326. Tomb at Hass
Besides these, there is another class of tomb apparently very numerous, in which the sepulchral chamber is below the ground, with vaulted entrance rising to form a podium on which columns either two or four in number are erected;[[232]] in the latter case the columns bearing an entablature with small pyramidal roof; in the former a fragment of architrave only, the two columns being sometimes tied together one-third of the way down by a stone band with dentils carved on it: these tombs are, many of them, dated, and belong to the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
With our present limits it is only possible to characterize generally the main features of the Byzantine style, and to indicate the sources from which further information may be obtained. In the present instance it is satisfactory to find that ample materials now exist for filling up a framework which a few years ago was almost entirely a blank. Any one who will master the works of De Vogüé, or Texier, or Salzenberg, and other minor publications, may easily acquire a fair knowledge of the older Byzantine style of architecture. Once it is grasped it will probably be acknowledged that there are few more interesting chapters than that which explains how a perfect Christian Church like that of Sta. Sophia was elaborated out of the classical edifices of ancient Rome. It will also probably be found that there are few more instructive lessons to be learnt from the study of architectural history than the tracing of the various contrivances which were so earnestly employed, during the first two centuries of Christian supremacy, in attaining this result.
CHAPTER IV.
NEO-BYZANTINE STYLE.
CONTENTS.
Sta. Irene, Constantinople—Churches at Ancyra, Trabala, and Constantinople—Churches at Thessalonica and in Greece—Domestic Architecture.
Santa Sophia at Constantinople was not only the grandest and most perfect creation of the old school of Byzantine art, but it was also the last. It seems as if the creative power of the Empire had exhausted itself in that great effort, and for long after it the history is a blank. We always knew that the two centuries which elapsed between the ages of Constantine and Justinian were ages of great architectural activity. We knew that hundreds, it may be thousands, of churches were erected during that period. With the two subsequent centuries, however, the case seems widely different. Shortly after Justinian’s death, the troubles of the Empire, the Persian wars of Heraclius, and, more than either, the rise of the Mahomedan power in the East, and of the Roman pontificate under Gregory the Great in the West—all tended so to disturb and depress the Byzantine kingdom as to leave little leisure and less means for the exercise of architectural magnificence. It is therefore hardly probable that we shall ever be in a position to illustrate the 7th and 8th centuries as we now know we can the 5th and 6th. Still, building must have gone on, because when we again meet the style, it is changed. One of the very earliest churches of the new school is that of Sta. Irene at Constantinople, rebuilt as we now find it by Leo the Isaurian (A.D. 718-740). It differs in several essential particulars from the old style, and contains the germ of much that we find frequently repeated. The change is not so great as might have taken place in two centuries of building activity, but it is considerable. In this church we find, apparently for the first time in a complete form, the new mode of introducing the light to the dome through a perpendicular drum, which afterwards became so universal that it serves to fix the age of a building in the East with almost as much certainty as the presence of a pointed arch does that of a building in the West. As this invention is so important, it may be well to recapitulate the steps by which it was arrived at.
327. Half Section, half Elevation, of Dome of Sta. Irene at Constantinople.
The oldest mode of lighting a dome is practised in the Pantheon (Woodcut No. [191]), by simply leaving out the central portion. Artistically and mechanically nothing could be better, but before the invention of glass it was intolerably inconvenient whenever much rain or snow fell. A change therefore was necessary, and it is found in the tomb or temple of Marcellus, built during the reign of Constantine on the Via Prenestina at Rome. It consists simply of boring four circular holes through the dome a little above its springing. The next step is seen at Thessalonica in the church of St. George (Woodcut No. [305]). There eight semi-circular lunettes are pierced in the dome, at its springing, and answer the purpose very perfectly. The system culminated in Sta. Sophia, where forty windows introduce a flood of light without its ever falling on the eyes of the spectator. After this it seems to have been considered desirable not to break the hemisphere of the dome, but to place the windows in a perpendicular circular rim of masonry—called the drum—and to introduce the light always through that. Externally there can be no doubt but that this was an improvement; it gave height and dignity to the dome in small churches, where, without this elevation, the feature would have been lost. Internally, however, the advantage is problematical: the separation of the dome from its pendentives destroyed the continuity of the roof, and introduced the stilted effect so objectionable in Renaissance domes. In the Neo-Byzantine churches the dome became practically a skylight on the roof, the drum increasing in height and the dome diminishing in dignity as the style progressed. As all the churches are small, the feature is unobjectionable; but in larger edifices it would have been found difficult to construct it, and the artistic result would hardly have been pleasing, even had this difficulty been got over. Be this as it may, its value as a chronometric landmark is undoubted.