CHAPTER III

CIVIL ARCHITECTURE UNDER THE LONGOBARDS

Ecclesiastical as was the work of the guild, the Comacine of Lombard times was nevertheless a fine civil architect. He worked as willingly for the prince in palace-building and for the country in fortification, as for the Church in building monasteries and cathedrals. Indeed war of all sorts bore such a large proportion in the life of the Middle Ages that the fortress was of more importance than the home.

In civil architecture the _Magistri Comacini_ of the seventh and eighth centuries followed much the same style as in their ecclesiastical buildings, of course adapting it to its different uses. In the Lombard palace we find on the upper floor the usual double-light windows, with the two round arches and dividing column enclosed in a larger arch of masonry.

We also find the inevitable Lombard cornice beneath the roof. In civil buildings, instead of a complete gallery with colonnettes, this becomes a row of brackets with carvings in the corbel heads. The windows of the lower floor are square orifices barred with iron, for defence in warlike times. The walls are either of the solid brickwork _opus romanum_, or the great smoothly hewn stones of the _opus gallicum_. In Lombardy there are more of the former, as clay for bricks is easily attainable. In Tuscany and southward the buildings are more frequently of stone. The Florentine Bargello, though later, offers a very fine specimen of this work, in the older portions of wall, where the smooth-cut stones fit solidly together. If the building required an inner courtyard it was of the same Lombard style as their churches--showing the round arch, and the convex capital, often sculptured.

The municipal palace only came in with the Communes after 1100. In Longobardic times, the only buildings that had any pretensions to architecture were the palaces of the dukes or kings. Luitprand's palace in Milan, which fell into disuse after the tenth century, is as graphically described by old chroniclers and in legal documents in the archives of St. Ambrose, as Theodolinda's at Monza had been by Paulus Diaconus.

Before the days of the Communes, when the Brolio or Broletta, and the Palazzo Pubblico were as yet unknown, the palace of the ruling prince was the hall of justice, the nearest Basilica being the public meeting-place. King Luitprand's palace was styled in his time _Curtis ducati_. In Charlemagne's reign it was _Curti domum Imperatoris_; in other parchments _Curtis Mediolanensis_. Across the front ran an open gallery, called _Laubia_,[49] formed, as were the galleries of the Comacine churches, of a row of arches on colonnettes. Here the _placiti_ were held, and sentences pronounced, as in the regal and imperial public buildings, the populace being assembled in the street below. The _ringhiera_ of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence served the same purpose in Communal times.

The Loggia, which is such a feature in all old Italian houses, is the natural descendant of the _Laubia_. In its private aspect, as part of a citizen's house, the Loggia was the place where the master of the house received his friends.

An ancient MS. by Landolfo tells us that the space occupied by Luitprand's palace was not very wide. It extended from the monastery of St. Ambrose to the church of St. Protasius ad Monacos (now no more), and the road leading to it was known as _Strada de Civite Duce_.

That King Desiderius also employed the Masonic guild in civil as well as ecclesiastical architecture seems implied by the tradition of his palace at S. Gemignano. Certain it is that a solid mediæval building with decidedly Lombard windows and Lombard arches under the machicolations, exists at S. Gemignano, but whether it was really built by and for Desiderius, I leave wiser antiquaries to judge. The style is that of the times.

As a rule, Lombard houses had small rooms. This seems to have applied even to royal and public buildings, for, as mentioned above, all public meetings had to be held in a church, or in its ante-portal. When Desiderius convoked a Diet at Pavia, each prince or bishop was assigned a house which had a church or oratory near, in which he could meet his committee.

The different methods and processes of house-building are very plainly enumerated in the laws of Luitprand, of which we have given the headings on a previous page. It would seem that since the reign of Agilulf, the Masters of the Guild had become overbearing, and by Luitprand's time required to have special legislation to limit their prices. Luitprand's code of laws regulated the strength of the external walls of a building, in regard to the different height, construction, and material.

Art. 160 speaks of two different constructions, the Roman mode, and the Gallic style. It begins--"Similiter romanense si fecerit, sic repotet sicut gallica opera." (Roman work shall be accounted of equal value to Gallic work.) This distinction of terms has caused great argumentation among commentators. Prof. Merzario[50] says that "two national terms cannot apply to any small distinction of masonry," and he takes them to mean the Roman style with the round arch, in which most Lombard churches are built, and the Gothic with the pointed arches. As, however, Charlemagne's church, the father of the Gothic, was not yet built in Luitprand's time, we should be more inclined to take the opinion of Marchese Ricci and Troya, who interpret the phrase _opus gallicum_ to mean the style which they say was introduced into Ravenna by Theodoric and his Goths, and which they brought from Gaul. It was the most solid style imaginable, seemingly a remnant of Cyclopean building; if so it was not Gallic at all, but came from the Pelasgi through the Etruscans, and so was a natural sequence of Italian architecture; the Etruscans having taught the Romans. It consisted of hewn stones of large size and perfect fitness, still further strengthened with cement. "Mirum opus manu gothica, et quadris lapidibus," it was said of the builders of S. Oveno at Rouen. If this definition be admitted, then the other term _opus romanum_ would mean building with flat bricks, which was equally practised by the Comacines, especially in Lombardy.

Luitprand's laws speak of the _asse_, _tavolati_,[51] _scindule_ (Longobardic term) by which the houses were internally divided, and of a cheap species of house-building called by the Gauls _pisè_, probably from the same root as _pigiato_ (pressed together). According to that method, the walls were composed of masses of earth pressed, and then bound together so as to form a solid mass. The same method is still used in Africa and Spain, and in Italy by the peasants in the subalpine regions near Alessandria (Piedmont).

In Clause II., _De Muro_, where they use the term _si arcum volserit_, it cannot refer to vaulted roofs, which were then unknown, but to the slight arch of the window or door in the thickness of the wall, often only a sloping off of stones. The roofs were supported on wooden beams, and the laws determine the size and value of these, according to whether they are _scapitozzati_ or _capitozzati_, _i.e._ hewn or carved. They also decide the quality of the wood for beams or planking, and the cost of roofing in regard to the number of wooden slabs or tiles required in a raised roof.

Thus any Longobard who wished to build himself a house, might consult the laws of Luitprand, and count the cost beforehand.

These laws also decide the strength of the defensive walls of a city. Law IV. gives the trade price of this sort of work; for those built _in massa_, or _per maxa_, the builder shall for every sixty feet be paid in _solidum unum_ (one soldo, a gold coin). Ricci adds--"This _per maxa_ is the same construction which the Greeks and Romans styled _implectans_, _i.e._ conglomerate."

They had several kinds of walls, some of brick, others with a base of stone (_nella base a sassi_), like the walls of Milan, which have lasted till now.

Luitprand assigns different money for different kinds of work. Thus at times the _Magistri Comacini_ were paid _solidum unum_ for every foot of wall, sometimes _solidum vestitum_, a distinction of soldi which has puzzled commentators very much; some opining that _vestitum_ refers to a coin on which the emperor is represented as regally clad, and others that it means a copper coin plated (_vestito_) with gold.

We find also that terra-cotta vases were much used as ornamentation in building. This style was, as we have said, called "a cacabus." Broken vases were adopted in the foundation of large buildings and houses; others, which probably were not perfect enough for household use, were built into the walls and put as ornaments between the arches. The tower of S. Giovanni e Paolo at Rome and the church of S. Eustorgio at Milan are good instances of this style.

Here we have another link with ancient Rome. Promis instances an amphora found in the walls of an imperial edifice in Aosta. At the fountain of Egeria, near the Porta Tiburtina in Rome, the walls are full of amphoræ and oil-jars.

On the whole these Masonic laws show that the principal scope of the Longobardic architecture was to make strong and lasting buildings.

The building of convents were frequent commissions of the Comacines, and in these, as in their churches, they had a set form. A solid framework of walls either of hewn stone, in the Gallic manner, or of brick in the Roman style, and a few beams and planks, were the simple elements of which a convent was composed.

But of course a Comacine could not make any building without his slight columns and arches, and here he disposed of them in his cloister. This, too, was a heritage from classic Rome, recalling the atrium. A Lombard or Romanesque cloister is a delight. Here you have a square court more or less spacious, containing a picturesque well in the centre, surrounded by a colonnade of small columns generally in couples, resting on a low wall and supporting a roof on a row of arches. It was usually on the sunny cloister that the Comacine poured out his imagination; here are fancifully-sculptured capitals, pillars of every variety of form and style, grotesque gargoyles between the arches, and often delicate tracery above them. Hope[52] instances as the more rude and early style of Lombard cloisters, those of San Lorenzo at Rome and Santa Sabina and San Stefano at Bologna, and as models of the more splendid style those of S. John Lateran, which are resplendent with porphyry, serpentine, and gold enamel, inlaid in the marble; and those of S. Zeno of Verona of every tint of marble which the Euganean hills can afford. For the interior arrangements of a Longobardic monastery we will take Padre Ricci's account of the first plan of Monte Cassino which Petronax the Brescian engaged the Comacines to build. "It had on the ground floor a _Sala_ anciently called _caminata_, because the fire-place was there. The upper floor was divided by wooden partitions into cells and other rooms requisite in a cenobitic life. Although at that time houses only had one floor, monasteries generally had two. Monte Cassino boasted of three storeys, the upper one being only used for keeping fodder and stores. As the chief aim was solidity of building, great attention was paid to the proportionate thickness of the outer walls. The laws determined the adequate value of these, which were generally of the thickness of five feet. The inner walls were of planks or _assi_--'si cum axe clauserit.'"

This mode of separation by wooden partitions is still usual in convents, though it has gone out of use in houses. The convents of S. Marco and S. Salvi at Florence both show this style of division for the cells. The windows were protected by _abietarii_ or _cancelli_ (gratings) made of wood.

A strong point in Lombard building was the fortress, which the _Magistri_ were past masters in erecting. Their castles and forts and city walls stand to this day solid and strong, with towers standing up commandingly in all directions--all the mediæval cities bristled with them; the tower was, in fact, a weapon of war. On these, too, they set their seal--the pillared Lombard window becoming larger and more airy as the tower rises into the air, and the crowning cornice of bracketed or pillared archlets.[53]

Their towers seem to have been of two forms, ecclesiastic and civil. The ecclesiastical bell-tower, square with a straight unbroken line, with neither buttress nor projection till the summit, where the bracket-supported arches expand like a flower. Sometimes each storey had a string course, with smaller arches beneath it, as in the tower at Prato. The windows, too, as we have said, had a fixed rule; they are smaller below, and grow larger and more airy as they ascend. You go up from a mere orifice on the first floor to a one-arched window on the second, a two-arched on the third, to a three or even four-arched one near the summit.

The characteristics of civil towers at this time were their solidity as a means of defence, and their height as a means of vigilance; they appear to be chiefly circular, offering no corners, but a curved surface from which missiles could easily glance off. The windows were narrow outside, expanding wider within. If there were a double-light window, it would be on the very high storeys, out of arrow aim. Nearly all the ancient fortresses have round towers, but I know of very few church towers that are so, except the one at Classe near Ravenna.

Before the thirteenth century, neither brackets nor projecting cornices were used, and the tower rose in a single straight line from base to battlement, so that projectiles fell straight down. It was later that architects discovered the value of the projecting _baluardo_. As to battlements, these too came from the antique; Babylon and Nineveh show proofs of them, and Homer speaks of the battlemented towers of Asia and Greece. Muratori[54] derives the Italian term _merlo_, from _mirare_ (to take aim), the battlements being made for the shelter of the archers, and their convenience in shooting. When fire-arms came in, the need of battlemented towers ceased.

The principal Longobardic military towers remaining to our day, are, the tower of the ruined fortress of Baradello, which dominates the road to Camerlata, and the towers, now mutilated, in the wall of Como, one of which, erected on arches, forms the gate of the city towards Camerlata.

The ninth-century sculptures on the altar at S. Ambrogio prove that the Longobards had towers above their city gates. The author of the _Ant. Longob. Milanesi_ (Dissert. iii. p. 193) says that the ancient gates of Milan, before the enlargement of the walls, were of this construction with towers over them. They were furnished with heavy wooden doors covered with iron, which were suspended on chains, and slid down in grooves in the wall, thus completely closing the entrance--a portcullis, in fact. Livy, in his twenty-seventh book, describes the gates of Rome as being of the same construction; some existing examples at Rome, Tivoli, and Pompeii prove the fact. A famous gate in the time of the Longobards was the one chronicled by Paulus Diaconus, which King Bertharis (671-686) caused the _Magistri_ to erect beside his palace in Pavia. It was named the Porta Palatinense, and was, says Paulus Diaconus, an admirable work (_opera mirifica_). Some antique documents quoted by Passano,[55] prove that this gateway was furnished with bronze gates.[56]

Some writers think that the battlemented fortress came from the East, because ancient specimens of it are found there. In reading an Italian translation of Procopius, _Degli edifici di Giustiniano Imperatore_, I was struck by the many slight expressions which seem to prove that Justinian brought his fortress-builders into Byzantium from Italy. Procopius says that Justinian made a new style of fortress with towers all round the walls; with stairs in the towers, and galleries (_baluards_) round them with holes in them to throw down stones, and that it was called _Pirgo castello_, because in the Latin tongue, fortresses are styled _castelli_. Now this description is precisely that of an Italian fortress, such as the Comacines knew how to build, and built for centuries all over Italy. If it came from the East in ancient times, why was it specified by Procopius as a new style there?--and if its origin were Eastern, why had they no name for it, but had to take the Latin one?

The Bishop of Salisbury, in a letter in the _Salisbury Diocesan Gazette_ (May 1898), speaks of an inscription of the twelfth century, preserved in the museum at Jaffa, which is in memory of Magister Filipus, who came over with the King of England (Richard), and who had built a portion of the wall "from gate to gate": evidently Magister Filipus from the English Masonic Lodge, fraternized and worked with his brethren of the Roman and Eastern Lodges.

Again, on p. 21, Procopius speaks of a town or village now known as Eufratisia, but which was once called Comagene, because there were Romans as well as Persians living there. Romans, of course, meant subjects of the Italian Empire, but the name Comagene is certainly suggestive of those Italians being the Comacine builders who made the castles. Then Procopius's description of the rebuilding of the church of Santa Sofia is, to say the least of it, interesting to a student of Lombard architecture. The passage translated runs thus--"The church then (Sta Sofia) being thus burned, was, at that time, entirely ruined. But Justinian, a long while after, rebuilt it in such a form that if any one in older times could have foreseen it, he would have prayed God that the old church might be completely destroyed, so that it may be rebuilt as it now is. Therefore the Emperor sent to call artificers _and masters_, as many as there were in all the universal world. And Anthemius Trallianus, the head architect, was a great machinist, learned in all kinds of machinery, not only that of his own time, but in all that the ancients knew, and he had the power to regulate and organize perfectly the working of all things necessary to building, and to the ordering and executing of his own designs and inventions. And Isidore, another Milesian, was also a master of machinery. The church then, was so marvellously made that it was a beautiful thing to see; it seems supernatural to those who behold it with their own eyes, and incredible to those who only hear of it, because it is so high that it seems to touch the sky.... The face of the church looks towards the rising sun, but where the secret offices to God are performed, it is built in this manner. It is a half-round edifice which those of this profession call _Hemiciclo_, which is to say half a circle ... and in this there are columns planted beneath its floor." Here we have a decided Basilica with raised tribune and semi-circular apse; both the form and nomenclature seem to have been imported as a new thing from Italy. "The golden dome appears suspended from heaven, so light are the columns supporting it that it seems to be in the air.... One can never arrive at understanding how it was built (_apprendere l'arteficio_), but one goes away astonished at one's inability to enough admire such a work."

Does not this seem an argument for the universality of the Masonic Brotherhood, even in Byzantine days? Here are certainly Italian artists, Italian basilican forms, and Italian nomenclature, among the Greeks working at Sta Sofia. And here too are Lombard galleries and windows with an Eastern touch added. Which way did the influence come? Was this the origin of that characteristic Eastern mark of the Lombard style in Italy?--or was it an importation from Italy to Byzantium, where Procopius at least seems duly astonished by it? It is a question for experts to solve. There is much for the archæologist to do yet in finding the true pedigree of architecture.

FOOTNOTES:

[49] Probably the root of our word Lobby.

[50] _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. i. p. 50.

[51] The words _asse_ and _tavole_ for planks of wood still survive in Italy.

[52] Hope, _Storia dell' Architettura_, chap. xxv. p. 179, 180.

[53] See the illustration of the church of S. Frediano, on page 48, for a perfect specimen of Lombard tower.

[54] _Ant. med. aevi_, Tom. I. chap. ii. p. 158.

[55] _De' real palazzi_, ch. i. par. 4.

[56] That the Longobards were either metal-workers themselves, or had Italian artificers in their pay, we know from the specimens preserved in Monza Cathedral, and especially the crown of Agilulf, of which the _Antichità Longobardica Milanesi_ gives an illustration.