A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volume 1, 3rd ed.: From the Earliest Times to the Present DayFergusson, James
History
A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volume 1, 3rd ed.: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day
Fergusson, James
Architecture -- History
The next change was to separate the interior into a cell and porch by a
wall with a large doorway in it, as in the small temple at Rhamnus
(Woodcut No. 148), where the opening however can scarcely be called a
doorway, as it extends to the roof. A third change was to put a porch of
4 pillars in front of the last arrangement, or, as appears to have been
more usual, to bring forward the screen to the positions of the pillars
as in the last example, and to place the 4 pillars in front of this.
None of these plans admitted of a peristyle, or pillars on the flanks.
To obtain this it was necessary to increase the number of pillars of the
portico to 6, or, as it is termed, to make it hexastyle, the 2 outer
pillars being the first of a range of 13 or 15 columns, extended along
each side of the temple. The cell in this arrangement was a complete
temple in itself—distyle in antis, most frequently made so at both ends,
and the whole enclosed in its envelope of columns, as in Woodcut No.
149. Sometimes the cell was tetrastyle or with four pillars in front.
[Illustration: 149. Plan of Temple of Apollo at Bassæ. Scale 100 ft. to
1 in.]
[Illustration: 150. Plan of Parthenon at Athens. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
[Illustration: 151. Plan of the great Temple at Selinus. (From Hittorff,
‘Arch. Antique en Sicile.’) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.]
In this form the Greek temple may be said to be complete, very few
exceptions occurring to the rule, though the Parthenon itself is one of
these few. It has an inner hexastyle portico at each end of the cell;
beyond these outwardly are octastyle porticoes, with 17 columns on each
flank.
The great Temple at Selinus is also octastyle, but it is neither so
simple nor so beautiful in its arrangement; and, from the decline of
style in the art when it was built, is altogether an inferior example;
still, as one of the largest of Greek Doric temples, its plan is worthy
of being quoted as an illustration of the varying forms of these
temples.
Another great exception is the great temple at Agrigentum (Woodcuts Nos.
152 and 154), where the architect attempted an order on so gigantic a
scale that he was unable to construct the pillars with their architraves
standing free. The interstices of the columns are therefore built up
with walls pierced with windows, and altogether the architecture is so
bad, that even its colossal dimensions must have failed to render it at
any time a pleasing or satisfactory work of art.
A fourth exception is the double temple at Pæstum, with 9 pillars in
front, a clumsy expedient, but which arose from its having a range of
columns down the centre to support the ridge of the roof by a simpler
mode than the triangular truss usually employed for carrying the roof
between two ranges of column.
[Illustration: 152. Plan of Great Temple at Agrigentum. Scale 100 ft. to
1 in.]
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