Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/331

Rh Bk. Vin. Cm. II. TOWEES. 315 deserves notice, except as a perfect example of the style of the 11th or 12th century in Lombardy, and for a certain propriety and elegance of design, in which it is not surpassed, internally at least, by any building of its age. It is to be regretted that the idea was never carried out (at any rate no example remains) on such a scale as to enable us to judge of the effect of such a domical arrangement as is here attempted. The great defect of all one-storied domes is their lowness, both internally and more especially externally. This method of buildiiitif a dome in two stories would seem calculated to obviate the objection ; but though common in small sepulchral cham- bers, it has never been tried on a scale sufficiently large to enable us to judge of its real effect. After this period the circular shape was so completely superseded by the rectangular, that no further improve- ment took place in it. Towers. There is perhaps no question of early Christian archaeology involved in so much obscurity as that of the introduction and early use of towers. The great monumental pillars of the Romans — as, for instance, those of Trajan and Antoninus — were practically towers; and latterly their tombs began to assume an aspiring character like that at St. Remi (Woodcut No. 230), or those of Palmyra and else- where in the East, which show a marked tendency in that direction. But none of these can be looked upon as an undoubted prototype of the towers attached to the churches of the Cliristians. At Ravenna, as early as the age of Justinian, we find circular towers attached to St. Apollinare in Classe (Woodcut No. 289), and in the other churches of that place they seem even then to have been considered necessary adjuncts. At the same time it is by no means clear that they were erected as bell-towers ; indeed, the evidence is tolerably clear that the bells were not used in Christian churches till the time of Pope Adrian I., some two centuries later. Wlmt, then, were they? There is, I think, no trace of their being sepulchral monuments, or that they were designed or used as tombs ; and unless they were, like the sthamhas of the Buddhists, pillars of victory, or towers erected to mark sacred or remarkable spots, it is difficult to say what they were, or where we are to look for an analogy. Be this as it may, the oldest circular towers with which we are acouainted are those of Ravenna ; while the last of the series is the famous leaning one at Pisa, commenced in the year 1174. The gra- dations between these two extremes must have been the same that marked the changes in the architecture of the churches to which they are attached ; but the links are more completely wanting in the case of the towers that in that of the churches.