File:Medieval architecture, its origins and development, with lists of monuments and bibliographies (1909) (14578659618).jpg

Identifier: architectureorigins02port (find matches)
Title: Medieval architecture, its origins and development, with lists of monuments and bibliographies
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Porter, Arthur Kingsley, 1883-1933
Subjects: Architecture, Medieval
Publisher: New York, The Baker and Taylor Company
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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even the barrel vault, were capable. But the creditof first applying these vital principles to architecture, of per-ceiving though dimly the esthetic and practical uses of whichthey were capable, is all due to Rome. No other structuralinvention of architectural history can outrank in importancethis — not the pendentives of Hagia Sophia, nor even the dis-coveries of XII century France. For the vault we owe to Romeunqualified admiration and gratitude. Unfortunately, no such unstinted praise can be given thearchitectural ornament of the Romans. After the IV century,B.C., Greek architecture underwent a decline. As time wenton, this decline became more and more precipitate, until in the Icentury, B.C., the art, especially in Asia Minor, had sunk to thelowest depth of debasement. The technical execution stillremained fair, but design deserted entirely the severe andthoughtful taste of earlier times, and ran riot in every conceiv-able extravagance of florid ornament. Typical of the change
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III. 13. — Section Pantheon, Rome

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