Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/416

 384 SASSANIAN ARCHITECTURE. Part L is erected on a far more magnificent scale, being in fact the typical building of the style, so far at least as we at present know. As will be seen in the plan, the great central entrance opens late- rally into two side chambers, and the inner of these into a suite of three splendid domed apartments, occupying the whole width of the building. Beyond this is an inner court, surrounded by apartments all opening upon it. As will be i^erceived from Wood- cut No. 258, rejDresenting one of the doorways in the domed halls, the details have nothing Roman about them, but are borrowed di- rectly from Persepolis, with so little change that the style, so far as we can now judge, is almost an exact reproduction. The portion of the exterior represented in Woodcut No. 259 tells the same tale, though for its prototype we must go back still further to the ruins at Wurka — the building called Wuswus at that 2)lace (see p. 161) being a palace arranged very similarly to these, and adorned externally by panellings and reeded pilasters, differing from these buildings only in detail and arrange- ment, but in all essentials so like them as to prove that the Sassanians borrowed most of their peculiarities from earlier native examples. The building itself is a perfectly regular ])arallelogram, 332 ft. by 180, without a single break, or even an opening of any sort, except the one great arch of the entrance ; and externally it has no ornament but the repetition of the tall pilasters and narrow arches represented in Woodcut No. 259. Its aspect is thus simple and severe, but more like a gigantic Bastile than the j^alace of a gay, pavilion-loving people, like the Persians. Plan of Palace at Firou'zabad. (From Flandin and Coste.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in. 258. Doorway at Firouzabad. (From Flandin and Coste.)