Various

“ The American Architect, in an interesting notice of the recent exhibition of the Boston Society of Architects and Boston Architectural Club, takes the occasion to comment unfavorably upon the disfigurement of the catalogue by advertisements, which it says are "most excellent things in their proper place, but wholly out of place in an exhibition catalogue." Why this is so it is hard to see, unless the Architect believes that there is not advertising enough to go round, and that it should all be reserved for the trade and professional papers. ”

“ The capitals, at first crude imitations of classic prototypes, soon become the field for the grotesque imagination of the workmen, and each differs from the other and is a mass of light and shade shot with all sorts of uncouth fancies. ”

“ The Romanesque is an architecture of inertia, with arches heavily weighted by great masses of wall, and with broadly contrasting masses of light and shade. It does not depend for its effect upon intellectual quality beyond a rigorous sense of simplicity, or upon refinement of conception or detail, but rather upon size, picturesque mass, and staccato light and shade. ”

“ The guilloche takes a new form in Byzantine design, and instead of being a continuous succession of small circles enclosed in an interlacing ribbon, it assumes the form of alternating small [53] and large circles, or of small circles alternating with large squares, and often progressing in both directions at once, horizontally and perpendicularly, and thus forming an all-over pattern. The roses of ornament are often incorporated into this form of guilloche. Sculpture of the human form becomes more and more feeble and crude. ”

“ The difference between the Byzantine and the Romanesque arises from the differences of the races and their environments. The art of seaport towns, when Commerce was most largely carried on by sea, much more nearly resembled the art of some great commercial centre on the seaboard than it did that of its own neighbors inland. ”

“ The secretaries of a number of the architectural clubs have very kindly responded to our request for notices and reports of their meetings and proceedings, and we are pleased to be able to give short reports of such occurrences as are of general interest. There are some clubs, however, from whom we have not yet heard, and we would suggest that it will be a help to all concerned if the secretaries of all the architectural clubs will furnish us with short accounts of their regular meetings and of any other occasions of importance. ”

“ Beautiful and admirable as some of the recent examples of this work are, very few show the subtle appreciation of design to be found in many of the older buildings which until the last year or two have been looked upon as merely the outgrown and cast-off work of an age much less refined than our own. ”

“ The proportion of voussoirs to arches naturally depended upon the size of the arch,—large voussoirs to large arches, small voussoirs to small arches. Columns were only grouped around piers and on either side of openings; and lastly, the natural development of the column in Romanesque work was toward attenuation,—the later and the better the work, the more slender became the columns, until at last they were merged into the Gothic multiple-columned piers. The carving upon the arch-mouldings is, to a great extent, geometric, consisting of numerous facets cut in the stone, lozenges, etc. ”

“ The hardships which it is necessary to face deter all but the most adventurous even of the Italians, familiar with the language and manners of the people. Architects seldom visit this neighborhood, and little is known of its rich treasure of mediæval buildings, except through the few published works treating of it. ”

“ The province of Apulia has been so little invaded by the march of modern improvement, and its present inhabitants are, as a rule, so poor, that it is difficult to travel here except on the line of a few main thoroughfares, and strangers seldom visit more than one or two of the principal towns on the coast. ”

“ On the other hand, the interior was peopled by descendants of Ostrogothic tribes mingling with numberless local peoples. Whatever they touch is necessarily crude at first, but constantly gaining as they gain facility in working. A precedent of some kind they must have, and they find it close at hand in the Roman basilicas. Uncertain, from the result of woful experiments, of arches of great span, they pack their columns close together and surmount them with sturdy little arches that have scarcely any thrust. ”

“ They have equipped their factory with a view to special work, and have unusually good facilities for getting out pianos to order, carrying out, architects' sketches or those of their own designers to harmonize with different styles of interior decoration. ”