The civil architecture of Vitruvius : comprising those books of the author which relate to the public and private edifices of the ancients

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THE

COMPRISING

Introduction

All nations, in an advanced state of civilization, have been unanimous in their admiration of Grecian architecture ; it presents, therefore, a subject of interesting inquiry to endeavour to ascertain whether this sentiment of admiration be excited in us by any qualities or properties peculiar to the style itself, operating previously to the intervention of the judgement ; or whether it be not the effect of intellectual association only. By intellectual association I mean the union of such ideas as the imagination has originally presented to the mind, and of such as the understanding has finally combined, after having compared them with each other. This species of association is, consequently, never to be confounded with that which may be called sensible association, by which ideas, in childhood always, and often at a more advanced age, are admitted without scrutiny, and combined without reflection. If, then, admiration of Grecian architecture result from intellectual association, it will be found to exist only among men of knowledge ; and its just proportion will be determined by those whose taste is the most cultivated, and whose science is the most extensive : but if there be some intrinsic charm, some peculiar grace,

a which is necessarily acknowledged and felt by all mankind ; we then must look for some more general principle, which will accommodate itself to this more general feeling.

It seems impossible that we should contemplate any remains of Grecian taste and science, of whatever description they may be, without, at the same time, adverting to other monuments of other arts, and connecting them in the mind with those which are immediately before us. In vain would we believe that we admire them as if they stood insulated and alone, while association is softening every defect, and enhancing every beauty, — while memory is retracing the most affecting scenes, — or while fancy is grouping the most interesting objects. We can scarcely deny, then, that the pleasure which is derived from surveying the ancient models of Grecian architecture is heightened by ideas connected with learning, with science, and with art ; accompanied, as they still must be, by all the nameless charms which imagination combines with the history of the Greeks, and which it throws over all their productions. It is probable, nevertheless, that their buildings possess certain qualities which affect us independently of all these associations, and which, even without them, fail not to produce sentiments of admiration, and feelings of delight.

In speculating on the nature of beauty, too much appears to have been attempted. Dissatisfied with looking merely to peculiar results arising from certain combinations of qualities, or fatigued, perhaps, by the minuteness of details, we have gone on abstracting, in the hopes of discovering some general principles, to which every species of beauty

Ill may be referred, and some comprehensive rules, according to which every example of it may be classed; although it is highly probable that these hidden properties will continue to elude the test of the strictest analysis. It has been this desire of generalizing which has led Mr. Burke, and those who have followed him, to adopt notions contrary to the plainest dictates of reason and philosophy. To the art now under consideration, the principles employed by this great man either are not applicable at all, or they are so in a very slight degree. It is not, however, to their truth and accuracy in a limited sense, but to their universal and exclusive adoption, that we ought to object. According to Mr. Burke \ the essential requisites for the formation of the beautiful are, "first, to be comparatively small ; secondly, to be smooth ; 11 thirdly, to have a variety in the direction of the parts ; but, "fourthly, to have those parts not angular, but melted, as it " were, into each other \ fifthly, to be of a delicate frame, " without any remarkable appearance of strength ; sixthly, " to have its colours clear and bright, but not very strong and " glaring ; seventhly, or if it should have any glaring colour, " to have it diversified with others." One moment's reflection on this statement suffices to shew that these qualities, so far from being essential to architectural beauty, are really in some measure of an opposite description. Let us take as an example the most beautiful perhaps of the buildings of antiquity, raised and adorned by the most celebrated artists, and the whole finished under the inspection of the most

1 Sub), and Beaut. Pt. iii. Sect. 18.

IV accomplished statesman of Greece, — the temple of the Parthenon, at Athens. We shall find, that although it is less than some few structures of the same description, it is impossible that it should ever, with propriety, be characterized as comparatively small, — that it possesses no delicacy of frame, but that the appearance of strength is such as becomes the style in which it is built, and plainly denotes the permanence of its duration, — that the direction of the parts is necessarily uniform, and the greater proportion of these, sharp and angular, — that the colour, although now somewhat softened by the effects of time and weather, was formerly the most bright and glaring which it is possible to imagine, viz. the dazzling whiteness of the marble of Pentelicus, no otherwise diversified than by the lights and shadows produced by the various masses which composed the whole edifice.

Smoothness in this as in other buildings is indeed pleasing, but from a cause different from that which is assigned by Mr. Burke in his Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful ; for the pleasure that we have in surveying the polished exterior of a building, arises entirely from the ideas which it gives us of the care and skill with which the work has been finished. The smoothness which is observable in any finely-laboured structure may certainly impart an agreeable sensation; but it is different from that which is experienced in looking at the blue expanse of the Heavens softly laid on the smooth surface of a lake. It is yet more different from that which is felt when the eye regards the smooth and delicate skin of a beautiful female. When we admire smoothness in a building, we admire it as an effect, which we naturally associate with the causes that have produced it. In this instance, the secondary quality, considered separately and in itself, produces no sentiment of pleasure ; it is agreeable, only as it is the result of skill and art. This is evident from our equal admiration of those parts of architecture which are covered with a profusion of minute and elaborate ornament, the general effect of which is an appearance only of roughness, and whose forms, when viewed in detail, being sharp and angular, cannot impart an agreeable sensation by any organic affection of the eye itself. It must be evident, I think, that the properties and qualities considered by Mr. Burke as essential to every species of beauty, have been principally, if not entirely, collected from the female form. Now, although they are here connected with all that is most lovely, yet the real source of their attractions appears to have been overlooked, and this is probably to be discovered in the sexual affections and sympathies implanted in our nature. Had it, therefore, been practicable by classing the charms of the most beautiful work of the creation, to invest in these charms every other object, the choice would have been judicious ; we might even have desired the success of such an enterprise ; and yet, according to the present order of things, it would seem a little whimsical to maintain, that feminine graces, feminine delicacy, and feminine proportions, ought to constitute beauty in a tree or a house. The rules which Mr. Burke has laid down may be found to be just when applied to the female form, but to extend them to every form in nature seems little less

VI unreasonable than if we were to assert, that every species of composition ought to be framed according to the decrees which the critics have promulgated for the perfection of the drama, — decrees, which are in themselves sufficiently tyrannical, and which, unlike the rules of Mr. Burke, are formed from the analysis of a most imperfect model.

Not satisfied with having triumphantly refuted the notions of those theorists who maintained that fitness and proportion are the sole causes of beauty, Mr. Burke has gone so far as to deny that these qualities are in any way necessary to its existence. This opinion, as far as it regards architecture, is erroneous : — for, although there undeniably exists a real distinction between the ideas of beauty and of fitness to an end, yet in a scientific art, of which utility is the chief object, the full perception of excellence requires some effort of the understanding, and depends, in great measure, on our finding that the means employed are justly calculated for the attainment of what we know to have been the ends proposed : here, therefore, proportion and fitness are indispensable to the sensation of beauty. Certain striking and remarkable qualities, it is true, may, independently of these considerations, affect all minds alike ; but this arises not from their beauty, nor their proportion and fitness, but from the vague and indistinct ideas which those qualities suggest of the superior power and energy requisite for their production. All such qualities, indeed, as tend to create ideas of thatsuperior energy and power by which an elevation and expansion of mind are occasioned, may be stated as the real causes of grandeur and sublimity in architecture. Of these, magnitude is

Vll the principal, and perhapsonly,quality which is indispensable: but its effect maybe much heightened by the solidity of the materials which compose the mass ; for this verifies and strengthens the first impression of the whole, and, in addition to the sense of original difficulty overcome, gives an appearance of eternal stability to the building. Hence, we cannot fail to be struck with the grandeur of the Egyptian pyramids, from their solidity and their vast extent, although the pyramidal form is not in itself peculiarly imposing, as is proved by the mean character of that of Caius Sestius at Rome, and of all others of small dimensions.

It is not, however, only in uniform and simple structures, that the qualities, which I have mentioned, are productive of the sublime in architecture. A great profusion of ornament is far from being incompatible with a similar result. A Gothic cathedral, with its lofty and slender proportions, and endless variety of parts, — or a Grecian edifice with all its decorated regularity and order, will produce similar sensations of wonder and admiration. Thus, although no objects can differ more both in their general character and in their details than the great pyramid, York minster, and St. Peter's church, yet, as each possesses the efficient cause of grandeur, each excites those feelings which partake of sublimity.

Mr. Burke observes, that uniformity and succession of parts, as the great causes of the artificial infinite, tend mainly in architecture to produce sublimity; and thinks, that the effect of a colonnade may be chosen with propriety to exemplify the truth of his position1. Doubtless the portico

1 Subl. and Beaut. Pt. ii. Sect. 9.

Vlll at Palmyra, which was two thousand feet in circuit, or the peristyle of the great temple at Selinus, which was sixty feet in height, must have heen eminently grand and imposing; but it is not true, that the mere collocation of parts, without any reference to the magnitude of their dimensions, can ever prove a source of the sublime. In these instances, as in all others, its true origin will be found in that quality which most powerfully excites ideas of the superior force and energy necessary for the accomplishment of the work.

Architectural beauty may be said to arise from the symmetrical proportion of the whole building, and from the fitness and propriety of the ornamental parts. This will sufficiently accord with the definition of the beautiful as given by Aristotle, which consists, according to him, in magnitude and order; the first being a term purely relative, is made to comprise the whole extent of that scale which the eye is able to embrace at one view1. The truth is, however, that general rules for beauty in this or in any other practical art, cannot be fixed from abstract conclusions ; but must be deduced from experience and the continued observation of those qualities which have been found universally to please : and by an adherence to this principle the Greeks seem in a great degree to have regulated their practice. Hence, the remarkable uniformity of all their buildings, in which, indeed, the variations are so slight as scarcely, on a first view, to satisfy the natural desire of novelty, or justly to merit the praise of invention. A quadrilateral form, adorned with exterior columns, in different

1 to ydp xaAov, h (/.eyeiet km rd^si g'ri. Poet. P. ii. S. 4.

IX degrees of magnificence and profusion, constituted almost invariably the figure of their most splendid edifices. But, although generally similar in plan, distinct varieties are observable in Grecian structures ; each peculiar and consistent in all its respective parts. The character of massive and imposing grandeur in the Doric style, — of adorned yet simple majesty in the Ionic, — and of festive sumptuousness in the Corinthian, is preserved throughout the minutest details of these orders. If any one deny that a sense of fitness and propriety in architecture be a source of pleasure, he has only to bring together some of the more prominent parts of these different modes of building, in order to be convinced of the incongruity that would result from their union. This incongruity, although invariably revolting to the eye of taste, is, in fact, perhaps only apparent ; for there is nothing in the nature of the members themselves which, when joined, should render them really unfit for the purposes of strength and utility; but from the long observation of a contrary practice, recommended by so many powerful associations, we have become impressed with this notion, which it is now impossible to eradicate. Having constantly witnessed the employment of columns, and other ornaments under similar circumstances of apparent fitness, we are shocked at any material deviation from established usage. Hence, that which is commonly called a skreen, or a row of columns supporting nothing but their own entablature, fails not to create an unpleasant sensation ; because however beautifully the parts may be executed, the mind remains ignorant of the destination, and dissatisfied with the propriety

b of the whole ; which indeed can scarcely suggest any other idea than that of a ruin, or of some unfinished building.

Architectural ornament, if not really useful, ought in its principal parts to wear some semblance of utility ; there should exist, at least in appearance, a sufficient reason for its introduction, although, in truth, perhaps, there may be none. We have frequently seen holes, or recesses, made in walls for no other purpose but that of containing columns, and it is not uncommon to find little projections formed by sticking a couple of columns, with their entablature, at intervals along the plain surface of a building. Decoration of this kind is always offensive, because it is at once discovered to originate in an ostentatious desire of splendour; producing infallibly, however, the effect only of tawdry and misplaced finery.

With respect to columns, perhaps their great charm, in addition to the apparent fitness of their employment, consists, by the power of lights and shadows, in the production of a species of intricacy, and in a concealment of parts, which, although really indistinct, the imagination can with certainty fill up and supply to itself. Indeed, the variety of surface necessary to occasion this result, and the preservation, at the same time, of the general harmony and proportion of the edifice, may be said to form the main object of ornamental architecture. The perfection of ornament, as taught by those examples which educated men have in all ages agreed to admire, and by which criterion alone it is to be estimated, is natural and consistent : it is fixed in that happy medium which alike avoids the poverty that is caused by the extreme

XI of simplicity, or baldness, and the confusion that arises from redundancy and caprice. If we seek for the manifestation of pure taste in the monuments that surround us, our search will but too often prove fruitless. We must turn our eyes towards those regions,

Where, on the Egean shore, a city stands, Built nobly!

Here, — it has been little understood, for it has been rarely felt; its country is Greece, — its throne, the acropolis of Athens.

It has been observed, in a work replete with learning, ingenuity and good sense, that as the ancient buildings remaining to our time are almost exclusively of a religious description, and which, having been situated in streets and squares, possess all the regularity of form desirable in city architecture ; and, consequently, that the effect intended to be produced is such only as may be compatible with their circumscribed and contracted position — it therefore becomes doubtful, how far we can with propriety adopt them as our guides in the embellishment of rural scenery1. In all this there appears to be some mistake; for even in towns the temples were conspicuously placed on the most lofty and commanding eininencies: and in Greek towns it is well known these are generally to be found; but many of the most beautiful were entirely removed from the habitations of men. The temple of Minerva to be seen on the promontory

1 Knight, Analyt. Inquir. Pt. ii. ch. 2.

Xll of Sunium, that of Jupiter on mount Panhellenius in Aegina, and of Apollo on mount Cotylus in Arcadia, built by the most celebrated architect of Greece, and still standing in the depth of the same forest, and amidst the descendants of those oaks by which it was anciently surrounded, are a few among the numberless examples sufficient to attest the prevalence of the practice in the best ages of the art. It has likewise been remarked1, that the villas and country-houses of the ancients were quite irregular in appearance, and adapted to local circumstances; and, therefore, had they still existed, would have furnished more just notions for the construction of our own mansions. This too, as far as we can learn, is erroneous. The enormous extent of the villa of the emperor Hadrian, as well as of those of other princes, must, undoubtedly, have comprised every variety in form and situation; bearing, in fact, more resemblance to cities than to individual dwellings; but there is no reason to imagine that the generality of their country residences were not in their exterior perfectly simple and regular. On the contrary, it is evident from the minute descriptions of Vitruvius, that they consisted of bare walls, without any architectural ornament2, every thing of this kind being lavished on the interior fronts which looked towards the inclosed courts3. The villa of Pliny which appears to have been of considerable

1 Knight, Anal. Inq. Pt. ii. sect. 38.

8 The town houses of the Romans very rarely boasted of exterior architectural decoration ; in all common cases such a display appears to have been forbidden. Julius Caesar obtained a decree of the senate which empowered him to adorn his house like the front of a temple, and to add a fastigium, or pediment, to it. Cic. Phil. ii. 43.

3 Vitruv. lib. vi. c. 3. 10.

Xlll extent and magnificence, and which is described with all the

detail naturally to be expected from the partiality of a

proprietor, presents none of this irregularity; or if by any

ingenuity of interpretation, something of the kind may

be conjectured to have existed, it must have been purely

accidental, and only produced in consequence of the necessary

arrangement of the interior apartments, without the least

reference to any general or preconceived design1. These

buildings, therefore, cannot reasonably be supposed competent

to afford us any correct views of picturesque effect in their

composition with natural scenery; and the fact is, that the

ancients never possessed any knowledge or perception of

those qualities of external objects which are called picturesque.

It is not intended by these remarks to prescribe the exclusive

or servile imitation of any particular species of the remains

of antiquity, but merely to recommend an adherence to those

general principles of excellence on which the Greeks worked,

and which are observable in all their undertakings in this art,

whether erected for the purposes of ornament or of utility.

Still less can these observations have any tendency to depreciate

a style of architecture, the principles of which have recently

been laid down with singular feeling and accuracy of taste2;

— a style, which aims chiefly at picturesque effect, which

seeks to harmonise and connect the building with the

landscape around it, and in which the eye of a painter is,

perhaps, not less indispensable than the science of the

architect ; — which is recommended not only by the intricacy

1 Piin. Ep. lib. xi. 17.

8 Price. Essay on Architecture and Buildings as connected with Scenery.

XIV and variety of its parts, but, if the expression may be permitted, by an union with the vegetable world, arising either from the skilful grouping of trees and shrubs, the luxuriant growth of creeping plants, or the blended tints of mosses, lichens, and other parasitic vegetation. To a style founded on these principles, it is evident that all precepts derived from the simple and regular structures of Greece must be perfectly inapplicable.

It appears somewhat extraordinary, and is certainly to be lamented, that the Greeks, who carried the practice of so many sciences and arts to a degree of perfection which has since been unattainable, should have been so little solicitous to examine the causes of their rise amongst them, or with any care to trace their progress. Contented with the idle fables handed down from early times, and repeated with additions and embellishments acquired from the imagination or garrulity of succeeding narrators, their real knowledge of the origin of those objects which excited their pride and admiration, appears to have been vague and unsatisfactory. Even the gradual changes of their language, until a comparatively late period, occupied but little of their attention : and their national history itself, in its early ages, if we except, perhaps, the first book of Thucydides, received no illustration from the exertions of rational criticism and philosophical enquiry.

We may safely conclude, that the history of their architecture was left pretty much in the same state, for, although no Greek writer on this subject has been preserved to our time, it is probable that their compositions, in addition

XV to the tales generally propagated, were confined chiefly to practical instructions, or scientific refinements. Vitruvius not only professes to follow the steps of the Greeks in treating of his art, but all the authors whom he describes as the sources from which he derived his skill and knowledge are selected from among that nation. The work, therefore, of the Roman may furnish a just criterion of their labours. This treatise, full of varied learning, remarkable for ingenuity, science, and acuteness, will not, however, afford any succinct view of the progress of architecture. A multitude of uncertain traditions are collected and detailed without being submitted to any test by which their fallacy may be detected : we are bewildered by the opposition of opinions and statements, equally positive and contradictory. But while we are careful not to pay to these authorities the respect due to historical truth, they ought in an enquiry into this subject by no means to be cast aside; such as it is, they form the chief body of the information we possess : and they become doubly valuable when their internal probability is corroborated by illustrations incidentally afforded by contemporary writers, or by the known peculiarities of ancient monuments.

Vitruvius, although the age in which he flourished is a subject of dispute, appears to have lived about the reign of Augustus. His reputation, early established, is so far from having suffered by the lapse of time, that the admiration of posterity has rendered his name almost synonimous with excellence in his art. His own professions teach us to expect that his leading principles and precepts will be

XVI

conformable to the practice of the Greeks; and, although nothing has hitherto been done in order to shew how far this expectation has been fulfilled, I believe, nevertheless, that it waits only the result of an exact and minute inquiry to be fully realised.

Vitruvius brought to the composition of his work the possession of much of the learning of that period ; so much indeed, as probably to embrace the extensive range of acquirements which he has himself laid down as necessary for the architect. To this he added a mind replete with notions in a high degree fanciful and visionary, and influenced by a strong bias to metaphysical distinction and refinement. Hence arose the laboured dissertations on the unintelligible connection of architecture and music, and the institution of that scale of harmonic proportions which has exercised the ingenuity of the learned, to so little purpose, down to the present day1. Hence too arose his perception of the analogy which he supposed to exist between the members of architecture and those of the human frame ; a notion which he has pursued to a great extent. It was this imaginary resemblance which induced one of the greatest artists of modern times still further to declare, that even a knowledge of anatomy was so indispensable to an architect, that without it he must necessarily be ignorant of his profession2. How

1 Galiani, in a note to his translation of Vitruvius, considers the deficiency of musical knowledge as the cause of the inferiority of modern architecture. Lib. ii. c. 1.

2 Michael Angelo, Lett. 17.

XV11 this knowledge, which he certainly possessed in a high degree, influenced his own practice as an architect is not very apparent; but by an affected and ostentatious display of anatomical science as a sculptor, he has much detracted from the beauty and grandeur of some of his most admirable works. But these are dreams ; or, at best, speculations of the most groundless and fallacious description.

In presenting a view of the progress of architecture among the Greeks, it is not my intention to dwell on the history of its origin, or to speculate at length on the probable means resorted to by a barbarous people in order to protect themselves from the severity of the weather. It must be evident, that among all nations an imperious necessity has been the parent of their first endeavours, and that whatever mode they may have adopted, must have been entirely determined by the nature of the materials of which they were in possession. It is probable that in their subsequent advances in the art these early attempts were not wholly forgotten, and that something of their original character was insensibly imparted to all the improvements of succeeding ages. Thus, we find the dark and ponderous buildings of the Egyptians resembling, in some degree, the rocky caverns to which, in a country destitute of wood, their troglodite ancestors had recourse1. The ornamental architecture of Greece, in its most essential parts, bore a striking testimony to the early use of that timber with which the country abounded. In India we discover the primitive employment of reeds and bamboo, in the lofty and slender

1 Diodor. Sicul. lib. i. c. 45.

c buildings of later times: and in China there is scarcely an edifice, the roof of which is not constructed in imitation of the moveable tents of their Tartarian forefathers.

Architecture, from the period of its invention, in its progress to perfection must have experienced those gradations to which every art is necessarily subject: for, however this progress may have been retarded or facilitated by the intervention of temporary and accidental causes, we shall not fail to perceive the successive changes from rudeness to simplicity, from grandeur to magnificence. As an ornamental science, it may naturally be expected to keep pace with the advances made in those arts to which it is nearly allied, an improved culture of each depending mainly on the same vigour of imagination and general refinement of taste. In Greece, therefore, that powerful cause, or combination of causes, which so early produced by the operations of genius such a magical effect on the arts of design, exerted a similar influence on the state of architecture, and if this were the place to prosecute the inquiry, a most remarkable correspondence might be traced in the respective conditions of these various arts throughout the whole history of that wonderful people.

On the rude endeavours of savages in the construction of their primaeval huts Vitruvius has sufficiently dwelt. But on the more interesting question of the obligations imposed on the architecture of Greece, by the previously established practice of Egypt, he is silent ; and not only neglects to inquire into this point, but appears to avoid all mention of the buildings of the latter country. However forcibly the different character assumed by Grecian art may incline us

XIX to doubt its Egyptian origin, it will be difficult to resist the unanimous voice of antiquity on this subject ; for we shall scarcely find a district of Greece without its tradition of foreign adventurers, bringing to the coasts an improved state of knowledge and civilization ; and whether these personages are to be traced directly to Egypt, or rather to Syria, is immaterial, as in that age the two countries were nearly identified1. The vanity of some nations may, perhaps, receive gratification from the fabled intercourse of their ancestors with foreign heroes, and their own descent from such a source. The expedition of Aeneas, and even the settlement of the Trojan Brutus might be pleasing to their self-created posterity ; but the proud feelings of the earth-born Athenians could never have been flattered by the invention of a tale which confessed their rescue from the rudest state of barbarism by an unknown Egyptian, whose only claim to notice is in his capacity of their legislator. A confirmation of the prior advances made in the arts of design by the inhabitants of the coast of Syria and of Egypt is afforded by the conclusive testimony of Homer, from whose expressions the wealth and magnificence of the Egyptians are apparent, and with whom it is a sufficient commendation of any object of beauty and elegance that it should be called Sidonian. The distinctive appellation which he has given to this people, is that of * skilful workmen2.' It is true, that with the Greeks the arts soon