Triumphs and Wonders of the 19th Century: The True Mirror of a Phenomenal Era: A volume of original, entertaining and instructive historic and descriptive writings, showing the many and marvellous achievements which distinguish an hundred years of material, intellectual, social and moral progressBoyd, James P. (James Penny)
History
Triumphs and Wonders of the 19th Century: The True Mirror of a Phenomenal Era: A volume of original, entertaining and instructive historic and descriptive writings, showing the many and marvellous achievements which distinguish an hundred years of material, intellectual, social and moral progress
Boyd, James P. (James Penny)
Inventions; Progress
In Austria, Vienna has developed wonderfully since the days of Maria
Theresa. The classic Parliament House by Hansen, in 1843, is one of
the most delightful of its kind to be found anywhere; Schmitt’s Gothic
town-hall is interesting, but cannot be said to be so successful in
design; the Votive Church by Ferstel, in 1856 (also Gothic), the
Opera House by Siccardsburg and Van der Nüll, with the City Theatre,
an elaborate Renaissance structure, by Semper and Hasmauer, are all
worthy of note. The University with the two Museum buildings, facing
each other upon a small park, and other public buildings and residences
along the Ring Strasse, are extremely satisfactory, in spite of the
fact that stucco has been so extensively employed.
Only a few years ago the municipality of Buda-Pesth offered immunity
from taxation for fifteen years to all prospective builders, under
certain conditions as to character and cost of buildings, with the
result that the newer portion of the Hungarian capital was quickly
occupied by buildings of the most desirable kind; the Parliament
House, Opera, Cathedral, Technical School, and several club-houses and
private residences, each testify to the spirit with which the citizens
responded to this desire to beautify the city.
Since the unification of Italy there has been considerable building in
some of the principal cities, but very little of special importance.
In Rome, the changes are more perceptible than elsewhere; the
excavations of the Forum, the embankment of the Tiber, the widening and
straightening of the Corso, and the opening of the Via Nationale and
other streets, have destroyed comparatively little of the picturesque
that was worth retaining, have brought to light many treasures of art,
and, supplemented by the drainage of the Campagna by Prince Torlonia,
have certainly made it a healthier city to live in. The monument to
Victor Emmanuel, the National Museum, and the Braccia Nuovo of the
Vatican Museum, are among the few public structures of interest; the
many blocks of apartments and tenements are orderly and inoffensive,
though brick and stucco are the materials used in their construction.
Turin is the modern manufacturing city, while Florence preserves its
mediæval air, and Venice dreams of the bygone days when the splendor of
the Renaissance attracted the wealth, beauty, and talent of all Europe
to the city of the Doges.
Bologna and Genoa have each built in the suburbs a magnificent Campo
Santo, or cemetery, with chapels, colonnades, and other accessories of
architectural value; in Milan and Naples there are lofty glass-covered
arcades through the centre of a block and connecting with cross
streets, and the semi-circular colonnades of St. Francesco di Paolo, at
Naples, surround a piazza which is the great public resort of summer
evenings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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