36 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[Febbuaby, 



hcJRlit fnim tlie brook-course to tlie r:iiU, is al)oiit 12.5 feet. Tlie 

 roiidway is level tluoufj:lioiit. It was eoniineiiced early in 1843, 

 and Has opened for traffic on the Stli of Auirust, lH4t. Messrs. 

 liuxton and Clarke, of Slieffield, were the contractors, and great 

 (H'edit is due to thcni for the very excellent manner in which they 

 have com))leted the work. 



The area of the section of the valley crossed, between the level 

 of the rails and the ground, is l.S.oaS square yards, which gives an 

 average cost of about 2/. 1 t.v. ])er superficial yard, and as the viaduct 

 is 8 yards wide, tlie cost per cubic yard is (iv. !>(/. 



Tlie following is a detailed account of the cost of construction of 

 the Dinting Vale Viaduct, ou the line of the Sheffield and Man- 

 chester Railway. 



£ s. d. 

 7,881 cubic yards, excavating foundations Id. 229 17 3 



2,000 ,, concrete .. .. 3s. 6i. 350 



342,155 cubic feet of ashlar in the abutments 



and piers .. ..Is. \d. 18,532 7 11 



44,024 cubic feet of tooled ashlar .. Is. 3rf. 2,76110 



829 „ cornice .. ..Is. 6d. 62 3 6 



8,212 „ parapet walls .. Is. Iff. 444 16 4 



6,875 „ flagging over spandrils IQd. 286 9 2 



2,574 cubic vards of coursed rubble, in 



the small piers .. .. 10s. 1,287 



Puddling the small arches .. 37 13 



2,641 cubic yards of brickwork in the 



arches .. .. 15s. 1,980 15 



40,4 76 J cubic feet of Memel timber .. 3s. 6,071 9 6 



18,285 superficial feet of planking in the 



roadway .. .. 8(i. 609 11 8 



Centering .. .. .. 600 



Tans. Cwt. Qrs. 

 32 4 1 wrought-iron .. .. £21 676 5 3 



31 2 cast-iron .. .. £8 252 



73,260 superficial feet of brown paper and 



tar .. .. .. irf. 152 4 



2,031 superficial yards of concrete on the 



roadway .. .. ., \s. dd. 152 6 



Patent felt .. .. .. 3 15 



Laying the permanent road .. .. 408 6 6 



Diverting the mill goit .. .. 110 16 8 



Interest and maintenance for 12 



months .. .. .. 240 19 8 



Total cost 



£35,250 6 5 



THE RIVAL PALACES, 



OB, Blobe's and Vanvitelli's. 



By Candidus. 



Neither Mr. Sliarp himself nor any one else will be at all sur- 

 prised at mij taking some notice of the oversight imputed by him 

 to those who liave spoken of Buckingham Palace, for not discover- 

 ing that it is " only a reduced copy of the Palace at Caserta." 

 Willing as I am to accept the compliment of " lynx-eyed," I think 

 that in this instance it rather belongs to him, though at the same 

 time I fancy his .?A«J7)-siglitedness lias o\'ershot the mark, and 

 made that kind of discovery which is called finding out a mare's 

 nest. ^Vhat appears to Mr. Sharp to be sucli jierfect similarity of 

 design between tlie two buildings, that all the faults or merits of 

 Mr. Blore's fairly belong to Vanvitelli, completely vanishes upon a 

 critical e.\amination and estimate of them, nothing remaining but 

 that general or generic resemblance of forms and features which 

 they possess in common with many other buildings in the same 

 style. Those who talk merely at random miglit perhaps liken 

 Buckingham Palace to that at Caserta, for much stranger resem- 

 blances liave been fancied ere now, — one traveller having likened 

 the palace of Charles V. in the Alhambra, to Jones's \Vhitehall; 

 and another, the great temple at Balbec to St. Paul's, Covent- 

 garden ! But that an architect should he more struck by the 

 resemblance, such as it is, than by the prodigious difference be- 

 tween the two buildings in ((uestioii, is quite astonishing. 



Let us incjuire to what tlie resemblance amounts : — to nothing 

 more than the general disposition of parts, botli vertically and 

 horizontally, which surely is not sufficient to constitute such simi- 

 larity of design or character as to justify our calling the one a 

 c(i})y at all, much less "only" a reduced copy of the other. If it 

 doejj, we should be warranted in setting down all the porticoes ever 

 erected as only so man/ verbatim transcripts of one original ; or 



we might call — as perliaps Mr. Sharp does — the two terraces at 

 Carlton-gardeiis a copy of the (iarde-meuble in the Place de la 

 Concorde. In fact, it requires Fluellen's ingenuity in arguing to 

 convict Mr. Blore of being, I will not say Vanvitelli's ape, but his 

 Dromio. " There is a river in Macedon," says the Welshman, 

 "and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth ; — and there is 

 salmons in both." Even were Mr. Blore's elevation a mere re- 

 duced draught of the other, as far as what actual resemblance 

 there is between them extends, as a copy it could be received only 

 as an exceedingly maimed and imperfect one, some of the most 

 striking parts of the original being altogether omitted. One ex- 

 ceedingly important accompaniment to the edifice at Caserta, and 

 which gives it an air of completeness and consistently-kept-up 

 stateliness in regard to emplacement, greatly surpassing that of any 

 other royal palace in Europe, is the spacious oval piazza in front 

 of it on its south side, where it forms an expanding amphitheatri- 

 cal area, somewhat after the manner of the piazza before St. 

 Peter's at Rome. Many other royal residences, on the contrary, 

 are so disadvantageously located, as to have an air of meanness 

 ubout them in spite of their own grandeur. 



One point, then, of the resemblance contended for is utterly 

 wanting, since i\Ir. Blore's building has no architectural precinct 

 or projierly defined enclosure before it, but is made to stand imme- 

 diately in the Park, and moreo\er stands out ^ery awkwardly and 

 abruptly from Nash's building behind, from which it appears quite 

 distinct, except that it is tacked to it ; so that instead of making 

 the entire mass look larger than before, it causes it to have a singu- 

 larly confused and huddled-up appearance. Even taking the mere 

 elevation of the front alone, there is a ])rodigious difference as to 

 outline, the angles of the building at Caserta being carried up 

 much loftier than the general mass, by the addition of a second 

 order, comprisingtwo stories, and making the entire height there not 

 less than one hundred and ninety English feet. My calculation is 

 from the scale given in the large work containing plans, &c., of 

 the palace, entitled " Dichiarazone dei Disegni del Reale Palazzo 

 di Caserta, &c.," and which, strange to say, is not mentioned by 

 either Milizia or Quatremere de Quincy. In the " Conversations- 

 Lexicon fiir Bildende Kunst," which professes to give account of 

 individual buildings of note, tlie Palace of Caserta obtains only 

 three lines ! — one of which is to tell us that there is a picture by 

 Mengs in tlie chapel. — With regard to Mr. Sharp's statement as 

 to the length, there seems to be some miscalculation or else mis- 

 print, since 918 palms (taking the palm at 10^ inches) give only 

 790 feet. 



Now that so much fault has been found with his building, and no 

 merit whatever discerned in it, ]Mr. Blore may possibly be disposed 

 to acquiesce in the charge of ])lagiarism brought against him, in 

 order to transfer all blame from himself to Vanvitelli. If he has 

 copied or borrowed, he has at least, it may be said, gone to a noble 

 model — one which is especially singled out by Air. Gwilt, in his 

 " EncyclopcPdia of Architecture," as the most complete example of 

 a royal palace. So far, however, from reconciling us to Mr. 

 Blore's work, by what may be thouglit to afford sufficient precedent 

 for one or two olijectionable points, Caserta — any comparison with 

 or even mention of it— is likely to put us more out of conceit with 

 it than ever. By diminishing the scale so very greatl)', iSIr. Blore 

 has exaggerated the defects and entirely missed all the merits of 

 his supposed original, transmuting grandiosity into insignificance 

 and triviality. In the mere design of Caserta, there is little to 

 excite particular admiration : it is one of those things of which a 

 "reduced copy," however accurate, can no more convey the actual 

 impression it makes than a life-sized copy of it can that of an 

 enormous colossal figure. 



Caserta is especially distinguished by a union of qualities that 

 rarely meet together in other edifices of the same class — namely, 

 emphatic vastness of mass and uniformity of design throughout. 

 Its mass is such, that were the several ranges of building which 

 compose its exterior, together with those that separate tlie inner 

 courts, placed beside each other on a single line, similar to the plan 

 of the Tuilleries, they would form a facade full three times the 

 length of that of the last-mentioned palace, or considerably more 

 than three thousand feet in extent. AVliat enhances astonishment, 

 although it adds nothing to the merit of the structure, is the ex- 

 traordinary energy with which the works were carried on, the 

 whole of the vast pile being conqileted in about half-a-dozen years; 

 whereas many others, of far less magnitude, have either grown up 

 piecemeal, or have occupied a long series of years ; so as not to 

 have been begun and terminated by the same architect. 



From the nay in which iMr. Sharp has expressed himself, it 

 seems to be bis opinion that— the similarity of design which he 

 insists upon being admitted, — Blore's fojade BO fairly represents 



