Domestic Architecture.

342. Palace of the Hebdomon, Constantinople.

It is more than probable that very considerable remains of the civil or domestic architecture of the Neo-Byzantine period may still be recovered. Most of their palaces or public buildings have continued to be occupied by their successors, but the habits of Turkish life are singularly opposed to the prying of the archæologist. Almost the only building which has been brought to light and illustrated is the palace of the Hebdomon at Blachernæ in Constantinople, built by Constantine Porphyrogenitus (913-949). All that remains of it, however, is a block of buildings 80 ft. by 40 in plan, forming one end of a courtyard; those at the other end, which were more extensive, being too much ruined to be restored. The parts that remain probably belong to the 9th century, and consist of two halls, one over the other, the lower supported by pillars carrying vaults, the upper free. The façade towards the court (Woodcut [342]) is of considerable elegance, being adorned by a mosaic of bricks of various colours disposed in graceful patterns, and forming an architectural decoration which, if not of the highest class, is very appropriate for domestic architecture.

One great cause of the deficiency of examples may be the combustibility of the capital. They may have been destroyed in the various fires, and outside Constantinople the number of large cities and their wealth and importance was gradually decreasing till the capital itself sunk into the power of the Turks in the year 1453.

CHAPTER V.
ARMENIA.

CONTENTS.

Churches at Dighour, Usunlar, Pitzounda, Bedochwinta, Mokwi, Etchmiasdin, and Kouthais—Churches at Ani and Samthawis—Details.

CHRONOLOGY.

Dates.
Tiridates converted to Christianity by Gregory II.A.D. 276
St. Gregory confirmed as Pontiff by Pope Sylvester319
Christianity proscribed and persecuted by the Persians428-632
Fall of Sassanide dynasty.632
Establishment of Bagratide dynasty under Ashdod859
Greatest prosperity under Apas928
Ashdod III.951
Sempad II.977-989
Alp Arslan takes Ani1064
Gajih, last of the dynasty, slain1079
Gengis Khan1222

The architectural province of Armenia forms an almost exact pendant to that of Greece in the history of Byzantine architecture. Both were early converted to Christianity, and Greece remained Christian without any interruption from that time to this. Yet all her earlier churches have perished, we hardly know why, and left us nothing but an essentially Mediæval style. Nearly the same thing happened in Armenia, but there the loss is only too easily accounted for. The Persian persecution in the 5th and 6th centuries must have been severe and lasting, and the great bouleversement of the Mahomedan irruption in the 7th century would easily account for the disappearance of all the earlier monuments. When, in more tranquil times—in the 8th and 9th centuries—the Christians were permitted to rebuild their churches, we find them all of the same small type as those of Greece, with tall domes, painted with frescoes internally, and depending for external effect far more on minute elaboration of details than on any grandeur of design or proportion.

Although the troubles and persecutions from the 5th to the 8th century may have caused the destruction of the greater part of the monuments, it by no means follows that all have perished. On the contrary, we know of the church above alluded to (p. [428]) as still existing at Nisibin and belonging to the 4th century, and there can be little doubt that many others exist in various corners of the land; but they have hardly yet been looked for, at least not by anyone competent to discriminate between what was really old and what may have belonged to some subsequent rebuilding or repair.

343. View of Church at Dighour. (From Texier.)

Till this more careful examination of the province shall have been accomplished, our history of the style cannot be carried back beyond the Hejira. Even then very great difficulty exists in arranging the materials, and in assigning correct dates to the various examples. In the works of Texier,[[243]] Dubois,[[244]] Brosset,[[245]] and Grimm[[246]] some forty or fifty churches are described and figured in more or less detail, but in most cases the dates assigned to them are derived from written testimony only, the authors not having sufficient knowledge of the style to be able to check the very fallacious evidence of the litera scripta. In consequence of this, the dates usually given are those of the building of the first church on the spot, whereas, in a country so troubled by persecution as Armenia, the original church may have been rebuilt several times, and what we now see is often very modern indeed.

344. Plan of Church at Dighour. (From Texier.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

Among the churches now existing in Armenia, the oldest seems to be that in the village of Dighour near Ani. There are neither traditions nor inscriptions to assist in fixing its date; but, from the simplicity of its form and its quasi-classical details, it is evidently older than any other known examples, and with the aid of the information conveyed in De Vogüé’s recent publications we can have little hesitation in assigning it to the 7th century.[[247]] The church is not large, being only 95 ft. long by 82 wide over all. Internally its design is characterised by extreme solidity and simplicity, and all the details are singularly classical in outline. The dome is an ellipse, timidly constructed, with far more than the requisite amount of abutment. One of its most marked peculiarities is the existence of two external niches placed in projecting wings and which were no doubt intended to receive altars. Its flanks are ornamented by three-quarter columns of debased classical design. These support an architrave which is bent over the heads of the windows as in the churches of Northern Syria erected during the 6th century.

345. Section of Dome at Dighour.

Its western and lateral doorways are ornamented by horse-shoe arches, which are worth remarking here, as it is a feature which the Saracenic architects used so currently and employed for almost every class of opening. The oldest example of this form known is in the doorway of the building called Takt-i-Gero on Mount Zagros.[[248]] In this little shrine, all the other details are so purely and essentially classic that the building must be dated before or about the time of Constantine. The horse-shoe arch again occurs in the church at Dana on the Euphrates in 540.[[249]] At Dighour we find it used, not in construction but as an ornamental feature. The stilting of the arch was evidently one of those experiments which the architects of that time were making in order to free themselves from the trammels of the Roman semi-circular arch. The Saracens carried it much further and used it with marked success, but this is probably the last occasion in which it was employed by a Christian architect as a decorative expedient.

The six buttresses, with their offsets, which adorn the façade, are another curious feature in the archæology of this church. If they are integral parts of the original design, which there seems no reason to doubt, they anticipate by several centuries the appearance of this form in Western Europe.

346. Plan of Church at Usunlar. (From Grimm.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

347. West Elevation of Church at Usunlar. (From Grimm.) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

348. Plan of Church at Pitzounda. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

One of the oldest and least altered of the Armenian churches seems to be that of Usunlar, said to have been erected by the Catholicos Jean IV. between the years 718 and 726. In plan it looks like a peristylar temple, but the verandahs which surround it are only low arcades, and have very little affinity with classical forms. These are carried round the front, but there pierced only by the doorway. The elevation, as here exhibited, is simple, but sufficiently expresses the internal arrangements, and, with an octagonal dome, forms, when seen in perspective, a pleasing object from every point of view. Both plan and design are, however, exceptional in the province. A far more usual arrangement is that found at Pitzounda in Abkassia, which may be considered as the typical form of an Armenian church. It is said to have been erected by the Emperor Justinian, and there is nothing in the style or ornamentation of the lower part that seems to gainsay its being his. But the plan is so like many that belong to a much later age, that we must hesitate before we can feel sure that it has not been rebuilt at some more modern date. Its cupola certainly belongs to a period long after the erection of Sta. Irene at Constantinople (Woodcut No. [327]), when the dome pierced with tall windows had become the fashionable form of dome in the Byzantine school. Its interior, also, is unusually tall, and the pointed arches under the dome look like integral parts of the design, and when so employed belong certainly to a much more modern date. On the whole, therefore, it seems that this church, as we now see it, may have been rebuilt in the 9th or 10th century.

349. Section of Church at Pitzounda. (From Dubois.) No scale.

350. View of Church at Pitzounda. (From Dubois.)

Whatever its date, it is a pleasing example of the style. Externally it is devoid of ornament except what is obtained by the insertion of tiles between the courses of the stone, and a similar relief to the windows; but even this little introduction of colour gives it a gay and cheerful appearance, more than could easily be obtained by mouldings or carving in stone.

The upper galleries of the nave and the chapels of the choir are also well expressed in the external design, and altogether, for a small church—which it is (only 137 ft. by 75)—it is as pleasing a composition as could easily be found.

The idea that the date of this church is considerably more modern than Dubois and others are inclined to assign to it, is confirmed by a comparison of its plan with that at Bedochwinta, which Brosset determines from inscriptions to belong to the date 1556-1575; and the knowledge lately acquired tends strongly to the conviction that this plan of church belongs to a later period in the Middle Ages, though it is difficult to determine when it was introduced, and it may be only a continuation of a much earlier form.

351. Church at Bedochwinta. (From Brosset.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

One other church of this part of the world seems to claim especial mention, that of Mokwi, built in the 10th century, and painted as we learn from inscriptions, between 1080 and 1125. It is a large and handsome church, but its principal interest lies in the fact that in dimensions and arrangement it is almost identical with the contemporaneous church of Sta. Sophia at Novogorod, showing a connection between the two countries which will be more particularly pointed out hereafter. It is now very much ruined, and covered with a veil of creepers which prevents its outward form from being easily distinguished.

352. Plan of Church at Mokwi. Scale 100 feet to 1 in.[[250]]

As will be perceived, its plan is only an extension of the two last mentioned, having five aisles instead of three; but it is smaller in scale and more timid in execution. The church which it most resembles is that at Trabala in Syria (Woodcut No. [330]), which is certainly of an earlier date than any we are acquainted with further east. Practically the same plan occurs at Athens (Woodcut No. [338]), and at Mistra (Woodcut No. [339]), but these seem on a smaller scale than at Mokwi, so that it may be considered as the typical form of a Neo-Byzantine church for four or five centuries, and it would consequently be unsafe to attempt to fix a date from its peculiarities.

353. Plan of Church at Etchmiasdin. (From Brosset.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

354. Church of Kouthais. (From Dubois.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.

Interesting as these may be in an historical point of view, the most important ecclesiastical establishment in this part of the world is that of Etchmiasdin. Here are four churches built on the spots from which, according to tradition, rose the two arches or rainbows, crossing one another at right angles, on which our Saviour is said to have sat when he appeared to St. Gregory. They consequently ought to be at the four angles of a square, or rectangle of some sort, but this is far from being the case. The principal of these churches is that whose plan is represented in Woodcut No. [353]. It stands in the centre of a large square, surrounded by ecclesiastical buildings, and is on the whole rather an imposing edifice. Its porch is modern; so also, comparatively speaking, is its dome; but the plan, if not the greater part of the substructure, is ancient, and exhibits the plainness and simplicity characteristic of its age. The other three churches lay claim to as remote a date of foundation as this, but all have been so altered in modern times that they have now no title to antiquity.

355. Window at Kouthais. (From Dubois.)

The idea that the churches at Pitzounda and Bedochwinta must be comparatively modern is confirmed by comparing their plan with that of Kouthais, a church which there seems no reasonable ground for doubting was founded in 1007, and erected, pretty much as we now find it, in the early part of the 11th century. It has neither coupled piers nor pointed arches, but is adorned externally with reed-like pilasters and elaborate frets, such as were certainly employed at Ani in the course of the 11th century. The annexed elevation (Woodcut No. [355]) of one of its windows exhibits the Armenian style of decoration of this age, but is such as certainly was not employed before this time, though with various modifications it became typical of the style at its period of greatest development.