The Edinburgh Encyclopaedia Conducted by David Brewster, with the Assistance of Gentlemen Eminent in Science and Literature Volume 6 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1832 Excerpt: ...under the strongest influence of rivalship and thirst of glory, they, with their own hands, clothed those edifices with sculptures, and enriched them with statues expressive of more than mortal excellence. This chaste and severe Doric style was, with very few exceptions, the only one employed in Greece or its European colonies in Sicily and Italy, until after the Macedonian conquest. Ionian Antiq. vol. U. Preface. p. -0 Of the Ionic Order. The Greek colonies which were planted in a part ol the coast of Asia, named by them Ionia, being in possessipn of a rich country, with many cities well situated for commerce, became very populous and rich. Philosophy, science, and the arts, flourished there in so high a degree of perfection, that their claim to eminence has been reckoned to surpass that of any district of the mother country in the zenith of her glory, and they are even said to have finally adjusted and refined the proportions of the Doric order. See Ionian Antiq. Preface, vol. i p. 3. In Ionia, the temple of Apollo Panionius was built after the Doric manner; but that refined people, not satisfied with the simplicity of this order, invented another of a more delicate character, and named it after their own country, the Ionic. (See Plates CLVII. and CLIX.) They made the height of the column greater in proportion to its diameter than in the Doric; the capital was totally different in principle, the entablature was also changed in its members and proportions, and a base was added to the bottom of the column. Of the origin of this capital, we have no satisfactory account: Vitruvius, and later writers (who have all retailed precisely his relations, ) reckon, tliat as the Doric was strong and masculine, the Ionians modelled their order with female delicacy, ..