813 



MOTTO. 



MOULDINGS. 



8H 



a little, and right to suppose that the authority of the Congregation of 

 the Index is not equal, but inferior, to that of the pope." He ends by 

 saying that though the Copernican has (unless the pope should other- 

 wise decide) one footrinside the door of heresy, yet he would not dare 

 to pronounce him an open heretic, without something more express 

 from the head of the church. The bull of Sextus V., as we see, con- 

 tarns an express limitation of the power of the several congregations ; 

 and the language and arguments of Fromond (to whom we might join 

 other writers, but not of so satisfactory a character, as being themselves 

 Copernicans) prove that this renunciation of the charge of heresy, this 

 declaration that the asserted infallible power never showed itself, is no 

 subterfuge of modern Romanists, but was the argument of the time 

 when Galileo was under the ban ; was held, among others, by a distin- 

 guished opponent of the Copernican doctrine, the very last person who 

 was likely to have had any bias towards such reasoning; and was 

 allowed to pass a strict censorship of the press. 



In 1651 the theologian Riccioli, the most learned of astronomers, 

 and the strongest of the anti-Copernicans, writes as follows : " The 

 sacred congregation of cardinals, taken apart from the supreme pontiff, 

 does not make propositions to be of faith, even though it should 

 actually define them to be of faith, or the contrary ones heretical. 

 Wherefore, since no definition upon this matter has as yet issued from 

 the supreme pontiff, nor from any council directed and approved by 

 him, it is not yet of faith that the sun moves and the earth stands 

 still, by force of the decree of the congregation ; but at most, and alone, 

 by the force of the sacred Scripture, to those to whom it is morally 

 evident that God has revealed it. Nevertheless, Catholics are bound, 

 in prudence and obedience, at least so far as not to teach the contrary. 

 But of this subtility * of theology I have treated in my treatise ' De 

 Fide.' " 



But not only do Roman Catholic writers thus express themselves, but 

 contemporary Protestants, the most staunch opponents of Rome, accept 

 the interpretation. Thus Bishop Wilkins, a decided Puritan, writing 

 in 1640, after stating that some individuals, as Serrarius, expressly 

 condemn the Copernican doctrine as a heresy, proceeds as follows : 

 " And since him, it hath bin called in [question ?] by two Sessions of 

 the Cardinals as being an opinion both absurd and dangerous. And 

 therefore likewise doe they punish it, by casting the Defenders of it 

 into the Pope's truest Purgatorie, the Inquisition : by yet neither these 

 Councels, nor any (that I know of) since them, have proceeded to such 

 a peremptorie censure of it, as to conclude it a heresie ; fearing, per- 

 haps, lest a more exact examination, and the discoverie of future times, 

 finding it to bee an undeniable Truth, it might redound to the 

 prejudice of their church, and its infallibilitie." 



It is moreover to be remembered that the Inquisition, and even the 

 Congregation of the Index, was a local authority, incompetent to legis- 

 late for the faith of all Roman Christians. There was nothing in what 

 was done by the Italian to hinder the Spanish Inquisitors from declaring 

 in favour of Copernicus, if such had been their pleasure : and, in fact, 

 we have searched the Spanish Index of 1667 in vain for the name of 

 Copernicus, though some of his followers are in the list. 



Lastly, if we remember the controversy which has always existed in 

 the Roman world as to the character of decrees emanating from the 

 Roman See alone, without a general council, we shall see that it would 

 have been very unlikely that a pope should have raised this question 

 in France, Spain, and Germany, upon a matter which might any day 

 be settled against him by absolute demonstration. Tiraboschi looks 

 upon it as a special Providence that the Church was not allowed to 

 commit itself ; and we apprehend that most Roman Catholics will be of 

 his opinion. But they must admit, as they have had to do in many 

 other cases, that their earthly head used his power in a most unworthy 

 manner, and found agents who were the subservient creatures of lus 

 irritated feelings. Protestants, on the other hand, should beware how 

 they weaken the general argument against the infallibility of the Roman 

 church, by practically owning that it cannot be successfully attacked 

 except by denying to those who maintain it the right to be the inter- 

 preters of the sense in which they use their own words. 



Though we differ entirely from the article in the ' Dublin Review,' 

 the substance of which we have quoted, yet it is right to say that we 

 find in it a large quantity of collateral information, put together in a 

 manner which strikingly exhibits the under current of favour which 

 wan setting towards the doctrines of Copernicus, when its imprudent 

 advocates began to mix theological with their physical arguments. 

 Had we intended this comment to be a biographical one, we should 

 have had to make use of its details ; and we should be very glad to see 

 the numerous interesting citations which it contains worked into truer 

 history, supported by fuller reference, and dignified by milder language 

 towards opponents. 



MOTTO, an Italian term, shortened by some of our old writers to 

 mat. It means a word or sentence added to a device ; and is commonly 

 used, when put upon a scroll, as an external ornament of coat-armour. 

 The ue of mottoes for this purpose is ancient, and as appended to a 

 coat of arms they are frequently hereditary in families. In strictness, 



* Delambre says that Riccioli confesses hU argument to be a subtlety : but 

 Dclambre only knew the word as used in his own vernacular. A subtlety, 

 before the word became one of reproach, meant a distinction requiring 

 explanation, and was applied by Copernicans themselves to their own doctrine. 



the motto should bear allusion to something in the achievement, but in 

 modern times the taking of it rests entirely with the fancy of the 

 bearer, and it may be changed at pleasure. A sentence or quotation 

 prefixed to anything written is also termed a motto. 



MOULDINGS (in Architecture), any assemblage of narrow surfaces 

 projecting from the face of a wall or other surface and also advancing 

 one beyond the other. They are bounded by straight lines, either 

 horizontal or vertical, according to their situation, but the surfaces 

 themselves are plane or curved, and if the latter, concave or convex, or 

 else compounded of both forms. Sometimes indeed, instead of pro- 

 jecting, mouldings are sunk, as is the case when they form a border 

 within a sunk panel, for though they project with respect to the 

 surface of the latter, they recede within the general face of the wall. 

 The mouldings within the panels of doors are of this description. 

 Mouldings are employed as borders to doors, windows, and other aper- 

 tures, as arches, in which latter case they are termed arc/limit mould- 

 ings ; while those forming the imposts from which the arch springs 

 are called impost mouldings. The bases of columns likewise consist of 

 mouldings. They are also employed to mark the horizontal divisions 

 of a wall, both internally and externally, and every member to which 

 they are applied is said to be moulded. As their edges are straight 

 lines, their contour can be shown in drawings only by their shadowing, 

 and by the outline which they produce at their extremities, as in the 

 case of a cornice. But as this is insufficient, except to afford a general 

 idea, in working drawings and those of detail mouldings are shown on 

 a larger scale, and by means of a section through them, by which their 

 profile is accurately defined ; and upon a good profile, that is, one where 

 the mouldings are well proportioned to each other, and so combined as 

 mutually to relieve each other, and to produce both an agreeable 

 variety of surfaces and of light and shade, much of the beauty and 

 finish of a building depends. 



Mouldings are distinguished by different names, according to their 

 profiles, their sizes, or their situations. Thus the fillet, tamia, band, 

 are all plane or flat mouldings, the only difference being that the first- 

 mentioned is narrower than the others, and frequently is not so properly 

 a distinct moulding as a space left between other surfaces, or else a 

 rim to a larger moulding, as to a cymatium terminating a cornice, &c. ; 

 while tcenia is the name given to the broad fillet separating the archi- 

 trave from the frieze in the Grecian Doric entablature, and band is 

 applied to any still broader plane surface thus if instead of dentils, in 

 an Ionic or Corinthian cornice, a projecting plane surface be left where 

 they would occur, it is called an uncut dentil band. The corona (one 

 of the principal members in every cornice) is also a mere plain band, 

 except that it is occasionally enriched in Roman architecture. Again, 

 lesser convex mouldings are termed beads, but the longer mouldings of 

 the same kind in the bases of columns are termed tori or torusses. The 

 cyma recta, or cymatium, is a compound moulding, concave above and 

 convex below ; while the cyma reversa, or, as it is technically termed 

 by workmen, the ogive or ogee moulding, is convex below and coucave 

 above. The camtto is a mere hollow or sweep, intervening between 

 and serving to connect two mouldings, one of which projects beyond 

 the other. The scotia, or hollow between the upper and lower torus 

 of the base of a column, is a moulding of this kind upon a large scale, 

 and has therefore a distinct name assigned to it, which also points out 

 its situation. The ovolo is a simple convex moulding, so called because 

 it is generally carved into ova, or ornaments in the shape of eggs, 

 within hollows. The ovolo of the Doric capital (which is always 

 uncut) is distinguished by the name of echinus. All the other mould- 

 ings may be carved or enriched, except the cavetto and fillet ; the 

 pattern being accommodated to the surface of the moulding. The 

 cyma recta, or talon, as it is sometimes called, is cut with a peculiar 

 kind of tongued or arrow-headed ornament. 



These mouldings are common to both Grecian and Roman archi- 

 tecture, but besides being more profusely applied in the latter style 

 they have this marked difference, that in Roman architecture the 

 curved mouldings, whether simple or compound, are described by 

 quarter circles, whereas in Greek they describe other curves obtained 

 from conic sections, and are therefore not only more elegant in their 

 contour, but susceptible of far greater variety. Some of them are also 

 occasionally undercut, that is, hollowed out below and behind, whereby, 

 while a greater depth of shadow is obtained, a greater sharpness of 

 lines and lightness of form are produced. Of this kind is what is now 

 distinguished by the name of the bird's-beak mouldiny, because its 

 section produces an outline very much resembling that of the hooked 

 upper and lower mandible in the beaks of some birds. 



In Gothic mouldings, undercutting is very common, and hollows or 

 recesses more or less deep are frequently numerous in the profiles of 

 mouldings in that style. The mouldings are also for the most part 

 produced by splayed or bevelled surfaces, that is, slanting or turned 

 obliquely from the outer face or general plane where they occur. In 

 that style the mouldings are so numerous, and the profiles produced 

 by them so complex, as to render it impossible to describe or charac- 

 terise them further. They are however of the utmost importance, 

 both as adding greatly to the effect of buildings, and as assisting in the 

 discrimination of the several styles or periods to which the buildings 

 belong, and therefore require to be well studied and perfectly under- 

 stood, for which purpose such works of detail as Pugin's ' Gothic 

 Specimens,' and ' Gothic Examples ; ' Paley's ' Manual of Gothic Mould- 



