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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
An inquiry into the different forms of Vaults, and a comparison of their respective merits, by rendering them more familiar to the Architect, may lead to the substitution of them for wooden floors and roofs in many cases, where, in respect of their superior security and durability, and, it may be added, beauty, they would be peculiarly desirable. The changes, which have taken place at certain periods in the forms of Vaults, will in some measure account for the alterations in the styles of architecture, which have characterised different ages; and their genesis will exhibit, perhaps, the most comprehensive and curious examples of the application of geometry.
page 45 note a The chord of the great arch of the bridge built by Augustus Cæsar was 135 feet in length.
page 45 note b The chords of the arches of the bridge built over the Danube by Trajan were 170 feet each; the height of the bridge 150 feet.
page 45 note c The chord of the middle arch of the stone bridge built by Trajan over the Tagus at Alcantara is 140 feet in length, and the height of the bridge is 200 feet.
page 45 note d The chord of the bridge of Brioude over the river Allier is 181 feet in length.
page 45 note e The chords of the arches of the Ponte del Castel Vecchio, of Gignac, and Lavaur, are 160 feet in length, of Claix 150, of Vizile 147.
page 45 note f The chord of the arch of the bridge of the Rialto at Venice is 96 feet in length; and that of the middle arch of Blackfriars' Bridge, London, is 100 feet.
page 45 note g The transverse diameter of the bridge over the Liffy, near Dublin, is 108 feet in length, and the semi-conjugate only 22 feet. The chord of the arch of the bridge at Warwick is 104 feet; at Winston 109 feet; of Lismore 100 feet.
page 45 note h The chord of the arch of the Pont-y-ty-Prydd is 140 feet: the arch is an arc of a circle whose diameter would be 175 feet.
page 45 note i The transverse diameter of the middle arch of the bridge of Santa Trinita at Florence is 73 feet, the semi-conjugate 15 feet. The arches are said to be cycloidal.
page 46 note k The transverse diameter of each of the five arches of the bridge of Neuilly is 128 feet.
page 46 note l The horizontal extrados of the arch between the towers of Lincoln Cathedral is 28 feet in length, 11 inches thick in the middle, 20 inches thick at one extremity, and 28 inches at the other. The extrados is about 15 inches wide; it resembles a wooden beam rather than a stone arch composed of voussoirs.
page 46 note t It was a facetious act of the Duke of Ferara to convert the bronze Statue of this Pope, cast by Michael Angelo, into a piece of artillery, which he called Giulio.
page 49 note a See Jews. Enc. Brit. 23 and 47.
page 49 note b The Vault of the Temple of Peace was 83 feet wide, 121 feet high.
page 49 note c The vault of the great hall of the Baths of Diocletian was 67 feet wide, 100 feet high.
page 59 note a In the work entitled, “Avanzi delle Antichità esistenu a Pozzuoli Cuma é Baja, Tab. 51, the dome of this temple is shewn to be generated from the revolution of a pointed arch. Perhaps that delle Fiore, at Florence, was taken from it.
page 60 note 6 The author will be obliged to any one who has leisure to continue the series.
page 60 note 7 M. Le Roi observes, “La premiere eglise ou l'on ait elevé un dôme complet sur les quatre pendentifs, qui les separest unitée en partie vraisemblablement de Saint Marc, de Venicé, est sans doute celle des Augustins a Rome. L'architecte de ce dome, dont je pris il y a trois ans les dimensions, mais qui a été detruit depuis, avoit eu de grandes difficultès de construction à surmonter; si le dôme n'étoit pas d'un grand diametre, les piliers, qui le soutenoient, etoient aussi très peu considerables.”
Vasi, speaking of this Church, says, “Che per la vecchiezza minacciava rovina particolarmente la cupola, la quale vantava il primato fra tutte le moderne di Roma. Fu questa eretta dal Card. Estutevilla a l'an 1483. con disegno quasi gotico di Baccio Pintelli.
page 60 note 8 Eton's Survey of the Turkish Empire.
page 60 note 9 The failure of the eastern part of the dome of Saint Sophia is to be attributed to not sufficiently attending to this particular.
page 61 note a See Daniel's Views.
page 61 note b See a section in the Templum Vaticanum et ipsius origo, &c, by Carlo Fontana.
page 70 note a It is manifest, that the Temple to Divine Wisdom served to Milton as a model for his Hall of all the Demons.
The ages in which Justinian and Milton lived become an apology for an omission, which would have been unpardonable in Ovid. He could not complete the Temple of the Sun without adding
Or, perhaps, as Milton thought fit to employ the same architect as Ovid, he judiciously omitted in the prior building, what in the subsequent would shew the architect's improvement.
Homer's description of the Palace of Alcinous shews a civilization surpassing the ages of Justinian and Milton. Odyss. book VII.
page 70 note b The most magnificent example of Grecian architecture was perhaps the Temple of Jupiter Olympus at Elis. In it there was a sitting statue of that god, sixty feet high. It was observed by Strabo (L. viii.) that if the god had got up, he must either have broken his own head, or have made a hole in the roof. The god might safely play at leap-frog in Westminster Abbey.
page 70 note c This was probably the case with the Temple of Apollo Didymæus. Strabo says, that “it continued without a roof on account of its great size.”
page 70 note d “It is extremely singular, that there is no covering of tiles, or lead, or copper, or any roof of timber, to the great church of Milan. It is merely vaulted over, and upon the vaulting are laid large slabs or planes of marble, to carry off the rain and moisture.” Observ. by T. Kerrich, XII. Archaeologia. It is very singular, that vaults should not always have become roofs as well as ceilings, in the Cathedrals which are vaulted.
page 76 note a ‘At Bassora, where they have no timber but the wood of the date tree, which is like a cabbage stalk, they make arches without any frame. The mason, with a nail and a bit of string, describes a semicircle on the ground, lays his bricks, fastened together with a gypsum cement, on the lines thus traced, and having thus formed his arch, except the crown brick, it is carefully raised, and in two parts placed npoa the walls. They proceed thus till the whole arch is finished. This part is only half a brick thick, but it serves them to turn a stronger arch over it.”—Survey of the Turkish Empire, by William Eton, Esq.
page 76 note b R. P. Knight's An. Inq. Prin. Taste.
page 76 note c Fig. 19. The French call the “arcs doublenux” over the lines ad, bc, “nervures.” Those over the lines ab, dc, when they abut against the walls, “formcrets.” Those over ap, ao, &c. “tiercerons.” Those over the diagonals ac, bd, “ogives.” The ridges over om, mp, &c. “liernes.”
page 83 note a After the completion of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, Roman Architecture came in fashion, under the auspices of Holbein, and afterwards Inigo Jones, in England; and about a century previously in Italy, under Ghiberto and Bruneleschi. In the latter, Vaulting obtained able friends, but from the piers in Covent Garden, which support merely a wooden vault, and from part of the Vaulting of Lincoln's Inn Chapel, it may be presumed that the builder of “the handsomest barn in England” was no great adept in the mystery of Vaulting.
Nicholas Stone destroyed many valuable manuscripts belonging to the Society of Free Masons. Perhaps his master, Inigo Jones, thought that the new mode, though dependent on taste, independent of science, and, like the Caliph Omar, held what was agreeable to the new faith useless, and what was not, ought to be destroyed.
The contracts for the erection of the Vaulting of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, are in an account of the Chapel by Malden; and in the Anecd. of Paint, by Walpole, Vol. I. Append, third edit. In Dugdale's Monast. Vol. III. p. 162, is an agreement between the Commissioners of Richard Duke of York and William Harwood, Free Mason, for the rebuilding of the Chapel in the College of Fotheringhay, Northamptonshire. And in Ashmole's Hist. Gart. p. 136, is an agreement with Hylmer and Vertue, Free Masons, for the building the choir of St. George's Chapel, Windsor.
In Malden's Account of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, Dr. Henry's History, and a Treatise on Masonry by William Preston, 1792, some account of the Free Masons, as relating to the subject of building, may be found. They appear to have been known in England about the beginning of the seventh century. They are said to have introduced the art of building in stone, and that the art of constructing walls to resist the thrust of a stone vault was their original mystery. It is more reasonable to suppose, that the art of building stone walls is as old as stone quarries, than that this society is as ancient as Solomon's Temple. About the beginning of the seventeenth century, the art “de la coupe des pierres” was still held a secret, and the possessors of this mystery were called the “Cotterie.” Maturin Jousse called his treatise, from this circumstance, “Secret d'Architecture.”