ARCHITECTURE, 



fcdjj as may be seen in many of the street 

 houses of London, in order to give room 

 for a fan light, and to lessen the expenses 

 of the frontispiece, by introducing short- 

 er columns and a less massy entablature : 

 for since the horizontal cornice represents 

 the tie-beam, and the inclined ones the 

 rafters, the columns will appear to have a 

 tottering effect, by spreading them out at 

 the top beyond the extremities of their 

 bases. 



Vitruvius observes, that the Greeks 

 never used mutules, modillions, or den- 

 tils, in the front, in which the end of the 

 roof, or fastigium, appears, because that 

 the ends of the rafters and the ends of 

 the laths which support the tiles only 

 appear at the eaves of the building. 

 Now, as mutules and dentils originated 

 from the projecting ends of the rafters 

 and laths, following the course of nature, 

 it would have been absurd to introduce 

 them into the pediment. 



However just this reasoning appears, 

 we find, from the remains of Grecian an- 

 tiquity, this assertion only verified in the 

 -inclined cornices of the pediment : for 

 mutules are constantly employed in the 

 horizontal cornice ; but neither mutules, 

 modillions, nor dentils, on the sloping 

 sides : at least, when any of the edifices 

 in Greece appear with those innovations, 

 they are introduced during the time it 

 was a province of the Roman empire. Of 

 this practice at Rome, the Pantheon and 

 the frontispiece of Nero are examples of 

 modillions; and the temple of Fortune 

 one where dentils are used. In the in- 

 clined cornices of pediments the sides of 

 the modillions and dentils are planes, 

 perpendicular to the horizon and to the 

 front of the edifice ; and in the same ver- 

 tical planes with those of the modillions 

 or dentils of the horizontal cornice. 



balustrades. A balustrade is a range of 

 small columns, called ballusters, support- 

 ing a cornice, used as a parapet, or as a 

 screen to conceal the whole or a part of 

 the roof: it is also sometimes used as a 

 decoration for terminating the building. 

 Balustrades are employed in parapets on 

 the margins of stairs, or before windows, 

 or to inclose terraces or other elevated 

 places of resort, or on the sides of the 

 passage way of bridges. It is remarkable, 

 that there are no remains of balusters to 

 be seen in any ancient building 1 . In the 

 theatres and amphitheatres of the Ro- 

 mans, the pedestals of the upper orders 

 were always continued through the ar- 

 cades, to serve as a parapet for the spec- 

 tutors to lean over. The lowermost seats 



next to the arena in the ampitheatres, and 

 those next to the orchestra in the thea- 

 tres, were guarded by a parapet, or po- 

 dium. The walls of ancient buildings ge- 

 nerally terminated with the cornice itself, 

 or with a blocking course, or with an 

 Attic. In the monument of Lysicrates at 

 Athens, which is a small beautiful build- 

 ing, the top is finished with fynials, com- 

 posed of honeysuckles, solid behind, and 

 open between each pair of fynials: each 

 plant or fynial is bordered with a curved 

 head, and the bottom of each interval 

 witli an inverted curve. Perhaps termi- 

 nations of this nature might have been 

 employed in many other Grecian build- 

 ings, as some coins seem to indicate ; but 

 this is the only existing example of the 

 kind. The temples in Greece are mostly 

 finished with the cornice itself. This was 

 also the case with many of the Roman 

 temples ; but as there are no remains of 

 balustrades in ancient buildings, their an- 

 tiquity may be doubted : they are, how- 

 ever, represented in the works of the 

 earliest Italian writers, who perhaps may 

 have seen them in the ruins of Roman 

 edifices. When a balustrade finishes a 

 building, and crowns an order, its height 

 should be proportioned to the architec- 

 ture it accompanies, making it never more 

 than four-fifths, nor less than two-thirds, 

 of the height of the order, without reck- 

 oning the zocholo, or plinth, on which it 

 is raised, as the balustrade itself should^ 

 be completely seen at a proper point of 

 view. Balustrades that are designed for 

 use should always be of the height of 

 parapet walls, as they answer the same 

 purpose, being nothing else than an or- 

 namental parapet. This height should not 

 exceed three feet and a half, nor be less 

 than three feet. In the balusters, the 

 plinth of the base, the most prominent 

 part of the swell, and the abacus of their 

 capital, are generally in the same straight 

 line; their distance should not exceed 

 half the breadth of the abacus or plinths, 

 nor be less than one-third of this mea- 

 sure. On stairs or inclined planes the 

 same proportions are to be observed as 

 on horizontal ones. It was formerly cus- 

 tomary to make the mouldings of the ba- 

 lusters follow the inclination of the plane; 

 but this is difficult to execute, and, when 

 done, not very pleasant to the eye: 

 though in ornamental iron work, where it 

 is confined to a general surface, passing 

 perpendicularly by the ends of the steps, 

 it has a very handsome appearance. The 

 breadth of pedestals, when placed over 

 an order, is regulated by tke top of the 



