ARCHITECTURE. 



columns are lintelled with wooden archi- 

 traves. 



When the solid part of the masonry of 

 a range of arcades are decorated with the 

 orders, the intercolumns become neces- 

 sarily wide ; and the intercolumniation is 

 regulated by the breadth of the arcades, 

 and that of the piers. 



It does not appear that coupled, group- 

 ed, or clustered columns ever obtained 

 in the works of the ancients ; though, on 

 many occasions, they would have been 

 much more useful: we indeed find, in the 

 temple of Bacchus at Rome, columns 

 standing as it were in pairs ; but as each 

 pair is only placed in the thickness of the 

 wall, and not in the front, they may ra- 

 ther be said to be two rows of columns, 

 one almost immediately behind the other. 

 In the baths of Dioclesian, and in the 

 temple of Peace at Rome, we find groin- 

 ed ceilings, sustained by single Corinthian 

 columns; a support both meagre and in- 

 adequate. Vignola uses the same inter- 

 columniation in all his orders : this prac- 

 tice, though condemned by some, is 

 founded upon a good principle ; it pre- 

 serves a constant ratio between the co- 

 lumns and the intervals. 



Of all the kinds of intercolumniation, 

 the custyle was in the most general re- 

 quest among the ancients : and though in 

 modern architecture both the custyle and 

 diastyle are employed, yet the former of 

 these is still preferred in most cases : as 

 to the pycnostile interval, it is frequently 

 rejected for want of room, and the araeo- 

 style, for want of giving sufficient sup- 

 port to the entablature. 



The modernsseldom employ more than 

 one row of columns, either in external or 

 internal colonades ; for the back range 

 destroys the perspective regularity of the 

 front range : the visual rays, coming from 

 both ranges, produce nothing but confu- 

 sion in the eye of the spectator. This 

 confusion, in a certain degree, also attends 

 pilasters placed behind a row of insulated 

 columns ; but in this the relief is strong- 

 er, owing to the rotundity of the column, 

 and the flat surfaces of the pilasters. 

 When buildings are executed on a small 

 scale, as is frequently the case of temples, 

 and of other inventions used for the orna- 

 ments of gardens, it will be found neces- 

 sary to make the intercolumniations, or 

 at least the central one, broader than 

 usual, in proportion to the diameter of 

 the columns ; for, when the columns are 

 placed nearer each other than three feet, 

 the space becomes too narrow to admit 

 persons of a corpulent habit. 



Pilasters and Ante, f ilasters are rec- 

 tangular prismatic projections, advancing 

 from the naked part of a wall, with bases 

 and capitals like columns, and with an 

 entablature supported by the columns; 

 hence they differ from columns in their 

 horizontal sections being rectangles, 

 whereas those of columns are circles, or 

 the segments of circles, equal to, or 

 greater, than semicircles. 



It is probable that pilasters are of a 

 Roman invention, since there are but few 

 instances in Grecian buildings where they 

 are repeated at equal or regular intervals, 

 and these only in the latterages of Greece, 

 as in the monument of Philopapus, (un- 

 less in that of Thrasyllus ;) but of their 

 application in Roman works there are 

 numberless instances : Vitruvius calls 

 them parastatse. The Greeks used a kind 

 of square pillars only upon the ends of 

 their walls, which they called antae, which 

 antse projected sometimes to a consider- 

 able distance from the wall of the princi- 

 pal front, and formed the pronaos or 

 vestibulum. The breadth of the antae on 

 the flanks of the temples was always con- 

 siderably less than on the front : these 

 antae had sometimes columns between 

 them, and when this was the case, the 

 return within the pronaos was of equal 

 breadth to the front. The capitals of the 

 antae never correspond with those of co- 

 lumns, though there are always some 

 characteristic marks, by which the order 

 may be distinguished. 



Pilasters, or parastatae, when ranged 

 with columns under the same entablature, 

 or placed behind a row of columns, have 

 their bases and capitals like those of the 

 columns, with the corresponding parts at 

 the same heights, and when placed upon 

 the angles of buildings, the breadth of the 

 returns is the same as that of the front. 

 The trunks of pilasters have frequently 

 the same diminution as the shafts of the 

 columns, such as in the arches of Septi- 

 mius Severus and Constantine, and in the 

 frontispiece of Nero, and the temple of 

 Mars the Avenger, at Rome ; in this case, 

 the top of the trunks of the pilasters is 

 equal to the breadth of the soffit of the 

 architrave, and the upright face of the 

 architrave resting on the capital, in the 

 same perpendicular as the top of the pi- 

 laster. When the pilasters are undimi- 

 nished, and of the same breadth as the 

 columns at the bottom, the face of the 

 architrave resting on the capital retreats 

 within the top of the trunk, as in the Pan- 

 theon of Agrippa. 



Pilasters are either plain or fluted. In 



