Our illustration (fig. ro) gives an inner view of the historical Rath halts, or city-hall, of Augsburg, the architecture of which, though apper taining to the later Renaissance, is still peculiarly characteristic of the city. The ground-floor is strongly secured as a protection for the senators who assembled there and as the centre of a system of defence that extended throughout the city. The second story contains a small council-chamber which was used for meetings of the senate; the third story is occupied by a large chamber where the senate met in session with the emperor and the assembly'of the empire; adjoining it arc committee-rooms and court-rooms, and above arc the archives, etc.
Interior Decoration.—The interior embellishment of dwellings pre vious to the fourteenth century was as simple as possible. It is true that even in the tenth century the halls of the abbots of St. Gall were orna mented with marble columns and with frescos painted by the monks of the convent of Reichenau; but this was an exception, and hence con sidered worthy of being recorded.
The floors of the private houses consisted either of hard-rolled earth or of cement, or at best were formed of decorated tiles. The latter, some times brightly glazed, continued in use, together with wooden floors, as late as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In many old castles the only floor was the bare rock, which was every morning strewn with rushes. Sometimes even the natural rock, hewn roughly, formed the walls of rooms. About the end of the Middle Ages carpets were used, but only on special occasions.
Panels of wood were employed at a very early date to decorate the walls, but at first they were rude and inartistic. Up to the fifth century smooth boards were used only in royal palaces. They are shown in their simple form on Plate 41 (fig. f), which is copied from an old Dutch paint ing of a lady's chamber. About the beginning of the sixteenth century these wooden panels began to receive artistic treatment, being divided into spaces, decorated, and fitted with corresponding door-frames. They reached their highest development, though the style had somewhat degen erated, in the grand halls of the seventeenth century (fig. 4). At this latter period they were not continued up to the ceiling, but were finished off at somewhat more than a man's height with a projecting cornice which was used as a shelf for pictures, etc. (figs. 2, 4). The burnt clay
plaques mentioned above as flooring were also used in the Middle Ages, as is shown by some traces of them in the cathedral of Regensburg (Rat isbon); and probably the glazed and painted tiles which are still used to render walls fireproof are the direct outcome of them.
For a long time whitewash was the common decoration for walls. In the houses of the wealthy these walls were hung with tapestry, and after the fourteenth century with expensive Brabant gobelins, which were finally even interwoven with gold and were extremely costly. In the seventeenth century embossed colored hangings of leather and heavy silk draperies offered a cheaper substitute for the gobelins. The fore runner of our wall-paper was pasteboard laid thickly over linen and ornamented with painted reliefs. The prevailing style of wall-decoration after the beginning of the preceding century consisted simply of some kind of tinting, sometimes shaded off to an ornamented border of stucco work or in imitation of this. Occasionally, too, the walls were frescoed with pictorial representations (jig. 5).
In ancient times the rafters were left bare. As late as the seventh century birds could enter through cracks in the ceiling, as we gather from a written intimation. A great step forward was made when the lower room was separated from the one above by means of joists with boards nailed across them. In course of time the long joists were crossed by shorter ones (fig. 2), forming sunken squares which offered a suitable place for decoration. The beams were sometimes carved or painted. Later on, the panelling of the wall was continued up to the ceiling and united with the elaborate network of the joists (fig. 4). As a further decoration, paintings were placed in the centre of the ceiling and at the corners. The magnificence of such interiors is shown by the ceilings in the Palace of the Doges at Venice, on which gilded carvings with figures of colossal size enclose the paintings of famous artists. In the eighteenth century stucco-work, which likewise called in the aid of painting, sup planted the wood-carving, especially on the ceilings (p1. 41, fig. 5).