Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/695

 ARCHITECTURE 659 luxurious and magnificent rather than for the harmonious and beautiful. Their exterior pave- ments were variously composed of stone, tiles, marble, porphyry, and other durable materials, laid in cement. Internally their floors were similarly laid in mosaic work. This style of work is supposed to have originated among the eastern nations, subsequently being employed by the Egyptians and Greeks. The walls of the Romans were stuccoed and decorated with paintings in the arabesque style, or covered with various marble, alabaster, and jaspers, while their columns also were of granite, marble, and porphyry. This luxury strikes us the more forcibly, as these apartments, so richly adorned and containing various chefs cFceuvre of art, were but very imperfectly lighted; in fact, they were sometimes wholly dependent upon lamps. This, too, is one of the great defects in their dwellings, as can be clearly seen at Pompeii. Their houses generally presented an entrance on the street, accompanied by shops if in a principal thoroughfare, leading into an atrium or court, with a compluvium in the middle and porticos on the sides connecting with the rooms occupied by the servants. This court connected with another in the rear, also surrounded by a portico, which led to the apartments of the mas- ter. But nowhere is this taste for richness ra- ther than simplicity more evident than in com- paring the details and mouldings of the Greeks and Romans. It is due the latter, however, to make an exception in favor of their Corinthian order, which they employed as universally as did the Greeks the Doric, and to their structures must we turn for many of the finest types of this order. The column, varying in height from 9 to 10 diameters, is composed of base, shaft, and capital. The base, about one half diameter in height, in some cases consists of two tori and a scotia, with intervening fillets, placed upon a plinth, as in the examples of the temples of Antoninus and Faustina and of Vesta; in the temples of Jupiter Tonans, of Castor and Pollux, and in the portico of the Pantheon, there exists a double scotia. The shaft dimin- ishes with entasis about one eighth of a diam- eter, and is generally fluted when the material permitted. These flutes were semicircular, separated by fillets one quarter of their width, and 24 in number. At the upper extremity, the fillet above the cavetto supports a small torus, on which rests the capital, about 1| diam- eter in height, composed of two rows of eight acanthus or olive leaves. The lower row, about one third taller than the upper one, occupies about one quarter of the whole height of the cap- ital. The leaves of both finish on the hypotra- chelium. Above are helices and tendrils trained with foliage, surmounted by an abacus, composed of a cavetto, fillet, and ovolo, forming together one seventh of the entire height, and which in plan presents a square with the corners cut oif; the sides being concave segments of circles, in the middle of each of which is placed a flower or rosette. The entablature is about one fifth of the column in height, three fifths of it being occupied by the architrave, together with the frieze, the former divided into three unequal fascias, generally separated by a bead and a cyma reversa, and crowned by a small con- geries of mouldings, the first fascia impending the shaft at top. The frieze is generally en- riched with sculpture. The bed mouldings of the cornice, when decorated with modillions, occupy about three fifths of the total height; when no modillions exist, only one half is taken up by them. They generally consist of a bead, a cyma reversa, and a fillet, a vertical member dentilled or not, another bead, and an ovolo, supporting a plain vertical face, one third of bed mouldings in height, which bears the modil- lions, and is surmounted by a cyma reversa, which breaks around the same. The modillions are horizontal consoles, in width equal to their height, bearing large volutes at the inner end and smaller ones at the outer extremity, joined by a graceful curve, underneath which spreads an acanthus leaf; the space between them is about twice the width of the modillion itself. Resting upon the modillions is the corona, sur- mounted by a small congeries of mouldings, a cymatium, and a fillet. The soffit of the corona is coffered between the modillions; in the centre of each is placed a rosace. The com- posite order may be considered as a sort of Corinthian, as the principal difference exists in the capital, where the volutes occupying about one quarter of the total height rest upon a bead and ovolo; the central tendrils are also omitted, and the upper row of leaves is higher than in the ordinary Corinthian. Besides this particular composite capital, the Roman monuments fur- nish us with others ornamented with trophies, eagles, masks, &c. The pediments of the Ro- man edifices ^.ere steeper than those of the Grecian; the cymatium was continued along the flank cornices, thereby doing away with the antefixse. The Doric order, on account of its simplicity, was very rarely employed by the Romans. In the few examples which have been preserved, the proportions are more slender, the projections less hardy than in the Grecian Doric; and, in endeavoring to give it more elegance, this order lost with the Ro- mans its simplicity and grandeur. At Albano an example has been discovered where most of the mouldings are ornamented. The baths of Diocletian furnish us with still another ex- ample greatly enriched. The necking is orna- mented with small rosaces, the echinus is sculp- tured with leaves, the metopes and corona are also enriched with sculpture, while the cornice resembles that generally employed in the Ionic order. The best examples of this order be- queathed to us by the Romans decorate the temple of Hercules at Cori, and the theatre of Marcellus at Rome. The former, however, is almost wholly Greek. In the latter example, the column, composed of shaft and capital, is about eight diameters in height. The capital, occupying about one half of a diameter in