Hall, James: Essay on the origin, history and principles of Gothic architecture (London, 1813) [Cicognara, 527]

140

ESSAY ON

chap. vi. productions of the Augustan age and that century."

But in my opinion, this has by no means been the
practice of the architects, who, satisfied with the mere
name of antiquity, have never looked high enough for
their models, but have condescended to copy into
their works the barbarous innovations of lower times.
Of this we meet with numberless examples in the

The broken modern edifices of Rome, in which the broken enta-

entablature.

blature prevails very generally, and in which most of
the ancient rules of composition are set at defiance.
In order to illustrate this, we may compare together
the front of St. Peter's at Rome, a work of the greatest
fame among the moderns, with the Maison Quarree of
Nimes, a Corinthian temple of the Augustan age. In
the front of St. Peter s no two pair of columns stand
upon the same line of front, nor at equal intervals
asunder; the entablature partakes of the confusion of
the columns, and is broken in a number of projecting
and entering parts; the columns are divided in the
middle of their height by a solid gallery of stone;
and the whole is frittered by the introduction of
several rows of windows, and crowned with an attic
story.

In the Maison Quarree the entablature is unbroken ;