Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/500

 468 FRENCH ARCHITECTURE. Part II. angles so filled up as to reduce it to the more usual Greek form of a square, while its front and lateral porches are additions of a maonifi- cence to which the church of St. Front can lay no claim. The five cupolas are of nearly the same size, and are similarly placed, in both churches ; and the genei-al similarity of arrangement points certainly to an identity of origin. Both too would seem to be of about the same age, as there is no reason to doubt the data on which M. Felix de Verneilh ^ arrives at the conclusion that the church Ave now see was erected in the very beginning of the 11th century. There is, however, one striking difference — that all the constructive arches in St. Front are pointed, while those of St. Mark's are round. The form too of the cupolas differs ; and in St. Front the piers that support the domes, having been found too weak, have been cased to strengthen them, which gives them an awkward appearance, from which St. Mark's is free. The difference that would strike a traveller most is, that St. Mark's retains its frescoes and decorations, while St. Front, like almost all the churches of its age, presents nothing noA- l»ut naked bare walls, though there cannot be a doubt that it was originally painted. This indeed was the legitimate and appropriate mode of decoration of all the churches of this age, till it was in a great measure superseded by the invention of painted glass. The cupolas are at the present day covered with a wooden roof ; but their original appearance is represented with tolerable correctness in the woodcut No. 329, which, though not so graceful as Eastern domes usually are, are still a far more picturesque and permanent finishing for a roof than the wooden structures of the more Northern races. Its present internal appearance, from the causes above men- tioned, is singularly bare and gloomy, and no doubt utterly unworthy of its pristine splendor. The tower stands at the intersection between the old and new churches, and its lower part at least is so classical in its details, that it more probably belongs to the older Latin church than to the domical one. Its upper part seems to have been added, and its foundation strengthened, at the time the eastern part was built. St. Front is })ei-haps the only existing specimen of a perfect Greek cross church with cupolas. That of Souillac is a good example of a modification of a form nearly similar, except that the cupola forming the eastern branch is here transferred to the Avestern, making it thus a Latin instead of a Greek cross, which is certainly an improvement, as the principal space and magnificence is thus concentrated about the high altar, which is, or should l>e, the culminating point of effect. An opinion may be formed of its internal apjjearance, and indeed of all the churches of this style, from the view (Woodcut No. 330), ^ "Journal Archeologiqiie," de M. Didioii, vul. xi. p. 88 et seq.