PAL
254
PAL
i
I
the remains of ancient edifices in that capital, and formedhis taste upon them. On his return, many works of impor-tance were committed to him, which he managed with greatskill, and obtained for himself a high reputation. He wasnow sent for to Venice , where he built the palace Foscari inthe style of pure antiquity. Several other Italian cities wereafterwards decorated with magnificent edifices, public andprivate, of his construction, and he was invited to the courtof Emanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, who received himwith distinguished houours. To Palladio is chiefly attributedthe classic taste which reigns in so many of the buildings ofItaly . Ilis master-piece is reckoned the Olympic theatre atVicenza, in imitation of that of Marcellus at Rome . He diedin that city in 1580, having greatly improved the art, notonly by his edifices, but by his writings, which are standardperformances. Of these the following account is given : hisTreatise on Architecture, in four books, was first publishedat Venice in 1570, folio, and has several times been reprinted.A magnificent edition, in three volumes, folio, was publishedat London in 1715, in Italian, French, and English .Another, equally splendid, has since been published atVenice , in four volumes, folio, with the addition of his inedi-ted buildings. Lord Burlington published in London , in1730, a volume entitled, Idisegni delle Terme Antiche diAndrea Palladio. He composed a small work, intitled LeAntichita di Roma, not printed till after his death. He illus-trated Cmsar’s Commentaries, by annexing to Badelli’s trans-lation of that work, a preface on the military system of theRomans, with copper-plates, designed, for the most part, byhis two sons, Leonida and Orazio, who both died soon after.Palladio was modest in regard to his own merit, but he wasa friend to all men of talents ; his memory is highly honouredby the votaries of the fine arts ; and the simplicity andpurity of his taste have given him the appellation of theRaphael of architects.
PALLADIUM (from the Greek IlaXXoc, the goddess ofwar) in antiquity, a statue of the goddess Pallas, or Minerva,three cubits high, holding a pike in the right hand, and adistaff and spindle in the left, preserved in Troy, in thetemple of Minerva, on which the fate of that city is said tohave depended.
The tradition is, that in building a citadel, in honour ofPallas, and a temple in the most elevated part of it, the pal-ladium dropped from heaven, and marked out the placewhich the goddess was pleased to possess. After this, Apollogave an oracle, importing that Troy should never be takenwhile the palladium was found within its walls : whichoccasioned Diomedes and Ulysses, during the Trojan war, toundertake the stealing of it. For this purpose havingentered the citadel by night, or by means of secret intelli-gence, they stole away this valuable pledge of the security ofthe Trojans, and conveyed it into their camp ; where theyhad scarcely arrived, when the goddess gave testimonies ofher wrath.
It is said, there was, anciently, a statue of Pallas preservedat Rome , in the temple of Vesta ; which some pretended tobe the true palladium of Troy, brought into Italy by ACneas :it was kept among the sacred things of the temple, and onlyknown to the priests and vestals. This statue was esteemed thedestiny of Rome ; and there were several others made per-fectly like it, to secure it from being stolen. There was •also a palladium in the citadel of Atnens, placed there byNicias. ,
PALLIER, or Paillier (French ) in building, a landing-place in a staircase, which being broader than the rest of thestairs, serves to rest upon. The term, which is pure French ,is not much used by English builders. On large staircases,
rtj* |U‘ '
where there are sometimes several pillars in a rang e tlV othe palliers ought each to have, at least, the width 0 t |,gsteps. Vitruvius calls the palliers on landing-ph* cestheatres diazomata. , „ ad
PALLIFICATION, or Piling, in architecture, 0 rof piling the groundwork, or strengthening it with Pj 0 n•timber driven into the ground ; this plan is adopt® ^moist or marshy soils, where an edifice is intendeerected. vil rj"
PALM, a measure of length among the Italians , bu ^ e , ring in value in different localities. The palm of G® 11 . e \i$sures nine inches, nine lines, that of Naples eight ^seven lines, that of Palermo eight inches five lines, ■modern Roman palm eight inches three and a half b» r „|ri3PALMYRA, Ruins of, or Palmyrene Ruins, t gyri«>of a celebrated city of this name, situate in a desert o pp&in the pachalic of Damascus , about 48 leagues front j^ g <4
Solo ® 1
Tadrnor, appears to have been originally built by u 3 >(1 Kings, ix. 18. 2 Chron. viii. 4.) Josephus aS . 9 jj 0I n#® 3that this was the same city which the Greeks aiu gr !>/afterwards called Palmyra ; and it is still called l' 1 ^id® 9the Arabs of the country. But many circumstance- 9 ! 3e ntthe style of the buildings, render it probable that the r^gliruins are not those of the city built by Solorop 11 ’neither history nor tradition mention the buildingother. , tff . 0 d< s '
With respect to the ruins, they appear to be o a din |1tinct periods ; the oldest are so far decayed as no t g t»t eof mensuration, and seem to have been reduced to ok eJ1by the hand of time ; the others appear to have ' ,ee n0ll e |lf9into fragments by violence. Of the inscriptions ^ JeSearlier than the birth of Christ, nor are any later t 1 ® I nlf ,tit‘ (, ! 1 gtruction of the city by Aurelian , except one, whic tt^
Dioclesian. It is scarcely less difficult to accou" ^ g n i 0 gsituation of this city than for its magnificence^probable conjecture is, that as soon as the springs ( j gse rtwere discovered by those who first traversed * 16 for 1which it is situated, a settlement was made i nreserviC*.purpose of carrying on the trade to India , and P ^ e( \ Sintercourse between the Mediterranean and t 1 ..j^tia 11 £T 1 1This trade, which flourished long before they* , ( (t ,accounts not only for its situation, but also 1 3 nju ^
As it lay between Egypt, Persia, and Greece , 0 f th“ ig
to expect, that traces of the manners and scie igg ; |G r
nations should be discovered among the Pain '. „ 9 in * j,iaccordingly appear to have imitated the EgjP Gr e , lie
funeral rites, the Persians in their luxury, and n °" r (if
their buildings ; and therefore the buildings, j olTl0 n, n ° 0 ,-s,in ruins, were probably neither the works of e tc? cl
the Seleueidoe, nor, few excepted, by the K° m ^ gg>
fll'O
but of the Palmyrenes themselves. ^j^g
Palmyra was formerly encompassed bytrees, and covered an area, according to ro i)aldy !>/near ten miles in circumference ; and migh j-j^d stl1 q'h®been reduced to its present confined and ' r ]ivi"^ s ' i jt’ squantities of sand, driven over it by w ” g ; a n | (l Je‘1walls of the city'- are flanked with square to' in® ^„t,
probable, from their general direction, t m ro f er eH ce '. s c ity<the great temple, and are three miles in p] 1011 jn 1 |1 , v |if^of all the monuments of art and magnifleen Ti>® ^oip'the most considerable is the temple of tj 1 ® ® yard*’ e y tin 1 ’space containing its ruins, is a square of t) il i i9t® rS yyjtli' 11passed with a stately wall, and adorned wi 1 ^ a [de-and without, to the number of sixty-two on ]]0 bl e ^ yi 1 * 1the court are the remains of two rows o nc0 ®p a33epillars, 37 feet high ; the temple was e
,io»