Fig. 430.—Plan and Section, St. Nicodemus, Athens.
Among the churches of that city we find one type of great elegance, the Church of St. Nicodemus ([Fig. 430]), in which the dome occupies the width of what we should call the nave and its aisles; each side of the square over which it stands being divided into three unequal arches, over which it rises on a lofty drum, and is carried on eight pendentives. This forms a most elegant interior, susceptible of many varieties; and, from the spacious central space which it affords, seems the most valuable type on which to found a domed design for a modern church.
It would, however, be endless to enumerate the varied forms of domed churches in the East, though, with all their varieties, they may usually be reduced to a few elementary types. If you desire to study them, I would recommend to you Salzenberg’s Old Christian Architecture at Constantinople, Couchaud’s Byzantine Churches in Greece, and Texier and Pullan’s Byzantine Architecture.
It is not, however, in the East alone, that the Byzantine dome is to be found, even in its earliest days—those
Fig 431.—Plan, St. Vitale, Ravenna. (From Fergusson.)
