1843.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



97 



tion. Some of the features he would describe. You entered a small tarium 

 and thence a court in the form of the letter D, surrounded with a portico, 

 which was enclosed partially with glass (the very original of our old con- 

 ventual cloisters), and thus excluded rough weather. Thence through a 

 gay court into a triclinium, which hung over the sea, and had windows all 

 round three sides, giving the full enjoyment of the air, and view of wood 

 and mountains beyond. To the left of this was a room, at the end of which 

 was a rotunda (in apside curvatum), so contrived as to receive the sun's rays 

 from the rising to the setting : in this was a case containing books, calcu- 

 lated to detain you, and such as " one loves to read over and over again." 

 This arrangement afforded an angular parterre, protected on all sides except 

 the south from the winds, and concentrating the sun's rays — a delightful 

 refuge in the winter season. There were rooms heated by pipes from a hy- 

 pocaustum, and others to retire to in stormy weather, to escape the roaring 

 of the waves; a large bath for cold and hot bathing; a perfumery; and 

 spheristerium, or fives court ; a long gallery (crypto porticus) with windows 

 on either side, which, when opened, admitted the fragrance of beds of 

 violets, and the sun's rays at the rising and setting. " At the end of this," 

 continues Pliny, " is a casino I built myself — my delight : in it I have an 

 Heliocaminus, a sun chamber, warmed by windows all round ; while reposing 

 on my couch in a recess adjoining, I can see the garden, the landscape, and 

 the sea, through a glazed door ; I can study in perfect quiet here, and escape 

 all the noise and disturbance of my servants, occasioned by the Saturnalia." 

 Pliny omits some features of great interest in the Roman house, as the 

 Sacrariura, (the chapel,) in which the Lares (the household gods,) were 

 placed, and sometimes the imagines majorum, of which the Romans, like 

 ourselves, were justly proud. The Tabliuium, for the archives, which also 

 received these sometimes ; and the Ergastulum, that room of the domestic 

 side of the house in which chastisement was administered to the slaves, in 

 the approved fashion of our schools at this day, as we see by various paint- 

 ings preserved to us. 



Pliny describes his gardens, his figs and mulberries, his gestatio bordered 

 with box, and plantatious disposed in the form of Xystus and the Hippo- 

 drome ; classical titles, which give a charm to features otherwise insignifi- 

 cant : and since " the world," says Sir C. Wren, " is governed by wordes," 

 they may often be adopted by the architect with good effect, when intro- 

 duced appropriately and without pedantry. 



The attention to the sun's rays in the milder climate of Italy, so conspi- 

 cuously shown in Pliny's letters, is confirmed by all the ^authorities of anti- 

 quity. 



Vitruvius (b. 6, c. vii.) is very particular in his recommendations to this 

 effect ; but the wisest of men, in a still warmer climate, has enforced this 

 point yet more strikingly : — " To make a house pleasaut," says Socrates, " it 

 should be cool in summer and warm in winter : the building, therefore, 

 which looks towards the south will best secure these objects, for the sun 

 which will enter into the rooms in winter, will, by its greater altitude, pass 

 over its roof in summer. For the same reason, these honses ought to be 

 carried up to a considerable height, the better to admit the winter's sun ; 

 whilst those to the north should be left much lower, as less exposed to the 

 bleak winds from that quarter : for, in short," continues he, " that house is 

 to be regarded as beautiful where a man may pass even' season of the year 

 pleasantly, and lodge whatever belongs to him in security." 



The modern Italians are not less attentive to aspect, which they signifi- 

 cantly express by the proverb, " Dove non viene il sole, viene il medico." 



But the most extraordinary villa of the ancient world, was that of Had- 

 rian, at Tivoli, in which he displayed all the acquirements and collections of 

 taste, during 21 years of constant travel through this vast empire ; in it was 

 reproduced every remarkable building of the world, and probably every 

 statue of celebrity, since from this magazine the baths of Caracalla were 

 furnished 80 years after, and the Vatican in some of its most precious orna- 

 ments. The whole was said to be inclosed in a wall 10 miles in circum- 

 ference. Pizzo Legorio, Kircher, Contini, and Panini, have engraved and 

 written upon the remains. 



The modern villas of Rome, built by the popes and cardinals since the 

 15th century, convey to us some of those graces in which the ancient villas 

 abounded. In these all the great masters of the revival have displayed their 

 research and ingenuity. They are described in the elegant work of Messrs. 

 Percier and Fontaine, to which the Villa Pia, by Mons. Boucher, has lately 

 been added. 



Our own architects of the I6th, encouraged by Bacon, Burleigh, and 

 Wotton, certainly studied these works, and engrafted some of their princi- 

 ples on our Elizabethan architecture, which adapts itself admirably to our 

 climate and the extent of our establishments. Bacon (Essays, vol. I.) de- 

 scribes his idea of a villa with great detail, insisting upon the aspect and the 

 seasons as primary considerations. Indeed, all authorities agree upon this 

 subject, except those of the 19th century, and especially the patentees of 

 hot air or hot water apparatus. 



" The Elements of Architecture," by Sir Henry Wotton, being " the Rules 

 and Cautions of this Art cast into a Comportable Method," are amongst the 

 most precious and tbe earliest in our language. He was long ambassador at 

 Venice, from Elizabeth and James, and seems to have been personally ac- 

 quainted woith Palladio. Domestic and villa architecture are special sub- 

 jects with him ; for, says he, " Every man's proper mansion and home being 

 the theater of his hospitalitie, the seat of self-fruition, the comfortablest 

 part of his own life, the noblest part of his son's inheritencc, a kind of 



private princedome, nay, to the possessor himself an epitome of the whole 

 worlde, may well deserve by these attributes according to the degree of the 

 master, to be decently and delightfully adorned." 



In truth, during three centuries the cultivation of this branch of architec- 

 ture may be said to be peculiar to England, and that, while monumental and 

 palatial edifices are better illustrated on the continent, the constitution of 

 this country, and of the English mind — prone to the salutary retirements of 

 home, the centre to which all its desires and warmest imaginings are ever 

 pointing — bave made the English house of every grade the most perfect in 

 comfort and convenience, and the villa the beau ideal of individual posses- 

 sion, and the branch of the art in which our country excels beyond all 

 others. 



The compact square villa, after Palladio especially, was introduced by Inigo 

 Jones, and much advanced by the model of those at Genoa, published by 

 Rubens, who recommends them as full of beauty and convenience, and admi- 

 rably suited to gentlemen of moderate fortune, such as the republic of Genoa 

 is composed of. But the extension of the habits and the requirements of 

 the present day have outgrown the spuare villa, and we are constrained to 

 build a house beside the villa to accommodate them, with the worst possible 

 effect in the group and in detail ; for in vain the plantation attempts to hide 

 it out ; an anomalous composition is the Jesuit, and we had better have re 

 verted to the Elizabethan mansion, which cast the house and offices into one 

 in the extended E or H, or the French mansion, " enter cour et jardin," of 

 the 18th century, reserving the centre for the best apartments, and the wings 

 for offices, and the entrances in the angles communicating easily with all. 



The least rational of English productions in this sort is seen in the castel- 

 lated elevation adapted to this plan — the battlements and dungeon-keeps of 

 Edward the Third upon the Italian villa of the 16th and 1 7th centimes. 

 The menacing aspect, the machicolations, threatening hot lead upon the in- 

 truders, in the distance, are, on the approach, found to be peaceful and 

 harmless ; the fortress is accessible at every window, and expresses a security 

 from danger on better acquaintance, in direct contradiction to its fortified 

 exterior. On entering the baronial hall, where you expect the paraphenalia 

 of chivalry and the chase, retainers and bondsmen, you are addressed by a 

 powdered footman, or may discover a housemaid sweeping the marble pave- 

 ment. 



The Grecian villa is hardly better conceived; it may be taken for a library, 

 or a philosophical institution. An extensive portico, borrowed from Minerva 

 Polias, imposes its order on the whole composition, which is to be com- 

 pressed accordingly, at the cost of all its internal proportions and accom- 

 modations. Even' useful appendage of vulgar convenience is to be sxp- 

 pressed, as ill-suited to its Flatonic refinement. As Swift says of Clelia — 



You'd think that so divine a creature 

 Felt no necessities of nature. 



But such architectural solecisms derogate from the dignity of the art, and 

 convert into a theatrical or romantic dream, that which should embody sound 

 sense and rational invention. 



The essential features should be prominently expressed ; the nobler por- 

 tions, the offices, kitchen, the clock, and the stables, should tell their own 

 story. And fiction would be found unnecessary when all these are placed in 

 due subordination and proper character by the artist's hand. 



France, until recent times, essentially monarchical and aristocratic, has 

 ever delighted in palaces ; and since the reign of Francis I., they have been, 

 the most remarkable of Europe. Du Cerceau, Philibert de l'Orme, Mansards, 

 and Blondel, and many able successors, afford us the fullest information on 

 the ichuography adapted to these grades. In conception and design, and in 

 many respects in execution also, the Louvre is the most magnificent palace 

 in the world, Situatad in the metropolis, and occupying 32 acres, its galle- 

 ries, and museums, and its gardens, form the recreation of the people. The 

 paternal monarch invites them into his courts and vestibules, of which he 

 esteems them the best ornaments, the most familiar and acceptable guests at 

 all hours ; participating with them his refinements and his delights, they are 

 endeared and elevated, and the palace of the arts and sciences, a part of the 

 entire composition, and ranging in the axis of the first court, forming the 

 chief object from its windows, assure them of the nobleness of Ins views for 

 their honour and real advantage. The palace itself, the work of centunes, 

 still unfinished, is the great attelier of artists— the field in which they may 

 exercise their genius for centuries to come in their several works— the great 

 harbour in which talent may find protection and employment. 



It was for the foundation of such schemes as these, that Francis 1. invited 

 Vignola and Serlio, and the painters of the school of Raphael, into France ; 

 and for their transmission to posteritv, that he encouraged the publication of 

 C;esari Cssariauo's translation of Vitruvius and the elementary wor^s of 

 Serlio and others, which obtained for him in return the title of the lather 

 of Literature. Nor were his successors inferior in these encouragements, 

 which enabled native artists afterwards to rival the great Italians— for 

 L'Escot was preferred to Serlia, and Perrautt to Bernini. 



The peculiarity of French orthography is in the high roofs, subdivided 

 into paviliaus. affording great effect in composition of various and cumulating 

 forms, aided by their high mi hafts and dormer windows, and their 



vast windows below them, suited to the northern climate. Indeed, Philibert 

 de l'Orme, and the architects have rendered the Italian style 



homogeneous witli the northern climate and circumstances in the happiest 

 manner. 



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