98 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[March, 



A military people delight in pavilions ; each apartment was to represent a 

 tent. So in the Tuileries the line of tents is terminated with two, distin- 

 guished by the name of Pavilions de Flore and Marsan. A maritime people 

 delight in' their ships : thus the English apartments convey the idea of " be- 

 tween decks," and the largtr buildings are often like the man-of-war hulk 

 laid up in ordinary. So in Russia the palaces have the air of barracks ; vast 

 and forlorn, they remind the spectator of the plains of Siberia. In Egypt, 

 the Troglodite excavation was revealed in the temple palace ; in Greece, the 

 log.house in the temple structure: in China, still the tent, in its simplest 

 form. 



In the middle ages domestic architecture arose from the monastic struc- 

 tures in single rooms, lighted on either side like our colleges, the chimney 

 shafts issuing from the eaves. The composite house of double rooms was 

 borrowed from the Italians by Francis I., but even there the degagement was 

 wanting, and the chamber, ante-chamber, waiting-room, and guard-room, 

 were all passage-rooms. It is in the English palaces that this problem has 

 been best solved. 



But the Professor observed, that this digression had led us from the chro- 

 nology of the art, which terminated with the Roman villa ; and we now 

 entered that melancholy period of history, in which all ancient ideas of 

 human enjoyment were absorbed in loftier and more serious aspirations ; and 

 the art during the next 1000 years was employed alone in military and eccle- 

 siastical buildings, by means of the Freemasons. The original institution of 

 that order is traced even to the Greeks and Romans. Numa established the 

 first corporations of architects, Collegia Fabrorum, together with the inferior 

 Collegia Artificum. They were invested with a religious character, and 

 rights of framing laws and treaties amongst themselves. They greatly con- 

 tributed to the increase of the Roman power amongst the barbarians, 

 as have done our own people amongst the North American Indians, with 

 whom an article of treaty on their part, has always been to send a 

 blacksmith amongst them. The Collegia were greatly promoted by the 

 Roman Emperors in the rebuilding of cities, in the aqueducts and public 

 works, and endowed with peculiar privileges, as freedom from taxation, hold- 

 ing councils with closed doors, &c. Victor relates that Hadrian was the 

 first to attach a corps of architects to the Cohorts (about 120, A.n.) — an ex- 

 ample which the admirable College for Civil Engineers at Putney, in favour 

 of our colonies, promises to follow with great advantage. 



But it was at the termination of the eighth century, that the masons of 

 Como assumed their peculiar form of Freemasonry, raised into importance by 

 the patronage of the commercial and zealous Lombards, in the building 

 of churches and monasteries with new materials; and dispersed after the 

 destruction of that kingdom by Charlemagne, they spread themselves over 

 Europe, obtaining bulls from the Pope, and maintaining peculiar rights and 

 mysteries. Collegia had existed in England ; but, destroyed by the ravages 

 of the barbarians, the Freemasons (probably of Como) were invited by Alfred, 

 aud after by King Athelstan, who gave them a charter in York (926), the 

 original of which is said to exist still in that ancient city. It cites the 

 Oriental Church, the history of architecture from Adam, with Rabbinical 

 tales of the Building of Babel, the Temple of Solomon ; Ilieram, the Greeks 

 and Romans, Pythagoras, Euclid, and Vitravius, are quoted ; that St. 

 Albanus (300, a.d.) obtained a charter from King Carausius, with sixteen 

 laws, agreeing with the corpus juris, relating to the Corpora or Collegia of 

 ancient Rome. Another precious document preserved to us was written in 

 1450, under Henry VI., a great patron of architecture, published in the 

 Gentleman's Magazine (1753, p. 417). 



In 1459 a grand lodge was erected at Ratisbon, of which the architect of 

 Strasbourg cathedral was the grand master. Charters and privileges were 

 added by Maximilian, 1498. In 1717, SirC. Wren was the grand master in 

 England ; but shortly after the ancient fraternity altered its original form 

 and purpose, and became what we now understand by Freemasonry. Wren 

 was then extremely old, and probably unequal to oppose the perversion 

 which then took place; and which, from his known services to the craft, we 

 cannot doubt was contrary to his wishes. 



Thus the period of the revival was arrived at, and the Professor explained 

 that in the previous and the present lecture he had devoted the more time 

 to the review of ancient, sacred, and civil architecture, from the per- 

 suasion that the art would never again effect similar productions ; therefore 

 that antiquity formedjthat great storehouse from which the architect was to 

 draw his best instructions. 



It might be said, that the problem of architectural power and combina- 

 tion had been worked out and solved, that the mastery of the ancients was 

 admitted, and that such works would never again be performed ; it would 

 not again become a primary instrument of civilization. The human mind 

 had passed through that stage of its discipline, and had embraced new 

 sciences, engaging the faculties in occupations more advantageous to the 

 improvement and happiness of our species. The intellectual growth to the 

 manhood of our nature, now perhaps attained, would esteem architecture 

 ever a powerful engine in the attainment of the sublime aud beautiful, but 

 would probably never again indulge that preponderating regard given to it 

 by the ancients. 



The middle ages laboured after the ancient models with many divergencies : 

 in the revival with the muses, the conviction of their pre-eminence was ad- 

 mitted, and their laws and principles were confessed as unalterable. Nothing 

 then was wanted but to revive them, and the zeal with which this object was 

 pursued was immense. 



lu 1416, Poggio Bracciolini, in searching for manuscripts, discovered a 



copy of Vitravius, " covered with dust and rubbish, in a tower not fit to 

 receive a malefactor," says he, " at the monastery of St. Gal, at Constance." 

 Copies of this happy revelation -were spread amongst the learned, until the 

 invention of printing, in 1445, multiplied them amongst the great archi- 

 tects of the day — Brunellesclii, Ca;sariano, Bramante, and others. The mag- 

 nificent Albert i was one of the chief of these, but not finding in Vitravius 

 sufficient to inform and fire the student's mind, he composed that work 

 which all competent judges have esteemed the most masterly compilation in 

 the art extant. " Seeing," says be (lib. vi.) " that of all antiquity Vitravius 

 alone has reached us, that such chasms and imperfections appear in his 

 work, that his help is insufficient : his language, too, — Greek to the Romans, 

 and Latin to the Greeks — leaves so much unintelligible, I thought it the 

 duty of an honest and a studious mind to free this science from ruin ; though 

 the rehearing without meanness, reducing to a just method, writing in an 

 accurate style, and explaining perspicuously so many various matters — so un- 

 equal, so dispersed, and so remote from the common use and knowledge of 

 mankind — certainly required a greater genius and learning than I can pre- 

 tend to," &c. 



But he did not confine himself to the theory of his art ; as a scholar, a 

 mathematician, a Platonist, and of a noble family, he associated with all the 

 greatest spirits of his day, and was intimate with the living masters and the 

 progress of their works. M'hatever conies from him, therefore, is generous, 

 moral, philosophical, practical, and elevating : he proves himself truly of the 

 order of cavalieros ; he mounts you upon his horse, which quickly you find a 

 Pegasus ; he raises you above the vulgar cares and labours of this nether 

 world, and in his airy flight he shows you all the kingdoms of the world and 

 their handiworks ; and then he sets you down, cheered, instructed, delighted, 

 and exulting in your profession. 



The only English edition is that of Leoni, 1755. The spirit of that day 

 deemed art a primary instrument of civilization ; it became the boast and 

 the occupation of the little courts of the rival states of Italy ; literary 

 societies, discussions, and conversaziones, discovered and refined upon the 

 true principles of poetry and of fine arts; and a Bembo, SaJolet, Aimibal 

 Caro, Castiglione, Aretino, and a host of literary stars, all contributed their 

 zeal and means to thea'sthetical intelligence of artists. Architecture became 

 the field of poetical imagination : and we have the "i'jr^oTfpo^ax"', " The 

 sufferings of love in a dream," by the learned friar. Collonna, in which the 

 wonders aud delights of the art, and of its theories (full of original and 

 beautiful conception, the source from whence the artists of the day drew 

 continually), are accompanied with the romantic and amorous adventures of 

 blighted lo\e, of which the author was the victim. "The Dream of Poli- 

 philus." printed by Aldus, in 1199. was published in French ill 1600, with 

 new plates, engraved from the drawings of Jean Gougeon. 



From that period (early in the fifteenth century) to the present day we 

 have a race of able architects in an uninterrupted chain, each adding some 

 new grace or invention to the art, on which their merit and celebrity are 

 founded; all these we now appropriate without appreciating their difficulties, 

 and these progressions ; or due acknowledgment to each for the contributions 

 gradually made to our common stock. On the accompanying drawings of 

 some of the great works of those masters, on which our present practice is 

 based, the Professor proceeded to offer some comments. It must be pre- 

 mised that the revival found the art under very different circumstances. The 

 growth of liberty in the middle ages, magnifying the individual, whose house 

 now became his castle, an aristocracy balancing the kingly authority, the in- 

 crease of commerce, and many other causes, altered the whole face of do- 

 mestic architecture ; it might safely be asserted, that no palace of the 

 solidity of the Strozzi or of Burlington House, ever existed in antiquity. The 

 remains of the most insignificant temples and public buildings are still found, 

 but the absence of any remains of such solid mansions as those throughout 

 the ancient world might be adduced in proof that the domestic architecture 

 of the ancients was slight and ephemeral. The houses of the ancients, like 

 those of the Turks, were of wood and brick, covered with plaster and with 

 paint. Columns, indeed, abounded, but they were moveables, or furniture, 

 the objects of manufacture at the quarries, and of trade. These reflections 

 were sufficient to show, that the features which the architects of the revival, 

 in their endeavour to restore classical architecture, introduced, were new 

 in execution and design, and required a stretch and effort of mind which we 

 do not sufficiently take into account. Those who may be considered the 

 active restorers of architecture are — Brunellesclii, Bramante, Alberti, Peruzzi, 

 Serlio, San Gallo, Michael Angelo, Raphael, San Micheli, Sansovino, Galle- 

 azzo Alessi, Vignola, Palladio, Scaniniozzi, L'Escot, Philibert de l'Orme ; 

 many others might be added, but none more remarkable than these. The 

 question occurs, in what particulars were these men great ? the answer will 

 always be, that not only were they eminent practitioners, but they advanced 

 their art, and contributed new views and inventions towards its perfection. 



Tbe first essays were in imitation of the system observed in the colosseum 

 and the theatre,' namely, the column and trabeation in relief, and superposed 

 upon the frieze and arch, and this, in a small scale, formed a crowning order 

 upon the tower on which Brunelleschi raised his dome at Florence. The 

 same difficulties of constructing the trabeation, aud of finding stone of suffi- 

 cient size, and of funds for opening the quarries, which had induced the de- 

 cline of architecture under Diocletian, occurred in its restoration ; and it 

 required the experience of one hundred and fifty years to suspend the disen- 

 gaged entablature in the ancient manner, with any boldness of scale aud pro- 

 jection, as in Perranlt's Louvre, about 12 ft. 6 in. 



Brunellesclii, in his church of St. Spirito and St. Lorenzo, employed the 



