III. CIRCULAR CHURCHES
CONTENTS.
Circular Churches—Tomb of Sta. Costanza—Churches at Perugia, Nocera, Ravenna, Milan—Secular Buildings.
In addition to the Pagan basilicas and temples, from which the arrangements of so many of the Christian edifices were obtained, the tombs of the Romans formed a third type, from which the forms of a very important class of churches were derived.
The form which these buildings retained, so long as they remained mere sepulchres appropriated to Pagan uses, has been already described (pp. 342 to 346). That of Cæcilia Metella and those of Augustus and Hadrian were what would now be called “chambered tumuli;” originally the sepulchral chamber was infinitesimally small as compared with the mass, but we find these being gradually enlarged till we approach the age of Constantine, when, as in the tombs of the Tossia Family, that called the Tomb of Helena (Woodcut No. 227) and many others of the same age, they became miniature Pantheons. The central apartment was all in all; the exterior was not thought of. Still they were appropriated to sepulchral rites, and these only, so long as they belonged to Pagan Rome. The case was different when they were erected by the Christians. No association could be more appropriate than that of these sepulchral edifices, to a religion nursed in persecution, and the apostles of which had sealed their faith with their blood as martyrs; and when the Sacrament for the dying and the burial service were employed, it was in these circular churches that it was performed. But besides the viaticum for the departing Christian, the Church provided the admission sacrament of baptism for those who were entering into communion, and this was, in early days at least, always performed in a building separate from the basilica. It would depend on whether marriage was then considered as a sacrament or a civil contract, whether it was celebrated in the basilica or the church; but it seems certain that the one was used almost exclusively as the business place of the community, the other as the sacramental temple of the sect. This appears always to have been the case, at least when the two forms existed together, as they almost always did in the great ecclesiastical establishments of Italy. When the church was copied from a temple, as in the African examples above described, it is probable it may have served both purposes. But too little is known of the architecture of this early age, and its liturgies, to speak positively on the subject.
The uses and derivation of these three forms of churches are so distinct that it would be extremely convenient if we could appropriate names to distinguish them. The first retains most appropriately the name of basilica, and with sufficient limitation to make it generally applicable. The word ecclesia, or église, would equally suffice for the second but that it is not English, and has been so indiscriminately applied that it could not now be used in a restricted sense. The word kirk, or as we soften it into church, would be appropriate to the third,[286] but again it has been so employed as to be inapplicable. We therefore content ourselves with employing the words Basilica, Church, and Round Church, to designate the three, employing some expletive when any confusion is likely to arise between the first two of the series.
The most interesting feature of the early Romanesque circular buildings is that they show the same transitional progress from an external to an internal columnar style of architecture which marked the change from the Pagan to the Christian form of sacred edifice. It is perhaps not too much to assert that no ancient classic building of circular form has any pillars used constructively in its interior.[287] Even the Pantheon, though 143 ft. 6 in. in diameter, derives no assistance from the pillars that surround it internally—they are mere decorative features. The same is true of the last Pagan example we are acquainted with—the temple or tomb which Diocletian erected in his palace at Spalato (Woodcut No. 194). The pillars do fill up the angles there, but the building would be stable without them. The Byzantine architects also generally declined to avail themselves of pillars to support their domes, but the Romanesque architects used them almost as universally as in their basilicas.
Another very striking peculiarity is the entire abandonment of all external decoration. Roman circular temples had peristyles, like those at Tivoli (Woodcut No. 193) and that of Vesta in Rome. Even the Pantheon is as remarkable for its portico as its dome, so is that known as the Torre dei Schiavi,[288] but it is only in the very earliest of the Christian edifices that we find a trace of the portico, and even in them hardly any attempt at external decoration. The temples of the Christians were no longer shrines to contain statues and to which worship might be addressed by people outside, but had become halls to contain the worshippers themselves while engaged in acts of devotion.
The tomb of the Empress Helena (Woodcut No. 227) is one of the earliest examples of its class. It has no pillars internally, it is true, but it likewise has none on the exterior—the transition was not then complete. The same is the case with the two tombs on the Spina of the Circus of Nero (Woodcut No. 396). They too were astylar, and their external appearance was utterly neglected.
When from these we turn to the Tomb or Baptistery of Constantine, built some time afterwards (Woodcut No. 422), we find the roof supported by a screen of eight columns, two storeys in height, and through all its alterations can detect the effort to make the interior ornamental. It has, however, a portico, but this again is practically an interior, both ends being closed with apsidal terminations, so that it really forms a second apartment, rather than a portico. In both these respects it is in advance of the building next to it in age that we know of—the Octagon at Spalato—which it otherwise very much resembles. The eight internal pillars instead of being mere ornaments have become essential parts of the construction, and the external peristyle has disappeared, leaving only the fragment of a porch.
The tomb which the same Emperor erected to contain the remains of his daughter Constantia, is another example of the same transitional style. The interior in this instance is vaulted, but so timidly that twenty-four pillars are employed to sustain a weight for which half that number would have been amply sufficient. In the square niche opposite the entrance stood the sarcophagus of the princess, now in the Vatican. The roof of the aisle is adorned with paintings of the vintage and scenes of rural life, which, like all those on the tombs of Pagan Rome, have no reference to the sepulchral uses to which the building was dedicated. The whole internal diameter of the tomb is 73 ft., that of the dome 35.
In front of the building is a small crypto-porticus similar in arrangement to that of her father’s tomb, and beyond this is an oblong space with circular ends, and surrounded on all sides by arcades; its dimensions were 535 ft. by 130, and, though so ruined as hardly to allow of its arrangements being restored, it is interesting as being perhaps the only instance of the “forum,” which it is probable was left before all tombs in those times, and traces of which may perhaps be found elsewhere, though as yet they have not been looked for.
The only other important circular building within the walls of Rome of this early age is that known as S. Stefano Rotondo. Though there is nothing to fix its date with any precision, it is almost certain that it belongs to the fifth century of the Christian era.[289] It is 210 ft. in diameter, and its roof was supported by two ranges of columns, circularly disposed in its interior; and on the first or inner range rested a horizontal architrave like that of St. Peter’s. In the outer one the pillars support arches like those of St. Paul’s.[290] All the pillars are taken from older buildings. The outer aisle was divided into eight compartments; but in what manner, and for what purpose, it is not now easy to ascertain, owing to the ruined state of the building, and to its having been so much and so frequently altered since it was first erected. Nor can it be determined exactly how it was roofed; though it is probable that its arrangements were identical with those of the great five-aisled basilicas, which it closely resembles, except in its circular shape.
This is more clear in another church of the same age, that of Sti. Angeli, at Perugia, which is very similar in its disposition. Of this building a section is here shown, as given by M. Isabelle—perhaps not quite to be depended upon in every respect, but still affording a very fair representation of what the arrangements of the circular wooden roofed churches were. Its dimensions are much less than those of San Stefano, being only 115 ft. in diameter; but it is more regular, the greater part of its materials being apparently original, and made for the place they occupy. In the church of San Stefano, the tomb-shaped circular form was probably used as symbolical of his martyrdom. That at Perugia was most likely originally a baptistery, or it may also have been dedicated to some martyr; but in the heart of Etruria this form may have been adopted for other reasons, the force of which we are hardly able at the present day to appreciate, though in all cases locality is one of the strongest influencing powers in so far as architectural forms are concerned.
At Nocera dei Pagani, on the road between Naples and Salerno, there is an extremely beautiful circular church, built undoubtedly for the purpose of a baptistery, and very similar in plan and general arrangement to the tomb of Constantia, now known as the Baptistery of Sta. Agnese, though somewhat larger being 80 ft. in diameter. Its principal merit is the form of its dome, which is not only correct in a scientific point of view, but singularly graceful internally. Externally this building for the first time introduces us to a peculiarity which had as much influence on the western styles as any of those pointed out above. As before observed (p. 540), the early Romanesque architects never attempted to vault their rectangular buildings, but they did frequently construct domes over their circular edifices. But here again they did not make the outside of the dome the outline of their buildings, as the Romans had always done before the time of Constantine, and as the Byzantines and Saracens invariably did afterwards; but they employed their vault only as a ceiling internally, and covered it, as in this instance, with a false wooden roof externally. It may be difficult to determine how far this was a judicious innovation; but this at least is certain, that it had as much influence on the development of the Gothic style as the vaulting mania itself. In the 10th and 11th centuries many attempts were made to construct true roofs of stone, but unsuccessfully; and from various causes, which will be pointed out hereafter, the idea was abandoned, and the architects were forced to content themselves with a stone ceiling, covered by a wooden roof, though this became one of the radical defects of the style, and one of the principal causes of the decay and destruction of so many beautiful buildings.
RAVENNA.
Ravenna possesses several circular buildings, almost as interesting as those of the capital; the first being the baptistery of St. John belonging to the original basilica, and consequently one of the oldest Christian buildings of the place. Externally it is a plain octagonal building, 40 ft. in diameter. Internally it still retains its mosaic and other internal features added in the 5th century, which are singularly elegant and pleasing. Its design is somewhat like that of the temple at Spalato, but with arcades substituted everywhere for horizontal architraves; the century that elapsed between these two epochs having sufficed to complete the transition between the two styles.
Far more interesting than this is the great church of St. Vitale, the most complicated, and at the same time, perhaps, the most beautiful, of the circular churches of that age. In design it is nearly identical with the church of St. Sergius at Constantinople (see Woodcut No. 311), from which it was undoubtedly copied, and probably by Greek artists from that town. It was built in the reign of Justinian by St. Ecclesius, archbishop of the see, and was consecrated in 547, eight years after the taking of Ravenna by Justinian’s generals. The principal difference of the plan lies in its being enclosed within an octagon instead of a square, as in St. Sergius, probably to mask the irregularity of the main entrance from a street which did not run in the direction of any of the cardinal points. The recesses are loftier in proportion than those of St. Sergius, and in the lower storey arcades take the place of beams. The aisles being covered with timber roofs, it was necessary to raise the walls of the octagon higher than those of St. Sergius, and small arches take the place of the usual pendentives: the springing of the dome, which is 50 ft. in diameter, is on the level of the sill of the windows the arches of which therefore form penetrations into the dome.
The church is built in bricks with thick mortar joints, the dome being constructed in an ingenious manner with hollow pots fitted the end of one into the mouth of the other; the lightness of this vault has enabled the builders to dispense with the immense arches and buttresses found in St. Sergius and in Sta. Sophia. Similar construction with pots had been employed in the East for domes and roofs,[291] and they form as permanent a method as stone itself, in addition to the stability, facility of construction, and lightness which such an expedient affords.
Internally a good deal has been done in modern times to destroy the simplicity of the original effect of the building; but still there is a pleasing result produced by alternating the piers with circular columns, and a lightness and elegance about the whole design that render it unrivalled in the western world among churches of its class. This seems to have been admitted by its contemporaries as much as it is in modern times. Charlemagne at all events copied it for his own tomb at Aix-la-Chapelle, and the architects of many other circular buildings of that age appear to have derived their inspiration from this one.
The church of San Lorenzo at Milan, had it not been so much altered in modern times, would take precedence of San Vitale in almost every respect. The date of its erection is not known, though it certainly must be as early as, if not earlier than, the time of Justinian. Down to the 8th century it was the cathedral of the city. It was burnt to the ground in 1071, and restored in 1119; the dome then erected fell in 1571, on which it underwent its last transformation from the hands of Martino Bassi and Pellegrini, who so disfigured its ancient details as to lead many modern inquirers to doubt whether it was really so old as it was said to be.
Its plan, however, seems to have remained unchanged, and shows a further progress towards what afterwards became the Byzantine style than is to be found either in St. Sergius or in San Vitale. It is in fact the earliest attempt to amalgamate the circular church with one of a square shape; and except that the four lateral colonnades are flat segments of circles, and that there is a little clumsiness in the angles (due possibly to the additions made in 1119 and 1571, when the plan of the dome was changed to an octagon, the original dome being probably circular, and carried on four spherical pendentives), it is one of the most successful designs handed down from that early age.
The dome as it now stands is octagonal, which the first dome certainly could not have been. Its diameter is 70 ft., nearly equal to that of the Minerva Medica, and the whole diameter of the building is internally 142 ft.
In front of the church, in the street, is a handsome colonnade of pillars, borrowed from some ancient temple—it is said from one dedicated to Hercules; this leads to a square atrium, now wholly deprived of its lateral arcades; and this again to a façade, which has been strangely altered in modern times. Opposite this, to the eastward of the church, is an octagonal building, apparently intended as a tomb-house; and on the north side a similar one, though smaller. On the south is the baptistery, about 45 ft. in diameter, approached by a vestibule in the same manner as that of Constantine at Rome, and as in the tomb of his daughter Constantia: all these, however, have been so painfully altered, that little remains besides the bare plan of the building; still there is enough to show that this is one of the oldest and most interesting of the Christian churches of Italy.
The building now known as the baptistery at Florence is an octagon, 108 ft. in diameter externally. Like the last-mentioned church, it was originally the cathedral of the city, and was erected to serve as such apparently in the time of Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards. If this was so, it certainly had not originally its present form, and most probably those columns which now stand ranged round the walls at that time stood in the centre, as in the Roman examples. If the original roof was of wood, it was probably in two storeys, like that of the baptistery of Constantine, or it may have been a dome of more solid materials, like that of the Sta. Costanza.
At the same time when the new cathedral was built, the older edifice appears to have been remodelled both internally and externally by Arnolpho da Lapo, and both its form and decoration so completely changed, that it must now be considered rather as a building of the 13th century than of the 6th, in which it seems originally to have been erected.[292]
The baptistery of Novara, which may date from the time of Charlemagne, is interesting in that it contains the germ of those external galleries under the roof which form not only one of the most common but also one of the most beautiful features of the later Lombard and Rhenish churches. From the elevation (Woodcut No. 433) it will easily be seen what was the motive and use of this arrangement, the first trace of which dates perhaps as far back as the baptistery of Nocera (Woodcut No. 428); for wherever a wooden roof was placed over a circular vault, it is evident that the external walls must be carried up higher than the springing of the arch. But it was by no means necessary that this additional wall should be so solid as that below it, and it was necessary to introduce light and air into the space between the stone and the wooden roofs. Add to this the incongruity of effect in placing a light tiled wooden roof on a massive solid wall, and it will be evident that not only did the exigencies of the building, but the true principles of taste, demand that this part should be made as light as possible. Such openings as those found in the baptistery at Novara suggested an expedient which provided for these objects. This was afterwards carried to a much greater extent. At first, however, it seems only to have been used under the roofs of the domes with which the Italians almost universally crowned the intervention of naves and transepts, and round the semidomes of the apses; but so enamoured did they afterwards become of this feature, that it is frequently carried along the sides of the churches under the roof of the nave and of the aisles, and also—where it is of more questionable taste—under the sloping naves of the roof of the principal façade.
There is nothing in the Lombardian and Rhenish styles so common or so beautiful as these galleries, the arcades of which have all the shadow given by a cornice without its inconvenient projection, while the little shafts with their elegant capitals and light archivolts have a sparkle and brilliancy which no cornice ever possessed. Indeed so beautiful are they, that we are not surprised to find them universally adopted; and their discontinuance on the introduction of the pointed style was one of the greatest losses sustained by architectural art in those days. It is true they would have been quite incompatible with the thin walls and light piers of pointed architecture, but it may be safely asserted that no feature which these new styles introduced was equally beautiful with those galleries which they superseded.
There can be little doubt that many other similar buildings belonging to this age still exist in various parts of Italy; for it is more than probable that, at a time when the city was not of sufficient importance, or the congregation so numerous as to require the more extended accommodation of the basilica, almost all the earlier churches were circular. They either, however, have perished from lapse of time, or have been so altered as to be nearly unrecognisable. We here, in consequence, come again to a break in the chain of our sequence; and when we again meet with any circular buildings in Italy, their features are so distinctly Gothic or Byzantine, that they must be classed with one or other of these modifications. The true Romano-Byzantine style had nearly come to an end when Alboin the Lombard had made himself master of the greater part of Italy about the year 575.
Before leaving this branch of the subject there are two small buildings at Ravenna which it is impossible to pass over, though their direct bearing on the history of this subject is not so apparent as it is in the case of other buildings just described. The first and earliest is the tomb of Galla Placidia (Woodcut No. 302), now known as the church of SS. Nazario and Celso, and must have been erected before the year 450. It is singular among all the tombs of that age from the abandonment in it of the circular for a cruciform plan. Such forms, it is true, are common in the chambers of tumuli and also among the catacombs, while the church which Constantine built in Constantinople and dedicated to the Apostles, meaning it however as a sepulchral church, was something also on this plan. Notwithstanding, however, these examples, this must be considered as an exceptional form, though its diminutiveness (it being only 35 ft. by 30 internally) might perhaps account for any caprice. Its great interest to us consists in its retaining not only its primitive architectural form (which is that of a dome carried on pendentives, and one of the few instances in which both dome and pendentives form part of one sphere), but its polychromatic decorations nearly in their original state of completeness (Woodcut 302). The three arms of the cross forming the receptacles for the three sarcophagi is certainly a pleasing arrangement, but is only practicable on a small scale.
Far more interesting than this—architecturally at least—is the tomb of Theodoric, the Gothic king, now known as Santa Maria Rotunda. The lower storey is a decagon externally, enclosing a cruciform crypt. It is 45 ft. in diameter, each face being ornamented by a deep niche. These support a flat terrace, on which originally stood a range of small pillars supporting arches which surrounded the upper storey. These have all been removed, though their form can be restored from fragments found, and as shown in Woodcut No. 435. On the face of the tomb itself are the sinkings for the architraves and vaults which they supported. The most singular part of the building is the roof, which is formed of one great slab hollowed out into the form of a flat dome—internally 30 ft. and externally 35 ft. in diameter—and which certainly forms one of the most unique and appropriate coverings for a tomb perhaps anywhere to be found. Near the edge are a series of projecting bosses, which evidently were originally used as handles, by means of which the immense mass was raised to its present position. In the centre of the dome is a small square pedestal, on which, it is said, once stood the urn which contained the ashes of its founder.
The model of this building seems probably to have been the Mole of Hadrian, which Theodoric saw, and must have admired, during his celebrated visit to Rome. The polygonal arrangements of the exterior, and the substitution of arcades for horizontal architraves, were only such changes as the lapse of time had rendered indispensable. But the building of the ancient world which it most resembles is the Tour Magne at Nîmes. In both cases we have the polygonal basement containing a great chamber, and above this externally the narrow ledge, approached by flying flights of steps. We cannot now tell what crowned the French example, though the fact of an urn crowning the tomb at Ravenna points to an identical origin, but we must obtain a greater number of examples before we can draw any positive conclusions as to the origin of such forms. Meanwhile, however, whether we consider the appropriateness of the forms, the solidity of its construction, or the simplicity of its ornaments and details, this tomb at Ravenna is not surpassed by any building of its class and age.
Though the investigation of the early history of these circular forms of churches is not so important as that of the rectangular basilicas, it is extremely interesting from the influence they had on the subsequent development of the style. In Italy it is probable that one-half of the early churches were circular in plan; and one such is still generally retained attached to each cathedral as a baptistery. Except for this purpose, however, the form has generally been superseded: the rectangular being much easier to construct, more capable of extension, and altogether more appropriate to the ritual of the Christian community. In France the circular form was early absorbed into the basilica, forming the Chevet or apse. In Germany its fate was much the same as in Italy, but its supersession was earlier and more complete. In England some half-dozen examples are known to exist, and in Spain they have yet to be discovered.
Had the Gothic architects applied themselves to the extension and elaboration of the circular form with the same zeal and skill as was displayed in that task by their Byzantine brethren, they might probably have produced something far more beautiful than even the best of our mediæval cathedrals; but when the Barbarians began to build, they found the square form with its straight lines simpler and easier to construct. It thus happened that, long before they became as civilised and expert as the Easterns were when they commenced the task, the Westerns had worked the rectangular form into one of considerable beauty, and had adapted it to their ritual, and their ritual to it. It thus became the sacred and appropriate form, and the circular or domical forms were consequently never allowed a fair trial in Western Europe.
SECULAR BUILDINGS.
Very few remains of secular buildings in the early Christian style are now to be found in Italy. The palace of Theodoric at Ravenna, though sadly mutilated, is perhaps the best and most perfect. In all its details it shows a close resemblance to that of Diocletian at Spalato, but more especially so to the Porta Aurea and the most richly and least classically decorated parts of that edifice, but much intermixed with mouldings and details which would seem to belong to a later style.
Another building, though perhaps of earlier date, is that which is now called the Palazzo delle Torre at Turin, and which still retains the architectural ordinance of the exterior of a Roman amphitheatre, but so modified by common sense that the pilasters are frankly accepted as purely decorative features, having only a slight projection. A similar style of work is found at Bordeaux in what is known as the “Palais Gallien,” but which in reality is a fragment of an amphitheatre built by the Emperor Gallienus (260-268 A.D.). The example at Turin is built with brick of large dimensions 15 in. by 11 in., which, coupled with its character and style, has led M. Cattaneo to ascribe it to the 3rd or 4th century of our era; the paucity of contemporary examples, however, renders it extremely difficult to trace the exact history of the style at this age.
In so progressive an art as architecture it is always very difficult, sometimes impossible, to fix the exact date when one style ends and another begins. In an art so pre-eminently ecclesiastical as architecture was in those days, it will probably be safer to look in the annals of the Church rather than in those of the State for a date when the debased-Roman expired, giving birth, phœnix-like, to the Romanesque. Viewed from this point there can be little doubt but that the reign of Gregory the Great (A.D. 590 to 603) must be regarded as that in which the Latin language and the Roman style of architecture both ceased to be generally or even commonly employed.
After this date we wander on through five centuries of tentative efforts to form a new style, and in the age of another Gregory—the VII.—we find at last the Romanesque style emancipated from former traditions, and marching steadily forward with a well-defined aim. What had been commenced under the gentle influence of a Theodelinda at Florence in the year 600, was completed in the year 1077 under the firmer guidance of a Matilda at Canossa.
IV. LOMBARD AND ROUND-ARCHED GOTHIC
CONTENTS.
Chapel at Friuli—Churches at Piacenza and Novara—St. Michele, Pavia—St. Ambrogio, Milan—Cathedral, Piacenza—Churches at Verona—Churches at Toscanella—Circular Churches—Towers.
When, in the early centuries of the Christian era, the great mass of Gothic barbarism moved up the Valley of the Danube towards the west, one great division followed that river to its source, and thence penetrated into and settled in the Valley of the Rhine. Though sufficiently numerous to be able almost wholly to obliterate all traces of former civilisation, they had virtually no style of their own, and it seems probable that the edifices left by the Romans sufficed for the early wants of the people.
The other great division of the horde turned to the Sömmering Alps and, penetrating into Italy by way of Udine and Conegliano, settled in the Valley of the Po. They may have been as numerous as the others; but Italy in those days was far more densely peopled than Germany, and the inhabitants were consequently able to resist obliteration far more successfully than on the north of the Alps, and even where the new element prevailed most strongly its influence was far less felt than in the more sparsely-peopled Rhenish provinces. This was generally more apparent along the coast than in the interior. Venice did not exist, and Ravenna, though overwhelmed, became the great centre of Romano-Byzantine art. Pisa and Lucca resisted throughout. Florence was divided. The Barbarian influence was strongly felt at Siena, more feebly at Orvieto; but there it was stopped by the influence of Rome, which throughout the Middle Ages remained nearly uncontaminated.
Notwithstanding the almost insuperable barrier of the Alps which stretched between them and the different influences to which they were subjected, the connection between the northern and southern hordes remained intimate during the whole of the Middle Ages. Milan was as much German as Italian; and, indeed, except from a slightly superior degree of elegance in the southern examples, it is sometimes extremely difficult to distinguish between the designs of Lombard and of Rhenish churches. As the Middle Ages wore on, however, the breach between the two styles widened; and there is no difficulty, in the later pointed schools, in seeing how Italy was gradually working itself free from German influence, till at last they became distinct and antagonistic nationalities, practising two styles of art, which had very little in common the one with the other.
Whoever the Barbarians were who in the 5th and 6th centuries swarmed into Italy—Austro-Goths, Visi-Goths, or Lombards—they certainly did not belong to any of the great building races of the world. Few people ever had better opportunities than they of employing their easily-acquired plunder in architectural magnificence, if they had any taste that way; but, though we hear everywhere of the foundation of churches and the endowment of ecclesiastical establishments during the Carlovingian period, not one important edifice of that age has come down to our time. The monumental history of the early Romanesque style is as essentially a blank in Italy as it is in Saxon England. One or two circular buildings remain tolerably entire; some small chapels let us into the secrets of the style, but not one important edifice of any sort attests the splendour of the Lombard kingdom of Northern Italy. Aryans they must have been, and it was not till the beginning of the 11th century, when their blood was thoroughly mixed with that of the indigenous inhabitants and a complete fusion of races had taken place, that we find buildings of a monumental character erected, which have come down to the present day.
Among the smaller monuments of the age none has been preserved more complete and less altered than the little chapel at Friuli; which, though extremely small (only 18 ft. by 30 inside the walls), is interesting, as retaining all its decorations almost exactly as they were left by Gertrude, duchess of Friuli, who erected it in the 8th century. It shows considerable elegance in its details, and the sculpture is far better than it afterwards became, though perhaps its most remarkable peculiarity is the intersecting vault that covers it—pulchre testudinatum, as the old chronicle terms it. This is one proof among many, how early that feature was introduced which afterwards became the formative principle of the whole Gothic style, and was as essentially its characteristic as the pillars and entablatures of the five orders were the characteristics of the classical styles of Greece and Rome. As before remarked, it is this necessity for a stone roof that was the problem to be solved by the architects, and to accomplish which the style took almost all those forms which are so much admired in it.
From this example of the Carlovingian era we are obliged to pass to the 11th and 12th centuries, the first great building age of the Lombards. It is true that there is scarcely a single important church in Pavia, in Verona, or indeed in any of the cities of Lombardy, the original foundation of which cannot be traced back to a much earlier period. Before the canons of architectural criticism were properly understood, antiquaries were inclined to believe that in the buildings now existing they saw the identical edifices erected during the period of the Lombard sway. Either, however, in consequence of the rude construction of the earlier buildings, or because they were too small or too poor for the increased population and wealth of the cities at a later period, every one of the original churches has disappeared and been replaced by a larger and better-constructed edifice, adorned with all the improvements which the experience of centuries had introduced into the construction of religious edifices.
Judging from the rudeness of the earliest churches which we know to have been erected in the 11th century, it is evident that the progress made, up to that period, was by no means equal to what was accomplished during the next two centuries.
This will appear from the plan and section of St. Antonio at Piacenza (Woodcuts Nos. 440 and 440a), built in the first years of the 11th century, and dedicated in 1014 by Bishop Siegfried.
Its arrangement is somewhat peculiar; the transepts are near the west end, and the octagonal tower rising from the intersection is supported on eight pillars, the square being completed by four polygonal piers. The principal point, however, to observe is, how completely the style has emancipated itself from all Roman tradition. A new style has grown up as essentially different from the early Christian as the style of Cologne or of York Cathedral. The architect is once more at liberty to work out his own designs without reference to anything beyond the exigencies of the edifices themselves. The plan, indeed, is still a reminiscence of the Basilica; but so are all the plans of Mediæval cathedrals, and we may trace back the forms of the pillars, the piers, and the arches they support, to the preceding style. All these were derived from Roman art, but the originals are forgotten, and the new style is wholly independent of the old one. The whole of the church too is roofed with intersecting vaults, which have become an integral part of the design, giving it an essentially different character. On the outside buttresses are introduced—timidly, it is true, but so frequently, as to make it evident that already there existed no insuperable objection to increase either their number or depth, as soon as additional abutment was required for wider arches.
The windows, as in all Italian churches, are small, for the Italians never patronised the art of painting on glass, always preferring frescoes or paintings on opaque grounds. In their bright climate, very small openings alone were requisite to admit a sufficiency of light without disturbing that shadowy effect which is so favourable to architectural grandeur.
Being a parochial church, this building had no baptistery attached to it; but there is one at Asti (Woodcut No. 441) so similar in style and age, that its plan and section, if examined with those of San Antonio, will give a very complete idea of Lombard architecture in the beginning of the 11th century, when it had completely shaken off the Roman influence, but had not yet begun to combine the newly-invented forms with that grace and beauty which mark its more finished examples. One peculiarity of this building is the gloom that reigns within, there being absolutely no windows in the dome, and those in the aisles are so small, that even in Italy the interior must always have been in comparative darkness.
The cathedral of Novara, which in its present state is one of the most important buildings of the 11th century in the North of Italy, shows the style still further advanced. The coupling and grouping of piers are here fully understood, and the divisions of the chapels which form the outer aisle are, in fact, concealed buttresses. The Italians were never able to divest themselves of their partiality for flat walls, and never liked the bold external projections so universally admired on the other side of the Alps. They therefore gladly had recourse to this expedient to conceal them; and when this was not available they used metallic ties to resist the thrust of the arches—an expedient which is found even in this example. As will be seen from the annexed plan, the atrium connecting the basilica with the baptistery is retained, which seems to have been an arrangement almost universal in those early times. The half section, half elevation of the front (Woodcut No. 443) shows very distinctly how far the invention of the new style had then gone; for except some Corinthian pillars, borrowed from an older edifice, no trace of debased-Roman architecture is to be found in it. The design of the façade explains what it was that suggested to the Pisan architects the form to which they adapted their Romanesque details. In both styles the arcade was the original model of the whole system of ornamentation. In this case it is used first as a discharging arch, then as a mere repetition of a useful member, and lastly without pillars, as a mere ornamental string-course, which afterwards became the most favourite ornament, not only in Italy, but throughout all Germany.
Interesting as such an example is to the architectural antiquary who is tracing back and trying to understand the forms of a new style, it would be difficult to conceive anything much uglier and less artistic than such a façade as this of Novara or that of San Antonio, last quoted. Their sole merit is their history and their expression of rude energy, so characteristic of the people who erected them.
The church of San Michele at Pavia, which took its present form either at the end of the 11th or beginning of the 12th century, is one of the most interesting of this age, and presents in itself all the characteristics of a perfect round-arched Gothic church. Indeed there is hardly any feature worth mentioning which was invented after this date except the pointed arch—a very doubtful improvement—and window tracery, which the Italians never cordially adopted or understood. The section (Woodcut No. 444) shows the general arrangement of San Michele in its present state. The researches of M. de Dartein,[295] however, have shown that, when first built, the nave was covered over with two square quadripartite vaults, as might in fact have been divined from the difference in size[296] of the centre and two other piers. The existing oblong vaulted compartments date from the 15th century, when secondary shafts were carried up above the ground storey shafts of piers 1 and 3. The section, however, shows that well-marked vaulting shafts spring from floor to roof, that the pier arches in the wall are probably distinct and well understood, and that the angles of these piers are softened and ornamented by shafts and other subordinate members. Altogether, it is evident that that subdivision of labour (if the expression may be used) which was so characteristic of the true Gothic style had here been perfectly understood, every part having its own function and telling its own story. To complete the style only required a little experience to decide on the best and most agreeable proportions in size and solidity. In a century from the date of this church the required progress had been made; a century later it had been carried too far, and the artistic value of the style was lost in mere masonic excellence. San Michele and the other churches of its age fail principally from over-heaviness of parts and a certain clumsiness of construction, which, though not without its value as an expression of power, wants the refinement necessary for a true work of art. Externally, one of the most pleasing features of this church is the apse with its circular gallery. In Italian churches the gallery is usually a simple range of similar arcades; here, however, it is broken into three great divisions by coupled shafts springing from the ground, and these again subdivided by single shafts running in like manner through the whole height of the apse. The gallery thus not only becomes a part of the whole design, instead of looking like a possible afterthought, but an agreeable variety is also given, which adds not a little to the pleasing effect of the building.
There are at least two other churches in Pavia, which, though altered in many parts, retain their apsidal arrangements tolerably perfect. One of these, that of San Teodoro (1150), may be somewhat later than the San Michele, and has its gallery divided into triplets of arcades by bold flat buttresses springing from the ground. In the other, San Pietro in Cielo d’Oro, dating from 1132, the arcade is omitted round the apse, though introduced in the central dome. It has besides two subordinate apses of graceful design, but inferior to the other examples.
Though Milan must have been rich in churches of this age, the only one now remaining tolerably entire is San Ambrogio, which is so interesting as almost to make amends for its singularity. Historical evidence shows that a church existed here from a very early age. It was rebuilt in the 9th century by Bishop Angelbert, aided by the munificence of Louis the Pious, and an atrium was added by Bishop Anspertus; but except the apse and “the canons’” tower, nothing remains of even that church, all the rest having been rebuilt in the 11th or 12th century. During the late restoration the bases of some of the columns of the 9th-century church were discovered, and one of them is now visible in the pulpit enclosure.
The disposition of the building will be understood from the annexed plan, which shows both the atrium and the church. The former is virtually the nave; in other words, had the church been erected on the colder and stormier side of the Alps, a clerestory would have been added to the atrium, and it would have been roofed over; and then the plan would have been nearly identical with that of a Northern cathedral.
The third (sexpartite) bay was revaulted in the 14th century with two oblong quadripartite vaults, but these are now replaced by sexpartite vaulting. The dome is probably an addition of the end of the 12th century, and it is raised over what would otherwise have been the fourth bay of the church. As it is, the atrium (Woodcut No. 446) is a highly pleasing adjunct to the façade, removing the church back from the noisy world outside, and by its quiet seclusion tending to produce that devotional feeling so suitable to the entrance of a place of worship. The façade of the building itself, though, like the atrium, only in brick, is one of the best designs of its age; the upper loggia, or open gallery, of five bold but unequal arches, producing more shadow than the façade at Pisa, without the multitude of small parts there crowded together, and with far more architectural propriety and grace. As seen from the atrium, with its two towers, one on either flank, it forms a composition scarcely surpassed by any other in this style.
As now restored, the simplicity and line effect of the vaulted interior is remarkable, and it is also a museum of ecclesiological antiquities of the best class. The silver altar of Angilbertus (A.D. 835) is unrivalled either for richness or beauty of design by anything of the kind known to exist elsewhere, and the baldacchino that surmounts it is also of singular beauty: so are some of its old tombs, of the earliest Christian workmanship. Its mosaics, its pulpit, and the bronze doors, not to mention the brazen serpent—said to be the very one erected by Moses in the wilderness—and innumerable other relics, make this church one of the most interesting of Italy, if not indeed of all Europe.
Generally speaking, the most beautiful part of a Lombard church is its eastern end. The apse with its gallery, the transepts, and above all the dome that almost invariably surmounts their intersection with the choir, constitute a group which always has a pleasing effect, and is very often highly artistic and beautiful. The sides of the nave, too, are often well designed and appropriate; but, with scarcely a single exception, the west end, or entrance front, is comparatively mean. The building seems to be cut off at a certain length without any appropriate finish, or anything to balance the bold projections towards the east. The French cathedrals, on the contrary, while they entirely escape this defect by means of their bold western towers, are generally deficient in the eastern parts, and almost always lack the central dome or tower. The English Gothic architects alone understood the proper combination of the three parts. The Italians, when they introduced a tower, almost always used it as a detached object, and not as a part of the design of the church. In consequence of this the façades of their churches are frequently the least happy parts of the composition, notwithstanding the pains and amount of ornament lavished upon them.
The elevation of the cathedral at Piacenza is a fair illustration of the general mode of treating the western front of the building, not only in the 11th and 12th centuries, but afterwards, when a church had a façade at all—for the Italians seem to have been seldom able to satisfy themselves with this part of their designs, and a great many of their most important churches have, in consequence, not even now been completed in this respect.
Instead of recessing their doors, as was the practice on this side of the Alps, the Italians added projecting porches, often of considerable depth, and supported by two or more slight columns, generally resting on the backs of symbolical animals. No part of these porches, as an architectural arrangement, can be deemed worthy of any commendation; for, in the first place, a column planted on an animal’s back is an anomaly and an absurdity, and the extreme tenuity of the pillars, as compared with the mass they support, is so glaring that even its universality fails in reconciling the eye to the disproportion. In the present instance the porch is two storeys in height, the upper being a niche for sculpture. Its almost exact resemblance to the entrance porch below is therefore a defect. Above there is generally a gallery, sometimes only in the centre; sometimes, as in this instance, at the sides, though often carried quite across; and in the centre above this there is almost invariably a circular window, the tracery of which is frequently not only elaborately but beautifully ornamented with foliage and various sculptural devices.
Above this there is generally one of those open galleries mentioned before, following the slope of the roof, though frequently, as in this instance, this is replaced by a mere belt of semicircular arches, suggesting an arcade, but in reality only an ornament.
VERONA.
Almost every important city in Lombardy shows local peculiarities in its style, arising from some distinction of race or tradition. The greater number of these must necessarily be passed over in a work like the present, but some are so marked as to demand particular mention. Among these that of Verona seems the most marked and interesting. This Roman city became the favourite capital of Theodoric the Goth—Dietrich of Berne, as the old Germans called him—and was by him adorned with many noble buildings which have either perished or been overlooked. There is a passage in the writings of his friend Cassiodorus which has hitherto been a stumbling-block to commentators, but seems to find an explanation in the buildings here, and to point to the origin of a mode of decoration worth remarking upon. In talking of the architecture of his day he speaks of “the reed-like tenuity of the columns making it appear as if lofty masses of building were supported on upright spears, which in regard to substance look like hollow tubes.”[298] It might be supposed that this referred exclusively to the metal architecture of the use of which we find traces in the paintings at Pompeii and elsewhere.[299] But the context hardly bears this out, and he is probably alluding to a stone or marble architecture, which in the decline of true art had aspired to a certain extent to imitate the lightness which the metallic form had rendered a favourite.
To return to Verona:—The apse of the cathedral seems to have belonged to an older edifice than that to which it is now attached, as was often the case, that being the most solid as well as the most sacred part of the building. As seen in the woodcut (No. 449) it is ornamented with pilasters, classical in design, but more attenuated than any found elsewhere; so that I cannot but believe that this is either one of the identical buildings to which Cassiodorus refers, or at least an early copy from one of them.
At a far later age, in the 12th century, the beautiful church of San Zenone shows traces of the same style of decoration (Woodcut No. 450), pilasters being used here almost as slight as those at the cathedral, but so elegant and so gracefully applied as to form one of the most beautiful decorations of the style. Once introduced, it was of course repeated in other buildings, though seldom carried to so great an extent or employed so gracefully as in this instance. Indeed, whether taken internally or externally, San Zenone may be regarded as one of the most pleasing and perfect examples of the style to be found in the North of Italy.
The cathedral at Modena is another good example, though not possessing any features of much novelty or deserving special mention. That of Parma is also important, though hardly so pleasing. Indeed, scarcely any city in the Valley of the Po is without some more or less-perfect churches of this date, none showing any important peculiarities that have not been exemplified above, unless perhaps it is the apse of the church of San Donato on the Murano near Venice, which is decorated with a richness of marble decoration to which the purer Gothic style never attained, and which entitles this church to rank rather with the Byzantine than with the Lombard buildings of which we are treating, or a style so curiously exceptional as to make it one of the most interesting churches, historically, to be found in the North of Italy.
Recent discoveries in Syria[300] have proved almost beyond a doubt that the carved slabs with which it is adorned externally were borrowed from some desecrated building on the coast of Syria—destroyed probably by the Moslems—and brought to Venice, probably at the time when the church acquired the remains of San Donato, in the beginning of the 12th century. Whether brought then or at an earlier period, they belong to the age of Justinian, certainly came from the East, and, mixed up with Italian details of the period, make up an exterior as picturesque as it is interesting to the student of the history of art in those days.
It is extremely difficult to draw a line between the pointed and round-arched Gothic styles in Italy. The former was so evidently a foreign importation, so unwillingly received and so little understood, that it made its way but slowly. Even, for instance, in the church at Vercelli, which is usually quoted as the earliest example of the pointed style in Italy (built 1219-1222), there is not a pointed arch nor a trace of one on the exterior. All the windows and openings are round-headed, and, except the pier-arches and vaults, nothing pointed appears anywhere. Even at a later date than this the round arch, especially as a decorative form, is frequently placed above the pointed one, and always used in preference to it. Instead, therefore, of attempting to draw a line where none exists in reality, it will be better now to pass on from this part of the subject, and to take up the older style at a point from which we can best trace the formation of the new. The latter does not essentially differ from the former, except in the introduction of the French form of the pointed arch and its accompaniments. It remains only to say a few words on the peculiarities which the round form of churches took in the hands of the early Lombard architects, as well as on the campanile, which forms so striking a feature in the cities of Northern Italy.
TOSCANELLA.
On the boundary-line which separates the Guelfic from the Ghibelline influence, there exist at Toscanella, near Viterbo, two churches of great beauty of detail; but which, as might almost be predicated from their situation, defy any attempt at classification. They are not Gothic, for they have no vaults, nor does their style suggest any vaulting contrivances. They are scarcely debased Roman, for the tracery of their circular windows, their many-shafted doors, and generally their details are such as to indicate a Northern rather than a Roman affinity; and the Byzantine sculpture which is found in the pulpit was probably taken from an earlier church—though an Italian Byzantine influence can be traced in much of its decoration. Under these circumstances, it is better to treat them as exceptional, than to attempt to give them a name which might mislead without conveying any correct information.
The elder of these two churches, Sta. Maria, was erected in the beginning of the 13th century (1206?), but is so unlike most buildings of that age, that it is usually ascribed to the 6th or 7th. On a close examination, however, all its details are found to be full of advanced Romanesque forms. The pillars are rude Corinthian, with a Lombardic abacus. They are widely spaced, having no vault to support; and the mouldings of the arches are what we should call “Transitional Early English.”
Externally the façade is too plain to be quite pleasing, but this arises from its depending originally on painting for its decoration—some traces of which still remain, but the greater part has perished. Its three doorways are richly and beautifully ornamented with shafts and sculptured foliage, quite equal in detail to anything of the class to be found in Italy, and its great circular window would not be thought out of place at Chartres or Lincoln.
The church of St. Pietro is probably a century later than that of Sta. Maria, and its façade is richer and more elegant—a difference arising more from those details being in this instance carved which in the earlier church were painted. The design, however, deserves attention for its historical, perhaps, even more than its artistic claims; for it was this class of façade that Palladio and the architects of the cinque-cento period seized upon, and, applying pilasters and pediments of classical type, converted it into the fashionable churches which are to be found in every part of Europe.[301]
The difficulty which the Italians never entirely conquered, was how to amalgamate the sloping lines of the roofs of the aisles with the horizontal lines of the rest of the façade. The gallery over the central doorway enabled them very nearly to accomplish it in these Toscanella churches, and if the same string-courses had been carried all across, the whole might have been harmonised; but it was just missed, and, what is strange, more so in the second than in the first example.
CIRCULAR CHURCHES.
In the earliest times of Christian architecture, as we have already seen, the circular form of church was nearly as frequent as that derived from the Roman basilica. In process of time the latter was found to be much better adapted to the extended requirements of Christianity. Hence in the 11th and 12th centuries, when so many of the early churches were rebuilt and enlarged, most of the old circular buildings disappeared. Enough, however, remain to enable us to trace, though imperfectly, what their arrangements were.
Among those which have been illustrated, perhaps the most interesting is that known as the church of San Stefano at Bologna, or rather the circular centre of that congeries of seven churches usually known by that name.
It is one of those numerous churches of which it is impossible to predicate whether it was originally a baptismal or a sepulchral edifice. In old times it bore both names, and may have had both destinations, but latterly, at all events, the question has been settled by the compromise usually adopted in such cases, of dedicating it to the first martyr, to whom a sepulchral form of building is especially appropriate.
Notwithstanding a considerable amount of ancient remains mixed up in the details, no part of the present church seems older than the Carlovingian era; while, on the other hand, its extreme irregularity and clumsiness of construction point to a period before the 11th century. Its general form is that of an extremely irregular octagon, about 60 ft. in diameter, in the centre of which stands a circlet of columns, some coupled, some single, supporting a semicircular dome. The circumscribing aisle is covered with the usual intersecting ribbed vault of the 10th century, but the whole is so rude as scarcely to deserve mention except for its antiquity.
The Duomo Vecchio of Brescia is ascribed to the 8th or 9th century, but this date according to Cattaneo[302] can only be ascribed to an earlier basilica church, the crypt of which still exists on the east side of the Duomo. As will be seen from the plan, it is a large church, 125 ft. across over all, and is covered by a dome 65 ft. in diameter internally supported by eight piers of plain design. The mode in which light is introduced into the central compartment illustrates the various tentative expedients by which the architects in that age attempted to accomplish their object. First, there is a range of small windows in the dome below the springing of the dome. In the dome itself there are four circular sides, and, as if the architect felt that he was doing something unusual and inartistic, he managed externally to confuse these with the rudiments of the roof gallery.
It is not clear whether originally it had or was intended to have an apse between its two round towers—where the foundations of some buildings can still be traced; but these may be the remains of the early church referred to.
Turning from these, we find the round-arched Gothic style completely developed in the church of San Tomaso in Limine, near Bergamo. From the annexed plan it will be seen that the circular part is the nave or entrance, as in Germany and England, in contradistinction to the French mode of arrangement, where the circular part is always the sanctum, the rectangular the nave or less holy place.
The general plan of this example is circular. It is not more than 30 ft. across internally. In the centre stand eight pillars, supporting a vaulted gallery, which forms a triforium or upper storey, and, with the dome and its little cupola, raise the whole height to about 50 ft. A small choir with a semicircular niche projects eastward.
The dimensions of the building are so small that it hardly deserves notice, except as a perfect example of the style of the 11th or 12th century in Lombardy, and for a certain propriety and elegance of design, in which it is not surpassed, internally at least, by any building of its age. It is to be regretted that the idea was never carried out (at any rate no example remains) on such a scale as to enable us to judge of the effect of such a domical arrangement as is here attempted. The great defect of all one-storeyed domes is their lowness, both internally and more especially externally. This method of building a dome in two storeys would seem calculated to obviate the objection; but though common in small sepulchral chambers, it has never been tried on a scale sufficiently large to enable us to judge of its real effect. After this period the circular shape was so completely superseded by the rectangular, that no further improvement took place in it.
TOWERS.
There is perhaps no question of early Christian archæology involved in so much obscurity as that of the introduction and early use of towers. The great monumental pillars of the Romans—as, for instance, those of Trajan and Antoninus—were practically towers; and latterly their tombs began to assume an aspiring character like that at St. Remi (Woodcut No. 231), or those at Palmyra and elsewhere in the East, which show a marked tendency in that direction. But none of these can be looked upon as an undoubted prototype of the towers attached to the churches of the Christians.
At Ravenna, as early as the age of Justinian, we find a circular tower attached to St. Apollinare in Classe (Woodcut No. 412), and in the other churches of that place they seem even then to have been considered necessary adjuncts.[303] At the same time it is by no means clear that they were erected as bell-towers; indeed the evidence is tolerably clear that bells were not used in Christian churches till the time of Pope Adrian I., some two centuries later. What, then, were they? There is, I think, no trace of their being sepulchral monuments, or that they were designed or used as tombs; and unless they were, like the sthambas of the Buddhists, pillars of victory, or towers erected to mark sacred or remarkable spots, it is difficult to say what they were, or where we are to look for an analogy.
Be this as it may, the oldest circular towers with which we are acquainted are those of Ravenna; while the last of the series is the famous leaning one at Pisa, commenced in the year 1174. The gradations between these two extremes must have been the same that marked the changes in the architecture of the churches to which they are attached; but the links are more completely wanting in the case of the towers than in that of the churches.[304]
The tower of St. Apollinare in Classe, above referred to, the most perfect of those of Ravenna, is a simple brick tower (see Woodcut No. 412), nine storeys in height, the lower windows being narrow single openings; above there are two, and the three upper storeys are adorned with four windows of three lights each.
In Rome, as far as we know, the first tower attached to a church was that said to have been built by Pope Adrian I. in front of the atrium of St. Peter’s; but there are no examples now existing in Rome which can be said to be earlier than the 11th century, and that date applies only to the lower portion of them. In the 12th and 13th centuries they became common, and we find them attached to the churches of S. Lorenzo without the walls, S. Croce in Gerusalemme, SS. Giovanni e Paolo, S. Giorgio in Velabro (13th century), and others. All these are square in plan and extremely similar in design, no improvement and scarcely any change having taken place between the first and the last, as if the form were an old and established one when we find it first adopted. That attached to Sta. Maria in Cosmedin (Woodcut No. 459) is perhaps one of the best and most complete. Its dimensions are small, its breadth being little more than 15 ft., and its height only 110; but notwithstanding this there is great dignity in the design, and, in a city where buildings are not generally tall, its height is sufficient to give it prominence without overpowering other objects,—a characteristic which renders these Roman towers not only beautiful structures in themselves, but appropriate ornaments to the buildings to which they are attached.
The chief interest of these towers is derived from the numerous progeny to which they gave birth: for though there is scarcely an instance of a square Romanesque tower beyond the walls of Rome during the period in which this style flourished, the form was seized upon with avidity by the Gothic architects in all the countries of Europe; and whether as a detached campanile (as in Italy), or as an integral part of the building (as we soon find it employed on this side of the Alps), it forms the most prominent, and perhaps also the most beautiful, feature in the aspiring architecture of the Middle Ages.
There is certainly no architectural feature which the Gothic architects can so justly call their own as the towers and spires which in the Middle Ages were so favourite, so indispensable a part of their churches and other edifices, becoming in fact as necessary parts of the external design as the vaults were of the internal decoration of the building.
It is true, as before remarked, that we neither know where they were first invented, nor even where they were first applied to Christian churches—those of Rome and Ravenna being evidently not the earliest examples; nor have they any features which betray their origin—at least none have yet been pointed out, though it is not impossible that a closer examination would bring some such to light. They certainly are as little classical, in form or details, as anything that can well be conceived; and belong to an undefined Romanesque style.
Those of which we have already spoken are all church-towers—campaniles or bell-towers attached to churches. But this exclusive distinction by no means applies to the Gothic towers. The tower of St. Mark at Venice, for instance, and the Toraccio at Cremona, are evidently civic monuments, like the belfries of the Low Countries—symbols of communal power wholly distinct from the church, their proximity to which seems only to arise from the fact of all the principal buildings being grouped together. This is certainly the case with a large class of very ugly buildings in Italy, such as those attached to the town-halls of Florence and Siena, or the famous Asinelli and Garisenda towers at Bologna. They are merely tall square brick towers, with a machicolated balcony at the top, but possessing no more architectural design than the chimney of a cotton factory. Originally, when lower, they may have been towers of defence, but afterwards became mere symbols of power.
A third class, and by far the most numerous, of these buildings are undoubtedly ecclesiastical erections; they are either actually attached to the churches, or so placed with regard to them as to leave no doubt on the matter. There is not, however, I believe, in all Italy a single example of a tower or towers forming, as on this side of the Alps, an integral part of the design.
Sometimes they stand detached, but more generally are connected with some angle of the building, the favourite position being the western angle of the southern transept. Occasionally we find one tower placed at the angle of the façade, but this is seldom the case when the tower and the church are of the same age. It is so in the cathedral at Lucca, and San Ambrogio at Milan; in the latter of which a second tower has been added more recently to balance the older one. It does also happen as in the instance of Novara, before quoted (Woodcut No. 443), that two towers are actually parts of the original design; this, however, is certainly the exception, not the rule.
In design the Italian campaniles differ very considerably from those on this side of the Alps. They never have projecting buttresses, nor assume that pyramidal form which is so essential and so beautiful a feature in the Northern examples. In plan the campanile is always square, and carried up without break or offset to two-thirds at least of its intended height. This, which is virtually the whole design (for the spire seems an idea borrowed from the North), is generally solid to a considerable height, or with only such openings as serve to admit light to the stairs or inclined planes. Above the solid part one round-headed window is introduced in each face, and in the next storey two; in the one above this three, then four, and lastly five, the lights being merely separated by slight shafts, so that the upper storey is virtually an open loggia (see Woodcut No. 498). There is no doubt great beauty and propriety of design in this arrangement; in point of taste it is unobjectionable, but it wants the vigour and variety of the Northern tower.
So far as we can judge from drawings and such ancient examples as remain, the original termination was a simple cone in the centre, with a smaller one at each of the angles.
At Verona an octagonal lantern is added, and at Modena and Cremona the octagon is crowned by a lofty spire, but these hardly come within the limits of the epoch of which we are now treating. So greatly did the Italians prefer the round arch, that even in their imitation of the Northern styles they used the pointed shape only when compelled—a circumstance which makes it extremely difficult, particularly in the towers, to draw the line between the two styles; for though pointed arches were no doubt introduced in the 13th and 14th centuries, the circular-headed shape continued to be employed from the age of the Romanesque to that of the Renaissance.
One of the oldest and certainly the most celebrated of the Gothic towers of Italy, is that of St. Mark’s at Venice, commenced in the year 902; it took the infant republic three centuries to raise it 180 ft., to the point at which the square basement terminates. On this there must originally have been an open loggia of some sort, no doubt with a conical roof. The present superstructure was added in the 16th century; but though the loggia is a very pleasing feature, it is overpowered by the solid mass that it surmounts, and by the extremely ugly square extinguisher that crowns the whole. Its locality and its associations have earned for it a great deal of undue laudation, but in point of design no campanile in Italy deserves it less. The base is a mere unornamented mass of brickwork, slightly fluted, and pierced unsymmetrically with small windows to light the inclined plane within. Its size, its height, and its apparent solidity are its only merits. These are no doubt important elements in that low class of architectural excellence of which the Egyptian pyramids are the type; but even in these elements this edifice must confess itself a pigmy, and inferior to even a second-class pyramid on the banks of the Nile, while it has none of the beauty of design and detail displayed by the Giralda of Seville, or even by other Italian towers in its own neighbourhood.
The campanile at Piacenza (Woodcut No. 448) is, perhaps, more like the original of St. Mark’s than any other, and certainly displays as little beauty as any building of this sort can possess.
That of San Zenone at Verona is far more pleasing. It is, indeed, as beautiful both in proportion and details as any of its age, while it exemplifies at once the beauties and the defects of the style. Among the first is an elegant simplicity that always is pleasing, but this is accompanied by a leanness and poverty of effect, when compared with Northern examples, which must rank in the latter category.
Mr. Jackson, in his work on Dalmatia and Istria, gives illustrations of several towers in those countries which, in beauty of design, excel many of the Italian examples. The Romanesque style would seem to have had a much longer duration on the east side of the Adriatic than in Italy. Thus the tower of Spalato, a lofty campanile of six storeys in height, commenced in the beginning of the 13th century and not terminated till 1416 (except the upper octagon and spire), is virtually in the same pure Romanesque style throughout. Mr. Jackson notes also the continued influence of Roman work of the 3rd century, by which it is surrounded, and that fragments of ancient material, columns and capitals, have been used up in its construction. The campaniles of Zara and in the island of Arbe are both fine examples of Romanesque design.
V. BYZANTINE-ROMANESQUE
CONTENTS.
Cathedrals of Naples—San Miniato, Florence—Cathedrals of Pisa and Zara—Cathedrals of Troja, Bari, and Bittonto—San Nicolo, Bari—Cloisters of St. John Lateran—Baptistery of Mont St. Angelo—San Donato, Zara—Churches in South Italy—Circular Buildings—Towers—Civil Architecture.
CHRONOLOGY.
DATES. The Normans enter Italy A.D. 1018 The Normans conquer Apulia from the Greeks 1043 The Normans attack the Saracens in Sicily 1061 Conquest of Sicily completed by Roger de Hauteville 1090 Roger II. 1101 William I., surnamed the Wicked 1153 William II., surnamed the Good 1166 Tancred 1189 Frederic Hohenstaufen of Germany 1197 Conrad 1250 Conradin 1254 Charles I., first Angiovine King of Naples 1266 René, last Angiovine King of Naples 1435
It would be easier to define the limits and character of the styles of Italian Mediæval Architecture in the centre and south of Italy by a negative than a positive title. To call them the “non-Gothic” styles would describe them correctly, but would hardly suffice to convey a distinct idea of their peculiarities. Romanesque, or even Italian Romanesque, would not be sufficient, because that term fails to take cognizance of the foreign element found in them. That element is the Byzantine, derived partly from the continued relations which such cities as Venice or Pisa maintained during the Middle Ages with the Levant, and partly from the intercourse which the inhabitants of Magna Gracia kept up across the Adriatic with the people on its eastern shores. To such a mixture of styles the term Byzantine-Romanesque would be quite appropriate; and although there are in Apulia churches, such as Molfetta and St. Angelo, which look more like Levantine designs than anything to be found in other parts of Europe (except perhaps such buildings as St. Front, Périgueux, and one or two exceptional buildings in the South of France), and in a very detailed description of Italian styles it might be expedient to attempt a further subdivision with other specific terms, for the present it will probably suffice to describe the various non-Gothic styles of the centre and southern half of Italy in local sections without attempting any very minute classification of their variations. As the Italians had no great national style of their own, and both in the North and South were principally working under foreign influences, it is in vain to look for any thread that will conduct the student straight through the labyrinth of their styles. Italian unity is the aspiration of the present century; during the Middle Ages it did not exist either in politics or art.
Although Naples is in the very centre of its province, where we naturally first look for examples of the style, there are few cities in Italy which contain so little to interest the architect or the antiquary. Still she does possess one group of churches, which, by their juxtaposition, at least serve to illustrate the progress of the style during the Middle Ages. The earliest of these, Sta. Restituta—shaded dark in the plan (Woodcut No. 460)—may be as old as the 4th or 5th century, and retains its original plan and arrangement, though much disfigured in details. The baptistery, a little behind the apse on its left, is certainly of the date indicated, and retains its mosaics, which seem to be of the same age.
In the year 1299 Charles II. of Anjou commenced the new cathedral at right angles with the old, his French prejudices being apparently shocked at the incorrect orientation of the older church. It is a spacious building, 300 ft. long, arranged, as Italian churches usually were at that age, with a wooden roof over the nave and intersecting vaults over the side-aisles. Opposite the entrance of the old cathedral is a domical chapel of Renaissance design, so that the group contains an illustration of each of the three ages of Italian art.
The church of San Miniato (Woodcuts Nos. 461-463), on a hill overlooking Florence, is one of the earliest (1013), as well as one of the most perfect, of the Byzantine-Romanesque style. Internally it is only 165 ft. in length by 70 in width, divided longitudinally into aisles, and transversely into three nearly square compartments by clustered piers supporting two great arches which run up to the roof. The whole of the eastern compartment is occupied by a crypt or under-church open to the nave, above which are the choir and apse, approached by flights of steps in the aisles. The entire arrangement, together with the division of the nave into three compartments, is most satisfactory, and the proportions of the whole are very appropriate. The pillars themselves are so nearly classical in design that they almost seem to have been taken from some ancient building, and the architraves and stringcourses are all well designed and fitted to the places they occupy. The principal ornament of the interior is an inlaid pattern of simple design, sufficient to relieve the monotony of the interior, but without producing any confusion. The exterior depends principally, like the interior, for its effect on coloured panelling, but has a range of blind arches running round the sides and across the front. The façade, however, is very badly designed: either it was one of the earliest examples, and the architects had not learned how to combine the sloping roofs of the aisles with the upper part of the façades, or it has been altered in more modern times; but for this slight defect it would be difficult to find a church in Italy containing more of classic elegance, with perfect appropriateness for the purposes of Christian worship.
There must have been several, probably many, buildings in the same style erected in Tuscany during the first half of the 11th century. Otherwise it is almost impossible to understand how so complete a design as that of Pisa Cathedral could have been executed. It was commenced apparently in 1006, but it was not till 1063, after the plundering of Palermo, according to Reber,[305] that the means were provided for the extraordinary richness of the design, the magnificence of which had at that time no parallel among the ecclesiastical edifices of Italy; the work was suspended in 1095, and could only be resumed by means of pecuniary aid given to the undertaking by the Byzantine emperor. After the consecration of the cathedral in 1103, the interior decorations were carried on until the 15th century. Internally its design is evidently based on that of the basilicas of Rome and Ravenna, except that instead of the range at the latter place of figures in mosaic, it has a splendid triforium gallery and in plan strongly marked projecting transepts. Its great merit, however, as a design arises from the fact that the builders had learned to proportion the parts to one another so as to get greater magnificence with very much smaller dimensions. The size, for instance, of the nave of San Paolo fuori le Mure at Rome is 290 ft. by 215; these dimensions are nearly double those at Pisa, where they are 173 ft. by 106. Yet, in consequence of the greater relative height of the nave and the better spacing of the pillars and proportion of the parts, the interior of Pisa is more pleasing and more impressive than the Roman church. Its effect, too, is immensely increased by the truly Mediæval projection of the transepts. In no church in Italy is there such poetry of perspective as in looking anglewise across the intersection, and seldom anywhere a more satisfactory interior than that of this church.
The exterior, too, is almost equally pleasing. The side-aisles are adorned with a range of blind arches running all round, adorned with parti-coloured marble, inlaid either in courses or in patterns. Above this is a gallery, representing the triforium, carried all round, and in the façades formed into an open gallery; a second open gallery represents the sloping roof of the aisles, a third the clerestory, a fourth the slopes of the great roof. The difficulty here, as in almost all Italian designs, is caused by the sloping roofs; but, with this exception, the whole makes up a rich and varied composition without any glaring false construction, and expresses with sufficient clearness the arrangements of the interior. The dome is of later design, and, being oval in plan, cannot be said to be pleasing in outline.
The Italians were evidently delighted with their new style. It was repeated with very little variation at Lucca, in the church of San Michele (1188), only that the arcades stood free on the sides as well as on the front. The façade of San Martino, in the same city, is in the same style; so is that of the cathedral at Pistoja, and so is Sta. Maria at Arezzo. The arrangement was probably suggested by the porticoes of Pagan temples; and were it not for the awkwardness caused by the sloping line of the roofs, it might be characterised as one of the most successful inventions of the age.
In some instances, as in the façade of the Cathedral at Zara in Dalmatia (Woodcut No. 467), which according to Mr. Jackson[306] was not begun before the 13th century, the consecration taking place in 1285, the difficulties of the design of the façade are to a great extent conquered by reducing the arcades to mere decorative panelling, and more than this by separating the design of the centre from that of the aisles by a bold square pilaster. This is exactly the feature we miss at Pisa and Lucca, where the want of it imparts a considerable degree of weakness to the whole design.
The plan of the Zara Cathedral (Woodcut No. 466) is that usually adopted in churches of this class; but it possesses a lady chapel and baptistery, placed laterally in a somewhat unusual manner. Its dimensions are small, being only 170 ft. by 65 externally.
The east end of this church, its doorways and windows, show, as might be expected from its locality, a greater tendency towards Romanesque art than can be found on the western shores of the Peninsula, but in internal arrangements it belongs wholly to the Italian style.
The cathedral at Trau, also in Dalmatia, illustrated in Mr. Jackson’s work, is a fine example, which is not only built in one consistent style throughout, but possesses the still rarer advantage of being completed outside as well as inside, “instead,” as Mr. Jackson observes, “of presenting, like so many Italian churches, a rough face of unfinished brickwork or masonry awaiting in vain the splendid veneer of marble or sculpture that never comes.” The main part of the church was built in the first half of the 13th century. The floor is of the basilica type, with nave (five bays, vaulted) and aisles, centre and side apses, and a magnificent narthex, the full width of nave and aisles, with a sumptuous portal of pure Romanesque design (1240), which is perhaps finer than any example in Italy, and is only rivalled in its decorative sculpture by those of the French portals. Mr. Jackson is of opinion that Dalmatian art took a great departure under Hungarian rule, and followed more in the direction of the purer Romanesque style than in that of the Byzantine. The artists were foreigners, invited not only from Germany but also from France. Villars d’Honecourt recounts his having been sent for, and “French influence,” Mr. Jackson states, “may be detected in some other churches in Hungary.” The portal of the church at Jak, in Hungary, illustrated in Mr. Jackson’s work, is French in character, with a profusion of orders carved with the zigzag fret and dentil very similar to the later Norman work, and includes capitals “à crochet” such as belong to French 12th-century work. The series of trefoil-headed niches, with figures in them which rise above the doorway, are French in character, and remind one of the façade of St. Père-sous-Vezelay. At Cattaro, in Dalmatia, and at Veglia, in one of the islands of the Quarnero, are other examples of fine Romanesque work of the 12th century.
Further south on the mainland of Italy, at Troja, we find a singularly elegant cathedral church (1093-1115?) in the same style (Woodcut No. 468). Its flanks and apse are perhaps even more elegant than anything in the neighbourhood of Pisa. So is the lower part of its façade, which is adorned with a richness and elegance of foliage characteristic of the province where it is found; and the cornice that crowns the lower storey is perhaps unmatched by any similar example to be found in Italy, either for beauty of sculptural decoration or for appropriateness of profile. The upper part of the façade differs, however, considerably from that of the examples just quoted. A great rose-window, of elegant but ill-understood tracery, takes the place of the arcades, and, with the sculptured arch over it, completes all that remains of the original design. The plain pieces of walling that support the central window are parts of a modern repair.
As a general rule, all the churches in the South of Italy are small. This one at Troja is arranged in plan like that at Pisa, with bold projecting transepts, but its length is only 167 ft., and the width of its nave 50, while in the Northern cathedral these dimensions are nearly double—310 ft. by 106—and the area four times as great. This is true of all, however elegant they may be—they are parish churches in dimensions as compared with their Northern rivals.
Many also, as the cathedral at Bari (Woodcut No. 469), have their apses internal, which detracts very much from the meaning of the design, and does away with the apsidal terminations, which are perhaps the most beautiful features in the external design of Italian churches; while they lack the great traceried windows which go so far to replace the absence of the apse in English design. The annexed elevation of the east end at Bari (Woodcut No. 470) gives a fair idea of the general arrangement of that part in the churches in Apulia. It is novel, and the two tall towers with a central dome combine with elegant details to make up a whole which it is impossible not to admire though it will not bear comparison with the more artistic arrangements of Northern architects.
Where the apse[308] is allowed to be seen externally, it is sometimes, as at San Pellino (Woodcut No. 471), an object of great beauty and originality, but such examples are rare in the province, and the designs suffer in proportion.
In the richer churches, as at Pisa, a blind arcade is carried round the flanks, sometimes with an open gallery under the eaves, as in German churches, but this was far from being universally the case; on the contrary, it would be difficult, as a typical example of the style, to select one more characteristic than the flank of the church of Caserta Vecchia (1100-1153) (Woodcut No. 472). The windows are small but numerous, and mark the number of bays in the interior. The transept is slightly projected, and ornamented with an arcade at the top, and above this rises a dome such as is found only in Calabria or Sicily. The tower was added afterwards, and, though unsymmetrical, assists in relieving a design which would otherwise run the risk of being monotonous.
It was, however, on their entrance façades that the architects of Southern Italy lavished their utmost care. The central doorways are usually covered with rich hoods, supported by pillars resting on monsters somewhat like those found in the North of Italy. Above this is either a gallery or one or two windows, and the whole generally terminates in a circular rose-window filled with tracery. As exemplified in the front of Bittonto Cathedral (Woodcut No. 473), such a composition is not deficient in richness, though hardly pleasing as an architectural composition.
The same arrangement, on about the same scale, occurs at Bari, Altamura, and Ruvo; and on a somewhat smaller scale in the churches of Galatina, Brindisi, and Barletta. The great and peculiar beauty of the cathedral at Bittonto is its south front, one angle of which is shown in the woodcut; but which becomes richer towards the east, where it is adorned with a portal of great magnificence and beauty. The richness of its open gallery (under what was the roof of the side-aisles) is unsurpassed in Apulia, and probably by anything of the same kind in Italy.
The façade of San Nicolo at Bari (1197) is something like the last mentioned, except that handsome Corinthian columns have been borrowed from some older building, and add to the richness of the design, though they hardly can be said to belong to the composition. Internally this church seems to have displayed some such arrangement as that of San Miniato (Woodcuts No. 463, 464). Instead, however, of improving upon it, as might be expected from the time that had elapsed since the previous one was erected, the Southern architect hardly knew the meaning of what he was attempting. He grouped together the three pillars next to the entrance, and threw arches across the nave from them, but these arches neither support the roof nor aid the construction in any other way. They do add to the perspective effect of the interior, but it is only by a theatrical contrivance very rare in the Middle Ages, and by no means to be admired when found.
Most of these Apulian churches possess crypts almost as important as that of San Miniato, some more so; and the numerous pillars in some of these give rise to effects of perspective only to be found elsewhere in such buildings as the Mosque at Cordova, or the cisterns at Constantinople. As in the annexed example, from the cathedral at Otranto, it is wonderful what space and what variety may be attained with small dimensions by the employment of numerous points of support. This was the secret of most of the best effects produced by the Northern architects; but the Italians never understood it, or practised it, except in crypts. Perhaps it may have been that they thought it necessary to sacrifice architectural effect to the exigencies of public worship. Whether this were the cause or not, the result, as already pointed out, was fatal to the architectural effect of many of their designs, especially in the Northern province.
In Southern Italy this is seldom the case, but the difference arose from the fact that the naves of the churches had never vaulted roofs, and were consequently separated from the aisles by single pillars instead of composite piers. This took away all temptation to display mechanical dexterity, and left the architect free to produce the best artistic effect he was able to design with the materials at his command.
No one who takes the pains to familiarise himself with the architecture of these Southern Italian churches, can well fail to be impressed with their beauty. That beauty will be found, however, to arise not so much from the dimensions or arrangement of their plans, or the form of their outline, as from the grace and elegance of their details. Every feature displays the feeling of an elegant and refined people, who demanded decoration as a necessity, though they were incapable of rising to any great architectural conception. They excelled as ornamentists, though at best only indifferent architects.
It is impossible to render this evident in such a work as the present; but besides the examples already given, a window (Woodcut No. 478) from the cathedral church at Matera (1270) will explain how unlike the style of decoration is to anything with which we are familiar in the North, and at the same time how much picturesque effect may be produced by a repetition of similar details. The church itself has this peculiarity, that its west front is plain and unimportant, and that all the decoration is lavished on the south side, which faces the piazza. There are two entrances on this face, that towards the east being, as usual, the richer. Above these is a range of richly-ornamented windows, one of which—a little out of the centre—is far more splendid than the rest (Woodcut No. 478). From this it is said that letters and rescripts from the Greek patriarch at Constantinople used to be read, and it is perhaps as elaborate a specimen of the mode of decoration used in these churches as can be found in the province.
The same exuberance of decoration continued to be employed down to the latest period of the art, and after Northern forms had been introduced by the Angiovine dynasty at Naples. The doorway from the church at Pappacoda (Woodcut No. 479) is a type of many to be found in that city and elsewhere in the architectural province. True, it is overdone to such an extent that much of the labour bestowed upon it must be considered as thrown away; but if a love of art induced people to labour so lovingly in it, it is hard to refuse them the admiration which their enthusiasm deserves.
Another class of ornamental detail in which this province is especially rich is that of bronze doors, of which some six or seven examples still remain. Of these perhaps the finest are those of the cathedral at Trani. They were made in 1160, and for beauty of design, and for the exuberance and elegance of their ornaments, are unsurpassed by anything of the kind in Italy, or probably in the world. Another pair of doors of almost equal beauty, made in 1119, belongs to the cathedral at Troja (Woodcut No. 468), and a third, which is still in a very perfect state, constructed at Constantinople, in the year 1076, for the church of Mont San Angelo; and is consequently contemporary with the doors of Sta. Sophia, Novogorod, and San Zenone, Verona, and so similar in design as to form an interesting series for comparison.
Other churches in the same style as those mentioned above are found at Canosa, Giovenazzo, Molo, Ostuni, Manduria, and other places in the province. Those of Brindisi, from which we should expect most, have been too much modernised to be of value as examples; but there is in the town a small circular church of great beauty, built apparently by the Knights Templars, and afterwards possessed by the Knights of St. John. It is now in ruins, but many of the frescoes which once adorned its walls still remain, as well as the marble pillars that supported its roof. Being at some distance from the harbour, the Knights of St. John built another small church near the port, which still remains nearly unaltered.
Although throughout the Middle Ages Rome went on building large churches, it was in the debased-Roman style already referred to, fitting together Roman pillars with classical details of more or less purity, but hardly, except in their cloisters, deserving the name of a style.
Perhaps the most original, as it certainly is one of the most beautiful, things the Romans did, is the cloister of St. John Lateran. There the little arcades, supported by twisted columns, and adorned with mosaics, are as graceful and pleasing as anything of that class found elsewhere; and as they are encased in a framework of sufficient strength to take off all appearance of mechanical weakness, their unconstructive forms are not unpleasing. The entablature, which is the ruling feature in the design, retains the classical arrangement in almost every detail, and in such purity as could only be found in Rome in the 13th century, when this cloister appears to have been erected; but the style never extended beyond the limits of that city, and thus has little bearing on the thread of our narrative.
The cloister of the Benedictine monastery adjoining the basilica of St. Paul’s outside the walls, is another example of the same kind in which the columns present almost every variety of form; spiral, twisted, fluted, and sometimes two or three of these combined, many of them, as well as the entablature, being covered with mosaics.
SOUTHERN ITALY.
As already remarked, the architects of the southern half of the Italian peninsula were generally content to adopt the Romanesque plan of covering their naves with a wooden roof—for when an intersecting vault is found it is clearly a French or German interpolation—but they often employed one dome, generally over the altar, and used it as an ornament both external and internal. The two illustrations already given of the domes at Bari (Woodcut No. 470) and Caserta Vecchia (Woodcut No. 472) show the form these usually took in the province. They belong to a type not unusual in the East, but unknown to the Gothic architects of Europe.
When called upon to roof their churches with stone, they almost invariably adopted the domical in preference to the vaulted form, as at Molfetta (1162), where they make a pleasing form of roof, not unlike that of Loches Cathedral (Woodcut No. 585). The great defect of domes when thus employed is their height, which generally throws the whole of the building out of proportion; and unless light is introduced through openings in the drum, or in the dome itself, they are dark and gloomy. This is certainly the case at Molfetta, but otherwise the church seems well designed and of pleasing proportions. To be successful, domes should be low and flat internally; and any height required externally must be given by a false dome, as at St. Mark’s, or as done by the Renaissance architects generally.
This was not so much felt when the building was square, and covered by only one dome, like the baptistery or tomb of Mont St. Angelo, where effect of space on the floor was not aimed at so much as a combination of external dignity with limited dimensions in plan, and was attained by the arrangement adopted. As will be observed, the pointed arch, as in the tower at Gaeta (Woodcut No. 489), is used in the basement, but above this round arches with balusters for pillars, such as we should call Saxon, though their age here may be the 12th century.
Among the little bits of Orientalism that crop up here and there all over the province, one of the most pleasing is the little tomb of Bohemund at Canosa (1111). It is charming to find in Italy an Eastern Kibleh with its dome, erected to contain the remains of a Christian king. Though elegant, however, the dome is not fitted to the square, as it would have been in more experienced hands, and the whole design is somewhat badly put together. Its bronze doors are among its chiefest ornaments, and are elegant, though inferior to numerous examples of the same class in the churches of the province.
Many other examples of Byzantine domical forms might be quoted as existing in Southern Italy. It is not, however, so much in the forms as in the details that the Eastern influence is felt, and that no less in the churches which retain the basilican form of Ravenna than in those which assume the domical form of Constantinople.
The buildings of the Southern Province cannot certainly compete with those of the Northern either in size or in daring mechanical construction, but in detail they are frequently more beautiful, while their forms are more national and less constrained. Their great interest, however, in the eyes of the student, consists in their forming a link between the Eastern and Western worlds, and thus joining together two styles which we have hitherto been too much in the habit of considering as possessing no point of contact.
CIRCULAR BUILDINGS.
One of the best known, as well as one of the largest examples of this class of buildings in Italy, is the baptistery at Pisa (seen partially on the left side of Woodcut No. 465). Internally it is, as nearly as may be, 100 ft. in diameter, and the walls are about 8 ft. 6 in. in thickness. The dome itself, however, is only 60 ft. in diameter, and is supported on four piers and eight pillars. These serve to separate the central space from the aisle which runs round it, and which is two storeys in height, but singularly ill-proportioned and clumsy in detail. The worst part of the design, however, is the dome, if dome it can be called. Internally it is conical in form, and thrust through an external hemispherical dome in a manner more clumsy and unpleasing than any other example of its class. Externally, these defects are to some extent atoned for by considerable richness and beauty of detail. It had originally only one range of blind arcades, with three-quarter columns, surmounted by an open arcade; an arrangement exactly similar to that of the two lower storeys of the cathedral and the leaning tower (Woodcut No. 488). A considerable amount of pointed Gothic decoration was afterwards added, which, though somewhat incongruous, is elegant in itself, and hides to some extent the original defects of the design. But the outline of the building and its whole arrangements are so radically bad, that no amount of ornament can ever redeem them.
Taken altogether, the Pisan baptistery is so very peculiar, that it would be interesting if its design could be traced back to some undoubted original. That this is possible will hardly be doubted by any one at all familiar with the subject; meanwhile, the building most like it that has been illustrated is the little church of San Donato, at Zara. The church was probably built according to Mr. Jackson by Bishop Donatus III. at the beginning of the 9th century, with materials taken from ancient buildings, some of them of the best period of Roman architecture. The two monolithic columns in front of the triple sanctuary, and which are 30 ft. in height, bear testimony to the size and importance of the temple they originally adorned, and the great thickness of the walls and the size of the piers suggest a wealth of material at the disposal of the builders. The rectangular building on the south side Mr. Jackson considers to be coeval with the church; and the chamber over it, which was on the same level and originally opened on to the gallery round the aisles, formed a second church intended for the use of the catechumens. The church is so built round that it is impossible to say what its external appearance may have been. Both from its resemblance to the Pisan baptistery and its own merits, it is an interesting addition to our knowledge of those circular churches which were such favourites with all the Christian architects in the Carlovingian period. The resemblance in this instance is the more remarkable, because the façade of the cathedral at Zara (Woodcut No. 467) is in the Pisan style, only slightly modified by local peculiarities. From what we already know, it seems undoubted that there was a close connection—architecturally, at least—between Pisa and Zara. If this were fully investigated, it would probably throw considerable light on the origin of the Pisan style, which has hitherto seemed so exceptional in Italy, and also explain how the Byzantine element came to be so strongly developed in what at first sight appears to be a Romanesque style of art.
TOWERS.
The typical example of a tower in the Italian style is the celebrated leaning tower at Pisa, partly seen in Woodcut No. 465. It is, indeed, so far as we at present know, the only one which carries out that arrangement of numerous tiers of superimposed arcades which is so characteristic of the style. The lower storey is well designed as a solid basement for the superincumbent mass; its walls are 13 ft. in thickness, and it is adorned with 15 three-quarter columns: its height being 35 ft. The six storeys above this average 20 ft. in height, and are each adorned with an open arcade. The whole is crowned by a smaller circular tower, 27 ft. in height, in which the bells are hung. The entire height is thus 182 ft.; the mean diameter of the main portion, 52. There is no doubt that it was originally intended to stand perpendicular, though the contrary has been asserted; but before the commencement of the fifth storey the foundations had given way, and the attempts to readjust the work are plainly traceable in the upper storeys, though without success. It leans 11 ft. 2 in. out of the perpendicular,[309] which, though not sufficient to endanger its stability, is enough to render it very unsightly. Even without this defect, however, its design can hardly be commended; an arrangement of six equal arcades, with horizontal entablatures, is not an expedient mode of adorning a building, where elevation is the element of success. The introduction of strongly-marked vertical lines, or some variation in the design of the arcades, would have greatly improved the design: and so the Italians seem to have thought, for it was never repeated, and the Pisan tower remains a solitary example of its class.
Nothing at all resembling it occurs in the southern parts of the province, though it must be admitted that they contain very few really important towers of any sort.
Perhaps the earthquakes to which a great portion of the country is liable may have deterred the architects from indulging in structures of great altitude; but it must be added that the idea of belfry or tower did not enter into their municipal arrangements, and their towns are not consequently illustrated by such towers as those of Venice, Cremona, or Verona in the north. Of those which do exist that of Gaeta is perhaps as picturesque as any. It was erected 1276-1290, and is both characteristic of the style and elegant in outline. As will be observed, the lower storey has pointed arches, while those above are all round; an arrangement which, though to our eyes it may appear archæologically wrong, is certainly constructively right, and the effect is very pleasing, from the height and dignity given to the entrance.
The two towers of the cathedral at Bari (Woodcut No. 470) are not so happy in design as this. They are too tall for their other dimensions, and want accentuation throughout; while the change from the lower to the upper storey is abrupt and ill-contrived. The tower at Caserta Vecchia (Woodcut No. 472) is low and squat in its proportions, and unfortunately too typical of the towers in this land of earthquakes.
CIVIL ARCHITECTURE.
As a rule, it may be asserted that the southern province of Italy is singularly deficient in examples of civil or domestic architecture. Great monastic establishments existed there during the Middle Ages which must have possessed buildings befitting their magnificence; but these have either perished and been rebuilt, or have been so restored that their original forms can hardly be recognised. There are, indeed, cloisters at Amalfi and Sorrento; much more remarkable, however, for the beauty of their situation than for their architecture, which is extremely rude and clumsy. There are no chapter-houses: no halls or conventual buildings of any sort. In this respect, the province forms a remarkable contrast with Spain in the same age; though it must be confessed that the North of Italy is also very deficient in conventual buildings of the Middle Ages, the most magnificent and beautiful belonging more to the Renaissance than to the Mediæval period.
At Ravello there is the Casa Ruffolo, a picturesque palace of the 13th century, still nearly entire: a strange mixture of Gothic and Saracenic taste, but so exceptional, that it would not be fair to quote it as a type of any style. It seems to owe its peculiarities more to the taste of some individual patron or architect rather than to any national taste or form of design.
There are, however, several Hohenstauffen castles of tolerable preservation, more or less typical of the domestic arts of the day in which they were erected. One of the best preserved of these is that of Castel del Monte, erected by Frederick II., 1240-44. It is an octagon in plan, with octagonal turrets at each angle. It measures 167 ft. across its extreme breadth, and surrounds a courtyard 57 ft. in diameter. Both storeys are vaulted, and all the details throughout are good and pleasing. The whole is an admixture of Italian taste, superimposed on a German design; but it will be observed how little removed the architectural details of the entrance are, even at that early age, from the style of the Renaissance. This is, indeed, the great characteristic of the architectural objects in Southern Italy. Though they adopted Christian forms, they never abandoned the classical feeling in details; and it is this which mainly renders them worthy of study. Whether considered in regard to dimensions, outline, or constructive peculiarities, their churches will not bear a moment’s comparison with those of the North; but in elegance of detail they often surpass purely Gothic buildings to such a degree as to become to some extent as worthy of study as their more ambitious rivals.