96 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[March, 



theatre approached the amphitheatre, and was a horse-shoe comprising 200" 

 or more, because the orchestra was reserved also for the performance ; but 

 the Roman theatre did not exceed 1S0 L , because the orchestra was occupied 

 by the senators. 



The Odeum was a covered theatre, chiefly for music; that of Herodes 

 Atticus, at Athens, was the most magnificent in Greece, and had a roof of 

 cedar. The space covered was 240 feet by 159. The construction of such 

 a roof, without obstructing sight or hearing, or injuring external architec- 

 ture, offers a problem to the architect of no easy solution, and is one of 

 great interest in the present times, as we are frequently called upon to cover 

 large areas for occasional assemblies. 



But as modern theatres were more to the point with students, the Profes- 

 sor called their attention to a magnificent work, lately published on " The 

 great modern theatres of Europe," by M. Contant, which he exhibited. 



The amphitheatre was then considered : although of early Tuscan origin, 

 and originally formed in earth or scaffolding, it was not executed in perma- 

 nent materials till the end of the first century. One in earth had been dis- 

 covered by Sir C. Wren at Dorchester. That of Vespasian (as shown in a 

 diagram) was too large for the site of Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross, &c. 

 The velarium, 550 feet by 450, with which the colosseum was covered 

 during exhibitions, was a suqirising contrivance, and had been made the 

 subject of a work by the architect Fontana. M. Hittorf had suspended the 

 roof of a panorama in the Champs Elysees, somewhat in the manner of the 

 Velarium, with great skill. This work, published, was here exhibited. 



The gymnasium, in which the youth of Greece were instructed for the 

 defence and honour of their country, in every department of prowess, was j 

 an interesting object of civil architecture. The plan of that of Ephesus, 

 published by the Dilettante Society, was exhibited, and it was gratifying to 

 observe the use which the late Professor Mr. Wilkins had made of this 

 example, in illustration of the text of Vitruvius, which had hitherto been 

 misunderstood. 



The Gymnasium was the more interesting as the type of those Therma;, 

 the Roman baths, which have furnished the great school of architectural in- 

 itruction, and from which the best inventions of the architects of the middle 

 age, and of the revival, had been derived. 



The name, Therma;, as well as the express declaration of Vitruvius, de- 

 clare that these institutions were exotic : a refinement adopted from Greece 

 in the time of Augustus. During the first three centuries of our era, seven 

 of these were erected ; they were well calculated to indulge that love of 

 luxury which rapidly corrupted the Roman manners under the emperors, as 

 well as to gratify that constant excitement of novelty and splendour, which 

 gave popularity to the government. Some idea of their extent may be con- 

 ceived from the plan (exhibited) of the Baths of Caracalla laid down upon 

 that plot which is comprised between Regent Street, Pall Mall, St. James's 

 Street, and Piccadilly, covering about 28 acres. Cameron assures us. that 

 those of Diocletian, somewhat larger, afforded hot baths for 18,000 persons 

 at the same time : a bell rung at two o'clock to announce that the water was 

 warm. The mask of a paternal urbanity was often affected by the despotic 

 emperors, who frequently bathed with the people. One day Hadrian recog- 

 nized an old companion in arms in poverty, scraping himself with a tile in- 

 stead of the strigil ; accosting him kindly,' he furnished him with a slave, 

 and all that could be wanted to his future comfort. Such an example could 

 not but be infectious: accordingly when he came again, he was surrounded 

 with poor acquaintances scraping themselves with tiles; but, calling them 

 together, he observed, that being many they could scrape each other, 

 without any superflous expense of slaves or furniture. The Thermx were 

 in fact vast clubs, castles of indolence, in which even- easy exercise of body 

 or mind, and every delight of the senses might be indulged. The gardens, 

 raised about thirty feet above the general level, were adorned with every 

 fragrant shrub and flower; the choicest works of sculpture, obelisks and 

 fountains, exedrx for the enjoyment of the shade or the sun (of a structure 

 well worthy the student's attention) terminated the walks. In the cen- 

 tral building was the great hall, the type of Gothic structure in ecclesiastical 

 architecture, namely, the groined ceiling reposing on a column, and abutting 

 on an extended pier, with the nascent flying buttress. The space of the 

 naves (varying from 76 to 90 feet) being twice that of York, the widest of 

 our cathedrals. The area covered, offers the largest space with the smallest 

 obstruction in the support, of any scheme yet devised, and cannot be too 

 much admired. It has been well observed of those structures, that we 

 discern in them the type of all that has been since done in architecture, 

 just as throughout the animal creation we trace the more or less resem- 

 blance to the type man. The interest excited amongst the French students 

 recently (as exhibited in their late competition for the grand prize), pro- 

 mises that this admirable feature of ancient architecture will be reproduced 

 in Europe before many years past. It was proposed for the new Public 

 Library at Cambridge ; it was employed by Sir C. Wren in Bow Church, on 

 a small scale; and is executed on a still smaller scale, with considerable 

 differences, but with happy application in the Bank of England, by Sir J. 

 Soane. But the cloisters, the surrounding rooms and baths, their various 

 forms and structures, and the happy union of the arch and the trabeated 

 systems, would lead to more observation than can be here admitted. To the 

 students he would say of them, 



Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna. 



Palladio designed to have published a book upon them, the drawings for 



which were afterwards edited by Lord Burlington. Mons. Blouet has pub- 

 lished a magnificent work, giving all the restorations and details, which 

 large excavations and very careful study of them enabled him to obtain. 



The Basilica is also of Greek origin, as the name imports. The kingly 

 hall was such as Solomon built in the palace of the forest of Lebanon. It 

 was the Westminster Hall of ancient governments for administration of 

 justice, commercial exchange, great public meetings, &c. The building at 

 Pcestum, so called, was more properly a temple, because the Greeks were not 

 accustomed to apply sacred architecture to civil purposes. 



The Basilica of Trajan was the most magnificent exemplar of this species 

 of building which the Professor could point out : with its forum, temples, 

 and approaches, it covered 12 acres. The central hall or basilica, 540 by 

 168 feet, would contain St. Paul's in length and in width, exceeded only in 

 the extreme ends of the cross. The central nave, 27S by 78, would contain 

 the whole of Westminster Hall, in plan as well as in section. In Rome were 

 18 basilicas, and one at least in every city of the empire. Their subsequent 

 adaptation to the Christian temple makes them highly interesting to the 

 student. Vitruvius, lib. v. c. 1, describes the basilica, and his own work 

 at Fauum, which differs from the usual form in some particulars. 



Lectcke IV. 



Of the divisions of the art proposed, that of domestic and villa archi- 

 tecture alone remained to be considered. On this subject, two important 

 preliminary remarks were to be made. Firstly, that the republican form of 

 government, which prevailed in the ancient world after the seventh century 

 b.c, greatly influenced the style of domestic buildings, which were expressly 

 unostentatious externally, towards narrow streets, lined with shops, reserving 

 all their elegance for the interior, in the atrium impluviatum — porticatutn— 

 the exedra, &c. Secondly, that populations and fashions having been de- 

 rived from the east, an oriental character was impressed on the ancient 

 habits and arrangements of countries in which (as in Italy especially) the 

 northern and occidental now prevail ; as derived from an opposite source. 

 Whoever walks through the streets of Pompeia, after having resided amongst 

 the Turks, will be struck with this fact. The profuse employment of water, 

 in the bath, the impluvium, and in the corner of every street — the narrow 

 street — the secluded mansions, within high walls — the internal air and space 

 — the subdivision of the house into the men's apartments and the women's— 

 the harem — the lightness of the costume — all express migration from warmer 

 climates, and a marked distinction of the races of modern and ancient in- 

 habitants. 



The Jews lived chiefly on the terraced tops of the houses, as the Professor 

 presumed the Pharaoh to have done. " Ahaziah " (II Kings, c. i.), King of 

 Samaria, " fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber ;" and it was 

 thence that David, in a wanton moment, incurred the curse which fell upon 

 his family. The house top is ever the scene of prayer. " Let him that is 

 on the house top," says our Saviour, '• not come down into his house, neither 

 enter therein," (Mark, xiii. 15) ; yet it is possible that in the latter ages 

 they had adopted the Greek and Roman ichnography — it was, perhaps, 

 through the roof of the atrium testudhiatuui that the sick man was let down 

 to be cured by our Saviour (Luke, v. 19.) 



The narrowness of the streets, and unostentatious style of the houses in 

 Athens, occasioned disappointment to the traveller, as Dica-archus expressly 

 tells us ; in Rome the same ; and as the houses were limited by the Augustan 

 law to 70 feet high, we must suppose them unattractive. The fragments of 

 the great plau of Rome, inscribed on the pavement of the temple of Romu- 

 lus, by order of Septimius Severus, and published by Bellori, show the re- 

 semblance of the houses to those of Pompeia. It was an extraordinary in- 

 novation on the ancient humility of the Roman house, which Cresar pro- 

 posed, in demanding permission of the Senate to erect a fastigium, or pedi- 

 ment, over his door. 



But the complete account of the Roman aristocratic house is to be found 

 in the " Palais de Scaurus," by Mons. Mazois, as also of the citizen's house, 

 in the " Ruines de Pompeia," so admirably illustrated by that ingenious and 

 lamented architect. 



But if the Roman nobles accomplished the admirable works described, in 

 favour of the public, they did not neglect their own comforts. Under the 

 empire they lived as individuals with the income of monarchs ; and Straho tells 

 us expressiy that " they built their villas after the palaces of the kings of 

 Persia." The number" of them was also extraordinary; for, as Lucullus 

 said, " they were as wise as those birds which change their residence with 

 the seasons." 



Cicero had 19 villas, and it was in one of these that Caesar honoured him 

 with a morning call, and paid him the very high compliment of taking a 

 vomit in order that he might do justice to his lunch. In another he de- 

 lighted to ornament his library with Greek paintings and sculptures, which 

 his friend Herodes Atticus was always collecting for him. 



It was a fortunate legacy to the architect-antiquary which Pliny had left, 

 in the description of his villa at Laurentinum. It had often employed the 

 ingenuity of the architect, since the revival, but with small profit, till the 

 discovery of the ancient ichnography of Pompeia. The Professor exhibited 

 his own restoration, founded upon those data, in which, though he differed 

 in some points from his accomplished friend, Mons. Haudebourt, in his ele- 

 gant version of the Laurentinum, yet he strongly recommended it to the 

 student, on account of the great research and taste shown in the composi- 



