DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18826#0215
14 ARCHITECTURE. [LECT. I.
the edifices were low, in proportion to their extent,
and every method was adopted to procure- a ftream
of temperate air, or a breadth of cooling shade. To
accomplish this, a forest of piliars supported an
enormous superstructure, and the colonade almost
forbad the light of the sun, that it might shut out
his beams.
In Attica they had rain, and therefore raifed their
roofs to throw it off: in Attica they had the cool-
ing breeze, and therefore might venture to elevate
the column from four, or five, diameters, to eight
or ten: in Attica the people were addicted to mirth
and festivity, and the character of their buildings
was correspondent to their cheerfulnefs. Elegant
proportion, therefore, was studied here; and to
adorn their edifices with splendor, was agreeable to
the disposition of a people so " merry as the
Greeks:" while the voluptuous Roman expended
his riches on decoration; covered with ornament
every part of his structure, in defiance of expence;
and lavished in wanton effusions of magnificence,
real or imaginary, the ill-gotten revenues of con-
quered provinces.
There remains yet to notice an order of religious
buildings, different in many respects from anv of the
former; for, Christianity, though at first obliged bv
persecution to pcrrorm in obscurity much of its
congregational devotion, vet desires not obscurity
as agreeable to its genius. On the contrary, when
well understood, it is cheerful! and animating: —
what has, it then, to do with the darknefs of th
oracular cave, or the madness of midnight orgies,?
the edifices were low, in proportion to their extent,
and every method was adopted to procure- a ftream
of temperate air, or a breadth of cooling shade. To
accomplish this, a forest of piliars supported an
enormous superstructure, and the colonade almost
forbad the light of the sun, that it might shut out
his beams.
In Attica they had rain, and therefore raifed their
roofs to throw it off: in Attica they had the cool-
ing breeze, and therefore might venture to elevate
the column from four, or five, diameters, to eight
or ten: in Attica the people were addicted to mirth
and festivity, and the character of their buildings
was correspondent to their cheerfulnefs. Elegant
proportion, therefore, was studied here; and to
adorn their edifices with splendor, was agreeable to
the disposition of a people so " merry as the
Greeks:" while the voluptuous Roman expended
his riches on decoration; covered with ornament
every part of his structure, in defiance of expence;
and lavished in wanton effusions of magnificence,
real or imaginary, the ill-gotten revenues of con-
quered provinces.
There remains yet to notice an order of religious
buildings, different in many respects from anv of the
former; for, Christianity, though at first obliged bv
persecution to pcrrorm in obscurity much of its
congregational devotion, vet desires not obscurity
as agreeable to its genius. On the contrary, when
well understood, it is cheerful! and animating: —
what has, it then, to do with the darknefs of th
oracular cave, or the madness of midnight orgies,?