Read the text and translate it into Ukrainian

2. Answer the following questions:

1. When do we use the term “classical”?

2. What was the basic model of the Greek temple?

3. Where and why is the Doric order in temple architecture the most effective?

4. What does the Ionic style mean?

5. What are the main differences between the Doric and the Ionic styles?

6. What is the Corinthian style famous for?

7. What was the new Hellenistic period typified by?

8. Why did not the Greek succeed in creating anything especially remarkable?

9. What does the Acropolis look like?

10. How is the Acropolis preserved nowadays?

3. Give Ukrainian equivalents of the following words and phrases:

essentially

in conjunction with

to become truly integrated

to be irradiated by a faint smile

to convey profound inner serenity

extended side walls

considerable technical skill

distinguishing characteristic

to enhance impression

functional requirements

precious ornamentation

rectangular shapes

carved marble

accessible from inside

uneven history

to obtain permission

subsequently

4. Give English equivalents of the following words and phrases:

минати (про час)

місцеве населення

суворий стиль

обережно нахилений дах

підтримувати фронтон

велика колона

плитоподібна верхня частина капітелі

розсудлива витонченість

ясний вигляд

аскетичне оздоблення

чистий класицизм

надавати вишуканість

розквітати

успадковувати

присвячуватися комусь

Make up the sentences of your own with the given words and phrases.

Match a line in A with a line in B.

Summarize the text in English.

Unit 12

Text

ROME

Legend tells us of two brothers, Romulus and Remus, abandoned at birth, and adopted and suckled by a wolf. The shepherd Faustulus brought the two children up. Traditionally, Romulus founded the city and was the first king of Rome. He lived on the Palatine, one of the seven hills. The scholar Marcus Terentius Varro (116-27 bc) gave 753 bc (translated into our calendar) as the date of the founding of Rome, but there is no firm support for it. The names Romulus and Remus are Etruscan in origin, as are those of later kings (Numa, Tullus, Ancus, Tarquinius). The Etruscans were a race settled in central Italy, from Etruria (modern Tuscany, more or less) to Latium. With the ascendance of Rome they vanish from history. The Romans became masters of the entire peninsula, extended their power beyond the borders of Italy, and waged war and traded in every country of the Mediterranean, establishing themselves also in the ports founded by the Phoenicians and Greeks. Six hundred years later, Rome was "the center of the world." With a probable population of over a million at the time of Caesar, it was the first big city in the modern sense.

The square house form and the square city wall (Roma quadrata) are part of the Etruscan heritage. With gusto and admiration the Romans took over nearly all the architectural ideas and decorative motifs of Greek (especially Hellenistic) buildings. But increasingly, as time passed, colonnades gave way to arcades supported by pillars, with half columns as it were stuck on as a reminder of the Hellenic models.

As builders, and as creators of great arches and domes, the Romans developed their own distinctive style. As constructional engineers they surpassed the Greeks. On the artistic level, however, they ultimately remained imitators of the Hellenic genius, never managing to produce anything to rival the Acropolis at Athens. The Romans themselves had a different opinion, as we gather from Vitruvius Pollio's De architecture published in 25 bc and dedicated to Augustus. Rediscovered in the fifteenth century, this work became the most influential architect's manual of the Renaissance and early Baroque period.

Vitruvius considered that the style we call Hellenistic represented the high point of architectural creation. Modern taste is less favourable, seeing it as the adornment, as it were, of Roman imperialism — by no means always noble and sometimes downright vulgar.

The great creations of Greek architecture were in a sense offered in homage to the gods. Even theaters were sacred places, rather than merely clubs or entertainment centers. Greek domestic architecture, about which very little is known, was based on the simplest of principles: a square room with a fireplace in the middle, a smaller, undecorated structure in front (the megaron), and, though rarely, a colonnaded courtyard leading off to rooms without windows.

Roman architecture was geared to many different functions. The chief builder was the State, and, as Rome's might increased, so the need to give representational expression to that might grew. Even a purely functional structure such as an aqueduct had to be a prestigious building, with its own architectonic character. The arch was the universal motif, used for the most insignificant doorway and for great triumphal arches commemorating major political events alike.

Roman architects had a considerable range of building types to erect: temples, huge meeting halls, theaters, palaces, aqueducts and baths. In the construction of large concourses, the traditional colonnade principle gave way to a new form, the basilica. This word stems from the Greek and was used to denote the palace or official residence of the Archon basileios in the Athenian agora. In Roman times, any large-scale public edifice — public concourse, covered market or warehouse — was called a basilica. Today the word is used only for a certain kind of church, the interior of which is split lengthways into three or five naves, with rows of supporting columns. The side naves are always lower than the main central one. The roof may either be gabled, over wooden truss-beams, or domed. The columns support walls that rest either on horizontal stone beams or on arcading. Basilicas are decorated inside and on the short external wall where the entrance is.

The Pantheon

Less frequent, but always breathtaking in its creation of spatial effect, is the Roman circular domed building. The most outstanding example, the Pantheon, was erected by the Emperor Hadrian on the site of a temple to Mars, Venus and the deified Caesar which had been built by order of Agrippa and was later destroyed by fire. The vast area enclosed by the Pantheon is illuminated only by a round hole in the dome (the height of which — about a hundred and thirty feet (39.6m.) — is roughly equal to its diameter).

It is better preserved than any other ancient Roman building. Only the outer layer of marble and stucco has been stolen, and this very theft allows peopleto appreciate the extraordinarily skilful masonry. The decorative changes incorporated inside over the years have not always been felicitous. Yet the overall effect of monumental grandeur has not been affected: the feelings the Pantheon aroused in the citizens of ancient Rome must have been very similar to those we feel today, almost two thousand years later. Another, less well-known example of Roman circular building is the great meat market, dating from the second century ad, transformed later into a church (San Stefano Rotondo), and several times restored.

Unlike Greek domestic architecture, about which little is known, the principles of Roman residential buildings are familiar to us. Essentially, they represent a development of the old Italic house with atrium. The atrium was a four-sided, partially covered room which constituted the nucleus of the home and off which all the other rooms (cubicula) led. In the middle of the atrium, immediately beneath the opening in the roof (com-pluvium), a pool (impluvium) was set into the floor to collect rain water. There was often a small garden (hortus) behind the house, no wider than it. Otherwise there might be a peristyle, or (usually square) porch.

One should not imagine that all Romans lived in this type of house, however. Land in the city would have been too expensive for most people, especially in the days of the Empire. Less well-off citizens lived in rented accommodation in "tower blocks" (insulae), which were in effect nothing but the ancient Italian cellular type home, generally without any kind of entrance porch, multiplied endlessly and heaped one on top of another.

Development and Transition

As the world changes, thought changes with it; and this very change in thinking in turn changes the world. This applies not only to great moments of decisive development, when new eras begin, but also to our ways of interpreting and evaluating the past. Schoolchildren used to have to learn reams of dates by heart when studying history, and would often resort to mnemonics and rhymes of the "In sixteen hundred and sixty-six London town was burnt to sticks" variety. One vital date was always the fall of the Western Roman Empire: ad 476. But Rome was not destroyed in a day, to adapt the old saying.

In ad 475, the still-adolescent Romulus Augustulus was placed on the throne by his father, Patricius Orestes. He was toppled by Odoacer, king of the Sciri, from the lower Inn region. Augustulus' father was killed, while he himself was granted a pension. Meanwhile the Eastern emperor, Zeno (424—91), recognized Odoacer as king of Rome, although Odoacer preferred for a long time to hold his court on the Bosphorus.

Many crucially important events had occurred to fix the date ad 476 in the annals of history. In the hundred and thirty-two years between the death of Marcus Aurelius (ad 180) and the beginning of Constantine the Great's reign (312-37) there had been a new emperor almost every four years. In ad 330 the capital was transferred to Byzantium (the future Constantinople), and the time-honoured identification of the imperial throne with the Eternal City came to an end. The Roman empire was no longer governable from Rome, and for political and strategic reasons the official residence of the emperor moved to Byzantium.

Diocletian (ad 284-305) had a vast palace built for himself at Salona (modern Split), which for less than ten years served to all intents and purposes as the imperial residence, the capital of the Roman empire. But when the great and powerful ceased to inhabit such gigantic residences, the arcades and huge colonnades which had successfully withstood the devastations of time were walled up, arch by arch, and turned into homes for the poor.

Diocletian was the first Roman emperor to wear a diadem and Eastern finery. A new style emerged, deriving its decorative sense from the East. The work of Vitruvius was now forgotten. It should be stressed, however, that the architects of this period were far from imaginative. At the same time there was a distinct lack of good craftsmen, a result of the economic crisis that had affected the lesser bourgeoisie in the big cities — if one may use modern terminology to identify the class between the plebeians and the patricians.

Old buildings and monuments erected in honour of former emperors began to be used almost as quarries: wall facings, precious marbles, friezes, columns and capitals all provided materials for new constructions which, while occasionally showing genuine sensitivity to balance of proportions, were for the most part devoid of architectonic vigour and aesthetic worth. The few true architects lived at court or moved in court circles, and were much too taken up in gratifying current appetites for ostentation and self-aggrandizement. What characterized the new, Byzantine style was experimentation with well-tried forms together with use of every possible detail of buildings that no longer served any purpose.

Christianity became the State religion. Constantine ordered numerous churches to be built, many of them very big. None survives in its original form, however. But after Constantine, and in the two centuries preceding the reign of Justinian I (527-65), there emerged alongside the State temporal buildings the first churches to have walls decorated with colourful, joyous and serene illustrations of the Scriptures — the first in what was to become a long tradition.

The word "Byzantine" conjures up for us visions of splendour, of gold and silk: we think of the monumental dome of Hagia Sophia, and of those sometimes almost indistinguishable portraits of emperors staring straight out at the observer. Yet we should not concentrate exclusively on the large buildings. Smaller, more modest churches sprang up all over the place as the new faith spread.

A new building type appeared beside the traditionally proven basilica design — a new standard plan for the house of God, with central nave, and dome alone reminiscent of the Roman rotonda. As architecture evolved over the centuries, innumerable modifications of this formula were elaborated; yet in the last analysis these were all decorative and did not affect the basic design, which was inherently very flexible. This basic design can be sketched in a few words: plumb below the very center of the dome, the two main axes which determine the overall shape and orientation of the building cross at right angles. The size of the central area, i.e. the space covered by the dome, is dictated by equal (or nearly equal) lengths along both axes.

The dome rests on walls, arches or pillars which together form a square, a hectagon or even sometimes an octagon. If the dome is raised above a square, an intermediate constructional storey is introduced above the supporting base structure: this transitional section itself employs the dome technique, using fan-shaped pendentives. Hexagonal and octagonal structures similarly have pendentives, but they are less noticeable as they are less markedly curved.

The central expanse of open space can be increased on all sides, for instance with semicircular domed niches set lower than the main dome, or with other squares roofed with regular domes. In this way the cruciform layout of the principal axes can be extended. Thus the transverse nave, or transept, appeared, while lengthwise churches once again began to look almost like community halls.

This variability in the shape and dimensions of the secondary sections of the church led in the Baroque era to a highly imaginative rethinking of the crossing.

Technically the crossing represents a very remarkable achievement. Absolute precision in the dimensions and expert craftsmanship were required to erect a lasting building. It is thus hardly surprising that the simpler old-fashioned basilica was never supplanted. At the same time, especially in Italy, ancient Roman buildings were turned into churches. Churches were often erected over former secret underground places of worship dating from the persecutions. The subterranean structure then became the crypt — the final resting place for the bodies of the faithful.

Many of the most sumptuously decorated Byzantine churches are quite small and in no way exceptional from a technical point of view. Yet the exquisite mosaics and paintings in them put them in a class of their own, and despite numerous later alterations they have lost nothing of their original simple beauty. Their modest splendour — if one may put it so — honours no earthly prince, nor does it provoke gasps of admiration from the visitor as the Pantheon or Hagia Sophia do. It tends rather to inspire in believers, and in art lovers, a sense of quiet awe — without recourse to all the lavish paraphernalia of a golden age now long past. For, notwithstanding the extravagance of the Eastern Roman potentates, the early Middle Ages were hardly golden.

Byzantine ornamentation borrowed much from the East, but in the sixth century new elements appeared. The new style of writing, and the long, serpentine floral motifs that now began to figure in decoration came from the North.

A Germanic race, the Lombards, from the middle Danube region, had migrated down into Italy, settling in Lombardy (named after them) and pushing on right down to the south. The new decorative forms, initially quite foreign to the Byzantine aesthetic, probably derived from the Lombards. This is not to say that the invaders had brought with them a new style or new type of art. During their long journey south, fighting and skirmishing on the way, they could not have had much leisure or inclination to contemplate capitals and the different ways in which they might be decorated. But, as they became more settled, their natural fierceness and roughness of character began to find expression in their new buildings. In fact certain types of domestic roof and wooden porch can be traced back to them. Many surviving metal locks and bolts bear their stamp, as does a certain type of stone wall in which courses of smaller stones, set at an angle, are interspersed among the regular layers of stones.

The church of San Vitale in Ravenna, built between 527 and 546, has delicate columns with white marble capitals whose decoration — intricately intertwining vine tendrils — in no way recalls either the Ionic scroll, the classical acanthus leaf, or even Eastern arabesques. It is perhaps most reminiscent of northern inlaid woodwork.

The Lombards soon became Christians, but, as they were not especially well disposed towards Rome, Pope Leo III was grateful for the friendship of another Germanic race, the Franks, who had likewise become converted to Christianity, albeit without necessarily very profound conviction. On Christmas Day in the year 800, Leo placed the imperial crown of the Caesars on the head of the Frankish king, Charlemagne, and it was not long before the Eastern emperor was calling the new ruler crowned by the Supreme Pontiff of all Christendom his "dear brother."

Unlike the Lombards, the Franks had not migrated as a people to Italy, but had arrived as an army. They had no intention of settling in southern Europe — and indeed they soon returned home.

Charlemagne had already been to Italy four times before his coronation, carrying to the other side of the Alps new concepts of architecture (except for the buildings remaining from the days of Roman rule, there were no stone buildings in these countries at that time). With him, and after him, and supported by the spreading faith of Christianity, a new urge to learn began to grow in areas that for years had been suffering from the unending battles of migrating races. Now there was a cultural and spiritual heritage, however slight still, to be cherished.

Definite borders were settled on, and with the advent of a certain degree of security of both life and property the ground was prepared for the seeds of a new civilization coming from the South. The Pfalzen, or residences of the German kings, gradually became proper courts, at first along Roman lines, but then soon along lines more appropriate to the different climate and the peculiarly Frankish need for unassailable security.

Carolingian archetypes evolved from Byzantine models, and these in turn paved the way for the Romanesque style — so called in memory of its first origins. Charlemagne, whom Wolfram von den Steinen called "the beacon of Europe," not only imported new ideas but also encouraged trade and barter: books, relics, silk, yet more books, the treasure of the Avars, and ancient columns for the Pfalz chapel at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) in exchange for Saxon horses. He was also given, as a present from the Abbasid sultan Harun-al-Rashid, a white elephant — which, however, died of cold at the imperial residence of Lippeham on the lower Rhine.

TASKS