Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/425

Rh Bk. VIII, Ch. IX. HOJ.Y SEFUI.GHRE. 409 they decided upon for this purpose was both pleasing and appropriate, though entirely at variance with the arrangement of a basilica and independent tomb-house adopted by Constantine when he erected his sacred buildings in Jerusalem, some seven centuries before the Crusades. The form of the new buildings is now tolerably familiar to the student of architecture. The earliest germ of it is found in the church of St. George at Thessalonica (Woodcut No. 877). It is further developed at Bozrah (Woodcut No. 871). It was currently employed in the North of Europe (Woodcuts Nos. 554 to 559), and bloomed into perfection at Cologne in the church of St. Gereon (Woodcut No. 506). It is also found at Little Maplestead (Wood- cut No. 611), Zara (Woodcut No. 814), and elsewhere. In all these instances it consists of a circular nave leading to a rectangular choir terminated by an apse. Though primarily sepulchral in its origin, it is used in all these places without any reference to its original destina- tion, and had become a recognized form of Christian church for the ordinary purposes of worship. At Jerusalem, however, it was chosen because its form recalled the pur- ])ose to which it was there to be applied. The circular nave again became the receptacle of the tomb, and the choir and its apse were turned towards the east in obedience to the northern superstition as re- spects orientation. Though containing so many ob- jects of interest, the church itself is not large, measuring only 245 ft. long internally, exclusive of the crypt and chapel of the Cross, which extend beyond the apse to the eastward in such a manner as entirely to preclude the idea of a nave ever having existed in that direction. So far as can be judged from the information which remains to us, the style (before the fire of 1808, after which the Rotunda was en- tirely rebuilt) was tolerably homogeneous throughout. The circular part (dedicated 1149), which was that first erected, was constructed wholly in the round-arched style. The choir and apse, which were Plan of the Church of the Holy Sep- ulchre. (From B. Amico.') Scale 100 ft. to 1 in. ■ Piante e Imagini de' Sacri Edifizi di Terra Santa." Fierenza, 1609.