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 ECCLESIASTICAL

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ECCLESIASTICAL

of so many early Cliristian churches, the more or less incongruous and heterogeneous spoils of older and non-Christian etlifices. Of this church, in its original form, no one — however deciiledly liis tastes may in- cUne to some more highly developed system or style of architecture — will call in question the stately and majestic beauty. The general effect is that of a vast perspective of lines of noble columns, carrj-ing the eye forward to the altar, which, with its civory or canopy, forms so conspicuous an object, standing, framed, as it were, within the arch of the terminal apse, which forms its immediate and appropriate background.

S. Maria Maggiore is considerably smaller than were any of the other tliree chief basilicas of Rome (St. Peter's, St. Paul's, and the Lateran). Each of these, in addition to a nave of greater length and breadth, was furnished (as may still be seen in the restored St. Paul's) with a double aisle. This, however, w-as an advantage which was not unattended with a serious drawback from a purely aesthetic point of view. For a great space of l>lank wall intervening between the top of the lateral colonnade and the clerestory win- dows was of necessity required in order to give support to the pent-house roof of the double aisle. And it is curious, to say the least, that it should not have oc- curred to the builders of those three basilicas to utilize a portion of the space thus enclosed, and at the same time to lighten the burden of the wall above the colonnade, by constructing a gallery above the inner aisle. It is true, of course, that such a gallery is found in the church of S. Agnese. where the low level of the floor relatively to the surface of the ground outside may have suggested this method of construction; but whereas, in the East, the provision of a gallery (used as a gj'na?ceum) was usual from very early times, it never bec-ame ot herwise than exceptional in the West. Taking Fast and ^\'est together, we find among early and medieval basilican churches examples of all the combinations that are possible in the arrangement of aisles and galleries. They are ( 1 ) the single aisle with- out gallery, which is, of course, the commonest t j-pe of all; (2) the double aisle without gallery, as in the three great Roman basilicas; (3) the single aisle with gallery, as in S. Agnese; (4) the double aisle with single gallery, as in St. Demetrius at Thessalonica; and finally, as a crowning example, though of a later period, the double aisle surmounted by a double gallery, as in the Duomo at Pisa.

These, however, are modifications in the general design of the building. Others, not less important, though they are less obviously striking, concern the details of the construction. Of these the first was the substitution of the arch for the horizontal entabla- ture, and the second that of the pillar of masonry for the monolithic column. The former change, which hail already come into operation in the first basilica of St. Paul Without the Walls, was so obviou.sly in the nature of an improvement in point of stability that it is no matter for surprise that it should have been al- most universally adopted. Colonnaded and arcaded basilicas, as we may call them, for the most part older than the eleventh century, are to be found in the most widely distant regions, from Syria to Spain, and from Sicily to Saxony; and the lack of examples in South- ern France is probably due to the destructive inva- sions of the Saracens and Northmen and to the build- ing of new churches of a different type, in the eleventh and succeeding centuries, on the ruins of the old. The change from column to pillar, though in many cases it was no doubt necessitated by lack of suitable mate- rials — for the supply of ready-made monoliths from pagan buildings was not inexhaustible — proved, in fact, the germ of future development; for from the plain square support to the recessed pillar, and from this again to the grouped shafts of the Gothic cathe- drals of later times, the progress can be quite plainly traced.

Mention should here be made of a class of basilican churches, in which as in S. Miniato, outside Florence, and in S. Zenone, Vsrona, pillars or grouped shafts alternate, at fixed intervals, with simple columns, and serve the purpose of affording support to transverse arches spanning the whole width of the nave; a first step, it may be observed, to continuous vaulting.

Romanesque Types. — Something must now be said of the very important alterations which the east- ern end of the basilican church underwent in the pro- cess of development from the Roman to what may conveniently be grouped together imder the designa- tion of "Romanesque" tjT^es. When, in studying the ground-plan of a Roman basilica, we pass from the nave and aisles to what hes beyond them, only two forms of design present themselves. In the great ma- jority of instances the terminal apse opens immedi- ately on the nave, with the necessary result, so far as internal arrangements are concerned, that the choir, as we should call it, was an enclosure, quite uncon- nected with the arclxitecture of the building, protrud- ing forwards into the body of the church, as may still be seen in the church of S. Clemente in Rome. In the four greater basilicas, however, as well as in a few other instances, a transept was interposed between the nave and the apse, affording adequate space for the choir in its central portion, while its arms (which did not project bej'ond the aisles) served the purpose im- plied in the terms senalorium and mntroneum. Now it is noteworthy that the transept of a Roman basilica is, architecturally speaking, simply an oblong hall, cross- ing the nave at its upper extremity, and forming with it a T-shaped cross, or crux immissa. but having no organic structural relation with it. But it was only necessary to equalize the breadth of transept and nave, so that their crossing became a perfect square, in order to give to this crossing a definite structural character, by strengthening the pieces at the four angles of the crossing, and making them the basis of a more or le.ss conspicuous tower. And this was one of the most characteristic innovations or improvements introduced by the Romanesque builders of Northern Europe. In fact, however, before this stage of devel- opment was reached, the older basilican design had undergone another modification. For the simple apse, opening immediately into the transept, church builders of all parts of Europe had already in the eighth century substituted a projecting chancel, form- ing a fourth limlj of the cross, which now definitively assumed the form of the crux commissa, by contrast with the crux immissa of the Roman basilica. The earliest example of a perfectly quadrate crossing, with a somewhat rudimentary tower, appears to have been the minster of Fulda, built about a. d. 800. It was quickly followed by St. Gall (830), Hersfeld (831), and Werilen (875) ; but nearly two centuries were to elapse before the cruciform arrangement, even in the case of more important churches, can be said to have gained general acceptance (Dehio and v. Bezold, Die kirch- liche Baukun-st des Abendlandes, I, 161).

The differences which have already been mentioned were, however, liy no means the only ones which dis- tinguished the Romanesque from the Roman transept. The transept of a Romanesque church, especially of those which were attached to monasteries, was usually provided with one or more apses, projecting from the east side of its northern and southern arms; and from this it appears, plainly enough, that the purpose, or at least a principal purpose, of the medieval transept, was to make provision for subsidiary altars and chapels. A pair of transept apses, projecting east- wards, already makes its appearance at Hersfeld and Werden. At Bernay, Boscherville (St-Georges), and Cerisy-la-Foret (St-\'igor), each arm of the transept has two eastern apses, corresponding respectively to the aisle and to the projecting arm. The same ar- rangement is found also at Tarragona. At La Cha-