DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29898#0350
314
ROMAN ARCIIITECTURE,
Paet I,
the wall, using thern as a string-course. A slight degree of practice
woulcl soon have enahlecl thern—by panelling the pier, cutting off its
angles, or sorne such expedient—to have ohtained the degree of light-
ness or of ornaruent they required, and so really to have invented a
new orcler.
This, however, was not the course that the Romans pursued. What
they did was to remove the pier altogether, and to substitute for it
the pillar taken down from its pedestal. This of course was not
effected at once, hut was the result of many trials and expedients. One
of the earliest of these is observed in the Ionic Temple of Concord
before alluded to, in which a concealed arch is thrown from the head
of each pihar, but above the entablature, so as to take the whole
weight of the superstructure from off the cornice between the pillars.
When once this was done it was perceived that so deep an entablature
was no longer required, ancl that it might be either wholly omittecl,
as was sometimes clone in the centre intercolumniation, or very much
reduced. There is an old temple at Talavera in Spain, which is a
good example of the former expedient; ancl the Roman gateway at
Damascus is a remarkable instance of the latter. There the architrave,
frieze and cornice are carried across in the form of an arch from pier
to pier, thus constituting a new feature in architectural design.
In Diocletian’s reign we find all these changes alreacly introduced
into domestic architecture, as shown in Woodcut Ro. 185, representing
the great court of his palace at Spalato, where, at one end, the
ROMAN ARCIIITECTURE,
Paet I,
the wall, using thern as a string-course. A slight degree of practice
woulcl soon have enahlecl thern—by panelling the pier, cutting off its
angles, or sorne such expedient—to have ohtained the degree of light-
ness or of ornaruent they required, and so really to have invented a
new orcler.
This, however, was not the course that the Romans pursued. What
they did was to remove the pier altogether, and to substitute for it
the pillar taken down from its pedestal. This of course was not
effected at once, hut was the result of many trials and expedients. One
of the earliest of these is observed in the Ionic Temple of Concord
before alluded to, in which a concealed arch is thrown from the head
of each pihar, but above the entablature, so as to take the whole
weight of the superstructure from off the cornice between the pillars.
When once this was done it was perceived that so deep an entablature
was no longer required, ancl that it might be either wholly omittecl,
as was sometimes clone in the centre intercolumniation, or very much
reduced. There is an old temple at Talavera in Spain, which is a
good example of the former expedient; ancl the Roman gateway at
Damascus is a remarkable instance of the latter. There the architrave,
frieze and cornice are carried across in the form of an arch from pier
to pier, thus constituting a new feature in architectural design.
In Diocletian’s reign we find all these changes alreacly introduced
into domestic architecture, as shown in Woodcut Ro. 185, representing
the great court of his palace at Spalato, where, at one end, the