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.
439. Chapel at Friuli. (From Gailhabaud.)
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.
440. Plan of San Antonio, Piacenza. (From Osten.[[293]]) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.[[294]]
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.