EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE:INTRODUCTORY, RAVENNA

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CHAPTER X.

EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Bunsen, Die Basiliken christlichen Roms. Butler, Architecture

and other Arts in Northern Central Syria. Corroyer, L'architecture romane. Cummings,

A History of Architecture in Italy. Essenwein (Handbuch d. Architektur), Ausgänge der

klassischen Baukunst. Gutensohn u. Knapp, Denkmäler der christlichen Religion.

Hübsch, Monuments de l'architecture chrétienne. Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome.

Mothes, Die Basilikenform bei den Christen, etc. Okely, Development of Christian

Architecture in Italy. Von Quast, Die altchristlichen Bauwerke zu Ravenna. De Rossi,

Roma Sotterranea. De Vogüé, Syrie Centrale; Églises de la Terre Sainte.

INTRODUCTORY. The official recognition of Christianity in the year 328 by

Constantine simply legalized an institution which had been for three centuries

gathering momentum for its final conquest of the antique world. The new religion

rapidly enlisted in its service for a common purpose and under a common impulse

races as wide apart in blood and culture as those which had built up the art of

imperial Rome. It was Christianity which reduced to civilization in the West the

Germanic hordes that had overthrown Rome, bringing their fresh and hitherto

untamed vigor to the task of recreating architecture out of the decaying fragments of

classic art. So in the East its life-giving influence awoke the slumbering Greek art-

instinct to new triumphs in the arts of building, less refined and perfect indeed, but

not less sublime than those of the Periclean age. Long before the Constantinian edict,

the Christians in the Eastern provinces had enjoyed substantial freedom of worship.

Meeting often in the private basilicas of wealthy converts, and finding these, and still

more the great public basilicas, suited to the requirements of their worship, they

early began to build in imitation of these edifices. There are many remains of these

early churches in northern Africa and central Syria.

EARLY CHRISTIAN ART IN ROME. This was at first wholly sepulchral, developing

in the catacombs the symbols of the new faith. Once liberated, however, Christianity

appropriated bodily for its public rites the basilica-type and the general substance of

Roman architecture. Shafts and capitals, architraves and rich linings of veined

marble, even the pagan Bacchic symbolism of the vine, it adapted to new uses in its

own service. Constantine led the way in architecture, endowing Bethlehem and

Jerusalem with splendid churches, and his new capital on the Bosphorus with the

first of the three historic basilicas dedicated to the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia). One

of the greatest of innovators, he seems to have had a special predilection for circular

buildings, and the tombs and baptisteries which he erected in this form, especially

that for his sister Constantia in Rome (known as Santa Costanza, Fig. 66), furnished

the prototype for numberless Italian baptisteries in later ages.

FIG. 66.--STA. COSTANZA, ROME.

The Christian basilica (see Figs. 67, 68) generally comprised a broad and lofty nave,

separated by rows of columns from the single or double side-aisles. The aisles had

usually about half the width and height of the nave, and like it were covered with

wooden roofs and ceilings. Above the columns which flanked the nave rose the lofty

clearstory wall, pierced with windows above the side-aisle roofs and supporting the

immense trusses of the roof of the nave. The timbering of the latter was sometimes

bare, sometimes concealed by a richly panelled ceiling, carved, gilded, and painted.

At the further end of the nave was the sanctuary or apse, with the seats for the

clergy on a raised platform, the bema, in front of which was the altar. Transepts

sometimes expanded to right and left before the altar, under which was the confessio

or shrine of the titular saint or martyr.

An atrium or forecourt surrounded by a covered arcade preceded the basilica proper,

the arcade at the front of the church forming a porch or narthex, which, however, in

some cases existed without the atrium. The exterior was extremely plain; the interior,

on the contrary, was resplendent with incrustations of veined marble and with

sumptuous decorations in glass mosaic (called opus Grecanicum) on a blue or golden

ground. Especially rich were the half-dome of the apse and the wall-space

surrounding its arch and called the triumphal arch; next in decorative importance

came the broad band of wall beneath the clearstory windows. Upon these surfaces

the mosaic-workers wrought with minute cubes of colored glass pictures and symbols

almost imperishable, in which the glow of color and a certain decorative grandeur of

effect in the composition went far to atone for the uncouth drawing. With growing

wealth and an increasingly elaborate ritual, the furniture and equipments of the

church assumed greater architectural importance. A large rectangular space was

retained for the choir in front of the bema, and enclosed by a breast-high parapet of

marble, richly inlaid. On either side were the pulpits or ambones for the Gospel and

Epistle. A lofty canopy was built over the altar, the baldaquin, supported on four

marble columns. A few basilicas were built with side-aisles, in two stories, as in

S. Lorenzo and Sta. Agnese. Adjoining the basilica in the earlier examples were the

baptistery and the tomb of the saint, circular or polygonal buildings usually; but in

later times these were replaced by the font or baptismal chapel in the church and the

confessio under the altar.

FIG. 67.--PLAN OF THE BASILICA OF ST. PAUL.

Of the two Constantinian basilicas in Rome, the one dedicated to St. Peter was

demolished in the fifteenth century; that of St. John Lateran has been so disfigured

by modern alterations as to be unrecognizable. The former of the two adjoined the

site of the martyrdom of St. Peter in the circus of Caligula and Nero; it was five-

aisled, 380 feet in length by 212 feet in width. The nave was 80 feet wide and 100

feet high, and the disproportionately high clearstory wall rested on horizontal

architraves carried by columns. The impressive dimensions and simple plan of this

structure gave it a majesty worthy of its rank as the first church of Christendom. St.

Paul beyond the Walls (S. Paolo fuori le mura), built in 386 by Theodosius,

resembled St. Peter's closely in plan (Figs. 67, 68). Destroyed by fire in 1821, it has

been rebuilt with almost its pristine splendor, and is, next to the modern St. Peter's

and the Pantheon, the most impressive place of worship in Rome. Santa Maria

Maggiore,15 though smaller in size, is more interesting because it so largely retains

its original aspect, its Renaissance ceiling happily harmonizing with its simple

antique lines. Ionic columns support architraves to carry the clearstory, as in St.

Peter's. In most other examples, St. Paul's included, arches turned from column to

column perform this function. The first known case of such use of classic columns as

arch-bearers was in the palace of Diocletian at Spalato; it also appears in Syrian

buildings of the third and fourth centuries A.D.

The basilica remained the model for ecclesiastical architecture in Rome, without

noticeable change either of plan or detail, until the time of the Renaissance. All the

earlier examples employed columns and capitals taken from ancient ruins, often

incongruous and ill-matched in size and order. San Clemente (1084) has retained

almost intact its early aspect, its choir-enclosure, baldaquin, and ambones having

been well preserved or carefully restored. Other important basilicas are mentioned in

the list of monuments on pages 118, 119.

RAVENNA. The fifth and sixth centuries endowed Ravenna with a number of notable

buildings which, with the exception of the cathedral, demolished in the last century,

have been preserved to our day. Subdued by the Byzantine emperor Justinian in 537,

Ravenna became the meeting-ground for Early Christian and Byzantine traditions and

the basilican and circular plans are both represented. The two churches dedicated to

St. Apollinaris, S. Apollinare Nuovo (520) in the city, and S. Apollinare in Classe

(538) three miles distant from the city, in what was formerly the port, are especially

interesting for their fine mosaics, and for the impost-blocks interposed above the

capitals of their columns to receive the springing of the pier-arches. These blocks

appear to be somewhat crude modifications of the fragmentary architraves or

entablatures employed in classic Roman architecture to receive the springing of

vaults sustained by columns, and became common in Byzantine structures (Fig. 73).

The use of external arcading to give some slight adornment to the walls of the second

of the above-named churches, and the round bell-towers of brick which adjoined both

of them, were first steps toward the development of the "wall-veil" or arcaded

decoration, and of the campaniles, which in later centuries became so characteristic

of north Italian churches (see Chapter XIII.). In Rome the campaniles which

accompany many of the mediæval basilicas are square and pierced with many

windows.

FIG. 68.--ST. PAUL BEYOND THE WALLS. INTERIOR.

The basilican form of church became general in Italy, a large proportion of whose

churches continued to be built with wooden roofs and with but slight deviations from

the original type, long after the appearance of the Gothic style. The chief departures

from early precedent were in the exterior, which was embellished with marble

incrustations as in S. Miniato (Florence); or with successive stories of wall-arcades,

as in many churches in Pisa and Lucca (see Fig. 90); until finally the introduction of

clustered piers, pointed arches, and vaulting, gradually transformed the basilican into

the Italian Romanesque and Gothic styles.

SYRIA AND THE EAST. In Syria, particularly the central portion, the Christian

architecture of the 3d to 8th centuries produced a number of very interesting

monuments. The churches built by Constantine in Syria--the Church of the Nativity

in Bethlehem (nominally built by his mother), of the Ascension at Jerusalem, the

magnificent octagonal church on the site of the Temple, and finally the somewhat

similar church at Antioch--were the most notable Christian monuments in Syria. The

first three on the list, still extant in part at least, have been so altered by later

additions and restorations that their original forms are only approximately known

from early descriptions. They were all of large size, and the octagonal church on the

Temple platform was of exceptional magnificence.16 The columns and a part of the

marble incrustations of the early design are still visible in the "Mosque of Omar,"

but most of the old work is concealed by the decoration of tiles applied by the

Moslems, and the whole interior aspect altered by the wood-and-plaster dome with

which they replaced the simpler roof of the original.

FIG. 69.--CHURCH AT KALB LOUZEH.

Christian architecture in Syria soon, however, diverged from Roman traditions. The

abundance of hard stone, the total lack of clay or brick, the remoteness from Rome,

led to a peculiar independence and originality in the forms and details of the

ecclesiastical as well as of the domestic architecture of central Syria. These

innovations upon Roman models resulted in the development of distinct types which,

but for the arrest of progress by the Mohammedan conquest in the seventh century,

would doubtless have inaugurated a new and independent style of architecture. Piers

of masonry came to replace the classic column, as at Tafkha (third or fourth century),

Rouheiha and Kalb Louzeh (fifth century? Fig. 69); the ceilings in the smaller

churches were often formed with stone slabs; the apse was at first confined within

the main rectangle of the plan, and was sometimes square. The exterior assumed a

striking and picturesque variety of forms by means of turrets, porches, and gables.

Singularly enough, vaulting hardly appears at all, though the arch is used with fine

effect. Conventional and monastic groups of buildings appear early in Syria, and that

of St. Simeon Stylites at Kelat Seman is an impressive and interesting monument.

Four three-aisled wings form the arms of a cross, meeting in a central octagonal open

court, in the midst of which stood the column of the saint. The eastern arm of the

cross forms a complete basilica of itself, and the whole cross measures 330 × 300

feet. Chapels, cloisters, and cells adjoin the main edifice.

FIG. 70.--CATHEDRAL AT BOZRAH.

Circular and polygonal plans appear in a number of Syrian examples of the early

sixth century. Their most striking feature is the inscribing of the circle or polygon in

a square which forms the exterior outline, and the use of four niches to fill out the

corners. This occurs at Kelat Seman in a small double church, perhaps the tomb and

chapel of a martyr; in the cathedral at Bozrah (Fig. 70), and in the small domical

church of St. George at Ezra. These were probably the prototypes of many Byzantine

churches like St. Sergius at Constantinople, and San Vitale at Ravenna (Fig. 74),

though the exact dates of the Syrian churches are not known. The one at Ezra is the

only one of the three which has a dome, the others having been roofed with wood.

The interesting domestic architecture of this period is preserved in whole towns and

villages in the Hauran, which, deserted at the Arab conquest, have never been

reoccupied and remain almost intact but for the decay of their wooden roofs. They

are marked by dignity and simplicity of design, and by the same picturesque massing

of gables and roofs and porches which has already been remarked of the churches.

The arches are broad, the columns rather heavy, the mouldings few and simple, and

the scanty carving vigorous and effective, often strongly Byzantine in type.

Elsewhere in the Eastern world are many early churches of which even the

enumeration would exceed the limits of this work. Salonica counts a number of

basilicas and several domical churches. The church of St. George, now a mosque, is

of early date and thoroughly Roman in plan and section, of the same class with the

Pantheon and the tomb of Helena, in both of which a massive circular wall is

lightened by eight niches. At Angora (Ancyra), Hierapolis, Pergamus, and other

points in Asia Minor; in Egypt, Nubia, and Algiers, are many examples of both

circular and basilican edifices of the early centuries of Christianity. In Constantinople

there remains but a single representative of the basilican type, the church of St. John

Studius, now the Emir Akhor mosque.

MONUMENTS: ROME: 4th century: St. Peter's, Sta. Costanza, 330?; Sta. Pudentiana,

335 (rebuilt 1598); tomb of St. Helena; Baptistery of Constantine; St. Paul's beyond the

Walls, 386; St. John Lateran (wholly remodelled in modern times). 5th century:

Baptistery of St. John Lateran; Sta. Sabina, 425; Sta. Maria Maggiore, 432; S. Pietro in

Vincoli, 442 (greatly altered in modern times). 6th century: S. Lorenzo, 580 (the older

portion in two stories); SS. Cosmo e Damiano. 7th century: Sta. Agnese, 625; S. Giorgio

in Velabro, 682. 8th century: Sta. Maria in Cosmedin; S. Crisogono. 9th century:

S. Nereo ed Achilleo; Sta. Prassede; Sta. Maria in Dominica. 12th and 13th centuries:

S. Clemente, 1118; Sta. Maria in Trastevere; S. Lorenzo (nave); Sta. Maria in Ara Coeli.

RAVENNA: Baptistery of S. John, 400 (?); S. Francesco; S. Giovanni Evangelista, 425; Sta.

Agata, 430; S. Giovanni Battista, 439; tomb of Galla Placidia, 450; S. Apollinare Nuovo,

500520; S. Apollinare in Classe, 538; St. Victor; Sta. Maria in Cosmedin (the Arian

Baptistery); tomb of Theodoric (Sta. Maria della Rotonda, a decagonal two-storied

mausoleum, with a low dome cut from a single stone 36 feet in diameter), 530540.

ITALY IN GENERAL: basilica at Parenzo, 6th century; cathedral and Sta. Fosca at Torcello,

640700; at Naples Sta. Restituta, 7th century; others, mostly of 10th-13th centuries, at

Murano near Venice, at Florence (S. Miniato), Spoleto, Toscanella, etc.; baptisteries at

Asti, Florence, Nocera dei Pagani, and other places. IN SYRIA AND THE EAST: basilicas of

the Nativity at Bethlehem, of the Sepulchre and of the Ascension at Jerusalem; also

polygonal church on Temple platform; these all of 4th century. Basilicas at Bakouzah,

Hass, Kelat Seman, Kalb Louzeh, Rouheiha, Tourmanin, etc.; circular churches, tombs,

and baptisteries at Bozrah, Ezra, Hass, Kelat Seman, Rouheiha, etc.; all these 4th-8th

centuries. Churches at Constantinople (Holy Wisdom, St. John Studius, etc.), Hierapolis,

Pergamus, and Thessalonica (St. Demetrius, "Eski Djuma"); in Egypt and Nubia (Djemla,

Announa, Ibreem, Siout, etc.); at Orléansville in Algeria. (For churches, etc., of 8th-10th

centuries in the West, see Chapter XIII.)

15. Hereafter the abbreviation S. M. will be generally used instead of the name

Santa Maria.

16. Fergusson (History of Architecture, vol. ii., pp. 408, 432) contends that this

was the real Constantinian church of the Holy Sepulchre, and that the one called

to-day by that name was erected by the Crusaders in the twelfth century. The more

general view is that the latter was originally built by Constantine as the Church of

the Sepulchre, though subsequently much altered, and that the octagonal edifice

was also his work, but erected under some other name. Whether this church was

later incorporated in the "Mosque of Omar," or merely furnished some of the

materials for its construction, is not quite clear.

Ebd

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