The Church of San Grisogono is another of these basilican churches, supposed to have been erected at the time of St. Sylvester, but more certainly restored by Gregory the Third, about 740. This also has three naves supported on twenty-two columns of oriental granite, not all alike, yet without any very striking differences. Two of porphyry support the great arch, and four of alabaster adorn the altar; but all this is nothing at Rome. The granite columns sustain an entablature, and above the entablature is a wall, with straight-headed windows, and a flat, panelled and gilt ceiling, the only sort consistent with the arrangement below.
The Church of the Quattro Santi Coronati, is supposed to be of the fourth century, but rebuilt in the seventh by Honorius the First. One never knows how much is to be understood by this rebuilding, and there is so little difference of style in the early churches, that the architecture furnishes little or no assistance. If indeed each building were a complete creation of the period to which it chiefly belongs, some judgment might be formed, but they are all alike made up of the fragments of better times; nor will the date of the latest fragment determine that of the mass of building, as it may have been inserted in some of those alterations to which all have been subject. In common with the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, this of the Quattro Coronati has the apsis greater than the width of the nave; and in this instance it is larger than in the former, occupying nearly the whole width of the church; there are, I believe, no other examples of such an arrangement. Like St. Agnes, the side aisles are of two stories. Here are granite and marble columns in the court, as well as in the church, but walled up; and neither inside nor out has it much pretension to beauty; but the whole mass of building, including the annexed convent, from its situation on the brow of the Cœlian hill, and from its size, forms a fine picturesque object in some points of view, especially on the side towards the Coliseum. Here is a tesselated pavement, with fragments of inscriptions, and vases of granite and porphyry; but we pass over without notice at Rome, things which would be thought to merit whole volumes anywhere else.
The last of these basilican churches having transepts, or at least a wide open space before the altar, which I shall mention, is that of San Pietro in Vincolis. You know that when St. Leo compared together two chains, with one of which Peter had been bound by Herod at Jerusalem, and with the other in the Mamertine prison at Rome, the links united and formed a single chain; to preserve which chain, and in commemoration of the prodigy, St. Leo, in 442, built the present church. It has had many alterations and embellishments, but probably retains the original form, and the singular Doric columns of marmo greco, which at present sustain the nave. The restorations have been ill managed, the columns support arches, and at some distance is a cornice, which is cut by the windows; both nave and side aisles are vaulted, the former with an elliptical arch. The columns themselves are not handsome, being of a very ill understood Greek Doric; so that in spite of its ranges of twenty similar columns, and its correct arrangement, no person seems to admire the building. Opposite the side aisles are two smaller semicircular recesses, differing only in size from the apsis. This disposition occurs also in one or two other instances, but I think the square end to the aisles is preferable.
I must not leave San Pietro in Vincolis without mentioning to you the monument of Julius II. and the famous figure of Moses. The architecture of this sepulchre is very bad, and the figure of Julius himself unnaturally and ungracefully twisted. Religion is a beautiful figure, but the attitude is rather awkward, and the opposite figure is also good, though somewhat clumsy in its proportions. These were by Raphael di Monte Lupo. The whole design is attributed to Michael Angelo Buonarotti, but the colossal Moses alone was executed by him. He is represented sitting, and seems severely reproving the people for their idolatry. The attitude and expression have too much consequence to possess real dignity; the whole figure as well as the head expresses a wish to impose, in the French sense of the word; and the muscles, for a state of bodily rest, appear overcharged. Milizia says, it has the head of a satyr, but if so, it is a satyr of royal breed. He reproaches it with the hairs of a hog, which is not just, for the exuberant beard is of the finest and softest texture. It is a fine, a very fine statue, but it has been praised as a sculpture of the first class, whence its want of simplicity and graceful nature, must for ever exclude it; but in the subordinate excellences of strong character and expression, and anatomical truth, it will hold a high rank. I now come to those churches, which resembling basilicas in many respects, are without any indication of a transept in their original disposition; and the two first of these which I shall mention, differ in some respects from all the rest, and are certainly the most interesting monuments of the lower empire, which exist in the neighbourhood of Rome (for they are both out of the city), I mean the churches of Santa Agnese, and San Lorenzo, fuori delle mura. The first of these is supposed to have been built by Constantine. We enter it by a descending flight of forty-eight steps. Numerous inscriptions are placed in the walls of this staircase. The central part of the church is a parallelogram, surrounded by two stories of columns on three sides, and having an apsis at the extremity, whose height is about equal to the width of the nave, and between this and the roof, is a space about equal in height to one fourth of that width. The ceiling is flat, the disposition and proportions are highly beautiful, and so are many of the columns. Some of these are of pavonazzo, two of granite, two of porta santa, that is, of the same marble as that employed in the Porta Santa at St. Peter’s. One of them has an ogee introduced on each side of each flute, of which there are twenty, giving a confused appearance of a hundred and forty flutes. The upper columns are of similar materials to those below, and some of the capitals are very Greek in their foliage. One or two are of a reddish marble, not polished, perhaps the rosso antico, which shows its colour very imperfectly in a rough state.
It has been said that the columns at the end, as well as at the side, and the double stories of aisles, give this church a peculiar resemblance to the ancient basilicas; yet neither of these circumstances are found in St. Paul’s, in the ancient St. Peter’s, or in St. John Lateran, all of which, as we are assured, were built precisely upon that model. I suppose nevertheless, that the comparison is correct, since it is thus exemplified at Pompei, and Vitruvius indicates two stories on the sides of a basilica, and makes no mention of any thing like a transept, unless the chalcidicum be considered as one.
At a very little distance from this church is a circular building, which has had the name of a Temple of Bacchus, on the very equivocal evidence of a sarcophagus of porphyry sculptured with the vine, now removed to the Vatican, and of some mosaics on the walls, relating also to the vintage. Other writers maintain that it was a baptistery erected by Constantine for the baptism of his sister and daughter, who are said also to have been buried here. The account is not improbable, as we have many instances of ancient baptisteries of this form, but some uncertainty seems to be thrown upon it, by its occupying a distinguished and symmetrical position, in a large oblong area, circular at one end, or perhaps at both, which has been called a Hippodrome, and which does not seem exactly suitable for a mere court to this building. All the external ornaments have disappeared; internally, we have a dome resting on twenty-four columns, which are placed in pairs on the radii of the circle, and surrounded by an aisle. Twenty of these columns are of gray granite, and four of red. The capitals are Composite, not very good, but evidently, as well as the columns, the spoils of some more ancient building, except one or two, which serve to shew the incompetency of the artists of the time of Constantine. The columns support a clumsy entablature, from which spring the arches; at a considerable space above these, is the dome. The effect is not good, but I do not think we can conclude any thing from it against this mode of arrangement, though the management of the radiating vaults supported on the columns, and larger externally than towards the centre, will always be a great difficulty. The columns here are too small, and too far apart, and not beautiful in themselves, nor in their bases and capitals. In adopting such a disposition, the detached entablatures are certainly to be rejected, and the small arches should spring, either from a mere architrave, or immediately from the capitals; and it is probably better to make the dome spring from the same point without any intervening drum, and to let the arches groin into it.
The Church of San Lorenzo was originally built by Galla Placidia, but restored from the foundations by Pelagius the Second, before 590. This church, whether of Pelagius or of Galla Placidia, was similar in form to that of St. Agnes, which I have already described to you, but Adrian the First, about 772, stopped up the old doorway, and took down the tribune, to join the old building to a new nave which he erected; thus completely reversing the church, and placing the altar before the ancient entrance. To this period I believe we are to refer the porch, though that may have been something later, as its frieze, with circles of mosaic work, nearly accords with that of the cloisters of St. John Lateran, and St. Paul; but the cornice, which consists of only a Welsh ogee, is rather in a singular style; and the ornaments, composed of bulls’ heads and palm trees, though not beautiful, are deeply and cleanly cut. The bases are Corinthian, and all alike. The capitals also are all of the same form, but they are badly worked, while the shafts are well executed. The nave has on each side eleven columns of Egyptian and oriental granite and cipollino, with Ionic capitals, differing in size, drawing, and workmanship. Pliny relates that Saurus and Batrachus, two Spartan architects, were employed by the Romans in the time of Augustus, to erect a temple, and not being permitted to inscribe their names on the building, they sculptured a lizard and a frog (which in Greek are called by the same names as these architects) on one of the capitals, to commemorate their exertions. On a capital in this nave, we find these animals engraved. The style of ornament and execution found in them, indicates rather the period of the erection of the porch, with which it nearly corresponds, than the time alluded to by Pliny; but the coincidence is remarkable.
The most interesting, as well as the most ancient part, is the present choir, where we have ten ancient columns of considerable size, and very beautiful workmanship; though the excellence of the proportion is not now easily perceived, as a considerable part of them is buried. Two of these are of Greek marble, with Composite capitals; the rest are of a white veined marble, with beautiful Corinthian capitals. The latter perhaps formed part of the peristyle of an ancient temple, and are still in their original places. The entablature is made up of fragments, among which we trace pieces of a door jamb with a rich and bold scroll; but the finest are parts of a small frieze, and they are very beautiful, but there is not the most trifling fragment corresponding with the columns. In the gallery above, there are twelve smaller columns, also antique.
From this church is an entrance to extensive Catacombs. I did not enter them, for one thing of the sort is enough; and I had visited those at St. Sebastian.
We will now proceed to some other churches, which, though likewise called basilicas, have neither originally had a transept, nor yet two stories of side aisles. Of these, by far the largest and most magnificent is that of Santa Maria Maggiore, which indeed in every respect is one of the finest churches in the world, both for the beauty of design, and the perfection of materials. The outside however, which is a work of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, does not deserve this praise; and it is remarkable, that in all the experiments the Romans have made in architecture, and the magnificence with which they have executed their undertakings, they have never hit even upon a moderately good design for the outside of a church. The front is contemptible; the back erected under the direction of Rainaldi, has considerable merit, and the character of a public building, but not of a church; but I am running into description before I have given you any sketch of the history of the edifice.