Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/511

Rh Bk. IX. Ch. VII. KREMLIN, MOSCOW. 495 one of the principal of those which give the walls of the Kremlin their peculiar and striking character. These towers, however, are not peculiar to the Kremlin of Moscow. Every city in Russia had its Kremlin, as every one in Spain had its Alcazar, and all were adorned with walls deeply machicolated, and interspersed with towers. Within were enclosed five- domed churches and bel- fries, just as at Moscow, though on a scale propor- tionate to the importance of the city. It would be easy to select numerous illustrations of this. They are, however, all very much like one another, nor have they sufficient beauty to require us to dwell long on them. Their gate- ways, however, are fre- (piently important. Every rity had its porta sacra, deriving its importance either from some memo- rable event or from mir- acles said to have been wrought there, and being the triumphal gateways through which all proces- sions pass on state occa- sions. The best known of these is that of Moscow, beneath whose sacred arch even the emperor himself must un- cover his head as he passes through ; and which, horn its sanctity as well as its architectural character, forms an important feature among the antiquities of Russia. So numerous are the churches, and, generally speaking, the fragments of antiquity in this country, that it would be easy to multiply examples to almost any extent. Those quoted in the l)receding pages are, architecturally, the finest, as well as the most interesting, from an antiquarian point of view, of those which have yet been visited and drawn ; and there is no reason to believe that 955. Sacred Gate, Kremlin. Moscow.