Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/361

 Bk. IV. Ch. IV. AMPHITHEATRES. 329 The area of the supports has also been calculated at about 40,000 squai'e feet, or al)out one-sixth of the whole area ; which for an unroofed edifice of this sort is more than sutHoient, though the excess accounts for the stability of the building. Next in extent to this great metropolitan amphitheatre was that of Capua ; its dimensions were 558 ft. by 460 : its height externally 95 ft. It had three stories, designed similarly to those of the Colos- seum, but all of the Doric order, and used with more purity than in the Roman example. Next in age, though not in size, is that at Nimes, 430 ft. l)y 378, and 72 in lieight, in two stories. Both these stories are more profusely and more elegantly oi-namented 'ith pillars than those of either of the amphitheatres mentioned above. The entablature is liowever broken over each column, and pediments are introduced on each front. All these arrangements, though showing more care in design and sufficient elegance in detail, make this building A^ery inferior in grandeur to the two earlier edifices, whose simplicity of outline makes up, to a great extent, for their faults of detail. A more beautiful exam]>le than this is that at Verona. Its dimen- sions are 502 ft. by 401, and 98 ft. higli, in three stories beautifully proportioned. Here the order almost entirely disappears to make way for rustication, showing that it must be consid- erably more modern than either of the three examples above quoted, though hardly so late as the time of Maxi- mianus, to whom it is frequently ascribed.' The arena of this am- phitheatre is very nearly perfect, owing to the care taken of it during the Middle Ages, when it Avas often used for tournaments and other spectacles ; but of its outer architectural enclosure only four bays remain, sufficient to enable an architect to restore the whole, but not to allow of its effect being compared Avith that of more entire exam])les. The amphitheatre at Pola, Avhich is of about the same age as that of Verona, and certainly belonging to the last days of the Western Empire, presents in its ruin a curious contrast to the other. That at Verona has a perfect arena and only a fragment of its exterior 212. Elevation of the Amphitheatre at Verona. 50 ft. to 1 ill. Scak ' Maffei, "Verona Illustrata," vol. vii. p. 8-i et seq.