i 9 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ARCHITECTURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT. 



Br BAKE FEEEEE. 



THE natural conditions that are essential for successful build- 

 ing have never been better set forth than in a letter written 

 by the consul Pliny to his friend Gallus in the early part of the 

 first century of our era, in which he describes his newly-finished 

 villa of Laurentinum. 



'You are surprised/' he writes, "that I am so fond of my 

 Laurentinum, or (if you like the appellation better) my Laurens ; 

 but you will cease to wonder when I acquaint you with the 

 beauty of the villa, the advantages of its situation, and the ex- 

 tensive prospect of the sea-coast. It is but seventeen miles from 

 Rome ; so that, having finished my affairs in town, I can pass my 

 evenings here, without breaking in upon the business of the day. 

 There are two different roads to it : if you go by that of Lauren- 

 turn, you must turn off at the fourteenth mile-stone ; if by Ostia, 

 at the eleventh. Both of them are, in some parts, sandy, which 

 makes it somewhat heavy and tedious, if you travel in a carriage, 

 but easy and pleasant to those who ride on horseback. 



' The landscape on all sides is extremely diversified ; the pros- 

 pect in some places being confined by woods, in others extending 

 over large and beautiful meadows, where numberless flocks of 

 sheep and herds of cattle, which the severity of the winter has 

 driven from the mountains, fatten in the vernal warmth of this 

 rich pasturage. My villa is large enough to afford all desirable 

 accommodations, without being extensive. The porch before it is 

 plain, but not mean, through which you enter into a portico in the 

 form of the letter D, which includes a small but agreeable area. 



" This affords a very commodious retreat in bad weather, not 

 only as it is inclosed with windows, but particularly as it is 

 sheltered by an extraordinary projection of the roof. From the 

 middle of this portico you pass into an inward court, extremely 

 pleasant, and thence into a handsome hall, which runs out to- 

 ward the sea; so that, when there is a southwest wind, it is 

 gently washed with the waves which spend themselves at the 

 foot of it. 



" On every side of this hall there are either folding-doors or 

 windows equally large, by which means you have a view from 

 the front and the two sides, as it were, of three different seas ; 

 from the back part you see the middle court, the portico, and 

 the area; and by another view, you look through the portico 

 into the porch, whence the prospect is terminated by the woods 

 and mountains which are seen at a distance. On the left hand 

 of this hall, somewhat farther from the sea, lies a large draw- 



