A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume I (of 2)

When the triumviri, says Appian913, caused those who had been proscribed by them to be sought out by the military, some of them, to avoid the bloody hands of their persecutors, hid themselves in wells, and others, as Ferrarius translates the words, “in fumaria sub tecto, qua scilicet fumus e tecto evolvitur.” The true translation however is “fumosa cænacula.” The principal persons of Rome endeavoured to conceal themselves in the smoky apartments of the upper story under the roof, which in general were inhabited only by poor people; and this seems to be confirmed by what Juvenal914 expressly says, “Rarus venit in cænacula miles.”

Those passages of the ancients which speak of smoke rising up from houses have with equal impropriety been supposed to allude to chimneys, as if the smoke could not make its way through doors and windows. Seneca915 writes, “Last evening I had some friends with me, and on that account a stronger smoke was raised; not such a smoke however as bursts forth from the kitchens of the great, and which alarms the watchmen, but such a one as signifies that guests are arrived.” Those whose judgements are not already warped by prejudice, will undoubtedly find the true sense of these words to be, that the smoke forced its way through the kitchen windows. Had the houses been built with chimney-funnels, one cannot conceive why the watchmen should have been alarmed when they observed a stronger smoke than usual arising from them; but as the kitchens had no conveniences of that kind, an apprehension of fire, when extraordinary entertainments were to be provided in the houses of the rich for large companies, seems to have been well-founded; and on such occasions people appointed for that purpose were stationed in the neighbourhood to be constantly on the watch, and to be ready to extinguish the flames in case a fire should happen916. There are many other passages to be found in Roman authors of the like kind, which it is hardly necessary to mention, such as that of Virgil917:

Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant.

and the following words of Plautus918 descriptive of a miser:

Quin divûm atque hominum clamat continuo fidem,Suam rem periisse, seque eradicarier,De suo tigillo fumus si qua exit foras.

If there were no funnels in the houses of the ancients to carry off the smoke, the directions given by Columella to make kitchens so high that the roof should not catch fire, was of the utmost importance919. An accident of the kind, which that author seems to have apprehended, had almost happened at Beneventum, when the landlord who entertained Mæcenas and his company was making a strong fire in order to get some birds sooner roasted:

… ubi sedulus hospesPæne arsit, macros dum turdos versat in igne;Nam vaga per veterem dilapso flamma culinamVulcano summum properabat lambere tectum920.

Had there been chimneys in the Roman houses, Vitruvius certainly would not have failed to describe their construction, which is sometimes attended with considerable difficulties, and which is intimately connected with the regulation of the plan of the whole edifice. He does not, however, say a word on this subject; neither does Julius Pollux, who has collected with great care the Greek names of every part of a dwelling-house; and Grapaldus, who in later times made a like collection of the Latin terms, has not given a Latin word expressive of a modern chimney921

I shall here answer an objection which may be made, that the word caminus means a chimney; and I shall also explain what methods the ancients, and particularly the Romans, employed without chimneys to warm their apartments. Caminus signified, as far as I have been able to learn, first a chemical or metallurgic furnace, in which a crucible was placed for melting and refining metals. It signified also a smith’s forge922. It signified likewise, without doubt, a hearth, or as we talk at present, a fire-place, which served for warming the apartment in which it was constructed; and for that purpose portable stoves or fire-pans were also employed. These were either filled with burning coals, or wood was lighted in them, and, when burned to coal, was carried into the apartment. In all these however there appears no trace of a chimney.

The complaints often made by the ancients respecting smoke serve also to confirm the opinion that they had no chimneys. Vitruvius923, where he speaks of ornamenting and fitting up apartments, says expressly, that there ought to be no carved work or mouldings, but plain cornices, in rooms where fire is made and many lights burned, because they will soon be covered with soot, and therefore will require to be often cleaned. On the other hand, he allows carving in summer apartments, where the effects of smoke are not to be apprehended. The moderns, however, who use chimneys, ornament the borders of them with carving, painting and gilding, nor are they injured by the smoke; but we find that among the ancients, furniture of every kind, ceilings and walls were soon covered over with soot; and from this even the images of their ancestors, imagines majorum, were not secure, which, though they were to be found only in the houses of the great, and stood in niches in the atrium924 or hall, became black with smoke, and on that account were justly named fumosæ925. The smoke therefore must have been blown very much about, and carried into every apartment. In the houses of the opulent, care in all probability was employed to keep them clean; but the habitations of families who did not belong to the common or poorest classes, are represented as smoky and black; and we are told that their walls and ceilings were full of soot. They were therefore called black houses, as in Russia the huts of the common people, which are furnished with paltry stoves, and which are blackened in the same manner by the smoke of the fir-wood used in them for fuel, are called black huts926.

As the houses of the ancients were so smoky, it may be easily comprehended how, by means of smoke, they could dry and harden, not only various articles used as food, but also different pieces of timber employed for making all sorts of large and small implements. In this manner was prepared the wood destined for ploughs, waggons, and ships, and particularly that of which rudders were formed927. For this reason pantries for flesh and wine, and also coops to hold fowls, which were said to thrive by smoke, were constructed near the kitchen, where it always abounded928; and on the other hand, it was necessary to remove to a distance from kitchens, apartments destined for the purpose of preserving such articles as were liable to be spoiled by smoke929: but among us the case is widely different, for we often have neat and elegant apartments in the neighbourhood of the kitchen.

From what has been said it will readily appear why the ancients kept by them such quantities of hard wood, which, when burning, does not occasion smoke. The same kind is even sought after at present, and on this account we value that of the white and common willow, Salix alba and triandra; because when burned in our chimneys, it makes little smoke, and throws out fewest sparks. The great trouble, however, which was taken in old times to procure wood that would not smoke, clearly proves that this was much more necessary in those periods than at present. It was customary to peel off the bark from the wood, to let it lie afterwards a long time in water, and then to suffer it to dry930. This process must undoubtedly have proved of great service, for we know that wood which has been conveyed by water, in floats, kindles more readily, burns brisker, and throws out less smoke than that which has been transported from the forest in waggons. Another method, much employed, of rendering wood less apt to smoke, was to soak it in oil or oil-lees, or to pour oil over it931. With the like view, wood, before it was used, was hardened or scorched over the fire, until it lost the greater part of its moisture, without being entirely reduced to charcoal. This method is still employed with advantage in glass-houses and porcelain manufactories, where there are stoves made on purpose to dry wood. Such scorched wood appears to be that to which the ancients gave the name of ligna cocta or coctilia932. It was sold in particular warehouses at Rome, called tabernæ coctiliariæ, and the preparing as well as the selling of it formed an employment followed by the common people, and which, as we are told, was carried on by the father of the emperor Pertinax933. When it was necessary to kindle fire without wood prepared in that manner, an article probably too expensive for indigent families, we find complaints of smoke which brought on a watering of the eyes; and this was the case with Horace at a paltry inn where he happened to stop when on a journey934.

The information which can be collected from the Greek and Roman authors respecting the manner in which the ancients warmed their apartments, however imperfect, nevertheless shows that they commonly used for that purpose a large fire-pan or portable stove, in which they kindled wood, and, when the wood was well-lighted, carried it into the room, or which they filled with burning coals. When Alexander the Great was entertained by a friend in winter, as the weather was cold and raw, a small fire-bason was brought into the apartment to warm it. The prince, observing the size of the vessel, and that it contained only a few coals, desired his host, in a jeering manner, to bring more wood or frankincense, giving him thus to understand that the fire was fitter for burning perfumes than to produce heat935. Anacharsis, the Scythian philosopher, though displeased with many of the Grecian customs, praised the Greeks, however, because they shut out the smoke and brought only fire into their houses936. We are informed by Lampridius, that the extravagant Heliogabalus caused to be burned in these stoves, instead of wood, Indian spiceries and costly perfumes937. It is also worthy of notice, that coals were found in some of the apartments of Herculaneum, as we are told by Winkelmann, but neither stoves nor chimneys. As in Persia and other countries of the East no stoves made in the European manner are used at present, and as it is certain that the manners, customs and furniture of the early ages have been retained there almost without variation, we have reason to suppose that the methods employed by the inhabitants for warming themselves are the same as those used by the ancients. They agree perfectly with the descriptions given by the Greek and Roman authors, and serve in some measure to illustrate them. I shall therefore here insert the account given by De la Valle, as it is the clearest and most to the purpose.

“The Persians,” says he, “make fires in their apartments, not in fire-places as we do, but in stoves in the earth, which they call tennor. These stoves consist of a square or round hole, two spans or a little more in depth, and in shape not unlike an Italian cask. That this hole may throw out heat sooner, and with more strength, there is placed in it an iron vessel of the same size, which is either filled with burning coals, or a fire of wood and other inflammable substances is made in it. When this is done, they place over the hole or stove a wooden top, like a small low table, and spread above it a large coverlet quilted with cotton, which hangs down on all sides to the floor. This covering condenses the heat, and causes it to warm the whole apartment. The people who eat or converse there, and some who sleep in it, lie down on the floor above the carpet, and lean, with their shoulders against the wall, on square cushions, upon which they sometimes also sit; for the tennor is constructed in a place equally distant from the walls on both sides. Those who are not very cold, only put their feet under the table or covering; but those who require more heat can put their hands under it, or creep under it altogether. By these means the stove diffuses over the whole body, without causing uneasiness to the head, so penetrating and agreeable a warmth, that I never in winter experienced anything more pleasant. Those, however, who require less heat let the coverlet hang down on their side to the floor, and enjoy without any inconvenience from the stove the moderately heated air of the apartment. They have a method also of stirring up or blowing the fire when necessary, by means of a small pipe united with the tennor or stove under the earth, and made to project above the floor as high as one chooses, so that the wind, when a person blows into it, because it has no other vent, acts immediately upon the fire like a pair of bellows. When there is no longer occasion to use this stove, both holes are closed up, that is to say, the mouth of the stove and that of the pipe which conveys the air to it, by a flat stone made for that purpose. Scarcely any appearance of them is then to be perceived, nor do they occasion inconvenience, especially in a country where it is always customary to cover the floor with a carpet, and where the walls are plastered. In many parts these stoves are used to cook victuals, by placing kettles over them. They are employed also to bake bread, and for this purpose they are covered with a large broad metal plate, on which the cake is laid; but if the bread is thick and requires more heat, it is put into the stove itself938.” I shall here remark, that the Jews used such stoves in their houses, and the priests had them also in the temple939.

Those who have employed their talents on this subject before me, have collected a great many passages from the Greek and Roman writers which speak of fires made for the purpose of affording warmth; but as they contain nothing certain or decisive, I shall not here enlarge upon them940. Though one or more expressions may appear to allude to a chimney, and even if we should conclude from them, with Montfaucon, that the ancients were acquainted with the art of constructing in mason-work elevated funnels for conveying off the smoke, it must be allowed, when we consider the many proofs which we find to the contrary, that they were at any rate extremely rare. As they are so convenient and useful, and can be easily constructed upon most occasions, it is impossible, had they been well known, that they should have ever been forgotten. Montfaucon says, from caminus is derived chiminea of the Spaniards; camino of the Italians; cheminée of the French; and kamin of the Germans; and it seems, adds he, beyond a doubt, that the name, with the thing signified, has been transmitted to us from the ancients. Though this derivation be just, the conclusion drawn from it is false. The ancient name of a thing is often given to a new invention that performs the same service. The words mill and moulin came from mola; and yet our mills were unknown to the ancients. Guys relates, that a Greek woman, seeing an European lady covered with a warm cloak, said, “That woman carries her tennor about with her.”

Besides the methods already mentioned, of warming apartments, the ancients had another still more ingenious, which was invented and introduced about the time of Seneca941. A large stove or several smaller ones were constructed in the earth under the edifice; and these being filled with burning coals, the heat was conveyed from them into dining-rooms, bed-chambers, or other apartments which one wished to warm942 by means of pipes inclosed in the walls. The upper end of these hot-air pipes was often ornamented with the representation of a lion’s or a dolphin’s head, or any other figure according to fancy, and could be opened or shut at pleasure. It appears that this apparatus was first constructed in the baths, and became extended afterwards to common use. These pipes sometimes were conducted around the whole edifice943, as I have seen in our theatres. Palladius advises a branch of such pipes to be conveyed under the floor of an oil-cellar, in order that it may be heated without contracting soot944. Such a mode of warming apartments, which approaches very near to that employed in our German stoves, would have been impossible, had the houses been without windows; and it is worthy of remark, that transparent windows, at the time Seneca lived, were entirely new. These pipes, like those of our stoves, could not fail in the course of time to become filled with soot; and as they were likely to catch fire by being overheated, laws were made forbidding them to be brought too near to the wall of a neighbouring house945, though there were other reasons also for this regulation. As what is here said will be better elucidated by a description of the still existing ruins of some ancient baths, I shall transcribe the following passage from Winkelmann: —

“Of chimneys in apartments,” says this author, “no traces are to be seen. Charcoal was found in some of the rooms in the city of Herculaneum, from which we may conclude that the inhabitants used only charcoal fires for warming themselves. In the houses of the common citizens at Naples, there are no chimneys at present; and people of rank there as well as at Rome, who strictly adhere to the rules laid down by physicians for preserving health, live in apartments without chimneys, and which are never heated by coal-fires. In the villas, however, which were situated without Rome, on eminences where the air was purer and colder, the ancients had hypocausta or stoves, which were more common perhaps than in the city. Stoves were found in the apartments of a ruined villa, when the ground was dug up to form a foundation for the buildings erected there at present. Below these apartments there were subterraneous chambers, about the height of a table, two and two under each apartment, and close on all sides. The flat top of these chambers consisted of very large tiles, and was supported by two pillars, which, as well as the tiles, were joined together, not with lime but some kind of cement, that they might not be separated by the heat. In the roofs of these chambers there were square pipes made of clay, which hung half-way down into each, and the mouths of them were conveyed into the apartment above. Pipes of the like kind, built into the wall of this lower apartment, rose into another in the second story, where their mouths were ornamented with the figure of a lion’s head, formed of burned clay. A narrow passage, of about two feet in breadth, conducted to the subterranean chambers, into which coals were thrown through a square hole, and the heat was conveyed from them by means of the before-mentioned pipes into the apartment immediately above, the floor of which was composed of coarse mosaic-work, and the walls were incrusted with marble. This was the sweating-apartment (sudatorium). The heat of this apartment was conveyed into that on the second story by the clay pipes enclosed in the wall, which had mouths opening into the former, as well as the latter, to collect and afford a passage to the heat, which was moderated in the upper apartment, and could be increased or lessened at pleasure.” Such a complex apparatus would have been unnecessary had the Romans been acquainted with our stoves946.

I have, as yet, made no mention of a passage of the emperor Julian, which is too remarkable to be entirely omitted; though, at the same time, it is so corrupted that little can be collected from it947. Julian relates, that during his residence at Paris the winter was uncommonly severe; but that he would not allow the house in which he lived to be heated, though it had the same apparatus for that purpose as the other houses of the city. His reason for this was, that he wished to inure himself to the climate; and he was apprehensive also, that the walls by being heated might become moist and throw out a damp vapour. He suffered, therefore, burning coals only to be brought into his apartment, which, however, occasioned pains in his head, and other disagreeable symptoms. What apparatus the houses of Paris then had for producing heat, no one can conjecture from the passage alluded to. In my opinion, they were furnished with the above-described subterranean stoves: but even if these should not be here meant, I cannot help thinking that the emperor’s relation confirms that they had not chimneys like ours; for, had the case been otherwise, the cautious prince would not have exposed himself to the vapour of charcoal, the noxious quality and effects of which could not be unknown to him.

Though the great antiquity of chimneys is not disputed, too little information has been collected to enable us to determine, with any degree of certainty, the period when they first came into use. If it be true, as Du Cange, Vossius, and others affirm, that apartments called caminatæ were apartments with chimneys, these must, indeed, be very old; for that word occurs as early as the year 1069, and perhaps earlier948; but it is always found connected in such a manner as contradicts entirely the above signification. Papias the grammarian, who wrote about 1051, explains the word fumarium by caminus per quem exit fumus; and Johannes de Janua, a monk, who about 1268 wrote his Catholicon, printed at Venice, says “Epicaustorium, instrumentum quod fit super ignem caussa emittendi fumum.” But these fumaria and epicaustoria may have been pipes by which the smoke, as is the case in our vent-furnaces, was conveyed through the nearest wall or window: at any rate, this expression, with its explanations, can afford no certain proof that chimneys are so old949; especially as later writers give us reason to believe the contrary. Riccobaldus de Ferrara950, Galvano Fiamma or Flamma, a Dominican monk from Milan951, who died in 1344 professor at Pavia, and Giovanni de Mussis, who about 1388 wrote his Chronicon Placentinum952, and all the writers of the fourteenth century, seem either to have been unacquainted with chimneys, or to have considered them as the newest invention of luxury.

That there were no chimneys in the tenth, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, seems to be proved by the so-called ignitegium, or pyritegium, the curfew-bell of the English, and couvre-feu of the French. In the middle ages, as they are termed, people made fires in their houses in a hole or pit in the centre of the floor, under an opening formed in the roof; and when the fire was burnt out, or the family went to bed at night, the hole was shut by a cover of wood. In those periods a law was almost everywhere established, that the fire should be extinguished at a certain time in the evening; that the cover should be put over the fire-place; and that all the family should retire to rest, or at least be at home953. The time when this ought to be done was signified by the ringing of a bell. William the Conqueror introduced this law into England in the year 1068, and fixed the ignitegium at seven in the evening, in order to prevent nocturnal assemblies954; but this law was abolished by Henry I., in 1100. From this ancient practice has arisen, in my opinion, a custom in Lower Saxony of saying, when people wish to go home sooner than the company choose, that they hear the Bürgerglocke, burghers’ bell. The ringing of the curfew-bell gave rise also to the prayer-bell, as it was called, which has still been retained in some protestant countries. Pope John XXIII., with a view to avert certain apprehended misfortunes, which rendered his life uncomfortable, gave orders that every person, on hearing the ignitegium, should repeat the Ave Maria three times955. When the appearance of a comet and a dread of the Turks afterwards alarmed all Christendom, Pope Calixtus III. increased these periodical times of prayer by ordering the prayer-bell to be rung also at noon956.

The oldest certain account of chimneys with which I am acquainted, occurs in the year 1347; for an inscription which is still existing or did exist at Venice, relates that at the above period a great many chimneys (molti camini) were thrown down by an earthquake957. This circumstance is confirmed by John Villani, the historian, who died at Florence in 1348, and who calls the chimneys fumajuoli958. Galeazzo Gataro, who in the Dictionary of Learned Men is named De Gataris, and who died of the plague in 1405, says in his History of Padua, which was afterwards improved and published by his son Andrew, that Francesco da Carraro, lord of Padua, came to Rome in the year 1368, and finding no chimneys in the hotel where he lodged, because at that time fire was kindled in a hole in the middle of the floor, he caused two chimneys, like those which had been long used at Padua, to be constructed, and arched by masons and carpenters whom he had brought along with him. Over these chimneys, the first ever seen at Rome, he affixed his arms, which were still remaining in the time of Gataro959.