194 ARCHITECTURE. 
at its intersection with the nave. In the rear of the choir gallery, which is 
68 feet high, is the oval chapel of the Holy Virgin, 35 feet deep, 44 feet 
long, and 78 feet high, and surrounded with a wooden dome. The facade, 
which is 174 feet broad and executed after Servandoni’s plan, has below 
four pairs of disengaged and four pairs of three-quarter columns of the 
Doric order. The former are 5 feet, 6 inches thick, and 43 feet high. Ser- 
vandoni had introduced a gable between the bases of the towers, which 
was struck by lightning in 1770, and then removed. 
7. Tae PanrHEon, oR THE CuuRcH or St. GENEVIEVE IN Paris. With the 
erection of this church arose a new epoch in the architecture of France, as 
the corrupt Italian style was deserted and the forms of the antique were 
again introduced. The honor of this work belongs to Jacques Germain 
Soufflot (born at Irancy in 1714), who had studied in Rome. Whilst he 
was building the theatre in Lyons he went to Paris and was there named 
Director General of Public Buildings. The above-mentioned church was 
to be built at this time and Soufflot’s plan was accepted, and in 1756 the 
corner stone of the church was laid. PP. 48, jig. 3, shows the ground 
plan, jig. 4 the view, and jig. 5 the lateral section of the church. King 
Chlodovig had once built a church upon the same spot which was renewed 
in the 12th century, but in 1483 was ruined by lightning and finally 
replaced by the present building. | | 
The form of the present church is a Greek cross formed of four aisles 
uniting under the dome. This at least was the wish of Soufflot, but the 
priests wished a lengthening of the choir and the main aisle. For this pur- 
pose pillar-arcades were introduced, which do not harmonize well with the 
columns. The desired two towers were also added in the rear of the nave, 
but they were afterwards removed. The beginning of the middle aisle forms 
a kind of fore hall, ovally vaulted, and with two tribunes. A third is over 
the entrance. The columns in the main aisle are 37 feet 8 inches high, and 
their axes are 14 feet apart. The diameter is 3 feet 6 inches, and the 
entablature. one fifth of the height of the columns. The inner length to the 
wall of the niche is 282 feet, that of the transept 236 feet, and the inner 
width is 99 feet 4 inches. The middle aisle is 39 feet 6 inches wide, the 
side aisles only 9 feet 6 inches. The dome is 62 feet in diameter. The 
masonry: occupies scarcely the 7th part of the whole area of the church, 
which is 52,992 square feet. It is very heavily taxed; for while the square 
foot of the pillars in St. Peter’s sustains 21,910 pounds, and in St. Paul’s 
church of London 36,059 pounds, the weight on the square foot in the Pan- 
theon is 48,687 pounds. Each of the four principal pillars is 24 feet long 
and 14 feet 6 inches broad. They are connected by four large arches of 
43 feet 2 inches span, and whose vertices are 69 feet 4 inches above the 
floor of the church. From them to the opening of the cap of the inner 
dome’ there is a height of 186 feet, 232 feet to the opening of the lantern 
in the third vault, and 258 feet to the top of the lantern. When the inner 
cap of the vault was finished in 1781, the pillars showed some cracks, 
Nevertheless the building was continued after a suspension of four years, 
occasioned by Soufflot’s death, in 1782, with the erection of the peristyle of 
194 
