172 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[Apkil, 



at the prp'sent Hnv, in preference to the style which lias been in vogue 

 in that conntrv during the last three or four centuries. 



This silence on the part of the reviewer does not augur very favour- 

 ably for the merit of Canina's designs: at any rate, it would seem that 

 those plates are ihe least striking of all in the volume ; vet it certainly 

 wou'd have been interesting to learn liow far the original character, 

 as shown in the historical examples of that class of buildings, which 

 forms the subjects of the other plates, had been retained and kept. 



Whether the chapters on the subject of the Basilicas which are 

 brought forward as examiiles, contain anything new in the wav of 

 historical information, or aught instructive in the shape of original 

 comment, is alsf one of the reviewer's secrets. Still we do not sup- 

 pose there can be much in regard to fresh information — unless Canina 

 has entered unusually fully into the subject ; because it has been 

 treated at considerable length by Bunsen, in his text to Guteiisolm 

 and Knapp's " Basiliken des Christlichen Roms ;" and by Mr. Gallv 

 Knight in the introduction to his splendid piclorial and antiquari m 

 work, entitled "The Ecclesiastic il Architecture of Italy." Founde{! 

 upon this last mentioned publication, is a paper in the current number 

 of the " Westminster Review," headed the " Basilica stvle of Archi- 

 tecture," which enters into a consideration of that style — its elemei.t'i, 

 qualities, and capabilities; and recommends the application of it 

 among ourselves. We confess that it does seem to us far better 

 suited for adoption at the presmt day, than the first Early English or 

 Lancet style, which is now so greatly affected, although its comparative 

 cheapness seems to be its chief, if not its sole recuinmendaliou. Most 

 assuredly this last cannot be received as the perfection of the pointed 

 style, more especially when — as is generally the case — the degree of 

 hriish it admits of is not kept u[i, but its details are so slurred over 

 that all qualities disappear save tlitse of meagreness, tameness, and 

 insipidity. Much more, we conceive, might he madi> of the Basilica 

 siyle, particularly for interiors; we say "made oj" it, because it 

 requires some mind to be brought to it, and not merely taken and 

 copied just as it is found. 



Canina, we are told, is disposed to classify early Ecclesiastical 

 Architecture, into three leading divisions or families: viz., 1. The 

 Eastern, or Byzantine, strictly so called; 2. li'tsltm, or Romanic 

 Byzantine, otherwise termed— and not without great |ir(iprielv — 

 Lombardic; 3. The NurlJitni, Ihe Pointed or Gothic style: lurliier, 

 however, our dej ouent siveth not. 



The ^rchilecfural Nomenclature of tht Middle j3gts. Bv R. 

 Willis, M. A.. F.R.S.,&c. 



In this essay, which forms the ninth number of the publications of 

 the "Cambridge Antiquarian Society," Professor Willis has treated, 

 in a manner entirely new, a subject of great intere-.t tri the architect. 

 In connexion with the study of the architecture of the middle ages, it 

 is impossible to appreciate too highly the numerous existing docu- 

 ments relative to the original const ruction of the buildings of that period, 

 and considering how long such documents, and the works of our old 

 writers, have been in request as a means of illustrating the antiquities 

 of English architecture, it is extraordinary how little has hitherto been 

 done in good earnest toward the indispei, sable measure of collecting 

 and explaining the teclinical terms with which they abound, and which 

 are indeed their very pith as regards this purpose. The fact is, the 

 course of study requisite to conquer the difficulties of reading and con- 

 struing the jargon of ancient MS. rolls, is seldom to he found in union 

 with Ihe practical knowledge necessary to digest and apply them, and 

 when documents of this nature have, from time to time, found their wav 

 tothe public, it has too often been in forms so cruile and imperfect, as 

 to have rendered "black-letter man" almost a term of reproach. The 

 labours of Professor Willis in the essay before us, differ from those of 

 either the collector, the glossarist, or the etymologist. "My object, 

 in the following pages," says the author in his preface, "has been to 

 draw up an account of the mediaeval nomenclature of architecture, as 

 far as it can be deduced fiom the remaining documents, and from the 

 comparison of them with existing buildings. The words are princi- 

 pally to be found in indentures and accounts relating to the expenses 

 of buildings and monuments, which are necessarily expressed in the 

 language of workmen. Other terms, but not so strictly technical, 

 may be picked out of the monastic chronicles and biographies. Several 

 well-known collections of these terms have been already made, of 

 which the first strictly architectural one was that of Mr. Willson, 

 appended to Pugni's "Examples of Gothic Architecture," in 1S23, 

 and winch is a most admirable performance, to which I am under great 

 obligations. But many documents h;ive come to light since the ap- 

 pearance of this Glossary, and the subject has been more closely in- 

 vestigated. Also, the alphabetical form of these collections is not the 



best adapted for the illustration and comparison of terms like these, 

 whicll are commonly of a strange and capricious kind, defying the 

 nsual processes of etymology, and some of whose meanings can onlv 

 be deduced by collating every pass.ige that contains the term, and 

 comparing it with the entire nomenclature of the architectural member 

 in question." And he adds in conclusion, "that he proposes not to 

 consiruct a complete nomenclature, but to elucidate those words that 

 either remained in obscurity, whose meanings were doubtful, or which 

 hail been misapplied." 



The first chapter, and not the least interesting, is on the nomen- 

 clature of mouldings, and is princifially directed to an examination of 

 the terms to be found in the "Itinerarium of William of Worcester," 

 the most complete specimen of ihe n<iinenclature of the mediseval 

 mouldings which has been preserved lous. This work, the MS. of which 

 is preserved in the Library of Corpus Chiisti College, at Cambridge, 

 cnntains, among other interesting matter, a detailed description, illus- 

 traied by diagrams, of the doorways of the Churches of M. iMarv 

 Redcliff, and St. Stephen, at Bristol ; but although this work has been 

 in print ever since 1778, and has been abundantly used as an authority 

 by glossarists, no one li.is hitherto thought of comparing these descrip- 

 tions with the existing buildings. Much new light has resulted from 

 the employment of this process by Professor Willis, the accuracy of 

 whose deductions from ihis source are cunfirined in a very remarkable 

 manner. Among other particulars relating to Redcliff Church, nuted 

 by William of Worcester, we are told that the tower pier contain* 

 103 members, a statement which appears to be in perfect conformity 

 with the fact. 



From the explanation of the mediaeval namesof mouldings. Professor 

 Willis passes to those in use at the present day. It might be sup- 

 posed that at the "renaissance" of the classical style of architecture, 

 either that the old words would have been appropriated, or that they 

 would have been exchanged for classical terms, but this is by D) 

 means the case. The history of the present nomenclature isso ciiriuui' 

 that Professor Willis traces it at some length, and shows it to be a 

 medley derived from the different languages through which we 

 obtained our first knowledge of Vitruviiis and the moilern Italiau 

 masters, duriiit; the Kith an I 17ili ceiiluries. Aprojos to Vilruvius, 

 we have the following excellent comment: — 



" Vitruvius has not written expressly upon mouldings; he merely 

 names them when they occur in the course of his description of other 

 architectural members. But a name may in this way be given to a 

 moulding, eithtr in the general sense, from the form of its section, as 

 when he terms the hollow or casement a scotia, from'the shadow which 

 it holds; or the name may be assigned to the moulding only from the 

 peculiar function which it performs, or from some form which it de- 

 rives troin that function : as for example, the same scotia, when it 

 occurs in the base of a column, is also termed in conjunction with it# 

 fillet^ Tiochlus, the pully; for it exactly resembles a pully in this use 

 of it, but nut when it is straight. Now when we attempt to pick out 

 a nomenclature from this author, we are often in a doubt whether a 

 given term be a sictioval name or a yuiic/fojm/ name ; and this dis- 

 tinction has not been sufKciently attended to. It will presently appear 

 that the same functional name may be given to two different mould- 

 ings, if they are each capable of performing the otfice to which the 

 name alludes." 



The following chapters treat on masonry, walls, and iablements — 

 pillars, arches, and vaults — windows — pinnacles, and tabernacle wark. 

 We cannot pretend to follow Professor Willis through the mass ol 

 curious infoimation developed in the investigation of the nomenclaturi' 

 of these elements of our Gothic buildings, amounting to upwards of 

 three hundred and forty technical terms, not including the Vilruvian 

 words or mouldings of the renaissance. And here we may notice 

 two words which have an appearance so cl.issical that their etymology 

 may not he generally suspected. Entablature, which is derived from 

 the mediEeval word tablement, the term for horizontal mouldings in 

 general, and pediment, upon which Professor Willis observes — 



"As I am upon the subject of these additions to the classical terms, 

 I may as well mention another word, which although English, and 

 confined for a long while to the workmen, has now assumed the place 

 and resemblance of a good classical term — I mean Pediment, which 

 we now universally appiy to the triangular gable of classical archi- 

 tecture, the 'Fastigium' of Vitruvius and of the Italians, who also, 

 together with the French and English writers, employ Frontispicio 

 — Frontispice — Fronton — Frontispiece, respectively. Evelyn says, 

 ' those roofs which exalted themselves above the cornices bad usually 

 in face a triangular plain or gabel within the mouldings (that when our 

 workmen make not so acute and pointed they call a Pediment) which 

 the ancients named Tympanum.' Evelyn's 'Account of Architects 

 and Architecture,' 50. The earliest example of the word that I have 



