Greek temple in Poseidonia/ Paestum, Italy (ca. 460 BC)

From Perseus Digital Library – Tufts College:

"Abstract: Temple devoted to Hera, adjoining to the older Temple of Hera I within the southern non secular sanctuary of the positioning.

(…)

Dimensions: (…) If the proposed unit of measurement of 30 cm. = 1F is accepted, derived from a mean intercolumniation of 4.50 m., de Waele 1980, 399, the proportions of the temple might be expressed as follows: total dimensions 81 x 200 F; dimensions of cella 45 x 135 F; width of ptera 16 F (east), 14 F (west); axial intercolumniation 15 F; decrease column diameter 7.5 F; top of exterior columns 29.5 F; top of entablature 10 F.

Area: Campania

Interval: Classical

Architectural Order: Doric

Plan: The temple is peristyle, with 6 x 14 columns, a distyle in antis pronaos, and a distyle in antis opisthodomos. To the fitting of the cella door, a staircase led to the roof; to the left was a small utility room. Contained in the cella, a double colonnade of seven columns divides the cella right into a nave and two facet aisles. Above the decrease colonnade, an higher colonnade of smaller columns helps help the roof. Double angle contraction is employed within the temple: the nook intercolumniations on the flanks and fronts are decreased, to ensure that the triglyphs within the frieze above to be centered over the columns. This contraction is distributed over the primary two intercolumniations on the corners. Sure optical refinements are additionally employed: the stylobate is curved upwards barely in direction of the middle, to keep away from an impression of sagging; the horizontal cornices are additionally barely curved; and the columns incline barely inwards. These options counsel that the architect was influenced by developments in mainland Greek structure.

Date Description: The proof for the date of the temple is predicated on perceived similarities between it and the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, recognized to have been accomplished by 457 B.C. The optical refinements all through the temple counsel that the architect was conscious of developments in Doric structure on the mainland, though an try to date the temple to after the development of the Parthenon (Gottlieb 1953, 95-101), has typically not been accepted.

Historical past: The temple was constructed in ca. 460 B.C. There isn’t a proof of considerable later repairs or restorations, aside from the addition of a semicircular flight of steps on the east facade within the Roman interval. Though the cella partitions had been eliminated to offer constructing materials within the Byzantine interval, the temple at present is extraordinarily well-preserved, with all columns of the peristyle in situ, and the superstructure preserved as much as the horizontal and raking cornices.

Different Notes: The temple incorporates some archaizing options, such because the low profile of the echinus of the column capitals, the usage of 24 flutes on the columns as a substitute of the canonical 20, the presence of fourteen columns alongside the flanks as a substitute of 13, and the commonly squat proportions of the columns and entablature. Nevertheless, the optical refinements, and the information of the speculation of angle contraction, compensate for these archaizing options and lend a dynamic and harmonious side to the temple. The temple is devoid of sculptural ornament: neither the metopes nor the pediments had been sculpted.

Because of its massive measurement, the temple was believed by early travellers to have been devoted to Poseidon, titular divinity of the positioning of Poseidonia. The presence of quite a few terracotta votive reliefs, nonetheless, point out that the temple was the second temple to be devoted to Hera at Paestum, adjoining to the Temple of Hera I, the so-called Basilica on the web site. In contrast to different temples on the web site, which mix Ionic and Doric architectural options, the Temple of Hera II is solely Doric, maybe the one concession to the Ionic order being the absence of regulae and guttae above the architrave, and of their place a steady crowning molding."