The Cathedral Builders Part 10

Anastasius, the librarian, gives an account of the rebuilding of the church of S. Maria in Cosmedin.[80] He says that Adrian found it absolutely beneath a pile of ruins (_sub ruinis positam_) of a former temple to Ceres and Proserpine, which literally hung over it. As this ma.s.s of ruin prevented the enlargement of the new church, it was entirely demolished "by fire, and by the labours of the people." The s.p.a.ce being cleared, a new and s.p.a.cious Basilica was erected "a fundamentis tres absides, in ea const.i.tuens."

The writer mentions this form with three apses as being new in Rome.

We have, however, seen that in the north of Italy the Comacines had been, for the past century or two, building Basilican churches on precisely this plan. In fact the three round apses had become one of the special marks of their churches. Cattaneo argues that the form came from the East, as some of the Syrian churches of the fifth century and the great Basilica of St. Simeon Stylites at Kaiat Senian, erected in 500, have signs of the same conformation. Whether these were of absolutely Oriental origin, or the result of some early emigration of the _liberi muratori_, archaeologists must judge. The two rows of columns which divide the nave from the aisles, have solid piers of masonry interposed between each three columns; these are elongated above the colonnade to support the roof, and strengthen the upper gallery.[81]

It is evident that the Comacines availed themselves of old material in this work; the columns are of all species and styles, some fluted, some smooth, some with antique Corinthian capitals, others of Comacine work. One is of the same form as those we have described in S. Maria Matricolare at Verona, with solid volutes, placed perpendicularly, instead of the graceful acanthus. The same capital is seen in S.

Agnese fuori le mura.

There is in S. Maria in Cosmedin a very interesting fragment of the Comacine decoration of the time when Adrian I. was the patron of the guild. It is a bit of cornice, formed of a little colonnade of round arches; beneath it an inscription in a curious early style, the letters all sizes and shapes. It runs--

"DE DON IS D?I ET S?CE D?I GENETRICIS MARIae. TEMPORIBUS DO?NI ADRIANI PAPE EGO GREGORIUS."

I have seen another fragment during the recent restorations. A fine _intreccio_ on a marble slab in one of the pulpits, which had been reversed and inlaid on the other side in thirteenth-century mosaic.

The church of S. Saba on Mount Aventine, which was also built under Adrian I., has every mark of Comacine work, especially in the mediaeval and uncla.s.sic form of capitals. Probably the supply of ancient capitals fell short after the building of the other churches, and the builders had to supply them with their own chisels. They made a rude imitation of the Ionic form, as far from the cla.s.sic grace of the original, as their plain hard volutes were from the elegance of the Corinthian.

A better artist seems to have been placed by the Comacine Guild in S.

Lorenzo in Lucina, which was contemporary to this. The capitals of the same form are much more clearly and firmly cut, and in a better style of ornamentation. Here too are the Comacine lions, now built into the wall under the square lintels of the door. Of the Comacine work in the house of the Patriarch near S. John Lateran, _i.e._ the papal residence of those times, not much remains to show the hand of the Comacines, except the sculptures on the well in the cloister, the parapet of which is adorned with two zones of reliefs, divided by an interlaced band. The under one consists of alternate crosses and rude palms, the upper is a row of round arches, adorned with upstanding volutes, like vine-tendrils; under one arch is a dove with grapes in his beak, and in the other a cross. There are also two sculptured stones in the same cloister, one showing various interlaced patterns, the other a cross formed by weavings of the continued line, enriched in the groundwork of foliage.

One of the most interesting churches of the Carlovingian era is that of San Pietro in Grado near Pisa. In the Middle Ages this was a great shrine for pilgrimages, being, it is said, built on the spot on which St. Peter first set foot in Italy. (_Gradus_--a step.) Legend (supported by the a.s.sertion of a certain Archbishop Visconti, who preached in Pisa in the thirteenth century) says that the Apostle Peter was driven ash.o.r.e at that spot, and having made an altar he began to baptize--giving his disciples commands to build a church there. What the first church was like is not known; the present one was built between 600 and 800 A.D., and was decorated with frescoes before A.D. 1000. There is a great similarity in structure between this building and that of S. Apollinare in Ravenna; they are both of similar brick masonry, and three-apsed, and the aisles are in about the same proportion to the greater height of the nave. The proportions of the short round arches on the tall cla.s.sic columns of the interior are extremely similar, as is the scheme of ornamentation, with the difference that at Ravenna the medium is mosaic, and at S. Pietro a Grado it is fresco. The line of Bishops in the spring of the arches in Ravenna is reproduced at Grado by a line of Popes in medallions, ending with Leo III., 795, which would probably mark the era of the foundation of the church.[82]

San Pietro, however, has one very great peculiarity. It has no facade, but is built with the usual Lombard three apses at one end, and a single semi-circular tribune at the other. The only door is at the side. The priest, who is naturally proud of his church, and learned in its history, told us that by this peculiar form the builders wished to represent a s.h.i.+p, and pointing out the great square pilasters that break the line of columns at the fourth arch from the west, he showed how the raised p.o.o.p of a vessel was expressed by the greater height and width of the four arches at the west end. Certainly the narrowing effect being towards the chancel instead of the reverse, is most remarkable.

I was not, however, convinced by his symbolism, and realizing the greater proportions of the west end, where three arches with fluted columns stretched across a tribune, now turned into an organ-loft, I felt convinced that the present form was not the original. Either the ancient altar once stood at the west end, and the church, like so many Lombard ones, had formerly faced the opposite way; or else the semi-circular tribune, which seems to be of later work, has been added by restorers, to cover in the three arches of the ancient facade.

That, in fact, the large solid pilasters in the nave marked the ancient wall of the interior, and the four arches on the other side of them formed the narthex. To support the first theory, is the fact that the altar called St. Peter's altar stands now isolated in that west end, and the canopy in the form of an ancient Lombard _ciborium_ stands on four columns above it, carved in stone in very early style.

The opposite theory of the narthex having been at that end, may on its side be confirmed by one of the frescoes, the last but two on the south wall, which represents the church itself as it was prior to A.D.

1000. Here the artist has, with a curious mediaeval disregard of perspective and possibility, represented both ends of the church in one view, and here we see plainly the three apses with their marble perpendicular ribs on one side, and the facade of large arches with a row of smaller ones across the building above them on the other. I leave the question of this puzzling west tribune to wiser judges than myself, and trust that some new Fergusson, Hope, or Street may some day discover the truth.

The columns of the nave are all of antique marble, the ruins of a Roman temple to Ceres at Pisa; some are of cipollino, others Oriental granite, one is of fluted white Greek marble. The capitals are mostly antique and cla.s.sical, though a few show the hand of the early Comacine in their straight upstanding volutes. The ingenuity of the _Magistri_ in making use of old material is shown in the various devices by which these columns are adapted. Where they are too short the base is raised on two pedestals; where too small for the ma.s.sive pillar, a wide abacus is placed on the top to support the arch. One of the columns which support the altar is made long enough by a base made of an antique carved capital reversed beneath it. We have a distinct sign of the Comacines in a stone let into the wall near the door, and which evidently formed part of the ancient architrave. It is carved in an intricate interlaced knot. I shall speak in the chapter on Comacine painting, of the frescoes in the nave, which are unique of their kind, and of deep interest to the Art historian.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EXTERIOR OF SAN PIERO A GRADO, PISA, 8TH CENTURY.

_page 101._]

These churches of the Carlovingian era in Italy cannot be doc.u.mentally proved to have been at all connected with Charlemagne himself, except that he sent the _Magistri Comacini_ to Rome, at Pope Adrian's request. The same cannot be said of the great church of Aix-la-Chapelle, with which his name must be for ever united, but which is certainly not entirely unconnected with this Lombard Guild. Where history gives no precise information, and where authors, ancient and modern, fail to fix the precise era of this important work, it is of course impossible to say who was the architect. We can only judge by the style, and by inferences drawn from previous works of the same style. First, as to the few facts we are able to gain: Eginbertus, a Lombard, the biographer of Charlemagne, in his _De vita et gestis Caroli Magni_, Capit. 26, tells us that Charlemagne "built the Basilica of Aquisgrana of wonderful beauty, and adorned it with much gold, silver lamps, and with gates and doors of bronze. For this construction, not being able elsewhere to find columns and marble, he provided that they should be brought from Rome and Ravenna." This fact, of a want of proper material in France, would seem to imply that skilled workmen to build in stone must have been imported with the material. It is difficult, or indeed impossible, to prove that French workmen were equal to the occasion, by showing other contemporary works in France. Any churches they may have then had, have long since perished, for at that date they were usually built of wood; another argument that France could not have supplied accomplished architects in stone.

Some say the church was designed by Ansige, Abbot of Fontanelles, others give the credit to Eginhard, or Eginbertus, as his Lombard name is spelt; but as he does not claim it for himself in his writing,--indeed, we see from the above extract that he speaks quite impersonally of it,--there is certainly no doc.u.mentary evidence to prove this a.s.sertion. Speaking dispa.s.sionately, it would be strange for a man of letters, private secretary to a great king, to suddenly develop into a full-fledged architect. It is much more likely that as he was a Lombard, he was interested in employing the builders whom all his countrymen had employed for centuries. D'Agincourt, who had a good deal of _amour propre_, and would, if he could, always give glory to France, says (vol. i. p. 27, 139)--"It is natural to believe that the Italian architects whom Charlemagne had brought with him, designed the buildings they made for him in France, on the lines of those of their own country." Dartein, in his _Lombard Architecture_, writes of it--"If we inspect the octagonal half-domes which terminate the centre of the cross in S. Fedele at Como, we see that they reproduce the rotunda of Aix-la-Chapelle. The form of the shafts, the outline of the wall, and the disposition of the collateral vaults are alike in both edifices. The similarity is so great as to prove imitation, especially as other churches in the Rhone district remind one of churches in the territory of Como." The fact of similitude is significant, but is it not more likely that the imitation was the other way? S. Fedele, or S.

Eufemia as it was first called, was built in S. Abbondio's time, A.D.

440, before the era of the Longobards, and we are told is the only church of that time which retains its original architecture, especially in the rounded apse. The similarity would then go to prove what has been an hypothesis, that Charlemagne really brought builders as well as marble from Italy, and that the _Magistri Comacini_ were those builders.

The church has also been compared to S. Vitale at Ravenna, but the Comacines were accustomed to build circular churches, such as the Rotunda at Brescia, and others. They were generally used as baptisteries or mausoleums; in fact were ceremonial churches.

Aix-la-Chapelle was designed as the tomb of Charlemagne, and here the builders mingled the rotunda of the ceremonial church with the basilica for wors.h.i.+p. The workmans.h.i.+p is much more rude than that of S. Vitale, where Greek artists were employed. It is easy to distinguish the parts added by the Comacines, from the cla.s.sical and Byzantine imported adornments furnished by the spoils of Rome and Ravenna. The Italians were not left entirely free in their designs, but had to conform to a more northern climate and different national taste; the windows were narrowed and elongated, and the pitch of the roof raised to a sharper angle. As Pliny had said to Mustio, his Comacine architect, seven centuries before--"You Magistri always know how to overcome difficulties of position," and Charlemagne's architects, in an equal degree, studied both climate and position. The further we go south or east the roofs have a tendency to flatten, the further we go north they have a tendency to rise into sharper gables.

The cause is this, I take it--a climatic one. Where there is much rain or snow, the sloping roof is a necessity; therefore this first indication of pointed architecture, as adaptable to the northern climate, makes Charlemagne's church an interesting link between the Romano-Lombard and Gothic in the north: just as Romano-Lombard stands between the cla.s.sic and Romanesque in the south. If Ansige suggested these modifications to the Italian builders, he had a wider office in the history of art than he knew; for Aix-la-Chapelle became the root from which the French and German so-called Gothic sprang; improved in the first instance under the hands of the _Franchi-Muratori_, who in the succeeding generations were called to work on churches in both countries. After all, the first step was but a slight one, being more a raising and narrowing of the round arch than the innovation of the pointed one. It might stand better as a first indication of the stilted Norman arch.

Of the civil architecture of the Carlovingian era we have very few instances remaining. The Emperor Charlemagne built no especial palace for himself, but used that of Luitprand at Milan, which in Charlemagne's time was known as _Curtis domum imperatoris_. An old chronicler tells us that he fortified Verona. He says--"In the time when King Pepin was still young, the Huns or Avars invaded Italy. When Charlemagne heard of their approach he caused Verona to be fortified, and walls erected all round, with towers and moats; and with _pali fissi_ fortified the city to its very foundations, leaving there his son Pepin." Forty-eight towers rise from these walls, of which eight are very high, the others well raised above the walls. These must have been what the old writer quaintly called _pali fissi_.

A diploma of Ludovic II., dated 814, proves that the walls of Piacenza also date from this era. It is in favour of his wife a.n.a.lberg, giving her permission to incorporate a part of the walls into a monastery. It runs--"Of our own authority, we add to the monastery and give in perpetuity, all the _steccato_, internal and external, of the said wall of the city, from the foundations to the battlements, as much as extends from Porta Milano to the next postern gate; and not only this, but also the _macie_ (rubble) which is found round the walls and ante-walls, and the same of the towers, gates, and posterns."

The use of hospices is much connected with Carlovingian times; they came in when the Church ruled, and pilgrimages became the fas.h.i.+on. The first hospices were in monasteries. In 752 S. Anselmo founded one for pilgrims at Nonantola, in Agro Mutinense. The council of Aquisgrana (Aix-la-Chapelle) made decrees as to the establishment of hospices, and Charlemagne made laws on the subject, "ut in omni regno nostro, neque pauper perigrinus hospitia denegare audeant." To the ordinary fine for homicide, Pepin II. added sixty soldi more if the person killed were a pilgrim. One who denied food and shelter to a pilgrim was fined three soldi. These humane provisions, like all such, soon became abused; so many non-religious people travelled on pilgrims'

privileges, that at the end of Charlemagne's reign it was found necessary to provide real pilgrims with a _Tessera trattoria_ to prove their authenticity.

Among the earliest hospices might be mentioned the leper hospital founded in Cla.s.sis near Ravenna in S. Apollinare's time, and one in Rome, founded by the Roman lady Fabiola for dest.i.tute or abandoned sick and poor. In 785 a certain Datheus, arch-priest at Milan, founded an _exonodochio_ (home for dest.i.tute children), and Queen Amalasunta built a foundling hospital at Ravenna, in the sixth century.

Charlemagne commanded that there should be a place in the peristyle of the churches for the reception of foundlings. The Loggia del Bigallo, though a later building, is a beautiful specimen of such a peristyle.

FOOTNOTES:

[71] In 1410, when the street was enlarged, it was half destroyed, and the south aisle cut off. The last remains were in 1561 incorporated in the Uffizi by Cosimo I., when the gallery was built. Some capitals may be seen in the wall of the Palazzo Vecchio.

[72] See Marchese Ricci, _Dell' Architettura in Italia_, Vol. I. ch.

ix. pp. 302, 342.

[73] The family of Polenta, their feudal lords.

[74] _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. ch. ii. p. 77.

[75] This is probably the church of S. Pietro Somaldi, to which a Lombard, or rather Italian Gothic, front was added in 1203. It was founded by a Longobard named Somualdo in the eighth century, and restored in 1199.

[76] A place between Lecco and Brescia.

[77] Cattaneo, _Architettura Italiana_, p. 175.

[78] There is a similar stairway in the church of S. Agnese fuori le mura, at Rome, which though originally said to have been founded by Constantine, is not of Greek form, but preserves a perfect Basilican plan. It was enlarged by Pope Symmachus in the fifth century, and he, it is known, employed Italian artists. The spiral stairway (_cochlea_) is also mentioned at Hexham in England.

[79] _L' Architettura in Italia_, ch. iii. p. 143.

[80] Anastasii, _Bibliothecarii Vitae Romanorum Pontific.u.m_--in Muratori, _Sculptores Rerum Italic.u.m_, tom. iii.

[81] S. Pra.s.sede in Rome, which was standing in the time of Pope Symmachus, when in 477 he held a synod there, has the same peculiarity. The elongated piers are here placed between every two columns, and are transverse, _i.e._ the greater width across the church. Before this time the roofs were always formed of gable-shaped frames of wood, erected on beams resting on the side walls, but Ricci sees in this the first advance towards the arched roof. We may see the next step in the old Lombard church at Tournus in France, where a succession of arches are thrown across the nave from the piers.

[82] The tower, which is in a later Lombard style, was rebuilt two centuries later.

CHAPTER VI

IN THE TROUBLOUS TIMES

After the Carlovingian dynasty had withdrawn from Italy, the country had two or three centuries of troublous times, in which very few people thought of church-building, and if the Comacine Masters found work in their own land, it was more the building of castles and strongholds in their most solid _opera gallica_, than the sculpturing of saints or the rearing of gorgeous basilicae.

After the Carlovingians came the House of Berengarius, which held the Italian throne from 888 to the intervention of Otho I. of Germany in 951. During this time there was always a military fermentation going on; Duke Guido of Spoleto fighting Berengarius; Arnolph and his son Sventebald fighting Guido; the Hungarians overrunning and sacking Italy on the north, where there were battles at Brenta, Garigliano, Firenzuola, and bloodshed generally till the murder of Berengarius.

Nor were things more peaceful in the south. Between A.D. 924 and 950 the Saracens invaded Sicily, and having established themselves there, a.s.saulted Rome, and marched on towards the Alps.

In Central Italy the Dukes of Burgundy, Provence, and Bavaria were found contesting with Lothaire for the succession. At length, in 951, Otho came down from Germany and scattered them all, restoring comparative peace for a time, though an arbitrary one; but it did not last long.

Next came superst.i.tious fears; the poor battered Italians, demoralized by fierce human foes, succ.u.mbed entirely to the moral subjugator, superst.i.tion. They were firmly persuaded that the year 1000 should be the end of the world, and every activity, public and private, was paralyzed. It was only after that era had pa.s.sed, and found Italy still existing, that new life began to stir in its inhabitants. Of course, fighting still continued, but these were holy wars--the Crusades, of which Urban II. preached the first in 1096. Then the art of sculpturesque architecture, which is the handmaid of religious enthusiasm, began to revive, and the Comacine Masters again had palmy days.

But they had not been entirely idle during these warlike times. Prof.