their Italian decoration appearing in the medallions and spandrels of
the arches, the garlands hung along the entablature of the colonnade,
and the interior adornment of the vaulted corridors. The columns,
including the huge Sienna shafts before the arches and the Tower of
Jewels, are Roman Corinthian, with opulent capitals, though not too
florid when used in a work of such vast extent. Most Roman of all is the
great Column of Progress, at the north end of the court.

McKim, Mead and White of New York, the architects, had the Piazza of St.
Peter's at Rome in mind when they designed this great sweep of
colonnades. There, too, they borrowed from the circle of saints the idea
of the repeated Star figure. The colonnade not only encloses the court
but is produced along the sides of the Palaces of Agriculture and
Transportation to form two corridors of almost Egyptian vastness. These
two features, the arches and the colonnades, here at the center of the
palace group, strike the Exposition's note of breadth. Their decoration
is the key to the festal richness of all the adornment.

By day the four entrances to the court are its finest features. Nowhere
in the whole Exposition is the air more gloriously free than around the
lofty arch and colonnades of the Tower of Jewels. Nowhere is the
sunlight purer, or the sky bluer, than over the broad approach leading
up from the glancing waters of the bay, past the aspiring Column of
Progress, and between the noble colonnades of the palaces on either
hand. From within the court, or from the approaches on east and west,
the triumphal Arches of the Nations impress one with the magnificence of
their proportions, their decoration, and their color. There the Oriental
hues of the Exposition are carried upward, to meet and blend with the
sky, and magically to make the heavens above them bluer than they really
are. (See frontispiece.)