the hands of the common Father of Christendom, it was not felt as an aggression or an usurpation ; the three ages during which Italy had seen no Em- peror were held as a mere blank, an interruption of settled OF THE ROMANESQUE OF GERMANY. 187 order ; the Roman Empire was again revived, not indeed on its old heathen and classic foundation, but on the more holy and more glorious basis of Christian brotherhood and Northern freedom. This mighty conception was indeed never fully realized, or only in the person of Charlemagne himself; his Frank succes- sors inherited not even his warlike vigour, far less that capacious mind with which he held together the various elements of his great political and religious creation. The idea however long survived him, and was the animating spirit of those illustrious Emperors of the Saxon race, who were, in the words of the great writer quoted in a former chapter, " princes distinguished for their religious and virtuous sentiments, their great and upright character, and whose reigns, exhibiting as they do the paramount influence of religion on public life, constitute the happiest era, and the truly golden period of the annals of Germany." 1 "Whether there are any considerable existing monuments of the Carlovingian period, or of any other anterior to that of the Saxon Emperors, is very doubtful ; and indeed many well versed in the antiquities of Germany hold that even of their days we have little more than few and uncertain remains. Thus the dates in the tenth and eleventh centuries usually assigned to the great Rhenish cathedrals are controverted, and with every appearance of proba- bility, by M. dc Lassaulx, 2 who looks on them as being for the most part at least a century later, and as belonging to the last days of Romanesque. We know the prevalent tendency to make out every building as old as possible, and to assign to an existing structure the date of the first that has occupied its site. And that the style of these magnificent churches is the latest form of Romanesque which prevailed in Germany is certain, as it is that on which the Gothic elements are engrafted in the period of Transition. One considerable fragment only remains to bear witness to the state of art under the mighty Charlemagne him- self. The vestibule of the Abbey of Lorsch is usually consi- dered to be of a date as early as 774, a view confirmed by the eminent authority of Moller. Its style exhibits several pecu- 1 Schlcgcl, Philosophy of History, - In the remarks appended to Dr. p. 349. See also pp. 339, 47. Whewcll's German Churches. 188 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. liaritics, which at once distinguish it from later buildings, and connect it with the classical Roman on the one hand and with our own Anglo-Saxon on the other. Of its two arcades, the lower has round arches rising from piers with Corinthian columns attached, and supporting a kind of entablature ; the upper, straight-sided arches on Ionic pilasters. But this structure stands alone, and we arc hardly justified in inferring from a single edifice what was the state of the art at any period. We know not what other build- ings of the Carlovingian, or even of the Saxon, era were ; but the existing style is one so replete with Lombard and Byzantine ele- ments, such as were introduced by the earlier Emperors, that it can hardly have differed essentially from that in which they built. The existing buildings may have supplanted earlier buildings, but the existing style can hardly have supplanted an earlier style. It may however have developed some of its features in greater perfection, as can hardly fail to have been the case with the varied and wonderful outlines of these sumptuous piles. The first origin of the German Romanesque is in all proba- bility to be sought for in Italy. " It is impossible not to see," says Mr. Knight, " in the Lombard churches of Pavia, the ori- ginals of the churches on the Rhine. The Lombard style was introduced into the Rhenish provinces by the Carlovingian so- vereigns of Italy, who resided at Aix-la-Chapelle, in the imme- diate ncighboui'hood of the Rhine, and who, passing sometime, as they frequently did, at Pavia, could not fail to remark the churches with which it had been enriched by the Lombard kings." But though the Lombard style supplied the chief ele- ment, a rival one was also at work. Charlemagne was closely connected with the court of Byzantium ; he is even said to have employed Grecian workmen on the cathedral church of his capi- tal. 1 Nor did this Oriental influence cease with his race. "Under the dynasty of the Saxon Caesars," says Frederick Schlegel, 2 " who were perpetually connected by marriages with the court of Constantinople, the north of Germany was adorned with a profusion of beautiful churches, all more or less in imita- tion of that first model of all Christian architecture, the Greek church of St. Sophia." Though this expression may perhaps 1 See Rame'e, ii. 129. Hist# L ; t 188# OF THE ROMANESQUE OF GERMANY. 189 be too strong, there can be no doubt that Byzantine art exer- cised a considerable influence on the German Romanesque, so much so that Mr. Hope could say, 1 "that on beholding the east end of the Apostles' Church at Cologne, immediately on entering its ancient gates, I almost thought myself at Constantinople." The German Romanesque seems to borrow from the Lombard its general style and arrangement, though worked more free from classical elements ; the cupolas also retain much of the Lombard character, though with somewhat of a Byzantine tinge. In the general employment of vaulting, and the tendency to square piers, it resembles the latter style ; but the grouping of its towers, spires, and domes, producing a beauty and variety of outline surpassed by no age or country, are purely its own. The towers, which in Italy stood alone apart from the church, are now made an essential part of the fabric, and indeed become its most conspicuous features. Architects seem to have vied with each other in introducing these beautiful appendages in the great- est number and variety ; of every size and shape, square, round, octagonal ; with every variety of capping, from the low pyramidal roof to the lofty spire ; they flank every front, and fill up every angle of the larger buildings. We should remember that many of these churches present what to us appears the anomaly of double choirs, and consequently double apses ; each being com- monly flanked by towers. The towers sometimes have octagonal spires of wood with dripping caves ; sometimes they are gabled over each side, sometimes covered with a cupola, which again is sometimes gabled. The gables in such positions are remarked by Dr. Whewcll as being of lower pitch, and having the cornice beneath them more strongly marked, in the pure Romanesque than in the Transition. The large churches are usually cruci- form, with long naves and short choirs ; an octagonal lantern occupies the crossing, rising immediately from the roof without any square base ; two tall towers occupy the angles of the choir and transepts, flanking the eastern apse, and grouping with, and as it were supporting, the central lantern. The west end has sometimes a single tower in the centre, sometimes two flanking towers ; sometimes, especially where there is a western 1 Page 143. 190 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. apse, the arrangement of the east end is repeated, a second tran- sept appearing, with another octagon of more slender and lofty proportions in the centre, and smaller turrets at the ends. The grouping of these numerous steeples comes out in all its glory in the three great Romanesque cathedrals of Spires, Worms, and Mentz, and the abbey church of Laach. Sometimes, as at Arn- stcin Abbey, the church is not cruciform, but has an eastern and western pair of towers. In all cases the general rule seems to be that the eastern pair should be the more conspicuous in size and height. The towers are usually very much enriched with arcading ; the east end of Bonn Cathedral is certainly the most graceful and magnificent specimen of this and the other beauties of this glorious style with which the engravings and descriptions of my authorities have made me acquainted. Many churches however, especially those of smaller size, and apparently later in the style, have not this complexity of outline which, as Dr. Whewell remarks, 1 "was not imitated by the architects of the Transition style." They have often only a single square tower over the intersection, with a low capping or spire ; it is usually low and massive, but sometimes, as at Schwartz Rheindorf, tower and sprre shoot up to a prodigious elevation, and attain an outline perfectly Gothic. The square tower at the crossing is manifestly the legitimate successor of the dome and the central octagon, though, as architecture advances, it ap- proaches more and more to the form and use of a campanile. The low central towers of our own Romanesque churches were ori- ginally mere lanterns, the whole elevation being greatly enriched, and left open to the church; they are the dome in another form. Numberless are the instances in which they have been blocked off and converted into belfries long after their erection. A re- markable instance of the connection between the dome and the central tower is to be found in the church of St. Sulpice, near Lausanne, mentioned by Mr. Petit. 2 The round or octagonal form of churches, was, as well as the cruciform, introduced into Germany by Charles the Great. He adorned his imperial residence at Aix-la-Chapelle, with a magni- ficent cathedral of that form, and though this was destroyed 3 or 1 German Churches, p. 97. 2 1. 75. 3 Hope, 350 ; Ramee, ii. 128. OF THE ROMANESQUE OF GERMANY. 191 desecrated by the Northmen, and afterwards rebuilt by Otho III., about 983, and though it has received many later alterations, we may fain hope that the general mass represents with tolerable faithfulness the original structure of the great Emperor. It con- sists of a circular aisle around an octagonal centre forming a clerestory, roofed with a high cupola of the same form sur- rounded with gables. The roofs and gables are generally high, compared at least with those of Italy, though they by no means invariably follow the equilateral canon, the two sides often having no sharper in- clination than a right angle. The apse is a very prevalent feature ; it is usually semicircular, though, as the style advances towards the Transition, the poly- gonal form begins to be introduced. Indeed the German archi- tects seem to have taken quite as much delight in the varied grouping of apses as in that of towers. They are not only intro- duced at both ends of a large church, according to the extraor- dinary arrangement mentioned above, but are often attached both to the fronts and to the eastern faces of the transepts. The latter position, which is by no means unknown to our own Norman, is a vestige of the triapsal termination of the basilicas ; for the German choirs are so short, and the angles so filled in with towers, that there can scarcely be genuine chancel aisles at the ends of which the arrangement might be introduced. During the period of pure Romanesque the apse was always a distinct part of the church, attached to a front, but inferior in height and width. St. Martin's at Cologne has 1 no proper chancel or transepts, but gabled projections only just sufficient for the three apses to be attached to them and not to the actual faces of the tower. The cathedral of Worms is remarkable for its polygonal western apse, approaching to the Transition, and the singula- rity of its cast end, which is fiat without and apsidal within. The character of the interior is very much influenced by the use of vaulted roofs, with which most of the greater buildings are now covered, though the flat timber ceiling is by no means excluded, even from churches of great size and importance. The subject of vaults has been almost exhausted by Dr. Whewell, 1 Webb, 40. See Petit, ii. 48, 207. 192 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. and the different forms in use in the buildings we are now con- sidering carefully explained. In the purest Romanesque speci- mens both the nave and aisles have ordinary lloman vaulting ; but in order to preserve the square form, which was thought necessary while the round arch was employed, the nave is made exactly double the width of the aisles, so that each bay of the roof answers to two pier-arches, and is just double the size of a bay of the aisle. This difficulty is avoided by the use of the pointed arch, which accordingly appears in the vaulting when no transitional features occur elsewhere ; yet it is very remarkable that in the two great cathedrals of Worms and Mentz, which have pointed vaulting, the arrangement just mentioned is re- tained, although no longer necessary ; a fact which must be con- sidered as militating to some extent against the theory so ingeni- ously and elaborately drawn out by Dr. Whewell. The vault, to be really part of the whole design, connected in the decorative construction with the rest of the fabric, must spring from shafts rising from the ground. This is usually the case, except where stalls would have interfered, when the shafts often rise from brackets. It is manifest that, with the vault- ing arrangements just mentioned, the shafts must neces- sarily influence the character of the alternate piers. Those to which the vaulting-shafts are attached, called by Dr. Whewell the principal piers, must of course be larger and of a different section from the intermediate ones, which simply support their own arches without any connection with the roof. The pier most usually employed is a rectangular mass with imposts, to which the shafts or pilasters which support the vaulting are at- tached ; and which exhibits, as is natural, a great variety of forms. The intermediate piers also assume divers shapes ; some- times they are left quite square and plain, sometimes shafts are attached, which run up to the triforium and clerestory, or support the pier arches. But though the square pier is that most characteristic of the style, and which distinguishes it both from Lombard and Nor- man Romanesque, it must not be supposed that columns are at all excluded. In churches which are not vaulted, they are especially common, and they occur also as intermediate piers in vaulted churches. On the other hand the square pier is found OF THE ROMANESQUE OF GERMANY. 193 in some of those which have flat roofs. St. James at Ratisbon, 1 a fine example of this latter class, has both kinds in different parts of the church ; the pillars are tall, with very rich capitals; at Schwartz-Rheindorf 2 are columns approaching still nearer to classical proportions. These, according to Dr. Whewell, 3 are usually observed to some extent in the earlier specimens, where we sometimes even find " a classical diminution of diameter upwards." The capitals are often of the cushion form, probably as the same author supposes, an imitation of the Grecian Doric ; these may be either left plain, or enriched with carving. Other capitals have very beautiful foliage, often approaching to the Corinthian type. The heavy abacus is frequently richly moulded and carved. The triforium is by no means a necessary feature even in great churches, nor very conspicuous when it occurs. Not being used as a gallery, it appears to have been omitted, or treated as a subordinate feature. In the splendid Abbey of Laach the space between the pier arch and the clerestory is left quite bare, and even in the three great Cathedrals of Worms, Mcntz, and Spires, the triforium is not at all important or dignified. Towards the Transition, this part of the church becomes more ornamented, as in some of the churches of Cologne. The peculiar arrangement which groups two bays under one vaulting arch has, in some instances, the effect of ranging the clerestory windows in pairs. They are usually small and round- headed, as are all the windows during the prevalence of pure Romanesque. There is the same tendency in the German as in the Lombard Romanesque to enrich the external surface with arcades and pil- lars. The bays are often divided by fiat pilaster-strips, or more rarely by shafts, running into the corbcl-tablc. The blank ar- cades sometimes rest on pilaster-strips, but more commonly on shafts ; sometimes again, as at St. James, Ratisbon, on figures like the Greek caryatides ; the arch is usually semicir- cular, but sometimes of the round-head trefoil form. As in Lombardy, small shafts are not uncommonly found sup- 1 Webb, 121. - Petit, i. 87. ^ l> ag0 101. o 194 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. porting strings without any arches, a manifest vestige of the entablature system. This style of decoration is not however confined to blank arcades, but the open gallery of the Lombards is retained ; in one position indeed, namely when circulating immediately under the roof of the apse, it forms one of the most beautiful and characteristic features of the German Romanesque. The shafts are usually set two deep, an arrangement common also in Italy, and yet more so in the Saracenic buildings of Spain. It is manifestly derived from the use of two detached columns with their entablature for the support of an arch, as in St. Constan- tia at Rome. They occur in some of the cloisters of this style, of which several instances remain ; as at Laach, where, notwith- standing the western apse, they occupy the position of the ancient atrium ; and in the celebrated example at Zurich. The shafts in this last example are extremely curious, being very slender, but with their wide-spreading capitals quite out of pro- portion, though rendered necessary by the broad soffit of the arch. The German, like all other Romanesque styles, is rich in sur- face ornament, and that of a peculiar kind. There seem to be three kinds prevalent in Romanesque buildings ; animal figures, chiefly grotesque ; foliage and other vegetable details ; and that style of ornament which merely enriches, without representation of other objects, by means of the chevron and similar decorations. All these are common to all the forms of the style, but each of the three principal varieties of Romanesque would seem to have its favourite kind of enrichment, used to a greater extent, though by no means to the exclusion of the others. The first seems especi- ally to mark the Lombard Romanesque, the last the Norman ; the second, and decidedly the most graceful, that of Germany. Besides the beautiful capitals of its columns and vaulting-shafts, the deeply recessed doorways afford still greater scope for this kind of ornament. Not only are the capitals of the shafts thus richly adorned, but in some cases the shafts themselves ; and thus the whole jamb is sometimes covered with decorations in which, though others are not excluded, foliage is decidedly predominant. The arch itself is sometimes less decorated than the jambs, contrary to the practice of our own examples ; a heavy roll moulding is very common. These doorways have usually a tympanum, OF THE EARLY ROMANESQUE OF IRELAND. 195 either enriched with the same kind of ornament, or, more com- monly and appropriately, containing a sculptured group. I men- tioned above the prominence which the arch obtained over the square opening, even in Italian doorways. In the German build- ings, as in our own, the whole is fused together ; the arch is not placed over the square aperture, but the tympanum is inserted beneath the arch. The Romanesque of Germany is a form which deserves most attentive consideration, if it were only from the elaborate man- ner in which it has been treated by Dr. Whewell, and still more from the high praise which it has received from so judicious an observer as Mr. Petit, who manifestly considers this German style as the form of Romanesque most nearly approaching to perfection. Certainly it is the only form which can be put into any competition with the Norman of England and Northern France. But, before comparing these two noblest forms of the style, our course will naturally lead us to an English form of Romanesque, earlier, ruder, and rarer than that on which the burthen of competition with that of our foreign brethren must rest ; to the buildings of the free and comparatively isolated days of Teuto- nic independence in England, before the establishment of the Romanized Norman had introduced a new influence into our language, manners, government, and art. And even before we fully enter on the disputed question of Anglo-Saxon architecture, it will be necessary to make a digression to another form, a field of the greatest interest but just opened to us, which, though having no essential connection with this point of the argument, affords a valuable collateral support to the views which I shall have to defend with regard to the erections of our Saxon forefathers. CHAPTER IX. OF TIIF, EARLY ROMANESQUE OF IRELAND. While other inquirers into the architecture and antiquities of the earlier days of Christianity have investigated every country o2 196 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. in which temples have been reared to the service of our religion ; while nearly all the magnificent cathedrals and abbeys of Europe have been subjected to such minute investigation, that without leaving our own fire-side, we may bring before us, with nearly all the vividness of personal knowledge, the spires of Burgos and the domes of Byzantium, the basilicas of Italy and the log- churches of Norway ; one patient, enterprizing, and zealous in- quirer has by his own single exertions opened to us a field hitherto untrodden, and the glory of whose discovery is wholly his own. The magnificent volume of Mr. Petric on the Architec- ture of Ireland forms indeed an epoch in ecclesiological research ; it brings the Church and her material fabrics before us in a new garb ; one less gorgeous indeed than that which we are used to contemplate ; one not gleaming with the gold of Tartessus, or the jewels of the Eastern land, but unsoiled by the touch of the world, severely arrayed in the sterner holiness of her earliest days, in all the immaculate whiteness of her virgin purity. In that far island of the west, in whose air the Roman eagle never fluttered, and from whose shore no captive was dragged to en- rich a Caesar's triumph with his combats and his agonies, we have most vividly brought before us the estate of the Church when her temples were but the damp cave or the rude hut, when she dwelt not as yet in the halls of the patrician and the palace of the emperor, and when the outcry of a populace, or the frown of a tyrant, hurried away her Pontiffs from their lowly thrones and altars to seal their witness in the reeking amphitheatre. These buildings, themselves of the most venerable antiquity, the earliest existing Christian temples in northern Europe, are the representatives of others more venerable still ; they derived not their origin from the gorgeous basilicas of Constantine and Theodosius, but in them we behold the direct offspring of the lowly temples of the days of persecution, the humble shrines where Cyprian bent in worship, and which Valerian and Diocle- tian swept from off the earth. " It is, indeed," says Mr. Petrie, " by no means improbable, that the severe simplicity, as well as the uniformity of plan and size, which usually characterizes our early churches, was less the result of the poverty or ignorance of their founders than of their choice, originating in the spirit of their faith, or a veneration for OF THE EARLY ROMANESQUE OF IRELAND. 197 some model given to them by their first teachers ; for that the earliest Christian churches on the continent before the time of Constantine were, like these, small and unadorned, there is no reason to doubt." And this position seems to be strongly cor- roborated by the fact that the apse is unknown, which manifestly points to a type anterior to the basilican model, as otherwise we can hardly account for the omission of that characteristic and almost universal feature. The type of an early Irish church is something quite peculiar to itself ; it is a simple quadrangular chamber, entered by a single doorway at the west end, and in the larger churches connected by an arch with another chamber to the east forming the chancel. Such is the form preserved with little change down to the Nor- man invasion, and always used to the exclusion of the circular, octagonal, and cruciform plans to be found in other countries. The small size of many of them appears at first sight almost in- credible, sixty feet being the greatest length, and some being under thirty. Hence most probably, as this small size was fixed by a canon attributed to St. Patrick, arose the custom of erecting numerous small churches near together, when larger accommodation was required, instead of building a single large one. Though the apse does not occur, the altar-arrangements are identical in principle with those of the apsidal basilica, as Mr. Petrie has found in some examples a bench-table along the east wall, and the altar detached in front. These ante-Norman churches readily resolve themselves, when architecturally considered, into two classes ; the very rude and early structures, some of them dating from the fifth century, which can scarcely be said to belong to any definite style, and the later and more enriched ones which may claim a place, and very far from a contemptible one, among the many ramifications of the great Romanesque family. The peculiar stamp impressed on them by the traditions of the Irish Church hinders indeed the higher beauties of outline and proportion, and the majesty of great size and height; but whatever richness of detail was allowed by the nature of the fabric is found in a degree surpassed by the Romanesque of no other country. The first impression conveyed by the contemplation of Mr. Petrie's specimens of the first class, is one which he himself not 198 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. unfrcqucntly refers to, the remarkable similarity between these structures and the Pelasgian remains in Greece. The inclining iambs of many of the doorways transport us at once from St. Patrick and St. Kevin to the acropolis of Hercules and the tomb of Agamemnon. There is however no reason to suppose that the coincidence is more than accidental ; it is simply the square-headed doorway in an unornamented form, and we have seen that doorways were invariably square-headed in Italy till the days of Theodoric. Other doorways have an arched head, with or without imposts ; with one exception, they are not re- cessed, and are quite plain, excepting in some cases a plain torus moulding down the jambs. Others have only an arch of con- struction above the flat lintel, but as the space is filled in with several stones, it can hardly aspire to the name of a tympanum. The triangular-headed doorway does not occur in these early times, the only two instances discovered by Mr. Petrie being referred by him to as late a period as the twelfth century. The windows however, which are very small, with only an internal splay, and which appear to have been in no instance glazed, are very frequently of that form, being constructed of two inclining stones. They often however have square or round heads, the latter being the almost invariable form of the eastern windows. Of an equally plain character, though very well wrought, are the chancel arches, when they occur. They are always semicircular, and usually spring from inclining jambs without any decorative impost. The roofs are high-pitched; in the churches furnished with distinct chancels, they were usually of timber ; but the chancels were sometimes covered with an inclining roof wholly of stone, which appears to have been the usual covering of the smaller churches. Long and short work is common, but in its usual position in the Saxon buildings of England, the quoins of the walls, it is comparatively rare, being more commonly found in the sides of doorways and windows, A flat pilaster is also often found at the angles, which is sometimes continued along the gable. But still more interesting and important in the history of ar- chitecture is the fact, distinctly proved by historical testimonies collected and sifted with the most extensive and patient learning, OF THE EARLY ROMANESQUE OF IRELAND. 199 that an ornamented Romanesque 1 style existed in Ireland anterior to the eleventh century, one moreover which exhibited many of the identical decorations which some of our archseologians would fain make us believe were hardly known till the twelfth. This style, which seems to have been in use from a period anterior to the ninth down to the twelfth century, is by no means identical with our Norman, although strongly resembling it in general cha- racter. But even after the introduction of the enriched style, the ancient Irish builders still did not venture to depart from the small dimensions and simple ground plan which had the prescriptive authority of their earliest traditions. The smallest and rudest village churches of England ordinarily sur- pass in size and complication of plan even the cathedrals of primitive Ireland. Few positions are afforded for the introduc- tion of ornament, but in those few, namely the chancel arches, doors, and windows, every kind of decoration known to the ar- chitect was lavished with an unsparing hand. This style of ornament, as far as mere surface decoration goes, is not very different from the Norman ; the chevron and other ornaments of that style are common, and there is abundance of that inter- mixture of animal figures with basket, fret, and scroll work, which appears common to all early northern architecture. Some forms however occur which are not commonly seen in Norman archi- tecture, though not differing greatly from it in principle. The jambs for instance are treated in a manner by no means excluded from that style, but certainly not characteristic of it. An enriched Norman jamb, like a Lombard or German one, generally presents a scries of shafts, standing boldly out from the jamb, crowned with their own capitals, and supported by dis- tinct and bold bases. In the richest Irish archways, shafts are the exception, and, when they occur, arc far more massive than is usual in other forms of Romanesque. In most cases each order of the arch rests on a jamb, which instead of having shafts at- tached, is itself channelled into bowtels of little projection. These very often have no pretension at all to the character of a shaft, and, even when they have, present but little boldness of projection, and of course there arc several of these to a space 1 Sec especially p. 23G of Mr. Pctrie's work. 200 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. which in the other arrangement would be occupied by a single shaft. These are united under a single capital, or rather entab- lature, the most prevalent ornament of which is a human head at the angle, which Mr.Petrie aptly compares to the Isis-headed capi- tal of Egyptian architecture. These groups of bowtels are finished at the bottom with what must be in courtesy called a base, though seldom preserving much resemblance to the bases of regular shafts, except where actual shafts are intermingled. These jambs seem to be a transitional stage between the enrichment of the jambs of a square doorway, and the employment of actual shafts. They are accidentally more advanced than the latter, having manifestly more continuity with the arch mouldings ; and the assemblage of small members of little projection under a single architrave meets with its parallel even in the latest days of Gothic. It should not be omitted that the inclination of the jambs, charac- teristic of the earliest Irish buildings, is also continued in the more enriched style. The mouldings of the arch, which appears to be always semi- circular, are, singularly enough, far more affected with roll and other sectional mouldings than is usual in early Norman work, a peculiarity which they share with the Saxon remains in Eng- land. These circumstances seem, among many others, to point out both the Irish and Anglo-Saxon styles as distinct varieties of Romanesque, having their own independent developments. The surface ornaments of Norman or similar character are usually neither so boldly worked as in England, nor so completely extended over the whole arch, being often confined to the label. One of the most curious, as w r ell as the nearest approach to Nor- man work, of the numerous examples given by Mr. Petrie, is the round window in the church of Rahin or Ptathain, in the King's County, which lights a chamber above the chancel. Though at- tributed by Mr. Petrie to so early a period as the eighth century, it is richly adorned with the chevron and bead mouldings, though carved in very low relief. There can be little doubt that it is, as he says, " not only the most curious of its kind remaining in the British isles, but also the most ancient." But contemporary with the prevalence of Norman architecture in England, we find it introduced into Ireland also. The build- ings of the eleventh and twelfth centuries are quite distinct from OF THE EARLY ROMANESQUE OF IRELAND. 201 the earlier ones, and exhibit the Norman system in all its fulness, differing only in some trifling peculiarities, such as are found in the contemporary buildings of different districts. Cormac's Chapel on the rock of Cashel, of which a circumstantial account, with numerous illustrations of all its principal details, is supplied by Mr. Petrie, is a manifest proof of this, and might take its place by the side of Iffley and Barfreston as a specimen of a rich Norman building on a small scale. We have here elaborate ornamental arcades, a groined chancel, rich doorways with sculp- tured tympana. Perhaps some traces of the earlier styles may be here and there discerned ; and the use of square pilasters for shafts in some of the blank arcades, and of small shafts without arches as an exterior decoration, may be noticed as singularities ; but the former is sometimes the case in Norman buildings, and the latter we have seen occurring both in Lombard and German churches. Besides the churches, many other buildings of equal antiquity and similar architecture remain in Ireland, especially small ora- tories, and houses supposed in many cases to be the dwelling- places of the earliest saints. But the most interesting arc the famous round towers, on which so much fanciful and ingenious speculation has been wasted. These Mr. Petrie convincingly shows to be simply detached campaniles, though also used, as church towers often were in all parts, and would especially be in a rude unsettled country like Ireland, for many other purposes connected with the Church, as beacons and as places for refuge in case of a sudden assault. They are never found apart from churches, they frequently possess Christian symbols, and their architecture always corresponds with that of the churches of their own date, namely, according to Mr. Petrie, from the sixth to the twelfth centuries. After his learned, diligent, and judi- cious investigations, the question may be considered as entirely set at rest, and the theories of their Danish, Phoenician, or Buddhist origin consigned to oblivion. An Irish round tower is a tall, thin structure, proportionally taller and thinner even than an Italian campanile, and covered with a low conical capping. The doorways arc placed at a consi- derable height, thereby showing that the towers were intended for defence, on the same principle by which many English steeples, 302 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. especially when designed for similar uses, have no external entrance. I have perhaps treated these early Irish remains at greater length than their intrinsic merit would claim in a general history of architecture. But the field is so new and so interesting, and there is such a fascination about Mr. Petrie's book, that it would have been difficult to dismiss the subject hastily. And they will besides be found, as I hope to show in the next chapter, to throw much light upon the disputed question of Saxon and Norman architecture in England. CHAPTER X. OF THE EARLY ROMANESQUE OF ENGLAND, OR ANGLO-SAXON STYLE. "Within the memory of man every ancient structure in England which exhibited round arches was indiscriminately considered as Saxon ; and the round and the pointed arch were respectively distinguished as Saxon and Gothic. Writers who had progressed somewhat further in such inquiries than was usual in their age, soon discovered that many of these edifices were shown by do- cumentary evidence to be posterior to the Norman Conquest ; but even these had the old theory so embedded in their minds as to consider these as being still examples of the Saxon style, supposing that the style employed by the vanquished was con- tinued or imitated by the new possessors of our island. Thus an inquirer, perhaps the most laborious, acute, and reverential of his time, the late Bishop Milner, speaks of the "heavy Saxon pillar " as retained in St. Cross ; and similar language is em- ployed by one who did more than any other to revive a feeling for the poetry of ancient architecture, as of every other feature of the middle age : "In Saxon strength that abbey frowned On massive arches, broad and round." This theory, fascinating as it must be to the mind of every true- OF ANGLO-SAXON ARCHITECTURE. 203 hearted Englishman, is now completely exploded, and we need not stop to show that by far the greater proportion of our Ro- manesque edifices not only belong historically to a period sub- sequent to the Conquest, but are specimens of a style which is most accurately and appropriately known as Norman. But some writers, not satisfied with this undoubted fact, seem animated with a desire to prove, in the teeth of all probability and all evidence, that every fragment of Saxon architecture has been swept from the earth, or rather that some physical or moral incapacity prevented our Saxon forefathers from putting stone and mortar together. The event of the field of Senlac is held to have introduced, by some mystic influence, a previously unknown power of constructing buildings into the British Isles ; sometimes they seem inclined to add, into the whole of Europe. The year 1066 becomes an archonship of Eucleides, before which things cither existed not or may not be remembered ; the slightest hint that ought can have survived causes a kind of uneasiness to the propounders of these theories ; theories " which," to apply the words of one of the strongest impugncrs of Saxon capability of building, " were founded on little else than their own preconceived ideas of what Saxon architecture ought to be," 1 namely a mem- ber of the important class known by some logicians as oux oWa. It is an objection frequently made by this class of writers that it is impossible to prove the existence of any Saxon remains ; that is, to bring documentary evidence of their erection at a cer- tain period. Now in the first place this assertion is by no means universally true. In several cases where supposed Saxon build- ings exist, history mentions the erection of some structure at a corresponding time, which is as much evidence as is generally to be had for the date of any ancient building whatever. But this kind of objection might be brought with equal force against all classifications of this kind. It is not to be supposed that Mr. Hickman had documentary evidence for the date of every village doorway or window which he referred to the thirteenth, four- teenth, or fifteenth century. He simply observed certain pecu- liarities in buildings of one ascertained date, and concluded, naturally and rightly, that other structures in which he observed 1 Glossary, Art. Saxon Architecture, note 1. 20-1' HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. the same peculiarities were of the same date. All architectural investigations must be based on inductions of this kind, or we shall be involved in the most inextricable uncertainty. The facts arc simply these. A number of buildings of a par- ticular kind are found, by evidence, to have been erected in the eleventh and twelfth centuries ; and a further number of the same kind arc naturally concluded to be of the same date. Another class is found, differing from these in several respects, which cannot be later, (if only because the forms of all the later periods arc equally well known,) and which are therefore natu- rally concluded to be earlier. History tells us that some struc- tures were erected at this earlier period, which must either be those in question, or else have utterly vanished from the earth ; an assumption as gratuitous as to suppose all the recorded struc- tures of any other period to have been universally destroyed, and to refer the existing buildings of that epoch to some earlier or later time. The Norman date and the Norman style are well under- stood ; these buildings are not Norman in style ; why persist in referring them to a Norman date, rather than to a Celtic, a Roman, a Decorated, or a Cinque-cento ? To any one who at- tentively considers the question without prejudice, it must be clear, not only that buildings still exist which were erected during the Saxon period, but that an Anglo-Saxon style does exist, marked by its own peculiar features, and as distinct from the Nor- man as from any other form of Romanesque. Fresh instances are almost daily added to the list of such buildings, and it would seem probable that much more of what is so hastily and arbitra- rily assumed to be Norman may really belong to the days of the Saxon saints. The researches of Mr. Petrie into the antiquities of Ireland have of course thrown a very great corroborative light upon the sub- ject. We there see a distinct, and very far from rude, style ex- isting in that country long before the Norman era ; we find, among other characters totally different, not a few of those fea- tures and ornaments which arc arbitrarily supposed to be infalli- ble marks of a Norman date. We can hardly suppose that structures reared by the great monarchs of our Saxon days, the Emperors of all Britain, were inferior to those erected by a petty prmce of Ireland ; and we have here demonstrative proof, were OF ANGLO-SAXON ARCHITECTURE. 205 any required, that the chevron and other similar ornaments arc not necessarily a sign of date later than the Conquest. The an- tecedent objection, utterly unfounded and unreasonable as it was, is thus demonstratively overthrown. The Saxon churches, we are told, were small and insignificant, an argument which in it- self proves nothing, and is again met by the analogy of the sister island ; the Irish churches were still smaller and more insignificant; yet they exist and present distinctive features. That they were invariably, or even usually, of wood is a mere assertion without proof; to collect instances of such does but prove, what no one ever doubted, that churches were occasionally built of wood at all times, and that the practice was more fre- quent during the Saxon period than afterwards. 1 And to add to actual evidence an argumentum ad reverentiam of no small force, it is only necessary to refer to the distinct avowal of an author certainly not undervalued by antiquaries of this class, Professor Willis, who has incontrovertibly shown that large Saxon churches did exist, built on the same general type as those reared in sub- sequent ages, and farther gives a full description, gathered from ancient records, of the main features exhibited by the Metro- politan church of St. Dunstan and St. Alphege. 2 But as these facts scarcely required external argument, Mr. Petrie's discoveries are more valuable as showing that orna- mental work, and the particular kinds of enrichment which wc arbitrarily call Norman, are not necessarily a mark of a date sub- sequent to the Conquest. A wide field is thus open for adding to our stock of existing Saxon remains, if this, hitherto consi- dered an inviolable restriction, be removed. And I may venture to state that I had been myself inclined to attribute a Saxon date to several such instances before the appearance of Mr. Petrie's work exhibited those positive proofs of analogous cases which have of course greatly confirmed me in such a supposition.' 5 See this subject well treated in collected by Mr. Poole, in the a paper on Wooden Churches in second and third Chapters of his the Ecclesiologist for August, 1848. recently published History of Eccle- 2 See the second Chapter of his siastical Architecture in England. History of Canterbury Cathedral, 3 " We shall be rather disposed and his Winchester, p. 34. A mass to attribute some part of what is of information with regard to other usually called Norman work, from Anglo-Saxon buildings has been the great skill it evinces, to the 20(J HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. We may then venture, in opposition to these purely destructive theories, to assume thccxistencc of Saxon buildings as a certain fact; and an examination will show that they were erected in a style possessing totally distinct characters of its own. Let us attend to a hint cursorily thrown out by a really acute and philosophical observer, into whose plan a minute examination of the contro- versy did not enter. " What may be the extent of Saxon remains in England will probably remain a question among antiquaries. If the style differed essentially from the Norman, it might be considered an offset from the German Romanesque ; but I am not aware of anything that leads us to suppose it ever acquired the purity and marked character of the latter." 1 Whether it be in historical truth an actual offset from the German Roman- esque may be questioned, as it was more probably a direct Italian importation, and so would rather be a sister than a daughter. At the same time it can hardly be doubted that it belongs to the same family as the Romanesque of Lombardy and Germany, rather than to the other forms of Byzantine, Proven gal, or Norm an. In investigating these most interesting questions, it must be borne in mind that no inquiry in the whole history of architec- ture is attended with greater difficulty, on account of the pau- city and rudeness of existing examples. No perfect Saxon Cathedral or Abbey remains to bear witness to the effect of the style in those cases where richness and beauty were mostly to be expected ; only a few portions, small and in several cases un- certain, are to be found scattered among our Minsters ; we are left to derive our knowledge of our most truly national architec- ture from the rude, patched, and mutilated examples afforded by obscure parish-churches, which owe doubtless to their poverty and obscurity the preservation of their most valuable portions. It will be at once seen how difficult it is to determine the princi- ples and features of an architectural style from such examples as these, possibly among the rudest of their own class. And this at once accounts for the great difference in point of orna- ment and general merit of execution apparent between the Irish and the Saxon remains ; among the former we have the relics Saxons, than to deny them the be- to any existing edifice. Poole, ut nefit of any evidence which may supra, p. 69. seem to assign an ante-Norman date ' Petit, i. 99. OF ANGLO-SAXON ARCHITECTURE. 207 of the most enriched and most dignified churches of the country, though from a peculiar tradition even these were kept of small size. Hence we can judge of this style in its perfection, which in the case of our own Saxon we cannot do, as it would be manifestly unfair to argue from the rugged structures of the hamlet that nothing better was to be found in the Cathedral and the mitred Abbey. And it is indeed remarkable that a style of which so few and so rude examples alone remain, should still have such an entirely distinct character, as to render them recog- nizable at the first glance. And we may here meet a sophism in which the opponents of the Saxon theory are extremely fond of indulging, namely that not one of the features supposed to mark the style are absolutely peculiar to it. The balusters 1 at St. Albany's, and any example of a triangular-headed opening, or of long and short work, which they can rake up at any other date, are pointed out with an almost childish glee, as irrefragable arguments that no building anterior to A.D. 1066 can possibly exist. As if this process could not be applied to any other style whatsoever. An author intent on demolishing Perpendicular might proceed with equal success ; the four-centred arch proves nothing, being found in work of the thirteenth century in Stanwick church and in Oxford Cathe- dral ; the square label over the arch is one of the commonest features of Arabian architecture ; the low gable is common to New College Chapel and the Temple of Theseus ; and a hun- dred other fallacies might be raised, which it requires no great acquaintance with the " Solutio Sophismatum" to unravel. Any one but an arclueologian knows that there is an indescribable something about buildings, as about everything else, call it air, character, what you please, which stamps their style and date better than all the technicalities from one end of the Glossary to the 1 I had always looked on St. work on the Ahhey just published by Alban's as in some sense a Saxon the Messrs. Buckler, they incline to church built after the Conquest, the belief that many of its features just as Waltham and Westminster are even chronologically Saxon, and were Norman churches built before ; that the church for which Abbot the retention of a few Saxon forms, Frederick braved the wrath of the where most of the workmen at least Conqueror was not utterly swept were doubtless English, being re- away by the contumelious stranger ally no difficulty. In the elaborate who usurped his seat. 208 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. other. And notwithstanding the astonishing fact that "the absence of buttresses is no evidence of date j buildings of all nges are to be found without them -," 1 the Anglo-Saxon unbut- trcsscd tower has as distinct and peculiar a character of its own as any class of edifices in the world, and one which no accurate eye can confound with the equally unbuttresscd tower often found of Norman, or even of later, date. The internal arrangement of the Saxon churches is the point with regard to which we have the smallest store of examples to guide us. As far however as we can judge, they followed the usual type of the Latin Church, the chancel, nave, and aisles, with their arcades and clerestory ; but the apse, though not excluded, is not of frequent occurrence. The piers seem to have been square ; such is the case in the very rude and early church of Brixworth, the most ancient parts of which, (for two ante-Norman dates may be distinctly traced,) exhibit the Saxon Romanesque in its most primitive condition. The piers here are gigantic masses, chiefly of lloman brick, left perfectly square, with only a rude impost, and supporting arches of the same construction. The other arches of the same date (circ. 680,) throughout the church are of similar character. St. Michael's at St. Alban's, a much later structure, being attributed by Mr. Bloxam to A.D. 940, has also plain square piers, with a heavy impost ; but these, as well as the arches, are chamfered at the edges. Pier arches of Anglo-Saxon date are very rare, but chancel and belfry arches are not uncommon, and among several diversities preserve one general character, having the semicircular arch and rectangular pier. The impost is commonly strongly marked, plain and very heavy, being a square block, with the lower edge sometimes left plain, sometimes chamfered. Some- times more mouldings occur; and at Corhampton, and still more at Barnack, they are quite complicated, and are evidently rude imitations of classical architraves, bearing a most remark- able similarity to the doorway in the Palace of Theodoric. There is also a remarkable tendency to the employment of a heavy roll moulding both in the arch and jamb, in contradistinction to the square section of the early Norman. This has been remarked as a characteristic of the Irish Romanesque, but the Saxon spe- 1 Glossary, ut supra, Note N. OF ANGLO-SAXON ARCHITECTURE. 209 cimens are greatly deficient in the richness and elegance of the examples of the sister island. Those seem to betoken a style which had really developed towards Gothic faster than those of other nations ; here they are merely rude excrescences: it is not so much that the arch is channelled into mouldings as that these unsightly rolls are attached to it ; it is in fact the application to the arch of the same principle by which the shaft is attached to the jamb ; though in this case in a very rude form. The Saxon arch, even though, as at Wittering, it may present an actual hollow, does not, in its general effect, exhibit any approximation to verticality. A most valuable example of this style is to be found in the lantern arches of the ancient cathedral church of Stow, in Lincolnshire, assigned by Mr. Atkinson, in his paper read before the Lincolnshire Society, to as early a period as 678, and which he shows must be earlier than 870. The piers are square, with the usual heavy impost, interrupted by a huge bowtel, attached to the external faces, but without shaft or capital ; three smaller rolls are attached to the arch, which is of one order. This church, which exhibits 1 four Romanesque dates, three of them anterior to the Conquest, is most valuable, as containing authen- tic portions of a Saxon minster, and showing how widely re- moved the architecture of such a church, even at that early period, was from the rugged masonry of Brixworth. The genuine jamb-shaft hardly occurs in Saxon architecture, except in the tower arch at Sompting, where a sub-shaft, with capital and base, supports the heavy roll attached to the soffit, which is in fact a continuation of the shaft, interrupted only by its capital. This last portion is adorned with rude foliage, interrupt- ing a series of scrolls on the impost of the arch, like a frieze. The air of the whole is rather Irish than Anglo-Saxon. An exception to the rule of square piers occurs in the crypt under Repton church. Yet we here have in the " slender" 2 column a resemblance to the Lombard style, with its light and lofty subterranean chapels, rather than to the heavy proportions of the Norman crypt. 1 Here, as in many other cases, Brigstock to the same style as the we find Anglo-Saxon and Norman north arcade ? No sophism about work side by side, as if purposely to " early " and " late " can evade the show the diversity. AVlio could difficulty, ever attribute the belfry arch at liloxam, p. 71, seventh ed. 210 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. But there is a mode of treating arches, and their jambs, both constructive and decorative, at once more frequent and more characteristic of the style; that namely of facing them with a kind of Hat rib of very small projection. This is evidently analogous to those vertical strips with which the Saxon architects delighted to cover their churches, and which form one of their chief sources of ornament, if a series of flat, narrow, square-edged projections can deserve the name. These strips, pilaster-strips as they may be called, though hardly answering Dr. "YVhewell's definition of that term, seem to take the place of shafts as external decorations; they are to the decorative shaft what the rectangular pier is to the co- lumn, and are thus quite in harmony with the other features of the style. And this view is confirmed by those at the angles of Somp- ting tower being treated as genuine pilasters with capitals, and by actual shafts occurring in juxtaposition with them. Connected with the treatment of jambs is the manner in which both they and the quoins of buildings were frequently, though far from universally, treated in this style. I allude to stones placed alternately in a horizontal and a vertical position, known as long-and- short work; this is evidently a wooden construction imitated in stone. Doorways are mostly round-headed; that at Brixworth is of brick, as rude as the remainder of that wonderful, but most un- sightly church. This example has no attempt at decollation what- ever, but in others we find the characteristic impost, and the still more characteristic flat rib. Some are of two orders, as at Barton-on-Humber, and at Wenden, Essex. The latter, which is figured by Mr. Paley, 1 has its arch of brick, and has a tym- panum perfectly plain. He gives another 2 from Little Abingdon, Cambridgeshire, where the impost is ornamented with the star and billet mouldings. The substitute for the arch, composed of two inclined stones, which we have seen occasionally occurring in other early forms of Romanesque, is also much used in this style. It is sometimes employed for the smaller and simpler doorways, in which the impost and rib often occur. Windows also are sometimes of this last form, as the double one atDeerhurst,where the quasi-arches, which have the characteristic rib, are divided by a massive fluted pilaster, with a very heavy impost, moulded more like a rude architrave ; this impost and the 1 Gothic Architecture, p. 202. 2 Ditto, p. 38. OF ANGLO-SAXON ARCHITECTURE. 211 fluting are also repeated on the jambs. Some of the smaller win- dows, as at the tower at Brixworth, are square-headed, or rather shapeless; but the head is usually round, though sometimes of al- most incredible rudeness. A feature peculiar to the style, but by no means universal in it, is the double splay, both internal and exter- nal. The arches and jambs of windows are treated in the manner usual in the style for arched openings ; some of those at Sompting have a roll moulding running all round, without any impost. But the most characteristic window of the style is that which so frequently occurs in belfries, the compound window divided by a shaft ; this is usually double, but at Earl's Barton as many as five occur together. The shaft is in some examples a complete baluster ; the rudest example of this appears to be that at Monks- wearmouth, engraved by Mr. Bloxam, where the baluster has but a single swell, and has no moulding in any part. Most commonly however they have a double or triple swell, and are encircled by bands ; the capitals being formed in a similar man- ner. Sometimes again, as in Wyckham church, Berks, the shaft is not a baluster, but a genuine pillar of short proportion, but with a capital of this kind. In others, which appear to be of later date, the shafts quite lose the character of balusters, are sometimes much longer, and have rude capitals more nearly approaching the Norman, as at St. Mary-le-Wigford 1 and St. Peter-le-Gowts, in Lincoln, and at Hale, near Heckington. These shafts or balusters support a long heavy impost, running nearly through the thickness of the wall, and consequently overlapping the shaft on both sides; this impost ought really to be considered as an entablature, as the shaft is often furnished with a distinct abacus beneath. The impost occurs again on the jambs, which never have any shaft attached. The arches are round, usually quite plain, without even the pilaster-strip of the style. Almost equally plain are the jambs, which are sometimes, but by no means always, constructed of long-and-short work. At St. Mary-le-Wigford, the arches have a very plain and simple chevron. All these windows possess a very marked expression, 1 When this chapter was written, they have been since mentioned in these two churches had not, to the the Hand-book of Ecclesiology. best of my knowledge, been re- Hale I have never seen noticed, marked as containing Saxon work; 212 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. and that one totally different from the familiar type of the Nor- man double belfry window ; they are much ruder, it is true, but the difference is not that they are ruder specimens of the same cha- racter ; they have an entirely different character of their own. It may be remarked that the genuine containing arch, usually found over a Norman double window, is hardly to be seen in the Saxon style, unless we except those at Monkswearmouth, and St. Mary Junior, York, which are surmounted by a flat semicircular strip. The towers in which these windows occur are by far the most remarkable and characteristic features of the style, and the only ones which give us much opportunity of judging of its general effect. They have a very marked character, totally distinct from that of their Norman successors. The latter, low, heavy, mas- sive, are essentially designed to occupy the centre of a church, and never appear to so much advantage elsewhere. Many Saxon towers were central, and one or two such still remain ; in min- sters and other large churches it was doubtless, no less than in after ages, the ordinary position. But the genuine type of the parochial Saxon tower, as transmitted to us in extant exam- ples, is totally different, and is at once distinguishable by its far superior height. In fact the Norman tower is the legitimate suc- cessor of the cupola, 1 the Saxon is a rude imitation of the Italian campanile. The extant examples present many differences among themselves, some rising from the ground without so much as a string-course, others tapering in stages, and admitting of different degrees of ornament. Still no one can fail to recognize the hard, unmistakeable outline of the tall, unbuttressed Saxon tower ; it possesses a barbaric grandeur altogether its own, and breathes in its fulness the spirit of England's ancient days of freedom and iso- lation. Earl's Barton is evidently loaded with every species of decoration known to the architect, and the effect of plainer ex- amples is always striking, both from the severity of the style, and from their usually faultless proportions. 2 The view of the city of Lincoln from the neighbourhood of the Minster is one which should raise a thrill of patriotism in the heart of every genuine Englishman; the prominent objects being the tall Saxon steeples 1 See above, p. 189. has displaced the original belfry I cannot help suspecting that windows; otherwise it would be at Barnack the later octagonal stage quite anomalous. OP ANGLO-SAXON ARCHITECTURE. 213 of St. Mary's and St. Peter's, with their sharp outlines cutting through the sky, and soaring as commandingly over the neigh- bouring buildings as if no Norman king or prelate had ever held sway over the race that bade them rise. These two, with the ex- ception of some rude sculpture at St. Peter's, 1 are without any attempt at enrichment, as are many others, as St. Michael's at Oxford, St. Benet's at Cambridge, Hale, and Dunham Magna, figured in the Glossary. This last is a central tower, but has quite the air of a western one, and is far taller than Norman steeples usually are in its position ; it is not divided by strings, but ap- pears to batter from the ground. But many are enriched with the pilaster-strips and arcades. Such is the case at Stowe, Northamp- tonshire, a tower more altered by the insertion of windows than is usual, as these venerable relics would almost seem to have been treated with a religious reverence for their age and associations, not common in the best days of church building. Barton on the Humber is enriched to a much greater extent than Stowe with these strips and straight-lined arcades. But foremost among all our Anglo-Saxon monuments must rank the splendid tower of Earl's Barton ; the decorations are here so numerous, and in their way so elaborate, as to produce an effect of rude magnificence which can hardly be surpassed. Both the round and the straight-sided arch occur in the decorative arcades ; and there are some curious examples of decorative segmental arches on balusters, over small cruciform openings. The bold long-and-short work, the strongly marked strings, the gradual tapering of the tower itself, the in- terlacing of the pilaster-strips, the heavy, solemn belfry windows, the west doorway, one of the finest of the style, with its cavern-like recess, all combine to give this steeple, amid the utter rudeness of its architecture, a striking and even awful character; even the graceful loveliness of its neighbour of Whiston commands less interest than the barbaric splendour of the stern old Saxon pile. Long may it stand to remind us of the days of our earliest freedom, of the long roll of our native saints and heroes, of holy bishops and no less holy princes, of Ina, and Alfred, and iEthelstan; of Bcdc, anil Dunstan, and martyred Alphcgc ; of Harold, and Gurth, and Leofwine ; of St. Wulfstan and Abbot Frederick ; of 1 In this tower a distinctively Nor- modern times, to the possible future man doorway has been erected in confusion of all history. 214 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. the battle-axe of Hereward and the martyr-block of Waltheof ; and all the glorious train of the " England of saints," ere yet she bowed beneath the yoke of a foreign lord. One question yet remains with regard to these towers; namely, as to their original finish. This is retained in one in- stance only, that at Sompting, which has a termination common in Germany, but excessively rare in English architecture of all dates, namely, a low quadrangular spire, with a gable over each face. In all the others a parapet of later date disguises the original finish. There does not however appear any reason to suppose that Sompting gives us the universal, or even usual, type of the capping of a Saxon steeple ; that building is so anomalous in other respects that it is hardly safe to argue from it, and we can scarcely suppose that terminations of this kind would have been so universally destroyed. The process is one quite differ- ent from the substitution of a parapet for a wooden capping or spire, and could not fail to leave perceptible traces on the tower. The composition of the whole tower, and especially the position of the belfry windows, must be different in a steeple of this description from one whose masonry is designed to have a horizontal finish. To lower the gables at Sompting would in- volve cutting through the upper windows, a process which cer- tainly has not been undergone by our other Saxon towers, which evidently retain the original proportion and elevation of their masonry. To judge from the analogy of contemporary build- ings on the continent, where cappings of all ages are so much more frequently preserved than in England, as well as from the representations in contemporary illuminations, we may suppose that they were usually covered with conical roofs or low spires of timber with dripping eaves ; a remark which may be extended to many of our Norman towers also, whose original capping has been tampered with as universally as in the case of their Saxon predecessors. Such are the Saxon buildings of England, a class which, from the lack of examples on a large scale, cannot be investigated with the same accuracy and completeness as the subsequent style, but which still possess a distinctive and strongly marked character of their own. The greatest points of distinction to be remarked in individual features are that Saxon architecture does not admit of the heavy cylindrical pier, nor, except in a single OP ANGLO-SAXON ARCHITECTURE. 215 anomalous instance, of the engaged shaft, and but very rarely of the arch of two orders. The division of the Romanesque styles according to the form of the pier, namely whether it is a rect- angular mass or a column, now recurs with advantage ; Saxon architecture is an example of the first class, Norman of the second. The Norman pier is either itself actually columnar, or constructed on a principle which allows great predominance to the columnar element, each order of the arch resting on its own shaft set in the angles of the rectangular mass. The Saxon arch is usually of one order, and, as well as its support, remains in its essence per- fectly rectangular, not itself channelled or divided, but simply having roll mouldings attached to its square surface. The single instance of the shaft is merely such a roll attached to a square mass, and furnished with a capital and base. This alone marks the style as constructed on a different principle from the Norman, and approximating nearer to the German Romanesque. The towers are far more Italian than Norman, both in their general concep- tion and iu their peculiar windows; 1 there can be little doubt to which branch of the Romanesque family the whole style belongs. But the style of ornament is its own, and is doubtless owing to the imitation in stone of forms previously employed in wooden erections. The long-and-short work evidently comes from this source ; the use of the straight-sided arch, though the form oc- curs in styles of other derivation, may well have the same origin ; the baluster looks like something originally turned in wood; the peculiar pilaster-strips are just what might be expected in a wooden structure, an origin which docs not preclude even direct imitation from the genuine pilasters and shafts of the foreign styles. A Saxon tower, in short, is an Italian campanile copied in timber, and then turned into stone. When we consider that the period over which the existing Saxon remains are scattered is one of greater extent than the whole duration of Gothic architecture, it is naturally to be ex- pected that many changes and diversities should take place in a style of such long continuance. Had we sufficient examples of Saxon minsters, it is by no means improbable but that we might 1 "That the Saxons did imitate dows, which are directly borrowed Roman models is shown by the very from the Roman campanili." Wil- midwall shafts of the Saxon win- lis' Canterbury, p. 30. 216 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. be able to mark the changes, and their sequence, with at least as much accuracy as in the contemporary forms of Romanesque. But with the rude and scattered structures which are our only "uides, this is of course i impossible. Still differences of date maybe detected, and the consideration of the timber construction just mentioned may perhaps enable us to divide the structures of the Saxon period into three classes, the chronological order of which, although not the exact duration of each, seems to be ascertained with probability. We have then, first of all, the very rude and primitive struc- tures constructed out of Roman remains, and imitating the Roman manner of building, though in a way so uncouth as hardly to present any definite architectural forms. These, of course, not being erected in imitation of wooden buildings, exhibit no marks of the timber construction. Of this order Brixworth is the great type, a church which, there is every reason to believe, was built in the latter part of the seventh century. Buildings of this kind exhibit few or none of the Saxon peculiarities, and although erected or altered after the Saxon Conquest, should rather be considered as very degenerate Roman, than as genuine Saxon. During this period we may suppose that few original structures of masonry were reared, except where Roman remains supplied materials at hand, and in the case of cathedrals and other large churches, of which the earliest parts of Stow afford such a valu- able example. Even in minsters the style was often very rude, as is shown by the remains at Jarrow and Monkswearmouth late in the seventh century. Smaller churches were probably for the most part built of wood. In the second age of Saxon architecture, the most truly and purely Saxon, we find the use of masonry extended to churches of smaller consideration, which are naturally stone imi- tations of the earlier timber structures. This is the time most prolific of those distinctive peculiarities of Saxon buildings which so strongly mark their wooden origin ; it is the age of long-and-short work, pilaster-strips, balusters, and straight-sided arches. To this period belong most of the best-defined exam- ples of the style, and we may take the noble towers of the two Bartons as types of the Saxon style in its greatest richness and purity. OF ANGLO-SAXON ARCHITECTURE. 217 The last period seems to answer to what Mr. Paley, who has treated this question with great care, and brought forward seve- ral examples not before mentioned, calls "Ante-Norman," as distinguished from the " Early British or Saxon." I must con- fess that I do not quite see the force or propriety of the name. In a view simply chronological, Ante-Norman would of course include the antecedent style, and is improperly confined to this period ; and if it be meant to express a foreshadowing of Nor- man, either by anticipation, or by clumsy imitation anterior to the full introduction of the style, it may be doubted both whether the term clearly expresses its meaning, and whether the fact is sufficiently ascertained. This style certainly belongs to a period when there was an increasing connection between England and the Continent, and when a great denational- izing process seems to have gone on. On the other hand, the general character of the age, for at least a century pre- ceding the Conquest, was not such as to lead us to expect any great improvements in art. Nor do we see in this later Anglo-Saxon style much direct approximation to Norman archi- tecture. The general character and the main features remain the same as in the earlier style ; but the distinctive features of the timber construction 1 gradually sink into desuetude. This is only what was to be expected, as the habit of stone building be- came more confirmed, and the builders brought their ideas into closer conformity with the new material. Thus the long-and- 1 Since this was written, two ar- the different classes of Saxon build- ticles have appeared in the " Eccle- i"gs. If St. Wilfrid employed an siologist," for August and October, Italian architect, however much the 18*17, in which several Saxon towers inefficiency of the native workmen in the North of England are men- might interfere with the production tioned, which would appear, from of a good Lombard design, his pre- the descriptions given by the writer, sence would at least hinder the in- to belong to the class described in troduction of any " stone-carpen- this paragraph, but which he attri- try," and thus would accidentally butes to St. "Wilfrid in the seventh forestall the later buildings in which century. He does not bring any that construction had been worn very conclusive evidence for this out. At the same time the erec- opinion,but its admission would not tion of so many stone towers at so alter the general view that I have very early a period would seem to taken of the respective anticpuity of require some strong direct evidence. 218 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. short work and the pilaster-strips are now less frequent, and less prominent when they arc retained ; the straight-sided arch be- comes less usual, 1 and the baluster gives way to the shaft. It is only this last change, and the occasional introduction of the chevron and other similar ornaments, that can be considered as a direct approach to foreign Romanesque ; and the features in question are by no means distinctively Norman. Up to the days when the Normanizcd Confessor introduced the complete style of his adopted country, Saxon architecture remained, as before, pre-eminently flat and square, in complete opposition to Norman principles. Still it is clear that Saxon of this date, and very plain Norman work where the distinctive features of the style are not exhibited, must often be almost identical ; and I am inclined to believe, with Mr. Paley, that many plain, rude chancel and belfry arches, perhaps even other features, ordinarily considered as Norman, may, with equal or more probability, be referred to the later days of the Saxon period. 2 The arch with a plain broad soffit, rising from a mere impost without shafts or mouldings, is indeed often undoubtedly Norman, sometimes late Norman; but there seems no reason to suppose that it is invariably posterior to the Conquest, and in some cases it can hardly fail to be genuine Saxon. Thus the chancel arch of St. Peter-le-Gowts would at first sight be called plain Norman, but it exactly cor- responds with the clearly Saxon belfry arch, and may therefore be safely set down as part of the Saxon church. 3 Similar examples, which may very probably be Saxon, are of frequent occurrence. And doubtless further investigation may bring to light many re- mains of this style lurking among our ancient churches, even those of cathedral or conventual rank. Indeed it appears not 1 It occurs at Deerhurst, built in noticed as containing Saxon work, the time of Edward the Confessor. Ave have long-and-short work at the 2 This seems admitted by Rick- west end, and a chancel arch of this man, App. p. vi., new edition. kind with a rude chevron moulding ; 3 A Norman aisle of very differ- which I may mention as having been rnt character has been added, and the first instance which led me to since destroyed. At Pateshull in doubt whether that and similar or- Northamptonshire, a church which naments were indisputable signs of I do not remember to have seen Norman date. OF PROVENCAL ARCHITECTURE. 219 impossible that no less a church than the present cathedral of Ox- ford 1 may be, in the main portions of its fabric, a monument of the later days of Saxon architecture, notwithstanding the extensive metamorphosis which it underwent at the end of the twelfth cen- tury. If so, we have a complete minster, of comparatively small size, but of the fullest cathedral type, belonging to the early part of the eleventh century. It seems to have had arches of one order, with immensely broad soffits, rising from square piers. These would almost appear to have had shafts at the angles, which however in that position would scarcely detract more from the genuine square Saxon type than the attached roll mouldings. There was a clerestory and high-pitched roof, but no triforium. All this differs very much from the usual Norman forms, and the evidence between the conflicting statements which would assign it, some to the days of iEthelred II., others to those of Henry I. seem very evenly balanced. But without introducing these du- bious examples, we may rest assured, from what has been above adduced, that our Saxon forefathers had a national architecture of their own, differing essentially from the subsequent Norman, and having equal claims to be considered as a genuine and dis- tinct branch of the great Romanesque family. CHAPTER XI. OF THE ROMANESQUE OF SOUTHERN FRANCE, OR PROVENCAL STYLE. Southern Gaul, held so long under Roman sway, was probably almost as completely Romanized as Italy itself; and this charac- ter it preserved for many centuries. Far down into the middle ages this region was distinguished from the more purely Frankish provinces to the north by a difference in its language that espe- cially known as Romance its habits, and general system of civilization, all of them retaining a strong impress of the fallen empire. Hence no country afforded a wider scope for the develop- ment of a Romanesque style, and we shall accordingly find that 1 See the " Ecclesiologist " for February, 1847. OOQ HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. nowhere, except in Italy, did the direct influence of the antique so Ion" continue. And with the exception of some apparently Byzantine elements, the style appears quite indigenous ; it would not seem, like the early styles of Germany and England, to have been imported from Italy after classical rules had begun to be disregarded, but to have grown up on the soil, from imitation and adaptation of the Roman remains of the country, so many of which still remain to attest the wealth, civilization, and tho- roughly Romanized character of its ancient population. In this, as in most other countries, the ascertained structures of early date are but few, and most of the examples are as late as the eleventh and twelfth centuries. But their character is quite distinct from any other edifices of the same date ; their outline and their detail are alike their own, and the latter at least retains a much stronger classical tinge than is to be found in Norman, or German, or even pure Lombard structures. The nature of this classical element is very singular, and quite different from that pervading the architecture of Italy; the latter retains the forms and details of classic art by direct and formal imitation, by a distinct wish to adhere, or return, to an- cient precedent, and to withstand prevalent innovations. But in this Provencal style there is no such deliberate intention, but rather a working up of classical ideas, and clothing them with the spirit of the new forms and combinations which the pro- gress of art had developed. It is thus far analogous to cinque- cento, but with this important difference, that in the latter style there was a deliberate purpose to introduce a new and incongruous element, so that, as was to be expected, the effect is generally unsatisfactory ; here it is merely a vestige of former days clinging to the style, and adapting itself to its new re- quirements, probably without any formal intention either to innovate or to resist innovation : so that it is at least not more objectionable than any other Transition style. This cannot be better exemplified than in the church of St. Gilles in Languedoc figured in the Moyen Age Pittoresque. We have here three magnificent round-headed doorways, with tympana; the transom takes the complete form of an entablature, that of the central and larger doorway being continued along the wall till it meets the arches of the other two ; but these entab- OF PROVENCAL ARCHITECTURE. 221 latures are neither Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian, but Provencal ; rich indeed, and perfectly living with statuary, but of a form more adapted to the style than any of the regular orders would have allowed. These entablatures rest on columns, boldly de- tached from the wall, and of tolerably classical character. Behind, in the intermediate spaces, are other merely decorative entabla- tures, of a character perfectly barbarous to a Vitruvian eye, rest- ing on fluted pilasters, a translation of the blank arcade of the period into quasi-Grecian language. An Italian, wishing to intro- duce an entablature, would have made it the prominent feature, and thrown the arch into insignificance ; the Provencal architect, even in A.D. 111G, the date assigned to the building, had not quite cast the entablature aside, 1 but he clothed it in Romanesque form, and made it subordinate to the main design. This adaptation of classical notions runs through the whole style. The classical columns are not commonly employed as piers, the compound pier being found so much more appropriate to the style, but " pilasters are used in the interior, of so classical an appearance, that if these were not pretty universal, one should be tempted to believe them subsequent interpolations. They are fluted, sometimes with zig-zag flutes, or each decorated with arabesques or sculptured mouldings." 2 Again, there is a great tendency to retain the entablature, as in the doorways 3 just mentioned above. The use of shafts, sometimes real engaged columns of considerable size, to support external cornices, is far more frequent than elsewhere ; actual decorative colonnades often take the place of the small arcades of other styles ; and nowhere do we so commonly find the shafts set two deep, as in the cloisters of Aries and Aix, where an entablature, but of totally unclassical character, rests on the capitals of the small pillars. All these things point to an indigenous style, and to a feeling 1 In Bourges Cathedral is a door- ings on cacli side the central way with an entablature enriched shaft. with a decorative arcade. * This is very strongly shown in - Willis, Architecture of the the splendid front of St. Cross at Middle Ages, 152. Bordeaux, where ranges of pillars 3 These would seem to be the piled on each other, occur in the parents of the great French double utmost profusion. See the plate in doorways, with flat-headed open- the Moyen Age Monumental. ooo HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. with regard to classical art very different from blind imitation or retention ; it is an endeavour to retain certain forms which are felt to be graceful, and yet to keep them in their proper relation to others which it was felt must be predominant. It is a feeling far more refined and delicate than any that can be traced in the Re- naissance, or even in the Pisan school ; there is no affectation, no thrusting forward of the classical forms to the hindrance of the consistency of the Romanesque whole. The omission of the co- lumnar pier is a most remarkable instance ; no feature would have been so readily grasped by a mere common-place imitator ; yet it is surrendered, while fluted pilasters, which seldom occur in Romanesque buildings elsewhere, are retained in abundance. The architect preferred, cceteris paribus, a classical form, but not to the prejudice of general consistency. And in matters more purely of detail, the adaptation of the small decorative entabla- tures to the Romanesque style of ornament is still more curious ; a row of triglyphs would at once have struck the eye as incon- gruous, but an entablature covered with Romanesque sculpture, is lost in the general Romanesque effect. This kind of architecture is briefly described by Professor Willis as being "of all the Romanesque styles, that which ap- pears to possess the most simplicity and plainness of decoration, and yet the greatest complication of parts." The outlines of the great churches of this style are peculiar to themselves, and at once distinguish them from Italian, German, and Norman buildings. Low roofs and gables, sometimes very long tran- septs, their intersection marked sometimes by an octagonal, sometimes by a square tower, either low and massive, or rising to a great height. This is sometimes coupled with one at the west end, but the variety of grouping which so distinguishes the German churches is never found. The towers are sometimes covered with spires, sometimes with low roofs. But the most characteristic feature is the apse, which has an aisle, from which diverges a series of radiating chapels, commonly themselves apsidal. These do not join each other, as in the analogous Gothic arrangement, but leave space for windows in the aisle between them. Even large churches are sometimes without clere- stories ; hence, as the gables are commonly low, the west fronts, when not occupied by a tower, have a monotonous outline. OF PROVENCAL ARCHITECTURE. 223 The internal features are even more peculiar to the style than those of the exterior ; compound arches rest on tall rectangular piers, which either support the orders on attached shafts, or else themselves follow the same section, and have merely an impost. Shafts or pilasters attached to these piers, rising either from the ground or from the impost of the pier-arches, support the ribs of the vault, which is of the barrel shape, with or without a cornice at its spring. The tall arcades thus formed in the cathe- drals of Valence and Avignon, which are without either clerestory or triforium, are totally unlike anything in German or English Romanesque. In other examples one or both of those features occur. Columnar piers, as was before said, are usually excluded ; the apses form an exception, as the narrowness of the arches in that position requires a lighter pier, and columns are therefore gene- rally in use. The church of Ainay at Lyons, described by Mr. Petit, has however its pier-arches supported throughout by Co- rinthian columns, whose proportions seem pretty nearly to answer the rule given in a former chapter as most appropriate for co- lumnar piers. 1 The smaller details similarly show the strong classical feeling which was retained, though kept quite in subor- dination to the general Romanesque conception. The small shafts are often more classical than in other forms of Romanesque, both in their proportions and in their capitals ; strange vagaries are however sometimes to be found, as the extraordinary twisted columns in the cloister at Aries. In this structure arc many other curious details, as figures, like the ancient caryatides, sup- porting capitals or entablatures, on which, in some cases, rest the pilasters supporting the vaulting, which is of the usual barrel form. The heavy Corinthian pilasters, without arch or entablature, which serve as buttresses, have been particularly noticed by Mr. Petit. The arches, both constructive and decorative, are of course commonly round ; the straight-sided arch alternates with the round in a decorative arcade at Valence ; but it is remarkable that in so classical a style we find a systematic use of pointed arches probably of earlier date than in any other form of Ro- manesque. Yet these examples arc not Transitional ; the pointed 1 See page 172. OO J, HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. arch is accompanied by no other Gothic feature, and occurs only in certain fixed positions where, from constructive reasons, it was found to be preferable to the round. This is in the barrel-vaulting of the roof. " In the south of France," says Mr. Petit, 2 "nothing is more common than a barrel-vault, that is, one without lateral cells, above which is a low-pitched external roof of stone. Now it is clear that the connection between the two for support is stronger and more easily effected the nearer their ridges approach together ; and hence it is advantageous that the internal roof should be pointed instead of round. This is frequently the case." He then proceeds to mention some of the most classical buildings of the Provencal style as exhibiting this feature, such as St. llonorat at Aries, and Aix and Avignon cathedrals. The latter has an additional instance in the pointed arches under the octagon ; to employ the pointed form in this position is only natural when the vault is of that shape, to avoid the un- pleasant effect of their contrast. May we suppose that the small elevation of the lantern arches which he mentions at Aix, and which appears very strongly in his cut of St. Honorat, is owing to a feeling of this incongruity ? This arrangement avoids a di- rect contrast between the two forms, though at the expense of an unmeaning piece of blank wall between them. The cornice of the roof is manifestly the natural point for the impost of the lantern arches. The pointed arch does not occur, except in these two positions, which shows distinctly that the instances in which it is found are mere detached examples arising from constructive reasons, or from assthetical ones so manifest as to be equally powerful, and that they have nothing to do with the formation of the Gothic style. In the words of Mr. Petit, they " can hardly be looked upon as having introduced the general use of the pointed arch, though we may possibly be in- debted to them for some of the earliest specimens we know." The mouldings of enriched arches, as of doorways, &c. are of various kinds ; the Norman ornaments occur side by side with mouldings evidently borrowed from classical architraves, while the rich sculptured representations of animal and vegetable life assimilate them to the German examples ; imagery is everywhere lavishly introduced. The doorways present several forms, but 1 I. 114. OF PROVENCAL ARCHITECTURE. 225 all displaying a much closer adherence to classical models than is found either in German or Norman buildings. In the ex- ample given by Mr. Petit from Aix Cathedral the details are quite classical, though put to an entirely novel application. This ex- hibits a peculiar transition between the rectangular classical door- way with an arch of construction over it, and the complete Ro- manesque form, where the square head is made quite subordinate to the arch. Here the arch is but of one order, consequently there is but one shaft on each side ; these are Corinthian columns, with pedestals below, and the unmeaning piece of entablature belong- ing to the corrupt Roman style above. On these rests the transom, which entirely cuts off the arch from its jamb ; this arch is more than a mere arch of construction, and yet has not the prominence which it would have received in more complete Romanesque. Above is a sort of canopy, consisting of two en- gaged columns, with the same fragments of entablature and a cornice across. This whole example is most valuable as indica- tive of the manner in which classical ideas, and probably, as Mr. Petit suggests, actual classical fragments, were retained in the architecture of this district. A square-headed doorway with jamb-shafts is, as far as I know, peculiar to this style, but it would seem to be a natural development, exactly analogous to the small decorative shafts and entablatures. The west porch of Avignon Cathedral is even more completely Roman, but this is said to be a portion of an ancient temple. The French antiquarians are fond of tracing an oriental cha- racter in the early Romanesque of their country, and often call the style which seems better denominated Provencal, by the names Byzantine or Romano-Byzantine. This theory, as ap- plied to the whole class, seems unfounded, or, at least, exagge- rated; but it is certain that several detached instances of churches occur, which in other respects approach more nearly to this style than to any other, but whose main outline and arrange- ment are evidently borrowed from Constantinople. One of the most remarkable is the Cathedral of St. Front at Perigucux, which is attributed by M. Ramee to the eleventh century, and of which several views are given by M. Gailhabaud. It is built in the form of a Greek cross, without aisles, with a cupola of the spreading Byzantine form over the crossing, and another over