How to Study Architecture

by Charles H. Caffin

To the lay-student, at least, the actual forms of Roman architecture are of less interest than the uses to which they were put. For the Roman genius was displayed in practicalness; in the resourcefulness with which it extended the scope of architecture to serve the necessities and ideals of life. Hence the temple-form has ceased to occupy the chief attention; the truly monumental character of Roman architecture is distributed over a variety of achievements of magnificence and utility.

Temple Plans.—The plan of the Roman temple was circular, polygonal, or rectangular; the last being the most usual type. The best preserved example is the so-called “Maison Carrée” at Nîmes in Provence, which was erected during the reign of Hadrian (A.D. 117-138). Its form is of the favourite kind: pseudo-peripteral, that is to say, the columns which surround the sides and end are not detached from but built into the walls of the cella. The portico has a deep projection, supported by ten detached columns. As usual in a Roman temple the stylobate is replaced by a podium, in this case about twelve feet high, which projects in front, enclosing the entrance steps. The columns are of the Corinthian order, 32 feet in height, supporting an entablature which measures 8 feet to the lower angles of the pediment. The frieze is bored with holes, in which it is supposed the letters of an inscription were fixed, and the cornice is richly decorated.

Another very interesting example at Nîmes is the so-called Temple of Diana, which probably was a nymphæum, or structure for flowers, statuary, and fountains, attached to some thermæ. The plan shows a central chamber, flanked by two passages; the exterior walls being devoid of columns. Meanwhile, the interior walls of the central chamber have a series of detached columns, supporting an entablature from which spring the curves of the barrel-vaulted ceiling. The outward thrust of the latter is offset by the continuous vaulting of the side-passages. It is probable, as we shall see, that this arrangement furnished a type for many of the Romanesque churches of Southern France.

Of the circular temples the best known examples are the Temple of Mater Matuta in Rome, the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli, and the Pantheon. Nothing but a few fragments remain of the Temple of Vesta in the Forum Romanum. The first named, situated in the Forum Boarium, is peripteral, consisting of a cylindrical cella, 28 feet in diameter surrounded by a circular colonnade of 20 Corinthian columns, 34 feet 7 inches high; the whole standing on a podium raised 6 feet from the ground. In the case of the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli the Corinthian columns, 18 in number, are 11 feet lower. “The reason for this difference,” writes Professor Banister-Fletcher, “is instructive. The Temple of Mater Matuta, placed in a low, flat situation, has columns of slender proportion in order to give it the required height; whereas the Tivoli example, placed on the edge of a rocky prominence and thus provided with a lofty basement, has columns of sturdier proportions.” A further difference is found in the foliage decoration of the capitals of the two temples; those of the Temple of Mater Matuta having pointed leaves of the Hellenic type of acanthus, while in the Temple of Tivoli the Roman type is adhered to.

The most famous circular example, as well as the most impressive of Roman temples to the modern mind, is the Pantheon. Investigation has proved that the circular part or Rotunda occupies the site of an earlier nymphæum, on the south side of which, in the reign of Augustus, B.C. 27, Agrippa erected a temple, consecrated to the Divinities of the Julian house under the name of Pantheum (“all-holy”). Hence the inscription on the frieze of the present portico: “M. Agrippa L. F. Cos. tertium fecit.” This temple, which, from Pliny’s account seems to have had a dome, was destroyed in the great fire in A.D. 80.

The present edifice was built by Hadrian, A.D. 120-124. The Rotunda occupies, as we have said, the site of an ancient nymphæum, the floor of which, however, was raised 8 feet. Agrippa’s portico was removed from the south to the north side and set up with a front of 8 columns instead of 10. There are 16 in all. The portico is supported by 16 Corinthian columns, each a granite monolith 42½ feet high, with marble Corinthian capitals. The tympanum was originally filled with bronze reliefs, representing a gigantomachia, or battle of the gods and giants.

The walls of the rotunda, which are of solid tufa concrete, faced with thin bricks, are nearly twenty feet thick. This mass was partly to support the dome and partly to admit of eight recesses, opening from the interior. One forms the entrance, while three of the others are semicircular in plan and the remaining four rectangular. The exterior walls, carried far above the spring of the dome, was veneered with porphyry and marble and enriched with Corinthian pilasters and sculptured ornament, a considerable part of which still exists.

Meanwhile, it is the interior of the building that presents the chief impressiveness. Here the walls, which originally were faced with precious Oriental marbles, extend to a height of only two stories, crowned by the vast dome, which in the interior has a height equal to its diameter—one hundred forty-two and one-half feet. It is embellished with coffers, which in order to assist the perspective effect are foreshortened, diminishing in width as they ascend. Thus the gaze is carried up with a sweep to the central aperture at the summit, an open circle twenty-seven feet in diameter, the sole source of light to the interior. “One great eye opening upon Heaven—by far the noblest conception for lighting a building to be found in Europe.” It is as if the soaring imagination of the architect could brook no limit to its vision and must incorporate with his vault the firmament itself. In this magnificent audacity men have seen a symbolic reference to the ancient worship of Jupiter, the god of gods, beneath the open vault of heaven. Meanwhile, the architect may have derived the idea from the old nymphæum with its court open to the sky. And of the two, some will prefer to believe the latter, seeing in it a beautiful illustration of how the artist can and sometimes will use the requirements of practical conditions as an inspiration to the creativeness of his own imagination.

From structures circular in plan, we may pass to those in which the plan had the form of an ellipse, or comprised as its chief feature portions of a circle. In the first class belong the amphitheatres and to the latter the various circuses and theatres.

The prototype of all these was the Hellenic Theatre, in the construction of which the architect took advantage of a sloping site.