CHAPTER I

THE INFLUENCE OF THE CUPOLA UPON SO-CALLED GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE

_The cupola, in its symbolic aspect, was the germ, whence sprang an architectural system the revolutionary action of which upon art can scarcely be over-estimated._[2]

[2] _L'Architecture Romane_, by Ed. Corroyer; Quantin, Paris, 1888.

So-called Gothic architecture was no spontaneous and miraculous manifestation. Like all human activities, its end is easy to determine; but it is difficult to fix even an approximate date for its beginning. The traces of its origin are lost in that period of architectural activity which preceded it, and prepared its way by a train of unbroken evolution.

The cupola of St. Front, which we may reasonably call the mother cupola of France, was not an imitation of that of St. Mark at Venice, for both were based upon the church built by Justinian at Constantinople, in honour of the Holy Apostles. But the form thus imported into Aquitaine received such modification and development, as to make it virtually an original achievement. One of the knottiest of architectural problems was solved in the process, and that admirable constructive principle was established which consists in concentrating the thrust of a vault upon four points of support strengthened by pendentives.

The construction of such a cupola as that of St. Front in dressed stone was an event of great moment in a district which still preserved the Gallo-Roman tradition in its integrity, and was commonly reputed the fatherland of our architecture. Its immediate consequences were shown before the close of the eleventh century by the erection of large abbey churches on the model of St. Front in various neighbouring provinces.

But while accepting the new principle, the architects of the period directed their energies to its perfectibility. Their efforts, and even their successes, in this direction are manifest so early as the first years of the twelfth century. The churches of Angoulême and of Fontevrault may be cited in proof. "We here recognise the main preoccupation of the Romanesque builders--namely, how best to reduce the immense masses of churches built with the primitive cupola by a more deliberate and judicious distribution of thrust and resistance. We further see how the adoption of these principles led to the emphasising of critical points by buttresses, which now began to project from the exterior walls."[3]

[3] _L'Architecture Romane_, by Ed. Corroyer; Quantin, Paris, 1888.

The new system spread rapidly, notably in Anjou and Maine, its growth being marked by an ever-increasing refinement and perfection. The architects of the rich abbeys of these provinces, the importance of which was aggrandised by their strong attachments to the all-powerful religious organisation of the period, gave a further development to the Aquitainian method. They transformed the pendentives of the cupolas into independent arches which performed exactly the same functions, thus logically working out an architectonic principle of amazing simplicity, the success of which was so rapid that, by the middle of the twelfth century, it was systematically applied to the construction of great churches at Angers, Laval, and Poitiers.

The works of the Angevin architects were of course known to their Northern brethren, who, in common with all the builders of the day, had long been seeking the final solution of the great problem of the vault. The architects of the Ile-de-France at once appropriated the Angevin system with that special professional ingenuity which characterised them, and applied it to the construction of innumerable churches, large and small, all of them built on the basilican plan--that is to say, with three, or even five aisles.

Thus the Aquitainian cupola of dressed stone exercised an absolutely direct influence upon Gothic architecture, since it gave birth to the _intersecting arch_, which is the main feature of so-called Gothic. This influence was first manifested in the general arrangement of single-aisled churches vaulted upon intersecting ribs, the earliest departure from the original cupola. It was then more grandiosely demonstrated in vast abbey or cathedral churches, built in accordance with the basilican tradition, and all vaulted on the new principle.

Angers and Laval are primitive examples of churches whose square compartments carry groined vaults, which thenceforth took the place of cupolas with pendentives.

The abbey church of Noyon shows the application of this principle, novel in the twelfth century, to the several-aisled churches of the Northern architects. The _original_ vaults of Noyon[4] were planned in square. The intersecting arches united the principal piers diagonally, the strain being relieved by a subordinate or auxiliary arch which rested upon secondary piers, indicated on the exterior by buttresses less salient than those of the main piers, and on the interior by a column receiving the lateral archivolts which united the chief piers.

[4] The original disposition of the vaults built about 1160 is indicated by the spring of the arches above the capitals, and by the base plan of the principal piers. The present vaults on rectangular plan were built after the fire of 1238, in accordance with prevailing fashions.

This system of construction, the principle of which was logically developed at Noyon, for instance, no longer exists, save in its traditional state in the great churches of Laon, and in the cathedrals of Paris, Sens, and Bourges, to name but the principal, without regard to the innumerable churches built on these principles throughout Western Europe. In these great buildings the vaults were all square on plan down to the adoption in the first half of the thirteenth century of equal bays, vaulted on a rectangular plan, and marked inside and out by equal piers and projections, as at Amiens, Rheims, and many other churches of the period.

Hence we see how incontestable was the influence of the cupola upon so-called Gothic architecture. This truth is demonstrated by monuments yet in existence, lapidary documents above suspicion. It cannot be insisted upon too strongly, not merely for the satisfaction of archæeologic accuracy, but more especially as yet another proof that the filiation between the art of the ancients and that of the so-called Romanesque architects is no less evident than that which links together the Romanesque and the so-called Gothic. Of this latter filiation we have a direct proof in the Aquitainian cupola, the parent of those of Angoumois, which in their turn gave birth to the Angevin intersecting arch, and so prepared the way for the flying buttress, which again was to mark a new departure.