Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/366

 334 ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. Part I. and almost all the architecture being expressed in that material, must have detracted considerably from the monumental grandeur of the effect. Judorinfr, however, from what remains of the stucco ornament of the roof of the Maxentian basilica (Woodcut No. 202), it is wonderful to observe what effects may be obtained with even this material in the hands of a people who understand its employment. While stone and marble have perished, the stucco of these vaults still remains, and is as impressive as any other relic of ancient Rome. In the centre was a great hall (b), almost identical in dimensions with the central aisle of the basilica of IVIaxentius already described, being 82 ft. wide by 170 in length, and roofed in the same manner by an intersecting vault in three compartments, springing from eight great pillars. This opened into a smaller apartment at each end, of rectangular form, and then again into two other semicircular halls, forming a splendid suite 460 ft. in length. This central room is gen- erally considered as the tejndarium, or warmed apartment, having four warm baths opening out of it. On the north-east side Avas the natatio, or plunge-bath (c), jirobably tepid, a room of nearly the same dimensions and design as the central one. On the side opposite to this was the circular apartment (d), covered by the dome above mentioned, which, from its situation and the openness of its arrangements, must have contained a cold batli or baths. There are four other rooms on this side, which seem also to have been cold baths. None of these points have, however, yet been satisfactorily settled, nor the uses of the smaller subordinate rooms ; every restorer giving them names according to his own ideas. For our purpose it suffices to know that no groups of state apartments in such dimensions, and wholly devoted to purposes of disjilay and recreation, were ever before or since groujied together under one roof. The taste of many of the decorations would no doubt be faulty, and the architecture shows those incongruities inseparable from its state of transition ; but such a collection of stately halls must have made up a whole of greater splendor than we can easily realize from their bare and weather-beaten ruins, or from anything else to which we can compare them. Even allowing for their being almost wholly built of brick, and for their being disfigured by the bad taste inseparable from everything Roman, there is nothing in the world 'hich for size and grandeur can compare with these imperial places of recreation. ^ 1 St. George's Hall at Liverpool is the most exact copy in modern times of a part of tliese batlis. The Hall itself is a repro<luction l)oth in scale and design of the central hall of Caracalla's baths, but improved in detail and design, having five bays instead of only three. With the two courts at each end, it makes up a suite of apartments very similar to those found in the I'oman examples. The whole building, how- ever, is less than one-foiulh of the size of the central mass of a Roman bath, and therefore gives but little idea of the magnificence of the whole.