The Cathedral Builders Part 6

[31] Felice quoque meae sorori ejus tres annulos transmisi due c.u.m jacintis, et unum c.u.m albula.--Gregor. _Epist. ad Teod._ lib. xiv.

[32] Paulus Diaconus, _Sto. Longo._ lib. iv. cap. 20.

[33] _Ibid._ iv. 21.

[34] Ricci, _Architettura d'Italia_, Vol. I. ch. viii. p. 221.

[35] _Paul Diac._ Lib. V. ch. x.x.xiv.

[36] _Antiq. Long. Milanesi_, Tom. I. Dissertation i. p. 46.

[37] There is a very good instance of this in the Baptistery at Florence, which was also a ceremonial church.

[38] This was said to have been built by Agilulf, 591-615, and rebuilt by Luitprand. It was again restored in 1152, when Pope Innocent II.

reconsecrated it.

[39] In the fifteenth century the fine mausoleum, known as the Arco di S. Agostino, was erected over them by a later Comacine Master, Bonino da Campiglione. In the eighteenth century the church, having fallen into disuse, was turned into a hay store for the army, and the Arco was, in 1786, moved into the modern church of Gesu, where it remained till placed in the cathedral, where it now is.

[40] _etudes sur l'histoire de l'art_, vol. ii. p. 157. Paris, 1864.

[41] Paulus Diaconus Warnefridi, _Chron. de gestis Langobardorum_, Lib. V. cap. iii.

[42] _Antiq. Long. Mil._ Tom. I. Dissertation i. p. 68.

[43] "Prese molti corpi de' santi dai contorni di Roma, fatti poi trasportare a Pavia."

[44] It seems probable that the sandstone capitals alone belonged to the first eighth-century church, and the marble ones to the eleventh-century restoration. There is now a modern church built over the old crypt.

[45] _Dell' Architettura in Italia_, viii. 257.

[46] _See_ Sacchi, _Antichita Romantiche d'Italia_, p. 98.

[47] Ricci (_Dell' Architettura_, etc.) tells us the spiral column was very anciently used in Asia, and that Rome did not adopt it till Hadrian's return from the East. Under the later Caesars it became usual, but it fell into disuse in the rest of Italy. The Byzantines used it in some buildings, and in these two early Longobardic imitations of the East, we have a curious masonic link with the ancient traditions of Solomon's Temple, which Josephus tells us was adorned with spiral columns. It may be that they were old Roman columns carried up the mountain from some ruin, but I should rather take them as one of the first instances of the use of the spiral column by the Comacines, a form to which they were devoted in later times. There are endless instances of spiral colonnettes on the facades of Romanesque churches of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

[48] I speak of the time when Signor Difendente Sacchi visited the church in 1828, before writing his work.

CHAPTER III

CIVIL ARCHITECTURE UNDER THE LONGOBARDS

Ecclesiastical as was the work of the guild, the Comacine of Lombard times was nevertheless a fine civil architect. He worked as willingly for the prince in palace-building and for the country in fortification, as for the Church in building monasteries and cathedrals. Indeed war of all sorts bore such a large proportion in the life of the Middle Ages that the fortress was of more importance than the home.

In civil architecture the _Magistri Comacini_ of the seventh and eighth centuries followed much the same style as in their ecclesiastical buildings, of course adapting it to its different uses.

In the Lombard palace we find on the upper floor the usual double-light windows, with the two round arches and dividing column enclosed in a larger arch of masonry.

We also find the inevitable Lombard cornice beneath the roof. In civil buildings, instead of a complete gallery with colonnettes, this becomes a row of brackets with carvings in the corbel heads. The windows of the lower floor are square orifices barred with iron, for defence in warlike times. The walls are either of the solid brickwork _opus romanum_, or the great smoothly hewn stones of the _opus gallic.u.m_. In Lombardy there are more of the former, as clay for bricks is easily attainable. In Tuscany and southward the buildings are more frequently of stone. The Florentine Bargello, though later, offers a very fine specimen of this work, in the older portions of wall, where the smooth-cut stones fit solidly together. If the building required an inner courtyard it was of the same Lombard style as their churches--showing the round arch, and the convex capital, often sculptured.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOSINGHORUM PALATIUM FLORENTIAE CELEBERRIMUM IN FORO VETERI SITUM LAPIDE DOLATO COMLUMNISQUE MARMOREIS EXTRUCTUM CUI TURRIS ADJACENS ULNAR. 130 PROCERITATE ERIGEBATUR.

TRACING OF AN OLD PRINT OF THE TOSINGHI PALACE, A MEDIaeVAL BUILDING ONCE IN FLORENCE, WITH _Laubia_ ON THE FRONT.

_See page 61._]

The munic.i.p.al palace only came in with the Communes after 1100. In Longobardic times, the only buildings that had any pretensions to architecture were the palaces of the dukes or kings. Luitprand's palace in Milan, which fell into disuse after the tenth century, is as graphically described by old chroniclers and in legal doc.u.ments in the archives of St. Ambrose, as Theodolinda's at Monza had been by Paulus Diaconus.

Before the days of the Communes, when the Brolio or Broletta, and the Palazzo Pubblico were as yet unknown, the palace of the ruling prince was the hall of justice, the nearest Basilica being the public meeting-place. King Luitprand's palace was styled in his time _Curtis ducati_. In Charlemagne's reign it was _Curti domum Imperatoris_; in other parchments _Curtis Mediolanensis_. Across the front ran an open gallery, called _Laubia_,[49] formed, as were the galleries of the Comacine churches, of a row of arches on colonnettes. Here the _placiti_ were held, and sentences p.r.o.nounced, as in the regal and imperial public buildings, the populace being a.s.sembled in the street below. The _ringhiera_ of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence served the same purpose in Communal times.

The Loggia, which is such a feature in all old Italian houses, is the natural descendant of the _Laubia_. In its private aspect, as part of a citizen's house, the Loggia was the place where the master of the house received his friends.

An ancient MS. by Landolfo tells us that the s.p.a.ce occupied by Luitprand's palace was not very wide. It extended from the monastery of St. Ambrose to the church of St. Protasius ad Monacos (now no more), and the road leading to it was known as _Strada de Civite Duce_.

That King Desiderius also employed the Masonic guild in civil as well as ecclesiastical architecture seems implied by the tradition of his palace at S. Gemignano. Certain it is that a solid mediaeval building with decidedly Lombard windows and Lombard arches under the machicolations, exists at S. Gemignano, but whether it was really built by and for Desiderius, I leave wiser antiquaries to judge. The style is that of the times.

As a rule, Lombard houses had small rooms. This seems to have applied even to royal and public buildings, for, as mentioned above, all public meetings had to be held in a church, or in its ante-portal.

When Desiderius convoked a Diet at Pavia, each prince or bishop was a.s.signed a house which had a church or oratory near, in which he could meet his committee.

The different methods and processes of house-building are very plainly enumerated in the laws of Luitprand, of which we have given the headings on a previous page. It would seem that since the reign of Agilulf, the Masters of the Guild had become overbearing, and by Luitprand's time required to have special legislation to limit their prices. Luitprand's code of laws regulated the strength of the external walls of a building, in regard to the different height, construction, and material.

Art. 160 speaks of two different constructions, the Roman mode, and the Gallic style. It begins--"Similiter romanense si fecerit, sic repotet sicut gallica opera." (Roman work shall be accounted of equal value to Gallic work.) This distinction of terms has caused great argumentation among commentators. Prof. Merzario[50] says that "two national terms cannot apply to any small distinction of masonry," and he takes them to mean the Roman style with the round arch, in which most Lombard churches are built, and the Gothic with the pointed arches. As, however, Charlemagne's church, the father of the Gothic, was not yet built in Luitprand's time, we should be more inclined to take the opinion of Marchese Ricci and Troya, who interpret the phrase _opus gallic.u.m_ to mean the style which they say was introduced into Ravenna by Theodoric and his Goths, and which they brought from Gaul.

It was the most solid style imaginable, seemingly a remnant of Cyclopean building; if so it was not Gallic at all, but came from the Pelasgi through the Etruscans, and so was a natural sequence of Italian architecture; the Etruscans having taught the Romans. It consisted of hewn stones of large size and perfect fitness, still further strengthened with cement. "Mirum opus manu gothica, et quadris lapidibus," it was said of the builders of S. Oveno at Rouen. If this definition be admitted, then the other term _opus romanum_ would mean building with flat bricks, which was equally practised by the Comacines, especially in Lombardy.

Luitprand's laws speak of the _a.s.se_, _tavolati_,[51] _scindule_ (Longobardic term) by which the houses were internally divided, and of a cheap species of house-building called by the Gauls _pise_, probably from the same root as _pigiato_ (pressed together). According to that method, the walls were composed of ma.s.ses of earth pressed, and then bound together so as to form a solid ma.s.s. The same method is still used in Africa and Spain, and in Italy by the peasants in the subalpine regions near Alessandria (Piedmont).

In Clause II., _De Muro_, where they use the term _si arc.u.m volserit_, it cannot refer to vaulted roofs, which were then unknown, but to the slight arch of the window or door in the thickness of the wall, often only a sloping off of stones. The roofs were supported on wooden beams, and the laws determine the size and value of these, according to whether they are _scapitozzati_ or _capitozzati_, _i.e._ hewn or carved. They also decide the quality of the wood for beams or planking, and the cost of roofing in regard to the number of wooden slabs or tiles required in a raised roof.

Thus any Longobard who wished to build himself a house, might consult the laws of Luitprand, and count the cost beforehand.

These laws also decide the strength of the defensive walls of a city.

Law IV. gives the trade price of this sort of work; for those built _in ma.s.sa_, or _per maxa_, the builder shall for every sixty feet be paid in _solidum unum_ (one soldo, a gold coin). Ricci adds--"This _per maxa_ is the same construction which the Greeks and Romans styled _implectans_, _i.e._ conglomerate."

They had several kinds of walls, some of brick, others with a base of stone (_nella base a sa.s.si_), like the walls of Milan, which have lasted till now.

Luitprand a.s.signs different money for different kinds of work. Thus at times the _Magistri Comacini_ were paid _solidum unum_ for every foot of wall, sometimes _solidum vest.i.tum_, a distinction of soldi which has puzzled commentators very much; some opining that _vest.i.tum_ refers to a coin on which the emperor is represented as regally clad, and others that it means a copper coin plated (_vest.i.to_) with gold.

We find also that terra-cotta vases were much used as ornamentation in building. This style was, as we have said, called "a cacabus." Broken vases were adopted in the foundation of large buildings and houses; others, which probably were not perfect enough for household use, were built into the walls and put as ornaments between the arches. The tower of S. Giovanni e Paolo at Rome and the church of S. Eustorgio at Milan are good instances of this style.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOWER OF SS. GIOVANNI E PAOLO, ROME, 12TH CENTURY.

(_From a photograph by Alinari._) _page 65._]

Here we have another link with ancient Rome. Promis instances an amphora found in the walls of an imperial edifice in Aosta. At the fountain of Egeria, near the Porta Tiburtina in Rome, the walls are full of amphorae and oil-jars.

On the whole these Masonic laws show that the princ.i.p.al scope of the Longobardic architecture was to make strong and lasting buildings.

The building of convents were frequent commissions of the Comacines, and in these, as in their churches, they had a set form. A solid framework of walls either of hewn stone, in the Gallic manner, or of brick in the Roman style, and a few beams and planks, were the simple elements of which a convent was composed.