DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.791#0025
CHAPTER II.
THE PROPYL^EA.
The prototype of this beautiful building is still to be seen in the Athenian Acropolis. The
elaborate and valuable work on the antiquities of this interesting spot, contains the plans and
details of the edifice. It is to the Society of Dilettanti that the public owes these faithful
documents*.
The indefatigable author of the work alluded to, driven from Athens by the prevailing factions,
before he could accomplish the end of his labours, was reluctantly obliged to quit the country
without obtaining measured drawings of the Propylsea. Before the appearance of the second
volume of the work, which was published on his return to England, Dr. Chandler, under whose
direction the artists of the mission sent abroad by the Society were placed, after exploring a
considerable portion of the coasts of Asia-Minor, returned by way of Athens, and succeeded in
completing what had been left unfinished by his precursors.
The subject of Grecian Architecture was at that period quite new to European artists, and it
happened, in consequence, that several peculiarities of the novel style of building were either
overlooked or not sought after. The present publication will amply atone for all such deficiencies.
In speaking of the resemblance existing between the Propylasa of Athens and Eleusis, it is to
be observed, that the central building of the former is alone brought forward in the comparison:
the adjoining edifices, although connected with it by walls and carried up at the same time, are
two distinct buildings; the purposes for which they were designed having no reference whatever
to the destination of the almost insulated portal between them. Pausanias informs us, that one of
them, on the right hand of the spectator on entering the Acropolis, was the Temple of Apteral-
Victory, and the other a chapel containing several of the paintings of Polygnotus f.
* Stuart's Antiquities of Athens, vol. ii. f Pausanias, i. 22.
THE PROPYL^EA.
The prototype of this beautiful building is still to be seen in the Athenian Acropolis. The
elaborate and valuable work on the antiquities of this interesting spot, contains the plans and
details of the edifice. It is to the Society of Dilettanti that the public owes these faithful
documents*.
The indefatigable author of the work alluded to, driven from Athens by the prevailing factions,
before he could accomplish the end of his labours, was reluctantly obliged to quit the country
without obtaining measured drawings of the Propylsea. Before the appearance of the second
volume of the work, which was published on his return to England, Dr. Chandler, under whose
direction the artists of the mission sent abroad by the Society were placed, after exploring a
considerable portion of the coasts of Asia-Minor, returned by way of Athens, and succeeded in
completing what had been left unfinished by his precursors.
The subject of Grecian Architecture was at that period quite new to European artists, and it
happened, in consequence, that several peculiarities of the novel style of building were either
overlooked or not sought after. The present publication will amply atone for all such deficiencies.
In speaking of the resemblance existing between the Propylasa of Athens and Eleusis, it is to
be observed, that the central building of the former is alone brought forward in the comparison:
the adjoining edifices, although connected with it by walls and carried up at the same time, are
two distinct buildings; the purposes for which they were designed having no reference whatever
to the destination of the almost insulated portal between them. Pausanias informs us, that one of
them, on the right hand of the spectator on entering the Acropolis, was the Temple of Apteral-
Victory, and the other a chapel containing several of the paintings of Polygnotus f.
* Stuart's Antiquities of Athens, vol. ii. f Pausanias, i. 22.