Charles H. Caffin

CHAPTER I
EARLY CHRISTIAN CIVILISATION

As the power of Rome waned and the Empire became disintegrated, the force of Christianity increased and spread and the organisation of the Church became consolidated. The immediate followers of Christ looked for their Lord’s reappearance as a Jewish Messiah. Paul, however, taught that there was no distinction in the sight of Christ between Jew and Gentile and treated Christianity as a philosophic system of ethics, applicable to all races and conditions of rich and poor. His view prevailed and Christianity became a great proselytising force.

Its idea of a universal brotherhood appealed especially to the multitude, while men and women of the highest classes were attracted by its ideals of better and purer living. For the period was one of social unrest and of havoc of old faiths and standards of conduct. Profligacy was sapping the vitals of the state and of society, and the need of new moral ideals was insistent. “No one thing about Christianity commended it to all, and to no one thing did it owe its victory, but to the fact that it met a greater variety of needs and met them more satisfactorily than any other movement of the Age.”

Its growth was further facilitated by the proselytising zeal of its adherents. Christianity spread not only throughout the Roman Empire in Europe, but also fastened upon Asia Minor and North Africa, taking firm root especially in Egypt, the intellectual centre of the Empire, and extending even to the Germanic tribes which were to become the conquerors of Rome.

Its power, moreover, was strengthened by its organisation. In the beginning each congregation had been independent. It had its officers, deacons, who cared for its poor; elders or presbyters, who, as the council of the church, looked after its interests; and its overseer, episcopus, or bishop, the chief of the presbyters. In course of time, as the church of a given city sent out branches to neighbouring towns and rural districts, the bishop of the parent community came to have authority over a group of congregations. In time the bishops of a province learned to look for guidance to the highest religious officer of the provincial capital, who acquired the high importance of a “Metropolitan.” And above him in dignity were the “Patriarchs” of such cities as Antioch and Alexandria, while the Bishop of Rome was acquiring the greatest influence. “In brief, the government of the Church was becoming a monarchy.” (Botsford.)

Constantine, recognising the advantage of allying himself with such an organisation, issued in 313 the Edict of Milan, which placed all religions on an equal footing. Furthermore, to set at rest the dissensions which were threatening to disrupt the organisation of the Church, he summoned a council of the representatives of all the great branches of the Church to meet in NicÆa, to decide upon a creed which should be acceptable to all.

For with the growth of the Church, Christianity had become encumbered with doctrines that hardened into dogmas, and by this time a controversy was raging over the rival dogmas upheld by two officers of the Church in Egypt, Athanasius and Arius. Both held that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, but Arius maintained that He had proceeded from the Father and was therefore second to the latter, while Athanasius proclaimed the absolute equality of the Father and the Son. The Council of NicÆa pronounced the latter doctrine to be orthodox and branded the Arian as heresy. The Nicene Creed, in which the orthodox was embodied, was accepted in the West, but in the East, the Arian dogma continued to be held.

Apart, however, from its bearing on this question, the Council of NicÆa was an event of profound importance. This first Œcumenical Council, or Council representative of the whole Christian world, not only was an object lesson of the widespread power of the Church, but also exalted the clergy to a high position of spiritual authority amid the temporal distractions of the time.

Constantine, upon his deathbed, accepted the Christian faith. Some fifty years later Theodosius made Christianity the sole religion of the state and the pagan temples were closed.

By degrees the spiritual power of the Church was reinforced by the temporal. The beginning of this change is sometimes dated from the act of the Frankish king, Pepin, to whom the Pope appealed to stem the attack of the Lombards, then pushing south from their possessions in Northern Italy and threatening Rome. Pepin drove them back and handed over a considerable slice of territory to the Pope, to swell the so-called “Patrimony of St. Peter.” The latter, from this time on, became a source of increasing wealth, which enabled the Popes to maintain armies and play the part of princes in the world of politics.

Meanwhile, the temporal power of the Western Church, centred in the Papacy, had been helped by Constantine’s removal of the capital of the Empire to Constantinople. Two circumstances contributed to the change. By this time the Senate had lost even the semblance of authority, and the real source of government was in the consent of the armies. Secondly, the frontiers chiefly threatened were the eastern ones. Constantine accordingly selected as the site of a Nova Roma, the ancient Greek city of Byzantium. It, too, had its seven hills, occupying a promontory between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmora, a spot defended, as well as beautified, by nature and already an important gateway of commerce, both by sea and land, between Europe and the East. Constantine planned the new city of Constantinople on extensive lines and set an example of magnificent building that was continued by his successors; so that Constantinople continued for a thousand years to be the Eastern bulwark of European civilisation, until it was conquered by the Moslems in 1453.

Among the results of this change of the capital was, firstly, that the Empire gradually separated into East and West; secondly, that Constantinople became the centre of culture, and, as darkness settled down upon the West, the almost sole refuge of learning and the arts. In the beginning Roman architects directed the character of the new city, but even then the artisans who executed the work were either Byzantines or Greeks, attracted to the new city from various parts of Hellas and Asia Minor. In consequence architecture and the other arts gradually became impressed with a new character, which, for convenience’ sake, is styled Byzantine. It represents, in the case of architecture, a mixture of Roman, Greek, and Oriental; and involved, as we shall see, the treatment of old principles in a new spirit of invention.

The change was encouraged by the contact of Byzantium with Eastern and African civilisation. For as the Western Empire declined in power, the Eastern grew; extending its sway in Asia, where it came into conflict with the Parthians and Persians, and along the northern littoral of Africa. The Metropolitan Bishop of Byzantium became to the Eastern Churches what the Metropolitan Bishop of Rome was to the Western; and exercised a spiritual headship over the Coptic Church in Alexandria, the Syrian Church in Antioch, the Nestorian Church in Ctesiphon, and the Armenian in Asia. Over this widely spread area religious art flourished, coloured in each locality by racial influences, all of which influences in a measure reacted upon the capital city of Byzantium.

Meanwhile, in the West, the Church was labouring to reorganise a settled condition of society by assisting the consolidation of authority. A case in point is the welding of the Frankish tribes into some semblance of a nation. By 486 they had found a great leader in Clovis, who led them across the Rhine, conquered the Romans at Soissons, and proceeded to extend his sway over Gaul. To consolidate his power he married Clotilda, a princess of the Burgundian Goths, and accepted her faith of Christianity. It chanced that she professed the orthodox belief, unlike the majority of the Burgundians and the other German tribes at this time in Gaul, who were Arians. Consequently the Roman Church threw the weight of its influence on the side of Clovis and helped him to found a monarchy in France that endured under the title of Merovingian, so called from Merovech, the grandfather of Clovis.

In time the vigour of the Merovingian kings declined, until the actual power was wielded by the steward of the royal household, the Mayor of the Palace. Gradually this office became hereditary in a dynasty of rulers known as Carolingian or Charles Dynasty. The first great Charles was Mayor Charles, surnamed Martel or the Hammer; the last, Charlemagne, or Charles the Great. The former derived his name from the crushing blows he inflicted upon his enemies, particularly the Saracens, the followers of Mohammed, who by this time (732) had replaced the Vandals along the north coast of Africa, conquered the Visigoths in Spain, and were threatening France. Charles met them at Poictiers or Tours, and in a complete victory saved Christianity to Europe.

Charles remained simply Mayor; but the title of King was assumed by his son, Pepin, who was first elected by the Franks and then anointed by the Church, thus ascending the throne with the consent of the Pope. We have already noted how he repaid the debt. He was succeeded by his son Charlemagne, whose dream was to found an empire upon the ruins of the Roman. It was fulfilled to the point that he extended Frankish sway over Germany, as far as the Elbe, and into Italy. In the last named country he conquered the Lombards and signalised the completeness of the conquest by assuming the iron crown of Lombardy. On Christmas Day, A.D. 800, as he was kneeling at prayer in the Church of St. Peter in Rome, Pope Leo III crowned him Emperor of the Romans.

It was the aim of Charlemagne to establish his government on Roman lines, to which end he reintroduced Roman laws and methods of civilisation and ordained that Latin should be the official language. The city selected as his capital was Aachen—Aix-la-Chapelle.

S. APOLLINARE NUOVO, RAVENNA

Showing Classical Columns and “Impost”: Mosaics; Arch of Triumph and Apse. P. 201

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S. APOLLINARE-IN-CLASSE, RAVENNA

Exterior of Apse. Detached Campanile. P. 201

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CHURCH OF KALB-LAUZEH, SYRIA

Showing Apse, Wooden Roof, Supported by Small Columns on Corbels; Round Arches on Piers. P. 200

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CHURCH OF TURMANIN, SYRIA

Rudiments of Subsequent Romanesque and Gothic Treatment of West Front. P. 200

CHAPTER II
EARLY CHRISTIAN AND BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE

When the “Peace of the Church” had been proclaimed by Constantine and Christians were able to worship openly, the age of church-building commenced, the Emperor himself setting a lead. After the edict of Theodosius, making Christianity the State religion, many of the pagan temples were adapted to the purposes of the Christian ritual, or their columns and decorative features were appropriated for the building of new churches. The former practice accounts for the preservation of the Parthenon, Erechtheion, and the Temple of Theseus at Athens. An instance of the method of conversion is to be traced in the Cathedral of Syracuse, Sicily, which occupies the site of an ancient temple. Walls were built between the Doric columns of the peristyle, while the walls of the cella were pierced so as to communicate with the peristyle, which thus served as aisles. Another instance is that of a temple in Aphrodisias, in Caria, Asia Minor, where the walls of the cella were entirely removed, and walls were built outside the peristyle to form aisles, while to increase the length of the nave the front and rear portico columns were set in line with the others.

Basilican Plan.—These changes coincided with the general adoption of the basilica plan in the case of new buildings. For the early Christian churches show very little regard for the appearance of the exterior. Attention was concentrated on the interior, in fitting it for ritual worship and in beautifying it, and to both these objects the basilica plan most readily contributed.

The earliest example in Rome of a church so planned is that of St. John Lateran, which, however, has been completely remodelled by subsequent additions. The next in point of time was the Cathedral Church of St. Peter, erected near the spot in which the saint was martyred in the circus of Nero. It was torn down in 1506 to make room for the present cathedral commenced by Julius II; but the appearance of its principal faÇade is known from Raphael’s mural painting “Incendio del Borgo,” in the stanze of the Vatican, and there is a record of its plan. The latter shows that the basilica building was approached by an atrium, surrounded by either colonnades or arcades, enclosing a rectangular space, open to the sky and having a fountain in the centre. With the water the worshippers sprinkled themselves, a symbol of purification still preserved in the “holy-water” vessel, placed inside the entrance of Roman Catholic churches.

The end arcade, abutting on the church proper, was used by penitents and called the narthex. The body of the church was divided, as in the basilica halls, into central nave and side aisles—the latter sometimes double. Across the end of the nave extended the bema or sanctuary, corresponding to the space raised and enclosed for litigants and lawyers in the basilica. Its ends projected beyond the line of the main building, forming rudimentary transepts, which may have been used as sacristies for the robing of the clergy and the preservation of the sacred vessels and other ritual objects. The central part of the bema was elevated and occupied by the altar which was surmounted by a baldachino or canopy, supported on four columns. Behind the altar was the apse, lined with seats; those of the Roman assessors being now occupied by the presbyters, while the centre one of the quÆster or praetor became the bishop’s throne. For the transference of the latter to the side of the choir was of later date.

The officiating priest stood behind the altar, facing the congregation and the east. For as yet the main faÇade was not the western, a fact of interest when we recall that while the Hellenic architects built facing the four points of the compass and made the chief entrance on the east, the Romans were indifferent to the matter of orientation.

In certain instances as that of S. Clemente, in Rome, the accommodation for the choir projected from the bema into the nave. It was enclosed with low screen walls called Cancelli (whence was derived the word chancel); the side walls projecting to afford space for two reading desks, or ambones; respectively, the Gospel ambo and the Epistle ambo.

Treatment of Columns.—There were two ways of treating the columns. In the earlier type of churches, the aisles were spanned by arches, while those of the nave supported an entablature. But this necessitated a narrow intercolumniation, considerably obstructing the view. Accordingly, the practice ensued of placing the columns further apart and surmounting them with arches. The first example of this use of arcades in a nave is believed to occur in the northern gallery of the Palace of Diocletian in Spalato, Dalmatia. Both methods continued to be employed and were sometimes combined in the same building. Over the entablature or arches, as the case might be, was a high stretch of wall, rising above the level of the aisle roof, pierced with a row of clerestory windows. The nave and aisles terminated in arches, that of the former, the principal entrance to the sanctuary, being called the Arch of Triumph. The roofs were of timber; that of the nave rising to a ridge and finishing at each end in a gable, while a slope from below the clerestory covered the side aisles. The construction work of the roofs was usually hidden in the interior by flat ceilings, beamed and coffered.

The decoration of the interior included the use of antique columns, which were sometimes adapted to their new place by cutting down or removing the bases. The walls above the nave arcading or entablature were adorned with mosaics, which also embellished the space above the Arch of Triumph and the semi-dome of the apse. The floors were covered with geometric patterns of marble sliced from columns and other antique fragments.

The principal examples of basilican churches, still existing in Rome, are St. Paul-without-the-walls, S. Clemente and S. Maria Maggiore. The first named is of modern construction, completed in 1854, but preserves the plan and dimensions of the older church which was destroyed by fire in 1823. It had been begun in 380 by Theodosius, on a plan closely following that of the old St. Peter’s, except that the transepts of the bema project less and the atrium was abandoned, leaving only the narthex. Its construction and embellishment were continued by other emperors and by many popes, the munificence of the latter being commemorated in a series of portrait medallions of the popes which extends in a band above the arcade-arches on each side of the nave. The wall space above them is veneered with rare marbles, enclosing panels filled with paintings representing incidents in the life of St. Paul. Amid the somewhat extreme sumptuousness of the interior a feeling of the older character of a basilican church is preserved in the mosaics of the fifth century which adorn the arch of triumph, and in those of the apse which date from the early part of the thirteenth century.

S. Maria Maggiore presents an original basilican plan of nave and single aisles, from each of which during the Renaissance was built out a square side chapel, surmounted by domes, giving the plan the form of a cross. But the interior of the nave dates from the time of Sixtus III in the fourth century and shows on each side a series of Ionic columns, supporting an entablature. Above this, as also over the arch of triumph, are mosaics of the fifth century.

The Church of S. Clemente is notable for the retention of the atrium and also for the termination of the aisles in apses, a feature which suggests Byzantine influence.

Circular and Polygonal Plans.—In addition to the basilican buildings of this period were some which involved a circular or polygonal plan, suggested probably by the circular temples and tombs of the Romans. They were applied in the early Christian era both to tombs, which in some cases were afterward converted into churches, and to baptistries. The latter were independent buildings, so called from their use at first solely for the sacrament of baptism. In later times, however, it became the custom to place the font inside the church; yet as late as the eleventh century was erected the famous Baptistry of Florence, in which even to this day every child born within the city is baptised.

The examples in Rome of circular or polygonal buildings are the Baptistry which forms part of the group of buildings of S. John Lateran, the Tomb of S. Constanza, the daughter of Constantine, which was converted into a church in 1256, and the church of S. Stefano Rotondo.

The general character of the Roman tomb was a circular mass, superimposed on a square podium. The cylindrical mass was sometimes decorated with pilasters, supporting an entablature, and occasionally was surrounded by a peristyle, while its roof was apt to be conical.

In early Christian architecture this principle of construction was developed. The peristyle was enclosed by outer walls, and the lower part of the walls of the cylindrical mass was replaced by columns. Thus, in the Baptistry of S. John, which has been called the Baptistry of Constantine, the conical roof is supported by a circle of eight columns, in two stories.

The Tomb of S. Constanza has a dome which is supported on twelve pairs of granite columns, while the wall of the circular aisle is inset with sixteen recesses, alternately apsidal and rectangular in shape, one of the latter being opened through to form the entrance. The sarcophagus of the saint which formerly occupied one of the niches, is now in the Vatican Museum. Its sides are carved with genii gathering grapes—a motive which is also represented in the mosaics that adorn the vaulting of the church’s circular aisle.

S. Stefano Rotondo, though much reduced from its original size, is said to be still the largest circular church in existence. The wall of the cylinder, surmounted by a wooden conical roof, is supported on a circular entablature, carried by antique columns. It was surrounded, when built by Simplicius in the fifth century, by double circular aisles, covered by a sloping roof. The latter was supported by columns and arches, while the external wall was decorated with pilasters. Traces of these are still apparent; otherwise the outer aisle has disappeared and the present exterior represents the walling up of the spaces between the columns. This was done by Nicholas V in the fifteenth century, by which time the edifice, once richly decorated with marble veneers and mosaics, had fallen into decay. Its lateral walls are now covered with horribly naturalistic scenes of martyrdom, executed at the end of the seventeenth century.

Syrian Examples.—Syria has disclosed to explorers—of whom the late Marquis of VogÜÉ and Dr. H. C. Butler of the American ArchÆological Expedition have been the foremost—a number of interesting monuments, both civic and religious, erected between the third and eighth centuries. While details of moulding and ornament appear to have been copied from those of Roman remains, the methods of construction were worked out by the builders themselves. They seem to have retained the Phoenician preference for using the largest stones that could be quarried, transported, and put in place. Thus, arches were frequently carved out of a single stone, and when voussoirs were used, they were either few in number or, if numerous, of great height and depth. Large slabs of stone were also employed for roofing, especially in houses. In imitating antique details the architects appear to have had little if any feeling for their constructional origin or meaning; the capital and half the shaft of a column, for example, being carved out of one piece of stone, while the remainder of the shaft and the base were cut out of another. On the other hand, they developed for themselves certain fine features of construction, as for instance, in the arcading of their basilican churches, in which the columns were sometimes replaced by large rectangular piers, carrying arches of great width. An example of this impressive method is found in the interior of the Church of Kalb-Lauzeh. This corresponds with the larger Church of Turmanin, the western faÇade of which shows a very independent spirit of design. It has a broad arched entrance, flanked by two square towers, connected over the doorway by an open gallery, constructed with columns.

A corresponding inventiveness marked their use of the basilican plan. A fine example is the large Church of S. Simeon Stylites at Kalat-Seman. The nucleus of the plan is an octagonal court, open to the sky, in the centre of which stood the pillar on which the saint spent thirty years of his life. This court forms the intersection or crossing of four rectangular wings, arranged in shape of a cross, each one of which has a basilican form, the nave and aisles of the eastern one terminating in apses.

Another very interesting plan occurs in the Cathedral at Borah. It presents a circle inscribed in a square, in the angles of which are apsidal recesses projecting from the circle. Moreover, from the east side of the square project three short rectangles, terminating in apses, which suggest the prolongation of the nave and aisles that have been interrupted by the circle. Nothing but the foundations of this church remain. Meanwhile, the Church of S. George at Esrah shows a similar plan and is surmounted by a high elliptical dome. It is conjectured that these two churches were the prototypes of S. Sergius, Constantinople, and S. Vitale at Ravenna, which will be discussed later, and of many corresponding churches of Byzantine architecture.

Ravenna.—In the development of early Christian architecture a very interesting part was played by Ravenna. For this city, situated on the Adriatic (though the sea has since receded to a distance of six miles), was the chief port by which the trade of Constantinople or Byzantium entered Italy. Accordingly some of the tombs and churches present a fusion of Byzantine and Syrian influences with Roman. The change from the basilican type is especially marked in the character of the plan and by the adoption of domes.

Thus the Baptistry of Ravenna is an octagonal structure, surmounted by a dome of hollow tiles. The Tomb of Galla Placidia is cruciform in plan with a lantern raised over the crossing or intersection of the arms of the cross. The lantern is pierced with four windows and surmounted by a dome, supported on pendentives—a method of construction, peculiarly Byzantine, which will be considered presently.

When Theodoric the Great, King of the Ostro-Goths and ruler of Northern Italy, selected Ravenna as his capital, he built the Church of S. Apollinare Nuovo, importing twenty-four marble columns from Constantinople and employing Byzantine artists and artisans. The plan is basilican, though the atrium and apse have been removed by subsequent alterations, but the interior is richly embellished with Byzantine mosaics. The latter also adorn the larger basilican Church of S. Apollinare-in-Classe, so called from its being situated near the port. Its columns also are distinguished by the peculiarly Byzantine feature of the impost block, to be described later.

After the death of Theodoric in 536 the Emperor Justinian, having through his general, Belisarius, routed the Goths from the country, made Ravenna the political capital of Italy, under the authority of an exarch. Then was built, probably as Court Church, the famous example of Byzantine influence, the Church of S. Vitale. We will return to this after a consideration of what is involved in the Byzantine style.

Byzantine.—The term Byzantine is applied to the style of architecture gradually developed in Byzantium after Constantine, in A.D. 324, transferred the capital of the Roman Empire to that city. Its distinctive features are the use of brick and stone in place of concrete; the use of imposts in connection with columns and arches; the character of the carved ornament applied to surfaces and, most important of all, a system of covering rectangular spaces with domes. It reached its highest point of development under the Emperor Justinian, between the years 527 and 565.

The style was the result of evolution; a product of the combination of principles of construction derived from Roman, Early Christian and Syrian architecture, and from the traditional methods of the Iran builders of Assyria; affected in matters of decoration by the luxurious taste of the Orient.

The favourite material of Byzantine builders was brickwork; the bricks being one and one-half inches in thickness, like the Roman, and laid between layers of mortar of similar thickness. In the case of cornices the bricks were moulded to the required contours and when used for the shafts of columns were circular in outline. The mortar was composed of sand, lime, and crushed pottery, tiles, or bricks. Except in the case of marble columns which were cut and put in place by masons, the whole of the preliminary work was done by bricklayers who constructed the entire “carcass” of the building. When this

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FROM THE INTERIOR OF SAN VITALE, RAVENNA

Showing the “Impost” above Column, and Decoration.

Pp. 202-204, 207

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TOMB OF GALLA PLACIDIA, RAVENNA

P. 201

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DIAGRAM Showing How the Pendentives, Resting on Four Angles of a Square, Provide a Circular Base for the Dome. P. 205

SECTION OF SS. SERGIUS AND BACCHUS, CONSTANTINOPLE Showing Fluted or Melon-Shaped Dome, Supported on Eight Arches and “Squinches.” Note Lights Round Dome. P. 206

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SECTION OF S. SOPHIA, CONSTANTINOPLE

Showing Pendentive Dome. P. 207. Small Diagram, at Right, Shows How a Dome Was Made to Rest on Eight Piers Enclosing an Octagon, by Niches or Squinches.

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EXTERIOR OF S. SOPHIA

Showing the Immense Buttresses That Sustain the Thrust of the Dome. Minarets Added Later Are of Characteristically Turkish Type. P. 207

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INTERIOR OF S. SOPHIA

Showing Pendentives and Three of the Dome Arches (Two of Which Are Closed and Pierced with Lights). Note also Ring of Lights Round Neck of Dome. Pp. 202, 205, 207

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PLAN OF S. SOPHIA P. 208

PLAN OF S. MARK’S, VENICE P. 209

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EXTERIOR OF S. MARK’S, VENICE

Showing Gothic Details Imposed on Byzantine Design. P. 209

had dried and settled, the masons and the decorators completed the work, by overlaying the walls, domes, and pediments of the interior with marble or mosaics.

The floors were paved with richly coloured marbles, in opus sectile or opus Alexandrinum. Marble, also, cut in thin veneers and arranged so that their veining produced symmetrical designs, was applied to the walls. Marble, again, but incised with carved ornament, covered the soffits of the arches, the archivolts, and spandrels, while the vaulting was resplendent with mosaics, composed of figures and ornaments, executed in enamelled glass upon a background of gold or blue or, more rarely, pale green.

Colour was pre-eminently the motive of the interior decoration and to this end carved work was subordinated. The ornament was in very low relief, spreading over the surface in intricate patterns, that suggest the delicate enrichment of lace. Mouldings were replaced by bands of mosaic or marble, carved or smooth. The chief motive of the carved ornamentation was the mingling of the acanthus and anthemion. The treatment of both was rather Hellenic than Roman; the foliage having pointed ends; but it was deeply channelled and drilled with deep holes at the springing of the leaves. In fact, the use of the drill as well as the chisel was characteristic of Byzantine carving and emphasises the suggestion of the ornament being raised rather than, as in Roman decoration, applied. Corresponding to the general flatness of the ornament is the constraint of the contours of the mouldings, suggestive of Asiatic languor and in marked contrast to the vigorous profiles of classic architecture. The impression, indeed, of the whole scheme of decoration is rather one of soft richness, as carving melts into colour and colour deepens and glows and finally passes into the gold or depths of azure of the vaulting.

When the supply of antique columns was exhausted the Byzantine architects began to imitate them, but soon departed from the classic type. In certain cases the capital retained something of its derivation from the Ionic or Corinthian styles; but gradually a new type was evolved, which was distinguished by being convex to the outside rather than concave. The motive appears to have been to give additional support to the arch, for which purpose an impost was, as the name implies, “placed upon” the capital. It consists of a block, which projects beyond the edges of the capital to fit the extra thickness of the wall and may represent, as has been suggested, the survival of a part of the architrave of the discarded entablature. In the decoration of the capitals the foliage was sometimes enclosed in frames of interlace, or the latter took the form of a basket, on which birds are perching.

Pendentive Dome.—We have now to consider the most characteristic feature of Byzantine architecture—the Dome. Briefly, in the 200 years that divided Justinian from Constantine the Byzantine architects perfected a principle of dome construction by which they crowned a square plan with the circle of a dome.

The Romans confined their domes to circular or polygonal buildings. Meanwhile they had worked out the construction of groined vaulting upon four supports. The Byzantine achievement was to make four supports carry a dome. It was accomplished by developing the element of construction—the pendentive.

We have already noted the bas-relief found at Koyunjik, which shows that the Assyrians understood the crowning of small square buildings with domes. While actual examples have perished, the tradition of this construction seems to have survived in the East. For in the third century A.D., when the Persians established the Sassanian Empire under the impulse of a movement that sought to restore the ideals and habits of the old national life, the builders erected domes in the palaces of Serbistan and Firuzabad.

The method they adopted was to bridge each angle of the square, at some distance below the top, with a small arch. On these they erected two small arches that projected beyond the face of the original arch and accordingly extended the width of the bridge. They continued this process of superimposing tier upon tier of arches, until the bridge was level with the top of the square, by which time the latter was transformed into an octagon. Then, by inserting a corbel or bracket in each angle of the octagon and taking advantage of the thickness of the masonry, they were able to adjust a dome to the structure. This system of dome-support, we shall find, was adopted in Gothic architecture, where the arches are called squinches.

Another method of dome-support, found in the Mosque of Damascus and frequently employed in the churches of Asia Minor, was to bridge the angle with a semi-circular niche.

Meanwhile what the Byzantine architects developed was a geometrically exact system of converting the square into a circle by means of concave triangular members that are specifically called pendentives.

The character and function of a pendentive may be readily grasped by a practical experiment. Cut an orange into two hemispheres. Lay the flat of one on four reels, placed at the four angles of a square, inscribed within the circle. These reels represent the piers on which the pendentives are to be constructed. Now by four perpendicular incisions of the knife cut off the segments of the hemisphere that project beyond the square. The lateral spaces between the piers will now be spanned by four arches. Finally, a trifle above the top of the arches, make a horizontal cut, removing the upper part of the hemisphere. The rind which remains represents the four pendentives. The flesh inside of it may be likened to the timber centering used in the construction of the pendentives and, now that the latter are completed, may be removed. Remove also the flesh from inside the upper part of the hemisphere. It will then be a hollow cap, which you can replace on the top of the pendentives. You now have an instance of a dome and pendentives included in a single hemisphere. More usually, however, the architect makes the curve of the dome different from that of the pendentives. Frequently, too, to give the dome superior distinction, he constructs a cylindrical wall on the circle of the pendentives, and on this drum, as it is called, elevates his dome.

Scientifically stated: “If a hemisphere be cut by five planes, four perpendicular to its base and bounding a square inscribed therein, and the fifth parallel to the base and tangent to the semi-circular intersection made by the first four, there will remain of the original surface only four triangular spaces bounded by arcs of circles. These are called pendentives.” (Professor Hamlin.)

The first church built by Justinian was SS. Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople. The part dedicated to the latter saint—a small basilica—was destroyed by the Turks. The remainder presents the plan of a rectangle enclosing an octagon on which rests a dome of a curious, fluted, melon shape.

A few years later was erected the church of S. Vitale in Ravenna, probably as the Court Church. Its plan is an octagon within an octagon; the inner one being surmounted by a dome.

The domical arrangement of both these churches may have been originally derived from the Pantheon, modified by the example in Rome, of what is called the Temple of Minerva Medica, though it was probably a nymphÆum. This building is decagonal with niches projecting from nine of the sides, while the tenth provides the entrance. The dome, of concrete ribbed with tiles, is built over an inner decagon of ten piers carrying ten arches. These in turn support a decagonal drum, pierced with windows, the angles at the top being filled in with rudimentary pendentives. The same principle of construction reappears in both S. Sergius and S. Vitale; the dome of the latter being composed, for the sake of lightness, of earthenware, amphora-shaped pots, the bottom of one being fixed in the lip of another. It is sheathed on the outside with a wooden roof.

This Church of S. Vitale became the model on which Charlemagne based his domical church at Aix-la-Chapelle, which was built as a royal tomb, A.D. 796-814, and was afterward used as the crowning-place of the Emperors of the West.

S. Sophia.—Finally, the pendentive system was fully developed in Justinian’s church in Constantinople dedicated to the Holy Wisdom—Hagia Sophia, called, though erroneously, S. Sophia. It marks the highest development of the Byzantine genius for domical construction.

The architects were Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus, who began the work in 532 and finished it in 537. The plan shows four mighty piers, 25 feet square, set at the angles of a square of 107 feet. These support four arches and intermediate pendentives of noble height, the apex of the dome being 175 feet from the pavement. For the original dome, having collapsed in 555, was replaced by a higher one, lighted by the introduction of forty circular-headed windows around the spring of the curve; an arrangement not only excellent in admitting light to the interior, but also as wonderfully impressive in its way as the single eye of the Pantheon. Rows of small circular headed windows are also pierced in the screens which fill in the north and south arches.

Abutting on the east and west arches of this central mass are semi-domes, supported upon the central piers and two others. And from these project, as in S. Sergius and S. Vitale, small semicircular domes, sustained by an upper and lower story of arcades. Thus was created a vast oval-ended hall, 267 feet long by 107, from every part of which the summit of the dome is visible.

Outside this central feature are two side-aisles, each having two stories, separated from the nave by arcading and formed of a series of columns and vaulting. As in all Early Christian and Byzantine churches which have upper and lower galleries, the former were occupied by women worshippers. The outer walls on the north and south sides, as the plan shows, are reinforced by immense buttresses, 25 feet wide and 75 long, which appear on the outside of the buildings like huge pylons. On the inside they are pierced with arches on each story. These buttresses withstand the thrust of the dome which is reinforced on the east and west by the semi-domes.

The edifice, which occupies practically a square, is approached on the west side by a narthex of magnificent proportions, 200 feet long by 30 wide, which is divided like the aisles into an upper and lower story. So far “the plan resembles that of S. Sergius, if the latter were cut in half and a dome on pendentives inserted over the intervening square and the whole doubled in size.” In front of the narthex, however, extends a second one, opening, as in some of the basilican churches, into an atrium.

The exterior walls are faced with alternate courses of brick and stone and the domes, all of which are visible, are covered with a sheathing of lead.

S. Mark’s, Venice.—S. Sophia is a marvel not only of construction but also of unity of design. It is in this respect, among others, that it is superior to S. Mark’s in Venice, which was erected by Byzantine builders at the end of the eleventh century. Venice, like Ravenna, was in close touch with Constantinople and when she determined to build a cathedral to her patron saint, to replace an earlier basilican church destroyed by fire, it was natural that she should look to that city for the character of the design as well as for artists and artisans to execute it. The actual model was the Church of the Holy Apostles, in Constantinople, founded by Constantine, rebuilt by Justinian, and destroyed by the Turks in 1463 to make room for the mosque of Sultan Mahomet II.

The plan is a Greek cross, that is to say, a cross with the four parts of practically equal length, grouped around a central square. Each of the five divisions is crowned by a dome, supported on pendentives and reinforced by transverse barrel vaults. The transept and choir domes are slightly smaller than the ones over the crossing and the nave, because of the restrictions of space caused by the chapel of S. Isadore in the north transept, the Ducal Palace on the south, and the retention of the apse of the ancient basilica. Originally all the domes were sheathed externally with lead, but at a later date were covered with the lead-sheathed wooden lanterns now existing. With their high-pitched curves and ornamental terminals they represent a serious deviation from the true Byzantine style.

A similar departure from the latter is exhibited in the west faÇade. This was completed in the fifteenth century and involves a curious mixture of Orientalism and fanciful Gothic with features, such as the clusters of columns in two tiers, flanking the five entrances, which serve no structural purpose and have no architectural justification. They are purely picturesque. But S. Mark’s was the city’s shrine, to which each succeeding century added some embellishment and often with more zeal than discretion.

It is the interior rather that commands our admiration. For notwithstanding certain distractions, even here, of later debased styles of mosaic, enough of the tenth and eleventh century embellishments remain to dignify the decoration. And in no other building in the world is there so marvellous an ensemble of coloured marbles, alabaster, and glass mosaics; or such subtleties, delicacies, and complexities of light and shadow.

Greece and Russia.—In Greece and Russia the Byzantine has continued to be the official style of the Greek Church. In Russia, however, many fantastic elements have been introduced, particularly the bulbous form of the domes.

As an example of domestic Byzantine architecture may be mentioned the Monastery of Mount Athos on a promontory of Saloniki, overlooking the Ægean Sea.

“In Armenia are also interesting examples of late Armeno-Byzantine architecture, showing applications to exterior carved detail of elaborate interlaced ornament, looking like a re-echo of Celtic M.SS. illumination, itself, no doubt, originating in Byzantine traditions.” (Hamlin.)

CHAPTER III
MUHAMMEDAN, ALSO CALLED SARACENIC CIVILISATION

The introduction at this point of Muhammedan or Saracenic architecture unfortunately breaks the continuity of the evolution of Early Christian and Byzantine architecture into the Romanesque and thence into the Gothic. Accordingly, some writers reserve this chapter until the end of their book, treating it as an independent interlude.

That method, on the other hand, has the disadvantage of not giving the subject its proper place in the sequence of history; and since an important motive of the present volume is to represent the growth of architecture as the product of changing conditions of civilisation, it seems more in accordance with this aim to let the conditions govern the order in which the architectural phases are presented. So, in the inevitable choice between two evils of arrangement we will select that which, from our point of view, seems to be the least.

For it is true that Muhammedan or Saracenic civilisation represents but an interlude in the progress of Christian civilisation. What, however, would have been the outcome, if Charles Martel, in 732, had not crushed the advance of the Muhammedans into France? They might have fastened upon the latter as they had upon Spain, the north of Africa, Egypt, Syria. From France they might have descended upon Italy, and gradually drawn tighter the circle of their conquest until the Western as well as the Eastern Empire was entirely in their grasp. It needs but a little effort of imagination to realise that on the issue of the battle of Poictiers hung the fortunes of Europe; the survival of European civilisation and possibly the continuance of Christianity.

In fact, what was trembling in the balance was the extension of a new and vigorous power over a social order that, except in the Frankish kingdom, had grown more and more disintegrated and feeble. For in the decline of Rome even her conquerors had been involved; the various other Gothic nations in adapting the decay of her system had been corrupted by it. The only unifying and uplifting force that glimmered amid the general prostration was that of the Church, which might have been engulfed in Islamism if the Franks had not prevailed at Poictiers.

For in the present day we associate Islamism with the unprogressive nations, whereas in the eighth century it was the symbol of progressiveness. Its spiritual ideal was, at least, as high as that of Christianity; while its intellectual and material ideals were superior to those of Europe.

Shall we speak of Saracenic civilisation or Saracenic architecture as some do, or follow the example of others who substitute the term Muhammedan? The former word was probably derived from the Latin Saraceni, which was employed by the Romans to designate the Bedouins who roamed a part of the Syro-Arabian desert, and committed depredations on the frontier of the Empire. In the Middle Ages Saracen came to be used as a general term for Moslems, especially those who had penetrated into Spain. This latter use is too narrow, while the general use conveys no meaning.

Muhammedan, on the other hand, implies a follower of Muhammed or Mahomet, and it was the oneness of faith that first united the Arab tribesmen and in time gave a uniformity of ideal to their spread of conquest from the Pillars of Hercules to Northern India. While the character of the civilisation varied throughout this vast empire, being coloured by local and racial characteristics that reacted on the styles of architecture, it was everywhere impregnated with one belief. There is no god but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet.

Muhammed was born about 570 in Mecca, in the Arabian peninsula; a place hitherto of little importance, which had a cube-shaped sanctuary, the Kaaba, enshrining a Black Stone. It was the token or fetish of some god of nature; for some kind of nature worship, including the worship of the Sun, Moon, and Earth seems to have been the traditional religion of Arabia. Meanwhile, Judaism had penetrated into the country and Christianity had followed. Each figured in Muhammed’s imagination as a world religion. Both professed one God. One had its prophets; the other, its Messiah, and both its book of inspired revelation.

Accordingly, when the vision of Muhammed embraced the idea of founding at once a new nation and a new religion, he borrowed from both Judaism and Christianity and proclaimed himself the new prophet or Messiah of the one God and made known the New Revelation, which was embodied in the Koran. The faith of Islam, as preached by Muhammed and practised by him and his followers, was essentially one of proselytising by force. “The sword,” he taught, “is the key of Heaven and Hell. A drop of blood shed in the cause of God, a night spent in arms, avails more than two months of fasting and prayer. Whoso falls in battle his sins are forgiven. At the Day of Judgment his wounds shall be resplendent with vermilion and odoriferous as musk, and the loss of limbs shall be supplied by angels’ wings.”

Muhammed’s self-imposed task of subjugating and uniting Arabia for the Arabians was begun after his flight from Mecca to Medina, the celebrated Hejira (Arab hijra) which occurred on the Jewish Day of Atonement, Sept. 30, A.D. 622. The further work of conquering the countries on which the Arab tribes had been dependent, Syria, Abyssinia, Persia, was continued by his followers.

Of great importance in the history of architecture was the conquest of Persia (632-651), for here the Muhammedan influence developed a style that was distinguished by fine structural as well as aesthetic qualities and generally developed a beautiful revival of the various arts of decorative design. And it was Persian Muhammedan that strongly influenced the architecture of India, where Muhammedan conquest was established about A.D. 1000.

Meanwhile, the Arabic Muhammedans had founded a dynasty under the Ommayads with its capital in Damascus and a later one under the Abassids, whose most celebrated caliph was Haroun-el-Raschid of Bagdad, made famous by the “Thousand and One Nights.” Conquest was extended westward, gradually comprising Egypt, the north of Africa, Sicily, and Spain.

In 1453 the Crescent displaced the Cross in Constantinople.

Yet, notwithstanding the divisions of the Muhammedans and the immense distances separating them, a unity not only religious but also intellectual was maintained. The Muhammedans learned rapidly from the peoples they conquered and established for the diffusion of learning a sort of university system of travelling scholarships. Aided by Arabic as the universal language of learning, students journeyed from teacher to teacher, from the Atlantic to Samarcand, gathering hundreds of certificates. The education was designed to turn out theologians and lawyers; but theology included studies in metaphysics and logic, and the canon law required a knowledge of arithmetic, mensuration, and practical astronomy.

Technical education was maintained by gilds who perpetuated the “mysteries” of the craft through a system of apprenticeships. And it is to be noted that there was no distinction made between so-called arts and so-called crafts. The gild-system covered all kinds of constructive work from engineering to the making of a needle, and if the work permitted elements of beauty and decoration these were, as a matter of course, included. Hence the proficiency and inventiveness and exquisite perfection of workmanship displayed by the Muhammedan craftsmen.

But their Koran enjoined a literal obedience to the Mosaic law against “the making of any graven image, or the likeness of anything that is in Heaven above or in the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth.” Accordingly, there were no sculptors or painters in the full sense of the term; only decorators of moulded, engraved, or coloured ornament, the motives of which were confined to conventionalised flower and leaf forms and to geometric designs of practically endless variations of the straight line and curve, in meander, interlace, and fret, into which they often wove texts from the Koran or the sacred name of Allah. It is to these designs by Arab artists, influenced to some extent by Byzantine, that the term arabesque was first applied.

Meanwhile it was the practice of Muhammedanism to absorb as far as possible the traditions of each nation it conquered. Gradually, therefore, the strictness of its orthodoxy was modified. In Persia, for example, the representation of animals was permitted in the arts of design, and the representation of human beings followed.

Similarly, the architectural style of each locality was affected by the previously existing architecture. The examples which remain are chiefly of mosques, tombs, houses, and palaces.

The word mosque comes to us through the French mosquÉe; the Spanish equivalent is mesquita, while the Arabs call the “place of prostration”—masjid. The nucleus of every one is the mihrab or niche in a wall, indicating the kibleh or direction of the Great Mosque at Mecca, with its shrine, the Kaaba. Beside the mihrab was a pulpit, mimbar, for preaching, and sometimes in front of it, for the reading of the Koran, stood a dikka or platform raised upon columns. Shelter for the worshippers was provided by arcades, which in the immediate vicinity of the mihrab were often enclosed with lattice work, thus forming a prayer-chamber—maksura. The size of the mosque was indefinitely enlarged by the addition of more arcades, surrounding usually an open court, in the centre of which, as in the atrium of the Early Christian basilicas, was a fountain for ritual ablution.

The tomb was usually distinguished by a dome and during the lifetime of its founder served the purpose of a pleasure-house; corresponding somewhat to the Roman nymphÆum, and, as in the case of the Taj Mahal, set in the midst of a beautiful system of gardens, water-basins, and terraces.

In his house also the Muhammedan jealously guarded his domestic privacy. He followed the Romans in leaving the exterior of his house plain, while centering all its luxury and comfort around an open interior court. Special quarters were provided for the women and the seclusion of their lives within the harem led to two features which are characteristic of Oriental houses, the balcony and the screen. That the occupants might take the air, balconies were built out from the walls both of the court and the exterior; and screened with lattice work, on the designs of which great skill and beauty were expended.

The palaces represented the extension of the house-plan by the addition of halls of ceremony. Sometimes, as in the case of the Alhambra, they combined the character of a citadel, and were always generously supplied with water, as well for the ablutions enjoined in the Koran, as for purposes of beauty. The Arabs, in fact, readily learned the Roman methods of engineering and hydraulics and in their houses and cities and in the irrigation of land carried the system to a high degree of perfection.

The system by which learning and culture circulated throughout the Muhammedan world was illustrated in the spread of the arts of design. Persia, for example, was a centre of the ceramic art, and wherever the Muhammedan civilisation spread, the art of pottery was revived and took on new and distinctive splendour. Enamel colours of the purest tones and finest translucence were developed and the glazes were distinguished by extraordinary lustre. They were lavished not only on vessels of practical service but also on tiles for the decoration of walls.

With equal originality the Muhammedan artists developed the metal crafts both in the direction of tempering the metal and in its decoration; introducing and carrying to a wonderful pitch of perfection the engraving, encrusting and inlaying of the surfaces with ornamental designs; a process known as damascening, since Damascus was the earliest important centre of the craft.

Further, in weaving they developed a corresponding skill and feeling for design. Rugs and carpets, laid on the floor or spread over doorways, were the chief furnishing of a Muhammedan home, while a small rug was carried by the worshipper or his servant to the Mosque to protect his bare feet while he prayed. These “prayer rugs” were frequently embellished with a representation of a mihrab, enclosed in borders bearing Koran texts, and were of silk of finest weave; that is to say, with an extraordinary number of knots to the square inch. There is a fragment of silk weave in the Altman collection at the Metropolitan Museum, of Indian craftsmanship, each square inch of which embraces 2500 knots.

In a way, however, the very exquisiteness of Muhammedan craftsmanship prepared the way for its decay. It originated in the limitation of motives permitted to the decorator, who in consequence had to satisfy his love of perfection by resort to delicacies and intricacies of design beyond which there was no further possibility of creative invention.

CHAPTER IV
MUHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE

The Koran prescribed that every believer when praying should face toward Mecca. This could be done as readily in the open desert as in a building, so the early mosques were probably of little importance. It was only as the Arab tribesmen extended their conquests to the neighbouring civilisations and came in touch with the temples of antiquity and the churches of the present, that they began to raise handsome places of worship for their own religion.

As Muhammedanism spread eastward through Syria to Persia and later to India and westward into Egypt, along the northern shore of Africa into Spain and finally occupied Constantinople and Turkey, it absorbed much of the civilisation of each country and employed the constructive methods, the workmen, and the materials which it found ready to hand. Consequently, the architectural expression of Muhammedanism, while retaining everywhere certain essential characteristics, varies locally. It offers notable distinctions according as it is found in Syria, Persia, India, Egypt, Spain, and Turkey.

Mosque of Mecca.—The Great Mosque of Mecca, called by Moslems the Haram El Masjid el Haram, or Baisullahi el Haram, the “House of God, the Prohibited,” represents a succession of additions, extending from early Muhammedan times to the middle of the sixteenth century. It comprises an enclosure, 300 yards square, the walls of which are pierced with nineteen gateways and

MOSQUE OF EL AZHAR, CAIRO

Showing Egyptian Types of Minarets

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

The period of architecture to which this chapter forms an introduction is from A.D. 1000 to 1200. It is usually known as the Romanesque period because the architecture in certain structural particulars represented a return to Roman methods. But the application of the principles varied in different parts of what had been the Roman Empire under the influence of local conditions; according as the locality was Northern Italy, or Northern or Southern France, or England, or the Rhine Provinces of Germany.

On the other hand, when we come to consider the social and political conditions, the word Romanesque is too narrow. It was, it is true, a period of gradual reconstruction of order upon the ruins of the Roman Empire and one of the forces that made for order was the partial revival by Charlemagne of Roman Law. The latter became a model by which the slow process of organising society anew could shape itself. So far, at least, the social tendency of the period was Romanesque. But after all, this was only a detail of the new order, and by no means the most significant.

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

Romanesque is the term applied to the architectural style of the early Middle Ages which prevailed from 1000 to 1200. It manifests considerable variety, according to locality, but at the same time a distinct character common to all branches, in that it embodied a return to certain Roman principles of construction, modified more or less by early Christian and Byzantine methods. It represents a stage in the evolution of Gothic architecture.

In such localities as the North of Italy and Provence, where Roman remains were plentiful, the Romanesque architecture made free use of antique columns and details. But in the Rhine Provinces, the North of France, and England, the lack of such materials and of skilful workmen encouraged the substitution of the pier for the column and caused the latter to be of simpler and in many cases ruder design. Necessity, in fact, compelled the adoption of new forms. Moreover, the desire of the Church to build permanently led to the use of stone in place of inflammable timber, especially in the building of the roofs. Accordingly, the use of vaulting was revived.

It was out of the application of these necessities of construction that the Romanesque style was evolved.

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 (she-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.

A typical example of the earlier period of Rhenish Romanesque is the Cathedral at Worms (1110-1200). Its design shows features that are characteristically Rhenish: an apse at both the west and east end, flanked in each case by two towers; the use of transepts at the west end as well as the east (the eastern ones being here omitted), the erection of octagonal lanterns over both crossings, and entrances on the north and south sides instead of the west.

The exterior exhibits a well-defined orderliness and picturesqueness. The walls are reinforced with projecting piers and pierced with deeply recessed, round-arch windows. Noticeable also is the effective use of corbel arcades beneath the gable ends of the roofs and in various string courses, while the richer emphasis of open arcades is applied with equal discretion and effectiveness. Another noteworthy feature in the towers is the use of dormers to embellish the conical or octagonal roof, which in effect are rudimentary spires.

Other early representative cathedrals are those of Spires, Treves, and Mayence while to the later period belongs the Church of the Apostles, Cologne (1220-1250). It offers a varied application of the same features in a singularly perfect design. The transepts and choir present a cluster of three apses round a low, octagonal lantern. The nave is short, twice the width of the side aisles and has western transepts and a square western tower. Especially fine are the exterior embellishments of the apses, consisting of two stories of blind arcading, surmounted by open arcades beneath the roof, while a corresponding sense of proportional dignity characterises the grouping of the eastern towers and lantern and the solitary distinction of the western tower. Here, as in three other examples of triapsal churches in Cologne—S. Maria-in-Capitol, S. Martin, and S. Cunibert—the domical vaulting is supported by squinches or pendentives.

The earliest example of nave vaulting is found in the Cathedral of Mayence, closely followed in the Cathedrals of Spires and Worms and the abbey church at Laach.

SPANISH ROMANESQUE

In Spain great impetus was given to cathedral building by the recapture of Toledo from the Moors in 1085. In architecture, as in painting, the Spaniards seem to have sought their artistic impulses from abroad, since the most important example of their early Romanesque style—the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostello—is a modified copy of S. Sernin, at Toulouse, Aquitaine. The plan is a Latin cross with aisles not only flanking the nave but also carried round the transepts and choir apse in the manner of the French chevÊt. The aisles are groin-vaulted, while a lofty barrel vault covers the nave, and an octagonal lantern crowns the crossing.

A special feature of Spanish Romanesque, also derived apparently from Aquitaine, is the beauty of the dome, which covers the crossing, as in the old Cathedral of Salamanca, the Collegiate Church at Toro and the Cathedral of Zamora. They are circular in the interior and octagonal on the outside with large turrets in the angles of the octagon. The interior dome is carried upon pointed arches, between which and the spring of the vault, in the case of Salamanca, are two tiers of arcaded windows. For the admission of light the arrangement is excellent, while the general character of these domes, covered on the outside with a low, steeple-like roof of stone, is admirably monumental.

Another characteristic Spanish feature, met with in some churches, as for example, that of San Millan, Sagovia, is an open cloister, on the outside of the aisle, from which doors open into it.

Carved ornament was rather sparingly applied, and except in minute details suggests no Moorish influence.