A few ancient circular or polygonal churches remain which do not appear to have been built as baptisteries. One of these is at Rome, the church of San Stefano Rotondo; but another, more remarkable in every way, is at Ravenna, the church of San Vitale. This is an octagonal building, with a large vestibule and a small apsidal choir. The central portion, carried by eight arches springing from as many lofty and solid piers, and surmounted by a hemispherical dome, rises high above the aisle which surrounds it. Much elegance is produced by the arrangement of smaller columns so as to form a kind of apsidal recess in each of the interspaces between the eight main piers.
Another feature which has become thoroughly identified with church architecture is the bell-tower, or campanile. This appendage, there can be no doubt, originated with the basilicas of Italy. The use of bells as a call to prayer is said to have been introduced not later, at any rate, than the sixth century, and to this era is attributed a circular campanile belonging to Sant’ Apollinare in Classe at Ravenna, a basilica already alluded to. The circular plan was, however, exceptional; the ancient campaniles remaining in Rome are all square; they are usually built of brick, many stories in height, and with a group of arched openings in each story, and are generally surmounted by a low conical roof.
The type of church which we have described influenced church architecture in Italy down to the eleventh century, and such buildings as the beautiful church (Fig. [155]) of San Miniato, near Florence (A.D. 1013), and the renowned group of Cathedral, Baptistery, Campanile, and Campo Santo (a kind of cloistered cemetery) at Pisa, bear a very strong resemblance in many respects to these originals; though they belong rather to the Romanesque than to the Basilican division of early Christian architecture.
FOOTNOTE:
[28] ‘Gothic and Renaissance Architecture,’ chap. ii. p. 6.
Fig. 158a.—Frieze from the Monastery at Fulda.