2. The Byzantine was the earliest branching off from the basilican style. It had its rise in Constantinople, and was the fruitful parent of nearly all the later styles of Christian and Mohammedan architecture. Its finest example was the Church of St. Sophia, re- built by Justinian (A.D. 538), which has the most perfect interior of any church ever built. See St. So- phia. The other best examples of this style are the Church of St.Vitale, in Ravenna, and of St. Mark's, in Venice. The style prevailed in Asia when it gave birth to the Saracenic and the Armenian (and hence to the Russian), and in Western and North-western Italy, as well as in parts of France and Spain. '•Its chief characteristics are a central flat dome, illumina- ted by a row of small windows at its base ; semicircu- lar "apsides" at the ends of the cross, covered with half domes ; a profuse use of the round arch in colon- nades and galleries within and without, of such varied sizes as to give great apparent size to the edifice ; slen- der windows; a rather low entrance; the walls, and even pillars, covered with mosaic paintings, ornament- al and scenic, thus giving the interior the greatest possible brilliancy and dignity; and capitals orna- mented by a most remarkably rich interweaving of conventional elements borrowed from the antique or from life, and interspersed with animals fantastically disposed.
:s. The different elements of the basilican and By- zantine stj les were united first in Lombardy, then on the Rhine, and produced the Romanesque, or round- \ arch Gothic, which, rising from the 7th to the lOtli centuries, and extending to the L2th, spread over most
of Europe. Ai g the finest examples of this style
arc the Cathedrals of Pisa, Vercelli, Parma, Modena, ami Lucca (in ftaly), of Worms, Bonn, Mayence, Speyer, and the churches of St. Gereon and Sti. Apos- toli in Cologne (on the Rhine), To this style belong the peculiar churches and round towers of North Ire- land, Scotland, Scandinavia, and the low round tower
of Newport, R. I. In the round-arch style the aisles were covered with long arches instead of open wooden roofs. Bell-towers — round (as in Italy, the north of Europe, and elsewhere), or square, or octagonal, built separate from the church edifice (as in Italy) or joined to the edifice (as north of the Alps) — were added. The pillars broke from the antique rules of proportion, and were moulded into clustered columns. Small arched galleries ran around parts or the whole of the church, within and without. The exterior especially was covered with numerous well-disposed arches, pi- lasters, and other ornaments ; richly-decorated door- ways and windows drew the eye to the central part of the facade, and the whole external had a dignity not to be found in any other style of church architec- ture. The style prevailed throughout all Europe (ex- cepting part of Italy) till the gradual introduction of the pointed arch gave rise to what is usually called the Gothic style.
4. Meanwhile the Saracenic style — another out- growth of the Byzantine — had spread, with its numer- ous modifications, over all Mohammedan countries. It was modified largely by the Sassanian style (an outgrowth of the late Roman, as developed by the fire- worshippers of Persia) in the East, by the Spanish Ro- manesque in Spain and Morocco, and by the basilican style in Sicily. It arose in the seventh century, and spread with truly tropical luxuriance and quickness of growth from Persia to the Atlantic. Deprived by the Mohammedan faith of the use of painting or sculp- ture, it developed an architectonic ornamentation un- surpassed in the history of architecture by its richness and purely conventional character. Poetry took the place of the formative arts of sculpture and painting in the inscriptions from the Koran that were interwo- ven with the luxuriant ornament of the walls and columns. The Byzantine dome remained the princi- pal feature of the roof, but this was hung with myriads of little semi-domes, producing a most fairy-like effect. Under the rich fancy of the Orient, color was used as freely as in the Egyptian style. The minaret was added, and gave a marvellous grace and lightness by its slender form. The pointed arch (adopted perhaps first from the court of a Christian monastery in Sicily erected in the sixth century) was soon adopted, and spread into the horse-shoo arch, finally developing it- self into the complicated interwoven arches of the
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ARCHITECTURE
Moorish style. The style arose in the seventh centu- ry, and extended to the fifteenth, its culminating pe- riod being from the ninth to the eleventh centuries. The Turkish style is more Byzantine than Saracenic.
Entrance to the Court of the Lions in the Alhainbra,.
more slender, filled with elaborate open-work orna- ments, and made, like a flower on its stalk, the richest part of the edifice. Sculpture was used profusely v. ith- in and without, and the windows were filled with paint- ings, in colored trlass, from Biblical scenes, making thus (as in the Egyptian arch) the other arts subordinate to the architecture; or, more strictly speaking, mere architectonic adjuncts. The principal characteristics of this style are as follows : The ground-plan is an ob- long rectangle, and for churches, the cross ; the crypt disappears ; the choir becomes smaller in proportion to the building, and ends in a polygon ; the walls of the nave are higher, so that the arches spring immediate- ly from the pillars ; the walls themselves are divided by arches, and the windows enlarged; the arches are all pointed, and connected by chamfers and astragals, as well as also the pillars. Outside are buttresses and piers to strengthen the building, connected with small turrets and ornamented foliage tracery ; the cornices are deeply excavated and much inclined (to facilitate the running off of water) ; the greatest number of or- naments are displayed on the facade, which is adorned with one or two towers, built on a square basis, but transformed afterward into an octagon, rising with a series of pillars, turrets, and high windows, and end- ing in an open-work octagonal pyramid ; the entrance of the churches consists of either one or three richly decorated portals; the ornaments consist principally of straight lines and segments of circles meeting in Among its most important monuments are the mosques ' acute angles, and of tracery representing natural ob- and tombs of the sultans at Cairo, and Bejapoor and i jects, such as vine or oak leaves, etc. The principal Delhi (India), the palaces and mosques of the Alham- j specimens of German Gothic style are to lie found in 'bra and of the Cuba (Palermo), and the Castle of Al- | the cathedrals of Cologne, Freiburg, Eegensburg, Vi- cazar at Segovia (Spain). In the twelfth century, I enna, Strasburg, etc. The French Gothic presents Central and Western Europe came into much more | some peculiarities ; thus, the foundation is generally intimate contact than former- ly with the Orient, especially through the Crusades, and the pointed arch and the spirit of ornamentation of the Saracenic art. were borrowed, and added largety to the development of the Gothic from the Roman- esque style.