Theodolinda also built a church to S. Julia at Bonate, near Val San Martino, in the diocese of Bergamo; but in these days not much sign is left of it. The author of the Antichità Long. Mil. (Dissertation I., p. 120) says that Mario Lupo has published the plan and section of the church in his Codice diplomatico (T. I., p. 204), together with another, still more magnificent, of almost the same date. It is dedicated to S. Tommaso, and stands near the river Brembo, at Lemine in the same diocese. "This church," says the monk who wrote the Antichità, etc., "still exists (in 1792), and is of circular form, with inferior and superior porticati in the interior, recalling the design of the ancient church of S. Vitale at Ravenna." Lupo describes it even in its ruin as an "admirable temple, whose equal, whether for size, solidity, or elegance, can scarcely be found in Lombardy. Its perimeter," he says, "may be traced among the thorns and briars of the surrounding woods, and its form and size may thus be perceived. The ruins confirm the assertion of the splendour of buildings in Queen Theodolinda's time, and show that in the beginning of the seventh century architecture was not so rude as has been supposed, and that besides solidity of structure, it preserved a just proportion and harmony of parts, excepting perhaps in the extreme lightness and inequality of the columns."
We read much in ancient authors of Queen Theodolinda's palace, with its paintings on the walls, representing Alboin and his wild hordes of Longobards, with their many-coloured garments, loose hosen, and long beards. We can believe that these paintings were as rude and mediæval as their sculpture, whether they were done by savage Longobards or decayed Romano-Comacine artists. They prove, however, that painting was one of the branches of art in the guild.
King Agilulf also employed the architects; but it was in a more military style of architecture—to build castles and bridges. The castle of Branigola dates from his reign, as does the fine bridge over the Brembo, and another over the Breggia, between Cernobbio and Borgovico, near Como. He is also accredited with the building of the Palazzo della Torre at Turin, with its two octangular towers, and mixed brick and stone solid architecture. In all these works the builders, as in modern times, seem to have sometimes lost their lives. So much so that King Rotharis, A.D. 636, made, as we have seen, special laws on the subject.
Gundeberg, the daughter of Theodolinda, had a similar fate to her mother in being the wife of two successive kings (Ariold and Rotharis). She also imitated her in church-building. The church of S. Giovanni in Borgo at Pavia, was erected by her.[28] It is said that after S. Michele this was the finest building of the age. It had a nave and two aisles, with a gallery over the arches. The apse had the external colonnade, and practicable gallery, and the octagonal dome. The façade, as usual, was divided into three parts, and was rich in symbolical friezes. Half-way up the façade was an ambulatory, on six double arches and small columns, which communicated with the internal galleries for the women. This was reached by two spiral stairways cut in the pilasters of the façade. (In reading this we seem to be reading over again the description of Hexham in England.) The lower half of the façade was of sandstone, the upper half of brick adorned "a cacabus," i.e. inlaid with various convex plates in different-coloured smalto.[29] It is a great pity that this interesting church was destroyed in 1811, and its symbolic reliefs and carved stones ruthlessly used in the foundation of modern buildings. Some were, however, saved by a nobleman of Pavia, Don Galeazzo Vitali, and are preserved in his villa between Lodi and Pavia. Here, on May 13, 1828, the Signori Sacchi[30] went to see them, and found many valuable specimens of Comacine symbolical art. Here are square slabs which may have been parts of friezes or plutei (panels of marble), covered with interlaced work, formed of entwining vines, or even serpents; sometimes a simple cord in mystic and continuous knots, precisely similar to the ones recently discovered in S. Agnese and S. Clemente at Rome. There were several capitals of columns and pilasters with significant grotesques, such as a man between two lions; a maze of vines with a satyr in them, possibly an emblem of Christianity which constrains and civilizes even the wildest natures; two armed warriors on horseback meeting in battle, figuring the Church militant. (There is a similar capital in S. Stefano at Pavia.) In one, two hippogriffs meet at the angles; in another, two dragons with tails intertwined are biting a man between them placed at the angle. (The same emblem of the strife with sin is represented in S. Pietro of the "golden roof.") One is a curious symbol which would seem to be a remnant of paganism, and represents the fish goddess of Eastern religions. A woman, with only a fig-leaf for dress, has a double tail instead of legs. She holds the two ends of this dual tail, while serpents coiling into it suck her breasts—a very mystic conception of Eve. There is a very remarkable round mass of stone, with a toothed circle carved on each side, and in the circles a cross. It is said by Muratori that this stone was placed high up over the altar so that all worshippers should behold the cross.
A singular ancient Pavian custom was connected with this church. Once a year a kind of fair was held there, at which nothing was sold but rings, and no one was allowed to buy them except children and unmarried women. It is thought that the custom was begun by Gundeberg herself in commemoration of the gift of three rings, one with a pearl, and two with jacinth stones, from Gregory the Great.[31] His letter of congratulation to Theodolinda on the baptism of her little son Adaloald is still existing. He says "he sends some gifts for her boy, and three rings for her young daughter Gundeberg." Possibly the gift of the Pope was placed in the treasury of the church, and commemorated at first by the sale of blessed amulets in the form of rings, but which afterwards degenerated into a fair. The custom lasted till 1669.
Industries of all kinds seem to have flourished under the Longobards; and the Popes of Rome and other sovereigns made frequent use of Lombard artificers. A letter from Gregory to Arichi, Duke of Lombardy, dated 596, asks him to send workmen and oxen to Brescia, to cut down and cart to Rome some trees for beams in the church of SS. Peter and Paul, promising him in return a dono che non sarà indegno di voi (a gift not unworthy of you).[32]
In A.D. 600, Cacanus, King of the Avari (Huns), sent to Agilulf for marine architects and workmen to build the boats with which Cacanus took a certain island in Thrace.[33]
As for the Comacine Masters at home, they had plenty of church-building.
The seventh and eighth centuries were times of great devotion to the Church, and consequently a great church-building era. King Luitprand realized this so strongly that he added to the laws of Rotharis, a clause permitting his subjects to make legacies to the Church pro remedio animæ suæ; a law, by the way, which was not always healthy in its action; for it permitted the evil-disposed to indulge in crimes during their lifetime, and then, by defrauding their natural heirs of their inheritance, to secure, as they believed, their souls against eternal punishment, by leaving funds for building a church or a monastery.