Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/270

 226 Sloan's Architectural Review and Builders' Journal. [October, made use of Italian architects ; and, in their architecture, professed to follow the Roman style. Although in the church of St. Agatha, at Ravenna, there is an instance of a pointed arch over the head of our Saviour, in a picture in mosaic ; yet that fane "was erected about A. D. 400 ; ninety-three years before the arrival of Theodoric in Italy. There are strong reasons for believing the picture to be of nearly the same time ; and the architect, Gemellus, from his name, was probably a Roman. The architects emploj'ed by Theodoric, to rebuild the cities of Italy, were in no instances Goths, but we have Boethius and SjTtimaehus, both apparently Ro- mans, and Cassiodorus, a Calabrian, all three patricians of Rome; and Aloy- sius, whose exact nationality is un- known, though he was probably a Greek, or procured from Constantinople. Rome and Constantinople certainly furnished the ready-wrought marbles with which the buildings at Ravenna were dec- orated. Why not the architects ? who, degenerate as they were — compared with those that devised the edifices whose remains they were to utilize — must have been often tempted to laugh at the incongruous piles produced. The palaces — built by Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, king of Italy— at Ravenna, Pavia and Modena ; the churches of St. Stephen's at Rimini, St. Martin's and St. John the Evangelist, both at Ravenna, the latter built by Galla Placida about A. D. 418, and that of St. Vitalis, erected m A. D. 547 ; the church and monastery of Monte Cazsino, and the church of St. John the Baptist at Monza, erected by Theodolinda, queen of the Lombards, as well as man}' other churches and monasteries, built by her people, and a number of Benedictine abbeys in France — are all characterized by Vasari as large and magnificent; but of architecture the most absurd. The fact is, the Goths and the Lom- bards appreciated no principles in build- ing, save bulk and vastness. Ignorance always works clumsily and ponderously. The Goths, of the days adduced, were not merely barbarians, — a term, which, even with nations as enlightened as the Greeks and the Romans, was employed, in prejudice, to signify foreigners, — but they resisted instruction, and- when, according to Procopius, it was proposed that their prince and prospective sove- reign, then a child, should be placed under the tuition of skilful preceptors, they opposed and defeated it, lest, if carried into effect, it should abate his ferocity and lessen his courage. As for the Germans, while the general world is their everlasting debtor for many an important invention, it owes them nothing for inventing Pointed Architecture, but a great deal for im- proving it. Some have ascribed Pointed Archi- tecture to the Saracens, as brought into Europe by persons returning from the Crusades. The Saracenic has indeed pointed arches, and so has the earlier East Indian, but neither displays arches identical with the Gothic, whose leading principles, besides, are discoverable in Europe long before the first Crusade took place. When all early general cultivation of the arts, sciences and letters fell with the fall of the Roman Empire, archi- tecture was lost. When general culture was resumed, architecture reappeared. The old spirit took the old body. Its kindred ones enlivened new forms. One of those forms was the Pointed, like all preceding, or coeval styles, a gradual elimination from the principles^ of ap- plied science and adorning art. It had no particular nationalit}' ; but having been developed mainly in Europe after the rise, and for the purposes of Chris- tianity, in addition to its other titles, it has been appropriately denominated the Chkistian Style. However, under whatever appellation, the Pointed Style looks equally well. Still it has been almost universally wronged, in its essential characteristics,