THE ANCIENT THEATRE IN TAORMINO, SICILY.

From a fresco in the Burg Theatre, Vienna. tTbe

VOL. IV. JANUARY-MARCH, 1895 NO. 3.

CHRISTIAN ALTARS AND THEIR ACCESSORIES.

Part I

T is even to the of evident, nishing churches ; but not so his superficial observer, that older brother, already overwhelmed we are now, in this coun- with a large and growing practice. try, at the beginning of Nevertheless, even he, if he aspires to a church-building era a do a good piece of ecclesiastical work, state of affairs brought must absolutely take the time in which about through a growing to acquire that necessary knowledge. love for the beautiful, the No matter how great a genius he may spread of ecclesiasticism be, he cannot afford to ignore the won- and the constantly in- derful architectural monuments of the creasing wealth of the various religious past, so full of artistic beauty and organizations. Old-time prejudices are originality. Therefore this article on rapidly disappearing, the meeting-house one branch of the subject, viz.: the idea is becoming obsolete, the edifices history, construction and decoration of of the past are no longer good enough altars, has been written in the hope that or hence there is a it useful to one as an in- churchly enough ; may prove general call from all denominations, troduction to further study, to the other both in town and country, for new and as a safe epitome of the essential better or more artistic buildings. In facts. some cases this movement is inspired It is not an original treatise, but by doctrine and devotion, and in only a careful and conscientious com- others it rises from mere emulation pilation from a large number of notes> and fashion. American architects, with which the author has gathered in the few exceptions, have not as yet shown course of years from many writers and themselves to the occasion the monuments as the of an equal ; exigencies opportunity to do good work has often active ecclesiological career called for been lost, not from their inability, but the information therein contained. because they were not in touch with There will be no attempt to solve any either the ecclesiastical or ecclesio- archaeological will-o'-the-wisp, to foster logical requirements. The young any peculiar religious views, or to advo- architect has the time to study the sub- cate any particular ecclesiastical archi- ject in all its many branches, to make tectural theory, but simply to place himself familiar with the rules, both before the reader those facts which will canonical and traditional, which govern be of practical use to him should he be the building, ornamentation and fur- called upon to build an altar.

Copyright, 1895, by CLINTON W. SWHKT. All rights reserved. Vol. 1V.-3. 1. CHRISTIAN ALTARS AND THEIR ACCESSORIES.

The English noun Altar is the equiv- for symbolic reasons. Under the old alent of the Latin word Altare, which law the entrance to the temple was in its turn is derived from the adjective from the east to the west, which signifies Altus high. that all before the passion of Christ Among the pagan Romans, an eleva- tended toward the setting sun or death. tion of wood or stone, or even of earth, But the entrance to a church is from raised for the purpose of making the west to the east, which symbolizes thereon a sacrifice, or offering, was our ascent from darkness to the throne named ara ; this substantive, however, of everlasting light and life, through was avoided by the Primitive Christians faith in Jesus Christ, who was crucified when speaking of or referring to their with his face to the west, and will own altars, although Tertullian and one come on the last day from the east, or two others use the phrase "ara dei" with great power and majesty. It is but as a rule it was not employed by raised upon a platform above the the early writers the word altare was highest floor of the church, because it the one used to designate a Christian is the sacramental throne of Christ, altar. St. Cyprian, writing in the third and in order to remind the faithful of century, draws a contrast in his 59th the Hilt of Calvary. domini altare and is Epistle between the The altar of more importance the diaboli ara a distinction in the use than the church itself, inasmuch as " of the two words which is strictly the altar is not for the church, adhered to in the Vulgate and all the but the church is for the altar." Latin languages. There was also a It is the Calvary of the Eucharistic similar usage among the Greek Chris- Sacrifice, hence the principal object in tians. a church. The sacrifice can be cele- The altar of the Jews was the object brated anywhere in a house or in the the or place appointed to receive offer- open air but not without an altar of

of sacrifice to ; also some kind that is even if it ings Jehovah they ; essential, used an altar as a memorial, such was is only the hands of a cleric, as in the the one spoken of in the seventeenth case of a fifth century bishop, Theo- chapter of Exodus, and sometimes as dorctus of Cyrrhus, who offered the the the a testimony : Behold pattern of divine mysteries upon the hands of his altar of the Lord, which our fathers deacons when he visited the Hermit made, not for burnt-offerings nor for sac- Maris at Aparmaca in Syria, where it is a witness between us and a church an altar. rifices ; but there was neither nor you (Joshua xxii., 28). The first altar of which we have any A Christian altar is a table-like con- account is that spoken of in the Book struction, used by the majority of of Genesis in the following words : Christians as the place upon which the Noah builded an altar unto the Lord and Eucharistic sacrifice is offered, by took of every clean beast and every clean others as a table from whence the fowl, and offered burnt-offerings on the Lord's Supper is administered, and altar. when fully developed consists of a The first Christian altar was the mensa or table, a pradella or platform, table of the Last Supper in the guest a ciborium or canopy, a re-table or step- chamber at Jerusalem, and the oldest like shelf, a reredos or screen, and, or closet for the lastly, a tabernacle Reservation. It is the principal object within the church, and is usually erected upon a platform in that part of the building reserved for the clergy, which is gen- of the erally at the east end edifice, but, wherever placed, its position deter- mines the orientation without regard It is to the points of the compass. The oldest Christian altar in the world, made of cypress end of the church wood. Kept as a relic in St. John Lateran at Rome. placed in the east CHRISTIAN ALTARS AND THEIR ACCESSORIES.

A FIFTH CENTURY ALTAR. one now in existence is in the church is in the West or Latin Church, of St. John Lateran at Rome. It is the part of the mensa upon which made of cypress wood in the form of the chalice and patan are placed is a chest, the mensa overhanging the invariably made of stone. In some of iour sides. It is supposed to be the the Oriental and Protestant churches one upon which St. Peter celebrated they still adhere to wood. The reason the Holy Mysteries in the house of of employing stone is a purely sym- Pudenziana at all events its authentic bolic which is ; one, explained by Du- history ante-dates the age of Constan- randus, the greatest of mediaeval sym- it is in tine, and to-day the only wooden bologists, the following words : "// altar allowed in the Roman Church, ought to be stone, not because of the hard- and is used exclusively by the Pope. ness, but the solidity of faith, for by this In the Primitive Church all altars, stone itself is understood Christ, of whom outside of the Catacombs, were prob- the Apostle saith, 'Jesus Christ Himself ably made of wood, that is until being the chief corner-stone' By the stone the time of St. Evaristus, somewhere indeed the humanity of Christ is denoted. about the year 112, who is said to Concerning which we read in Daniel, that liave a stone was cut out the rock without condemned them ; we know, of however, from the days of St. Syl- hands because Christ was born of the vester (314-335) their use was discour- Blessed Virgin without human agency aged. The earliest canon on the sub- becoming a huge mountain, filled the whole ject is the 26th of the Provincial Coun- earth. Concerning which it is said also by ' cil of Epaona, held in the year 517, the Psalmist, The stone which the builder which forbids the consecration of any has refused hath become the head-stone of ' but a stone altar from thence on. the corner since Christ whom the build- ; * wooden altars were of and ers, that is the Jews, refused, saying, We disapproved ' to over us stone ones took their place. Never- will not have this man reign head the corner. theless they are allowed in excep- hath been made the of as saith the * God hath tional cases, but where used, that Because, Apostle, HIGH-ALTAR AND CIBORIUM IN THE CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS AT BERRI. A TWELFTH CENTURY HIGH-ALTAR AND CIBORIUM, CHURCH OF ST. GEORGE, VELABRO. 256 CHRISTIAN ALTARS AND THEIR ACCESSORIES.

orna- exalted Him, and given Him] etc. Or covered with beautiful stuffs, with silk embroideries studded else by this stone, which ought to be great mented or with of and wide, charity is understood, as was with gems enriched plates stated before; since the command of gold and silver. In the there was but one charity is wide, extending even unto our beginning enemies ; to that precept of our altar in a church, after awhile others according " Lord, ( Love your enemies! were introduced, but the principal or in All the first altars, whether made of high-altar was always built the wood, stone, marble or metal, were chancel, the others were placed here either in the form of a box, or consisted and there and were only shrines, often of a slab or mensa resting on one or varied in form from the high-altar., four a more legs : generally one, three, which was usually parallelogram.

A SIXTH CENTURY ALTAR (FRENCH).

and sometimes five in number. Often After the [[church emerged from the the mensa was held up by a slab (stipes] Roman persecutions, and the Christians at each end or by a bracket from the were granted by the edict of Milan in wall of the building. There is no 313 the free exercise of their religion, doubt these altars of the Primitive their stone altars consisted of a conse- Church were and crated slab or mensa four very simple plain ; resting upon but no matter how common or pillars, typical of the four Evangelists ; precious the material of which they they were always either open or hollow, were made might have been, if we detached from the wall and stood upon are to believe the descriptions, pic- a platform beneath a canopy. As a tures, mosaics and other monuments rule, they were built over a crypt or which have come down to us from the tomb-like shrine containing the body earliest ages, they, when in use, were of a saint or martyr, with apertures- HIGH-ALTAR AND CIBORIUM IN THE CHURCH OI- SI. JOHN LA1EBAN HIGH-ALTAR OF S. MARTA IN TRASTEVERE AT ROME. CHRISTIAN ALTARS AND THEIR ACCESSORIES. 259

into the crypt which the through It was the all-important part of the relics could be seen and even touched. as altar, we learn from the writings of This usage and disposition of relics re- the first Christians. Gregory Nyssen, mained in force until the fifth and so a bishop of the fourth u century, says, on to the tenth when it century, be- this holy altar at which we stand is a came from 'time to necessary time to common stone by in remove them from nature, differing place to place, on no respect from any other slab of stone account of the invasions of the barba- with which our walls and pavements rians, which became so in are frequent adorned ; but since it is dedicated some countries that were they placed and consecrated to the worship of God in portable shrines. From this custom and hath received a benediction, it is originated the relic-altars of the mid- a holy table, an immaculate altar, dle ages. ^c?C which no longer is to be touched by all, As there are a of variety altars, they but by the priest." are distinguished one from another by To protect the relics or reliquaries specific as names, high-altar, side-altar, beneath their altars the early Christians

TFIE UPPER SURFACE OF A SIXTH CENTURY MENSA. shrine-altar, relic-altar and portable- filled in the open spaces between the altar. A high-altar is the chief one, bottom of the mensa and the floor and in the Primitive Church stood with perforated slabs of marble, alone in the centre of the sanctuary, stone and wood, metal grills or simply between the throne of the bishop and with curtains of silk. The use of cur- the outer or west edge of the chancel tains was by no means confined to the In the of the altar itself were also from platform. early days ; they hung Faith it was without either re-table or rods running from spring to spring in rcredos ; moreover nothing was allowed the arches of the ciborium, at least on upon the mensa besides the altar cloths, one or three sides. The arrangement the sacred vessels, the service book of a primitive chancel and altar can be and the dipty-chs containing the names seen to-day in many churches in Italy, of all those persons, both the living more particularly in the Roman and the dead, who were to be remem- churches of St. John in Laterano, St. bered at the celebration. The mensa Clement, St. Lawrence, and in the Am- was a slab of natural stone, slightly brosian basilica at Milan. In the last- hollowed out on top, sometimes with named church true orientation has

PERFORATED MARBLE SLAB FROM AN ALTAR AT RAVENNA.

in the east end, beneath a dome- The altar of the days of St. Ambrose shaped ciborium upheld by four col- was replaced in the year 835 by a of is still umns porphyry, and behind it, magnificent work of art which against the east wall of the sanctuary, the principal altar of the basilica. It stands the Episcopal chair. This is was erected by Archbishop Angilbert the church in which Saint Ambrose and is an oblong cube, made of silver in the year 386 deposited under the parcel-gilt and pure gold, enriched by high-altar the remains of the martyrs repousse work, colored enamels and Gervasius and Protasius and concern- inlays of precious stones (en cabochon); ing which he wrote a long letter to the sides and back are of silver, the his sister. The following passage is frontal of gold, which is divided into taken from this letter, as it illustrates three compartments, the middle one the usage of the Christians in always contains a cross having in its centre associating with their altars the relics a seated figure of the Redeemer, of martyrs and saints. He writes : while in the arms of the Cross there " Bring these victorious victims to the are representations of the four Evan- spot where Christ is the sacrifice. But gelists under their symbolic forms, He, who suffered for all, upon the and between the arms the Apostles are who have been in of three the re- altar, they redeemed arranged groups ; by His passion, under the altar where- maining compartments are filled with fore let us bury the hallowed relics, eventful incidents in the life of Christ. placing them in a worthy home." This The back of the altar is similar to the custom was not always followed, that front, as far as its divisions are con- after the ninth the central one is is, century ; subsequently cerned, occupied by to this date the relics were doors to the relics sometimes two leading ; upon placed above the altar, but never above these doors are four circular medal- the high-altar. lions filled with figures of the arch- CHRISTIAN ALTARS AND THEIR ACCESSORIES. 263

Front of the high altar of the ninth century in the Basilica of St. Ambrose at Milan.

Michael St. angels and Gabriel, Am- vasius and Protasius : on the other brose receiving the altar from Arch- side there are the archangels Michael, bishop Angilbert, and St. Ambrose Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel, together blessing the silversmith Wolvinus, the with four saints : Martin, Maternus, designer and maker of this wonderful Nabor and Nazarius. altar in the other are ; compartments This most beautiful and remarkable portrayed the principal events in the altar is one of the best examples of the life of St. on the sides of the basilican in existence : a Ambrose ; type simple altar there is the same kind of work table or ac- ; without re-table reredos, in the left one there are eight angels cessories that would be in the way and bearing vials, and four medallion por- hide the priest from the people, as he traits : Ambrose, Simplicianus, Ger- celebrates with his back to the aspsidal or east end of the presbytery and his face toward the people, with the altar between him and them. Just the date of the introduction of side-altars into churches cannot be

of The side-altar of S. Felice (i6th century), Church The relic-altar of S. Denis. A restoration by Viollet- at Padua. le-Duc. S. Anthony 264 CHRISTIAN ALTARS AND THEIR ACCESSORIES.

York from this time ; on, the evidence as to multiplication of altars in all churches is overwhelming, both from documents and monuments. Side- altars were built in honor of some par- ticular saint or the titular of the church or for the reception of the relics of many saints. Very often a figure of the saint was placed above his altar or his relics in a reliquary of one form or another. An altar containing a number of relics was generally more beautiful than other side-altars, often rich in and metals such a gems precious ; one was erected by the great Abbott Suger in the twelfth century in the church of Saint Denis : it was built of porphyry enriched with agates and in places overlaid with gold and incrustations of precious stones, here and there inscrip- tions made with letters in the enamel ; bodies relics of Mediaeval altar, with hanging. After Viollet-le-Duc. and were placed back and under the altar in a chest cut from fixed with any great accuracy, how- a block of black marble, and resting on ever it is known that they came in use this were eight square pillars of the at a very early period and that after same material, which upheld another the sixth century a plurality of altars block of black marble embellished with was the rule in the churches of the there Western mouldings ; between pillars Christendom. were eight wrought iron grills covered St. Gregory of Tours (A. D. 573), with gold, gilt foliage and round bits tells us that he said mass at three dif- of enamel on copper. Inside the pillars ferent altars in the church at Braisne, and grill-work, over the sepulchre, there near in France was a cover of stone and and Loissons, ; Palladius, copper, bishop of Saintonge, wrote Gregory above the upper block of marble, of the Great, Pope from 590-604, for relics the same length and width, there was a to place in the altars of his church, tabernacle in the form of a church thirteen in number; and Alcum (735-804) with a nave and two aisles, richly em- in a Latin poem, says that there were bellished with carvings and enamels, in thirty altars in the cathedral church of the nave and aisles were beautiful

A silk embroidered antependium of the i8th century. Italian. si II SICK-ALTAR OF THE HOLY CROSS IN S. MARK'S, VENICE. CHRISTIAN ALTARS AND THEIR ACCESSORIES. 2*7

A part of an ivory and wood antipendium in the Cathedral at Salerno.

reliquaries of wood in the form of a It will be seen from the above that .sarcophagus, these were made precious the distinguishing marks between high- with metals and embellished with altars and side-altars of the past were agates, Oriental pearls, aqua marina, in the position they respectively occu- topazes, garnets, sapphires and many pied in the church building, in the other gems. On the peak of the larger elevation of the high-altar over all reliquary there was a cross of gold and others, in its simplicity both in form on the others crosses of silver, all three and decoration, and in the richness set with amethysts, garnets and emer- of ornamentation in side-altars of alds. Upon this master work of art all kinds, more especially relic-altars. was written in golden letters the fol- Then again nothing could be placed lowing legend : Facit utrumque latits, above a high-altar except the Euchar- Jrontem, lectrumque Suggerus. istic reservation, which was at times During the first ages of the Faith, suspended in a pyx hanging by a chain down through mediaeval times, it was from the underside of the ciborium or customary to partially surround the from a bracket attached to the back of altar with veils, a practice already al- the altar. curtains were The next form of altar to be con- luded to ; these changed with the vestments of the feast, so as sidered is that known in the early to agree in color with them. In addi- church as altaria portatilia or a portable This kind of altar consisted tion to these, hangings : superpendiums altar. and antependiums, were sometimes em- of a small portable slab of wood or ployed as veils or half veils for the stone, consecrated and generally con- relics were used mis- front of the altar below the mensa ; taining ; they by these frontals, however, were not always sionaries, bishops and priests when in a made of cloth, often they were con- on a journey, or by armies when on structed of metal, wood or ivory. camp distant from a church or while Vol. IV. 3.?. 268 CHRISTIAN ALTARS AND THEIR ACCESSORIES.

the march. The Venerable Bebe tells by columns and were constructed of us that when the two Hewalds preached wood or wood covered with metal, of the Faith of Christ to the Saxons in metal alone, marble, alabaster and " 690 they daily offered up the sacrifice many other substances. of the saving oblation for they had with The ciborium of the church of Santa them sacred vessels and a consecrated slab Sophia at Constantinople, erected by for an altar" So common had they Justinian from the design of the archi- become in the days of St. Anselm, 1106, tect Anthemius in the year 534, was and so often abused, that he thought it an octagonal pyramidal dome crowned his duty to protest against consecrat- with a cross and resting upon four " the columns of the ing them : I do not condemn silver, whole enriched usage," he writes, "but I prefer that with mosaics and ornaments, hangings unattached altars should not be conse- and veils of silk in which were woven crated." Nevertheless down to a very figures of Christ, St. Peter, St. Paul late date grants of portable altars were and other saints. frequent, Julius II., in the sixteenth Often lamps were suspended either century, granted to the Guild of St. from brackets at the corners of the Botolph at Boston, in England, the ciborium or from the soffit of its arches,, to use one their while from the centre of the under right ; to-day, however, use is almost entirely confined to Ro- side of the dome or ceiling hung a man Catholic missionaries in heathen chain to which a pyx was attached. lands or in a sparsely-settled country. The most celebrated ciborium of Many of the portable altars of the modern days is that over the high- middle ages were objects of great altar of St. Peters at Rome, which is- and artistic value were feet and was built Urban beauty ; they 95 high, by made of jet, jasper and marble en- VIII. from the design of Bernini in cased in rich frames of gold or silver 1633. It is of bronze supported upon carving, mosaics and gems. As this four spiral columns with composite kind of altar is foreign to our subject capitals and gilt ornaments, and is said it will not be referred to again in this to have cost $225,000. or subsequent articles. In the basilica of St. Paul Fuori le Next to the altar in importance, Mura at Rome there is a double its earliest accessory, is the ciborium, ciborium ; one over the other, the otherwise a canopy. It is sometimes under one is Gothic in style resting" incorrectly called a baldachin, an upon four columns of red porphyry, English corruption of the Italian while the upper canopy is in harmony word baldacchino : a canopy made of with the lines of the church and is a textile fabric, and held over a supported by four columns of Oriental priest when carrying the Sacrament alabaster, presented to Gregory XVL in procession or taking it to the sick, by Mahomet Ali. or placed above the chair of an Ciboria in the form of a semi-dome illustrious person on state occasions are not uncommon, although not of and also over the throne of an date of the best royal per- early ; one exam- sonages. ples of this kind is in the church of St. The word ciborium is derived from Paul the in York it is Apostle, New ; the Greek Kifioopiov, the primary mean- composed of alabaster with gold-mo- ing of which is a cup in the form of saic and stands upon monoliths of most the seed-vessel of the Egyptian lotus, beautiful African marble of various hence its application to an altar-can- colors. opy which in form resembles an in- In Italy, wherever the high-altar of a verted cup. The ciborium came into church is without a ciborium, it is the use just as soon as the Christians custom on great festivals to suspend began to build churches having any over the same a square or elliptical architectural value, and was not only canopy of silk damask, which the Ital- placed above high-altars but also often ians rightly call a baldacchino. over side-altars, when they came into The next accessory of an altar to be vogue. These canopies were supported considered is the re-table, which is a HIGH-ALTAR OF ST. PAUL S, ROME. H. W. BELKNAP. HIGH-ALTAR IN THE CHURCH OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE. "New York City. Designed by Stanford White. CHRISTIAN ALTARS AND THEIR ACCESSORIES. 271 sort of shelf, step or steps at the back steps above the floor of the sanctuary. of the mensa and raised above it. The If there is a desire to raise it higher, crucifix or re- there is altar-cross, candlesticks, no reason against it, only the liquaries and flower vases are placed steps, including the predella in any upon this member. Jts origin is un- case, should be kept unequal in num- known, as well as just the time it was ber and never more than nine. There first employed, yet there is one thing is a symbolism in odd numbers, a we can say with the full assurance, and teaching thought, that it behooves the the statement cannot be refuted, viz.: architect to adhere to, as it appeals to- that it is not found in conjunction with devout minds and is traditionally the early altars, although a most use- sound. Three stands for the founda- ful accessory and almost invariably tion of all truth : the Father, the Son, a of all altars built since the five for the forming part and Holy Ghost ; holy the fifteenth re- of the crucified seven for the century. The word wounds ; table is taken from the French, but in virtues of humility, liberality, chastity,, France it is equivalent to our word meekness, temperance, brotherly love reredos. and diligence the steps that all Chris- Modern altars in a general way tians must tread if they hope to place resemble those of past ages, never- the seven deadly sins beneath their theless there is enough difference teet on the road to the Heavenly Altar to as to our of life and nine mark them belonging everlasting ; represents- time. To draw out in full these the three angelic hierarchies of three differences would serve no practical choirs each, or the nine orders of end, yet, in view of what has already angels who are always singing there been said, and from the following rules divine canticles before the throne governing the construction, form, size of God. and decoration of the altar of to-day III. The predella should not project the whole matter will be very plain to less than four feet and a-half in front all attentive readers. of the altar and at least fourteen inches In order to have a fixed standard, as at the sides. Its length should corre- a guide in every thing concerning spond with that of the mensa plus four- it is well to take the rulings of altars, teen inches at either side. A good the Congregation of Rites as the cri- width for the treads of the steps is terion, if for no other reason that its from twelve inches to two feet, and laws and judgments are based on known the height for the risers four and a-- precedents, canons, constant and well- it has been found ex- half inches ; by founded traditions, and are generally that low and wide steps offer conservative. Besides, its decisions are perience less chance of accident by a misstep accepted as absolute by the largest to those engaged in the ceremonies ap- body of Christians employing altars in to the altar, than any other their divine service. pertaining form. If the/mfc//0and its approaches^ must be I. A modern high-altar may be are of stone some provision for the in placed in one of two positions : either made holding carpet place,, well out toward the front of the sanc- with which the ceremonial prescribes should be covered on all solemn tuary, as practiced in the early church, they In this or close to the east wall of the chancel, occasions or grand functions. it is better to make the but never attached to it, at least two country predella^ account of the ex- feet and a half away, as this space or and steps of wood on winter. The ore passage is needed, not only at the time treme cold of steps the to be as of consecration, but at all times for the the sides of predella ought convenience of the sacristan and those wide as those in front, and the lowest of these six feet back of the ccm- carrying on the services. one munion rail or more if there is room. II. A high-altar must stand upon a IV. The mensa of a should platform with a predella or foot-pace high-altar a nat- approached by not less than two steps, be rectangular in form, single, ural not less than nine feet long thus with the predella raising it three stone, CHRISTIAN ALTARS AND THEIR ACCESSORIES. and two feet wide, square at the edge, mensa, midway between the Gospel and without sculpture which is liable to Epistle end, and at an equal distance catch the vestments of the celebrant. from the back and front edge that Where the altar is very long the top part of the altar on which the chalice may be made of three slabs, but the and patan rest. Moreover, it must centre is alone the mensa. A good bear five incised crosses and have a general height is three feet five inches receptacle for relics. In truth, the above the predella; when it is over this, super-altar is the mensa, hence it is or more than two feet six inches wide, made of stone, as stone alone can be it will be found inconvenient for the consecrated, and as it "signifies Christ if there the Stone into a mountain as average-sized man, especially growing ; It it is a tabernacle above it. can be is said, the mountain itself is fat, supported upon stone piers, columns, a being anointed until the oil of gladness, solid or hollow foundation, but not above his fellows. Jacob set up the stone bricks or artificial stone a and oil upon brackets, ; for memorial, poured upon it." the support can be covered or filled in with wood, stone, marble, mosaic and VII. High-altars of the great basi- metal, and ornamented in anyway that licas, as described above, were without is dignified and consistent with its use re-tables, because they would have pre- and the style of architecture of the vented the people from seeing the offi- church in which it is built. ciating priest, who stood, as was said The mensa should invariably extend before, \vith the altar between him and its or at them but where the altar is turned beyond base support, both ; the front and sides, in order to give the about, so that the priest has his back priest, while celebrating, room to genu- toward the nave, it is customarily fur- flect without striking his knees against nished with a re-table of two, three or the altar-frontal. On its upper surface more steps or shelves, running the full of five crosses must be cut, one at each length the mensa or beyond it, all of horn or corner and one in the centre of one length, or breaking away at the the slab and nations the sides or cut in two in the middle a ; among some by date of consecration, together with tabernacle, where there is one, which is the name of the consecrator, are in- the case in the high-altar of most all scribed on the under side. parish churches.

V. If small relics are used, there VIII. The re-table is either as or must never be less than two. They, long longer than the mensa, and is built with three grains of incense, are put in up at its back or east edge, but in no case a leaden box, either square or round, must it encroach the same. It is closed with a cover, tied down with a upon sometimes made of wood or of the red ribbon crossed and sealed with the same material as the altar the ; gradines signet of the consecrating bishop, and in and vary height depth ; the first placed in a square cavity called a from the altar should not be as deep as sepulchre, three inches by three inches, the next six inches is a fair hollowed out of the centre of the ones, height inches for the twelve mensa of sufficient depth to receive the by eight deep first, for the next and fifteen for the box and allow room for a cover of third. This is a matter very deter- stone, which, when in place, must be largely mined and taste. flush with the upper face of the slab by proportion good and fastened with cement. If the relic IX. in some monastic is the body of a saint it is placed under High-altars churches the mensa within the altar. (mendicant friars) are joined to the side walls of the chancel by VI. If the is mensa made of any paneled and ornamented partitions, other material than stone or marble, as with a door on the right and left lead- in the case of wooden altars, there ing to the choir, which is east of the must r>e a super-altar or altar stone, of altar. There is sometimes a square marble, jasper, alabaster, etc. This opening in the re-table so that the cele- stone must be inlaid in the body of the brant can be seen by the religious. SIDE-ALTAR IN ST. MARK'S, VENICE (SIXTEENTH CENTURY). A SIDE-ALTAR OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY S. TR1NITE, FIRENZE.. CHRISTIAN ALTARS AND THEIR ACCESSORIES. 275

X. Side -altars are ruled by the of the high-altar and the next is on same general canons as high-altars. the Epistle side. are smaller, stand a They upon XI. An altar cannot be built over a without steps, and with one predella vault this ex- on the re-table should mortuary ; prohibition gradine ; they tends even to the predella and steps ; never have a tabernacle, unless the altar nor can there be a for cruets, is used as an altar-of-the-Blessed Sacra- cupboard etc., of any kind in the altar, re-table or ment, If are altars of sacrifice they reredos. the mensa is the same as that of a high-altar. Side-altars may have a The next division of the subject of figure of its titular on the re-table or this paper, viz. : the reredos and taber- picture in a reredos. When there are a nacle, will be treated at length in the number of side-altars, the first in dig- second part of this article in a future nity is the one nearest the Gospel side issue of the ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

Caryl Coleman.

Front of a fifth century altar in the tomb of Galla-Placidia at Ravenna. VAULT IN CHAPEL OF CHATEAU D'ECOUEN. MODERN MOSAICS.

THE MOSAICS OF NICCOLO BARABINO IN THE FACADE OF THE CATHEDRAL AT FLORENCE.

ICCOLO seated olive BARABINO, among branches ; the Ma- whose sudden death in donna deir Olivo and that called Quasi 1891 was such a loss to oliva speciosa in campis. The latter was Italian art, was pre- purchased by the Queen of Italy, who eminent both as a dra- carries it about with her in all her matic and decorative journeyings, and always places it near painter. the head of her bed. In these the de- Born at near Sampierdarena, Genova, corative intention is plainly visible, in 1832, he entered the Accademia of the both in the attitude of the Madonna, Belle Arti in that city at the age of in the way in whi:h she holds the Child, twelve, and closed a brilliant career in the upright lines behind, in the there off by carrying the Durazzo raised steps on which her feet rest, and scholarship. Finding that his friend in the slightly conventional treatment Semino had been classed second in the of the olive branches that surround her. list of competitors, he insisted that the All the details in fact go to emphasize scholarship should be divided between the constructional decorative line of them, and the two set off to study to- composition, and thus to give character gether in Florence. The generous dis- and force to the composition itself. position here displayed accompanied |jThis same treatment of steps, pilas- him through life and won him the ters, constructive marble work and warmest regard from his fellow artists. niche opening in the central part of the Barabino's first pictures were com- composition, form the mam lines on missions for religious subjects, es- which Barabino designed the three mo- for in these saics over the doors in the facade of the pecially Madonnas ; and his tendency to decorative effects Cathedral of Florence. He has thus makes itself at once felt. He loves to obtained a most effective variant on the paint the Virgin Mother with her Babe ordinary mosaic backgrounds of blue or in panel form, with straight linesbehind, gold. He has secured a concentration either of the niche in which she sits or of effect rare if not unknown in mosaics, of the rug hung on the wall. The folds and he has brought the three tympani of the robe are more or less decorative, into such harmony with the rest of the as are the lines of the marble bench fagade (in which, it will be remembered, with raised steps, on which she sits. statues seated or standing in niches are Take for instance the two Madonnas largely used) that their design seems MOSAICS. 278 MODERN

del is and then to have sprung complete from the mind Maria Fiore, dedicated) of the master who gave birth to the of the Son, in whom the Universal Church rests. The embodiment of this plan of the whole. When Emilto de Fabris found that idea is clearly visible in the sculptures been with which the faade is loaded and his design for the facade had ; chosen from among all those presented Barabino has conceived his mosaics in to the Committee of Judgment, he ap- the same spirit.

By Prof. Barabino JESUS ENTHRONED.

Mosaics in the central door of the facade of S. Maria del Fiore.

pealed to Professor Augusto Conti, well At the time when this work was con- known as a writer on art and philosophy, fided to him, Barabino was President of to furnish him with the details of orna- the Artists' Club in Florence, and all mentations which should harmonize men hailed in him one of the greatest, with his architectural scheme. Prof. perhaps the greatest living Italian Conti decided that the whole decorative painter. Moreover he was especially scheme should be in honor first of the fitted for work of a decorative char- Virgin (to whom the Cathedral, Santa acter, as he has executed, especially in MODERN MOSAICS.

By Prof. Barabino. FAITH. Mosaic over left-hand door of S. Maria del Fiore.

Liguria, a great number of very fine publish. Of the richness and depth of frescoes thus that boldness the ; acquiring coloring, however, which gives ex- of design and line which are essential actly the note of warmth needed by the to an art dependent on architecture. coldness of the marbles above and The composition of the three lunettes around, engravings can of course give focuses, so to speak, Prof. Conti's in- no idea. The two side lunettes are to tention in the decoration of the whole the honor of the Madonna, protectress facade. That over the central door, of the city and inspirer of charitable below the shrine of the Madonna and institutions. That over the left-hand Child, and Passaglia's bas-relief of the door, the one nearest Giotto's bell- Madonna surrounded by Seraphim, rep- tower, is the image of Faith, with re- resents Christ, enthroned in the act of presentatives of the various arts that blessing the Virgin bent before him made the city famous grouped around and imploring grace. Above run the the throne, and above her head the words, Mater divines gratia. On each legend, Auxilium Christianonim. Over side are grouped the Saints invoked as the right-hand door is Charity throned, protectors of the city. In this, as in above the founders of the various char- the other mosaics, the composition and itable institutions of Florence, and treatment are clearly given by the ac- above her runs the motto, Consolatrix companying engravings which the kind Afflictorum. Both Faith and Charity courtesy of Prof, del Moro, I)e-Fabris' are, however, not the purely ideal fig- successor as architect, enables us to ures generally used, but the type which 280 MODERN MOSAICS.

By Prof. Barabino. CHARITY. Mosaic over right-hand door of S. Maria del Fiore.

Barabino always adopts for his Ma- much of meekness (that is left to the donnas. He has given us the Madonna Virgin) as of active regal life. It will as Faith, the Madonna as Charity. in fact be remembered that Christ was Passing now to the composition and saluted as King of the Florentines, and coloring of the central mosaic, we are that an inscription to this effect still at once struck by the admirable effect exists on the door of the Palazzo Vec- of light and shade obtained by the cur- chio. Noticeable, too, is the peculiar vatures of the niche in which the cen- cross draping of the cloak, to be ob- tral figure sits, and the highly decor- served also in the figure of Faith over ative effects of the lines of simulated the left door, and in the Madonna of marble-work forming the pilasters on the Olive. The saints around are those each side of the niche. The of dear to the Florentine figure especially mind ; Christ, slightly sculptural, is redeemed St. John the Baptist, whose Church op- from conventionality by the extreme posite the Cathedral is every year the freedom of motion of the arm thrown scene of the most solemn rejoicings; up in the act not only of blessing, but Sant' Anna, protectress of the liberty of also of calling attention to the kneel- the city, on whose feast day the Tyrant ing Virgin mater divina gratia and by Duke of Athens was driven out; San the pose of the head which is more Lorenzo, whose vast dome-crowned erect than is at all usual in figures of Church rises but a short distance from the even thrown the Cathedral S. Christ, being slightly ; Giuliana Falconieri back and giving the expression not so and Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi, MODERN MOSAICS. 281 peacemakers between the factions of at the left of the picture. The silken Florence and San Vittorio warring ; tissue displayed on the right is dull honored for the victory of the Floren- yellow. Very noticeable here as else- tines over the Pisans. where in Barabino's mosaics are the The coloring of this central mosaic intensely Florentine and characteristic is gorgeous and harmonious. The reds faces. They are sharp and shrewd, predominate crimson in the cloak of each with its own individuality im- San Lorenzo on the right, violet-purple pressed on it. Look, for instance, at in that of San Vittorio, light porphyry- the notary craning forward at the Ma- purple in the vest of the Christ, and donna's right hand, or at the upright the note is given again at the foot of figure at her left in the corresponding the throne by red-edged books. These mosaic over the right-hand door. various tints are dominated and har- The two points of light in the right- monized by the intense deep red of the hand mosaic are given by the scarlet niche, still further toned by its black robe of the left-hand figure just men- arabesques and the deep shadow in tioned and the rose-hued gown of the which the left-hand portion of it lies. Madonna. The drapery of the other The note of blue is given by the world figures is black, or practically so, the which the Christ holds in his left hand requisite light being obtained by the and by the Madonna's cloak. The marble and small points of gold which former is light blue, as of the sky, the form the background. The personages latter an intense dark blue. The in this mosaic are founders of the hos- requisite lighter tints are given by the pitals, foundling hospitals and other Christ's white outer robe and the head- beneficent institutions, whose heraldic dresses of the nuns, while the black devices ornament the steps of the cloaks of these latter and St. John's throne on which the. figure of Charity sunburnt figure introduce the sombre is placed. tone necessary to set off the brighter Regarding these three mosaics as an colors. Add now the glittering haloes, organic whole, we must give them high the golden vase with its white lilies praise as fulfilling, under considerable and their yellow stamens, the golden difficulties, the true scope of the mosaic arabesques of the Christ's robe and art. They are thoroughly in harmony in of with the rest of the facade are the golden points the lines mar- ; they ble-work that frame the niche, and you eminently decorative in their concep- the are in- have a whole of marvelous richness tion and execution ; heads and and are and harmony of coloring. dividual interesting ; they In the two side lunettes the gold falls of a coloring rich enough to give into the background. They form, as it warmth to the whole weight of marbles were, a rich but sober setting to the above and around them. The execu- in bright gem in the centre. The figure tion is perhaps in places flat, notably of Faith in the left-hand lunette is the black robe of the principal person- the of Faith wrapped in a cloak of the blue usually age on the left of figure ; the details the assigned to the Madonna, arranged in and some of space cannot Barabino's favorite cross draperies, and being so extremely limited be she holds a red book. She thus stands appreciated from below. But we may out from and relieves the group around nevertheless feel sure that the mosaics in the of the Cathe- the steps of the throne, in which dull of Barabino fa9ade of Florence will remain an yellows and browns predominate, deep- dral example of the art which marks ening into yellowish green in the tunic of that revival nineteenth of the workman who displays the fleece the end of the century. Isabella De Barbieri. STUDY IN CHATEAU DE CHANTILLY. THE MUSICAL IDEALS OF ARCHITECTURE.

Part I.

THE UNITY OF THE HARMONIC LAWS IN THE ARTS OF MUSIC AND DESIGN.

U C H as the several writers on Art have discoursed in a gen- " branches of the Fine eral the harmonic law of way" upon Arts have been dis- nature as the source of the beauties cussed, and their ori- of design. The notion of the perfec- gins, influences and laws tion and symbolic character of certain of right and wrong in- numbers took strong hold upon the dividually analyzed, there are yet cer- philosophers and artists of Egypt, tain of the in and Greece and India aspects unity origin ; and there can be no purpose of the various members that doubt that they sought to find an ap- have never received the attention they plication of such not only to arithmetic, would seem to deserve. geometry, astrology and music, but Among these relations is that be- also to the element of proportion in tween Music and Architecture, includ- architecture. But little positive knowl- ing under the latter the minor arts edge of this matter, however, has come allied to her and dependent to any de- down to us. Vitruvius hints of some gree upon abstract design. such natural basis of proportion being To be sure, ever since Pythagoras, known to the Greeks, but does not who probably derived much of his reveal what he supposed their secrets to knowledge from the ancient lore of be, except that he advances the opinion the Egyptians, propounded his theory that the proportions of the human of the harmony of numbers as being figure were taken as guides for the the foundation of all natural phenom- Orders and the distribution of the ena, and Plato raised the minds of men various parts of temples, which theory to the contemplation of an ideal beauty cannot be taken seriously in a literal in which the accidental and the imita- sense, though the analogy between the tion of externals had no part, many ratios of the perfect human form

Vol. IV. 3 3. 284 THE MUSICAL IDEALS OF ARCHITECTURE. and the most charming examples characteristics, which in the other are of design constitutes a part of the subordinate. Their difference is such analogy of which we purpose to as to separate them vastly in outward treat. That numbers and measure semblance and give them principles of furnish a tie between architecture structure peculiar to each, and an in- and arithmetic, geometry and music, dividual cast to all of their ideals. was observed, though obscurely, by These essential points of difference we Leon Baptista Alberti, and more accu- will note as they naturally arise. is it to that rately, though not altogether soundly, Nor the intention infer by the astronomer Keppler and by the either art is in any respect an imitation Scotch author D. R. Hay, of whom we of the other. The Greeks, and proba- will speak more fully presently. Others, bly the Egyptians, must have appre- searching the origins of music, have ciated that certain of the values of proved that her harmony is founded their proportions were similar to corre- upon laws of nature. And scattered here sponding values in music. But, beyond and there in various works may be this, each of the two maybe considered found fragmentary or chance compari- to have worked out its own way, irre- sons of color to musical tone, or of the spective of the other. rhythmical motive of some particular However, I think that the recogni- design or the architectural effect of a tion of the fact that the arts of design musical composition. are based upon universal harmonic laws But, while music- and architecture and are closely related in method and have thus been acknowledged to pos- ideal to the art of music would not be sess a few fundamental analogies, and without permanent value, especially in the various arts have been separately such a time as the present when the shown to express many of the same practice of architecture and ornamental principles of natural harmony, yet no design have become but little more one, as far as I am aware, has noted the than the study and adoption of past completeness of their resemblance has modes and styles, often with no thought made, in short, any study of the matter of their original meanings. And the as whole their more common aim the dif- a ; examining common any among mathematical basis and, at the same ferent phases of art becomes apparent, time taking into account the difference the less do they seem arbitrary and in nature of and charm accidental the firmer the imagination ; grows belief, which must necessarily separate an art so necessary to the spirit of the finest existing in space from one in time. For work in art, that beauty arises out of unless we do this we can only prove an truth. analogy in certain methods, which may, As both music and architecture show however, be the outcome of completely many fixed principles of form and com- opposite artistic motives. position running through their most Whereas it is the purpose of this divers styles and the productions of paper to examine the two arts in a races altogether unknown to each comparative way, as far as necessary other, it is evident that neither can be limits will allow, with the aim of prov- a chance invention. If, then, it can ing that there exists between them a furthermore be shown that these prin- consistent and organic union. A rela- ciples are to a great extent counter- tion, starting in the physical laws of parts of each other and derived from light and optics on the one hand, and nearly identical physical, physiological sound and hearing on the other, and in and mathematical laws, and that still their rudimentary media of expression, further their ideals are in intimate sym- such as notes, metres, tones and lines, pathy, we may hope to establish this- colars and geometrical forms, and union to the extent claimed. carried on through their respective As the foundation of this relation- systems of artistic and imaginative ship lies in the fundamental identity composition, design and execution. of light and sound, it will be necessary Of course each has, necessarily, laws in the first place to determine the main entirely its own and emphasizes certain features of resemblance of these phe- THE MUSICAL IDEALS OF ARCHITECTURE.

nomena and of their as respective percep- do all rays of light. But the vibra- tions and and to seek by eye ear, the tions either in light waves or sound so to of meeting place, speak, space waves are not always the same in num- and time. And as the second to point ber for any given time. From this it be observed is the of the universality follows that'certain rays of light or of laws of harmonic we form, may pro- sound make different impressions than ceed to examine what others correspondence upon the eye andana ear respect- as to relative or ratio there proportion ively. Of this the practical effect is be betwten that may limited number that there are various colors and sounds and of sounds which the range ear has of different pitch. selected as harmonious to that also The range of light vibrations, that limited of colors and range 'geometric is, from violet to deepest red, covers lines in which the the from eye recognizes 727,000,000,000,000 to 458,000,- beautiful, when, turning from the sim- 000,000,000 undulations that enter the admiration of ple the loveliness re- eye in a second or a little less than an vealed in nature's actual, living shapes, octave. The ear perceives a more ex- it essays to create ideals in form after tended range of about nine octaves its own imaginings. After comparing vibrations, but of a much lower rate in the physiological-mathematical bases the same interval of time. The organs of the two harmonies will we seek for of different people vary considera- in the artistic of in similarity principles bly the limits of this range of per- composition and design; in the manner ception. of and using constructing an art out of Both light and sound obey the same the elementary scale of sounds and geometric laws of reflection and refrac- primary forms just mentioned. tion. Having thus examined the relations What is known as the " phenomenon of their harmonic systems, the second of "interference is also common. If of part this paper will be devoted to lines of light be passed through certain the expressive nature of these two art crystals, which have the property of languages, inquiring in what they are at separating their rays, and are then one and what at variance in imagina- caught upon a screen we will have an tive and emotional ideal. alternation of light and dark bars, and And lastly, by glancing over the if two tuning forks be vibrated, one a historic developments of the two, we little more slowly than the other, a ris- will seek to trace how in the most nota- ing and falling of the sound will be ble eras of artistic power these similar produced. In both cases these alterna- laws and motives have impressed simi- ting effects are caused by the rays lar characteristics of style upon each, crossing or interfering with the result and have guided them successively into of diminution of force in certain direc- the same paths of thought. tions or spaces and reinforcement in others. Light and Sound. There are some features of difference, however, in their respective wave move- The experiments and discoveries of meats, as is shown in the property of modern science have been gradually light, known as polarization, which establishing a strong resemblance prove that the molecules in any par- between the phenomena of light ticular ray move in a transverse direc- and sound. Each is a form of vibra- tion to the line of the ray; whereas in tory motion and is propagated in sound the motion is back and forth in undulatory waves through various elas- the line. Now, while this is probably tic media. The waves of light move responsible for some of the difference at a much higher rate than those of in phenomena, it has no practical signi- sound; their speed being 192,500 miles ficance unless it be held accountable a second, while sound has a rate of only for the fact that light travels in straight about 1,090 feet a second. All sounds lines and therefore possesses the prop- of whatever quality or pitch travel in erty of shadows, while sound, as every- the same medium at an even velocity one knows, is able to turn around cor- 286 THE MUSICAL IDEALS OF ARCHITECTURE.

ners, though with partially diminished conceivable abstraction; space adds that form and intensity; somewhat in the manner proportion.* waves upon the surface of a lake curl Nature continually manifests motion around jutting points of land and in space or motion and space bound streams. as one it is Life. This diverge into bays and together ; life of nature not her This is, of course, a fundamental throbbing visible difference; but when we consider an forms or movements, but her harmoni- important distinction in the nature of ous ideal, so to speak filtered through the production and occurrence of the the intellectual and emotional or im- two phenomena, we see that it is this aginative sense, as light through a very difference in physical properties leaded window of splendid hues, and which makes possible any mental or made audible becomes Music, and made artistic relations. But as this concerns visible becomes Design in form, most more properly the relations of musical, notably Architecture. as distinguished from ordinary sounds, The eye and ear present strong re- we will discuss it later. semblances in construction and in the The theory of wave motion links number and function of their parts, space and time together and demon- showing that nature has fitted them for strates light and sound to be products the perception of analagous properties of essentially the same energy, per- of matter. ceived by different organs accord- Before proceeding to speak of musi- ing to the intensity of that energy. cal sounds and artistic forms, as distin- Each phenomenon consists in the guished from sound and light or form propagation of energy upon mechan- in general, let us take a rapid glance ical laws, identical in all leading at these two art systems and at those respects. motives that set them apart from the first made other arts as a traveler A simple experiment, by ; might peer Chaldin, the scientist, vividly illustrates from a height over a plain stretching how sounds may actually be made visi- away beneath him, to note the position ble. A square plate of glass, supported of the hills and the winding courses of at the middle by an upright rod, was the streams and roads, by which he is covered uniformly with sand and a to shape his way. violin bow drawn across the middle of The beauty and emotional charm one edge, when the particles of sand, contained in works either of music or agitated by the vibrations, or by the architecture, depend but little upon little whirls of air set in motion by the direct imitation of things in nature. In vibrations of the glass, flew from the painting and sculpture, on the con- centre of the plate and collected trary, actual forms and color are repre- in heaps along the diagonal lines. sented. However, no artist is purely As the stroke was varied the sand an imitator. He has to interpret, to shaped itself into many geometric fig- choose, to dwell upon certain notes and ures. harmonies; partaking to a limited de- Space and time themselves are less gree of the musical motive of ideal opposites than complements of each arrangement and harmony. Imitative other. Motion and force are of course motives, as displayed in painting and the particular attributes of the one, sculpture, play an important part in matter and rest of the other. Yet only architecture. But it is rather as a by virtue of their mutual dependence lovely crowning of the work than as may either be apprehended as sounds its inner character or the sinews of its or forms. For sound and light consist, as we have noticed, in the transmission * The analagous yet opposite natures of soace and time are Mr. Isaac L. Rice in a treatise en- of of lucidly analyzed by force, yet by means minute mo- titled. What is Music? In this same work the identity tions of matter. Mentally considered, of tones and colors, as being each forms of vibration, is noticed; also lines, as the unit of measure in space, are too, the properties of space and time compared to metres, by which are expressed measure in time. The essential distinction in the which are Matter alone is a beauty inseparable. characterizes time and motion from that of space and rest, dead thing; time supplies it with life is dwelt upon, but their unity of purpose the author con- fines to their common quality of being perceived as states and measure. Absolute force is an in- of trind. THE MUHJCAL IDEALS OF ARCHITECTURE.

All her distinctive strength. power Greek colonnades, in the repetition of lies in the of A quality design. certain a few simple forms, or may be com- between proportion adjoining forms, as pounded of many lines and forms of between is instinct- succeeding sounds, varying structural motive, intricately felt to be ively pleasing. Change one interwoven and balanced, as in a Gothic of the or one of the parts sounds cathedral : and the expression of these and the result will sufficiently be dis- forms varies from simplicity to com- cordant and disagreeable. plexity, as much as do the systems But more than this, the melodies and themselves. the structures evolved upon this feel- But to consider them more in detail. ing for harmony and fitness become raised to a higher level than the mere The Theory of Harmony: Music. making of a pleasurable impression ear or upon eye. Mysteriously they All forms are not beautiful, nor all gain the power to move the hearts and sounds musical. The musical are dis- minds of men. How is this so? What tinguished from the unmusical sounds are the secrets of the process that in being caused by repeated impulses, transform the mathematical and the and therefore vibrations, at regular in- useful into the beautiful? tervals. For the production of a sus- Architecture represents the pure art tained sound or note it is necessary of in that in time. that design space ; music, there be a succession of impulses, The of such art are that properties abstract, is, repetitions of the original noise, nor do they contain any definite beauty at regular intervals of time and exactly or human feeling in themselves. Yet similar in duration, intensity and char- they may become mirrors of the imag- acter. Such a note proceeding from a ination. They may be moulded by musical instrument or from the voice the emotions, as clay under the deft is produced by a succession of distinct fingers of the sculptor. The designer strokes or impulses, but so extremely in lines and colors seeks to produce rapid that the ear grasps but the single objects of beauty as well as the literal sound. The frequency of this repeti- interpreter of nature. So does also tion determines the pitch or relative the designer in metres and tones. It accutencesor gravity of the note. Its is harmonies inherent and are the by creating upon intensity quality', which two and constant laws (whose likeness in other distinguishing features of sounds, the two cases we will notice presently) depend; the first, upon the relative that either succeeds in this, and this is abruptness of the stroke or impulse, done through means of notes or units and the second, upon the character of of form, in whatever materials have the instrument or source of the sound. been chosen or are at hand. But, "it is the pitch only of musical The musician arranges his metres sounds," as Sir John Herschel says, and tones in melody and harmony, ac- "whose theory is susceptible of exact cording to principles of measure and reasoning, and on this the whole theory time. In the simple beginning of his of harmonics is founded." The exact art, he is content with a succession of nature of it comes from the fact that single notes, as in simple songs and the intervals of the scale (as the separ- ballads. As the art advances notes of ation of notes by virtue of the relative various pitch are combined to produce frequency of repetition of vibration is a sound or in its tech- are established in single ; harmony, called) permanently nical sense, is invented. Finally coun- numerical ratios. If a string be vi- terpoint combines and balances, as it brated so as to produce any musical were, different melodies upon harmonic note, as C, and then a string of half principles. the length, but otherwise the same, be The designer shapes his objects and struck, the latter will make twice the builds his structures upon his ideas of number of vibrations as the former in proportion and order. They may be the same time. The interval of pitch

i : note of the simple in line or composed of many will be as 2, and the octave lines. Consisting, as do Egyptian and shorter string is known as the 288 THE MUSICAL IDEALS OF ARCHITECTURE.

" of the fundamental note, or, in other the harmoniousness of the conso- words, the C, next above in the scale. nances and the distinctness of their On the same principle, the numerical separation from dissonances depend ratio, next in order of simplicity, name- on the quality of tone." ly, 2:3, gives the interval of they^/M, or The facts by which he establishes C to G, if C remain the key-note; 3:4 the importance of these tonal relations produces the fourth, and so on for the are briefly these: Most tones are com- other notes of the scale. plex, consisting of a prime sound and The general principle, and, until the several other simple sounds, called its appearance of the famous work, The partials or overtones, which the ear, Sensations of Tone, by Professor Helm- however, does not ordinarily separately holtz, the only one that^could be offered distinguish. Now, when two sounds upon which rests the consonance of are heard together their united sound tones, is that they all are governed by is usually disturbed by the beats of the simple ratios whose terms differ but partials, with the result of breaking up slightly. The primary intervals of the the sound into pulses and causing a scale above given are the simplest rough effect. This relation is disso- " ratios possible. nance. But, when two of the lower The ratios of all the consonant inter- partial tones of the notes combined are vals are contained in the simple num- of exactly the same pitch," there will bers, i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or multiples of be no disturbing beats, or only of such them. small intensity as to be unnoticed. " The three intervals above mentioned, Consonance is then a continuous /. c., the octave, the fifth and the fourth, dissonance, an intermittent sensation were the only consonances admitted as of musical'sounds." perfect in the Greek scales. The The explanation of the long known Pythagorean theory of consonances fact that consonance is determined by was that the simpler the ratio between the ratios of small whole numbers is the vibration numbers of two notes the found in the manner in which the ear more perfect the concord. This is resolves all complex sounds. Into the nearly the truth, but is not literally laws and mathematical expression of borne out by the modern systems of this we cannot enter, except to state harmony. For the thirds and sixths, the conclusion; which is, that just such whose ratios are next in simplicity to ratios as these must appear between the above, but which had always the partials and the prime tones; or, to been classed as imperfect consonances, put it differently, that the former must are now considered as more agreeable be either once, twice, three times, and and more productive of music than the so on, as great as the latter. fourths and fifths. The, key-note, its The elementary features, then, of octave and major third, sounded to- harmony in sound are, that it possesses gether, form what is known as the a continuous, smoothly flowing char- common, because most perfect chord. acter, which results from an identity of Prof. Helmholtz, after abundant and certain of the simple sounds of which conclusive experiments, gave the first it is compounded; and, secondly, that thorough and scientific explanation of the intervals, or difference in pitch be- the causes of harmony and dissonance tween the notes that compose the con- by investigating the physiological as sonance, may be expressed in the ratios well as the physical basis by which the of simple whole numbers. musical properties of sound are distin- guished. The Theory of Harmony : Form. He concludes that the distinction of consonance and dissonance is, prima- Are any principles of harmony, such rily, the result not of the nature of the as the above, to be observed in form ? interval but of the quality of tone and It is a truth, to which all nature as the construction of the whole tonal well as every work of design attest, system. The magnitude of the inter- that when two or several forms are seen vals is independent of this quality, but together their relation is harmonious THE MUSICAL IDEALS OF ARCHITECTURE. 289 when the forms in have question enough because the effect is more pleasing in that is common; to say, display suf- than restless impression which would ficient in uniformity their elementary be made were it laid out with no parts either by direct repetition, in system. whole or in or part, through evidence Its skeleton lines are a system of of relation and organic continuity be- squares, rectangles, or other simple tween them. I do not mean simply as figures; as is also the skeleton of a good affecting impressions of congruity or architectural plan. incongruity through association of As to the combination of objects but as ideas, producing from physiolo- more distinct, we may cite a building gical causes, pleasurable or painful having wings nearly detached. These as sensations, just combinations of must be treated with some similarity sound cause the sensation either of con- of line or feature to the main mass or sonance or dissonance. they cannot be brought together for a The eye, if at all open to the beauti- unity of effect. This principle is so ful, receives impressions of harmony or evident in all designs that there will be discord in combinations of line just as no necessity to multiply instances of it. the ear does when sounds of different The law of symmetry is a sort of epit- pitch are united. Of course no one ome of it. Of course when such things would be so foolish as to propose that, are too baldly done, a tiresome mono- for either of .these senses, all things tony is the only result. Variety there could be divided into two absolute must be or there is nothing to harmon- classes of harmonious and inharmoni- ize. The feeling of the Greek, the ous. But the lines which bind together Burgundian, the Italian, as to what is the parts and give contour to a Greek the proper proportions of variety and vase, or still more, a perfect human uniformity have differed somewhat. body, are beautiful without regard to But, in any style, without such repeti- any school of taste. And many other tion of elements, so that, through forms, objects which could be named, no one however diverse, the same characters with even half an an eye could think of line, color tone, or texture may be harmoniously put together. carried smoothly, unity of effect and It is much easier to observe some therefore harmony would be impossible. reasons for such instinctive choice in The eye looks for more or less con- matters of design than in nature. For tinuousness of such feeling, and is of- in the latter's own lines it is more the fended when the treatment or color degree of consonance which may be scheme is too much interrupted, too noticed than a comparison of conso- roughly contrasted. nant and discordant. She is seldom This, then, is the same distinction positively discordant except when men which Helmholtz makes on physiologi- take the trouble to make her so. But, cal grounds between the sensations of that the harmony of her color, or the consonance and dissonance in music. quality of tone, depends upon just such Let us see for the next step if this principles of unity painters show us basis of harmony in design is connected every day. with any demand for the sort of nu- We have in the sphere of architecture merical relations which determine the examples of the necessity of repetition consonant intervals in music. of elements in such features as a row As the chief distinction between of columns, which must naturally be sounds is their difference in pitch, so distinction forms is equally spaced (unless there is some the chief between other regular. system of grouping), and their difference in shape. the line of arches in a nave, which, Any one who has made any study of real- though they differ to some extent in architectural design has probably harmoni- detail of ornament, would scarcely be ized that buildings of fine and dimen- made of various heights and spans. ous effect follow, as to general rather A pattern for a wall surface repeats sion, the proportions of simple That is to itself in regular spacings, not simply than irregular figures. say, to breadth and because it is cheaper to do it so, but the relations of length 200 THE MUSICAL IDEALS OF ARCHITECTURE. other such proportions are as a rule their most beautiful designs. Not that expressed by nearly related numbers mathematics could have created design rather than by those widely separated. had the visual sense of consonance and And were we to analyze the plans and congruity been absent, nor that beauti- elevations of the masterworks of the ful architecture may be practiced by best days, we would find that such geo- mere mathematical prescription (though metrical figures as the square, the equi- certain writers seem to have thought lateral triangle, and such rectangles, so), after taste has fled. But simply, isosceles triangles and right-angled in my opinion, that those people, pos- triangles as possess ratios of simple sessed with the finest sense of perfect numbers, either as between the length and ideal form, discovered, in develop- of sides or degree of angles; we would ing their systems of design, that the find that such figures may frequently most harmonious proportions would re- be circumscribed about their outlines sult from leading dimension being made and the parts into which the design is coincident with the lines of certain sim- divided or inscribed upon diagonals. ple geometric forms, and such being If the properties of such geometric discovered they used their knowledge proportions have any influence upon with intelligence. Thus, according to the designs of the present day, it is the observations of Mr. Hay,* if a rect- purely an unpremeditated one. But angle be circumscribed about the front with the ancients it was otherwise. To elevation of the Parthenon, its lower the Pythagorians and the Platonists line resting upon the upper step of the geometric figure was an idea. The stylobate, on which stand the columns, symbolism with which they endowed the being the base line of the columns, its harmony of number has lost all mean- two vertical sides springing from the ing or value to us, but the dependence extreme bases of the outer columns of the element of beauty upon it, if such and the apex of the pediment touching there be, should surely still be of in- its upper line, this rectangle will be terest to us. such that its diagonals will divide it The great architectural essayists into two triangles, the angles of which since the period of the Renaissance, are 90, 60 and 30. These angles are such as Alberti, Palladio, Vignola, De in simple ratios, such as 2 : 3 and 3 : 4, Quincey, Durand, Stuart, and the nu- to the angles of the two triangles which merous more modern authors who have compose a square. Other rectangles followed implicitly upon the same lines, applied to subdivisions of this facade have, after the manner of Vitruvius, are also of a thoroughly homogeneous thoroughly, and one may say exhaust- character, with the above inscribing ively, displayed the works of antiquity rectangle and all the chief numerical in their exact form and proportion and ratios of the intervals of the musical lay down abundant rules for the perfect scale are found repeated in the rela- proportions of each Order and variety tions of their several diagonals. of building, in accordance with classic Again, according to leDuc,f who be- tradition. But they offer little or no lieved that the modulus of the order explanation, save the necessary and was not taken at the base of the column, non-committal one, one of a faultless as generally supposed, but near the of eye, how these inimitable proportions middle, we have the following : If were originally evolved. A few other perpendiculars be let fall from the mid- investigators, however, notably Ram- dle of the exterior line of the angle sey Hay, a Scottish designer of the last columns, the triangle, whose base will century, and Violet le Due, the famous be given by the intersection of these French architect of recent times, have, perpendiculars with the platform upon by geometric analysis of the structures which the columns stand, and whose of classic and mediaeval times, proved * that the people of those and es- See The Natural Principles and A nalogy of the days, First the Harmony of farm, 1842 ; Principles of Symme- pecially Greeks, were aware of cer- trical Beauty^ 1846, etc. tain t See mathematical relations upon which Entretiens sur L? Architecture* vol. I., and Dictionaire Raisonnc de r Architecture }

is the of the apex apex pediment, will though without establishing any other be the triangle given by a diagonal natural basis of harmony than that section of a pyramid with a square base outlined above.* and whose vertical section from the A thorough investigation of this sub- to one of the sides of the vertex, parallel ject would be a lengthy work in itself, base, is an equilateral triangle. And so we must be content with this bare if this triangle, on the diagonal of such mention of the most prominent in- a pyramid, is applied to the i arthenon, stances of the influence of geometric it will be found that where its sides cut figure upon the harmony of form. the lower line of the architrave the The importance of this connection, as axes of the third columns from the regards relations to things in music, is end are determined, and that the in- that the figures which have been tersections with the second columns adopted by the ancient masters of this gives the line from which the modulus art are those of most homogene- was determined.* ous character, the ratios of whose im- The Roman Triumphal Arches and portant parts are proportioned to each Basilicas a reveal conformity of princi- other with a simplicity equal to that pal dimensions to circles and equilat- of tones, which is as much as to say eral triangles. that the intervals of space or extent, by The finest of the French cathedrals which the form of objects are distin- were found by the last-mentioned guished, are determined as regards author to be based upon systematic use harmony and discord by ratios of small of a right-angled triangle of peculiar whole numbers, which ratios take a simplicity and an isosceles triangle de- corresponding office in time. In short, rived from it. The former, which ap- that the simpler geometric forms con- pears to have been considered of partic- stitute a foundation for the harmonies ular value by the Pythagorians and of design similar in purpose to the other early Greek mathematicians, was fixed ratios of the intervals of pitch. such that its sides were as 3, 4 and 5, The only author, to my knowledge, a perpendicular to the hypothemus from among those who have studied the the angle opposite divides it into two geometry of design, who has made any similar triangles. All the sides are di- direct comparison of it to the scientific visible both decimally and duo-decim- basis of music, is the above-mentioned ally. D. R. Hay. This writer reaffirms with And the other, which was the one more definiteness and example than any chiefly used in the Gothic buildings and before him, the old Pythagorian idea which also certain French archaeolo- of the universality of the harmonic gists have proved to coincide with ratios in geometry, music and the the Pyramid of Cheops, is formed upon human figure. He makes some inter- the same base as the preceding, and esting studies of the geometry of the given a height equal to half the hypo- Parthenon, of which we have mentioned, themus of the same'. In other words, and of the generating forms of Greek its base is to its altitude as 4 to 2^. vases. He then draws some theoreti- The principle of the mean propor- cally perfect figures, chiefly combina- tional is also one that many authorities tions of the circle, square and equilat- have found to fit the lines of notable eral triangle. But in view of the works. Many other writers have more greater importance of the physiologi- or less thoroughly analyzed the geo- metric ground work of proportion, * Such discussions may be found in the following works : The Geometry and Optics of Ancient Architecture, by Athenian John Pennethorne, London, 1878 ; Principle* of * Gwilt's If this triangle was taken upon the same base as the Architecture, by Penrose, 1851; Encyclopedia the works on Gothic Architecture, by rectangle of Mr. Hay, its height would be a few feet in of Architecture ; the on A. L. Fock, excess of the other. Rut, as will be seen from the text R. W. Billing; works Proportion, by Traite et Pratique d? above, its base is slightly shorter, and its height, there- Amsterdam, 1875; Theorique de Rondelet, Paris, 1855; Nouvelle fore, is practically, if not absolutely the same. The meas- VArt Batir, by 1862 Les urements of the Parthenon made by Stuart and Penrose Theorie du Module, by Aures, Nimes, ; Projets and in the Trans- show the above geometric figures apply within fractions Primitifs,\>y Hensylmann ; papers actions the R. I. B. A., the last-mentioned author of a foot to its lines, and it is impossible to suppose that of by and W. W. D. R. John Pennethorne and this result could have been arrived at unintentionally ; by Lloyd, Hay, de in vols. 1852-3, 1858-9, 1878-9 and especially in view of the well-known importance attrib- Baron Geymuller, uted by the Greeks to the harmony of number. 292 THE MUSICAL IDEALS OF ARCHITECTURE. cal basis over the mathematical as the perception, and be of possible service origin of harmony, which Helmholtz only when practiced under this same establishes, he decidedly overrates num- indefinable sense or knowledge of the ber harmony. It is one of the features beautiful. The instinct of the true and of musical analogy, but not the only cultured eye led the first designers to one. There is more in the beauty of the mathematics of its expression. form than this tame mathematical per- That the ocular sense agrees with a fection. Like other formalists and far reaching natural law is a matter of echoers of Vitruvius, to whom this later discovery. The geometric figure famous name was synonymous with never had any value in itself, nor may architecture itself, he fell into the error their relations be fixed by exact law. of the day of regarding architecture as Knowledge of the perfect ratios ' is merely a sanctified geometry. Sym- sound, or geometry by no means assures metry was too all important, and so such the production of art in either. An theorists lose sight of the fact that equilateral triangle is certainly more something else besides the mathemati- harmonious than a very irregular one, cal exactness of proportion may enter but the eye is not offended by the lat- into the creation of beauty. And ter as is the ear by the mere sounding furthermore, the dictates of construc- of a discord. It is only when some de- tion and necessity give caste to what sign is laid out upon such an unshapely otherwise might be an entirely theoretic figure that the eye realizes the disso- art. The objects created by design nance. Beauty appears only when the become in a measure a part of nature lines of the generating form have which surrounds them. What may be become lost to general discernment good in a palace would be quite un- amid gracefully varied lines and lovely in a rural cottage. The connec- modeled surfaces. Music, which can- tion of simple ratios with the harmony not be said to lack expressive possibili- of sounds and forms is still a fact a ties, is more rigidly exact in the basis most vital one but it must be consid- of harmonic proportion. However, as ered as a more or less variable result musicians will tell you, the ear does not of aesthetic principles. The historic require absolute perfect concords; were developments of scales and of standards it so, there could be no music but of the of beautiful form show that they have tamest character. A separate row of been subject to change with the pro- keys would be required for every tonic. gress of taste. But the matter is practically arranged On the other hand we may observe by a compromise in which all the in- that the recognition of the extensive tervals are tempered, as it is called. So use of precise geometric relations by in architecture. A series of forms per- the ancients in their designs, does not fect in their mathematical relations can place the idea of proportion in a more seldom be combined, nor would it be mathematical light than we at present profitable to attempt only such. Art regard it. For, while we follow blindly typifies life, movement and personality. the classic proportions, the ancients This spirit must be infused into the in- themselves who originated these forms, active, impersonal perfection of mathe- united in one beautiful result their matics ere it may give birth to beauty. reason and imagination. Violet le Due perceived that this was the true value The Artistic Systems of Harmony. of the geometric element of proportion, when he says that design arrives "by The feeling for consonance, which application oif reason to the satisfaction underlies all music and of which the of the instincts." ratios above mentioned are but the For though proportion was undoubt- numerical expression, has its corre- edly carried almost to the point of a spondence in the arts of form as much science by the ancient and mediaeval as the ratios themselves have in geom- builders, it is evident that such a etry. science could have had its source no- In the voice and every musical in- where but in the faculty of artistic strument we have a scale of several THE MUSICAL IDEALS OF ARCHITECTURE. 293

octaves and several keys, and in design- Or, yet again, the proportion of two or ing objects buildings we have a more equal, or nearly equal parts and or less wide range of shapes, planes one shorter may be observed as in the and relative sizes of geometric forms relative heights of architrave, frieze which it would be possible to use. And and cornice in the Greek orders, or as no melody can be built out of the with the third part greater than the accords of a single octave, but must others, as in the Roman orders. Now combine consonant notes or chords of this, considered as an artistic process, in several a well-proportioned succes- 'is nothing more nor less than the prin- sion or arrangement, so no pleasing ciple of metre and rhythm, as to music can be made out of a and and as to de- design merely poetry ; proportion, circle, a triangle or a parallelogram, sign. And the same ideas of variety but must be shaped from a selection and consonance which govern the gen- and combination of such simple gener- eral divisions and distribution of quan- ating forms in just such variety that tities in either, hold also for the mod- there is a consonance in the series of eling and defining of parts and of the parts and in the whole. A random whole the treatment of profiles and succession of chords on beautiful lines roof lines and the grouping of masses can result in no composition however in other words, melody and outline. simple, eiher in music or design. The A succession of rhythms, regular, idea of measure must be introduced. without being too uniform, under sys- From the plainest of songs to the most tems of modulation (the passing from elaborate effects of instrumental har- one key to another) produces melody. there is for measure the mony, necessity ; Proportion develops through repeti- /. for in tion of

the systematic use of broad and narrow harmony; and secondly, it is a rhythmic, spaces between openings, pilasters or melodic and harmonic sequence and other members, and the adherence to combination of forms or notes, such as two or three ratios for the proportion- appeal to the aesthetic sense and eye ing of all the prominent divisions of and may be judged by them alone. an entire building.* It is much the same with music. For This is surely similar to the artistic composition and execution with her de- laws that govern the construction of pend, partly, upon the knowledge of to melody ; and these laws of form viz., and ability use the scientific har- rhythm and melody in music and pro- monies of sound, but, for the rest, upon portion and outline in architecture her sublime and lovely power of speak- (which in either case are in a degree ing the pure, unfathomed language of interchangeable, or at least not dis- the soul. tinctly separable terms'), are the pri- " The in mary and invariable principles through mystic powers that bless'd numbers dwell." which their organic form is acquired. As we have said, in the finest works Such a union we know exists and is the general proportions, as the length of decidedly similar nature in time and to breadth of a building and of many in space. of its minor features are determined The leading artistic ideas or laws forms but in which in different cases to make upon regular geometric ; go up all that relates to the grouping and rhythm and proportion are the same. distribution of these parts the grada- Some of these we have mentioned, as tion from greater to less, the bringing the aim of attaining variety in unity, together of elements not in themselves subordination of minor to major mo- consonant, the balancing of like with tives, grouping, massing, contrast, com- like, the emphasizing of the principal plement, gradation, and all such. These theme and all such motives, in one art being principles of all nature's forms as in the other we must go beyond of organic life, their necessity is ob- the sphere of mathematical regulation. servable, though to a less extent, in For instance, all the windows of a painting and every other art. The front may, perhaps, be twice as high as separate existence and influence of broad, yet those of each row will be of these latter qualities in the several a different scale of size. And the de- arts have been so frequently estab- termining of such relative scales is a lished that it is needless for us to matter that cannot be brought down to follow this general comparison into rule or to definite mathematical for- further detail. mula, except in a traditional sense, that Some of the laws of consonant form, a thing once well done may be repeated however, belong more exclusively to under similar conditions. The column the structural arts. Thus. repetition of and entablature and the gable roof are forms and themes, and accent, or stress the notes of the structural theme of the laid at intervals upon certain such : the whole of Greek architecture. The constant dependence upon which the curves of the Greek mouldings, with most superficial glance at musical and slight variations, repeat themselves architectural work would demonstrate. through history as often as the leaves Symmetry is more vigorously enforced through the forest, much as modes and in design, but balance, which is next forms of composition in music recur un- door to it, is as necessary in music. numbered times. But there is one more important ele- But, with all the reiteration of such ment of musical structure, namely, that ideas, two distinct elements in propor- of key. Musical writers have fre- tion may be observed. In the first quently noticed that the tonic system place, it is the seeking of geometric of key imparts to music structural sys- tem. Mr. I. L. in What is Music ? * Rice, This travte of rhythmique the palaces of the Can to the extent of the tonic cellaria, the Giraud, and of many studies by Bramante is goes calling discussed by the Baron de Geymuller in The Transac- "the centre of gravity of the musical tions of the Royal Institute of British A rchitects for 1891. scale ;" and the dominant, whose action THE MUSICAL IDEALS OF ARCHITECTURE. 295 is to the as "the audi- opposite tonic, key. The fundamental key of a piece ble manifestation of the centrifugal is its bond of unity. Likewise, in archi- force." tecture, the degree in which work The various parts of a melody may obeys gravity, unreservedly as does into modulate many keys, but the fun- the classic, or seeks to defy it as the damental note or tonic with which the Gothic, is directly referable to the rela- piece began holds the modulation in tive ascendancy or depression of its and the ends in it. The in other the check, melody key ; words, preponderance interlacing figures of a piece of eccle- of perpendicular or horizontal line. siastical music, which seem anxious to The prominent keys of a piece of fly off in all directions, centre finally elaborate harmony become resolved into the tonic chord and are unified into what is called its tonality, or the thereby, much as the multiplicity of recurrence and clinging to certain tones forces in a Gothic vault equilibrate and chords. It is the coloring of music. each other and gather together their Tone, as we have seen, bears a relation thrusts into perpendicular shafts. The to music through similarity of its rudi- function of key reflects the general ments and principles of harmony to the law of attraction and gravity and its harmonic laws of sound as established opposites. But I think we may legiti- in the systems of intervals which deter- the a far- mine them also in mately carry comparison step ; and, that the laws ther and see that it is more specifically that govern the proportions of form are paralleled in form and design through largely the same as those that lead to the principle of stability and the effect rhythm and melodious and harmonic of a predominating system of lines ac- distributions of notes and chords. But cording to the plane in which they are the quality of tone itself of course has carried. its more literal visual correspondent in We have already touched upon the color. The term chromatic, used in resemblance between modulation of music, and tone, so frequent in studio key in music and that element of pro- parlance, prove a tacit acknowledg- which endeavors to mediate ment of the and as color is of portion identity ; between different planes of treatment. great importance in all design, though Lack of modulation, as in the chants of sometimes neglected, we may be per- barbarous people, has the same mono- mitted a few words about this relation. tonous and dreary effect, though often Neither tones nor colors may be sat- with its own impressiveness, as an un- isfactorily confined to precise limits of broken expanse of wall or cornice line, forms, unless they be of extremely con- a chimney-like tower, or any such case ventional or inorganic character. Some where a single plane of treatment is of the loveliest orchestral effects, as in almost literally adhered to. But if the a symphony, depend upon tones being stretch of wall be broken by porticoes spread over rhythms and carried or by emphasis of angle, and the tower through the melodies, swelling and be crowned, as the Italian campanile, fading in a system considerably inde- with lightsome forms, life and graceful- pendent of the measured forms. This ness are at once introduced, as will be tonality and value of key is continually done in music by variety of key. displayed in nature's aerial coloring. As there are only two distinct vari- We look out of our window at an ex- eties of key, the major and the minor, tended stretch of field and wood, gath- so there are only two manners in which ering in the distance into a ragged line It is The object may be in absolute stability of hills. morning. warm, the perpendicular and the horizontal. yellow sunlight bathes the whole land- The latter is the entire absence ot scape. If we fix the eye upon one ob- of matter the at a we see them each in motion, the inertness ; ject time, in their own vivid colors the thousand former bespeaks life, but life repose. All forms that lie in arched or oblique different dewy greens of leaf and turf, of the lines suggest active forces and motion, the gray weathered shingles the white of the farm- as the gable, the flying buttress. Musi- barns, spotless the red of the corn cal pitch is governed by the quality of houses, staring THE MUSICAL IDEALS OF ARCHITECTURE. cribs. But if we look out at no one forms, chiefly in flat inlay or intaglio form in particular, and with eyes per- motives and mosaic. haps a trifle closed, we perceive one A successful interior will not be ob- tained in pulsating, glowing, golden tone, by simply rendering strong streaked with bluish shadows, which colors (even though contrasting well in fills the whole air and seems to pene- the abstract) all the various architect- trate every patch and fleck of other ural members of the treatment. Such a color, blending them all toward itself, proceeding would be crude and un- so that each individual color appears lovely. The scheme of color tones but a variation of the yellow sunlight. should spread through the whole room, Even the blue of the distance and of paying heed to only a few of the most the sky has a light and watery tone. important divisions of the form. We It is a little later in the day. A mist may very likely need to mark frieze and has been floating in from the sea, ob- cornice from the wall panels by some scuring the sun. The warm tone has difference in tone, but do not treat caps vanished. The various objects that and mouldings like an illuminated we saw before are still in a general way manuscript. Putthe illumination upon or or but are the flat surfaces. red green yellow ; they entirely different reds and greens and Perhaps the highest application of yellows, now that the sun no longer true color feeling in design is in the sheds its gladdening rays over them. Ravenna and Palermo mosaics and the The whole scene is keyed to a cool, thirteenth century colored windows. gray tone that brings out deep greens In these glorious works, figures, ani- and purples where we had never no- mals and other forms are found united ticed them before. with the most intense and splendid Again on another day, at sunset, on the color;, but the tonal loveliness would shore of a lake. Day is fading and, be inevitably ruined were it not that is a of with it, strong light and corresponding there severe avoidance accurate shadow are blending into one. Forms drawing and delicate outline. have become vague, tones accentuated. Modern architecture seldom commits A fathomless rosy and golden light is the sin of adding brilliant color to in the west and seems to flow down highly organic forms, but we usually from the sky over the distant hills and go to the other extreme and ignore float toward us, gradually diminishing color altogether. Yet rich, full color, through intervening colors into which finely used and in the right place, is it instills its purple and its madder necessary for the complete carrying glow, until, with a last burst of fire, it out of the architectural idea. Modern plunges into the glistening sapphire of music could never have come into ex- the lake. istence had not the ideas of tone de- Not only in atmospheric effects, but veloped as well as those of measure in individual objects, may be noticed and time. the independence of color and form. Any building, unless done in bril- Look at an autumn leaf or gay plu- liant colors, is a pictorial study in mage of a bird and see how the colors monochrome, whether the designer run over the surface in spots and has concerned himself about it or no. streaks, often with seaming wilful dis- Stone, terra cotta, iron, wood, all vary regard of the organic lines. in texture, and therefore in the quality These principles are evident in the of light they reflect. That whole part noblest works of architecture. Organic of a building which is executed in one forms, either of sculptured relief or material, say stone, will bear a dis- group of mouldings (a capital, a cornice, tinguishing tone from another part or an arch are, in their own way, decid- done in plaster and terra cotta, how- edly organic), are left, not necessarily ever like is the design. Therefore, if colorless, but at least in monochrome, for no other reason, designers know or with sparing touches of other tones. that to obtain artistic results they Brilliant color, where introduced, is must treat outlines and ornaments confined to geometric and conventional with modifications of character accord- THE MUSICAL IDEALS OF ARCHITECTURE. 297

ing to each particular material in order ing from occasional silence to the to bring out the most valuable quali- roar of the tempest and the crash of ties of that material, and must, as far thunder. as possible, group or distribute the But light comes to us from a steady various materials used upon consistent source, that clouds or fog but slightly schemes of balance and dim and when we artificial proportion, ; need light just as a composer must keep in mind we wish it to be just as uniform. Were it the timbre of the instruments he is not for the law of shadows night would writing for, and distribute the work be but a slightly diminished day, and accordingly. These qualities it must we could have no art of form save in be admitted play a more vital, because lines upon flat surface. more constant, part in modren music It would be as though our ears were than they have ever done in architecture, to be besieged by an unceasing volume but not more than they may in some of sound from some great instrument future style. which varied in pitch but never in in- Texture and color qualities are tensity. For as rays of every color bound to exert a strong influence for come from the steady light of the sun or against the harmonious effect of (the distinguishing colors of objects the structure. It is only in modern being due to the fact that only certain times that there has been any failure rays are reflected to the eye, and the to realize the importance of these rest absorbed, refracted or reflected in tonal values and that one has other so a series of sounds ; any directions), thought of executing identical forms may vary in pitch while being all of the indiscriminately in many materials, same intensity. regardless of their proper aptitudes. The musician creates the very sounds And only in these days has it been so he desires now soft, now loud, sudden largely attempted (how often with and sharp, or gradually swelling as his conspicuous lack of success) to give effect requires. The architect and one material a superficial resemblance sculptor cannot create their light, but to some other, in order to carry out in they do create their shadows, through it a scheme of ornament which belongs modeling and shaping forms. Some by nature only to the nobler Droving, parts may be given faint shadows, though vicious itself, the value of others strong, passing gradually from tonal harmony. Sunlight always adds high light to deep dark, or contrasting color to form. In the mere presence boldly, according to the wish spacing of light and shade, color, in a simple light and shadow and grading them as state, is continually before the de- the musician does with sound and signer. silence. But the quality of shadow has cer- Shadow is also concerned with the tain interesting relations of its own. degree of relief of the work from the Of the pitch and quality of sound we dominant or average plane, thus becom- of have spoken. Intensity, its other dis- ing interwoven with the ideas pitch tinguishing feature, is present in form and key. Just as sculptured ornament in the of shadow. It is to be in high or low relief, may also principle ( may the one artist what silence is to the be the architectural forms themselves. other. Thus the fagades of the early Renais- than Some pages back, it may be remem- sance are in much lower relief a and the Greek bered, this phenomenom of form was those of later period, mentioned as one of the essential work on the whole is less bold than Ro- The forms of points of variation between light and man and Mediaeval. that this was offset the Gothic invention are more in- sound ; but by evidently ' difference in the manner of their tense than the classic, whether from a of view. occurrence. By which we mean this : structural or a mental point Sounds are produced from innumer- Classic outlines show simplicity, deli- But mediaeval able sources and of infinitely varied cacy and calmness. duration. We live in a continually crockets and gargoyles, deep recessed and changing sensation of sounds, extend- portals, steep gables soaring pinna- THE MUSICAL IDEALS OF ARCHITECTURE.

cles reveal a mind wrought to an and the simultaneous sounding of many. intense point of spiritual enthusi- Whereas in architecture the change is asm. so gradual from the repetition of a There remains unmentioned one im- simple motive as a column and entab- portant and elementary characteristic of lature to the complicated effects of music. This is the distinction of sim- arch motives, and plans, broken into ple melody or single note succession wings and compound systems of group- from harmony, as technically limited, to ing, that a separating line has naturally music executed in chords, or by several never been drawn. In the typical ex- notes of different pitch sounded simul- tremes of either motive, however, the taneously. difference is very strong. On the one From a literal point of view, namely, hand, such work as the Greek, which that two things cannot occupy the same uses but one or two general structural space at once, harmony, in this sense, motives and the simplest schemes of and counterpoint do not exist in proportion in consequence; and on the form. But two objects, differing in other design that calls in play a num- form or color, may be seen at the same ber of distinct motives as the Gothic, time and act mutually upon one an- and develops a system of proportion, other, producing an impression either depending on balance and gradation of harmony or discord. Every design, between many structural parts. The it may be objected, would be brought former class, named or unnamed, which onder this category. That may be, is the classic, and a large element of the but not equally. A design of great revived classic, typifies melodic com- simplicity and singleness of motive position, and the latter, which is in part more clearly illustrates melody than the Roman, the Byzantine and the late harmony. Of this sort is purely col- Renaissance styles, but especially the umnar architecture and also the facades Gothic, carries into effect the artistic of the early Renaissance, which mainly principles of harmony and counter- consist in rhythmic studies upon broad, point. flat surfaces, and delicate outlining of Brief in detail as such a general the forms. There is seldom, in such analysis as this has necessarily been, it style, attempt at much massing of will, I think, suffice to establish the features opposite in character. But all fact that the harmonic structures of such design as does not rest content music and architecture are the outcome with repetition of a proportioned unit of the same primary laws of form, taking and succession of simple rhythmic effect in different conditions and sur- forms, but seeks to work together into roundings. The similarity is particu- a consonant whole several forms, clearly larly remarkable in the recognized distinct in structure and in the kind of principles of measure and distribution, such or proportion they suggest ; mo- rhythm and proportion. But also tives of design, I say, spring from the the vital characters of key, tonality, same idea of composition that gives rise quality and intensity have their corre- to counterpoint, even though it cannot spondence in similar properties in be said that one may distinguish in an the arts of abstract design. And as, absolute manner between such work besides, their physical bases are to a that is fashioned to this harmony from large extent identical, it seems reason- that which may more properly be able to suppose they may be found to termed melodic. manifest, though in different environ- In music there is a clear distinction ment, many of the same conceptions of between the succession of single notes the beautiful. H. Toler Booraem. (To BE CONTINUED.)

i A WHITE ENAMELED BUILDING.

has treated CHICAGO been ing were put in, the upper four stories to a most novel sight. of the old building being held up on On one of its crowded screws, while the first story of the new thoroughfares a sixteen- building was slipped in under them. story building has been This spring, when the leases ran out in course of erection, the and it became possible to proceed with two lower floors of which the work, the original plans underwent are occupied by one of the largest radical changes, and Mr. Atwood con- dry-goods establishments in the city, ceived the idea of using cream-white and the daily routine of business enameled terra cotta for the exte- goes on without interruption while rior, with the exception of the first the fourteen upper stories of steel story already completed, which is of fire-proofing and cream-white enam- polished Scotch granite. The some- eled terra cotta climb up into the what limited ground space and the sky to a height of 200 feet. It is the great height of the building present Reliance Building at the southwest difficult problems to the architect corner of Washington and State streets, who attempts to produce an attractive 55 feet on State street by 85 feet on structure, and with its plate-glass Washington, and the plans come from foundations, which the shopkeeper de- the office of D. H. Burnham & Co. mands, it is hardly to be supposed Mr. Charles B. architect Mr. that even the will it Atwood, ; designer consider Edward C. Shankland, M. A. S. C. E. a masterpiece. Still there is one most and M. I. C. E., of London, engineer. important feature which, regardless of Some five years ago there had been a the architectural beauties of the struc- five-story building on this site of very ture, must be considered, and which heavy masonry construction, the lower will make this building stand out as a floor of which was occupied by a conspicuous mark in the history of National Bank. The leases of the architecture in America, namely, the upper floors did not expire until use of enameled terra cotta for the ex- -but May i, 1894, as on the removal of terior. The question of being able to the bank to its own building it was obtain this material was a serious one. deemed desirable to arrange the first However, the Northwestern Terra floor for store purposes, plans were Cotta Co. was able to guarantee the made in 1890 for a sixteen-story build- required conditions, and they have ing by Mr. John Root, and the founda- produced a fine and novel material tions and first story of this new build- from the first story up. Should Vol 1V.-3. 4.

RELIANCE BUILDING JULY 28, 1894. 302 A WHITE ENAMELED BUILDING.

enameled terra cotta prove to be story lengths, alternate columns being at each what is claimed for it, if it stands jointed story. the test of Chicago's severe winters "The column splice will come above and changeable climate, there can be the floor, as shown on the drawings. no possible doubt but what as a ma- No cap plates will be used. The ends terial for exterior construction it will of the columns will be faced at right be largely used in such cities as are angles to the longitudinal axis of the afflicted with a smoky, sooty atmo- column, and the greatest care must be sphere. The idea of being able to used in making this work exact. The wash your building and have it as fresh columns will be connected, one to the and clean as the day it was put up, other, by vertical splice plates, sizes of must undoubtedly attract people to which, with number of rivets, are the use of this material. No doubt shown on the drawings. The holes more ambitious conditions will follow for these splice plates in the bottom of with the introduction of extensive color the column shall be punched ^ small. schemes and more elaborate ornament- After the splice plates are riveted to ation. There is certainly no limit to the top of the column, the top column what can be done in this direction, and shall be put in place and the holes with a perfect assurance that the reamed, using the splice plates as tem- material can be produced and that its plates. The connection of joists or quality of endurance is assured, why girders to columns will be standard should architects and the public com- wherever such joists or girders are at plain of the monotony of the dull greys, right angles to connecting face of browns and reds of the present mate- column. Where connection is oblique, rial used in building. It is to be sin- special or typical detail will be shown cerely hoped that the next enameled on the drawings." building may more extensively intro- This column also being open to bot- duce color. However, the first step is tom admits of putting the pipes in the the important one, and the boldness of corners of the columns and inclosing the architect who took the first step is them with the fire-proofing surrounding to be commended. the column. In the Reliance Building the design of For wind bracing, instead of tension ornamentation adapted by Mr. Atwood rods, which had been used heretofore, is quite simple, being of a somewhat it was determined to put plate girders French gothic feeling, but as the build- 24 inches deep at each floor between ing is purely a commercial one, there is the outside columns, thus binding little elaboration. The accompanying the columns together and transfer- illustration gives a fair idea of the terra ring the wind strain from story to cotta work, except that one loses the story on the table-leg principle. M hese exquisite color and enameled effect, plate girders are bolted to the face of the which is certainly most beautiful. The column, and form a perfectly rigid con- building being very narrow, compared nection with the column. The columns with its height, especial attention has are in two-story lengths, and adjoining been given to designing the frame-work, columns break joints at each floor. which is of steel and it carries the Every piece of iron in the construc- outer walls as well as the floors of the tion, including all the roof beams, is building. The Z bar column, with its thoroughly fire-proofed with porous horizontal cap plates breaking the col- fire-proofing. Each piece of fire-proof- umn in two at every story, was dis- ing around the column is wired to the carded and a new column used com- column with copper. It was specified of posed eight angles. The ends of that : this column were planed off and con- The steel may be made either by nected by means of vertical splice the Bessemer or Open Hearth Process. plates. A clause in the specification It must be uniform in quality and must will show the requirements in this par- not contain over .10 of i per cent which is as ticular, follows : of phosphorous. The steel shall have "The columns will be made in two- an ultimate strength of 60,000 pounds A WHITE ENAMELED BUILDING. 303

and shall per square inch, not vary Specimens from the original bar from this more than 4,000 pounds per must stand bending 180 degrees and inch either It square way. shall have close down on itself without sign of an elastic limit of not less than one- fracture on convex side of curve. Speci- half the ultimate an elon- must strength ; mens stand cold hammering to gation of not less than 25 per cent in one-third its original thickness without 8 inches and a reduction of area of not flaying or cracking, and stand quench- less than 45 per cent at point of frac- ing as heretofore specified for rolled ture. specimens. All blooms, billets or slabs shall be Where wrought iron is required by examined for surface defects, flaws or plans and specifications, it shall be blow holes, before rolling into finished tough, fibrous and uniform in quality. sections, and such chippings and altera- It shall have an elastic limit of not tions made as will insure perfect less than 26,000 pounds per square solidity in the rolled sections. inch. It shall be thoroughly welded A test from the finished metal will during the rolling and free from in- be required, representing each blow jurious seams, blisters, buckles, cinders cast in case the blows or from or ; casts, imperfect edges. which the blooms, slabs or billets in When tested in small specimens the any reheating furnace charge are iron in no case shall show an ultimate taken, have been tested, a test repre- tensile strength of less than 50,000 senting the furnace heat will be re- pounds per square inch, and shall quired, and must conform to the re- have an elongation of 18 per cent in 8 quirements as heretofore enumerated. inches. A duplicate test from each blow or The same sized specimens taken cast and furnace heat will be required, from angle and other shaped irons and it must stand bending 180 degrees shall have an ultimate strength of over a mandrel the diameter of which not less than 50,000 pounds per square is equal to one and one-half times the inch, and shall elongate 15 per cent in original thickness of the specimens, 8 inches. without showing signs of rupture All iron and specimens from plate, either on convex or concave side of angle and shape iron must bend cold curve. for about 90 degrees, to a curve After being heated to a dark cherry whose diameter is not over twice the and quenched in water 180 degrees thickness of the piece, without showing Fahrenheit it must stand bending as fracture. When nicked on one side and before. bent by a blow from a sledge, the frac- The original blow or cast number ture must be nearly all fibrous, showing must be stamped on each ingot from but few crystalline specks. said blow or cast, and this same num- Cast-iron shall be the best quality of ber, together with the furnace heat metal for the purpose. Castings shall number, must be stamped on each piece be clean and free from defects of every of the finished material from said blow, kind, boldly filleted at the angles, and cast or furnace heat. the arrises sharp and perfect. No steel beam or angle shall be Cast-iron must stand the following i heated in a forge or other fire after test : A bar inch square, 5 feet long, being rolled but shall be worked cold 4 feet 6 inches between bearings, shall unless subsequently annealed. support a centre load of 550 pounds Steel for rivets throughout this struc- without sign of fracture. ture shall have an ultimate tensile As stated in the beginning of the strength of not less than 56,000 nor article, the sight of seeing a tre- more than 62,000 pounds per square mendous building pushing up into the at its inch, an elastic limit of not less than air while one can safely stand 30,000 pounds per square inch, an base and look into shop windows, to elongation of not less than 25 per cent crowded with the usual display, is, in 8 inches and a reduction of area at say the least, rather out of the usual. contractors point of fracture of at least 50 percent. However, the architect and RELIANCE BUILDING AUGUST I. 1894. RELIANCE BUILDING CLOSED IN NOVEMBER 8. A WHITE ENAMELED BUILDING.

had the material all ready to go up, trations represent conditions July i6th, and on May ist, when the building July 28th, August ist and Nov 8th, was free that is, the four upper 1894. That the fire-proofing work stories a protecting platform had and finish of the interior will pro- been built just above the store front, gress with equal speed is suggested by covering completely the sidewalk. It the fact that the building is to be ready for took only a short time to demolish occupancy January i, 1895, and these upper stories, and the accom- leases are already signed from that panying illustrations show how rapidly date. That this, the first enameled the steel frame-work and enameled building erected, should be watched terra cotta went up. The four illus- with unusual interest is only natural.

Chas. E. Jenkins. Hi 7 THE HISTORICAL MONUMENTS OF FRANCE.

RANCE is the first ments of obelisk-like uprightness, and country in Europe furthermore a great share of the less and, therefore, for us perfect or less important Roman build- of European race the ings of the whole Mediterranean world, first country in the from the Euphrates to the Atlas and world in the import- the Grampians, are preserved on her ance of its architectural monuments. soil. In the post-Roman round-arched There is no Grecian architecture style, or styles, France has her great not even at Marseilles but for if the Turkish theie, ; display; Empire has,, then Grecian architecture is an affair with North Eastern Italy, the greatest not of monuments but of ruins and share of that of the early centuries, and documentary evidence; to study it is to if Germany has great cathedrals like study an abstraction made up from com- Spier, Worms, Trier, Mainz and Bam- parison and inference. But as for those berg, which were not destroyed to make styles which we know from structures room for their Gothic successors, which remain, complete or reasonably France retains a host of Romanesque complete, France is easily the first of churches, in the south, in the north- lands. In Roman buildings her show west and in the centre, rich in deco- vies with that of Italy and excels that rative sculpture, admirable in design of all other countries in view of the and construction, almost perfect in fact that the only large and nearly per- preservation except where the accursed fect Roman temple stands in Nimes, restorer has made them fresh and sleek. " and the only remaining Imperial bridge, Neither English Norman," nor Ger- with its two memorial arches, one at man "Byzantine" (two appellatives each stands at St. Chamas that the which rival "Gothic" in can end, ; absurdity) only great theatre which has preserved rival the French Romanesque in the its stage wall nearly perfect is at beauty of their sculpture, nor can the that Orange ; one of the two or three smaller round-arched churches of either great aqueduct bridges, and probably vie with those of France in their gen- the most elaborate and attractive one, eral completeness and elaboration, still the Gard that nine like Saint spans ; out of noble exceptions, the great the twenty existing triumphal arches Martin at Koln, always being admitted. or gateways which are in part tri- And there is such an astounding mass umphal arches, two of the four best of this Romanesque art. One supposes, of preserved those amphitheatres which too hastily, that the better and richer can be said to exist in a state other Romanesque churches were all swept than ruinous, two of the four monu- away by the workings of the great THE HISTORICAL MONUMENTS OF FRANCE. 309

Gothic but it is not so. spell, For the built in those times France still pre- Gothic period itself, of course, there is serves the greater part. On the whole, no other art worthy a moment's then, France is the land of the most serious comparison with that of numerous and valuable buildings. The France. After familiar living with the great Revolution to the contrary not- French churches, those of Spain seem withstanding, that territory where it is fantastic those of and as the ; Italy unreal, pleasantest and easiest to travel of if in a built dream, however exquisite all Europe is also the most thickly set in detail those of small ; England and with monuments of architectural fine those of petty ; Germany stiff, labored, art, upstanding, intact, roofed and win- the work of academically-taught grad- dowed, doing the work they were made uates of schools of if we can for too often marred the art, ; by restorer, imagine such to have existed in the but unexpectedly often treated merci- fourteenth century. But indeed the fully by him, and accessible to every supremacy of French Gothic no longer student. Let no one think, because he needs to be urged. As for the art of knows the great cities that he knows the indeed exists architectural France that is to Renaissance, nothing ; only in France like the Italian churches, that be known by the patient wanderer and must at once be and the the is granted ; pal- one who willing to try the nooks ace-front and the cortile of the Italian and corners. The pleasure he will have cities are also southern products which by doing it makes him the less to be " " the northern towns know not but the and of his ; pitied, makes patience an Chateau of the sixteenth century, any- agreeable receptivity; but that fact does where north of a line drawn from not diminish the good it will do him. Nantes to Lyons, what a noble creation Now, of all this wealth of ancient is that ! And how rich is France in architecture a certain body of men, ap- those splendid monuments, nearly as pointed at headquarters and armed perfect as the day they were built ! with large powers, are the custodians. And to pause a moment over a curious They form the Historical Monuments and exceptional development, and to Commission, and their position is advis- go back in our chronology while we ory to the Minister of Fine Arts. In pick it up: What is there more fascin- these matters the minister of fine arts ating than the much-abused latest has great power, and the law of 1887 Gothic that which the French writers arms him with and ; special accurately- call a part of the Renaissance move- defined duties in the matter of the ment, as indeed it is, the strange and classification and preservation of an- lovely work of the reigns of Charles cient buildings. Then, too, it is almost VIII. and Louis XII. Admitting the wholly in the power of the Commission charm of the English Fan Vaulting, in to decide whether a dolmen, a fragment its three or four great examples, the of a Roman bath, a round-arched door- late Gothic of Beauvais, of St. Riquier, way built into a later wall, or a Gothic " of Rouen, of The Church of Brou," of Church or Renaissance timber house, Abbeville, of Usson, and of the stalls of in full utility and beauty, is or is not a Amiens is of vastly greater importance. structure to which the State has a pre- In the post-Renaissance days French dominant right of control. Sometimes art takes the lead again as it had done this control, when it is to be as- during the Gothic period. The archi- serted, is obtained by expropriation tecture of Louis XII., Louis XIV., Louis and subsequent State ownership, XV. and Louis XVI. was nearly always sometimes by less stringent mea- the type and model for all Europe. sures, in the cases where private prop- And the remains of this latest epoch erty has been designated as worthy of are abundant in proportion to their re- being classed as "a historical monu- cent creation. It was not a time of ment." In the case of the churches, very great vigor and of huge undertak- and many of the more important civic in are the State was ings building ; royal palaces structures, already about the only structures of excep- owner, at least in every sense of custod- tional size and cost, but of what was ianship. THE HISTORICAL MONUMENTS OF FRANCE.

The long list of these buildings, parts a destruction of some old work which " " of buildings, ruins and megalithie is to be regretted, and of which a record monuments does not include all the needed to be kept. The general pre- " structures in France which it is well for face to this work speaks of the great " the student to visit, but it does include number of remarkable drawings the more important ones. The list of which even in those early days were them, even before the war of 1870, was available and from which a selection a lost with Alsace and was made for the of these four long ; few were plates Lorraine, but others have been added. volumes. These drawings had been of The whole list, as it was in 1887, can be made by order the Commission, and got, appended to the act of that year in each instance, for the purpose of confirming and modifying the law. It laying before the minister the condi- is very improbable that many names tion of the monument, assumed to need have been added to it during the past some outlay for repairs, care or restora- six years. And, as it stands, in spite of tion. The purpose of these drawings some anomalies and odd omissions for of the structure in its actual state be- which perhaps there are reasons suffi- ing, then, accurate rendering and it is most roll of more and the cient, the remarkable nothing ; drawings show- architectural efforts, experiments and ing the restored or repaired structure triumphs anywhere to be found. being those of the architect in charge This Commission, having existed in of the work, we have a considerable one form or another for over half a assurance of accuracy, and trustworthy century now, may be thought to have guidance. A good book ! But during done comparatively little in the way of the twenty years that have elapsed publishing some' record of the treasure since these volumes were completed, put into its charge. There is its one no more of it has appeared, although publication in book form, four volumes the drawings in the hands of or avail- in folio, of the Archives de la Commis- able to the Commission have increased sion de Monuments Historiques, a v/ork in number enormously. Those who which was published after the Franco- have seen a selection of them in Paris Prussian war, but on lines determined will know how greatly it is to be de- by the Imperial authorities. This fine sired that a farther publication should collection contains plates and some be made of these important documents. slight accompanying text descriptive Instead of that, however, the atten- of forty-three monuments ranging from tion of the Commission has been turned the amphitheatre of Aries to the Cha- to photography, and a huge collection teau of Blois, in chronological order, of negatives has been made, fine and from these to the 3o-foot chapel of prints of which are for sale to whom- Saint Gabriel, near Avignon, in order soever will buy. Each print bears of importance. One of the special feat- the prettily designed seal of the Com- ures of the work is Viollet-le-Duc's mission, and also the words Robert- monograph on the fortifications of Mieusement, Editeur, Paris. Many of Carcassonne, plans, elevations and them bear the date of the making of a of the the an excellent details, worthy specimen negative ; precaution. elaborate fortification of the thirteenth The most out-of-the-way corners of century, grafted on and carrying out a Brittany, the most forgotten villages much earlier system, begun in Gallo- off the lines of contain their " " railway Roman or in Visigothic times. The share of the important monuments of plates devoted to Blois are also of sin- France. These are not costly churches value for here a is gular ; record pre- or big castles, but they are what is served of what the Chateau was before rarer still as an old is ; spelling-book M. Duban his extensive began restora- more scarce, when you want it, than a tions restorations ; not unintelligent, first-folio Shakespeare, because not set not unwarranted if it be admitted that such store by in its time. It is they every old building is to be put into and which have the mediaeval " church-yard in as a " a a kept spick-and-span condition cross ; often structure like of but still complete repair ; involving tower, and sometimes taking the form THE HISTORICAL MONUMENTS OF FRANCE. of a lanterne-des-Morts, for which see cathedral, lifts itself out of a lonely Viollet-le-Duc's dictionary, sub voce. plain, where indeed a few cottagers They have the "Calvary," if their struggle along the roadside, but no luck is to be seated in Brit- ancient, compact, self-contained village tany. They have the ruined ante- has ever grown up. Gothic Church, ruined but preserving Such is the game which he who loves its doorway and part of its nave in al- ancient buildings will be put on the most perfect repair and its sculpture in track of by the photographs of the His- almost its original condition, like that torical Monuments Commission. That " at Aiguesvives, a place in the Garden it is not complete yet, that many a of France," and not so far from Tours monument has been photographed in itself, but not likely to be thought of two aspects which needs a dozen views by the traveler who flashes by on the more, that many another has furnished railroad five miles off. They have the only some general views which should strange fortified church of the South, afford a hundred details, is as true as Les Saintees Maries, for instance, with that what has been done is good. Why, battlements for warlike use, and not Mr. Orgama's work on St. Mark's, of the pierced and foliated gimcracks of a Venice, includes 450 photogravures of late Gothic school at its wits' ends for its details, and is it to be presumed that ornament. 'i hese little villages and the Cathedrals of Chartres, Bourges, country-side nooks are sometimes, too, Reims, Amiens, offer less material ? the homes of the real marvels of art, Either one of those great churches they having indeed grown up to such calls for photographs by the score, but small development as they have these the local operator or the travel- reached around the votive church or ing student himself must take. Mr. the monastery, which some vision or Trompette, before his death, had taken some more earthly reasons of con- 250 views of the cathedral of his own venience had placed there. Such are town. The collection before us is the the splendid late Gothic Church of most perfect guide possible to imagine around to the architectural riches of France Avioth, with 350 people living ; little little it will be no it, afar on the Belgian frontier, near no by increased, place of greater importance than little doubt, but in the meantime its splendid and not near to that record of art of Montmedy, very ; great many periods and the still more strangely contrast- is as accessible to foreigners as to ing village called Notre Dame de Frenchmen for a study which will VEpine, where the huge church, bigger surely not exhaust its resources any and more elaborate than many a too soon. Russell Stitrgis. A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE.

OR most practical geographical expression. Only where purposes the colo- the mountains declined, as in the nial architecture of neighborhood of New York, were the the United States settlements extended westward. Be- may be described tween Portsmouth on the north and as a reproduction, Charleston on the south, and east of with such means the mountains, was included all that and skill as the there was of what is properly colonial builders could command, of the Eng- building. lish architecture of the eighteenth In spite of the diversity of the sources century. It outlasted the condition of from which the coast was settled, the political dependence by quite half a building became uniformly English as century. Indeed, such building in the soon as it became so durable or am- United States as was architectural at bitious as to take on the character of all remained in effect colonial during architecture. There are relics of the first quarter of the nineteenth cen- Swedish building in Pennsylvania, and tury, and until it was displaced by the relics of Dutch building in New York " Greek revival. The colonies," as they and New Jersey. But neither what we were up to the time when they ceased to can see of the relics of New Sweden be colonies, comprised only the Atlantic and New Netherland, nor what we can slope of the Appalachian chain, a strip learn of the state of things of which of sea-coast varying from forty to two they are relics, suffices to invalidate hundred miles in width, and extending the statement that so soon as the build- from the boundary of Canada, then ing of the colonies began to be archi- merely a geographical expression, to tectural it began to be English. When the boundary of the Spanish settle- the final transfer of New York to the ments, or rather of the Spanish claims, British was made, in 1664, it is probable in Florida, which was hardly even a that three hundred buildings were as A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE. 313

as were and there is many surrendered, the dwellings, except what it derived no evidence that the most pretentious from its greater size. The meeting- of these the state of fairly represented house of the pioneers, often a place architecture in where the of Holland, refuge from Indian attacks, had Flemish Renaissance, to which a resort the twofold character of the ancient has been had within the past twenty building of the British border, which years by architects, especially by was British architects, in search of a style, Half was then in its most flourishing con- church of God, half tower against the Scot. dition. The old market of Haarlem, the design of which has lately been This was the case with the meeting- adapted with much ingenuity and house of logs that was built by the cleverness to the uses of a New York Swedish colonists as the Delaware, in church of Dutch origin, and which is 1677, and that was succeeded by the perhaps the most characteristic product "Old Swedes Church," built in 1700, of the Dutch Renaissance dates from and still standing. The plan of this edi- about 1580. The small farmers and fice is evidently conformed to its re- small traders who formed the Dutch quirements, without much thought of community had built only to fulfill their appearance. In execution it is a very immediate necessities, and timber as workmanlike example of brick-work, most available for the quick provision but the detail proves, as clearly as the of shelter was the main material. The uncouth general form, that nothing relics of Dutch architecture now ex- but utility was in the mind of its build- tant in New York and New Jersey owe ers. The little belfry that bestrides their preservation, of course, to the the roof is obviously an addition of a more durable character of the struc- much later date than the body of the ture, which is mainly of rough masonry, building, and this may be said with with a sparing use of brick, as the more almost equal confidence of the deco- precious material. The Holland bricks rated doorways of cut stone, which are seem to have been preferred to the insertions of a date that must be very English, so long as bricks continued to considerable later than the beginning be imported, that is to say, nearly or of the eighteenth century. quite to the end of the colonial period, There is one church still remaining though bricks were made along the which is indisputedly much older than North River very much earlier. They the Old Swedes', and to which tradition were made, however, of Dutch shapes assigns a date so very much older as and sizes, and it is questionable to stagger credulity. This is St. whether in many cases it was not the Luke's, in Newport parish, the old " shape and size of Holland bricks," brick church, near Smithfield, Virginia, that gave rise to the tradition that still standing and lately restored to bricks had been imported from Hol- habitableness, though its congregation land which were in fact of American has long since migrated and left its manufacture. site more solitaiy than it was two cen- Albany, it is true, continued to be a turies ago. The date assigned to it is Dutch settlement for some time after 1632, and has little else than tradition it had been renamed from Fort Orange, to support it, the most palpable form and after New York had ceased to be of the tradition being that a Virginian, so. But as soon as permanent build- who was born in 1777 and died in 1841, ings, such as churches, began to be was employed in 1795 in the office of erected, even in Fort Orange the Eng- the clerk of Isle of Wight county, and lish taste had come to prevail there remembered seeing in the parochial also. A meeting-house was indeed one records of 1632 frequent references to of the first requisites in the Middle the building of this church, then in Colonies as well as in New England, progress. The records, themselves, but there is little evidence that before were long ago made illegible by decay Whoever com- the beginning of the eighteenth cen^- and have disappeared. tury it had any pretensions superior to pares this date and this church with

Tol. IV. -3. 5. 3** A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE.

what is otherwise known of the con- indeed, never extended its labors to dition of the plantations in 1632 will Virginia, but had a marked influence find it extremely difficult to accept the in the church building of the Middle date. The two natural questions, Colonies. Even in 1655 there were " where did the money come from," but ten ministers in all Virginia. It " and where did t]ie workmen come seems, therefore, that a date nearly from," are hard to answer. It is true half a century later than that assigned that Raleigh had, in 1588, begun the by tradition is necessary to prevent this work of evangelizing the New World interesting building from being an en- " by giving ^100 for propagating tirely anomalous exception to all that Christianity in Virginia," and in 1619 we know of the state of society in Vir- and the following years, under the in- ginia or in America in 1632. A dura- stigation of King James and the Arch- tion of two centuries still leaves it a bishop of Canterbury, who was himself venerable object, as American antiquity " " one of .the Adventurers of the Vir- goes, and justifies the claim that " ginia the subscriptions for a local pride makes on its behalf of the company," "university in the colony amounted oldest Protestant church in the West- to ,1,500. A minister had attended ern Hemisphere," and it may easily be the first ship load of colonists in 1606, the oldest building within the limits of and the Church of England was as the English colonies in America. The much concerned about the religious more credible supposition as to its age welfare of the colony as the Independ- detracts no more from the architect- ents and Presbyterians afterwards be- ural than from the historical interest came about the spiritual state of New of the building. Architecturally, in- England. That there was a church deed, the building might easily enough building upon or near the site of the be referable to the date which tradition existing edifice in 1632, or even earlier, assigns to it. The body of the church is probable. What is extremely diffi- is a paralellogram of fifty feet by cult to believe without more convinc- thirty, and the adjoining tower eighteen ing evidence than that which has satis- feet square by about fifty feet high. fied the two historians of the Episcopal A drawing made about forty years ago Church at Virginia, is that a church so represents the tower as covered by a monumental as to have lasted in its plain low pyramidal roof, but this was essential parts for two centuries and a very likely more recent than the half should have been within the building. Whether the church was pecuniary and mechanical means of built in 1632 or much later it is prob- the colonists in 1632, only a quarter of able that workmen as well as materials a century after the first settlement at were imported expressly for its build- Jamestown, twenty years after the ing, for there was scarcely permanent baptism of Pocahontas, eight years employment for such a body of brick- after the patent of the Virginia layers in Virginia at any time during Company had been revoked and the seventeenth centuty. Nearly a a the colony made royal province, hundred years later (1781) Jefferson " " twelve years after the massacre which deplores the unhappy prejudice of " had destroyed Jamestown and for the the Virginians that houses of brick or time checked all missionary enterprise. stone are less wholesome than those of It was not until 1633 that George Her- wood," adding that as the duration of bert's couplet was published, para- wooden buildings "is highly estimated in smoother verse a phrased century at fifty years, every half century our later by Bishop Berkeley : country becomes a tabula rasa." This earliest of Virginian monuments is an Religion stands on tiptoe in our land excellent of brick-work that Ready to pass to the American strand. piece owes its duration to good workmanship and It was not until 1701 that was to the quality as well as the quantity founded the Society for the Propagation of material in its thick walls. It is of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which, quite clear that it was not designed by

ST. LUKE'S, NEWPORT PARISH, NEAR SMITHFIELD, VA. A. D. 1632. Philadelphia. OLD SWEDES CHURCH. A. D. 1700. 320 A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE. an architect, for it has no badge of the reproduction of that set upon the Jacobean or Caroline architecture ex- original building of Philipse. The cept the appearance of the protruding church at Wilmington, equally rude keystone over the entrance, and the in construction, is distinctly better quoining at the angles of the tower, in design, and the lateral porch is though, indeed, this latter is as old in a positively picturesque feature. The English building as the so-called Old Swedes', as we have seen, was Anglo-Saxon period. The work is built just at the close of that cen- what might be expected from an Eng- tury. Early in the following century lish bricklayer of the seventeenth cen- Philadelphia took, in population and tury reproducing from memory, and wealth, the lead among American in the material available to him cities, which it held throughout the the form of a parish church of colonial and revolutionary periods and the old country. The Gothic tra- did not lose until the end of the first dition had died out and the repro- quarter of the present century. In duction was a reproduction of the churches and in public buildings the forms alone. The arch, for example, relics of the colonial period are much in the second stage of the tower is not more extensive and interesting than structurally an arch, for the joints are those of any other American town, and horizontal, and it owes its stability perhaps than those of all other Ameri- merely to the cohesion of the brick can towns. The plainness of the and mortar, though the arch of the domestic and the commercial building belfry stage is a true arch, a ring of during this period, so violently in con- half a brick in thickness. The but- trast with the now current Philadel- tresses, it is probable from their form, phian mode in these departments, is in were useless appendages, such as the part referable to Quakerish simplicity n'neteenth-century architect frequently and in part to the preference for brick applies to denote that his building is which came from the natural facilities Gothic. It is possible, however, that of the place for brickmaking, and the they may have had reference to the early advantage that was taken of " original roof construction, and pos- them, in so much that Philadelphia sessed a mechanical function with re- bricks" acquired, during the eighteenth lation to it, though this cannot be century, a pre-eminence that they determined, as the church was re- retained until within the last twenty roofed "some twenty or thirty years" years. It is not without significance before 1857, when Bishop Meade de- that the most elaborate and preten- scribed it. tious of the early buildings of Phila- Whatever its precise date may be, St. delphia should have been that of the Luke's, at Newport, is probably, with Church of England. The present edi- two exceptions, and these barely excep- fice succeeded a previous church, also tions, the only colonial church of the in brick, which was older than the seventeenth century still standing, and existing Swedes' Church, having been is eminently worthy of the pious pains built in 1695, and no doubt resembled that have lately been taken to restore it in design. It rejoiced, however, like it. The oldest churches in the Middle so many colonial churches in the Mid- Colonies, antedating by a year the dle Colonies, in a communion service oldest in Philadelphia are the Dutch given to it by Queen Anne. At the church at Sleepy Hollow and the Swe- time of its erection (1727-1731) Christ dish church at Wilmington, Del. The Church was not only by far the finest former is a parallelogram of rude building in the colonies, but in relation masonry, the windows framed in yellow to the wealth of the community was a bricks that were undoubtedly imported. more impressive testimonial of public It has an apsidal end, as in Philadel- interest in its purpose than any re- phia, but with the gable of wood, bear- ligious edifice erected since. There a ing wooden belfry, very artlessly was at that time and for long after- designed and attached to the roof, wards no such person as a professional which is quite rude enough to be the architect in the colonies. The me- A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE. 321

chanics were intrusted with the design nial period is made evident by the use, as well as the execution of utilitarian in the dwellings of the humble class buildings, while for civic or religious that remain from that period, of sills monuments the designs were either and lintels of wood in brick walls, thus imported or intrusted to amateurs, who limiting the duration of the building to dabbled in Vitruvius and had some that of the more perishable material. knowledge of the current modes of the In Christ Church it is made evident old country. A physician of Phila- by the construction in brick of mem- delphia, Dr. John Kearsley, was the bers which could not have been de- amateur who was invoked to design vised for the material, as the pil- Christ Church. It is not clear whether asters of the walls and of the chancel- the steeple, as it now stands, was part window and the entablature of this of his original composition, for it was window. The exterior is, however, a not finished until 1754, twenty years reasonably frank and straightforward after the completion of the church. It exposition of the interior arrangement is less successful in design than the a galleried room, 75 feet long by 61 body of the church to which it is at- wide and 47 high, with a chancel 15 tached. Though the modeling of the feet by 24. The interior was designed octagon is very well considered with accurate knowledge of what was as a design for a substructure done in England, and shows the sys- of a spire in masonry, it loses tem, adopted by Wren and his success- most of its effect when rendered ors, of an order completed by the in- in evident woodwork, and the spire sertion between the column and the itself, which is carried to the height of impost of the arch of an ugly and ir- 196 feet 9 inches, is not happy in out- relevant fragment of entablature. That line or proportion. Upon the body of the detail here is more correct than the church one is inclined to congratu- that of the exterior is doubtless due to late the shade of the amateur designer, the fact that the amateur architect was considering the difficulties under which here assisted in his design by the me- he labored. He had at command ex- chanics who were to execute it. In- cellent brick and excellent bricklayers, deed, it is noticeable throughout the but the task of making an architectural whole colonial period, at least the poli- building out of bricks alone was one tically colonial period, that the carpen- which he not only forebore to attempt, ters were much better trained than the but which doubtless never occurred to stonecutters, and that the woodwork him as feasible. To him, as to his pro- habitually betrays the result of this fessional contemporaries in the old superior training, being at once more country, architecture was a matter of correct in design and very much more "the orders," and to make a work of accurate in detail than the stonework architecture out of a building was to in the comparatively few instances apply the orders to it with accuracy in which classic detail was at- and discretion. Unfortunately the ex- tempted in stone. Neither at the time did terior application of the orders involved of its erection nor long afterwards, the employment of large masses of Christ Church, Philadelphia, have any stone and of skilled stonecutters, and rivals to the northward. There is not skilled stonecutters in sufficient num- a church left standing in New York bers were not to be had in the colonies within thirty years as old, nor were at that time. Hence it was necessary there any of which there is any reason, to the to imitate the orders in brick, or in on architectural grounds, lament Church wood, the latter process being objec- disappearance. The Old South with tionable from its lack of durability, and in Boston, was contemporaneous the former from its mean and petty Christ Church, having been begun, in this is ex- appearance, even to those who did not 1729, but the interest of at all connect the forms of the orders clusively historical. Indeed, consider- with the construction that gave rise to ing that the plan of the two edifices is them. The lack of stonecutters in virtually the same, and their dimensions colonial Philadelphia during the colo- not very far apart, the Philadelphian Philadelphia CHRIST CHURCH A D 1727-31. Philadelphia INTERIOR CHRIST CHURCH. Restored 1882 3*4 A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE.

relic attests the clear superiority in the ing the old church was reproduced, polite arts of Philadelphia over Boston. except that the spire was made taller, It has in the comparison a distinct air and now, but for the damage done to of "gentility," to revive the eighteenth it by the earthquake of 1885, it still century word, while the Bostonian corresponds to the quaint account of *' church, otherwise uncouth and its predecessor in A Short Description merely " ugly, derives a taint of vulgarity from of the Province of South Carolina its unsuccessfully pretentious spire. It (London, 1763). is true that, while there is no reason St. Philip's Church is one of the handsom- to doubt that the Old South was fairly est buildings in America. It is of brick, representative of the Boston of 1729, plastered and well enlightened on the inside. Christ Church may make an unduly The roof is arched, except over the gal- favorable showing for the Philadel- leries (nave tunnel-vaulted), two rows of Tuscan the and arch phia of that time. The next Philadel- pillars support galleries (vault) that extends over the of the phian church to it in antiquity, St. body church, the pillars ornamented on the in- is Peter's, thirty years younger (1758) side with fluted Corinthian whose and pilasters, distinctly inferior, lacking, indeed, capitals are as high as the cherubins over the all the features that distin.tion to give centre of each arch, supporting their proper the older building, except a chancel cornice. The west end of the church is window correctly designed and de- adorned with four Tuscan columns, support- tailed in wood, but deprived of its ing a double pediment, which has an agree-

able effect ; the two which enter effect by the juxtaposition of other win- side-doors, into the belfry, are ornamented with round dows in a relation that seems entirely columns of the same order, which support fortuitous. The is steeple positively angular pediments that project a considerable the tower a shaft of brick ugly, being way and give the church some resemblance work pierced with openings without of a cross. Pilasters of the same order with architectural relation to itself or to each the columns are continued round the body of the over the is other; and the spindling cone of the church ; double pediment a

with bannisters ; from this the spire is abruptly and awkwardly set gallery steeple rises octogonal (sic) with windows to each upon this, without any such attempt to face of the second course, ornamented with soften the transition as the polygonal Doric pilasters, whose intablature supports a base that is the most successful feature balustrade : from this the tower still rises in the of design Christ Church, and octogonal with sashed windows in every other that needs only execution in monu- face, till it is terminated by a dome, upon which stands a lanthorn for mental material to be a really monu- the bells, and mental feature. from which rises a vane in the form of a cock. Within a few years, however, Christ The nave of St. Philip's is 74 feet Church had an architectural rival in long, the vestibule 37 and the portico the and the rival English colonies, was 12, making the total exterior length then esteemed to have the better of the 123 feet. The greatest width is 62. competition. This was St. Philip's, in It would seem to have been inevitable Charleston, said to have been com- that when the parishioners of St. in It pleted 1733. is to this undoubt- Michael's came to build, they should that edly Burke refers in the descrip- strive to outdo their neighbors in di- tion of Charleston, contained in his mensions as well as in " " elegance." Account of the European Settlement The extreme of their church is " length in America The church is (1757)." 130 feet, the body 80 feet, and the and executed in a spacious very hand- steeple is 192 feet high, but the ex- some taste, exceeding everything of treme width, 58 feet, is 4 feet less than that kind which we in have America." that of the older church. The descrip- Charleston was at a Though much tion of it from the same authority just earlier date divided into the parishes of cited, may serve to supplement, if not St. Philip's and St. Michael's, and though to elucidate the illustration. the existing church of St. Michael's was

St. Michael's Church is built of brick ; it is begun in 1752, it was not opened for not yet quite finished. It consists of a body service until St. February, 1761. Philip's of regular shape, and a lofty and well-pro- was burned in but in 1835, the rebuild- portioned steeple, formed of a tower and Charleston, S. C. ST. MICHAEL S CHURCH. A. D. 1752-61.

A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE. 327

the tower is from the architecture of the spire ; square ground, conjunction, intro- and in this form rises to a considerable height. duced by Hawksmoor a generation be- The principal decoration of the lower part is fore and employed by Gibbs of a .a handsome portico with Doric (Roman-Doric) classic portico with a steeple modelled columns, a pediment, supporting large angular the of Sir this rise two upon steeples Christopher with modillion cornice ; over rustic courses in the lower are small Wren. The conjunction is unfortunate .square ; in in that it involves the of the round windows on the north and south ; standing the other, small square ones on the east and spire on the roof, to keep it out of com- west (on all four). From this the steeple petition with the portico, and prevents windows on each rises octangular, having its lines from being brought down to with Doric between each face, pilasters (sic), the visible support of the ground. This whose cornice supports a balustrade; the has been avoided in St. Paul's church next course is likewise octagonal, has sashed in New the at windows and festoons alternately (festoons no York, by putting steeple one end of the church and the longer, perhaps removed when the clock-faces portico were inserted) on each face, with pilasters and at the other, which is upon the whole .a cornice, upon which rises a circular range a more eligible arrangement than that with a balustrade con- -of Corinthian pillars, oftenest adopted in England and em- them, from whence is a beautiful and necting in St. Michael's, and in subse- The of the ployed -extensive prospect, body steeple churches but quent American ; the con- is carried up octangular within the pillars, on has seldom been better man- whose entablature the spire rises, and is ter- junction than in the instance. St. minated by a gilt globe from which rises a aged present vane in the form of a dragon. Michael's is one of the most valuable remains of colonial times, a massive One is not surprised to learn from and dignified structure. If there were .another source that the steeple of St. no other relic of those times in Char- Michael's was, during the whole col- leston, we might still agree with the onial period, the chief landmark ot the local historian who wrote in 1854, that ' low Carolinian coast to incoming mari- in his youth all our best buildings, ners, and it served the same purpose a public and private, were of provincial century later for Confederate blockade date," and apprehend that the saying runners. Of the architect of St. Philip's might be repeated in 1894. no tradition remains, though it is prob- There is near Charleston a curious able that the plans for it were procured and interesting church which, in a in England. It does not betray, as chronological order, should have pre- even Christ Church in Philadelphia be- ceded the churches last described. trays, the hand of the amateur. It is This is St. James', at Goosecreek, on certainly known that the design of St. the Cooper River, which must have Michael's was imported, and the South been finished before 1731, for in the " Carolina Gazette, of February 22, 1752, Descriptions of South Carolina, for in describing the projected church, in- Protestant Immigrants," published in forms its readers that it was to be that year, it is recorded that soon erected "from Mr. Gibson's designs." after 1706 "the church they first There is no architect of the period built became too small for the grow- known by this name to fame, or even to ing number of parishioners, and they tradition. But the most fashionable erected a beautiful brick edifice." church architect in London in 1752, to The brick is plastered, and the angles whom the agent of the colonial church are quoined in stone. The general would naturally apply, was James Gibbs, aspect of the building, exceptionally who died in 1754, the designer of the well preserved as it is, is not only Radcliffe Library at Oxford, and of the antique but foreign. Except that its church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields in architecture is distinctly of the Re- London then the most admired church naissance, it has no architectural affin- since Wren's time. It is not at all ity with the churches of Charleston, or unlikely that it was he who designed with any of the churches of the English St. Michael's which certainly is worthy settlements further to the north. On of him, or of any designer of the time. the other hand it has distinct affinities There are several examples in colonial with the Spanish Renaissance, as that 328 A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE.

was practiced in Mexico at an earlier church at St. Augustine. The differ- date, and in Louisiana and Florida at erence in date goes to prove an identity a later. Its existence is explained by of origin by excluding the notion of a to the Settlements direct imitation reference Spanish ; for, whereas the Caro- in the South, and to the indeterminate linian church, as we have seen was fin- boundary between Florida and South ished before 1731, the Floridian church Carolina, which was so often the cause was built in 1793, under the supervision of bloody affrays, but which in this in- of two Spanish engineers, although stance seems to have resulted in an Florida had been ceded to Great Britain exchange of the arts of peace. A com- in 1763. of it with what is called the There are few other parison " interesting "Cathedral of St. Augustine, though, churches of the colonial period in the

CATHEDRAL OF ST. AUGUSTINE (1793). m it was built for a fact, parish church, Southern States. In Virginia the earli- indicates that the was design furnished est church of all is very nearly the best, by a even if the Spaniard, work was having a simplicity and repose with its not executed by Spanish craftsmen. It is homeliness that are lacking to the more that the quite plain unsightly hipped roof pretentious and not more skilful was not meant to be and seen, that the builders of a later day, and that come front was not completed. What exists near to constituting an artistic quality. indicates not less clearly that it would The New England meeting house of have been most naturally completed, the eighteenth century, of which we and the design carried out by the have considered one of the most con- superstructure of a false gable, such as spicuous examples, is devoid that which entirely covers the front of the of architectural interest or architect- ST. PETER'S CHURCH. Philadelphia. A. D. 1758.

Vol. IV. 3. I 332 A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE.

OLD ST. PETER'S CHURCIF, ALBANY, N. Y. A. D. 1802. Philip Hooker, Architect.

ural purpose. The most bigoted which St. Peter's, Albany, 1802, is i praiser of time past has not ventured favorable but not too favorable exam- to suggest the vernacular New Eng- ple; a seemly and not uncomely edifice. land meeting house as a promising Of St. Paul's, in New York, Major point of departure in ecclesiastical Charles Pierre L'Enfant, afterwards the architecture. In the middle colonies, planner of Washington, was, at the time however, there are many churches in he was employed in altering the City which the type ultimately derived Hall, described as the architect. But from the work of Sir Christopher Wren, this is clearly out of the question, for has undergone local modifications the body of the church was built in that tend to render it national. This is 1764-66, and L'Enfant came out with the church of rough stone with quoins D'Estaing only in 1777. What he did of hewn stones at the angles and the was very likely to add the east front, openings, with a tower slightly pro- including the portico not the spire jected from the front, carrying a spire which was erected within this century. with several stages of classic detail, The portico consists of four Ionic col- comprising one or more orders, of umns, the capitals of which those in the A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE.

Hall resemble City closely enough to In the order of development of the have been imitated from them. At the colonies civic buildings came after centre they are so widely spaced, appa- churches, and down to the middle of to afford a rently full view of the the eighteenth century were upon the chancel window, as not to exceed only whole inferior to them in size, costli- classical but to precedent, threaten the ness and architectural pretensions. In of integrity the entablature if that had point of time, New York took the lead been of actually masonry. Asa matter in the erection of a durable municipal of fact it is of wood, the columns being monument. It was in 1700 that the of brick covered with stucco, painted City Hall was erected at the head of to imitate brown sandstone. A very Broad street, which was to serve it s

- A. D. i?3 I I 735 INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA. James Hamilton, Architect.

.good example of the type exemplified purpose for more than a century, or by St. Michael's at Charleston, in which until the completion of the existing the portico and the steeple are com- City Hall in 1811, excepting the brief bined, is St. John's Church in New York, interval during which, in an embel- 1803-07, of which the architect was John lished state, and under the name of McComb, the superintending architect Federal Hall, it served as the capitol .and putative designer of the New York of the United States, an interval com- City Hall. In construction this is more memorated by the statue of Washing- substantial and genuine than St. Paul's, ton at the scene of his first inaugura- the columns, with their bases and Corin- tion as President. It was at the hian capitals being of cut stone, though instigation of Lord Bellomont, Gov- ere also the entablature is of wood. ernor of the Province, that the project ARCHITECTURE. 334 A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL

manner to be with it for was undertaken in 1698, in which year any compared and and that he is. the plans of "James Evetts, architect," beauty elegance," but doubtless in fact a mason, were "well assured Philadelphia has more- laid in inhabitants than New York and Boston adopted. The foundation was as has on to that "the 1699, and in the following year, together," goes say St. Paul's and the: been said, the building was occupied. college, Church, and are The. The general scheme, of two wings Hospital elegant buildings. Hall also in which is- a recessed centre, about equal in ex- Federal Congress to sit is Thomas tent to both, was much the same as elegant." Txvining,. that adopted for the building which an English traveller who visited New the earlier York in found it the build- superseded it, although 1793, only worth or at least worth building was on a much smaller scale, ing looking at, and of course far less elaborated. mentioning. oldest of the secular Indeed, the only attempt at decora- The public; tion was in the brackets of the cornice, buildings of Philadelphia, more famous- in the wooden lantern of the roof, in and memorable than that of New York the balcony at the centre of the second whether as City or as Federal Hall, is- still and in story, and the coats-of-arms of the fortunately standing per- It is the Governor (Bellomont) and the Lieu- fect preservation. building tenant-Governor (Nanfan), emblazoned which for more than a century has. on stone tablets affixed to the front. been known as Independence Hall, its but for the first of In spite of its moderate dimensions, which, half-century humble material, which was apparently its existence, was the State House of brick, with stone only in the sills and Pennsylvania. It is almost exactly lintels, the binders which served as coeval with Christ Church (1731-1735),. capitals to the square piers of the loggia shows an equal skill in workmanship and possibly the string course between and the same method, the use of black the stories, the building was dignified glazed headers with red brick. In one: and impressive by reason of the just- point, at least, the free use of cut ness and, indeed, felicity of its propor- stone, the workmanship shows an ad- tions, and by its very absence of pre- vance, for tooled ashlar are employed sense. The cost was .3,000. When in the quoining at the corners, in the: in 1789 it was decided to enlarge and panels and the string courses, while improve the building for the occupancy the keystones of the flat brick arches of Congress $32,000 was appropriated required an even higher degree of skill for the purpose, and the spending of it in stone-cutting. Of this also the was intrusted to Major L'Enfant. His architect was an amateur, a lawyer, enlargement consisted in raising the James Hamilton by name, and his de- roof so as to admit a low attic in place sign was as successful for its purpose of the roof story lighted by dormers, as that of the church. The dimensions of the original, and in an increase of of the building are TOO feet by 44, and height by the addition of an upper they are made the most of by the roof of somewhat lower pitch. The re- emphasis added to the horizontal lines- cessed centre was filled up with a wall and the limitation of the whole front in the plane of the wings, and from it to a single plane, while the relation of a portico in two stories, and in Roman the stories to each other and the inter- Doric was projected twelve feet. The polation of a third term in the paneled' frieze was divided so as to embrace thir- band inclosed between the string- teen metopes, in each of which was a courses, make up a well-proportioned star, and the centre of the pediment composition and relieve the long front was dignified by a spread eagle. The of monotony. The effect of length is alterations were much admired. John enhanced and variety at the same time Page, who came to New York for the added by the judicious addition of the first session of Congress, as a repre- lower flanking buildings, the one the- sentative from Virginia, writing home, old City Hall of Philadelphia, the other " after saying that this town is not Congress Hall, which furnished quar- half so large as Philadelphia, nor in ters for the executive officers during- A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE. 335

ahe Revolution. The tower, though it which it is founded. It would be a .has refinement of detail, is scarcely so grievous thing to ascribe the design of fortunate as that of Christ Church the actual building to Sir Christopher. either in its design or in its adjustment Jones says: "The college of William .to the it building which crowns. Car- and Mary is double and 136 feet long, penters' Hall, the next most important having been first modeled by Sir Chris- secular relic of colonial times, is fifty topher Wren, adapted to the nature of years younger than the State House the country by the gentlemen there, (1770), inferior to it in dimensions, and and, since it was burnt down, it has been in spite of its pediments and its arches, rebuilt, nicely contrived, altered and .so similar in design and workmanship adorned, by the ingenious direction of .as to show an extreme conservatism, Governor Spotswood, and is not alto- which is the more remarkable by its gether unlike Chelsea Hospital." But contrast with the recently prevalent it is not even the restoration of Spots- rage for innovation in Philadelphian wood that is now to be seen, for his .building. work was also fire, in 1 746, " destroyed by The great commodiousness of navi- to be replaced by the present building, .gation and the of handicrafts- of which the architectural is " scarcity origin men were assigned by Burke, and no neither known nor important. The " doubt rightly, as the causes which have colonial capital has also disappeared, rendered all the attempts of the gov- having been burned down in April, ernment to establish towns in Virginia 1832. It confronted the college at the ineffectual." When the planter had his other end of what Burke calls "a noble own wharf on his own estate, from street," and conformed to it in archi- which he sent his to tecture and the colonial church produce directly ; (1715) his agent in London or Bristol, and at is still standing, although the interior which he received his supplies directly nas been altered.. The capito! was built in return, he had no need of a market- "at the cost of the late queen" before town. The Virginian village was a 1723, and Jones says "it is the best " court-house ;" the town was a capital. and most commodious pile of its kind

The peculiar situation of Virginia in I have seen or heard of." He adds : " this respect is worth consideration by The buildings here described are the student of colonial society in gen- justly reputed the best in English eral, as well as by the student of colo- America, and exceeded by few of their nial architecture in particular, for it is kind in England." One may reason- intimately connected with the social ably suspect Jones of an ignorance of and political history of the colony. Philadelphia, as well as of an inordinate Burke goes on to say that "Jamestown, desire to please Governor Spotswood. which was anciently the capital, is A less rosy but more accurate view is " into an in on Vir- dwindled insignificant village ; given Jefferson's Notes .and Williamsburg, though the capital ginia :" " at present (1757), is yet but a small The only public buildings worthy of men- town." "However," he adds, "in this tion are the Capitol, the College, the Palace, for all of them in town are the best public buildings in and the Hospital Lunatics, British America." In view of what we Williamsburgf, heretofore the seat of our gov- ernment. The Capitol is a light and airy have just seen of Philadelphia at this structure, with a portico in front of two orders, time we must the accuracy challenge the lower of which, being Doric, is tolerably of Burke's information. J t that appears just in its proportions and ornaments, save he was misled by an extremely rosy only that the intercolonations are too large. in the is too small for that view taken by Hugh Jones, A. M., The upper Ionic, much " it is its ornaments not Present State of Virginia." 1723, which on which mounted, to the order, nor within Burke paraphrases and almost repeats. proper proportioned themselves. It is crowned with a pediment, The college of William and Mary is held which is too high for its span, Yet, on the as an article of t)y many Virginians, whole, it is the most pleasing piece of archi- to Sir faith, have been designed by tecture we have. The College and the Hos- but this belief is that Christopher Wren, pital are rude, misshapen piles, which but overthrown by the very testimony on thev have roofs would be taken for brick ki ns." 336 A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE.

" The tradition that Sir Christopher Burke says : I shall be very concise in had something to do with the existing my account of Maryland which, agree- architecture of Williamsburg refuses ing with Virginia in its climate, soil, trade and of its to be altogether dislodged, and has products, genius inhab- itants * * * will save much trouble alighted upon the Court House, which in that article." But the char- is the only remaining relic in Williams- capital, tered in and in honor of burg, excepting the College, of colonial 1708, named secular architecture. In a very recent Princess Anne, not yet Queen, was, re- to the of the publication it is ascribed to him, though latively population colony, archi- if not a more it is quite evident that it had no absolutely, important tect except the colonial mechanic who place than the capital of Virginia, dur-

THE COURT HOUSE, WILLIAMSBURG, VA. " From Chandler's The Old Colonial Architecture of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia. built it. A similar tradition retains its ing the colonial period. The commer- hold about the steeple of the oldest cial sceptre passed to Baltimore before church in Providence, R. I., which is in the colonial period was completed, and another recent publication declared to commercial stagnation left Annapolis a be by Wren, although when the steeple relic of those times, insomuch that it is was built, in 1775, the architect had now, upon the whole, to a student of been half a century in his grave. colonial architecture, the most interest- After it was given over, like Virginia, ing town in the United States, as to the culture of tobacco, Maryland retaining its ancient aspect least im- became in most respects an extension paired. Its claims upon his attention of the Old Dominion, insomuch that were urged in Mr, Randall's interesting Annapolis ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE. 1744-85.

34o A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE.

In the paper upon "Colonial Annapolis" in 1769 Legislature appropriated for the of which No. 3 of THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. ,7,500 building, The earliest of the remaining public Joseph Clarke was appointed the archi- and the corner-stone laid in buildings of Annapolis is St. John's tect, was and the next the College, a seat of learning which was 1772, year building very probably established in emulation was roofed. The dome, however, is of the like institution at the capital ot not to be ascribed to the original archi- at least it was not until Virginia, and by a chief magistrate tect, added whom the laurels of Spottswood would after the Revolution. Our admiration it for his not suffer to sleep. At any rate was treatment of the interior must us begun as early as 1744 through the make willing to relieve him of importation by Governor Bladen of "a the responsibility for the cupola, in Mr. Duff, the architect, from Scotland." which, as in many more recent erections It was not completed, however, until of the same kind, the ambition to attain 1785, after having become a bone of a towering height in this case the political contention, and long after it even height of 200 feet led the archi- had come to be commonly known to tect to design a feature dispropor- the simple Marylander who had no tionate to his substructure, and not yearnings for the higher education, only unduly to elongate the dome as "the Governor's folly." There itself, but to add offensively superflu- does not seem to be a complete justi- ous stages to it. The diameter of the fication in its interior for the dome is feet the area of the build- aspect 40 ; importation of its architect, since there ing 120 by 82. is nothing beyond the reach of the home- In Charleston the only secular public bred bricklayer excepting the dome, building remaining from the colonial which is certainly in execution and period is the old Post-office, built as a probably also in design a later addition merchant's exchange. It is manifest to the work of Duff, and is an unfortu- that its present aspect cannot represent nate erection in which the ambition of its original state, which indeed is diffi- crowning the edifice with a wooden cult to reconstruct from what is now to monument seems to have been accom- be seen. Like the neighboring church panied by the utilitarian device of at Goosecreek, it is an anomaly in securing an additional apartment above colonial architecture, since it can the roof. The lack of stone-cutters is scarcely have been undertaken to re- attested in this building by the ex- produce in it the current forms of tremely sparing use of cut stone, the English building. It is not improbable single band of it across the foot of the that artisans from the Spanish settle- gable, where it is most conspicuous, ments to the Southward were again being almost the only instance of its employed in its building. The date of employment. its erection increases the plausibility of The same economy is noticeable in a conjuncture suggested by its archi- the State House, which albeit of a con- tecture, for the building of it was siderably later date than the college, authorized by an act of Assembly in shows a close similarity in the work- 1761, and it was in 1763 that Florida manship of the exterior, while the rich was ceded by Spain to Great Britain, and successful interior brings out anew in exchange for Havana. the striking inferiority that is shown in The one colonial public building of all the pretentious buildings of the Newport that has been preserved and colonial period of the workers in stone that is worth preserving is the Redwood to the workers in wood. The joiner- Library. It was in 1747 that Abraham work in the State House is marked by Redwood gave 500 for the establish- a precision and delicacy which cannot ment of the library that bears his be excelled, and leaves in its way name. Peter Harrison, the pupil of nothing to be desired, while the design Vanbrugh, who was employed at the of the rotunda is worthy of so elaborate time in building King's Chapel in an execution, and worthy, indeed, of Boston, was chosen the architect of execution in a more durable material. the library which was finished in 1750.

COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE. 34+ A HISTORY OF OLD

The architecture is confined mainly to subdivision and the detail are distinctly col- defects of colonial work. The treat- the Doric portico, of which the is ment of the is as dis- umns are 17 feet high and which centre, however, face of an and shows that projected 9 feet from the tinctly innovation, of architect studied continental the building. These two works the had Harrison are noteworthy, as pro- as well as English Renaissance. For the first time in the order is bably the only remaining buildings America, in New England erected before the superposed upon an arcade, after the Revolution from the designs of a pro- manner introduced by Mansard at Ver- fessional architect. Neither the old sailles, and afterwards employed by State House nor Faneuil Hall in Latrobe in the Capitol of the United Boston now remains in its primitive States and repeated in the extension condition. The former, erected in 1748, by Walter, the columns of the order had originally its broken gable and are properly doubled at the ends, and tower, but the design of the roof has the pediment is withdrawn from the since been materially modified, and the order, to appear above it on the sub- latter was enlarged towards the close structure of the cupola. The adjust- of the century under the direction of ment of the cupola to its base, always Bulfinch. But what remains of provin- a difficult point of design, is here cial Boston suffices to show its archi- managed with reasonable skill if tectural inferiority to the seaports to not with entire felicity. From an the south of it. inspection of the building one can un- A Bostonian, however, is memorable derstand the admiring wonder with as the first educated American who which it was received, and how it devoted himself to the profession of should have become the fruitful parent architecture. Charles Bulfinch, born in of so many less respectable domed Boston in 1763, was graduated at Har- buildings in State Houses throughout vard in 1781, and three years later spent the land, and even, as we shall see, in a year in Europe. In 1793 he super- the national Capitol. It is not only intended the erection of the first theatre remarkable, considering the period in Boston, the erection being in itself a at which it was erected, but it re- relaxation of Puritanical severity that mains a dignified and creditable pub- was of good augury for the progress of lic building, worthy of perpetuation the polite arts. The design of the in more monumental material than theatre, a scholarly front in two stories, that in which it was originally exe- with a tetrastyle portico and a pedi- cuted. ment in the upper, survives ojily in the The great architectural work of complimentary medal stjgack for Bul- those years and of many years there- finch by his employers?* In 1795 ^ e after was the Capitol of the United was appointed architect of the new States. It was in 1795, after Major " State House of Massachusetts and for L'Enfant had planned the Federal three years superintended its construc- City," that President Washington ap- tion. At the time of its completion, pointed a board of three commissioners excepting the Capitol at Washington, to provide for the erection of suitable then in course of construction, it was public buildings. They decided that the most monumental public building the Capitol should exhibit "that true that had been projected in the United elegance of propriety which corres- States, and its architecture deserved ponds to a tempered freedom," and ad- the celebrity which it obtained. In vertised for designs for such a build- general composition it is very success- ing to be submitted July 15, 1792. ful. The superstructure of two stories They set forth that it was to be of is sharply distinguished from the base- brick, and issued a very general pro- ment, while its subdivision suffices to gramme of requirements, embracing relieve it of monotony without com- fifteen rooms in all. The advertise- promising its unity. The flatness of the ment brought no designs that seemed wings, the want of visible depth in the to the commissioners worthy of adop- and the want walls, of emphasis in the tion, although Washington wrote that A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE. 345 he was more agreeably struck with English architect, who came to Wash- Judge Turner's plan than with any ington highly recommended. Hallet other, mainly because it had a dome, had been disimissed by the Commis- which, in the President's judgment, sioners in consequence of a quarrel 4< would give a beauty and grandeur to with Hoban and refused to surrender the pile," but it did not have the his drawings. Hadfield, who became "porticos and imposing colonnade," architect in 1795, insisted that the plan upon which he equally insisted. Other under which Hoban was working was designs were submitted, and on April "capitally defective," but was over- 5, 1793, the President gave his formal ruled by Washington and by the Com- approval to the plan submitted by Dr. missioners, and afterwards declined to William Thornton, because in it hand over to Hoban for execution his " grandeur, simplicity and conve- accepted plans for the Executive De- nience were combined," and the first partment buildings. His connection prize of $500 and a building lot in the with the Capitol as architect came to new city was awarded accordingly. an end in 1798, and the working draw- But the same award was also made to ings from that year until 1803 seem to Stephen Hallet. Like the architect have been furnished by Hoban. It of Christ Church, Philadelphia, Dr. does not seem, however, that Hoban Thornton was a physician of that town, can be called the designer of any part entirely an amateur in architecture, of the building, although he furnished and Hallet, a Frenchman, who was a the designs for the original Executive professional architect, and had prac- Mansion, and for its rebuilding after ticed in Philadelphia, had no difficulty its destruction by the British. This was in showing that Thornton's design was and is a dignified and even stately man- impracticable, and that if it could be sion, and does credit to the taste of its built the building would not be habit- architect, if not to his power of design, able. Accordingly he was chosen to since it was reproduced in all architec- revise Thornton's plan, but the result- tural essentials from a nobleman's man- ing design resembled the original sion in Ireland. Hadfield was again more than the reviser's own employed as chief draughtsman under competitive design. It is noteworthy Latrobe, who became architect of the that it retained what Jefferson Capitol in 1803, and remained until called "that very capital beauty," the 1817, carrying the building to the state portico of the east front. That Thorn- of completion which it had reached at ton was really the original designer is the time of the burning by the British in sufficiently shown in a letter of Jeffer- 1814, and restoring it after that interrup- son's, written in 1811, in which he says tion. Architecturally the burning, out- that having been convinced, during his rageous act of vandalism though it was, Presidency, that the interior arrange- was by no means calamitous, since it ments could be improved, he "deemed enabled Latrobe to restore both in- it due to Dr. Thornton, author of the terior and exterior with more monu- plan of the Capitol, to consult him on mental material and doubtless with the change." Hallet became the more successful details. The changes architect of the Capitol, but kept necessarily cost money, and the addi- the place for only two years, and tional cost embarrased the architect was succeeded in 1794 by James Ho- and his employers. In the same letter ban, an Irishman, who had done archi- of Jefferson to Latrobe, already quoted, " tectural work in South Carolina and he says You discharged your duties had been employed as Superintendent with ability, diligence and zeal, but in under Hallet. Indeed his functions in the article of expense you were not connection with the Capitol seem to sufficiently guarded." The labors of have been chiefly of superintendence Latrobe undoubtedly determined the of the as during his entire connection with it, general arrangement Capitol, which lasted for ten years, the work we now see it, excepting the wings and being done after the drawings first of the dome, and left his immediate Hallet and then of George Hadfield, an successor little latitude except in de-

Vol. III. 3. 7. COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE. 348 A HISTORY OF OLD

his revived tail. When in 1817, Latrobe found Capitol, during presidency, himself unable to agree with the in Jefferson the interest of his early his manhood. In his own single commissioner who. during rebuilding house, service had been substituted for he had been forced to become his own the Board of Commissioners previ- architect and almost his own builder. he So low was the state of the mechanic ously established, and resigned, was succeeded by Bulfinch, who had arts in Virginia in 1770, that the win- in dow-sashes were from London. met the new president, Monroe, imported " and had favorably impressed In his "Notes on Virginia (1781), he Boston, " him. He modified the designs for such complains that a workman could of the building as were not com- scarcely be found here capable of parts " mitted by construction, but in the main drawing an order." The genius of proceeded upon the lines laid down architecture," he continues, "seems to Latrobe. The chief alteration he have shed its maledictions over this by * * * made was very questionable, being land. The first principles of the change of the form of the dome the art are unknown, and there exists into a cupola more nearly resembling scarcely a model among us sufficiently in outline that of the Massachusetts chaste to give an idea of them." State House, and the construction of The first fruit in a public building of a subordinate dome over each wing. his architectural zeal was the Capitol the In spite of its defects, however, of Virginia, at Richmond, commonly, Capitol, as Bulfinch left it completed but inaccurately, said to have been de- in 1830, was creditable to the country signed by him. After the change of and to its own architects, the finest as the capital from Williamsburg to Rich- well as the last development of mond, and in 1785, Jefferson, being then colonial architecture. Its extreme di- in Paris, was consulted with reference mensions were then 355 feet by 121, to the design of the new State House, " and 120 feet to the top of the dome.* and he consulted M. Clarissault, one The influence of Thomas Jefferson of the most correct architects of upon American architecture was very France." The capitol, according to " considerable. His interest in it began Jefferson himself, is the model of the at least as early as his rebuilding of temple of Erechtheus at Athens, of Baal- Monticello, in 1770, and increased until bee, and of the Maison Carree at the close of his life. He adopted, with- Nismes, the most perfect examples of out question, the current dogma that cubic architecture, as the Pantheon is the five orders were founded in the of the spherical." (The reasoning and nature of things, and that architecture the collocation have alike a seriously was an affair of orders exclusively, but old-fashioned air to modern students.) he held that innovations might be made Jefferson goes on to say that the upon them to express other than Maison Carrie was selected more antique conditions. The "American specifically, retaining., the proportions order" was for a long time attributed while enlarging the bui-lding, but with to him, and it may have been at his in- the change of the capitals from Corin- stigation that Latrobe undertook to thian to Ionic, "on account of the supplant the acanthus with the maize expense." Throughout the colonial and tobacco plant, in the decoration of period, indeed, the Corinthian order capitals, and made the interesting was very little employed, doubtless essays to that end that still remain in because of the extreme difficulty and the it has been in Capitol ; though clearly costliness of reproducing the capital shown that Latrobe was the designer wood. Not only were Ionic capitals " of the "order." The progress of the substituted for Corinthians, but I yielded with reluctance to the taste of * I do not to pretend reconcile the discrepancy between Clarissault in his of the the two views of the Capitol. Both were drawn by W. H. preference Bartlett, though they were rendered by different en- modern capital of Scamozzi to the more gravers, and both were published after 1830. It is possible that the artist never saw the building, and probable noble capital of antiquity." The Capitol that the view of the east tront shows Latrobe's for design is feet in area and the dome, the taller dome and the subordinate domes in 134 by 70 45 high, the view of the west front being Bulfinch's. excluding the basement. A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE. 349

Undoubtedly, the most considerable the dormitories of the students, accentu- " " outcome of Jefferson's interest in archi- ated at intervals by the pavilions tecture was the last. The University which consisted of professors' houses. of Virginia, of which he desired to be The long vista between these colon- commemorated in his epitaph as the nades was to be closed by a reproduc- the child of his father, was old age, and tion, one third the original size, and it was the formation of this institution considerably modified, of the Pantheon, " that was his chief care from his retire- the most perfect example of the spher- ment from the presidency in 1809 until ical." The most important of the his death in 1826. He was unquestion- modifications is the omission of the and alone the architect of ably it, and second attic and pediment. Against after the aid of the State had been pro- the rear of this abuts the posticum

STREET FRONT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.

Charlottesville, Va. A. D. 1819-26. Thomas Jefferson, Architect. cured by the Act of 1819, he pushed on of an amphiprostylar Corinthian tem- the execution of his architectural pro- ple, for which the Maison Carree seems ject until it was in great part realized, to have furnished the model, and to and the institution in actual operation have retained in Jefferson's mind for u before his death. His project was thirty years its place as the most per- grandiose and impressive. The build- fect example of cubic architecture." ings were to line three sides of a The portico, hexastyle and three col- quadrangle, 600 feet by 200, the fourth umns deep, as at Nismes, forms the side being left open. The cur- main entrance to the University, and tain wall of the long side was was evidently intended to be finished to be a continuous colonnade by an imposing terraced approach with of one-story high, being the front of double flights of steps. The scheme 350 A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE.

" was completed by two additional ions of the architectural scheme,, ranges of dormitories, facing outward, mark the first appearance of the classic the in parallel with the ranges facing temple domestic architecture. 'I he campus and 200 feet distant from them. portico ignores the house, and an undi- Considering the resources available vided order embraces the front, leaving it the to for carrying into execution, Jeffer- balcony be inserted as a gallery,, son's scheme was incomparably the an arrangement fatal to the-architectural most ambitious and monumental archi- effect. The pavilions in which this de- tectural pioject that had or has yet vice is resorted to are as much less at- in this If the tractive as been conceived century. they are less practically execution was not at all points ade- eligible than those in which the colon-

Charloitesville, V.i. CAMPUS FRONT OF 'HIE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.

quate, it must be admitted to have been nade is continued across the front in very surprising for a remote the form Virginian of an arcade, and supports village. The campus of the the order of University the second story, in which of Virginia as it now appears, has tar its material is confessed in a more and departure unity, dignity impressiveness from classical proportions and the "too- than the " " " heterogeneous college-yard wide intercolonations with which the of any other American institution of youthful Jefferson had found fault in the learning. It is not colonial strictly in old Capitol of Virginia. The material style, but in a great part prefigurement of the monumental of the of the Greek revival buildings which was shortly not to University, though always genuine, supplant colonial architecture. is solid and durable, and enough of it The professors' the " houses, pavil- is genuine to increase the wonder that: A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE. 35*

:such a project could have been carried which was under construction for the out the first of the cen- during quarter ensuing eight years, and indeed longer, The and tury. capitals bases of the though it was occupied in 1811. It re- columns are large of marble, cut in mains the most admirable specimen of of Italy ; the shafts brickwork covered architecture belonging to the city, be- with of which also the stucco, colon- ing effective in its composition, and of nades of the dormitories are built. It careful and scholarly design in its de- is evident that in Jefferson his archi- tail. In mechanical execution it was tectural zeal himself subjected to very far in advance of any building that his own admonition to Latrobe and had then been erected in " New York or in the article of " expense" was not in the country, and showed that a

HOUSE AND DORMITORIES ON THE CAMPUS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. sufficiently guarded,/' for before the body of stone-cutters had become avail- University was opened what was then able who could carry out with ..great the enormous sum of $300,000 had been precision and even with spirit an exten- spent upon it, and this extravagance sive design which involved a profuse combined with Jefferson's selection of use of carved decoration. It is note- a President tainted with Unitarianism worthy that in the discussion concern- to bring the University into popular ing the material to be employed, which disfavor and to make its early history resulted in the choice of marble for one of continual struggle. three of the fronts, it was an architect- It was in 1803 that the corner stone ural emulation of Philadelphia that was was laid of the City Hall of New York, invoked, although the Massachusetts

A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE. 353

State House, a much more monumental forms of the classic orders without edifice than existed elsewhere in the committing solecisms. It seems sim- United States, had been completed pler to believe that the two employed for five years. The report of the the same educated foreigner as building committee in favor of the draughtsman and designer. Though use of marble, made in September, ,the Albany Academy is much smaller " 1803, sets forth that seeing that and less costly than the City Hall, as a commercial city we claim a having but 90 feet of frontage, and superior standing, our imports and ex- costing but $90,000, it justifies the " ports exceeding any other in the United praise of the author of a Description " " States, we certainly ought, in this of Albany in 1823, as a large and ele- pleasing state of things, to possess at gant pile of masonry, in design and least one public building which shall execution the most chaste in the city ;" vie with the many now erected in Phil- for the only other secular public build- adelphia and elsewhere." The appeal ing then extant was the old Capitol was successful. The building was con- begun in 1810, and lately demolished structed with three fronts of marble to make room for the new. This was from Massachusetts, and with one, then much less considerable than the Acad- the least conspicuous, of brown sand- emy, being in a coarse version of stone from New Jersey. The frontage classic with a Corinthian portico of of the building is 215 feet 9 inches. Its columns of brickwork veneered with cost was not far from $500,000. marble, reeded instead of fluted. There John McComb was the architect of is nothing in its design which we can- record of the City Hall, but an obsti- not readily accept as within the power nate tradition affirms that the actual of the common American builder of designer was a Frenchman named Man- 1810. gin. The denial of the authorship to Dwelling houses necessarily precede McComb certainly receives some sup- "meeting houses," for either sacred or port from the most interesting and secular purposes, but the very first successful of the buildings of the same provision for shelter in a new country period at Albany, the Academy. This cannot be durable There is no part was begun in 1815, four years after the of the Atlantic coast in which timber completion of the City Hall, and fin- was not readily available at the time of ished in 1818. The design bears marks the first European settlements, and the of colonial building, from which the very first buildings must in all cases, earlier building is free, such as the have been log cabins. They continued emphasis given to the construction of the first dwellings of the pioneers as the walls in two planes, very frequent in settlement went inland, and indeed brickwork of the colonial period. But they still continue to be. But as soon the resemblance of the two buildings in as the settlement became permanent design is nevertheless very striking, and and provision for shelter other than as evidently is not the result of direct temporary, the log cabin ceased to be imitation on the part of the designer built. It would be interesting to know of the more recent while the detail in the date of the introduction into ; each case shows a like knowledge and America of the saw-mill, which for a propriety. McComb was certainly not century and more has determined and the architect of the Albany Academy, dominated the vernacular building of whose name is given as Seth Geer. If the country. It existed in Norway be- cen- we accept this and the corresponding fore the middle of the sixteenth record in respect to the New York tury, and a futile effort was made, by a it is worth to intro- building as final, we are required to Dutchman, noting, believe that two untraveled Americans duce it into England shortly after the But it did had acquired architectural training middle of the seventeenth. the enough to design buildings of consid- not accompany or closely follow erable elaboration and novelty as well advance of civilization until the present it is not uncommon as the power, then common among century, and indeed built well-trained carpenters, of applying the to find houses in New England

A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE. 355

within this century of which the clap- bricks for the mansion were burnt on boards bear the marks of the axe. It his own estate and under his own may at any rate be laid down as a rule direction, a fact which goes to prove, as that the new dwellings of the second well as his own explicit statement or third generation in any part of the eleven years later, that bricks were not -country were no longer log cabins. a staple commodity in Colonial Vir- To this rule there were exceptions and ginia. If the date of the old church one of them was noted by Jefferson, near Smithfield be accepted, it seems who says that in Virginia, in 1781, "the clear that the excellent bricks of that poorest people build huts of logs, laid structure, as well as the excellent horizontally in pens, stopping the in- bricklayers, must have been specially terstices with mud," and this, of course, imported. The earliest houses that is a description of the log cabin. But remain to us are for the most part of it is at least evident that the log-cabin rough masonary, sometimes with no was merely a shelter, and generally a brickwork, sometimes, as has already provisional shelter. No attempt, that been said, with so sparing a use of is to say, was made, when more costly brick as to indicate that it was an and more leisurely building became exotic and costly material. Of the possible, to develop the log-cabin either former class is the Sip house practically into a commodious or archi- on Bergen Heights, opposite New tecturally into a decorative dwelling. York, still or very lately stand- Nothing was developed here at all ing and inhabited by the seventh corresponding in skill or elaboration in descent from the Sip who built it in to the log-architecture of Switzerland 1666. Of the latter was the house at or Scandinavia, and such examples of Gowanus which was demolished about this architecture as are to be seen in twenty years ago, and which bore its this country are either importations, date, 1676, in figures of iron upon its like the admirable Swedish school- gable. The last Dutch house left in house shown at the Centennial Expo- Albany, on the other hand, demolished sition of 1876 and now in Central Park, in 1893, after an existence of two cen- or reproductions or imitations of Euro- turies, was entirely of brick, but of pean models, like the equally ad- brick unquestionably imported. Like mirable building erected for the State the Sip house on Bergen Heights, the of Idaho in the Columbian Exposition old houses at Hackensack of the end of 1893. It is perhaps unfortunate that of the seventeenth century and the be- the log-cabin should have been so ginning of the eighteenth, commemo- soon and so completely supplanted, rated by Mr. Black in his interesting but it is certain that it never attained paper in the ARCHITECTURAL RECORD to such a development, or exercised (Vol. JII, No. 3), were rectangles of such an influence upon succeeding rough masonry, one story high, with a buildings as entitles it to be mentioned superstructure of timber, including the in an account of architecture in gables. They derive their one touch America. of picturesqueness, probably an uncon- The date of the establishment of the scious touch, from the projection of first brick-kiln in America would be as the roof and of the floor-beams, with interesting to know as the date of the the simplest possible form of verandah, establishment of the first saw-mill. It needing no supports from beneath. It is is certain that bricks were made upon scarcely available for shade, but it forms both the Delaware and the Hudson an outside shelter and a protection early in the eighteenth century, but against eavesdropping. The same de- not likely that they were made exten- vice is a mark of the origin of such sively during the seventeenth. The Dutch farmhouses as still remain in earliest authentic instance I have Flatbush and other suburbs of Brook- been able to find of the use of native lyn. The suburbs of New York, in- brick is in the first public build- deed, both in Long Island and in New ings of Annapolis (1696-7). When Jef- Jersey, continued to be Dutch settle- ferson built Monticcllo, in 1770, the ments throughout the eighteenth cen-

A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE. 357

WARNER HOUSE, PORTSMOUTH, N. H. tury, and constitute the most important but most commonly with timber lined exception to the rule that colonial with ceiling and cased with feather- building was English building. They edged plank." Forty years earlier still scarcely constitute an exception to the Dankers and Sluyter wrote of Massa- rule that colonial architecture was chusetts: "All the houses are made of English architecture. small, thin cedar shingles, nailed Albany, indeed, remained Dutch long against frames and then filled in with after New York had become English. brick and other stuff, and so are their Morse, describing it in 1789 for his churches." It is obviously unlikely, by "American Geography," says that the the way, that bricks should have been " houses were built in the old Dutch imported for filling. What remains of Gothic style, with the gable end the earliest building of New England, to the street, which custom the first as well as inherent probability indi- settlers brought with them from Hol- cates that the "shingles "of this de- land." Albany, so largely brick-built scription are the same as the "feather- " " as it was long before this, must have edged plank of Jones and the con- made the impression of a durable as struction of scantling and plank" of well as of a quaint and picturesque Jefferson, and would now be called town upon the travelers from the South clap-boards. This was the vernacular as well as from New England. I have building of the colonies as it is of the already referred to Jefferson s depreca- states. There were but four brick tion of the universal use of wood in dwelling houses in Portsmouth, accord- Virginia. The rosy Jones had written ing to its annalist, before the beginning " sixty years earlier of Virginia: Here, of the present century. But while Al- as in other parts, they build with brick, bany doubtless derived from its ma- 35$ A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE,

terial a look of more permanence than Troy under excavation. A part, not other settlements, the only badge of more than half, of the Philipse manor- the "old Dutch Gothic" was in the house, now the City Hall of Yonkers, crow-stepped gables, though not all of was built during the seventeenth cen- them were crow-stepped, and the houses tury by Frederick Philipse the first were humble in dimensions and simple Lord of Philipsburg, and builder of the in construction. The Dutch house near church at Sleepy Hollow, the re- Tarrytown, built in 1650, which Wash- mainder being added by his grandson ington Irving, with the assistance of in 1745 in unquestionable English col- George Harvey, architect, rebuilt in onial. The workmanship of the old 1835, an d called Sunnyside, was a more partis substantial but rude, and the in- commodious residence after the re- terior fittings with their clumsy inould-

PADDOCK HOUSE, PORTSMOUTH, N. H.

than at building first, and yet Thack- ings the handiwork of a " suggest ship- described it as but a eray justly pretty wright turned joiner. But this edifice, little cabin of a " place." Nay, the built as it was by the richest man in great Vanderheyden palace," built in New York, shows the extreme of ele- and 1725, entirely Dutch in archi- gance that was attainable under the which was tecture, the boast and Dutch dynasty. wonder of Fort Orange, and the The town-houses of the prosperous weathercock of which now adorns merchants of New York and Boston Sunnyside, measured but fifty feet by and Philadelphia took on during the and had two twenty rooms on the eighteenth century a very similar as- floor. The Colonial ground early glories pect. Such examples as the Frankland shrink under investigation as proud and Hancock houses in Boston, the A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE. 35?

GOVERNOR LANGDON S HOUSE, PORTSMOUTH, N. H.

Walton house in New York, and the tically possible, and still further con- Arnold house in Philadelphia, show cealed by a balustrade. The Arnold the type, a solid symmetrical, rectang- mansion shows the limits of the ma- ular mansion of brick, sometimes son's craftsmanship, as it was allowed quioned, often covered with plaster, a to be exhibited in the town-houses. The substantial and decorous, but scarcely carpenters and the plasterers possessed artistic dwelling. Towards the close a much higher degree of skill, and to of the politically colonial period there the former the exterior as well as the came in, in New England and the Mid- interior decoration of the houses was dle colonies, the notion referred to by confided. In composition the only Cooper in "The Pioneers," and ap- architectural quality these mansions- parently shared by him that there had was the often effective proportion- was a certain indelicacy in the expo- ing of the stories to each other. The sure of the roof. Possibly this was an exterior decoration was confined to Anglomaniacal revolt against the steep the entrance, which was designed by roofs of the Dutch. At any rate the the carpenter, from the manuals of his roof in the most pretentious houses trade which he or his predecessors had came to be kept as low as was prac- brought from the old country. He 36o A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE.

followed his models with literal fidelity fortunes had been gained in commerce. chief of had been and with a high degree of mechanical The them, indeed, that of the made in the fisheries, an historical skill, and it is his detail and fact, mean which survives in a of Boston- plasterer that we commonly phrase ian the " codfish when we speak in praise of colonial origin, aristocracy." architecture. It was indeed very good It was the town houses that were the detail of its kind, the more taking by costly and pretentious dwellings, and contrast with what succeeded, when they were confined to the seaports, which the towns. the carpenter had passed an archi- were, indeed, only tectural declaration of independence What is now known as the Warner and trusted to his own invention. The house in Portsmouth, built by Captain " order that embraced the entrance McPhaedris, an opulent merchant," in formed an effective central feature, 1718, of bricks imported from Holland, whether or not it was accompanied by was the wonder not only of Portsmouth, the decorated window that often ap- but of all New England, for its solidity as in the Scott House and its which reached what was peared above it, cost, at Annapolis, or expanded into a por- then the prodigious sum of ^"6,000. It tico of two orders, as in the Pringle is unlikely that Boston itself contained House at Charleston. The schooled so pretentious a dwelling. Of its most and respectful carpenter of colonial famous colonial mansions the Frank- times survived in New York for at land house was built in 1735, the Han- least the first third of the nineteenth cock house in 1737, and the house of century, and the stonecutters arrived Governor Shirley in 1748. The Ports- at a skill sufficient to translate the prim mouth house is almost exactly contem- refinement of his work into more per- porary with the Vanderheyden palace, manent material. Thus St. John's and the comparison is instructive. It Park and Bond street and Washington is especially noteworthy as illustrating square were successively built up with how the colonial dwellings of New mansions that owed to this detail a England that are important enough to real attractiveness, and the well de- be considered an example of colonial signed and executed entrances lent a architecture were town houses and grace to a much humbler dwelling, the never country seats. brick high-stoop house, of two stories What is true of New England in this a basement and an attic that was the respect is true of Pennsylvania. It is typical New York dwelling until it was not quite true of New York, for New supplanted by the brownstone front. York possessed a landed gentry in the This type established itself in Albany holders of the manorial grants, and " and in the older towns of central and these possessed seats." The seats western New York, as a much simpler were not of much architectural im- type, indeed a type characterized by a portance. Most of those along the simplicity that amounted to baldness, Hudson River, were built of wood and spread itself westward from Philadel- have perished, and of those which were phia. At the end of the first quar- built of brick few had architectural ter of this century New Yorkers were pretensions or importance, beyond what architecturally better housed than was given to them by mere size. The either Philadelphians or Bostonians. manor-house of the Van Rensselaers, If the Virginian whose opinion of New of Rensselaers Wyck, was one of the York in 1789 we have quoted, had post- most pretentious as well as one of the poned his visit for forty or even thirty most successful of these, having form years he would have been compelled and comeliness as well as size, though to award it the prize of "elegance." the wings and the portico, that add so With respect to country houses, it is much to its attractiveness, were added to be noted that New England at no from the designs of Richard Upjohn in time possessed a landed gentry. The 1847 the body of the house dating rural parts of it were inhabited during from 1765. It must have been almost the colonial period by small farmers, as great a wonder in its time at Albany and the rich men were townsmen whose as the McPheadris house in Portsmouth

ARCHITECTURE. 362 A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL

Carolina" assures his readers- half a century before. The mechanical (1761) advance in the interval is in one respect that "the men and women who have a to the class of are more noteworthy, for whereas hewn stone right gentry was unknown in New Hampshire in numerous here than in any other colony sills and lintels in North America." However that 1720, the quoins, may of the Van Rensselaer house are of be it is certain that there was much this material. The same prodigality is visiting and entertaining between the and that the shown in a profusion of carved work plantations, plantation ruder houses were and built accord- in mahogany and pine, somewhat designed in execution and feebler in design than ingly. Unfortunately they built of such decoration could then have been wood, and their buildings have passed " found at the seaboard, but carved with away. The author of the Descrip- and with tolerable precision. The tion for Protestant Immigrants" (1731) spirit " other brick country-houses that remain assures us, tt is true, that if you travel

VANDERHEYDEN PALACE,

in New York and New Jersey are much into the country you will see stately plainer and simpler, following the type buildings, noble castles and an infinite of the Philipsburg manor-house at Yon- number of all sorts of cattle." But his kers, though the interiors are apt to style discredits him as the unscrupulous be decorated with some rather elabo- author of a prospectus with designs rate wood carving, often including a upon the Protestant immigrants, and room panelled in oak or pine, and he lacks specification. some very elaborate plastering. It was in Virginia and Maryland that It was in the South, however, that the great tobacco planters became the family seats most abounded. The most considerable landed gentry in the planters of rice and indigo in South colonies, and built houses to contain Carolina, for as yet cotton was not a themselves and their acquaintances- Southern crop, made money and spent which are the most extensive and the it easily. The author of "A Short most interesting of colonial country Description of the Province of South houses. "The inhabitants of Virginia,'" A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE. 363

" Eurke wrote, "are a cheerful, hospitable was only founded," and the nucleus and of them a many genteel, but some- of the present mansion constructed, in what vain and ostentatious people." 1700, Brandon about The Grove " 174 , The life of the of barons," the Poto- i746,Westover 1749. They were for the mac and the Rappahannock, York and most part as originally designed sym- the James and of the Chesapeake was metrical and rectangular masses of patriarchal, and when tobacco became brickwork, the projecting porches and a lucrative crop, they projected and verandahs of such as have them built their mansions on patriarchal being subsequent additions, required lines. Except for a short season at by a sunnier climate. Of exterior or Williamsburg Annapolis, they lived ornament there was little, and that .at home or at each other's homes, and little confined to the entrance. This

LONGFELLOW HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

they made their homes capacious ac- is the more remarkable because the cordingly. How patriarchal the life interiors are so elaborately wrought. was may be inferred from the advice The explanation, doubtless, is that in " of one Virganian to another, delivered the scarcity of handicraftsmen," the " within this century : Never buy an mere bricklaying was all that could be hereditary place, for many people done on the spot, while elaborate wood- think they have as much right there as work could be imported from England, the owner." The great houses of the and only put in place by the native lower James are ancient as we Ameri- workmen. One may pronounce with con- cans count antiquity. Shirley, the seat fidence that the rare specimens of hewn of the Shirley Carters, is said to have stone, such as the urns of Westover, teen built, though more probably it were carved in England and shipped from Vol. III.-3. 8.

VAN RENSSELAER MANOR HOUSE, ALBANY, N. Y.

EMKRTON HOUSE, SALEM, MASS. (REMODELED). 366 A HISTORY OF OLD COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE.

to sion of the stone-yard at London or Bristol American life, Colonial archi- the left the purchaser's wharf. Evidently tecture very much to be desired, ornamental iron work is from a foreign but what such a mode of building saved smithy. The embellishments of the us from, when as yet there were no mansions of Virginia and Maryland educated architects, may be seen from are, indeed, examples of English work what followed when the trained and of the period, and do not exhibit the deferential colonial carpenter was suc- are slight modifications of it which ceeded by the emancipated and dis- traceable at the North and differenti- respectful provincial carpenter. Even ated the later colonial from English. the freaks of the colonial carpenters, In Maryland, as the aspect of Annapolis and they sometimes indulged them- assures us, the scarcity of handicrafts- selves in freaks, were gentle and sub- men was less than in Virginia. The dued extravagance. The very timidity mansions were really designed, outside and feebleness that often accompanied as well as inside, and apparently by the refinement of their work becomes colonial mechanics. Homewood, in in the retrospect an engaging and built about but its amiable weakness Baltimore, was 1780, ; design is evidently a reminiscence of erected in that of Whitehall, 1740-50 No black-souled villain ever yet as the seat of Governor Sharpe. Performed upon the flageolet. Each of these, unlike the great Virginia houses, exhibits a real and effective It has been very well said of colonial " architectural composition, having unity, building that in the hands of a man of variety and subordination, with a dis- genius it would have been a poor tool, to it creet use of ornament good in itself but the men who had to use it, and appropriate in scale and in form to was salvation." The examples of it its place. Not many examples of which have been noticed in this survey domestic architecture since have been surely suffice to convict of singular more artistic, and none have expressed recklessness a popular historian of the more distinctly the notion of a deco- United States, who ventures to say that rous and refined social life. "there did not exist in the country," " Doubtless this expression is the high- in 1784, a single piece of architecture est achievement of colonial architect- which, when tried even by the standard ure, which it reaches oftener in the of that day, can be called respectable. minute detail of an interior than in the Not a church, not a public building, not design of a building, or even in the a house has been preserved to us that composition of a front. In the expres- is not a deformity."

Annals of Adams' Annals of Ports- United States Morse's American Annapolis; ; Geography, mouth Brewster's Rambles About Ports- Weise's of Scharf's His ; 1789 ; History Albany ; Burke's Account of the of mouth ; European Set- tory Maryland; Winsor's Memorial History 3 tlements in America Barons of the of Boston I and Its Environs An- ; Conway's ; hiladelphia ; Potomac and Frazer's nual Address Before the Institute of Rappahannock ; Reminis- American

cences of Charleston ; Meade's Old Families Address and Architects, 1876 (A. J. Bloor) ; Annual Churches of Historical Collections the 1881 Virginia ; ; Before American Institute of Architects, South N. H. B. Carolina, Y., 1836 ; Connecticut, (J. Latrobe) ; Harper's Weekly, April 25. New Haven and International Hartford, 1836 ; New York, 1885, February 13, 1892; Review, N. Y., 1842 ; Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1843 ; November-December, 1874 ; Century Magazine,

S. ; Historic Virginia, Charleston, C., 1845 January, 1891, June, 1891 ; Lippincott's Maga- Churches of America, Ameri- Philadelphia. 1893 ; Jef- zine, July, August, 1884 ; Magazine of ferson's Notes on ; can 1881 Architectural Rec- Virginia Jefferson's Writings History, October, ; N. Schouler's Life of No. (9 vols., Y., 1853-4); ord, Vol. I., No. 3, Vol. III., 3 ; Year Book

; Present State of of Chandler's Col- Jefferson Jones' Virginia, Trinity Parish, N. Y., 1894 ; Short London, 1723 ; A Description ot the onial Architecture of Maryland, Pennsylvania Province of South and Kimball Carolina, London, 1761 ; De- Virginia, Boston, 1892 (Bates, & scriptions of South Carolina for Protestant Im- Guild). To the publishers of the last-named

; Mason's Old and work we are indebted for to migrants, 1731 Newport New ; permission reproduce Mason's Reminiscences of Munsell's five illustrations in the article. Newport ; foregoing Annals of Albany ; McMaster's History of the Montgomery Schuyler. MEMORIAL WINDOW TO JAY GOULD, (Centre window of group of three.) Copyrighted 1894, by Tiffany Glass and Decorative Co. Designed by Frederick Wilson. MEMORIAL WINDOW TO JAY GOULD, (I^ft-hand window of the group of three.) Copyrighted 1894, by Tiffany Glass and Decorative Co. Designed by Frederick Wilson. MEMORIAL WINDOW TO JAY GOULD, (Right-hand window of a group of three.) Copyrighted 1894, by Tiffany Glass and Decorative Co. Designed by Frederick Wilson. WINDOWS IN OLIVET COL. CHAPEL, Mich. Olivet, Designed by Geo. E. Andro/ette & C< \uditorium the Dibblee Co, Hotel. Chicago, Ills. CERAMIC MOSAIC FLOOR, Designed by Henry BRONZE DOOR FOR THE MERCHANTS NATIONAL BANK BUILDING, Baltimore, Md. Executed by Hecla Iron Works. Baldwin & Pennington, Architects. Illinium I!

WROUGHT IRON GATEWAY, Designed by the late John W. Root. Executed by Winslow Bros. Co.

NEW BOOKS.

The Reign of Queen Anne. By Mrs. M. O. W. flect much credit upon the publishers, the Cen-

New York : The Co. Oliphant. Century tury Company. The reign of Queen Anne was not only one of the most eventful in English history, but Schools and Masters of Sculpture. By A. G. Radcliffe. York: D. & Co. it is distinguished as marking for the Anglo- New Appleton Saxon race, the culmination of a mood between This work will serve excellently for the general which and the genius of the people there is, one reader or for the student requiring a clear un- may say, a fundamental hostility. It is common technical text-book on the history of Sculpture. to speak of Queen Anne's times as the Augustan The author plainly has kept in view the deficien- Age. The title is inexact, but it serves suffi- cies and requirements of the uninstructed. The " ciently well to characterize the only age of work, consequently, is popular in style and pre- letters," in the restricted meaning of the term, sents to the reader rather the interesting facts of in English history. For the American archi- the plastic art than the essential ones. The tect the period will always possess a special in- philosophic note, the point of view, is entirely terest. It was the Age of Wren, when those absent. Instead, we have an easy conversational architectural forms were naturalized on British treatment which avoids difficulties and keeps the soil which subsequently inspired the earliest reader free from the embarrasment of technicali- attempts at architecture in this country. If some ties and the trouble of Striving for insight into familiarity with the social history of the times in the masterpieces described or the schools to which it arises is necessary to a full understanding which they belong. In this manner the entire of any particular phase of architecture, students history of the art is covered from the early realis- " " of the old colonial style cannot do better than tic Egyptian statues to the last productions of St. make a starting point with the history of Anne's Gaudens. Two chapters are given to the study reign. Mrs Oliphant's work will serve excel- of sculpture in the museums of Europe and lently for introductory reading. In a series of America an excellent idea which will be found biographies the chief events of the reign and the of real utility by travelers and students visiting distinguishing tone of the period are clearly and the great national collections. The volume is sympathetically set forth. In this case the bio- well and abundantly illustrated. graphical method imposes few limitations upon the historian, for it is remarkable how naturally Engineering Construction in Iron, Steel and the history of the times groups itself around a few Timber. By William Henry Warren. Lon- don: Green & Co. persons Anne, herself, Marlborough and his Longmans, ambitious wife; "dear adored Mrs. Freeman," It is impossible within the limits of a short of Swift and Addison, and the political and literary notice to consider in detail a work the charac- company that gathered about them. Mrs. Oli- ter of this one. The primary object in view in phant's work is remarkably pleasant reading. writing the book, the author says, was to prepare for students the first The story moves fluently in an easy, clear, felici- a text-book attending por- of his lectures of tous style which unfortunately is too frequently tion (University Sidney, New lacking in "history." The book is superbly South Wales,) on materials and structures, but illustrated and the binding and typography re- he considers that the work may be found useful Copyright, 1894, by THE CENTURY Co.

PRINCESS ANNE, " Frcm Mrs. Oliphant's Reign of Queen Anne.' NEW BOOKS. 377 not only to engineering students in technical col- ordinary text-book. To treat of the entire art of and but also to those the leges universities, engaged Renaissance period, especially when the Re- in the of constructional iron and steel. It naissance is design regarded as still continuing, in a is to the latter, we apprehend, that the work will book of only 300 pages requires an effort of con- be of most value, and by them it will be found densation which almost precludes a successful to contain a clearer and upon the whole more narrative. Mr. Goodyear, however, has told his statement of satisfactory the modern theory and story interestingly. It has nothing of the dis- practice of construction than is to be found else- jointed character common to the text-book. Each where. The excellent of that the reader takes plan giving examples step forward is a step selected from structures has been existing adopted. through the entire breadth of the subject. Pro- The author evidently is well acquainted with portion, too, is well observed, and the student is American practice. His eye one may say is greatly assisted by the interpolation in the text of constantly upon it and his familiarity with Euro- 203 engravings of the chief works of architect- methods enables him to a far more pean give ure, sculpture and painting of the period con- to his remarks than is to comprehensive scope be sidered. We very heartily recommend this work found in other work of similar In to any compass. our readers. It supplements the volume,. " common with technical books of the Roman and Mediaeval English Art," issued recently by the of this higher grade typography volume is the same author in the same series, of which we excellent an example to American publishers shall speak later. and authors.

Childhood in Literature and Art. A Study. By- The Place of Geology and History. Meeting By Horace E. Scudder. Houghton, Mifflin & Sir William F.R.S. New York, J. Dawson, Co. $1.25. Chicago and Toronto: Fleming H. Revell Company. Mr. Scudder is an essayist whose work invaria- bly possesses literary charm and music. His The object of this work is better indicated in " last volume is one of his most delightful the following passage than in its title : If we " essays. We are justified, "says Mr. Scudder, "in believ- take the Canstadt people to represent the under childhood to have been discovered at the tribes of the antidiluvian Cainites, the feebler ing close of the last century." Men, folk of Truchere, to represent the Sethites and women, lovers, maidens and youths have in literature the giant race of Cromagnon and Mentone as the figured ' ' from the earliest times, but it is in modern equivalent of the mighty men or Nephelim of days that the child has been added to Genesis who arose from the mixture of the two the dramatis personnce of literature. We do, of course, in the original stocks, we shall have a somewhat exact older writers catch occasional of child- parallel between the men of the caves and gravels glimpes ish but are occasional and and those we have so long been familiar with in figures, they fugitive Mr. Scudder the Book of Genesis." This is asserted with no glimpses only. goes curiously into- the subject and shows us in a series of delightful positiveness, but by adopting the theory of the chapters the part which childhood in comparative recency of man and denying that played Greek and Roman literature, in Christian the development of the savage into the civilized early and Mediaeval art, and in English, French and man, was the matter of the slow process that German literature and art. A is devoted some scientists claim it to have been, and by a chapter T indeed, how could it be omitted ? to Hans Chris- series of interesting reasoning, argument and tian Andersen the child's Shakespeare. A final illustration, the author endeavors to leave upon " chapter is given to Childhood in American Lit- the reader's mind the impression that there is a erary Art." strong relation between the primitive history of man in Genesis and scientific discovery. Costume of Colonial Times. By Alice Morse

Earle. New York : Renaissance and Modern Art. By Wm. H. Charles Scribners Sons.

: Press. Goodyear. Chautauqua Century It is a good sign, the interest which we are A work in which history and architecture inter- beginning to take in the early social history of penetrate is that recently issued by the Chautau- our country. The revival of Old Colonial Archi- is a mark of this qua Society from the pen of Wm. H. Goodyear. tecture interest. In spite of With Mr. ^Goodyear architecture and history the work that historians have done it is remark- are inseparable. Architecture with him is not able how many questions concerning the first the isolated fact that it appears to be in the period of American history may be asked with- 378 NEW BOOKS.

out finding answers. We have not yet a complete of Palermo" at a reduced price. This useful of history of Colonial Architecture. The dates work, it will be remembered, was originally even the most important buildings have to be published by Messrs. Ticknor & Co., at $5 for dug out of local histories. The author of this each part. The four parts of the work can now book has found the material for her work in be obtained for $12, and at this low price it letters, wills, inventories of estates, court records, should certainly find a place in every architect's and eighteenth century newspapers. The result library. The chief feature of the book, naturally, is a valuable glossary containing a great amount of is the prints, of which there are three, 13x18, in curious and interesting information. The work each part, besides a dozen plates of measured de- should certainly find a place on the historical tail work. The latter will be found of much prac- shelf of every library, and unlike many books of tical usefulness, as we know of no other work to reference it is distinctly good reading. which one can turn so readily for exact details of the unique architectural development which followed the Laiv. the Architect, Owner and Builder Before Norman conquest of Sicily. The engravings T. M. Clark. New York: Macmillan By are supplemented by adequate descriptions and & Co. $3.00. some interesting historical notes. Some legal knowledge is absolutely necessary to the safe of architecture. Hitherto practice The Renaissance Under the Valois. By Charles there has been no work at once adequate and T. Mathews, M.A. New York: Wm. T. Comstock. comprehensible to the lay mind to which the architect could turn for information. This defi- The attention which has recently been be- stowed American ciency has now been very adequately supplied by by architects on the earliest Mr. T. M. Clark's work. We recommend this phases of the Renaissance, gives especial value " to C. T. Mathew's work to our readers without any qualifications sumptuous work, The Re- naissance under the whatsoever. It is absolutely indispensable to Valois." This period of the classical revival offers the architect. It is not only a thorough piece of abundant precedents and well worth the work on the legal side, but it is very good reading examples attention of the modern architect in as well, and will give every architect who studies search of a style. It is certainly the most it a clear knowledge of his relationship to owner picturesque phase of the Renaissance. Mr. and builder as defined by the courts. Mathews has gathered from the great French collection of photographs the best examples of The Norman Momtments of Palermo. By Arne the style. He has added to these a careful and Dehli and G Howard Chamberlin. Boston : sympathetic essay, which describes the buildings American Architect and News Co. Building illustrated and surrounds them with the social It us to announce gives very great pleasure and artistic conditions amid which they were pro- that the American Architect is now offering duced. The illustrations are excellently done Dehli and Chamberlin's " Norman Monuments and the volume is handsomely bound.