LESSONS IN ABOHITEOTUBE. 



257 



I.KSSONS IN ARCHITECTURE. VII. 



ROMAN ORDERS OF ARCHITECTURE TUSCAN ORDER COM- 

 POSITE ORDER. 



itfin of tho Tuscan order of arohiteoture is involved in 

 oli -""int \. During the era of the kings of Borne, it appears 

 that thi* onlt-r was followed in tho buildings of the Romans; 

 but it originally belonged to the people of Ktrnria or Tuscany, 

 .mil in that country remains of thia order are found which can 

 be traced to a very remote an- 

 tiquity. The characteristic 

 qualities of the Tuscan style 

 wero solidity and grandeur, 

 features in which it resembled 

 tho ancient Egyptian architec- 

 ture, with less gigantic but 

 more graceful forms. To whom 

 the Etrurians were indebted 

 for their style of architecture 

 cannot now be determined, or 

 whether it originated entirely 

 with themselves. Some, indeed, 

 say that they brought it from 

 the East ; but we cannot agree 

 with those who would deprive it 

 of all originality, and assert that 

 it was only the ancient Doric 

 stripped of its finest features. 

 The early Romans, who used 

 this style, did not invent it ; 

 for they were mere warriors and 

 not artists. They adopted from 

 time to time the arts of the 

 nations which they conquered. 

 Hence, first came the Tuscan 

 style, and then the Grecian orders, 

 to be adopted by the Romans. 

 "The Temple of Jupiter Capi- 

 tolinus begun by Tarquinius 

 Prisons, and finished by Tar- 

 quinius Superbus said to have 

 been built by workmen from 

 Etruria, and the tomb of Por- 

 senna, king of that people, were 

 splendid early specimens of this 

 order ; but no remains of them 

 are to be found. The column 

 of Trajan, built about a century 

 .after the Christian era, and 

 which remains to this day, is 

 considered to be a remarkable 

 specimen of the Tuscan column. 

 After the introduction of the 

 Grecian orders of architecture 

 into their edifices, the Romans 

 -chiefly employed Greek artists, 

 and made no alteration in the 

 form of these orders, except 

 sometimes blending them toge- 

 ther in the same building. In 

 general, they employed the 

 Corinthian order, as the most 

 elegant ; and a modification of 

 this order is attributed to them, 

 as the only attempt which they 

 node at originality in architec- 

 ture. But some are inclined to 



believe that even this invention was due to some Greek architect. 

 This new order was called the Composite, because it was, in 

 fact, a compound order, made by the union of the Corinthian and 

 the Ionian orders. The power, the wealth, and the vanity of the 

 Romans led them to increase the number, the magnitude, and 

 -the decorations of their edifices to a degree far beyond those of 

 Greece. In the theatre of Marcellns, and in the Coliseum, the 

 Doric and the Ionic styles were both introduced ; but the 

 Corinthian style, with its rich ornaments, was most adapted to 

 the tastes of the masters of the world ; and as if not left by 

 the inventors in a shape sufficiently expressive of splendour and 



43 N.E. 



PORCH OF THE ABBEY OP LORSCH, OR LAURISHEIM. 



magnificence, they loaded every member of it with ornament* 

 unknown to the Greeks. In the Composite, sometime* called 

 the Roman order, there was especially a prof anon of ornament; 

 TO was scarcely a moulding which was not loaded with 

 decorations. When the particular members could receive no 

 more ornaments, they had recourse to varying the outlines of 

 their edifices (particularly their temples) into every shape that 

 could bo produced by the union of circular and triangular figures. 

 Specimens of the Roman style of architecture are to be seen in 



the arch of Titus and the batht 

 of Diocletian; and two mag. 

 nificent capitals are to be seen 

 in the baptistery of Constantino, 

 which belonged to some elder 

 edifice whose history in now 

 unknown. A representation of 

 the Tuscan and Composite orders 

 will be given in the next 

 lesson. 



In the decline of the Roman 

 empire, Constantino the Great 

 transferred the capital from 

 Rome to Byzantium, as Con- 

 stantinople was then called, and 

 attempted to make the latter city 

 rival the former in monumental 

 grandeur by erecting immense 

 public edifices. Here, however, 

 as in Italy, art and science took 

 a retrograde course, and the 

 elegant orders invented by the 

 Greeks rapidly lost their ori- 

 ginal purity and simplicity. A 

 new style was then grafted on 

 Roman art; the capitals lost 

 their graceful outlines, and 

 assumed cubical forms ; the 

 columns were shortened, and 

 the entablature no longer pos- 

 sessed its regular proportions. 

 This style of architecture was 

 called the Byzantine ; its orna- 

 mentation was no more that of 

 Rome. It again approached the 

 older Greek style, but shorn 

 of the grandeur and magnifi- 

 cence of the whole, and of the 

 exquisite beauty of its details. 

 The Byzantine style lasted 

 during the period of the Eastern 

 empire, and to this day it is 

 employed by the Greeks in their 

 buildings. From the combined 

 influences of that empire, and 

 the memorials which Rome still 

 preserved, in the first ages of 

 the Christian era, of the finest 

 periods of her architecture, a 

 variety of styles arose, of which 

 the oldest was called the Latin 

 style, because it was adopted by 

 the whole of the Latin Church. 

 Numerous examples of this 

 style are to be found in Italy, 

 and some in France ; such as the 

 churches of St. Laurence (with- 

 out the walls) and St. Agnes, at 

 Ro:ne ; the ancient baptistery of St. John, at Poitiers, etc. This 

 style, in which may be found all the divisions of an order, was 

 preserved entire until the age of Charlemagne, of which the 

 cuthfclral of Aix-la-Chapelle, and the porch of the monastery of 

 Lorsch, or Laurisheim, a town of Germany in the grand duchy 

 of Hesse-Darmstadt, are striking proofs. After the reign of 

 this emperor, new innovations and a retrograde movement in 

 the forms of the orders of architecture led to the Romanesque 

 style, in which all regular proportion was completely abandoned, 

 while in most of the applications of this style the entablature 

 was altogether omitted. From the Romanesque to the pointed 



