CH. II THE LAMP OF TRUTH 67

say, clay, wood, or stone: and as I think it cannot but be generally felt that one of the chief dignities of architecture is its historical use, and since the latter is partly dependent on consistency of style, it will be felt right to retain as far as may be, even in periods of more advanced science, the materials and principles of earlier ages.

§ 10. But whether this be granted me or not, the fact is, that every idea respecting size, proportion, decoration, or construction, on which we are at present in the habit of acting or judging, depends on presupposition of such materials: and as I both feel myself unable to escape the influence of these prejudices, and believe that my readers will be equally so, it may be perhaps permitted to me to assume that true architecture does not admit iron as a constructive material,¹ and that such works as the cast-iron central spire of Rouen Cathedral, or the iron roofs and pillars of our railway stations, and of some of our churches, are not architecture at all. Yet it is evident that metals may, and sometimes must, enter into the construction to a certain extent, as nails in wooden architecture, and therefore, as legitimately, rivets and solderings in stone; neither can we well deny to the Gothic architect the power of supporting statues, pinnacles, or traceries by iron bars; and if we grant this, I do not see how we can help allowing Brunelleschi his iron chain around the dome of Florence,² or the builders of Salisbury* their elaborate iron binding of the central tower. If, however, we would not fall

* “This way of tying walls together with iron, instead of making them of that substance and form, that they shall naturally poise themselves upon their buttment, is against the rules of good architecture, not only because iron is corruptible by rust, but because it is fallacious, having unequal veins in the metal, some places of the same bar being three times stronger than others, and yet all sound to appearance.” (Survey of Salisbury Cathedral in 1668, by Sir C. Wren.) For my own part, I think it better work to bind a tower with iron, than to support a false dome by a brick pyramid.3

¹ [See the author’s note at the end of the text, p. 269.]

² [Brunelleschi’s account of the place of iron in his scheme for the cupola may be read in Vasari, vol. i. pp. 432-433 (Bohn’s ed. 1855).]

³ [As in the case in St. Paul’s: see Pugin’s True Principles of Christian Architecture, 1853, p. 8. The above was Note 8 at the end of eds. 1 and 2, omitted in the 1880 and later editions.]

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