224 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[July, 



recreation were carried on within the walls of the lofty apartments, 

 which were covered with all the variety of colours and costly material, 

 •where the Egyptian granite was incrusted with the green, yellow 

 and red marbles of Numidia. In the midst of this splendour might 

 have been seen a swarm of dirty and ragged plebeians criticising the 

 painting and statues of the pinacotheca, and although they indulged 

 in gross and vulgar sensuality, could display a taste in works of art 

 ■which our modern populace might envy. In winter as well as in 

 summer those places of public resort were open ; the soft climate of 

 Rome required no fire to warm the room with a southern aspect, and 

 the fountains which played in every direction refreshed the very air in 

 the hottest season. This description is not only applicable to the 

 therma: of Caracalla, but also to the others whose ruins stili exist, and 

 cover almost an equal space. Indeed, if we may credit Olyrapiodorus, 

 the baths of Diocletian had more than 3000 seats of polished marble. 

 Kor have we yet mentioned all the apartments and their uses which a 

 thermae establishment contained ; we have assigned no place for the 

 conisterium, where the athletae were sprinkled with dust, that the 

 antagonist might hold hira the faster ; no place for the elseotherium 

 where he was besmeared with oil, that the hold might be slippery ; 

 there was the sphaeristerium or tennis court ; the bibliothecae, the 

 coryesea, the musea, must all find a place ; but I have not attempted 

 to fasten a name upon every compai-tment, just for the sake of filling 

 lip the plan. Let it suffice to have enumerated the parts and uses of 

 a thermae, and with the help of other men's labours to have illustrated 

 one of the principal causes of the decay of the empire. It is thus, 

 gentlemen, that we learn, from the labours of the antiquary and the 

 architect, what the historian has passed over in silence, and we are 

 enabled, with these plans of the ancient thermae before us, to account 

 for the facts which the historian has recorded, viz. that the valour of 

 Rome sunk ingloriously before the vigorous arm of the barbarian. It 

 was when Vitiges, the king of the Goths, cut oft' the supplies of water 

 in the fifth century, that the therniEe began to be deserted, but not 

 before they had been one of the most powerful causes in bringing 

 those Goths to the walls of Rome. If a society for the suppression of 

 vice had arisen in the age of the Antonines, the plague might have 

 been stayed ; but in the absence of moral and legal restraint, vice was 

 promoted and activity of body destroyed ; and it might have been 

 said with truth of the motley crowd in a therms, 



" Non his juveulus orta parcntibus 

 Infecit sequor sanguine Piinico." 



But in making some practical application of this subject, I would 

 observe, in conclusion, that it does not follow, if we could have some 

 such public establishments now, that the same evils would arise; with 

 our experience of past ages, and with that leaven of morality which 

 the influence of a pure religion has introduced, it might be possible 

 for us to adopt all the advantages of the therms without their mis- 

 chief; their cleanliness and health-promoting exercise without their 

 effeminacy, their means of recreation without their idleness, their 

 useful resources without their foolish luxury. 



" Tliink'st thou tliere is no tyranny but that 

 Of blood and chains ? the despotism of vice, 

 Tlie weakness and the wickedness of luxury, 

 The negligence, the apathy, the evils 

 Of sensual sloth, produce ten thousand tyrants, 

 Whose delegated cruelty surpasses 

 The worst acts of one energetic master." 



To this the therms of Rome bear witness, and therefore our thermae 

 may not resemble those. * * * * 



ON THE PRESENT STATE OF COLOGNE CATHEDRAL, 

 AND ITS PROPOSED COMPLETION. 



" They dreamt not of a perishable home, 

 "Whu thus could build." 



The cathedral of Cologne, if completed as proposed by the power- 

 fid mind which designed it, would probably be one of the most won- 

 derful and beautiful monuments of the skill of man in the whole 

 world ; — its enormous size, the elegance of the details, its completeness 

 as a whole, would alike strike the beholder as unequalled and sur- 

 prising. Cologne, although as Coleridge says, 



" a town of monks and bones. 



Iron litre Bridge.— It is strange that the plan of making bridges of iron 

 wire, so successfully adopted in Switzerland, France, and elsewhere abroad. 

 sliouUi not yet have found favour enough in England to be fairly tried on 

 the large scale; the noble bridge at Frcyburg, in .Switzerland, is 301 feet 

 wider than the Menai Bridge, and though it consists of one span, it is at le.ist 

 equally strong, and cost only a fifth part of the money. The wire bridge 

 " . ."^Jk^JIJ^.'^ f^" Knglish leet span ; that of Menai 569. The Menai bridge 

 cost 120,000/., that of Freyburg, 25,0001.— PaMmvrl, by Captain Basil Hall. 



And pavements fanged with murderous stones, 

 And Iiags and rags and dirty w enches '. " 



in which he counted seventy stenc?ies, may be termed the Rome of this 

 side the Alps, containing more objects of interest to the architectural 

 antiquary than any city in this position that I remember. Foremost 

 amongst them all, however, is the cathedral, even unfinished as it is. 

 No one who has seen it will easily forget the effect produced by it, or 

 cease to desire that it should be worthily completed knowing as nearly 

 all do know, that by a series of lucky accidents that some of the original 

 drawings are preserved to us. The designs for the principal front, 

 which it seems were formerly kept, one with the archives of the ca- 

 thedral, and the other in the masons' lodge, were lost when the French 

 occupied the city in 1704. In 1S14, one of the drawings, namely that 

 which represents the north tower, was accidentally discovered in a 

 corn-loft at Darmstadt, by a decorative painter who was about to 

 occupy the loft as a studio. Being drawn on parchment, it had been 

 used for many years as the bottom of a sort of tray in which to dry 

 beans; but with the exception of the marks left by the nails which 

 fastened it to the wooden rim, and a fracture in the lower part of it, 

 was little injured. It fortunately came into the possession of Dr. 

 Mdller the distinguished architect, of Darmstadt, who published 

 a fac-simile of it in 1818. At the time of the discovery of 

 this drawing, M. Willemin was publishing his work "Monuments 

 Fraiirais inklili" and Dr. Miiller was struck by the analogy which 

 appeared between the style of a large window represented in the 

 r2th No. of that work, and that of the details of the tower at Cologne. 

 He mentioned the circumstance to M. Boisseree, who was then occu- 

 pied on his large work on the cathedral of Cologne; inquiries were 

 made of M. Willemin, and it was learnt that the window in question 

 formed part of a very large drawing of a church on parchment, and 

 then in the possession of M. Imbart, an architect at Paris, who had 

 obtained it from M. Fourcroy. M. Fourcroy, it seems, had found it 

 in Belgium. M. Boisseree contrived to purchase the drawing, and it 

 was at once recognized as representing a part of the fa9ade of Cologne 

 cathedral.* It was afterwards sold to the King of Prussia, and His 

 Majesty presented it to the city of Cologne. United with the drawing 

 discovered at Darmstadt, it represents the whole of the principal 

 front. The size of the drawings together is about 6 ft. 6 in. wide, 

 and 13 ft. long. 



The longevity, it may almost be said the immortalily, of an idea 

 hardly needs illustration ; if it did, the design of this cathedral might 

 in part serve the purpose. Recorded centuries ago by the mind 

 which conceived it, the intention is but now about to be fulfilled ; and 

 what i(s realization at this moment may further lead to, yet remains 

 to be seen. Another and an analogous instance is now before us. 

 Two hundred years ago Sir Christopher Wren proposed to rebuild 

 London with the Exchange in the centre, and the main streets radiat- 

 ing from this building on all sides. Circumstances were opposed to 

 it, and the intention has lain dormant. In our day, however, one of 

 our countrymen, called in to advise on the rebuilding of Hamburgh, 

 has re-urged this idea, and if I am rightly informed, so successfully 



* It is supposed that llie plan bad been carried from Cologne about the 

 middle of the I5th century, to serve as a model for the numerous churches 

 which were then built in the Low Countries. 



