While the art of building in the East, particularly in Syria and Asia Minor, and possibly in Egypt, was still distinctly Roman, a ferment and change may be detected which cannot be matched in Rome itself. Both in construction and ornamentation there is much already at Palmyra and Baalbec that belongs to the new, and repudiates the rules of merely official art.
In Rome the dome never appears to have been finally adapted to a composite building by being directly applied to a square plan. The dome on pendentives, so far as we know, was invented and perfected entirely in the East. M. Choisy figures a building from Jerash, which may be of the third or fourth century which he considers the earliest known dome on pendentives. This building, although it is plainly early, has nothing characteristically Roman about it. A building of the same class however, recently discovered by the Palestine Exploration Society at Kusr en Nûeijîs in eastern Palestine,[330] is an ornate example of late Roman work; Ionic pilasters and carved entablature mask the outside, while within we have a perfected dome on pendentives covering a central square area, counterpoised by four barrel vaults. We agree with the Memoir that—“there can be little hesitation in ascribing this building to the second century A.D.” This building, probably a mausoleum, in adjustment of parts, and geometrical development might be a Byzantine church of three hundred years later. It is a little Sancta Sophia, and taken together with the Jerash building it makes a class invaluable as a fixed point to work from.[331] This however like most Syrian buildings is of stone.
A church at Koja Kalessi in Isauria,[332] [Fig. 31], which there is a great reason to suppose of early fifth century work, furnishes an important link. We have here an approximation of the square domed building to the columned basilica which is most interesting. This church is substantially complete with women’s galleries opening to the nave by a second tier of arcades just as at S. Sophia.
Fig. 31.—Plan of a Church in Isauria.
Fig. 32.—Church of the Trinity, Ephesus.
The next building we should place in the sequence is the church of the Trinity at Ephesus of which Hübsch, Wood and Choisy give plans. The former furnishes a restoration, and speaks of it as probably one of the earliest of Christian churches, but there is no reason to suppose it earlier than the beginning of the fifth century. Choisy speaks of it as a curious monument of transition already Byzantine in structure. Before seeing Hübsch’s restoration, we had placed an arcade in the lateral arches, agreeing in every respect with his suggestions; and that this was the original form is strongly confirmed by the next church—as it seems to us—in the development. This is the church of S. Sophia at Salonica, which has long been assigned to Justinian’s reign at a time subsequent to the erection of S. Sophia, but is now thought to belong to the fifth century. M. Petros Papageorgios in the Hestia[333] of Athens for October 3rd and November 14th 1893, gives the mosaic inscription of this church, which he thinks definitely fixes its decoration in the year 495.[334]
Fig. 33.—Church of S. Sophia, Salonica. Scale about forty-five feet to an inch, for three plans.