Transcriber's Note:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original document have been preserved.

The anchor for [Footnote 11] is missing in the text. Its location has been approximated.

The reference to Hexham church on page [157] is a possible typo.

The comma in the Roman numeral on page [204] is a possible typo.

Schmarzow on pages [230] and [405] should possibly be Schmarsow.

The index entry to Giovanni Buoni da Bissone points to entries for both Buoni and Bono, and Bissone and Bissoni.

THE CATHEDRAL BUILDERS

Cloister of S. John Lateran, Rome, 12th century.
(From a photograph by Alinari.)

Frontispiece
[See page 66.]

THE
CATHEDRAL BUILDERS

THE STORY OF A GREAT MASONIC GUILD

BY LEADER SCOTT

Honorary Member of the 'Accademia delle Belle Arti,' Florence

Author of 'The Renaissance of Art in Italy,' 'Handbook of Sculpture,' 'Echoes of Old Florence,' etc.

With Eighty-three Illustrations

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
153-157 Fifth Avenue

1899

Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
London & Bungay.

PROEM

In most histories of Italian art we are conscious of a vast hiatus of several centuries, between the ancient classic art of Rome—which was in its decadence when the Western Empire ceased in the fifth century after Christ—and that early rise of art in the twelfth century which led to the Renaissance.

This hiatus is generally supposed to be a time when Art was utterly dead and buried, its corpse in Byzantine dress lying embalmed in its tomb at Ravenna. But all death is nothing but the germ of new life. Art was not a corpse, it was only a seed, laid in Italian soil to germinate, and it bore several plants before the great reflowering period of the Renaissance.

The seed sown by the Classic schools formed the link between them and the Renaissance, just as the Romance Languages of Provence and Languedoc form the link between the dying out of the classic Latin and the rise of modern languages.

Now where are we to look for this link?

In language we find it just between the Roman and Gallic Empires.

In Art it seems also to be on that borderland—Lombardy—where the Magistri Comacini, a mediæval Guild of Liberi Muratori (Freemasons), kept alive in their traditions the seed of classic art, slowly training it through Romanesque forms up to the Gothic, and hence to the full Renaissance. It is a significant coincidence that this obscure link in Art, like the link-languages, is styled by many writers Provençal or Romance style, for the Gothic influence spread in France even before it expanded so gloriously in Germany.

I think if we study these obscure Comacine Masters we shall find that they form a firm, perfect, and consistent link between the old and the new, filling completely that ugly gap in the History of Art. So fully that all the different Italian styles, whose names are legion—being Lombard-Byzantine at Ravenna and Venice, Romanesque at Pisa and Lucca, Lombard-Gothic at Milan, Norman-Saracen in Sicily and the south,—are nothing more than the different developments in differing climates and ages, of the art of one powerful guild of sculptor-builders, who nursed the seed of Roman art on the border-land of the falling Roman Empire, and spread the growth in far-off countries.

We shall see that all that was architecturally good in Italy during the dark centuries between 500 and 1200 A.D. was due to the Comacine Masters, or to their influence. To them can be traced the building of those fine Lombard Basilicas of S. Ambrogio at Milan, Theodolinda's church at Monza, S. Fedele at Como, San Michele at Pavia, and San Vitale at Ravenna; as well as the florid cathedrals of Pisa, Lucca, Milan, Arezzo, Brescia, etc. Their hand was in the grand Basilicas of S. Agnese, S. Lorenzo, S. Clemente, and others in Rome, and in the wondrous cloisters and aisles of Monreale and Palermo.

Through them architecture and sculpture were carried into foreign lands, France, Spain, Germany, and England, and there developed into new and varied styles according to the exigencies of the climate, and the tone of the people. The flat roofs, horizontal architraves, and low arches of the Romanesque, which suited a warm climate, gradually changed as they went northward into the pointed arches and sharp gables of the Gothic; the steep sloping lines being a necessity in a land where snow and rain were frequent.

But however the architecture developed in after times, it was the Comacine Masters who carried the classic germs and planted them in foreign soils; it was the brethren of the Liberi Muratori who, from their head-quarters at Como, were sent by Gregory the Great to England with Saint Augustine, to build churches for his converts; by Gregory II. to Germany with Boniface on a similar mission; and were by Charlemagne taken to France to build his church at Aix-la-Chapelle, the prototype of French Gothic.

How and why such a powerful and influential guild seemed to spring from a little island in Lake Como, and how their world-wide reputation grew, the following scraps of history, borrowed from many an ancient source, will, I hope, explain.

It is strange that Art historians hitherto have made so little of the Comacine Masters. I do not think that Cattaneo mentions them at all. Hope, although divining a universal Masonic Guild, enlarges on all their work as Lombard; Fergusson disposes of them in a single unimportant sentence; and Symonds is not much more diffuse; while Marchese Ricci gives them the credit of the early Lombard work and no more. I was led at length to a closer study of them by the two ponderous tomes on the Maestri Comacini[1] by Professor Merzario, who has got together a huge amount of material from old writers, old deeds, and old stones. But valuable as the material is, Merzario is bewildering in his redundancy, confusing in his arrangement, and not sufficiently clear in his deductions, his chief aim being to show how many famous artists came from Lombardy.

I wrote to ask Signor Merzario if I might associate his name with mine in preparing a work for the English public, in which his research would furnish me with so much that is valuable to the history of art, but to my regret I found he had died since the book was written, so I never received his permission; though his publisher was very kind in permitting me to use the book as a chief work of reference. With Merzario I have collated many other recognized authorities on architecture and archæology, besides archivial documents, and old chronicles. I have tried to make some slight chronological arrangement, and some intelligible lists of the names of the Masters at different eras. The researches of the great archivist Milanesi in his Documenti per la Storia dell' Arte Senese, and Cesare Guasti in his lately published collection of documents relating to the building of the Duomo of Florence, have been of immense service in throwing a light on the organization of the Lodges and their government. All that Signor Merzario dimly guessed from the more fragmentary earlier records of Parma, Modena, and Verona, shines out clear and well-defined under the fuller light of these later records, and helps us to read many a dark saying of the older times.

My thanks for much kind assistance in supplying me with facts or authorities, are due to the Rev. Canonico Pietro Tonarelli of Parma cathedral; the Rev. Vincenzo Rossi, Priore of Settignano; Commendatore John Temple Leader of Florence; and to my brother, the Rev. William Miles Barnes, Rector of Monkton, who has written the "English link" for me. Acknowledgments are also due to Signor Alinari and Signor Brogi of Florence, and to Signor Ongania of Venice, for permitting the use of their photographs as illustrations.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

BOOK I
ROMANO-LOMBARD ARCHITECTS

THE CATHEDRAL BUILDERS

CHAPTER I
THE GUILD OF THE COMACINE MASTERS

In looking back to the great church-building era, i.e. to the centuries between 1100 and 1500, do not the questions arise in one's mind, "How did all these great and noble buildings spring up simultaneously in all countries and all climates?" and "How comes it that in all cases they were similar to each other at similar times?"

In the twelfth century, when the Italian buildings, such as the churches at Verona, Bergamo, Como, etc., were built with round arches, the German Domkirchen at Bonn, Mayence, Treves, Lubeck, Freiburg, etc.; the French churches at Aix, Tournus, Caen, Dijon, etc.; and the English cathedrals at Canterbury, Bristol, Chichester, St. Bartholomew's in London—in fact, all those built at the same time—were not only round-arched, but had an almost identical style, and that style was Lombard.

In the thirteenth century, when pointed arches mingled with the round in Italy, the same mixture is found contemporaneously in all the other countries.

Again in the fourteenth century, when Cologne, Strasburg, and Magdeburg cathedrals were built in pure Gothic; then those of Westminster, York, Salisbury, etc., arose in England; the Domes of Milan, Assisi, and Florence in Italy; and the churches of Beauvais, Laon, and Rouen in France. These all came, almost simultaneously, like sister buildings with one impronto on them all.

Is it likely that many single architects in different countries would have had the same ideas at the same time? Could any single architect, indeed, have designed every detail of even one of those marvellous complex buildings? or have executed or modelled one-tenth of the wealth of sculpture lavished on one of those glorious cathedrals? I think not.

The existence of one of these churches argues a plurality of workers under one governing influence; the existence of them all argues a huge universal brotherhood of architects and sculptors with different branches in each country, and the same aims, technique, knowledge and principles permeating through all, while each conforms in detail to local influences and national taste.

If we once realize that such a Guild must have existed, and that under the united hands of the grand brotherhood, the great age of church-building was endowed with monuments which have been the glory of all ages, then much that has been obscure in Art History becomes clear; and what was before a marvel is now shown to be a natural result.

There is another point also to be considered. The great age of church-building flourished at a time when other arts and commerce were but just beginning. Whence, out of the dark ages, sprang the skill and knowledge to build such fine and sculpturesque edifices, when other trades were in their infancy, and civic and communal life scarcely organized?

It is indeed a subject of wonder how the artists of the early period of the rise of Art were trained. Here we find men almost in the dark ages, who were the most splendid architects, and at the same time sculptors, painters, and even poets. How, for instance, did Giotto, a boy taken from the sheep-folds, learn to be a painter, sculptor, and architect of such rank that the city of Florence chose him to be the builder of the Campanile? Did he learn it all from old Cimabue's frescoes, and half Byzantine tavole? and how did he prove to the city that he was a qualified architect? We find him written in the archives as Magister Giotto, consequently he must have passed through the school and laborerium of some guild where every branch of the arts was taught, and have graduated in it as a master.

All these things will become more and more clear as we follow up the traces of the Comacine Guild from the chrysalis state, in which Roman art hybernated during the dark winter of the Middle Ages, through the grub state of the Lombard period, to the glorious winged flights of the full Gothic of the Renaissance.

And first as to the chrysalis, at little Como. The origin of the name Comacine Masters has caused a great deal of argument amongst Italian writers new and old. Some think it merely a place-name referring to the island of Comacina, in Lake Lario or Como; others take a wider significance, and say it means not only the city of Como, but all the province, which was once a Roman colony of great extension. Others again, among whom is Grotius, suggest that it is not a place-name at all, but comes from the Teutonic word Gemachin or house-builders. As the Longobards afterwards called them in Italian Maestri Casarii, which means the same thing, there is perhaps something to be said for this hypothesis.

The first to draw attention to the name Magistri Comacini, was the erudite Muratori, that searcher out of ancient MSS., who unearthed from the archives an edict, dated November 22, 643, signed by King Rotharis, in which are included two clauses treating of the Magistri Comacini and their colleagues. The two clauses, Nos. 143 and 144, out of the 388 inscribed in crabbed Latin, are, when anglicized, to the following intent—

"Art. 143. Of the Magister Comacinus. If the Comacine Master with his colliganti (colleagues) shall have contracted to restore or build the house of any person whatsoever, the contract for payment being made, and it chances that some one shall die by the fall of the said house, or any material or stones from it, the owner of the said house shall not be cited by the Magister Comacinus or his brethren to compensate them for homicide or injury; because having for their own gain contracted for the payment of the building, they must sustain the risks and injuries thereof."[2]

"Art. 144. Of the engaging or hiring of Magistri. If any person has engaged or hired one or more of the Comacine Masters to design a work (conduxerit ad operam dictandum), or to daily assist his workmen in building a palace or a house, and it should happen that by reason of the house some Comacine should be killed, the owner of the house is not considered responsible; but if a pole or a stone shall kill or injure any extraneous person, the Master builder shall not bear the blame, but the person who hired him shall make compensation."[3]

These laws prove that in the seventh century the Magistri Comacini were a compact and powerful guild, capable of asserting their rights, and that the guild was properly organized, having degrees of different ranks; that the higher orders were entitled Magistri, and could "design" or "undertake" a work;—i.e. act as architects; and that the colligantes worked under, or with, them. In fact, a powerful organization altogether;—so powerful and so solid, that it speaks of a very ancient foundation.

But when and how did it originate?

Was it a surviving branch of the Roman Collegium? a decadent group of Byzantine artists stranded in Italy? or was it of older Eastern origin? A clever logician could prove it to be all three.

For the Roman theory, he could base his arguments on the Latin nomenclature of officials, and the Latin form of the churches.

For the Byzantine theory, he would have the style of certain ornamentations, and the assertions of German writers, such as Müller, and Stieglitz.

For the ancient Eastern theory, he might plead their Hebrew and Oriental symbolism.

We will take the Byzantine theory first. Müller (Archaeologie der Kunst, p. 224) says that: "From Constantinople as the centre of mechanical skill, a knowledge of art radiated to distant countries, corporations of builders of Grecian birth were permitted to exercise a judicial government among themselves according to the laws of the country to which they owed allegiance;" and Stieglitz, in his History of Architecture, records a tradition that at the time the Lombards were in possession of Northern Italy, i.e. from the sixth to the eighth century, the Byzantine builders formed themselves into guilds and associations, and that on account of having received from the Popes the privilege of living according to their own laws and ordinances, they were called Freemasons.[4] Italian and Latin writers, however, place the advent of these Greek artists at a later period; they are supposed to have been sculptors, who, rebelling against the strict Iconoclasm of Leo, the Isaurian—718 A.D. to 741—came over to Italy where art was more free, and joined the Collegia there.

But at this time most of the chief Longobardic churches were already built by the Comacine Masters, and were Roman in form, mediæval in ornamentation, and full of ancient symbolism. Herr Stieglitz must have pre-dated his tradition. Besides this I can find no sign in Italian buildings, or writers about them, of any lasting Byzantine influence. Indeed pure Byzantine architecture in Italy seems sporadic and isolated, not only in regard to site, but in regard to time. The Ravenna mosaics, a few in Rome, a little work in Venice, is all one can call absolutely Byzantine; and the influence never spread far. The Comacine ornamentation indeed has qualities utterly distinct in spirit, though in some of its forms allied to Byzantine. It is possible that some of these Eastern exiles joined the Comacine Guild, but there is quite enough in the communications of Como with the Greeks, to account for their having imbibed as much as they did of Byzantine style. Some of the Bishops who were rulers of Como before and after Lombard times were Greeks; notably Amantius the fourth, who was translated there from Thessalonica, and his successor, S. Abbondio. Also through the Patriarch of Aquileja, under whose jurisdiction they were brought later, the guild was put into contact with the Greek sculptors then at Venice, Grado, and Ravenna.

Comacine Panel from the Church of San Clemente, Rome. The Lattice-work is made of a single strand interlaced. Date, 6th century.

We will leave the Oriental theory aside as too vague and traditional for proof, depending as it does on a few Oriental symbols, and certain forms of decoration, and will look nearer home—even to Rome, with which a connection may certainly be found, and that in a form visible to our modern eyes.

Rome is almost as full of remains of what is now styled Comacine architecture, as it is of classic and pagan ruins, and they are nearly as deeply buried. Go where you will, and in the vestibules or crypts of churches, now of gaudy Renaissance style, you will find the sign and seal of the ancient guild. Investigate any church which has a Lombard tower—and they are many—and you will discover that the hands which built that many-windowed tower have left their mark on the church. In that wonderful third-century basilica, which was discovered beneath the thirteenth-century one of S. Clemente; in the almost subterranean basilica of S. Agnese fuori le mura; in the vestibule of the florid modern SS. Apostoli; in Santa Maria in Cosmedin; and various other buildings, are wonderful old slabs of marble with complicated Comacine knots on them. Our illustration is from a slab in San Clemente, which was evidently from the buried church, though used as a panel in the parapet of the existing choir. A marvellous piece of basket-work in marble, which, if studied, will be found composed of a single cord, twined and intertwined. An almost identical panel is preserved in the wall of the staircase to S. Agnese, another has just been found reversed, and the back of it used for the thirteenth-century mosaic decoration of the pulpit in S. Maria in Cosmedin.

Then in the later Lombard churches of S. Lorenzo in Lucina, SS. Giovanni e Paolo, S. John Lateran, etc., one may see the crouching Comacine lions, now mostly minus their pillars, and shoved under square door-lintels, or built into walls, where they remain to tell of the ancient builders whose sign and seal they were.

And here and there we get a name.

In the vestibule of the SS. Apostoli is a red marble lion, on the base of which in Gothic letters is the name BASSALECTI. Beneath it is an old inscription, "Opus magister Bassalecti Marmorari Romano sec, XIII." This same Magister's name, spelt Vassalecti, has lately been discovered inscribed on the capitals of some columns in the nave of S. John Lateran.

In the under church of S. Clemente, an ancient fresco of the eighth century takes us further back than this. Here we see a veritable Roman Magister directing his men. He stands in magisterial toga (and surely one may descry a masonic apron beneath it!), directing his men in the moving of a marble column, and with the naïve simplicity of the primitive artist each man's name is written beside him. Albertel and Cosmaris are dragging up the column with a rope, the sons of Pute, who are possibly novices, are helping them, while Carvoncelle is lifting it from behind with a lever. These men are all in short jerkins, but the master, Sisinius, is standing in his toga, directing them with outstretched hand.

Here is the Magister of a Roman Collegium embalmed and preserved for us, that we may see him and his men at work as they were in the early centuries after Christ. We know that Masonic Collegia were still existing in Rome in the time of Constantine and Theodosius; we know that Constantine built the basilica of S. Agnese, afterwards restored by Pope Symmachus; also those of S. Lorenzo—at least the round-arched part of it—enlarged by Galla Placidia in the fifth century; S. Paolo fuori le Mura, and other ancient churches. We see from remains recently brought to light, that these were originally of the exact plan of the churches built "in the Roman manner" at Hexham and York in England, and of the Ravenna churches, and S. Pietro in Grado at Pisa, also nearly contemporary. We further realize that all of these were identical in style with the finer specimens of Lombard building some centuries later. There is only the natural decline of art which would have taken place in the century or two of barbarian invasion, between the two epochs, but the traditionary forms, methods, etc., are all reproduced in the Lombard-Comacine churches. Compare the fourth-century door of the church of S. Marcello at Capua with the eighth-century one of S. Michele at Pavia, and you will find precisely the same style of art. Compare the Roman capitals of the church of Santa Costanza, built by Constantine, with the capitals in any Comacine church up to 1200, and you will see the same mixture of Ionic and a species of Corinthian with upstanding volutes. Some of the Comacine buildings have these upright volutes plain instead of foliaged. The effect is rude, but I think these plainer capitals were not a sign of incapacity in the architects of the guild, for one sees richly ornate ones on the same building. It was only the stock design of the inferior masters, when funds did not allow of payment for richer work.

Frescoes in the Subterranean Church of San Clemente, Rome. Upper line, Byzantine, 4th century; under ones, Comacine, 8th century.

Therefore it may be inferred: (1) That architects of the same guild worked in Rome and in Ravenna in the early centuries after Christ; (2) that though the architects were Roman, the decorators up to the fourth century were chiefly Byzantine, or had imbibed that style as their paintings show; (3) that in the time when Rome lay a heap of ruins under the barbarians, the Collegium, or a Collegium, I know not which, fled to independent Como; and there in after centuries they were employed by the Longobards, and ended in again becoming a powerful guild.

Hope, the author of an historical Essay on Architecture, had a keen prevision of this guild, although he had no documents or archives, but only the testimony of old stones and buildings to prove it. After sketching the formation of the Roman Collegia, and the employment of their members as Christian architects under the early Popes, he says "that a number of these, finding their work in Rome gone in the times of invasion, banded together to do such work in other parts of the world." He seems to think that the nucleus of this union was Lombardy, where the superiority of the architecture, under the Lombard kings, was such that the term Magistri Comacini became almost a generic name for architects. He says that builders and sculptors formed a single grand fraternity, whose scope was to find work outside Italy. Indeed distance and obstacles were nothing to them; they travelled to England under Augustine, to Germany with St. Boniface, to France with Charlemagne, and again to Germany with their brother magister, Albertus Magnus; they went to the east under the Eastern Emperors, to the south under the Lombard Dukes, and in fact are found everywhere through many centuries. The Popes, one after another, gave them privileges. Indeed the builders may be considered an army of artisans working in the interest of the Popes, in all places where the missionaries who preceded them had prepared the ground for them.

Church of Sta. Costanza, Rome. Built in the 4th century.
(From a photograph by Alinari.)

[See page 11.]

Diplomas and papal bulls confirmed to the guild the privileges they had obtained under their national sovereigns, and besides guaranteed their safety in every Catholic country which they visited for the scope of their association. They assumed the right to depend wholly and solely on the Pope, which absolved them from the observance of all local laws and statutes, royal edicts, and municipal regulations, and released them from servitude, as well as all other obligations imposed on the people of the country. They had not only the power of fixing their own honorarium, but the exclusive right of regulating in their own lodges everything that appertained to their own internal government. Those diplomas and bulls prohibited any other artist, extraneous to the guild, from establishing any kind of competition with them.... Encouraged by such a special protection, the Romans in great numbers entered the Masonic Guild, particularly when they were destined to accompany the missionaries sent by the Pope to countries hitherto unvisited by them. The Greeks also did not delay to take part. The Exarchate of Ravenna, first detached from the Greek Empire by the power of the Lombard princes, had by King Pepin been given to the Popes.... The commercial relations and communications of all kinds maintained with Constantinople by the many cities of Northern Italy, daily attracted many Greeks to this city; finally, the political turbulence of Constantinople, and chiefly the fanaticism of the Iconoclasts, continued to associate Greek artists with Italy, and many of these were received in the lodges, whose number constantly increased.

Door of the Church of S. Marcello at Capua, 4th century.
(From a photograph by Alinari.)

As civilization became more diffused, the inhabitants of northern countries, French, Germans, Belgians, and English, were admitted to form part of these guilds. Without this concession they would probably have had to fear a perilous competition, encouraged by the sovereigns of other countries.... These corporations were always in league with the Church, which in those times of war and constant struggle, of military service and feudal slavery, was the only asylum for those who wished to cultivate the arts of peace. Therefore we see ecclesiastics of high rank, abbots, prelates, bishops, exalting the respect in which the Freemasons were held, by joining the guild as members. They gave designs for their own churches, overlooked the building, and employed their own monks in the manual labour.

Such is broadly the substance of Hope's account of the great Lombard Guild. It shows remarkable insight, for when he wrote, the documentary evidences which have lately been collected were wanting.[5] It also explains precisely the close connection with monks and the Church, which appears in all the story of the guild, and it accounts for the Greek influence in the ornamentation.

In all the course of the history of building we see that each country or province had to obtain its architects from this Collegium at Rome, as Villani says all the cities of Italy did, and were obliged to apply to the Grand Master of the whole guild. Thus the early Popes had to beg architects for Rome from the Lombard kings; Pope Adrian had to apply to Charlemagne for builders; and so on up to the time when all the church-building Communes had to seek architects from some existing lodge.

Giovanni Villani shows us the intimate connection of the Roman Collegium with Florence. He says that after Cæsar had destroyed Fiesole he wished to build another city to be called Cesaria, but the Senate would not permit this. The Senate, however, gave his Generals Macrinus, Albinus, Cneus Pompey, and Martius equal power to build, and between them they founded Florence, bringing the water from Monte Morello by an aqueduct. Villani says the Magistri came from Rome for all these works. That was in the days when the great masonic company had their Grand Lodge in Rome, before the martyrdom of the Santi Quattro, afterwards their patron saints.

In Chapter XLII. Villani relates how when the citizens of Florence wished to build a temple to Mars, they sent to the Senate of Rome to beg that they would supply the most capable and clever Magistri that Rome could furnish. This was done,[6] and the Baptistery was erected in its first form.

Again whilst Charlemagne and Pope Adrian were employing the Comacines to rebuild the ruins of Rome, we find from Villani (lib. iii. chap. 1) that Charlemagne sent some Romans with "all the masters there were in Rome" (e vennero con quanti maestri n'avea in Roma per più tosto murarla) to fortify Florence, which had appealed to him for succour against the Fiesolans. In this manner, says Villani, "the Magistri who came with the Romans began to rebuild our noble city of Florence."

As early as the fifth century Cassiodorus seems to refer to the work of the Comacines when writing about the "public architects"—the very expression implies a public company—and admiring the grand Italian edifices with their "airy columns, slight as canes," he adds, "to be called Magister is an honour to be coveted, for the word always stands for great skill."[7]

This brings us to the question of the Latin nomenclature. No really qualified Comacine architect is ever mentioned either in sculptured inscription, parchment deed, or in the registers of the lodges, without the prefix Magister, a title which Cassiodorus, for one, respected. It was not a term applied indiscriminately to all builders, like murarius; and we find that the subordinate ranks of stone-cutters or masons were called by the generic name of operarius. I take it that the word, as applied to the higher rank of the Comacine Guild, has the same value as the title of Master in the old trade guilds of London, i.e. one who has passed through the lower rank of the schools and laborerium, and has by his completed education risen to the stage of perfection, when he may teach others.

Morrona[8] gives the same definition. Judging from ancient inscriptions and documents, he says that "operator" (Latin operarius) is used for one who works materially; while Magister signifies the architect who designs and commands. When a Magister carries out his own designs, he is said to be operator ipse magister, as in the case of Magister Rainaldus, who designed and sculptured the façade of the Duomo at Pisa.

In warlike times such as the Middle Ages, the only means by which artisans could protect their interests was by mutual protection, and hence the necessity and origin of Trade Guilds in general. The Masonic one appears to have been a universal fraternity with an earlier origin; indeed many of their symbols point to a very ancient Eastern derivation, and it is probable it was the prototype of all other guilds.

Since I began writing this chapter a curious chance has brought into my hands an old Italian book on the institutions, rites, and ceremonies of the order of Freemasons.[9] Of course the anonymous writer begins with Adoniram, the architect of Solomon's Temple, who had so very many workmen to pay, that not being able to distinguish them by name, he divided them into three different classes, novices, operatori, and magistri, and to each class gave a secret set of signs and passwords, so that from these their fees could be easily fixed, and imposture avoided. It is interesting to know that precisely the same divisions and classes existed in the Roman Collegium and the Comacine Guild—and that, as in Solomon's time, the great symbols of the order were the endless knot, or Solomon's knot, and the "Lion of Judah."

Our author goes on to tell of the second revival of Freemasonry, in its present entirely spiritual significance, and he gives Oliver Cromwell, of all people, the credit of this revival! The rites and ceremonies he describes are the greatest tissue of mediæval superstition, child's play, blood-curdling oaths, and mysterious secrecy with nothing to conceal, that can be imagined. All the signs of masonry without a figment of reality; every moral thing masquerades under an architectural aspect, in that "Temple made without hands" which is figured by a Freemasons' lodge in these days. But the significant point is that all these names and masonic emblems point to something real which existed at some long-past time, and, as far as regards the organization and nomenclature, we find the whole thing in its vital and actual working form in the Comacine Guild. Our nameless Italian who reveals all the Masonic secrets, tells us that every lodge has three divisions, one for the novices, one for the operatori or working brethren, and one for the masters, besides a meeting or recreation room; and that no lodge can be established without a minimum of two masters. Now wherever we find the Comacines at work, we find the threefold organization of schola or school for the novices, laborerium for the operatori, and the Opera or Fabbrica for the Masters of Administration.

The anonymous one tells us that there is a Gran Maestro or Arch-magister at the head of the whole order, a Capo Maestro or chief Master at the head of each lodge. Every lodge must besides be provided with two or four Soprastanti, a treasurer, and a secretary-general, besides accountants. This is precisely what we find in the organization of the Comacine Lodges. As we follow them through the centuries we shall see it appearing in city after city, at first dimly shadowed where documents are wanting, but at last fully revealed by the books of the treasurers and Soprastanti themselves, in Siena, Florence, and Milan.

Thus, though there is no certain proof that the Comacines were the veritable stock from which the pseudo-Freemasonry of the present day sprang, we may at least admit that they were a link between the classic Collegia and all other art and trade guilds of the Middle Ages. They were called Freemasons because they were builders of a privileged class, absolved from taxes and servitude, and free to travel about in times of feudal bondage. The term was applied to them both in England and Germany. Findel quotes two old English MSS., one of 1212, where the words "sculptores lapidum liberorum" are in close conjunction with cœmentari, which is the oldest Latin form for builder; and another dated 1396, where occurs the phrase "latomos vocatos fremaceons." In the rolls of the building of Exeter and Canterbury cathedrals the word Freimur is frequent, and no better proof can be given of the way the early Masonic guild came into England. The Italian term liberi muratori went into Germany with the Comacine Masters, who built Lombard buildings in many a German city, before Gothic ones were known; thence it passed Teutonized as Freimur into England.[10]

Cesare Cantù (Storia di Como, vol. i. p. 440) thus describes the Guild—

"Our Como architects certainly gave the name to the Masonic companies, which, I believe, had their origin at this time, though some claim to derive them from Solomon. These were called together in the Loggie (hence Lodge) by a grand-master to treat of affairs common to the order, to accept novices, and confer superior degrees on others. The chief Lodge had other dependencies, and all members were instructed in their duties to the Society, and taught to direct every action to the glory of the Lord and His worship; to live faithful to God and the Government; to lend themselves to the public good and fraternal charity. In the dark times which were slowly becoming enlightened, they communicated to each other ideas on architecture, buildings, stone-cutting, the choice of materials and good taste in design. Strength, force, and beauty were their symbols. Bishops, princes, men of high rank who studied architecture fraternized with them, but the mixture of so many different classes changed in time the spirit of the Freemasons. The original forms of building were lost when the science fell into the hands and caprice of venal artisans."[11]

We shall see the way in which the Comacines spread fraternity wherever they went. When they began building in any new place, they generally founded a lodge there, which comprised a laborerium and school. Thus we find one under the Antellami family in Parma before 1200, and not long after one in Modena under the same masters from Campione. The lodge is clearly defined at Orvieto and Siena. In Lucca there was a laborerium before the year 1000. In 1332 it had obtained privileges. At Milan there was evidently another, for on February 3, 1383, the archbishop invites the architects Fratelli (brethren), and others who understand the work, to inspect the models for the cathedral; now these words evidently refer to a Masonic brotherhood, as does the term Opera Magiestatem so often met with in old documents.

In the Marches of Ancona is a sepulchre inscribed to the fratres Comacini, and in the Abruzzi are chapels dedicated by them. In Rome it is recorded that they met in the church of SS. Quattro Coronati. These patron saints of the guild, the four holy crowned ones (Santi Quattro Coronati), strike me as having a peculiar significance in regard to their origin. We are told that during the persecutions under Diocletian, four brethren, named Nicostratus, Claudius, Castorio, and Superian[12] (either brothers, or more likely members of the same Collegium), who were famous for their skill in building and sculpture, refused to exercise their art for the pagan Emperor. "We cannot," they said, "build a temple for false gods, nor shape images in wood or stone to ensnare the souls of others." They were all martyred in different ways: one scourged, one shut up and tortured in an iron case, one thrown into the sea; the other was decapitated. Their relics were in the time of St. Leo placed in four urns, and deposited in the crypt of the church, which was built to their honour, in the time of Honorius, by the Comacines then in Rome. It has always been the especial church of the guild, and their meeting-place. They had an altar dedicated to the same saints at Siena, and another at Venice. We find from the statutes of the Sienese guild as late as the fourteenth century, that the fête of the "Quattro" was kept in a special manner by the Masonic guild. All the Church fêtes are classed together as days when no work is to be done, but the day of the SS. Quattro has two laws all to itself, and is kept with peculiar ceremonies.[13]

On the altar of this church on Mount Aventine are silver busts of the four Magister martyrs; and on the wall is an ancient inscription, as follows—

BEATVS LEO IIII PAPA

PARITER SVB HOC SACRO ALTR̄

REC̄DENS COLLOCAVĪ CORPOR̄ SCŌ

M͞R CLAVDII NICOSTĪ SEMPRON̄I

CAST̄ ET SIMP̄ ET HII FR̄M SEVERI

SEVERIANI CARPOFORI ET VICTO

RINI MARII AVDIFAX EABBACV̄

FELICISSIMO ET AGAPITO YPPOLT̄

OVDE CV̄ SVA FAM̄L NV̄O X ET

VIIII ACQVILINI ET PRISCI ARSEI

AQVNI NARCISI ET MARCELLI

NI FELICIS SIMETRII CANDI

DAE ATO PAVLINÆ ANASTASII

ET FELICIS APOLLIONIS

ET BENEDICTI VENANTII

ATO FELICIS DIOGENIS ET LI

BERALIS FESTI ET MARCELLI

ATO SVPERANTII PVDENTIAN̄E

ET BENEDICTI FELICIS ET BENE

DICTI NECN̄ CAPITA SANCTO

PROTI SC̄EO CECILIA E

SC͞I ALEXANDRI SC̄IO XISTI

ET SC͞I SEBASTIANI ATQ

SACRATISSIME VIRGINIS

PRAXEDIS ET ALIA MVLTA

CORPORA SANCTORVM

QVORVM NOMINA DEO

SVNT COGNITA

If I interpret the abbreviations M͞R. F͞RM and FA͞ML aright, this inscription would imply that members of each of the three grades of the Roman Masonic guild, Magister, Fratres, and Famuli (apprentices), were martyred together, and their remains placed in this church with the relics of some proto-martyrs. The Magistri were afterwards canonized, and the four I have named became the patron saints of the guild. S. Carpophorus was held in special veneration in Como, of which place he was probably a native, or else a Greek member of the Comacine Lodge there.

The other side of the inscription chronicles the restoration of the altar which was ruined and broken down, in the time of Pope Paschalis Secundus, A.D. 1111, in the fourth Indiction.

The church of the SS. Quattro has remains of a fine atrium or portico. In the wall of the atrium is a fragment of intreccio. The original form of the church is well preserved, and is identical with that of S. Agnese, fuori le mura. The gallery for the women is well preserved.

The especial veneration for the four crowned martyrs seems to point to their Roman origin, and to specify the reason why the remnant of the particular Collegium to which they belonged fled from Rome, and took refuge in the safe little republic of Como, so that it was not only the Goths and Vandals from whom they fled. It explains also the intense religion in their work, and rules; the very first principles of which were to respect God's name, and do all to His glory.

It need not excite wonder that any guild should have fled from Rome in these centuries. This was the time that Gregory the Great, painted so graphically in his passionate Homily of Ezechiel, preached at Rome. "Everywhere see we mourning, hear we laments; cities, strongholds, villages are devastated; the earth is a desert. No busy peasants are in the fields, few people in the cities, and these last relics of human kind daily suffer new wounds. There is no end to the scourging of God's judgment.... We see some carried into slavery, others cruelly mutilated, and yet more killed. What joy, oh my brethren, is left to us in life? If it is still dear to us we must look for wounds, and not for pleasures. Behold Rome, once Queen of the world, to what is she reduced?—prostrated by the sorrows and desolation of her citizens, by the fierceness of her enemies and frequent ruin, the prophecy against Samaria has been fulfilled in her. Here no longer have we a senate; the people are perished, save the few who still suffer daily. Rome is empty, and has barely escaped the flames; her buildings are thrown down. The fate of Nineveh is already upon her...."[14]

The Longobard invaders were more merciful than the Goths, for not long after their rule was over, another Pope wrote to Pepin—"Erat sanæ hoc mirabile in regno Longobardorum, nulla erat violenta nulla struebantur insidiæ. Nemo aliquem iniuste angariabat, nemo spoliabat. Non erat furta, non latrocinia, unusquisque quodlibebat securus sine timore pergebat."—Histor. Franc. Scrip. Tom. III. cap. xvi.

Whatever the moving cause, the fact remains that in the Middle Ages the Comacine Masters had a nucleus on that strong little fortified island of Comacina, which, together with Como itself, stood against the Lombards in the sixth century for twenty years before being subjugated; and in the twelfth, held its own independence for a quarter of a century against Milan and the Lombard League, which it refused to join.

When at length the Longobards became their rulers, they respected their art and privileges. The guild remained free as it had been before, and in this freedom its power must have increased fast.

The Masters worked liberally for their new lords, but it was as paid architects, not as serfs. As a proof we may cite an edict signed by King Luitprand on February 28, 713. It is entitled Memoratorio, and is published by Troya in his Codex Diplomaticus Longobardus.

It fixes the prices of every kind of building. Here are the titles of the seven clauses, referring to the payments of the Magistri Comacini: De Mercede Comacinorum—

CLVII. Capit. i. De Sala. "Si sala fecerit, etc."

CLVIII. Capit. ii. De Muro. "Si vero murum fecerit qui usque ad pedem unum sit grossus ... cum axes clauserit et opera gallica fecerit ... si arcum volserit, etc."

Capit. iii. De annonam Comacinorum.

CLIX. Capit. iv. De opera.

CLX. Similiter romanense si fecerit, sic repotet sicut gallica opera.

Capit. v. De Caminata.

CLXI. Capit. vi. De marmorariis.

CLXII. Si quis axes marmoreas fecerit ... et si columnas fecerit de pedes quaternos aut quinos ...

Capit. vii. De furnum.

CLXIII. Capit. viii. De Puteum. Si quis puteum fecerit ad pedes centum.[15]

The Longobard rule explains why the Comacine Masters of the thirteenth century were known as Lombards, and the architecture of that time as the "Lombard style." In the same way they were called Franchi when Charlemagne was their king; and Tedeschi when the German dynasty conquered North Italy; if indeed the words artefici Franchi do not merely signify Freemasons, which I strongly suspect is the true meaning.

To understand the connection of this guild of architects with little Como we must glance backwards at the state of that province under the Romans, when it was a colony ruled by a prefect. Junius Brutus himself was one of these rulers, and Pliny the Younger a later one. At this time Como was a large and flourishing city. It had in Cæsar's time a theatre whose ruins were found near S. Fedele; a gymnasium for the games, which was near the present church of Santa Chiara. A document dated 1500 speaks of the Arena of Como as then still existing. The campus martius was at S. Carpoforo, where several Roman inscriptions, urns, and medals were found. This valuable collection of Latin inscriptions, found in and about Como, proves the successive rule of emperors, prefects, military tribunes, naval prefects, Decurions, etc. We have records also of Senators, Decemviri, and other municipal magistrates. The inscriptions also show that there were temples to Jove, Neptune, the Dea Bona, the Manes, the Dea Mater, Silvanus, Æsculapius, Mars, Diana, Hygeia, and even Isis.

Some Cippi are dedicated to Mercury and Hercules; and one found near S. Maria di Nullate was inscribed by order of the Comacines to Fortuna Obsequente, "for the health of the citizens." To this day a Prato Pagano (pagan field) exists near Como. All these proofs, together with Pliny's testimony, go to show that Como was in Roman times an important centre, and as such was likely to have its own Collegia or trade guilds, to one of which probably Pliny's builder, Mustio, belonged, and to which the Roman refugees naturally fled as brethren.

Pliny the Younger at that time lived at Como, in his delightful villa, Comedia. In his grounds, on a high hill, were the ruins of the temple of the Eleusinian Ceres, and he determined to restore this temple, as devotees flocked there during the Ides of September, and had no refuge from sun or rain.[16] His letter to "Mustio," a Comacine architect, gives the commission for this restoration, and after explaining the form he wished the design to take, he concludes—"At least unless you think of something better, you, whose art can always overcome difficulties of position." For Pliny, fresh from Rome, to give such praise to an architect at Como, shows that even at that time good masters existed there.

Another letter of Pliny's (Lib. X. Epist. xlii.) speaks of the villa of his friend Caninus Rufus, on the same lake, with its beautiful porticoes and baths, etc., and of the many other villas, palaces, temples, forums, etc., which embellished Como and its neighbourhood.

Catullus lived here when the poet Cæcilius, whose works have now perished, invited him to leave the hills of Como, and the shores of Lario, to join him in Verona.

Pliny seems to confirm the existence of guilds,[17] as he speaks of the institution of a Collegium of iron-workers, who wished to be patented by the Emperor, but Trajan refused to form new guilds, for fear of the Hetæriæ or factions which might infiltrate into them.

Mommsen, in his work De Collegiis et Sodalitiis Romanorum, says that under the emperors no guild was allowed to hold meetings, except by special laws, yet though new companies were not to be formed, the existing ones of architects and artisans were permitted to continue after public liberty was lost. Several documents prove that the chief scope of these unions was to promote the interests of their art, to provide mutual assistance in the time of need, to succour the sick and poor, and to bury the dead.

The trade guilds in London, the Arti in Florence, and the town clubs kept up in England till lately, seem to be all survivals of these ancient classical societies.

Besides the Builders' Society, Como had, in Roman times, a nautical guild. An inscription is extant, dedicated to C. Messius Fortunatus by the Collegium nautarum Comensium. This guild sent twenty ships of war to Venice in Barbarossa's time.

But besides having privileged societies, Como and its Comacine islands were a privileged territory, and might almost have been called a republic. We have, it is true, no documentary evidence of this dating back to pre-Longobardic times, but as Otho in 962[18] confirmed the islands in all former privileges granted by his predecessors on the Imperial throne, we may fairly suppose the privileges dated from times far anterior to himself.

This is an anglicized version of his decree, which was granted on the petition of the Empress Adelaide—

"In the name of the Holy and indivisible Trinity, Otho, by the will of God, august Emperor. If we incline to the demands of our faithful people, much more should we lend our ear to the prayers of our beloved consort. Know then, all ye faithful subjects of the Holy Church of God, present and future, that the august Empress Adelaide, our wife, invokes our clemency, that for her sake we receive under our protection the inhabitants of the Comacine islands, and surrounding places known as Menasie (sic), and we confirm all the privileges which they have enjoyed under our predecessors, and under ourselves before we were anointed Emperor, viz. they shall not be called on for military service, nor have arbergario (taxes on roads and bridges), nor pay curatura (tax on beasts), terratico (tax on land), ripatico (on ships), or the decimazione (tax on householders) of our kingdom, neither shall they be obliged to serve in our councils, except the general assembly at Milan, which they shall attend three times a year. All this we concede, etc. Given on the 8th before the calends of September, in the year of the Incarnation 962, first year of the reign of the most pious Otho."—Indiction V. in Como.

The hypothesis that this decree refers to a long-existing liberty is confirmed by the history of Como in the time of Justinian I. Up to the middle of the sixth century a certain Imperial Governor of Insubria, named Francione, who had seen Rome sacked and his own state taken, fled to Comacina as a free place of refuge when Alboin invaded Italy. He helped the Comacines to hold out against the barbarians for more than twenty years, and so secure was the place considered that the island was by Narses and others made the depositary of infinite treasures. With him multitudes of Romans had taken refuge there, but finally even this fell into the hands of the Longobards. We are told that Autharis subjugated Istria, and after a six months' siege, possessed himself of the very strongly fortified island of Comacina on the lake of Como, where he found immense treasures, doubtless part of the traditional wealth amassed by Narses, and which as well as much private property had been deposited here for security by the neighbouring peoples.[19]

Here then, four centuries before Otho's decree, we have Comacina as a place of refuge in troublous times, chosen because, being a free city, it was considered more safe than other towns. We need not then consider it improbable, if in the dark centuries when the Roman Empire was dying out, and its glorious temples and streets falling into ruin under the successive inroads of half-savage despoilers; when the arts and sciences were falling into disuse or being enslaved; and when no place was safe from persecution and warfare, the guild of the Architects should fly for safety to almost the only free spot in Italy; and here, though they could no longer practise their craft, they preserved the legendary knowledge and precepts which, as history implies, came down to them through Vitruvius from older sources, some say from Solomon's builders themselves.

Among the treasures must have been works of Greek and Roman art, that kept alive the old spirit among the guild of builders gathered there; but alas! after the long generations when art was decaying, and uncalled for, their hands lost their skill, they could no longer reproduce the perfect works.

It was here the Longobards found them, and in their new Christian zeal soon furnished them with work enough.

LONGOBARD KINGS

CHAPTER II
THE COMACINES UNDER THE LONGOBARDS

LONGOBARD MASTERS

It was on April 2, 568, that the Longobards under Alboin, with their wives and children and with all their belongings, "colle loro mogli e figli, e con tutte le sostanze loro," first came down and took Friuli. Alboin gave the government there to Gisulph, his nephew, leaving with him many of the chief and bravest families, and a high-bred race of horses (generosa razza di cavalli).

Next he took Vicenza and Verona, and in September 569 passed into Liguria—which then extended from the Adda to the Ligurian Sea,—and conquered Milan. To this add Emilia, and later, Ravenna and Tuscany, and the first Lombard kingdom was complete.

From this kingdom depended the three dukedoms of Friuli, Spoleto, and Beneventum. The last was added in the time of Autharis (575-591) when, like Canute, he rode into the sea at Reggio in Calabria, and touching the waves with his lance, cried—"These alone shall be the boundary of the Longobards."[20]

This Autharis married Theodolinda, a Christian. He was an Arian, but by her means he became Catholic. After his death, in 590, she chose Agilulf, who reigned with her twenty-five years.[21]

Paulus Diaconus gives the following very pretty account of Theodolinda's two betrothals—

"It was expedient for Autharis, the young King of the Lombards, to take a wife, and an ambassador was sent to Garibald, King of Bavaria, to propose an alliance with his daughter Theodolinda. Autharis disguised himself as one of the suite, with the object of seeing beforehand what his bride was like. She was sent for by her father and bidden to hand some wine to the guests. Having served the ambassador first, she handed the cup to Autharis, and in giving him the serviette after drinking, he managed to press her hand. The princess blushed, and told the incident to her nurse, who in a prophetic manner assured her that he must be the king himself, or he would not have dared to touch her.

"Soon after, on the Franks invading Bavaria, Theodolinda with her brother fled to Italy, where Autharis met her near Verona, and the marriage was solemnized on the Ides of May, A.D. 589.

"Amongst the guests were Agilulf, Duke of Turin, and with him a youth of his suite, son of an augur; in a sudden storm a tree near them was struck by lightning, on which the young augur said to Agilulf—'The bride who has arrived to-day will shortly wed you.' Agilulf was so angry at what seemed a disrespect to the king and queen, that he threatened to cut off his page's head, who replied—'I may die, but I cannot change destiny.' And truly, when a few years after Autharis was poisoned at Pavia, Theodolinda's people were so attached to her, that they offered her the kingdom if she would elect a Longobard as husband.

"Destiny had decreed that she should choose Agilulf. The same ceremony of offering him a cup of wine was gone through, and he kissed her hand as she gave it. The queen blushing said—'He who has a right to the mouth need not kiss the hand.' So Agilulf knew that he was her chosen king.

"She was a Christian, and a favourite disciple of Gregory the Great. Her good life and prayers were able to convert Agilulf to orthodox Christianity, for like many Longobards of the time he had fallen into the Arian heresy. In gratitude for this she vowed a church to St. John Baptist, and a miraculous voice inspired her as to the site at Modœcia, or 'oppidum moguntiaci.'"

It was under these Christianized invaders that the Comacine Masters became active and influential builders again, and it is here that the actual history of the guild begins.

It is apparent that what are called Lombard buildings could not have been the work of the Longobards themselves. Symonds realized this difficulty, but had not solved the question as to who built the Lombard churches, when he wrote[22]—"The question of the genesis of the Lombard style, is one of the most difficult in Italian art history. I would not willingly be understood to speak of Lombard architecture in any sense different from that in which it is usual to speak of Norman. To suppose that either the Lombards or the Normans had a style of their own, prior to their occupation of districts from the monuments of which they learned rudely to use the decayed Roman manner, would be incorrect. Yet it seems impossible to deny that both Normans and Lombards, in adapting antecedent models, added something of their own, specific to themselves as northerners. The Lombard, like the Norman, or the Rhenish Romanesque, is the first stage in the progressive mediæval architecture of its own district."

It appears possible, however, that the Longobards had very little to do with the architecture of their era except as patrons. Was there ever a stone Lombard building known out of Italy before Alboin and his hordes crossed the Alps? or even in Italy during the reigns of Alboin and Cleoph, their first kings?

But there were older buildings of precisely the same style, in Italy and in Como itself, dating from the time when the Bishops ruled, long before the Longobards came. There were the churches of S. Abbondio and S. Fedele. The latter was built in Abbondio's own time, about 440-489, and first dedicated to S. Euphemia. It was rebuilt later by the Comacines under the Longobards, but its form was not changed. The former, said to have been built by the Bishop Amantius, was first dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, whose relics he placed here. These two are certainly the oldest churches existing in Como.

Amantius the Byzantine ordained S. Abbondio, who was a Macedonian, as his successor, and he too became eminent in his time, and is still venerated as a patron Saint in all the Milanese district. Pope Leo sent him to Constantinople as his Legate, to interview the Patriarch Anastasius, and also deputed him to form the Council with Eusebius, at Milan. The Greek touch in the Lombard ornamentation may be accounted for by Greek sculptors assisting the Italian builders in the time of these Eastern bishops.

But, to return to the Longobards:—it was only when the civilization of Italy began to tell on them, and Christianity refined their minds, that they commenced to patronize the Arts, and revived the fading traditions of the builders' guild into practice, for the glorification of their religious zeal. "Little by little," says Muratori, "the barbarous Longobards became more polished (andavano disrugginendo) by taking the customs and rites of the Italians. Many of them were converted from Arianism to Catholicism, and they vied with the Italians in piety and liberality towards the Church of God, building both Hospices and Monasteries."[23]

The Comacine Masters were undoubtedly the only architects employed by them, so we are sure that in the Lombard churches of this era, we see the Comacine work of the first or Roman-Lombard style.

Autharis and Theodolinda were the first orthodox Christians: indeed Theodolinda, who was baptized by Gregory the Great, and formed a special friendship with him, became a shining light in the Church. To them is probably due the honour of inaugurating the Renaissance of Comacine art. Autharis, though an Arian, first employed the Masters of the guild to build a church and monastery at Farfa on the banks of the Adda, not far from Monza. They have long been ruined, but ancient writers quote them as fine and rich works of architecture. Next, Theodolinda and her second husband, Agilulf, the succeeding king, built the cathedral at Monza, which they resolved should be worthy of the new creed. This cathedral was the prototype of all the Lombard churches.

Before proceeding further it may be well to define precisely the difference between Eastern and Western forms in these centuries, while they were as yet distinct.

As we have said, the Basilica was the type of Roman or Western architecture, a type which passed afterwards to the East, where the cupola was added to it.

The Comacine Guild, being a survival of the Roman Collegium, had of course Roman traditions, and took naturally this Roman type of the Basilica,[24] which form they adapted to the uses of the Christian Church, while its ornamentation was suited to the taste of the Longobards.

The Basilica, as Vitruvius explains it, was a room where the ruler and his delegates administered justice. But when, after the persecutions, Christians were allowed their churches, the Basilicæ so well supplied the needs of Christian worship, that either the ancient ones were used as churches, or new buildings were erected in the same form; so that by the fourth century the word Basilica was understood to mean a church remarkable for its size, and of a set form and grandeur, with a raised tribune. The Basilicæ of Constantine were all dedicated to Saints—St. Peter, St. Paul, Beato Marcellino. The Sessorian Basilica was begun in 330, to hold the relics of the Cross, discovered by the Empress Helena. From the time of the edict of Theodosius, however, Christian architecture took a new and independent character; and this was when the Basilica became amplified and beautified.

The Oriental churches, on the other hand, were derived from the antique synagogue, in which concentric forms, either circular or polygonal, predominated. In their later development four equal arms were added, and here we get the Greek Cross, in the centre of which arose the dome.

In the Romanesque, or Comacine style of the ninth to the fourteenth centuries, the form becomes more complicated. We have, 1. the sanctuary or presbytery; 2. the apse for the choir; 3. the transepts; 4. the normal square or centre; 5. the elongated nave; 6. the aisles; 7. the atrium or portico.

In Theodolinda's time, however, church architecture in Lombardy was wholly and purely Roman, with the influences of mediæval Christianity. Ricci tells us that the construction of the first churches followed a symbolical expression. "Hermeneutic symbolism required that the apse or choir should face the east, so that the faithful while praying had that part before them."

A very usual form was the tri-apsidal church, of which many specimens still exist. S. Pietro a Grado, near Pisa, is a beautiful specimen of this.

Around the apse of a Lombard church was a portico where the penitents and catechumens might stand, who were not yet admitted to the altar. On high were loggie (galleries) "for the virgins and women." The tribune was elevated and often ornamented with a railing, the crypt or confessional being beneath it. The crypt signified a memory of the early Christians, when subterranean catacombs formed the church of the faithful. The altar was generally the tomb of a martyr, in fulfilment of the text—"I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held" (Rev. vi. 9).

Where the original form of the Lombard church has not been altered, as in the first Monza church, all these parts may be still seen.

We are expressly told by Ricci,[25] that for the building of her church at Monza, Queen Theodolinda availed herself of those Magistri Comacini, who, as Rotharis describes them in his laws 143 and 144, were qualified architects and builders.

It seems that even though all Italy was subjugated by the Longobards, the Magistri Comacini retained their freedom and privileges. They became Longobard citizens, but were not serfs; they retained their power of making free contracts, and receiving a fair price for their work, and were even entitled to hold and dispose of landed property.[26]

Therefore it was by a free contract, and not in any spirit of servitude, that the Comacines undertook the building of Theodolinda's church.

It is difficult to imagine what the church was in Theodolinda's time, as its form was altered in the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Ricci says that the antique Monza Basilica terminated at what is now the first octagon column, on which rest the remains of the primitive façade. Four columns supported the arched tribune, and the high altar was raised above the level of the church. In front was the atrium, supported by porticoes, and he thinks that the sculptures in the present façade are the old ones.

Ancient Sculpture in Monza Cathedral.

[See page 39.]

Cattaneo, the Italian authority on Lombard architecture, does not believe in the present existence of even this much of Theodolinda's church, and in disclaiming the façade, disclaims also the sculpture on it, especially the one over the door, where Agilulf and Theodolinda offer the diadem of the cross to St. John the Baptist, and are shown as wearing crowns, which the early Lombard kings did not do.[27] The figures have, it is true, the entire style of the twelfth century, when later Comacines restored the church. Cattaneo thinks that the only sculpture which can safely be dated from Theodolinda's own time, is a stone which might have been an altar frontal, on which is a rude relief of a wheel circle, emblem of Eternity, flanked by two crosses with the letters alpha and omega hanging to the arms of them. It is a significant fact that the Alpha is in the precise form of the Freemason symbol of the compasses, and in the wheel-like circle one sees the beginning of that symbol of Eternity, the unbroken line with neither end nor beginning, which the Comacines in after centuries developed into such wonderful intrecci (interlaced work). The sculpture is extremely rude; by way of enriching the relief, the artist has covered the crosses and circles with drill-holes. Now this is a most interesting link, connecting the debased Roman art with this beginning of the Christian art in the West (the early Ravenna sculptors do not count, being imported from the East). On examining any of the late Roman cameos, or intagli, or even their stone sculpture, after the fall of classical art in Hadrian's time, one may perceive the way in which the drill is constantly made use of instead of the chisel.

So these Comacine artists began with the only style of art they had been educated up to, and though retaining old traditions they had fallen out of practice, during a century or two, while invaders ravaged their country, and had to begin again with low art, little skill, and unused imagination. But with the new impulse given to art, their skill increased, they gained a wider range of imagination, greater breadth of design, going on century by century, as we shall trace, from the first solid, heavy, little structures, to the airy lightness of the florid Romanesque—the marriage of East and West.

Another chiesa graziosissima, said to have been founded by Theodolinda, was that of Santa Maria del Tiglio, near Gravedona, on the left bank of Lake Como, which Muratori says was already ancient in 823, when the old chronicler Aimoninus describes it (Aimoninus de Gestis Francorum, iv. 3). It has been much altered since that time, but as Prof. Merzario writes—"When one reflects that it was the work of a thousand years ago, and when one considers the lightness of design, the elegance of the arches, windows, columns, and colonnettes, one must perforce confess that even at that epoch Art was blossoming in the territory of Como, under the hands of the Maestri Comacini."

Theodolinda also founded the monastery of Monte Barro, near Galbiate; the church of S. Salvatore in Barzano, a little mountain church at Besano above Viggiu; that of S. Martino at Varenna; and the church, baptistery, and castle of Perleda above it; in which latter it is said she died. Queen Theodolinda was accustomed to spend the hot months of summer on the banks of the lake, and a part of the road near Perleda Castle is still called Via Regina (the Queen's road), in memory of her. King Cunibert, too, loved the banks of Como.

There is always some pretty, graceful reason in Theodolinda's church-building, very different to the reasons of many of the kings. Theirs were too often sin-offerings, built in remorse, but hers were generally thank-offerings, built in love. For instance, the church at Lomella, which she erected in memory of having first met her second husband Agilulf there.

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.

Comacine Capital in San Zeno, Verona. Dragons, interlaced.

[See page 43.]

The will of Eriprand, Duke of Cremona, dated 685, is still extant, with a legacy to the churches of S. Maria Maggiore, and S. Michele in Borgo, of that city. Pope Sergius I. restored the Basilica of Ostia, and founded S. Maria in Via Lata, giving them rich gifts, and Pope John II. repaired and endowed S. Maria in Trastevere.[34]

Bertharis and Godebert, sons of Aribert, were in 661 dethroned by Grimoald, Duke of Beneventum; but Bertharis being re-established in 671, recalled his wife Rodelinda and son Cunibert from Beneventum, where they had been taken as hostages, and in sign of gratitude for their release, founded the church of S. Agatha al Monte at Pavia,[35] while his wife Rodelinda founded that of S. Maria fuori le mura in the same city. Bertharis dedicated his church to S. Agatha because on the eve of S. Agatha's day he was miraculously saved from being assassinated by Grimoald, his deposer. On the façade of the church is inscribed, "Pertharitus Longobardorum Rex Templum hoc S. Agathæ Virg. et Mart. dicavit anno Christi DCXXVII."

The church had the usual "three naves," and the façade faced the west. It has since been turned round. As in the Middle Ages it menaced ruin, the central nave had to be supported by large external buttresses and internal arches, one of which may be seen above the present doorway; it once formed the entrance to the choir. When the nave was restored some of the old Lombard capitals were discovered under the brickwork. They show the same style as those at S. Michele, and S. Pietro in Ciel d'oro at Pavia, and have all the marks of Comacine work. One has two lions very well carved. They meet at the corner, where one head serves for both. On another is a human figure, his hands holding two dragons which he has conquered, but whose tails still coil round him. A fine mediæval allegory of man's struggle with sin.

Rodelinda's round church, S. Maria foris portam (now no more), became better known as S. Maria delle pertiche (of the poles), because a royal cemetery was there in which many Lombard kings and nobles were buried, and according to the usage of the nation the graves were marked by wooden poles, on the top of each of which was perched a wooden dove (emblem of the soul), looking towards the place where the person had died or been killed.[36]

We may account for its circular shape by the fact that it was more a ceremonial church, than one for ordinary worship. In it Hildebrand was crowned, or rather received the regal wand of office. It had an interior ambulatory, an arched colonnade all round it under the roof in true Lombard style. This colonnade was much used in circular churches to assist the want of space on great occasions.[37] Some of the columns were fluted, and appear to have been adapted from an earlier Roman edifice. Two of them, shortened and with the fluting planed down, now adorn the gate of Pavia towards Milan. The foundation of this church has been attributed by Cattaneo to Ratchis. This cannot be, for in 736, ten years before Ratchis was king, Luitprand became very ill, and the Longobards met in the church of S. Maria delle pertiche, and proclaimed Hildebrand as his successor.

To Aribert II. (701-712) is attributed the foundation of the church of S. Salvatore, outside Porta Marengo at Pavia, where, says Malaspina, may be noted a great improvement in style in the acute arches, and more regular and elegant proportions.

The Basilica of S. Pietro de Dom in Brescia dated from about this time, though it was built independently of Longobardic royal patronage, being a thank-offering by Bishop Anastasius for the triumph of the Church over Arianism. This was destroyed when the new Duomo was built in the seventeenth century, but ancient writers tell us it had all the true Lombard symbolism of form. The choir was on the west, facing east; it had the triple nave and triple apse, and the usual inequality of the columns, some of which are large, others small; some long, others short, these last being lengthened, some by white marble, others by dark. I do not understand the significance of this diversity of column which may be seen in all the Comacine churches of this era.

If we cannot see S. Pietro de Dom, we may see in Brescia a church equally old, the Rotonda of Santa Maria Maggiore, which the chroniclers say was begun by the Brescian Duke Marqward, and finished by his son Frodward, with the assistance of King Grimoald, about 665. The plan of the church is very interesting; there are two concentric circles, the inner one formed by eight pilasters, whose arches sustain the dome, and form the front of the usual ambulatory above. This is all that can be judged as belonging to the seventh-century church. The tribune and the upper parts are later, and the crypt is earlier, being, it is believed, the remains of an early Christian church of S. Filastrio, though some claim it as Roman.

Cunibert is next on the list of Longobardic church-builders. He built a church to St. George as a votive offering after his escape from the attempt which was made to dethrone him in 691 by Alachi, Duke of Brescia, and two citizens named Aldone and Gransone. To the church of St. George was attached a cloister for monks, the first Longobardic monastery founded in the diocese of Milan. Documents and diplomas, dated 784 and 901, prove the existence of both buildings till the latter date, but a deed of sale in 998 only speaks of the church, which still existed in 1792.

On the king's triumphal return to Pavia, he erected at the door of S. Giovanni, a grand tomb to the priest Zeno, who had lost his life for him, by dressing in the royal armour and rushing from the king's tent into the battle.

In A.D. 700 Cunibert descended to Lucca, which had then become a Longobardic town, and interested himself in the building of a church to the three saints, Stephen, Laurence, and Vincent; it afterwards became S. Fredianus. The actual patron may not have been Cunibert himself, but his majordomo Faulus, who probably was his vice-gerent there. Two ancient deeds in the adjoining monastery of St. Vincent and S. Fredianus, dated respectively 685 and 686, prove that Faulus restored and richly endowed the monastery, and that Bishop Felix afterwards conceded to the Abbot Babbinus and his monks, a diploma confirming the munificence of Faulus. The monastery was, so say the chroniclers, originally built by S. Frediano, Bishop of Lucca, in the sixth century, and that, when the first unconverted Longobards came down and drove him out and destroyed his cathedral, he fled for some years, but on his return he built another church outside the town with a monastery attached. In this he availed himself of the sculptured stones and columns of the ancient Roman amphitheatre, erected in Lucca by Vibius in the time of Trajan. This was the monastery which was restored by Faulus. When the bones of S. Fredianus were removed to it, in the time of the Bishop Giovanni II., the church became known as S. Fredianus. The church built in Cunibert's time was not by any means the fine building we see now, though, as in Monza, the form of the old building may be perceived. The ancient apse which has been traced in the course of some excavations, is a fifth smaller than the present one, and it is conjectured that the old church, if turned the same way, would have ended near where the present pulpit stands; and there was a portico in front of it which is mentioned in some ancient MSS.

The church was certainly differently orientalized, following the symbolic formula that the choir should face the east; for the excavations disclosed part of the columns of the nave, buried under the present presbytery at the back. The circular walls of the choir were retraced in front of the present altar, and it was proved that the wall was not continued where the semi-circle of the apse opens; whereas if the church had been in the same direction it now takes, the walls would have been continued to the length of the nave.

Cav. Cordero di S. Quintino, in his Disamine su di alcuni monumenti Lucchesi, 1815, was the first to draw attention to the reversed plan of the old church, which the recent excavations have proved. He states that it was in the form of a Latin cross, had a nave, and four aisles and transepts; that its choir was at the west end, facing east, its façade on the east. It is a misfortune that its origin cannot be precisely proved, as the archives of S. Fredianus must have been burned in 1596, when the convent, with other houses, was set on fire, even if they had survived the former sacking and burning of the Ghibellines, under Uguccione della Faggiola in 1314.

Next comes Hic gloriosissimus Rex, Luitprand, who, we are told, built many Basilicæ in honour of Christ, in the places where he had his residences. He was to Lombard art what Lorenzo de' Medici was to that of the Renaissance. Luitprand was a great employer of our Comacine Masters, and very probably found them expensive luxuries, for, as we shall see in the next chapter, he was obliged to legislate to fix their prices. He even gave the length of his royal foot, as a guide to measurement.

Luitprand's foot was said to have been an extra long one, and yet, after great discussions among writers, it has at length been agreed that Luitprand's foot, and the Roman one used before it, were of the same length!

Very little, which is at all authentic, remains to us of Luitprand's churches. S. Pietro[38] in Ciel d'oro (of the golden roof), at Pavia, which was consecrated by Pope Zacharias in 743, is now a mere modern church, containing nothing but the round form of its apse to speak of its antiquity. This golden roof must refer to some mosaics originally in the tribune, and is, I believe, the first instance of mosaics being used in a Lombard church. It was built by the Christian king, "for the better reverence of the sacred remains of that great light of the church, St. Augustine, which were placed here by him." The corpse of the saint was redeemed from the Saracens in Sardinia in 743, and the relics remained in S. Pietro for ten centuries.[39] Luitprand's church, we are told, was symmetrical and graceful (grazioso). The façade was of the usual Lombard form, with a rather flat gable, and galleries beneath the eaves; it had narrow, round-arched windows, and a cross over the central one, cut deep in the stone, as we see in S. Michele in Pavia.

Basilica of S. Frediano at Lucca, 7th century.
(From a photograph by Brogi.)

[See page 49.]

The finest existing church of the Longobardic times is the Basilica of S. Michele at Pavia, which is still intact, and may be taken as the culminating point of the first Lombard style. It has all the distinctive marks of Comacine work at the period. There is the Roman form of the Latin cross with nave and two aisles divided by clustered columns supporting round arches. The walls above the central nave terminate in a sculptured string course, and over that a clerestory, the double Lombard arches of which are divided by marble colonnettes with sculptured capitals. The central nave terminates in a semi-circular apse, surrounded with pilasters and arches; beneath it is a crypt supported on two rows of columns whose capitals are covered with bizarre sculptures. The crypt is now entered by steps beneath the ones leading to the tribune, but originally it had two entrances at the sides of the tribune as in the crypt at Torcello, and that of San Zeno at Verona, which are also of the seventh century. Another particularity is in the inequality of the aisles, the left wall tending to the right, the right transept being longer and larger than the left. This is not, we are told, an accident, but one of the many symbolical forms used by the Comacines. Cordero and Vitet both refer to it. The latter says—"Souvent le plan de l'église penché de gauche à droite. Cette inclination est attribuée, comme on sait, au pieux désirs d'imiter la position du Sauveur expirant sur la croix."[40] As a whole the interior is grand and imposing, and as it stands now, retains the general plan of the original church. Some parts have been restored in the fifteenth century, especially the four principal piers which sustain the central arch, but by the difference in the work and in the sculptures we may easily distinguish the added parts. A Latin inscription in the apse, without date, proves that the great central arch of the roof and that of the choir were renewed by Bartolommeo Negri. There was a Bartolommeo Negri who was canon in 1496, but the antique style of the epitaph would point to an earlier restorer of the same name (we all know how families keep the same set of Christian names for centuries in Italy), especially as the painting in the apse is attributed to Andrino d'Edesia, who lived about 1330. Some interesting relics in the church are the circular slabs of black and green marble, now in the floor of the nave. Tradition, confirmed by Padre Romualdo, says that these were the stones on which the daïs was placed for the coronation of the Lombard kings.

Just as the interior of S. Michele at Pavia is the most perfect existing example of the classical form reduced by the Comacines to Christian use and symbolism, so is the façade as perfect a specimen of their mediæval-oriental decoration at this time as can be found. We give an illustration of it.

The Comacines at this era were perfectly sincere and their façade was always a true face to the church. The eaves with the airy gallery of colonnettes beneath them followed the exact line of the low-pitched roof. It was only when they became eclectic, and their style got mixed and over-florid, that the false fronts such as we see at Lucca came in. The inward division of nave and aisle is faithfully marked on the outside by piers or pilasters. S. Michele has four pilasters dividing it into the three portions, each one supplied with its round-arched door. In the fifteenth century the central windows were altered and a large ugly round orifice was placed above the three Lombard ones. But in 1861 they had the good taste to open the original windows, indications of whose masonry were visible in the wall, and to add the cross, deep cut in the stone, which was a distinctive feature in façades of this era. Indeed the church may be taken as a type, in all its aspects, of the Romano-Lombard building. The most remarkable part is perhaps its ornamentation, which is unique and fanciful to the highest degree. Besides the carvings on door and window, the whole façade is striped with lines of sculptured stones, a queer mixture of angels, demons, saints, and monsters, that seems a nightmare dream of mediæval superstitions, but are really a mystic Bible in stone. I shall speak more fully of this in the chapter on Lombard ornamentation.

Façade of San Michele at Pavia. Upper part restored to its original form; lower part antique. 7th century.

[See page 52.]

We must now turn for a few moments to its history, on which great uncertainty rests. Some authors say that S. Michele at Pavia was built by Constantine the Great as a thank-offering for the aid given him by that Saint in his victory over the Franks in 325; but it is possible they may have confused this church with the one which Sozomenus asserts that Constantine erected to St. Michael on the banks of the Hellespont. Other writers, of whom Malaspina is one, claim it as an Ostrogoth foundation; others again, finding a suspicion of Arianism in the sculpture of the Annunciation on the south side of the church, assign it to Agilulf before his conversion from Arianism; while Gabriel Rosa, author of Storia dei feudi e dei comuni in Lombardia, attributes it to King Grimoald.

This last, however, is disproved by one of Paulus Diaconus' curious stories. He says "that in A.D. 661, King Bertharis being in peril of his life by the usurper Grimoald, was saved by his faithful servant Unulphus, who, throwing over his royal master's shoulders a blanket and a bearskin, drove him with ill words out of the palace, making believe he was a drunken slave. Having thus eluded the guards, who were in Grimoald's pay, and put the king in safety, Unulphus fled for refuge to the Basilica of St. Michael, till the new king pardoned him."[41] The church is again mentioned by Paulus Diaconus when he relates how in 737, when Luitprand judged Pemmonis, Duke of Friuli, and other noble Longobards accused of sacrilege against Callistus, Patriarch of Aquileja, one of them named Ersemar fled for refuge to the Basilica of St. Michael. Again in 774 a certain Trinidius, agent of King Desiderius, left a house near the Pò at Gravenate, as a legacy to the "Basilica beatissimi Archangeli Michaelis intra civitatem Ticinensum pro anima sua." All these things go to prove that the church existed before Luitprand's time, and that it was especially venerated.

St. Michael, being a warlike saint, was the Longobards' favourite object of reverence. When Alachi tried to depose King Cunibert, he suddenly and mysteriously refused to fight the king, because he saw a vision of St. Michael standing beside him; then Alachi knew the battle would go against himself if he hazarded it.

When the Longobards went forth to war, they carried the effigy of St. Michael before them on their standard. It was also impressed on their coins with the inscription S. C. S. Màhel, or sometimes Mihail, spelling in those days not being at all a fixed quantity.

But to return to our church-building king, Luitprand.

He erected the monastery of S. Abbondio at Bercela in the mountains, and one dedicated to S. Anastasia, near his suburban villa called Cortelona (Corte di Alona). In this villa he had a private chapel, he being the first prince who had daily mass said by priests in his own house.[42] He had a favourite doctor named Gunduald, who, assisted by Luitprand's royal munificence, founded the monasteries of Palazzolo and Pitiliano near Lucca. At his intercession Luitprand, by a diploma dated 742, gave Magister Piccone, Gunduald's architect, lands in Sabine, which shows the value Luitprand set on the arts, and this Magister especially.

Astolfo, a later king, was an equally liberal patron of the arts; he gave the revenues of the church of S. Pietro at Pavia to Auripert, a painter whom he greatly esteemed. Astolfo built the monastery of Nonantola, of which some parts still remain, proving its fine architecture. He seems to have been very unscrupulous in his avidity for relics; an anonymous MS. at Salerno, speaking of his fierceness and audacity, says that, "having taken many bodies of saints from the neighbourhood of Rome, he had them removed to Pavia."[43] The same old chronicler does him the justice to say that "he built both churches and monasteries which he very largely endowed."

Next followed Ratchis, who on his brother Astolfo's death came out of the convent to which he had retired on abdicating in 749. His reign was of the shortest; he soon went back to his convent, for Pope Stephen III. wrote commanding him not to oppose the election of Desiderius, who had been Duke of Friuli and was high in favour with the Pope.

Desiderius was a liberal patron to the Comacine Guild, and built monasteries, churches, and palaces. Of the first we may record the convent for nuns near Milan, known as La Maggiore, or the Greater. Its foundation by Desiderius is mentioned in a diploma dated A.D. 1002 in favour of the Abbot of S. Ambrogio, who was in that year appointed spiritual guardian to the nuns. At Brescia, of which town Desiderius was a native, he built the monastery near Leno, known as the Monasterio Leonense, and the still more famous one of Santa Giulia for nuns, which he founded in 766. Desiderius and his wife Ansa endowed this convent with landed property which spread over all the Lombard kingdom. It was first called S. Salvatore, but when the remains of Santa Giulia were brought from Corsica and placed here, it was re-dedicated to her. Its first Abbess was Desiderius' own daughter, Anselberga, who took the vows here. Says the old chronicler—"its opulence and the number of holy virgins who have lived within its walls render it one of the most illustrious convents in Italy."

Signor Odorici has exemplified the church in its Lombard form to have been quadrilateral, divided by two peristyles of eight columns each, into a nave and two aisles (or three naves, as Italian architects say). The arches are a tutto sesto (semi-circular), and support walls bordered with a simple string course. There was originally a semi-circular apse or tribune, which was probably flanked by two smaller ones. The white marble columns are, or were, of different proportions, the capitals being sculptured, some in marble and some in arenaria.[44]

The mixture of Roman and Byzantine types in these is taken by Ricci[45] to be a proof of its really dating from the time of Desiderius, when the two styles got confused. Some capitals are entirely of Byzantine design, others imitate the Corinthian. On one is a mediæval sculpture of the martyrdom of Santa Giulia, on another is the effigy of Queen Ansa. These two are doubtless Comacine work of the eighth century.

Up on the slope of Monte Civate near Lake Annone, an hour's climb from the village of Civate, is an ancient Lombard church dedicated to St. Peter, which is almost intact. It is said to have been built as a thank-offering by King Desiderius. His son Adelgiso was chasing a wild boar on this mountain, and suddenly became blind. The father vowed that if he recovered, a church to St. Peter should be built on the spot. Adelgiso soon after recovered his eyesight, and Desiderius was faithful to his oath. An ancient MS. said to be contemporary,[46] minutely describes the ceremonies, when the king with all his royal pageantry came up the mountain to lay the first stone. The plan is similar to most other Lombard churches of its era. A great flight of twenty-seven steps leads up to the portico, beneath which is the principal door. This, however, does not lead immediately to the church, but to a covered atrium, on the lateral walls of which are sculptured in relief, hippogriffs with triple tails, i.e. threefold mysteries. The entrance into the nave has two spiral columns,[47] an unusual form for the Comacines of that era. There is a great peculiarity in the position of the altar, which is a low table without a reredos, standing on the tribune, to which five steps give access. The palio faces the choir, so that the priest when celebrating would confront the people, and face the east.[48] It would be a question for archæologists whether, considering the reverse orientalizing of Lombard churches, in comparison to later ones, the front of the raised tribune was not the usual position of their altars. This is the only church which seems enough intact, to judge by. The altar was placed beneath a canopy supported on four slight columns, whose sculptured capitals show the symbolic animals of the four Evangelists. The canopy has rude bas-reliefs of the Saviour and apostles, the crucifixion and resurrection. There are remains of similar altars at Corneto Tarquinii in the south, and at S. Piero in Grado near Pisa. The rest of the building is entirely unadorned, excepting by some carved capitals of columns in the crypt.

The church-building days of King Desiderius were now drawing to a close. He thought he had strengthened his seat on the throne by alliances with the all-powerful Charlemagne of France, whose brother Carloman married Desiderius' daughter Gilberga; and some historians assert that his son Adelchi espoused Gisla, the sister of Charlemagne. Here we have the link connecting the Comacine Masters under the Lombard rule, with Charlemagne, through whose patronage they spread northward, developing the Gothic architecture. Politically the link was not a strong one. In 770, Charlemagne having been menaced by Pope Stephen III., the protector of Desiderius, revenged himself by causing Carloman to repudiate Gilberga and send her back to her father with her two sons. Carloman died in 771, and Pope Stephen III. did not live long after him, for in 772 Charlemagne entered into a league with the new Pope Adrian I. to dispossess Desiderius of his kingdom. This unkind scheme was by Pope Adrian dignified by the name of a "restitution to the Holy See."

The famous unequal fight at Pavia, between Desiderius and the multitudinous hosts of France, is well known. Desiderius was vanquished, and the Longobardic supremacy of two centuries was over.

Charlemagne vaunted himself in having released Italy from the Longobardic yoke, but whether his own yoke were lighter is an open question. In any case there was no "restitution to the Holy See." The Lombard cities were no more given to the Pope by Charlemagne, than they had been by Desiderius. On the contrary, he crowned himself Rex Francorum et Longobardorum, and his son Pepin inherited the same title.

With him begins the next era in the development of Comacine art.

CHAPTER III
CIVIL ARCHITECTURE UNDER THE LONGOBARDS

Ecclesiastical as was the work of the guild, the Comacine of Lombard times was nevertheless a fine civil architect. He worked as willingly for the prince in palace-building and for the country in fortification, as for the Church in building monasteries and cathedrals. Indeed war of all sorts bore such a large proportion in the life of the Middle Ages that the fortress was of more importance than the home.

In civil architecture the Magistri Comacini of the seventh and eighth centuries followed much the same style as in their ecclesiastical buildings, of course adapting it to its different uses. In the Lombard palace we find on the upper floor the usual double-light windows, with the two round arches and dividing column enclosed in a larger arch of masonry.

We also find the inevitable Lombard cornice beneath the roof. In civil buildings, instead of a complete gallery with colonnettes, this becomes a row of brackets with carvings in the corbel heads. The windows of the lower floor are square orifices barred with iron, for defence in warlike times. The walls are either of the solid brickwork opus romanum, or the great smoothly hewn stones of the opus gallicum. In Lombardy there are more of the former, as clay for bricks is easily attainable. In Tuscany and southward the buildings are more frequently of stone. The Florentine Bargello, though later, offers a very fine specimen of this work, in the older portions of wall, where the smooth-cut stones fit solidly together. If the building required an inner courtyard it was of the same Lombard style as their churches—showing the round arch, and the convex capital, often sculptured.

Tosinghorum Palatium Florentiae celeberrimum in Foro Veteri situm lapide dolato comlumnisque marmoreis extructum cui Turris adjacens ulnar. 130 proceritate erigebatur.

Tracing of an old print of the Tosinghi Palace, a mediæval building once in Florence, with Laubia on the front.

[See page 61.]

The municipal palace only came in with the Communes after 1100. In Longobardic times, the only buildings that had any pretensions to architecture were the palaces of the dukes or kings. Luitprand's palace in Milan, which fell into disuse after the tenth century, is as graphically described by old chroniclers and in legal documents in the archives of St. Ambrose, as Theodolinda's at Monza had been by Paulus Diaconus.

Before the days of the Communes, when the Brolio or Broletta, and the Palazzo Pubblico were as yet unknown, the palace of the ruling prince was the hall of justice, the nearest Basilica being the public meeting-place. King Luitprand's palace was styled in his time Curtis ducati. In Charlemagne's reign it was Curti domum Imperatoris; in other parchments Curtis Mediolanensis. Across the front ran an open gallery, called Laubia,[49] formed, as were the galleries of the Comacine churches, of a row of arches on colonnettes. Here the placiti were held, and sentences pronounced, as in the regal and imperial public buildings, the populace being assembled in the street below. The ringhiera of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence served the same purpose in Communal times.

The Loggia, which is such a feature in all old Italian houses, is the natural descendant of the Laubia. In its private aspect, as part of a citizen's house, the Loggia was the place where the master of the house received his friends.

An ancient MS. by Landolfo tells us that the space occupied by Luitprand's palace was not very wide. It extended from the monastery of St. Ambrose to the church of St. Protasius ad Monacos (now no more), and the road leading to it was known as Strada de Civite Duce.

That King Desiderius also employed the Masonic guild in civil as well as ecclesiastical architecture seems implied by the tradition of his palace at S. Gemignano. Certain it is that a solid mediæval building with decidedly Lombard windows and Lombard arches under the machicolations, exists at S. Gemignano, but whether it was really built by and for Desiderius, I leave wiser antiquaries to judge. The style is that of the times.

As a rule, Lombard houses had small rooms. This seems to have applied even to royal and public buildings, for, as mentioned above, all public meetings had to be held in a church, or in its ante-portal. When Desiderius convoked a Diet at Pavia, each prince or bishop was assigned a house which had a church or oratory near, in which he could meet his committee.

The different methods and processes of house-building are very plainly enumerated in the laws of Luitprand, of which we have given the headings on a previous page. It would seem that since the reign of Agilulf, the Masters of the Guild had become overbearing, and by Luitprand's time required to have special legislation to limit their prices. Luitprand's code of laws regulated the strength of the external walls of a building, in regard to the different height, construction, and material.

Art. 160 speaks of two different constructions, the Roman mode, and the Gallic style. It begins—"Similiter romanense si fecerit, sic repotet sicut gallica opera." (Roman work shall be accounted of equal value to Gallic work.) This distinction of terms has caused great argumentation among commentators. Prof. Merzario[50] says that "two national terms cannot apply to any small distinction of masonry," and he takes them to mean the Roman style with the round arch, in which most Lombard churches are built, and the Gothic with the pointed arches. As, however, Charlemagne's church, the father of the Gothic, was not yet built in Luitprand's time, we should be more inclined to take the opinion of Marchese Ricci and Troya, who interpret the phrase opus gallicum to mean the style which they say was introduced into Ravenna by Theodoric and his Goths, and which they brought from Gaul. It was the most solid style imaginable, seemingly a remnant of Cyclopean building; if so it was not Gallic at all, but came from the Pelasgi through the Etruscans, and so was a natural sequence of Italian architecture; the Etruscans having taught the Romans. It consisted of hewn stones of large size and perfect fitness, still further strengthened with cement. "Mirum opus manu gothica, et quadris lapidibus," it was said of the builders of S. Oveno at Rouen. If this definition be admitted, then the other term opus romanum would mean building with flat bricks, which was equally practised by the Comacines, especially in Lombardy.

Luitprand's laws speak of the asse, tavolati,[51] scindule (Longobardic term) by which the houses were internally divided, and of a cheap species of house-building called by the Gauls pisè, probably from the same root as pigiato (pressed together). According to that method, the walls were composed of masses of earth pressed, and then bound together so as to form a solid mass. The same method is still used in Africa and Spain, and in Italy by the peasants in the subalpine regions near Alessandria (Piedmont).

In Clause II., De Muro, where they use the term si arcum volserit, it cannot refer to vaulted roofs, which were then unknown, but to the slight arch of the window or door in the thickness of the wall, often only a sloping off of stones. The roofs were supported on wooden beams, and the laws determine the size and value of these, according to whether they are scapitozzati or capitozzati, i.e. hewn or carved. They also decide the quality of the wood for beams or planking, and the cost of roofing in regard to the number of wooden slabs or tiles required in a raised roof.

Thus any Longobard who wished to build himself a house, might consult the laws of Luitprand, and count the cost beforehand.

These laws also decide the strength of the defensive walls of a city. Law IV. gives the trade price of this sort of work; for those built in massa, or per maxa, the builder shall for every sixty feet be paid in solidum unum (one soldo, a gold coin). Ricci adds—"This per maxa is the same construction which the Greeks and Romans styled implectans, i.e. conglomerate."

They had several kinds of walls, some of brick, others with a base of stone (nella base a sassi), like the walls of Milan, which have lasted till now.

Luitprand assigns different money for different kinds of work. Thus at times the Magistri Comacini were paid solidum unum for every foot of wall, sometimes solidum vestitum, a distinction of soldi which has puzzled commentators very much; some opining that vestitum refers to a coin on which the emperor is represented as regally clad, and others that it means a copper coin plated (vestito) with gold.

We find also that terra-cotta vases were much used as ornamentation in building. This style was, as we have said, called "a cacabus." Broken vases were adopted in the foundation of large buildings and houses; others, which probably were not perfect enough for household use, were built into the walls and put as ornaments between the arches. The tower of S. Giovanni e Paolo at Rome and the church of S. Eustorgio at Milan are good instances of this style.

Tower of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Rome, 12th century.
(From a photograph by Alinari.)

[See page 65.]

Here we have another link with ancient Rome. Promis instances an amphora found in the walls of an imperial edifice in Aosta. At the fountain of Egeria, near the Porta Tiburtina in Rome, the walls are full of amphoræ and oil-jars.

On the whole these Masonic laws show that the principal scope of the Longobardic architecture was to make strong and lasting buildings.

The building of convents were frequent commissions of the Comacines, and in these, as in their churches, they had a set form. A solid framework of walls either of hewn stone, in the Gallic manner, or of brick in the Roman style, and a few beams and planks, were the simple elements of which a convent was composed.

But of course a Comacine could not make any building without his slight columns and arches, and here he disposed of them in his cloister. This, too, was a heritage from classic Rome, recalling the atrium. A Lombard or Romanesque cloister is a delight. Here you have a square court more or less spacious, containing a picturesque well in the centre, surrounded by a colonnade of small columns generally in couples, resting on a low wall and supporting a roof on a row of arches. It was usually on the sunny cloister that the Comacine poured out his imagination; here are fancifully-sculptured capitals, pillars of every variety of form and style, grotesque gargoyles between the arches, and often delicate tracery above them. Hope[52] instances as the more rude and early style of Lombard cloisters, those of San Lorenzo at Rome and Santa Sabina and San Stefano at Bologna, and as models of the more splendid style those of S. John Lateran, which are resplendent with porphyry, serpentine, and gold enamel, inlaid in the marble; and those of S. Zeno of Verona of every tint of marble which the Euganean hills can afford. For the interior arrangements of a Longobardic monastery we will take Padre Ricci's account of the first plan of Monte Cassino which Petronax the Brescian engaged the Comacines to build. "It had on the ground floor a Sala anciently called caminata, because the fire-place was there. The upper floor was divided by wooden partitions into cells and other rooms requisite in a cenobitic life. Although at that time houses only had one floor, monasteries generally had two. Monte Cassino boasted of three storeys, the upper one being only used for keeping fodder and stores. As the chief aim was solidity of building, great attention was paid to the proportionate thickness of the outer walls. The laws determined the adequate value of these, which were generally of the thickness of five feet. The inner walls were of planks or assi—'si cum axe clauserit.'"

This mode of separation by wooden partitions is still usual in convents, though it has gone out of use in houses. The convents of S. Marco and S. Salvi at Florence both show this style of division for the cells. The windows were protected by abietarii or cancelli (gratings) made of wood.

A strong point in Lombard building was the fortress, which the Magistri were past masters in erecting. Their castles and forts and city walls stand to this day solid and strong, with towers standing up commandingly in all directions—all the mediæval cities bristled with them; the tower was, in fact, a weapon of war. On these, too, they set their seal—the pillared Lombard window becoming larger and more airy as the tower rises into the air, and the crowning cornice of bracketed or pillared archlets.[53]

Their towers seem to have been of two forms, ecclesiastic and civil. The ecclesiastical bell-tower, square with a straight unbroken line, with neither buttress nor projection till the summit, where the bracket-supported arches expand like a flower. Sometimes each storey had a string course, with smaller arches beneath it, as in the tower at Prato. The windows, too, as we have said, had a fixed rule; they are smaller below, and grow larger and more airy as they ascend. You go up from a mere orifice on the first floor to a one-arched window on the second, a two-arched on the third, to a three or even four-arched one near the summit.

The characteristics of civil towers at this time were their solidity as a means of defence, and their height as a means of vigilance; they appear to be chiefly circular, offering no corners, but a curved surface from which missiles could easily glance off. The windows were narrow outside, expanding wider within. If there were a double-light window, it would be on the very high storeys, out of arrow aim. Nearly all the ancient fortresses have round towers, but I know of very few church towers that are so, except the one at Classe near Ravenna.

Before the thirteenth century, neither brackets nor projecting cornices were used, and the tower rose in a single straight line from base to battlement, so that projectiles fell straight down. It was later that architects discovered the value of the projecting baluardo. As to battlements, these too came from the antique; Babylon and Nineveh show proofs of them, and Homer speaks of the battlemented towers of Asia and Greece. Muratori[54] derives the Italian term merlo, from mirare (to take aim), the battlements being made for the shelter of the archers, and their convenience in shooting. When fire-arms came in, the need of battlemented towers ceased.

The principal Longobardic military towers remaining to our day, are, the tower of the ruined fortress of Baradello, which dominates the road to Camerlata, and the towers, now mutilated, in the wall of Como, one of which, erected on arches, forms the gate of the city towards Camerlata.

The ninth-century sculptures on the altar at S. Ambrogio prove that the Longobards had towers above their city gates. The author of the Ant. Longob. Milanesi (Dissert. iii. p. 193) says that the ancient gates of Milan, before the enlargement of the walls, were of this construction with towers over them. They were furnished with heavy wooden doors covered with iron, which were suspended on chains, and slid down in grooves in the wall, thus completely closing the entrance—a portcullis, in fact. Livy, in his twenty-seventh book, describes the gates of Rome as being of the same construction; some existing examples at Rome, Tivoli, and Pompeii prove the fact. A famous gate in the time of the Longobards was the one chronicled by Paulus Diaconus, which King Bertharis (671-686) caused the Magistri to erect beside his palace in Pavia. It was named the Porta Palatinense, and was, says Paulus Diaconus, an admirable work (opera mirifica). Some antique documents quoted by Passano,[55] prove that this gateway was furnished with bronze gates.[56]

Some writers think that the battlemented fortress came from the East, because ancient specimens of it are found there. In reading an Italian translation of Procopius, Degli edifici di Giustiniano Imperatore, I was struck by the many slight expressions which seem to prove that Justinian brought his fortress-builders into Byzantium from Italy. Procopius says that Justinian made a new style of fortress with towers all round the walls; with stairs in the towers, and galleries (baluards) round them with holes in them to throw down stones, and that it was called Pirgo castello, because in the Latin tongue, fortresses are styled castelli. Now this description is precisely that of an Italian fortress, such as the Comacines knew how to build, and built for centuries all over Italy. If it came from the East in ancient times, why was it specified by Procopius as a new style there?—and if its origin were Eastern, why had they no name for it, but had to take the Latin one?

The Bishop of Salisbury, in a letter in the Salisbury Diocesan Gazette (May 1898), speaks of an inscription of the twelfth century, preserved in the museum at Jaffa, which is in memory of Magister Filipus, who came over with the King of England (Richard), and who had built a portion of the wall "from gate to gate": evidently Magister Filipus from the English Masonic Lodge, fraternized and worked with his brethren of the Roman and Eastern Lodges.

Again, on p. 21, Procopius speaks of a town or village now known as Eufratisia, but which was once called Comagene, because there were Romans as well as Persians living there. Romans, of course, meant subjects of the Italian Empire, but the name Comagene is certainly suggestive of those Italians being the Comacine builders who made the castles. Then Procopius's description of the rebuilding of the church of Santa Sofia is, to say the least of it, interesting to a student of Lombard architecture. The passage translated runs thus—"The church then (Sta Sofia) being thus burned, was, at that time, entirely ruined. But Justinian, a long while after, rebuilt it in such a form that if any one in older times could have foreseen it, he would have prayed God that the old church might be completely destroyed, so that it may be rebuilt as it now is. Therefore the Emperor sent to call artificers and masters, as many as there were in all the universal world. And Anthemius Trallianus, the head architect, was a great machinist, learned in all kinds of machinery, not only that of his own time, but in all that the ancients knew, and he had the power to regulate and organize perfectly the working of all things necessary to building, and to the ordering and executing of his own designs and inventions. And Isidore, another Milesian, was also a master of machinery. The church then, was so marvellously made that it was a beautiful thing to see; it seems supernatural to those who behold it with their own eyes, and incredible to those who only hear of it, because it is so high that it seems to touch the sky.... The face of the church looks towards the rising sun, but where the secret offices to God are performed, it is built in this manner. It is a half-round edifice which those of this profession call Hemiciclo, which is to say half a circle ... and in this there are columns planted beneath its floor." Here we have a decided Basilica with raised tribune and semi-circular apse; both the form and nomenclature seem to have been imported as a new thing from Italy. "The golden dome appears suspended from heaven, so light are the columns supporting it that it seems to be in the air.... One can never arrive at understanding how it was built (apprendere l' arteficio), but one goes away astonished at one's inability to enough admire such a work."

Does not this seem an argument for the universality of the Masonic Brotherhood, even in Byzantine days? Here are certainly Italian artists, Italian basilican forms, and Italian nomenclature, among the Greeks working at Sta Sofia. And here too are Lombard galleries and windows with an Eastern touch added. Which way did the influence come? Was this the origin of that characteristic Eastern mark of the Lombard style in Italy?—or was it an importation from Italy to Byzantium, where Procopius at least seems duly astonished by it? It is a question for experts to solve. There is much for the archæologist to do yet in finding the true pedigree of architecture.

CHAPTER IV
COMACINE ORNAMENTATION IN THE LOMBARD ERA

The Comacine Masters were distinctly sculptor-architects, and their ornamentation was an essential part of their buildings. Yet, to them, sculpture was by no means mere ornament. It was not a mere breaking up of a plain surface, as a beautifying effect; nor a setting of statues and niches for symmetry. It was an eloquent part of a primitive language of religion and art. The very smallest tracery had a meaning; every leaf, every rudely carved animal spoke in mystic language of some great truth in religion. But it was a language as yet artistically unformed, because the mediæval man had more articles of creed than he could express in words, and his hand like his mind was as yet unpractised.

Thus it came that, as we have said, the Comacine Masters were much given to symbolism.

The old Italian writers class this symbolism under two heads—the ermetica (hermeneutic?), which they define as symbolism of form or number; and orfica (orphic), that of figures or representations. Under the first head would fall the symbolical plan of their churches to which we have referred; the form of the windows, which were double-lighted, and emblematized the two lights of the law and the gospel; the rounded apse, emblem of the head of Christ; the threefold nave shadowing forth the Trinity; the octagonal form of the baptisteries, which St. Ambrose[57] says was emblematical of the mystic number 8, etc.

Under the head of orphic would come all those mystic signs of circle and triangle; of sacred monograms, and the mysterious Solomon's knot;—that intricate and endless variety of the single unbroken line of unity,—emblem of the manifold ways of the power of the one God who has neither beginning nor end. It would also include all the curious possible and impossible animals that abound in the Comacine work of earlier Longobardic times; all the emblematic figures of angels and saints; and the figurative Bible stories of the later Masters.

It has been said by Ruskin that the queer monsters sculptured on the early Longobard churches, such as Sant' Agostino at Milan, San Fedele at Como, and San Michele at Pavia, were the savage imaginings of the lately civilized Longobards, as seen through the medium of the sculptors employed by them. This is, however, proved not to be the case; animal symbolism was in those days an outward sign of Christianity, which, in a time when there was no literature, was to the unlettered masses a mystical religion represented to their minds in signs and parables. Christ Himself used this parabolic style of teaching. And it was even more than that,—it was a sign of an older Bible lore among the Hebrews, and other ancient peoples. As in many early Christian ceremonies in the West (i.e. in Europe) we can trace the remains of the old Latin paganism, so in the East we may trace signs of the older Hebrew faith.

Speaking of the Longobardic mixtures of labyrinths, chimeræ, dragons, lions, and a hundred other things, which at first sight do not seem to be connected with Christianity, Marchese Ricci asks—"If these queer mixtures were only the effect of the architects' caprice, whence came the first impulse to such caprice? Not from classic Rome certainly. Not from the Goths and Longobards, because they being barbarians had to employ Italian artists."[58] The theory propounded by Pietro Selvatico, in an article in the Rivista Europea, is suggestive of a reply to this question. He supposes that the Byzantines originally took their symbolism from the Hebrews, and from the traditions of Solomon's Temple, which are also shared by the Phœnicians;[59] and that this animal symbolism changed its character in the East, owing to the restrictions imposed by the Emperor Leo and his successors, but that in freer Italy it still flourished. It is difficult to say whether the Comacines took their ornamentation direct from the Byzantines at Ravenna in the early centuries after Christ, or whether they got it by longer tradition, from that same Eastern source from which the Byzantines took theirs. It is true that Como had more than one bishop who was a Greek,[60] and that when it fell under the government of the Patriarch of Aquileja, the Comacines were employed by him in Venice, Grado, and Torcello, etc., where they would have seen a good deal of Byzantine work; but their earliest employment at Torcello was in the seventh century, and we have seen them using their chisels for Theodolinda long before that time.

The Byzantine ornamentation became conventional after 726 A.D., when the Emperor Leo III. (the Isaurian) promulgated his iconoclastic edict in the Eastern Empire. Some Greeks had begun to feel that, under the appearance of Christianity, they were only keeping up the ancient paganism. They were taunted by the Hebrews and Mussulmen, who, inspired by the Koran, had a great hatred of images. This sect found a champion in Leo III., who had lived much among the Arabs, and shared their prejudices against idols. He convoked a council, prohibited images, and proscribed all reverence and use of them either public or private. A figure of the Christ over his own palace fell the first victim to his iconoclastic destruction. Several Greeks who would not bow to this decree fled to Italy, and put themselves under the protection of Pope Gregory II. From this time the eastern Byzantine architectural ornamentation was entirely confined to linear and geometric design, and vegetable forms. In pure Byzantine work one sees no dragons or fighting monsters, only conventional doves and scrolls. The sculptors took to imitating woven stuffs, and Oriental patterns in marble, and to twining their capitals with conventional leaves, but the life had gone out of their work; it was all set and precise, but dead.

The Italian architect, not being under the power of the edict of Leo, continued to carve his mythic animals, his symbolic birds and fishes, and even tried his hand at the first rude revival of the human figure in sculpture. His figures were disproportionate and mediæval in form,—what could one expect from a man of the Middle Ages just reawakening to the conception of art?—but they were full of fire and life. Their mystic beasts were horrible as any nightmare could conceive them; they were indeed conceived in the darkness of that night of superstition, ignorance, and fierce strife. Their angels were grotesque, not from want of imagination, but from want of models of form and proportion; their men are full of all kinds of expression, with their heads too large and their limbs too short; but their attitudes are lively, their faces grotesquely keen.

As a proof of this distinctive style, compare the Byzantine altar of S. Ambrogio at Milan, here illustrated, with the Comacine pulpit of the same church. (See [page 88].)

Byzantine Altar in the Church of S. Ambrogio, Milan.

[See page 74.]

So many students of architecture roughly class as Byzantine every kind of intricate decorative work of the centuries before the Renaissance; but I think that, excepting in some instances in Venice and Ravenna (and not all the work of the era there), most of the Italian ornamental sculpture is Comacine, and not Byzantine. Certainly if you see a sly-faced lamb, or a placid lion with rolling eyes, peering out from beneath the abacus of a column, or a perky bird lifting up its claw over a vase, with an extremely lively expression of eagerness, that work is not Byzantine, though it may be surrounded and mixed with the most intricate possible weaving of lines or foliage. However, I leave the question of derivation of style to wiser students than myself, and return to the Comacine Masters and their symbolism.

It seems impossible that the Comacine sculptures on S. Michele could have come through the Byzantine. It is true they show rude and unskilled technical execution, but they have intense spirit, belief, life, and spontaneity. The Magistri must have got their ornamentation as they did their architecture from an older source,—and a traditional one. It came down like their Freemasonry from ancient Eastern builders through pagan Rome, and ages of mystic religions such as Gnostic and other deistic forms, till it became incorporated in Christianity. "We might," says Sacchi,[61] "define Christian symbolism as the representation of mysteries and religious truths by means of forms, cyphers, and determinate images." (La rappresentazione di dogmi, misteri e verità religiose, per mezzo di forme, cifre ed immagini determinate.)

An older and more authoritative testimony is given by Dionysius the Areopagite, the associate of St. Paul, by whom he was consecrated. In his De angelica seu celesti Hierarchia, Epistola ad Timotheum Ephæsiæ civitatis episcopum, he writes—"It is necessary to teach the mind as to the spiritual hierarchies, by means of material figures and formal compositions, so that by comparing the most sacred forms in our minds, we may raise before us the spiritual and unpictured beings and similitudes on high." As he says elsewhere, "ascendere per formas veritatim."

Again he writes to Titus—"Only by means of occult and difficult enigmas, is it given to the fathers of science to show forth mystic and divine truths."[62] In the second epistle to Timotheus, St. Dionysius writes—"We must raise ourselves from ascetic facts by means of imaginative forms, and we should not marvel as do the unknowing, if for this end are chosen many-footed beings, or creatures with many heads; if we figure bovine images, or lions, or eagles with curved beaks; flying creatures with three-fold wings, celestial irradiations, wheel-like forms, vario-tinted horses, the armed Sagittarius, and every kind of sacred and formal symbol which has come down to us by tradition." St. Nilus, too, writes to Olimpiodorus—"You ask me if I think it an honourable thing that you erect temples to the memory of martyrs as well as to that of the Redeemer—those martyrs who are certainly among the saints, and whose pains and sufferings have borne witness to the gospel. You also ask whether it would be wise to decorate the walls on the right and left with animal figures, so that we may see hares (conies) and goats, and every kind of beast flying away, while men and dogs follow them up. Whether it would be well to represent fish and fishermen throwing the line or the net; whether on the calcareous stone shall be well-carved effigies of all kinds of animals, and ornamental friezes and representations of birds, beasts, and serpents of divers generations?" St. Nilus says later that he quite agrees with all these things; so if the Fathers of the Church respected them, we need not heed Mr. Ruskin's diatribes.

St. Nilus lived in the time of John XVI., 985-996, nearly 900 years after Dionysius, but this extract from his letter shows that Christian symbolism had not altered in all those centuries, and the church he describes is no more or less than a Comacine church of that era. The chase is figured forth on the façades of S. Michele and S. Stefano at Pavia, and S. Zeno at Verona. The huntsman and his dogs are generally used as emblems of the faithful Christian driving out heresies.[63] The fisherman symbolizes the priesthood, fishing for souls out of the ocean of sin. There is a beautiful example of this myth in the fresco of the ship (the ark of the Church) on the roof of the Spanish chapel at Santa Maria Novella in Florence, where the fisherman is casting his line from the bank.

Seen through the medium of these early lights, we no longer look on the façade of S. Michele as Ruskin does, as a sign of savage atrocity, but every line of the time-worn sculptured friezes stands out as full of meaning as an Egyptian hieroglyphic, to one who can interpret it. On the angle to the left we have the army of the Church militant, figured as armed soldiers, whose horses trample some quadrupeds underfoot: symbol—the vanquishing of sins. Above this a frieze of four animals—first, a lion; second, too much broken to be decipherable, but from the context it is probably a man-headed creature; third, a bull; fourth, a winged creature. Here we have the four beasts of the Apocalypse,—emblems of the Evangelists. "And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle" (Rev. iv. 7). The connection between the two friezes is evident. First, the Church militant clad in the whole armour of God, and the second emblematizing the shield of the Gospel.

In the next compartment of the façade, that on the left of the door, we have the chase of a deer and other animals flying from fierce dogs, which we have explained above; over this a frieze of vine-leaves. Here, again, the connection of thought is apparent. The vine figures Christ, the only true refuge from heresy.

High up on each side of this left door is a peacock with an olive-leaf in its claw-symbol of the Church bringing peace. In the centre between these is the bishop with his robes and pastoral staff—the visible dispenser of peace in the Church. On the fourth frieze, which is above the door, we go into the mythic animals: here is a hippogriff with the three-fold tail; a woman with six breasts, carrying two pine-cones; she is in a long robe with large sleeves, and veiled as an Egyptian; two sphinxes, on each of which a man rides, and whispers in their ears; a dragon with wings and bird's feet, on its neck a child; a priest with vase of holy water and an asperge, who is blessing some people; a man (Zohak) between two winged serpents which bite his head; a sphinx to whom a man presents a little branch of a tree; two hippogriffs, seated opposite each other with a man in the centre who places their claws on his head. A marvellous frieze indeed, and one which in spite of St. Dionysius speaks as much of Eastern traditions long before Christ, as of Christianity itself. The many-breasted woman with the pine-cones is the ancient mother goddess, Isis, Cybele, or Cupra, according to the age and clime; here I take it the old image is turned to new uses, and she figures Eve, the primitive mother. The two sphinxes are obscure, but they would seem to emblematize man wresting the secrets of knowledge of good and evil from the mystery of the unknown, as when Adam and Eve ate the apple; the dragon, always emblem of sin or the devil, ridden by a child, is a fine symbol of the child Christ, the seed of Eve, who should overcome sin. Then comes the purification by benediction, as shadowing Abel's accepted sacrifice, and the serpent-fanged remorse of Cain, as shown in Zohak.

"There where the narrowing chasm

Rose loftier in the hill

Stood Zohak, wretched man, condemned to keep

His cave of punishment.

His was the frequent scream

Which when far off the prowling jackal heard,

He howled in terror back.

For from his shoulders grew

Two snakes of monster size

Which ever at his head

Aimed their rapacious teeth.

He, in eternal conflict, oft would seize

Their swelling necks, and in his giant grasp

Bruise them, and rend their flesh with bloody nails

And howl for agony,

Feeling the pangs he gave, for of himself

Co-sentient and inseparable parts

The snaky torturers grew."[64]

Southey, Thalaba the Destroyer.

Next the man giving the branch to the sphinx must shadow the reconciliation of man with God, and the hippogriffs the final redemption of man. The hippogriff is a combination of horse and eagle. The horse, as St. Dionysius says, was symbol of evangelical resignation and submission; if white, it sheds divine light. The eagle, he tells us, is a high and regal bird, potent, keen, sober and agile; the winged horse consequently stands for man's upward flight to heaven through submission to God. In the fifth frieze, the Christian virtues of strength, fortitude, sobriety, and obedience are symbolized by bulls and horses.

Fresco in the Spanish Chapel, S. Maria Novella, Florence.

[See Page 77, note].

Around the door are sculptures of the same kind of emblems with vines entwining—which teach that all manly strength must be used for Christ.

In the central portion are more friezes, all symbolizing the struggle between good and evil; the war between angels and demons; between man's earthly nature and his heavenly soul.

Here are men fighting dragons, and struggling with serpents; winged angels riding on heavenly horses; and over the door the grand central idea, St. Michael triumphant over the dragon-serpent, the favourite hero and great example of those days.

On the other side of the church we seem to get the symbolism of the New Testament. Here, mixed still with the dragons and hippogriffs of the time, we can see the Virgin with the Divine Child at her breast.

On the capitals of the north door, round the corner, are the entirely Christian emblems of the man, the lamb, a winged eagle, and two doves pecking at a vase, in which are heavenly flowers. In the lunette, Christ is giving to St. Paul on one side a roll of parchment, and on the other hand entrusting the keys to St. Peter; under it are the words: Ordino Rex istos super omnia Regna Magistros.

The capitals in the church are carved with similar subjects; one has the emblems of the evangelists; another Adam and Eve with the tree of knowledge on one side, and a figure offering a lamb on the other. On one are griffins at the corners, and Longobards with long vests, beard, and long hair, crouching between them; on another, a virgin martyr bearing the palm. The fourth column on the left has a curious scene of a man dying, and an angel and a demon fighting for his soul, which has come out of him in the form of a nude child. Two pilasters show the sacrifice of Isaac, and Daniel in the lions' den.

Door of the Church of San Michele, Pavia.

[See page 80.]

So we see, that mediæval as he was at that time, the Comacine Master of the seventh and eighth centuries, even though his execution were low, had a high meaning in his work. As to the rudeness of the handling, there is this to be said. We see the work after more than a thousand years' exposure to the atmosphere, and the sculptures are not in durable marble, but in sandstone, which has a habit of getting its edges decayed, so we may fairly suppose the cutting looked clearer when the ornamentations were fresh. The form of both animals and men is, however, and naturally always was, entirely mediæval, which seems synonymous with clumsy.

The use of marble ceased for some centuries with the fall of the Roman Empire. Theodosius had made a law, forbidding any one below the rank of a senator to erect a building of marble, or valuable macigna; thus the Christian buildings after the fifth century were generally of humble sandstone; and this continued till the time of St. Nilus, who tells his friend that "in arenaria he may effigy every kind of animal, which will be a delightful spectacle" (dilettoso spettacolo di veduta). It was a stone peculiarly adapted to building, as it was easily cut, and yielded to all the imaginations of the sculptor with very little labour. I have given an especially lengthy description of the façade of S. Michele, because it embodies all the special marks of the ornamentation of the Comacine under the Longobardic era. The church of S. Fedele at Como is another instance; here, too, the capitals of the columns, and the holy water vase, which is held up by a dragon, are full of orphic symbolism. The left door has an architrave with obtuse angles bearing a chimerical figure, half human, half serpent—the gnostic symbol of Wisdom. Serpents and dragons entwine on the lintels, and emblematize the Church's power to overcome.

In studying the scrolls and geometrical decoration of the Comacines, one immediately perceives that the intreccio, or interlaced work, is one of their special marks. I think it would be difficult to find any church or sacred edifice, or even altar of the Comacine work under the Longobards, which is not signed, as it were, by some curious interlaced knot or meander, formed of a single tortuous line.

As far as I can find from my own observations, there is this difference between the Byzantine and Comacine mazes; the Byzantine worked for effect, to get a surface well covered. His knots and scrolls are beautifully finished and clearly cut with geometrical precision, but the line is not continuous; it is a pretty pattern repeated over and over, but has no suggestion of meaning.

The Comacine, on the contrary, believed in his mystic knot; to him it was, as I have said, a sign of the inscrutable and infinite ways of God, whose nature is unity. The traditional name of these interlacings among Italians is "Solomon's knot."

I have seen a tiny ancient Lombard church, in the mountains of the Apuan Alps, built before the tenth century, of large blocks of stone, fitted and dovetailed into each other with a precision almost Etruscan. High up in the northern wall is a single carved stone some three feet long, representing a rude interlaced knot.[65] We asked a peasant what it was.

"Oh, it's an ancient girigogolo," said he, by which I presume he meant hieroglyphic.

On going to a higher fount and asking the priest, we got the information that it was a "Solomon's knot," and that such intrecci were found on nearly all the very ancient churches. He supposed it had some meaning—and thought it expressed eternity, as the knots had no end and no beginning. The Italian philologist, Sebastian Ciampi, gives these interlacings a very ancient origin. "We may observe," he writes, "in the sculpture of the so-called barbarous ages on capitals, or carved stones, that they used to engrave serpents interlaced with curious convolutions. On the wall too they sculptured that labyrinth of line which is believed to be the Gordian knot, and other similar ornaments to which Italians give the generic name of meandri. I do not think that all these representations were merely adapted for ornament, but that they had some mystic meaning. I am not prepared to say whether our forefathers received such emblems from the Northern people who so frequently peregrinated in Italy, or from the Asiatic countries. This is certain, the use of such ornamentation is extremely antique, and we find it adopted by the Persians, and see it in Turkish money, and carpets, and other works of Oriental art."[66] Ciampi goes on to find the root of these emblems, both the Runic knot and the Comacine intreccio, in the Cabirus of the ancient Orientals. It is possible that the ancient serpent worship of the Druids and other Northern nations, was in some way descended from the same root. In any case they were transmitted to the Longobardic Comacines through the early Christian Collegia of Rome, as we see by the plutei in San Clemente, S. Agnese, etc., and by the beautiful single-cord interweavings on the door of a chapel in S. Prassede.

Comacine Knot on a panel at S. Ambrogio, Milan. One strand forms the whole. From Cattaneo's "Architettura."

[See page 83.]

Sculpture from Sant' Abbondio, Como, 5th century. (The circle and centre a single strand.)

[See page 84.]

There is a marvellous knot sculptured on a marble panel of the ninth century from S. Ambrogio Milan, which Cattaneo has illustrated.[67] The whole square is filled with complicated interweavings of a single strand, forming intricate loops and circles, the spaces between which are filled with the Christian emblems, the rose, the lily, and the heart. Another pluteus, originally from San Marco dei Precipazi at Venice, but now over the altar at S. Giacomo, is dated 829 A.D., and is covered with what seems at first sight a geometric pattern of circles and diamonds, but if analyzed will be found a single strand interwoven in the most mysterious and beautiful manner. It seems that the parapet of the tribune in all these early Basilicas was the place chosen especially by the Roman architect of the third and fourth centuries, and the Comacine of the eighth and ninth, to set their secret and mysterious signs upon, and to mark their belief in God as showing infinity in unity.

It is very curious to notice in the churches which the guild restored in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when their tenets had altered, and their sign changed, how they themselves removed these old stones, but yet being careful not to destroy them, they turned them and sculptured them again on the other side. In the excavations or restorations in Rome many of the intrecci have come to light at the back of panels of Comatesque pulpits, recarved into altar frontals, or used as paving-stones before the altar.

Some of the earlier and less intricate forms of knots may be seen in the church of S. Abbondio at Como, which was built in the fifth century and again rebuilt in the ninth. Some excavations in the last century revealed the foundations of the fifth-century church, and also brought to light a number of sculptured stones which had been turned face downwards to form the pavement. We give illustrations from two of these which have the Comacine signs plainly written on them, and show even in this early and simple form the reverence for the line of unity. Cattaneo thinks they may have formed the front of the gallery above the nave in the eighth-century building.

In the museum of Verona is a precious fragment of Comacine work dating from Luitprand's time. It was a ciborium which Magister Ursus was commissioned to make for the church of S. Giorgio di Valpolicella. It is especially valuable as the first dated piece of sculpture of the Longobardic era, and the first signed specimen of Comacine interlaced work. The columns which remain support a round arch, covered with sculptured intrecci. As it stands now the two halves of the arch do not match, so it must be conjectured that the ciborium had four columns, and that the halves of the arch were originally on different sides of the erection. The intrecci are beautiful and varied, displaying the unbroken continuity of the curved line which marks the Comacine work of the eighth to the twelfth centuries. The capitals are curious in form and not at all classical. Beneath the capitals of the two columns are the following inscriptions in rough letters and dog Latin. One runs—"IN NOMINE DNI. IESU XRISTI DE DONIS SANCTI IUHANNES BAPTISTE. EDIFICATUS EST HANC CIVORIUM SUB TEMPORE DOMNO NOSTRO LIOPRANDO REGE, ET VB PATERNO DOMNICO EPESCOPO, ET COSTODES EIUS, VIDALIANO ET TANCOL, PRESBITERIS, ET REFOL GASTALDO, GONDELME INDIGNUS DIACONUS SCRIPSI." And the other—"URSUS MAGESTER CUM DISCEPOLIS SUIS, IVVINTINO ET IVVIANO EDIFICAVET HANC CIVORIUM, VERGONDUS TEODAL FOSCARI."[68]

The date of Bishop Dominic's death coincides with Luitprand's accession to the throne, so we may safely say Magister Ursus worked in 712. Ursus Magister fecit is also engraved in the same style on an ancient altar recently discovered in the abbey church of Ferentillo near Spoleto. It is known that Luitprand went to Spoleto in 739, and installed Hilderic in the Dukedom. In any case this inscription is of priceless value to our argument that the Comacine Guild which worked for the Lombard kings was really the same guild that built the latter Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals and palaces. Here we get the exact organization which becomes so familiar to us in the later lodges whose archives are kept, Ursus or Orso proves his right to the title of Magister by having disciples under him. The work is done in the time of "Our Lord Luitprand and our Father the Bishop," who are the presidents of the lodge, just as in later lodges the more influential citizen or body of citizens are presidents of the Opera. Then there is Refol, the Gastaldo (Grand Master). The very same term is kept up in the Lombard lodges till the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when the head of the Venetian laborerium is styled the Gastaldo instead of capo maestro as in Tuscany; there is even the notary to the guild, the unworthy scribe Gondelmus.

The work is so far inferior to the ciborium at Valpolicella, that it would seem to be, as Cattaneo remarks, by an earlier hand. The ornamentation is not a finished sculpture, but only rudely cut into the surface of the stone, like a first sketch. Possibly the remuneration offered by the employer was not liberal enough to encourage Orso to put any elaborate work into the altar, or he might have blocked out the work, and left it unfinished either by reason of death, or absence.

Another famous work of that time was one which Luitprand himself caused to be sculptured by Magister Giovanni, of the Comacine Guild. It was the covering for the tomb of S. Cumianus in the monastery of Bobbio. It will be remembered that Agilulf and Theodolinda gave shelter to the Irish Saint Columbanus, and assisted him to found the convent of Bobbio. One of the monks there, another Irishman, named Cumianus, was afterwards canonized, and Luitprand built his tomb. We are told it was covered with precious marbles, which would seem to indicate something in the style which the Cosmati afterwards made so famous.

The tomb of Theodata at Pavia is a fine specimen of Comacine-Longobardic sculpture. It is now to be seen in the cortile of the Palazzo Malaspina with some other old sarcophagi. This has been called a Byzantine work, but the extreme vitality and expression in the hippogriffs and the Solomon's knots which sign it, mark the work as Comacine; besides, we are told by the most early authors that the Longobards never employed Greek artists. There is the usual mixture of Christianity and Mediævalism in the sculptures on the top of the tomb. Winged griffins with serpent tails prance on each side of a vine, from which serpents' heads look out. Fishes are in the corner, and an interlaced border, whose spaces are filled with grapes and mystic circles, frames, as it were, the design. The side is entirely Christian; and if the peacocks which drink out of a vase with a cross in it, were less lively, it might almost pass for a Byzantine design; but the Comacine Magister has set his mark even here, in his knots with neither end nor beginning, his concentric circles, and roses of Sharon; and has told us in his mystic language that Theodata was a Christian, and though tempted, clung to the cross. Theodata, a noble Roman dame, was one of the ladies of honour to Ermelind, King Cunibert's Anglo-Saxon wife.[69]

One day Ermelind incautiously described the exquisite beauty of this lady, whom she had seen in the bath, and greatly inflamed his imagination. He brutally ruined the lovely Theodata, and afterwards shut her up in a monastery, probably that of St. Agatha, which his father had built. This took place in A.D. 720. The beautiful tomb was but a poor atonement for the coarse cruelty which had spoiled her life.

The pulpit in S. Ambrogio at Milan is a really fine specimen of sixth-century work. It is supported on ten columns. Here is the true Comacine variety of columns: they are all sizes and all shapes; some round, some hexagonal; some longer, some shorter; the difference in height being made up by the capitals and pedestals being more or less high. One, which is peculiarly short, and whose capital is carved in complicated Solomon's knots, has a lion placed as abacus. This is the earliest instance I know of, of the use of the lion of Judah, in connection with the pillar (Christ). Here the lion rests on the column and supports the arches, instead of being the root of the pillar as it became in the later Romanesque style. The arches are surrounded with intricate scrolls and interlaced work; some of them clearly copied from Byzantine designs. The spaces between the arches are enriched with allegorical subjects. In one, the emblems of the apostles; in another, a choir of angels, very mediæval and heavy-headed; in another, a winged archangel. At the corner is a man in Lombard dress, holding two animals, one in each hand. It is peculiarly suggestive of the Etruscan deity with the two leopards, which is so frequently seen on the black Chiusi vases, and confirms more than ever, the tendency in mediæval Christians to cling to ancient pagan forms, giving them a new Christian significance. The frieze above the arches which forms the base of the marble panels of the Ambone, is peculiarly Comacine. Here are all the mystic animals, representing the powers of evil;—dragons, wolves, etc., bound together in a knotted scroll of one continuous vine-branch, here and there training into foliage. Reading the ornamentation by the light of mediæval symbolism, the whole thing gives us lessons appropriate to a pulpit. It tells us that Christ the pillar of the Church, descended from David the lion of Judah, is the foundation of all Gospel; that angels and saints sing the glory of God; and that Christ the vine can bind and subdue the powers of evil. The fine early Christian tomb beneath the pulpit is not necessarily connected with it. It has been called the tomb of Stilicho, with how much reason I am not prepared to say. If so it must date from the early part of the fifth century, as it was on October 8, 405, that Stilicho marched up to Fiesole from Florence to his victory over Radagaisus the Goth. The Florentines had but just been converted to Christianity at that time. The sculpture, though Christian in subject, has many signs of debased Roman style mingled with much of the mediæval.

Pulpit in the Church of S. Ambrogio, Milan, 6th century.
(From a photograph by Brogi.)

[See Page 88.]

There is a similar pulpit at Toscanella, in the church of S. Maria Maggiore, a three-naved Lombard church with the choir facing east. The pulpit, which is of the square form used before A.D. 1000, is supported on four columns, and has sculptured parapets and arches, on which are various interlaced designs of marvellous intricacy.[70]

CHAPTER V
COMACINES UNDER CHARLEMAGNE

MASTERS OF THE CARLOVINGIAN ERA

We may safely say that Charlemagne, who was more a warrior than a man of æsthetic tastes, had no influence whatever on Italian architecture; neither the form nor the symbolism was changed by him. The Italians were always conservative, and clung to old traditions. The Roman basilica, and not the Eastern mosque, still continued to be the plan of the Italian church. Ricci asserts that by the end of the eighth century all imitation of Oriental architecture had disappeared from Italian churches. It was not the same, however, with the ornamentations, in which the frozen Byzantine forms became vitalized under hands less technically skilful, but more natural.

Door of a Chapel in S. Prassede, Rome.

[See page 83.]

Pluteus from S. Marco dei Precipazi, now in S. Giacomo, Venice.

[See page 84.]

Charlemagne did not even alter the Longobardic laws, and he certainly did not interfere with the freedom and privileges of the Comacines or Liberi Muratori. In fact he ratified the Lombard code (the laws of Rotharis and Luitprand), only adding a few others which are known as Capitolari.

They do not, however, refer specially to our Magistri, but to jurisprudence in general. The older laws still held good for the Comacines, and they went on building their Basilican churches, which were at the same time classic in form, solid in style, and fanciful in decoration—a curious and characteristic mixture. But Charlemagne certainly patronized the Comacines, and not only employed them himself, but sent them to restore Roman churches for Pope Adrian, and to fortify Florence.

The early Carlovingian churches in Italy have so much analogy with the Longobardic ones, that it is very difficult to distinguish precisely to which era certain churches belong.

Rumhor instances the Florentine Basilica of S. Scheraggio, which was much used as a meeting-place for civil councils in the early days of the Republic. This is usually said to have been a Carlovingian church; but either it was pure Lombard, as the barbarous name Scheraggio implies, or else Charlemagne employed the Lombard architects.[71] Padre Richa, who saw the ruins of it, gives a design of the church, which was the usual Lombard form, three naves, the central one wide, and an apse to each. The columns and capitals were from some Roman building.

The architecture was entirely similar to that of S. Paolo in ripa d'Arno, close to Pisa, which has also been styled Carlovingian. The chronicle of the monk Marco, written in 1287, preserved in the archives of Vallombrosa, shows that although the guide-books date S. Scheraggio as twelfth-century architecture because a papal bull of that time refers to the name, it belonged to the Vallombrosian monks long before, having been given to them by Countess Beatrice in 1073,[72] and was probably founded in the ninth century.

We must not omit to mention the most interesting of Comacine churches, that of San Donato in Polenta, where Dante worshipped, and near which Paolo and Francesca lived. It was built in the eighth century, and is mentioned in a document of 976. It is of the usual triple-apsed form. The columns have diverse capitals, some square, some diminished, ornamented with foliage and interlaced work; some have grotesque figures, and animals in low relief, with a rude technique. Here are men like monkeys, hippogriffs, sea monsters, etc. It has been graphically described in Sapphic verse by Carducci, as follows—

To that gaunt Byzantine there crucified,

Whose hollow eyes gaze from his livid face,

The faithful pray for blessings on their Lord,[73]

And glory to Rome.

From every capital dread shapes obtrude

And memories bring of ancient sculpturing hands

Whose works show visions weird, and horrors from

The dreadful North.

The eastern gleam from pallid altar lamps

Falls on degenerate inhuman forms,

Writhing around in many-coiled embrace

Like things of Hell.

Rude monsters spew above the kneeling flock.

Behind the very font, crouching beast

Red-haired and horned, and demonlike

Doth gaze and grin.

The original runs thus—

Al bizantino crocefisso, atroce

Ne gli occhi bianchi livida magrezza,

Chieser mercè de l'alta stirpe e de la

Gloria di Roma.

Da i capitelli orride forme intruse

A le memorie di scapelli argivi,

Sogni efferati e spasimi del bieco

Settentrione.

Imbestiati degeneratamente

Ne l'Oriente, al guizzo de le fioca

Lampade, in turpi abbracciamenti attorti,

Zolfo ed inferno.

Goffi sputavan su la prosternata

Gregge: di dietro al battistero un fulvo

Picciol cornuto diavolo guardava

E subsannava.

This church, so full of poetic and historic interest, was lately going to be destroyed, but the priest, Don Luigi Zattini, appealed to the Inspector of Monuments for the province of Forli, who had recourse to the Deputazione Storica Romagnola. Efforts were made to save it, and instead of being pulled down, it is now only to be restored, which may be as fatal. The castle of Guido da Polenta, husband of Francesca da Rimini and brother of Paolo, is now ruined, but a cypress on a plateau of the grounds is still called Francesca's cypress.

It was about this era that the Comacines began their many emigrations, and spread throughout Italy. The church-building Longobards, being subjugated themselves, had no longer the power to employ them, so this large guild had to look further afield for their work.

Hitherto they seem to have been almost exclusively employed in the Lombard kingdom and its dukedoms, except the few who went to England and Germany in the seventh century. But Charlemagne had a wider rule in Italy; and good architecture was needed in other parts. Some documents quoted by Professor Merzario[74] not only prove these travelling days of the Magistri, but connect them with many of the finest and most interesting churches in Central and South Italy. One is a deed of gift for the weekly distribution of bread and wine to the poor at Lucca in 805. It begins—"Ego Natalis, homo transpadanus, magister casarius, Christo auxiliante, ædificavi Ecclesiam in honori Dei et Mariæ et B. Petri Apostoli, intra hanc civitatem"—"I, Natalis, a man from beyond the Pò, being a master builder, by Christ's help have constructed within this city, a church in honour of God, of Mary, and of the blessed apostle Peter."[75] Here we see the Comacine Master settled as leading architect in Lucca, far from his native land beyond the Pò, and so flourishing that he can dispense large charities. He seems to have done some public works too; there was a canal called the Fossa Natale, which ran through the city, and had a bridge over it. There must have been others of the guild in Lucca, before Natalis, working at the churches of S. Frediano and S. Michele.

The latter building was not long prior to the era of Magister Natalis. It was founded in 764 by the Lombard Teutprandus or Iutprand, and his wife Gumbranda. It coincides with S. Frediano in its plan of the Latin cross. Here, however, we find no Roman capitals, as in S. Frediano, but the twelve columns which sustain the arches of the nave are of rough white marble, from the neighbouring mountains of Carrara. They are of the same size upward, not narrowed at the top. The capitals are of somewhat composite order, with a leaning to Orientalism. The eight columns in the nave have simple arches a sesto intero (semi-circular) springing from them; the four which support the tribune are heightened by piers of a Gothic form, flanked by pilasters, which raise the arch over the central nave. This seems to be the first instance of an attempt to render the sanctuary of the high altar more grand and majestic than the rest of the building. The façade is of quite a different epoch, and has nothing to do with the interior. It was the work of Guidectus in 1188, who also built the cathedral of Lucca.

The windows show the same divergence of style. In S. Frediano they are large and classical, in S. Michele narrow and Neo-Gothic.

The other document is less decisive, but has its significance. An ancient mediæval Memoriale, in the monastery of Pontida,[76] has the following entry—"Guglielmo de Longhi di Adraria built the church of San Giacomo di Pontida, employing Magister Johanne de Menazio et multis aliis de episcopatu comensi." This was finished in 1301, and was consequently later than the building of S. Zeno at Pontida, of which another MS. in the same monastery relates a fact, which the chronicler says happened avanti il mille (before the year 1000).

"A master very famous in the art of building, who came 'de regione juxta lacum cumanum' (from the region about Lake Como), met with robbers at Cisano, as he returned from Verona to his native place. The which Master being struck with terror, recommended himself, calling with all his heart on the blessed Zeno, and made a vow that if the saint brought him safe and sound out of that deadly peril, he would build a church in his honour. As soon as he had spoken the words, the horse on which he was mounted took fright and galloped away, so that the robbers could no more harm him. Thus he escaped safely with all his belongings ('potè scampare sano con tutte le sue cose'), and returning the following year with his workmen, he began the building of the church of S. Zeno at Valle Ponzia (now Pontida), the people of the neighbourhood lending him aid, both in money and in labour."

We may be excused for jumping at conclusions if we opine that as he was returning from Verona after a long sojourn, he had been employed there. Probably it was at the church of S. Zeno; particularly as he felt he had a special claim on the help of that saint.

There is very little left of the first church of S. Zeno at Verona (which was rebuilt entirely in the twelfth century), except the curious mausoleum in the crypt, which is supposed to be King Pepin's tomb. Our Comacine who escaped the brigands may possibly have made that, as the era (before the year 1000) corresponds. Or he might have been working at the church which Bishop Lothaire, aided by Bertrada, mother of Charlemagne, built 780 A.D., and dedicated to S. Maria Matricolare, and which the Bishop Ratoldo (802-840) chose as the cathedral. Of this, too, little remains now, it having been rebuilt in the twelfth century, but some indications of the old building were found in the excavations made in 1884. At the depth of two metres, in the Lombard cloister adjoining it, a mosaic pavement was discovered with a design of foliage, animals, and inscriptions. There was also a fallen column, which they were able to stand on its own base with its capital. Cattaneo[77] thinks that these are the remains of Lothaire's church, as the capital of the column is undoubtedly of the eighth century. It has a rigid abacus, and the form is rudely Corinthian, with solid straight leaves curled back, instead of the usual acanthus. The same style is seen in S. Salvatore of Brescia, and S. Maria in Cosmedin in Rome, both Comacine works.

Comacine Capitals.

[See page 96.]

Another Carlovingian church in Verona is that of S. Lorenzo, said to have been founded by Pepin. Some interesting bits of its primitive architecture remain, and are precious relics. There is, for instance, a little spiral stairway in the wall, which led to different divisions of the women's gallery.[78]

At this era a change in the form of windows may be observed; they were narrowed and heightened, a first step towards the Gothic form.

In Carlovingian times the Comacines worked much in Rome. Cattaneo[79] says that there exist letters from Pope Adrian I. to Charlemagne, begging him to send architects (Magistri) from the north of Italy, to execute some works in Rome. Now these Magistri could be no other than the Comacine Guild of Lombardy, who with the Longobards had lately become subjects of Charlemagne, and were without doubt the finest builders in Italy, if not monopolists of the art. The buildings which they designed and erected in Rome at that time were the churches of S. Maria in Cosmedin, S. Lorenzo in Lucina, S. Saba on Mount Aventine, and the residence of the Patriarch near S. John Lateran. The door of a chapel in S. Prassede with its Comacine intrecci is a standing proof of their work there in the ninth century.

Anastasius, the librarian, gives an account of the rebuilding of the church of S. Maria in Cosmedin.[80] He says that Adrian found it absolutely beneath a pile of ruins (sub ruinis positam) of a former temple to Ceres and Proserpine, which literally hung over it. As this mass of ruin prevented the enlargement of the new church, it was entirely demolished "by fire, and by the labours of the people." The space being cleared, a new and spacious Basilica was erected "a fundamentis tres absides, in ea constituens."

The writer mentions this form with three apses as being new in Rome. We have, however, seen that in the north of Italy the Comacines had been, for the past century or two, building Basilican churches on precisely this plan. In fact the three round apses had become one of the special marks of their churches. Cattaneo argues that the form came from the East, as some of the Syrian churches of the fifth century and the great Basilica of St. Simeon Stylites at Kaiat Senian, erected in 500, have signs of the same conformation. Whether these were of absolutely Oriental origin, or the result of some early emigration of the liberi muratori, archæologists must judge. The two rows of columns which divide the nave from the aisles, have solid piers of masonry interposed between each three columns; these are elongated above the colonnade to support the roof, and strengthen the upper gallery.[81]

It is evident that the Comacines availed themselves of old material in this work; the columns are of all species and styles, some fluted, some smooth, some with antique Corinthian capitals, others of Comacine work. One is of the same form as those we have described in S. Maria Matricolare at Verona, with solid volutes, placed perpendicularly, instead of the graceful acanthus. The same capital is seen in S. Agnese fuori le mura.

There is in S. Maria in Cosmedin a very interesting fragment of the Comacine decoration of the time when Adrian I. was the patron of the guild. It is a bit of cornice, formed of a little colonnade of round arches; beneath it an inscription in a curious early style, the letters all sizes and shapes. It runs—

"DE DON IS D͠I ET S͠CE D͠I GENETRICIS MARIÆ. TEMPORIBUS DO͞NI ADRIANI PAPE EGO GREGORIUS."

I have seen another fragment during the recent restorations. A fine intreccio on a marble slab in one of the pulpits, which had been reversed and inlaid on the other side in thirteenth-century mosaic.

The church of S. Saba on Mount Aventine, which was also built under Adrian I., has every mark of Comacine work, especially in the mediæval and unclassic form of capitals. Probably the supply of ancient capitals fell short after the building of the other churches, and the builders had to supply them with their own chisels. They made a rude imitation of the Ionic form, as far from the classic grace of the original, as their plain hard volutes were from the elegance of the Corinthian.

A better artist seems to have been placed by the Comacine Guild in S. Lorenzo in Lucina, which was contemporary to this. The capitals of the same form are much more clearly and firmly cut, and in a better style of ornamentation. Here too are the Comacine lions, now built into the wall under the square lintels of the door. Of the Comacine work in the house of the Patriarch near S. John Lateran, i.e. the papal residence of those times, not much remains to show the hand of the Comacines, except the sculptures on the well in the cloister, the parapet of which is adorned with two zones of reliefs, divided by an interlaced band. The under one consists of alternate crosses and rude palms, the upper is a row of round arches, adorned with upstanding volutes, like vine-tendrils; under one arch is a dove with grapes in his beak, and in the other a cross. There are also two sculptured stones in the same cloister, one showing various interlaced patterns, the other a cross formed by weavings of the continued line, enriched in the groundwork of foliage.

One of the most interesting churches of the Carlovingian era is that of San Pietro in Grado near Pisa. In the Middle Ages this was a great shrine for pilgrimages, being, it is said, built on the spot on which St. Peter first set foot in Italy. (Gradus—a step.) Legend (supported by the assertion of a certain Archbishop Visconti, who preached in Pisa in the thirteenth century) says that the Apostle Peter was driven ashore at that spot, and having made an altar he began to baptize—giving his disciples commands to build a church there. What the first church was like is not known; the present one was built between 600 and 800 A.D., and was decorated with frescoes before A.D. 1000. There is a great similarity in structure between this building and that of S. Apollinare in Ravenna; they are both of similar brick masonry, and three-apsed, and the aisles are in about the same proportion to the greater height of the nave. The proportions of the short round arches on the tall classic columns of the interior are extremely similar, as is the scheme of ornamentation, with the difference that at Ravenna the medium is mosaic, and at S. Pietro a Grado it is fresco. The line of Bishops in the spring of the arches in Ravenna is reproduced at Grado by a line of Popes in medallions, ending with Leo III., 795, which would probably mark the era of the foundation of the church.[82]

San Pietro, however, has one very great peculiarity. It has no façade, but is built with the usual Lombard three apses at one end, and a single semi-circular tribune at the other. The only door is at the side. The priest, who is naturally proud of his church, and learned in its history, told us that by this peculiar form the builders wished to represent a ship, and pointing out the great square pilasters that break the line of columns at the fourth arch from the west, he showed how the raised poop of a vessel was expressed by the greater height and width of the four arches at the west end. Certainly the narrowing effect being towards the chancel instead of the reverse, is most remarkable.

I was not, however, convinced by his symbolism, and realizing the greater proportions of the west end, where three arches with fluted columns stretched across a tribune, now turned into an organ-loft, I felt convinced that the present form was not the original. Either the ancient altar once stood at the west end, and the church, like so many Lombard ones, had formerly faced the opposite way; or else the semi-circular tribune, which seems to be of later work, has been added by restorers, to cover in the three arches of the ancient façade. That, in fact, the large solid pilasters in the nave marked the ancient wall of the interior, and the four arches on the other side of them formed the narthex. To support the first theory, is the fact that the altar called St. Peter's altar stands now isolated in that west end, and the canopy in the form of an ancient Lombard ciborium stands on four columns above it, carved in stone in very early style. The opposite theory of the narthex having been at that end, may on its side be confirmed by one of the frescoes, the last but two on the south wall, which represents the church itself as it was prior to A.D. 1000. Here the artist has, with a curious mediæval disregard of perspective and possibility, represented both ends of the church in one view, and here we see plainly the three apses with their marble perpendicular ribs on one side, and the façade of large arches with a row of smaller ones across the building above them on the other. I leave the question of this puzzling west tribune to wiser judges than myself, and trust that some new Fergusson, Hope, or Street may some day discover the truth.

The columns of the nave are all of antique marble, the ruins of a Roman temple to Ceres at Pisa; some are of cipollino, others Oriental granite, one is of fluted white Greek marble. The capitals are mostly antique and classical, though a few show the hand of the early Comacine in their straight upstanding volutes. The ingenuity of the Magistri in making use of old material is shown in the various devices by which these columns are adapted. Where they are too short the base is raised on two pedestals; where too small for the massive pillar, a wide abacus is placed on the top to support the arch. One of the columns which support the altar is made long enough by a base made of an antique carved capital reversed beneath it. We have a distinct sign of the Comacines in a stone let into the wall near the door, and which evidently formed part of the ancient architrave. It is carved in an intricate interlaced knot. I shall speak in the chapter on Comacine painting, of the frescoes in the nave, which are unique of their kind, and of deep interest to the Art historian.

Exterior of San Piero a Grado, Pisa, 8th century.

[See page 101.]

These churches of the Carlovingian era in Italy cannot be documentally proved to have been at all connected with Charlemagne himself, except that he sent the Magistri Comacini to Rome, at Pope Adrian's request. The same cannot be said of the great church of Aix-la-Chapelle, with which his name must be for ever united, but which is certainly not entirely unconnected with this Lombard Guild. Where history gives no precise information, and where authors, ancient and modern, fail to fix the precise era of this important work, it is of course impossible to say who was the architect. We can only judge by the style, and by inferences drawn from previous works of the same style. First, as to the few facts we are able to gain: Eginbertus, a Lombard, the biographer of Charlemagne, in his De vita et gestis Caroli Magni, Capit. 26, tells us that Charlemagne "built the Basilica of Aquisgrana of wonderful beauty, and adorned it with much gold, silver lamps, and with gates and doors of bronze. For this construction, not being able elsewhere to find columns and marble, he provided that they should be brought from Rome and Ravenna." This fact, of a want of proper material in France, would seem to imply that skilled workmen to build in stone must have been imported with the material. It is difficult, or indeed impossible, to prove that French workmen were equal to the occasion, by showing other contemporary works in France. Any churches they may have then had, have long since perished, for at that date they were usually built of wood; another argument that France could not have supplied accomplished architects in stone.

Some say the church was designed by Ansige, Abbot of Fontanelles, others give the credit to Eginhard, or Eginbertus, as his Lombard name is spelt; but as he does not claim it for himself in his writing,—indeed, we see from the above extract that he speaks quite impersonally of it,—there is certainly no documentary evidence to prove this assertion. Speaking dispassionately, it would be strange for a man of letters, private secretary to a great king, to suddenly develop into a full-fledged architect. It is much more likely that as he was a Lombard, he was interested in employing the builders whom all his countrymen had employed for centuries. D'Agincourt, who had a good deal of amour propre, and would, if he could, always give glory to France, says (vol. i. p. 27, 139)—"It is natural to believe that the Italian architects whom Charlemagne had brought with him, designed the buildings they made for him in France, on the lines of those of their own country." Dartein, in his Lombard Architecture, writes of it—"If we inspect the octagonal half-domes which terminate the centre of the cross in S. Fedele at Como, we see that they reproduce the rotunda of Aix-la-Chapelle. The form of the shafts, the outline of the wall, and the disposition of the collateral vaults are alike in both edifices. The similarity is so great as to prove imitation, especially as other churches in the Rhone district remind one of churches in the territory of Como." The fact of similitude is significant, but is it not more likely that the imitation was the other way? S. Fedele, or S. Eufemia as it was first called, was built in S. Abbondio's time, A.D. 440, before the era of the Longobards, and we are told is the only church of that time which retains its original architecture, especially in the rounded apse. The similarity would then go to prove what has been an hypothesis, that Charlemagne really brought builders as well as marble from Italy, and that the Magistri Comacini were those builders.

The church has also been compared to S. Vitale at Ravenna, but the Comacines were accustomed to build circular churches, such as the Rotunda at Brescia, and others. They were generally used as baptisteries or mausoleums; in fact were ceremonial churches.

Aix-la-Chapelle was designed as the tomb of Charlemagne, and here the builders mingled the rotunda of the ceremonial church with the basilica for worship. The workmanship is much more rude than that of S. Vitale, where Greek artists were employed. It is easy to distinguish the parts added by the Comacines, from the classical and Byzantine imported adornments furnished by the spoils of Rome and Ravenna. The Italians were not left entirely free in their designs, but had to conform to a more northern climate and different national taste; the windows were narrowed and elongated, and the pitch of the roof raised to a sharper angle. As Pliny had said to Mustio, his Comacine architect, seven centuries before—"You Magistri always know how to overcome difficulties of position," and Charlemagne's architects, in an equal degree, studied both climate and position. The further we go south or east the roofs have a tendency to flatten, the further we go north they have a tendency to rise into sharper gables. The cause is this, I take it—a climatic one. Where there is much rain or snow, the sloping roof is a necessity; therefore this first indication of pointed architecture, as adaptable to the northern climate, makes Charlemagne's church an interesting link between the Romano-Lombard and Gothic in the north: just as Romano-Lombard stands between the classic and Romanesque in the south. If Ansige suggested these modifications to the Italian builders, he had a wider office in the history of art than he knew; for Aix-la-Chapelle became the root from which the French and German so-called Gothic sprang; improved in the first instance under the hands of the Franchi-Muratori, who in the succeeding generations were called to work on churches in both countries. After all, the first step was but a slight one, being more a raising and narrowing of the round arch than the innovation of the pointed one. It might stand better as a first indication of the stilted Norman arch.

Of the civil architecture of the Carlovingian era we have very few instances remaining. The Emperor Charlemagne built no especial palace for himself, but used that of Luitprand at Milan, which in Charlemagne's time was known as Curtis domum imperatoris. An old chronicler tells us that he fortified Verona. He says—"In the time when King Pepin was still young, the Huns or Avars invaded Italy. When Charlemagne heard of their approach he caused Verona to be fortified, and walls erected all round, with towers and moats; and with pali fissi fortified the city to its very foundations, leaving there his son Pepin." Forty-eight towers rise from these walls, of which eight are very high, the others well raised above the walls. These must have been what the old writer quaintly called pali fissi.

A diploma of Ludovic II., dated 814, proves that the walls of Piacenza also date from this era. It is in favour of his wife Analberg, giving her permission to incorporate a part of the walls into a monastery. It runs—"Of our own authority, we add to the monastery and give in perpetuity, all the steccato, internal and external, of the said wall of the city, from the foundations to the battlements, as much as extends from Porta Milano to the next postern gate; and not only this, but also the macie (rubble) which is found round the walls and ante-walls, and the same of the towers, gates, and posterns."

The use of hospices is much connected with Carlovingian times; they came in when the Church ruled, and pilgrimages became the fashion. The first hospices were in monasteries. In 752 S. Anselmo founded one for pilgrims at Nonantola, in Agro Mutinense. The council of Aquisgrana (Aix-la-Chapelle) made decrees as to the establishment of hospices, and Charlemagne made laws on the subject, "ut in omni regno nostro, neque pauper perigrinus hospitia denegare audeant." To the ordinary fine for homicide, Pepin II. added sixty soldi more if the person killed were a pilgrim. One who denied food and shelter to a pilgrim was fined three soldi. These humane provisions, like all such, soon became abused; so many non-religious people travelled on pilgrims' privileges, that at the end of Charlemagne's reign it was found necessary to provide real pilgrims with a Tessera trattoria to prove their authenticity.

Among the earliest hospices might be mentioned the leper hospital founded in Classis near Ravenna in S. Apollinare's time, and one in Rome, founded by the Roman lady Fabiola for destitute or abandoned sick and poor. In 785 a certain Datheus, arch-priest at Milan, founded an exonodochio (home for destitute children), and Queen Amalasunta built a foundling hospital at Ravenna, in the sixth century. Charlemagne commanded that there should be a place in the peristyle of the churches for the reception of foundlings. The Loggia del Bigallo, though a later building, is a beautiful specimen of such a peristyle.

CHAPTER VI
IN THE TROUBLOUS TIMES

After the Carlovingian dynasty had withdrawn from Italy, the country had two or three centuries of troublous times, in which very few people thought of church-building, and if the Comacine Masters found work in their own land, it was more the building of castles and strongholds in their most solid opera gallica, than the sculpturing of saints or the rearing of gorgeous basilicæ.

After the Carlovingians came the House of Berengarius, which held the Italian throne from 888 to the intervention of Otho I. of Germany in 951. During this time there was always a military fermentation going on; Duke Guido of Spoleto fighting Berengarius; Arnolph and his son Sventebald fighting Guido; the Hungarians overrunning and sacking Italy on the north, where there were battles at Brenta, Garigliano, Firenzuola, and bloodshed generally till the murder of Berengarius.

Nor were things more peaceful in the south. Between A.D. 924 and 950 the Saracens invaded Sicily, and having established themselves there, assaulted Rome, and marched on towards the Alps.

In Central Italy the Dukes of Burgundy, Provence, and Bavaria were found contesting with Lothaire for the succession. At length, in 951, Otho came down from Germany and scattered them all, restoring comparative peace for a time, though an arbitrary one; but it did not last long.

Next came superstitious fears; the poor battered Italians, demoralized by fierce human foes, succumbed entirely to the moral subjugator, superstition. They were firmly persuaded that the year 1000 should be the end of the world, and every activity, public and private, was paralyzed. It was only after that era had passed, and found Italy still existing, that new life began to stir in its inhabitants. Of course, fighting still continued, but these were holy wars—the Crusades, of which Urban II. preached the first in 1096. Then the art of sculpturesque architecture, which is the handmaid of religious enthusiasm, began to revive, and the Comacine Masters again had palmy days.

But they had not been entirely idle during these warlike times. Prof. Merzario says[83]—

"In this darkness which extended over all Italy, only one small lamp remained alight, making a bright spark in the vast Italian necropolis. It was from the Magistri Comacini. Their respective names are unknown, their individual works unspecialized, but the breath of their spirit might be felt all through those centuries, and their name collectively is legion. We may safely say that of all the works of art between A.D. 800 and 1000, the greater and better part are due to that brotherhood—always faithful and often secret—of the Magistri Comacini. The authority and judgment of learned men justify the assertion."

Here Prof. Merzario quotes several of these uomini dottissimi. First, Quatremal de Quincy, in his Dictionary of Architecture, who, under the heading "Comacine," remarks that "to these men, who were both designers and executors, architects, sculptors, and mosaicists, may be attributed the renaissance of art, and its propagation in the southern countries, where it marched with Christianity. Certain it is that we owe it to them, that the heritage of antique ages was not entirely lost, and it is only by their tradition and imitation that the art of building was kept alive, producing works which we still admire, and which become surprising when we think of the utter ignorance of all science in those dark ages." Our English writer, Hope, taking their later appellative of Lombards, credits Lombardy with being the cradle of the associations of Freemasons, "who were," he says, "the first after Roman times to enrich architecture with a complete and well-ordinated system, which dominated wherever the Latin Church extended its influence from the shores of the Baltic to those of the Mediterranean."[84] We will omit the witnesses, Kugler of Germany and Ramée of France, and take the Italian great authority, Pietro Selvatico.[85] He notes that art in Europe, from the seventh to the thirteenth century, consisted of a combination of Byzantine and Roman elements, but in the ninth century a third element mingled, which had in itself so much that was original, as to constitute an independent style. "This," he goes on to say, "was the Lombard or Comacine architecture, as it is called, which is distinguished by its low-pitched roofs, its circular arches, rounded on columns, which assimilate to the Greek and Roman styles. This gained a certain systematic unity after the first half of the ninth century." Prof. Selvatico seems to have ignored all the Comacine architecture under the Longobards, who were certainly the nurses of the guild, and takes it up just when it was freeing itself from the bonds of superstitious tradition, i.e. the transition between Roman-Lombard and Romanesque.

Comacine Capital in San Zeno, Verona, emblematizing Man clinging to Christ (the Palm).

[See page 111.]

No doubt the genealogy of the style was this. First, the Comacines continued Roman traditions as the Romans continued Etruscan ones; next, they orientalized their style by their connection with the East through Aquileia, and the influx of Greek exiles into the guild. Later came a different influence through the Saracens into the South, and the Italian-Gothic was born.

The Comacine art of the interregnum after Charlemagne may be judged by the church of S. Zeno at Verona. This had been rebuilt in 810 by King Pepin, whose palace was in Verona. His church fell a prey to the devastation dealt by the Huns in 924, and Bishop Rothair restored it in the tenth century, the Emperor Otho the First furnishing the funds. There was a third restoration in 1139, when the present front and portico were added. The general form of Otho's church still remains, and shows the usual "three naves" (emblematical of the Trinity), and the circular arches supported by alternate columns and pilasters. The roof, as in all the older Lombard churches, was of wood, and not vaulted. It is not recorded whence Otho obtained his architects, but though no names are written, the Comacine mark is there. Later restorations have wiped out most of the old signs, but they have left us some capitals on the columns and the reliefs on the arches leading into the crypt under the tribune. Two of the columns are here illustrated. In one may be seen human figures clinging to palm-branches, by which the Magister who carved it symbolized man clinging to Christ. The other is a veritable Comacine knot, formed of mystic winged creatures, with their serpent tails entwined. On the arches of the crypt are a wealth of mediæval imaginings, mystic beasts, Christian symbols, scriptural characters and ancient myths, all mingled together as only a Freemason of the Middle Ages could mingle them. Otho's architects were certainly Magistri of our guild, and probably our friend from Pontida, who called on S. Zeno to save him from the brigands, was one of them.

It is undeniable that later Comacines put the elegant façade to the church in 1139, when Magistri Nicolaus and Guglielmus carved the wonderful porch with its columns resting on lions, and its very mediæval reliefs, in which we see Theodoric, King of the Goths, going straight to the devil in the guise of a wild huntsman. On the architraves are allegorical reliefs of the twelve months. But this front is not of the era we are now discussing, and we shall mention it again.

A work which is indubitably of the ninth century, and has all the marks of the time, is the atrium of S. Ambrogio at Milan, which was a commission to Magister Adam of the Comacines, by Anspert of Bissone, who was Archbishop of Milan from 868 to 881. The atrium of a church was anciently used for the catechumens, as they were not admitted into the body of the church till they were baptized. The atrium of S. Ambrogio is a square space surrounded by a portico composed of columns supporting round arches. The proportions are so fine and majestic that it is looked on as the best mediæval edifice existing in Lombard style. The capitals are composed of foliage, strange ornaments, and groups of grotesque animals and monsters rudely sculptured; and yet with the imperfect chiselling there is such a freedom of design and wealth of imagination as you find in no Byzantine work, however precise its execution. We give an illustration of one of its capitals. The Comacine intreccio is there, but floriated and luxurious. The significance of these sculptures, though unintelligible to us, is believed to be the occult and conventional art language of the Comacines or Freemasons. On the doorway, among the foliage and symbolic animals, one may still read the name of "Adam Magister."

Capital in the Atrium of S. Ambrogio, Milan. By Magister Adam.

[See page 112.]

Another very important church of the ninth century is the cathedral of Grado, near Venice, which had been first built between 571-586, seemingly by Byzantine artists, though they also used old classical capitals from former buildings. The plan of this Basilica in its older form shows very clearly the leaning to one side which we have said was a symbol of Christ's head being turned in pain on the Cross. Here not only the left aisle reaches higher up than the right, but the wall of the façade slopes considerably. In the ninth century Fortunato, Patriarch of Grado, who lived about 828, sent for artefici Franchi[86] to restore the Baptistery of S. Giovanni on the island which was the metropolis of maritime Venice. Now what were these artefici Franchi? It is clear they could not have been French, for Charlemagne himself had to get builders from Lombardy, his own country not having as yet enough skill in masonry. It is natural to suppose they were the guild from Cisalpine Gaul, which though composed of Italians had been styled "Lombards" while under the Lombard kings, and may have been "Franchi" while the Carlovingian kings ruled. They were known as "Tedeschi" when later they were under the protection of the German emperors, a term which puzzled old Vasari greatly. It is still a question whether the real interpretation would not be the literal one, Free-masons, who may well have been recalled from France where they were at work.

The wording of a phrase in the will of the Patriarch Fortunato, where he says "feci venire magistros de Francia," shows plainly that he referred to architects belonging to a guild in which the higher orders were called Magistri.

Having begun to work at Grado, the Lombards were evidently employed in other Venetian churches. Their style is said to be very evident in the Duomo of Murano, but how much they did, and whether they worked with Eastern or other architects, will, I suppose, never be precisely known.

A curious little church of this epoch is existing in almost its original form at a village called Abadia, near Sesto Calende on Lake Maggiore. It has a crypt and a portico, three naves and three apses.[87] The crypt is supported on round arches and small thin columns, the roof is of wood. The portico has three arcades resting on columns and pilasters with capitals of Lombard-Byzantine style.

We find the guild at work not only in the north, but in the south of Italy at this epoch. One of the famous buildings in South Italy with which the Comacine Masters were connected, is the celebrated monastery of Monte Cassino with its church. This monastery had been built in the first instance by a Brescian named Petronax, who made a pilgrimage to Rome to see Pope Gregory II. The Pope urged Petronax to go to Monte Cassino where St. Benedict was buried. He went and there was inspired to found a monastery.

By the beginning of the eleventh century this had been much ruined by the Saracens and others, and Desiderius its abbot, in 1066, decided to restore it. He was of the race of the Lombard Dukes of Beneventum, was a friend of Pope Gregory VII., and became his successor on the papal throne under the name of Victor III. Desiring that his church should be a very "majestic temple," he sent to call artificers from Amalfi and from Lombardy.[88] Among the Italians was a certain Andrea, from Serra di Falco, near Como, a fine worker in metal, who, with his disciples, made the bronze doors.

Some interesting baptisteries were erected in the tenth century by the Comacines. The baptistery at this time seems to have had a set form—the octagon; and a mystical significance, that figure being highly symbolical of the Trinity, being formed by a conjunction of three triangles. In the earlier days of the Romano-Lombard style, the baptistery generally had only a small arcade, or row of brackets supporting arches round the outer wall beneath the roof, and a practicable gallery round the interior. Of this shape was the Florentine Baptistery, that of Como and many others.

When the later Comacines worked in more florid Romanesque style, the Baptisteries were often covered with little galleries or rows of colonnettes like those of Pisa, Parma, Lucca, etc.

A fine specimen of Lombard work of about 1000 A.D., or a little later, which shows the approach towards a more Gothic style, may be seen in the cloister of Voltorre, a little walled town on Lake Varese. The cloister of Voltorre is thus described—"The beauty of this eleventh-century Lombard building is singular. The four sides are formed of porticoes which sustain the upper storey. The porticoes facing the open court are formed on one side of small graceful arches in brick, with friezes and reliefs sustained by elegant colonnettes, some round and some octangular, with capitals of various forms. On two other sides the colonnettes are smaller and shorter, but still graceful; they terminate in varied and bizarre capitals surmounted by a kind of bracket on which the large stones of the upper building rest. Among the sculptures of the little columns on the left as one enters the court, is incised in mediæval characters and abbreviations the following—'Lanfrancus magister filius Dom. Ersatii de Livurno.'" Livurno most probably stands for Ligurno, a place a few miles from Voltorre. So our master Lanfranco Ersatti, having graduated in the Comacine Guild, set himself to embellish his native place. In 1099 Magister Lanfranco designed the Duomo of Modena, which, as will be seen hereafter, was the work of centuries, he being followed by a long series of architects.

Then came more troublous times for the Comacines in their own country. From 1118 to 1127 A.D. the republic of Como was at fierce war with the Milanese. A long poem by a Comacine poet, quoted by Muratori, describes the workmen and artisans fighting in the streets in their working dress, and wielding any tool or weapon they could find. The masons and builders worked as sappers and miners, dug the trenches, built up barricades, and destroyed the enemy's houses and castles. One of these brave citizens, named Giovanni Buono, is especially mentioned by the ancient poet, and he is peculiarly connected with the Comacine Masters as the first of a long line of Magisters of the Buono family. He forms a tangible link between the half-traditional Comacines of Lombard times, and the more clearly defined guild of the Romanesque epoch. From that to the Italian Gothic period their identity is traceable by documents. A warlike bishop, Guidone, was the leader of the Comacines, but after three years' war he fell ill, and on his death-bed prophesied the fall of his fatherland.

The Comacines were indeed at the end of their resources, they were exhausted of means, of food, and of warriors; and after several victories at length fell under the power of the Milanese, becoming a tributary state. But it was not till Milan had called in the aid of several other cities that brave little Como succumbed to her on August 27, 1127. She was not enslaved even then, and must have retained her political freedom, for we find her siding with Frederic Barbarossa in 1167, against the whole Lombard League, to her cost, for she was a great sufferer in the battle of Legnano on May 29, 1176.

Barbarossa tried to make some compensation, by ceding to Como the castles of Baradello and Olona. A coin exists, of the Como mint of that time, with an eagle and Imp. Federicus on one side, and Cumanus populus on the other. Frederic had reason to cultivate the Comaschi, for they sent 200 ships to the Venetian war for him. An edict of Barbarossa's in 1159, and another dated 1175, shows that he allowed the Comacines to rebuild their walls and city at that date, civitatem in cineres collapsam funditos re ædificavimus nos. This occupied them a long time. The tower towards Milan bears the date of 1192. The round tower that of 1250. There were eight gates in these new walls.

BOOK II
FIRST FOREIGN EMIGRATIONS OF THE COMACINES

CHAPTER I
THE NORMAN LINK

The great building guild of the Middle Ages had another connection with France, independently of Charlemagne, and one which perhaps left a more lasting impression on the nation than the church of Aix-la-Chapelle. It was through the Normans, who held a prominent place in the history of Romanesque art, some authors giving them the credit of its introduction into Italy.

This may be, but between the tenth and twelfth centuries architecture and sculpture underwent so many transformations and became mingled with so many different elements that its history is most difficult to disentangle. There was a maze of different influences brought together in Sicily, such as Norman, solid and heavy, from the north; Byzantine, set and precise, from the east; Saracenic, warm and fanciful, from the south—all mingling together in the temples of Monreale and Palermo, where I think we may add a fourth and Italian element, in the Comacines or Lombards.

The first consideration is: How did the Norman architecture first arise? Was it indigenous? Did the Normans about the tenth and eleventh centuries suddenly begin building round-arched and pillared churches from their own inner consciousness?—for all histories assure us there were no stone Norman-arched buildings before the tenth century, and that by 1150 the pointed style had already begun to supersede it. All the great and typical examples are crowded into the last fifty years of the eleventh century, at which time the Norman dukes were very powerful. It was a time of enterprise and excitement of all kinds, not the least of them being the rage for church-building, awakened by the early missionaries.

The West Door of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield, showing the Comacine style of building (opus gallicum).
(From a photograph by Mr. Freeman Dovaston, Oswestry.)

[See page 124.]

Some light may be thrown on the way the round arch first got into Normandy, by the following bits of old Norman chronicles, which show that a very important event took place in the history of the Comacines at the end of the tenth century, connecting them in a remarkable and suggestive manner with the rise of Norman architecture. We find from old chronicles that S. Guillaume, Abbot of S. Benigne in Dijon, was a Lombard, born in 961 on the island of Santa Giulia, in Lago di Orta, part of Lago Maggiore. He was the son of a certain Roberto, Lord of Volpiano; Otho the Great himself had been his godfather at the time when he besieged the island, and took prisoner Willa, wife of King Berengarius. Guillaume (William) was, as his friend and biographer, Glabrius Rodolphus, tells us, "of a keen intellect, and well instructed in the liberal arts." In his youth he travelled much in Italy, and was often at Venice, where he formed a close friendship with Orso Orseolo, Patriarch of Aquileja. The Patriarch Orso was at that time engaged in the restoration of the church of Torcello, one of the gems of architecture of the age; while his brother, the Doge Otho Orseolo, was pressing forward the works of S. Marco at Venice. It was here probably that S. Guillaume was interested in the Masonic guild, and recognizing its power as an aid to mission work, would have joined it. He founded the famous monastery of S. Benigno di Fruttuaria in Piedmont, and towards the end of the tenth century he went to France with the venerable Abbot of Cluny; here he decided to build a monastery to S. Benigne in Dijon, which he himself designed. But to effect his design he had to send to Italy, his own country, for "many people, men of letters, masters of divers arts, and others full of science."[89] The chronicler goes on to say that Guillaume displayed much wisdom in bringing these masters (magistri conducendo) to superintend the work (ipsum opus dictando). These two phrases are identical with those of Article 145 in the Edict of Rotharis, and I think might be equivalent to a proof that the Italians who built S. Benigne at Dijon were indeed of the Comacine Guild. The chroniclers further tell us that the Abbot Guillaume was invited to Normandy by Duke Richard II., to "found monasteries and erect buildings." The very phrase implies his connection with, and command of architects. He at first refused, because he had heard that the Dukes of Normandy were barbarous and truculent, and more likely to deface than to erect sacred temples; but afterwards he decided to go. He stayed there twenty years, founding forty monasteries, and restoring old ones, which were in those days chiefly built of wood. "He had many of his Italian monks trained to continue the work he had begun. These propagated such love and taste for art in those rude and bold Normans, that stone buildings multiplied there, and when William of Normandy conquered England, the style passed over with him." Hope, whose judgment is unerring on all subjects connected with the Lombard style, confirms this. He says[90] that some time before the style came into England, Normandy had given remarkable models of a tutto-sesto (round-arched) or Lombard style, and that the same precedence is noticeable in the pointed or composite style. Indeed, the English owe to the Normans the erection of many fine edifices of both kinds. Thus some gave the name of Norman to the Gothic buildings and others gave it to Lombard ones, and it was imagined that the pointed arch came originally from Normandy. And yet Normandy was one of the stations of pointed architecture in its pilgrimage towards us from the south. As an illustration and convincing proof of this pedigree of Norman style from the Lombard, we may give one of our oldest so-called Norman churches, that of St. Bartholomew the Great at Smithfield, London. The original nave has vanished, but the tribune remains, divested, it is true, of the two great piers in front of the apse, which were removed in 1410. The semi-circle of the apse has, however, been replaced in the old style; and, with its pillared arches and ambulatory, harmonizes well with the ancient part, now the nave, which is perfectly Lombard. The ambulatories below, and the women's gallery, such as we find in St. Agnes at Rome, and many Comacine churches, both have a distinctly Italian origin. Even the stilted arches in the choir only seem in their outline like magnified Lombard windows. The masonry is the true Comacine style, great square-cut blocks of stone, smoothed and fitted with exact precision; while the windows of the triforium are clearly a four-light development of the two-light Lombard window, divided by its small column; the very form of the column is identical, though it lacks the sculpture. Probably the Italian artists were few, and English assistants not yet trained. The clerestory was a reflex of a later style, being added in 1410, to replace the so-called Norman one, which no doubt had the usual round-arched windows with a column in the centre. Indeed, I think it would be worth the while of archæologists to find out whether the whole church were not originally built by Italian architects, as Rahere, its founder, was in Rome on a pilgrimage, when he fell very ill of fever, and vowed to build a hospital if he recovered. He soon after had a vision of St. Bartholomew, who instructed him to return to London, and build a church in the suburbs of Smithfield. He founded both the church and hospital of St. Bartholomew in about 1123. There seems to me to be such a difference between this church and other more heavy Norman contemporary buildings, that it might be suspected Rahere followed the older example of St. Wilfrid and St. Benedict Biscop, and brought over the Comacines with him.

South Side of the Choir, St. Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield.
(From a photograph by Mr. Freeman Dovaston, Oswestry.)

[See page 124.]

I cannot agree with Mr. Fergusson in his assertion that the members of the early Freemason guilds were only masons, and never designed the works entrusted to them, but always worked under the guidance of some superior person, whether he were a bishop or abbot, or an accomplished layman. Certainly the architects who worked for the Longobards must also have sometimes given the design, or what do the words opus dictando mean in the Edict of Rotharis? Surely Theodolinda could not have been architect enough to draw the plan for Monza. Nor do I think that the word Magistro in the masonic or any other art guild, applied to mere masons or underlings, but to those who were so far masters of their craft as to direct others, and make a working plan for them. The bishop or abbot, or educated layman, might have formed his own idea about the style he wished his building to take, and have made a sketch of it; but the practical working plan would have been drawn by the Magister, who directed his workmen or colligantes to put it into execution.

It is true that many ecclesiastics were, like the monks of S. Guillaume at Dijon and other Dominicans, members of the Masonic guilds, and were accordingly versed in the science of architecture. In that case the monk, when he became bishop or abbot, might furnish a plan, and very often did so. Fra Sisto and Fra Ristori built Santa Maria Novella in Florence; but they were connected with the Florentine lodge, so their doing so would certainly be no proof that the Masters of the guild could not have done equally well themselves.

That the oldest churches in Normandy have a great affinity to Lombard buildings is evident on examination. See the Lombard-shaped windows in the towers of St. Stephen's at Caen; the exterior of the circular apse of St. Nicholas, Caen, which still keeps its original hexagonal form, with pilasters like slight columns running from ground to roof at each division, and a colonnade surrounding it of perfect Lombard double-arched form, with a small pillar in the centre of each. (See Fergusson's Architecture.)

The local Norman developments are equally well defined in this building; the usual little Lombard gallery beneath the roof has given way to large, deep, circular-headed windows, and the roof has taken the high pitch natural to the climate. Both of these are climatic distinctions; the northerner aiming at more light, the southerner trying to shut out the sun: the damp climate, of course, necessitated the sloping roof.

Now, before the Normans came back to Italy they had made Italian architecture their own, and impressed on it their own character, rugged and robust, and it was so different to the buildings in South Italy with which they have been accredited, that I think this theory will have to be revised. The arts were certainly not influenced in Sicily by the first Norman invasion in 1058 under Roger I., son of Tancred, he being entirely a bellicose and rough warrior. It was when the Normans had taken root there, had become more softened, and had formed a settled government; in fact, after Roger II. had been crowned King of Apulia and Sicily in 1130, that they began to give their minds to artistic architecture. This was a century and a half after Abbot Guillaume took his countrymen over to build at Dijon. The first stone of the Duomo of Cefalù was laid in 1131, and the royal palace of Palermo begun during the next year. Under Roger's successors the fine churches of Martorana, and the cathedral of Monreale in 1172, the cathedral of Palermo (1185), and the palace of Cuba arose. An Italian writer, La Lumia, is very enthusiastic over the Duomo of Monreale—"that visigoth (sic) art which had in Normandy erected the cathedrals of Rouen, Bayeux, etc., multiplied in Monreale the ogival forms which had been known and practised in Sicily since the sixth century,[91] and took its upward flight in towers and bold spires. In the mosaics and decorations the majestic Arabic art espoused Byzantine and Christian types. The varied and multiplex association has impressed on these works an impront both singular and stupendous. The columns show the ruins of pagan classicism, the incredible profusion of marbles, verd-antique, and porphyry speak of a rich and florid political state; while the solemn mystery of those sublime arcades, profound lines and symbolic forms; the dim religious light, the ecstatic figures of prophets and saints with the gigantic Christ over the altar offering benediction to men, all shadow forth the mediæval idea of Christianity—full and ingenuous faith, vivified by conquest."

Then he goes on grandiloquently to say—"The names of the builders are unknown to us, and we need not trouble to seek them: a generation and era is here with all its soul made visible, with all its vigorous and fruitful activity."

But if we cannot find the names it would at least be interesting to know whether the Norman-Siculo architecture were entirely the work of the Normans or not. Gravina, Boitò, and other Italian writers think that the Normans took a similar position in Sicily to that of the earlier Longobards in the north, i.e. that they were the patrons, and employed the artists whom they found in Sicily.

Merzario,[92] giving as his authority Michele Amari,[93] brings forward as a suggestive fact, that precisely at the time of the Norman occupation, there was a large emigration into Sicily of members of the Lombard or Comacine Guild. Amari thinks that the feudal government of the Normans at that time did not allow their subjects to emigrate from land to land (excepting of course their armies for purposes of conquest), while in North Italy feudalism was going out, and with the establishment of republics the movement of the inhabitants was freer. "This," he says, "accounts for the so-called colonies of Lombards, which came to Sicily at that time, but of which, unfortunately, we have no reliable historical evidence."

These Lombardo-Siculan colonies, however, have been clearly traced by an Italian writer, Lionardo Vigo, in his Monografia critica delle colonie Lombardo sicule.[94] He has proved that there were four Lombard colonies in Sicily. That the first went down with Ardoin and Mania, between 1002, when, on Otho's death, Ardoin was elected King of Italy, and his retirement to S. Benigno in 1013 after his long struggle with Henry II. The second was during the Norman conquest of Sicily in 1061; the third later in the century, at the time of the union of the Norman and Swabian dynasties; and the fourth about 1188 under the Emperor Frederic,—this colony was led by Addo di Camerana.

The first two colonies left no lasting traces in the island, but the third founded the town of Maniace, and the last planted a settled colony which has left its mark, not only in the language, but in the many Lombard place-names. Thus there are in Sicily villages named Carona, Gagliano, Novara, Palazzolo, Padernò, Piazza, Sala, and Scopello, all of which are names of older places in the Comacine territory. Another name, "Sanfratelli" (the holy brethren), is very suggestive of the patron saints of the Lombard Guild, the "Quattro Incoronati." It is in this district precisely that Signor Vigo finds a special language, which has no affinity with Sicilian, or central Italian, and which he describes as a "hybrid, bastard language; a decayed Longobardic, only intelligible to those who use it; a frightful jargon and perfectly satanic tongue."

In the same volume of the Archivio Storico Siciliano is another collection of documents, regarding an episode of the war between the Latin and Catalonian factions at Palermo in the time of Ludovico of Aragon, about 1349. It shows in a list of volunteers, several names of Magistri which seem to be familiar to us. Here is Magister Nicolao Mancusio, Magister Guillelmo, Magister Nicolao de Meraviglia, Magister Chicco, Magister Juliano Guzù, Magister Roberto de Juncta (Giunta), Magister Vitalis, both from the Pisan lodge, Julianus Cuccio, Salvo di Pietro, etc. We find that Benedictus de Siri, a Lombard, was paid for twenty soldiers for ten days. Again on July 31, 1349, among the payments made to those who fought to defend Vicari during the siege, we find Magister Vanni di Bologna, Paulo de Boni, Magister Gaddi, Magister Benedicto de Lencio (Lenzo near Como), and Johanni de Gentile, and various others, all mixed up with ordinary folks who have no magic Master before their names. This seems to imply that the Lombard colony at that time had been long enough in Sicily to be nationalized, and that they furnished men for the war like any other citizens.

In some cases the payments are made to the heirs of Magister Johanne or Vitale, thus proving them to have become possessed of property. This was a privilege accorded to the Comacine Masters even in feudal times, when other classes were bound and enslaved. From the example of Magister Rodpert, the Longobard who sold his land at Toscanella many centuries before, we judge that when the Comacine remained long in a place, he made use of his earnings to buy land. Indeed in those days when no banks existed, landed property was the only secure disposition for wealth. And having bought his house and vineyards, it was but natural that he should name the estate after his own native place in Lombardy.

It is gratifying to find these direct proofs of the constant presence of the Lombard Masters in Sicily during the whole Norman and Swabian dynasties. It accounts for so much. It accounts for the so-called Norman architecture in Sicily having so much more affinity to Italian forms than to French-Norman; and it accounts for the Saracenic cast which Lombard architecture took after that era. The influence was a lasting one, and showed itself in all the subsequent work of the guild, during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Was this influence imbibed by the Normans who are said to have caused it? Evidently not.

Was Norman architecture proper, in the north of Europe, immediately changed? Not at all. It remained the same through all the Norman rule from Robert Guiscard to the fall of the line. It was not till the thirteenth century that the elegant pointed Gothic found its way into England—but not through Normandy—and took the place of the solid round-arched, short-pillared buildings introduced by William the Conqueror. We have seen that this round-arched style was first taught the Normans by the Italian builders whom the Abbot Guillaume brought northward with him.

But the Lombard influence in France was not confined to Normandy nor to Aix-la-Chapelle. Hope, the English authority on Lombard architecture, who spent eight years studying European churches, finds many a sign of Lombard handiwork on French soil. At Tournus is an abbey church of extremely interesting Lombard form. Fergusson[95] thus describes it—"Its antiquity is manifested by the rudeness both of its design and execution. The nave is separated from the aisles by plain cylindrical columns without bases, the capitals of which are joined by circular arches at the height of the vaults of the aisle. From the capitals rise dwarf columns supporting arches thrown across the nave. From one of these arches to another is thrown a tunnel vault which runs the cross way of the building, being in fact a series of arches like those of a bridge extending the whole length of the nave." Here we have, I believe, the first step towards the vaulted roof of the later Gothic buildings. The church of Ainay at Lyons, is said by Fergusson to be very similar to this.

Then there is the cathedral of Avignon in Provence, with its octagonal cupola, and its porch of Charlemagne's era in Romano-Lombard style. It is not unlikely that the earliest Provençal churches were built by Italian architects, for Avignon was closely connected with the Papacy at that time, and the Popes as we know were the especial patrons of the Masonic guild.

In the church of S. Trophime at Arles we have distinct signs of the Comacines, in the lion-supported columns of the central porch, and the frieze of sculpture above. There are three richly-sculptured porches; the central door is divided in two like a Lombard window, by a slight column which rests on kneeling figures, and has angels carved in the capital. The richly ornate architrave has lions on each side of it.

The church at Cruas in Provence has three apses with Lombard archlets round them all. Its dome is surrounded by a colonnade, and a superimposed round turret with Lombard windows. The tower has the usual double-arched windows.

Provence shows some beautiful specimens of Italian cloisters, at Aix, at Arles, and at Fontifroide. The latter has a row of arches supported by double columns of elegant slightness, and with foliaged capitals of varied form and great freedom of design. Fergusson says that the freedom and boldness are unrivalled. The cloister at Elne is still more varied and unique; the capitals mix up Egyptian, classic, and mediæval art in a manner truly unique.

As for towers, those left in Provence show a distinctly Lombard style. The tower at Puissalicon near Beziers is perfect in every particular, with its pillared Lombard windows increasing in width and lightness as they ascend.

From Provence, the land of the Popes, the Comacines penetrated further into France. The church of S. Croix at Bordeaux, attributed to William the Good, Duke of Aquitaine, who died in 877, has its round-arched porch, decorated with a profusion of Comacine intrecci of intertwined vines; and spiral pilasters grouped at the angles. Hope quotes the façade of the cathedral of San Pietro at Angoulême, as the finest Lombard one existing. There are numerous files of round arches, on elegant little columns, statues in niches, rich bas-reliefs, friezes, and arabesques. The nave is divided into three portions, each with a cupola. In this we see another step forward towards the vaulted roof. At Tournus the arches are simply thrown across the three divisions of the nave; here they are arched into the shape of a dome. The tower is entirely Lombard in form. There are Lombard churches at Poictiers, Puy, Auxerre, Caen, Poissy, Compiègne, etc., in all of which the style is perfectly distinct from the Norman, as it was then developed; and also from the later Gothic.

CHAPTER II
THE GERMAN LINK

The heading of this chapter implies nothing that can impugn the claims of the Teutons to the perfecting of the Gothic style, which claims are undoubtedly fair. It only implies that the pointed Gothic architecture was not an invention of the Germans, so much as a national development of some earlier form; and, like all developments, must have had some link connecting it with that earlier source. Was the Comacine Guild that link? Legends and traditions pointing to it are many, but, as usual, absolute proofs are few. Some proofs might be found if, with a clue in one's hand, search could be made among the archives of the German cities in which round-arched Lombard-style churches were built before the pointed Gothic and composite style came in. Some German savant should sift out certain traditions, which, from want of authorities and unfamiliarity with the language, I am not able to do. These are—

Firstly: That St. Boniface came to Italy before proceeding on his mission to Germany in A.D. 715, and that Pope Gregory II. gave him his credentials, instructions, etc., and sent with him a large following of monks, versed in the art of building, and of lay brethren who were also architects, to assist them.[96] This is the precise method in which St. Augustine and St. Benedict Biscop were equipped and sent to their missions in England, and S. Guillaume to his bishopric in Normandy. What resulted in England from the missions of St. Augustine, St. Wilfrid, and St. Benedict? The cathedral of Canterbury, the abbeys of Hexham, Lindisfarne and others—all distinctly Lombard buildings. What did S. Guillaume do in Normandy? He built the churches of Caen, Dijon, etc., also in pure Lombard style, not in the heavier Norman by which the natives followed it. So in Germany we hear that among the bishoprics founded by St. Boniface were Cologne, Worms, and Spires,[97] precisely the cities which have remains of the earliest churches in Lombard style. There are many other German churches, now fine Gothic buildings, whose crypts and portals show remains of older round-arched buildings.

Secondly: It is necessary to discover the precise connection of the Emperors Charlemagne, Otho, and the German monarchs who successively ruled in Lombardy, with the Masonic guild there. Whether, as they employed them in the Italian part of their kingdom, they did not also employ them across the Alps.

Thirdly: To find out whether, when Albertus Magnus went back to Cologne from Padua, he had not become a Magister in the Masonic guild, as many monks were, and whether he propagated the tenets of the brotherhood in Germany.

Certain proof exists that he designed the choir of the cathedral there, if nothing more. He also wrote a book entitled Liber Constructionum Alberti, which afterwards became the handbook for Gothic work. It is probable that this was in great part borrowed from an earlier Italian work on the construction of churches, named L' Arcano Magistero. This, however, was a secret book of the guild, and was kept most strictly in the hands of the Magistri themselves. Kügler relates that in 1090 a citizen of Utrecht killed a bishop, who had taken L' Arcano Magistero away from his son who was an architect. I am strongly of opinion that Albertus Magnus was much connected with the importation of Freemasons into Germany.

Fourthly: To discover whether in the cities where great buildings went on for many years, there remains any trace of the same threefold Masonic organization, which we find in the Italian cathedral-building towns; and whether the administration thereof was jointly managed by the Magistri or head architects, and the patrons or civic authorities of the city in which the buildings were carried on.

All these things can only be verified, in case the works of contemporary chroniclers still exist, or if there remain any traces of archives of so early a date.

As far as style in building goes to prove anything, the Lombards certainly preceded the native Gothic architects in Germany. Hope enumerates several churches, such as those at Spires, Worms, Zurich, and several old ones at Cologne, built before or about the Carlovingian era, which have every sign of Lombard influence.

The Gross Münster of Zurich was begun in 966 as a thank-offering of the Emperor Otho for his victories in Italy, and its plan, arches, windows, towers (excepting only the climatic addition of the pointed roofs) are all in Lombard style. The cloister adjoining it is very Italian, with its double columns and its sculptured capitals. Now, as Otho granted a special charter to the Masonic guild of Lombardy, it is natural to suppose that when he wanted a church built, he would employ this valuable class of his new subjects. At Basle we have a distinct sign of the Comacine Masters in the intrecci and other symbols sculptured round the Gallus-pforte of the cathedral, while in the crypt are two carved lions which were once beneath the columns of the door. They were removed in the restoration of the cathedral, after the earthquake of 1356. These lions are precisely the counterparts of those in the doorways of Modena and Verona. But it is at Cologne, the city of Albertus Magnus, that the Lombard style is unmistakable. Can one look at the three apses of the churches of the Apostles and of St. Martin, with the round arches encircling them, and little pillared galleries above, or at the double-arched windows in the towers, without at once recalling the Romanesque churches of Lucca, Arezzo, and Pisa, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries?[98]

Santa Maria del Campidoglio at Cologne, which was founded by Plectrude, wife of Pepin, has the same Lombard galleries running round the apses, and Cunibert's church in its western door shows not only pure Comacine sculpture, but the characteristic lion of Judah between the column and the arch. S. Andrea and S. Pantaleone, both founded in 954 by Bishop Bruno, brother of Otho the Great, were in the same style. This group of buildings all in one city, and all founded under the Emperors who ruled in Italy, surely suggest that when Charlemagne took over the builders for Aix-la-Chapelle, they as usual left their school and laborerium there, and that Otho and his successors in their turn had not far to go for architects.

Palazzo del Popolo and Palazzo Comunale, Todi.

[See pages 137] and [257].

If their churches are not enough, the civil architecture of that epoch also affords proof of Lombard influence in Germany. Compare the windows and style of the ancient dwelling-house at Cologne which Fergusson illustrates, p. 590, with those of any Lombard building whatsoever, from the Palace of King Desiderius in the eighth century to the Bargello of Florence in the thirteenth, and you will find them identical. The only German innovation is in the high gabled roof. Again, compare St. Elizabeth's home, the Castle on the Wartburg, with the ancient Communal Palace at Todi, or at Perugia, or other Lombard building of the twelfth century, and its genesis will at once be seen.[99]

Ferd. Pitou, author of the fine monograph on the Cathedral of Strasburg, confirms the presence of Italian builders in Germany, not only in the time of the Carlovingians and the line of Otho, but also in the later times of the Swabian dynasty. He says, when speaking of the works at Strasburg, that "colonies of artisans, chiefly sent from Lombardy and other parts, where church-building was prevalent, accompanied the monks and ecclesiastics who directed the work. These spiritual leaders, however, had all the glory of the buildings up to about the end of the twelfth century, when ogival architecture arose. These Lombard colonies pushed on beyond the Rhine, to the Elbe, the Oder, and the Vistula, and even penetrated to the forests and lands of Sarmatia and Scythia."

There seems little doubt that the German lodges founded by the Comacine emigrations took root, and became in time entirely national. Traditions are many, and most of them point back to Italy. For instance, legend says a brotherhood of stone-carvers existed in Spires and Bamberg from the time when those cathedrals were begun. Others say that Albertus Magnus on his return from Padua formed the first Masonic association in Germany, making special laws and obtaining especial privileges for the immense number of builders he collected to put into execution his cathedral at Cologne.[100] Again, L' Abbé de Grandidier, writing to a lady in November 1778, tells her that he has discovered an ancient document three centuries old, which shows that the much-boasted society of the Freemasons is nothing but a servile imitation of an ancient and humble confraternity of real builders whose seat was anciently in Strasburg. Hope, however, says that the Strasburg lodge, which was the earliest acknowledged German one, was first recognized by a legal act executed at Ratisbon in 1458, and that the Emperor Maximilian ratified and confirmed the act by a diploma given at Strasburg in 1498.

My theory is this, that in their early emigrations the Comacine Masters founded the usual lodges; that the Germans entered their schools and became masters in their turn; that in the end the German interest outweighed the foreign element in the brotherhood, and the Germans, wishing to nationalize an art which they had so greatly developed, split off from the universal Masonic Association, as the Sienese builders did in Siena in the fourteenth century, and formed a distinct national branch: that this decisive break probably took place at Strasburg, and that other lodges followed suit and nationalized themselves in their turn. No doubt some German searcher into archives may arise, who will do for Cologne and Strasburg what Milanesi has done for Siena, and Cesare Guasti for Florence, and so throw light on the complicated organization of patrons, architects, builders, and sculptors which banded together under one rule, to build the multiplex and grand old cathedrals.

CHAPTER III
THE ORIGIN OF SAXON ARCHITECTURE (A SUGGESTION)
BY THE REV. W. MILES BARNES[101]

Wherever the Romans planted colonies, there they established Collegia; without its colleges Roman society was incomplete; the Collegium was an element essential to Roman life.

The Collegium was a corporation or guild of persons associated in support of a common object; there were colleges of artists, of architects, builders, and artisans, as well as colleges associated with the administration and government, with religion and law.

The Collegium consisted of Collegæ or sodales (fellows, as we should term them), with a president who was styled "Magister"; the Collegium was recognized by the State, which confirmed the regulations made by the members for the government of their body, provided they were in conformity with the laws of the land. There is evidence that Roman Collegia were established in Britain shortly after its conquest by the Romans, and there was certainly a Collegium fabrorum in Britain in the reign of Claudius, the first Roman emperor to whom the island was subject. Under the direction of the Roman college, the Britons as builders reached a high degree of excellence in their craft, "so that when the cities of the empire of Gaul and the fortresses on the Rhine were destroyed, Constantius Chlorus, A.D. 298, sent to Britain for and employed British architects in repairing and re-edifying them" (Archæologia, vol. ix. p. 100).

Mr. Coote affirms that Collegia existed here after the final departure of the Romans from the island, and that the Saxons found them here, and did not interfere with them. Now if Collegia fabrorum, which certainly existed in Britain throughout the Roman occupation, were still in existence during the Saxon occupation, it needs explanation why the earliest missionaries to the Saxons had to bring or to send abroad for workmen to build churches.

On the Continent the barbarians who overran Italy dreaded the influence of the Collegia, and vigorously suppressed them, prohibiting them everywhere under the hardest penalties; under such circumstances we can understand that the societies in Rome could scarcely escape observation, and we shall be prepared to hear that the college of architects and builders in that city removed from thence and took refuge elsewhere. According to tradition they settled at or near Comum, where in mediæval times, under the title of Comacine Masters, they gained fame as architects, and their services were in much request throughout the Continent and beyond it. Had the barbarians, however, treated the Roman colleges with the same indifference as the Saxons are reputed to have shown towards them in England, all guilds of artists and artisans must, for a time at least, have ceased to exist, or have removed from Rome, where there was no longer any appreciation of art, or demand for their services.

It is true there is no documentary evidence to prove the continuous existence of the Collegia from Roman to mediæval times, or to show that the Roman college, which removed to Comum, was identical with the Comacine Guild which emerged from the darkness which shrouds the history of those early times;—there is, however, such evidence as can be derived from the similarity of the institutions, in their aims and constitutions. In the latter institution even the title of Magister was retained, though the use of the term was no longer limited to the president of the body, every competent and fully instructed member of the society was admitted to the order of Magistri,[102]—possibly because these members formed the governing body—and the president became a Grand Master. The members generally were called Liberi muratori—Freemasons—because they were not subject to the sumptuary and other laws which regulated the work and pay of ordinary workmen.[103]

Comum, which possessed all the privileges of a Roman municipium, stood at the head of Lacus Larii—the Lake of Como—on the northern shores of which, from Como to the island of Comacina, P. Strabo and C. Scipio settled Greek colonies, which Julius Cæsar added to and consolidated. The names of villages on these shores of the lake are still some guide to its extent and limits. Comum was made the chief seat of the colony.

After the fall of the Empire, this Romano-Greek colony seems to have withstood the attacks of the barbarians, and preserved its independence for a long time. At the time of the invasion of Italy by the Longobards, the whole of the northern end of the lake was in the hands of the imperial (Byzantine) party, and it was not until the year 586 that the island of Comacina fell into the hands of the Longobard King Autharis, though the lake and country northwards of the island seem to have still continued under imperial rule. The country around Comum, therefore, remained in comparative quiet, and if much progress in art was not possible, there at least it did not become altogether degenerate.

The Greek influence was evidently strong in the colony. Even the bishop in the latter end of the fifth century was a Greek, for S. Abbondio, who died Bishop of Comum in 489, had previously held the bishopric of Thessalonica; possibly other bishops of that diocese were of the same nationality: it would be surprising if the Roman architectural college, which took refuge there, had been altogether unaffected by it, particularly as the Romans derived their knowledge of architecture as well as of art from the Greeks, and Greek architecture was at all times treated by the great Roman architects with respect, as we learn from Vitruvius; besides, with the fall of the Empire, all progress in Roman art had ceased, and Byzantium was the quarter to which men looked for instruction in Christian and secular art.[104] It could only be that the work of a Roman society of architects in the midst of a Greek colony would show marked traces of Byzantine influence, and none the less because in all probability there were Byzantine societies of a similar kind beside it.

Müller says, after the fall of Rome, Constantinople was regarded as the centre of mechanical and artistic skill, and a knowledge of art radiated from it to distant countries.[105]

Let us turn our attention now to Britain. The Italian chroniclists relate that Pope Gregory in A.D. 598 sent over the monk Augustine to convert the British, and with him several of the fraternity of Liberi muratori (Freemasons), so that the converts might speedily be provided with churches, oratories, and monasteries; also that Augustine, in 604, despatched the priest Lorenzo and the monk Pietro back to Rome with a letter to Pope Gregory, begging him to send more architects and workmen, which he did.[106] We shall presently see, that although Bede does not say in so many words that Augustine was accompanied by architects and builders, yet that is the only inference which can be drawn from his words, and from Pope Gregory's instructions to Mellitus.

It was a common practice in mediæval times for missionaries, whether bishops or monks, to have in their train builders and stone-cutters, and they themselves were often skilful architects. St. Hugh of Lincoln was not the only bishop who could plan a church, instruct the workmen, and handle a hod.[107]

Even female saints appear to have included in their retinue, persons who were capable of building churches, though the followers of St. Modwen,[108] who, on landing in England from Ireland about A.D. 500, left her attendants to erect a church at Streneshalen, near the Arderne forest, while she went to visit the king, may have been only capable of building in wattle-work or in wood, "of hewn oak covered with reed," "after the manner of the Scots." Bede (iii. 25) describes the church of Lindisfarne as "a church of stone," that material not being usual amongst the Britons (iii. 4); still it is one instance among many, of the prevalence of the custom for missionaries, whether priests, monks, or nuns, to take in their train on their missionary journeys workmen experienced in building, and to employ them where necessary to build churches for their converts.

Professor Merzario states, on the authority of ancient MSS., that the architects and builders sent were Liberi muratori. Now, the members of the Comacine Society were known and are described in ancient MSS. under that title; besides, what other guild would Gregory be likely to invite to send members to join the mission?—were there indeed any other building guilds existing at the time, except the Byzantine societies. It is certainly not probable that Gregory would have invited Greek etairia to send members with the Roman mission, to build churches "after the Roman manner," which is what the first builders in Saxon England did, and in preference to builders belonging to a society which was of Roman origin, and held all the traditions of the Roman school of architecture.

But without the record of the Italian chroniclists it would have been clear to any careful reader that architects accompanied Augustine, and other early as well as the late missionaries to England. The first evidence will be found in Bede (i. 26), where it is stated that after King Ethelbert had been converted to the faith, the missioners built churches and repaired old Romano-British churches in places whither they came, for their converts to worship in.

And again (i. 30), Gregory instructs Mellitus not to destroy the idol temples, but if well built to cleanse them and put altars in them, and convert them into churches. Gregory states that he decided on this course after mature deliberation; which shows that Gregory knew that many of the old Roman temples were still in use, and that Mellitus had with him architects who were qualified to carry out the necessary repairs to them.

Fiesole Cathedral Interior.

Again, in 601, Pope Gregory sent Paulinus and others to assist Augustine in his work, and by them he sent sacred vessels, ornaments for the church, and vestments. Now experienced architects and builders to build churches for the converts were as necessary as the ornaments wherewith to furnish them, and it is fair to conclude that this essential had not been overlooked, and that there were with those who brought the ornaments, men competent to erect the churches to place them in. Indeed it seems possible that Paulinus himself may have graduated in the Comacine school of architecture; it is a curious fact that he is spoken of under the title of Magister,[109] the title given to fully-instructed members of that order, and we know that many monks were amongst the enrolled members of the Comacine body.

The strongest evidence, of course, would be the evidence of his work as a builder; unfortunately very little of that remains—though the little we know about it is consistent with the fact that either he was of that order, or he had Comacine Masters with him. The Whalley cross which is attributed to him is ornamented with that peculiar convoluted ornament which is found in early Comacine work; and he was certainly a great builder of churches, of the precise type which the Comacines would have built at that time. Bede relates that he built in Lincoln a stone church of beautiful workmanship, in which he consecrated Honorius, Bishop of Canterbury, in the place of Justus. The "beautiful workmanship" implies an experienced architect. Bede who thus describes it was a competent witness, and in all probability he knew the church, which was in his time roofless. Again, King Edwin under the direction of Paulinus built a "large and noble church of stone" at York (ii. 14). At this time the Comacine builders had not begun to build in the style which was afterwards known as the Lombard or Romanesque style, and of which indeed they were the authors, and this church seems to have been an Italian Basilican church with an atrium at the west end as was customary in churches of the period; this particular atrium being built round the little wooden oratory which Edwin had put up when under the instruction of the bishop, before his baptism, the oratory being in the midst of the open court.

The Basilican church of the period has been so often described that it will not be necessary to give a detailed description of it. It generally consisted of a nave, with two aisles separated from the nave by arcades; at one end (sometimes at both) the building terminated in an apse, of which the floor was raised; this raised floor in later times projected into the nave and was protected by a railing.[110] The altar was in the centre of the string of the arc of the apse, and round the arc were seats for the clergy, the bishop's throne being in the centre, in the place which would be occupied in a Roman heathen Basilica by the presiding magistrate. Beneath the raised floor of the apse was the confessio or crypt, in which the body or relics of the saint to whom the church was dedicated were deposited. Plans of several Saxon crypts still remaining in England will be found in Mr. Micklethwaite's valuable paper in the Archæological Journal, New Series, vol. iii. No. 4.

At a little later period a further change was made; on the floor of the nave from the chancel westward a space was divided off by a low screen, in each side of which was a bema or pulpit; from which the Gospel and Epistle were read, and the services sung by the Canonical singers.[111] A very complete screen of a little earlier date than St. Augustine may still be seen in the church of San Clemente, Rome; the ancient church from which it was removed is underneath the present church; westward of the church was the atrium, an open court surrounded by a colonnade; the atrium seems to have been used in some British churches for the canons, who had cells round it.

S. Clemente, Rome. Interior showing ancient screen.

St. Cadoc early in the sixth century built a church in Lancarvan monastery, which monastery he rebuilt; each of the thirty-six canons had a residence in atrio,[112] the residence being probably a cell with a door opening into the atrium, such as may still be observed in some old monastic cloisters on the Continent. There is evidence of an atrium at the west end of Brixworth church, and the construction of the basements of the towers at St. Mary, Deerhurst, at Monkswearmouth, and Barton-on-Humber, seems to show that there was a similar construction at the west end of those churches.

The church of S. Ambrogio, Milan, possesses an atrium built by the Comacines, but it is of much later date, and would therefore afford a general idea of an early Saxon church atrium only in plan.

Though we have little ornament of the early Saxon period, and that little is mainly limited to the ornamentation on early Christian crosses and fonts, it is clearly of the same character as Comacine work. The convoluted ornament on Paulinus' cross at Whalley has been noticed; similar work may be seen on the Kirkdale cross, Bewcastle and Ruthwell crosses, Crowle and Yarm crosses, and others in England and Ireland. On the Bewcastle and Ruthwell crosses there are stiff flower convolutions with birds and beasts on the branches. Collingham cross has interlacing monsters, and on others are panels sculptured in representation of Scripture subjects and characters. Some of these crosses are decorated with another and very mark-worthy ornament, consisting of bands of interlaced work. These bands are sometimes of a single strand, but more frequently of three strands. An interlaced ornament of this kind was found on the Corinthian base of a column in the church of S. Prassede in Rome. On comparing these interlaced patterns and convolutions with the carving on the ambo in the Basilica of S. Ambrogio, Milan, which is Comacine work, it will be seen how nearly they correspond; whilst the ornaments and sculptured figures in the façade and round the portals of the doors of S. Michele, Pavia, an early Lombard church of the eighth century, show treatment similar to Saxon work. It appears to me possible that this façade has been rebuilt presumably about the twelfth century, but there can be little doubt that the carvings as well as a considerable portion of the church itself are of the earlier date.[113]

All the crosses above-mentioned bear Runic inscriptions upon them, but on examination it will be seen that these inscriptions are generally by another hand, and of ruder workmanship than the carving of the crosses. Sometimes they are little more than scratches, and in one, namely, the Yarm cross, a panel was evidently left by the carver for the inscription, which was afterwards cut upon it, but being too small, the last two lines had to be compressed to be got into the space. In the Kirkdale and Lancaster crosses, the runes are certainly inferior in workmanship, and they seem to have been an afterthought. The borders on which they are cut do not appear as if they were originally intended to bear them.

The date of the fragment of the Yarm cross is fixed by the inscription, if it has been correctly read, being dedicated to Bishop Trumberht, Bishop of Hexham, who lived towards the close of the seventh century.

The ornament on Saxon fonts, not being so well known, would require illustrations beyond the scope of this article, to render remarks upon them intelligible. One instance may, however, be given of the similarity of ornament in early Italian and Saxon carving. Both the Saxon font in Toller Fratrum church, Dorset, and the well-head (of the eighth century) at the office of the Ministry of Agriculture, Rome, are decorated with precisely similar patterns. Interlacing bands in three strands, bordered by a cable moulding, encircle the top of each. Similar ornament will be found in Saxon MSS. of the eighth century in the British Museum Library, as in Evangelia Sacra Nero, d. 4.

Besides the ornament on the ancient crosses and fonts, which clearly belongs to the Saxon period, there are in our churches fragments of ornament which in all probability are of that era.

The angel carved in stone, built into the north wall of Steepleton church, near Dorchester, may have formed part of the tympanum of the doorway of the Saxon church. Floating angels with their robes and legs bent upward from the knee, precisely similar in treatment to the Steepleton angel, may be seen in illuminations in Saxon MSS. in the British Museum. I have examined them, but have mislaid my references to the press-marks. And in the Museum of the Bargello at Florence is a small antique carving of Christ in Glory (a vesica piscis enclosing the whole figure), and angels of this form and attitude surrounding it with curiously drawn symbols of the four evangelists. The angels in the east wall of Bradford-on-Avon church are of a similar character.

This seems to be an instance of Byzantine ornament adopted by the Italian builders. The convoluted and basket-work ornament may also have been derived from the same source.

The stiff foliage and intrecciatura on Barnack church tower are rude imitations of Comacine work.

Wherever the Comacines established themselves they founded lodges; to each lodge a schola and a laborerium were attached, where the members received instruction and training in the several branches of their craft. The Comacines who settled with Augustine in the royal city of Canterbury, must have established according to their custom a lodge and a schola in that city, for there Wilfrid some seventy years later sent for architects and builders (cœmentarii) to renew the Cathedral Church of York which had been built by Paulinus, but possibly through increase of population was now inadequate. The plan of the ancient church has been traced; it was Basilican in form, with aisles and an apse.[114]

Wilfrid, Bishop of York for forty-three years, was, while still a young man, sent to Rome as a companion to Biscop, a Saxon thane who was afterwards Abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow. There, says Bede, he spent some months in the study of ecclesiastical matters. On his way home he remained in Gaul for three years. When he returned to Britain at the expiration of that time, King Alfred gave him land and the monastery of Ripon where he built a spacious church, which excited universal astonishment and admiration; though not so large as the church he afterwards built at Hexham, it was a noble building. The apse with its altar was at the west end, and underneath the apse was a confessio, which with its passages still exists. The round-headed arches within the church were supported by lofty columns of polished stone.

But beautiful as this church was, that at Hexham exceeded it. Eddius Stephanus, precentor of York, the biographer of Wilfrid, and Richard of Hexham, give enthusiastic descriptions of it which accord exactly with what we know the Comacine church of the period to have been.[115]

From them we learn that St. Andrews, Hexham, built by Wilfrid, was a Basilican church, and in one respect at least it was similar to Ripon; the apse was at the west end, and beneath it was a crypt with passages around it; the crypt with its passages is still to be seen. The proportions of the church were however nobler and the details richer. The walls were covered with square stones of divers colours and polished; the columns were also of polished stone; the capitals of the columns, arches, and vault of apse, and space over the apse-arch were decorated with sculptures and histories (i.e. with paintings representing sacred scenes) all very splendid and very beautiful, according to Eddius.

As regards the sculptures, the examples we have of Saxon sculptures show them to have been generally vigorous, and often grotesque. A writer in Archæologia, vol. viii. p. 174, states that in the vaults of Hexham there were at the time he wrote many Roman inscriptions and grotesque carvings. The capitals of columns in Saxon as well as in later times not infrequently bore grotesque ornament for decoration, and it was commonly used for other purposes; not even coffins were exempt from decorations of this nature. Reginaldus de Coldingham (de virtutibus S. Cuthberti) describes the double coffin of St. Cuthbert, the inner one being of black oak elaborately carved, the subject of one of the carvings being a monk turned into a fox for stealing new cheese.

As regards their paintings, the Comacines were rather given to colour—it was in one of their churches, that of S. Maria del Tiglio, built by Theodolinda, wife of King Autharis, that the Emperor Lothaire beheld a brilliantly painted picture which adorned the vault of the apse and represented "The three kings presenting gifts to the Child Jesus." The picture moved the king to undertake the restoration of the church.

The Comacines also used frescoes in Theodolinda's palace at Monza in the fifth and sixth centuries.

From the foregoing description of Hexham church by Eddius Stephanus, it would appear that there were galleries over the aisles to which access was gained by spiral stairways in the wall. Similar galleries and spiral stairway still exist in the church of S. Agnese in Rome. In this church between the nave and the aisles there is a double arcade of open arches one above the other; the higher arcade on each side forms the front of the galleries—above these is a clerestory. The church of S. Lorenzo at Verona, also a Comacine church, contains a spiral stairway in the wall which led to the different divisions in the women's gallery for the widows, matrons, and girls. So far I have not heard of any ancient spiral stairways as still existing in any other than in these Comacine churches.[116]

Tower of S. Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna.

These galleries and arcades may be regarded as the original of the triforium.

Eddius relates that there were also bell-towers at Hexham of surprising height, and this suggests reflections. Hexham was built about A.D. 674, early in the Saxon period, and these tall towers were built wholly at that time. What were they like? The early Comacine towers were built in several stages; the lowest generally had either no windows or slits; the next stage above had single-light windows, plain round-headed and straight-sided, as if cut out of the wall; in the stages above the windows were of two or three lights divided by colonnettes, the larger number of lights being in the windows of the upper stages; in each stage there were commonly four windows, one opening to each quarter of the compass. Wolstan's description of the tower of Winchester answers very nearly to this. He says it consisted of five storeys; in each were four windows looking towards the four cardinal points, which were illuminated every night.

As examples of early Latin towers, the round towers of S. Apollinare nuovo, and S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna, and perhaps the square tower of S. Giovanni Evangelista, may be given. Take any one of them, that of S. Apollinare nuovo, for instance. Cut off the upper stages by holding the hand above the eyes, and regard only the lower stages with the single-light windows, and you have a structure which might be Roman. It looks very much older than the complete tower; and it is the same with well-known Saxon towers in England, so that some persons have been misled into thinking that the lowest stages with straight-cut single-light windows are much older than the upper portion with double or treble-light windows—which does not at all follow, at least not from that fact, for they might be of the same date;—and they have argued that these lower stages both in Italy and England are older than the upper ones, notwithstanding the improbability that the old builders would place a heavy tower on walls originally intended to carry only a light roof.

The Saxon towers have clearly a Latin or Comacine origin. The walls are usually of stone grouted in the old Roman manner; and when Lombard windows, of two or more lights, with a column dividing them, are used, they are, as a rule, in the upper and not in the lower stages. Unfortunately we have no towers of the earliest Saxon period still standing; but the resemblance between the later Saxon and the early Italian towers is apparent. The same may be said of the later Comacine towers, S. Satyrus, Milan, for instance ([see plate]), which Cattaneo assigns to the ninth century, and regards as the prototype of Lombard towers; take away the little pensile arch ornament, which was characteristic of the Comacine style known as Lombard, and you have a tower which might be Saxon.

Whilst Wilfrid was engaged in building Hexham, his friend and companion in travel, Biscop, was building the monastery and monastic church of Wearmouth. Biscop was a Saxon thane of Northumberland; he became a monk of the monastery of S. Lerino, and, according to Henry of Huntingdon, on his return from Rome, King Egfrid gave him sixty hides of land, on which he built the monastery of Wearmouth. Eight years later, the king granted him more land at Jarrow, upon which he built a monastery and church. The former was dedicated to St. Peter, the latter to St. Paul.

Tower of S. Satyrus, Milan.

On obtaining possession of the lands at Wearmouth, Biscop, according to Bede,[117] set out for Gaul, to find builders to build the monastic church, "juxta Romanorum quem semper amabat morem."

It might be asked, If there was at Canterbury a Comacine school of architecture whose special function it was to build on the Roman model, why did not Bishop Benedict send there for architects and masons? The simple answer is, that Wilfrid had already engaged them for his work at Hexham. Wilfrid was building both a church and monastery there, and evidently had employment for every hand he could obtain.

The building of Hexham was commenced in 674, and it was not till that date that Biscop was in a position to engage workmen for Wearmouth, so that Wilfrid was just beforehand with Biscop, who in consequence had to look elsewhere for his architects, and he set out for Gaul to engage them there.

Now it does not at all follow that because Biscop brought his masons from Gaul, therefore they were not Comacines. It was as easy to find Comacines in Gaul as in England. We find them settled there at a later date, when they were called artefici Franchi. There is nothing to show definitely, but there is presumptive evidence of a settlement of a guild in Gaul at this time, and it was probably some of the French Comacines that Biscop employed, for Biscop insisted on a church built after the Roman manner, a Basilica; he would have nothing else, and no builders could build a Basilica better than the successors to the Roman college of architecture.[118]

It seems further probable that these Gallican architects were Comacines, from the fact that they followed the practice of the Comacines in establishing a schola at Wearmouth, possibly amongst the monks, for Naitan, King of the Picts, sent to Cedfrid, who succeeded Benedict as abbot, and begged him to send architects to him to build a church in his nation "after the Roman manner," and the abbot complied with his request.

Mr. Micklethwaite states that "the doorway under the tower of the church at Monkswearmouth in Durham was doubtless a part of the church which Benedict Biscop erected there in the seventh century in imitation of the Basilicas in Rome. The twined serpents with birds' beaks on the right doorpost are, as we know from MSS. of that age, singularly characteristic of the style."[119] There is a similar design on the architrave of an ancient door in San Clemente, Rome.

The decoration of the church seems to have been in the highest style of ecclesiastical art of the age. Even glass-makers, who might have been Comacines, were brought from France to make glass for glazing the windows of the church and of the cells of the monks—no glass had ever before in Saxon times been used in England for windows—and even paintings were brought from abroad for the decoration of the walls. Bede, in his sermon on the anniversary of the death of Benedict, states that he imported paintings of holy histories, which should serve not only for the beautification of the church, but for the instruction of those who looked upon them; vases, vestments, and other things necessary for the service of the church, were also brought from Gaul, and those things which could not be obtained there, were brought "from the country of the Romans."

S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna.

The church was pronounced by monkish writers to be for two centuries the grandest and most beautiful church on this side of the Alps; even Roman architects admitted that they who saw Hexham church might imagine themselves amidst Roman surroundings.[120]

There is one point in connection with Saxon architecture not touched. In much of the Saxon building now standing there are projecting ribs of stone in the masonry which are commonly known under the name of pilaster strips. The masonry in which it occurs is perhaps always late Saxon work. The strips seem to be similar to the pilasters in the front of Lombard churches; in the latter they are more ornamental in detail, and are often in the form of shafts occasionally decorated.[121]

The external arcading, as in Bradford-on-Avon, seems to be a modification of late Roman work, followed in various forms in Comacine, Lombard, Saxon, and Norman work. In its original form it may be seen on the exterior of the Basilica of S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna, where external arcadings in the masonry of the walls will be noticed both in the walls of the aisles and in the walls of the nave above the aisles, the arcading being carried on pilasters built into, and forming part of, the walls; the pilasters with the arcading serving to give rigidity to the walls, enabling them to resist the outward thrust of the roof as buttresses were intended to do in later times. This church was built about A.D. 300.

In Comacine or early Lombard churches there was an arcading on steps in the gable of the west front, the steps giving access to the roof on the outside. In later Lombard churches this arcading became simply an ornamental detail to the front. To this type belongs the arcading on Bradford-on-Avon church. In Norman churches it degenerated into a corbel table, in which the shafting was omitted, the heads of the arches being supported on corbels.

The Byzantine character of some of the ornaments in Comacine and Saxon work is accounted for by the fact that the Comacine order found refuge in a Romano-Greek colony in which the Greek influence was strong, and in all probability there were Byzantine guilds working alongside of it. That there is a trace of Oriental form in it is not surprising, when it is remembered how much communication there was between all parts of the Christian world notwithstanding the difficulties of travelling. Teliau, David, and Paternus journeyed to Jerusalem. On arriving at the Temple they were placed in three ancient stalls in the Temple, and after expounding the Scriptures were elected by the people and consecrated bishops (Vita S. Teliaui Episcopi). Columbanus, an Irish saint, established a monastery amidst the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Bobbio in Italy. St. Cumean, born in 592, obtained possession of a deserted church in the same city, restored it and served it.

According to the chronicles of Fontenelle, bishops and clergy, abbots and monks came from all parts, even from Greece and Armenia, to visit Richard Duke of Normandy, brother-in-law of our Saxon King Ethelred and a great church-builder; the Oriental character of some of the ornaments in Oxford cathedral, which Ethelred rebuilt, is attributed to the influence of Richard and his Oriental visitors, for Ethelred took refuge in Normandy for a time to avoid the Danes.

Some Saxons left England at the Norman Conquest and settled in Constantinople, where they built a church for themselves and other members of the Saxon colony there.

St. Germanus when he left Britain went to Ravenna, then the royal city.

Asser relates that Alfred received embassies daily from foreign parts, from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the farthest limits of Spain, and that he had seen letters and presents which had been sent to the king by Abel, Patriarch of Jerusalem.

Many British monks, some of whose lives and legends may still be found in early MSS., travelled to the south and east, and all over the known world, and being skilled in architecture, might readily have made copies of ornaments which took their fancy when travelling in Eastern countries, and introduced them on their return.

Let us restate the argument briefly—

1. When Italy was overrun by the barbarians, Roman Collegia were everywhere suppressed.

2. The architectural college of Rome is said to have removed from that city to the republic of Comum.

3. In early mediæval times, one of the most important Masonic guilds in Europe was the Society of Comacine Masters, which in its constitution, methods, and work was essentially Roman, and seems to have been the survival of this Roman college.

4. Italian chroniclists assert that architects and masons accompanied Augustine to England, and later Italian and continental writers of repute adopt that view.

5. Whether this is proved or not, it was customary for missionaries to take in their train persons experienced in building, and if Augustine did not do so, his practice was an exception to what seems to have been a general rule. Besides, a band of forty monks would have been useless to him unless some of them could follow a secular calling useful to the mission, for they were unacquainted with the British language, and could not act independently.

6. Masonic monks were not uncommon, and there were such monks associated with the Comacine body; so that qualified architects were easily found in the ranks of the religious orders.

7. From Bede's account of the settlement of Augustine's mission in Britain, it seems clear that he must have brought Masonic architects with him.

8. Gregory would be likely to choose architects for the mission from the Comacine Order, which held the old Roman traditions of building, rather than those of a Byzantine guild, and the record of their work in Britain proves that he did.

9. In Saxon as in the earlier Comacine carvings, there are frequent representations of fabulous monsters, symbolical birds and beasts, the subjects of some of these carvings being suggested, apparently, by the "Physiologus," which had a Latin origin.

10. In the writings of the Venerable Bede, and Richard, Prior of Hagustald, we meet with phrases and words which are in the Edict of King Rotharis of 643, and in the Memoratorio of 713 of King Luitprand, which show that these writers were familiar with certain terms of art used by the Comacine Masters.[122]

CHAPTER IV
THE TOWERS AND CROSSES OF IRELAND

The saints or early missionaries seem to be as closely connected with the first church-building in Ireland as they were in Gaul, Normandy, and England; only by some curious circumstance, Ireland became christianized and built her churches some centuries earlier than England and Normandy. It is my conviction that in casting off the legends connected with saints, we have also cast off much real history belonging to the early missions. Now, the preceding chapter shows that it is precisely to these first missionaries that we are indebted for the imported architecture of the pre-Norman date in England, and presumably also in Ireland. This architecture has been an enigma and a stumbling-block to archæologists for ages; because while rejecting everything connected with the saints as legend, they also reject the only reasonable hypothesis of the genesis of these first stone buildings, which sprang up in a country as yet only accustomed to build in wood or earth.

The Round Towers of Ireland, for instance, have formed a greater puzzle to antiquaries than the churches of Hexham or Lindisfarne—partly because of their antiquity, and partly from their unlikeness to any local buildings of the time. The theories in regard to them are wild beyond all probability. They have been attributed: (1) By Henry O'Brien to the Tuatha De Danaan, a Persian colony which is supposed to have built them for phallic worship. (2) By Vellaney to the Phœnicians, the buildings being afterwards used by the Druids as fire-towers. (3) By Dr. Lynch, Peter Walsh, Molyneux, etc., to the Danes, as war-towers.

Petrie, with clearer arguments, claims them as Christian. In his Prize Essay on the origin and uses of the Round Towers (A.D. 1820) he proves that no buildings except these towers were known to have cement in pre-Christian Ireland. For the Pagans and Druids have left us the great fortresses of Dun Ængus, and Dun Connor on Aran Mor, and the great sepulchres of Dowth and New Grange, all built without cement and of unhewn stones. Now the Round Towers are of hewn stones closely fitted and cemented, till they are solid as a rock, standing firm as ever, after their fifteen centuries of existence. They are called in Ireland by the generic name of "cloic-theack," or bell-house, and are invariably found close to the ruins of a monastery or a church. In some cases, like the one at Clonmacnoise, the church has entirely disappeared, leaving only the graveyard to mark its site, and in the graveyard a veritable Comacine cross!

It cannot be proved that the towers belong to an earlier age than the churches attached, for we have a witness in the ruins themselves. The masonry of the tower and the remaining walls of the church at Kilmacduagh is identical, as are the later tower and church-porch at Roscrea—i.e. good, solid opus gallicum.

Miss Stokes and the Rev. John Healy uphold the theory[123] of their being towers of refuge in warlike times. They may well have been used as such, on account of their strength, and also their proximity to the churches, which were always, in the Middle Ages, inviolable cities of refuge. This, however, does not affect our question as to how the towers came into Ireland, and whence came their builders. In the first place, where can similar towers be found dating from times contemporary? The answer is decided: in Italy. In Ravenna and Lombardy, from the date A.D. 300 to the fifth and sixth centuries; and they show just that Eastern touch which distinguishes the Byzantine-Roman architecture at Ravenna, and has caused authors to seek the origin of the Round Towers further east than Italy.

The next question that arises is: What was the point of contact between Ireland and Italy? As in England and Normandy we shall, I believe, find it in the first missions. The first Irish missionary was doubtless St. Patrick, A.D. 373-464, who has been taken as the sign and symbol of Celticism. Yet he was not an Irishman by birth. His father was a Christian named Calphurnius, his mother was niece to St. Martin of Tours; he was consequently of continental origin. His birthplace was Nempthur near Dumbarton, and while yet a boy he was carried a prisoner to Ireland, and the heathendom there appealed so strongly to his feelings, that after his release he was haunted by visions foretelling his future mission to convert Ireland. Pope Celestin I. gave him his mission in about A.D. 430, and he settled in Armagh, where he laboured more than thirty years converting and baptizing both kings and people. He founded schools and built churches. Probably the first worship was conducted in the open air, where a cross was set up, as by the English missionaries. The cross was of the Byzantine form used at that time in Italy; but on its adoption by the northern saint-missionaries it became known in Britain as the Irish cross. The ancient Italian one, once in the Forum at Rome, is of identical style, though of earlier date. St. Patrick's influence remained and spread. Many of his followers in the ministry made the pilgrimage to Rome which he had made, and so great was the fame of sanctity of these Irish preaching brethren, that they were reverenced in Italy even more than in their native land.

S. Fredianus became Bishop of Lucca, and Columban was Abbot of Bobbio. It is to these later missionaries rather than to St. Patrick himself that we must look, as having introduced Italian or Comacine architecture into Ireland. That they were addicted to church-building is evident from their at once setting to work wherever they went; S. Fredianus building a church and monastery at Lucca; St. Columban doing the same at Bobbio.

And what architects did they employ? Surely some members of the Comacine Guild, or their monk colleagues. They had seen them at the court of the Longobardic kings where they tarried and were entertained during their journey to Rome. And seeing the beautiful churches and towers in Italy, all made by the magic hands of this guild, is it not most likely that the Pope, who patronized the guild as one of the most practical instruments in christianization, should have counselled them to take back some Magistri with them to Ireland? There is, I presume, no documentary proof of this, but there are more imperishable witnesses in the works themselves. The only difference between the Round Towers of Ireland and those of Italy in the first five centuries after Christ is the conical roof, which is due entirely to exigencies of climate. The hewing of the square stones, the close-fitting masonry, the Roman cement, the simple arches of the windows with their solidly cut supports, are all pure Lombard-Roman of the time when S. Fredianus and Columban were in Italy. It is true that with this similarity there is also a certain clumsiness of workmanship in the Irish towers, which suggests that either the Italian architects imported by the Irish missionaries were the less skilful men of the guild, or, what is more probable, they were few, and had to train native and unskilled workmen to assist them; but the style they aimed at, and the forms they used, are the early Italian ones of from A.D. 300 to 500.

In Cormac's chapel at the Rock of Cashel we get the square tower such as later Comacines used from the sixth to the tenth centuries, with the double-arched window of the period; and the church beside it has the same signs. Here are the string courses supported by the row of little arches, the projecting apse, and the double-light windows, with only that same northern desideratum—the high gable and sloping roof. Cormac was an early Bishop of Cashel, who was killed in 907 A.D.

Look at the shrine of the Bell of St. Patrick, which I presume dates from about the eighth century, i.e. the time of Fredianus, and you will see a fine collection of Comacine intrecci or interlaced work in sculpture. As for the crosses of Ireland, one may trace in them the development of Comacine work, from the early Christian Roman style to the mediæval Lombard.

The beautifully illustrated article in the Studio for Aug. 15, 1898, by J. Romilly Allen, F.S.A., shows the whole line. In the earliest form of Irish cross, i.e. that where the cross and Christian symbols are merely cut into the face of a slab of stone, such as in the cross at Reask, Co. Kerry, we see precisely the primitive style of art shown in the Catacombs. The "Gurmarc" stones have their prototype in the earliest Longobardic carving, such as the pluteus of Theodolinda's first church at Monza. The smaller of the three inscribed circles has an even more advanced Comacine intreccio enclosed within the circle, while the cross of Honelt at Llantwit Major (Fig. 5) has a splendid Comacine knot such as one sees on every Longobardic church, placed beneath a very Byzantine geometrical design in which circles, crosses, triangles, and three-fold knots are marvellously intermingled. These are all stones merely incised, and foreshadow the predilection of the Irish converts for the symbolism of the time, the cross of Christ within the unending circle of eternity. The next development shown by Mr. Romilly Allen is the upright cross slab at St. Madoes in Perthshire, where the cross and the circle are in distinct relief and not merely incised. Here, instead of the circle enclosing the Greek cross, it has become subordinate, and is placed behind the arms of a Latin cross. In fact a complete Irish cross in relief. But how is it adorned?—with splendid Comacine intrecci, and all the symbolism so familiar to us in early Italian art. Here are the coiled serpent and the dove above, with the four mystic beasts of the Apocalypse below, two on each side of the stem of the cross; and the workmanship and designs are literally identical with those of the sculptures on the façades of the first church of S. Michele at Pavia, and S. Zeno at Verona, and that of S. Pietro at Spoleto, all of the fifth and sixth centuries. (Spoleto church was rebuilt in 1329, but the ancient Lombard sculptures around the doorway were preserved.)

Door of the Church of S. Zeno at Verona. A.D. 1139.

[See page 166.]

By the ninth and tenth centuries the Irish cross had reached its full development. It was no longer a sign on a slab, but a beautiful upright sculptured cross, with a circle crowning it like a halo, and suggesting the eternity of the human cross of our Saviour. And here again the art is precisely that of the Italian sculptors. There was a cross of earlier date than either the cross of King Flami at Clonmacnoise, King's County, A.D. 904, or the cross of Mucreadach at Monasterboice, Co. Louth, A.D. 924, in the Roman Forum, of which the shape and ornaments are similar to both of them. The cross of SS. Patrick and Columban at Kells has, too, all the marks of the Comacine work in the eighth and ninth centuries, as one sees it in the oldest churches at Como and Verona, at Toscanella and Spoleto. All these things being considered, I think Irish archæologists would do well to work up the undoubted connection of the early Irish missionaries with Italy, and the influence their travels there had, not only on the religion, but the art of Ireland. They might discover whether St. Columban, when King Agilulf sheltered him at Pavia, took from the artists then at work at the wondrous front of S. Michele, any ideas which he caused to be reproduced in the crosses placed by him to sanctify the open-air worship of his Irish converts; or whether he took a few monkish Magistri skilled in sculpture from his monastery at Bobbio to carve those very crosses, and to build the first stone churches, that now lie in ruins at the feet of the rugged old towers.

BOOK III
ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTS

CHAPTER I
TRANSITION PERIOD

THE LODGES OF BERGAMO AND CREMONA

THE ANTELAMI SCHOOL.—PARMA

PADUA

The rise of the Romanesque is the stepping-stone to the Renaissance of Art in Italy. We need not enter at length into all the vexed questions of how this Renaissance began, and which school was the link between that and classic art, but a slight glance must be given to the subject. Some make everything begin from Niccolò Pisano, as though he suddenly sprang ancestorless out of the darkness, a full-fledged artist. Some date the rise of art from the Byzantines in Aquileja and Venice; others again from the union of the Normans with the Saracens in Sicily.

First, as to Pisa. There are no records or signs of a school of art indigenous to Pisa, before the building of the Duomo there. Both Morrona[124] and Ridolfi, the historians of the respective cities, have well searched the archives in both Pisa and Lucca, but can find no single reference to any native artist before the Duomo of Pisa was begun, or even of any Pisan who worked at that building as early as the eleventh century. All the first architects seem to have been imported. Morrona asserts that when the cathedral was begun "the most famous Masters (mark the word) from foreign (stranieri) parts, assembled together to give their work to the building." The word stranieri is used by all old Italians not only as meaning foreigners, but Italians from other provinces. Ridolfi, on his part, affirms that at the beginning, the Maestri di Como were the only ones employed in building the chief churches at Lucca; adding that—"Many of the works show certain symbols, monsters and foliage, which were always a special characteristic of the Comacines, and a sign of the Freemasonry founded and propagated by them."[125]

From this it may be deduced that during the eleventh and twelfth centuries no indigenous Pisan school existed, and that the mediæval buildings were of the Lombard type. Certainly the old church of S. Pietro a Grado, three miles out of Pisa on the Leghorn road, which we have described, is a standing witness to the presence of the Comacines before this era. It still exists, the most perfect specimen extant of a Lombard tri-apsidal church. Not a shaft, not an archlet is wanting.

As to Aquileja and Venice, Selvatico's[126] theory is that the Friuli people, and those of Aquileja, being driven out in 450 by Attila, fled to Grado (another Grado near Venice), thence spread to Torcello and Murano, and then founded Venice. That they built the cathedrals on those islands, and founded the Veneto-Oriental school. Did this native school ever exist? asks Merzario, seeing that the church of Grado was built by artefici Franchi, which might mean Freemasons, or French builders, i.e. the Comacines under Charlemagne; and that those of Santa Fosca and Murano were, judging by their style, of the same origin?

The church of Torcello was rebuilt in the eleventh century by the Bishop Orso Orseolo, and if it comes into the question at all, would prove that the Lombard school had something to do with it then. In spite of these two opposing opinions, it is certain that architecture took a certain distinctive form in Venice; but it was a later development which occurred after the twelfth century, and with which the Greeks and Byzantines had little or nothing to do.

Selvatico, although the champion of the Veneto-Friuli theory, is constrained almost in spite of his own arguments to own that the Lombard architects had their part in early Venetian architecture, saying—"Although the prevalent architecture of Venice from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries consists of Byzantine and Roman elements, yet after A.D. 1000 another element mingled with it, which though partly the product of the two, nevertheless had in itself elements so original as to be truly national. This is the art which modern writers style Lombard, which, born first in Lombardy, diffused itself over the greater part of Italy, and then crossing the Alps expanded greatly in Northern Europe."[127]

The learned Domenico Salazari is at the head of the Siculo-Norman theory, but the influence of the mingling of Oriental and Saracenic architecture with the Norman and Lombard elements in Sicily are so well known, and so fully acknowledged, that it is useless to go over his prolix arguments.

It seems to me that each party is right as far as it goes. Venetian architecture has Oriental elements in it; the Tuscan Renaissance truly dates from Niccolò Pisano, and the Romanesque style was formed by the marriage of north and south in Sicily; but none of their advocates have got hold of the missing link in the development of each special school from the old classical styles. And that missing link, if anywhere, is to be looked for in the Comacines.

In the ninth century they went northward, and laid the seeds of the round-arched Norman architecture at Dijon, under S. Guglielmo; a seed which took root and developed. In the next century they appear to have planted the seed of French Gothic at Aix-la-Chapelle, and of German Gothic at Cologne and Spires, and these grew to be goodly trees. In the eleventh century they again met their brethren of the north in Sicily; and all worked together, adding to their own beauties those of the rich and varied Saracenic style—and the Romanesque style was thus formed.

The Venetian link dates about the same era. Fortunato, the Patriarch of Aquileja, called in the Comacines about A.D. 828, and their churches there show a groundwork of form and masonry quite Romano-Lombard, with an ornamentation of which it is difficult to say whether it be more Byzantine than Comacine, the two being so similar in conception, and the distinctive difference in technical work being at this distance of time not always distinguishable. Where the Byzantines worked in sandstone, the sharp edges of their precise cutting would have worn off during many centuries; and where the Comacines worked in marble, their marvellous knots and interlacings may look as clean-cut now as any time-worn Byzantine sculptures. In any case the union of Lombard and Byzantine in Venice was the forging of the link connecting Venetian art to the classic Roman.

The part the Comacines had in forging the connecting chain between the Tuscan Renaissance and the classic Roman, and the artistic pedigree of Niccolò Pisano, who is the first link in that branch of the threefold chain, will be traced in a future chapter. We must now inquire how the first Romano-Lombard style of the Comacines, from the sixth to the tenth centuries, became changed into the florid Romanesque, in which the same guild was building in all parts of Italy from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. This development was possibly derived from both Northern and Southern sources.

The close connection of the Comacine or Lombard architects with the Patriarch of Aquileja in the seventh and eighth centuries brought them in touch with the Greek artists of the earlier period, from whom they learned much, especially in varying the plan of their circular churches, and in richness of ornamentation. Their later emigrations to the southern Lombard dukedoms, and their work in Sicily had a still greater effect on them. It seemed to break up their fixed traditions as a thaw breaks up ice. Before this time, every church must be of a fixed plan; every apse round; every space of wall headed by a gallery or arched brackets; every arch a pure half-circle on colonnettes. But the varied arches of the Oriental-Saracenic style influenced their fancy; they saw that art lay in variety, and learned that the pointed arch was as strong as the round one, the ogival arch more graceful. The Moorish arch never entirely took their fancy, though they sometimes gave a slight Moorish curve to their stilted arches.

It must be remembered that the Magistri of the Comacine Guild were no longer of the same calibre as those mediæval men who built for the Longobards. Those were the products of an age of slavery and degeneration, who, lacking literature, clung to tradition, and could only act according to the small portion of intellectual light vouchsafed to the Dark Ages. They put stone and stone together, precisely as their forefathers had taught them. In form they clung to their ancient teacher, Vitruvius, and for their ornamentation to their ancient pagan superstitions, grafted on a mystical Christianity. Yet, as we have seen, they so far improved on these, as to build several Basilican churches which might be called grand for the time, though still holding close to traditional forms.

The Comacine after A.D. 1000 was a man beginning to feel his intellect; the feudal system was breaking up, republics beginning to be established, schools were opened, and man began to feel himself no longer a vassal bound hand and foot, but a human being who might use his own intellect for his own pleasure and good.

What wonder then, that the arts began to flourish, commerce to increase, and riches to accrue in this joyous freedom?

And what wonder that man's thankfulness for freedom first took the form of building churches for the glory of the God of the free?

The architects of the Masonic loggie (lodges) who had held together through the troublous times, became alive with new enthusiasms. They compared their own buildings with others, and instead of varying the principles of Vitruvius, to suit early Christian demands as heretofore, they passed on to new and freer lines. Instead of solid and rude strength, elegance of form and aspiring lines gave lightness and beauty.

The starting-point of the change was, of course, the adoption of the pointed arch, which at this time began to be substituted for the circular one as giving greater strength with greater lightness. "Curvetur arcus ut fortior," says an old chronicler of Subiaco. According to their method of gradual development the Comacine Masters did not blindly throw themselves into new forms. They went cautiously, and first tried their acute arches in clerestories, and triforia, over naves supported by the old Lombard arches of sesto intiero, as we see in several churches of the Transition period. A little later they mixed the two inextricably, as in Florence cathedral, where the windows are pointed with Gothic tracery, the interior arches round and Roman in form.

"The early Lombard architecture," said Cesare Cantù,[128] "was not an order, nor a system, so much as a delirium. Balance and symmetry utterly disregarded, no harmony of composition or taste, shameful neglect in form proportion; to the perfect classic design which satisfies the eye, they substituted incoherent and useless parts, with frequently the weak placed to support the strong, in defiance of all laws of statics. Columns—which used to be composed of a base, shaft, and capital, in just proportions, supporting a well-adapted architrave or frieze more or less fitly adorned, and a cornice which only added beauty and strength—were exchanged for certain colonnettes, either too short or too slight, knotted, spiral, and grouped so as to torture the eye, and above the disproportioned and inharmonious abacus of the capitals were placed the arches, which in a good style should rest on the architrave. In fine, there was an endless modanature, ribs, reliefs, and windows of elongated form and walls of extraordinary height." In spite of Cantù's leanings to the classic, this tirade shows the first indication of the change towards the Gothic, and it only proves that the Comacine Masters did not take up new forms borrowed entire from other nations, but assimilated what they saw in other places, gradually developing their style.

To find the origin of the pointed arch would be difficult. Was it evolved from the arching trees in the German forest? or was it from the rich Arabian mosque or ancient Indian temple? or did the Comacines find it, just as they acquired their Basilican forms, on Italian soil?

Germany, it is pretty well proved, got the seed of her glorious Gothic from France or Italy, and nourished it right royally. But the pointed arch is much more ancient than German Gothic. It is to be seen in the tomb of Atreus at Mycenæ, in an Etruscan tomb at Tarquinii, and even in the subterranean gallery at Antequere in Mexico.[129] The pointed arches in the Mosque El Haram on Monte Morea date from Caliph Omar's time, between 637 and 640. The Mosque of Amrou, with its curious combination of pointed and horse-shoe arches, dates from 640.

The church of St. Francis at Assisi (1226) has generally been accepted as the first instance in Italy, and it was soon followed in the design for the church of S. Antonio at Padua five years later; but there are two little churches annexed to the monastery of Subiaco on Monte Telaso, which were built, so say the chroniclers, one in A.D. 981, the other in 1053, in which some arches are round and others acute.[130] Hope[131] quotes examples of this mixture of round and acute arches in the ninth and tenth centuries at Cluny, 1093-1134; the Abbey of Malmesbury in England, which is in Lombard style; St. Mark's at Venice, 976-1071; Subiaco, 847, and others.

"But," as Selvatico remarks,[132] "these are isolated instances determined by static reasons, and do not point to a system." The Arab used the pointed arch as a decorative principle, as well as for stability. As the style spread in Europe it got modified, some countries keeping to the ancient type, and others changing its proportions. So the Arab arch became in the eleventh century the germ of the ogival arch, and in the twelfth expanded in the North into the most glorious forms of ecclesiastical Gothic architecture.

The Comacines made their first steps towards a more florid style, about the end of the eleventh century. The change, as in all such growths of circumstance, was a gradual one. First, a little more ornamentation, then a slight change in the forms of arches; next, a less fixed ground-plan of the churches, a mingling of the Greek cross with the square-walled Basilica. After these slight trials of their wings, came flights of imagination, and endless variety of form and ornamentation; that variety which could only spring from the ideas of many minds, united in one work.

To see the earliest signs of a wider scheme of design we must go to the region of Parma. Here in a little town called Borgo S. Donnino—the ancient "Fidentia Julia"—about fifteen miles north of Parma, is one of the finest early Romanesque churches in Italy. It was a great place for pilgrimages in the Middle Ages, as it contained the tomb of S. Domninus, who was martyred in the persecutions of Maximian. Great miracles were worked at his shrine, and religious fervour rose to such a height in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, that the devotees collected money enough to build a church, which they desired should be the finest and most majestic of those times.

The work was finished before 1195. An ancient document shows that the Rettori (civil governors) of Milan, Verona, Mantua, Modena, Brescia, Faenza, Bologna, Reggio, Gravedone, Piacenza, and Padua, with their suites, all met there in that year to form a league against Henry VI., son of Frederic Barbarossa, who seemed likely to carry on the hostility of his father.[133] We have no documents to show who was the architect of the fine Basilica of S. Donnino, but as the Comacines had their laborerium at Parma, and as the work is clearly and distinctly Romanesque, we may believe the old authors who say that it arose per lo scarpello dei Comacini.[134] If internal evidence is wanting, the three lion portals of the ornate façade bear witness to the hand of the Comacines of the Romanesque epoch.

Another of their buildings which shows a marked advance, was the cathedral of Trent—the gate of Italy leading into Germany. This had been built in the first Lombard style between 1124 and 1149, when it was consecrated by the Patriarch of Aquileja. In 1207 the Bishop Federigo Manga, Chancellor of the Emperor Otho IV., formed a design to enlarge and almost rebuild it. He commissioned a Magistro Comacino to superintend the works, as appears from an inscription in Gothic letters on the tomb of that very Magister. Anglicized it would run—"In the year of our Lord 1212, the last day of February, Master Adam of Arogno, of the diocese and district of Como (Magister Adam de Arognio cumanæ diocesis et circuito), began the work of this church and constructed it. He with his sons and his abbiatici (underlings) built the interior and exterior of this church with its adjoining parts. He and his sons lie below in this sepulchre. Pray for them."

Prof. Cipolla, in an article in Arte e Storia di Firenze, quotes a poem written in 1309, in honour of the Duomo of Trent and of the Comacine Master who had achieved so much with his potent and clever hands (Cumani Magistri qui potenti manu non inani complevit).

The church has since then undergone several restorations, but in none of them has its plan been materially altered. There is still the octagonal dome, the circular apse at one end of the building, and the narthex at the other. The façade still honestly follows the lines of the roof, and has its little rows of pillared galleries across. The outside of the apse shows the new tendency to Romanesque more than the façade does; here arches and friezes in horizontal circles around it, take the place of the perpendicular shafts, and the single row of archlets on the top. It is more in the style of the thirteenth and fourteenth-century Lucca churches. The arch of the north door rests on lions, which we may take as the secret sign of Romanesque Comacine work between the tenth and twelfth centuries, as the intreccio or Solomon's knot had been their mark in the Lombard period.

The church of S. Maria Maggiore at Bergamo is a valuable specimen not only of this transition in its early stage, but of the culmination of the Romanesque, two centuries later. An inscription on the arch of the portico records that it was founded in the time of Pope Innocent II. and King Lothair II., i.e. about 1135, Rogerius being then the Bishop of Bergamo.[135] The builder's name is also recorded as Magister Fredus, probably short for Godfredus. Magister Fredus is not expressly said here to be of the Guild of Comacines, but as his work was entirely in Lombard style, with a few slight indications of a freer school, and as the architects who succeeded him were, as may be proved by documents, Comacine Masters chiefly from Campione, we may fairly make the hypothesis that he too was one of the guild. The little that remains of his work is to be seen in the interior, where the round arch still predominates, and in the exterior walls of the apse, with its crown of arches and colonnettes.

The parts due to the later brethren of the guild are the rich ornamentation of the two façades with their grand and characteristic Comacine porches, and also the Baptistery. It was in 1340 that Giovanni, son of Ugone (Big Hugh) of Campione, a celebre scultore ed architetto, was commissioned to build this Baptistery. According to the fixed laws of the Comacines he made it octagonal—the mystic sign of the Trinity, being formed of a threefold triangle. Around it entwine circles of arches and colonnettes, some lines having double columns; these reach to the cornice of the roof, which cornice is composed of reliefs allusive to the Sacrament of Baptism.

This work finished, Magister Giovanni went to Bellano on the east bank of Lake Como, together with two of his brotherhood, the Magister Antonio, son of the late Jacopo of Castellazzo da Peglio in the valley of Intelvi, and Magister Comolo, son of the late Magister Gufredo—probably a descendant of the Magister Fredus mentioned above—of Asteno, near Porlezza, to rebuild the church there, which had been ruined by age and repeated floods.[136] This church is in pure Lombard style, and has a façade in black and white marble, with a fine rose window, encircled with terra-cotta foliaged decorations. After this Magister Giovanni of Campione was recalled to Bergamo to adorn the façades of the church which Fredus had left in a rough state 200 years before. These two façades faced north and south. Strange to say, the part opposite the altar has no door. In this new emprise Giovanni brought as his assistants his son Nicolino, a relative named Antonio (probably the one who had worked with him at Bellano), and a certain Giovanni Cattaneo, also from Campione. Giovanni, who was head architect, decided not to renovate the whole south façade facing the Piazza on which he began first, but to concentrate his ornamentation on a fine vestibule and doorway, to form a species of frontal. The vestibule was finished in 1351, having taken only two years. On the architrave he has himself chronicled it—"1351, m. Johannes de Campillione C. B. (civis Bergomensis) fecit hoc opus." The whole front seems to have taken three years more, as on the base of the horse on which St. Alexander, patron saint of Bergamo, sits, may be read—"Filius Ughi de Campillione fecit hoc opus 1355."

Good Master John of Campione did not long survive the execution of this masterpiece, for on the north porch is inscribed—"1360. Magister Johannes f. q. (filius quondam) Dom. Johannes de Campilio ... (abrasion) fecit hoc opus in Christi nomine. Amen."

This north porch, though so nearly coeval, shows a much greater advance in style. It is an eloquent proof of how architecture was progressing at this time by the grafting on of different influences. John the father, being older, kept more closely to his Lombard traditions. John the son, being youthful and more open to conviction, took up new ideas. He has kept the Lombard arch in his porch, the moulding of which is extremely rich, and the lions of Judah duly support his pillars, but he has filled in his arch with very Gothic tracery, in trefoil arches, and over the Lombard columns of the upper storey of the porch are arches and decorations decidedly Oriental in appearance. It is about as good a specimen of the rich chaos of ideas that marks a transition stage as one can get, and shows that John the younger had been influenced by the Saracen-Norman influence in Sicily.

Fergusson, in his Handbook of Architecture, p. 790, gives an illustration of this porch. The Campione family evidently came from a race of sculptor-architects, for the church of S. Maria at Bergamo contains a sculptural work of much merit for the time, by Ugo da Campione, the father of Giovanni senior. It is the tomb of Cardinal Longhi degli Alessandri, who died at Avignon in 1329. The almost mediæval artist compares not unfavourably with a very modern master from Como, Vincenzo Velada Ligurnetto, who in 1855 sculptured the neighbouring tomb of Donizetti placed near it.

Coming down the valley of the Pò to Cremona, we find ourselves on a scene of great Comacine industry. There is the Baptistery, dating before A.D. 1000, and the Cathedral begun in 1100. These were both works of the Lombard Masters; their style is identical, and over the architrave of the great cathedral door may be read in the Gothic characters used by them—

MCCLXXIIII.

Magister Jacobus Porrata.

da Cumis, fecit hanc Rotam.

Rotam refers to the wheel window, which is a remarkably fine one, and is not, as some writers think, an illiterate mis-spelling of portam (door). The rose window is prior to the one which Jacopo or Lapo, the so-called father of Arnolfo, placed in the façade of the Duomo of Arezzo, and is even superior to it in richness of design. To Jacobus Porrata is also attributed the principal entrance of Cremona cathedral, with the statues of the four prophets beside it. Over the architrave rises a species of porch, formed of little Lombard galleries, fringing as it were the arch. Below are the usual lion-supported pillars, the lions being carved in fine red marble. The vestibule above is formed of pointed arches, on each of which a lion crouches to sustain the finishing loggia. The Comacine Masters seem to have formed a school and laborerium at Cremona, for among the archives of the Duomo a deed has been found entitled laborerio, of the year 1289. It was drawn up by the notary Degoldo Malatesta on December 12 of that year, and on the part of the Rev^do. P. Cozzaconte, Bishop of Cremona, and the monk Ubertini, director and treasurer to the works of the Duomo, making a contract with Bonino and Guglielmo da Campione to build a stone stairway on the north of the cathedral towards S. Nicolò, etc. etc. The stairs still exist, with remains of some little turrets which formed part of the design.

Baptistery at Parma. Designed by Benedetto da Antelamo, A.D. 1178.

[See page 187.]

At Parma we have also precise data, and a name carven in stone. The cathedral was begun in 1059, four years before that of Pisa. It was finished by 1106, when Pope Pasquale II. consecrated it, the great Countess Matilda being present. In 1117 a part of it fell in an earthquake, and the Bishop Bernardo apportioned the receipts of several taxes to the rebuilding. Frederic Barbarossa in 1162 confirmed this disposition of the taxes and the work was continued. The laborerium of the Comacines at Parma was at different times under two of their chief sculptor-architects, Benedetto da Antelamo being master of the lodge in 1178, and Giovanni Bono of Bissone in 1281. Benedetto sculptured the now ancient pulpit of the cathedral, which was supported on four columns, and to which the relief of the Crucifixion, signed by him, belonged. It is now in the third chapel on the right. He also designed and erected the Baptistery, which, more than any building of the time, shows an originality of idea quite remarkable. It is built entirely of white marble, is of course octagonal, that is de règle, and is surrounded by rows of little pillared galleries, but in these he has made his colonnettes classical, and has left out the arches entirely, except in the upper one, substituting a solid flat marble entablature for them. The lower part only has a circular arch in each of the eight sides. The arches of the doorways are very deep, and richly sculptured. One has four dark marble pillars on each side of the door, of which the lintels and architrave are richly carved in reliefs. The north door has a Nativity of Christ in the lunette, and a story of John the Baptist beneath it. The west portal shows a realistic Last Judgment above, and on the sides the seven ages of man, and Christ performing the seven works of mercy. On the south door is the allegory of Death from the mediæval religious romance of Barlaam and Josaphat. The arches between the doors are filled in with niches containing statues supported on black marble Corinthian columns.

All round the building above the base is a frieze of the real old animal myths and symbols, such as the Comacines of two or three centuries earlier delighted in. The march of the times had now substituted actual representations of scriptural subjects, instead of mere symbols of dark mysteries, but the Magister could not all at once leave behind him the old emblems which had served his guild for centuries in the way of ornamentation. The building is unique, and shows daring independent thought at a time when independence was most difficult.

Fergusson, however, blames the false principles of design. He says the four upper storeys are only built to conceal a dome, which is covered by a flat wooden roof. The roof seen from above seems to be a flat tiled roof, and it has a pretty solid bell-turret in the centre. The little arches forming the upper range are slightly pointed. This Baptistery, as well as the pulpit in the Duomo, bears the signature of the builder and sculptor, and the date 1196.

"Bis binis demptis annis de mille ducentis.

Incepit dictus opus hoc sculptor Benedictus."[137]

Val d'Antelamo, the native place of Benedictus, is a valley near Lago Maggiore towards Laveno. It seems probable that a branch school or lodge of the Comacines existed here, of which Benedetto was at this epoch at the head,[138] and gave the name to his pupils. They must have emigrated like other branches of the guild, for in the ancient statutes of Genoa we find several mentions of experts in architecture, called Magistri da Antelamo, who were called in by the city magistrates, when any building work had to be valued or judged.[139]

As early as 1181 in the archives of S. Giorgio, one finds the names Martino and Ottoboni, Magistri Antelami, and as late as Nov. 27, 1855, a sentence was given at the Collegio dei Giudici at Genoa by a Maestro Anteramo. The substitution of r for l is to this day a very common error among Italians.

In 1161 a squadron of Masters from Lombardy was called to renovate the cathedral of Faenza, which was much ruined. These Masters accepted, and showed themselves most proficient. So says an old writer quoted by Merzario, but whether these very clever architects were the same Antelami branch who worked at Parma cannot be decided.[140] A later Comacine Master at Parma, whose name has come down to us, is Giovanni Bono of Bissone, a little village between Como and Lugano. The grand vestibule of the principal door of Parma cathedral, with its lion-supported columns, its bands of colonnettes and its rich sculpture, was designed by him. In a Gothic inscription over the door deciphered by Sig. Pezzana, we learn that the lions were made by Giovanni Bono da Bissone in 1280, at the time when Guido, Niccolao, Bernardino, and Benvenuti worked in the laborerium.[141]

This inscription, for which I am indebted to Canonico Pietro Tonarelli, is especially valuable, not only in fixing the epoch of Giovanni Buono da Bissoni's work, but as proof of the organization of the lodge and the brotherhood of its members. The word fratrum certainly implies that the laborerium was in the hands of a guild. The Canonico Tonarelli writes in a letter from Parma, that in an estimate in the archives of the Chapter, dated 1354, the Fabbriceria was denominated Domus laborerii seu fabricæ ... majoris Ecclesiæ, and that the administrators were called fratres de Laborerio. In Tuscany they were called Operai, and the office of administrator was the Opera del Duomo. The four names of the fratres, too, have a significance when read in the light I have since found thrown on the organization by the archives of the Opere in Siena and Florence. In those lodges one perceives plainly that the administration of the lodge was placed under four persons, of whom two were Masters of the guild, and two were influential persons of the city, i.e. half the council of administration gave the votes of the architects employed, and the other half those of the patrons who employed them. That the same rule held in this earlier lodge at Parma is confirmed by the fact that Niccolao and Benvenuti are found working together with Giovanni Buono at Pistoja in 1270.[142]

Sometimes a single name stands out among the file of Comacines, and one finds several well-known buildings that have emanated from one mind. Such a Master was Magister Giorgio of Jesi, near Como. His name is graven in the stones of many a church. At Fermo on the Adriatic, a "sumptuous" cathedral was built in 1227; a certain Bartolommeo Mansionarius being the patron. On the left south door was a slab with the inscription—"A.D. MCCXXVII Bartolomeus Mansionarius Hoc opus fieri fecit Per Manus Magistri Georgii de Episcopatu Com".... That the mutilated word is Como we prove by a similar inscription on the cathedral at Jesi (the ancient Æsis where the Emperor Frederick II., grandson of Barbarossa, was born). The ancient cathedral of S. Septimus, a truly Lombard building, still exists in part. Here the inscription runs—"A.D. MCCXXXVII tempore D. Gregorii Papae domini Federici Imperatoris, et domini Severini. episcope. æsini. Magister Georgius de Cumo civis æsinus fecit hoc opus."

Here we get the city as well as the bishopric to which Magister Giorgius belonged. He was a citizen of Jesi in the diocese of Como, and a qualified member of the higher rank of the Comacine Guild. In the little town of Penna in the same province, where the church was ruined in an earthquake, an ancient stone was found with the following inscription in old Latin—"In the name of God. Amen. This work was commenced in the time of the Priest Gualtieri, and completed in that of the Priest Grazia, by Master George of Jesi in the year 1256." By these stones we find that Master George worked in the province of Piceno for thirty years, between Fermo, Jesi, and Penna. To him is attributed the ancient communal palace of Jesi which was rebuilt in the fifteenth century by other Comacine Masters.

CHAPTER II
THE MODENA-FERRARA LINK

THE CAMPIONESE SCHOOL AT MODENA

At Modena, which was once a prosperous Roman colony, and then an independent commune, we find a most interesting family of Comacines, who for more than two centuries worked at the cathedral there, son succeeding father, and nephews following their uncles as architects. The building of a worthy church was the first thought of the newly-made commune in 1099. In Muratori's copy of the Acts of the translation of the body of S. Gemignano to Modena, we read—"So then, in the year 1099, the inhabitants of the said city began to demand where they could find an architect for such a work, a builder for such a church; and at length, by the grace of God, a certain man named Lanfranco, a marvellous architect, was found, under the counsels of whom the foundations of the Basilica were laid."[143]

Lanfranco is a name very frequent in Lombardy, but this man, probably from his already acquired fame, was the same Magister Lanfrancus filius Dom. Ersatii de Livurno (Ligurno), who built the cloister of Voltorre, near Lake Varese, in the neighbourhood of the Antelami.[144] The fact remains that all his successors were Comacines, and from places near Ligurno. There is also a similarity of style between the cloister at Voltorre, and the older parts of S. Gemignano at Modena, both showing a grafting of Gothic on the Romano-Lombard style. A curious document exists, a kind of contract, quoted by Tiraboschi in his Codice Diplomatico in the Appendix to the historical memorials of the building of the cathedral, long after Lanfranco's part was done. It runs, when Anglicized—"In the name of Christ, in the year of His nativity, 1244, in the second indiction, on the day of Mercury (Wednesday), the last of the month of November. It has been recorded that between Ser Alberto, once treasurer to the Opera et Fabbrica, and the late Master Anselmo da Campione in the episcopate of Como (Magistrum Anselmum de Campilione, Episcopatus Cumani), a contract was made, by which the said Magister and his heirs in perpetuo should work at the said church of Modena, and either the said Master, or any other Master, his descendant, should receive every day, six imperials in the days of May, June, July, and August, but five imperials only in those of the other months, for their recompense and their work. Ser Ubaldino, now Administrator of the said Fabbriceria, seeing and considering that the said stipend or remuneration does not seem sufficient according to the course of these and succeeding times, has deliberated and taken counsel with the venerable Bishop Signor Alberto, and with Ser Giovanni, Archpriest of Modena, at the instance and petition of Magister Arrigo (Henry), son of Magister Ottaccio, who was the son of Anselmo aforesaid; and in the presence of the aforementioned Signori, Bishop, and Archpriest, and of the subscribing witnesses, promises and agrees that to the said Magister Arrigo, for himself and his sons and heirs, and for Magister Alberto and Magister Jacopo, his paternal uncles (patruis suis), and the sons and heirs of the same, shall be given over and above to them, and to their said sons, or successors, who shall be masters in that art (qui magistri fuerint hujus artis), eight imperials for each day they work, from the calends of April to the calends of October. In the days of the remaining months in which they shall have worked at the will of the Administrator of the building, they should, and shall have, only six imperials, receiving nevertheless their food from the said lodge, not only on festal days, but on all others, as they have from the beginning been accustomed to have. And if at the will of the said Administrator they shall bring other competent Masters necessary to the said works, these shall receive seven imperials for each day, from the said calends of April to those of October, but in other months only five imperials per diem."

This deed was drawn up in the Canonica of Modena, and duly signed by witnesses.

Tracing the predecessors of Arrigo of Campione, father and grandfather, back from 1244, we come very near the time of the first Lanfranco; and following his descendants from Arrigo, head architect in 1244, to his grandson, who finished the tower of the Dome,[145] and made the marble pulpit in the cathedral in 1322, we get a family line of builders lasting unbroken for nearly two hundred years. There still exists an inscription in bad Latin on the cornice of the pulpit, which says that Tomasino di Giovanni, treasurer of the Fabbriceria, S. Gemignano, had the pulpit carved, and the tower built by Arrigo or Enrico, the Campionese sculptor (actibus Henrici sculptoris campionensis). It would be difficult now to assign his due share to each of this long line of master-builders; but the Italian critic, Marchese Ricci, gives Lanfranco the credit of the interior, which is in pure Romano-Lombard style, with two aisles and a nave. The nave is much higher than the aisles, and is supported on columns with high Corinthian capitals from some ancient Roman temple. Lanfranco has given a clumsier Lombard air to them by a very large abacus. The crypt is supported on sixty columns, the capitals of which are all Lombard, and of endless variety of form and sculpture. In the centre is the ark (tomb) of S. Gemignano. The wall of the façade, with its little pillared gallery, is also of Lanfranco's time.

The porch, with its knotted pillars supported on lions, is adjudged by Ricci to be the work of Anselmo of Campione in 1209. The sculpture on the façade by Nicolaus and Guglielmo is said to date from early in the twelfth century, and probably belonged to Lanfranco's design before Anselmo put this doorway. They are to our eyes most naïve Bible stories told in rude sculpture—the one side representing the Creation, the other the first men as far as Noah. To contemporary eyes, however, they were great works, for an old grandiloquent low Latin inscription on the façade says—"Inter scultores quanto sis dignus honore Claret scultura nunc Viligelme tua." "Worthy of honour art thou among sculptors. So shines, O William, this thy sculpture." Marchese Ricci, from the peculiar spelling of Guglielmo, thinks that he might have been a German, but as in the Ferrara inscription he is spelt in the Italian way, I think the Viligelme may be only one of those queer reversals of consonants so common in illiterate Italians. If a poor Florentine has a son named Arturo, he will surely call him Alturo, or if Alfredo, he will always be Arfledo. In any way we can descry in this artist, as in many others of his age, the forerunner of Niccolò Pisano, and see in the art of Niccolò only a link in development, not a new art entirely. To Nicolaus and Guglielmo are also attributed the sculptures in the choir, representing the Passion. We shall find them again at Ferrara.

We see, then, that the family of Anselmo, hereditary sculptors and architects of Modena, were certainly the founders of the great school of the Campionese, which lasted some centuries, and to whose hands may be attributed nearly all the great churches in North Italy. The schools, laborerium, and fabbricerie of Modena furnish another prototype of the threefold organization, which becomes so distinct in the Opera of Florence and the Lodges of Venice, Siena, and Orvieto. Tiraboschi publishes a notarial Act, dated January 7, 1261, which speaks of the laborerium near the Duomo, where the stones for the fabric were carved; and that there was a covered way between the church and this building which must not be removed or changed.

Gerolamo Calvi, in his Matteo de Campione, architetto e scultore, says that nearly all the architecture and sculpture executed in and around Milan in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries may be attributed to the Campionesi. He instances the Sala della Ragione at Padua, with its enormous span of roof, its characteristic arcades and galleries, and the Loggia degli Assi, or Loggia del Consiglio, once the Podestà's palace; the church of S. Agostino at Bergamo, built by Ugo da Campione and his son Giovanni, the castle of the Visconti at Pavia, and many others. Campione, though a place of importance in Roman times, and cited in Carlovingian documents, is now only a village on the side of a mountain, near Val d'Intelvi, containing 500 inhabitants. Calvi writes of it that from the earliest times before the renaissance of art,[146] the men of Campione dedicated themselves to building and sculpture, and diffused themselves throughout the north of Italy, working rudely at first, but gaining in style and experience till they produced great works worthy of eternal fame.

It seems probable that in this school we have a link with Florence. The Jacopo de Campione, who was mentioned in 1244 as uncle of the petitioner Arrigo, is named in other documents as a Campionese, is thought by Merzario and other authors to be that famous architect, Jacopo il Tedesco—or the Lombard, who was for centuries taken with certainty to be the father of Arnolfo. We shall speak of his pedigree in another chapter.

The builders of the Duomo of Ferrara were decidedly connected with the laborerium at Modena, both lodges originating from the Campione school. The façade has the usual three perpendicular divisions formed by means of chiselled shafts, but each division is divided horizontally into three levels, each one enriched with Lombard galleries. Besides these is a wealth of ornamentation, figures, reliefs, trafori (open work), and foliage of the most fantastic kind. This and the framework of the church are all that remain of the Comacine work, excepting the vestibule, which has all their signs on it. Four columns resting on four red marble lions support it; one of them guards a lamb, and another has a serpent beneath its paw. Here we have still the Comacine mysticism: the lion of Judah guarding the Paschal Lamb, and one of the House of Judah crushing the serpent. Over the porch are more sculptures, and an arched vestibule; over that a kind of Gothic gable, and above the gable a rose window. The whole speaks eloquently of its kinship with the churches of Verona, Parma, and Bergamo. Tradition says the interior and façade were built not much later than 1103. The inscription over the door runs—

"Il mille cento trempta nato. Fo questo templo a Zorzi (Giorgio) consacrato. Fo Nicolao scultore, e Ghelmo fo lo auctore." These are evidently the same Guglielmo and Nicolao who sculptured Lanfranco's front at Modena. Guglielmo was the leading man, and made the design (auctore); Nicolaus chiefly executed it.

But these two were not the only Comacines employed at Ferrara; a MS. copy of an ancient inscription on some old reliefs in the front of the church of St. George, records the names of Meo and Antonio of Como. "Da Meo di Checco, e da Antonio di Frix. da Como."[147]

Façade of Ferrara Cathedral, 12th century.

[See page 198.]

Before the middle of the thirteenth century, Padua had become the shrine of a miraculous saint. St. Anthony had come over from Lisbon in 1220, and founded at Padua a new order of monks, called Minori Conventuali, under similar rules to the Franciscans. St. Anthony attracted great crowds of people by his preaching and miracles, and at his death in 1231 he was canonized, and his devotees desired to build a beautiful church over his tomb. The first attempt failed from not having means to pay a good architect, or competent builders, and in 1265 the commune set to work to remedy their mistake. They assigned four thousand lire a year to the re-edification, until such time as the church should be completed. By 1307 all was complete except the cupola, which was added a century later. Vasari attributes the design to Niccolò Pisano; but his able commentator, Milanesi, who lived all his life studying archives, asserts that neither document, inscription, nor tradition remain to prove Niccolò's connection with Padua, while the style of the building is utterly unlike the edifices known to be his.

Some documents in the archives of Padua, unearthed by Padre Gonzali, prove that in 1263, on May 11, there were working in the church as builders, Egidio, son of Magister Gracii; Ubertino, son of Lanfranco; Niccola, son of Giovanni; and Pergandi, son of Ugone of Mantua; and that, in 1264, a Zambono of Como and a Benedetto of Verona, who lived in the district of Rovina, are recorded as builders. There is no record of the architect who designed the church; but judging from the Moorish innovations of style it was very probably either planned by the monks, or designed by them. St. Anthony was a Portuguese. On his way here he would have passed through Spain, and may have been attracted by the Moorish architecture. He may have even brought a drawing or two of some many-domed building, and have given them to the Lombard architects to work from. Probably some of his monks were—like many Franciscans and Dominicans—members of the Guild of Freemasons, and so trained in the science of architecture.

In any case, the buildings at Padua are neither true Lombard nor true Gothic, and not even Oriental, but a mixture of all three. The Lombard has partly had his way in the façade, where the upper part is full of galleries and archlets; the lover of the new Gothic arches has put his mark on the lower part of the façade; and the monks, who remembered the native land of their saint, have put the seven domes and minarets; the domes, however, were beyond the Comacines of that time, and were not placed till the fifteenth century, when it is to be imagined that the Renaissance doorway and various pilasters and adjuncts were added. Altogether, for a church where Como Masters undoubtedly worked, St. Anthony of Padua is the most unlike their style. They seem to have taken so little interest in the outlandish plan, that they did not sanctify it by a bit of their biblical sculpture.

That monks at that era really did occupy themselves in architecture, we have consistent proofs in the monkish builders of fine churches; and that when they followed this branch, they were probably trained in, and became members of, the great Masonic Guild, is also indicated by the close connection between the Magistri-frati and the secular Magistri. In the transactions of the guild, monks were frequently called into council by the Opera or Fabbriceria; and they often worked at their churches in conjunction with the secular members.[148] In the church of S. Francesco at Lodi is an interesting old painting, representing S. Bernardino directing a group of monks engaged in building a convent. Beneath it is written—"Qualiter in ædificatione monasterii Bernardinus fratres hortatus fuerit."[149]

Church of S. Antonio, Padua, 13th century.

[See page 199.]

It is through this order at Padua that the link with Germany became strengthened. Albertus Magnus was a Dominican, born in Bavaria. He came to Padua for his studies in theology and the exact sciences, which evidently included the science of building. Merzario says that up to 1223 he taught publicly in Padua, and wrote a work on Perspective.[150]

Don Vincenzo Rossi, Prior of Settignano, however, writes to me, I believe on the authority of Montalembert, that Albertus Magnus attended the university at Padua, and some think also that at Pavia, but only as a student. He held a cattedra at Cologne, where St. Thomas of Aquinas was his pupil.[151]

The name of Albertus Magnus is much connected with the Freemasonry of Germany; and soon after his stay in Padua we find Comacine Masters working in Germany. Some German savant might work out this clue, and see if he did not start, or aid in establishing, a lodge at Cologne, for all authors agree that the architectural Maestranze (as the Italians called the mixed clerical and lay Masonic Guilds) passed over the Alps from Italy, and flourished greatly in northern cities, such as Strasburg, Zurich, Cologne, etc., etc.

In the twelfth century the beautiful church and monastery of Chiaravalle, near Milan, were erected by the Campionese Masters, on the commission of the noble family of Archinto of Milan. It is a fine specimen of Italian Gothic, with the dome peculiar to that style.

The Visconti of Milan were large patrons of the Campionese school. The fine castle at Pavia, built in the time of Galeazzo II., shows by its style the Comacine hand. It has been assigned to Niccola Sella from Arezzo and Bernardo of Venice, but, as Merzario shows, these men only came to Pavia thirty years after it was finished.

The first stone was laid on March 27, 1360. The archives have been searched in vain to find the architect's name: it is, however, proved that Bonino da Campione was in Pavia in 1362, working at the Area di S. Agostino, so it is probable that some of his brethren of the Campionese school were also employed by Galeazzo. Unluckily, these are so individually sunk in the company, that one rarely gets a prominent name.

Merzario, quoting other writers, attributes to the Campionesi that sepulchral monument of Beatrice della Scala, now in the church of S. Maria at Milan; the mausoleum of Stefano Visconti in S. Eustorgio, and that of Azzo, son of Galeazzo I.; but beyond a tradition that Bonino da Campione sculptured the last, there is no positive proof.[152]

Great conjectures have been made as to the real author of the Arca di Agostino at Pavia. Vasari says—"La quale è di mano secondo che a me pare di Agnolo e Agostino, scultori senesi." His expression, "As it seems to me," is not very decisive proof, truly. Cicognara is not more exact. He "wonders that this most grand and magnificent work is not more famous than it is—and thinks it shows the style of the Sienese brothers, but opines it is more likely to be by some pupil of theirs, if it is not by Pietro Paolo and Jacobello the Venetians." This is vague with a vengeance. Merzario, however, proves that there are no documents to show that the Sienese brother sculptors ever came to Pavia, and asserts that the style of the Arca is not at all Venetian.

The learned Difendente Sacchi[153] brings more logic and less imagination to bear on the point. The inscription on the monument proves that it was begun in 1362, placed in 1365, and that the accessory ornamentation was finished in 1370. The books of the administration show that the sums paid for its construction amounted in all to seventy-two thousand lire italiane.

As no artist in especial is named as having received this sum, I should myself imagine that as usual several Masters of the guild worked at it, but that one was capo maestro, and drew the design. Comparing it with the monument of Can della Scala at Verona, which is a certified work of Bonino da Campione, Sacchi argues that he was the designer and sculptor of this Arca. The style in both is semi-Gothic, the arches following the same curve and resting on columns; the friezes and ornaments are so much alike as to be in some parts identical in design; the crown of pyramids and cupolini which finishes the monument on the top, the form of the pinnacles, and their floriations are more than similar.

The Arca di S. Agostino is, however, the more elaborate. It has ninety-five statues in its niches, not counting statuettes. One may count nearly three hundred distinct works of sculpture in the composition. (Would not this redundancy prove it the work of a school rather than one hand?) Sacchi justly observes that if Can Scaliger confided to Bonino the commission for his monument, it must have been because he had seen proofs of his skill; and where could this have been more probable than in the Arca at Milan?

A suggestive proof of the Arca di S. Agostino being the joint work of the Comacine Guild, is suggested by Merzario.[154] Over the colonnade of the Arca are twelve statues, but in front of these stand the Quattro Santi Coronati, the four artist martyrs. One of these is represented stooping to examine the base of a pillar; another trying the diminution of a column with the T square, and a third measures a reversed capital, and holds a scroll on which is written in Gothic letters, Quatuor Coronatorum; the fourth is working with hammer and chisel.

Now these four saints, being the special patrons of the Comacine Guild, would have little significance to any other artists.

The sepulchre of Can Signorio de Scaliger in Verona was begun in his lifetime, and on his own commission, and cost 10,000 gold florins. He died in 1375, so it must date slightly prior to that. Bonino de Campiglione Mediolanensis has signed his name in marble on the frieze. It is a fine specimen of Gothic ornamentation, at the culmination of the Campionese school.

There were also earlier works of Bonino's at Cremona; one a sepulchre to Folchino de Schicci, a jurisconsult, in the chapel of St. Catherine in the Duomo, beautifully worked with friezes, etc., in bas-reliefs. It is signed in Gothic characters—

"Hoc sepulcrum est nobilis et

Egregii militis et juris periti

D Folchini de Schiciis qui

obiit anno D,MCCCLVII

Die Julii et heredum ejus

Justitia, Temperantia Fortitudo Prudentia

Magis. Bonino de Campilione me fec."[155]

Tomb of Can Signorio degli Scaligeri at Verona. By Magister Bonino da Campione, 1374.

[See page 204.]

The other one is the urn for the relics of S. Omobono, protector of Cremona. Unfortunately the urn, which is said to have been very rich and beautifully worked, has been ruined and dispersed. One slab only remains, bearing the inscription, Magister Boninus de Campilione me fecit, with the date, June 25, 1357. So Can Scaliger would have had also other famous monumental works to recommend his choice of Bonino.

CHAPTER III
THE TUSCAN LINK

I.—Pisa

The very mention of Pisa brings to our minds Niccolò Pisano, whose name stands in all art histories as the fountain-head of that Tuscan development of art which led to the Renaissance. But where was Niccolò Pisano trained and qualified for this high post of honour? A great architect and sculptor does not suddenly become famous and obtain important commissions without having some undeniable credentials.

In those mediæval days, when the arts protected themselves by forming into constituted guilds, no one could call himself a Master unless he were trained and qualified in one of these guilds and had reached the higher grades. To trace Niccolò's place in the great chain of the Masonic Guild, we must go back a little, and gather together the threads of information we have been able to glean, as to the expansion of the guild itself, and here the valuable collections of archivial documents made by Sig. Milanesi from the books and archives of the Opera del Duomo at Siena, and by Sig. Cesare Guasti from those of the cathedral at Florence, will materially assist us. By studying these and putting facts and statements together the whole organization becomes clear, and our former glimpses into the threefold aspect of the lodges at Modena, Parma, and other northern cities become confirmed.

Here in Tuscany we again find the three branches. First: There is the school where novices were trained in the three sister arts—painting, sculpture, and architecture. When pupils were received from outside the guild, they had to pass a very severe novitiate before being admitted as members; but the sons and nephews of Magistri were, we learn, entitled to be members by heritage without the novitiate.[156] The hereditary aspect of the lists of Masters certainly displays this right of heritage very strongly. The qualified Masters were entitled to take pupils and apprentices in their own studios. The large number of pupils who studied under Niccolò Pisano suggests his eminent position in the guild.

Second: There was the laborerium, or great workshop, where all the hewing of stone, carving of columns, cutting up of wood-work was done—in fact, the head-quarters of the brethren who had passed the schools, but were not yet Masters.[157] A graphic sketch from a Masonic laborerium is given by Nanni di Banco, in the relief under the shrine of the Quattro Coronati on Or San Michele at Florence, where the four brethren are all at work. In looking at it, one is reminded of the old story of the block of marble from which Michael Angelo's David was made, which had laid for many years in the stores of the Opera del Duomo at Florence, it having been once assigned to Agostino di Ducci, who was commissioned in 1464 to make a statue for the front of the Duomo, which was blocked out so badly that the marble was taken away from him, and he was expelled from the laborerium.[158]

Third: There was the Opera or Office of Administration, which formed the link between the guild and its patrons. The Freemasons evidently adapted their nomenclature to the dialect of the part they were in. In Tuscany the word for this office was Opera (or Works). There was the Opera di S. Jacopo at Pistoja as early as 1100; and the Opera del Duomo at Pisa, Siena, and Florence. In cities of the Lombard district, such as Modena, Parma, Padua, Milan, etc., the name is Fabbriceria. The members of this Ruling Council are generally four in number, and are called Operai in Tuscany, and Fabbricieri in Lombardy. These were elected periodically, two of them being influential citizens, who acted on the part of the patrons, and two from the Masters themselves. Where the lodge was very small there was only one operaio, as in Pistoja, when in 1250 Turrisianus was overseer (superstans) for a year. Later, when the Pistoja lodge was larger, there were two. At Milan there were more than four. Above these was the Superiore, a sort of president. If there were a reigning Prince, he was usually elected president. In the Opera, all commissions were given, and contracts signed between the city and the Masters, every contract being duly drawn up in legal manner by the notary of the Opera. Here orders were given for the purchase of materials, and estimates considered for the payment of either work or goods. The Opera had to provide the funds for the whole expenses. Usually this was done in the first instance by appropriating to the work the receipts of one or more taxes. In course of time people left legacies, and the Opera had a knack of growing very rich.

Between the Opera and the laborerium was a responsible officer called the Provveditore. Judging from the entries in his private memorandum-book, his responsibilities must have been endless, and his occupations multitudinous.

There was also a treasurer, a secretary, and two Probiviri, sometimes called Buon uomini, who acted as arbiters, for purposes of appeal and verification of accounts.

The identical form of the lodges in the different cities is a strong argument that the same ruling body governed them all. An argument equally strong is the ubiquity of the members. We find the same man employed in one lodge after another, as work required. Unfortunately no documents exist of the early Lombard times, but the archives of the Opere, which in most cities have been faithfully kept since the thirteenth century, would, if thoroughly examined, prove to be valuable stores from which to draw a history of the Masonic Guild.

We will now return to Pisa.

Sig. Merzario asserts that no school of art indigenous to Pisa existed there before the building of the Duomo. He might almost have said before the time of Niccolò, for so far was the half-mythical Buschetto from being a Pisan, that the world has for eight centuries been arguing where he came from! To arrive at Niccolò it is necessary to start from Buschetto. Who was Buschetto? Whence came he? Vasari, in his ignorance of monumental Latin, says, "From Dulichium," and thus the idea was promulgated that he was a Greek. But the inscription (given on next page) on Pisa cathedral says nothing of the kind. It is a flowery eloquence which Cavalier Del Borgo reads as comparing him for genius to Ulysses, Duke of Dulichium, and for skill to Dædalus.

Cicognara judges from his name that he was Italian. Most probably Buschetto was a nickname, "little bush," given him either from a shock head of hair, or derived from Buscare, to thrash or flog. It is quite possible, though the proofs are not very strong, that he may have been of Greek extraction, descended from some of the Byzantine members of the guild of whom we have spoken before.

BUSKET.[159] JACE ... HIC .... INGENIOR͞U

DULICHIO ... PREVALUISSE DUCI[160]

MENIB' JLIACIS CAUTUS DEDIT ILLE RUIN͞A

HUJUS AB ARTE VIRI MENIA MIRA VIDES.

CALLIDITATE SUA NOCUIT DUX INGENIOS

UTILIS ISTE FUIT CALLIDITATE SUA.

NIGRA DOM' LABERINTUS ERAT TUA DEDALE LAUS͞E

AT SUA BUSKET͞U SPLENDIDA TEMPLA PROBANT.

N̄ HABET EXPLU NIVEO[161] DE MARMORE TEMPL͞U

QUOD FIT BUSKETI PRORSUS AB INGENIO.

RES SIBI COMISSAS TEMPLI C͞U LEDERET HOSTIS

PROVIDUS ARTE SUI FORTIOR HOSTE FUIT.

MOLISET IMMENSE PELAGI QUAS TRAXIT AB IMO

FAMA COLUMNARUM TOLLIT AD ASTRA VIRUM

EXPLENDIS A FINE DECEM DE MENSE DIEBUS

SEPTEMBRIS GAUDENS DESERIT EXILIUM.

The partisans of the Grecian theory hold much to a MS. said to be now in the archives of the Vatican,—but which Milanesi asserts cannot be found,—which says that the Pisans "Buschetum ex Grecia favore Constantinopolitani Imperatoris obtinuerunt." Morrona also suspects this to be apocryphal; but even if it be genuine, the Pisans may only have asked for one of the Italian architects who were working in large numbers in the East under the Emperors, and building Lombard churches on Oriental ground. It was only in 1170 that Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cassino, begged Comnenus to send him back some architects, and the Italian sculptor Olinto was among them.

It may well be true, as Sig. Merzario says, that no school existed at Pisa before the Duomo was begun. But soon after that, we certainly find the usual organization of laborerium and Opera.

Old authors tell us that "the most famous Masters from foreign parts vied in lending their help to the building of such an important edifice, under the direction of Buschetto."[162] Another old MS.[163] records that the "Opera of the Duomo was instituted in 1080, some years after Buschetto was engaged, and that the first operai of the Council were Hildebrand, son of the Judge Uberto, son of Leo, Signoretto Alliata, and Buschetto of Dulichium who was architect. The head of these was Hildebrand, and the others were ministers and officers of the Opera, as may be found in the archives of the said Opera."[164] Here we have the full organization of the Comacine House of Works. The dignitaries of the city as President, Treasurer, and Ministers, the head architect also a member of the Council of the Opera. Another old writer calls Buschetto capo della scuola Pisana.

Niccolò, Giovanni, and Andrea da Pisa are fine proofs that the school at Pisa flourished and brought forth brave artists. Even as late as the sixteenth century, when Sansovino was sculpturing the casing of the Holy House at Loreto, we are told that thirty of the best carvers in stone were sent from Pisa to work under the Capo Maestro, Andrea Contucci of Monte Sansovino.[165]

Among the Magistri from other parts in Buschetto's time, one of the chief was doubtless Rainaldo, who, judging from the inscription near the principal door of the façade, was not only a working sculptor in the guild, but also a full-fledged Master—

HOC OPUS EXIMIUM TAM MERUM TAM PRETIOSUM:

RAINALDUS PRUDENS OPERATOR, ET IPSE MAGISTER:

COSTITVIT MIRE, SOLLERTER, ET INGENIOSE.

It is much to be deplored that this inscription bears no date, so that we cannot tell whether Rainaldo were chief architect after Buschetto, or whether he were only sculptor and executed the front; Buschetto being architect, and designing the whole. Here we have several things to suggest both these artists as Italians, (1) Their names. (2) The Comacine form of their institutions, with the Opera at the head. (3) The concourse of Italian Magistri which followed them; but as usual, absolute proof is wanting.

Let us see if their work can throw more light on the question. Is the Pisan church Byzantine? Decidedly not. There are no domes except the central one, which is seen in most Lombard churches; no Oriental arches resting on bulging capitals; but round arches supported on the identical Romano-Lombard composite capitals one sees in every Italian church of the time. The façade too is a very wilderness of Lombard galleries in every direction. Instead of following the line of roof, they cover the whole front, one below another. If Buschetto had brought back from Byzantium an idea of more richness of ornamentation, he certainly worked it out in Italian forms, by merely multiplying his little pillared galleries till a network was formed over the whole building. This was not confined to him; it became a mark of Comacine work for the next two or three centuries, as we may see at Lucca, Ancona, Arezzo, and other places. The style is called Romanesque, and it stands between the heavier Lombard style of the earlier Comacines, and the more finished Italian Gothic of the later ones, as shown in Florence and Milan. They are all, however, only different developments of the same guild.

Interior of Pisa Cathedral, 11th century.

[See page 212.]

The richness of ornamentation suited the temper of the Pisans at that time. They were proud of many victories, and had brought back from Majorca, Palermo, and other places, various spoils, such as porphyry colonnettes, rare marble, etc. etc.[166] They desired a particularly grand and gorgeous church, and that it should be in a style hitherto unknown. The many antique capitals and columns among the spoils placed at his disposal suggested, of course, arches, so by way of being very original, Buschetto or Rainaldo, whichever of the two designed it, made his façade with four arcades, instead of one, or two, as his brethren in the north were accustomed to do. The colonnettes in these four galleries are fifty-eight in number, some of rosso antico, others of the black and gold-streaked Luna marble. The two large columns at the central door are also of antique Greek work; they are beautifully carved in foliage intertwined; the other four columns are fluted and wreathed with foliage. The capitals also are chiefly ancient classic work; there are Corinthian and composite ones. The remaining capitals are Comacine work, and have their usual mixture of animals and hieroglyphic figures. Here, too, are the lions of Judah in juxtaposition with the pillars, but as yet they appear above the pillar and not beneath it, as was the invariable custom a century later.

The rude figures of saints at the extremities of the roof, both of the aisles and nave, mark the beginning of that revival of the human figure in sculpture, which was the forerunner of the work of Niccolò Pisano. The tower and Baptistery are the natural results of the Duomo, the style being identical; the same round arches in the foundation, and the same circles of Lombard galleries covering the super-structures.

The Baptistery was built by Magister Diotisalvi, somewhere about 1152. We have no proofs of his origin, but his work and title prove him to have graduated in the same guild as Buschetto and Rainaldo,[167] and we find his son and grandsons in Siena and other lodges.

In the Baptistery, the old mystic octagonal form was abandoned, and the circle takes its place. Diotisalvi has here made a perfect bell in tone as well as in form. It is the most acoustic building possible, as any one may prove by singing in rotation the notes of a chord. The whole chord echoes on for several moments with exquisite effect. The Baptistery was begun in August 1152, the first stone being laid in the presence of the Consul Cocco di Tacco Grifi; and two of the Operai (members of the administrative council or Opera) named Cinetto Cinetti, and Arrigo Cancellieri, were appointed soprastanti (overseers). Here again we have a distinct connection between the Opera del Duomo and the laborerium.

Some of the classic spoils of war were given to Diotisalvi for this building. Several of the capitals on the twenty columns supporting the foundation circle of round arches, are Corinthian; and the two pillars at the chief portal are beautiful specimens of ancient work, similar to those in the façade of the Duomo. Between the classic remains incorporated into the building, and the statues and sculptures which belong to a later century, it is difficult to distinguish which were the absolute work of Diotisalvi himself. The sculptures on the door-jambs—rather mediæval scenes relating to Christ and David—and the hieroglyphics of the months were probably his own work. The Baptism of Christ on the architrave, which has the mediæval expression of baptism by immersion, may be his; and if so, it seems to explain how the Greek element got into Niccolò di Pisa's work, for here is his antecedent of a century, showing in his work signs of the same leaning to classicism in the midst of a rude and early style. How could he help it when he was living among classic remains of sculpture?

The other three doors have also antique spiral columns of Greek marble. A fine piece of work, in Comacine style, is the frieze of interlaced foliage over the west entrance. The second order is a colonnade of fifty-eight arches with sculptured capitals. The third consists of eighteen pilasters and twenty windows. Here are seen the lion between the pillar and the arch, various animals and human heads at the spring of the arches, while above each order is a complicated cornice of pyramids, spires, and arabesques, which suggest a Southern or Eastern influence. The interior is less ornate, but of fine solid architecture. Twelve Corinthian columns and four large pilasters support the arches, forming a peristyle round the building; a similar gallery with slight columns runs above it. The columns are not all of antique marble. Three of them are of granite brought from the Isle of Elba, on May 4, 1155, and two from Sardinia, by Cinetti, one of the overseers we have mentioned.[168] The first pillar was placed on October 1, 1156. The capitals are ornate; some antique, Corinthian, others in Comacine style with animals and intrecci. On one of the pillars is engraved—"Deo-ti-salvi, magister hujus operis." Morrona thinks the Baptistery shows a Moorish influence. This is possible, as the whole of the three buildings show the Comacines' first great change of style, after their works in the south at Palermo, and the kingdom of Naples.

Old writers call the style Arabo-Tedesco; and this brings us to the meaning of the word Tedesco in Italian architecture at this epoch.

The fallacy that the Italian Gothic came from Germany, must have got into art histories from a misconception of Vasari's term of opprobrium, "quei Tedeschi." He uses it when he speaks of any architecture which is not purely classic, even blaming buildings such as Arnolfo's Florentine dome, the churches of Assisi, Orvieto, Lucca, Pisa, etc.

But the writers who interpret this term as meaning the German nation, are reasoning on a fallacy. In the first place, was there any pointed Gothic in Germany before the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries? We will just run over the principal Gothic cathedrals. Bruges was begun in 1358; Cologne is modern of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; Lubeck was built in 1341; Attenburg in 1265-1379; Freiburg Dom Kirche in 1484. At Freiburg in Breisgau, the older parts are of the same style as Comacine, while the Gothic parts date from 1513; Strasburg, the Gothic parts between 1318-1439; Magdeburg, 1363.

Before these were built we have at Cologne, S. Gereon's Kirche, with circular arches, date 1227, and S. Pantaleon, 980, but there is not a sign of Gothic in either. Bonn cathedral, built in 1151-1270, is also round-arched. Coblenz is Carlovingian. Mayence, round-arched of the tenth and eleventh centuries (the Gothic side-chapels date from 1260 to 1500). Treves, with round arches, early Romanesque of the eleventh century; choir, later Romanesque of the twelfth century; some parts which are pointed were of the thirteenth century. Hildesheim, a Romanesque Basilica, built in the eleventh century. Dom Insel at Breslau, 1170, is tripartite, on the Comacine plan, and very quaint. Worms, 996-1016, Lombard style, with round arches; the parts with pointed architecture are much more modern. This list proves that the earliest churches were built by Italian Masters, or at least in the Italian style.

Indeed Hope classes most of them as Lombard. The Germans themselves expanded the Lombard style into the pointed, which also came up through Italy, its first signs being seen at Assisi, next at Pisa, and then Florence.

Milan was a later reflex of the perfected German Gothic, though chiefly executed, as we shall see later, by the hands of Comacine Masters.

As I have before remarked, climatic influences greatly determine the style of a national architecture. To the sunny south belong the flat roof; the shady colonnade; the horizontal line and frieze; the fountained court; the smaller windows; and the solid tower. To the north the pointed roof, that snow and rain shall not decay it; the solid buttress to resist the greater outward pressure of the high and aspiring sloped roof; the perpendicular tendency in design; the larger windows for a less sunny atmosphere; and the pointed spire to carry up the general lines.

On these lines of fitness the Germans and French perfected their style, and imported it into England. The differences are great, between this northern Gothic and the Italian Gothic, which is always more or less Romanesque. Now if in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries[169] the Germans had not begun to build their glorious pointed minsters, what did Vasari mean by quei Tedeschi? I will show from his own description. In his chapter called "dell' Architettura," forming the introduction to his Lives, after discussing the three classical orders, he says (I will translate literally)—"There is another kind of work which they call Tedesco (German), in which the ornamentation and proportions are very different from the ancient or the modern. (Modern in Vasari's time would be the Renaissance style of Michael Angelo.) This is not used by good architects of these days, but is shunned by them as monstrous and barbarous. Every sign of order is forgotten, it ought rather to be called confusion and disorder. In the buildings, which are so many that they have infected the whole world, you see the portals adorned with thin columns twisted like a vine, and so slight that they could not be supposed to support the weight. And then on their façades and other places they made a cursed mass of little tabernacles (archlets) one on the other, with many pyramids and points, and such foliage (here Vasari evidently has his eye on Pisa Baptistery), that it seems impossible how they clung together; they seem made of paper, rather than of stone or marble. In these works there are many protuberances, broken lines, brackets, and intrecci, quite disproportionate to the building; and frequently, by piling one thing on another, they run up so high that the top of a door touches the roof. (Here Vasari is certainly thinking of the porches of San Zeno at Verona, and the cathedral of Bergamo.) This style was invented by the Goths (does he mean Longobards perhaps?), who having ruined the buildings, and murdered the architects, made the ones who remained build in this way. They arched their roofs with acute quarti (vaulted roofs) and filled all Italy with this cursed style of building.... God save any country from coming to such ideas and orders of architecture, which, being utterly deformed and unlike the beauty of our buildings, do not deserve that we should speak any more of them."

Again, in the Proemio delle Vite, when praising the solid buildings of the Goths in Ravenna, especially the tomb of Theodoric, with its huge monolithic roof, he goes on to speak of the Dark Ages—"After which," he says, "there arose new architects, who from their barbarous nation derived the kind of buildings which we of to-day call tedeschi, the which seem ridiculous to us, although to them they may have appeared to be praiseworthy."

Here are tirades from the old chronicler of art, who swore by the three classic orders, and worshipped Michael Angelo and the Renaissance style! Certainly the flat pilaster, triangular pediments, and straight unadorned lines of that art were as far removed as the poles from the florid but meaningful sculpture-architecture of the Comacines in Romanesque times, or its rich Norman and Gothic developments.

However, we gather plainly from this, that when Vasari calls a master Tedesco, he means merely Lombard. The reason is easy to see. Lombardy and North Italy, down to Lucca, were from about 1170 under the rule of the German Emperors, consequently the Comacines were no longer Lombards, nor French as in the Carlovingian times, but Germans.

This is curiously emphasized by an episode in the building of the cathedral at Pisa. When the Pisans wanted to endow the building fund of the church, they wished to buy some land on the Serchio, near Lucca, to help to form a revenue. They had, however, to send Gualando Orlandi and Aldebrando de' Visconti as ambassadors to Germany to obtain permission from the Emperor Henry IV., that the lands close by Lucca might be ceded to Pisa.[170]

The tower of Pisa is too well known to need any description here. The joint masters were Bonanno of Pisa, and a very confusing Tedesco. In some authors he is called Giovanni d'Innspruck, in others Guglielmo from Germany. On inquiry as to how Innspruck comes into the question, we find the following perplexing passage in Morrona. After quoting the inscription on the tower, "A.D. MCLXXIV campanile hoc fuit fundatum mense Agusti," he continues—"We find from ancient documents belonging to the Opera, that the building was begun on the vigil of San Lorenzo, and the two above-mentioned architects (Bonanno and Guglielmo) are precisely indicated, excepting only that instead of Guglielmo Tedesco, it is written Giovanni Onnipotente of Germany—a misinterpretation of the word Œnipons or Œnipontanus, which signifies native of Innspruck."[171] The italics are my own, and emphasize what Sig. Morrona styles a precise indication! The passage is an astounding bit of unreason, but as neither Giovanni nor Guglielmo is a German form of name, I do not think this theory need trouble us. Whether the builder were German or Italian, whether named John or William, he only carried out the general design of the two buildings, and made a veil of Lombard archlets all over his leaning tower.

We shall find both Bonanno and Guglielmo working at Orvieto some time later. The tower was finished much later, when Andrea di Pisa was Grand Master of the Pisan Lodge; the upper circle of arches belongs to his part of the work.

At Pisa then we have an artistic sphere which might well have produced Niccolò di Pisa, even without the influences of the south. We will, as far as the few inscriptions and documents allow, see who were the members of this Masonic lodge, which had painters before even the rise of the Siena school, and whose building was the earliest model for the Romanesque style.

Bonanno, who assisted in the building of the tower, was more famous in the guild for his metal working than for architecture and marble sculpture. The fame of the bronze doors of the Duomo which he cast is now only traditionary, as they were destroyed by the fire on October 25, 1596. The antique inscription has been preserved, and proves that in 1180 Bonanno cast the doors, which had taken him a year to model, and that a certain "Benedict" was operarius at the time.[172]

Bonanno's successor as a master in bronze was a certain Bartolommeo di Pisa, who was, like Bonanno, sculptor, architect, and metal-worker. He was much patronized by the Emperor Frederic, for whom he built the palace at Foggia, and made a tomb. He seems to have been a famous bell-caster; there are inscriptions quoted by Morrona,[173] which have been found on bells in the leaning tower of Pisa, the bells of the churches of St. Francis at Assisi, S. Francesco at Siena, S. Paolo a Ripa d'Arno, and S. Cosimo at Pisa, S. Michele at Lucca, etc. Sometimes his name stands alone; sometimes one of his sons, Lotteringo or Andreotti, is associated with him. Later we find the sons' names alone in independent works, and then with the distinctive title of Magister.

Through this group of Pisan Masters a special connection was established with the south, a link which might account for Pietro, the father of Niccolò, being called Pietro da Apulia, for there certainly was an offshoot of the Pisan lodge in that part. Bonanno of Pisa cast the famous bronze doors of Monreale; Bartolommeo was at Foggia; and his son, Magister Lotoringus, passed most of his life at Cefalù, where his name appears on a bell dated A.D. 1263. The Emperor Frederic, his father's patron, nationalized him in Cefalù, and after ten years of residence, in 1242 he gave him permission to take a wife from Castro-Vetere in Calabria.

Other metal-workers and bell-casters at Pisa were a Nanni, a Pardo Nardi, and others whose names appear inscribed in the twelfth century. I do not know whether the Angelo Rossi, whose name with the date 1173 is on a sculptured bell once in the church of S. Giovanni in Pisa (now at Villa di Pugnano), was a fellow-pupil or scholar of Bonanno's. His work is less artistic and masterly.

And now for the sculptors of the lodge. A famous master of the twelfth century was Biduinus, who sculptured the façade of the ancient church of S. Cassiano, near Pisa, the building of which was undoubtedly the work of the Pisan Lodge. It is a round-arched church of the usual large smooth square-cut blocks of stone, and is externally adorned by pilasters with capitals of varied form and sculpture. Biduinus' façade has five round arches with a simple double-light window above. The capitals and architraves are all carved with the mystic beasts and hippogriffs belonging to the religion of the day. The architraves show the resurrection of Lazarus, and Christ's entry into Jerusalem. On one of the doors is the inscription in Gothic letters—"Hoc opus quod cernis. Biduinus docte peregit"; the other bears the date 1180. The whole style of the church is similar to the Pistoja buildings of that epoch, and recalls the school of Gruamonte. It is certain that Biduinus as well as Gruamont worked in Lucca, for the relief of the architrave of S. Salvatore at Lucca is signed "BIDUVINO ME FECIT HOC OPUS."

Pulpit in the Church of S. Giovanni Fuorcivitas, Pistoja. By Magister Guglielmo d'Agnello, 13th century.

[See page 223.]

The next great names are Niccolò and Giovanni Pisani, the glory not only of their own lodge, but of the universal Guild. Until the time when his famous pulpit was sculptured, Niccolò seems to have worked little in Pisa, though he endowed it with one of his most original designs—the bell-tower of S. Niccolò. From the evidence of southern influence in his style, it is probable that his father Pietro was one of the artists whom Frederic called to South Italy, and that Niccolò passed his novitiate with him there. In any case, by the time he wrote Magister before his name he had already attained a high rank as sculptor and architect, and was chosen for most important works out of Pisa, such as the Arca di S. Domenico at Bologna, and the building of the church and convent near it. Niccolò Pisano's work in Florence was almost exclusively architectural; he also designed the cathedral churches of Arezzo and Cortona. His pupil, Fra Guglielmo, a relative of the Doge dell' Agnello of Pisa who was Niccolò's assistant in the Arca di S. Domenico at Bologna in 1272, worked in 1293 at the reliefs in the façade of Orvieto, and in 1304 put the Romanesque front to S. Michele in Borgo, in Pisa. The Virgin and Child over the door of the latter is a copy of Niccolò's famous statue. Some authors give him the credit of being the Tedesco who Vasari says sculptured the fine pulpit in S. Gio. Fuorcivitas at Pistoja, and who assisted Bonanno in the tower of Pisa.

A sculptor named Bonaiuto must, I think, have belonged to Niccolò's school. Two interesting sculptured doorways by him still exist in what was once the Palazzo Sclafani at Palermo (now the barracks of S. Trinità). The doorway is carved in tufo, and above it is a kind of gable supported by two small pilasters, enclosing the arms of the family, a pair of cranes; surmounting the gable is a carved eagle, with a hare in its claws, standing on a kind of capital, which is unmistakably Comacine; beneath this is a bracket inscribed, "Bonaiuto me fe-cit de Pisa." Sig. Centofanti, in a private letter to Professor Clemente Lupi, who wrote to ask for information about Bonaiuto, says that a register of expenses of the Opera del Duomo of Pisa contains several mentions of the name. In one dated 1315 Bonaiutus magister lapidum is noted as working at the Duomo, and receiving two soldi a day, his companions receiving four or five, and the capo maestro eight. Here it would seem he is still in the lower ranks of the brotherhood. In 1318 he is noted as Boniautus Michaelis, and receives four soldi a day. In 1344 he has become full capo maestro of the Duomo, and is paid nine soldi a day.[174]

From his school also sprang Arnolfo, the first of a long line of sculptor-builders of the Florentine Lodge. From it, too, through his son Giovanni, came the best builders of the Siena cathedral, and their followers who worked at Orvieto.

Thus Niccolò and Giovanni are proved to be links in the old chain that came from classic Rome through the Lombard Comacines to the Renaissance. All the famous names that ever were, may be traced in this universal Guild from father to son, from master to pupil. After Giovanni Pisano went to Siena, Andrea di Pisa, his scholar, carried on his school in Pisa. In 1299 we first hear of Andrea, the son of a notary at Pontedera, as famulus magistri Johannes.[175] His first authentic works were the bronze doors of the Florentine Baptistery, proving that he had been trained in the many-branched fraternity at Pisa, where metal-working ranked so high. As instances of his sculptures in marble, we may take many of the statues which were on the Duomo at Florence, and the second line of reliefs on Giotto's campanile. But like all the Magistri, he was, above all, an architect, and in that branch we find him as Grand Master at Orvieto in 1347. His son Nino succeeded him in the onerous office. His other son Tommaso was also in the guild, but did not rise to eminence in it. He designed a palace, and painted two caskets for the Doge dell' Agnello of Pisa.

Nino's sculptures show a greater fidelity to nature than those of his artistic ancestors. A Madonna and two angels over the door of the canonry of the Duomo at Florence are very charming, as are his statues in the church of the "Spina" at Pisa. We next find Nino's son Andrea receiving payment for a sepulchre for the Doge dell' Agnello, which Nino did not live long enough to finish.

One among Andrea's pupils who were not his relatives rose to special and wide-spread eminence in the guild, i.e. Magister Giovanni Balducci di Pisa, whose artistic career was mostly in Milan, where the Visconti patronized him. He sculptured several tombs, among them the beautiful Arca of St. Peter Martyr in S. Eustorgio in 1336. The figures of the Christian Virtues are very sweet and naturalistic. On a sculptured pulpit at S. Casciano near Florence, of the same shape and style as that by Guido di Como at Pistoja, but infinitely more advanced in art, he has signed, "Hoc opus fecit Johs Balducci Magister de Pisis." The only architectural work that is mentioned as signed by him is the door of S. Maria in Brera at Milan.

II.—Lucca and Pistoja

THE BUONI FAMILY AT PISTOJA

The family were leading members of the guild up to the fifteenth century, when Bartolommeo Buono and his sons won fame in Venice.

We have seen the long connection of the Comacines with Lucca, during Lombard times, when they helped to build S. Frediano and other churches there. Sig. Ridolfi, author of L' Arte in Lucca, proves that not only the chief churches, but the cathedral itself, were the work of the Lombard "Maestri Casari" who had established their schools there, since they restored S. Frediano for the Lombard Faulone in 686, and built the Basilica of S. Martino for Bishop Frediano in 588.

By the tenth century the church of S. Martino was very dilapidated, which much grieved the mind of Bishop Anselmo, who sought to gather together funds for its restoration. Two wealthy Lucchesi, Lambertus and Blancarius, both dignitaries of the cathedral, gave large donations towards it. Not long after this, Bishop Anselmo was elevated to the Papal See as Pope Alexander II., and immediately began the long-desired work of rebuilding his ex-cathedral.

Church of S. Michele, Lucca.

[See page 228.]

He being a Milanese, and the Comacines his countrymen, besides their having a long connection with Lucca, it is natural to suppose he chose them as his architects. Every sign of the work confirms this, although no names have come down to us. As was frequently the case, the church was left without a façade for over a century, and at the end of the twelfth century the Lucchesi wished to put this finishing touch.

There was in Lucca at the time a certain Magister Guido da Como, who had in 1187 built the church of S. Maria Corteorlandini. It was built for the feudal Lords Rolandinga, whose palace was called Corte Rolandinga, on the occasion of one of their family joining in the crusades.[176] There is mention of a Comacine sculptor named Guido before this date, at Corneto-Tarquinia, where in the church of S. Maria di Castello is a fine Ciborium, signed "Johannes et Guitto hoc opus fecerunt, MCLXVIII." This, being only nineteen years previous, may have been an earlier work of this same Guido. This Magister evidently had a son who followed his father's art, and was named after himself Guido, though called Guidetto, or young Guido, to distinguish him from his father. To these two men were confided the commission for the front of the Duomo. Probably the elder did not live to complete it, for although the commission was given to Maestro Guido Marmolario (sic), the inscription on the façade runs—"Mille C.C.|IIII.|condi|dit|ele|cti tam pul| chras. dextra|Guidecti."[177] Among the sculptures is one figure with a very young face, supposed to be a portrait of Guidetto. This façade is a perfect specimen of pure Comacine-Romanesque, and shows that the Saracen influence under which the Masters had been placed in the south, when employed by the Lombard Dukes of Beneventum, had not led them to change entirely their old style, but only to develop it into a species of Oriental richness which (so far we may agree with old Vasari) sometimes errs against truth and good taste. It shows also the close connection between the Pisan and Lucchese Lodges.

The row of archlets which used to form a cornice under the roof now, as at Pisa, run wild over the whole façade. The outlines which used to follow honestly the shape of nave and aisles, now, for the sake of heaping on more ornament, stretch up far beyond the roof-line, forming a mask.

A still more glaring instance of the same fault is seen in Guidetto's other church, S. Michele, at Lucca, where the two upper galleries are the frontage of a mere useless wall in the air.

As an architect, young Guido left something to be desired; as a sculptor he was marvellous. Variety seems to have been his aim. In both S. Martino and S. Michele, among all the hundreds of colonnettes, you can scarcely find a duplicate. They are plain, fluted, foliaged, clustered, inlaid; black, white, red, green, yellow or parti-coloured, in endless variety. As for capitals, you get every imaginable shape and style, symbol and ornamentation. He outdoes his prototype Rainaldus of Pisa, and no clearer proof of a guild, rather than a single mind, can be furnished, than by this infinite variety of detail, which plainly speaks of the imaginings of many minds.

Cathedral of Lucca (San Martino), erected 11th century; Façade 1204. By Guidectus.

[See page 228.]

The Comacines here are still in the transition stage, though near its end, for the sign of the lion of Judah holds its place above the pillar, under the spring of the arch. In the Italian Gothic, their next development, it is always beneath the column.

One of the lion-capped columns is entirely covered with sculptures representing the genealogical tree of the Virgin. The statue above the door, of St. Martin dividing his cloak with the beggar, is sufficiently well modelled as to suggest its belonging to a later century.

Signor Ridolfi, who has studied much in the archives of Lucca for his learned work L' Arte in Lucca, thinks that, in 1204, Guidetto the younger was only just beginning his career. His father must have died about this time, for the son loses his diminutive, and becomes in his turn Guido Magistro. In 1211 he was called to Prato to work at the Duomo there (then known as S. Stefano). The contract, which still exists, does not specify what part of the church he was to build. It is drawn up by the Notary Hildebrand, and binds "Guido, Maestro marmoraio" of S. Martino of Lucca, to go to Prato on fair terms, and there to remain working, and commanding others to work, at the church of S. Stefano. After this he was recalled to Lucca, to put the above-mentioned façade to S. Michele, which Teutprand had built in the eighth century, and which had been rebuilt, when in 1027 Beraldo de' Rolandinghi had left a large legacy for the purpose. This façade, which, as I have said, is precisely similar in style to that of the Duomo, was finished in 1246.[178] Guido was then called to Pisa, to sculpture the altar and font in the Baptistery there. Not much remains of the altar—which appears to have been the usual edifice on four columns—except some very ancient sculpture, and two small columns with extremely rude statues on them. The inscription, however, is preserved, and runs—"A.D. MCCXLVI, sub Jacobi Rectore loci—Guido Bigarelli da Como fecit hoc opus."[179] This valuable discovery was made by the German Schmarzow. Here we have the family name of this busy sculptor, and of his father Guido of Como. It is one of the first instances, for surnames only became fixed about this time.

Guido or Guidetto's last work appears to have been the pulpit in San Bartolommeo in Pantano, at Pistoja, executed in 1250. This is particularly interesting, as being the immediate precursor of Niccolò Pisano's pulpit at Pisa in 1260. It has been thought that Guido, either from death or other cause, left the work imperfect, and his pupil Turrisianus finished it. The inscription as quoted by Cav. Tolomei is—"Sculptor laudator qui doctus in arte probatur|Guido de Como quem cunctis carmine promo| Anno domini 1250|Est operi sanus superestans Turrisianus |Namque fide prova vigil K Deus indi corona."[180]

Tolomei is puzzled by the cypher K, and Ciampi, the collector of inscriptions, has, in reporting this one, left out the last line altogether. He interprets it as implying that Guido having left the work unfinished, Turrisianus finished it. Whilst I was studying lately some old documents in the archives of S. Jacopo at Pistoja, Signor Guido Macciò of that city, who kindly assisted me to read the crabbed old characters, threw a new light on that inscription. He says Tolomei has misread it; that the cypher is not a K but H C, which was plainly legible in a rubbing he took of it, and that superstans merely means overseer; in fact, the Latin form of operaio. The same term superstans was used for the head of the laborerium in Rome up to the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, and survived in the later lodges as soprastante. Signor Macciò interprets the inscription thus—"The famous sculptor Guido of Como has proved himself learned in art, and his name should be sung in verse, A.D. 1250. Turrisianus (Torrigiani) acted as overseer to this fine work, and may God crown him for superintending the work so well." I leave more learned classics to say which interpretation is the true one. But as in most of the inscriptions, documents, etc. of the guild, the name of the head of the lodge, and often those of the councillors are put in, I incline to think Signor Macciò may be right, and the inscription is another proof of a Masonic lodge in which Torrigiani was, at the time, the head of the administration.

Pulpit in Church of S. Bartolommeo, Pistoja. By Guido da Como.

[See page 230.]

Guido's pulpit is of white marble, and in the ancient square form, with eight panels in bas-relief. It rests on three columns; the first stands on a lion with a dragon at its feet, the second on a lioness suckling a cub, the third on a human figure. In this pulpit, and the older one at Groppoli, we have a perceptible link, connecting Niccolò Pisano with the Comacine Guild, which we shall trace more closely when speaking of Romanesque sculpture.

There were at that epoch three lodges in the immediate neighbourhood. One in connection with the Opera del Duomo at Pisa, one at Pistoja in the Opera di S. Jacopo, and a third one at Lucca, where Guido and Guidetto were chief sculptors. Besides this there was another in Apulia, where it is thought Niccolò's father Pietro worked. Niccolò's work, and that of Guido the younger, are so very much alike as to warrant the suspicion that they were both pupils of one master, but that Niccolò had in him these greater qualities which go to form an epoch-making artist.

Little has hitherto come to light respecting the Masonic lodges of Lucca and Pisa. The laborerium at Pistoja is rather more clearly defined, and furnishes some definite names. It existed from the twelfth century, but I do not think the archives were kept quite so early as that. There is the name Rodolfin's op, anni 1167, carved on the architrave of the principal entrance of the Lombard church of S. Bartolommeo in Pantano; but as critics cannot tell whether it means "Rodolfinus opus" or "Rodolfinus operaius" or head of the Opera, it is not a very decisive bit of history. The reading "Rodolfinus Operaius for the year 1167" would, like "Turrisianus, overseer in 1250," be quite intelligible in its connection with the guild.

The façade of S. Bartolommeo is a masterpiece of Lombard work. It has the usual three round-arched doors, whose pilasters and architraves are rich with interlaced scrolls and foliage, and whose richly-carved arches rest on lions more or less fiercely dominating other animals, as emblems that divine strength is able to overcome sin. Whether all the animal sculptures on this church are due to the twelfth-century builder, or whether some are remains of Gundoaldo's[181] first edifice in 767, I cannot say. The architraves are certainly of the later date.

The head, or capo-maestro of the laborerium of Pistoja in the twelfth century, was evidently one of the Buono family, whose race and school became as famous as the Antelami and Campionesi, all three being branches of the original Lombard Guild. Like the Antelami and the Campionesi, the school founded by the Buoni furnished several shining lights among the Lombard Magistri. The name is first met with in the poem of which we have spoken,[182] on the Ten Years' War between Milan and the people of Como. Among the brave citizens who threw down their tools to take arms, and distinguished themselves in wielding them, was a certain Giovanni Buono from Vesonzo (now Bissone) in Vall' Intelvi, who took part in the siege of the fortress of S. Martino on Lake Lugano. The war took place in the tenth century; the poem was written a little later than 1100. Sig. Merzario[183] opines that the Maestro Buono of whom Vasari speaks as the "first architect who showed a more elevated spirit, and aimed after better things, but of whose country and family he knows nothing,"[184] was one of this line of sculptor-architects originally from Vesonzo (Bissone) in Inteluum (Val d'Intelvi). The name Giovanni occurs constantly in the lists.

Certainly the head of the line, as far as regards art, was the Magister Giovanni Buoni here mentioned by Vasari, who goes on to say that this Buono in 1152 had been employed on buildings in Ravenna, after which he was called to Naples, where he built the Castel dell' Uovo and Castel Capuano; and that in the time of Doge Domenico Morosini, i.e. 1154, he founded the Campanile of S. Marco at Venice, which Vasari asserts was so well built that up to his time it had never moved a hair (non ha mai mosso un pelo).

Vasari says that Giovanni Buono was in 1166 at Pistoja, where he built the church of S. Andrea. Both Milanesi, Vasari's annotator, and Merzario[185] complain that Vasari was very confused in these statements. The tower of S. Marco was, Cicognara says, by a later Bartolommeo Buono from Bergamo, who also built the Procuratie Vecchie in the sixteenth century. It is curious how Vasari, living in the same century, could have made such a statement; he must have known whether the tower were being built then, or had been standing for several centuries. The fact was that one Buono built the older tower in Venice to which Vasari refers, and the sixteenth-century Bartolommeo Buono was its restorer. The style is certainly antique.

Vasari's annotators agree that this Buono worked at Arezzo, where he built the bell-tower, and the ancient palace of the Signoria of Arezzo (cio è un palazzo della maniera de' Goti), i.e. with large hewn stones; after which he came to Pistoja, where he built S. Andrea and other churches.

But even here some confusion exists. It is difficult to decide whether the builder of S. Andrea at Pistoja, and the cathedral of Lucca was indeed named Buono or Gruamonte. There is an inscription on the sculpture of the architrave of the façade which has been a great bone of contention. It proves, however, beyond a doubt that the usual organization, with the Opera as the administrative branch, existed in Pistoja in 1196. It runs—"Fecit hoc opus Gruamons magister bon(us) et Adot ... (Adeodatus) frater ejus. Tunc erāt operarii Villanus et Pathus filius Tignosi A.D. MCIXVI."[186] This work was done by Gruamons, Master Buono, and Adeodatus his brother; Villanus and Pathus, son of Tignosi, being then operai (i.e. on the administrative council).

In that word bonus lies the difficulty. Some say it is merely placed in encomium: Gruamons the good master; but it does not seem to me probable that a man would habitually sign his name with a boastful adjective; and habitual it was, because on the white stripes of the architrave of the church of S. Giovanni Evangelista Fuorcivitas he has again signed himself "Gruamons magister bonus fêc hoc opus." Knowing the Italian love of nicknames from the earliest ages, I take it that the architect was really, as Vasari says, Master Bonus or Buono, and that either from a long neck and a stoop, or from his clever use of a crane, he was nicknamed Gruamons, "the crane man,"[187] grue being Italian for both bird and machine. That the Gruamons who carved the Magi on the architrave of S. Andrea was one of the very early Masters, is evident from the mediæval grossness of his work in carving the human figure; that he may very likely be Comacine is suggested by the style and mastery of his ornamento and the life in the figures of his animals. The capitals supporting this architrave are evidently by one of his subordinates; they are very rough, but full of meaning, explaining the mystery of the Annunciation and Conception; below them the signature Magister enricus mi fecit. These early sculptures are especially interesting, for they are the first efforts of the Comacines to show Bible events and truths by actual representation instead of by symbols, and so form the link with the development under Niccolò Pisano. Hence the greater want of practice in the human figures, compared to the animals and scrolls, with which the guild had been familiar for ages.

Church of S. Andrea, Pistoja. Designed by Gruamons.

[See page 235.]

It is interesting to compare Gruamons' work with that of the later sculptor of the façade of S. Bartolommeo, and note the rapid progress that art was making towards more perfect and natural form in sculpture. There are only twenty-two years between them, but the sculptor of S. Bartolommeo is far in advance of Gruamons in his representation of the human figure. It is said that Gruamons has left his sign in a portrait of himself on the doorway of S. Andrea, where a curiously negro-like head stands out from the middle of a column. It seems, however, to have acquired its blackness by being used through several centuries as a torch extinguisher at funerals.

Another of Gruamons' churches in Pistoja is that of S. Giovanni Evangelista Fuorcivitas, which is extremely interesting as showing a perfect specimen of the practicable Lombard gallery or outer ambulatory, which in two orders here surrounds the church. The building is entirely encrusted with black and white marble, mostly in alternate lines, but in some places inlaid in chequers. This fashion, which began in this very city of Pistoja, has an historical significance, and was introduced as a symbol of the peace between the factions of Bianchi and Neri, which so long harassed Pistoja. It was taken up afterwards by Siena and Orvieto, and in Florence and Prato, when their respective civic feuds were healed.

Gruamons, or Magister Buono, may have been the chief master of the laborerium at Pistoja with its accompanying Opera di S. Jacopo, which began to keep its registers in 1145. At any rate his family name was kept up in that lodge for more than a century. The Buoni followed the usual custom, and sought commissions in other towns. In 1206 we find one of them restoring and almost rebuilding the cathedral at Fiesole, which had been built in 1028, in the time of Bishop Jacopo Bavaro, but was menacing ruin two centuries later. On the sixth column of the nave, on the right, is inscribed—

"MCCVI. Indict VIII Bonus Magister Restaurus.

Operarius Ecclesiæ Fesulanæ Fecit Ædificare

IIII columnas I. Allex P.P."

Here even at this early date we have the Opera or administration under the direction of the dignitaries of the cathedral. The tower was built by a Maestro Michele in 1213. An inscription on the left of the apse tells us that the building of the tower cost seventy mancussi, a gold coin in use in the Middle Ages.[188] It is supposed that Maestro Buono copied his church from S. Miniato near Florence. The plan is nearly identical, and both have the same peculiarity of the omission of the narthex, or portico, which till this time had been an indispensable part of the ecclesiastic Basilica. It is true the Fiesole church is built of stone, and is simple in ornament, while S. Miniato is of marble and rich in decorations, but in plan and form the two are identical. In each case the same use has been made of the older buildings on the site by leaving them as crypts.

Church of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas, Pistoja. Designed by Gruamons.

[See page 236.]

The first San Miniato church was built under Charlemagne, by Bishop Hildebrand in 774; the second was endowed by the Emperor Henry the Saint, and Saint Cunegonda his wife; both times the patrons were accustomed to employ the Comacine Masters. In San Miniato we see one of their masterpieces.

In the thirteenth century another distinguished scion of the Buono race came down to join the lodge at Pistoja. We have seen Giovanni Buono, or Zambono as he writes himself, at work at S. Antonio at Padua in 1264, together with Egidio, son of Magister Graci; Nicola, son of Giovanni; Ubertino, son of Lanfranco, etc. In 1265 Magister Bonus or Buono was capo-maestro and architect of the Duomo at Pistoja, and in 1266 he erected the tribune of S. Maria Nuova there, on the cornice of which he has carved—"A.D. MCCLXVI tempore Parisii Pagni[189] et Simones, Magister Bonus fecit hoc opus," i.e. A.D. 1266, in the time when Paris Pagni and Simones were operai, Magister Bonus executed this work.

In 1270 Buono was commissioned to make the façade of the church of S. Salvatore in the same energetic little town. The inscription on the pretty little façade is—

"Anno milleno bis centum septuageno

Hoc perfecit opus qui fertur nomine Bonus

Præstabant operi Jacobus, Scorcione vocatus

Et Benvenuti Joannes, quos Deus omnes

Salvator lenis millis velit augere penis. Amen."

Here we get the names of two operai instead of one. It is evident that the lodge has increased since Gruamons was head of the laborerium, and Turrisianus head of the Opera. According to custom, one was an eminent Pistojese, and the other a Magister. We find Johannes Benvenuti working with Giovanni in several other cities.

The question we have now to answer is whether this Giovanni Buono, who was in Pistoja from 1265 to 1270, was the same man who worked at Padua in 1264, and was afterwards head of the lodge at Parma in 1280? An indication, if not a lateral proof, is found in studying who were his companions. At Pistoja in 1264, Nicola, son of Giovanni, was his assistant, and in 1270 Johannes Benvenuti was with him. At Parma in 1280 we find that Guido, Nicola, Bernardino, and Benvenuto were in the laborerium when he was chief architect. Here we have at least two of his companions, not including Guido, with him in the works of all three cities, which would go far to prove his identity.

The Buono family form a curious connection between Corneto Tarquinia and Pistoja. We have already spoken of the Ciborium at Corneto, sculptured by Johannes and Guitto (Guido) in 1168. The pulpit in the same church, and another at Alba Fucense, are both signed by Giovanni Buono and Andrea his brother, but date a century later than the Ciborium, i.e. precisely the time of our Giovanni Buono of Pistoja. The façade of the same church at Corneto Tarquinia is full of Comacine sculptures; and on the double-arched windows with the tesselated columns is an epigraph saying that the "inlaid work in porphyry, serpentine, and giallo antico" was done by Nicolao, son of Ranuccio. Now this must have been the Nicolao who worked under this same Giovanni Buono in 1280 at Parma, with a certain Guido and Johannes Benvenuti. Guido was evidently a kinsman of Giovanni Buono, for we find that in 1285 Albertus, son of Guido Buono, and Albertinus, son of Enrico Buono, were employed together in the sculptures at S. Pietro at Bologna.

In any case we have a long connection of the Buono family with the Opera di S. Jacopo at Pistoja, and shall find them still engaged in other important works at Pisa and Lucca, besides being chief architects at Parma and Padua, etc. Two centuries later their descendants were building fine Gothic works in Venice.

The Baptistery of Pistoja has been attributed to Andrea Pisano, but a document in the archives of the Opera di S. Jacopo not only shows who was the real architect, or rather head-master, but proves that it was done by a Magister Cellini of the Masonic Guild from the lodge at Siena, who became Grand Master of the lodge at Pistoja. It runs—"Et per Magistrum Cellinum qui est caput magistrorum edificantium Ecclesiam rotundam S. Joannis Baptistæ."[190] There also exists in the archives the contract made between the Opera (administrative council) and Magister Cellini on July 22, 1339, for the completion and ornamentation of the building which he had so far constructed. There is no mention of Andrea Pisano in either deed.

The Pistojan Baptistery is not a very pleasing building. There is something inharmonious in its proportions. It is of the usual octagonal form, but too high for its width; the horizontal lines of white and black marble still further detract from its beauty, and cut up the ornamentation.

On the whole the architect who wants to study Comacine churches cannot do so better than at Pistoja, where there is so much of the old work left. Besides the edifices we have already mentioned, are other two very interesting churches, S. Piero Maggiore and S. Paolo, although nothing but the outer shell of either is now remaining.[191] The architrave of S. Piero Maggiore has a very mediæval relief on it, representing Christ giving a huge key to St. Peter, while the Apostles and the Virgin stand in a row beside them. The capital of one pilaster has a man-faced lion, whose tail forms an interlaced knot. The other has upstanding volutes of a heavy kind of foliage. Lions lie beneath the spring of the arch, and winged griffins and other mystic animals are on brackets along the façade. I think the capitals and mystic beasts must have belonged to the first Longobardic church built by Ratpert, son of Guinichisius, in 748, as well as the lower part of the façade, which is certainly of the most ancient opus gallicum, of large smooth stones closely fitted. The architrave and the upper part, which consists of an arcade patched on in white and black marble, belong to Giovanni Buono's restoration in 1263. In old times a curious ceremony used to take place in this church, which belonged to the Convent of Benedictine nuns. When a new bishop took possession of the see, he was espoused (spiritually of course) to the abbess of this Order, with solemn rites and ceremonies.

S. Paolo was a priory church. This, too, had been built in 748 by the first Comacines under the Longobards, and evidences still remain that it was originally turned from east to west, the façade being then where the choir is now. It was rebuilt when S. Atto was bishop of the city in 1133, and besides a very pretty frontal, has a good specimen of the upper external gallery surrounding the church.

I will end my chapter on Pistoja with a mention of an interesting old MS. from the archives of the Opera di S. Jacopo, which, with Signor Macciò's aid, we found to be the marriage contract of a certain Maestro Jacopo Lapi. The bridegroom is named as Jacobus Dominus Lapus, fili Turdi, di Inghilberti, who wishes to contract marriage with Marchesana filia Sannutini, and to "live with her according to Longobardic law." The deed then goes on to specify the lands and possessions he bestows on his bride as a morgincap. This might be interesting in art history, if it could be proved whether the Jacopo Lapi were that pupil of Niccolò Pisano's who worked with him and Arnolfo at Siena in 1266.

In that case it gives the Jacopo Lapi's family an added interest as of Longobardic origin through his grandfather, Inghilbert. We further learn by the document that his great-grandmother's name was Molto-cara (very dear). This, taken together with the name Tordo (thrush) given to her son, proves how the nickname outweighed the family or baptismal name in mediæval times.

CHAPTER IV
ROMANESQUE AND GOTHIC ORNAMENTATION

When the romantic style of building, which the Comacine Masters had imbibed in Sicily, came in, their serious set-by-rule building went out. The first use they made of their new ideas was to increase the richness of decoration, and this they did by the almost childish expedient of multiplying their old ornaments. Instead of one little pillared gallery on the top of a façade, they now put whole rows of galleries, or covered the fronts all over with them, as in Lucca, Pisa, and Arezzo. There is a very early instance of this in the church of Santa Maria at Ancona, of which we give an illustration. Here the network of arches are not real galleries, but only sculpturesque simulations; each arch is simply placed on the top of the other, without architrave or frieze. The doorway has the usual Comacine interlaced knots and no lions, so the façade may stand as an early sample of the transition into Romanesque, dating about the eleventh century.

The style shows a much further advance in Magister Marchionni's façade to the church of Santa Maria della Pieve at Arezzo, which is a fine sample of Romanesque. It was done in 1216. The façade has four rows of arches, one on the other, "growing small by degrees and beautifully less" as they ascend. Of all the hundred columns which support them, no two are alike. They are round, square, octagonal, sexagonal, pentagonal, multi-angular, fluted, twisted, grotesque, crooked, Byzantine, Corinthian, Ionic, Doric, Gothic, Egyptian, Babylonian, caryatid, black, green, white, striped, or inlaid. Some have single bases, a round on a square, or vice versâ, and so on ad infinitum. Yet with all this variety there is a certain unity of design, which bespeaks a multitude of Masters, each one using his own fancy in his particular part of the work, but one chief to whose general design the masters of the parts are subservient. Ruskin realized the beauty of this variety of idea, though he had not perceived that it came from a multitude of minds working together, when he said—"The more conspicuous the irregularities are, the greater the chance of its being a good style." And again—"The traceries, capitals, and other ornaments must be of perpetually varied designs."

Church of S. Maria, Ancona.

[See page 242.]

The very same style and variety, showing a multiplex manufacture, is displayed by the cathedral, and the church of San Michele at Lucca, and the old church of San Michele in Borgo at Pisa. The two Lucca ones are extremely enriched by friezes of the symbolic animals above each row of arches. The cathedral and tower of Pisa show greater unity of conception.

The next great change was, that after the eleventh century, the interlaced work, or Solomon's knot, was no longer the secret sign of the Comacine work. They probably found that there was a limit even to the combinations of the interlaced line, or that it did not give enough relief. Certain it is, that on the rise of Romanesque architecture, the intreccio faded away into mere mouldings, or got changed into foliaged scrolls for architraves; but the mystic knot with neither beginning nor end was no more used with special significance. The rounded sculpture of figures was everywhere replacing low relief, and the Comacine sign and seal of this epoch, was the Lion of Judah. From this time forward for the 400 years that Romanesque and Gothic architecture lasted, there is, I believe, scarcely a church built by the great Masonic Guild in which the Lion of Judah was not prominent.

My own observations have led me to the opinion that in Romanesque or Transition architecture, i.e. between A.D. 1000 and 1200, the lion is to be found between the columns and the arch—the arch resting upon it. In Italian Gothic, i.e. from A.D. 1200 to 1500, it is placed beneath the column. In either position its significance is evident. In the first, it points to Christ as the door of the Church. In the second, to Christ the pillar of faith springing from the tribe of Judah. Thus at Lucca, Pisa, and Arezzo, where the guild worked in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the lion is always above the column. In Verona, Como, Modena, and where Italian Gothic porches were added in the thirteenth century, and in Florence, Siena, Orvieto, where the cathedrals date from the fourteenth century, you find the lion beneath the column. And in minor works of sculpture there is the same difference. In the pulpit of Sant' Ambrogio at Milan, the lions are beneath the spring of the arches; in the pulpits of Niccolò Pisano at Siena and Guido di Como (thirteenth century) at Pistoja, they are beneath the column.

A most beautiful instance of the transition between Lombard and Romanesque is in the door of the church of San Giusto at Lucca, dating from the twelfth century. The architrave is a grand intreccio of oak branches while the pilasters, which form the door-jambs, have richly-carved capitals of mixed acanthus leaves and Ionic volutes, with a mystic beast clinging to each. The arch superimposed on the architrave has a rich scroll of cherubs and foliage, and it rests on two huge lions. It is altogether a perfect Comacine design.

The next change in the sculpture of the Comacine Masters was the humanization of their sculpture. The rude old carvings of symbolical beasts no longer satisfied them. Christianity had now endured a thousand years and was understood, so that it was no longer needful to use parables and mystic signs. They still made the fronts of their churches Bibles in stone, as they had done before; only the Bible was in a language all could read, i.e. the sculptured story. From Adam and Eve to Christ and the Virgin, and even the least of the Saints, the Comacine put all Scripture upon his church. His Bible lay open that all might read.

Door of S. Giusto at Lucca, 12th century.

[See page 244.]

The representation of the human figure was at first heavy and disproportionate, but as the centuries passed on, it grew in grace; and sculptors were able to express their conceptions more completely. The animal symbolism did not, however, entirely disappear. It is seen in every quaint fancy of the Gothic artist of the north, in every naïve bit of church ornamentation in the south; but it is no longer the object and end of design. It had become subservient; the human figure now took the first place.