An essay on the Roman villas of the Augustan age; their architectural disposition and enrichments and on the remains of the Roman domestic edifices discovered in Great Britain - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1833 edition. Excerpt: ...by abundance of fish, flesh, and fowl, with all the various kinds of food required in grand entertainments. Here was found, painted on the walls, fish ready for dressing, hams, wild boars prepared for the spit, birds, hares, and in short every edible thing,--not unlike the celebrated Flemish pictures of dead game, &c." The pavement of the Culina was a fine black composition possessing the peculiar property of imbibing water, so that the floor was always dry3. 1 The Caminus of the Temple of Isis is represented in Ruines de Pompeii, vol. iii., The art of cookery was in high reputation at Rome; and its professors were celebrated for making artificial birds and fishes, which exceeded the reality in exquisiteness of taste3. It is probable that the Greeks derived some of their skill from the Eastern nations, and principally from the Lydians, whose cooks were celebrated in Athens,---and some from Egypt. The Romans obtained much of their culinary skill, with the other fine arts, from the Greeks, and had also many authors on the subject; but their works are unfortunately all lost, excepting that of Apicius, who lived in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, and whose name was applied to several dishes composed of different sorts of meat1. 1 See Ruines de Pompeii, vol. ii. These subjects have found admirers in every age, Rubens, Snyders, Ostade, and almost all the distinguished masters of the Flemish and Dutch schools of painting, employed their pencils on still life: a butcher's shop, painted by Annibale Caracci, is amongst the pictures presented by General Guise to Christchurch, Oxford. 8 Vitruvius, lib. vii. cap. 4. 3 Arbuthnot's Tables, p. 136. 4 A few hints on the subject of cookery are to be collected from Homer, and more from Aristophanes;...