John Henry Parker

“ In England it is pretty clear, from a variety of evidence, that the masonry of the early part of the eleventh century was so bad that such buildings as were erected of stone at that period would scarcely stand above sixty years; and the more usual material for buildings of all kinds was wood: even quite at the end of that century the works of Lanfranc at Canterbury, of Remigius at Lincoln, and of Gundulph in the white tower, London, are still extremely rude, and the joints of the masonry wide enough to admit two fingers, while the principal part of the ornament is cut with the hatchet. ”

“ The substructure of all the canonical residences running southward from the Deanery, (itself the Abbot’s house of old,) displays a range of vaulting of simple and elegant character, with here and there a window of the period still remaining to testify that the whole was completed, before the tasteless alterations of subsequent centuries destroyed the workmanship which they were as unable to appreciate as to imitate. ”

“ These two canals, parallel to each other, to be supplied with water by the aqueducts, and used for the naumachia or naval fights, are among the most curious discoveries brought to light in the recent explorations. They shew how completely the whole of the great public exhibitions of the ancient Romans were theatrical displays, with all the usual tricks of a theatre, just the same as in a Christmas pantomime.
This shews also that stagna do not necessarily mean ponds; any reservoir of water is a stagnum, whether supplied by a natural spring or by an aqueduct. ”

“ About half-a-mile nearer to Rome is, at an angle, as usual, another large reservoir, which has been turned into a farm-house; and the appearance of a medieval chapel or church has been given to it, by building a tower at one end. Possibly it was used for that purpose in the Middle Ages. From thence to the head of the valley of the Caffarella is but a short distance. Where the specus has been carried on an arcade above ground, it has been destroyed as a quarry for the good old bricks; where the ground is higher and the specus is underground, it has been traced in parts only. ”

“ From its large size, and the buildings attached to it on either side, it appears probable that this gatehouse was the residence of the abbot.
Some of the other domestic buildings of the abbey remain in a more or less ruinous state; they are of the thirteenth century, and retain their groined vaults with arch ribs only, which spring from the walls without shafts or capitals, or even moulded imposts, the arch merely dying into the wall. ”

“ In the early Decorated the sculpture of the human figure is remarkable for the ease and chasteness of the attitudes, and the free and graceful, though at the same time rich, folds of the drapery. Few figures can surpass in simplicity and beauty the effigy of Queen Eleanor in Westminster Abbey, and those on the crosses erected to her memory are almost equally fine, especially those on the Northampton cross ”

“ Throughout the Middle Ages every house of any importance was a castle, that is to say, it was built in the form of a tower and fortified; but it was not the less a dwelling-house, since every manor-house throughout the country was built after the same fashion, and there were no other houses of any considerable size. ”

“ Vast as this amazing edifice still is, the whole of the outer wall with the arcades and corridors, on the south and west sides, have been destroyed, having been used as a stone quarry for building some of the largest palaces in Rome, but on the north and east sides it is tolerably perfect. A correct idea of the whole can only be formed by mounting to the top, and surveying the whole extent from thence. The finest view of the exterior is from the Thermæ of Titus, or the windows or the garden of the monastery of S. Pietro in Vincoli, on the hill opposite the north front. ”

“ The division of the surface water from the sewerage, in the question of the drainage of large towns, is meeting with much favour, as it appeals to reason that what is good for the purposes of manure, is destructive to the healthy condition of the river, while the surface water, which finds its proper place in the river, interferes with the proper distribution of sewage. In Rome, there is frequently a small specus or channel for pure water, contrived in the vault or upper part of the great cloacæ or drains for the refuse water. ”

“ In the south wall there is an Early English piscina, of a trefoiled shape, a small Decorated priest's door, and on the west side of it a two-light Decorated window with a transom, the lower part of which, now blocked up, seems to have been used as a low side opening. The chancel-arch is plain Norman, recessed on the west side only, with shafts in the nooks, having sculptured caps, the arch itself is square-edged with a flat soffit and plain jambs, partly cut away to admit a screen which is now destroyed. ”

“ The nature of the building materials, as is well known, exercises great influence everywhere upon the architectural character, but nowhere else is this so evident and distinct as in Ireland. With a few rare exceptions, such as unfortunately are Dublin and Belfast, and their immediate neighbourhoods, stone is every where abundant, and generally of the same quality, extremely hard and durable, but very difficult to cut or work in any way. A very large part of Ireland is an immense limestone plain, covered indeed in many places with extensive peat-bogs, but these are seldom very deep ”

“ The large reservoir for the water now in use is very near to the remains of the old one of Hadrian. The construction of this aqueduct is very rude and rough, of concrete and rubble-stone only, and this stone consists entirely of old materials; still the large scale of the work, and the height at which the specus is carried upon the arcade, give it a grand effect. At a little distance, the inferior construction [136] is not seen, and this almost modern aqueduct is frequently mistaken by strangers for one of the old ones of the time of the Empire, of which it is only an imitation. ”

“ That one of the modes of putting criminals to death in Rome was to throw them to the wild beasts to be torn to pieces on the arena, to glut the savage taste of the Roman people, is notorious; but that many of the gladiators and other actors were also frequently killed on the arena is not so generally known, and yet the evidence for it is too distinct to be doubted. ”

“ Rickman:—
“The General Appearance of Decorated buildings is at once simple and magnificent; simple from the small number of parts, and magnificent from the size of the windows, and the easy flow of the lines of tracery. In the interior of large buildings we find great breadth, and an enlargement of the clere-story windows, with a corresponding diminution of the triforium, which is now rather a part of the clere-storey opening than a distinct member of the division. The roofing, from the increased richness of the groining, becomes an object of more attention. ”

“ The Anio Vetus and the Anio Novus are in fact branches of the river Anio, which falls into the Tiber a short distance above Rome. The water is there seen to be much more pure than that of the Tiber, and after it falls into the muddy Tiber its clear water can be distinguished for a long distance. Several of the aqueducts, as the Appia and the Virgo, are springs, that fell into that river; but part of the water was intercepted and brought into Rome, each in its own distinct specus. This was the case with the Anio Vetus, at a much higher level above Tivoli, but below Subiaco. ”

“ But to have a clear understanding of the domestic architecture of Ireland during the middle ages, it is necessary to include the religious houses, and to take the whole in chronological order, bearing in mind that every house was fortified, not excepting even the abbeys, which were as effectually protected as any houses or castles of the same period. ”

“ In some excavations made under my direction in a cave under the Aventine, near the Marmorata, which was the mouth of the Aqua Appia, a level bed of white clay was found under the tufa rock of which the Aventine Hill consists; this would account for the walls in the central part built of concrete and brick, on this clay foundation, having been frequently damaged by earthquakes, while the great stone arcades, being built upon the tufa rock, did not suffer from the shocks. Clay is always a bad foundation to build upon, and there are always settlements in buildings that rest upon it. ”

“ It should be noticed that fan-tracery vaulting is peculiarly English, the principle of it began with the earliest English Gothic style, as in the cloisters of Lincoln Cathedral, each stone of the vaulting being cut to fit its place. In France this is never done, each block of stone is oblong, as in those for the walls, and is only made to curve over in a vault by the mortar between the joints. This had the effect of making vaulting much cheaper to construct, and therefore much more abundant in France than in England, but it is always less scientific and often less beautiful ”

“ In treating of the Aqueducts we have a trustworthy guide in a writer who flourished in the time of the Emperors Nerva and Trajan, namely, Sextus Julius Frontinus [2] . While he informs us of what improvements he made during the time he had the charge of these important public works, he also gives in his treatise a historical account of the several changes which had been from time to time made in the means of supply of water to the Imperial City, which kept pace with the growing wealth and population of Rome. ”

“ Notwithstanding the strong national character, which no other country possesses in a more marked degree, though all countries and large provinces have to a certain extent a national or provincial peculiarity, the different styles of each century of the Middle Ages can be distinguished in Ireland as well as in other countries of Europe, though it is often difficult to make them out, in consequence of the extreme plainness and rudeness of the work. ”

“ I therefore did so in May, 1876, and I find that the amphitheatre at Pompeii is of the time of Sylla the Dictator, and that the arrangements are not the same as those of the Roman amphitheatre; there are no substructions under the arena, and it appears there never could have been any, as in the centre there is the top of an original well, and the floor seems always to have been of earth only; there are no preparations for Naumachia, and the dens for the wild beasts are on the same level as the arena, and behind the podium. ”

“ The natural use and the profusion of moldings in the English buildings of the thirteenth century is considered as one of the proofs of the English origin of the Gothic style. The French imitated it rapidly, but in a cheaper manner, and their buildings are, on the whole, not quite equal to ours, that is, taking into account both exterior and interior. The profuse suites of moldings so common in English doorways and arches, are almost unknown in France: some things they developed more rapidly than we did, but in the moldings they were behind us. ”