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Rh of Vitruvius, and it is significant that the carliest existing text of Vitruvius, the Harley MS. in the British Museum, is also Carolingian. The doorway of Charles the Great's church at Aix-la-Chapelle, recently exposed, has a large architrave of classical form. This doorway might well be a work of the fourth century A.D., and so might some of the bronze doors, and the pine-cone fountain. The mouldings of the interior had classical forms, and old Corinthian capitals, which were probably brought from Italy, were re-used in the arches of the gallery storey. Of course there was no thought of any archaeological distinction between what was Roman and what was Byzantine; the great fact was that barbarism took up the arts of civilisation, and it must have been thought that Rome was being renewed by the efforts of Charlemagne. This Carolingian Renaissance gives us an invaluable example of a conscious building up of a school of art.

In Italy many buildings, like the baptistery at Florence, shew a deliberate attempt to be classical. In France, also, we meet with the same intention. At Langres, once a Roman town, the fine cathedral church (twelfth century) is wonderfully Roman in many particulars. The buttresses between the chapels at the east end are in the form of fluted Corinthian pilasters. In the interior the nave arches rise from similar fluted pilasters with Corinthian capitals; the triforium has fluted pilasters rising to a horizontal string moulding; beneath is a bold band of scroll carving of a classical type; and many of the columns have the classical entasis. At Bourges, another Roman town, the elaborate doorways of the north porch have finely carved lintels of scroll work and foliage, which must have been practically copied from a Roman original. At Autun the direct influence of the Roman gateway, which is still standing, can be traced in the details of the cathedral. At Arles, St Gilles, Le Puy, and in dozens of other places a similar trans- ference from Roman prototypes is apparent in Romanesque architecture. The Romanesque type of tower, with a low, square spire, with scale ornaments cut into the sloping surfaces, must largely derive from the late Roman tombs like those of Trèves above described. Even Roman methods of construction, like concreted rubble walling, small facing stones, and courses of tiles set in arches, persisted until the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

The second great strain in Romanesque art was formed by the constant inflow of eastern ideas and decorative objects, as well as of monks and artists. After Justinian reconquered Italy, fragments of the land remained dependencies of the Eastern Empire until the eighth century. In Rome itself during this time Art became almost completely Byzantinised. There are several beautiful Byzantine capitals and slabs in Rome which were imported from Constantinople, and the round church, of St Theodore on the Palatine belongs to this time. Even a brick-stamp of Pope John (A.D. 705) is inscribed with Greek letters.