The previous item on the use of Roman architectural orders during the Renaissance, it turns out, comes from a special section in the Guardian all about Renaissance architecture in the blessed isle. Another item in the series mentions in passing:

Ben Jonson lived most of his life as a non-paying guest in the houses of the gentry. In the poem To Penshurst (c1600), he leaves us a record of Penshurst Place as not “built to envious show” but with walls “of country stone”. It praises not a monument, but a household that serves its community, welcomes guests and, most importantly, provides a good table. The literary model for such an exercise was the Roman poet Horace, but the subject was homegrown English. To Penshurst spawned a genre of estate poems that lasted well into the 18th century.

• via: The English Renaissance: the rebirth of refinement | The Guardian

… which was something I was unaware of. Some quick Googling suggests the genre of estate poetry did have numerous ancient influences besides Horace, but a recent work which caught my eye is Jonson, Horace and the Classical Tradition by Victoria Moul (in preview version at Google Books). The blurb therefrom reads:

The influence of the Roman poet Horace on Ben Jonson has often been acknowledged, but never fully explored. Discussing Jonson’s Horatianism in detail, this study also places Jonson’s densely intertextual relationship with Horace’s Latin text within the broader context of his complex negotiations with a range of other ‘rivals’ to the Horatian model including Pindar, Seneca, Juvenal and Martial. The new reading of Jonson’s classicism that emerges is one founded not upon static imitation, but rather a lively dialogue between competing models – an allusive mode that extends into the seventeenth-century reception of Jonson himself as a latter-day ‘Horace’. In the course of this analysis, the book provides fresh readings of many of Jonson’s best known poems – including ‘Inviting a Friend to Dinner’ and ‘To Penshurst’ – as well as a new perspective on many lesser known pieces, and a range of unpublished manuscript material.

… will have to track that one down, I think  (and refresh my knowledge of Ben Jonson from that Renaissance Poetry course I took lo those many years ago) …

Somewhat peripheral to our purview, but interesting in a nachlebenesque sort of way is an item from the Guardian:

The classical “orders” describe a kind of architectural grammar, first developed in Greek architecture then adapted and extended by the Romans. Essentially, the orders determine the shape, proportion and decoration of the basic architectural elements: the vertical, supporting column (with its base, shaft and capital) and the horizontal, supported entablature (divided into three registers, from bottom to top: the architrave, frieze and cornice).

In a satisfyingly symmetrical fashion, the orders were rediscovered and codified in reverse, with a rediscovery of the Roman orders during the Renaissance, only for these to then be shunned in the 18th-century by purists who dug deeper and unearthed what they deemed to be the purer Greek orders.

The Roman orders, as defined by High Renaissance theorists from Leon Battista Alberti to Sebastiano Serlio, comprised the Greek orders revisited (Doric, Ionic and Corinthian) plus their own additions (Tuscan and Composite). They based their definitions on the writings of Roman architect Vitruvius and on first-hand observations of the buildings the latter described in his foundational first-century BC treatise, De Architectura (Ten Books of Architecture). Each successive generation came to the orders with fresh eyes and defined them anew. The 16th-century Italian architect, theorist and archaeologist Andrea Palladio was the most influential, as his I Quattro Libri dell’Architettura (Four Books of Architecture, 1570) were published and translated across Europe. Inigo Jones was highly instrumental in spreading and implementing his ideas in Britain.

The Tuscan order is a primitive form suspected to be older even than the Greek orders, but Roman sources do not mention it – only Renaissance writings make reference to it. It is the simplest of all the orders, with a plain smooth column and a simple capital. The Doric order is characterised by squat columns with round capitals and a frieze decorated with alternating triglyphs (three vertical bands separated by grooves) and plain or sculpted metopes (rectangular blocks). Along with the Tuscan, it is the simplest of the orders and is often associated with strength – the Obelix of the pack. The Ionic order is more elegant and matronly – think Boticelli’s Venus – with often unfluted columns, scrolled capitals, friezes that are sometimes adorned with elaborately sculpted bas-relief and dentils – a row of small blocks – below the cornices. The Corinthian order is also very feminine in nature, characterised primarily by its ornate capitals, which sport two rows of sculpted acanthus leaves with small volutes (spiral scrolls) in the corners. The Composite order is the most sophisticated, a combination of Ionic grace and Corinthian ornamentation – a long-legged hermaphrodite. Its columns are tall and slender, its capitals have bountiful acanthus leaves with big scrolls and its entablature sports an ostentatiously sculpted frieze and cornice.

The Renaissance reading of this classical grammar devised a hierarchy for the use of the orders in a building, starting on the lower floors and moving upwards – Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite. Not all the orders had to be used and Doric was necessarily used for the lowest floor, but whatever you started with, you moved up in the correct order.

• via Renaissance architecture: how to identify the Roman orders| The Guardian.

Something to keep you occupied as I catch up on a mini-backlog:

• Ken Kitchell AND CAMWS will be in LA soon September 10, 2011 Ann Ostrom
• Classic Irony is the Blogosphere September 7, 2011 (author unknown)
• Turkey and the V&A September 9, 2011 David Gill
• Bibliography: Ancient Greek Science September 9, 2011 classicslibrarian
• L’Année épigraphique 2008 published September 9, 2011 Tom Elliott
• Freaky Friday: Julius Caesar vs Vladimir Putin September 9, 2011 (author unknown)
• On This Day (September 9) September 9, 2011 Eric
• David Gill Receives SAFE Beacon Award September 9, 2011 (Nathan Elkins)
• Caesar on 9-11 September 9, 2011 admin
• Men’s Age at Marriage and Its Consequences in the Roman Family September 9, 2011 History of the Ancient World
• Swiss Exhibitition Features World-Class Archeological Forgeries September 9, 2011 Paul Barford
• Archeomafie September 8, 2011 Paul Barford

The Google translate version of the obituary from a Universitetet i Bergen press release  follows (it’s pretty reasonable) … the original can be accessed at the link at the end:
With Tomas Häggs (1938-2011) died on 11 August is the classical philology in Scandinavia and the historical-philosophical faculty at UIB lost a generation’s most prominent and famous scientists.

He became an international household name soon after accession to the Chair of Classical Philology at the UIB in 1977 thanks to his brilliant book on the ancient novel – a research area which just then began to attract interest after living in the shadow of the more “classic “Greek and Roman literature as’ the unpopular popular literature” – one of many lucky Häggs formulations.

The success he followed up with an incredible performance in Byzantine literature, ancient Greek culture from the periphery to the south of Egypt, in Nubia, and with considerable work in the Late Antique Greek literature, pagan and Christian, and a series of translations and other dissemination work. Another high point he reached in 2003 with The Virgin and her Lover (2003) who presented a sensational discovery: the ancient Greek novel of Parthenope known from the publicity and individual fragments were Hägg recovered in a medieval Persian accessories. Not only had he made a discovery, but typical of him, he followed it up with a longstanding relationship with a iranolog (Bo Utas) which resulted in the total publishing, translation and commentary on this text walk from the ancient eastern Mediterranean to medieval Persia. Another research culmination, we actually still waiting for the script for a comprehensive presentation of the biography genre in antiquity that came a few months ago and who will appear at Cambridge University Press.

How all these interests were linked, one can read the fascinating intellectual “autobiography” as Hägg wrote as an introduction to a large collection of articles from 2004: Parthenope – Selected Studies in Ancient Greek Fiction (1969-2004).

All this will be available to interested readers and testify Häggs great influence on the interpretation, discussion and learning about these ancient literary topics.

In addition, you must arrange his work in Classical Studies for 32 years at the UIB (1977-2009) which was only visible to those around him – an act that has drawn deep traces of numerous students and colleagues within and outside the profession. Tomas Hägg possessed a unique empathy. This ability to take an interest in real for others and the interests of others hung undoubtedly with his ability to analyze literature from a distant culture – it was actually in its time a radical break with the Swedish classical philology to focus on the literary aspects of the texts instead the linguistic and historical. The environment in Bergen and Norway came to enjoy the great good to the inclusive, friendly, but also demanding attitude Hägg always exhibited with tireless energy. He was more than 30 years, the Bergen academia soul, heart and spine – which is uncontroversial to say directly because no one was jealous of him and his high academic status: he was much too modest and generous. It is certainly not a bold generalization – based on signed experience – to say that most left his office with both invaluable specific technical response and with its priorities very clearly.

As one example of his way to work may include informal seminars Wednesday Hägg organized from 90-years and above (and which still exists today). The Swedish model he wanted to graduate students, PhD students and colleagues could have an interdisciplinary forum where they test ideas for a slightly larger audience than just the supervisor / colleague. This was no easy fomel to transfer from the combative Swedish (and partially in Danish) professional forums for the somewhat more silent western ones. There were allocated two hours for the session, and often it happened that the presentation took 10-15 minutes and then no one dared say anything. This colleague often thought “How is he going to fill the whole two hours?”. Imperceptibly, he succeeded in boosting people with little comments about how to structure a chapter, the balance should be between retelling and analyzing ancient literature, etc. We colleagues took many mental notes.

In all forums – international or Nordic research groups, administrative bodies, excursions, etc. – were Hägg born leader through the knowledge, modesty, authority and confidence that shone out of him. Missing is very large.

Lars Boje Mortensen, professor of Latin at UIB 1992-2007 Professor II at Centre for Medieval Studies 2007-12

• Minneord for Tomas Hägg

Latest gleanings from the Classical Blogosphere and environs

• Recent content in Archaeology in Greece Online/Chronique des fouilles en ligne September 8, 2011 Charles Ellwood Jones
• Bibliography: Hellenistic Babylonia September 8, 2011 classicslibrarian
• new publication from former LA Classicists September 8, 2011 Ann Ostrom
• Ancient and Modern September 10, 2011 (Peter Jones)
• Rome: Testudo et Lepus (The Tortoise and the Hare) September 8, 2011  (Juliette)
• Polyphemus in Switzerland September 8, 2011 David Gill
• classical theater in BTR September 8, 2011 Ann Ostrom
• Journalistic Detachment? September 8, 2011 Cultural Property Observer
• Round-Up: September 9 September 9, 2011 laura-gibbs@ou.edu (Laura Gibbs)
• Gastrophobia – Unbearable. September 9, 2011
• On This Day in Ancient History – Teutoberg Wald Disaster September 9, 2011 (N.S. Gill)
• Undiscovered treasures – the Laus Pisonis August 31, 2011 lizgloyn
• 3rd Roman Bioarchaeology Carnival September 8, 2011 Kristina Killgrove