Professional observations on the architecture of the principal ancient and modern buildings in France and Italy [&c.].

Front Cover
Ballintine, 1806 - Architecture - 316 pages

From inside the book

Selected pages

Contents

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 18 - Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose : Another side, umbrageous grots and caves Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps Luxuriant; meanwhile murmuring waters fall Down the slope hills, dispersed, or in a lake, That to the fringed bank with myrtle crown'd Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams.
Page 18 - Imbrown'd the noontide bowers ; thus was this place A happy rural seat of various view ; Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm; Others whose fruit, burnish'd with golden rind, Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true, If true, here only, and of delicious taste : Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks Grazing the tender herb, were interposed ; Or palmy hillock, or the flowery lap Of some irriguous valley spread her store, Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose...
Page 78 - Insuperable height of loftiest shade, Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, A sylvan scene; and as the ranks ascend Shade above shade, a woody theatre Of stateliest view.
Page 155 - Indeed there is nothing more prejudicial to the grandeur of buildings, than to abound in angles ; a fault obvious in many ; and owing to an inordinate thirst for variety, which, whenever it prevails, is sure to leave very little true taste.
Page 113 - The authors ' (for there were three concerned in the work) ' of as fine a group of figures in sculpture as ever was made either by ancients or moderns ' (I mean Laocoon and his two sons), ' chose to be guilty of making the sons half the father's size, though they have every mark of being designed for men, rather than not bring their composition within the boundary of a pyramid.
Page 294 - It has been said that a perfect cathedral might be made of the portal of Rheims, the Nave of Amiens, the choir of Beauvais, and the tower of Chartres. The rose or wheel windows are both more frequent and of larger dimensions than in English cathedrals, and contribute greatly to the beauty of those of France, where it is not uncommon to find three in one church. The quantity, variety, and richness of the painted glass which the...
Page 164 - A man thinks himself poor and mean, unless the walls are decorated with large and precious embossments, unless Alexandrian marble is pointed and inlaid with Numidian rough-cast; unless a rich and curiously variegated plastering...
Page 93 - La Notte che tu vedi in si dolci atti Dormire, fu da un Angelo scolpita In questo sasso, e perche dorme, ha vita ; Destala se nol credi, e parleratti." To which Michael Angelo replied : — " Grato m' e il sonno, e piu I1 esser di sasso Mentre che il danno e la vergogna dura ; Non veder, non sentir, m...
Page 154 - Infinity has a tendency to fill the mind with that sort of delightful horror which is the most genuine effect and truest test of the sublime. There are scarce any things which can become the objects of our senses, that are really and in their own nature infinite . but the eye not being able to perceive the bounds of many things, they seem to be infinite, and they produce the same effects as if they were really so.
Page 116 - Daniel was a paradise to this. entire. It is about seventeen hundred feet in circumference, of an oval form, and four stories high, of which the first is of the Doric, the second of the Ionic, and the other two of the Corinthian order. An awning was originally stretched across the top, to shield the audience from sun and rain. Its walls, consisting of open porticos in the three lower stories, and enriched with triple ranges of pillars, are constructed of immense blocks of Travertine marble, compactly...

Bibliographic information