BA8KITC 



BASQDH LAHOUAOB. 



afterwards partly restored upon the old plan. The notion of thin 

 edifice. MTOM the nave, ahowi the form of Uie testudo with the 

 inclined roofa of the porticus ; and in the space* between the under 

 id* of the roof of the testudo and the upper line of the roof of the 

 portieu*, re formed the window* of the church. The other Basilicas 

 we have not apace to notice ; but the church of St. 'Agneae exemplifies 

 the peculiar character of the ancient Basilica in so striking a manner, 

 that we give a representation of it, which will illustrate the description 

 of Vitruviu*. 



In this view will be easily recognised the galleries (porticus) running 

 round three sides of the building, and interrupted by the recess forming 

 the tribunal. In the upper gnllery is the pluteum, or continued pedes- 

 tal, inclosing the same. The nave corresponds to the testudo ; the 

 apsis of the church to the heuiieycle of the ancient buildings : the only 

 difference is in the manner of piercing the walls for windows, and in 

 the omission of the Urge columns of the testudo, the two orders of 

 columns standing in the places of the ancient paraatatica). It is pro- 

 bable that the construction of the roof of the ancient Basilica was 

 exposed, as it is shown here, and as was the invariable practice in 

 almost all the church Basilica; of Rome. These Basilica) are built from 

 the old materials of other edifices, and the parts are put together with- 

 out much regard to symmetry, so that there are often Ionic, Corinthian, 

 and Composite capitals, placed on shafts of columns of various diameters, 

 with portions of entablatures above them, which originally belonged to 

 liritniUr edifices. Santa Maria in Trastevere is an example of these 

 incongruities : here also the throne in the apsis has an antique form, 

 very similar to the hemicycles of the Street of Tombs at Pompeii. 

 The Roman church Basilica! in their complete form consisted of an 

 atrium, or entrance-court, in the centre of which was the baptismal 

 basin or font ; a colonnade, called the narthcx, devoted to the use of 

 penitents or catechumen ; a nave (nan's, or i/remium), where the people 

 assembled to worship ; a choir, or chancel, appropriated to the singers 

 and inferior clergy, and in which were the ambones or pulpits ; and a 

 anctuary, or bema, in the centre of which was placed the high altar 

 under a canopy, or baldachin [BALDACHIN], and at the back of which 

 was the apsis [Arsis], in which was the throne of the bishop. 



The Roman church Basilica) are remarkable for their mosaic deco- 

 rations. [MOSAIC.] The pavements of many of them are enriched 

 with the most elaborate patterns made of the hardest marbles. The 

 arched head of the apsis is often decorated with the figures of saints or 

 apostles upon a gold ground, the whole mosaic being formed of glass 

 IIIMIIIS ; but the most sumptuous mosaics are those of St. Peter's, of 

 modern execution, which represent so truly the great works of the 

 best Italian painters, that none but a practised eye can detect the 

 difference* 



The general form of the nave, aisles, and apsis of our ancient cathe- 

 drals and churches, as well as in those of the Continent, is evidently 

 borrowed from the Italian church Basilica. The nave corresponds to 

 the testudo, and the side aisles to the porticus ; the windows of the 

 nave, which externally are seen above the lean-to roof of the aisles, 

 correspond to the opening between the upper part of the columns of 

 the testudo. 



Modern Basilica) exist at the present day in Italy, applied, as the 

 ancient were, to civil purposes. Palladio gives the name of Basilica) to 

 such public buildings, many of which are found in the Italian towns. 

 Part of the Basilica) of the present day serve as the palaces of the 

 magistrates, and in them they administer justice, while the lower parts 

 are occupied by merchants, 4c. Speaking of these edifices, Palladio 

 ays, " Our modern basilica) differ from the ancient in this, that while 

 theirs were on the ground-floor, ours are elevated on arches, and the 

 parts beneath the arches are used as shops, prisons, and for other 

 public purposes. Another difference is, that the ancient had porticoes 

 only in the interior ; the moderns, on the contrary, either have none, 

 or have them on the exterior." There is an example of such a Basilica 

 at Padua, and another at Brescia; but the most celebrated is that at 

 Vienna, the exterior of which is after the design of Palladio. The 

 body of the building is supposed by Vincenzio Bcamozzi to have been 

 erected during the reign and by the command of Theodoric the Goth. 

 This Basilica is 162 feet long by 68 wide ; the curved roof is of wood, 

 covered with lead; the great hall is 26 feet 10 inches above the 

 ground-floor, and is supported on piers. This edifice, which reflects 

 great credit on the skill of Palladio, u called at Vieenra " II Palazzo 

 della Ragione." The architect himself, though a modest man, was so 

 well satisfied with his own performance, that he expressed an opinion 

 that this construction was equal to any Basilica of antiquity. 



In England the town-hall, and in France the Palais de Justice 

 correspond, in some respects, to the modern Italian Basilica). 



(Vitruvius; Nardini's Home : Nolli's Plan of Some, tri/A the Frag- 

 ment! of He Ancient Plan ; A Stria of Geometrical Plant and Section* 

 amd Pmperlirt flora of the Roman Chvrck Batilictr, by I. O. O., Roma, 

 24 ; Eustace's Gam. Tour ; Plan of Pompeii, by the Society for 

 the Diffusion of Useful Knnu-lfvlo-n* \fnmo.> rii;.:'. m I_JL ..* 



the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; Marquess ~Ualioni'n Trandalwn of 

 Vilnrivt . /,./> / palladia, by M. Quatremere de Quincy ; Noliae 

 Ma .1 Ml, Arli, Roina; Bunsen, Die touilike* da Chritt- 



lickn, Rom, (with the Illustrations of Outensohn and Knapp) ; Mazois, 

 Pompeii, vol. iii. ; Fergiuon, Handbook of A rchitectvn.) 



BASKETS. Bosket* have been nude from the earliest ages in 

 most countries where pliant willows, reeds, or grawes are to be met 



with. In England the osier or willow U chiefly used for thi purpose ; 

 and many of the specimens produced are exceedingly elegant. The 

 willow twigs or other materials are prepared in various ways, according 

 to the costliness of the basket to be made ; and the manufacture con- 

 sists in a kind of interlacing, very simple in its character, and requiring 

 the aid of but few tools. Any of our excellent blind asylums, where 

 industrial pursuit* are carried on, will afford a pleasing exemplification 

 of the ease with which basket-making can be carried on by blind 

 persons. 



A very large per-centage of the baskets bought by the middle and 

 working classes in London, are made by poor persons, whose wives and 

 children hawk them about the streets for sale. It is precisely one of 

 those trades likely to put on such a commercial aspect easy to learn, 

 and requiring little or no capital to carry it on. 



Foreign basket* are imported to the value of 30,0002. to 40.000?. 

 annually. Since the period of the Great Kxliil<itin in 1851, Swiss 

 baskets of very light construction, carved in white wood, have become 

 well known in this country. 



r.ASQUE LANGUAGE. This language, Lcngua Bascongada, 

 called also by the Spaniards Bascuence and Vizcaino, and by the 

 French Basque, is spoken by the people who inhabit the Basque pro- 

 vinces, and part of Spanish and French Navarre. The people call 

 themselves Euacaldunac, their country Euscalerria, and their language 

 Euacara, or Escuara. The latter word is derived, according to 

 Larramendi, from etcuro, free, and era, mode or manner. Hut thi* is 

 perhaps hardly satisfactory. The elementary syllable in all these 

 words is Eiuc or Etc, which appears in the forms Vetc anil 

 names of places as Vesci and Osca, &c. : the tme meaning of this 

 element seems doubtful. Bolbi, in bis ' Atlas Ethnographique,' places 

 the Kuscara in the first family of the European languages, and classes 

 it with the Celtic; which opinion, however, few philologists have 

 hitherto adopted. The Jesuit Beovide, quoted by Abate Hervas, says, 

 that having examined the Celtic Dictionary of Leibnitz, he found only 

 two words common to both languages. But upon this we may remark, 

 that the Jesuit must have looked very carelessly not to have found a 

 larger number : if he had carried his inquiries no farther than the 

 numerals to 20 inclusive, he ought to have arrived at a different result. 

 The Basque language is certainly generally supposed to be totally 

 different from all the European languages ; an assertion from which 

 entire assent may be reasonably withheld for the present. It is also 

 loosely said to bear some affinity, if not in its roots, at leant in its 

 construction, to some of the Asiatic tongues. We may consider the 

 Celto and Iberi as two historically distinct nations, without at the 

 some time assuming, what we can never prove, that they do not 

 descend from one common stock. If we are to believe the Basque 

 grammarians, their language existed before the building of the Tower 

 of Babel, and was brought to Spain by Tuluil. Setting aside such 

 extravagances, it may be remarked that the testimonies adduced to 

 prove that the Basque language was spoken by all, or nearly all, the 

 primitive inhabitants of the peninsula, are so numerous and conclusive 

 as to amount almost to a demonstration. The etymology of the words 

 denoting the ancient names of mountains, rivers, and towns in almost 

 every part of the peninsula, IB one of the strongest proofs. The word 

 Espafia is purely Basque, according to Astarloa, and means lip or 

 extremity : W. Humboldt, however, disputes this explanation, and 

 apparently with good reason. The river Ebro may be derived from 

 ibai-ero, a foamy river, or from urbero, a warm river ; Carpetania is 

 derived from gara-be, with the Latin termination tmiia. d means the 

 place at the foot of the hills. The examples of words in which the 

 first element appears to be Basque are perhaps the most striking : such 

 is Hfha, nitia, a rock, which in names of places assumes the form aita. 

 Modern names which contain the element are, Asteguieta, Astobeza, 

 Astorga, Ac. In Spanish names mentioned by Roman writers the 

 ( -li -1111-111 atta also occurs, as in Asta, Astigi, Asta-pa (a dwelling at the 

 foot of a rock), Astures, Asturica, and the river Ast-ura (rock-water). 

 (See Humboldt'* ' Inquiries respecting the first Inhabitants of Spain/ 

 p. 28.) The word kriga, which occurs at the termination of some 

 ancient Spanish names of places, but which appears much more 

 frequently in Gaul, is considered by Humboldt not to be a Basque 

 word. The explanation of this word by Astarloa may serve to show 

 how cautious we should be in following those who have written on 

 this language. Bri, iri and uri, he says, mean a peopled place ; the 

 termination ga is negative, so that kriga means a place without inha- 

 bitants, or a place without a town, or a wild population : hence the 

 words bergante in Spanish, and bri-jnnd in French ; but as briga is 

 always the termination of the name of a town or inhabited place, we 

 must suppose that the word briga, in course of time, got a meaning 

 exactly contrary to its primary meaning. Such an hypothesis, as 

 Humboldt remarks, scarcely needs confutation. 



All the radicals in the language are significative, even the names of 

 the letters of the alphabet. The Basques write as they speak, and the 

 sound of their letters, whether vowels or consonants, is fixed. It is 

 said that aspirated and guttural sounds did not exist originally in the 

 language, l-'.vrn at the present day the Basque people give to the z a 

 much softer sound than the rest of the Spaniards. Accord! 

 d'lharce Bidassouet, quoted by Balbi, the , names of the alphabetical 

 characters, nouns, pronouns, and adverbs, may be converted into verbs. 

 The Basque language possesses a great variety of tennin 



