BALUSTRADE, a range of small columns called balus ters supporting a cornice, used as a parapet, or as a screen, to conceal the whole or a part of the roof. It is also sometimes used as a decoration for terminating the building. Balm; trades are employed in parapets, on the margins of stairs, before windows, to enclose terraces, or balconies, by way of security, or sometimes to separate one place from another. In the theatres and amphitheatres of the Romans, the pedestals of the upper orders were always continued through the arcades, to serve as a parapet for the spectators to lean over ; the lowermost seats next to the arena in the amphitheatres, and those next to the orchestra in the theatres, were guarded by a parapet, (Jr podium. The walls of ancient buildings generally terminated with the cornice itself, but often with a blocking course, or attic. In the monument of Lysierates at Athens, the top is finished with finials com posed of honeysuckles, solid behind, and open between each pair of finials; each plant or finial is bordered with a curved head, and the hot of each interval with an inverted curve. Perhaps terminations of this nature might have been em ployed in many other Grecian buildings, as some coins seem to indicate; but this is the only example of the kind. The temples in Greece are mostly finished with the cornice itself; \dile]] was also the case with many of the IZoman temples; and as there were no remains of balustrades in ancient buildings, their antiquity may be doubted : they are, however, repre sented in the works of the earliest Italian writers, who, per haps, may have seen them in the ruins of Roman edifices.
When a balustrade finishes a building, and crowns an order, its height should be proportioned to the architecture it accompanies, making it never more than four-fifths, nor less than two-thirds, of the height of the order, not reckoning the plinth on which it is raised ; as the balustrade itself should be completely seen at a proper point of view.
Balustrades designed for use should always be of the height of the parapet walls, as they answer the same purpose, being nothing else than an ornamented parapet ; this height should not exceed three feet and a half, nor be less than three feet. In the balusters, the plinth of the base, the most prominent part of the swell, and the abacus of their capital, are gene rally in the same straight line : their distance should not exceed half the breadth of the abacus, or plinths, nor be less than one-third of this measure. On stairs, or inclined planes, the same proportions are to be observed as on horizontal ones. It was finmerly customary to make the mouldings of the balusters tallow the inclination of the plane ; but this is dif ficult to execute, and, when done, not very pleasant to the eye; though in ornamental iron work, where it is confined to a general surfilee passing perpendicularly by the ends of the steps, it has a very handsome appearance. The breadth of pedestals. when placed over an order, is regulated by the top of the shaft, the die being always equal thereto. When balustrades are placed upon the entablature of an order, over the intercolumns, or interpilasters, and the base and cornice of the balustrade continued, so as to break out and form pedestals over the columns. or pilasters. the breadth of the die of the pedestals slnodd be equal to the breadth of the top of the shafts; and when there is no order, the breadth of the die never more than its height, and very seldom nar rower: the dies of the pilasters may be flanked with half dies, particularly when the range of balusters is long.