Peter's does not
show its size, because it is _ill_ proportioned, being merely like a
smaller building, with all its parts magnified. Hence the deception to
the eye, which sees details which it is accustomed to see on a smaller
scale, and underrates their actual size, which is only to be ascertained
by deliberate investigation. This confusion as to scale is a weakness
inherent in the classical forms of columnar architecture, in which the
scale of all the parts is always in the same proportion to each other
and to the total size of the building so that a large Doric temple is in
most respects only a small one magnified. In Gothic architecture the
scale is the human figure, and a larger building is treated, not by
magnifying its parts, but by multiplying them. Had this procedure been
adopted in the case of St. Peter's, instead of merely treating it with a
columnar order of vast size, with all its details magnified in
proportion, we should not have the fault to find with it that it does
not produce the effect of its real size. In another sense, the word
"proportion" in architecture refers to the system of designing buildings
on some definite geometrical system of regulating the sizes of the
different parts. The Greeks certainly employed such a system, though
there are not sufficient data for us to judge exactly on what principle
it was worked out.
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