Post by Admin on Oct 9, 2016 10:35:36 GMT
CHAP. XXVIII.
Of Architecture.
NO doubt but Architecture seems to bring great advantages and ornaments both to publick and private Building. This makes us Walls and Roofs, Mills and Carts, Rivers, Ships, Temples, Churches, Towers, fenced Walls and Fortifications, and all other Engines, either to defend or adorn both Publick and Private Buildings; a very necessary and honest Art, did it not so much bewitch the minds of Men, that there is no man scarce to be found, if his Wealth will per∣mit him, who does not wholly employ himself, either in Re-building, or adding to that which is well and de∣cently already done: through which insatiable desire of Building it happens, that there is no end or bound there∣of: but to please Fancie, Rocks have been cut, Val∣lies fill'd up, the bowels of the Earth digg'd into, Promontories made over the Sea, the currents of Rivers
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turn'd, Seas joyn'd to Seas, Lakes exhaust, Pools dry∣ed up, the Seas curl'd, the depth of the Ocean search'd into, and New Islands have been made. All which things though they seem to have been done in desyance of Nature, yet have brought not a little advantage to the Publick. But let us compare with these, all those other things that are of no use at all but for men to gaze and stare at, and out of vain Ostentation to shew the vastness of the Builders Wealth; such as are the superstitious Wonders of the Aegyptians, Greeks, He∣trurians, Babylonians, and other Nations; their Laby∣rinths, Pyramids, Obelisques, Colosses, Mausoleum, the Monstrous Statues of Rapsinatis, Sesostres, and Amasis, and that Extravagant Sphynx, in which King Amasis was said to be Entomb'd. For, saith Pliny, it was hew'd out of a Natural Red-stone; the compass of the Head was One hundred and two foot round the Fore-head; the length thereof One hundred forty three. But there are greater Wonders than this, the stupendious work of Memnon and Semiramis, in Bagisianum, a Mountain of Media, a vast E•figies, containing Seventeen Furlongs in bigness. Which had been far exceeded by that Architect, whoever he were, whether Stesicrates, as Plutarch reports; or Democrates, as Vitruvius asserts, who propos'd to have made an Effigies of Alexander out of the Mountain Athos, which should have held in the hand thereof a City capable to receive Ten thou∣sand men. We may add to these the Babylonian Den, the Basis whereof was a full Furlong in Compass, as Herodotus witnesseth▪ together with that famous Tower which was made to swim in the wide Sea, up∣on the backs of Glass Lobsters. With these may be number'd the Gordian Edifices, the Triumphal Arches, the vast Temples of the Gods; that especially in Ephe∣sus Dedicated to Diana, which was two hundred Years in Building, at the Expences of all Asia: and that
Page 79
Chappel dedicated to Latona, built in Aegypt all of one Stone, broad in Front forty Cubits, and cover'd over also with one entire Stone: as also, the Statue of Nebuchodonosor King of Assyria, all of pure Gold, sixty Cubits in bigness; which it was a Capital Crime not to Worship: and another Statue Forty Cubits high, fram'd all out of one entire Topaze, in honour of an Aegyptian Queen. Not unlike these are the Tem∣ples Erected in our days with most lofty Towers and Spires, vast heaps of Stones, rising to an Incompara∣ble and Prodigious Height; together with innumera∣ble Steeples for Bells, erected at the vast expence of money drain'd under the pretence of Pious uses and Charity, which had been better improv'd to the relief of thousands of the Poor, who being the true Tem∣ples of God, perish in the mean time with hunger, cold, and sickness, more proper to be kept in repair with those Sacred Alms. Now what Destructions, what Devastations this Art Causes among Men, whose War∣like Engines of Batteries, Catapults, Scorpions, Slings, and other manifold instruments of Death, fram'd by the chief industry and invention of her Professors; so many Nations thereby ruin'd, so many Cities thereby destroy'd, do afford sufficient Testimony: and of this, not only by Land, but by Sea, whole Navies built on∣ly for fight and combat do give evident proof: where∣in men do not seem so much to Navigate, as to Inha∣bit the most dangerous Seas, which as they are of them∣selves full of hazard and terror, by these Ships are ren∣der'd far more unsecure and terrible to us; therein, as on the solid Land, Fighting and Robbing one another. The first that writ of Architecture was Agatarebus, an Athe∣nian; afterwards Democritus and Anaxagoras; after them Silenus, Archimenides, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Cato, Varro, Pliny; and Lastly, Vitruvius, and Nigrigentus. Of Modern Authors, Leo Baptista, Friar Lucas, and Albertus Duretus.
Of Architecture.
NO doubt but Architecture seems to bring great advantages and ornaments both to publick and private Building. This makes us Walls and Roofs, Mills and Carts, Rivers, Ships, Temples, Churches, Towers, fenced Walls and Fortifications, and all other Engines, either to defend or adorn both Publick and Private Buildings; a very necessary and honest Art, did it not so much bewitch the minds of Men, that there is no man scarce to be found, if his Wealth will per∣mit him, who does not wholly employ himself, either in Re-building, or adding to that which is well and de∣cently already done: through which insatiable desire of Building it happens, that there is no end or bound there∣of: but to please Fancie, Rocks have been cut, Val∣lies fill'd up, the bowels of the Earth digg'd into, Promontories made over the Sea, the currents of Rivers
Page 78
turn'd, Seas joyn'd to Seas, Lakes exhaust, Pools dry∣ed up, the Seas curl'd, the depth of the Ocean search'd into, and New Islands have been made. All which things though they seem to have been done in desyance of Nature, yet have brought not a little advantage to the Publick. But let us compare with these, all those other things that are of no use at all but for men to gaze and stare at, and out of vain Ostentation to shew the vastness of the Builders Wealth; such as are the superstitious Wonders of the Aegyptians, Greeks, He∣trurians, Babylonians, and other Nations; their Laby∣rinths, Pyramids, Obelisques, Colosses, Mausoleum, the Monstrous Statues of Rapsinatis, Sesostres, and Amasis, and that Extravagant Sphynx, in which King Amasis was said to be Entomb'd. For, saith Pliny, it was hew'd out of a Natural Red-stone; the compass of the Head was One hundred and two foot round the Fore-head; the length thereof One hundred forty three. But there are greater Wonders than this, the stupendious work of Memnon and Semiramis, in Bagisianum, a Mountain of Media, a vast E•figies, containing Seventeen Furlongs in bigness. Which had been far exceeded by that Architect, whoever he were, whether Stesicrates, as Plutarch reports; or Democrates, as Vitruvius asserts, who propos'd to have made an Effigies of Alexander out of the Mountain Athos, which should have held in the hand thereof a City capable to receive Ten thou∣sand men. We may add to these the Babylonian Den, the Basis whereof was a full Furlong in Compass, as Herodotus witnesseth▪ together with that famous Tower which was made to swim in the wide Sea, up∣on the backs of Glass Lobsters. With these may be number'd the Gordian Edifices, the Triumphal Arches, the vast Temples of the Gods; that especially in Ephe∣sus Dedicated to Diana, which was two hundred Years in Building, at the Expences of all Asia: and that
Page 79
Chappel dedicated to Latona, built in Aegypt all of one Stone, broad in Front forty Cubits, and cover'd over also with one entire Stone: as also, the Statue of Nebuchodonosor King of Assyria, all of pure Gold, sixty Cubits in bigness; which it was a Capital Crime not to Worship: and another Statue Forty Cubits high, fram'd all out of one entire Topaze, in honour of an Aegyptian Queen. Not unlike these are the Tem∣ples Erected in our days with most lofty Towers and Spires, vast heaps of Stones, rising to an Incompara∣ble and Prodigious Height; together with innumera∣ble Steeples for Bells, erected at the vast expence of money drain'd under the pretence of Pious uses and Charity, which had been better improv'd to the relief of thousands of the Poor, who being the true Tem∣ples of God, perish in the mean time with hunger, cold, and sickness, more proper to be kept in repair with those Sacred Alms. Now what Destructions, what Devastations this Art Causes among Men, whose War∣like Engines of Batteries, Catapults, Scorpions, Slings, and other manifold instruments of Death, fram'd by the chief industry and invention of her Professors; so many Nations thereby ruin'd, so many Cities thereby destroy'd, do afford sufficient Testimony: and of this, not only by Land, but by Sea, whole Navies built on∣ly for fight and combat do give evident proof: where∣in men do not seem so much to Navigate, as to Inha∣bit the most dangerous Seas, which as they are of them∣selves full of hazard and terror, by these Ships are ren∣der'd far more unsecure and terrible to us; therein, as on the solid Land, Fighting and Robbing one another. The first that writ of Architecture was Agatarebus, an Athe∣nian; afterwards Democritus and Anaxagoras; after them Silenus, Archimenides, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Cato, Varro, Pliny; and Lastly, Vitruvius, and Nigrigentus. Of Modern Authors, Leo Baptista, Friar Lucas, and Albertus Duretus.