It is difficult to imagine what the church was in Theodolinda's time, as its form was altered in the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Ricci says that the antique Monza Basilica terminated at what is now the first octagon column, on which rest the remains of the primitive façade. Four columns supported the arched tribune, and the high altar was raised above the level of the church. In front was the atrium, supported by porticoes, and he thinks that the sculptures in the present façade are the old ones.
Ancient Sculpture in Monza Cathedral.
Cattaneo, the Italian authority on Lombard architecture, does not believe in the present existence of even this much of Theodolinda's church, and in disclaiming the façade, disclaims also the sculpture on it, especially the one over the door, where Agilulf and Theodolinda offer the diadem of the cross to St. John the Baptist, and are shown as wearing crowns, which the early Lombard kings did not do.[27] The figures have, it is true, the entire style of the twelfth century, when later Comacines restored the church. Cattaneo thinks that the only sculpture which can safely be dated from Theodolinda's own time, is a stone which might have been an altar frontal, on which is a rude relief of a wheel circle, emblem of Eternity, flanked by two crosses with the letters alpha and omega hanging to the arms of them. It is a significant fact that the Alpha is in the precise form of the Freemason symbol of the compasses, and in the wheel-like circle one sees the beginning of that symbol of Eternity, the unbroken line with neither end nor beginning, which the Comacines in after centuries developed into such wonderful intrecci (interlaced work). The sculpture is extremely rude; by way of enriching the relief, the artist has covered the crosses and circles with drill-holes. Now this is a most interesting link, connecting the debased Roman art with this beginning of the Christian art in the West (the early Ravenna sculptors do not count, being imported from the East). On examining any of the late Roman cameos, or intagli, or even their stone sculpture, after the fall of classical art in Hadrian's time, one may perceive the way in which the drill is constantly made use of instead of the chisel.
So these Comacine artists began with the only style of art they had been educated up to, and though retaining old traditions they had fallen out of practice, during a century or two, while invaders ravaged their country, and had to begin again with low art, little skill, and unused imagination. But with the new impulse given to art, their skill increased, they gained a wider range of imagination, greater breadth of design, going on century by century, as we shall trace, from the first solid, heavy, little structures, to the airy lightness of the florid Romanesque—the marriage of East and West.
Another chiesa graziosissima, said to have been founded by Theodolinda, was that of Santa Maria del Tiglio, near Gravedona, on the left bank of Lake Como, which Muratori says was already ancient in 823, when the old chronicler Aimoninus describes it (Aimoninus de Gestis Francorum, iv. 3). It has been much altered since that time, but as Prof. Merzario writes—"When one reflects that it was the work of a thousand years ago, and when one considers the lightness of design, the elegance of the arches, windows, columns, and colonnettes, one must perforce confess that even at that epoch Art was blossoming in the territory of Como, under the hands of the Maestri Comacini."
Theodolinda also founded the monastery of Monte Barro, near Galbiate; the church of S. Salvatore in Barzano, a little mountain church at Besano above Viggiu; that of S. Martino at Varenna; and the church, baptistery, and castle of Perleda above it; in which latter it is said she died. Queen Theodolinda was accustomed to spend the hot months of summer on the banks of the lake, and a part of the road near Perleda Castle is still called Via Regina (the Queen's road), in memory of her. King Cunibert, too, loved the banks of Como.
There is always some pretty, graceful reason in Theodolinda's church-building, very different to the reasons of many of the kings. Theirs were too often sin-offerings, built in remorse, but hers were generally thank-offerings, built in love. For instance, the church at Lomella, which she erected in memory of having first met her second husband Agilulf there.