with many chaste, sublime, and noble monuments of architecture. If we reflect on the beauty, grandeur, and magnificence of many of those never-dying works of ancient Greece; if we think on those animating ideas which many an immortal genius has given us of its state; if we reflect on the pleasure, the happiness we enjoy in having these elements of art so carefully preserved in the works of our countrymen, Stuart and Revet, and in the volumes of the Ionian society, when all these stately cities themselves are destroyed, and their magnificent temples passing away into ruin and decay, we cannot value or esteem those architectural remains too highly. The beauty of Grecian architecture, in spite of the capriciousness of taste and the lapse of time, still charms us; while the bright, the glittering image glows with gleaming light in the several passages of the mind, impressed there by the symmetry and disposition of these works. We behold them with admiration, and they soften us into feelings of unutterable pleasure. ETRURIAN ARCHITECTURE. The Etruscans were a colony of the Pelasgi from Greece, who inhabited Campagna in the middle of Tuscany, the early history of which country is lost in the lapse of ages. It is however fabled to have been first peopled by giants, and visited by Hercules; but afterwards to have been held by the Osci, and lastly by the Pelasgian Greeks or Etruscans. (Diodorus Siculus.) There they founded twelve cities, of which Capua,* originally Vulturnum, the principal, afterwards became, both in power and in the number of its inhabitants, the rival of Rome,† and in the year u.c. 428, considered themselves able to cope with the Roman power. These people were antecedent to all the rest of the Italian peninsula in cultivating the arts, which they had practised even before the time of Cadmus. They are generally reported to have been equally distinguished in architecture, as they were in the art of design. Their early architectural works, however, having been generally built without mortar or cement, have mostly been overthrown or levelled with the ground; but the architecture of the Etrurians must be considered more as a style than a school of art. In its earliest period, that is before and about the time of Cadmus, it partook of the Egyptian and earliest Grecian styles; became afterwards refined through its connection with Greece, and finally the immediate parent of the Roman.§ The walls of these ancient Etrurian cities were generally lofty, and constructed with large masses of masonry, remains of which have been discovered at Volterra, Cortona, Fesolè, and other parts * That the Etruscans were a people who had early migrated from Greece to Italy and settled there, we have the best of evidence. (Tacitus, Annals, b. iv. p. 61.) Alteram Romam, ex Phil. 12. Etruria was originally a very large country, extending from the Tyrrhenian sea to the Apennines, from Liguria to the Tiber. Tuscany, as it was known by at one time, had three considerable republics, Florence, Sienna, and Lucca; Florence is now the capital. The Latins called the inhabitants of it sometimes Tuscans and sometimes Etrurians, but the Greeks more frequently Tyrrhenians.-(Hooke's Roman Hist. vol. i. p. 167.) § There is a beautiful model of an Etrurian Ionic order, with a mask of Paris in the capital, lately discovered and placed in the British Museum.-(B.) Etruria is now chiefly known as being once famous for its pottery of ewers, vases, and urns, many engravings of which Sir William Hamilton has given us in his splendid work on Etrurian antiquities, ornamented with figures of heathen gods and goddesses in the most graceful attitudes and flowing outlines, tinted in the original colours. Darwin, in a poem on Etruria, speaks thus as to their knowledge of the fine arts: "Etruria next; beneath the magic hands Glides the quick wheel, the plastic clay commands; of ancient Etruria. The gateways of their cities were of a singular construction, and built with squared stones. The largest entrance into Volterra is called the gate of Hercules, and is composed of a magnificent arch built with nineteen large vaussoirs. Here are also other gates at the same place, and a smaller one of Etrurian architecture is to be seen at Fesolè. The domestic architecture of the Etrurians is peculiarly distinguished by the invention of the Atrium, a fore-court to the house, by arches, and by an order of column, and has since been adopted by the Roman and Italian architects as a distinct order, under the name of Tuscan. The name Atria is said to have been derived from the Etrurian colony Adria, or Atriæ, where they were first used. These courts were appropriated for the residence of the servants and slaves, whom the Etrurian architects were desirous to place at a distance from the apartments of the master, that he might not be disturbed by the noise of such a crowd, and that they might guard the house. This place simply consisted of a parallelogram surrounded by a colonnade.* Of Pompeii, whose architecture may be classed with that of Etruria, Sir William Gell very justly observes that nature has shed over the face of the surrounding country all her most enchanting beauties-beauties which inspired the muse of Virgil and afforded a retreat to the Cæsars. This city was of no great magnitude, being about three thousand three hundred and thirty yards in circumference, or nearly two British miles; and though it contained the most beautiful and chaste edifices, was a city rather of lanes than of streets. As to its origin, the probability seems to be that Pompeii was founded by the Greeks, a supposition strongly corroborated by the style of its architectural ornaments, and the buildings which are in that character. The houses at Pompeii which remain, though in a state of desolation, leave but little to be desired upon the subject of those minor details, with which, until the discovery made by the removal of the ashes over that city, we were almost wholly unacquainted; and although no dwelling hitherto uncovered could vie in extent with the magnificent villas which belonged to Pliny or Lucullus,‡ and * The Etrurian buildings in which arches are found, are amongst the most ancient examples of their architecture; and several of them, but more especially their subterranean reservoirs, prove that their architects were well acquainted with the construction of the arch. They had a public reservoir built underground, twenty-four feet from the pavement to the crown of the arch, fifty-six feet long and thirty wide. Several remains of the ancient Etrurian tombs have been discovered, the greater part of which are underground. The column adopted by these people is distinguished by its form and proportion from those of any other nation of their time; profiting, as they did, from the Greeks, and yet obtaining the honour of the invention. Vitruvius gives a description of this order, and states that in his time (that of the Emperor Augustus) there were several Etrurian temples in Italy, supposed to be at Tusculum.-(Forsyth's Italy.) The destruction of the city of Pompeii, which was overwhelmed by showers of burning ashes from Vesuvius during its eruption, took place, according to Pliny the younger, who was an eye-witness of that catastrophe, August 24, and in the second year of the reign of the Emperor Titus, or a.D. 73. "Herculaneum was overwhelmed by torrents of boiling lava. The former comparatively offers but little obstruction to the labourer; but the latter, having insinuated itself in the consistence of molten lead into every crevice, and become indurated like marble, requires the skill and perseverance of a miner to dislodge it, and that by very slow degrees."(Heliotrope, note 38, canto 11.) ‡ Lucullus had many superb villas; that of Marius alone he purchased for a sum equal to eighty thousand pounds Q still less with the splendid imperial residences, yet by comparing their remains with the ordinary houses as described by Vitruvius, we shall find them fully adequate to enable us to form a tolerably accurate idea of their inhabitants, if not of the beauty and order of the more early edifices of Rome.* The great feature in the arrangement of the ancient house as distinguished from the modern, was the internal court. Those courts were universally found to be surrounded with apartments, which, lighted from within the colonnade, at first sight seem to have afforded little possibility of the domestic concerns of the family being overlooked by any one not included within the walls. In this there was one advantage they possessed, as we may conclude from Plautus and Seneca, who speak of the annoyance the neighbours were subject to from the disorderly luxury of those who, changing night into day, indulged in the false refinement of the age. Many causes for the houses having acquired this conventual form may be assigned. In the early ages of society each might be considered as representing a small city or community to which the surrounding or outer court-wall gave security; and subsequently, when every man assumed the right of overlooking his more wealthy neighbour, when any departure from a frugality, ordained by law, was considered criminal, it became necessary to the proprietor to secure himself against the misrepresentation of his private enemies. A jealousy, somewhat approaching that of the more eastern nations, seems to have prevailed towards the female part of the family, to whom the most remote portion of the house was appropriated; an inner court, around which their rooms were distributed, was only accessible through another, where a similar arrangement existed for the accommodation of the men and servants. ARCHITECTURE OF THE ROMANS. "They tell us Rome was glorious, not profuse, FOUNDATION OF ROME. The Capitol of Rome, or as it was afterwards called, the "Eternal City," was founded by Romulus and Remus, twin brothers, who led here a colony of Trojans that had migrated from Troy, and were driven upon the coast of Tuscany.§ As to the exact year of the foundation of Rome historians are not agreed. Varro places it in the third year of the ninth Olympiad, that is, four hundred and thirtyone years after the destruction of Troy, and seven hundred and fifty-three before the Christian era. The Romans (according to Plutarch || and some other writers) began to build on the 21st day of April. This day was then consecrated to Pales, goddess of shepherds, (Romulus and Remus having been educated at the expense of a shepherd named Faustulus,) so that the festival sterling. His Villa Misenensis (transformed into a monastery A.D. 488) was unrivalled for its beautiful site and artificial embellishments. (Heliotrope, note 45, canto II.) * The interior of the houses at Pompeii were all panelled on their sides, of an oblong form, with carved mouldings, in which panels were painted figures.—(B.) + The only light received in the rooms was through an aperture over the door, which was formed of trellis-work : glass, as used in windows, was almost unknown at Pompeii. Indeed, two hundred years after it was built we find Vopiscus numbering it as luxurious among the extravagances of the merchant Firmas, whose riches enabled him for some time to contest the sovereignty of Egypt with the troops of Aurelian.-(Sir William Gell's Pompeii, p. xviii.) See Plaut. Mil. Glor. xxiii. § By this it appears the Romans were of Trojan extraction, but more probably they were a mixture of the Pelasgi, who had before overrun the greater part of the world.-(B.) Plutarch's Life of Romulus. of Pales and that of the foundation of the city were afterwards jointly celebrated at Rome on the same day. PRIMITIVE CITY OF ROME. The mode adopted in marking out the site for the foundation of the city of Rome is interesting, inasmuch as it was the custom among the ancients to consecrate the walls of cities to their gods, and to consider them sacred in virtue of that consecration.* The site fixed on for the city was the Palatine hill, and the boundary line was marked out by Romulus himself, to perform which he yoked, says Hook,† a bull and a cow (the symbol of marriage) to a plough, the coulter of which was of brass. He proceeded to form the boundary, and to hold the plough himself, making a deep furrow for its line of demarcation. All the people followed the plough, throwing inwards the clods of earth which the ploughshare sometimes turned outwards; and when they came to the place where they intended to make the gates, they took up the plough and carried it. Hence the Latin porta, a gate, a portendo aratrum. The people throwing inwards the clods of earth was a significant ceremony, importing that plenty in cities is owing to fruitful lands about them and without; how careful the inhabitants ought to be to bring everything from abroad which may contribute to the public welfare. The whole length of ground where the plough had passed, was by the ancients looked upon as sacred and inviolable. For this reason it was that they thought themselves obliged to spend the last drop of their blood in defending their walls, and to break through them was a crime of the highest nature. But the gates were not sacred, otherwise, as Plutarch observes, the city could not have been supplied with the necessaries of life without a breach of the law, nor could the unwholesome things have been carried away. As Mount Palatine stood by itself, and was not joined to any other hill, the whole was enclosed within the line made by the plough, which formed almost the figure of a square, for which reason Dr. Hol calls it Roma Quadrata. The walls were built upon this line, which was therefore called Pomarium, according to Plutarch from pone moenia; but Livy defines the Pomorium to be that square of ground both within and without the walls, which the augurs‡ solemnly consecrated, and on which no edifices were suffered to be raised. When Rome had received nearly the utmost perfection which men, rude and indigent, were able to give it, it consisted only of about one thousand poor huts, which had no upper stories nor any kind of ornament. The walls even of Romulus's palace, a monument of primitive simplicity, dear and venerable to the eyes of the Romans, were made of stakes and bulrushes, and it was covered with straw. "Quæ fuerit nostra si quæris regia- Every man having chosen his ground built upon it according to his fancy, without any regard to regularity or beauty; by this the streets (if streets they might be called) were both crooked and Rome therefore, properly speaking, was at first but a sorry village, whereof even the prin narrow. + Hook's History of Rome. Fast. lib. iv. v. 819, &c. Soothsayers were always consulted to ascertain whether their gods were propitious to the intended spot. This they determined by flights of birds of certain kinds over the appointed place on a certain day. Here the vultures were used as the omens. Sometimes two spots were set out for the purpose, and over that which the most of these birds passed on a certain day was to be the site, and this was the case at Rome between Romulus and Remus at the first building of the city.-(Hook's Roman History, vol. i.) cipal inhabitants followed their own ploughs; and this primitive city so continued until it was destroyed with fire by the Gauls. After this time it was differently rebuilt; but such was the beginning of the Capitol of Rome, that afterwards subdued almost the whole world, and became so renowned for its splendid buildings during its imperial state, that even by the moderns it obtained the name of the "Eternal City." ETRURIAN ARCHITECTURE IN ROME. The architecture of the Romans owes its origin to their neighbours the Etrurians, who flourished in arts and science many centuries even prior to the European Greeks, for it was under the government of the Tarquins, who were of Etrurian birth, that were first sown the germs of that architectural greatness which ever afterwards so conspicuously distinguished the Roman taste. At this period public utility and convenience alone dictated their works, solidity and durability being exclusively consulted in their execution. The Etrurian structures were built of large uncemented but regular blocks of stone, which engendered that masculine simplicity and magnitude that gradually expanded with the increasing prosperity of the Roman state. The original walls of Corytum (Cortona), built by the Etrurians before Tarquin took the sceptre at Rome, and there introduced the architecture of his own province, still appear round the city as foundations to the modern, which were built in the thirteenth century: the Etrurian works are most entire towards the north. These huge uncemented blocks have resisted on that side the storms of near three thousand winters, while on the south they have yielded to the silent erosion of the sirocco. None of the stones run parallel; most of them are faced in the form of trapezia, a construction peculiar to the ruins in Tuscany: it is far more irregular, and therefore, I presume, more ancient than the Etrurian works at Rome.* No part of these walls remain fortified, as the besiegers who laid Arezzo open, also demolished the few defences of Cortona.† This part of the Roman empire is supposed to have given rise to that order of architecture which the Italians call the Tuscan, from its introduction being attributed to the Etrurian architects in the early edifices of Rome, and which is described by Vitruvius. Besides the early walls of the Etrurians in the Roman Capitol that excite our astonishment, and seem formed for eternal duration, are the immense subterraneous arched sewers of Cloacina. Here also exist the massy traces of the foundation of the Capitol laid by Tarquinius Superbus, which may be seen under the palace of the senators. GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE IN ROME. The fall of Syracuse, at the end of the Punic wars, into the hands of the Romans, with its wealth, and the possession of all the other Grecian towns of Sicily, now inspired the Romans with a taste for Grecian art and a love of the ornamental, which was further strengthened by the Macedonian conquest, and the total subjugation of the Grecian states in the second century. Yet it was not until the subsequent reduction of the Asiatic dominions that the Romans were enabled to indulge the taste they had thus acquired; for they derived their taste, their elegances, and their arts from Athens, as the Athenians had from Egypt, where the arts originated. Then it was that the * For a description of the checkered walls of the ancients, see dissertation on stone walls in the body of the work.—(B.) Forsyth's Italy. Until this period, under the Consuls, Roman architecture was principally composed of bricks, united together with peculiar neatness, and rendered more solid than stone, as time has proved, by a particular species of cement, remarkable for its tenacity and increasing durability. This most valuable art however has entirely escaped the detection of the moderns, although it is known volcanic tufa and bitumen constituted, like that of the Egyptians, the principal ingredients.—(F.) |