HISTORY OF ARCHITKCTUUF:. 



241 



supported, on the outside, by lateral projections, ex- 

 tending from top to bottom, at the corners, and be- 

 tween the windows. These are called buttresses, and 

 they are rendered necessary to prevent the walls from 

 spreading under the enormous weight of the roofs. 

 On the tops of the buttresses, and elsewhere, are slen- 

 der pyramidal structures, or spires, called pinnacles. 

 These are ornamented on their sides with rows 

 of projections, appearing like leaves or buds, which 

 are named crockets. The summit, or upper edge of 

 a wall, if straight, is called a parapet ; if indented, a 

 battlement. Gothic windows were commonly crowned 

 with an acute arch. They were long and narrow, or, 

 if wide, were divided into perpendicular lights by 

 mullions. The lateral spaces on the upper and outer 

 side of the arch, are called spandrills ; and the orna- 

 ments in the top, collectively taken, are the tracery. 

 An oriel, or bay window, is a projecting window. A 

 wheel, or rose window, is large and circular. A cor- 

 beiis a bracket, or short projection from a wall, serv- 

 ing to sustain a statue, or the springing of an arch. 

 Gothic pillars or columns are usually clustered, ap- 

 pearing as if a number were bound together. The 

 single shafts, thus connected, are called boltels. They 

 are confined chiefly to the inside of buildings, and 

 never support any thing, like an entablature. Their 

 use is to aid in sustaining the vaults under the roof, 

 which rest upon them at springing points. Gothic 

 vaults intersect each other, forming angles, called 

 groins. The parts which are thrown out of the per- 

 pendicular, to assist in forming them, are the penden- 

 tives. The ornamented edge of the groined vault, 

 extending diagonally, like an arch, from one support 

 to another, is called the ogyve. The Gothic term 

 gable indicates the erect end of a roof, and answers to 

 the Grecian pediment, but is more acute. The Gothic 

 style of building is more imposing, admits of richer 

 ornaments, and is more difficult to execute, than the 

 Grecian. This is because the weight of its vaults and 

 roofs is upheld, at a great height, by supporters act- 

 ing at single points, and apparently but barely suffi- 

 cient to effect their object. Great mechanical skill is 

 necessary in balancing and sustaining the pressures ; 

 and architects, at the present day, find it often diffi- 

 cult to accomplish what was achieved by the builders 

 of the middle ages. In edifices erected at the present 

 day, the Grecian and Gothic outlines are commonly 

 employed to the exclusion of the rest. In choosing 

 between them, the fancy of the builder, more than 

 any positive rule of fitness, must direct the decision. 

 Modern dwelling houses have necessarily a style of 

 their own, as far as stories and apartments, and win- 

 dows ami chimneys, can give them one. No more 

 of the styles of former ages can be applied to them, 

 than what may be called the unessential and decora- 

 tive parts. In general, the Grecian style, from its 

 right angles and straight entablatures, is more con- 

 venient, and fits better with the distribution of our 

 common edifices, than the pointed and irregular 

 Gothic. The expense, also, is generally less, espe- 

 cially if any thing like thorough and genuine Gothic 

 is attempted. But the occasional introduction of the 

 Gothic outline, and the partial employment of its or- 

 naments, has undoubtedly an agreeable effect, both in 

 public and private edifices ; and we are indebted to 

 it, amono; other things, for the spire, a structure 

 exclusively Gothic, which, though often misplaced, 

 has become an object of general approbation, and a 

 pleasing landmark to cities and villages. ( For further 

 infonnation, see, among other works, Bigelow's Tech- 

 nology, Boston, 1829, 'p. 112152, from which the 

 above article is chiefly extracted. The illustrative 

 plates we have gathered from various sources.) 



ARCHITECTURE, history of. The first habitations of 

 men were such as nature afforded, with but little 

 i. 



labour on the part of the occupant, and sufficient to 

 satisfy his simple wants, huts, grottos, and tents. 

 But as soon as men rose above the state of rude na- 

 ture, formed societies, and cultivated the soil, they 

 began to build more durable and more commodious 

 habitations. They wrought the materials with more 

 care, fitted the parts together more closely and neatly, 

 prepared bricks of clay and earth, which they first 

 dried in the air, and afterwards baked by the fire ; 

 they smoothed stones, and joined them, at first, without 

 cement. After they had learned to build houses, they 

 began to erect temples for their gods, who first dwelt 

 with them in caverns, huts, and tents. These temples 

 were larger and more splendid than the habitations 

 of men. Thus architecture became a fine art, which 

 was first displayed on the temples ; afterwards, on the 

 habitations of princes, and public buildings, and, at 

 last, with the progress of wealth and refinement, be- 

 came a universal want of society. The haughty 

 palace appeared in the place of the wretched hut of 

 reeds and clay ; the rough trunk was transformed into 

 a lofty column, and the natural vault of a cavern into 

 the splendid Pantheon. Colonnades, halls, courts, 

 and various ornaments now appeared. Stieglitz con- 

 tends that the fundamental forms of the ancient 

 Egyptian and Grecian architecture probably origi- 

 nated in structures of stone, and not from those of 

 wood, as Hirt maintains in his History of the Architec- 

 ture of the Ancients. The earliest buildings of the 

 Indians were modelled on the structure of caverns. 

 To the most ancient nations known to us, among 

 whom architecture had made some progress, belong 

 the Babylonians, whose most celebrated buildings 

 were the temple of Belus, the palace and the hanging 

 gardens of Semiramis ; the Assyrians, whose capital, 

 Nineveh, was rich in splendid buildings ; the Phoeni- 

 cians, whose cities, Sidon, Tyre, Aradus, and Sarepta, 

 were adorned with equal magnificence ; the Israel- 

 ites, whose temple was considered as a wonder of archi- 

 tecture ; and the Syrians and the Philistines. No archi- 

 tectural monument of these nations has, however, been 

 transmitted to us. But we find subterraneous temples 

 of the Hindoos, hewn out of the solid rock, upon the 

 islands Elephanta and Salsetta. Of the Persian archi- 

 tecture, the ruins of Persepolis still remain ; of the 

 Egyptian, obelisks, pyramids, temples, palaces, sepul- 

 chres ; of the Etruscan, some sepulchres and portions 

 of city walls The character of this elder architecture 

 was immovable firmness, gigantic height, prodigal 

 splendour, which excited admiration and astonishment, 

 but comparatively little pleasure. The Greeks were 

 the first who passed from the rough and gigantic to a 

 noble simplicity and dignity. The Doric order of 

 columns characterizes this first period. The greatest 

 masters, Phidias, Ictinus, Callicrates, and others, en- 

 couraged and supported by Pericles, emulated each 

 other, as soon as peace at home and abroad was re- 

 stored. The beautiful temple of Minerva was erected 

 upon the Acropolis of Athens, also the Propylseum, 

 the Odeum, and other splendid buildings. An equal 

 taste for the arts arose in the Peloponnesus, and in 

 Asia Minor, A high degree of simplicity was united 

 with majestic grandeur and elegance of form. The 

 beauties of architecture were displayed not only in 

 temples, but also in theatres, odeums, colonnades, 

 market-places, and gymnasia. The Ionic and Corin- 

 thian columns were added to the Doric. At the end 

 of the Peloponnesian war, the perfection of architec- 

 ture was gone. A noble simplicity had given place 

 to excess of ornament. This was the character of the 

 art at the time of Alexander, who founded a number 

 of new cities. But a strict regularity hitherto prevail- 

 ed in the midst of this overcharged decoration. Afu r 

 the death of Alexander, 323 B. C., the increasing love 

 of gaudy splendour hastened the decline of the art 



