FIG. 32. MONUMENT TO AUGUSTUS, LA TURBIE.
La Turbie (Turbia or Trophæa), a small town standing on an inland pass formed by a notch in the mountains, which here rise in great precipices directly from the sea. On this neck a trophy was built in commemoration of the victories of Augustus over the Alpine tribes. The monument ([Fig. 32]) has been of great size, and is built with large blocks of stone. It probably stood on a square base, on which was erected the great circular mass above. It was adorned with statues, and a colossal figure of the emperor crowned the top. The design would thus resemble a great many of the splendid mausoleums erected about that time in Italy. As above noticed this edifice bears a strong likeness to the Tour Magne at Nimes. The massive Roman work is still traceable in the lower parts filled in with rubble between. Fragments of an inscription have been found in the ruins commemorating the triumphs of the divine Emperor and High Priest Augustus. In mediæval times this monument was, as usual, converted into a fortress, as the work of the upper part still shews. It is executed in inferior masonry, and the cornice is Italian in character. The fortress was blown up by Marshal de Villars in the seventeenth century. The gateways of the town (see [Part VI.]) and other structures have been built with massive stones from the ruins of the trophy, which, as so often happens, has been used as a convenient quarry.
A splendid view of the coast is obtained from the summit, including Monaco, Monte Carlo, Mentone, and point after point to the eastward leading into Italy. But though we now stand on the borders of Italy, we should still have far to travel through the land ere we encountered such a fine series of Roman structures as those we have just been contemplating. Not till we reach Verona, or Rome itself, are monuments to be found comparable with the amphitheatres of Arles and Nimes, or the theatre of Orange; and there is probably no temple even in Rome so complete and striking in its unity and spirit as the Maison Carrée at Nimes. But our way lies not across this border. We must now turn back and follow in the later edifices the course of Roman Art after the Fall of the Empire, and the growth and development of the new styles which sprung from it.
V.
THE transition from the architecture of Rome to that of mediæval times forms one of the most interesting and instructive epochs in our art. The whole history of Roman art is that of a transition from the external trabeated style, with its horizontal entablature, which was common to the early races of Greece and Italy, to the complete development of the internal arched architecture, which was the final outcome of Roman constructional forms.
The leading features of that Italo-Greek architecture contain a reminiscence or survival of the primitive elements of wooden construction, from which they were doubtless traditionally derived, although in the course of time their origin had been lost sight of. Thus the upright pillars with their flutings are idealised descendants of the Egyptian column, which again represents a bundle of reeds tied together. The horizontal entablature is derived from the beams laid across the heads of the pillars, in accordance with the earliest and most natural mode of wooden construction. The pediment is the evident continuation (both in place and time) of the couples and ties of a wooden roof of the simplest and most primitive design; while the side cornice represents the projection of the eaves, and the triglyphs and modillions are the imitative survivals of the ends of the cross beams or ties and the sloping rafters of the wooden roof. For centuries this trabeated principle prevailed in Rome; but together with it there existed a disturbing element, which at first appeared to be small and insignificant, but which nevertheless contained the elements of the greatest revolutions in architecture which the world has yet seen. That little feature was the arch, the distinguishing principle of true stone construction—the seed containing the germ from which, through Roman cultivation, have sprung all the great families of mediæval architecture, whether Byzantine, Gothic, or Saracenic.