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should have been thus long and hard is
in no way wonderful.
Of the pagan
buildings of Ravenna nothing remains
but a few inscribed stones and such like,
and the columns which are used up again
in the churches. Not a single temple or
other building is standing, even in ruins.
They most likely perished early. The
position of Ravenna was more like that of
the New Rome than that of the Old.
The city sprang at once, in Christian
times, from the rank of a naval station to
that of an abode of Emperors. But at
Rome, where the stores of earlier build-

diate member, which is not without its Constructive use, but which is artistically a survival, though no more than a survival, of the broken entablature, is thrust in between them.* At Rome, on the other hand, the two modes of construction went on side by side, and the entablature remained in occasional use to divide the nave and aisles of Roman churches, after the northern architects had exchanged the round arch itself for the more aspiring pointed forms. Of the three greatest churches of Rome, the first in rank, the church of Saint John Lateran, the true metropolitan church of Rome, the Motherings were so endless, where paganism Church of the City and of the World, held its ground so long, and where so used the arch in all its perfection in that many of the pagan temples were spared long range of colums which papal barbar- till a very late time, the older mode of ism has so diligently laboured to destroy. building was not likely to be forsaken all But in the Liberian Basilica on the at once. The churches had either been

certainly supported, down at least to the days of Diocletian and Constantine, not arches, but a straight entablature. Saint Mary on the Esquiline therefore, in its long horizontal lines, simply clave to the existing fashion; the arches of Saint John Lateran and of Saint Paul were an innovation which had to fight its way against received practice.

Esquiline the entablature - save again basilicas or were built after the model of where triple-crowned destroyers have cut the basilicas. And in the basilicas, the through its long unbroken line-reigns rows of columns which divided the buildas supreme as the arch does in the Lat-ing, the beginning of nave and aisles, eran. In the Vatican Basilica both forms were used; but the entablature had the precedence. It was used in the main rows of columns which divided the nave from the main aisles, while the arcade was used only to divide the main aisles from the secondary aisles beyond them. It was between the long horizontal lines of the elder form of art, lines suggesting the days of Augustus rather than the But the transition may be traced, not days of Diocletian, that Charles and only in the construction and arrangement Henry and Frederick marched to receive of buildings, but in their ornamental dethe crown which Diocletian rather than tails. Classical purism allows of only a Augustus had bequeathed to them. And, very few forms of capital. There are the as if to make the balance equal, the three Greek orders in their pure state, church of the brother Apostle, standing and at Rome it would be hard to shut beyond the walls of Leo no less than be- out their Roman modifications. The peyond the walls of Servius and Aurelian, culiar Roman or Composite capital, the the great basilica of Saint Paul, modern union of Ionic and Corinthian forms, as it is in its actual fabric, preserves, may perhaps be admitted by straining a better than any other, the form of a great point. But there toleration ends. Yet church with arches resting on the col-one may surely say that, though the umns, the memory in short of what the Greek forms are among the loveliest crepatriarchal church itself once was. Inations of human skill, yet, if men are conthe lesser churches the arched form is by far the most common, but the entablature keeps possession of a minority which is by no means contemptible. And at last it appears again, by a kind of dying effort, in the work of Honorius the Fourth in the basilica of Saint Lawrence, a work distant only by a few years from the last finish of Pisa, from the first beginnings of Salisbury. That the struggle at Rome

* The Ravenna stilt may be compared with the stilt between the column and the entablature in Egyptian architecture. In the Saracenic styles it became a great feature with both round and pointed arches.

fined in this way to three or four models, they are sure to weary of their sameness. The Corinthian capital is as beautiful an arrangement of foliage as can be devised; but it is hard to be forbidden either to attempt other arrangements of foliage or to seek for ornament in other forms besides foliage. The later Roman builders clearly thought so; they brought in various varieties, which it is easy to call corruptions, but which it is just as easy to call developments. Among the vast stores of capitals which are to be found among the buildings of Rome, there are many which,

Agrippa to tie on a would-be Grecian | looked for. We are told that the Janus portico to a truly Roman body. And Quadrifrons was once adorned with dewhen we see that the classic architect tached columns; but they are gone and knew no better way of lighting so great we do not miss them. The old Latin and splendid a pile than by making a hole deity might be well satisfied with the four in the top which left its pavement to be bold arches and the vault which were the drenched by every passing shower, we creation of his own land; he needed not might turn to the ranges of windows in the further enrichment of features borsome despised early Christian church, rowed from the temples of the deities of and think that, in one respect at least, another mythology. In all these examthe builders of the days of Constantine ples, and in many more-wherever, in and Theodosius had made some improve- short, use came first and decoration ments on the arts of the days of Augus- second-the Roman forms hold an untus. From such an incongruous union doubted supremacy, and sometimes they of two utterly distinct principles of build- have banished the foreign element alto ing we might turn with satisfaction together. But it was a higher achievementthose buildings where the real Roman to lay hold on the noblest feature of the spirit prevails, more truly Roman some- foreign style, to press it into the service times in their decay, when the Greek cas- of the native construction, to teach the ing has been picked away from them, columns of Greece to bear the arches of than they could ever have been in the Rome. What the entablature was in the days of their perfection. The Baths Greek system the arch was in the Roman, of Caracalla, the Temple of Venus and and no greater step in the history of art Rome, the Basilica of Maxentius or of was ever taken than when it was found Constantine, as they now stand ruined, that the column which had given so much show only their Roman features. They grace and beauty to the one construction amaze us by the display of the construc- could be made to give equal grace and tive powers of the arch on the very beauty to the other. At the bidding of grandest scale. In the days of their Diocletian consistent round-arched archiglory, features of Greek decoration, beau-tecture first showed itself. The restorer tiful no doubt in themselves, but out of and organizer of the Empire might fitplace as the mask of such a noble reality, must have marred the vast and simple majesty of the true Roman building. As it is we see in them links in a chain which takes in the Cloaca Maxima at one end and the naves of Mainz and Speyer at the other; when they were perfect, their exotic features might have made It is at this point that our guides fail them as inharmonious as the Pantheon.us, that they hand us over to other We can admire the theatre of Marcellus, guides, and that they leave us to bridge we can almost forgive the purpose of the the chasm which yawns between them Flavian Amphitheatre, when we see how for ourselves. Chasm in truth there is completely the Roman element has tri- none; all is true and genuine growth, umphed over the Greek. So, in one fea- step by step, though the battle was long ture especially Roman, one for which the and hard, longer and harder in Rome habits and the arts of other nations could itself than it was elsewhere. At Ravenna supply no parallel, in the triumphal the triumph of the arched system, with arches, we see the native Roman forms the arches resting on columns, seems to stand forth as the leading feature of have been complete from the moment the structure, while the Greek features, that the city became an Imperial dwellthe columns added simply for ornament, ing-place. Nowhere in the buildings of gradually lose their importance. In the Placidia or Theodoric do we see the arches of Severus and Constantine the columns still supporting the entablature. columns have lost much of the import- Nowhere at Ravenna are the horizontal ance which they have in the arches of lines of the outside of the Grecian temple Drusus and Titus. But the most con- transferred to the inside of the Christian sistent work of the kind is really the de-church. But the triumph of the new style spised arch of Gallienus, where the round arch boldly spans the way, and where the Greek element has shrunk up into a shallow pilaster which has almost to be

tingly be also the restorer and organizer of the building art. The Emperor who handed on the legacy of Rome to so many ages might well be also the creator of a type of building which contained in itself the germ of every good and consistent building which was to follow it.

was perhaps less thorough because it was so speedy. Nowhere at Ravenna does the arch rest, as it does at Spalato, at once on the abacus of the column. An interme

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Of the pagan diate member, which is not without its should have been thus long and hard is constructive use, but which is artistically in no way wonderful. a survival, though no more than a sur- buildings of Ravenna nothing remains vival, of the broken entablature, is thrust but a few inscribed stones and such like, in between them.* At Rome, on the other and the columns which are used up again hand, the two modes of construction went in the churches. Not a single temple or on side by side, and the entablature re- other building is standing, even in ruins. mained in occasional use to divide the They most likely perished early. The nave and aisles of Roman churches, after position of Ravenna was more like that of the northern architects had exchanged the New Rome than that of the Old. the round arch itself for the more aspir- The city sprang at once, in Christian ing pointed forms. Of the three greatest times, from the rank of a naval station to churches of Rome, the first in rank, the that of an abode of Emperors. But at church of Saint John Lateran, the true Rome, where the stores of earlier buildmetropolitan church of Rome, the Motherings were so endless, where paganism Church of the City and of the World, held its ground so long, and where so used the arch in all its perfection in that many of the pagan temples were spared long range of colums which papal barbar-till a very late time, the older mode of ism has so diligently laboured to destroy. building was not likely to be forsaken all The churches had either been But in the Liberian Basilica on the at once. save again basilicas or were built after the model of Esquiline the entablature. where triple-crowned destroyers have cut the basilicas. And in the basilicas, the through its long unbroken line-reigns rows of columns which divided the buildas supreme as the arch does in the Lat-ing, the beginning of nave and aisles, In the Vatican Basilica both forms were used; but the entablature had the precedence. It was used in the main rows of columns which divided the nave from the main aisles, while the arcade was used only to divide the main aisles from the secondary aisles beyond them. It was between the long horizontal lines of the elder form of art, lines suggesting the days of Augustus rather than the days of Diocletian, that Charles and Henry and Frederick marched to receive the crown which Diocletian rather than Augustus had bequeathed to them. And, as if to make the balance equal, the church of the brother Apostle, standing beyond the walls of Leo no less than beyond the walls of Servius and Aurelian, the great basilica of Saint Paul, modern as it is in its actual fabric, preserves, better than any other, the form of a great church with arches resting on the columns, the memory in short of what the patriarchal church itself once was.

eran.

certainly supported, down at least to the
days of Diocletian and Constantine, not
arches, but a straight entablature. Saint
Mary on the Esquiline therefore, in its
long horizontal lines, simply clave to the
the arches of Saint
existing fashion;
John Lateran and of Saint Paul were an
innovation which had to fight its way
against received practice.

But the transition may be traced, not
only in the construction and arrangement
of buildings, but in their ornamental de-
tails. Classical purism allows of only a
very few forms of capital. There are the
three Greek orders in their pure state,
and at Rome it would be hard to shut
out their Roman modifications. The pe-
culiar Roman or Composite capital, the
union of Ionic and Corinthian forms,
Yet
may perhaps be admitted by straining a
point. But there toleration ends.
one may surely say that, though the
Greek forms are among the loveliest cre-
Inations of human skill, yet, if men are con-
fined in this way to three or four models,
they are sure to weary of their sameness.
The Corinthian capital is as beautiful an
arrangement of foliage as can be devised;
but it is hard to be forbidden either to
attempt other arrangements of foliage or
to seek for ornament in other forms be-
sides foliage. The later Roman builders
clearly thought so; they brought in vari-
ous varieties, which it is easy to call cor-
ruptions, but which it is just as easy to call
developments. Among the vast stores of
capitals which are to be found among the
buildings of Rome, there are many which,

the lesser churches the arched form is by far the most common, but the entablature keeps possession of a minority which is by no means contemptible. And at last it appears again, by a kind of dying effort, in the work of Honorius the Fourth in the basilica of Saint Lawrence, a work distant only by a few years from the last finish of Pisa, from the first beginnings of Salisbury. That the struggle at Rome

* The Ravenna stilt may be compared with the stilt between the column and the entablature in Egyptian architecture. In the Saracenic styles it became a great feature with both round and pointed arches.

though they follow the general type of ument of the religious and artistic histhe Ionic or the Corinthian order, do not tory of Rome, it has the same kind of inrigidly follow the types of those orders terest which we feel when we find, ever which are laid down by technical rules. and anon at home, a church built or Professor Reber has given some exam- adorned after the elder fashion during the ples of this departure from rigid technical reaction under Philip and Mary. This exactness even in the Colosseum itself. temple was the work of a devout and The forms used in the Colosseum are zealous pagan, Prætextatus the friend of certainly not improvements; the point is Julian, though it was built, not during that there should be varieties of any kind. the reign of his patron, but in the tolerant But I must speak in a different tone of days of Valentinian. This building, as a certain capitals, to my mind of singular pagan building, as part of the buildings splendour and singular interest, which of the Forum, comes within Professor lie neglected among the ruins of the Baths Reber's ken. We have to thank him for of Caracalla. The artist has been so far illustrating its remarkable capitals, in from confining himself to one prescribed which we find neither human nor animal pattern, either of volute or of acanthus- forms, but, by an equal departure from leaves, that he has ventured to employ the ideal precision of any known order, vigorously carved human or divine figures the place of the figures of Hercules and as parts of the enrichment of his capitals. Bacchus in the capitals of Caracalla is And among the stores of fragments which supplied by armour and weapons in the lie in the lower gallery of the Tabula- form of a trophy. Both Professor Reber rium, there are a number of capitals and Mr. Burn note these steps in archiwhich go even further, capitals of which tectural development. Why do they not the volute is formed by the introduction go on to notice the next step, when we of various animal figures. If it be true find capitals of the same anomalous kind that the volute took its origin from a used up again in the Laurentian Basilica ? ram's horn, such a change is something From thence another easy step leads us like going back again to the beginning. to the use of the same forms in the In these capitals, some at least of which, churches of Lucca, and one more step if not "classical," are certainly pagan, we leads us to the western portal of Wetzlar get the beginning of that lavish employ- and to the Imperial palace at Gelnhausen. ment of animal figures in Romanesque The complaint then which I have to capitals of which we have many examples make is that we have excellent works ilin England and Normandy, but the best lustrating the pagan antiquities of Rome, forms of which are certainly to be found and excellent works illustrating the Chrisin some of the German and Italian build- tian antiquities of Rome, but that we have ings. At Wetzlar and at Gelnhausen, at no book, as far as I know, which clearly Milan, Monza, and Pavia, we may see and scientifically traces out the connection how ingeniously the volute can be made between the two, and which sets them forth out of various arrangements of the heads as being both alike members of one unof men, lions, bulls, and the primitive broken series. In M. Wey's book I can ram himself, and how, in the noblest type at least turn from a picture of the Temple of all, it is formed by the bird of Cæsar of Saturn to a picture of the church of bowing his head and folding his wings, Saint Clement, even though either may as if in the presence of his master. Such be picturesquely mixed up with a picture forms as these may be grotesque, fanci- of a peasant or a buffalo. Professor ful, barbarous, according to technical Reber and Mr. Burn give me all that I rules; I venture to see in them perfectly can want up to a certain point; only then lawful efforts of artistic and inventive they stop, without any reason that I can skill. And at any rate, here we have the see for stopping. beginning of them, in Roman buildings I have two more remarks to make on early in the third century. And there is the connection between the Pagan and the another building which I have always early Christian buildings of Rome. The looked on with especial interest, the exclusive votaries of classical antiquity small range of columns, the remains of sometimes raise a not unnatural outcry at the Temple of the Dii Consentes, imme- the barbarism of Popes, Emperors, and diately below the clivus of the Capitol. Exarchs -the memory of Theodoric forHere is a work of pagan reaction, a tem- bids us to add Kings - in building their ple consecrated to the old Gods of Rome churches out of the spoils of older buildafter some of the earliest Christian ings. But what were they to do? They churches were already built. As a mon-naturally looked on the question in a

by longitudinal ranges of columns in the new. In short, at the very moment when the arch won its greatest triumph, both of construction and of decoration, architecture, as far as the roof was concerned, fell back on the principle of the entablaThe practice of vaulting large spaces, such as we see in the Baths of Caracalla and the basilica of Maxentius, went altogether out of use, till a distant approach to the boldness of the old Roman construction came in again in the great German minsters of the twelfth century.

wholly different way from that in which it
is natural for us to look at it. They had
no antiquarian feeling about the matter;
such feelings at least were far stronger in
the breast of the Goth than they were in
the breast of the Roman. The feeling of
a Bishop or of a zealous Emperor or mag-ture.
istrate would rather be that with which
Jehu or Josiah brake down the house of
Baal. The temples were standing use-
less; churches were needed for the wor-
ship of the new faith; the arrangements
of the temples seldom allowed of their
being turned into churches as they stood,
while they supplied an endless store of
columns which could be easily carried off
and set up again in a new building. The
act cannot fairly be blamed; in a wider
view of history and art it can hardly be
regretted.

Besides this objection from outside, which may make some minds turn away from the study of the early Christian buildings at Rome, there is another remark, an admission it may be called, to be made from within. There can be no doubt that the form which was chosen for the early churches, though it fostered art in many ways, checked it, in the West at least, in one way. The arch is the parent of the vault; the vault is the parent of the cupola; and to have brought these three forms to perfection is the glory of Roman art. But for some ages the continuity of Roman art in this respect is to be looked for in the New Rome and not in the Old. The type of church which was adopted at Constantinople allowed the highest development of the art of vaulting, and sent it in its perfect form back again into the Western lands where it had first begun. Saint Mark is the child of Saint Sophia, and Saint Front at Périgueux is the child of Saint Mark. But the oblong basilican type of the Roman churches had no place for the cupola, and the one objection to the use of the column as a support for the arch is that it makes it hardly possible to cover the building with a vault. The vault and the dome were therefore used in the West only in the exceptional class of round buildings, and in the apses of the basilican churches. The basilican churches had only wooden roofs, and their naves could be made no wider than was consistent with being covered with a wooden roof. Sometimes, as in the basilica which bears the name of Saint Cross in Jerusalem, where an ancient building of great width has been turned into a church, the single body of the old structure is divided

It is the round-arched buildings, and especially the early type of them, which form the main wealth of the Christian architecture of Rome. The later Romanesque gave Rome one boon only, but that was a precious one. Rome now gained, what she had never had either in Pagan or in early Christian times, something to break the monotony of her horizontal lines. The pagan temple was all glorious without; the Christian basilica was all glorious within; but neither of them had anything in its external outline to lead the eye or the mind upward. That lack was supplied by the tall narrow bell-towers which add so much to the picturesqueness of many a view in Rome, and which are the only medieval works which at all enter into the general artistic aspect of the city. Of the sham Gothic of Italy Rome has happily but little to show. The sprawling arches of Rome's one Gothic church by the Pantheon show that we are on the way to the time of utter destruction. They are the pioneers of the havoc of the Renaissance. Rome was now at last to be truly sacked by the barbarians. We may pass by the ravage wrought on the temples at the foot of the Capitol, on the Colosseum, on the stately columns of Nerva's Forum. One who has followed the line of argument of this article will perhaps rather be inclined to mourn over the destroyed and disfigured churches of the early days of Roman Christianity. Then it was that the fury of the destroyer was let loose on the venerable piles which Constantine had reared and where Theodoric had made his offerings. Pope after Pope had the pleasure of writing up his name, of recording his "munificence," on the holy places which he laid waste. The disfigurement of Saint John Lateran, the destruction of Saint Peter's, may stand on record as the great exploits of papal rule in Rome. Men enter the modern Vatican Basilica and wonder why the building seems so

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