Doors and Doorways 



81 



strength, the inner doorways^ were closed by means of heavy hangings, a custom 

 still popular. 



The antique door was pivoted in the centre and revolved. The door of 

 Roman antiquity was frequently of bronze, especially in public buildings. The 

 doors of the Middle Ages were usually of solid oak planking, set edge to edge 

 and dowelled, the whole held together with wrought-iron bands and more or less 

 ornamental strap hinges. A modification of this form is often used at the present 

 time. Frequently, too, these doors were studded with nails, having huge heads, 

 driven through from the outside and clinched on the inside. The hinges were held 

 in place by the same means. The doors of older castles were made narrow, so as 

 to allow the passage of only one person at a time. This gave the occupants a 

 decided advantage in the defence of the stronghold. The portcullis, which was 

 really a door, or gate, sliding vertically, was usually made of sufficient width for 

 two horsemen to pass abreast. 



In the time of Christ we read that the angel rolled the stone away from the 

 entrance to the tomb. This at first seems quite a task, and gives it a decided 

 tinge of the supernatural, but when we consider that the stone was round like a 

 cheese-box and rolled in a groove cut 

 into the rock, the task seems less diffi- 

 cult. 



The panelled door is of compara- 

 tively recent origin, dating back only 

 to the sixteenth century. It was, nat- 

 urally, in Italy that the door was first 

 treated as a serious architectural prob- 

 lem. We find many fine examples of 

 fifteenth-century Italian in which 

 architraves, or casings, of harmoniously 

 coloured marbles were used. Some 

 were severely simple, with perhaps the 

 introduction of plain marble disks at 

 intervals in the panelling, with simple 

 friezes and caps. Others, much more 

 elaborate, contained carved medallions, 

 and friezes and caps of a correspond- 

 ing richness. The doors themselves 

 were, in the better examples, inlaid. 

 Some of these are most beautiful in line 

 and colour. 



At a later date, with the revival 

 of the classic, the architrave took on 

 the form of the column and cap support- 

 ing the characteristic pediment. The 

 pediment thus took the place of the "over-door," and was frequently very elab- 

 orate. Sometimes the over-door effect was painted on the flat wall surface, espe- 

 cially in the case of very high studded rooms. 



Old doorway in Washington Street, Boston, Mass. This 

 example is somewhat marred by the more recent door and the 

 ugly bay set foolishly on top of the hood. 



