1001 



ISSUE PEAS. 



ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE. 



1003 



irritants, by establishing a disease which is of itself unimportant in the 

 neighbourhood of one which by its situation is more serious; and 

 hence they are amongst the most important means in the cure of 

 chronic inflammations of many internal organs, and especially of those 

 of the joints and of the spine. 



ISSUE PEAS are round bodies employed for the purpose of main- 

 taining irritation in a wound of the skin which is called an issue. 

 [IssUE.] It is a matter of indifference of what substance the peas are 

 composed, so long as they do not introduce poisonous matters into the 

 wound. The seed of the common garden pea is frequently used ; but 

 this is apt to putrify or sprout. It is however more common to use 

 the young unripe fruits of the common orange (Citrus aurantima). 

 The fruits are dried and afterwards turned in a lathe before they are 

 used as issue peas. The unripe oranges, dried, are sold under the name 

 of orangettes or Curasoa oranges. The rootstock of the Iris .rA./ 

 is also formed into peas, and used for keeping up the discharge from 



ISTHMIAN GAMES. The Isthmia were one of the four great 

 national festivals of Greece, the others being the Olympia, Pythia, and 

 Nemea. The Isthmia were celebrated under the presidency of the 

 Corinthians, near Corinth, on the isthmus connecting Peloponnesus 

 with the continent, at intervals of four years, corresponding with the 

 recurrence of the other festivals above-mentioned, so that each year 

 had its solemnity. The Isthmian games were first established in 

 honour of Melicertes, the son of Ino(Paus., i. 44), but were reorganised 

 by Theseus in honour of Poseidon, the presiding deity of the isthmus. 

 The crowns bestowed on victors were of pine-leaves, or, later, wreaths 

 of ivy. After the fall of Corinth the Isthmia were celebrated under 

 the direction of the Sieyonians, until Corinth was re-built, when they 

 were restored to the Corinthians, and continued to be celebrated till 

 the establishment of Christianity. As all these games were similar in 

 their object, contests, and ceremonies, it will be sufficient to refer for 

 further details to the article on the principal of them, the Olympia. 

 [OLYMPIAN GAMES.] 



1TACONAMIC ACID (C, H,NO,,). A brown amorphous acid, 

 formed by heating the itaconate of ammonia. Its salts are very 

 instable. In like manner, by heating the itaconate of aniline itacon- 

 anilic acid (C 10 H (C,,H 5 )NO (1 ) or phenyl-itacunamic acid is ob- 

 tained. 



ITACONANILIDE (C 10 H ..(CyHJJiJO.), Phmyl-itaconamide. An 

 unimportant derivative from citric acid. [ANILIDES.] 



ITACONANILIC ACID. [ITACOSAIHO ACID.] 



ITACONIC ACID (C, H,0,,,2HO). When citric or aconitic acid is 

 distilled, two liquids are obtained in the receiver, the lighter of which 

 mixes perfectly with water, whilst the heavier, which is oleaginous, 

 combines with it slowly, and becomes a crystalline mass, to this a 

 sufficient quantity of boiling water is to be added to dissolve the 

 oleaginous liquid and the crystals formed, and the solution is to remain 

 exposed to the air ; after some days' spontaneous evaporation, crystals 

 of itaconic acid are deposited, which are transparent and hard ; 

 these are to be purified by repeated crystallisations from water. 



The properties of the itaconic acid thus prepared are : It crystallises 

 in rhombic tables or rhombic octohedrons. It has no smell, but 

 possesses a very strong acid taste. It dissolves in 17 parts of water at 

 60, and in 10 parts at 68, and boiling water dissolves much more. It 

 is soluble in alcohol and in ether ; at 248 the crystals lose no weight. 

 At 320 they melt, exhaling white irritating vapours, and volatilise 

 without leaving any residue when the heat is continued. When 

 subjected to distillation they decompose into anhydrous citraconic 

 acid and water. 



ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE. Instead of comprising buildings of 

 every style and class to be met with in Italy, the term " Italian Archi- 

 tecture " is generally restricted to signify that generic style formed by 

 the revival of the Roman orders, and the adaptation of them, and other 

 features derived from works of the same age, to buildings of every 

 kind, domestic as well as public. Without such limitation, the term 

 would apply to buildings having nothing else in common than their 

 locality, to the Ca d'Oro at Venice, no less than to the works of 

 Palladio, and such modernised PaUadianina as is exhibited in the 

 design of the Teatro Fenice in the same city. Even with such limi- 

 tation, the style presents so many varieties, both in regard to modes of 

 treatment and taste of design, as to render it difficult to draw up a 

 succinct account of it, if more be attempted than to explain the 

 character of the orders and other leading external features, with their 

 application, and the taste generally manifested in architectural design. 



Italian architecture, thus restricted, arose in that remarkable era 

 in Italian history when the Medici had gathered about thorn the 

 learning, the poetry, and the art of the day, and the revived study 

 of classic literature having imbued the educated classes with a deep 

 reverence for everything classic, works of art, as well as literature, were 

 anxiously moulded according to a Roman type. Instead, however, of 

 proposing to themselves the remains of Roman antiquity as models to 

 be freely followed in the same spirit, and modified as circumstances 

 *li"iild require, Italian architects, in endeavouring to fix a new style 

 founded upon the ancient orders, began by reducing the orders them- 

 selves to the strictest mechanical system possible ; notwithstanding 

 that for the Doric and Ionic they had no better guide than the few 

 debased and insipid specimens which occur in Roman works, and the 



ambiguous explanations given in the text of Vitruvius, whom they 

 looked up to as an infallible oracle. 



Italian architecture then is, allowance being made for local varieties, 

 a style founded upon the Roman antique as interpreted by the writings 

 of Vitruvius, and reduced to a methodical system by Alberti, Vignola, 

 and Palladio. It was, however, founded rather on the Coliseum, the 

 baths, triumphal arches and other secular buildings of the Romans 

 than on their temples. Its greatest triumphs were in the palaces and 

 civic buildings, rather than in the churches, which it secularised, and 

 as the phrase is, paganised. But the Italian architects in their revival 

 of ancient art made no effort to reproduce the ancient buildings. Whilst 

 they followed with pedantic strictness the teaching of Vitruvius and 

 Alberti in reference to the orders separately considered, they allowed 

 themselves the utmost licence in their application of them. Theirs 

 was a new combination of parts, not a repetition of the whole ; their 

 principle was that of the adaptation of antique Roman forms and details 

 to modern Italian buildings. These forms and details were often 

 applied with little consideration or discrimination, but the general 

 effect is nevertheless rich and imposing; andtoBrunelleschi.Sansovino, 

 and Palladio must be accorded the honour of having created a new and 

 noble style of palatial and domestic architecture, rich in resources, and 

 admitting*! the combination of broad simplicity and dignity of treat- 

 ment with freshness, elegance, and picturesqueness in the details. But 

 it is essentially a civic style of architecture ; the architecture of narrow 

 streets and public places ; an architecture whose buildings were to be 

 seen close at hand and admired in detail, not like the ancient temples 

 or mediaeval cathedrals to awe the mind by grandeur of mass, as well 

 as by the severe simplicity or multitudinous variety of subordinate 

 parts. 



The characteristic features of the Italian architecture of the 15th 

 and 16th centuries, maybe stated briefly, but cannot be so stated with- 

 out leaving the statement exceedingly imperfect. As has been said, 

 the characteristic which distinguished this from the architecture of the 

 preceding centuries was the strict use of the Roman orders. But then 

 these orders were employed rather as a decorative than a constructive 

 feature ; and applied without regard to classic precedent : and precedent 

 being departed from in the primary instance, its neglect throughout 

 followed as a necessary consequence. Thus different orders, or repe- 

 titions of the same order, being applied to the several stories of build- 

 ings whose fronts were pierced with windows, it became unavoidable 

 to abandon all proportion of intercolumniation, and to space the 

 columns according to the breadth of the piers and the apertures between 

 them ; which in turn left hardly any other alternative than to engage 

 the columns themselves, that is, to attach either half or three-quarter 

 columns to the walls, because insulated columns placed so wide apart 

 from each other would have had an exceedingly poor and meagre 

 effect. And where one order was placed above another, two straggling 

 rows of low insulated pillars for low they must be in comparison with 

 the entire height of the building, instead of at all ornamenting a 

 building, would have incumbered it with what would have resembled 

 stages of scaffolding. 



For a somewhat similar reason, either pilasters were substituted for 

 engaged columns, or the entablature was made to break over every 

 column ; for if, instead of beiug thus broken, the entablature were 

 continued from column to column in each story, overhanging the face 

 of the wall, it would produce an appearance of heaviness as well as 

 weakness. One result of this practice of giving a separate order to 

 each story is, that the columns become comparatively insignificant, 

 both in proportion to the entire front and to the windows between 

 them ; more especially when the columns are further shortened by 

 being placed on pedestals. In fact windows and doors are generally 

 the predominant features in Italian composition, even where two series 

 are comprised within one order, being generally more prominent in 

 their cornices and pediments than the other projections. They are 

 often decorated with smaller columns or pilasters, and Palladio has 

 sometimes loaded them with recumbent figures on the raking cornices of 

 their pediments. Sometimes, as in the upper order of the Procuratie 

 Nuove, by Scamozzi, at Venice, the windows (decorated with a lesser 

 order) are carried up to the height of the capitals. In instances like 

 these the ornamental details may be in imitation of the members of 

 an ancient order, but the antique character is gone. Even where the 

 windows are kept more subordinate to the order itself, the effect of the 

 order is frequently diminished by the addition of a heavy attic pierced 

 with windows occupying its entire length, and surmounted in turn by 

 a balustrade, having perhaps a formal row of statues on its pedestals, 

 which viewed at a little distance assume the appearance of so many 

 pinnacles on the summit of the building, whilst the balusters them- 

 selves in such cases suggest the idea of perforated battlements. 



Another distinctive feature of Italian architecture is the frequent 

 use of circular, and the introduction of broken, pediments over doors 

 and windows. Cornices are sometimes made important features in the 

 composition, but often they are rendered subordinate or altogether 

 dispensed with, the balustrade being as we have seen made the crown- 

 ing feature. In some of the richer examples sculpture is freely and 

 very effectively introduced, though occasionally in a somewhat hetero- 

 dox manner. Sculptured friezes and elegantly carved vases also con- 

 tribute largely to the general effect. 



But whilst much of the Italian architecture is microstylar, that is, 



