Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/739

 1869.] City Architecture. 597 shone on every side. In the vestibule stood a colossal statue of Nero himself, of the immense height of one hundred and twenty feet. There were three por- ticos, each a mile in length, and sup- ported by three rows of pillars. Inside this palace the rooms were lined with gold, gems, and mother-of-pearl. The ceilings of the dining-rooms were adorned with ivory panels, so contrived, as to turn round and scatter flowers and shower perfumes on the guests. The principal banqueting-room revolved upon itself, representing the motions of the heavenly bodies. The baths were supplied with salt-water from the sea ; and mineral-water from the Albula. Such was the palace of Nero. But, it is not to all this selfish outlay of the public treasure, that we wish the reader to look, as to a bright spot in the char- acter of Nero. It is to the fact, that he was the first to lay out streets, with any thing approaching symmetry, if not elegance. As we have said, he found Rome crowded, dirty, and inconvenient ; and he gloried in the progress of the devouring element, which was to make a clearance at once, that his enlarged ideas, of what a city should be, might have a fair chance of being realized; "Out of evil cometh good;" and from the crime of the incendiary sprung up the blessing of a renewed and vastly improved city. Can we not all, even here in our American cities, look back, with a feeling of positive pleasure, on the purifying effects of the visitations of extensive fires ? There are instances, north, south, east and west, of these wholesale destructions, which, at the time, caused the nation's heart to shrink ; and, in no one case, has the calamity failed to eventuate in beneficial results, to the cities visited b}' its fiery scourge. Such seeming misfortunes, then, are truly blessings in disguise ; and Nero, wretch that he was, in a humanitarian point of view, was no less a benefactor of his race ; and, to this day, we feel the advantages, which his taste in street- architecture has confeiu'ed upon the civilized world. Augustus had previously restrained the desire of the Roman citizens for building houses of inordinate height, confining them to seventy feet. Trajan, subsequently, would not permit any resi- dence, to exceed sixty feet. So, these emperors controlled the fashions in building, and compelled their subjects to have regard to the general appear- ance of the streets. Consequently, Rome became a city, such as was never before seen, or perhaps thought of. It is not in the nature of republican institutions, to submit our varied taste to the will of one man. But, if the architects, who are really the manufac- turers of taste in building, were to be more under the control of one grand idea, namely, the unity of feeling in the construction of the houses, which form a street, we might have cause to rejoice in the influence their government of the architecture of our cities would inevita- bly display But, unhappily, it is not alone the private buildings, but the public ones, which are constantly rendered inimical to taste and propriety, by the over- ruling authority of individual power, either monied or political, controlling the architect and enforcing that which is either inexpedient, or altogether ad- verse to the public comfort ; or the rules of taste, >y which such buildings should be governed for the sake of the city. How often do we see municipal build- ings put up, without regard to any thing, save a deference to one-man power, or to one-party power, which amounts to the same thing. And how frequently do we see those ill-advised erections, after a few years, pulled down to the ground, from which they never should have started, to be replaced by becom- ing structures, which might have been built at first. Municipal governments are apt to be short-sighted, in such mat- ters ; and, most unaccountably, build, as though their reign was the climax