INTRODUCTION

PRIMITIVE AND PREHISTORIC ARCHITECTURE:EARLY BEGINNINGS >>

COLLEGE HISTORIES OF ART

EDITED BY

JOHN C. VAN DYKE, L.H.D.

HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

A. D. F. HAMLIN

COLLEGE HISTORIES OF ART

EDITED BY

JOHN C. VAN DYKE, L.H.D.

PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF ART

IN RUTGERS COLLEGE

HISTORY OF PAINTING

By JOHN C. VAN DYKE, the Editor of the Series. With Frontispiece and 110

Illustrations, Bibliographies, and Index. Crown 8vo,

HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

By ALFRED D. F. HAMLIN, A.M. Adjunct Professor of Architecture, Columbia College,

New York. With Frontispiece and 229 Illustrations and Diagrams, Bibliographies,

Glossary, Index of Architects, and a General Index. Crown 8vo,

HISTORY OF SCULPTURE

By ALLAN MARQUAND, Ph.D., L.H.D. and ARTHUR L. FROTHINGHAM, Jr., Ph.D.,

Professors of Archæology and the History of Art in Princeton University. With

Frontispiece and 112 Illustrations. Crown 8vo,

THE PARTHENON, ATHENS, AS RESTORED BY CH. CHIPIEZ.

(From model in Metropolitan Museum, New York.)

A TEXT-BOOK

OF THE

HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

A. D. F. HAMLIN, A.M.

PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

IN THE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE,

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

SEVENTH EDITION

REVISED

L O N G M A N S , G R E E N , A N D C O.

91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA

1909

PREFACE.

THE aim of this work has been to sketch the various periods and styles of

architecture with the broadest possible strokes, and to mention, with such brief

characterization as seemed permissible or necessary, the most important works of

each period or style. Extreme condensation in presenting the leading facts of

architectural history has been necessary, and much that would rightly claim place in

a larger work has been omitted here. The danger was felt to be rather in the direction

of too much detail than of too little. While the book is intended primarily to meet the

special requirements of the college student, those of the general reader have not been

lost sight of. The majority of the technical terms used are defined or explained in the

context, and the small remainder in a glossary at the end of the work. Extended

criticism and minute description were out of the question, and discussion of

controverted points has been in consequence as far as possible avoided.

The illustrations have been carefully prepared with a view to elucidating the text,

rather than for pictorial effect. With the exception of some fifteen cuts reproduced

from Lübke's Geschichte der Architektur (by kind permission of Messrs. Seemann, of

Leipzig), the illustrations are almost all entirely new. A large number are from vi

original drawings made by myself, or under my direction, and the remainder are,

with a few exceptions, half-tone reproductions prepared specially for this work from

photographs in my possession. Acknowledgments are due to Messrs. H. W.

Buemming, H. D. Bultman, and A. E. Weidinger for valued assistance in preparing

original drawings; and to Professor W. R. Ware, to Professor W. H. Thomson, M.D.,

and to the Editor of the Series for much helpful criticism and suggestion.

It is hoped that the lists of monuments appended to the history of each period down

to the present century may prove useful for reference, both to the student and the

general reader, as a supplement to the body of the text.

A. D. F. HAMLIN.

Columbia College, New York,

January 20, 1896.

The author desires to express his further acknowledgments to the friends who have at

various times since the first appearance of this book called his attention to errors in the text

or illustrations, and to recent advances in the art or in its archæology deserving of mention

in subsequent editions. As far as possible these suggestions have been incorporated in the

various revisions and reprints which have appeared since the first publication.

A. D. F. H.

Columbia University,

October 28, 1907.

GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY.

(This includes the leading architectural works treating of more than one period or style. The

reader should consult also the special references at the head of each chapter. Valuable

material is also contained in the leading architectural periodicals and in monographs too

numerous to mention.)

DICTIONARIES AND ENCYCLOPEDIAS.

Agincourt, History of Art by its Monuments; London.

Architectural Publication Society, Dictionary of Architecture; London.

Bosc, Dictionnaire raisonné d'architecture; Paris.

Durm and others, Handbuch der Architektur; Stuttgart. (This is an encyclopedic

compendium of architectural knowledge in many volumes; the series not yet

complete. It is referred to as the Hdbuch. d. Arch.)

Gwilt, Encyclopedia of Architecture; London.

Longfellow and Frothingham, Cyclopedia of Architecture in Italy and the Levant; New

York.

Planat, Encyclopédie d'architecture; Paris.

Sturgis, Dictionary of Architecture and Building; New York.

GENERAL HANDBOOKS AND HISTORIES.

Bühlmann, Die Architektur des klassischen Alterthums und der Renaissance; Stuttgart.

(Also in English, published in New York.)

Choisy, Histoire de l'architecture; Paris.

Durand, Recueil et parallèle d'édifices de tous genres; Paris.

Fergusson, History of Architecture in All Countries; London.

Fletcher and Fletcher, A History of Architecture; London.

Gailhabaud, L'Architecture du Vme. au XVIIIme. siècle; Paris.--Monuments anciens et

modernes; Paris.

Kugler, Geschichte der Baukunst; Stuttgart.

Longfellow, The Column and the Arch; New York.

Lübke, Geschichte der Architektur; Leipzig.--History of Art, tr. and rev. by R. Sturgis;

New York.

Perry, Chronology of Mediæval and Renaissance Architecture; London.

Reynaud, Traité d'architecture; Paris.

Rosengarten, Handbook of Architectural Styles; London and New York.

Simpson, A History of Architectural Development; London.

Spiers, Architecture East and West; London.

Stratham, Architecture for General Readers; London.

Sturgis, European Architecture; New York.

Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects; London.

Viollet-le-Duc, Discourses on Architecture; Boston.

THEORY, THE ORDERS, ETC.

Chambers, A Treatise on Civil Architecture; London.

Daviler, Cours d'architecture de Vignole; Paris.

Esquié, Traité élémentaire d'architecture; Paris.

Guadet, Théorie de l'architecture; Paris.

Robinson, Principles of Architectural Composition; New York.

Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture; London.

Sturgis, How to Judge Architecture; New York.

Tuckerman, Vignola, the Five Orders of Architecture; New York.

Van Brunt, Greek Lines and Other Essays; Boston.

Van Pelt, A Discussion of Composition.

Ware, The American Vignola; Scranton.

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HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.

INTRODUCTION.

A HISTORY of architecture is a record of man's efforts to build beautifully. The

erection of structures devoid of beauty is mere building, a trade and not an art.

Edifices in which strength and stability alone are sought, and in designing which only

utilitarian considerations have been followed, are properly works of engineering.

Only when the idea of beauty is added to that of use does a structure take its place

among works of architecture. We may, then, define architecture as the art which

seeks to harmonize in a building the requirements of utility and of beauty. It is the

most useful of the fine arts and the noblest of the useful arts. It touches the life of

man at every point. It is concerned not only in sheltering his person and ministering

to his comfort, but also in providing him with places for worship, amusement, and

business; with tombs, memorials, embellishments for his cities, and other structures

for the varied needs of a complex civilization. It engages the services of a larger

portion of the community and involves greater outlays of money than any other

occupation except agriculture. Everyone at some point comes in contact with the

work of the architect, and from this universal contact architecture derives its

significance as an index of the civilization of an age, a race, or a people.

xxii

It is the function of the historian of architecture to trace the origin, growth, and

decline of the architectural styles which have prevailed in different lands and ages,

and to show how they have reflected the great movements of civilization. The

migrations, the conquests, the commercial, social, and religious changes among

different peoples have all manifested themselves in the changes of their architecture,

and it is the historian's function to show this. It is also his function to explain the

principles of the styles, their characteristic forms and decoration, and to describe the

great masterpieces of each style and period.

STYLE is a quality; the "historic styles" are phases of development. Style is character

expressive of definite conceptions, as of grandeur, gaiety, or solemnity. An historic

style is the particular phase, the characteristic manner of design, which prevails at a

given time and place. It is not the result of mere accident or caprice, but of

intellectual, moral, social, religious, and even political conditions. Gothic architecture

could never have been invented by the Greeks, nor could the Egyptian styles have

grown up in Italy. Each style is based upon some fundamental principle springing

from its surrounding civilization, which undergoes successive developments until it

either reaches perfection or its possibilities are exhausted, after which a period of

decline usually sets in. This is followed either by a reaction and the introduction of

some radically new principle leading to the evolution of a new style, or by the final

decay and extinction of the civilization and its replacement by some younger and

more virile element. Thus the history of architecture appears as a connected chain of

causes and effects succeeding each other without break, each style growing out of

that which preceded it, or springing out of the fecundating contact of a higher with a

lower civilization. To study architectural styles is therefore to study a branch of the

history of civilization.

xxiii

Technically, architectural styles are identified by the means they employ to cover

enclosed spaces, by the characteristic forms of the supports and other members

(piers, columns, arches, mouldings, traceries, etc.), and by their decoration. The plan

should receive special attention, since it shows the arrangement of the points of

support, and hence the nature of the structural design. A comparison, for example, of

the plans of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak (Fig. 11, h) and of the Basilica of

Constantine (Fig. 58) shows at once a radical difference in constructive principle

between the two edifices, and hence a difference of style.

STRUCTURAL PRINCIPLES. All architecture is based on one or more of three

fundamental structural principles; that of the lintel, of the arch or vault, and of the

truss. The principle of the lintel is that of resistance to transverse strains, and

appears in all construction in which a cross-piece or beam rests on two or more

vertical supports. The arch or vault makes use of several pieces to span an opening

between two supports. These pieces are in compression and exert lateral pressures or

thrusts which are transmitted to the supports or abutments. The thrust must be

resisted either by the massiveness of the abutments or by the opposition to it of

counter-thrusts from other arches or vaults. Roman builders used the first, Gothic

builders the second of these means of resistance. The truss is a framework so

composed of several pieces of wood or metal that each shall best resist the particular

strain, whether of tension or compression, to which it is subjected, the whole

forming a compound beam or arch. It is especially applicable to very wide spans, and

is the most characteristic feature of modern construction. How the adoption of one or

another of these principles affected the forms and even the decoration of the various

styles, will be shown in the succeeding chapters.

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT. Geographically and chronologically, architecture

appears to have originated in the Nile xxiv valley. A second centre of development is

found in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, not uninfluenced by the older

Egyptian art. Through various channels the Greeks inherited from both Egyptian and

Assyrian art, the two influences being discernible even through the strongly original

aspect of Greek architecture. The Romans in turn, adopting the external details of

Greek architecture, transformed its substance by substituting the Etruscan arch for

the Greek construction of columns and lintels. They developed a complete and

original system of construction and decoration and spread it over the civilized world,

which has never wholly outgrown or abandoned it.

With the fall of Rome and the rise of Constantinople these forms underwent in the

East another transformation, called the Byzantine, in the development of Christian

domical church architecture. In the North and West, meanwhile, under the growing

institutions of the papacy and of the monastic orders and the emergence of a feudal

civilization out of the chaos of the Dark Ages, the constant preoccupation of

architecture was to evolve from the basilica type of church a vaulted structure, and

to adorn it throughout with an appropriate dress of constructive and symbolic

ornament. Gothic architecture was the outcome of this preoccupation, and it

prevailed throughout northern and western Europe until nearly or quite the close of

the fifteenth century.

During this fifteenth century the Renaissance style matured in Italy, where it speedily

triumphed over Gothic fashions and produced a marvellous series of civic

monuments, palaces, and churches, adorned with forms borrowed or imitated from

classic Roman art. This influence spread through Europe in the sixteenth century,

and ran a course of two centuries, after which a period of servile classicism was

followed by a rapid decline in taste. To this succeeded the eclecticism and confusion

of the nineteenth century, to xxv which the rapid growth of new requirements and

development of new resources have largely contributed.

In Eastern lands three great schools of architecture have grown up

contemporaneously with the above phases of Western art; one under the influence of

Mohammedan civilization, another in the Brahman and Buddhist architecture of

India, and the third in China and Japan. The first of these is the richest and most

important. Primarily inspired from Byzantine art, always stronger on the decorative

than on the constructive side, it has given to the world the mosques and palaces of

Northern Africa, Moorish Spain, Persia, Turkey, and India. The other two schools

seem to be wholly unrelated to the first, and have no affinity with the architecture of

Western lands.

Of Mexican, Central American, and South American architecture so little is known,

and that little is so remote in history and spirit from the styles above enumerated,

that it belongs rather to archæology than to architectural history, and will not be

considered in this work.

NOTE.--The reader's attention is called to the Appendix to this volume, in which are

gathered some of the results of recent investigations and of the architectural progress of the

last few years which could not readily be introduced into the text of this edition. The

General Bibliography and the lists of books recommended have been revised and brought up

to date.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PRIMITIVE AND PREHISTORIC ARCHITECTURE

CHAPTER II.

EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE

CHAPTER III.

EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE, Continued

CHAPTER IV.

CHALDÆAN AND ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE

CHAPTER V.

PERSIAN, LYCIAN, AND JEWISH ARCHITECTURE

CHAPTER VI.

GREEK ARCHITECTURE

CHAPTER VII.

GREEK ARCHITECTURE, Continued

CHAPTER VIII.

ROMAN ARCHITECTURE

CHAPTER IX.

ROMAN ARCHITECTURE, Continued

CHAPTER X.

EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE

CHAPTER XI.

BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE

CHAPTER XII.

SASSANIAN AND MOHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE--ARABIAN, MORESQUE, PERSIAN, INDIAN,

AND TURKISH

CHAPTER XIII.

EARLY MEDIÆVAL ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY AND FRANCE

CHAPTER XIV.

EARLY MEDIÆVAL ARCHITECTURE IN GERMANY, GREAT BRITAIN, AND SPAIN

CHAPTER XV.

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE

CHAPTER XVI.

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE

ix CHAPTER XVII.

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN GREAT BRITAIN

CHAPTER XVIII.

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN GERMANY, THE NETHERLANDS, AND SPAIN

CHAPTER XIX.

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY

CHAPTER XX.

EARLY RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY

CHAPTER XXI.

RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY--THE ADVANCED RENAISSANCE AND DECLINE

CHAPTER XXII.

RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE

CHAPTER XXIII.

RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN GREAT BRITAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS

CHAPTER XXIV.

RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN GERMANY, SPAIN, AND PORTUGAL

CHAPTER XXV.

THE CLASSIC REVIVALS IN EUROPE

x CHAPTER XXVI.

RECENT ARCHITECTURE IN EUROPE

CHAPTER XXVII.

ARCHITECTURE IN THE UNITED STATES

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ORIENTAL ARCHITECTURE--INDIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN

APPENDIX

GLOSSARY

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