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Travertine, usually called Lapis Tiburtinus, a straw-coloured volcanic limestone excavated in the plain below Tivoli, which has the useful property of hardening on exposure, was now used as the principal building-stone instead of the former lavas and tufas; and the Colosseum, entirely constructed of travertine, which was treated in the middle ages as a quarry, out of which were built many of the palaces and churches of Rome, attests to this day the beauty and durability of this material.
Then what historical associations, straggling away across three thousand years to when Perugia was one of the thirty cities of Etruria, and kept her independence through every vicissitude until Augustus starved her out in 40 B.C.! Portions of the wall, huge smooth blocks of travertine stone, are the work of the vanished Etruscans, and fragments of several gateways, with Roman alterations.
Below the roof, in a frieze in chiaroscuro, he executed some little figures that were much extolled; and in the spaces between the three ranges of windows of travertine that adorn that palace, he painted many ancient gods and other figures in imitation of bronze, in chiaroscuro and in colour, which were more than passing good, although the work of Sodoma was more extolled.
The tall, slender shaft, a column of travertine by day and a column of light by night, supports a sphere upon which is poised a statue typifying the dawn of day. Adolph A. Weinman is the sculptor of this "Rising Sun" which is so deservedly popular on account of the irresistible appeal of the youthful figure.
He carried the first cornice, made of travertine, round the arches: a wonderful piece of work, full of grace, and very different from the others; nor could anything be better done in its kind.
He carried the first cornice, made of travertine, round the arches—a wonderful piece of work, full of grace, and very different from the others. Nor could anything be better done in its kind.
I sha'n't forget, on the long bleak road from Subiaco to Vicovaro, a violent dry wind against us, veiling all things in dust, a spring near Spiagge: a wide runnel of water spirting out of the travertine and running off into clear rills where the mules drink.
The whole is surmounted by a heavy cornice, in which, at intervals immediately over each corbel, are worked square mortise holes, forming sockets through which the poles of the awning passed. The stone of which the façade of the Colosseum is built is a local stone, called travertine, the blocks of which are secured by iron cramps without cement.
The walls of this vestibule, by which modern visitors generally begin their inspection, are built of travertine, and bear evidence of having been paneled with Numidian marble. The pavement is of white mosaic. On the right side of this vestibule, near the niche, begins an inclined spiral way, 30 feet high and 11 feet wide, leading up to the central chamber, which is in the form of a Greek cross.
The shafts of the pillars are fluted and capped after the Corinthian order. Terra cotta, mellow in tone, is the color which has been used upon the travertine material of the columns, and the walls flanking the majestic array of pillars are painted a warm pink.
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