After my speculations on the ancient, I should like to give you some
account of the modern productions, but my idea of Turkish architecture
is very imperfect, and will probably remain so, as the only place in
which it can be appreciated is Constantinople. Yet in what I have seen
there are some beautiful particulars, though perhaps, even more than in
Italy, they are beauties of a hot climate. The stables, and some of the
offices, are on the ground-floor. In our own lodging, the stoves for
cooking are under the steps which ascend externally to the upper
apartments. The rooms of the master of the family, and many also of
those appropriated to the servants are on the first floor. There is
occasionally a low story, or mezzanine, between the basement and the
principal rooms, but never anything over the latter, except that in
large houses there is sometimes a sort of tower rising above the general
roof, and containing one large room with windows on three sides, or
perhaps all round it. Such a room as this, was the hall with twenty-four
windows which terminated the palace of Aladdin in the Arabian Nights.
The best house I have seen is that of the bey of Corinth; the principal
part of the building is in the form of the letter L, forming two sides
of a square, and in the corner is a flight of steps leading to the
gallery and the principal floor. This gallery is never omitted in any
decent house; it is always of wood, and the principal rooms open
immediately into it. Our verandas seem to be imitated from it, but its
greater depth, and projecting roof, with deeply ornamented eaves, render
it much superior in effect. The entrance into this palace, like that of
other houses, is by a court, but externally, the walls rise immediately
on the summit of a steep, rocky bank, below which are the gardens, and
it thus commands a view of the plain and gulf of Corinth, and the
situation is very good both for seeing and being seen; though the almost
naked plain of Corinth does not form a very fine foreground. Underneath
the gallery, in the court, is a range of arches, which in England you
might call Saxon, supported on short, round pillars, which do not
correspond with the posts of the gallery above. The walls of this
gallery have been ornamentally painted, but the painting and ornaments
are almost gone. Beyond the part now described is a range of offices,
and beyond these the women’s apartments, which are of course invisible.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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