Fig. 432.—Section, St. Vitale, Ravenna. (From Fergusson.)
of Justinian himself. It established itself equally at Ravenna; indeed, as we have seen in the baptistery there, as well as in the tomb of Galla Placidia, it, in an early form, preceded those at Constantinople itself. Its great effort, however, there, was the Church of San Vitale, erected by Justinian and Theodora ([Fig. 431]). This church was evidently imitated more or less from the Temple of Minerva Medica, though whether directly or through that of SS. Sergius and Bacchus at Constantinople can hardly be judged. It is a grand octagon, with a spacious surrounding aisle of double height ([Fig. 432]). Seven of its sides have the same circular niches projecting from them that we find in the temple (as well as in the Church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus), only they are arcaded and carried out with purely Byzantine details. The aisles are of two storeys, united behind a lofty arcade. This is surmounted by a clerestory, encroaching to a certain degree upon the dome. This, however, is not pendentive. It is covered externally by a roof. It has undergone much modernisation, but retains its general form and a good deal of its ancient decorations, which show it to have been treated much as St. Sophia, with which it was contemporary. The church is the more interesting from having been the type followed three centuries later by Charlemagne in his famous church at Aix-la-Chapelle ([Fig. 433]).
The manner in which the dome was introduced and adopted in Italy during these ages, was so diverse in its results as to cause it to be very perplexing to chronicle it in any clear consecutive order. There were, in fact, two distinct influences, both occasionally leading to its adoption.
Plan and Section,
Fig. 433.—Church at Aix-la-Chapelle.
At Rome, and in places under Roman influence, such examples as the Pantheon could not fail to have their effect on the subsequent architecture, and we accordingly find there numerous scions of this primeval family, while, as we have just seen, the purely Byzantine form was simultaneously introduced by way of Ravenna, and later on was planted at Venice.
Through this twofold influence the dome became very frequent throughout Italy. It was carried, as we have seen, by Charles the Great, from Ravenna to Aix-la-Chapelle, and, later on, was carried forward from Lombardy, under the first three Othos, across the Alps, down the valley of the Rhine, and far into the interior of Germany. Only a few years later it was conveyed from Venice into the interior of the south-west of France, whence it spread throughout an extensive district stretching eastward into Auvergne, and even as far as Lyons, and northward to the banks of the Loire, where, to this day, the effigies of our early Plantagenet kings lie beneath a series of pendentive domes almost as perfect as if at Constantinople.
I will not dwell at much length on the domes which were derived from purely Roman traditions, because they, for the most part, suggest no new type or development.