Another mode of getting over the great defect of high walls over the pillars was adopted, as in St. Lorenzo and Sta. Agnese, of using a gallery corresponding with the triforium of Gothic churches. In St. Lorenzo, where this feature first occurs, it would seem to have been derived from the Eastern Empire, where the custom of providing galleries for women had long been established; this is rendered probable by the fact that the sculpture of the capitals carrying the arches of the triforium is of pure Byzantine character, and by the adoption of what is virtually a dosseret,^[268] or projecting impost above the capital to carry the arches, which at their springing are considerably wider and deeper than the abacus of the capital. According to M. Cattaneo^[269] the earliest part of this church is the Eastern end, built by Constantine (see plan, Woodcut No. 403), which first consisted of nave, aisles, and a Western apse. In the Pontificate of Sixtus III. (432-440) an immense basilica was added on the Western side with an Eastern apse built back to back with the original apse; and later on, in 578-590, galleries were added to the Western church by Pope Pelagius II. over the side aisles. In 1226-1227, when Honorius III. restored the whole building, he removed the two apses, continued the new arcade up to the early Western wall, and raised the choir of the early church to its present elevation (Woodcut No. 404). Both in St. Lorenzo and St. Agnes the galleries may have been suggested if not required by the peculiarity of the ground, which was higher on one side than on the other; but whether this was the true cause of its adoption or not, the effect was most satisfactory, and had it been persevered in so as to bring the upper colonnade more into harmony of proportion with the other, it would have been attended with the happiest results on the style. Whether it was, however, that the Romans felt the want of the broad plain space for their paintings, or that they could not bring the upper arches into proportion with the classical pillars which they made use of, the system was abandoned almost as soon as adopted, and never came into general use.

It should be observed that this arrangement contained the germs of much that was afterwards reproduced in Gothic churches. The upper gallery, after many modifications, at last settled into a triforium, and the pierced stone slabs in the windows became tracery—but before these were reached a vaulted roof was introduced, and with it all the features of the style were to a great extent modified.

The church known as that of Sta. Pudentiana is one of the very oldest and consequently one of the most interesting of those in Rome. It stands on substructions of ancient Roman date, which probably formed part of the Thermæ of Novatus or the house of the Senator Pudens, who is mentioned by St. Paul at the end of his Second Epistle to Timothy, and with whom he is traditionally said to have resided during his sojourn in Rome. The vaults beneath the church certainly formed part of a Roman mansion, so apparently do those buildings, shown on the plan, and placed behind and on one side of the sanctuary; but whether these were used for Christian purposes before the erection of the church in the fourth century is by no means certain. In plan the church remains in all probability very much as originally designed, its most striking peculiarity being the segmental form of the apse, which may possibly have arisen from some peculiar arrangement of the original building. It was not, however, found to be pleasing in an architectural point of view, and was not consequently again employed.

The annexed section probably represents very nearly the original form of the nave, though it has been so encrusted with modern accretions as to render it difficult to ascertain what the first form really was. The shafts of the pillars may have been borrowed from some older edifice, but the capitals were clearly designed to support arches, and must therefore be early Christian (fourth century?), and are among the most elegant and appropriate specimens of the class now extant.

In some instances, as in San Clemente, above alluded to, in San Pietro in Vincula, and Sta. Maria in Cosmedin, the colonnade is divided into spaces of three or four intercolumniations by piers of solid masonry, which give great apparent solidity and strength to the building, but at the expense of breaking it up into compartments more than is agreeable, and these destroy that beauty of perspective so pleasing in a continuous colonnade. This defect seems to have been felt in the Santa Praxede, where three of these piers are introduced in the length of the nave,^[271] and support each a bold arch thrown across the central aisle. The effect of this might have been most happy, as at San Miniato, near Florence; but it has been so clumsily managed in the Roman example, as to be most destructive of all beauty of proportion.

Some of the principal beauties as well as some of the most remarkable defects of these basilican churches arise from the employment of columns torn from ancient temples: where this has been done, the beauty of the marble, and the exquisite sculpture of the capitals and friezes, give a richness and elegance to the whole that go far to redeem or to hide the rudeness of the building in which they are encased. But, on the other hand, the discrepancy between the pillars—Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns being sometimes used side by side—destroys all uniformity, and the fragmentary character of the entablatures they support is still more prejudicial to the continuity of the perspective, which should be the greatest charm of these churches. By degrees, the fertile quarries of ancient Rome seem to have become entirely exhausted; and as the example of St. Paul’s proves, the Romans in the fourth century were incapable of manufacturing even a bad imitation, and were at last forced to adopt some new plan of supporting their arcades. The church of SS. Nereo ed Achilleo is, perhaps, the most elegant example of this class, the piers being light octagons; but the most characteristic, as well as the most original, is the San Vincenzo alle Tre Fontane, shown in section and elevation in Woodcut No. 408. It so far deviates from the usual basilican arrangements as to suggest a later date. It has the same defect as all the rest—its pier arches being too low, and for which there is no excuse here—but both internally and externally it shows a uniformity of design and a desire to make every part ornamental that produces a very pleasing effect, notwithstanding that the whole is merely of brick, and that ornament is so sparingly applied as barely to prevent the building sinking into the class of mere utilitarian erections.

Among the most pleasing architectural features, if they may be so called, of these churches, are the mosaic pavements that adorn the greater number. These were always original, being designed for the buildings in which they are used, and following the arrangement of the architecture surrounding them. The patterns too are always elegant, and appropriate to the purpose; and as the colours are in like manner generally harmoniously blended, they form not only a most appropriate but most beautiful basement to the architecture.

A still more important feature was the great mosaic picture that always adorned the semi-dome of the apse, representing most generally the Saviour seated in glory surrounded by saints, or else some scene from the life of the holy personage to whom the church was dedicated.

These mosaics were generally continued down to nearly the level of the altar, and along the whole of the inner wall of the sanctuary in which the apse was situated, and as far as the triumphal arch which separated the nave from the sanctuary, at which point the mosaic blended with the frescoes that adorned the upper walls of the central nave above the arcades. All this made up an extent of polychromatic decoration which in those dark ages, when few could read, the designers of these buildings seem to have considered as virtually of more importance than the architectural work to which it was attached. Any attempt to judge of the one without taking into consideration the other, would be forming an opinion on hearing but half the evidence; but taken in conjunction, the paintings go far to explain, and also to redeem, many points in which the architecture is most open to criticism.

Ravenna.

During the whole period of the development of early Christian architecture in Rome, the city of Ravenna, owing to her close connection with the Eastern empire, almost rivalled in importance the old capital of the world, and her churches were consequently hardly less important either in number or in richness than those we have just been describing. It is true she had none so large as the great metropolitan basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul. The one five-aisled church she possessed—the cathedral—has been entirely destroyed, to make way for a very contemptible modern erection. From the plans, however, which we possess of it, it seems to have differed very considerably from the Roman examples, most especially in having no trace of a transept, the building being a perfectly regular parallelogram, half as long again as its breadth, and with merely one great apse added at the end of the central nave. Its loss is the more to be regretted, as it was, besides being the largest, the oldest church in the city, having been erected about the year 400, by Archbishop Ursus. The baptistery that belonged to it has been fortunately preserved, and will be described hereafter.

Besides a considerable number of other churches which have either been lost or destroyed by repair, Ravenna still possesses two first-class three-aisled basilicas—the San Apollinare Nuovo,^[272] originally an Arian church, built by Theodoric, king of the Goths (A.D. 493-525); and the S. Apollinare in Classe, at the Port of Ravenna, situated about three miles from the city, commenced A.D. 538, and dedicated 549 A.D. Of the two, the first-named is by far the more considerable, being 315 ft. long by 115 in width externally, while the other only measures 216 ft. in length by 104. As will be seen by the plan, S. Apollinare in Classe is a perfectly regular basilica with twelve pillars on each side of the nave, which is 50 ft. in width. The apse is raised to allow of a crypt underneath, and externally it is polygonal, like the Byzantine apse.

The great merit of these two basilicas, as compared with those of Rome, arises from the circumstance of Ravenna having possessed no ruined temples whose spoils could be used in the construction of new buildings. On the other hand the Goths had no architectural forms of their own; the architects and workmen therefore who were brought over from Constantinople reproduced the style with which they were best acquainted in the East, with such alterations in plan as the liturgies of the church required, such modifications in construction as the materials of the country necessitated, and such ideas in architectural design as were suggested by the examples in Rome with which Theodoric was well acquainted, having not only restored some of the churches there, but insisted that the primitive style should be adhered to. The simple basilican form of church with nave, and aisles without galleries over, and a single apse, was based on numerous examples existing in Rome, to which source may be ascribed the external blind arcades of the aisle and nave walls.^[274] From Woodcut 410, representing the arches of the nave of St. Apollinare Nuovo, it will be seen that an elegance of proportion is revealed and a beauty of design shown in the details of the capitals^[275] and the dosserets which surmount them, which are quite foreign to any Roman examples. The great triforium frieze above the arches, and the wall space above them between the clerestory windows, covered with mosaics, executed 570 A.D. by Greek artists from Constantinople, suggest a completeness of design which had not been reached in Rome. All this is still more apparent in Woodcut No. 411, taken from the arcade where the nave joins the apse in St. Apollinare in Classe, which shows a further advance in the working out of a new style, based partially on Roman work, but carried out by Byzantine artists.

Externally these buildings appear to have remained to the present hour almost wholly without architectural embellishment. It was considered sufficient for ornamental purposes to make the brick arches necessary for the construction slightly more prominent and important than was actually required. As if impelled by some feeling of antagonism to the practice of the heathens, the early Christians seem to have tried to make the external appearance of their buildings as unlike those of their predecessors as was possible. Whether this was the cause or not, it is certain that nothing can well be less ornamental than these exteriors; and even the narthex,^[276] which in the Apollinare in Classe afforded an excellent opportunity for embellishment, could not be less ornamental if it were the entrance to a barn instead of to a church of such richness and beauty as this in all its internal arrangements.

Venice.

The restoration of portions of the Cathedral of St. Mark during the past twenty years, and the careful examination of various documents in the archives of that city have led to the discovery that the work attributed to Doge Pietro Orseolo, 976-78, consisted mainly in the re-construction of the basilican church erected by the Doge Jean Participazio in 829-32, and burnt in 976. The acquisition of the relics of St. Mark the Evangelist, brought from Alexandria in 828 (when the Mohametans pulled down the church of St. Mark in that town), determined Jean’s brother Justinian to build a church which should be worthy of their reception. He died, however, before the work was commenced, but left a large sum of money for the purpose. This church was built on the old site situated between the Ducal Palace and the church of St. Theodore, which, up to that time, had served as the Ducal chapel. The width of the church would seem to have been the same as that of the present nave and aisles. Its west end formed part of the existing wall behind the present vestibule, but some difference of opinion seems to exist as to its eastern end, and whether it coincided with the actual apses. Though nominally built in 976-78 the decoration of Orseolo’s church was probably carried on in succeeding years, and much of the sculptural work in the present building dates from the first half of the 11th century. In 1063, under the Doge Domenico Contarini, the church of St. Theodore, according to M. Cattaneo,^[277] was pulled down and some of its materials used in the new cathedral. Portions also of the Ducal Palace were destroyed to give increased space on the south side for the Transept, the portion known as the Treasury only being preserved.^[278] The record of the new church states that it was built similar in its artistic construction to that at Constantinople erected in honour of the twelve apostles.^[279] The arrangement and the design of the church thus extended were probably due to a Greek architect, though much of the work, according to M. Cattaneo, was afterwards carried out by a Lombard sculptor, Mazulo, who designed the atrium and tower of the abbey of Pomposa (about 30 miles from Venice), where the carving is of the same character or style as that in St. Mark’s. Internally the church measures 200 ft. east and west, and 164 ft. across the transepts; externally these dimensions are increased to 260 × 215, and the whole area to about 46,000 square ft., so that although of respectable dimensions it is by no means a large church. The central and western dome are 42 ft. in diameter, the other three 33 ft. only. They are carried on spherical pendentives resting on circular barrel vaults about 15 ft. wide; a crypt 86 ft. × 74 ft. extends under the eastern dome and apses, the vault being supported by fifty-six monolithic columns 5 ft. 6 in. high: the whole height from floor to the crown of the arch being under 9 ft. The construction of this crypt probably followed the erection of the church, which was not consecrated till 1111, when Ordelapo Faliero was Doge. Externally this apse is polygonal, as in Byzantine churches, the upper storey being set back to allow of a passage round. The narthex or vestibule in front of the church, which extends also on north and south of the nave aisles up to the transepts, and the rooms over the north narthex and over part of the baptistery, must have followed the erection of the church; in fact, the principal front could not have been completed without them.

Externally the original construction was in brick, with blind arcades, niches, and a simple brick cornice such as is found in Lombardic work. It was not till the commencement of the 13th century that the decoration of the front and sides with marble was undertaken; the arches were encased with marble slabs carried on ranges of columns, those of the narthex being placed one above the other. The shafts, capitals and bases were brought from other buildings, having been imported from Altinum, Aquileia, Heraclea, Ravenna, and from other places in Dalmatia, Syria, and the East. It is possible that the porches of the churches of St. Gilles and of St. Trophime at Arles may have suggested this method of decoration, of which no prototype exists in the East. The capitals are of all periods, from the 4th to the 11th centuries, the entablature blocks and the stylobates being specially worked for the building. The rose window of the south transept and others of similar style were inserted about the commencement of the 14th century, the baptistery and the chapel of St. Isidore^[280] being encased with marbles in the middle of the same century, and the decoration of the upper part of the arches of the west, towards the end of the 14th century. As will be seen by the north and south fronts section (Woodcut No. 416) the original brick domes were surmounted by timber domes covered with lead, and of considerable height. These were probably added in the middle of the 13th century.^[281] The rood loft dates from the end of the same century. The earlier mosaics in the domes date from the 12th century, and the marble casing of the lower portion of the walls and the richly decorated pavement from the 12th and 13th centuries. The work of decoration was carried on through succeeding centuries with occasional restorations, so that the church itself constitutes a museum with almost every phase of work in mosaic from the 12th to the 18th centuries.

Though from a strictly architectural point of view the disposition of the design is not equal to those of some of our northern cathedrals (except perhaps for the greater beauty of Byzantine domical construction), it is impossible to find fault with plain surfaces when they are covered with such exquisite gold mosaics as those of St. Mark’s, or with the want of accentuation in the lines of the roof, when every part of it is more richly adorned in this manner than any other church of the Western world. Then too the rood screens, the pulpit, the pala d’oro and the whole furniture of the choir are so rich, so venerable, and on the whole so beautiful, and seen in so exquisitely subdued a light, that it is impossible to deny that it is perhaps the most impressive interior in Western Europe. St. Front at Périgueux, with almost identical dimensions and design (Woodcut No. 562), is cold, scattered, and unmeaning, because but a structural skeleton of St. Mark’s without its adornments. The interior of a 13th-century Gothic church is beautiful, even when whitewashed; but these early attempts had not yet reached that balance between construction and ornament, which is necessary to real architectural effect.

The same is true of the exterior; if stripped of its ornament and erected in plain stone it would hardly be tolerable, and the mixture of florid 14th-century foliage and bad Italian Gothic details with the older work, would be all but unendurable. But marble, mosaic, sculpture, and the all-hallowing touch of age and association, disarm the critic, and force him to worship when his reason tells him he ought to blame.

Much as St. Mark’s must have been admired in the days of its freshness, the Gothic feeling seems to have been so strong in Northern Italy in the 11th and 12th centuries as to prevent its being used as a model. The one prominent exception is San Antonio, Padua (1237-1307), which is evidently a copy of St. Mark’s, but with so much Gothic design mixed up with it as to spoil both. Length was sought to be obtained by using seven domes instead of five, and running an aisle round the apse. The side-aisles were covered with intersecting vaults, and pointed arches were occasionally introduced when circular would have harmonised better with the general design.

Externally the enveloping porch was omitted—not even the Pisan modification of it introduced, though it might have been employed with the happiest effect. The consequence of all this jumble is, that San Antonio is externally one of the most unsatisfactory churches in Europe, though possessing a quaint Oriental look from the grouping of its dome with the minaret-like spires which adorn it. The inside is not so bad, though a roof of only five bays over a quasi-Gothic church, 200 ft. in length, distorts the proportion, and with the ill-understood details of the whole, spoils what narrowly escaped being one of the most successful interiors of that part of Italy.

Dalmatia and Istria.

Both Dalmatia and Istria formed part of the Gothic kingdom of Theodoric: we find therefore the same Byzantine influence exerted as in Ravenna; an influence which increased when the first-named country was retaken by Justinian in 535, and the second in 539 A.D.

At Parenzo in Istria there is a basilica, built in the year 543 A.D. by the Bishop Euphrasius, and consequently contemporary with the examples at Ravenna already described. This church still retains its atrium, baptistery, and other accompaniments, which those at Ravenna have lost. It consists of a basilica in three aisles, with an apse at the end of each, and an atrium in front, beyond which is situated the baptistery; and in front of this again a tower, though this latter feature seems to be of more modern date. On one side at the east end is a chapel or crypt; this, Mr. Jackson^[282] suggests, may have been “the martyrium or confessio of the basilica where the remains of the saintly patrons of the church were preserved and venerated.” “According to strict rule,” Mr. Jackson observes, “the confessio should be in a crypt under the choir as at Aquileja and Zara, but Parenzo lies so low that excavation would be difficult, and here as in other cases the martyrium may have been placed in an adjoining building.”^[283]

Internally the church is 121 ft. in length by 32 in width, and possesses all the usual arrangements of a church of that date. The columns are borrowed from some earlier edifice, but the capitals are all original, and were carved for the church. They are all of pure Byzantine type, and are surmounted by that essentially Byzantine feature the dosseret. The central apse, though circular inside, is polygonal outside, which is another characteristic of Byzantine work. Like Torcello it has still preserved its semicircle of marble seats for the clergy, with the episcopal throne in the middle. Externally the façade retains portions of the ancient mosaics with which it was decorated, and although internally the nave has lost its early decorations, the lofty dado of the apse inlaid with slabs of porphyry and serpentine interspersed with mosaics of opaque glass, onyx and mother-of-pearl, bears witness to its original splendour, the cypher of Euphrasius denoting its execution to be coeval with the building of the church, and therefore some centuries earlier than the mosaics of the baldachino, which are dated 1277.

We are indebted also to Mr. Jackson for the description of two churches at Grado: the Duomo and St. Maria delle Grazie; the former a fine basilican church with nave and aisles and a deep central apse, circular inside and polygonal externally.^[284] The twenty columns of the nave are all taken from earlier edifices, and of the capitals which surmount them five are Roman and twelve of pure Byzantine workmanship, based on the Roman composite capital, but treated in a quite original way. The capitals are not surmounted by the dosseret, but in the other church of St. Maria delle Grazie some have the dosseret and others are without it, though all of the same period. The chief glory of the church, however, lies in its magnificent marble pavement (measured and illustrated in Mr. Jackson’s work), the greater portion of which is still preserved. The church of St. Maria delle Grazie is a small basilican church of six bays with fragments of similar pavement to those in the Duomo. The apse here is masked on the exterior by two sacristies on each side which entirely enclose it; similar examples are found in De Vogüé’s work of “Central Syria” (Woodcuts Nos. 278, 281, and 299).

The churches of Parenzo and Grado appear to be the only examples remaining of early Romano-Byzantine work on this side of the Adriatic. St. Maria de Canneto at Pola, consecrated in 546 A.D., was destroyed in the 14th and 15th centuries and its materials carried off to Venice for the adornment of the churches there. As edifices of the age of Justinian, and as showing the relative position of the various parts that made up an ecclesiastical establishment in those early times, the churches of Parenzo and Grado are singularly deserving of the attention of those to whom the history of art is a matter of interest.

Torcello.

The church at Torcello, in the Venetian Lagune, is the last example it will be necessary to quote in order to make the arrangements of the early basilicas intelligible. It was originally erected in the seventh century; of this church, according to M. Cattaneo, the only portion remaining, if we except a fragment of the ancient baptistery, is the central apse. In 864, the church would seem to have been reconstructed, and to this period belong the two side apses, the apsidal crypt with new windows pierced through the old wall and the external walls: it is possible that the original nave of the seventh century was retained till 1008, when it was rebuilt by the Doge Pietro Orseolo, on the occasion of his son being raised to the Bishopric of Torcello. Thirteen of the capitals of the nave date from this period, one may be earlier, and five belong to the second half of the 12th century. The whole width of the church is 71 ft. internally by 125 in length. A screen of six pillars divides the nave from the sanctuary. Perhaps, however, the most interesting part of this church is the interior of its apse, which still retains the bishop’s throne, surrounded by six ranges of seats for his presbytery, arranged like those of an ancient theatre. It presents one of the most extensive and best preserved examples of the fittings of the apse, and gives a better idea of the mode in which the apses of churches were originally arranged than anything that is to be found in any other church, either of its age or of an earlier period.^[285]

Like Sta. Pudentiana (Woodcut No. 404), this church possesses a small side chapel, a vestry or sanctuary, on the Gospel side of the altar, and the remains of the ancient baptistery may still be traced in front of the west door. This was a square block, externally, measuring 37 ft. each way; internally an octagon, with the angles cut into hemispherical niches. A portion of its eastern side only remains, and this is now hidden behind the modern baptistery, in which, under a board in the pavement, can be seen the foundations of the second baptistery of the 12th century. In the rear of the church stood the campanile, and across a narrow passage the conventual buildings; in front of which now stands the beautiful little church of Sta. Fosca, the whole making up a group of nearly unrivalled interest considering its small dimensions.

Other examples might be quoted differing in some slight respect from those just given, but the above are probably sufficient to explain the general arrangements of the early basilican churches and the style of their architecture, so long as this worked on the old tradition of the Romano-Byzantine style; in other words, so long as it continued in Italy to be a distinction from the Roman style without any foreign admixture beyond that introduced direct from Byzantium. It might be instructive to speculate on what the style might have become if left alone to develope itself on its native soil, but it would be extremely difficult to make the subject clear without a much larger amount of illustration than is admissible, and which in such a history as this would be out of place. Simultaneously with the elaboration of the rectangular form of church by the Italians, the Byzantines were occupied with the same task; but, being freer from the trammels of tradition and less influenced by examples, they early arrived at forms much more divergent from those of the classical period than those of Italy, and their style, reacting on the Italian, produced that very beautiful combination of which Pisa Cathedral is a type, and St. Mark’s at Venice an extreme example. This style generally pervaded the whole south of Italy, with the exception of Rome; and, from the elements of which it was composed, may fairly be designated Byzantine Italian.

While this was going on in the south, the Longobards, and other Barbarians who invaded the north of Italy, seized on this type and worked it out in their own fashion. They, however, conceived the desire to give a more permanent character to their churches by covering them over with stone vaulted roofs, which led to most important modifications of the style. It may probably be correct to assert that no Romano-Byzantine or early Romanesque church has, or ever had, a vaulted nave. On the other hand, there is hardly a Barbarian church which the builders did not aspire to vault, though they were frequently unable to accomplish it. It was this vaulting mania which led to the invention of compound piers, pointed arches, buttresses, pinnacles, and all the numerous peculiarities of the Gothic style; and which, reacting on northern Italy, produced the Ghibelline or Italian-Gothic style.

No exact boundary can be drawn between these two: modifications of style varied, as Byzantine or Gothic influences ebbed or flowed, during the Middle Ages. Venice and Pisa, and all Calabria, were generally influenced by their intercourse with the East, while the whole of the north of Italy and away from the coast as far down as Sienna and Orvieto the strong hand of the Teuton made itself felt.

Yet Italy cannot be said to have been successful in either style. Her superior civilisation enabled her to introduce and use an elegance of detail unknown north of the Alps; but she did not work out the basilican type for herself: she left it to others to do that for her, and consequently never perfectly understood what she undertook, or why it was done. The result is that, though great elegance is found in parts, Italy can hardly produce a single church which is satisfactory as a design; or which would be intelligible without first explaining the basework of those true styles from which its principal features have been borrowed.