Architecture for general students (1874) (14762124806)

Identifier: architectureforg00hort (find matches)
Title: Architecture for general students
Year: 1874 (1870s)
Authors: Horton, Caroline W
Subjects: Architecture
Publisher: New York, Hurd and Houghton Cambridge, The Riverside press
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN



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161 feet broad by 367 feet long. It is saidto have been dedicated to Jupiter. The temple atAgrigentum is remarkable as surrounded only withhalf pillars, which are attached to a wall, and, also,for the arrangement of seven half pillars in front tofourteen on the side, — a very peculiar deviationfrom the ordinary rule. The proportions in theseearly buildings are very heavy, the entablaturesmassive, the columns short and tapering consider-ably, while the material is a coarse-grained lime-stone, and the general effect weighty and ruderather than grand. The magnificent ruins of P^estum, standing, asthey do, solitary and alone with no human habita-tion in view, seem as if they had risen from theground by supernatural power. Surrounded atpresent by a wilderness, they have seen the genera-tions of men, one after another, die out and finallydisappear, while they, in their grandeur and majesty,have defied alike the wasting of time and the ele-ments, and now speak to us of the art and refine-
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ITHENEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRAR, ASTOR, LENOX ANDTILDEN FOUNDATIONS. Grecian Architecture. 65 ment of an age that was, doubtless, more ancient tothat of Pericles than are the early colonial days ofVirginia to our own time. The central temple,known as the temple of Poseidon or Neptune, isthe largest, and evidently the most ancient. Wil-kins says, It is coeval with the earliest period ofthe Grecian emigration to Southern Italy ; and,also, Low columns with a great diminution of theshafcs, bold, projecting capitals, a massive entab-lature, and triglyphs placed at the angles of thezoophorous, are strong presumptive proofs of itsgreat antiquity. It is exceedingly interesting asbeing the only temple where the hypaethral struc-ture is fully preserved. The floor of the cella israised nearly five feet above that of the surroundingdouble peristyle, and, therefore, an ascent of fivesteps is necessary to reach it. The temple next insize is called the Basilica, although unlike otheredifices of this kind