Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/740

 598 The Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal. [Mar., ■ of the city's progress ; the goal bej'ond which it were Utopian to dream. But cities will grow, while civic rulers die ; and succeeding generations will ques- tion the common sense of those, who could not discern, in the inevitable fu- ture, the increased value of the property, for which the tax-payers would one day be compelled to provide ; the which they could most easily have been provided with, at an accumulating interest, had their dead "conscript fathers" but se- cured their interests, when they could have done so most economically and wisely. In this way, we find our Western cities, in our day ©f "park fever," com- pelled to pay enormously, for what might have been secured to them, but a few years back, for a comparatively trifling sum. And so it is with public buildings. We could cite many cities laboring under the misfortune, to-day, of an exhausted treasury, amid grow- ing demands for "room, more room." Fire may be a destroying demon for the time, as Nero was an absolute ty- rant over those he ruled. But, either, or both, of those monsters might do good, to posterity at least, the one in destroying barriers to improvement ; the other in enforcing the principles, which curb a community to its own ulti- mate good. THE DOME. THIS beautiful feature, in Architec- ture, whether copied from the cer- ulean canopy which overhangs our globe, or not, has certainly a most inappropri- ate name ; coming, as it does, from the Latin word domus, a house. The Italians apply the term duomo to a church ; sig- nifying " thejiouse of God." But, what we accept, as the meaning, is a certain description of arched covering for the principal part of a building, civil or ecclesiastic. In the church, it canopies the altar ; in the civil building, it crowns the rotunda, or great hall. In both Civil and Ecclesiastical Archi- tecture, we find domes of great size, and every way worthy of the closest obser- vation of the amateur, or the professional architect. The remains of such struc- tures still existing in Europe display, in an eminent degree, the skill and geo- metrical knowledge possessed by the de- signers and artizans of those days in which they were executed. In the golden age, when Augustus Caesar added so many treasures of art to the Roman em- pire, was erected that wonderful dome (considering its early date in the history of such constructions) which stands to this day as a proof ©f the perfection of its execution, the Pantheon — then, as its name denotes, dedicated to " all the gods;" now, under the Christian dis- pensation, entitled Santa Maria Ro- tonda — whose statued niches, which once exhibited the heathen deities, now present the effigies of all the Saints. This, the most magniOcent dome of an- tiquity, is still entire. It is in the form of a hemisphere, enriched with panels, or cotters ; and terminates above with a circular curbed opening, called the eye. The dimensions of this great dome are: — Internal diameter, 142 feet 8^ inches. The eye, 28 feet 6 inches in diameter. The height of actual dome, 10 feet 8 inches. It is composed of bricks and rubble. The thickness at the base being 17 feet, at the top 5 feet 1^ inches. The circular wall, which supports the dome, is 20 feet thick ; but is divided by several large openings, and has dis- charging arches of brick. This dome is perfectly incombustible, and as such, as well as being exceed- ingly economical, for the times, and very durable, may be looked upon as the best covering that could have been