In some of these, particularly that of Cesare Cesariano, published at Como, in 1521, we see, in a very curious manner, how the habit of assuming that, in every department of literature, the ancients must needs be their masters, led these writers to subordinate the members of their own architecture to the precepts of the Roman author. We have Gothic shafts, mouldings, and arrangements, given as parallelisms to others, which profess to represent the Roman style, but which are, in fact, examples of that mixed manner which is called the style of the cinque cento by the Italians, of the renaissance by the French, and which is commonly included in our Elizabethan. But in the early architectural works, besides the superstitions and mistaken erudition which thus choked the growth of real architectural doctrines, another of the peculiar elements of the middle ages comes into view;-its mysticism. The dimensions and positions of the various parts of edifices and of their members, are determined by drawing triangles, squares, circles, and other figures, in such a manner as to bound them: and to these geometrical figures were assigned many abstruse significations. The plan and the front of the Cathedral at Milan are thus represented in Cesariano's work, bounded and subdivided by various equilateral triangles; and it is easy to see, in the earnestness with which he points out these relations, the evidence of a fanciful and mystical turn of thought.

8

The plan which he has given, fol. 14, he has entitled "Ichnographia Fundamenti sacræ Ædis baricephalæ, Germanico

We thus find erudition and mysticism take the place of much of that developement of the architectural principles of the middle ages which would be so interesting to us. Still, however, these works are by no means without their value. Indeed many of the arts appear to flourish not at all the worse, for being treated in a manner somewhat mystical; and it may easily be, that the relations of geometrical figures, for which fantastical reasons are given, may really involve principles of beauty or stability. But independently of this, we find, in the best works of the architects of all ages (including engineers), evidence that the true idea of mechanical pressure exists among them more distinctly than among men in general, although it may not be developed in a scientific form. This is true up to our own time, and these arts could not be successfully exercised if it were not so. Hence the writings of architects and engineers during the middle ages do really form a prelude to the writers on scientific mechanics. Vitruvius, in his Architecture, and Julius Frontinus, who, under Vespasian, wrote On Aqueducts, of which he was superintendent, have transmitted to

more, à Trigono ac Pariquadrato perstructa, uti etiam ea quæ nunc Milani videtur."

The work of Cesariano was translated into German by Gualter Rivius, and published at Nuremberg, in 1548, under the title of Vitruvius Teutsch, with copies of the Italian diagrams. A few years ago, in an article in the Wiener Jahrbücher (Oct.-Dec., 1821), the reviewer maintained, on the authority of the diagrams in Rivius's book, that Gothic architecture had its origin in Germany, and not in England.

mans.

us the principal part of what we know respecting the practical mechanics and hydraulics of the RoIn modern times the series is resumed. The early writers on architecture are also writers on engineering, and often on hydrostatics: for example, Leonardo da Vinci wrote on the equilibrium of water.

And thus we are led up to Stevinus of Bruges, who was engineer to Prince Maurice of Nassau, and inspector of the dykes in Holland; and in whose work, on the processes of his art, is contained the first clear modern statement of the scientific principles of hydrostatics.

Having thus explained both the obstacles and the prospects which the middle ages offered to the progress of science, I now proceed to the history of the progress, when it was once again resumed.