Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/335

 Bk. IV. Ch. III. COMPOSITE ARCADES, 303 tinued to prevail. At the same time it is evident that a Persepolitan base for an Ionic and even for a Corinthian column would be amonsfst the greatest improvements that could now be introduced, especially for internal architecture. Composite Arcades. The true Roman order, however, was not any of these columnar ordinances we have been enumerating, but an arrangement of two pil- lars placed at a distance from one another nearly equal to their own height, and having a very long entablature, which in consequence required to be supported in the centre by an arch springing from piers. This, as will be seen from the annexed woodcut, was in fact merely a screen of Grecian architecture placed in front of a construc- tion of Etruscan design. Though not Avithoiit a certain richness of effect, still, as used by the Romans, these two systems remain too distinctly dis- similar for the result to be pleasing, and their use necessitated certain supplemental arrangements by no means agreeable. In the first place, the columns had to be mounted on pedestals, or otherwise an entablature proportional to their size would have been too heavy and too important for a thing so useless and so avowedly a mere ornament. A projecting key- stone was also introduced into the arch. This was unobjectionable in itself, but when projecting so far as to do the duty of an intermediate capital, it overpowered the arch, without being equal to the work required of it. The Romans used these arcades with all the three orders, frequently one over the other, and tried various exjDedients to harmonize the con- struction with the ornamentation, but without much effect. They seem always to have felt the discordance as a blemish, and at last got rid of it, but whether they did so in the best way is not quite clear. The most obvious mode of effecting this would no doubt have been by omitting the j^illars altogether, bending the architrave, as is usually done, round the arch, and then inserting the frieze and cornices into the wall, using them as a string-course. A slight degree of practice would soon have enabled them — by panelling the pier, cutting off its angles, or some such expedient — to have obtained the degree of lightness or of ornament they required, and so really to have invented a new order. 184. Doric Arcade.