Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/315

 Bk. "(V. Ch. I. TEMPLES. 283 to restore them. Without a single example to guide us, and with very little collateral evidence which can at all be depended upon, it is hardly possible that any satisfactory restoration could now be made. Moreover, their importance in the history of art is so insignificant, that the labor such an attempt must involve would hardly be repaid by the result. The original Etruscan circular temple seems to have been a mere circular cell with a porch. The Romans surrounded it with a peristyle, which probably did not exist in the original style. They magnified it afterwards into the most characteristic and splendid of all their temples, the Pantheon, whose portico is Etruscan in arrangement and design, and whose cell still more distinctly belongs to that order ; nor can there be any doubt that the simpler Roman temples of circular form are derived fi-om Etruscan originals. It would therefore be of great importance if we could illustrate the later buildings from existing remains of the older; but the fact is that such deductions as we may draw from the copies are our only source of information respecting the originals. We know little of any of the civil buildings with which the cities of Etruria w^ere adorned, beyond the knowledge obtained from the remains of their theatres and amphitheatres. The form of the latter was essentially Etruscan, and was adopted by the Romans, with whom it became their most characteristic and grandest architectural object. Of the amphitheatres of ancient Etruria only one now remains in so per- fect a state as to enable us to judge of their forms. It is that at Sutri, which, however, being entirely cut in the rock, neither affords informa- tion as to the mode of construction nor enables us to determine its asre. The general dimensions are 295 ft. in its srreatest length bv 265 in breadth, and it is consequently much nearer a circular form than the Romans genei-ally adopted ; but in other respects the arrangements are such as appear to have usually prevailed in after times. Besides this we have numerous works of utilitv, but these belonij more strictly to engineering than to architectural science. The city Avails of the Etruscans surpass those of any other ancient nation in extent and beauty of workmanship. Their drainage works and their bridges, as well as those of the kindred Pelasgians in Greece, still remain monuments of their industrial science and skill, which their successors never surpassed. On the whole, perhaps we are justified in asserting that the Etruscans were not an architectural people, and had no temples or palaces worthy of attention. It at least seems certain that nothing of the sort is now to be found, even in ruins, and were it not that the study of Etruscan art is a necessary introduction to that of Roman, it would hardly be worth while trying to gather together and illustrate the few fragments and notices of it that remain.