architectural features, thoroughly dependent on the Greek system.  It is in accordance with all these facts probable, as it is credible of itself, that Italian architecture previous to its contact with the Hellenes was confined to wooden huts, abattis, and mounds of earth and stones, and that construction in stone was only adopted in consequence of the example and the better tools of the Greeks.  It is scarcely to be doubted that the Italians first learned from them the use of iron, and derived from them the preparation of mortar (-cal[e]x-, -calecare-, from —­chaliz—­), the machine (-machina-, —­meichanei—­), the measuring-rod (-groma-, a corruption from —­gnomon—­, —­gnoma—­), and the artificial latticework (-clathri-, —­kleithron—­).  Accordingly we can scarcely speak of an architecture peculiarly Italian.  Yet in the woodwork of the Italian dwelling-house—­alongside of alterations produced by Greek influence—­various peculiarities may have been retained or even for the first time developed, and these again may have exercised a reflex influence on the building of the Italian temples.  The architectural development of the house proceeded in Italy from the Etruscans.  The Latin and even the Sabellian still adhered to the hereditary wooden hut and to the good old custom of assigning to the god or spirit not a consecrated dwelling, but only a consecrated space, while the Etruscan had already begun artistically to transform his dwelling-house, and to erect after the model of the dwelling-house of man a temple also for the god and a sepulchral chamber for the spirit.  That the advance to such luxurious structures in Latium first took place under Etruscan influence, is proved by the designation of the oldest style of temple architecture and of the oldest style of house architecture respectively as Tuscanic.(20) As concerns the character of this transference, the Grecian temple probably imitated the general outlines of the tent or dwelling-house; but it was essentially built of hewn stone and covered with tiles, and the nature of the stone and the baked clay suggested to the Greek the laws of necessity and beauty.  The Etruscan on the other hand remained a stranger to the strict Greek distinction between the dwelling of man necessarily erected of wood and the dwelling of the gods necessarily formed of stone.  The peculiar characteristics of the Tuscan temple—­the outline approaching nearer to a square, the higher gable, the greater breadth of the intervals between the columns, above all, the increased inclination of the roof and the singular projection of the roof-corbels beyond the supporting columns—­all arose out of the greater approximation of the temple to the dwelling-house, and out of the peculiarities of wooden architecture.

Plastic Art in Italy