Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/274

 230 Sloan's Architectural Review and Builders' Journal. [October, ment angle, which would as readily hint the Tudor arch-head. Ciampini says this mosaic was done by command of Pope Hilary, A. D. 462. We find in Ciampini* a view of the entrance to the Oratory of St. Thomas the Apostle, built by Symmachus, in the Vatican Church at Rome. This entrance contains curved pointed arches, in altitude midway between the early Gothic and the Tudor. Symmachus, elected Pope in A. D. 498, died in 514. He was a great rebuilder and restorer of churches. There was also an archi- tect of the same name, who died in 526. As far as time is concerned, it is imma- terial which of these is intended in the record. Ciampinif also gives the form of a painted window in the Basilica Siciniana, afterwards called St. Andrew, in Bar- bara. It was one of the great south windows ; and had been blocked up by a wall, to prevent the too great immis- sion of light. The themes are the cruci- fixion of St. Peter, and the martyrdom of St. Paul. The painting is very ancient ; the dresses of the fifth century, and the picture itself — conjectured to haye been wrought by order of Pope Simplicius, who put up the mosaic work in the tribune of the same church — from the peculiar characters of the writing over it, is estimated to date not mucb later than A. D. 600. The pointed arch appears in veritable masonry, upholding itself and superin- cumbent weight, in the Dome [Duomo] at Pisa, in Italy, erected A. D. 1016. It was a vast undertaking for that age, as the body of the church consisted of five naves, and was composed of marble within and without. This fane, from the designs of Buschetto of Dulichium, a Greek architect of great skill, was constructed of the spoils of other build- ings, which the Pisans, then at the height of their greatness, had imported, by sea, from several distant places •j" '• Vetera . uiimenta." abroad, as is plainly evinced by the cornices, columns, bases, capitals, and other worked fragments. As these mate- rials were of a great variety of sizes, Bus- chetto, in accommodating them to each other, and settling the propoitions of all the parts of the pile, which is extremel}' well disposed, inside and out, exhibited much science and judgment. Perhaps, of all possible instances, this Dome of Pisa is most pertinent to our subject, for the vaultings of the side aisles of the nave are precisely of the sort termed by the Italians volta di sesto acuto, that is, built with the pointed arch.* We have the Pointed Arch, again, of real masonry, in the vaulted ceiling of the Chapel of the Angel, contained in the vestibule of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, at Jerusalem ; and curiously enough, the arch of the dome of this chinch, supported on four large, clus- tered columns, Pointed-minster fashion, is not struck in a semicircle, as might be supposed from its period — not later than A. D. 1048— but entirely coincides, as has been ascertained by dividers, or compasses, with the Gothic arch a little rounded at the top. The vestibule of this church, likewise, indi- by Pope Alexander III, in A. D. 11S0, and, consequently, begun several years before, has a reticulated vaulting of pointed arches unequal in size. Delia Valle, Lettere Senesi, vol. ii.,p. 17. — Whiitington, p. S7, speaking of the Church of St. Germain des Prez, erected about A. D. 1000, says the arch's at the eastern end, [cJievet, apse, or tribune,] are pointed in consequence of the arrangement of the pillars, which, being uearer together in the bow than where the colonnade proceeds in a straight direction, the arches which rise from them, when brought to an equal height with those of a rouud shape, become neces- sarily pointed ; and this is among the number of instances where the pointed arch was used from accident and necessity, before it became an object of taste. He ob- serves, further, that the same circumstance occurs in the crypt of St. Denis, Paris, — the ckevet of which was fin- ished A. D. 1144. See Part ii., et 3, — in the choir of the Church of La Charite sur Loire, France, put up towards A. D. 1100 ; and at the east end of Canterbury Cathedral, England, built between 11S0 aud ISo. where ' the arches are, some circular, others m tred ; for the distance be- tween the pillars here diminishing, gradually, as we go eastward, the arches being all of the same height, are mitred, (i. e., pointed, [or shaped like a bishop's mitre,]) to comply with this fancy, [the fancy itself having proba- bly arisen from the architect imitating some building conglomerated of ancient fragments ;] so that the angles of the eastern ones aro very acute.' Gosling's Canter- bury, p. 224." See Hawkins, pp. 12j aud 126.
 * De Sicris ^Edificiis, plate 22.
 * "The church or dome [dnorno] of Sienna, consecrated