Plate LVII - Painting of a port
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Plate LVII represents a picture remaining on the south wall of the garden of the House of the second fountain, which would be better distinguished from the first as the House of the Landscapes. The subject seems to be a sea-port, with its mole, boats, temples, villas and other buildings. The mole is constructed with arches, a circumstance only lately noticed, and that by a Neapolitan architect, Signor Fazio, as the method by which the ancients, both Greek and Roman, endeavoured to counteract the natural tendency of artificial ports to fill up by a deposit of sand or earth. It appears, that, along the coast of Italy, there runs a current toward the south-west, and that there is scarcely any coast without some prevailing stream, carrying with it a proportion of sand, mud, or sediment. |
On ancient medals, arches are often observed as forming
the curved moles of Roman ports ; and it seems that the
Greeks were well avare of the theory of leaving apertures in
their marine constructions, as they appear in the mole at
Eleusis very evidently, and may be traced in that of Delos,
and other islands of the Archipelago.
The arches were left for the exit of all the depositions
brought in by the current ; and it being calculated that only
the surface to the depth of a few feet was materially
agitated by even the most violent tempests, it was found that
by certain flood-gates banging from the piers, a sufficient
calm was produced to insure the safety of vessels within the
mole.
In this picture the sails of boats are seen above the wall on
the right. The mole, probably, was defensible, and had a sort
of parapet and terrace on the top. The buildings are such as
must have existed at the time, and we find none of that
strange, tall Chinese architecture wich abounds on the panels
of all the houses of Pompeii, and which, in fact, could
scarcely have existed in reality.
The figures are of that strange, undefined nature which gives
the appearance of human beings, but which present no detail,
and, in general, cannot be copied. The horizon is, as usual,
very high in the picture, and the blue of the sea, and that
of the sky, are only slightly different. It is by no means
improbable that the whole may be a portrait of some place on
the coast.