INGENUITY AND LUXURY 



nology is, however, deceptive ; a chimney should signify 

 specifically a flue built up along a wall and raised above 

 a roof. In this sense chimneys seem not to have 

 existed prior to the fourteenth century A.D. Vitruvius 

 warns the Romans against elaborately carved cornices 

 in the fire-room, on account of discoloration from smoke. 

 The houses of Pompeii and Herculaneum, which have 

 taught us most of what we know regarding the Roman 

 and Greek house, present no trace of chimneys. Seneca 

 tells us that whenever a feast was held special watch- 

 men were appointed to keep guard over the house of 

 entertainment, lest disaster should result from the 

 unusually ardent blaze in the kitchen. 



Columella gives directions for the height of ceilings 

 in order to minimize danger from fire. This would 

 all have been unnecessary, of course, had chimneys 

 existed in his day. The preparation of wood in ways 

 to diminish the amount of smoke given out in combus- 

 tion, constituted a Roman industry. Nor was the 

 smoke, which could not be done away with, regarded 

 altogether as a waste product. Around ancient kitch- 

 ens are found places for smoking meats and wines; 

 and coops for a certain breed of fowl supposed to 

 thrive in smoke ! We read of eye-diseases due to smoke ; 

 Horace was once afflicted with one. 



Chimneys first enter written history in an account 

 of an earthquake in Venice in the fourteenth century, 

 when several are said to have been thrown down. In 

 his history of Padua, written about 1390 A.D., Gale- 

 azzo Cataro tells the story of a Paduan nobleman 

 who went to Rome and put up at the " Sign of the Moon." 



