180 THE BUILDING NEWS. Maren 1, 1872.
Annibal Caro for the guidance of Zucchero,
amusing extracts from which are to be found
in Vasari’s life of that painter. Besides these
remarkable works, all of great excellence,
and some of unusual beauty, are to be seen
in the hall of Jupiter, perspective views of
buildings drawn by Vignola himself, and
painted by his son-in-law. But Vignola was
no less versed in engineering than in archi-
tecture and painting, and by him the great
‘Canale del naviglio” at Bologna was de-
signed, than which, as Vasari says, ‘‘no more
useful undertaking has ever been executed.”
This eminent architect and able and good
man, after a life constantly spent in the
practical and theoretical advancement of his
art, died at Rome in 1573, and was interred
with special honours in that mausoleum of
the greatest artists, the Pantheon at Rome.
We have come now to a time when it is
almost unnecessary to give an opinion on the
style of the artists under notice : their merit
is incontestable and their character well known.
The most fastidious critics have always agreed
in praising the simplicity and elegance of
Vignola’s works, his fine sense of proportion
and fitness, and the judicious carefulness of
his purely-architectural ornament. As a
writer on architecture he stands in the
highest rank, and his principles have been
adopted by a large and distinguished series
of followers. He may be said, indeed, to
have been to France what Palladio has been
to England—the special lawgiver: and both of
these great masters have their special merits
as theoretical teachers; but as affording prac-
tical proof of the results thence arising,
Palladio, owing to greater opportunities en-
joyed by him, has left us a far greater number
of examples, as models of style. The life and
works of Andrea Palladio are so well known
that we propose to give the briefest notice of
him and them ¢ompatible with a proper
understanding of the place he occupies in the
history of architecture. He was born at
Vicenza in the year 1508, at a time when the
revival of ancient architecture was already
well established, and, therefore, might
have been spared much of the personal
labour which his predecessors in the art
had forced upon them: but he chose
to work out his studies for himself. Com-
mencing life as a sculptor, he soon for-
sook it for the more congenial studies of
mathematics and architecture, and visited
Rome five several times in order to draw and
measure for himself its principal antiquities.
These studies are to be found in his published
work under the head of ‘ Mirabilia Rome.”
When about twenty-nine years of age he com-
menced the practice of architecture, his first
great works being the ‘“ Castello” at Udine,
and the Collonades surrounding the Basilica
or Town Hall of Vicenza. Let us take this
last as a characteristic example of the master,
and one, moreover, of which he himself, in
Book IIL, c. 20, of his ‘ Architecture ”
speaks most approvingly. We can give our
own impression as to its merits, which was one
of the greatest pleasure and admiration ; its
simplicity, breadth, proportion, general effect,
and power of light and shade, seize and affect
the mind most powerfully, and had Palladio
left no other work behind him to judge him
by, this alone would place him amongst the
greatest of artists. ‘To the posture-makers
of modern art, who are nothing if not eccen-
tric, and in order to attract attention be-
dizen themselves all over with ornament, and
would stand topsy-turvy rather than not
be noticed at all, the grand and manly sim-
plicity of such a work as this will be
deemed uninteresting and monotonous, just
as plain and wholesome food is despised and
unappreciated by palates vitiated through a
long course of spiced dishes, or as a devotee
of Wagner or Offenbach in music may
speak contemptuously of some of the simple,
but most exquisite melodies of the great Ger-
man and Italian masters of the past. But to
return to Palladio: these works brought him
into such notice that commissions flowed in
upon him from every quarter—from the Car- dinal of Trent, from Emanuele Filiberto, Duke of Savoy ; from the cities of Bologna, Vicenza, and Brescia, and from the Great Republic of Venice, to which his services as a citizen were above all due. Vicenza itself bears the impress of his genius more espe- cially: its palatial architecture is mainly of his design, and amongst the buildings there which are more particularly to be no- ticed, are the porticoes of the Basilica, the palaces Barbarano and Chiericati, the Villa Capra, andthe Theatre, which last was com- menced by him in the year 1580 for the Ac- cademica Olympica, a society instituted in 1555, of which he was a promoter and a member. He died at Vicenza in the same year, having seen the foundations of the theatre only laid, and was buried with special honours in the Church of La Santa Corona, leaving the superintendence of the theatre to his son Scilla, the coloured scenes in perspec- tive, which can scarcely be said to adorn it, being by Scamozzi. At Venice also the genius of Palladio is equally to be studied as at Vicenza, especially in numerous churches erected there from his designs; but which, we think, hardly bear that witness to his powers as an artist which the Vicentine buildings do; to our mind they are cold and cheerless. But his great secular works are characterised by the highest merit; they are simple, grand, harmonious, and effective, and a distinguished critic has well said that if it is allowable to compare buildings with men, Palladio’s edifices present the idea ‘of per- sonal dignity well dressed.” We now bring our notices of some of the great Italian archi- tects of the Revival to a close; our object has not been to give biographies of them, but to bring them under the notice of students as models both as artists and professional men, whom they will do well to study and follow. To draw attention to that Italian style of architecture which was formed by them, and which they brought to perfection ; to show the necessity of education, of discipline, of principles, and of rules, of a reigning law and order in the art of architecture, without which, whatever may be the fluctuating fashion of the day, architecture itself can be but imperfectly understood, and will be badly practised ; to plead for simplicity, grandeur and good taste, in an age when exaggerated aims, a meretricious love of ornament, and an unregulated, and too frequently an utterly bad taste, disfigure our most important works. We call on students not to be led astray by the eloquently-expressed fallacies of our mo- dern fashionable writers on art, but to return to the school of severe discipline, and that regular systematic education, without which no genius can be turned to good account, or be properly developed; and to one and all we recommend, as a good course of reading, the lives and practice of the great Italian Architects of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- turies, and to the study of that style of Italian architecture which, of all others, is best adapted to the requirements and inven- tions of the age in which we live. ———_>———_- OXFORD ARCHITECTURAL AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY. TUE first walk this term took place on Tuesday week, when Magdalen College was visited. The Rey. Dr. Millard, Viear of Basingstoke, who was formerly one of the secretaries of the Society, accompanied the party over the College. With re- gard to the history of Magdalen College, he observed that as early as 1448, Waynflete gathered together a body of students in the High-street, near the eastern end, probably near or on the spot where the Angel Hotel stood, and which is now the site of the proposed new schools. Waynflete subsequently ob- tained the site of the Hospital of 8. John, which by some was supposed to have existed as early as the reign of King John, but there was no real evidence of its being quite so ancient as that, and it was more likely that it dated from the reign of King Henry II. He then drew attention to a charter bearing the date of 1231, in which King Henry III.
made special provision for the Jews not to be de-
prived of a place of burial which was assigned to
them in the garden on the other side of the road.
Referring to two other charters bearing a similar
date, he observed that it appeared that a garden or
orchard was on the present site of the Botanic
Garden, and in connection with the Hospital of S.
John. Dr. Millard was of opinion that the Founder’s
Chapel was not completed until 1480, and in the
following year Edward IV. was a worshipper within
its walls. Since then great alterations had taken
place, and they must all, he said, deplore the re-
moval of the ancient wooden roof of the hall in
which they were assembled. The company then
left the hall, and visited the Common Room (for-
merly the Sacristy) and the Bursary. The Library
was next visited, and here was shown, among other
curiosities, a portion of the Founder’s episcopal vest-
ment. This portion of the College Dr. Millard ex-
plained had also suffered from the devastation of the
architect, Mr. Wyatt. The party next inspected
the splendid State apartments, which were restored
some few years ago by Mr. Gilbert Scott. The
beautiful Chapel, with its magnificently-carved
reredos and stalls, was next visited, and attracted a
great deal of attention. The various alterations the
Chapel had undergone were explained at some
length. After quitting the Chapel the front quad-
rangle was visited, and the well-known stone pulpit
in the corner, from which a sermon used to be
preached on S. John the Baptist Day, was scanned
with much interest. The various figures above the
Chapel doorway in this quadrangle, and other
curiosities, having been pointed out, the company
next proceeded to the Chaplain’s Quadrangle. Here
some little time was spent in inspecting the tower,
which rises to the height of 145ft. Dr. Millard
said that it was believed that S. John’s Hospital
stood by this spot, and that here, if anywhere, a
portion of it might still be found. The College
kitchen, and “The Pilgrim’s Gate,” having been in-
spected, a most pleasant walk was brought to a
close. Many of those present then ascended the
tower, from the top of which a splendid view of the
city and surrounding country can be obtained.
———>—_——
MODERN RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION.
TUNNELLING MACHINERY.
T a meeting of the Civil and Mechanical Engi-
neers’ Society, on the 16th ult., the President,
Mr. Arthur C. Pain, Assoc. Inst. C.E., in the chair, a
paper was read by Mr. G. J. Morrison, Assoc. Inst.
C.E., “On some of the Peculiarities of Modern
Railway Construction.” The author, in commencing,
pointed out that great changes had taken place in the
construction of railways since the time of the early
railway engineers. Cuttings and embankments were,
however, to all intents and purposes, the same as
ever, and were constructed in precisely the same
manner. It had always been considered that in
ordinary eases the proper way of making a railway
bank was to tip the material from the cutting at the
end of the bank to such a height that when it had
settled it would lie at the height required for the line,
and that it was a waste of labour to take any trouble
with arailway bank such as is necessarily taken with
the banks of areservoir, for instance. In tunnels, how-
ever, there were changes as to the method of carrying
them out, and in bridges both as to their design and
as to their erection. The original tunnels were, of
course, constructed entirely by hand labour, and
this was still employed to a considerable extent,
but the system of machine tunnelling was fast coming
into vogue, and before long we might expect to see
most tunnels through rocks constructed in that
manner. As far as the author was aware, all the
machines which yet had progressed so far as to deserve
mention aimed at constructing a heading only—i.e.,
a tunnel from 6ft. to 9ft. square or round, the work
of enlarging this being carried on by hand labour as
before. The advantage of the machines was generally
considered to cousist in ‘the saving of time in the
construction of these headings more than in the
saving of expense. In these aims all the machines
seemed to agree, but in the method of effecting
their objects the machines differed considerably, They
might be divided into two classes—firstly, those which
proposed to drive the headings by cutting or breaking
away all the rock by mechanical means into pieces
of greater or less size, but at all events sufficiently
small to be filled at once into waggons and drawn to
the surface; and, secondly, those which did their
work by boring holes in the face of the heading, the
rock being afterwards broken out by means of
powder or some other explosive. e
were entirely distinct, and though the time had hardly
arrived when any one could pass an impartial opinion
on their several merits, it might be safely assumed
These two classes _
