Chap. 1.

rEDIAIENTS.
909
durable, and elegant ornaments of a structure, it may be boped they "ill still continue to
be tolerated." We fear that if the only reasons for their toleration wtre those assigned by
'.he author, their doom would soon be sealed.
Sect. XVII.
PEDIMENTS.
2715. A pediment, whose etymology is not quite clear, consists of
a
portion of tlie
horizontal cornice of the building to which it is applied, meeting two entire continued
raking cornices, and enclosing by tlie tlirce boundaries a space which is usually plain,
called the tympauum. It is not, however, necessary that the upper cornice should be
rectilinear, inasmuch as the cornice is sometimes formed by the segment of a circle. The
arrangement in question was the Homim fastigium, and is the Yrench fronton. Tlie Greeks
called pediments asroi, or eagles
;
why, this is not the place to inquire. The origin of the
pediment, according to authors, seems to have arisen from the Lncli:)ed sides of the primitive
hut. Tliis is a subject, however, which in the First Book (subset.
5.)
has been already
considered, and we shall therefore in this section coniine ourselves to its employment in the
architecture of the day.
2716. Of the varied forms which, by masters even of acknowledged talent, have been
yiven to the pediment, whether polygonal, with curves of contrary flexure, with mixed
forms, broken in the horizontal part of the cornice or in the raking parts of it, or reversed
m its office with two springing inclined sides from the centre, we propose to say no more
than that they are such abuses of all rules of propriety, that we shall not further notice
them than by observing that in regular architecture no practice is to be tolerated where
the pediment is composed otherwise than of two raking unbroken and one horizontal
unbroken cornice, or of the latter and one continued flexure of curved line. To these
only, therefore, we now apply ourselves.
2717. Generally, except for windows and doors, the pediment ought not to be used,
but as a termination of the whole composition
;
and though examples are to be found
without number in which an opposite practice has obtained, the reader, on reflection, will
be convinced of the impropriety of it, if there be the smallest foundation for its origin in
the termination of the slant sides of the hut.
2718. The use of the pediment in the interior of a building is, perh.ips, very questionable,
thouo-h the greatest masters have adopted it. We tliink i* altogether unnecessary : if the
pyramidal form is desirable for anv particular conihlnatio" of lines, it may be obtained by
,1 vast number of other means than that of the introduction ot tne pediment. Hence we
are of opinion that the attempted apology for them in Sir William Chambers's work, isalto-
getlier weak and unworthy of him, and only to be exjjlained by that master's own practice.
2719. Vitruvius ordains that neither the modillions nor dentils which are used in the
horizontal cornice should be used in the sloping cornices of a pediment, inasmuch as they
re])resent parts in a roof which could not appear in that pot'tion : and the remains
generally of anti<juity seem to bear him out in the assertion
;
but the Roman remains seem
to bear a different testimony to the validity of the law, and to our own eyes the trans-
gression affords jileasure, and we should recommend the student not to feel himself at all
bound by it; for, as Chambers most truly observes,
"
The disparity of figure and enrich-
ment between the horizontal and inclined cornices are such defects as cannot be compen-
sated by any degree of propriety whatever, and therefore to me it appears best, in imitation
of the greatest Roman and modern architects, alway? to make the two cornices of the
same profile, thus committing a trifling impropriety to avoid a very considerable deformity."
2720. Different si/.ed pediments in the same fsj^ade are
^
to be avoided ; but as respects their forms in ranges of
windows and niches a pleasing variety is often oiitained by
making them alternately curved and rectilinear, as in the
temple at Nlsmes and in the niches of the Pantheon at
Rome.
2721. In the horizontal part of a cornice under a pe-
diment the two upper mouldings are always oniitted, and
the intersection of the inclined with the horizontal lines,
supposing the inclined members of the cornice to be of the
same height as those which are horizontal, will not fall into
the profile
{fig-
945.)
whereof A B and BC are the lead-
ing lines. To obviate this inconvenience, some architects
have made a break in the cymatium and fillet, as shown