Torcello.
The church at Torcello, in the Venetian Lagune, is the last example it will be necessary to quote in order to make the arrangements of the early basilicas intelligible. It was originally erected in the seventh century; of this church, according to M. Cattaneo, the only portion remaining, if we except a fragment of the ancient baptistery, is the central apse. In 864, the church would seem to have been reconstructed, and to this period belong the two side apses, the apsidal crypt with new windows pierced through the old wall and the external walls: it is possible that the original nave of the seventh century was retained till 1008, when it was rebuilt by the Doge Pietro Orseolo, on the occasion of his son being raised to the Bishopric of Torcello. Thirteen of the capitals of the nave date from this period, one may be earlier, and five belong to the second half of the 12th century. The whole width of the church is 71 ft. internally by 125 in length. A screen of six pillars divides the nave from the sanctuary. Perhaps, however, the most interesting part of this church is the interior of its apse, which still retains the bishop’s throne, surrounded by six ranges of seats for his presbytery, arranged like those of an ancient theatre. It presents one of the most extensive and best preserved examples of the fittings of the apse, and gives a better idea of the mode in which the apses of churches were originally arranged than anything that is to be found in any other church, either of its age or of an earlier period.[[285]]
Like Sta. Pudentiana (Woodcut No. [404]), this church possesses a small side chapel, a vestry or sanctuary, on the Gospel side of the altar, and the remains of the ancient baptistery may still be traced in front of the west door. This was a square block, externally, measuring 37 ft. each way; internally an octagon, with the angles cut into hemispherical niches. A portion of its eastern side only remains, and this is now hidden behind the modern baptistery, in which, under a board in the pavement, can be seen the foundations of the second baptistery of the 12th century. In the rear of the church stood the campanile, and across a narrow passage the conventual buildings; in front of which now stands the beautiful little church of Sta. Fosca, the whole making up a group of nearly unrivalled interest considering its small dimensions.
420. Plan of Church at Torcello. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in. (From Cattaneo.)
Other examples might be quoted differing in some slight respect from those just given, but the above are probably sufficient to explain the general arrangements of the early basilican churches and the style of their architecture, so long as this worked on the old tradition of the Romano-Byzantine style; in other words, so long as it continued in Italy to be a distinction from the Roman style without any foreign admixture beyond that introduced direct from Byzantium. It might be instructive to speculate on what the style might have become if left alone to develope itself on its native soil, but it would be extremely difficult to make the subject clear without a much larger amount of illustration than is admissible, and which in such a history as this would be out of place. Simultaneously with the elaboration of the rectangular form of church by the Italians, the Byzantines were occupied with the same task; but, being freer from the trammels of tradition and less influenced by examples, they early arrived at forms much more divergent from those of the classical period than those of Italy, and their style, reacting on the Italian, produced that very beautiful combination of which Pisa Cathedral is a type, and St. Mark’s at Venice an extreme example. This style generally pervaded the whole south of Italy, with the exception of Rome; and, from the elements of which it was composed, may fairly be designated Byzantine Italian.
421. Apse of Basilica at Torcello.
While this was going on in the south, the Longobards, and other Barbarians who invaded the north of Italy, seized on this type and worked it out in their own fashion. They, however, conceived the desire to give a more permanent character to their churches by covering them over with stone vaulted roofs, which led to most important modifications of the style. It may probably be correct to assert that no Romano-Byzantine or early Romanesque church has, or ever had, a vaulted nave. On the other hand, there is hardly a Barbarian church which the builders did not aspire to vault, though they were frequently unable to accomplish it. It was this vaulting mania which led to the invention of compound piers, pointed arches, buttresses, pinnacles, and all the numerous peculiarities of the Gothic style; and which, reacting on northern Italy, produced the Ghibelline or Italian-Gothic style.
No exact boundary can be drawn between these two: modifications of style varied, as Byzantine or Gothic influences ebbed or flowed, during the Middle Ages. Venice and Pisa, and all Calabria, were generally influenced by their intercourse with the East, while the whole of the north of Italy and away from the coast as far down as Sienna and Orvieto the strong hand of the Teuton made itself felt.
Yet Italy cannot be said to have been successful in either style. Her superior civilisation enabled her to introduce and use an elegance of detail unknown north of the Alps; but she did not work out the basilican type for herself: she left it to others to do that for her, and consequently never perfectly understood what she undertook, or why it was done. The result is that, though great elegance is found in parts, Italy can hardly produce a single church which is satisfactory as a design; or which would be intelligible without first explaining the basework of those true styles from which its principal features have been borrowed.
CHAPTER 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.
422. Baptistery of Constantine. (From Isabelle.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.
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.
423. Plan of the Tomb of Sta. Costanza, Rome. (From Isabelle, ‘Édifices Circulaires.’) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.
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.
424. Plan of San Stefano Rotondo. (From Gutensohn and Knapp.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.
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.
425. Plan of Sti. Angeli, Perugia. (From Isabelle.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.
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.
426. Section of Sti. Angeli, Perugia. (From Isabelle, ‘Édifices Circulaires.’) No scale.
427. Plan of Baptistery at Nocera dei Pagani. Double the usual scale, or 50 ft. to 1 in.
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.
428. Section of Baptistery at Nocera dei Pagani. (From Isabelle, ‘Édifices Circulaires.’) No scale.