Principles of Design in Architecture Traced in Observations on Buildings Primeval, Egyptian, Phenician or Syrian, Grecian, Roman [Etc.]; In a Series of Letters to a Friend (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. 1824. Excerpt: ... LETTER IX. Tuscan and early Roman Architecture.'--Introduction of Grecian Taste at Rome.--Invention of the Arch.--Extension of its use.--Triumphal Arch.--Theaters.--Aqueducts. I Have, in my former letters, presented you, as I best could, with such views of Grecian architecture, as appeared to me fittest to illustrate, the subject before us. I will now desire you to take a turn with me anion? the remains of old Rome. Before the introduction of Grecian taste and the employment of Grecian artists, the Roman architecture appears, in the account of Vifruvius," and indeed in all accounts, to have been very rude. Early Rome, its imniediate territory furnishing' no valuable stone for building, was, like early London, with fortifications perhaps, and possibly some public buildings of stone, a wooden city. Bricks, as also at London, came afterward into use. The Tiburtine quarries, twenty-two miles off, were the nearest that afforded stone of-any excellence. Thence, in the fifteenth century, came the material for the justly celebrated saint Peter's church; and the cost of the carriage alone, being all by land, equalled the whole expcnce ofthe building of saint Paul's at London in the seventeenth; for which the stone, though from v, much greater distance, was brought at a cheaper rate by sea. The colosseum, it is well known, suffered demolition, in an age wlien the fine arts were receiving their best cultivation, to save the Farnese family the charge of bringing stone from the quarry, to erect their palace in Rome. A city so situated must be rich and peaceful before k could have fine buildings. O Nevertheless in the early days of Rome the' Grecian arts were not wholly unknown there.-A Greek was among its early kings, Tarquinius Priscus. The, neighbouring Tuscans, wit...