The following account of some of the more noted speci mens of Ionic building, still remaining, is extracted from a series of lectures which have been published in the Builder.
"The earliest specimen of which any remains are to be found is the celebrated temple of Juno at Samos, which, in the age of Herodotus, was considered as the largest and most stupendous edifice ever raised by Grecian art. This inter esting ruin, although often visited, has never, until recently, received any architectural elucidation. It was built about the 60th Olympiad by Rhacchus and Theodorus, two natives of the island ; and the style possessing many peculiarities is such as strongly to denote its archaic origin. The bases of the columns are remarkable from the number and complica tion of their parts ; the shaft, is not fluted, nor is there any appearance of volutes to the capitals."—(Lord Aberdeen's Inquiry, p. 160.) But the purest and best known specimens are to be found at Athens, where we see at once t-he simplest and richest modes of employing the style. The former is to be seen in the graceful little temple on the llissns, and the latter in the double temple, erected in honour of the Virgin-goddess and Eecithetis. Nothing can be more simple than the design of the former beautiful little building, which is only 20 feet high to the cornice; from the fewness of the mouldings and their free loin from enrichment, it serves as a model for most of the Ionic porticos of the present day, as it is admirably adapted to domestic structures. This temple had a portico of f air columns at each end, but was without any lateral columns: the columns are only 21 inches in diameter, and are eight diameters high. The architrave has only one thee ; and the was probably also plain, although Stuart con siders that it may have had• au enrichment, as a fragment of sculpture representing several figures, was found at Athens, hich exactly fitted the space. The cornice is composed of the fewest possible mouldings, which, throughout the build ing, are of the simplest character. A more enriched example is that of the temple of Minerva Polias (so called from -roans a city ; thus the goddess was emphatically the protectress of the city of Athens) placed in the acropolis, at a distance of 150 feet from the Parthenon. This temple is connected with two other buildings—the Erechtheum and the Pandrosium.
We now proceed to notice this triple temple more in detail, for which purpose a plan is essential. Elevated on three steps is a portico of 6 columns, leading to what is called by Stuart the temple of Erechtheus, but which is considered by others to be the cella of the goddess. The columns are 2 feet 3 inches in diameter, 21 feet 7 inches high, including base and capital, and are 4 feet S inches apart. The width of the cell is:32 feet 4 inches, and its depth 23 feet 11 inches. In the rear of the cell, and divided from it by a wall, is the apartments which Stuart ascribes to Minerva, receiving its light from three openings like windows (a rare and valuable example) placed between half-columns, and having on one side a communication with the Pandroseurn, and on the other with a noble portico of four columns in front, having a pro jection of two inter-columns. These three last-named parts
are on the same level, which is, however, about 9 feet lower than that of the hexastyle portico. The columns of the tetrastyle are 2 feet 9 inches in diameter, and 25 feet in lit*dit. The little building, the Pandroseum, had six female figures. called Caryatides, instead of columns, to support the entablature, and their origin has given rise to much dis There are but few examples of this order as practised by the Romans, remaining entire; amongst them are the theatre of Marcellus, the temple of Concord, and that of Fortuna Virilis. Several portions of the order have, however, been discovered in those buildings which were erected after the decline of the empire, such portions having been plundered from more ancient buildings, to enrich the new edifices. Although some of these Roman examples are of considerable merit. they would seem to fall far short of the Grecian in taste and elegance. The capital was greatly impoverished b? the volutes being considerably reduced in size, and thereby losing to a great extent its importance as the chief charac teristic of the capital. This fault, however, was afterwards greatly increased by the Italians. In the Greek examples the volutes were connected together by a series of mouldings or hem, hanging down over the echinus, after the manner of a festoon; but in the Roman there is merely a straight line without any moulding carried over the echinus, which is not nearly so graceffil as in the former examples. In late specimens, the volute consists of fewer revolutions, and has no secondary spirals upon it ; the mouldings of the spiral also, as well as the intermediate spaces between the spirals, are flat, and altogether the volute is less prominent, and less CS elaborately worked than in Grecian specimens. In the tem ple of Concord, the volutes are placed diagonally. similar to those of the capital termed Seamozzian, so as to present four similar faces. This is one amongst many varieties of the Roman-Ionic capital, of which there is no lack, some being ornamented with human figures, masks, busts, &c., as in an example given by Pyranesi. These differences are sufficient to show that the ancients did not confine themselves to one and the same treatment of this order on all occasions. The Italians in later times made very considerable alterations, first by reducing the size of the volutes, so as to make them insignificant, and afterwards, by attempting to remedy this defect, and give importance to the capital by the addition of an ornamental necking: another alteration consisted of the addition of festoons to the angular or Scamozzian capita], a festoon being suspended on each side of the capital. from the eye of one volute to that of the other on the same face; an example of this practice is to he seen in the portico to All Souls Church, Langham-place, London. The Romans make use of the Attic base.