Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/386

370 3/0 ITA_LiAN AliLJilTECTUKE. Tart II. CHAPTER VI. BYZANTINE I ROMANESQUE. CONTEXTS. Buildings in Naples, Amalfi, &c. — San Nicolo. Bari — Cathedrals of BiUonto, Matera, and Traiii — Churches at Brlndlsi — General Remarks. CHRONOLOGY. IIATKS. The Normans enter Italy .... a.i>. KUk conquer Apulia froiii the (ireeks . 1043 attack the .Saracfus in Sicily . . . 1061 Conquest of Sicily completed bv Koger lcs of the style, there are few cities 111 Italy which contain so little to interest the architect or the anti- (juary. Still she does j>ossess one grouji of churches, which, by their juxtajiositioii, at least serve to illustrate the progress of the style during the Middle Ages. The earliest of these, Sta. Kestituta — shaded dark in the ])lan (Woodcut No. TOG) — may be as old as the 4th or 5th century, and retains its original jilan and arrangement, though much disfigured in details. The baptistery, a little behind the apse on its left, is certainly of the date indicated, and retains its mosaics,, which seem to be of the same age. In the year '2i)9 Charles II. of Anjoii commenced the new cathedral at right angles with the old, his French prejudices being apparently shocked at the incorrect orientation of the older church. It is a spacious building, 300 ft. long, arranged, as Italian churches usually were at that age, with a wooden roof over the nave and intersecting^ vaults over the side-aisles. Opposite the entrance of the old cathedral is a domical chapel of Renaissance design, so that the group contains an illustration of each of the three ages of Italian art. The cliurch of San Miniato (Woodcuts Nos. 797 and 798), on a hill overlooking Florence, is one of the earliest (1013) as well as one of the most perfect of the Byzantine Komanefeque style. Internally it is only 165 ft. in length by 70 in width, divided longitudinally into aisles, and transversely into three nearly square compartments by clustered piers