RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Architecture
It was the only type which had great influence
on medieval architecture. The men of the Middle
Ages were by no means blind to the
ii. Basilica attractions of the style which we call
the the Byzantine; but the attempts made
Accepted in that style, as by Charlemagne at
Type of Aachen in imitation of San Vitale, and
Western by others after the Church of the Holy
Medieval Sepulcher had aroused the admiration
Churches, of the crusaders, were only sporadic;
they did not determine the future
progress of ecclesiastical architecture, which has
the basilica for its true starting-point.
It is worth while to examine the attitude of the different modern nations toward this inheritance of the past. In Rome building activity was never at a standstill, though a large part of it was mere restoration. But for six centuries after Gregory the Great (d. 604), people did not conceive the idea that they could build otherwise than as their fathers had built. The new churches of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, Santa Maria in Trastevere and San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, simply reproduce the scheme of the basilica; yet when Honorius III. (1216-27) began the latter, Gothic churches had been building in France for more than fifty years. Rome, then, has nothing to do with the history of -medieval church architecture. The rest of Italy was not quite so unfruitful. Tuscany is far from poor in admirable medieval buildings. These are partly in the old line of development — San Miniato at Florence, for all its attractive features, shows no trace of new constructive ideas — and partly carry it further. This is especially the case with the cathedral of Pisa, which is not only the most successful example of what Tuscan artists could do in the handling of large masses and in richness of decoration, but carries the basilican prin- 12. Combi- ciple a distinct step further. It is nation of enlarged into a frankly cruciform Basilica and shape, and carries the principal fea- Domed ture of the Byzantine style, the Styles. dome. But, however celebrated are the beauties of this cathedral, one can not deny that the combination of these two widely different forms is less successful here than in San Vitale and St. Sophia. There is an especially irreconcilable antagonism between the dome and the fiat roof of the nave. The cathedral of Pisa does not unfold the possibilities latent in the basilican type — it merely attaches to this type a foreign element. In the north of Italy a more decisive forward step was taken, when its architects boldly faced the problem of the vaulting of the basilica. The answer was not found at once. In Sant' Ambrogio at Milan the execution of the vaulting is at the expense of the lighting of the nave, and u-6 church is Sloomy in spite of Italian suns. San Michele at Pavia and the cathedral of Parma were the first to succeed in obviating this defect.
But the progress of wide development of the basuican scheme is not connected with the Lombard churches; it goes on across the Alps, where from the Frankish period its course is uninterrupted. Its tot effort was the so called Romanesque basilica, though the name is modern and not very satisfactory.
The development of this second important type is not as obscure as that of the original basilica but here, too, difficulties abound. The 13. The Ro- weakest feature of the old basilica was manesque the arrangement of the transverse sec- Basilica, tion; and it was here that the innovators took up the task. Cruciform basilicas had been built in the Frankish kingdom even before Charlemagne; and the emphasis laid upon this shape leads us to think that symbolic more than artistic considerations determined its adoption. Yet the esthetic gain was considerable. It led to the lengthening of the choir or chancel into a harmonious proportion to the total length of the church. The raising of the choir above the level of the nave has been thought to have originated in the increasing veneration of relics; altars had long been erected over the graves of the martyrs, but now the narrow crypts of the earlier period gave place to larger chapels, with the result indicated. Possibly the same motive led to the addition of a second apse at the western end of the church, which was, in any case, a step toward connecting the church and the tower. Towers had not been a part of the original basilica, except in some cases in Syria. At the very beginning of the Middle Ages, without, it would seem, any influence from the East, the oldest towers begin to appear in Italy — unlovely erections in the shape of a cylinder or a parallelepiped, which display the inability of the period to construct an architectural work divided into well-related parts. No attempt was made to connect them with the church. In the Frankish kingdom the construction of towers is at least as old as in Italy — in any case pre-Carolingian; but here we meet with attempts to break up the unwieldy mass and to place it in relation to the church. Another change was in the supports of the roof. The old columns were replaced by heavier pillars, capable of bearing a greater weight; and this was again a step in advance. The use of columns in the basilicas was a degradation of this fine element of classical architecture, which was not designed to support the lofty walls of the nave of the Christian church. The architects of the fourth and fifth centuries were insensible to the discordance between their form and their use; but whether or not the German innovators felt it, they removed it. The tendency to go beyond tradition thus showed itself in the most various ways in the Frankish empire; how far it had gone by the first half of the ninth century may be seen in the plans of St. Gall. The final result was the Romanesque basilica which dominated all the Christian countries north of the Alps. Though, however, there is this general agreement in type, each country developed along its own lines. The most instructive illustrations may 14. Varia- be taken from France and Germany. tions in the In the latter country the plan of the Detail of old basilica was preserved in these particulars: The threefold division of the congregation's part, the raising and direct lighting of the nave, the flat roof, and the termination of the whole building in an apse or choir. Four main features were new. The first is the preference for
the Roman esque Basilica.
Architecture