Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/77

 IX. — Roman Architecture. The geographical situation of Italy much resembles that of Greece; but owing to greater proximity to the East — the original home of the arts — it was through Greece chiefly that the diffusion of culture amongst the various races of the continent was effected. We find flourishing Greek colonies in the south of Italy at a very early date. The Roman s yprp dpfim'pnt, j n imaginative geni us, -andr-we see few o riginal forms of t heir own creation in t heiiLarchi^ tecture^ Their early works were copied from Etruscan buildings, and in their later style they borrowed largely from the Greeks. Two peculiarities of Etruscan architec- ture, however, were always retained by the, Romans, and carried by them to great perfection, namely, the arch and the vaulted roof. At first these were only employed in such structures as bridges and aqueducts, but gradually they were introduced into buildings of every kind — basilicas, amphitheatres, and baths. The simplest kind of vault used by the Romans is the plain waggon ™* ^ n -fTfJ vg - 1l1+ - which is a semicircular arch thrown across from one wall to another, or from one end to another of a longitudinal apartment. A second and more elaborate form of vault is the groined (i. e. intersecting) vault, in which two tunnel vaults of equal height cross each other at right angles over a square space. A third form is the dome v ault, which was subsequently combined with the semi-dome, over the semicircular recesses called apses. These three systems of vaulting enabled the Romans to cover spaces of every size ; and the arch was freely used to adorn the outer and inner walls of Roman buildings.