A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volume 1, 3rd ed. / From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

by James Fergusson

The date of this temple has not been satisfactorily ascertained. From the nail-holes of the inscription on the frieze it has been attempted to make out the names of Caius and Lucius Cæsar, and there is nothing in the style of its architecture to contradict this hypothesis. Even if the buildings in the capital were such as to render this date ambiguous, it would scarcely be safe to apply any argument derived from them to a provincial example erected in the midst of a Grecian colony. But for their evidence we might almost be inclined to fancy its style represented the age of Trajan.

The temple of Diana in the same city is another edifice of singular beauty of detail, and interesting from the peculiarity of its plan. Exclusive of the portico it is nearly square, 70 ft. by 65, and consists of a cella which is covered with a stone ribbed vault, the thrust of which is counteracted by smaller vaults thrown across two side passages or aisles which are, however, not thrown open to the cella. The columns in the cella are detached from the wall, which is singularly interesting as the origin of much which we find afterwards in Gothic work. (A somewhat similar arrangement is found in the small temple at Baalbec (Woodcut No. [197]) where, however, the peristyle occupies the position and serves the same purpose as the aisles at Nîmes, viz., to resist the thrust of the vault over the cella.)

188. Plan of Temple of Diana at Nîmes. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

Throughout this building the details of the architecture are unsurpassed for variety and elegance by anything found in the metropolis, and are applied here with a freedom and elegance bespeaking the presence of a Grecian mind even in this remote corner of the Empire. Another interesting feature is the porch. This was supported by four slender columns of singularly elegant design, but placed so widely apart that they could not have carried a stone entablature. It is difficult to guess what could have been the form of the wooden ones; but a mortice which still exists in the walls of the temple shows that it must have been eight or ten feet deep, and therefore probably of Etruscan form (Woodcut No. [167]); though it may have assumed a circular arched form between the pillars.[^[167]]

189. View of the Interior of the Temple of Diana at Nîmes. (From Laborde.)

Another peculiarity is, that the light was introduced over the portico by a great semicircular window, as is done in the Buddhist caves in India; which, so far as I know, is the most perfect mode of lighting the interior of a temple which has yet been discovered.

Not far from the Colosseum, in the direction of the Forum, are still to be seen the remains of a great double temple built by the Emperor Hadrian, and dedicated to Venus and Rome, and consisting of the ruins of its two cells, each about 70 ft. square, covered with tunnel-vaults, and placed back to back, so that their apses touch one another. These stand on a platform 480 ft. long by 330 wide; and it is generally supposed that on the edge of this once stood 56 great columns, 65 ft. in height, thus moulding the whole into one great peripteral temple. Some fragments of such pillars are said to be found in the neighbourhood, but not one is now erect,—not even a base is in its place,—nor can any of its columns be traced to any other buildings. This part, therefore, of the arrangement is very problematical, and I should be rather inclined to restore it, as Palladio and the older architects have done, with a corridor of ten small columns in front of each of the cells. If we could assume the plan of this temple to have been really peripteral, as supposed, it must have been a building worthy of the imperial city and of the magnificence of the emperor to whom its erection is ascribed.

More perfect and more interesting than any of these is the Pantheon, which is undoubtedly one of the finest temples of the ancient world. Externally its effect is very much destroyed by its two parts, the circular and the rectangular, being so dissimilar in style and so incongruously joined together. The portico especially, in itself the finest which Rome exhibits, is very much injured by being prefixed to a mass which overpowers it and does not harmonise with any of its lines. The pitch, too, of its pediment is perhaps somewhat too high, but, notwithstanding all this, its sixteen columns, the shaft of each composed of a single block, and the simple grandeur of the details, render it perhaps the most satisfactory example of its class.