Pope Adrian I. followed the example of his imperial ally, by restoring several churches, to do which he had to ask Charlemagne for the builders of the guild under his protection; a proof that no Collegio existed in Rome at that time. Among these churches, one of the most interesting was that of S. Agnese fuori le Mura, a beautiful round-arched Basilica, built by Constantine in 324. As it now stands, it is so far below the level of the ground that there is a long descent of forty-five wide marble steps, to reach the vestibule of the church. The Basilica itself is extremely interesting, as it remains in its original eighth-century form, as Pope Adrian I. restored it in 775. The plan is a pure and simple Comacine Basilica, with its nave and two aisles, circular tribune and an upper gallery, with the cochleus or spiral staircase leading to it all complete.
The columns of the nave seem to have been taken from an ancient Roman building. The capitals are all classical except the four nearest the tribune, which are quite Comacine, with their simple upright volutes. But the building space being limited, the extremely tall columns had to be placed in such close juxtaposition, that the round arches between them are diminished out of all harmonic proportion. The triforium gallery, having shorter columns, gives a more pleasing effect.
The spiral staircase leading to this is cut in the thickness of a pilaster. The mosaics in the tribune are the original ones of Pope Honorius' time, and of Byzantine style; the decorative paintings over the whole church are mere modern frescoes.
But that the sculpturesque decorations were done by the Comacines, and not by the Greek mosaicists, is suggested by several remains of the ancient decorations of the church, which are preserved on the walls of the stairway descending to it. Here is a pluteus, or stone panel, probably from the front of the ancient tribune, and it is a beautiful intreccio precisely like the ones at S. Clemente. Two other panels of the same parapet are of Roman design. One might imagine that the Lombard architect copied them from the inner roof of the Arch of Titus. Probably the guild, being of Roman origin, kept all these classical decorative designs in its laborerium.
Now and then, in the ages following Adrian, we find a large-minded Pope, who gave his thoughts to restoring the beauties of Rome: such as Leo III. (796), Leo IV. (845), Innocent III. (1178), Nicholas III. (1277), and Boniface VIII. (1294). This latter was the Pope who consecrated the Duomo of Florence.
Apse of the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, on the Cœlian Hill, Rome.
(From a photograph by Alinari.)
The great Lombard Masonic Guild being under the especial protection of the Popes, we should expect to see its members employed in the mediæval buildings of Rome. And truly, after Adrian's time, here they are. Hope, Schmarzow, Ricci, and Boito, besides other writers, have all decided that the ancient cloisters of San Lorenzo—built under Honorius III. in the beginning of the thirteenth century—as well as the primitive churches of St. Peter, S. John Lateran, and S. Lorenzo, were all early Comacine work; and that the exquisite cloister of S. John Lateran, and the churches of S. Paolo fuori le Mura, Ara Cœli, San Giovanni e Paolo, S. Maria sopra Minerva, etc., are all equally Lombard churches of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Several friezes and inscriptions go to prove the truth of this, besides those eloquent lions that crouch beneath the columns in the cloister of S. John Lateran and other places.