EARLY MEDIÆVAL ARCHITECTURE:LOMBARD STYLE, FLORENCE

<< SASSANIAN AND MOHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE:ARABIC ARCHITECTURE

EARLY MEDIÆVAL ARCHITECTURE.—Continued:EARLY CHURCHES, GREAT BRITAIN >>

CHAPTER XIII.

EARLY MEDIÆVAL ARCHITECTURE

IN ITALY AND FRANCE.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Cattaneo, L'Architecture en Italie. Chapuy, Le moyen age

monumental. Corroyer, Architecture romane. Cummings, A History of Architecture in

Italy. Enlart, Manuel d'archéologie française. Hübsch, Monuments de l'architecture

chrétienne. Knight, Churches of Northern Italy. Lenoir, Architecture monastique.

Osten, Bauwerke in der Lombardei. Quicherat, Mélanges d'histoire et d'archéologie.

Reber, History of Mediæval Architecture. Révoil, Architecture romane du midi de la

France. Rohault de Fleury, Monuments de Pise. Sharpe, Churches of Charente. De

Verneilh, L'Architecture byzantine en France. Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raisonné de

l'architecture française (especially in Vol. I., Architecture religieuse); Discourses on

Architecture.

EARLY MEDIÆVAL EUROPE. The fall of the Western Empire in 476 A.D. marked

the beginning of a new era in architecture outside of the Byzantine Empire. The so-

called Dark Ages which followed this event constituted the formative period of the

new Western civilization, during which the Celtic and Germanic races were being

Christianized and subjected to the authority and to the educative influences of the

Church. Under these conditions a new architecture was developed, founded upon the

traditions of the early Christian builders, modified in different regions by Roman or

Byzantine influences. For Rome recovered early her antique prestige, and Roman

monuments covering the soil of Southern Europe, were a constant object lesson to

the builders of that time. To this new architecture of the West, which in the tenth

and eleventh centuries first began to achieve worthy and monumental results, the

generic name of Romanesque has been commonly given, in spite of the great

diversity of its manifestations in different countries.

CHARACTER OF THE ARCHITECTURE. Romanesque architecture was pre-

eminently ecclesiastical. Civilization and culture emanated from the Church, and her

requirements and discipline gave form to the builder's art. But the basilican style,

which had so well served her purposes in the earlier centuries and on classic soil,

was ill-suited to the new conditions. Corinthian columns, marble incrustations, and

splendid mosaics were not to be had for the asking in the forests of Gaul or

Germany, nor could the Lombards and Ostrogoths in Italy or their descendants

reproduce them. The basilican style was complete in itself, possessing no seeds of

further growth. The priests and monks of Italy and Western Europe sought to rear

with unskilled labor churches of stone in which the general dispositions of the

basilica should reappear in simpler, more massive dress, and, as far as possible, in a

fireproof construction with vaults of stone. This problem underlies all the varied

phases of Romanesque architecture; its final solution was not, however, reached until

the Gothic period, to which the Romanesque forms the transition and stepping-stone.

FIG. 90.--INTERIOR OF SAN AMBROGIO, MILAN.

MEDIÆVAL ITALY. Italy in the Dark Ages stood midway between the civilization of

the Eastern Empire and the semi-barbarism of the West. Rome, Ravenna, and Venice

early became centres of culture and maintained continuous commercial relations with

the East. Architecture did not lack either the inspiration or the means for advancing

on new lines. But its advance was by no means the same everywhere. The unifying

influence of the church was counterbalanced by the provincialism and the local

diversities of the various Italian states, resulting in a wide variety of styles. These,

however, may be broadly grouped in four divisions: the Lombard, the Tuscan-

Romanesque, the Italo-Byzantine, and the unchanged Basilican or Early Christian,

which last, as was shown in Chapter X., continued to be practised in Rome

throughout the Middle Ages.

LOMBARD STYLE. Owing to the general rebuilding of ancient churches under the

more settled social conditions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, little remains to

us of the architecture of the three preceding centuries in Italy, except the Roman

basilicas and a few baptisteries and circular churches, already mentioned in

Chapter X. The so-called Lombard monuments belong mainly to the eleventh and

twelfth centuries. They are found not only in Lombardy, but also in Venetia and the

Æmilia. Milan, Pavia, Piacenza, Bologna, and Verona were important centres of

development of this style. The churches were nearly all vaulted, but the plans were

basilican, with such variations as resulted from efforts to meet the exigencies of

vaulted construction. The nave was narrowed, and instead of rows of columns

carrying a thin clearstory wall, a few massive piers of masonry, connected by broad

pier-arches, supported the heavy ribs of the groined vaulting, as in S. Ambrogio,

Milan (Fig. 90). To resist the thrust of the main vault, the clearstory was sometimes

suppressed, the side aisle carried up in two stories forming galleries, and rows of

chapels added at the sides, their partitions forming buttresses. The piers were often

of clustered section, the better to receive the various arches and ribs they supported.

The vaulting was in square divisions or vaulting-bays, each embracing two pier-

arches which met upon an intermediate pier lighter than the others. Thus the whole

aspect of the interior was revolutionized. The lightness, spaciousness, and decorative

elegance of the basilicas were here exchanged for a sombre and massive dignity

severe in its plainness. The Choir was sometimes raised a few feet above the nave, to

allow of a crypt and confessio beneath, reached by broad flights of steps from the

nave. Sta. Maria della Pieve at Arezzo (9th-11th century), S. Michele at Pavia (late

11th century), the Cathedral of Piacenza (1122), S. Ambrogio at Milan (12th

century), and S. Zeno at Verona (1139) are notable monuments of this style.

FIG. 91.--WEST FRONT AND CAMPANILE

OF CATHEDRAL, PIACENZA.

LOMBARD EXTERIORS. The few architectural embellishments employed on the

simple exteriors of the Lombard churches were usually effective and well composed.

Slender columnettes or long pilasters, blind arcades, and open arcaded galleries

under the eaves gave light and shade to these exteriors. The façades were mere

frontispieces with a single broad gable, the three aisles of the church being merely

suggested by flat or round pilasters dividing the front (Fig 91). Gabled porches, with

columns resting on the backs of lions or monsters, adorned the doorways. The

carving was often of a fierce and grotesque character. Detached bell-towers or

campaniles adjoined many of these churches; square and simple in mass, but with

well-distributed openings and well-proportioned belfries (Piacenza S. Zeno at Verona,

etc.).18

THE TUSCAN ROMANESQUE. The churches of this style (sometimes called the

Pisan) were less vigorous but more elegant and artistic in design than the Lombard.

They were basilicas in plan, with timber ceilings and high clearstories on columnar

arcades. In their decoration, both internal and external, they betray the influence of

Byzantine traditions, especially in the use of white and colored marble in alternating

bands or in panelled veneering. Still more striking is the external decorative

application of wall-arcades, sometimes occupying the whole height of the wall and

carried on flat pilasters, sometimes in superposed stages of small arches on slender

columns standing free of the wall. In general the decorative element prevailed over

the constructive in the design of these picturesquely beautiful churches, some of

which are of noble size. The Duomo (cathedral) of Pisa, built 10631118, is the

finest monument of the style (Figs. 92, 93). It is 312 feet long and 118 wide, with

long transepts and an elliptical dome of later date over the crossing (the intersection

of nave and transepts). Its richly arcaded front and banded flanks strikingly

exemplify the illogical and unconstructive but highly decorative methods of the

Tuscan Romanesque builders. The circular Baptistery (1153), with its lofty domical

central hall surrounded by an aisle, an imposing development of the type established

by Constantine, and the famous Leaning Tower (1174), both designed with external

arcading, combine with the Duomo to form the most remarkable group of

ecclesiastical buildings in Italy, if not in Europe (Fig. 92).

FIG. 92.--BAPTISTERY, CATHEDRAL, AND LEANING TOWER, PISA.

The same style appears in more flamboyant shape in some of the churches of Lucca.

The cathedral S. Martino (1060; façade, 1204; nave altered in fourteenth century)

is the finest and largest of these; S. Michele (façade, 1288) and S. Frediano (twelfth

century) have the most elaborately decorated façades. The same principles of design

appear in the cathedral and several other churches in Pistoia and Prato; but these

belong, for the most part, to the Gothic period.

FIG. 93.--INTERIOR OF PISA CATHEDRAL.

FLORENCE. The church of S. Miniato, in the suburbs of Florence, is a beautiful

example of a modification of the Pisan style. It is in plan a basilica with two piers

interrupting the colonnade on each side of the nave and supporting powerful

transverse arches. The interior is embellished with bands and patterns in black and

white, and the woodwork of the open-timber roof is elegantly decorated with fine

patterns in red, green, blue, and gold--a treatment common in early mediæval

churches, as at Messina, Orvieto, etc. The exterior is adorned with wall-arches of

classic design and with panelled veneering in white and dark marble, instead of the

horizontal bands of the Pisan churches. This system of external decoration,

a blending of Pisan and Italo-Byzantine methods, became the established practice in

Florence, lasting through the whole Gothic period. The Baptistery of Florence,

originally the cathedral, an imposing polygonal domical edifice of the tenth century,

presents externally one of the most admirable examples of this practice. Its marble

veneering in black and white, with pilasters and arches of excellent design, is

attributed by Vasari to Arnolfo di Cambio, but is by many considered to be much

older, although restored by that architect in 1294.

Suggestions of the Pisan arcade system are found in widely scattered examples in the

east and south of Italy, mingled with features of Lombard and Byzantine design. In

Apulia, as at Bari, Caserta Vecchia (1100), Molfetta (1192), and in Sicily, the

Byzantine influence is conspicuous in the use of domes and in many of the decorative

details. Particularly is this the case at Palermo and Monreale, where the churches

erected after the Norman conquest--some of them domical, some basilican--show a

strange but picturesque and beautiful mixture of Romanesque, Byzantine, and Arabic

forms. The Cathedral of Monreale and the churches of the Eremiti and La

Martorana at Palermo are the most important.

The Italo-Byzantine style has already found mention in the latter part of Chapter XI.

Venice and Ravenna were its chief centres; while the influence, both of the parent

style and of its Italian offshoot was, as we have just shown, very widespread.

WESTERN ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE. In Western Europe the unrest and

lawlessness which attended the unsettled relations of society under the feudal system

long retarded the establishment of that social order without which architectural

progress is impossible. With the eleventh century there began, however, a great

activity in building, principally among the monasteries, which represented all that

there was of culture and stability amid the prevailing disorder. Undisturbed by war,

the only abodes of peaceful labor, learning, and piety, they had become rich and

powerful, both in men and land. Probably the more or less general apprehension of

the supposed impending end of the world in the year 1000 contributed to this result

by driving unquiet consciences to seek refuge in the monasteries, or to endow them

richly.

The monastic builders, with little technical training, but with plenty of willing hands,

sought out new architectural paths to meet their special needs. Remote from classic

and Byzantine models, and mainly dependent on their own resources, they often

failed to realize the intended results. But skill came with experience, and with

advancing civilization and a surer mastery of construction came a finer taste and

greater elegance of design. Meanwhile military architecture developed a new science

of building, and covered Europe with imposing castles, admirably constructed and

often artistic in design as far as military exigencies would permit.

FIG. 94.--PLAN OF ST. FRONT.

CHARACTER OF THE STYLE. The Romanesque architecture of the eleventh and

twelfth centuries in Western Europe (sometimes called the Round-Arched Gothic)

was thus predominantly though not exclusively monastic. This gave it a certain unity

of character in spite of national and local variations. The problem which the wealthy

orders set themselves was, like that of the Lombard church-builders in Italy, to adapt

the basilica plan to the exigencies of vaulted construction. Massive walls, round

arches stepped or recessed to lighten their appearance, heavy mouldings richly

carved, clustered piers and jamb-shafts, capitals either of the cushion type or

imitated from the Corinthian, and strong and effective carving--all these are features

alike of French, German, English, and Spanish Romanesque architecture.

THE FRENCH ROMANESQUE. Though monasticism produced remarkable results in

France, architecture there did not wholly depend upon the monasteries. Southern

Gaul (Provence) was full of classic remains and classic traditions while at the same

time it maintained close trade relations with Venice and the East.19 The church of St.

Front at Perigueux, built in 1120, reproduced the plan of St. Mark's with singular

fidelity, but without its rich decoration, and with pointed instead of round arches

(Figs. 94, 95). The domical cathedral of Cahors (10501100), an obvious imitation

of S. Irene at Constantinople, and the later and more Gothic Cathedral of Angoulême

display a notable advance in architectural skill outside of the monasteries. Among the

abbeys, Fontevrault (11011119) closely resembles Angoulême, but surpasses it in

the elegance of its choir and chapels. In these and a number of other domical

churches of the same Franco-Byzantine type in Aquitania, the substitution of the

Latin cross in the plan for the Greek cross used in St. Front, evinces the Gallic

tendency to work out to their logical end new ideas or new applications of old ones.

These striking variations on Byzantine themes might have developed into an

independent local style but for the overwhelming tide of Gothic influence which later

poured in from the North.

FIG. 95.--INTERIOR OF ST. FRONT, PERIGUEUX.

Meanwhile, farther south (at Arles, Avignon, etc.), classic models strongly influenced

the details, if not the plans, of an interesting series of churches remarkable especially

for their porches rich with figure sculpture and for their elaborately carved details.

The classic archivolt, the Corinthian capital, the Roman forms of enriched mouldings,

are evident at a glance in the porches of Notre Dame des Doms at Avignon, of the

church of St. Gilles, and of St. Trophime at Arles.

FIG. 96.--PLAN OF NOTRE DAME DU PORT, CLERMONT.

DEVELOPMENT OF VAULTING. It was in Central France, and mainly along the

Loire, that the systematic development of vaulted church architecture began. Naves

covered with barrel-vaults appear in a number of large churches built during the

eleventh and twelfth centuries, with apsidal and transeptal chapels and aisles carried

around the apse, as in St. Etienne, Nevers, Notre Dame du Port at Clermont-Ferrand

(Fig. 96), and St. Paul at Issoire. The thrust of these ponderous vaults was clumsily

resisted by half-barrel vaults over the side-aisles, transmitting the strain to massive

side-walls (Fig. 97), or by high side-aisles with transverse barrel or groined vaults

over each bay. In either case the clearstory was suppressed--a fact which mattered

little in the sunny southern provinces. In the more cloudy North, in Normandy,

Picardy, and the Royal Domain, the nave-vault was raised higher to admit of

clearstory windows, and its section was in some cases made like a pointed arch, to

diminish its thrust, as at Autun. But these eleventh-century vaults nearly all fell in,

and had to be reconstructed on new principles. In this work the Clunisians seem to

have led the way, as at Cluny (1089) and Vézelay (1100). In the latter church, one

of the finest and most interesting French edifices of the twelfth century, a groined

vault replaced the barrel-vault, though the oblong plan of the vaulting-bays, due to

the nave being wider than the pier-arches, led to somewhat awkward twisted

surfaces in the vaulting. But even here the vaults had insufficient lateral buttressing,

and began to crack and settle; so that in the great ante-chapel, built thirty years

later, the side-aisles were made in two stories, the better to resist the thrust, and the

groined vaults themselves were constructed of pointed section. These seem to be the

earliest pointed groined vaults in France. It was not till the second half of that

century, however (11501200), that the flying buttress was combined with such

vaults, so as to permit of high clearstories for the better lighting of the nave; and the

problem of satisfactorily vaulting an oblong space with a groined vault was not

solved until the following century.

FIG. 97.--SECTION OF NOTRE DAME DU PORT, CLERMONT.

ONE-AISLED CHURCHES. In the Franco-Byzantine churches already described this

difficulty of the oblong vaulting-bay did not occur, owing to the absence of side-aisles

and pier-arches. Following this conception of church-planning, a number of

interesting parish churches and a few cathedrals were built in various parts of France

in which side-recesses or chapels took the place of side-aisles. The partitions

separating them served as abutments for the groined or barrel-vaults of the nave. The

cathedrals of Autun (1150) and Langres (1160), and in the fourteenth century that

of Alby, employed this arrangement, common in many earlier Provençal churches

which have disappeared.

FIG. 98.--A SIX-PART RIBBED VAULT, SHOWING TWO COMPARTMENTS WITH THE FILLINGS COMPLETE.

a, a, Transverse ribs (doubleaux); b, b, Wall-ribs (formerets); c, c, Groin-ribs (diagonaux).

(All the ribs are semicircles.)

SIX-PART VAULTING. In the Royal Domain great architectural activity does not

appear to have begun until the beginning of the Gothic period in the middle of the

twelfth century. But in Normandy, and especially at Caen and Mont St. Michel, there

were produced, between 1046 and 1120, some remarkable churches, in which a

high clearstory was secured in conjunction with a vaulted nave, by the use of "six-

part" vaulting (Fig. 98). This was an awkward expedient, by which a square vaulting-

bay was divided into six parts by the groins and by a middle transverse rib,

necessitating two narrow skew vaults meeting at the centre. This unsatisfactory

device was retained for over a century, and was common in early Gothic churches

both in France and Great Britain. It made it possible to resist the thrust by high side-

aisles, and yet to open windows above these under the cross-vaults. The abbey

churches of St. Etienne (the Abbaye aux Hommes) and Ste. Trinité (Abbaye aux

Dames), at Caen, built in the time of William the Conqueror, were among the most

magnificent churches of their time, both in size and in the excellence and ingenuity of

their construction. The great abbey church of Mont St. Michel (much altered in later

times) should also be mentioned here. At the same time these and other Norman

churches showed a great advance in their internal composition. A well-developed

triforium or subordinate gallery was introduced between the pier-arches and

clearstory, and all the structural membering of the edifice was better proportioned

and more logically expressed than in most contemporary work.

ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS. The details of French Romanesque architecture varied

considerably in the several provinces, according as classic, Byzantine, or local

influences prevailed. Except in a few of the Aquitanian churches, the round arch was

universal. The walls were heavy and built of rubble between facings of stones of

moderate size dressed with the axe. Windows and doors were widely splayed to

diminish the obstruction of the massive walls, and were treated with jamb-shafts and

recessed arches. These were usually formed with large cylindrical mouldings, richly

carved with leaf ornaments, zigzags, billets, and grotesques. Figure-sculpture was

more generally used in the South than in the North. The interior piers were

sometimes cylindrical, but more often clustered, and where square bays of four-part

or six-part vaulting were employed, the piers were alternately lighter and heavier.

Each shaft had its independent capital either of the block type or of a form

resembling somewhat that of the Corinthian order. During the eleventh century it

became customary to carry up to the main vaulting one or more shafts of the

compound pier to support the vaulting ribs. Thus the division of the nave into bays

was accentuated, while at the same time the horizontal three-fold division of the

height by a well-defined triforium between the pier-arches and clearstory began to be

likewise emphasized.

VAULTING. The vaulting was also divided into bays by transverse ribs, and where it

was groined the groins themselves began in the twelfth century to be marked by

groin-ribs. These were constructed independently of the vaulting, and the four or six

compartments of each vaulting-bay were then built in, the ribs serving, in part at

least, to support the centrings for this purpose. This far-reaching principle, already

applied by the Romans in their concrete vaults, appears as a re-discovery, or rather

an independent invention, of the builders of Normandy at the close of the eleventh

century. The flying buttress was a later invention; in the round-arched buildings of

the eleventh and twelfth centuries the buttressing was mainly internal, and was

incomplete and timid in its arrangement.

EXTERIORS. The exteriors were on this account plain and flat. The windows were

small, the mouldings simple, and towers were rarely combined with the body of the

church until after the beginning of the twelfth century. Then they appeared as mere

belfries of moderate height, with pyramidal roofs and effectively arranged openings,

the germs of the noble Gothic spires of later times. Externally the western porches

and portals were the most important features of the design, producing an imposing

effect by their massive arches, clustered piers, richly carved mouldings, and deep

shadows.

CLOISTERS, ETC. Mention should be made of the other monastic buildings which

were grouped around the abbey churches of this period. These comprised refectories,

chapter-halls, cloistered courts surrounded by the conventual cells, and a large

number of accessory structures for kitchens, infirmaries, stores, etc. The whole

formed an elaborate and complex aggregation of connected buildings, often of great

size and beauty, especially the refectories and cloisters. Most of these conventual

buildings have disappeared, many of them having been demolished during the Gothic

period to make way for more elegant structures in the new style. There remain,

however, a number of fine cloistered courts in their original form, especially in

Southern France. Among the most remarkable of these are those of Moissac, Elne,

and Montmajour.

MONUMENTS. ITALY. (For basilicas and domical churches of 6th-12th centuries see pp.

118, 119.)--Before 11th century: Sta. Maria at Toscanella, altered 1206; S. Donato,

Zara; chapel at Friuli; baptistery at Boella. 11th century: S. Giovanni, Viterbo; Sta. Maria

della Pieve, Arezzo; S. Antonio, Piacenza, 1014; Eremiti, 1132, and La Martorana,

1143, both at Palermo; Duomo at Bari, 1027 (much altered); Duomo and baptistery,

Novara, 1030; Duomo at Parma, begun 1058; Duomo at Pisa, 10631118; S. Miniato,

Florence, 106312th century; S. Michele at Pavia and Duomo at Modena, late 11th

century.--12th century: in Calabria and Apulia, cathedrals of Trani, 1100; Caserta,

Vecchia, 11001153; Molfetta, 1162; Benevento; churches S. Giovanni at Brindisi,

S. Niccolo at Bari, 1139. In Sicily, Duomo at Monreale, 11741189. In Northern Italy,

S. Tomaso in Limine, Bergamo, 1100 (?); Sta. Giulia, Brescia; S. Lorenzo, Milan, rebuilt

1119; Duomo at Piacenza, 1122; S. Zeno at Verona, 1139; S. Ambrogio, Milan, 1140,

vaulted in 13th century; baptistery at Pisa, 11531278; Leaning Tower, Pisa, 1174.--

14th century: S. Michele, Lucca, 1188; S. Giovanni and S. Frediano, Lucca. In Dalmatia,

cathedral at Zara, 11921204. Many castles and early town-halls, as at Bari, Brescia,

Lucca, etc.

FRANCE: Previous to 11th century: St. Germiny-des-Prés, 806, Chapel of the Trinity, St.

Honorat-des-Lérins; Ste. Croix de Montmajour.--11th century: Cérisy-la-Forêt and abbey

church of Mont St. Michel, 1020 (the latter altered in 12th and 16th centuries); Vignory;

St. Genou; porch of St. Bénoit-sur-Loire, 1030; St. Sépulchre at Neuvy, 1045; Ste.

Trinité (Abbaye aux Dames) at Caen, 1046, vaulted 1140; St. Etienne (Abbaye aux

Hommes) at Caen, same date; St. Front at Perigueux, 1120; Ste. Croix at Quimperlé,

1081; cathedral, Cahors, 10501110; abbey churches of Cluny (demolished) and

Vézelay, 10891100; circular church of Rieux-Mérinville, church of St. Savin in

Auvergne, the churches of St. Paul at Issoire and Notre-Dame-du-Port at Clermont, St.

Hilaire and Notre-Dame-la-Grande at Poitiers; also St. Sernin (Saturnin) at Toulouse, all at

close of 11th and beginning of 12th century.--12th century: Domical churches of

Aquitania and vicinity; Solignac and Fontévrault, 1120; St. Etienne (Périgueux), St. Avit-

Sénieur; Angoulême, Souillac, Broussac, etc., early 12th century; St. Trophime at Arles,

1110, cloisters later; church of Vaison; abbeys and cloisters at Montmajour, Tarascon,

Moissac (with fragments of a 10th-century cloister built into present arcades); St. Paul-

du-Mausolée; Puy-en-Vélay, with fine church. Many other abbeys, parish churches, and a

few cathedrals in Central and Northern France especially.

18. See Appendix B.

19. See Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raisonné, article ARCHITECTURE, vol. i., pp. 66

et seq.; also de Verneilh, L'Architecture byzantine en France.

Ebd

Table of Contents: