II. CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE
INTRODUCTORY.
If a line were drawn north and south from Memel on the shores of the Baltic to Spalato on the Adriatic, it would divide Europe into nearly equal halves. All that part lying to the west of the line would be found to be inhabited by nations of Celtic or Teutonic races, and all those to the eastward of it by nations of Sclavonic origin, if—as we must do—we exclude from present consideration those fragments of the effete Turanian races which still linger to the westward, as well as the intrusive hordes of the same family which temporarily occupy some fair portions to the eastward of the line so drawn.
This line is not of course quite straight, for it follows the boundary between Germany on the one hand, and Russia and Poland on the other as far as Cracow, while it crosses Hungary by the line of the Raab and separates Dalmatia from Turkey. Though Sclavonic influences may be detected to the westward of the boundary, they are faint and underlie the Teutonic element; but to the eastward, the little province of Siebenburgen, in the north-east corner of Hungary, forms the only little oasis of Gothic art in the desert of Panslavic indifference to architectural expression. Originally it was a Roman, afterwards a German, colony, and maintained its Gothic style throughout the Middle Ages.[213]
From Spalato the line crosses the Adriatic to Fermo, and then following very closely the 43rd parallel of latitude, divides Italy into two nearly equal halves. Barbarian tribes settled to a certain extent to the northward of this boundary and influenced the style of architecture in some degree; while to the southward of it, their presence can with difficulty be detected, except in a few exceptional cases, and for a very limited time.
Architecturally all the styles of art practised during the Middle Ages to the westward and northward of this boundary may be correctly and graphically described as the Gothic style, using this term in a broad sense. All those to the eastward may with equal propriety be designated as the Byzantine style of art.
Anterior, however, to the former there existed a transitional style known as Romanesque, but which was virtually at first nothing more than debased Roman. It was, in fact, a modification of the classical Roman form which was introduced between the reigns of Constantine and Justinian, and was avowedly an attempt to adapt classical forms to Christian purposes. At first the materials of ancient buildings sufficed for its wants, and if after the 4th century the style did not lapse into absolute barbarism it was due to the influence which the Proto-Byzantine style began to exert and to the magnificent works erected by Greek artists at Parenzo and Grado in Dalmatia, at Ravenna, Milan, and even in Rome herself. To the eastward of the line of demarcation the transition was perfected under the reign of Justinian (A.D. 527 to 564), when it became properly entitled to the name of Byzantine. To the westward, in Italy and the south of France, this first phase of the Romanesque continued to be practised till the 6th or 7th centuries; but about that time occurs an hiatus in the architectural history of Western Europe, owing to the troubles which arose on the dissolution of the Roman Empire and the irruption of the Barbarian hordes. When the art again reappeared, it was strongly tinctured by Barbarian influences, and might with propriety be designated the Gothic style, the essential characteristic being that it is the architecture of a people differing from the Romans or Italians in blood, and, it need hardly be added, differing from them in a like ratio in their architectural conceptions.
The term “Gothic,” however, is so generally adopted throughout Europe to designate the style in which the intersecting vault with pointed arches is the main characteristic, that to depart from it, even when subdivided into round arched and pointed arched Gothic, would only lead to confusion. It would therefore seem better to retain the nomenclature usually employed in modern architectural works, and to class all the phases of the transitional style between the Roman and the Gothic periods under the broad title of Romanesque. This would include what we have termed Early Christian——Lombardi——Rhenish——those phases of the style which in Italy and France are influenced by Byzantine detail——the pure Romanesque or Romance of the south of France——the Norman style in Italy, Sicily, and the North of France, and——Saxon and Norman in our own country. The attempt to restrict the term Romanesque within the confines of the 6th and 7th centuries, which was formerly attempted, has proved to be illusory, as it has never been recognised by any student of architecture. At the same time it is not necessary to insist on the term when describing its various phases, and when they are better known under other terms. It is, however, of importance, when writing a general history of all styles, to keep strictly to some definite system, and not to adopt the nomenclature which has in some cases been given by persons writing monographs of the style of their own particular country. The Germans, for instance, are inclined to call the architecture of such cathedrals as Spires, Worms, etc., by the absurd name of Byzantine, though no features in them have ever been borrowed from the Eastern capital, nor do they resemble the buildings of that part of Europe.
The title Gothic, which was originally invented as a term of reproach, and which was applied to the imaginary work of the western Barbarians who at one time overthrew the western Empire and settled within its limits, has no architectural or ethnological value, it being impossible to point out any features, much less buildings, which the Goths introduced, and which are not to be more correctly attributed to Roman or Byzantine artists. If we except the tomb of Theodoric, all the works in Ravenna are scarcely to be distinguished from the basilicas of the Eastern Empire, and only embody such modifications as the material of the country and a certain influence of debased Roman architecture in Italy would naturally exert. The churches and thermæ which Theodoric is said to have restored in Rome have no characteristics which are not found in other buildings of the same class before his reign, and even in Spain and the south of France, which was occupied more or less continuously by the Visigoths for more than two centuries, there are no features which they could claim to have invented.
The term Gothic, therefore, is misplaced, but inasmuch as the Goths never invented any style, there is not likely, if this fact is recognised, to be any confusion in its adoption.
The chief difficulty which presents itself in any attempt to classify the work of the Romanesque and the Gothic styles is that of drawing a line of demarcation between the two. It is not sufficient to take the pointed arch, for in France a pointed arched barrel vault preceded the round arched vault; and in the East, as we know, the pointed arch made its appearance at a much earlier period: that characteristic, therefore, must not be too rigidly insisted upon.
Beyond this general classification, the use of local names, when available, will always be found most convenient. First, the country, or architectural province, in which an example is found should be ascertained, so that its locality may be marked, and if possible with the addition of a dynastic or regal name to point out its epoch. When the outline is sufficiently marked, it may be convenient, as the French do, to speak of the style of the 13th century[214] as applied to their own country. The terms they use always seem to be better than 1st, or 2nd, Middle Pointed, or even “Geometric,” “Decorated,” or “Perpendicular,” or such general names as neither tell the country nor the age, nor even accurately describe the style, though when they have become general it may seem pedantic to refuse to use them. The system of using local, combined, and dynastic names has been followed in describing all the styles hitherto enumerated in this volume, and will be followed in speaking of those which remain to be described; and as it is generally found to be so convenient, whenever it is possible it will be adhered to.
In order to carry out these principles, the division proposed for this part of the subject is—
1st. To begin the history of Christian Art by tracing up the successive developments of the earliest perfected style, the Byzantine, in the countries lying to the eastward of the boundary line already defined. Owing to the greater uniformity of race, the thread of the narrative is far more easily followed to the eastward than we shall find to the westward of the line. The Byzantine empire remained one and undivided during the Middle Ages; and from that we pass by an easy gradation to Russia, where the style continued to be practised till Peter the Great superseded it by introducing the styles of Western Europe.
2nd. To treat of the early Christian style as it prevailed in Italy, down to the age of Charlemagne, so long, in fact, as it remained a debased Roman style influenced only by its connection with the Eastern Empire. Continuing our description of the various phases of the style as practised in Italy and in Istria and Dalmatia (the two countries with which she was so intimately connected) down to the revival of classic architecture: subdividing it into those sections which are suggested by the predominant influence of Lombardic, Byzantine, or Gothic art, and keeping as far as possible to a chronological sequence.
3rd. To take up the Romanesque style in France, and to follow it through its various phases whilst it was being gradually absorbed in the predominant impetus given to its successor, the Gothic style, by the adoption of the pointed arch in intersecting vaulting during the 12th century, and then its subsequent development in succeeding centuries, till it perished under Francis I.
If this arrangement is not quite logical, it is certainly convenient, as it enables us to grasp the complete history of the style in the country where most of the more important features were invented and perfected. Having once mastered the history of Gothic art in the country of its birth, the sequence in which the other branches of the style are followed become comparatively unimportant. The difficulty of arranging them does not lie so much in the sequence as in the determination of what divisions shall be considered as separate architectural provinces. In a handbook, subdivision could hardly be carried too far; in a history, a wider view ought to be taken. On the whole, perhaps, the following will best meet the true exigencies of the case:—
4th. Belgium and Holland should be taken up after France as a separate province during the Middle Ages, while at the same time forming an intermediate link between that country and Germany.
5th. Though not without important ethnographical distinctions, it will be convenient to treat all the German-speaking countries from the Alps to the Baltic as one province. If Germany were taken up before France, such a mode of treatment would be inadmissible; but following the history of the art in that country, it may be done without either confusion or needless repetition.
6th. Scandinavia follows naturally as a subordinate, and, unfortunately, not very important, architectural subdivision.
7th. From this we pass by an easy gradation to the British Islands, which in themselves contain three tolerably well-defined varieties of style, popularly known as the Saxon, the Norman, or round-arched, and the Gothic, or pointed-arched style of Architecture.
8th. Spain might have been made to follow France, as most of its architectural peculiarities were borrowed from that country; but some too own a German origin, while on the whole the new lessons to be learned from a study of her art are so few, that it is comparatively unimportant in what sequence the country is taken, and therefore it has been found more convenient to place her last.
I. INTRODUCTORY
CHRONOLOGY.
DATES. Constantine founds Constantinople A.D. 324 First Council of Nice 325 Julian the Apostate 361 Theodosius the Great 379 Theodosius II. 408 Marcian 450 Fall of Western Empire 476 Justinian I. 527 Justin II. 565 Heraclius 610 The Hejira 622
The term Byzantine has of late years been so loosely and incorrectly used—especially by French writers on architecture—that it is now extremely difficult to restrict it to the only style to which it really belongs. Wherever a certain amount of coloured decoration is employed, or a peculiar form of carving found, the name Byzantine is applied to churches on the Rhine or in France; although no similar ornaments are found in the Eastern Empire, and though no connection can be traced between the builders of the Western churches and the architects of Byzantium, or the countries subject to her sway.
Strictly speaking, the term ought only to be applied to the style of architecture which arose in Byzantium and the East after Constantine transferred the government of the Roman Empire to that city. It is especially the style of the Greek Church as contradistinguished from that of the Roman Church, and ought never to be employed for anything beyond its limits. The only obstacle to confining it to this definition occurs between the ages of Constantine and Justinian. Up to the reign of the last-named monarch the separation between the two churches was not complete or clearly defined, and the architecture was of course likewise in a state of transition, sometimes inclining to one style, sometimes to the other. After Justinian’s time, the line may be clearly and sharply drawn, and it would therefore be extremely convenient if the term “Greek architecture” could be used for the style of the Greek Church from that time to the present day.
If that term be inadmissible, the term “Sclavonic” might be applied, though only in the sense in which the Gothic style could be designated as Teutonic. Both, however, imply ethnographic distinctions which it would not be easy to sustain. The term “Gothic” happily avoids these, and so would “Greek,” but for the danger of its being confounded with “Grecian,” which is the proper name for the classical style of the ancient Greeks. If the employment of either of these terms is deemed inadvisable, it will be necessary to divide the style into Old and New Byzantine—the first comprehending the three centuries of transition that elapsed from Constantine to the Persian war of Heraclius and the rise of the Mahomedan power, which entirely changed the face of the Eastern Empire,—the second, or Neo-Byzantine, including all those forms which were practised in the East from the reappearance of the style, in or after the 8th century, till it was superseded by the Renaissance.
Thus divided, the true or old Byzantine style might be regarded as the counterpart of the early Romanesque or debased Roman style, except that, owing to the rapid development in the East, the former culminated in the erection of Sta. Sophia (A.D. 532-558); the Eastern Empire thus forming a style of its own of singular beauty and perfection, which it left to its Sclavonic successors to use or abuse as their means or tastes dictated. The Western Empire, on the contrary, was in a state of decay ending in a débâcle, from which the Romanesque style only partially emerged during the reign of Charlemagne and his successors with a new revival in the 11th century.
Though the styles of the East and the West became afterwards so distinctly separate, we must not lose sight of the fact, that during the age of transition (324-622) no clear line of demarcation can be traced. Constantinople, Rome, and Ravenna were only principal cities of one empire, throughout the whole of which the people were striving simultaneously to convert a Pagan into a Christian style, and working from the same basis with the same materials.[215] Prior to the age of Constantine one style pervaded the whole empire. The buildings at Palmyra, Jerash, or Baalbec, are barely distinguishable from those of the capital, and the problem of how the Pagan style could be best converted to Christian uses was the same for all. The consequence is, that if we were at present writing a history which stopped with the beginning of the 7th century, the only philosophical mode of treating the question would be to consider the style as one and indivisible for that period; but as the separation was throughout steadily, though almost imperceptibly, making its way, and gradually became fixed and permanent, it will be found more convenient to assume the separation from the beginning. This method will no doubt lead to some repetition, but that is a small inconvenience compared with the amount of clearness obtained. At the same time, if any one were writing a history of Byzantine architecture only, it would be necessary to include Ravenna, and probably Venice and some other towns in Italy and Sicily, in the Eastern division. On the other hand, in a history devoted exclusively to the Romanesque styles, it would be impossible to omit the churches at Jerusalem, Bethlehem, or Thessalonica, and elsewhere in the East. Under these circumstances, it is necessary to draw an arbitrary line somewhere; and for this purpose the western limits of the Turkish Empire and of Russia will answer every practical purpose. Eastward of this line every country in which the Christian religion at any time prevailed may be considered as belonging to the Byzantine province.
During the first three centuries of the style (324-622) it will be convenient to consider the whole Christian East as one architectural province. When our knowledge is more complete, it may be possible to separate it into several, but at present we are only beginning to see the steps by which the style grew up, and are still very far from the knowledge requisite for such limitations, even if it should hereafter be discovered that a sufficient number exist. All the great churches with which Constantine and his immediate successors adorned their new capital have perished. Like the churches at Jerusalem and Bethlehem, they were probably constructed with wooden roofs and even wooden architraves, and thus soon became a prey to the flames in that most combustible of capitals. Christian architecture has been entirely swept off the face of the earth at Antioch, and very few and imperfect vestiges are found of the seven churches of Asia Minor. Still, the recent researches of De Vogüé in Northern Syria,[216] and of Texier in Thessalonica[217] show how much unexpected wealth still remains to be explored, and in a few years more this chapter of our history may assume a shape as much more complete than what is now written, as it excels what we were compelled to be content with when the Handbook was published, 1855.
Since therefore, under present circumstances, no ethnographic treatment of the subject seems feasible, the clearest mode of presenting it will probably be to adopt one purely technical.
For this purpose it will be found convenient, first, to separate the Neo-Byzantine style from the older division, which, in order not to multiply terms, may be styled the Byzantine par excellence; the first chapter extending from Constantine, 324, to the Hejira, 622; and the second from that time to the end of the Middle Ages.
In reference to the ecclesiastical architecture of the first division, it is proposed to treat—
First, of churches of the basilican or rectangular forms, subdividing them into those having wooden, and those having stone roofs.
Secondly, to describe circular churches in the same manner, subdividing them similarly into those with wooden roofs, and those with stone roofs or true domes.
This subdivision will not be necessary in speaking of the Neo-Byzantine churches, since they all have stone roofs and true domes.
With regard to civil or domestic architecture very little can at present be said, as so little is known regarding it, but we may hope that, a few years hence, materials will exist for an interesting chapter on even this branch of the subject.
II. BASILICAS
CONTENTS.
Churches at Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Thessalonica—Rectangular Churches in Syria and Asia Minor, with wooden roofs and stone vaults.
Basilicas may be subdivided into two classes—that in which the nave is divided from the side-aisles by pillars, carrying either entablatures or arches, as the most purely Romanesque—and that which has piers supporting arches only, and is transitional between the first style and the more original forms which were elaborated out of it.
Of the former class one of the most authentic and perfect is that erected at Bethlehem by Helena, the mother of Constantine, in front of the cave of the Nativity. The nave seems to be a nearly unaltered example of this age, with the advantage over the contemporary churches at Rome, that all its pillars and their capitals were made for the places they occupy, whereby the whole possesses a completeness and justness of proportion not found in the metropolis. Its dimensions, though sufficient for effect, are not large, being internally 103 ft. across, by 215 ft. east and west. The choir with its three apses does not seem to be part of the original arrangement, but to have been added by Justinian when he renovated—Eutychius says rebuilt—the church. My impression is that a detached circular building, external to the basilica, originally contained the entrance to the cave. The frescoes were added apparently in the 11th or 12th century.[218]
One of the principal points of interest connected with this church is, that it enables us to realise the description Eusebius gives us of the basilica which Constantine erected at Jerusalem in honour of the Resurrection. Like this church it was five-aisled, but had galleries; the apse also was on a larger scale than could well have been possible in the Bethlehem church, and adorned with twelve pillars, symbolical of the Apostles.
Of this building nothing now remains, and the only portion which could be claimed as part of Constantine’s work is the western wall of the Rotunda, which to a height of 15 to 20 ft. was cut out of the solid rock in order to isolate the Holy Sepulchre in the centre. The so-called tombs of Absalom and Zachariah in the valley of Jehoshaphat were detached in a similar way from the rock behind them.[219]
THESSALONICA.
As before mentioned, it is to Constantinople, or Alexandria, or Antioch, that we should naturally look to supply us with examples of the style of the early transition, but as these fail, it is to Thessalonica alone—in so far as we now know—that we can turn. In that city there are two ancient examples. One, now known as the Eski Djuma or old mosque (Woodcut No. 274), may belong to the 5th century, though there are no very exact data by which to fix its age. It consists of a nave, measuring, exclusive of narthex and bema, 93 ft. across by 120 ft.—very much the proportion of the Bethlehem church, but having only three aisles, the centre one 48 ft. in width. The other church, that of St. Demetrius, is larger, but less simple. It is five-aisled, has two internal transepts, and various adjuncts. Altogether it seems a considerable advance towards the more complicated form of a Christian church. Both these churches have capacious galleries, running above the side aisles, and probably devoted to the accommodation of the women. The date of St. Demetrius is most probably among the first years of the sixth century.[220] The general ordinance of the columns will be understood from the woodcut (No. 276). Generally they are placed on elevated square or octagonal bases, or pedestals, as in the tepidaria of the Thermæ in Rome, and all have a block (known as the dosseret), placed above the capital, which is supposed to represent the entablature of the Roman example, but is probably an original feature inserted over the capital to support the springing of the arch. In this form it is found very generally in the 5th and 6th centuries, after which it fell into disuse, an increased depth being given to the abacus of the capital to take its place.
So far as we now know, there is only one church of this class at Constantinople—that known as St. John Studius,—a three-aisled basilica, 125 ft. long by 85 in width externally. Its date appears to be tolerably well ascertained as A.D. 463, and from this circumstance, as well as its being in the metropolis, it shows less deviation from the classical type than the provincial examples just quoted. The lower range of columns supporting the gallery still retain the classical outline and support a horizontal entablature (Woodcut No. 277); the upper supporting arches have very little resemblance to the classical type, and are wanting in the architrave block or dosseret, which in fact never seems to have been admired in the capital.
SYRIA AND ASIA MINOR.
The country where—so far at least as we at present know—the Byzantine Basilica was principally developed was Northern Syria. Already in De Vogüé’s work on Central Syria some dozen churches are indicated having the aisles divided from the naves by pillars supporting arches. One of these only—that at Soueideh—has five aisles, all the rest three. Almost all have plain semicircular apses, sometimes only seen internally, like those mentioned further on (page 510), but sometimes also projecting, as was afterwards universally the fashion. Two at least have square terminations (Kefr Kileh and Behioh), but this seems exceptional. Most of them are almost the size of our ordinary parish churches—100 ft. by 60 or thereabouts—and all belong to the three centuries—the 4th, 5th, and 6th—of which this chapter especially treats.
The church at Baquoza may serve as a type of the class both in plan and section (Woodcuts Nos. 278, 279). Its dimensions externally are 60 ft. by 105; and besides the narthex—not shown in the section—it has four lateral porches. It has also two square chapels or vestries at the end of the aisles—an arrangement almost universal in these churches.
The most remarkable of the group, however, is that of St. Simeon Stylites, at Kalat Sema’n, about 20 miles east of Antioch. Its dimensions are very considerable, being 330 ft. long, north and south, and as nearly as may be, 300 ft. east and west, across what may be called the transepts. The centre is occupied by a great octagon, 93 ft. across, on a rock in the centre of which the pillar of that eccentric saint originally stood. This apparently was never roofed over, but stood always exposed to the air of heaven.[221]
The greater part of the conventual buildings belonging to this church still remain in a state of completeness,—a fact which will be startling to those who are not aware how many of the great religious establishments of Syria still stand entire, wanting only the roofs, which were apparently the only parts constructed of wood.
The whole of the buildings at Kalat Sema’n seem to have been completed within the limits of the 5th century, and not to have been touched or altered since they were deserted, apparently in consequence of the Mahomedan irruption in the 7th century. The most curious point is that such a building should have remained so long in such a situation, unknown to the Western world; for the notices hitherto published have been meagre and unsatisfactory in the extreme, and De Vogüé is only able to state that it was visited and described by the historian Evagrius in the year 560 A.D.
In the same province we find also the earliest examples of the use of pier arches in a church to separate the nave from the aisles. These seem to have been currently used in Northern Syria in the 6th century, though not found in the West—at least not used in the same manner—for several centuries later. Generally three such arches only were employed in the length of the nave, and they consequently left the floor so open and free, that it is very questionable if in churches of limited dimensions the introduction of a much larger number by the Gothic architects was an improvement. Taking it altogether, it is probable that such a church as that at Roueiha (Woodcut No. 282) would, if literally reproduced, make a better and cheaper church for an English parish than the Mediæval models we are so fond of copying. A considerable amount of perspective effect is obtained by throwing two transverse arches across the nave, dividing it into three compartments, each including four windows in the clerestory; and the whole design is simple and solid in a degree seldom surpassed in buildings of its class. Its dimensions are 63 ft. by 150 over all externally.
In many of these churches the transverse arches of the nave are omitted; and when, as at Qalb Louzeh (Woodcut No. 284), the clerestory is accentuated by roofing shafts, the same effect of perspective is obtained by other means, and perhaps as successfully. It is very interesting, however, to find that as early as the 6th century the architects were thoughtfully feeling their way towards those very principles of design which many centuries afterwards enabled the Gothic architects to produce their most successful effects. The introduction of four windows over each great arch, and of a rooting-shaft between each to support the beams of the roof, was a happy thought, and it is wonderful it was so completely lost sight of afterwards.
It is probable that the apse (Woodcut No. 284) was originally adorned with paintings or mosaics, or at least that it was intended it should be so ornamented; but even as it is, it is so well proportioned to the size of the church, and to its position, and so appropriately ornamented, that it is better than most of those found in Roman basilicas; and, for a small church, is a more dignified receptacle for the altar than either the French chevet or the English chancel.
Did our limits admit of it, it would be not only pleasant but instructive to dwell longer on this subject; for few parts of our inquiry can be more interesting than to find that, as early as the 6th century, the Roman basilica had been converted into a Christian church, complete in all its details, and—internally at least—in a style of architecture as consistent and almost as far removed from its classical prototype as the Mediæval Gothic itself.
Externally, too, the style was becoming independent of classical models, though hardly in the same degree. The porches of the churches were generally formed in two storeys, the lower having a large central arch of admission, the upper consisting of a colonnade which partially hid, while it supported, an open screen of windows that admitted a flood of light into the nave just in the position where it was most effective. Without glass or mullions such a range of windows must have appeared weak, and would have admitted rain; but when sheltered by a screen of pillars, it was both convenient and artistic.
This mode of lighting is better illustrated at Babouda, where it is employed in its simplest form. No light is admitted to the chapel except through one great semicircular window over the entrance, and this is protected externally by a screen of columns. This mode of introducing light, as we shall afterwards see, was common in India at this age, and earlier, all the Chaitya caves being lighted in the same manner; and for artistic effect it is equal, if not superior, to any other which has yet been invented. The light is high, and behind the worshipper, and thrown direct on the altar, or principal part of the church. In very large buildings it could hardly be applied, but for smaller ones it is singularly effective.
The external effect of these buildings though not so original as the interior, is still very far removed from the classical type, and presents a variety of outline and detail very different from the simplicity of a Pagan temple. One of the most complete is that at Tourmanin (Woodcut No. 287), though that at Qalb Louzeh is nearly as perfect, but simpler in detail. For a church of the 6th century it is wonderful how many elements of later buildings it suggests; even the western towers seem to be indicated, and, except the four columns of the gallery, there is very little to recall the style out of which it arose.
There are considerable remains of a wooden-roofed basilica at Pergamus, which may be even older than those just described; but having been built in brick, and only faced with stone—the whole of which is gone—it is difficult to feel sure of the character of its details and mouldings. It had galleries on either side of the nave, but how these were supported or framed is not clear. It may have been by wooden posts or marble pillars, and these would have either decayed or been removed. The two square calcidica or vestries, which in the Syrian churches terminate the side-aisles, are here placed externally like transepts, and beyond them are two circular buildings with domical roofs and square apses. What their use was is, however, doubtful. In fact, we know so little of the architecture of that age in Asia Minor that this building stands quite exceptionally; and very little use can be made of it, either as throwing light on other buildings, or as receiving illustration from their peculiarities. But seeing how much has been effected in this direction of late, we may fully hope that this state of isolation will not long remain.
One other church of the 4th century is known to exist—at Nisibin. It is a triple church, the central compartment being the tomb of the founder, the first Armenian bishop of the place. Though much ruined, it still retains the mouldings of its doorways and windows as perfect as when erected, the whole being of fine hard stone. These are identical in style with the buildings of Diocletian at Spalato; and as their date is well known, they will, when published, form a valuable contribution to the information we now possess regarding the architecture of this period.
CHURCHES WITH STONE ROOFS.
All the buildings above described—with the exception of the chapel at Babouda—have wooden roofs, as was the case generally with the basilicas and the temples of the classical age. The Romans, however, had built temples with aisles and vaulted them as early as the age of Augustus, as at Nîmes, for instance (Woodcut No. 189), and they had roofed their largest basilicas and baths with intersecting vaults. We should not therefore feel surprised if the Christians sometimes attempted the same thing in their rectangular churches, more especially as the dome was always a favourite mode of roofing circular buildings; and the problem which the Byzantine architects of the day set themselves to solve was—as we shall presently see—how to fit a circular dome of masonry to a rectangular building.
One of the earliest examples of a stone-roofed church is that at Tafkha in the Hauran. It is probably of the age of Constantine, though as likely to be before his time as after it. Its date, however, is not of very great importance, as its existence does not prove that the form was adopted from choice by the Christians: the truth being that, in the country where it is found, wood was never used as a building material. All the buildings, both domestic and public, are composed wholly of stone—the only available material for the purpose which the country afforded. In consequence of this, when that tide of commercial prosperity which rose under the Roman rule flowed across the country from the Euphrates valley to the Mediterranean, the inhabitants had recourse to a new mode of construction, which was practically a new style of architecture. This consisted in the employment of arches instead of beams. These were placed so near one another that flat stones could be laid side by side from arch to arch. Over these a layer of concrete was spread, and a roof was thus formed so indestructible that whole towns remain perfect to the present day, as originally constructed in the first centuries of the Christian era.[222]
One example must suffice to explain this curious mode of construction. The church at Tafkha is 50 ft. square, exclusive of the apse. It is spanned by four arches, 7 ft. 6 in. apart. On each side are galleries of flat slabs resting on brackets, as shown in Woodcuts Nos. 289, 291, which again are supported by smaller transverse arches. At one side is a tower, but this is roofed wholly by bracketing, as if the architect feared the thrust of the arch even at that height.
The defect of this arrangement as an architectural expedient is the extreme frequency of the piers, 8 or 10 ft. being the greatest distance practicable; but as a mechanical expedient it is singularly ingenious. More internal space is obtained with a less expenditure of material and danger from thrust than from any mode of construction—wholly of stone—that we are acquainted with; and with a little practice it might no doubt be much improved upon. The Indian architects, as we shall presently see, attempted the same thing, but set about it in a diametrically opposite way. They absolutely refused to employ the arch under any circumstances, but bracketed forward till the space to be covered was so limited that a single stone would reach across. By this means they were enabled to roof spaces 20 or 25 ft. span without arches, which is about the interval covered with their aid at Tafkha.[223]
Another circumstance which renders these Hauran examples interesting to the architectural student is that they contain no trace or reminiscence of wooden construction or adornment, so apparent in almost every other style. In Lycia it is absurdly so. In Egypt, in Greece, in India, in Persia—everywhere, in fact—we can trace back the principal form of decoration to a wooden original; here alone all is lithic, and it is probably the only example of the sort that the whole history of architecture affords.
If there are any churches in the Byzantine province of the age of which we are treating, whose naves are roofed by intersecting vaults, they have not yet been described in any accessible work; but great tunnel-vaults have been introduced into several with effect. One such is found at Hierapolis, on the borders of Phrygia (Woodcut No. 293). It is divided by a bold range of piers into three aisles, the centre one having a clear width of 45 ft. 6 in. The internal dimensions of the church are 177 ft. by 115. There are three great piers in the length, which carry bold transverse ribs so as to break the monotony of the vault, and have between them secondary arches, to carry the galleries.
There is another church at the same place, the roof of which is of a somewhat more complicated form. The internal length, 140 ft., is divided into three by transverse arches; but its great peculiarity is that the vault is cut into by semi-circular lunettes above the screen side-walls, and through these the light is introduced. This arrangement will be understood from the section (Woodcut No. 295). Taken altogether, there is probably no other church of its age and class in which the vault is so pleasingly and artistically arranged, and in which the mode of introducing the light is so judicious and effective.
The age of these two last churches is not very well ascertained. They probably belong to the 5th, and are certainly not later than the 6th, century; but, before we can speak with certainty on the subject, more examples must be brought to light and examined. From our present knowledge it can hardly be doubted that a sufficient number do exist to complete the chapter; and it is to be hoped they will be published, since a history of vaults in the East, independent of domes, is still a desideratum.
III. CIRCULAR OR DOMICAL BUILDINGS
CONTENTS.
Circular Churches with wooden roofs and with true domes in Syria and Thessalonica—Churches of St. Sergius and Bacchus and Sta. Sophia, Constantinople—Domestic Architecture—Tombs.
At the time of the erection of the churches described in the last chapter, a circular domical style was being simultaneously elaborated in the East, which not only gave a different character to the whole style, but eventually entirely superseded the western basilican form, and became an original and truly Byzantine art.
Constantine is said to have erected a church at Antioch which, from the description given by Eusebius, was octagonal in plan.
On Mount Gerizim, on or near the site of the Samaritan temple, Justinian built an octagonal church showing in its multifold chapels a considerable advance towards Christian arrangements; it has, however been so completely destroyed that only its foundation can now be traced, from which the plan (Woodcut No. 296) was measured and worked out by Sir Charles Wilson.
At Bosra in the Hauran there is a church of perfectly well-ascertained date—A.D. 512—which, when more completely illustrated, will throw considerable light on the steps by which a Pagan temple was transformed into a Christian church. It is a building externally square, but internally circular (Woodcut No. 297). The central space is 91 ft. in diameter, and was evidently covered with a wooden roof, according to M. de Vogüé, supported on eight piers. The interest of the plan consists in its showing the progress made in adapting this form to Christian purposes, and it is to be hoped that further investigation may enable us to supply all the steps by which the transformation took place. De Vogüé is of opinion that there was a central dome carried on piers and columns similar to the church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople, with aisles round and gallery over them, the latter covered with a timber roof, the holes in which the rafters were fixed being still visible. Owing to want of lateral support the dome fell down, and at a later period a small basilica church was erected within the enclosure in front of the apse; the proximity of the piers of this church suggests that it was covered with stone slabs according to the custom of the country. The inscription over the principal entrance door states that the church was dedicated to SS. Sergius and Bacchus, and was completed in the 400th year of Bosra (511-512 A.D.). Another example exists at Kalat Sema’n, in Northern Syria, and presents a combination of an octagonal with a rectangular church very common in Armenia and Georgia. As is generally the case there, they are very small in dimensions, the whole group only measuring 120 ft. by 73. Their actual destination is not known, but M. de Vogüé suggests that the triapsal arrangement in the octagonal building points to its having been erected as a baptistery. This group is situated about 200 yards from the main buildings illustrated in Woodcut (No. 280).
CHURCHES WITH DOMES.
Whether the dome of the Pantheon at Rome (p. 320) was erected in the time of the Antonines, or before the time of Augustus, as was formerly supposed, it is evident that the Romans had conquered the difficulties of domic construction long before the transference of the seat of power to Byzantium; the Pantheon being, up to this hour, the largest (single) dome ever constructed by the hand of man. Simple and grand as it undoubtedly is, it had several glaring defects in its design which the Byzantines set themselves to remedy. The first was that twice the necessary amount of materials was consumed in its construction. The second, that the mode of lighting by a hole in the roof, which also admitted the rain and the snow, was most objectionable before the invention of glass. The third, that a simply circular plan is always unmeaning and inconvenient. A fourth, that a circular building can hardly, by any contrivance, be made to fit on to any other buildings or apartments.
In the Minerva Medica (Woodcut No. 229) great efforts were made, but not quite successfully, to remedy these defects. The building would not fit on to any others, and, though an improvement on the design of the Pantheon, was still far from perfect.
The first step the Byzantines made was to carry the dome on arches resting on eight piers enclosing an octagon A (Woodcut No. 300); this enabled them to obtain increased space, to provide nave, choir, and transepts, and by throwing out niches on the diagonal lines, virtually to obtain a square hall in the centre. The difference between the octagon and circle is so slight, that by corbelling out above the extrados of the arches, a circular base for the dome was easily obtained B. The next step was to carry the dome on arches resting on four piers, and their triumph was complete when by the introduction of pendentives—represented by the shaded parts at D (Woodcut No. 301), they were enabled to place the circular dome on a square compartment. The pendentives and dome thus projected formed part of a sphere, the radius of which was the half-diagonal of the square compartment. Constructively it would probably have been easier to roof the space by an intersecting vault; and even if of 100 or 150 ft. span it would without difficulty have been effected. The difference between the intersecting vault and the dome (as shown in Woodcuts 302 and 303; the former the tomb of Galla Placidia, built 450 A.D., the latter the chapel of St. Peter Crysologus attached to the archiepiscopal palace of about the same date, and both in Ravenna) is perhaps the most striking contrast the history of architecture affords between mechanical and ornamental construction. Both are capable of being ornamented to the same extent and in the same manner; but the difference of form rendered the dome a beautiful object in itself wholly irrespective of ornament, whereas the same cannot always be said of the intersecting barrel vault. Altogether, the effect would have been architecturally so infinitely inferior, that we cannot but feel grateful to the Byzantines that they persevered, in spite of all mechanical temptations, till they reached the wonderful perfection of the dome of Sta. Sophia.
Among the earliest domical churches found in the East is that of St. George at Thessalonica. It is also, perhaps, the finest example of its class belonging strictly to that group which has been designated above as the Eastern Romanesque.
As will be seen from the plan it is a circular apartment, 79 ft. in diameter, surrounded by walls 20 ft. in thickness, into which are cut seven great niches; two apparently serving as entrances, opposite one of which is a bema or presbytery of considerable importance and purely Christian form. The dome is hemispherical, pierced at its base by eight semi-circular lunettes, and externally covered and concealed by a wooden roof. This form of roof is first found in the West at Nocera dei Pagani (p. 547), but the dome there is only half the diameter of this one, and of a very different form and construction. The dome of St. George’s retains its internal decorations, which are among the earliest as well as the most interesting Christian mosaics in existence.[224] The architecture presented in them bears about the same relation to that in the Pompeiian frescoes which the Jacobæan does to classical architecture, and, mixed with Christian symbols and representations of Christian saints, makes up a most interesting example of early Christian decoration.
No inscriptions or historical indications exist from which the date of the church can be fixed. We are safe, however, in asserting that it was erected by Christians, for Christian purposes, subsequently to the age of Constantine. If we assume the year 400 as an approximate date we shall probably not err to any great extent, though the real date may be somewhat later.
How early a true Byzantine form of arrangement may have been introduced we have no means of knowing; but as early as the year 285—according to De Vogüé—we have a Kalybe[225] at Omm-es-Zeitoun, which contains all the elements of the new style. It is square in plan, with a circular dome in its centre for a roof. The wing walls which extend the façade are curious, but not singular. One other example, at least, is found in the Hauran, at Chaqqa, and there may be many more.
Still, in the Hauran they never seem quite to have fallen into the true Byzantine system of construction, but preferred one less mechanically difficult, even at the expense of crowding the floor with piers. In the church at Ezra, for instance, the internal octagon is reduced to a figure of sixteen sides before it is attempted to put a dome upon it, and all thought of beauty of form, either internally or externally, is abandoned in order to obtain mechanical stability—although the dome is only 30 ft. in diameter.
As the date of this church is perfectly ascertained (510) it forms a curious landmark in the style just anterior to the great efforts Justinian was about to make, and which forced it so suddenly into its greatest, though a short-lived, degree of perfection.
CONSTANTINOPLE.
As before mentioned, all the churches of the capital which were erected before the age of Justinian, have perished, with the one exception of that of St. John Studius mentioned above (page 421). This may in part be owing to the hurried manner in which they were constructed, and the great quantity of wood consequently employed, which might have risked their destruction anywhere. It is, however, a curious, but architecturally an important, fact that Byzantium possessed every conceivable title to be chosen as the capital of the Empire, except the possession of a good building-stone, or even apparently any suitable material for making good bricks. Wood seems in all times to have been the material most readily obtained and most extensively used for building purposes, and hence the continual recurrence of fires, from before the time of Justinian down to the present day. That monarch was the first who fairly met the difficulty; the two churches erected during his reign, which now exist, are constructed wholly without wood or combustible materials of any sort—and hence their preservation.
The earliest of these two, popularly known as the “Kutchuk Agia Sophia,” or lesser Sta. Sophia, was originally a double church, or more properly speaking two churches placed side by side, precisely in the same manner as the two at Kalat Sema’n (Woodcut No. 298). The basilica was dedicated to the Apostles Peter and Paul; the domical church, appropriately, to the Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus. The former has entirely disappeared, from which I would infer that it was constructed with pillars and a wooden roof.[226] The latter remains very nearly intact. The frescoes and mosaics have, indeed, disappeared from the body of the church, hidden, it is to be hoped, under the mass of whitewash which covers its walls—in the narthex they can still be distinguished.
The existing church is nearly square in plan, being 109 ft. by 92 over all, exclusive of the apse, and covering only about 10,000 sq. ft. It has consequently no pretensions to magnificence on the score of dimensions, but is singularly elegant in design and proportion. Internally, the arrangement of the piers of the dome, of the galleries, and of the pillars which support them, are almost identical with those of St. Vitale at Ravenna, but the proportions of the Eastern example are better, being 66 ft. in height by 52 in diameter, while the other, with the same diameter, is nearly 20 ft. higher, and consequently too tall to be pleasing.
The details of this church are generally well designed for the purposes to which they are applied. There is a certain reminiscence of classical feeling in the mouldings and foliage—in the latter, however, very faint. The architrave block (No. 313) here seems almost to have superseded the capital, and what was once a classical entablature has retained very little of its pristine form (No. 314), and indeed was used constructively only, for the support of a gallery, or some such mechanical requirement. The arch had entirely superseded it as an ornamental feature long before the age of Justinian.
STA. SOPHIA.
Although the building just described, and others that might be quoted, probably contain the germs of all that is found in Sta. Sophia, they are on so small a scale that it is startling to find Justinian attempting an edifice so grand, and so daring in construction, without more experience than he appears to have obtained. Indeed so exceptional does this great structure appear, with our present knowledge, that we might almost feel inclined at first sight to look upon it as the immediate creation of the individual genius of its architect, Anthemius of Thralles; but there can be little doubt that if a greater number of contemporary examples existed we should be able to trace back every feature of the design to its origin. The scale, however, on which it was carried out was certainly original, and required great boldness on the part of the architect to venture upon such a piece of magnificence. At all events, the celebrated boast of its founder on contemplating his finished work was more than justified. When Justinian exclaimed, “I have surpassed thee, O Solomon,” he took an exaggerated view of the work of his predecessor, and did not realize the extent to which his building excelled the Jewish temple. The latter was only equal to a small church with a wooden roof supported by wooden posts, and covering some 7200 sq. ft. Sta. Sophia covers ten times that area, is built of durable materials throughout, and far more artistically ornamented than the temple of the Jews ever could have been. But Justinian did more than accomplish this easy victory. Neither the Pantheon nor any of the vaulted halls at Rome equal the nave of Sta. Sophia in extent, or in cleverness of construction, or in beauty of design. Nor was there anything erected during the ten centuries which elapsed from the transference of the capital to Byzantium till the building of the great mediæval cathedrals which can be compared with it. Indeed it remains even now an open question whether a Christian church exists anywhere, of any age, whose interior is so beautiful as that of this marvellous creation of old Byzantine art.
The original church of Sta. Sophia which had been erected by Constantine was, it seems, burnt to the ground in the fifth year of Justinian, A.D. 532, when he determined to re-erect it on the same spot with more magnificence and with less combustible materials. So rapidly were the works pushed forward, that in six years it was ready for dedication, A.D. 537. Twenty years afterwards a portion of the dome fell down in consequence of an earthquake; but this damage was repaired, and the church re-dedicated, A.D. 563, in the form, probably very nearly, in which we now find it.
In plan it closely approaches an exact square, being 235 ft. north and south by 250 east and west, exclusive of the narthex and apse. The narthex itself is a splendid hall, 205 ft. in length internally, by 26 ft. wide, and two storeys in height. Beyond this there is an exo-narthex which runs round the whole of the outer court, but this hardly seems to be part of the original design. Altogether, the building, without this or any adjuncts which may be after-thoughts, covers about 70,000 sq. ft., or nearly the average area of a mediæval cathedral of the first class.
Externally the building (Woodcut No. 316) possesses little architectural beauty beyond what is due to its mass and the varied outline arising from the mechanical contrivances necessary to resist the thrust of its internal construction. It may be that, like the early Christian basilicas at Rome, it was purposely left plain to distinguish it from the external adornment of Heathen temples, or it may have been intended to revêt it with marble, and add the external ornament afterwards. Before we became acquainted with the ornamental exteriors of Syrian churches, the former theory would seem the more plausible, though it can hardly now be sustained; and when we consider that the second dedication only took place the year before Justinian’s death, and how soon troublous times followed, we may fairly assume that what we now see is only an incomplete design. Whatever may be the case with the exterior, all the internal arrangements are complete, and perfect both from a mechanical and an artistic point of view. In such a design as this, the first requirement was to obtain four perfectly stable arches on which the dome might rest. The great difficulty was with the two arches running transversely north and south. These are as nearly as may be 100 ft. span and 120 high to the crown, and 10 ft. on the face. Each of them has a mass of masonry behind it for an abutment, 75 ft. long by 25 ft. wide, only partially pierced by arches on the ground and gallery floor; and as the mass might have been carried to any height, it ought, if properly constructed, to have sufficed for an arch very much wider and more heavily weighted than that which it supports. Yet the southern wall is considerably bulged, and the whole of that side thrown out of the perpendicular. This probably was the effect of the earthquake which caused the fall of the dome in 559, since no further settlement seems to have taken place. The longitudinal arches presented no difficulty. The distance between the solid parts of the piers was 75 ft., and this was filled up with a screen wall supporting the inner side of the arch; so, unless that was crushed, the whole was perfectly stable. Pendentives between these four arches ought not to have presented any difficulties. It would, however, have been better, from an architectural point of view, if they had been carried further up and forward, so as to hang a weight inside the dome to counteract the outward thrust, as was afterwards so successfully practised at Beejapore.[227] As it is, the dome rests rather on the outer edge of the system, without sufficient space for abutment. In itself the dome is very little lower than a hemisphere, being 107 ft. across by 46 ft. in height. Externally, it would have been better if higher; for internal effect this is sufficient. Its base is pierced by forty small windows, so small and so low as not to interfere in any way with the apparent construction, but affording an ample supply of light—in that climate at least—to render every part of the dome bright and cheerful.
Beyond the great dome, east and west, are two semi-domes of a diameter equal to that of the great dome, and these are again cut into by two smaller domes, so that the building, instead of being a Greek cross, as usually asserted, is only 100 ft. across in the centre and 125 wide beyond the central space each way. There is a little awkwardness in the way in which the smaller semi-domes cut into the larger, and the three windows of the latter are unconnected with any other part of the design, which is unpleasing, but might easily be remedied in a second attempt. These very irregularities, however, give a variety and appropriateness to the design which has probably never been surpassed. A single dome of the area of the central and two semi-domes would not have appeared nearly so large, and would have overpowered everything else in the building. As it is, the eye wanders upwards from the large arcades of the ground floor to the smaller arches of the galleries, and thence to the smaller semi-domes. These lead the eye on to the larger, and the whole culminates in the great central roof. Nothing, probably, so artistic has been done on the same scale before or since. In these arrangements Sta. Sophia seems to stand alone.
If, however, the proportions of this church are admirable, the details are equally so. All the pillars are of porphyry, verd antique, or marbles of the most precious kinds. The capitals are among the most admirable specimens of the style. It will be remembered that the governing line of a classical Corinthian capital is a hollow curve, to which acanthus-leaves or other projecting ornaments were applied. When the columns were close together, and had only a beam to support, this form of capital was sufficient; but when employed to carry the constructive arches of the fabric its weakness became instantly apparent. Long before Justinian’s time, the tendency became apparent to reverse the curve and to incise the ornament. In Sta. Sophia the transition is complete; the capitals are as full as elegance would allow, and all the surfaces are flat, with ornaments relieved by incision. In the lower tier of arches (Woodcut No. 318) this is boldly and beautifully done, the marble being left to tell its own story. In the upper tier, further removed from the eye, the interstices are filled in with black marble so as to ensure the desired effect.
All the flat surfaces are covered with a mosaic of marble slabs of the most varied patterns and beautiful colours; the domes, roofs, and curved surfaces, with a gold-grounded mosaic relieved by figures or architectural devices. Though much of the mosaic is now concealed, enough is left to enable the effect of the whole to be judged of, and it certainly is wonderfully grand and pleasing. The one thing wanting is painted glass, like that which adorns the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem, to render this building as solemnly impressive as it is overpoweringly beautiful.
Sta. Sophia is so essentially different from the greater number of churches, that it is extremely difficult to institute a comparison between them. With regard to external effect, Gothic cathedrals generally excel it; but whether by accident or by the inherent necessity of the style is by no means so clear. In so far as the interior is concerned, no Gothic architect ever rose to the conception of a hall 100 ft. wide, 250 ft. in length, and 180 ft. high, and none ever disposed each part more artistically to obtain the effect he desired to produce. Where the Byzantine style might profit from the experience subsequently gained by Gothic architects is in the use of mouldings. The one defect in the decoration of Sta. Sophia is that it depends too much on colour. It would have been better if the pier-arches, the window-frames, and the string-courses generally had been more strongly accentuated by moulding and panellings, but this is a slight defect among so many beauties.
A comparison with the great Renaissance cathedrals is more easy, but results even more favourably to the Byzantine example. Two of these have domes which are considerably larger—St. Peter’s at Rome and Sta. Maria at Florence being each 126 ft.; St. Paul’s, London (108), is within a foot of the same diameter, all the rest are smaller.[228] This, however, is of less consequence than the fact that they are all adjuncts to the design of the church. None of them are integral or supported by the rest of the design, and all tend to dwarf the buildings they are attached to rather than to heighten the general effect. With scarcely an exception also all the Renaissance cathedrals employ internally great sprawling pillars and pilasters, designed for external use by the Romans, which not only diminish the apparent size of the building but produce an effect of unreality and sham utterly fatal to true art.
In fact, turn it as we will, and compare it as we may with any other buildings of its class, the verdict seems inevitable that Sta. Sophia—internally at least, for we may omit the consideration of the exterior, as unfinished—is the most perfect and most beautiful church which has yet been erected by any Christian people. When its furniture was complete the verdict would probably have been still more strongly in its favour; but so few of the buildings described in these pages retain these adjuncts in anything like completeness that they must be withdrawn from both sides and our remarks be confined to the architecture, and that only.
The church of Sta. Sophia at Thessalonica, according to Greek tradition, was built by Justinian in the latter part of his reign.[229] It is a church of considerable dimensions, measuring 140 ft. east and west by 118 ft. in width, with a dome 33 ft. in diameter. It possesses also an upper gallery, and its arrangements generally are well considered and artistic. There does not seem to be any documentary evidence of its age, but judging from the details published in Texier, the date ascribed to it seems probable. This has been further established lately from an inscription found in the apse, which as well as the dome still retain their ancient mosaics; the inscription is incomplete, but Messrs. Duchesne and Bayet, in an appendix to their work on Mount Athos, ascribe it to the second half of the 6th century. The church possesses one special characteristic: above the pendentives is a low drum, circular internally,[230] in which windows are pierced, but which, externally, is carried up square: by this means the angle piers are well weighted and are thus enabled to resist more effectually the thrust of the arches carrying the pendentives. The two side walls also, which in Sta. Sophia at Constantinople were built almost flush with the inner arch, leaving outside a widely-projecting arch thrown across between the buttresses to carry the buttresses of the dome, are here placed flush with the outside of the arch, thus giving increased space to the interior.
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.
The publication of the Count De Vogüé’s book has enabled us to realise the civil and domestic architecture of Syria in the 5th and 6th centuries with a completeness that, a very short time ago, would have been thought impossible. Owing to the fact that every part of the buildings in the Hauran was in stone, and that they were suddenly deserted on the Mahomedan conquest, never, apparently, to be re-occupied, many of the houses remain perfectly entire to the present day, and in Northern Syria only the roofs are gone.
Generally they seem to have been two storeys in height, adorned with verandahs supported by stone columns, the upper having a solid screen-fence of stone about 3 ft. 6 in. high, intended apparently as much to secure privacy to the sleeping apartments of the house as protection against falling out. In some instances the lower storey is twice the height of the upper, and contained the state apartments of the house. In others, as in that at Refadi (Woodcut No. 320), it seems to have been intended for the offices. In the plan of a house at Moudjeleia (Woodcut No. 321) the principal block of the house is in two storeys, with portico on ground floor and verandah over. The buildings at the back with their courtyard were probably offices, and those in front by the side of the main entrance warehouses or stores.
In some instances one is startled to find details which we are accustomed to associate with much more modern dates; as, for instance, this window (Woodcut No. 322) from the palace at Chaqqa, which there seems no reason whatever for doubting belongs to the 3rd century—anterior to the time of Constantine! It looks more like the vagary of a French architect of the age of Francis I.
The building known as the Golden Gateway at Jerusalem and attributed to Justinian, bears in its details many striking resemblances to those of the 5th and 6th centuries in Central Syria, illustrated in De Vogüé’s book. It is situated on the east side of the Haram enclosure, and consists of a vestibule divided by columns into two aisles of three bays each vaulted with a cupola[231] carried on arches, between which and the capitals of the columns is found the Byzantine dosseret already referred to. Within the eastern doorways (said to have been blocked up by Omar) are two huge monoliths 14 ft. 6 in. and 11 ft. respectively, the doorposts of an earlier gateway. Externally, on the entrance fronts (east and west), the entablature of the pilasters is carried round the circular-headed doorways which they flank; the earliest instance of this development is found in the Palace of Diocletian at Spalato, and there is a second example in the Roman gateway to the Mosque of Damascus, which probably suggested the idea to the Byzantine builders; the sharp stiff foliage of Greek type with which the ornament is carved on the Golden Gate agrees in style and character with that in the church of St. Demetrius at Thessalonica dating from the commencement of the 6th century.
Of similar style and character are the arch-moulds of the double gate on the south wall of the Haram, and the cupolas of the interior vestibule, the columns carrying them however being probably of earlier date and possibly part of the substructure of Herod’s temple. The surface decoration of these cupolas is similar to that found in Central Syria.
The sepulchral remains of Syria, both structural and rock-cut, seem nearly as numerous as the dwellings of the living, and are full of interest, not only from their frequently bearing dates, but from their presenting new types of tombs, or old types in such new forms as scarcely to be recognizable.
The oldest example, that of Hamrath in Souideh, dates from the 1st century B.C., and consists of a tomb 28 ft. square decorated with semi-detached Doric columns; the roof is gone, but it was probably covered with one of pyramidal form like the tomb of Zechariah (Woodcut No. 238).
The tomb of Diogenes at Hass (Woodcut No. 326), also square, consisted of two storeys, with a portico on the ground storey on one side, and a peristyle on all four sides of the upper storey, above which rose the central walls carrying a pyramidal roof, not stepped, as in the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, but with projecting bosses on each stone. The same class of roof is found on other tombs, being adopted probably as the simplest method of covering over the tomb; these tombs date from the 4th and 5th centuries, and in all cases the sepulchral chambers within them are vaulted with large slabs of stone carried on stone ribs.
Besides these, there is another class of tomb apparently very numerous, in which the sepulchral chamber is below the ground, with vaulted entrance rising to form a podium on which columns either two or four in number are erected;[232] in the latter case the columns bearing an entablature with small pyramidal roof; in the former a fragment of architrave only, the two columns being sometimes tied together one-third of the way down by a stone band with dentils carved on it: these tombs are, many of them, dated, and belong to the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
With our present limits it is only possible to characterize generally the main features of the Byzantine style, and to indicate the sources from which further information may be obtained. In the present instance it is satisfactory to find that ample materials now exist for filling up a framework which a few years ago was almost entirely a blank. Any one who will master the works of De Vogüé, or Texier, or Salzenberg, and other minor publications, may easily acquire a fair knowledge of the older Byzantine style of architecture. Once it is grasped it will probably be acknowledged that there are few more interesting chapters than that which explains how a perfect Christian Church like that of Sta. Sophia was elaborated out of the classical edifices of ancient Rome. It will also probably be found that there are few more instructive lessons to be learnt from the study of architectural history than the tracing of the various contrivances which were so earnestly employed, during the first two centuries of Christian supremacy, in attaining this result.
IV. NEO-BYZANTINE STYLE
CONTENTS.
Sta. Irene, Constantinople—Churches at Ancyra, Trabala, and Constantinople—Churches at Thessalonica and in Greece—Domestic Architecture.
Santa Sophia at Constantinople was not only the grandest and most perfect creation of the old school of Byzantine art, but it was also the last. It seems as if the creative power of the Empire had exhausted itself in that great effort, and for long after it the history is a blank. We always knew that the two centuries which elapsed between the ages of Constantine and Justinian were ages of great architectural activity. We knew that hundreds, it may be thousands, of churches were erected during that period. With the two subsequent centuries, however, the case seems widely different. Shortly after Justinian’s death, the troubles of the Empire, the Persian wars of Heraclius, and, more than either, the rise of the Mahomedan power in the East, and of the Roman pontificate under Gregory the Great in the West—all tended so to disturb and depress the Byzantine kingdom as to leave little leisure and less means for the exercise of architectural magnificence. It is therefore hardly probable that we shall ever be in a position to illustrate the 7th and 8th centuries as we now know we can the 5th and 6th. Still, building must have gone on, because when we again meet the style, it is changed. One of the very earliest churches of the new school is that of Sta. Irene at Constantinople, rebuilt as we now find it by Leo the Isaurian (A.D. 718-740). It differs in several essential particulars from the old style, and contains the germ of much that we find frequently repeated. The change is not so great as might have taken place in two centuries of building activity, but it is considerable. In this church we find, apparently for the first time in a complete form, the new mode of introducing the light to the dome through a perpendicular drum, which afterwards became so universal that it serves to fix the age of a building in the East with almost as much certainty as the presence of a pointed arch does that of a building in the West. As this invention is so important, it may be well to recapitulate the steps by which it was arrived at.
The oldest mode of lighting a dome is practised in the Pantheon (Woodcut No. 191), by simply leaving out the central portion. Artistically and mechanically nothing could be better, but before the invention of glass it was intolerably inconvenient whenever much rain or snow fell. A change therefore was necessary, and it is found in the tomb or temple of Marcellus, built during the reign of Constantine on the Via Prenestina at Rome. It consists simply of boring four circular holes through the dome a little above its springing. The next step is seen at Thessalonica in the church of St. George (Woodcut No. 305). There eight semi-circular lunettes are pierced in the dome, at its springing, and answer the purpose very perfectly. The system culminated in Sta. Sophia, where forty windows introduce a flood of light without its ever falling on the eyes of the spectator. After this it seems to have been considered desirable not to break the hemisphere of the dome, but to place the windows in a perpendicular circular rim of masonry—called the drum—and to introduce the light always through that. Externally there can be no doubt but that this was an improvement; it gave height and dignity to the dome in small churches, where, without this elevation, the feature would have been lost. Internally, however, the advantage is problematical: the separation of the dome from its pendentives destroyed the continuity of the roof, and introduced the stilted effect so objectionable in Renaissance domes. In the Neo-Byzantine churches the dome became practically a skylight on the roof, the drum increasing in height and the dome diminishing in dignity as the style progressed. As all the churches are small, the feature is unobjectionable; but in larger edifices it would have been found difficult to construct it, and the artistic result would hardly have been pleasing, even had this difficulty been got over. Be this as it may, its value as a chronometric landmark is undoubted.
As a rule it may generally be asserted that, in all Christian domes erected during the old Byzantine period, the light is introduced by openings in the dome itself.[233] After that time, the light is as generally admitted through windows in the drum, the dome itself being cut into only in the rarest possible instances.
If these views are correct, the church of St. Clement at Ancyra is a transitional specimen subsequent to Sta. Sophia, because the dome is raised timidly (Woodcut No. 328) on a low drum pierced with four small windows; but it is anterior to Sta. Irene, because the dome is still pierced with twelve larger windows, after the manner of Sta. Sophia and the older churches. All the details of its architecture, in so far as they can be made out, bear out this description. They are further removed from the classical type than the churches of Justinian, and the whole plan (Woodcut No. 329) is more that which the Greek church afterwards took than any of the early churches show. Its greatest defect—though the one most generally inherent in the style—is in its dimensions. It is only 64 ft. long, over all externally, by 58 ft. wide. Yet this is a fair average size of a Greek church of that age.
Another church, very similar, is found at Myra, dedicated to St. Nicholas. It exceeds that of St. Clement in size, and has a double narthex considerably larger in proportion, but so ruined that it is difficult to make out its plan, or to ascertain whether it is a part of the original structure, or a subsequent addition. The cupola is raised on a drum, and altogether the church has the appearance of being much more modern than that at Ancyra.
A third church of the same class, and better preserved, is found at Trabala in Lycia. It is of the same type as St. Clement, and similar in its arrangements to Sta. Sophia, except in the omission of the semi-domes, which seem never to have been adopted in the provinces,[234] and indeed may be said to be peculiar to the metropolitan church. Notwithstanding the beauty of that feature, it appears to have remained dormant till revived by the Turks in Constantinople, and there alone.
In this example there are two detached octagonal buildings, either tombs or sacristies; a form which, except in large detached buildings, does not seem to have been so common as the circular, till after the time of Justinian.
Returning to the capital, we find one other remarkable peculiarity of the Neo-Byzantine style in the attempt to allow the external surface of an ordinary tunnel-vault to retain its form without any ridge whatever. It can hardly be doubted that this is artistically a mistake. With domes it was early felt to be so, and consequently we always find a flower or pinnacle in iron, or some such ornament, marking the centre. In this the Saracenic architects were especially successful—all their domes possess a central ornament sufficient to relieve them, and generally of the most beautiful proportions. With the extrados of a circular vault, however, it is even worse than with a dome. A roof is felt to be a contrivance to keep off the rain. It may be more or less sloping, according to the materials of which it is constructed; but to make one part of each ridge sloping, and the central portion flat, is a discord that offends the eye, besides looking weak and unmeaning. A pointed arch would avoid the evil, but a reverse or ogee curve is perhaps the most pleasing. In the Neo-Byzantine age, however, between the 8th and the 12th centuries, the eye seems to have got accustomed to it. It is common in the East, especially at Constantinople and at Venice. In St. Mark’s and elsewhere it became so familiar a form that it was copied and continued by the Renaissance architects even to the end of the 16th century.
One of the best illustrations of these peculiarities is the church of Moné tés Choras at Constantinople, now converted into a mosque and called Kahriyeh Djamisi. The older part of it seems to belong to the 11th century, the side-aisles to the 12th, and though small, it illustrates the style perfectly. The porch consists of five arches covered with an intersecting vault, visible both externally and internally. The last two bays are covered with cupolas which still retain their mosaics internally, and those of singular beauty and brilliancy, though, owing to the constructive defects of the intermediate parts, the wet has leaked through, and the mosaics have mostly peeled off. Externally the front is ornamented with courses of stones alternating with two or three layers of tiles, and even in its ruined state is effective and picturesque. Its principal interest is that it shows what was the matrix[235] of the contemporary church of St. Mark at Venice. Subsequent additions have much modified the external appearance of St. Mark, but there can be very little doubt that originally it was intended to be very like the façade shown in Woodcut No. 331.
Not far from Moné tés Choras there are two other churches of the same class and of about the same age. One, the Pantokrator, has been added to at various times so as to cover a large space of ground, but it consists consequently of small and ill-assorted parts. It retains, however, a good deal of its marble pavements and other features of interest. The other, known as the Fethîyeh Djamisi, is smaller and more complete, and possesses some mosaics of considerable beauty.
The best example of its class, however, in Constantinople is that known as the Theotokos. Like those just mentioned it is very small, the church itself being only 37 ft. by 45, and, though its double narthex and lateral adjuncts add considerably to its dimensions, it is still only a very small church. Some parts of it are as old as the 9th or 10th century, but the façade represented in Woodcut No. 333 is certainly not older than the 12th century. Taking it altogether, it is perhaps the most complete and elegant church of its class now known to exist in or near the capital, and many of its details are of great beauty and perfection.
It seems scarcely possible to suppose that the meagre half-dozen of small churches just enumerated are all that were erected in the capital between the death of Justinian and the fall of the city. Yet there is no evidence that the Turks destroyed any. Why should they? They converted them into mosques, finding them especially convenient for that purpose, and they have maintained them with singularly little alteration to the present day.
THESSALONICA.
This deficiency of examples in the capital is to some extent supplied by those which are found existing at Thessalonica. Three churches belonging to this age are illustrated in Texier and Pullan’s work.
The first of these is the church of Kazandjita Djami, dedicated to the Mother of God, a small church measuring only 53 ft. by 37, exclusive of the apse. Its date is perfectly ascertained—viz., 1028.
Next to these comes the church of Elias, A.D. 1054, and very similar to it in style is that of the Apostles (Woodcut No. 334), which we may consequently date with safety in the 11th century, from this juxtaposition alone, though there are several other examples which enable us to treat it as a characteristic type of the age. It is a pleasing and picturesque specimen of Byzantine brickwork. Like all the churches of the time, it is small, 63 ft. by 59 externally. In plan it very much resembles the Theotokos at Constantinople, but in elevation is taller and thinner; though whether this arises from any local peculiarity, or from some difference of age, is not clear. I suspect the former. The earthquakes of the capital may have induced a less ambitious form, as far as height is concerned, than was adopted in the provinces.
GREECE.
There can be little doubt but that, if a systematic search were made among the churches of Greece, many would be brought to light which would be most useful in completing our knowledge of the Neo-Byzantine style.[236] At Mount Athos there exists from twenty to thirty monasteries, each with its Catholicon or principal church and other chapels. Many of these are of ancient date, ranging between the 10th and 16th centuries, and although some of them may have been restored, in some cases rebuilt in later times, they have not yet been examined or illustrated by any competent architect. Brockhaus in his work[237] gives the plan of three churches, one of which, the Catholicon (dated 1043) of the Dochiariu Monastery (Woodcut No. 335), is further illustrated by a bird’s-eye view taken from a photograph. The domes and drums over the narthex and two eastern chapels would seem to be later additions, made either in consequence of the proximity of the buildings of the monastery which obscured the light obtainable from windows, or to show better the wall frescoes, which in the case of the narthex, where no windows ever existed, must have been quite dark at first. The oldest church (963 A.D.) apparently is that of the Protaton at Caryas, which consists of a short nave, a transept, and a long choir, and is wanting in that one feature which is supposed to be characteristic of a Byzantine church, viz., a dome; the whole building is covered like a basilica with a flat wooden roof, beneath which are clerestory windows. Photogravures or woodcuts are given of the churches of Chilandari (1197 A.D.), Xeropotamu (1028-34 A.D.), the Laura (963 A.D., but rebuilt under Turkish rule), and woodcuts from photographs in an interesting description of the Monasteries by Mr. A. Riley,[238] give a good general idea of the work to be found in Athos, from which it would seem that the chief interest centres in the sumptuous carvings of the icon and stalls,[239] and in the frescoes with which most of the interiors of the churches are painted.
For Greece proper we are dependent almost wholly on Couchaud[240] and Blouet.[241] So far as the illustrations go they suggest that there are no churches of such dimensions as would ensure dignity, nor are any so beautiful in outline or detail as to make us regret much that we do not know more about them. Still they are sufficiently original to be worthy of study, and when properly known may help to join together some of the scattered links of the chain which once connected the architecture of the West and East, but which is at present so difficult to follow out.
In Athens there are several churches of considerable interest, and not without architectural pretension. They are all small, however. The largest is that known as Panagia Lycodemo, or the church of St. Nicodemus, and is only 62 ft. long by 45 ft. wide over all. It seems also to be the oldest, since its dome is partially pierced with windows inside, though outside there is a distinctly marked drum (Woodcut No. 337). Notwithstanding the smallness of its dimensions, considerable effect is obtained internally by the judicious arrangement of the parts and the harmony of proportion which reigns throughout. The exterior is also pleasing, though the loss of the cornice gives an unfinished look to the whole, and there is a want of sufficient connection between the dome and the walls of the building to make them part of one composition.
A more beautiful and more interesting example is the church known as the Catholicon or Cathedral at Athens (Woodcut No. 338). It is a cathedral, however, only in a Greek sense, certainly not as understood in the Latin Church, for its dimensions are only 40 ft. by 25 over all externally. It is almost impossible to judge of its age from its details, since they are partly borrowed from older classical buildings, or imitations of classical forms, so fashioned as to harmonize with parts which are old. But the tallness of its dome, the form of its windows, and the internal arrangements, all point to a very modern date for its erection—as probably the 13th century as the 11th or 12th.
The church of the Virgin at Mistra in the Peloponnesus was built in the 13th century on a hillside overlooking the plain of Sparta, and partly with materials taken from the remains of the ancient city; but though it belongs possibly to the same age as the Catholicon at Athens, it differs considerably from it in style, and bears much more resemblance to the churches of Apulia and Sicily than either of those described above.
Where arcades are used externally in these Greek churches, they are generally supported by pillars of somewhat classical look (often old classic columns and capitals were used up), crowned by capitals of the square foliaged form, employed to support arches in the early styles all over Europe; and the windows, when divided, take merely the form of diminutive arcades. The Byzantines never attained to tracery; all their early windows are single round-headed openings. These were afterwards grouped together in threes and fives; and, as in the Gothic style, when they could be put under one discharging arch, the piers were attenuated till they became almost mullions, but always supporting constructive arches, without any tendency to run into interlacing forms like the Gothic. The universal employment of mural painting in Byzantine churches, and the consequent exclusion of painted glass, rendered the use of the large windows which the Gothic architects employed quite inadmissible; and in such a climate very much smaller openings sufficed to admit all the light that was required. Tracery would thus, in fact, have been an absurdity, and the windows were often filled in with transparent marble slabs pierced with holes, which were either glazed or occasionally even left open. The Byzantine architects sought to ornament their windows externally by the employment of tiles or colours disposed in various patterns, and often produced a very pleasing effect, as may be seen from the woodcut (No. 337) illustrating the apse of the Panagia Lycodemo at Athens, in the Hebdomon Palace (Woodcut No. 342), and other specimens already quoted.
Occasionally we find in these churches projecting porches or balconies, and machicolations, which give great relief to the general flatness of the walls. These features are all marked with that elegance peculiar to the East, and more especially to a people claiming descent from the ancient Greeks, and possibly having some of their blood in their veins. Sometimes, too, even a subordinate apse is supported on a bracket-like balcony, so as to form a very pleasing object, as in the accompanying specimen from Mistra.
On the whole the Neo-Byzantine style may be said to be characterised by considerable elegance, with occasional combinations of a superior order; but after the time of Justinian the country was too deficient in unity or science to attempt anything great or good, and too poor to aspire to grandeur, so that it has no claim to rank among the great styles of the earth.[242] The old Byzantine style was elevated to a first-class position through the buildings of Justinian; but from his time the history of the art is a history of decline, like that of the Eastern Empire itself and of Greece, down to the final extinction both of the Empire and the style, under the successive conquests by the Venetians and the Turks. The only special claim which the Neo-Byzantine style makes upon our sympathies or attention is that of being the direct descendant of Greek and Roman art. As such, it forms a connecting link between the past and present which must not be overlooked, while in itself it has sufficient merit to reward the student who shall apply himself to its elucidation.
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.
It is more than probable that very considerable remains of the civil or domestic architecture of the Neo-Byzantine period may still be recovered. Most of their palaces or public buildings have continued to be occupied by their successors, but the habits of Turkish life are singularly opposed to the prying of the archæologist. Almost the only building which has been brought to light and illustrated is the palace of the Hebdomon at Blachernæ in Constantinople, built by Constantine Porphyrogenitus (913-949). All that remains of it, however, is a block of buildings 80 ft. by 40 in plan, forming one end of a courtyard; those at the other end, which were more extensive, being too much ruined to be restored. The parts that remain probably belong to the 9th century, and consist of two halls, one over the other, the lower supported by pillars carrying vaults, the upper free. The façade towards the court (Woodcut 342) is of considerable elegance, being adorned by a mosaic of bricks of various colours disposed in graceful patterns, and forming an architectural decoration which, if not of the highest class, is very appropriate for domestic architecture.
One great cause of the deficiency of examples may be the combustibility of the capital. They may have been destroyed in the various fires, and outside Constantinople the number of large cities and their wealth and importance was gradually decreasing till the capital itself sunk into the power of the Turks in the year 1453.
V. ARMENIA
CONTENTS.
Churches at Dighour, Usunlar, Pitzounda, Bedochwinta, Mokwi, Etchmiasdin, and Kouthais—Churches at Ani and Samthawis—Details.
CHRONOLOGY.
Dates. Tiridates converted to Christianity by Gregory II. A.D. 276 St. Gregory confirmed as Pontiff by Pope Sylvester 319 Christianity proscribed and persecuted by the Persians 428-632 Fall of Sassanide dynasty. 632 Establishment of Bagratide dynasty under Ashdod 859 Greatest prosperity under Apas 928 Ashdod III. 951 Sempad II. 977-989 Alp Arslan takes Ani 1064 Gajih, last of the dynasty, slain 1079 Gengis Khan 1222
The architectural province of Armenia forms an almost exact pendant to that of Greece in the history of Byzantine architecture. Both were early converted to Christianity, and Greece remained Christian without any interruption from that time to this. Yet all her earlier churches have perished, we hardly know why, and left us nothing but an essentially Mediæval style. Nearly the same thing happened in Armenia, but there the loss is only too easily accounted for. The Persian persecution in the 5th and 6th centuries must have been severe and lasting, and the great bouleversement of the Mahomedan irruption in the 7th century would easily account for the disappearance of all the earlier monuments. When, in more tranquil times—in the 8th and 9th centuries—the Christians were permitted to rebuild their churches, we find them all of the same small type as those of Greece, with tall domes, painted with frescoes internally, and depending for external effect far more on minute elaboration of details than on any grandeur of design or proportion.
Although the troubles and persecutions from the 5th to the 8th century may have caused the destruction of the greater part of the monuments, it by no means follows that all have perished. On the contrary, we know of the church above alluded to (p. 428) as still existing at Nisibin and belonging to the 4th century, and there can be little doubt that many others exist in various corners of the land; but they have hardly yet been looked for, at least not by anyone competent to discriminate between what was really old and what may have belonged to some subsequent rebuilding or repair.
Till this more careful examination of the province shall have been accomplished, our history of the style cannot be carried back beyond the Hejira. Even then very great difficulty exists in arranging the materials, and in assigning correct dates to the various examples. In the works of Texier,[243] Dubois,[244] Brosset,[245] and Grimm[246] some forty or fifty churches are described and figured in more or less detail, but in most cases the dates assigned to them are derived from written testimony only, the authors not having sufficient knowledge of the style to be able to check the very fallacious evidence of the litera scripta. In consequence of this, the dates usually given are those of the building of the first church on the spot, whereas, in a country so troubled by persecution as Armenia, the original church may have been rebuilt several times, and what we now see is often very modern indeed.
Among the churches now existing in Armenia, the oldest seems to be that in the village of Dighour near Ani. There are neither traditions nor inscriptions to assist in fixing its date; but, from the simplicity of its form and its quasi-classical details, it is evidently older than any other known examples, and with the aid of the information conveyed in De Vogüé’s recent publications we can have little hesitation in assigning it to the 7th century.[247] The church is not large, being only 95 ft. long by 82 wide over all. Internally its design is characterised by extreme solidity and simplicity, and all the details are singularly classical in outline. The dome is an ellipse, timidly constructed, with far more than the requisite amount of abutment. One of its most marked peculiarities is the existence of two external niches placed in projecting wings and which were no doubt intended to receive altars. Its flanks are ornamented by three-quarter columns of debased classical design. These support an architrave which is bent over the heads of the windows as in the churches of Northern Syria erected during the 6th century.
Its western and lateral doorways are ornamented by horse-shoe arches, which are worth remarking here, as it is a feature which the Saracenic architects used so currently and employed for almost every class of opening. The oldest example of this form known is in the doorway of the building called Takt-i-Gero on Mount Zagros.[248] In this little shrine, all the other details are so purely and essentially classic that the building must be dated before or about the time of Constantine. The horse-shoe arch again occurs in the church at Dana on the Euphrates in 540.[249] At Dighour we find it used, not in construction but as an ornamental feature. The stilting of the arch was evidently one of those experiments which the architects of that time were making in order to free themselves from the trammels of the Roman semi-circular arch. The Saracens carried it much further and used it with marked success, but this is probably the last occasion in which it was employed by a Christian architect as a decorative expedient.
The six buttresses, with their offsets, which adorn the façade, are another curious feature in the archæology of this church. If they are integral parts of the original design, which there seems no reason to doubt, they anticipate by several centuries the appearance of this form in Western Europe.
One of the oldest and least altered of the Armenian churches seems to be that of Usunlar, said to have been erected by the Catholicos Jean IV. between the years 718 and 726. In plan it looks like a peristylar temple, but the verandahs which surround it are only low arcades, and have very little affinity with classical forms. These are carried round the front, but there pierced only by the doorway. The elevation, as here exhibited, is simple, but sufficiently expresses the internal arrangements, and, with an octagonal dome, forms, when seen in perspective, a pleasing object from every point of view. Both plan and design are, however, exceptional in the province. A far more usual arrangement is that found at Pitzounda in Abkassia, which may be considered as the typical form of an Armenian church. It is said to have been erected by the Emperor Justinian, and there is nothing in the style or ornamentation of the lower part that seems to gainsay its being his. But the plan is so like many that belong to a much later age, that we must hesitate before we can feel sure that it has not been rebuilt at some more modern date. Its cupola certainly belongs to a period long after the erection of Sta. Irene at Constantinople (Woodcut No. 327), when the dome pierced with tall windows had become the fashionable form of dome in the Byzantine school. Its interior, also, is unusually tall, and the pointed arches under the dome look like integral parts of the design, and when so employed belong certainly to a much more modern date. On the whole, therefore, it seems that this church, as we now see it, may have been rebuilt in the 9th or 10th century.
Whatever its date, it is a pleasing example of the style. Externally it is devoid of ornament except what is obtained by the insertion of tiles between the courses of the stone, and a similar relief to the windows; but even this little introduction of colour gives it a gay and cheerful appearance, more than could easily be obtained by mouldings or carving in stone.
The upper galleries of the nave and the chapels of the choir are also well expressed in the external design, and altogether, for a small church—which it is (only 137 ft. by 75)—it is as pleasing a composition as could easily be found.
The idea that the date of this church is considerably more modern than Dubois and others are inclined to assign to it, is confirmed by a comparison of its plan with that at Bedochwinta, which Brosset determines from inscriptions to belong to the date 1556-1575; and the knowledge lately acquired tends strongly to the conviction that this plan of church belongs to a later period in the Middle Ages, though it is difficult to determine when it was introduced, and it may be only a continuation of a much earlier form.
One other church of this part of the world seems to claim especial mention, that of Mokwi, built in the 10th century, and painted as we learn from inscriptions, between 1080 and 1125. It is a large and handsome church, but its principal interest lies in the fact that in dimensions and arrangement it is almost identical with the contemporaneous church of Sta. Sophia at Novogorod, showing a connection between the two countries which will be more particularly pointed out hereafter. It is now very much ruined, and covered with a veil of creepers which prevents its outward form from being easily distinguished.
As will be perceived, its plan is only an extension of the two last mentioned, having five aisles instead of three; but it is smaller in scale and more timid in execution. The church which it most resembles is that at Trabala in Syria (Woodcut No. 330), which is certainly of an earlier date than any we are acquainted with further east. Practically the same plan occurs at Athens (Woodcut No. 338), and at Mistra (Woodcut No. 339), but these seem on a smaller scale than at Mokwi, so that it may be considered as the typical form of a Neo-Byzantine church for four or five centuries, and it would consequently be unsafe to attempt to fix a date from its peculiarities.
Interesting as these may be in an historical point of view, the most important ecclesiastical establishment in this part of the world is that of Etchmiasdin. Here are four churches built on the spots from which, according to tradition, rose the two arches or rainbows, crossing one another at right angles, on which our Saviour is said to have sat when he appeared to St. Gregory. They consequently ought to be at the four angles of a square, or rectangle of some sort, but this is far from being the case. The principal of these churches is that whose plan is represented in Woodcut No. 353. It stands in the centre of a large square, surrounded by ecclesiastical buildings, and is on the whole rather an imposing edifice. Its porch is modern; so also, comparatively speaking, is its dome; but the plan, if not the greater part of the substructure, is ancient, and exhibits the plainness and simplicity characteristic of its age. The other three churches lay claim to as remote a date of foundation as this, but all have been so altered in modern times that they have now no title to antiquity.
The idea that the churches at Pitzounda and Bedochwinta must be comparatively modern is confirmed by comparing their plan with that of Kouthais, a church which there seems no reasonable ground for doubting was founded in 1007, and erected, pretty much as we now find it, in the early part of the 11th century. It has neither coupled piers nor pointed arches, but is adorned externally with reed-like pilasters and elaborate frets, such as were certainly employed at Ani in the course of the 11th century. The annexed elevation (Woodcut No. 355) of one of its windows exhibits the Armenian style of decoration of this age, but is such as certainly was not employed before this time, though with various modifications it became typical of the style at its period of greatest development.
ANI.
Even Etchmiasdin, however, sinks into insignificance, in an architectural point of view, when compared with Ani, which was the capital of Armenia during its period of greatest unity and elevation, and was adorned by the Bagratide dynasty with a series of buildings which still strike the traveller with admiration, at least for the beauty of their details; for, like all churches in this part of the world, they are very small. If, however, the cathedral at Ani is interesting to the architect from its style, it is still more so to the archæologist from its date, since there seems no reason to doubt that it was built in the year 1010, as recorded in an inscription on its walls. This, perhaps, might be put on one side as a mistake, if it were not that there are two beautiful inscriptions on the façade, one of which is dated 1049, the other 1059. To this we must add our knowledge that the city was sacked by Alp Arslan in 1064, and that the dynasty which alone could erect such a monument was extinguished in 1080. With all this evidence, it is startling to find a church not only with pointed arches but with coupled piers and all the characteristics of a complete pointed-arch style, such as might be found in Italy or Sicily not earlier than the 13th century. This peculiarity is, however, confined to the constructive parts of the interior. The plan is that of Pitzounda or Bedochwinta, modified only by the superior constructive arrangement which the pointed arch enabled the architects to introduce; and externally the only pointed arch anywhere to be detected, is in the transept, where the arch of the vault is simulated to pass through to the exterior.
In the plan and elevation of the building will be observed a peculiarity which was afterwards almost universal in the style. It is the angular recess which marks the form of the apses outside without breaking the main lines of the building. In the lateral elevation of this cathedral (Woodcut No. 358) they are introduced on each side of the portal where the construction did not require them, in order to match those at the east end. But in the Cathedral at Samthawis (Woodcut No. 359) they are seen in their proper places on each side of the central apse. Though this church was erected between the years 1050-1079, we find these niches adorned with a foliation (Woodcut No. 360) very like what we are accustomed to consider the invention of the 14th century in Europe, though even more elegant than anything of its class used by the Gothic architects.
At Sandjerli, not far from Ani, is another church, which from inscriptions translated by M. Brosset, and from sections given by him, appears to belong to the same date (1033-1044), and to possess coupled columns and pointed arches like those of the cathedral of Ani, which indeed it resembles in many points, and which renders the date above given highly probable.
The plans above quoted may probably be taken as those most typical of the style, but in no part of the world are the arrangements of churches so various. All being small, there were no constructive difficulties to be encountered, and as no congregation was to be accommodated, the architects apparently considered themselves at liberty to follow their fancies in any manner that occurred to them. The consequence is that the plans of Armenian churches defy classification; some are square, or rectangles of every conceivable proportion of length to breadth, some octagons or hexagons, and some of the most indescribable irregularity. Frequently two, three, or four are grouped and joined together. In some instances the sacred number of seven are coupled together in one design, though more generally each little church is an independent erection; but they are all so small that their plans are of comparatively little importance. No grandeur of effect or poetry of perspective can be obtained without considerable dimensions, and these are not to be found in Armenia.
There are also some examples of circular churches, but these are far from being numerous. Generally speaking they are tombs, or connected with sepulchral rites, and are indeed mere amplifications of the usual tombs of the natives of the country, which are generally little models of the domes of Armenian churches placed on the ground, though perhaps it would be more correct to say that the domes were copied from the tombs than the reverse.
The most elegant of all those hitherto made known is one found at Ani, illustrated in Woodcuts Nos. 361, 362. Notwithstanding the smallness of its dimensions, it is one of the most elegant sepulchral chapels known.
Another on a larger scale (Woodcut No. 363) is borrowed from Mr. Layard’s book. This tomb shows all the peculiarities of the Armenian style of the 11th or 12th century. Though so much larger, it is by no means so beautiful as the last mentioned tomb at Ani. In its ornamentation a further refinement is introduced, inasmuch as the reed-like columns are tied together by true love-knots instead of capitals—a freak not uncommon either in Europe at the same age, or in the East at the present day, but by no means to be recommended as an architectural expedient.
With scarcely an exception, all the buildings in the Armenian provinces are so small that they would hardly deserve a place in a history of architecture were it not for the ingenuity of their plans and the elegance of their details. The beauty of the latter is so remarkable that, in order to convey a correct notion of the style, it would be necessary to illustrate them to an extent incompatible with the scope of this work. In them too will be found much that has hitherto been ascribed to other sources. The annexed capital (Woodcut No. 364), for instance, would generally be put down as Saracenic of the best age, but it belongs, with a great deal more quite as elegant, to one of the churches at Ani; and the capital from Gelathi (Woodcut No. 365) would not excite attention if found in Ireland. The interlacing scrolls which occupy its head are one of the most usual as well as one of the most elegant modes of decoration employed in the province, and are applied with a variety and complexity nowhere else found in stone, though they may be equalled in some works illustrated by the pen.
Besides, however, its beauty in an artistic point of view, this basket pattern, as it is sometimes called, is still more so as an Ethnographic indication which, when properly investigated, may lead to the most important conclusions. The three following woodcuts, Nos. 366, 367, and 368, taken from churches at a now deserted village called Ish Khan, will serve to explain its more usual forms; but it occurs almost everywhere in the Armenian architectural province, and with as infinite a variety of details as are to be found with its employment in Irish manuscripts.
Out of Armenia it occurs in the church at Kurtea el Argyisch in Wallachia (Woodcut No. 385), and is found in Hungary and Styria, and no antiquary will probably fail to recognise it as the most usual and beautiful pattern on Irish crosses and Scotch sculptured stones. On the other hand it occurs frequently in the monolithic deepdans or lamp-posts and in the temples on the Canarese or West Coast of India, and in all these instances with so little change of form that it is almost impossible that these examples should be independent inventions. Still the gaps in the sequence are so great that it is very difficult to see how they could emanate from one centre. Few, however, who know anything of the early architecture of Ireland can fancy that it did come from Rome across Great Britain, but that it must have had its origin further east, among some people using groups of churches and small cells, instead of congregational basilicas. So far, too, as we can yet see, it is to the East we must look for the original design of the mysterious round towers which form so characteristic a feature of Irish architecture, and were afterwards so conspicuous as minars in the East, and nowhere more so than in Armenia. Recent researches, too, are making it more and more clear that Nestorian churches did exist all down the West Coast of India from a very early period, so that it would not be impossible that from Persia and Armenia they introduced the favourite style of ornament.
All this may seem idle speculation, and it may turn out that the similarities are accidental, but at present it certainly does not look as if they were, and if they do emanate from a common centre, tracing them back to their original may lead to such curious ethnological and historical conclusions that it is at all events worth while pointing them out in order that others may pursue the investigation to its legitimate conclusion.
Taken altogether, Armenian architecture is far more remarkable for elegance than for grandeur, and possesses none of that greatness of conception or beauty of outline essential to an important architectural style. It is still worthy of more attention than it has hitherto received, even for its own sake. Its great title to interest will always be its ethnological value, being the direct descendant of the Sassanian style, and the immediate parent of that of Russia. At the same time, standing on the eastern confines of the Byzantine Empire, it received thence that impress of Christian art which distinguished it from the former, and which it transmitted to the latter. It thus forms one of those important links in the chain of architectural history which when lost render the study of the subject so dark and perplexed, but when appreciated add so immensely to its philosophical interest.
VI. ROCK-CUT CHURCHES
CONTENTS.
Churches at Tchekerman, Inkerman, and Sebastopol—Excavations at Kieghart and Vardzie.
Intermediate between the Armenian province which has just been described and the Russian, which comes next in the series, lies a territory of more than usual interest to the archæologist, though hardly demanding more than a passing notice in a work devoted to architecture. In the neighbourhood of Kertch, which was originally colonised by a people of Grecian or Pelasgic origin, are found numerous tumuli and sepulchres belonging generally to the best age of Greek art, but which, barring some slight local peculiarities, would hardly seem out of place in the cemeteries of Etruria or Crete.
At a later age it was from the shores of the Palus Mœotis and the Caucasus that tradition makes Woden migrate to Scandinavia, bearing with him that form of Buddhism[251] which down to the 11th century remained the religion of the North—while, as if to mark the presence of some strange people in the land, we find everywhere rock-cut excavations of a character, to say the least of it, very unusual in the West.
These have not yet been examined with the care necessary to enable us to speak very positively regarding them;[252] but, from what we do know, it seems that they were not in any instance tombs, like those in Italy and many of those in Africa or Syria. Nor can we positively assert that any of them were viharas or monasteries[253] like most of those in India. Generally they seem to have been ordinary dwellings, but in some instances appropriated by the Christians and formed into churches.
One, apparently, of the oldest is a rectangular excavation at Tchekerman in the Crimea. It is 37 ft. in length by 21 in width, with hardly any decoration on its walls, but having in the centre a choir with four pillars on each face, which there seems no doubt was originally devoted to Christian purposes. The cross on the low screen that separates it from the nave is too deeply cut and too evidently integral to have been added. But for this it would seem to have been intended for a Buddhist vihara.
Under the fortress at Inkerman—facing the position held by our army—there is an excavation undoubtedly of Christian origin. It is a small church with side-aisles, apse, and all the necessary accompaniments. Beyond this is a square excavation apparently intended as a refectory, and other apartments devoted to the use of a monastic establishment. These again are so like what we find among the Buddhist excavations in India as to be quite startling. The one point in which this church differs from a Buddhist chaitya is that the aisle does not run round behind the altar. This is universally the case in Buddhist, but only exceptionally so in Christian, churches.
Close to Sebastopol is another small church cave with its accompanying monastery. This one is said to be comparatively modern, and if its paintings are parts of the original design it may be so, but no certain data are given for fixing the age of the last two examples. That under the fortress (Woodcut No. 371) seems, however, to be of considerable antiquity.
There is one which in plan is very like those just described at Vardzie, said to belong to the 12th century, and another, almost absolutely identical with a Buddhist vihara, at Kieghart in Armenia, which has a date upon it, A.D. 1288.
On the banks of the Kour, however, at Ouplous-Tsikhe and Vardzie, are some excavations which are either temples or monasteries, and which range from the Christian era downwards. These are generally assumed to be residences—one is called the palace of Queen Thamar—and they were evidently intended for some stately purpose. Yet they were not temples in any sense in which that term would be employed by the Greek or Roman world. Whatever their destination, these rock-cut examples make, when taken altogether, as curious a group of monuments as are to be found in this corner of Asia, and which may lead afterwards to curious archæological inferences. At present we are hardly in a position to speculate on the subject, and merely point to it here as one well meriting further investigation.
VII. MEDIÆVAL ARCHITECTURE OF RUSSIA
CONTENTS.
Churches at Kief—Novogorod—Moscow—Towers.
CHRONOLOGY.
DATES. Rurik the Varangian at Novogorod A.D. 850 Olga baptized at Constantinople 955 St. Vladimir the Great 981-1015 Yaroslaf died 1054 Sack of Kief 1168 Tartar invasion under Gengis Khan 1224 Tartar wars and domination till 1480 Ivan III. 1462-1505 Basil III. 1505-1533 Ivan IV., or the Terrible 1533-1584 Boris 1598-1605 Peter the Great 1689-1725
The long series of the architectural styles of the Christian world which has been described in the preceding pages terminates most appropriately with the description of the art of a people who had less knowledge of architecture and less appreciation of its beauties than any other with which we are acquainted. During the Middle Ages the Russians did not erect one single building which is worthy of admiration, either from its dimensions, its design, or the elegance of its details; nor did they invent one single architectural feature which can be called their own. It is true the Tartars brought with them their bulbous form of dome, and the Russians adopted it, and adhere to it to the present day, unconscious that it is the symbol of their subjection to a race they affect to despise; but excepting as regards this one feature, their architecture is only a bad and debased copy of the style of the Byzantine Empire. There is nothing, in fact, in the architecture of the country to lead us to doubt that the mass of the population of Russia was always of purely Aryan stock, speaking a language more nearly allied to the Sanskrit than any of the other Mediæval tongues of Europe, and that whatever amount of Tartar blood may have been imported, it was not sufficient to cure the inartistic tendencies of the race. So much is this felt to be the case, that the Russians themselves hardly lay claim to the design of a single building in their country from the earliest times to the present day. They admit that all the churches at Kief, their earliest capital, were erected by Greek architects; those of Moscow by Italians or Germans; while those of St. Petersburg, we know, were, with hardly a single exception, erected by Italian, German, or French architects. These last have perpetrated caricatures of revived Roman architecture worse than are to be found anywhere else. Bad as are some of the imitations of Roman art found in western Europe, they are all the work of native artists; are, partially at least, adapted to the climate, and common-sense peeps through their worst absurdities; but in Russia only second-class foreigners have been employed, and the result is a style that out-herods Herod in absurdity and bad taste. Architecture has languished not only in Russia, but wherever the Sclavonic race predominates. In Poland, Hungary, Moldavia, Wallachia, &c., although some of these countries have at times been rich and prosperous, there is not a single original structure worthy to be placed in comparison with even the second-class contemporary buildings of the Celtic or Teutonic races.
Besides the ethnographic inaptitude of the nation, however, there are other causes which would lead us to anticipate, à priori, that nothing either great or beautiful was likely to exist in the Mediæval architecture of Russia. In the first place, from the conversion of Olga (964) to the accession of Peter the Great (1689), with whom the national style expired, the country hardly emerged from barbarism. Torn by internal troubles, or devastated by incursions of the Tartars, the Russians never enjoyed the repose necessary for the development of art, and the country was too thinly peopled to admit of that concentration of men necessary for the carrying out of any great architectural undertaking.
Another cause of bad architecture is found in the material used, which is almost universally brick covered with plaster; and it is well known that the tendency of plaster architecture is constantly to extravagance in detail and bad taste in every form. It is also extremely perishable,—a fact which opens the way to repairs and alterations in defiance of congruity and taste, and to the utter annihilation of everything like archæological value in the building.
When the material was not brick it was wood, like most of the houses in Russia of the present day; and the destroying hand of time, aided no doubt by fire and the Tartar invasions, have swept away many buildings which would serve to fill up gaps, now, it is feared, irremediable in the history of the art.
Notwithstanding all this, the history of architecture in Russia need not be considered as entirely a blank, or as wholly devoid of interest. Locally we can follow the history of the style from the south to the north. Springing originally from two roots—one at Constantinople, the other in Armenia—it gradually extended itself northward. It first established itself at Cherson, then at Kief, and after these at Vladimir and Moscow, whence it spread to the great commercial city of Novogorod. At all these places it maintained itself till supplanted by the rise of St. Petersburg.
Though the Princess Olga was baptised in 955, the general profession of Christianity in Russia did not take place till the reign of Vladimir (981-1015). He built the wooden cathedral at Cherson, which has perished. At Kief the same monarch built the church of Dessiatinnaya, the remains of which existed till within the last few years, when they were removed to give place to a modern reproduction. He also built that of St. Basil in the same city, which, notwithstanding modern improvements, still retains its ancient plan, and is nearly identical in arrangement and form with the Catholicon at Athens (Woodcut No. 338). The plan (Woodcut No. 372) gives a fair idea of the usual dimensions of the older churches of Russia. The parts shaded lighter are subsequent additions.
A greater builder than Vladimir was Prince Yaroslaf (1019-1054). He founded the church of St. Irene at Kief (Woodcut No. 373), the ruins of which still exist. It is a good specimen of the smaller class of churches of that date.
His great works were the cathedrals of Kief and Novogorod, both dedicated to Sta. Sophia, and with the church at Mokwi quoted above (Woodcut No. 352) forming the most interesting group of Russian churches of that age. All three belong to the 11th century, and are so extremely similar in plan, that, deducting the subsequent additions from the two Russian examples, they may almost be said to be identical. They also show so intimate a connection between the places on the great commercial road from the Caucasus to the Baltic, that they point out at once the line along which we must look for the origin of the style.
Of the three, that at Kief[254] (Woodcut No. 374) is the largest; but it is nearly certain that the two outer aisles are subsequent additions, and that the original church was confined to the remaining seven aisles. As it now stands its dimensions are 185 ft. from north to south, and 136 from east to west. It consequently covers only about 25,000 ft., or not half the usual dimensions of a Western cathedral of the same class. As will be perceived, its plan is like that of the churches of Asia Minor, so far as the central aisles are concerned. In lateral extension it resembles a mosque, a form elsewhere very unusual in Christian churches, but which here may be a Tartar peculiarity. At all events it is generally found in Russian churches, which never adopt the long basilican form of the West. If their length in an eastern and western direction ever exceeds the breadth, it is only by taking in the narthex with the body of the church.
Internally this church retains many of its original arrangements, and many decorations which, if not original, are at least restorations or copies of those which previously occupied their places. Externally it has been so repaired and rebuilt that it is difficult to detect what belongs to the original work.
In this respect the church of Novogorod has been more fortunate. Owing to the early decline of the town it has not been much modernised. The interior retains many of its primitive features. Among other furniture is a pair of bronze doors of Italian workmanship of the 12th century closely resembling those of San Zenone at Verona. The part of the exterior that retains most of its early features is the eastern end, represented in the Woodcut No. 375. It retains the long reed-like shafts which the Armenians borrowed from the Sassanians, and which penetrated even to this remote corner. Whether the two lower circular apses shown in the view are old is by no means clear: but it is probable that they are at least built on ancient foundations. The domes on the roof, and indeed all the upper part of the building, belong to a more modern date than the substructure.
The cathedral of Tchernigow, near Kief, founded 1024, retains perhaps more of its original appearance externally than any other church of its age. Like almost all Russian churches it is square in plan, with a dome in the centre surrounded by four smaller cupolas placed diagonally at the corners. To the eastward are three apses, and the narthex is flanked by two round towers, the upper parts of which, with the roofs, have been modernised, but the whole of the walls remain as originally erected, especially the end of the transept, which precisely resembles what we find in Greek Churches of the period.
To the same age belong the convent of the Volkof (1100) and of Yourief at Novogorod, the church of the Ascension, and several others at Kief. All these are so modernised as, except in their plans, to show but slight traces of their origin.
Another of the great buildings of the age was the cathedral of Vladimir (1046). It is said to have been built, like the rest, by Greek artists. The richness and beauty of this building have been celebrated by early travellers, but it has been entirely passed over by more modern writers. From this it is perhaps to be inferred that its ancient form is completely disguised in modern alterations.
The ascendency of Kief was of short duration. Early in the 13th century the city suffered greatly from civil wars, fires, and devastations of every description, which humbled her pride, and inflicted ruin upon her from which she never wholly recovered.
Vladimir was after this the residence of the grand dukes, and in the beginning of the 14th century Moscow became the capital, which it continued to be till the seat of empire was transferred by Peter the Great to St. Petersburg. During these three centuries Moscow was no doubt adorned with many important buildings, since almost every church traces its foundation back to the 14th century; but as fires and Tartar invasions have frequently swept over the city since then, few retain any of the features of their original foundation, and it may therefore perhaps be well to see what can be gleaned in the provinces before describing the buildings of the capital.
As far as can be gathered from the sketch-books of travellers or their somewhat meagre notes, there are few towns of Russia of any importance during the Middle Ages which do not possess churches said to have been founded in the first centuries after its conversion to Christianity; though whether the existing buildings are the originals, or how far they may have been altered and modernised, will not be known till some archæologist visits the country, directing his attention to this particular inquiry. Although the Russians probably built as great a number of churches as any nation of Christendom, yet like the Greek churches they were all undoubtedly small. Kief is said, even in the age of Yaroslaf, to have contained 400 churches; Vladimir nearly as many. Moscow, in the year 1600, had 400 (thirty-seven of which were in the Kremlin), and now possesses many more.
Many of the village churches still retain their ancient features; the example here given of one near Novogorod belongs probably to the 12th century, and is not later than the 13th. It retains its shafted apse, its bulb-shaped Tartar dome, and, as is always the case in Russia, a square detached belfry—though in this instance apparently more modern than the edifice itself. Woodcut No. 378 is the type of a great number of the old village churches, which, like the houses of the peasants, are of wood, generally of logs laid one on the other, with their round ends intersecting at the angles, like the log-huts of America at the present day. As architectural objects they are of course insignificant, but still they are characteristic and picturesque.
Internally all the arrangements of the stone churches are such as are appropriate for pictorial rather than for sculptural decoration. The pillars are generally large cylinders covered with portraits of saints, and the capitals are plain, cushion-like rolls with painted ornaments. The vaults are not relieved by ribs, or by any projections that could interfere with the coloured decorations. In the wooden churches the construction is plainly shown, and of course is far lighter. In them also colour almost wholly supersedes carving. The peculiarities of these two styles are well illustrated in the two Woodcuts, Nos. 379 and 380, from churches near Kostroma in Eastern Russia. Both belong to the Middle Ages, and both are favourable specimens of their respective classes. In these examples, as indeed in every Greek church, the principal object of ecclesiastical furniture is the iconostasis or image-bearer, corresponding to the rood-screen that separates the choir from the nave in Latin churches. The rood-screen, however, never assumed in the West the importance which the iconostasis always possessed in the East. There it separates and hides from the church the sanctuary and the altar, from which the laity are wholly excluded. Within it the elements are consecrated, in the presence of the priests alone, and are then brought forward to be displayed to the public. On this screen, as performing so important a part, the Greek architects and artists have lavished the greatest amount of care and design, and in every Greek church, from St. Mark’s at Venice to the extreme confines of Russia, it is the object that first attracts attention on entering. It is, in fact, so important that it must be regarded rather as an object of architecture than of church furniture.
The architectural details of these Russian churches must be pronounced to be bad; for, even making every allowance for difference of taste, there is neither beauty of form nor constructive elegance in any part. The most characteristic and pleasing features are the five domes that generally ornament the roofs, and which, when they rise from the extrados, or uncovered outside of the vaults, certainly look well. Too frequently, however, the vault is covered by a wooden roof, through which the domes then peer in a manner by no means to be admired. The details of the lower part are generally bad. The view (Woodcut No. 381) of a doorway of the Troitska monastery, near Moscow, is sufficiently characteristic. Its most remarkable feature is the baluster-like pillars, of which the Russians seem so fond. These support an arch with a pendant in the middle—a sort of architectural tour de force which the Russian architects practised everywhere and in every age, but which is far from being beautiful in itself, or from possessing any architectural propriety. The great roll over the door is also unpleasant. Indeed, as a general rule, wherever in Russian architecture the details are original, they must be condemned as ugly.
At Moscow we find much that is at all events curious. It first became a city of importance about the year 1304, and retained its prosperity throughout that century. During that time it was adorned by many sumptuous edifices. In the beginning of the 15th century it was taken and destroyed by the Tartars, and it was not till the reign of Ivan III. (1462-1505) that the city and empire recovered the disasters of that period. It is extremely doubtful if any edifice now found in Moscow can date before the time of this monarch.
In the year 1479 this king dedicated the new church of the Assumption of the Virgin, said to have been built by Aristotile Fioravanti, of Bologna, in Italy, who was brought to Russia expressly for the purpose. The plan of it (Woodcut No. 382) gives a good idea of the arrangement of a Russian church of this age. Small as are its dimensions—only 74 ft. by 56 over all externally, which would be a very small parish church anywhere else—the two other cathedrals of Moscow, that of the Archangel Michael and the Annunciation, are even smaller still in plan. Like true Byzantine churches, they would all be exact squares, but that the narthex being taken into the church gives it a somewhat oblong form. In the Church of the Assumption there is, as is almost universally the case, one large dome over the centre of the square, and four smaller ones in the four angles.[255] The great iconostasis runs, as at Sta. Sophia at Kief, quite across the church; but the two lateral chapels have smaller screens inside which hide their altars, so that the part between the two becomes a sort of private chapel. This seems to be the plan of the greater number of the Russian churches of this age.
But there is one church in Moscow, that of Vassili (St. Basil) Blajenny, which is certainly the most remarkable, as it is the most characteristic, of all the churches of Russia. It was built by Ivan the Terrible (1534-1584), and its architect was a foreigner, generally supposed to have come from the West, inasmuch as this monarch sent an embassy to Germany under one Schlit, to procure artists, of whom he is said to have collected 150 for his service. If, however, German workmen erected this building, it certainly was from Tartar designs. Nothing like it exists to the westward. It more resembles some Eastern pagoda of modern date than any European structure, and in fact must be considered as almost a pure Tartar building. Still, though strangely altered by time, most of its forms can be traced back to the Byzantine style, as certainly as the details of the cathedral of Cologne to the Romanesque. The central spire, for instance, is the form into which the Russians had during five centuries been gradually changing the straight-lined dome of the Armenians. The eight others are the Byzantine domes converted by degrees into the bulb-like forms which the Tartars practised at Agra and Delhi, as well as throughout Russia. The arrangement of these domes will be understood by the plan (Woodcut No. 383), which shows it to consist of one central octagon surrounded by eight smaller ones, raised on a platform ascended by two flights of stairs. Beneath the platform is a crypt. For the general appearance the reader must be referred to Woodcut No. 384, for words would fail to convey any idea of so bizarre and complicated a building. At the same time it must be imagined as painted with the most brilliant colours; its domes gilt, and relieved by blue, green, and red, and altogether a combination of as much barbarity as it is possible to bring together in so small a space. To crown the whole, according to the legend, Ivan ordered the eyes of the architect to be put out, lest he should ever surpass his own handiwork; and we may feel grateful that nothing so barbarous was afterwards attempted in Europe.
Though not strictly speaking in Russia itself, there is at Kurtea d’Argyisch, in Wallachia, 90 miles north-west from Bucharest, a church which is so remarkable, so typical of the style, that it cannot be passed over. It was erected in the first years of the 16th century (1517-1526) by a Prince Nyagon, and is, so far as is at present known, the most elaborate example of the style. All its ornamental details are identical with those found at Ani and other places in Armenia, but are used here in greater profusion and with better judgment than are to be found in any single example in that country. In outline it is not so wild as the Vassili Blanskenoy, but the interior is wholly sacrificed to the external effect, and no other example can well be quoted on which ornamental construction is carried to so great an extent, and generally speaking in such good taste. The twisted cupolas that flank the entrances might as well have been omitted, but the two central domes and the way the semi-domes are attached to them are quite unexceptionable, and altogether, with larger dimensions, and if a little more spread out, it would be difficult to find a more elegant exterior anywhere. As it is only 90 ft. long by 50 wide it is too small for architectural effect, but barring this it is the most elegant example of the Armeno-Russian or Neo-Byzantine architecture which is known to exist anywhere, and one of the most suggestive, if the Russians knew how to use it.[256]
TOWERS.
Next in importance to the churches themselves are the belfries which always accompany them. The Russians seem never to have adopted separate baptisteries, nor did they affect any sepulchral magnificence in their tombs. From the time of Herodotus the Scythians were great casters of metal, and famous for their bells. The specimens of casting of this sort in Russia reduce all the great bells of Western Europe to comparative insignificance. It of course became necessary to provide places in which to hang these bells: and as nothing, either in Byzantine or Armenian architecture, afforded a hint for amalgamating the belfry with the church, they went to work in their own way, and constructed the towers wholly independent of the churches. Of all those in Russia, that of Ivan Veliki, erected by the Czar Boris, about the year 1600, is the finest. It is surmounted by a cross 18 ft. high, making a total height of 269 ft. from the ground to the top of the cross. It cannot be said to have any great beauty, either of form or detail: but it rises boldly from the ground, and towers over all the other buildings of the Kremlin. With this tower for its principal object, the whole mass of building is at least picturesque, if not architecturally beautiful. In the Woodcut (No. 388) the belfry is shown as it stood before it was blown up by the French. It has since been rebuilt, and with the cathedrals on either hand, makes up the best group in the Kremlin.
Besides the belfries, the walls of the Kremlin are adorned with towers, meant not merely for military defence, but as architectural ornaments, and reminding us somewhat of those described by Josephus as erected by Herod on the walls of Jerusalem. One of these towers (Woodcut No. 389), built by the same Czar Boris who erected that last described, is a good specimen of its class. It is one of the principal of those which give the walls of the Kremlin their peculiar and striking character.
These towers, however, are not peculiar to the Kremlin of Moscow. Every city in Russia had its Kremlin, as every one in Spain had its Alcazar, and all were adorned with walls deeply machicolated, and interspersed with towers. Within were enclosed five-domed churches and belfries, just as at Moscow, though on a scale proportionate to the importance of the city. It would be easy to select numerous illustrations of this. They are, however, all very much like one another, nor have they sufficient beauty to require us to dwell long on them. Their gateways, however, are frequently important. Every city had its porta sacra, deriving its importance either from some memorable event or from miracles said to have been wrought there, and being the triumphal gateways through which all processions pass on state occasions.
The best known of these is that of Moscow, beneath whose sacred arch even the Emperor himself must uncover his head as he passes through; and which, from its sanctity as well as its architectural character, forms an important feature among the antiquities of Russia.
So numerous are the churches, and, generally speaking, the fragments of antiquity in this country, that it would be easy to multiply examples to almost any extent. Those quoted in the preceding pages are, architecturally, the finest as well as the most interesting from an antiquarian point of view, of those which have yet been visited and drawn; and there is no reason to believe that others either more magnificent or more beautiful still remain undescribed.
This being the case, it is safe to assert that Russia contains nothing that can at all compare with the cathedrals, or even the parish churches, of Western Europe, either in dimensions or in beauty of detail. Every chapter in the history of architecture must contain something to interest the student: but there is none less worthy of attention than that which describes the architecture of Russia, especially when we take into account the extent of territory occupied by its people, and the enormous amount of time and wealth which has been lavished on the multitude of insignificant buildings to be found in every corner of the empire.
I. INTRODUCTORY
CONTENTS.
Division and Classification of the Romanesque and Gothic Styles of Architecture in Italy.
If a historian were to propose to himself the task of writing a tolerably consecutive narrative of the events which occurred in Italy during the Middle Ages, he would probably find such difficulties in his way as would induce him to abandon the attempt. Venice and Genoa were as distinct states as Spain and Portugal. Florence, the most essentially Italian of the republics, requires a different treatment from the half German Milan. Even such neighbouring cities as Mantua and Verona were separate and independent states during the most important part of their existence. Rome was, during the whole of the Middle Ages, more European than Italian, and must have a narrative of her own; Southern Italy was a foreign country to the states of the North; and Sicily has an independent history.
The same difficulties, though not perhaps to the same degree, beset the historian of art, and, if it were proposed to describe in detail all the varying forms of Italian art during the Middle Ages, it would be necessary to map out Italy into provinces, and to treat each almost as a separate kingdom by itself. In this, as in almost every instance, however, the architecture forms a better guide-line through the tangled mazes of the labyrinth than the written record of political events, and those who can read her language have before them a more trustworthy and vivid picture of the past than can be obtained by any other means.
The great charm of the history of Mediæval art in England is its unity. It affords the picture of a people working out a style from chaos to completeness, with only slight assistance from those in foreign countries engaged in the same task. In France we have two elements, the old Southern Romanesque long struggling with the Northern Celtic, and unity only obtained by the suppression of the former, wherever they came in contact. In Italy we have four elements,—the Roman, the Byzantine, the Lombardic, and the Gothic,—sometimes existing nearly pure, at others mixed, in the most varying proportions, the one with the other.
In the North the Lombardic element prevailed; based on the one hand on the traditions of Imperial Rome, and in consequence influenced in its art by classical forms; and, on the other, inspired in all its details by a vast accumulation of Byzantine work. In the 5th and 6th centuries this work (chiefly confined to columns, screens, and altar pieces) was executed by Greek artists sent on from Constantinople. The 7th century seems to have been quite barren so far as architecture was concerned; but in the 8th century, owing either to the Saracen invasion or to the emigration caused by the persecution of the Iconoclasts in 788, the Byzantine influence became again predominant, but no longer with that same purity of design as we find in the earlier work of the 5th and 6th centuries.
In the South, the Byzantine forms prevailed, partly because the art was there based on the traditions of Magna Grecia, and more, perhaps, from the intimate connection that existed between Apulia and the Peloponnesus during the Middle Ages.
Between the two stood Rome, less changed than either North or South—the three terms, Roman, Romano-Byzantine, and Renaissance comprise all the variation she submitted to. In vain the Gothic styles besieged her on the north and the Byzantine on the south. Their waves spent themselves on her rock without producing much impression, while her influence extended more or less over the whole peninsula. It was distinctly felt at Florence and at Pisa on the north and west, though these conquests were nearly balanced by the Byzantine influence which is so distinctly felt at Venice or Padua on the east coast.
The great difficulty in the attempt to reconcile these architectural varieties with the local and ethnographical peculiarities of the people—a difficulty which at first sight appears all but insuperable—is, that sometimes all three styles are found side by side in the same city. This, however, constitutes, in reality, the intrinsic merit of architecture as a guide in these difficulties. What neither the language of the people nor their histories tell us, their arts proclaim in a manner not to be mistaken. Just in that ratio in which the Roman, Byzantine, or Lombardic style prevails in their churches, to that extent did either of these elements exist in the blood of the people. Once thoroughly master the peculiarities of their art, and we can with certainty pronounce when any particular race rose to power, how long its prevalence lasted, and when it was obliterated or fused with some other form.
There is no great difficulty in distinguishing between the Byzantine and the other two styles, so far as the form of dome is concerned. The latter is almost always rounded externally, the former almost always straight-lined. Again: the Byzantine architects never used intersecting vaults for their naves. If forced to use a pointed arch, they did so unwillingly, and it never fitted kindly to their favourite circular forms; the style of their ornamentation was throughout peculiar, and differed in many essential respects from the other two styles.
It is less easy always to discriminate between the Gothic and Lombardic in Italy. We frequently find churches of the two styles built side by side in the same age, both using round arches, and with details not differing essentially from one another. There is one test, however, which is probably in all cases sufficient. Every Gothic church had, or was intended to have, a vault over its central aisle. No early Christian church ever attempted it. The importance of the distinction is apparent throughout. The Gothic churches have clustered piers, tall vaulting-shafts, external and internal buttresses, and are prepared throughout for this necessity of Gothic art. The early Christian churches, on the contrary, have only a range of columns, generally of a pseudo-Corinthian order, between the central and side aisles; internally no vaulting-shafts, and externally only pilasters. Had these architects been competent, as the English were, to invent an ornamental wooden roof, they would perhaps have acted wisely; but though they made several attempts, especially at Verona, they failed signally to devise any mode either of hiding the mere mechanical structure of their roofs or of rendering them ornamental.
Vaulting was, in fact, the real formative idea of the Gothic style, and it continued to be its most marked characteristic during the continuance of the style, not only in Italy, but throughout all Europe.
As it is impossible to treat of these various styles in one sequence, various modes of precedence might be adopted, for each of which good reasons could be given; but the following will probably be found most consonant with the arrangement elsewhere adopted in this work:—
First, to treat of the early Christian style as it prevailed in Italy down to the age of Charlemagne, and to trace out its history down to the 11th century, in order to include all that work executed by Greek artists or copied from it by Lombardic artists; a phase which might appropriately be termed the Byzantine-Lombardic style.
Secondly, to follow the history of the formation of the round-arched style in Lombardy and North Italy, which constitutes the real Lombardic style.
Thirdly, to take up the Byzantine-Romanesque style as it was practised in the centre and South of Italy; because it follows chronologically more closely the art of the North of Italy.
Fourthly, to follow the changes which the influence of the Gothic style exercised in the 13th and 14th centuries in Italy.
Sicily will demand a chapter to herself; not only because a fourth element is introduced there in the Saracenic—which influenced her style almost as much as it did that of the South of Spain—but because such pointed Gothic as she possesses was not German, like that of Northern Italy, but derived far more directly from France, under either the Norman or Angiovine dynasties. Gothic architecture in Palestine also requires a chapter, and is best described here owing to its close resemblance to the style in the South of Italy.
II. EARLY CHRISTIAN AND BYZANTINE-LOMBARDIC STYLES
CONTENTS.
Basilicas at Rome—St. Peter’s—St. Paul’s—Ravenna—St. Mark’s, Venice—Dalmatia and Istria—Torcello.
CHRONOLOGY.
DATES. Honorius A.D. 395 Valentinian 425-435 Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths 493-525 Justinian 527 Alboin Longimanus, King of Lombardy 568 Gregory I. 590 Charlemagne 768 Conrad I. 911 Henry the Fowler 918 Otho the Great 936 Otho II. 973 Otho III. 983 Henry II. 1002 Conrad II. 1024 Henry III. 1039 Henry IV. 1056 Henry V. 1106 Lothaire II. 1125 Conrad III. 1138 Frederick Barbarossa 1152 Henry VI. 1190 Frederick II. 1212 Conradin 1250
BASILICAS.
Like the study of all modern history, that of Christian architecture commences with Rome; and not, as is sometimes supposed, where the history of Rome leaves off, but far back in the Empire, if not, indeed, almost in the Republic.
As has already been pointed out, the whole history of the art in Imperial Rome is that of a style in course of transition, beginning with a purely Pagan or Grecian style in the age of Augustus, and passing into one almost wholly Christian in the age of Constantine.
At the first epoch of the Empire the temple architecture of Rome consisted in an external arrangement of columns, without arches or vaults, and was wholly unsuited for the purposes of Christian worship. Towards the end of the period it had become an internal architecture, making use of arches and vaults almost entirely to the exclusion of the columnar orders, except as ornaments, and became so perfectly adapted to Christian requirements, that little or no essential change in it has taken place from that time to the present day. A basilica of the form adopted in the first century after Constantine is as suited now as it was then to the forms and ceremonies of the Christian ritual.
The fact seems to be, that during the first three centuries after the Christian era an immense change was silently but certainly working its way in men’s minds. The old religion was effete: the best men, the most intellectual spirits of the age, had no faith in it; and the new religion with all its important consequences was gradually supplying its place in the minds of men long before it was generally accepted.
There is thus no real distinction between the Emilian or Ulpian basilicas and those which Constantine erected for the use of the early Christian republic. Nor is it possible, in such a series as the Pantheon, the Temple of Minerva Medica, and the Church of San Vitale at Ravenna, to point out what part really belongs to Pagan and what to Christian art.
It is true that Constantine fixed the epoch of completed transition, and gave it form and substance; but long before his time Paganism was impossible and a reform inevitable. The feeling of the world had changed—its form of utterance followed as a matter of course.
Viewed in this light, it is impossible to separate the early history of Christian art from that of Imperial Rome. The sequence is so immediate and the change so gradual, that a knowledge of the first is absolutely indispensable to a right understanding of the second.
One of the most remarkable facts connected with the early history of the Christian religion is, that neither its Founder nor any of His more immediate successors left any specific directions either as to the liturgical forms of worship to be observed by His followers, nor laid down any rules to be observed in the government of the newly established Church. Under these circumstances it was left almost wholly to those to whose care the infant congregation was entrusted to frame such regulations for its guidance as the exigencies of the occasion might dictate, and gradually to appoint such forms of worship as might seem most suitable to express the purity of the new faith, but at the same time with a dignity befitting its high mission.
In Judea these ceremonies, as might naturally be expected, were strongly tinctured with the forms of the Mosaic dispensation; but it appears to have been in Africa, and more especially in the pomp-loving and ceremonious Egypt, that fixed liturgies and rites first became an integral part of the Christian religion. In those countries far from the central seat of government, more liberty of conscience seems to have been attained at an early period than would have been tolerated in the capital. Before the time of Constantine they possessed not only churches, but a regularly established hierarchy and a form of worship similar to what afterwards obtained throughout the whole Christian world. The form of the government of the Church, however, was long unsettled. At first it seems merely to have been that the most respected individuals of each isolated congregation were selected to form a council to advise and direct their fellow-Christians, to receive and dispense their alms, and, under the simple but revered title of Presbyters, to act as fathers rather than as governors to the scattered communities by which they were elected. The idea, however, of such a council naturally includes that of a president to guide their deliberations and give unity and force to their decisions; and such we soon find springing up under the title of Bishops, or Presbyter Bishops, as they were first called. During the course of the second century the latter institution seems gradually to have gained strength at the expense of the power of the Presbyters, whose delegate the Bishop was assumed to be. In that capacity the Bishops not only took upon themselves the general direction of the affairs of the Church, but formed themselves into separate councils and synods, meeting in the provincial capitals of the provinces where they were located. These meetings took place under the presidency of the Bishop of the city in which they met, who thus assumed to be the chief or metropolitan. These formed a new presbytery above the older institution, which was thus gradually superseded—to be again surpassed by the great councils which, after the age of Constantine, formed the supreme governing body of the Church; performing the functions of the earlier provincial synods with more extended authority, though with less unanimity and regularity than had characterised the earlier institution.
It was thus that during the first three centuries of its existence the Christian community was formed into a vast federal republic, governed by its own laws, administered by its own officers, acknowledging no community with the heathen and no authority in the constituted secular powers of the State. But at the same time the hierarchy admitted a participation of rights to the general body of the faithful, from whom they were chosen, and whose delegation was still admitted to be their title to office.
When, in the time of Constantine, this persecuted and scattered Church emerged from the Catacombs to bask in the sunshine of Imperial favour, there were no buildings in Rome, the plan of which was more suited to their purposes than that of the basilicas of the ancient city. Though designed and erected for the transaction of the affairs of the heathen Empire, they happened to be, in consequence of their disposition and immense size, eminently suited for the convenience of the Christian Church, which then aspired to supersede its fallen rival and replace it by a younger and better institution.[257]
In the basilica the whole congregation of the faithful could meet and take part in the transaction of the business going on. The bishop naturally took the place previously occupied by the prætor or quæstor, the presbyters those of the assessors. The altar in front of the apse, where the pious heathen poured out libations at the commencement and conclusion of all important business, served equally for the celebration of Christian rites, and with the fewest possible changes, either in the form of the ceremonies or in the nature of the business transacted therein, the basilica of the heathen became the ecclesia or place of assembly of the early Christian community.
In addition, however, to the rectangular basilica, which was essentially the place of meeting for the transaction of the business of the Church, the Christian community early adopted a circular-formed edifice as a ceremonial or sacramental adjunct to the basilica. These were copied from the Roman tombs above described, and were in fact frequently built for the sepulchres of distinguished persons; but they were also used at a very early date as baptisteries, as well as for the performance of funereal rites. It does not appear that baptism, the marriage rites, or indeed any of the sacraments, were performed in the earliest ages in the basilica, though in after ages a font was introduced even into cathedrals. The rectangular church became ultimately the only form used. In the earlier ages, however, a complete ecclesiastical establishment consisted of a basilica, and a baptistery, independent of one another and seldom ranged symmetrically, though the tendency seems to have been to place the round church opposite the western or principal entrance of the basilica.
Though this was the case in the capital and other great cities, it was otherwise before the time of Constantine in the provinces. There the Christian communities existed as members of a religious sect long before they aspired to political power or dreamt of superseding the secular form of government by combination among themselves. In the remote parts of the Empire, in the earliest ages, they consequently built for themselves churches which were temples, or, in other words, houses of prayer, designed for and devoted wholly to the celebration of religious rites, as in the Pagan temples, and without any reference to the government of the community or the transaction of the business of the assembly. If any such existed in Italy or any other part of Europe, they either perished in the various persecutions to which the Christians were exposed when located near the seat of government, or they became hallowed by the memories of the times of martyrdom, and were rebuilt in happier days with greater magnificence, so that little or no trace of the original buildings now remains. So long, therefore, as our researches were confined to European examples, the history of Christian architecture began with Constantine; but recent researches in Africa have shown that, when properly explored, we shall certainly be able to carry the history of the early Christian style in that country back to a date at least a century before his time. In Syria and Asia Minor so many early examples have come to light that it seems probable that we may, before long, carry the history of Byzantine art back to a date nearly approaching that of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. It is, however, only so recently that the attention of ecclesiologists has been directed to the early examples of Christian architecture, that it is not yet possible to grasp completely the whole bearing of the subject; but enough is known to show how much the progress of research may modify the views hitherto entertained on the subject. Meanwhile too much attention can hardly be bestowed upon it, as it is by means of these early specimens of architectural art that we shall probably be best able to recover the primitive forms of the Christian liturgical observance.
One of the most ancient as well as interesting of the African churches which has yet been brought to light is that at Djemla. It is a simple rectangle, internally 92 ft. by 52, divided longitudinally with three aisles, the centre one of which terminates in a square cella or choir, which seems to have been enclosed up to the roof; but the building is so ruined that this cannot be known for a certainty. Though so exceptional, it is not difficult to see whence the form was derived. If we take such a plan, for instance, as that of the Maison Carré at Nîmes (Woodcut No. 187), and build a wall round and put a roof over it, so as to make a building which was originally appropriated to external worship suitable for internal religious purposes, we should have exactly such a result as this. The cella must be diminished in extent, the pillars more widely spaced, and the front row converted into a wall in which the entrances would be usually placed. In this instance the one entrance, for some local reason, is lateral. The whole floor of the church is covered with a mosaic so purely classical in style of execution as to leave no doubt as to its early date.
A more common form is shown in the annexed woodcut, representing a small church at Announa, likewise in Algeria, about 45 ft. square, divided into three aisles and with a projecting apse. If we turn to the plan of the Temple of Mars Ultor (Woodcut No. 186), we see at once whence this form was derived. It only requires the lateral columns to be brought slightly forward to effect the requisite change. When the building was to be used by a congregation, and not merely for display, the pillars would require to be more widely spaced.
A third form, from Ibrim in Nubia, shows the peculiarity of the apse being internal, which became very fashionable in the Eastern, though not so much so in the Western, churches, but still sufficiently so to make its introduction at this early age worthy of notice. The building is small, being only 57 ft. in length externally, but is remarkable for being built with something of the solidity of the Egyptian edifices among which it stands.
The next example which it may be necessary to quote to make this early form intelligible, is that of the church of St. Reparatus, near Orleansville—the ancient Castellum Tingitanum. According to an inscription still existing, it was erected A.D. 252,[258] but the second apse seems to have been added at a later date, to contain the grave of the saint. As it now stands, it is a double-apsed basilica 80 ft. long by 52 broad, divided into five aisles, and exhibiting on a miniature scale all the peculiarities of plan which we have hitherto fancied were not adopted until some centuries later. In this instance both the apses are internal, so that the side-aisles are longer than the centre one, no portion of them appearing to have been cut off for chalcidica or vestries, as was very generally the case in this age.
Another example, very much like this in arrangement, but on a larger scale, is found at Ermet, the ancient Hermonthis in Egypt. It measures over all 150 ft. by 90, and, if the plan in the great French work[259] is to be depended upon, is one of the most complete examples of its class. It has four ranges of columns, taken apparently from more ancient examples, and two apses with all the usual appurtenances.
Another two-aisled and single apse church, measuring 100 ft. by 65, called Dyer Abou Taneh, is represented in the same work;[260] but perhaps the most interesting of these churches is that known as the White Convent, situated on the edge of the Libyan Desert, above Siout. Externally it measures 215 ft. by 122, and is enclosed in a solid wall, surmounted by an Egyptian cornice, so that it looks much more like an ancient temple than a Christian church. Originally it had six doors, but all are now walled up, except one in the centre of the southern face; and above, a series of small openings, like loopholes, admitted light to apartments which apparently occupied the upper storey of lateral corridors. Light to the church was, of course, admitted through the clerestory, which could easily be done; and altogether as a fortified and mysterious abode, and place of worship of ascetics, it would be difficult to find a more appropriate example.
The age of this church is not very well ascertained; popularly it is, like so many others, ascribed to Sta. Helena, and the double aisles and triapsal arrangements are so like her church at Bethlehem, that there is no à priori improbability in the assumption. The plan, however, is more complicated and complete, and its external form bespeaks of troublous times, so that altogether it is probably a century or two (the monks say 140 years) more modern. Like other churches of its class, ancient materials have been so used up with those prepared at the time, that it is extremely difficult to ascertain the dates of such buildings. If, however, any one with sufficient knowledge would make a special study of these Egyptian churches, he would add one of the most interesting chapters to our history of early Christian Architecture, and explain many ritual arrangements whose origin is now involved in mystery; but for this we must wait. The materials are not at present available, all travellers in Egypt being so attracted by the surpassing interest of the Pagan remains of that country, as hardly to find time for a glance at the Christian antiquities.[261]
It was probably in a great measure owing to the influence of these provincial examples that the arrangements of the metropolitan basilicas were not long allowed to retain the form above described, though more was probably due to the change which was gradually taking place in the constitution of the governing body of the Church. The early arrangements of the Christian basilica, as copied from the secular forms of the Pagan places of assembly, soon became unsuited to the more exclusively religious purposes to which they were to be appropriated. The now dominant hierarchy of Rome soon began to repudiate the republicanism of the early days of the Church, and to adopt from the East the convenient doctrine of the absolute separation of the congregation into clergy and laity. To accommodate the basilica to this new state of things, first the apse was railed off and appropriated wholly to the use of the clergy: then the whole of the dais, or raised part in front of the apse on which the altar stood, was separated by pillars, called cancelli, and in like manner given up wholly to the clergy, and was not allowed to be profaned by the presence of the unordained multitude.
The last great change was the introduction of a choir, or enclosed space in the centre of the nave, attached to the bema or presbytery, as the raised space came to be called. Round three sides of this choir the faithful were allowed to congregate to hear the Gospels or Epistles read from the two pulpits or ambones, which were built into its enclosure, one on either side; or to hear the services which were read or sung by the inferior order of clergy who occupied its precincts.
The enclosure of the choir was kept low, so as not to hide the view of the raised presbytery, or to prevent the congregation from witnessing the more sacred mysteries of the faith which were there performed by the higher order of clergy.
Another important modification, though it entailed no architectural change, was the introduction of the bodies of the saints in whose honour the building was erected into the basilica itself, and depositing them in a confessional or crypt below the high altar.
There is every reason to believe that a separate circular building, or proper tomb, was originally erected over the grave or place of martyrdom, and the basilica was sanctified merely by its propinquity to the sacred spot. Afterwards the practice of depositing the relics of the saint beneath the floor became universally the rule. At about the same time the baptistery was also absorbed into the basilica; and instead of standing opposite the western entrance, a font placed within the western doors supplied its place. This last change was made earlier at Rome than elsewhere. It is not known at what exact period the alteration was introduced, but it is probable that the whole was completed before the age of Gregory the Great.
It was thus that in the course of a few centuries the basilicas aggregated within themselves all the offices of the Roman Church, and became the only acknowledged ecclesiastical buildings—either as places for the assembly of the clergy for the administration of the sacraments and the performance of divine worship, or for the congregation of the faithful.
None of the basilican churches, either of Rome or the provinces, possess these arrangements exactly as they were originally established in the fourth or fifth century. The church of San Clemente, however, retains them so nearly in their primitive form that a short description of it may tend to make what follows more easily intelligible. This basilica seems to have been erected in the fourth or fifth century over what was supposed to be the house in which the saint of that name resided. Recently a subterranean church or crypt has been discovered, which must of course be more ancient than the present remains.[262] Above this subterranean church stands the edifice shown in the accompanying plan (Woodcut No. 395), nearly one-third less in size, being only 65 ft. wide internally, against 93 of the original church, though both were about the same length.
It is one of the few that still possesses an atrium or courtyard in front of the principal entrance, though there can be but little doubt that this was considered at that early age a most important, if not indeed an indispensable, attribute to the church itself. As a feature it may have been derived from the East, where we know it was most common, and where it afterwards became, with only the slightest possible modifications, the mosque of the Moslems. It would seem even more probable, however, that it is only a repetition of the forum, which was always attached to the Pagan basilica, and through which it was always entered; and for a sepulchral church at least nothing could be more appropriate, as the original application of the word forum seems to have been to the open area that existed in front of tombs as well as of other important buildings.[264]
In the centre of this atrium there generally stood a fountain or tank of water, not only as an emblem of purity, but that those who came to the church might wash their hands before entering the holy place—a custom which seems to have given rise to the practice of dipping the fingers in the holy water of the piscina, now universal in all Catholic countries.
The colonnade next the church was frequently the only representative of the atrium, and then—perhaps indeed always—was called the narthex, or place for penitents or persons who had not yet acquired the right of entering the church itself.
From this narthex three doorways generally opened into the church, corresponding with the three aisles; and if the building possessed a font, it ought to have been placed in one of the chapels on either the right or left hand of the principal entrance.
The choir, with its two pulpits, is shown in the plan—that on the left-hand side being the pulpit of the Epistle, that on the right of the Gospel. The railing of the bema or presbytery is also marked, so is the position of the altar with its canopy supported on four pillars, and behind that the throne of the bishop, with the seats of the inferior clergy surrounding the apse on either side.
Besides the church of San Clemente there are at least thirty other basilican churches in Rome, extending in date from the 4th to the 14th century. Their names and dates, as far as they have been ascertained, are set forth in the accompanying list, which, though not altogether complete, is still the best we possess, and is sufficient for our present purpose.[265]
BASILICAS OF ROME.
W. ST. PETER’S Constantine (5 aisled) 330
W. ST. JOHN LATERAN Ditto 330
W. ST. LORENZO (west end Ditto 335 lower storey)
N.W. S. PUDENTIANA Ditto 335
E. ST. PAUL’S Theodosius and Honorius 380 (5 aisled)
N.W. S. MARIA MAGGIORE Pope Sixtus III. 432
ST. LORENZO (nave) Ditto 432-40
E. ST. PETER ad Vincula Eudoxia (Greek Doric 442 columns)
N.W.W. ST. JOHN AND ST. PAUL Leo I. 450
N.W.W. QUATTRO CORONATI Ditto 450
N.W. ST. MARTIN di Monti 500
W. S. AGNES 500-514
N.E. S. SABINA 525
ST. LORENZO (galleries to Pope Pelagius 580 west end)
W. S. BALBINA Gregory the Great (no 600 side-aisles)
ST. VINCENT alle tre Honorius I. 626 fontane
N.W.N. ST. GIORGIO in Velabro Leo II. 682
N.W.W. ST. CRISOGONUS Gregory III. 731
ST. JOHN in porta Adrian I. 772 latina
S.E.E. S. MARIA in Cosmedin Ditto 782
S.W.W. SS. NEREUS AND ACHILLES Leo III. 800
N.W.N. ST. PRAXEDE Paschal I. 817
N.W. S. CECILIA Ditto 821
W. S. MARIA in Domenica Ditto 823
N.W.N. ST. MARK’S 833
ST. JOHN LATERAN Rebuilt by Sergius III. 910
N.W.W. ST. CLEMENT Paschal II. 1100-14
ST. BARTHELEMY in Isola Ditto 1113
W. S. MARIA in Trastevere Innocent II. 1139
ST. LORENZO (the two Honorius III. 1216 churches thrown into one)
S. MARIA sopra Minerva 1370
(?) S. MARIA in Ara Cœli Gothic 14th cent.
ST. AGOSTINO Renaissance 1483
Three of these, St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s, and the Lateran church, have five aisles, all the rest three, with only one insignificant exception, Sta. Balbina, which has no side-aisles. Two, St. Agnes and the old part of St. Lorenzo, have their side-aisles in two storeys, all the rest are only one storey in height, and the side-aisles generally are half the width of the central aisle or nave. Some of the more modern churches have the side-aisles vaulted, but of those in the list all except the two last have flat wooden ceilings over the central compartment, and generally speaking the plain ornamental construction of the roof is exposed. It can scarcely be doubted that originally they were ceiled in some more ornamental manner, as the art of ornamenting this new style of open construction seems to have been introduced at a later date.
Of the two last named, the Sta. Maria sopra Minerva might perhaps be more properly classed among the buildings belonging to the Italian Gothic style; but as it is the only one in Rome that has any claim to such a distinction, it is hardly worth while making it an exception to the rest. The San Agostino might also be called a Renaissance specimen. It certainly is a transitional specimen between the pillared and pilastered styles, which were then struggling for mastery. It may either be regarded as the last of the old race or the first of the new style, which was so soon destined to revolutionise the architectural world.
ST. PETER’S.
Of the other examples the oldest was the finest. This great basilica was erected in the reign of Constantine, close to the circus of Nero, where tradition affirmed that St. Peter had suffered martyrdom. It unfortunately was entirely swept away to make room for the greatest of Christian temples, which now occupies its site; but previous to its destruction careful measurements and drawings were made of every part, from which it is easy to understand all its arrangements—easier perhaps than if it had remained to the present day, and four centuries more of reform and improvements had assisted in altering and disfiguring its venerable frame.
As will be seen in the plan (Woodcut No. 396), drawn to the usual scale, it possessed a noble atrium or forecourt, 212 ft. by 235, in front of which were some bold masses of building, which, during the Middle Ages, were surmounted by two belfry-towers. The church itself was 212 ft. in width by 380 in length, covering, without its adjuncts, an area of above 80,000 English feet, which, though less than half the size of the present cathedral, is as large as that covered by any mediæval cathedral except those of Milan and Seville. The central aisle was about 80 ft. across (about twice the average width of a Gothic nave), and nearly the same as that of the basilica of Maxentius and the principal halls of the greater thermæ. For some reason or other this dimension seems to have been a modulus very generally adopted. The bema or sanctuary, answering to the Gothic transept, extended beyond the walls of the church either way, which was unusual in early Christian buildings. The object here seems to have been to connect it with the tombs on its north side. The arrangement of the sanctuary was also peculiar, having been adorned with twelve pillars supporting a gallery. These, when symbolism became the fashion, were said to represent the twelve apostles. This certainly was not their original intent, as at first only six were put up—the others added afterwards. The sanctuary and choir were here singularly small and contracted, as if arranged before the clergy became so numerous as they afterwards were, and before the laity were excluded from this part of the church.
The general internal appearance of the building will be understood from the following woodcut (No. 397), which presents at one view all the peculiarities of the basilican buildings. The pillars separating the central from the side aisles appear to have been of uniform dimensions, and to have supported a horizontal entablature, above which rose a double range of panels, each containing a picture—these panels thus taking the place of what was the triforium in Gothic churches. Over these was the clerestory, and again an ornamental belt gave sufficient elevation for the roof, which in this instance showed the naked construction. On the whole perhaps the ratio of height to width is unexceptionable, but the height over the pillars is so great that they are made to look utterly insignificant, which indeed is the great defect in the architectural design of these buildings, and, though seldom so offensive as here, is apparent in all. The ranges of columns dividing the side-aisles were joined by arches, which is a more common as well as a better arrangement, as it not only adds to the height of the pillars, but gives them an apparent power of bearing the superstructure. At some period during the Middle Ages the outer aisles were vaulted, and Gothic windows introduced into them. This change seems to have necessitated the closing of the intermediate range of clerestory windows, which probably was by no means conducive to the general architectural effect of the building.
Externally this basilica, like all those of its age, must have been singularly deficient in beauty or in architectural design. The sides were of plain unplastered brick, the windows were plain arch-headed openings. The front alone was ornamented, and this only with two ranges of windows somewhat larger than those at the sides, three in each tier, into which tracery was inserted at some later period, and between and above these, various figures and emblems were painted in fresco on stucco laid on the brickwork. The whole was surmounted by that singular coved cornice which seems to have been universal in Roman basilicas, though not found anywhere else that I am aware of.
The two most interesting adjuncts to this cathedral were the two tombs standing to the northward. According to the mediæval tradition the one was the tomb of Honorius and his wives, the other the church of St. Andrew. Their position, however, carefully centred on the spina of the circus of Nero, where the great apostle suffered martyrdom, seems to point to a holier and more important origin. My own conviction is that they were erected to mark the places where the apostle and his companions suffered. It is besides extremely improbable that after the erection of the basilica an emperor should choose the centre of a circus for the burying-place of himself and his family, or that he should be permitted to choose so hallowed a spot. They are of exactly the usual tomb-form of the age of Constantine, and of the largest size, being each 100 ft. in diameter.
The first was destroyed by Michael Angelo, as it stood on the site required for his northern tribune, the second by Pius VI., in 1776, to make way for the present sacristy, and Rome thus lost, through pure carelessness, the two oldest and most sacred edifices of the Christian period which she possessed.
The most eastern had been so altered and overlaid, having been long used as a sacristy,[266] that it might have been difficult to restore it; but its position and its antiquity certainly entitled it to a better fate.
ST. PAUL’S.
The church of San Paolo fuori le Mura was almost an exact counterpart of St. Peter’s both in design and dimensions. The only important variations were that the transept was made of the same width as the central nave, or about 80 ft., and that the pillars separating the nave from the side-aisles were joined by arches instead of by a horizontal architrave. Both these were undoubted improvements, the first giving space and dignity to the bema, the latter not only adding height to the order, but giving it, together with lightness, that apparent strength requisite to support the high wall placed over the pillars.
The order too was finer and more important than at St. Peter’s, twenty-four of the pillars being taken from some temple or building (it is generally said the mausoleum of Hadrian) of the best age of Rome, though the remaining sixteen were unfortunately only very bad copies of them. These pillars are 33 ft. in height, or one-third of the whole height of the building to the roof. In St. Peter’s they were only a fourth, and if they had been spaced a little farther apart, and the arch made more important, the most glaring defect of these buildings would in a great measure have been avoided.
Long before its destruction by fire in 1822 this church had been so altered as to lose many of its most striking peculiarities. The bema or presbytery was divided into two by a longitudinal wall. The greater number of its clerestory windows were built up, its atrium gone, and decay and whitewash had done much to efface its beauty, which nevertheless seems to have struck all travellers with admiration, as combining in itself the last reminiscence of Pagan Rome with the earliest forms of the Christian world. It certainly was the most interesting, if not quite the most beautiful, of the Christian buildings, of that city.[267]
The third five-aisled basilica, that of St. John Lateran, differs in no essential respect from those just described except in dimensions; it covers about 60,000 ft., and consequently is inferior in this respect to the other two. It has been so completely altered in modern times that its primitive arrangements can now hardly be discerned, nor can their effect be judged of, even assuming that they were peculiar to it, which, however, is by no means certain.
Like the other two, it appears to have been originally erected by Constantine, who seems especially to have affected this five-aisled form. The churches which he erected at Jerusalem and Bethlehem both have this number of aisles. From the similarity which exists in the design of all these churches we might easily restore this building, if it were worth while. Its dimensions can easily be traced, but beyond this nothing remains of the original erection.
Of those with three aisles by far the finest and most beautiful is that of S. Maria Maggiore, which, notwithstanding the comparative smallness of its dimensions, is now perhaps the best specimen of its class remaining. Internally its dimensions are 100 ft. in width by 250 to the front of the apse; the whole area being about 32,000 ft.: so that it is little more than half the size of the Lateran church, and between one-third and one-fourth of that of the other two five-aisled churches.
Notwithstanding this, there is great beauty in its internal colonnade, all the pillars of which are of one design, and bear a most pleasing proportion to the superstructure. The clerestory too is ornamented with pilasters and panels, making it a part of the general design; and with the roof, which is panelled with constructive propriety and simplicity combined with sufficient richness, serves to make up a whole which gives a far better and more complete idea of what a basilica either was originally, or at least might have been, than any other church at Rome. It is true that both the pilasters of the clerestory and the roof are modern, and in modern times the colonnade has been broken through in two places; but these defects must be overlooked in judging of the whole.
Another defect is that the side-aisles have been vaulted in modern times, and in such a manner as to destroy the harmony that should exist between the different parts of the building. In striving to avoid the defect of making the superstructure too high in proportion to the columns, the architect has made the central roof too low either for the width or length of the main aisle. Still the building, as a whole, is—or rather was before the completion of the rebuilding of St. Paul’s—the very best of the older wooden-roofed churches of Christendom, and the best model from which to study the merits and defects of this style of architecture.
Another mode of getting over the great defect of high walls over the pillars was adopted, as in St. Lorenzo and Sta. Agnese, of using a gallery corresponding with the triforium of Gothic churches. In St. Lorenzo, where this feature first occurs, it would seem to have been derived from the Eastern Empire, where the custom of providing galleries for women had long been established; this is rendered probable by the fact that the sculpture of the capitals carrying the arches of the triforium is of pure Byzantine character, and by the adoption of what is virtually a dosseret,[268] or projecting impost above the capital to carry the arches, which at their springing are considerably wider and deeper than the abacus of the capital. According to M. Cattaneo[269] the earliest part of this church is the Eastern end, built by Constantine (see plan, Woodcut No. 403), which first consisted of nave, aisles, and a Western apse. In the Pontificate of Sixtus III. (432-440) an immense basilica was added on the Western side with an Eastern apse built back to back with the original apse; and later on, in 578-590, galleries were added to the Western church by Pope Pelagius II. over the side aisles. In 1226-1227, when Honorius III. restored the whole building, he removed the two apses, continued the new arcade up to the early Western wall, and raised the choir of the early church to its present elevation (Woodcut No. 404). Both in St. Lorenzo and St. Agnes the galleries may have been suggested if not required by the peculiarity of the ground, which was higher on one side than on the other; but whether this was the true cause of its adoption or not, the effect was most satisfactory, and had it been persevered in so as to bring the upper colonnade more into harmony of proportion with the other, it would have been attended with the happiest results on the style. Whether it was, however, that the Romans felt the want of the broad plain space for their paintings, or that they could not bring the upper arches into proportion with the classical pillars which they made use of, the system was abandoned almost as soon as adopted, and never came into general use.
It should be observed that this arrangement contained the germs of much that was afterwards reproduced in Gothic churches. The upper gallery, after many modifications, at last settled into a triforium, and the pierced stone slabs in the windows became tracery—but before these were reached a vaulted roof was introduced, and with it all the features of the style were to a great extent modified.
The church known as that of Sta. Pudentiana is one of the very oldest and consequently one of the most interesting of those in Rome. It stands on substructions of ancient Roman date, which probably formed part of the Thermæ of Novatus or the house of the Senator Pudens, who is mentioned by St. Paul at the end of his Second Epistle to Timothy, and with whom he is traditionally said to have resided during his sojourn in Rome. The vaults beneath the church certainly formed part of a Roman mansion, so apparently do those buildings, shown on the plan, and placed behind and on one side of the sanctuary; but whether these were used for Christian purposes before the erection of the church in the fourth century is by no means certain. In plan the church remains in all probability very much as originally designed, its most striking peculiarity being the segmental form of the apse, which may possibly have arisen from some peculiar arrangement of the original building. It was not, however, found to be pleasing in an architectural point of view, and was not consequently again employed.
The annexed section probably represents very nearly the original form of the nave, though it has been so encrusted with modern accretions as to render it difficult to ascertain what the first form really was. The shafts of the pillars may have been borrowed from some older edifice, but the capitals were clearly designed to support arches, and must therefore be early Christian (fourth century?), and are among the most elegant and appropriate specimens of the class now extant.
In some instances, as in San Clemente, above alluded to, in San Pietro in Vincula, and Sta. Maria in Cosmedin, the colonnade is divided into spaces of three or four intercolumniations by piers of solid masonry, which give great apparent solidity and strength to the building, but at the expense of breaking it up into compartments more than is agreeable, and these destroy that beauty of perspective so pleasing in a continuous colonnade. This defect seems to have been felt in the Santa Praxede, where three of these piers are introduced in the length of the nave,[271] and support each a bold arch thrown across the central aisle. The effect of this might have been most happy, as at San Miniato, near Florence; but it has been so clumsily managed in the Roman example, as to be most destructive of all beauty of proportion.
Some of the principal beauties as well as some of the most remarkable defects of these basilican churches arise from the employment of columns torn from ancient temples: where this has been done, the beauty of the marble, and the exquisite sculpture of the capitals and friezes, give a richness and elegance to the whole that go far to redeem or to hide the rudeness of the building in which they are encased. But, on the other hand, the discrepancy between the pillars—Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns being sometimes used side by side—destroys all uniformity, and the fragmentary character of the entablatures they support is still more prejudicial to the continuity of the perspective, which should be the greatest charm of these churches. By degrees, the fertile quarries of ancient Rome seem to have become entirely exhausted; and as the example of St. Paul’s proves, the Romans in the fourth century were incapable of manufacturing even a bad imitation, and were at last forced to adopt some new plan of supporting their arcades. The church of SS. Nereo ed Achilleo is, perhaps, the most elegant example of this class, the piers being light octagons; but the most characteristic, as well as the most original, is the San Vincenzo alle Tre Fontane, shown in section and elevation in Woodcut No. 408. It so far deviates from the usual basilican arrangements as to suggest a later date. It has the same defect as all the rest—its pier arches being too low, and for which there is no excuse here—but both internally and externally it shows a uniformity of design and a desire to make every part ornamental that produces a very pleasing effect, notwithstanding that the whole is merely of brick, and that ornament is so sparingly applied as barely to prevent the building sinking into the class of mere utilitarian erections.
Among the most pleasing architectural features, if they may be so called, of these churches, are the mosaic pavements that adorn the greater number. These were always original, being designed for the buildings in which they are used, and following the arrangement of the architecture surrounding them. The patterns too are always elegant, and appropriate to the purpose; and as the colours are in like manner generally harmoniously blended, they form not only a most appropriate but most beautiful basement to the architecture.
A still more important feature was the great mosaic picture that always adorned the semi-dome of the apse, representing most generally the Saviour seated in glory surrounded by saints, or else some scene from the life of the holy personage to whom the church was dedicated.
These mosaics were generally continued down to nearly the level of the altar, and along the whole of the inner wall of the sanctuary in which the apse was situated, and as far as the triumphal arch which separated the nave from the sanctuary, at which point the mosaic blended with the frescoes that adorned the upper walls of the central nave above the arcades. All this made up an extent of polychromatic decoration which in those dark ages, when few could read, the designers of these buildings seem to have considered as virtually of more importance than the architectural work to which it was attached. Any attempt to judge of the one without taking into consideration the other, would be forming an opinion on hearing but half the evidence; but taken in conjunction, the paintings go far to explain, and also to redeem, many points in which the architecture is most open to criticism.
RAVENNA.
During the whole period of the development of early Christian architecture in Rome, the city of Ravenna, owing to her close connection with the Eastern empire, almost rivalled in importance the old capital of the world, and her churches were consequently hardly less important either in number or in richness than those we have just been describing. It is true she had none so large as the great metropolitan basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul. The one five-aisled church she possessed—the cathedral—has been entirely destroyed, to make way for a very contemptible modern erection. From the plans, however, which we possess of it, it seems to have differed very considerably from the Roman examples, most especially in having no trace of a transept, the building being a perfectly regular parallelogram, half as long again as its breadth, and with merely one great apse added at the end of the central nave. Its loss is the more to be regretted, as it was, besides being the largest, the oldest church in the city, having been erected about the year 400, by Archbishop Ursus. The baptistery that belonged to it has been fortunately preserved, and will be described hereafter.
Besides a considerable number of other churches which have either been lost or destroyed by repair, Ravenna still possesses two first-class three-aisled basilicas—the San Apollinare Nuovo,[272] originally an Arian church, built by Theodoric, king of the Goths (A.D. 493-525); and the S. Apollinare in Classe, at the Port of Ravenna, situated about three miles from the city, commenced A.D. 538, and dedicated 549 A.D. Of the two, the first-named is by far the more considerable, being 315 ft. long by 115 in width externally, while the other only measures 216 ft. in length by 104. As will be seen by the plan, S. Apollinare in Classe is a perfectly regular basilica with twelve pillars on each side of the nave, which is 50 ft. in width. The apse is raised to allow of a crypt underneath, and externally it is polygonal, like the Byzantine apse.
The great merit of these two basilicas, as compared with those of Rome, arises from the circumstance of Ravenna having possessed no ruined temples whose spoils could be used in the construction of new buildings. On the other hand the Goths had no architectural forms of their own; the architects and workmen therefore who were brought over from Constantinople reproduced the style with which they were best acquainted in the East, with such alterations in plan as the liturgies of the church required, such modifications in construction as the materials of the country necessitated, and such ideas in architectural design as were suggested by the examples in Rome with which Theodoric was well acquainted, having not only restored some of the churches there, but insisted that the primitive style should be adhered to. The simple basilican form of church with nave, and aisles without galleries over, and a single apse, was based on numerous examples existing in Rome, to which source may be ascribed the external blind arcades of the aisle and nave walls.[274] From Woodcut 410, representing the arches of the nave of St. Apollinare Nuovo, it will be seen that an elegance of proportion is revealed and a beauty of design shown in the details of the capitals[275] and the dosserets which surmount them, which are quite foreign to any Roman examples. The great triforium frieze above the arches, and the wall space above them between the clerestory windows, covered with mosaics, executed 570 A.D. by Greek artists from Constantinople, suggest a completeness of design which had not been reached in Rome. All this is still more apparent in Woodcut No. 411, taken from the arcade where the nave joins the apse in St. Apollinare in Classe, which shows a further advance in the working out of a new style, based partially on Roman work, but carried out by Byzantine artists.
Externally these buildings appear to have remained to the present hour almost wholly without architectural embellishment. It was considered sufficient for ornamental purposes to make the brick arches necessary for the construction slightly more prominent and important than was actually required. As if impelled by some feeling of antagonism to the practice of the heathens, the early Christians seem to have tried to make the external appearance of their buildings as unlike those of their predecessors as was possible. Whether this was the cause or not, it is certain that nothing can well be less ornamental than these exteriors; and even the narthex,[276] which in the Apollinare in Classe afforded an excellent opportunity for embellishment, could not be less ornamental if it were the entrance to a barn instead of to a church of such richness and beauty as this in all its internal arrangements.
VENICE.
The restoration of portions of the Cathedral of St. Mark during the past twenty years, and the careful examination of various documents in the archives of that city have led to the discovery that the work attributed to Doge Pietro Orseolo, 976-78, consisted mainly in the re-construction of the basilican church erected by the Doge Jean Participazio in 829-32, and burnt in 976. The acquisition of the relics of St. Mark the Evangelist, brought from Alexandria in 828 (when the Mohametans pulled down the church of St. Mark in that town), determined Jean’s brother Justinian to build a church which should be worthy of their reception. He died, however, before the work was commenced, but left a large sum of money for the purpose. This church was built on the old site situated between the Ducal Palace and the church of St. Theodore, which, up to that time, had served as the Ducal chapel. The width of the church would seem to have been the same as that of the present nave and aisles. Its west end formed part of the existing wall behind the present vestibule, but some difference of opinion seems to exist as to its eastern end, and whether it coincided with the actual apses. Though nominally built in 976-78 the decoration of Orseolo’s church was probably carried on in succeeding years, and much of the sculptural work in the present building dates from the first half of the 11th century. In 1063, under the Doge Domenico Contarini, the church of St. Theodore, according to M. Cattaneo,[277] was pulled down and some of its materials used in the new cathedral. Portions also of the Ducal Palace were destroyed to give increased space on the south side for the Transept, the portion known as the Treasury only being preserved.[278] The record of the new church states that it was built similar in its artistic construction to that at Constantinople erected in honour of the twelve apostles.[279] The arrangement and the design of the church thus extended were probably due to a Greek architect, though much of the work, according to M. Cattaneo, was afterwards carried out by a Lombard sculptor, Mazulo, who designed the atrium and tower of the abbey of Pomposa (about 30 miles from Venice), where the carving is of the same character or style as that in St. Mark’s. Internally the church measures 200 ft. east and west, and 164 ft. across the transepts; externally these dimensions are increased to 260 × 215, and the whole area to about 46,000 square ft., so that although of respectable dimensions it is by no means a large church. The central and western dome are 42 ft. in diameter, the other three 33 ft. only. They are carried on spherical pendentives resting on circular barrel vaults about 15 ft. wide; a crypt 86 ft. × 74 ft. extends under the eastern dome and apses, the vault being supported by fifty-six monolithic columns 5 ft. 6 in. high: the whole height from floor to the crown of the arch being under 9 ft. The construction of this crypt probably followed the erection of the church, which was not consecrated till 1111, when Ordelapo Faliero was Doge. Externally this apse is polygonal, as in Byzantine churches, the upper storey being set back to allow of a passage round. The narthex or vestibule in front of the church, which extends also on north and south of the nave aisles up to the transepts, and the rooms over the north narthex and over part of the baptistery, must have followed the erection of the church; in fact, the principal front could not have been completed without them.
Externally the original construction was in brick, with blind arcades, niches, and a simple brick cornice such as is found in Lombardic work. It was not till the commencement of the 13th century that the decoration of the front and sides with marble was undertaken; the arches were encased with marble slabs carried on ranges of columns, those of the narthex being placed one above the other. The shafts, capitals and bases were brought from other buildings, having been imported from Altinum, Aquileia, Heraclea, Ravenna, and from other places in Dalmatia, Syria, and the East. It is possible that the porches of the churches of St. Gilles and of St. Trophime at Arles may have suggested this method of decoration, of which no prototype exists in the East. The capitals are of all periods, from the 4th to the 11th centuries, the entablature blocks and the stylobates being specially worked for the building. The rose window of the south transept and others of similar style were inserted about the commencement of the 14th century, the baptistery and the chapel of St. Isidore[280] being encased with marbles in the middle of the same century, and the decoration of the upper part of the arches of the west, towards the end of the 14th century. As will be seen by the north and south fronts section (Woodcut No. 416) the original brick domes were surmounted by timber domes covered with lead, and of considerable height. These were probably added in the middle of the 13th century.[281] The rood loft dates from the end of the same century. The earlier mosaics in the domes date from the 12th century, and the marble casing of the lower portion of the walls and the richly decorated pavement from the 12th and 13th centuries. The work of decoration was carried on through succeeding centuries with occasional restorations, so that the church itself constitutes a museum with almost every phase of work in mosaic from the 12th to the 18th centuries.
Though from a strictly architectural point of view the disposition of the design is not equal to those of some of our northern cathedrals (except perhaps for the greater beauty of Byzantine domical construction), it is impossible to find fault with plain surfaces when they are covered with such exquisite gold mosaics as those of St. Mark’s, or with the want of accentuation in the lines of the roof, when every part of it is more richly adorned in this manner than any other church of the Western world. Then too the rood screens, the pulpit, the pala d’oro and the whole furniture of the choir are so rich, so venerable, and on the whole so beautiful, and seen in so exquisitely subdued a light, that it is impossible to deny that it is perhaps the most impressive interior in Western Europe. St. Front at Périgueux, with almost identical dimensions and design (Woodcut No. 562), is cold, scattered, and unmeaning, because but a structural skeleton of St. Mark’s without its adornments. The interior of a 13th-century Gothic church is beautiful, even when whitewashed; but these early attempts had not yet reached that balance between construction and ornament, which is necessary to real architectural effect.
The same is true of the exterior; if stripped of its ornament and erected in plain stone it would hardly be tolerable, and the mixture of florid 14th-century foliage and bad Italian Gothic details with the older work, would be all but unendurable. But marble, mosaic, sculpture, and the all-hallowing touch of age and association, disarm the critic, and force him to worship when his reason tells him he ought to blame.
Much as St. Mark’s must have been admired in the days of its freshness, the Gothic feeling seems to have been so strong in Northern Italy in the 11th and 12th centuries as to prevent its being used as a model. The one prominent exception is San Antonio, Padua (1237-1307), which is evidently a copy of St. Mark’s, but with so much Gothic design mixed up with it as to spoil both. Length was sought to be obtained by using seven domes instead of five, and running an aisle round the apse. The side-aisles were covered with intersecting vaults, and pointed arches were occasionally introduced when circular would have harmonised better with the general design.
Externally the enveloping porch was omitted—not even the Pisan modification of it introduced, though it might have been employed with the happiest effect. The consequence of all this jumble is, that San Antonio is externally one of the most unsatisfactory churches in Europe, though possessing a quaint Oriental look from the grouping of its dome with the minaret-like spires which adorn it. The inside is not so bad, though a roof of only five bays over a quasi-Gothic church, 200 ft. in length, distorts the proportion, and with the ill-understood details of the whole, spoils what narrowly escaped being one of the most successful interiors of that part of Italy.
DALMATIA AND ISTRIA.
Both Dalmatia and Istria formed part of the Gothic kingdom of Theodoric: we find therefore the same Byzantine influence exerted as in Ravenna; an influence which increased when the first-named country was retaken by Justinian in 535, and the second in 539 A.D.
At Parenzo in Istria there is a basilica, built in the year 543 A.D. by the Bishop Euphrasius, and consequently contemporary with the examples at Ravenna already described. This church still retains its atrium, baptistery, and other accompaniments, which those at Ravenna have lost. It consists of a basilica in three aisles, with an apse at the end of each, and an atrium in front, beyond which is situated the baptistery; and in front of this again a tower, though this latter feature seems to be of more modern date. On one side at the east end is a chapel or crypt; this, Mr. Jackson[282] suggests, may have been “the martyrium or confessio of the basilica where the remains of the saintly patrons of the church were preserved and venerated.” “According to strict rule,” Mr. Jackson observes, “the confessio should be in a crypt under the choir as at Aquileja and Zara, but Parenzo lies so low that excavation would be difficult, and here as in other cases the martyrium may have been placed in an adjoining building.”[283]
Internally the church is 121 ft. in length by 32 in width, and possesses all the usual arrangements of a church of that date. The columns are borrowed from some earlier edifice, but the capitals are all original, and were carved for the church. They are all of pure Byzantine type, and are surmounted by that essentially Byzantine feature the dosseret. The central apse, though circular inside, is polygonal outside, which is another characteristic of Byzantine work. Like Torcello it has still preserved its semicircle of marble seats for the clergy, with the episcopal throne in the middle. Externally the façade retains portions of the ancient mosaics with which it was decorated, and although internally the nave has lost its early decorations, the lofty dado of the apse inlaid with slabs of porphyry and serpentine interspersed with mosaics of opaque glass, onyx and mother-of-pearl, bears witness to its original splendour, the cypher of Euphrasius denoting its execution to be coeval with the building of the church, and therefore some centuries earlier than the mosaics of the baldachino, which are dated 1277.
We are indebted also to Mr. Jackson for the description of two churches at Grado: the Duomo and St. Maria delle Grazie; the former a fine basilican church with nave and aisles and a deep central apse, circular inside and polygonal externally.[284] The twenty columns of the nave are all taken from earlier edifices, and of the capitals which surmount them five are Roman and twelve of pure Byzantine workmanship, based on the Roman composite capital, but treated in a quite original way. The capitals are not surmounted by the dosseret, but in the other church of St. Maria delle Grazie some have the dosseret and others are without it, though all of the same period. The chief glory of the church, however, lies in its magnificent marble pavement (measured and illustrated in Mr. Jackson’s work), the greater portion of which is still preserved. The church of St. Maria delle Grazie is a small basilican church of six bays with fragments of similar pavement to those in the Duomo. The apse here is masked on the exterior by two sacristies on each side which entirely enclose it; similar examples are found in De Vogüé’s work of “Central Syria” (Woodcuts Nos. 278, 281, and 299).
The churches of Parenzo and Grado appear to be the only examples remaining of early Romano-Byzantine work on this side of the Adriatic. St. Maria de Canneto at Pola, consecrated in 546 A.D., was destroyed in the 14th and 15th centuries and its materials carried off to Venice for the adornment of the churches there. As edifices of the age of Justinian, and as showing the relative position of the various parts that made up an ecclesiastical establishment in those early times, the churches of Parenzo and Grado are singularly deserving of the attention of those to whom the history of art is a matter of interest.
TORCELLO.
The church at Torcello, in the Venetian Lagune, is the last example it will be necessary to quote in order to make the arrangements of the early basilicas intelligible. It was originally erected in the seventh century; of this church, according to M. Cattaneo, the only portion remaining, if we except a fragment of the ancient baptistery, is the central apse. In 864, the church would seem to have been reconstructed, and to this period belong the two side apses, the apsidal crypt with new windows pierced through the old wall and the external walls: it is possible that the original nave of the seventh century was retained till 1008, when it was rebuilt by the Doge Pietro Orseolo, on the occasion of his son being raised to the Bishopric of Torcello. Thirteen of the capitals of the nave date from this period, one may be earlier, and five belong to the second half of the 12th century. The whole width of the church is 71 ft. internally by 125 in length. A screen of six pillars divides the nave from the sanctuary. Perhaps, however, the most interesting part of this church is the interior of its apse, which still retains the bishop’s throne, surrounded by six ranges of seats for his presbytery, arranged like those of an ancient theatre. It presents one of the most extensive and best preserved examples of the fittings of the apse, and gives a better idea of the mode in which the apses of churches were originally arranged than anything that is to be found in any other church, either of its age or of an earlier period.[285]
Like Sta. Pudentiana (Woodcut No. 404), this church possesses a small side chapel, a vestry or sanctuary, on the Gospel side of the altar, and the remains of the ancient baptistery may still be traced in front of the west door. This was a square block, externally, measuring 37 ft. each way; internally an octagon, with the angles cut into hemispherical niches. A portion of its eastern side only remains, and this is now hidden behind the modern baptistery, in which, under a board in the pavement, can be seen the foundations of the second baptistery of the 12th century. In the rear of the church stood the campanile, and across a narrow passage the conventual buildings; in front of which now stands the beautiful little church of Sta. Fosca, the whole making up a group of nearly unrivalled interest considering its small dimensions.
Other examples might be quoted differing in some slight respect from those just given, but the above are probably sufficient to explain the general arrangements of the early basilican churches and the style of their architecture, so long as this worked on the old tradition of the Romano-Byzantine style; in other words, so long as it continued in Italy to be a distinction from the Roman style without any foreign admixture beyond that introduced direct from Byzantium. It might be instructive to speculate on what the style might have become if left alone to develope itself on its native soil, but it would be extremely difficult to make the subject clear without a much larger amount of illustration than is admissible, and which in such a history as this would be out of place. Simultaneously with the elaboration of the rectangular form of church by the Italians, the Byzantines were occupied with the same task; but, being freer from the trammels of tradition and less influenced by examples, they early arrived at forms much more divergent from those of the classical period than those of Italy, and their style, reacting on the Italian, produced that very beautiful combination of which Pisa Cathedral is a type, and St. Mark’s at Venice an extreme example. This style generally pervaded the whole south of Italy, with the exception of Rome; and, from the elements of which it was composed, may fairly be designated Byzantine Italian.
While this was going on in the south, the Longobards, and other Barbarians who invaded the north of Italy, seized on this type and worked it out in their own fashion. They, however, conceived the desire to give a more permanent character to their churches by covering them over with stone vaulted roofs, which led to most important modifications of the style. It may probably be correct to assert that no Romano-Byzantine or early Romanesque church has, or ever had, a vaulted nave. On the other hand, there is hardly a Barbarian church which the builders did not aspire to vault, though they were frequently unable to accomplish it. It was this vaulting mania which led to the invention of compound piers, pointed arches, buttresses, pinnacles, and all the numerous peculiarities of the Gothic style; and which, reacting on northern Italy, produced the Ghibelline or Italian-Gothic style.
No exact boundary can be drawn between these two: modifications of style varied, as Byzantine or Gothic influences ebbed or flowed, during the Middle Ages. Venice and Pisa, and all Calabria, were generally influenced by their intercourse with the East, while the whole of the north of Italy and away from the coast as far down as Sienna and Orvieto the strong hand of the Teuton made itself felt.
Yet Italy cannot be said to have been successful in either style. Her superior civilisation enabled her to introduce and use an elegance of detail unknown north of the Alps; but she did not work out the basilican type for herself: she left it to others to do that for her, and consequently never perfectly understood what she undertook, or why it was done. The result is that, though great elegance is found in parts, Italy can hardly produce a single church which is satisfactory as a design; or which would be intelligible without first explaining the basework of those true styles from which its principal features have been borrowed.