How to Study Architecture

embellished with minarets. The chief sanctuary is the Kaaba, so called from its resemblance to a cube, of about 40 feet measurement, to the outside of which, on its southeast angle, is affixed the sacred Black Stone, the chief object of veneration. The shrine is surrounded to a depth of 20 yards by successions of colonnades with pointed arches.

Arcades.—These arcades, affording protection to the worshippers, are a feature common to all mosques; the direction of the arcades being usually at right angles, though occasionally parallel to, the wall of the mihrab—the niche which points toward Mecca. For columns the early Muhammedan builders relied upon what they found in the buildings which they replaced or remodelled; mixing the styles Egyptian, Roman, and Byzantine, and bringing their different sizes to conformity by setting blocks upon the capitals. To resist the thrust of the arches, wooden tie-beams were built into the masonry at the spring of the arches, and utilised for the hanging of lamps and lanterns. As these became a recognised feature of mosques, the beams were retained even after the skill of the builders had made them unnecessary as ties.

Domes.—The roofs are flat, constructed of timber, and on the inside coloured and gilded. A dome frequently crowns the maksura or prayer chamber, and the tomb of the saint, when the latter is included in the sacred precincts. Almost always the dome surmounts a square plan and to accommodate the latter to the circle the Muhammedan architects invented a method of construction that corresponds to the Byzantine pendentive. In principle it goes back to the ancient method of bridging over a space by setting the stones on each side of it in layers that project over one another until the two sides meet at the top. The Muhammedan builders filled in the corners of the square with tiers of projecting brackets or corbels with niches between them. At first they placed corbel above corbel and niche above niche, but in time alternated them, so that the niches in one tier were astride of the corbels in the tier below them. This method of filling in the angles of the square, so as to bring the latter to a circle, came to be known as “stalactite” work and from being used as a constructive expedient was developed into a system of decoration that was frequently extended over the whole ceiling of the vault.

The exterior of the dome was seldom spherical, as in Byzantine architecture, but took the form of the pointed, or the ogee, or the horseshoe arch. It was built, either of brickwork in horizontal courses, covered inside and out with plaster; or, in later mosques, of horizontal layers of stone, engraved on the exterior with horizontal patterns. Windows were frequently ranged round the lower part. In some old tombs of the thirteenth century, as that of Sheik Omar, inside the East Gate of Bagdad, the dome is pineapple shaped.

The walls were built of local materials and decorated either with stone or brick in alternate courses, or with plaster, inset with precious stones or veneered with glazed tiles.

Minarets.—A distinctive feature of the mosque was the minaret, a lofty tower of lighthouse form, from the balcony of which the muezzin summoned the faithful to prayer. While the minarets show a general similarity of character, the details vary in different countries. Thus, in Persia they rise from a circular base and are crowned by a round cap; in Constantinople the base is round, octagonal, or square and the top is finished with a cone; while in Cairo the top is flat. The shafts vary from circular to polygonal, and are usually divided into three tiers of balconies—though the Persian is generally distinguished by one—carried round the shaft and supported by corbels, which in some instance are embellished with stalactite ornament.

During the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries the mosques became an aggregation of buildings, including the tomb of the founder, residences for priests, schools and hospitals. They correspond, in fact, to mediæval monasteries, and the evolution of their styles presents a certain parallel to the contemporary evolution of Gothic architecture.

Syria.—Among the existing mosques in Syria are those of El-Aksah on the Temple platform at Jerusalem and of El-Walid in Damascus, both of which are planned like a basilica. Also on the Temple platform is the Dome of the Rock, misnamed the Mosque of Omar, the central feature of which is a circular space, crowned by a dome, which was rebuilt by Saladin in 1189.

Egypt.—In Egypt one of the oldest is the Mosque of Amru in Cairo, in which the square open court is surrounded by arcades, set at right angles to the mihrab and supported by columns taken from Byzantine and Roman buildings. Somewhat similar in plan is the Mosque of Tulun, where, however, the arcades run parallel to the mihrab wall and the wide pointed arches are supported upon massive piers.

Then follow, during the period that corresponds to the development of Gothic architecture, the Mosque of Kalaoom; that of Sultan Hassan, which is cruciform in plan; that of Sultan Barbouk, celebrated for its minarets and the beauty of the dome over the founder’s tomb; and the small but richly decorated Mosque of Kait-Bey. In the prayer-chamber (maksura) of the last-named appears, besides the stalactite embellishment of the mihrab, a distinctive decoration of the arches. In one case the arches are composed of voussoirs alternating in colour; in the other the alternation is still further emphasised by the interlocking shapes into which the voussoirs are cut, so that they fit together with the variety and the exactness of a Chinese puzzle.

Spain.—Spain offers a very favourable opportunity for the study of Muhammedan architecture. The Mosque of Cordova, begun by the Caliph Abd-el-Rahman in 786, was enlarged by successive additions, until it presents the appearance of a forest of columns and arches, apparently of unlimited extent. There are said to be 860. The arcades are in two tiers, the upper arches being supported on posts which are placed on the capitals of the lower ones and at the same time form abutments to the lower arches. In most cases the arches are of horseshoe form; but elsewhere, as in the vestibule to the mihrab chamber the upper horseshoe arches surmount a tier of cinquefoil or five-scalloped ones, and the posts on which they abut are faced with attached columns. A remarkable additional feature is the interlacing between the upper and lower arches of portions of multifoil arches; so arranged that they appear to bridge over the space between the alternate lower column and at the same time to spring over the capitals of the intermediate upper column. The arrangement is a striking instance of the Arab invention in the use of repetition of motive, a use, in this case, governed by constructive reasonableness as well as imposed by the desire for subtlety of elaboration.

The Mosque of Cordova is second in size to the Great Mosque of Mecca. Though the superb adornments of mosaics and red and gold ceilings have suffered from decay and restoration and its vista of arcades is blocked in parts by the coro (choir), erected when the edifice was converted into a cathedral, it is still a marvellous memorial of Cordova’s supremacy as the most learned, cultured, and prosperous caliphate in Islam.

In Toledo there is nothing approaching the magnificence of the Mosque of Cordova. Among the remains are the churches of S. Cristo de la Luz and Santa Maria la Bianca, which are mosques converted to the Catholic ritual.

At Seville beside the much renowned Alcazar or Castle, is the celebrated tower, Giralda, so named from the weather vane (giradillo), a figure of Faith with a banner, some 305 feet from the ground. It surmounts the Renaissance top of three stories, added in 1568 to the old tower, which, as an altarpiece in the cathedral shows, originally terminated in battlements. These suggest that the building was erected as a watch tower or, may be, as a symbol of power. Its plan is a square of 45 feet, the walls being about 8 feet thick, built of material from Roman and probably Visigothic remains. Its surface is pierced by twenty windows, many of which are subdivided by columnettes, and embellished with sunken panels, enriched with arabesques. The Giralda is under the special protection of SS. Justa and Rufina—a fact commemorated in the above-mentioned picture and in another by Murillo, now in the Provincial Museum. It was used as a model for the design of the tower of the Madison Square Garden, New York.

The Alhambra, Granada, represents the best preserved as well as the most perfect example of the Moorish-Arabic genius. It was a fortress-palace, much of it built on the brink of the rock, the steep slopes of which were used to construct the lower stories of baths, offices, and guardrooms. The exterior has no impressiveness, though the original grouping of walls and roofs must have been highly picturesque. Its halls, chambers, and remains of a mosque are clustered about two rectangular courts or patios, which are joined like the two parts of an “L”—the “Court of the Alberca” and the “Court of the Lions.” From one of the ends of the Alberca Court projects the “Hall of the Ambassadors”; from the other the “Hall of the Tribunal,” while the long sides of the Court of Lions open respectively into the “Hall of the Abencerrages” and the “Hall of the Two Sisters.”

The “Court of the Lions” is so called from the fountain in its centre, an immense marble basin supported upon twelve lions, which form a remarkable exception to the Muhammedan rule against representing the image of any living thing. Both these Courts are arcaded, the columns, set singly or in pairs, or groups, exhibiting, as do all the columns in the Alhambra, distinctive features in their capitals, which are separated by a high necking from the shaft.

It is, however, in the interior of the halls that the decoration reaches its finest pitch and nowhere more than in the “Hall of the Two Sisters,” which formed the culminating feature of the harem quarters. The name is supposed to have been derived from two slabs of marble in the pavement but may well have been suggested by the window, which occupies a bay and is divided by a small column and two arches into two lights. The walls, above a high wainscot of lustred tiles, are encrusted with flat moulded arabesques, representing a delicate lacelike tracery of leafy vines and tendrils, still tinctured with the red, blue, and gold that formerly enriched them. The arabesques melt into the stalactite embellishments which completely cover the hollow of the dome; created, as it seems, by giant bees, whose cells hang down like grape-clusters in an endless profusion of exquisite intricacy. Time was when this unsurpassable delicacy of magnificence glowed with gold touched into a thousandfold diversity of tones, by the light of hanging lamps.

As an expression of the Arabic genius in the direction of subtlety this represents finality. It embodies the culture of a race that in its learning as in its art had been devoted to the exaltation of details; and embodies also the latent instinct of a desert-wandering race whose eye had been little habituated to varieties of form, but saturated with colour and in the watches of the night had been long familiar with the mystery of vaulted sky, sown with star-clusters and hung with the jewelled lamps of planets. It was characteristic also of the Oriental fondness of abstraction that revels in subtleties and loves to merge itself in the contemplation of the infinite. It is the kind of decoration that being denied the reinforcement of nature was bound to evolve sterility.

Turkish.—When the Seljuk Turks, after occupying many parts of the Byzantine Empire, finally took Constantinople, they converted S. Sophia into a mosque, and more or less closely followed its style in the mosques they themselves erected.

Thus the Suleimaniyeh or Mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent, repeats the central dome and the two apses of the Christian building, preserving also the flatness of the dome-form. It is approached by a fore-court, surrounded on all its sides by cloisters, roofed with a succession of smaller domes, and embellished at the angles with minarets. These have circular shafts terminating in sharply pointed cones. In the garden of the mosque are the octagonal, dome-crowned tombs of the founder and his favourite wife, Roxelana.

The Ahmedizeh, or Mosque of Ahmed is square in plan, with a central dome, flanked by four apses, the angles being filled in with four smaller domes. The interior is lined with coloured tiles, while that of the Suleimaniyeh is veneered with marble.

The public fountains are distinctive features of the city. In one near S. Sophia, for example, the water-basin, octagonal in shape and covered with a dome-like grille of ironwork, is enclosed in an octagon of arches that support a sloping roof which extends in wide eaves and is surmounted by a dome.

Persia.—In point of time Persia enters early into the Muhammedan conquest, but we have reserved the consideration of it until later, because she did not reach the height of her renewed splendour in the arts until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and then contributed to the Muhammedan art of India.

When Muhammedanism extended to Persia, it came in touch with the decaying Sassanian empire that from A.D. 226 to 641 had withstood the power of Rome and extended its sway nearly to the gates of India. The remains of its architecture consist chiefly of palaces such as those at Serbistan, Firuzabad, and Ctesiphon. In these, with an inventiveness of their own and on a great scale, the builders combined elements of Assyrian and Roman architecture—square, domed chambers, barrel-vaulted halls, and portals formed of huge arches, elliptical or horseshoe in shape.

The direct evidence of this style on the earliest Muhammedan buildings has disappeared owing to the devastation of the Mongol invasion under Genghis Khan; but the Sassanian influence is conjectured from the later architecture which grew up after A.D. 1200. Important examples are to be found in Bagdad, Teheran, and Ispahan. Among the memorials in the last named city is the Great Mosque, which has an open court, surrounded by two-storied arcades. Its special features include portal-arches, rising above the highest of the adjoining walls; vaulted aisles, bulbous-shaped domes, and minarets of peculiar elegance. The walls are decorated with enamelled tiles.

India.—Persian-Muhammedan architecture, probably because of the Sassanian influence, was superior to the Arabian-Muhammedan in constructive elements and represents more fully a developed style. Many of its elements reappear in Indian-Muhammedan architecture, which by the beginning of the fifteenth century was developing a style distinguished alike by the grandeur of the whole and the structural meaning of the details. The finest example of this early period is the Jama Musjil (Principal Mosque), at Ahmedabad, which Shah Ahmed reconstructed out of a Hindu temple. The Hindu influence is still apparent in the massive detached pillars that buttress the chief entrance.

The style reached its full development of structural logic, dignity, and beauty under the Mogul dynasty (1526-1761). By this time the Muhammedan architects had developed a method of dome support, different both from the Byzantine and the Arabic pendentive, which combined corbels, ribs, vaulting surfaces, and corner squinches. The last named are arches placed diagonally at the angles to bring the square to an octagonal, which was the favourite form of plan adopted for tombs. Of these the most imposing is the Tomb of Mahmud at Bijapur.

A noble example of the earlier Mogul style is the Mosque of Akbar at Futtehpore-Sikri. Especially noteworthy are the southern and western gateways. They tower up with emphatic assertion and yet with a finely proportioned relation to the flanking arcades. This is due in a great measure to the arches of the arcades being repeated with more elaborate detail in the recess of the gateway, where also an upper tier of arches balances the architrave of the arcades. These tiers of arches, leading up to the semi-dome of the ceiling give a contrast of grace to the sterner lines of the exterior arch, and introduce gradations of refinement into its monumental scale.

The later example, Taj Mahal, Agra, erected by Shah Jehan (1627-1658) is distinguished by less force and a greater delicacy and refinement. Though it is said to have been designed by a French or Italian architect, it is regarded as the last word of beauty in Indian-Muhammedan architecture and one of the most beautiful architectural monuments in the world.

This royal tomb, used as a ceremonial hall during its founder’s lifetime, stands upon a marble platform, 18 feet high and 313 feet square, at the corners of which spire up minarets of circular, that is to say, of Persian design. The building occupies a square plan of 181 feet, from which the corners have been removed; the façades being composed of two tiers of deeply recessed arches, interrupted by four monumental portals, which correspond, though with greater refinements of proportion and detail, to those of the Mosque of Futtehpore-Sikri. The central dome of bulb-form rises upon a lofty drum to a height of 80 feet with 58 feet diameter, and is balanced by four small domes, supported on columns. The material of the whole is white marble, enriched with carvings and inlays of jasper, bloodstone, and agate. The Taj Mahal, as exquisite as it is imposing, is set like an immense jewel in an enchanting scheme of garden-planning that includes terraces, lakes, fountains, and foliage.

CHAPTER V

EARLY MEDIÆVAL CIVILISATION

Indeed the attempt to revive an empire was in itself reactionary and opposed to the spirit of the time. For the latter was groping toward the organising of independent nationalities. The millions who had overwhelmed the Roman Empire possessed a certain kinship of race and language; but they were divided into tribal units which clung to their separate identities, the more so as the difference of localities in which they settled increased their separateness. Thus the movement of the time was a slow change from tribal to national unity, and the gradual construction of a social and political order, suited to their racial instinct of independent freedom. The advance was much more rapid in social than in political order. For centuries the independent and adventurous spirit of the various peoples was to keep them embroiled in constant warfare, postponing the settlement of national landmarks. Back of this political chaos, however, was a steady and sure growth in social order, which, indeed, was largely assisted by the necessity of self-preservation.

While popes, emperors, kings, dukes, and counts were fighting in colossal or petty rivalries, the “honest man,” as the saying is, “came into his own.” The merchants grew in importance, the craft-gilds consolidated their strength, and the cities became oases of comparative order. It was an age distinguished by the growth of “communes”; that is to say, of burgs, boroughs, and cities, possessing certain rights of self-government and immunity from indiscriminate taxation. Not that these privileges escaped infringement. The fight for them had to be perpetually maintained and the fortunes of the commune varied from time to time. Yet the seed of self-government was sown, to stay in the soil of every Teutonic nation.

The rise of the commune was partly due to the Feudal system, which had its origin in the “fee” or tenure in land. As the system came to be worked out, the tenant held in fief from an overlord, who in turn held from some more powerful overlord and so on up to the King. When the latter went to war, the word was passed down and each overlord had to bring his quota of men, which he made up from the levies of the overlords below him. It thus became an automatic method of raising an army, of which the lowest knight with his few followers was the unit. On the other hand, the ease with which the method could be put in operation and the need of constant preparation for it, maintained a condition of warlike feeling, that in the absence of a great war broke out in jealousy and strife among the several constituent parts of the system.

It was to guard against the inevitable miseries of this constant turmoil that the merchants and artisans built their homes and shops around some burg or castle, to the lord of which they looked for protection, walls of defence being gradually built around the city, until it became fortified with the castle as a citadel. The benefits were mutual. Commerce and trade could be pursued in comparative peace, while the lord in return for his protection would receive a portion of the profits to finance his various expeditions or intrigues. To consolidate their influence the merchants formed themselves into merchant gilds, while the citizens established craft-gilds in the various trades.

Thus gradually both commerce and trade spun a network of peaceful activity and comparative stability over the otherwise troubled world, knitting together its remotest parts. For while the agricultural population was tied to the soil, and passed with its transfer from one owner to another, the condition of commerce and to some extent of trade was fluent. Merchants travelled and had their agents in distant countries; and even the artisan might move from place to place and enroll himself for the time being in the local gild of his craft. And the merchants became also the bankers of their time: those of Lombardy, for example, loaning money to kings as well as to other merchants; the memory of which is preserved in “Lombard Street,” in London’s financial centre.

These merchants had become wealthy by trading in the merchandise from the East and increased their wealth by distributing the merchandise throughout the West. Milan, therefore, speedily grew in importance because she commanded the roads leading over the passes of the Alps. Thence the chief stream of commerce led at first through Provence. Later, German cities like Augsburg and Nuremburg, became powerful and prosperous on the road to such northern ports as Lübeck and Hamburg, while the Rhine became the highway of commerce to Bruges, Ghent, and Brussels.

The gilds perpetuated what came to be called the “mystery” of their crafts by organisations which combined a system of apprenticeship with what we know to-day as a trade-union. One of these was the gild of masons from which Freemasonry derived. It included various grades from the ordinary worker of stone and marble, through the men skilled in carved work, up to the few who were capable of designing and supervising the construction. And although the tradition that these mason-gilds travelled from place to place has been discredited, it is still allowed that some of these master-masons or architects, as we call them to-day, must have acquired a fame which caused them to be engaged by other cities than their own.

Meanwhile, there was another great influence operating in the interests of social order—that of the Church. Many bishops occupied positions corresponding to that of a feudal lord and some even went to war at the head of their troops. The cathedrals, like the castles, became the nuclei of cities. Moreover, the Religious Orders were increasing in numbers and in influence, both spiritual and temporal. There had been a widely held expectation that the end of the world was to come in 1000 B.C. After the fateful date had passed, people breathed more freely with a fresh zest of life and thankfulness to Heaven; and the Church generally and, in particular, the Religious Orders, put themselves at the head of this great revival. They became the leaders of a great popular religious and civic enthusiasm that found expression especially in church and cathedral building.

The earliest Order, the Benedictine, had been founded by S. Benedict in the sixth century and spread through the west of Europe, obtaining firm hold in England. The Cluniac Order, with its headquarters in the Abbey of Cluny in the Department of Saone et Loire, France, was established in 909 and in 1080 S. Bruno founded the Carthusian Order, whose chief monastery in France was the Grande Chartreuse, near Grenoble. A little later came the Cistercians, and the Augustinian Orders, while the twelfth century saw the founding of the Dominican Order of Preaching Friars and the following century the establishment of the mendicant order of Franciscans. Nor does this summary complete the list. The orders rivalled one another in the number and efficiency of their monasteries, which were the centres not only of religion but also of learning, art, and economic life, affording guest-houses for travellers and serving as hospitals, schools, and colleges.

The monastery was usually erected around a square enclosure still called in England a “close,” surrounded by cloisters. On one side of it adjoined the Church or Minster which, if it were cruciform, extended its transept along one side of the cloister, while the nave occupied another. Along the opposite side of the enclosure ran the refectory, or common feeding-room of the brotherhood, while the fourth side was occupied with dormitories. Grouped around this plan were the abbot’s lodging, guestrooms, school, and dispensary, the bake-house and granaries, fishponds, gardens, and orchards. And in some quiet room where the light was favourable, certain of the brothers plied the task of scribes and illuminators. Happy the monastery that could boast a master-miniaturist or one who was of surpassing merit as a master-mason. Down to the thirteenth century “Architecture was practised largely by the clergy and regarded as a sacred science.”

The influence of monkish architects may have had much to do with the change of the cathedral or church plan from basilica to cruciform, which is characteristic of this period. The clergy continued to be separated from the laity and the extra accommodation needed for the monks of a large monastery caused the apse to be replaced by a chancel, which was raised by several steps from the level of the nave. It contained the stalls for the monks and was divided from the nave by a screen (cancellus), which was surmounted by a gallery or loft, in which the rood (cross) stood.

This rood-loft could be utilised for sacred tableaux which were given for the edification of the people at certain festivals. At Christmas, for example, the choirboys, playing the part of angels, would sing from it the chant of Peace and Good Will, while a representation of the Manger and the Kneeling Shepherds was displayed upon the top of the chancel steps. For the Church recognised the power of drama to affect the imagination, and in time the tableaux developed into “Passion Plays” and “Mystery Plays.” In fact the nave of the church or cathedral was treated as the meeting place for the laity and was used for a variety of secular purposes in connection with the life of the community, while the towers could be used, if necessary, for watch towers and for the safe storing of treasure.

Further among the circumstances that made a more ordered and more human condition of society was the code of chivalry, demanding of all knights or “fully armoured and mounted men,” a high sense of honour, gallantry in battle and peace, and courtesy to women. Charlemagne had gathered round him twelve “paladins” or paragons of knightly virtue, and the fame of their example inspired to deeds not only of valour but of courtly grace. Thus, in Provence, Spain, and Northern Italy there flourished the graceful art of the Troubadour, which was paralleled in the Danube provinces by that of the Minnesingers. The troubadours, originally of noble birth, including princes in their ranks and one king, Richard the Lion-Hearted, invented and sang songs to music of their own composing, thus setting a model for the wandering troubadours and minstrels who later travelled professionally from castle to castle, not overlooking, we may be sure, audiences of people that might be gathered in the churches.

Chivalry was turned to shrewd account by the Church. It could not curb the instinct of fighting but could direct it and did so by enjoining upon knightly penitents a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Such expeditions grew in number and size, travelling armed for protection on the journey, and out of them came the Crusades for the recovery of the Holy Spots in Palestine from the Moslem. These were far from being unmixed blessings to the people, but at least they diverted for a time the turbulence and left the cities freer opportunity of growth. And many a noble on returning home, would build the church or chapel that he had vowed, determined, perhaps, that it should rival in beauty some example he had seen upon his wanderings.

In view even of the few particulars summarised above, how is it possible to relegate this period to “The Dark Ages” or even to dismiss it as negligible, summing it all up as part of the Middle Ages, between the fall of Rome and the revival of a knowledge of Classic learning and art in the fifteenth century? It is to the Italians of the Renaissance that we owe this distortion of history. Properly speaking there was no Renaissance or Rebirth; but at least from the time of Charlemagne onward a steady growth in civilisation, and how vigorous it was, notwithstanding the many setbacks, due to the continuing confusion, may be gathered from the architecture of the period.

It is well to bear in mind that after the death of Charlemagne his empire gradually fell apart. A German empire extended from the Rhine to the Danube and was in constant conflict with the Popes to exert its sway over Northern Italy; the growth of the communes or free cities being perpetually disturbed by siding with one or other of the contestants—the Imperial or Ghibelline and the Papal or Guelph.

France, meanwhile, was not yet a united nation. The kings of the House of Capet held only the so-called Ile de France or Royal Demesne, extending from Paris to Orleans, and were surrounded on all sides by independent Duchies and Countships, with which they were constantly at war. The Duchy of Normandy had been established to the north by Rollo and in 1066 his descendant, William, conquered England.

These distinctions of territory help to explain the variations of the Romanesque architecture, as it grew up, respectively, in Northern Italy, the Rhine Provinces, Ile de France, Southern France, Normandy, and Norman England.

CHAPTER VI

EARLY MEDIÆVAL OR ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE

Chevêt.—The basilica plan became gradually modified. The nave and aisles were retained, but the chancel, with or without an apse, was carried farther back and the length of the transepts prolonged, so that in time the cruciform plan prevailed and acquired a symbolic significance. A special feature, gradually introduced, was the chevêt which formed an ambulatory around the sides of the choir and the semi-circle of the apse, and could be divided up into chapels dedicated to individual saints.

Vaulting.—In the earlier examples the nave was covered with a barrel-vault, the thrust of which was sustained in the first place by strengthening the nave walls by the omission of clerestory windows and, secondly, by the weight of barrel-vaults over the side aisles, their thrust, in turn, being sustained by thickening the outer walls and keeping the windows small. As a further reinforcement of the walls, projecting piers of masonry were built into them, which in time became features of the external decoration.

Gradually the barrel-vault was superseded by groin vaults; at first in the aisles and later over the nave as well. The groin vaulting over the aisles represented, as in Roman times, the intersection of two semicircular vaults. But since the nave was usually twice the width of the aisles, each of the nave bays would be oblong in plan. Accordingly two of these were included in one square bay, which took in two of the nave arches and corresponded to two aisle bays.

In some instances a shaft was carried up from the intervening pier on each side of the nave, supporting an intermediate transverse arch, so that the vaulting became sexpartite, or divided into six compartments. Whether the bay were six part or four part, the curve of all the groins—longitudinal, transverse, and diagonal—were semicircular. Accordingly, since the diagonals had a longer diameter, their curves rose above the others. This variation was met by giving a concave or domelike surface to each of the compartments, so that the workmen were able to adjust the stones to the differences of the curves.

Rib-vaulting.—While this was possible in the actual operation of placing the stones, it would have needed exceedingly delicate calculation to build timber centering adjusted in advance to these domelike surfaces. Moreover, the ponderousness of the dome nave vaulting had made the use of timber centering extremely costly, even where timber was plentiful; while in districts sparsely supplied the cost had been prohibitive. Consequently, the ingenuity of the builders devised a system of construction that reduced the need of timber centering to a minimum. This was the system known as rib-vaulting. Briefly, it consisted in spanning the space—longitudinally, transversely, and diagonally—with preliminary arches of masonry, thus forming a skeleton frame composed of what are known as ribs. Each of these ribs, being comparatively light, could be constructed on a single moveable and expansible piece of centering, called a cerce. When the ribs had set, they offered sufficient support to hold up the doming of the compartments while it was being laid.

To some extent this method of construction had been anticipated by the Romans who in certain instances built preliminary transverse ribs to act as permanent centerings of the vault, in the masonry of which the ribs were buried from sight. The reintroduction of this device and its further development, as above described, originated with the Lombard architects. This has been definitely determined by the English architect, Arthur Kingsley Porter, who has proved that the adoption of the system was prompted by the scarcity of wood in this locality. From Italy it spread to France, where it made its appearance in the Ile de France about 1100 or some 60 years after its adoption in Lombardy. It was at first employed purely as a necessary constructive expedient. Later its æsthetic possibilities came to be recognised, and the rib was developed by the Gothic architects into an element of great beauty, one of the characteristic features of the Gothic style.

Meanwhile, the use of vaulting by the Romanesque architects affected the character of the exterior. Mention has already been made of the masonry piers and the massive outside walls, pierced with small windows. For the further support of the vaulting-thrust towers were freely used. While in Italy the campanile was frequently detached from the main edifice, the towers in western and northern Romanesque churches became elements of prominence in the design. A pair frequently flanked the apse or four rose in the angles of the transepts and choir, while another pair, sometimes connected by a gallery, flanked the west end. A tower or dome might also surmount the crossing of the nave and transepts. The towers were square, polygonal, or circular, divided into stories which were pierced with windows or embellished with arcades. They were crowned, like the nave and aisles, with an exterior sloping roof.

Arcading.—The arcading, which now became a favourite method of embellishing walls, was of two kinds; either being open and permitting a passageway at the back of them, or with columns and arch mouldings attached to the wall, in the manner known as blind arcading. Another feature for strengthening as well as embellishing the wall was the use of masonry piers, which, resting on a plinth, projected from the wall only as far as the width of the cornice.

The exteriors, in fact, were no longer, as in early Christian churches, plain and almost barn-like, but assumed a varied picturesqueness that, however, was distinguished by a fine structural unity.

The arch, whether used in interior or exterior arcading or for the tops of doors and windows, was round; usually semicircular but occasionally stilted, the ends of the semicircle, that is to say, being raised on perpendicular lines. The later introduction of the pointed arch, it may be added, marks the transition from Romanesque to Gothic.

A characteristic development of the Romanesque style is the treatment of the doors and windows. The jambs or sides were carried back in a series of angular recesses, which were filled with small columns, whose abaci frequently united in a continuous moulding. In many cases the angular recesses of the jambs were prolonged around the arch.

The shafts of columns were decorated with fluting, which might be perpendicular, spiral, or barred like trellis-work. The capitals, except when antique Corinthian or Ionic columns were utilised, display a variety of embellishments, sometimes influenced by Byzantine examples, at other times representing an original working out of foliage motives, often rude in treatment, but, especially in the German work, vigorously decorative.

In the nave arcading, that is to say the series of arches on each side of the nave, the supports consisted of square piers, to the faces of which columns were attached. From two of them sprang the arches; a third supported the vaulting of the aisles, while a fourth was run up to a higher level to carry the vaulting of the nave.

Italian Romanesque.—Since the Romanesque style was coloured by the locality in which it appeared, it is necessary to study examples of it as they are found respectively in Italy, France, the Rhine Provinces, Spain, and England.

The Italian examples are conveniently subdivided into those of Northern, Central, and Southern Italy, or, more specifically, into the examples found in the districts north of the River Po, between the Po and the Tiber, and south of the latter. Of these the northern, to be considered later, are the most important, since they show, as we have noted, a more adventurous spirit in the matter of construction.

Central Italy.—On the other hand, the builders of Central and Southern Italy still followed the simple basilican plan and retained the wooden roofs and, in consequence, clerestory windows. They raised, however, in many cases the level of the choir and placed a crypt chamber beneath it; which sometimes, as in S. Miniato, Florence, is open to the nave. But their inventiveness was displayed rather in the details of decoration. Central Italy being rich in marbles, the use of this material for embellishing the exterior and the interior with bands and geometric designs was carried to such a perfection as virtually to constitute a style. The most beautiful example is that of S. Miniato, where, too, the open woodwork of the roof has been restored to its original colouring of gold, green, blue, and red.

Another notable example of this developed style of decoration is presented at Pisa, in the group of buildings comprising the Cathedral, Campanile, and Baptistry. Here the façades are embellished—one might almost say composed, for the embellishment is applied so constructionally—with tiers of blind arcades or of open arcades of red and white marble. Those of the Baptistry received in the fifteenth century additions of Gothic canopies and traceries, but the front of the Cathedral and the circular Campanile retain their original character. The Baptistry, also circular in plan, is crowned by an outer hemispherical dome, through which penetrates a conical dome, which in the interior is supported on four piers and eight columns. The influence of Byzantine workmen is seen here as well as in the dome which crowns the crossing of the Cathedral. The transepts of the latter are prolonged beyond the basilica plan and terminate in apses.

The Campanile, which comprises eight stories embellished with arcading, is known as “The Leaning Tower,” since it inclines from the perpendicular about 13 feet in a height of 179, the greatest inclination being in the ground story, after which there is a slight recovery toward the perpendicular. It was begun in 1174 and completed in 1350. Vasari, the historian of Italian artists, writing some 200 years later, ascribes this lean to a settlement of the foundations. His explanation, though occasionally disputed, had been generally accepted, until the investigations of Professor William H. Goodyear, in 1910, established the fact that the inclination was intentional and provided for from the start of the work.

The tower is constructed of an exterior and an interior cylinder of masonry, the space between them being occupied by a spiral staircase. The steps of the latter were individually measured by Professor Goodyear, who has set forth the results in a Bulletin of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences (Jan. 21, 1911). Briefly, they show that the treads of the steps vary in height and that they incline sometimes toward the inner wall, sometimes toward the outer. In this way they tend to create a balance of strains on the whole structure, which is further secured by increasing the strength of the inner walls, where the inclination is inward. That the careful calculation involved in this was not due to an afterthought or the necessity of remedying the effects of a settlement is proved by the fact that the inclination begins at the lowest step.

Why then was this design adopted? Professor Goodyear furnishes the answer in two subsequent Bulletins. Reduced to briefest terms it is this: The Pisan Baptistry also has an inclination from the normal, both perpendicular and horizontal. Thus, in the south façade there is an inclination in the horizontal lines of 2 feet 2 inches toward the choir. Meanwhile, the vertical lines of the west façade are perpendicular to this slope and, consequently, the front inclines inward toward the nave. And these are only instances of a number of asymmetries that occur throughout the cathedral, all of which are proved to have been intentional in the original design.

Further, the asymmetries at Pisa bear a close analogy to the numberless asymmetries that appear in S. Mark’s, Venice. The latter was built by Byzantine workmen, who therein followed the Oriental and the Hellenic dislike of formal mathematical regularity; and it is the Byzantine tradition again which in this respect, as in other details of decoration, domes and so forth, influenced the Romanesque group of buildings at Pisa. The order in which they were erected is, the Cathedral, Baptistry, and Campanile; so that in the Leaning Tower the architects merely carried the principle of asymmetry to an extreme pitch.

The influence of Pisa is found in S. Michele and S. Martino in Lucca, and in the Cathedral of Pistoia.

South Italy.—The most important Southern examples are found in Sicily, which in the tenth century was overrun by the Saracens, who in the following century were routed by the Normans. Consequently, the Saracenic influence is mingled with the Byzantine in the Cathedral of Monreale, near Palermo. The plan is basilican, with apses at the eastern ends of the nave and aisles. The choir is raised. The arches of the nave are pointed but not recessed, and are supported on columns, with Byzantine capitals. The aisle walls have a dado of white marble, twelve feet high, inlaid with borders, composed of porphyry, while the arches and clerestory of the nave are embellished with mosaics of biblical subjects, framed in arabesque borders. Of a sombre richness of colour, they display the Byzantine characteristic of severity of design, and impart to the interior a solemn grandeur.

North Italy.—It is in Northern Italy, particularly in the Lombard churches, that the constructional development is most marked. For, while the plan remained basilican, only occasionally showing well-defined transepts, the architects devoted their energies to the problem of vaulting. A notable instance is San Ambrogio, Milan, which is an early example of the use of ribs in vaulting. The original church, erected in the ninth century, had wooden roofs; but in the rebuilding the nave was divided into four square bays, and immense piers were constructed to carry the diagonal, transverse, and longitudinal ribs.[6] Of corresponding massiveness are the transverse ribs, while to support the strain on the longitudinal ribs intermediate piers were introduced with an upper and a lower tier of double arches. These open into the two stories of the groin-vaulted aisles, which are given this treatment in order to act as buttresses to the thrust of the nave vaults. This compelled the omission of clerestory windows, thus adding to the sombreness of effect. Indeed the whole suggestion is one of ponderousness. It is the work of men experimenting with a new method of construction and intent for the present on achieving stability. The combination of the latter with dignity of height and the grace of lightness was yet to be developed in the Gothic treatment of the ribs.

The west end is approached by a narthex, opening into an arcaded atrium.

In the external decoration of the triple apse of the east end appears the rudimentary principle of the open arcade. The walls above the semi-dome and beneath the wooden exterior roof are crowned with a cornice, composed of arches supported upon corbels, the space between each being penetrated with a niche. This produces a series of deep shadows, in contrast with which the actual construction of the corbels assumes a lightness of effect. It was the preliminary step to the substitution of small detached columns for the corbels and the development of external arcading.

The open arcading in its full development appears in the west façade of S. Michele, Pavia, where it serves its characteristic purpose of constructively lightening the effect of the cornice of the roof. In this instance, as in many of the Lombard façades, the nave and aisles are included in a single gable, their interior separation being marked upon the exterior by masonry piers. Into this façade also, as in the older part of the exterior of San Ambrogio, are set pieces of earlier sculptured ornament. These exhibit a strange mingling of grotesque animals with Scandinavian interlaces and Byzantine features—a notable fact, since they correspond with the sculptured ornament found on some of the Rhenish churches. This suggests that Lombard workmen were employed in Germany and that they brought back with them some of the German taste for symbolism in ornament.

In the west front of the Cathedral at Piacenza, we find the same use of single gable and masonry piers, but the cornice arcade is supplemented by two horizontal bands, that mark the division of the aisles into two stories. Moreover, each of the three entrances is embellished with a two storied porch, supported on columns that rest on recumbent lions. Over the nave porch the wall is penetrated by a characteristically Romanesque feature—a rose or wheel window. A comparison of this façade with the elaborate ones of Central Italy illustrates the preference of the Lombard architects for organic disposition of decoration rather than decoration for the sake of decoration.

An important feature of North Italy is the Campanile. Intended, it is supposed, as a symbol of power, it is usually detached from the church, and square in plan. The walls are simply treated, being reinforced often with masonry piers, but interrupted with as few windows as possible, while the top is marked by one or two stories of arcaded windows and is crowned with a pyramidal or conical roof.

FRENCH ROMANESQUE

The map of France at the end of the tenth century shows the Royal Domain, the Ile de France, a dense forest with Orleans, the city of learning, at one end, and at the other, Paris, the city of the future—hemmed in on all sides by counties and duchies over which the Capetian King held little more than nominal suzerainty. For the purpose of architectural study these territories may be divided into north and south, on a line with the River Loire. Thus, to the north belong the Ile de France, Normandy, and Brittany; to the south, Provence, Aquitaine, Anjou, and Burgundy.

Everywhere the builders were intent upon the problem of vaulting; but were influenced in the south by local conditions. In Provence, for example, the seat of Roman civilisation, not only does classical influence appear in the details, but the vaulting is of the old Roman kind. Notre Dame, Avignon, is a well-known instance. And the barrel-vaulting was continued throughout the neighbouring Duchy of Aquitaine. Here, however, another influence intervened. The district had close commercial relations with Venice, Ravenna, and Byzantium, and it is reflected in the domical vaulting of many of the churches.

S. Front, Perigeux, for example, resembles S. Mark’s, Venice, in having the plan of a Greek cross, surmounted by five pendentives. The arches, however, are pointed; of great depth, resting on piers, pierced with passages. In the cathedral of the neighbouring city, Angoulême, a Latin cross is substituted for the Greek in plan. The aisleless nave is surmounted by three stone domes, roofed on the exterior. Over the crossing rises another dome, visible outside, which is raised upon a drum that is pierced with pointed windows, disposed in pairs. The southern transept is still crowned with a tower, its fellow to the north having been destroyed in 1568.

This building served as a model for the Abbey of Fontevrault in Anjou.

In Burgundy the most renowned of the numerous monastic establishments was the Benedictine Abbey of Cluny. Until the building of the present S. Peter’s, its abbey church was the largest and most magnificent in Christendom. The plan was a basilica with double aisles, the east end terminating in a chevêt (shě-vay´); that is to say, an apse surrounded by a circular aisle, divided into chapels; in this case five in number. The nave was arcaded with pointed arches and spanned by an immense barrel vault. Groined vaulting, on the other hand, is supposed to have covered the aisles.

Groined vaulting takes the place of barrel-vaulting in the nave of the Church of Vézelay, and was also used in the ante-chapel, erected some thirty years later. But by this time the builders, in order to reduce the thrust, adopted a pointed section for the ribs—the first instance in France of the pointed groined vault, which was successfully developed later by the Gothic architects.

It is to be noted that the early vaulting, erected by the Clunisian architects, compelled the abandonment of the clerestory windows. The thrust of the great barrel vault of the nave was sustained either by high side aisles with either transverse or groined vaults over the bays, or by barrel vaults over the aisles, which in turn were supported by the massive outer walls. For the use of the flying buttress had not yet been adopted.

Meanwhile, the northern climate demanded the additional light provided by a clerestory, and the architects of Normandy applied themselves to the problem. It was to be solved later in Gothic architecture by the use of pointed groin vaulting, but, pending this discovery, a method of vaulting was employed which is known as sexpartite. For the square bay was crossed in the centre by another transverse arch, which, when cut by the two diagonals, produced a plan of six parts. This, however, necessitated two narrow skew vaults, meeting in the centre, which was awkward in appearance. The method is illustrated in S. Etienne, the great church of the Abbaye-aux-hommes and La Trinité of the Abbaye-aux-Dames, both in Caen. These and other churches of Normandy such as the Abbey church of Mont-St. Michel, are characterised by an adventurous spirit as well as logic of design, marking a distinct progress toward the Gothic.

ENGLISH ROMANESQUE OR NORMAN

The audacity and resourcefulness of the Norman builders found extensive opportunity after the conquest of England. But few remains survive of Anglo-Saxon architecture, and they suggest that the buildings were of a rude kind. They were constructed of rubble work, reinforced with engaged piers and ashlar masonry at the corners, arranged in what is called “long and short” courses. The columns were short, stumpy cylinders crowned with one or two square blocks, and the details of doorways and windows were roughly hewn with an axe, though in the case of certain belfry windows, jambs of baluster shape, seem to have been turned upon a lathe. The openings were either round-topped, suggesting a clumsy copy of the Roman style or else triangular, as if perpetuating a form of timber construction. The plan of the church appears to have been of the simplest, representing an oblong nave, separated by an arch from the smaller oblong of the chancel; the latter being lower than the nave and, on the inside, approached by two or three descending steps. The arrangement seems to have been derived from the example of the Celtic churches, as also was the habit of erecting towers, which, however, are not circular as in Ireland, but square without buttresses. One example of such a tower exists at Earl’s Barton, Northamptonshire, in which occur balustered windows.

The Normans, therefore, had a free field for their architectural enterprise and, while they immediately commenced the erection of castles to overawe the country, they also erected monasteries and cathedrals, designed to surpass in size and magnificence the ones in Normandy. While following the latter in a general way, the English examples were characterised, on the one hand, by a more massive and picturesque treatment, and, on the other, owing probably to the scarcity of skilled labour, by simpler and less refined details.

The capitals of columns, for instance, were usually of the cubic-cushion form, as may be seen in S. John’s Chapel in the Tower of London. The piers were often round and frequently clustered with columns, the round arches being recessed and framed with round mouldings. The latter, in the case of doorways and windows, were enriched with ornament carved in zig-zag, chevrons, billets, and beaked heads. The plan was apt to be longer than that of the French churches, and the elevations were proportionately lower. Vaulting was, for the present, confined to smaller churches and the side aisles of the larger; but the nave walls of the cathedrals were built sufficiently massive to support the vaulting which in some cases was subsequently added. The clerestory windows were set toward the outer part of the wall, the remaining space being occupied by a passageway, which, in front of the windows was screened from the nave by three arches.

While the Norman style, as the English-Romanesque is usually called in England, appears in many cathedrals, the character of it has been greatly modified by later additions. But the finest example still existing is that of Durham; next to which come Peterborough and portions of Norwich. The tower above the crossing, which became a distinction of English cathedrals and is so imposing a feature of Durham, was added much later. But the original nave (1096) is a remarkable example of massive Norman construction, the round piers having a diameter nearly equal to the span of the arches and being channelled with flutings and spirals. The vaulting was completed in 1133 and is said to be the earliest example of Norman vaulting in England. Another notable feature of Durham Cathedral is the so-called Galilee chapel, which, in imitation of the ante-chapel in Caen, takes the place of a porch at the west end. It was used by penitents.

At Peterborough the nave, only second to Durham as an example of Norman at its finest, is still covered with the original wooden ceiling, divided into lozenge shapes and painted. It is believed to be the oldest wooden roof in England. The Norman parts of Norwich Cathedral are the long, narrow, aisleless nave, the transepts, and the choir with its chevêt of chapels. Ely, again, has Norman nave and transepts; Bristol, a Norman chapter house; Oxford, nave and choir; Southwell, Norman nave, transepts, and towers; Winchester, transepts and towers; while Worcester has a Norman crypt, transepts, and circular chapter house. The last named is the only one of this design in England. Original Norman work is also to be found in the transepts at Canterbury, while the narrowness of its choir is due to the preservation of two Norman chapels.

In England the interior wall spaces and vaulting were decorated with paintings, for in this branch of decorative work the Normans found no scarcity of skill, since the Anglo-Saxon school of miniaturists, originally started by Celtic missionaries, had attained a high degree of proficiency, and now developed the principles of missal-painting into the larger and freer scope of mural decoration.

A good example of the small Norman church is that of Iffley, near Oxford. Especially interesting is the west front. In the larger examples this feature underwent change with the introduction of the pointed arch; but here is a distribution of the gabled end into three well defined and excellently proportioned stories, pierced, respectively, with a doorway, circular window, and an arcade of three windows. All are deeply recessed and enriched with characteristic moulding, and the effect, while a trifle barbaric, is vigorously decorative.

RHENISH ROMANESQUE

In the Rhenish Provinces is found the most fully developed Romanesque style, characterised by the fewest local differences. When, during the years 768-814, Charlemagne built his royal tomb-church, which with subsequent Gothic additions is now the Cathedral of Aix-le-Chapelle, he adopted the plan of S. Vitale in Ravenna and imported classic columns. Moreover, the Rhine Provinces possessed many remains of Roman architecture. Later they became closely allied by commerce with Northern Italy and seem to have employed the services of Lombard architects.

All these circumstances tended to make Rhenish Romanesque resemble that of Northern Italy. On the other hand, it developed a style more constructively adventurous, vigorous, and picturesque; while at the same time it was on the whole more systematically organised than the French. It was, however, about fifty years behind the latter in its development which began late and continued longer.