458. San Tomaso. (From Isabelle, ‘Édifices Circulaires.’) Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.
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 After this period the circular shape was so completely superseded by the rectangular, that no further improvement took place in it.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]]