Second Græco-Roman Room.
XXXVII. Second Græco-Roman Room, or Rotunda, sixty feet in diameter, and about sixty feet high in the centre, being surmounted by a hemispherical dome.—This room is, with slight variations, and on a somewhat smaller scale, a copy of the Rotunda in the Museum of Berlin, an apartment universally admired for its architectural beauty, and only defective as a hall for sculpture from the unnecessary smallness of the central skylight. The entablature over the columns would support a gallery, opening into the first floor of the western buildings.
Third Græco-Roman Room.
XXXVIII. Third Græco-Roman Room, similar to the first, but only one hundred and one feet long, exclusive of the northern alcove.
The spaces between the lateral alcoves on the east side of the First and Third Græco-Roman Rooms might either be covered with glass, or left open for ventilation, though the second arrangement would involve a provision for the drainage below.
Summary of accommodation for Græco-Roman Sculptures.
The amount of accommodation for Græco-Roman sculptures cannot, from the form of the rooms, be stated with the same exactness as that for the Greek. Exclusive of the alcoves, there would be in the—
| Superficial Area. | Length of Wall-space. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Galley | 2,756 | square feet. | 180 | linear feet. |
| Third Gallery | 2,626 | „ | 152 | „ |
| 5,382 | „ | 332 | „ | |
The Rotunda would not have available space in proportion to its size. Twelve statues or busts between the columns, and perhaps a large sculpture in the centre, would be the natural complement of the room. The wall-space behind the columns would not be available for sculpture. The total accommodation in the three rooms would amply suffice for our present collection, even somewhat enlarged. |Means of future enlargement.| As it increased, however, further space might be obtained by erecting in the first and third rooms transverse walls, opposite the alcoves in the Roman galleries, thus subdividing the first room into three principal compartments, with a small lobby at each end, and the third into three compartments (of which the most northern would need some modification), with a lobby at the south end. The doorways through these walls might be twelve feet wide, so as to preserve the continuous appearance of the suite; and they would still leave one hundred and twelve feet of additional wall-space in the first room, and eighty-four in the third. The lighting would be somewhat improved by such an alteration.
Western Galleries.