Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/510

494 494 EUSSIAN ARCHITECTURE. Part II. adopted separate baptisteries, nor did they affect any sepulchral mao-. nificence in their tombs. From the time of Herodotus the Scythians were great casters of metal and famous for their bells. The speci- mens of casting of this sort in Russia reduce all the great bells of Western Europe to comparative insignificance. It of course became rrecessary to provide places in which to hang these bells: and as nothing either in Byzantine or Armenian architecture afforded a hint for araalgamatino- the belfry with the church, they went to work in their own way, and constructed the towers wholly independent of the churches. Of all those in Russia, that of Ivan Veliki, orected by the Czar Boris, about the year 1600, is the finest. It is surmounted by a cross 18 ft. high, making a total height of 269 ft. from the ground to the top of the cross. It cannot be said to have any great beauty, either of form or detail ; but it rises boldly from the ground, and towers over all the other l)uildings of the Kremlin. With this toAver for its prin- cipal object, the whole mass of building is at least pic- turesque, if not architectu- rally beautiful. In the wood- cut (No. 953) the belfry is shown as it stood before it was blown up by the French. It hns been since rebuilt, and with the catljedrals on either hand, makes up the finest group in the Kremlin. Besides the belfries, the walls of the Kremlin' are adorned with towers, meant not merely for military defence, but as architectural ornaments, and reminding us somewhat of those described by Josephus as erected by Herod on the walls of Jerusalem. One of these towers (Woodcut No. 954), built by the same Czar Boris who erected that last described, is a good specimen of its class. It is Tower of Boiis, Kremlin, Moscow.