Chapter I: Front Matter

Transcriber’s Note

When italics were used in the original book, the corresponding text has been surrounded by _underscores_. Superscripts have been indicated by preceding the superscripted letters with ^. When more than one character in a row is superscripted, the letters have been surrounded with {}. Ditto marks have been replaced by the text they represent. Some corrections have been made to the printed text. These are listed in a second transcriber’s note at the end of the text.

A

HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

IN ALL COUNTRIES,

FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY.

BY JAMES FERGUSSON, D.C.L., F.R.S., M.R.A.S.,
FELLOW ROYAL INST. BRIT. ARCHITECTS,
_&c. &c. &c._

IN FIVE VOLUMES.—VOL. I.

_THIRD EDITION._

EDITED BY R. PHENÉ SPIERS, F.S.A.,
FELLOW ROYAL INST. BRITISH ARCHITECTS.

LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET,
1893.

_The right of Translation is reserved._

FERGUSSON’S ARCHITECTURE.

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_Third Edition, with 330 Illustrations, 2 vols., medium 8vo_, 31s. 6d.

A HISTORY CF THE MODERN STYLES OF ARCHITECTURE.

By the late JAMES FERGUSSON, F.R.S.

A New Edition, Revised and Enlarged. With a Special Account of the
Architecture of America.

By ROBERT KERR, Professor of Architecture at King’s College, London.

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BY THE SAME.

_New and Cheaper Edition, with 400 Illustrations, medium 8vo._, 31s. 6d.

A HISTORY OF INDIAN AND EASTERN ARCHITECTURE.

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

EDITOR’S PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

A sketch of the life of the late Mr. James Fergusson, and an article by Prof. Kerr on the peculiar qualifications with which he was endowed for the position he took as an architectural historian, having appeared in the preface of the third edition of the “History of the Modern Styles of Architecture,” published in 1891, it is not necessary to do more than refer to them. A brief summary, however, of the several works he published on the History of the Architectural Styles may possibly be of some interest here as a record.

Mr. Fergusson’s first work dealing with the History of the Styles of Architecture was a large octavo volume, published in 1849, under the title of “An Historical Enquiry into the True Principles of Beauty in Art, more especially with reference to Architecture.” About one-third of the volume was devoted to an introduction, to which Mr. Fergusson attached so much importance that, in his preface he stated he considered it to be the text, and the rest of the work (viz., the description of the various styles) merely the illustration of what was there stated. The pith of this introduction was subsequently published in his later works, and a valuable chapter added to it on “Ethnography as Applied to Architecture.” The work contained only the history of the Early Styles from Egyptian to Roman, but it had been the intention of its author to treat of the Christian, Pagan, and Modern Styles of Architecture in subsequent volumes.

This intention was never carried out, but the book formed the basis of another work published in 1855, entitled, “The Handbook of Architecture,” which included the history of the Indian, Chinese, Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Sassanian, and Saracenic Styles, in the first volume, and of Christian Art in the second. A second edition, a reprint only of this, appeared in 1859, and shortly afterwards, in 1862, a third volume was published, dealing with the History of the Modern Styles. On the revision and expansion of the work in 1873, this third volume became the fourth as hereinafter explained.

In 1865 and 1867 the materials of the “Handbook” were rearranged to form an historical sequence, instead of a topographical one, and a new work was published under the title of the “History of Architecture”; the first part devoted to Ancient Architecture from Egyptian to Roman; the second to Christian; and the third part to Pagan Architecture, including Saracenic, Indian, Chinese, and Mexican.

In 1874 a second edition of this work appeared (from which the whole of the Indian and Chinese sections were omitted and published separately in 1876 as a third volume, under the title of “Indian and Eastern Architecture”), and many additions were made to the Assyrian and Byzantine chapters.

In the present edition (1893), which constitutes _the third edition_ of the “History of Architecture,” the editor has endeavoured to the best of his ability to follow the course which Mr. Fergusson himself adopted in publishing new editions, viz., to rewrite those portions which subsequent discoveries had proved to be either incorrect or doubtful. For instance, in Egyptian Architecture the accurate measurements of the pyramids made by Mr. Flinders Petrie, and his correction of Lepsius’s theories as regards the Labyrinth, have placed information at the editor’s disposal which was unknown to Mr. Fergusson. Corrections of this kind are inserted in the text. On the other hand, absolutely nothing new has appeared on Assyrian Architecture, and, therefore, Mr. Fergusson’s theories respecting the restoration of the Assyrian palaces have been retained; the tendency of the opinion of archæologists having, however, developed rather in the direction of vaulted roofs to the principal halls, footnotes have been appended giving the views of foreign archæologists on the subject, between which and Mr. Fergusson’s views the student is left to judge.

In Persian work the accuracy of Mr. Fergusson’s views respecting the arrangement of the plans of the Persian palaces, which were first promulgated in 1855, has been confirmed by later explorations at Persepolis, Susa, and Pasargadæ, and footnotes giving the records of the same are appended.

The results of recent discoveries in Greece and Italy have been recorded, sometimes in the text, sometimes in footnotes; and changes have been made in the chapter on Parthian and Sassanian Architecture, M. Dieulafoy’s photographs having enabled the editor to correct some of the woodcuts copied from Coste’s illustrations.

Important changes have been made in the Second Part, devoted to Christian Architecture; the Byzantine style has been placed first, not only for chronological reasons as the first perfected Christian style, but from the impossibility of otherwise following the development of the Early Christian styles in Italy during the fifth and following centuries.

The Romanesque, or Early Christian, style in Italy has been included in