The Cathedral Builders: The Story of a Great Masonic Guild

CHAPTER V

Chapter 95,484 wordsPublic domain

COMACINES UNDER CHARLEMAGNE

MASTERS OF THE CARLOVINGIAN ERA

We may safely say that Charlemagne, who was more a warrior than a man of æsthetic tastes, had no influence whatever on Italian architecture; neither the form nor the symbolism was changed by him. The Italians were always conservative, and clung to old traditions. The Roman basilica, and not the Eastern mosque, still continued to be the plan of the Italian church. Ricci asserts that by the end of the eighth century all imitation of Oriental architecture had disappeared from Italian churches. It was not the same, however, with the ornamentations, in which the frozen Byzantine forms became vitalized under hands less technically skilful, but more natural.

Charlemagne did not even alter the Longobardic laws, and he certainly did not interfere with the freedom and privileges of the Comacines or _Liberi Muratori_. In fact he ratified the Lombard code (the laws of Rotharis and Luitprand), only adding a few others which are known as _Capitolari_.

They do not, however, refer specially to our _Magistri_, but to jurisprudence in general. The older laws still held good for the Comacines, and they went on building their Basilican churches, which were at the same time classic in form, solid in style, and fanciful in decoration--a curious and characteristic mixture. But Charlemagne certainly patronized the Comacines, and not only employed them himself, but sent them to restore Roman churches for Pope Adrian, and to fortify Florence.

The early Carlovingian churches in Italy have so much analogy with the Longobardic ones, that it is very difficult to distinguish precisely to which era certain churches belong.

Rumhor instances the Florentine Basilica of S. Scheraggio, which was much used as a meeting-place for civil councils in the early days of the Republic. This is usually said to have been a Carlovingian church; but either it was pure Lombard, as the barbarous name _Scheraggio_ implies, or else Charlemagne employed the Lombard architects.[71] Padre Richa, who saw the ruins of it, gives a design of the church, which was the usual Lombard form, three naves, the central one wide, and an apse to each. The columns and capitals were from some Roman building.

The architecture was entirely similar to that of S. Paolo in ripa d'Arno, close to Pisa, which has also been styled Carlovingian. The chronicle of the monk Marco, written in 1287, preserved in the archives of Vallombrosa, shows that although the guide-books date S. Scheraggio as twelfth-century architecture because a papal bull of that time refers to the name, it belonged to the Vallombrosian monks long before, having been given to them by Countess Beatrice in 1073,[72] and was probably founded in the ninth century.

We must not omit to mention the most interesting of Comacine churches, that of San Donato in Polenta, where Dante worshipped, and near which Paolo and Francesca lived. It was built in the eighth century, and is mentioned in a document of 976. It is of the usual triple-apsed form. The columns have diverse capitals, some square, some diminished, ornamented with foliage and interlaced work; some have grotesque figures, and animals in low relief, with a rude technique. Here are men like monkeys, hippogriffs, sea monsters, etc. It has been graphically described in Sapphic verse by Carducci, as follows--

To that gaunt Byzantine there crucified, Whose hollow eyes gaze from his livid face, The faithful pray for blessings on their Lord,[73] And glory to Rome.

From every capital dread shapes obtrude And memories bring of ancient sculpturing hands Whose works show visions weird, and horrors from The dreadful North.

The eastern gleam from pallid altar lamps Falls on degenerate inhuman forms, Writhing around in many-coiled embrace Like things of Hell.

Rude monsters spew above the kneeling flock. Behind the very font, crouching beast Red-haired and horned, and demonlike Doth gaze and grin.

The original runs thus--

Al bizantino crocefisso, atroce Ne gli occhi bianchi livida magrezza, Chieser mercè de l'alta stirpe e de la Gloria di Roma.

Da i capitelli orride forme intruse A le memorie di scapelli argivi, Sogni efferati e spasimi del bieco Settentrione.

Imbestiati degeneratamente Ne l'Oriente, al guizzo de le fioca Lampade, in turpi abbracciamenti attorti, Zolfo ed inferno.

Goffi sputavan su la prosternata Gregge: di dietro al battistero un fulvo Picciol cornuto diavolo guardava E subsannava.

This church, so full of poetic and historic interest, was lately going to be destroyed, but the priest, Don Luigi Zattini, appealed to the Inspector of Monuments for the province of Forli, who had recourse to the _Deputazione Storica Romagnola_. Efforts were made to save it, and instead of being pulled down, it is now only to be restored, which may be as fatal. The castle of Guido da Polenta, husband of Francesca da Rimini and brother of Paolo, is now ruined, but a cypress on a plateau of the grounds is still called Francesca's cypress.

It was about this era that the Comacines began their many emigrations, and spread throughout Italy. The church-building Longobards, being subjugated themselves, had no longer the power to employ them, so this large guild had to look further afield for their work.

Hitherto they seem to have been almost exclusively employed in the Lombard kingdom and its dukedoms, except the few who went to England and Germany in the seventh century. But Charlemagne had a wider rule in Italy; and good architecture was needed in other parts. Some documents quoted by Professor Merzario[74] not only prove these travelling days of the _Magistri_, but connect them with many of the finest and most interesting churches in Central and South Italy. One is a deed of gift for the weekly distribution of bread and wine to the poor at Lucca in 805. It begins--"Ego Natalis, homo transpadanus, magister casarius, Christo auxiliante, ædificavi Ecclesiam in honori Dei et Mariæ et B. Petri Apostoli, intra hanc civitatem"--"I, Natalis, a man from beyond the Pò, being a master builder, by Christ's help have constructed within this city, a church in honour of God, of Mary, and of the blessed apostle Peter."[75] Here we see the Comacine Master settled as leading architect in Lucca, far from his native land beyond the Pò, and so flourishing that he can dispense large charities. He seems to have done some public works too; there was a canal called the Fossa Natale, which ran through the city, and had a bridge over it. There must have been others of the guild in Lucca, before Natalis, working at the churches of S. Frediano and S. Michele.

The latter building was not long prior to the era of Magister Natalis. It was founded in 764 by the Lombard Teutprandus or Iutprand, and his wife Gumbranda. It coincides with S. Frediano in its plan of the Latin cross. Here, however, we find no Roman capitals, as in S. Frediano, but the twelve columns which sustain the arches of the nave are of rough white marble, from the neighbouring mountains of Carrara. They are of the same size upward, not narrowed at the top. The capitals are of somewhat composite order, with a leaning to Orientalism. The eight columns in the nave have simple arches _a sesto intero_ (semi-circular) springing from them; the four which support the tribune are heightened by piers of a Gothic form, flanked by pilasters, which raise the arch over the central nave. This seems to be the first instance of an attempt to render the sanctuary of the high altar more grand and majestic than the rest of the building. The façade is of quite a different epoch, and has nothing to do with the interior. It was the work of Guidectus in 1188, who also built the cathedral of Lucca.

The windows show the same divergence of style. In S. Frediano they are large and classical, in S. Michele narrow and Neo-Gothic.

The other document is less decisive, but has its significance. An ancient mediæval _Memoriale_, in the monastery of Pontida,[76] has the following entry--"Guglielmo de Longhi di Adraria built the church of San Giacomo di Pontida, employing Magister Johanne de Menazio et multis aliis de episcopatu comensi." This was finished in 1301, and was consequently later than the building of S. Zeno at Pontida, of which another MS. in the same monastery relates a fact, which the chronicler says happened _avanti il mille_ (before the year 1000).

"A master very famous in the art of building, who came 'de regione juxta lacum cumanum' (from the region about Lake Como), met with robbers at Cisano, as he returned from Verona to his native place. The which Master being struck with terror, recommended himself, calling with all his heart on the blessed Zeno, and made a vow that if the saint brought him safe and sound out of that deadly peril, he would build a church in his honour. As soon as he had spoken the words, the horse on which he was mounted took fright and galloped away, so that the robbers could no more harm him. Thus he escaped safely with all his belongings ('potè scampare sano con tutte le sue cose'), and returning the following year with his workmen, he began the building of the church of S. Zeno at Valle Ponzia (now Pontida), the people of the neighbourhood lending him aid, both in money and in labour."

We may be excused for jumping at conclusions if we opine that as he was returning from Verona after a long sojourn, he had been employed there. Probably it was at the church of S. Zeno; particularly as he felt he had a special claim on the help of that saint.

There is very little left of the first church of S. Zeno at Verona (which was rebuilt entirely in the twelfth century), except the curious mausoleum in the crypt, which is supposed to be King Pepin's tomb. Our Comacine who escaped the brigands may possibly have made that, as the era (before the year 1000) corresponds. Or he might have been working at the church which Bishop Lothaire, aided by Bertrada, mother of Charlemagne, built 780 A.D., and dedicated to S. Maria Matricolare, and which the Bishop Ratoldo (802-840) chose as the cathedral. Of this, too, little remains now, it having been rebuilt in the twelfth century, but some indications of the old building were found in the excavations made in 1884. At the depth of two metres, in the Lombard cloister adjoining it, a mosaic pavement was discovered with a design of foliage, animals, and inscriptions. There was also a fallen column, which they were able to stand on its own base with its capital. Cattaneo[77] thinks that these are the remains of Lothaire's church, as the capital of the column is undoubtedly of the eighth century. It has a rigid abacus, and the form is rudely Corinthian, with solid straight leaves curled back, instead of the usual acanthus. The same style is seen in S. Salvatore of Brescia, and S. Maria in Cosmedin in Rome, both Comacine works.

Another Carlovingian church in Verona is that of S. Lorenzo, said to have been founded by Pepin. Some interesting bits of its primitive architecture remain, and are precious relics. There is, for instance, a little spiral stairway in the wall, which led to different divisions of the women's gallery.[78]

At this era a change in the form of windows may be observed; they were narrowed and heightened, a first step towards the Gothic form.

In Carlovingian times the Comacines worked much in Rome. Cattaneo[79] says that there exist letters from Pope Adrian I. to Charlemagne, begging him to send architects (_Magistri_) from the north of Italy, to execute some works in Rome. Now these _Magistri_ could be no other than the Comacine Guild of Lombardy, who with the Longobards had lately become subjects of Charlemagne, and were without doubt the finest builders in Italy, if not monopolists of the art. The buildings which they designed and erected in Rome at that time were the churches of S. Maria in Cosmedin, S. Lorenzo in Lucina, S. Saba on Mount Aventine, and the residence of the Patriarch near S. John Lateran. The door of a chapel in S. Prassede with its Comacine _intrecci_ is a standing proof of their work there in the ninth century.

Anastasius, the librarian, gives an account of the rebuilding of the church of S. Maria in Cosmedin.[80] He says that Adrian found it absolutely beneath a pile of ruins (_sub ruinis positam_) of a former temple to Ceres and Proserpine, which literally hung over it. As this mass of ruin prevented the enlargement of the new church, it was entirely demolished "by fire, and by the labours of the people." The space being cleared, a new and spacious Basilica was erected "a fundamentis tres absides, in ea constituens."

The writer mentions this form with three apses as being new in Rome. We have, however, seen that in the north of Italy the Comacines had been, for the past century or two, building Basilican churches on precisely this plan. In fact the three round apses had become one of the special marks of their churches. Cattaneo argues that the form came from the East, as some of the Syrian churches of the fifth century and the great Basilica of St. Simeon Stylites at Kaiat Senian, erected in 500, have signs of the same conformation. Whether these were of absolutely Oriental origin, or the result of some early emigration of the _liberi muratori_, archæologists must judge. The two rows of columns which divide the nave from the aisles, have solid piers of masonry interposed between each three columns; these are elongated above the colonnade to support the roof, and strengthen the upper gallery.[81]

It is evident that the Comacines availed themselves of old material in this work; the columns are of all species and styles, some fluted, some smooth, some with antique Corinthian capitals, others of Comacine work. One is of the same form as those we have described in S. Maria Matricolare at Verona, with solid volutes, placed perpendicularly, instead of the graceful acanthus. The same capital is seen in S. Agnese fuori le mura.

There is in S. Maria in Cosmedin a very interesting fragment of the Comacine decoration of the time when Adrian I. was the patron of the guild. It is a bit of cornice, formed of a little colonnade of round arches; beneath it an inscription in a curious early style, the letters all sizes and shapes. It runs--

"DE DON IS D͠I ET S͠CE D͠I GENETRICIS MARIÆ. TEMPORIBUS DO͞NI ADRIANI PAPE EGO GREGORIUS."

I have seen another fragment during the recent restorations. A fine _intreccio_ on a marble slab in one of the pulpits, which had been reversed and inlaid on the other side in thirteenth-century mosaic.

The church of S. Saba on Mount Aventine, which was also built under Adrian I., has every mark of Comacine work, especially in the mediæval and unclassic form of capitals. Probably the supply of ancient capitals fell short after the building of the other churches, and the builders had to supply them with their own chisels. They made a rude imitation of the Ionic form, as far from the classic grace of the original, as their plain hard volutes were from the elegance of the Corinthian.

A better artist seems to have been placed by the Comacine Guild in S. Lorenzo in Lucina, which was contemporary to this. The capitals of the same form are much more clearly and firmly cut, and in a better style of ornamentation. Here too are the Comacine lions, now built into the wall under the square lintels of the door. Of the Comacine work in the house of the Patriarch near S. John Lateran, _i.e._ the papal residence of those times, not much remains to show the hand of the Comacines, except the sculptures on the well in the cloister, the parapet of which is adorned with two zones of reliefs, divided by an interlaced band. The under one consists of alternate crosses and rude palms, the upper is a row of round arches, adorned with upstanding volutes, like vine-tendrils; under one arch is a dove with grapes in his beak, and in the other a cross. There are also two sculptured stones in the same cloister, one showing various interlaced patterns, the other a cross formed by weavings of the continued line, enriched in the groundwork of foliage.

One of the most interesting churches of the Carlovingian era is that of San Pietro in Grado near Pisa. In the Middle Ages this was a great shrine for pilgrimages, being, it is said, built on the spot on which St. Peter first set foot in Italy. (_Gradus_--a step.) Legend (supported by the assertion of a certain Archbishop Visconti, who preached in Pisa in the thirteenth century) says that the Apostle Peter was driven ashore at that spot, and having made an altar he began to baptize--giving his disciples commands to build a church there. What the first church was like is not known; the present one was built between 600 and 800 A.D., and was decorated with frescoes before A.D. 1000. There is a great similarity in structure between this building and that of S. Apollinare in Ravenna; they are both of similar brick masonry, and three-apsed, and the aisles are in about the same proportion to the greater height of the nave. The proportions of the short round arches on the tall classic columns of the interior are extremely similar, as is the scheme of ornamentation, with the difference that at Ravenna the medium is mosaic, and at S. Pietro a Grado it is fresco. The line of Bishops in the spring of the arches in Ravenna is reproduced at Grado by a line of Popes in medallions, ending with Leo III., 795, which would probably mark the era of the foundation of the church.[82]

San Pietro, however, has one very great peculiarity. It has no façade, but is built with the usual Lombard three apses at one end, and a single semi-circular tribune at the other. The only door is at the side. The priest, who is naturally proud of his church, and learned in its history, told us that by this peculiar form the builders wished to represent a ship, and pointing out the great square pilasters that break the line of columns at the fourth arch from the west, he showed how the raised poop of a vessel was expressed by the greater height and width of the four arches at the west end. Certainly the narrowing effect being towards the chancel instead of the reverse, is most remarkable.

I was not, however, convinced by his symbolism, and realizing the greater proportions of the west end, where three arches with fluted columns stretched across a tribune, now turned into an organ-loft, I felt convinced that the present form was not the original. Either the ancient altar once stood at the west end, and the church, like so many Lombard ones, had formerly faced the opposite way; or else the semi-circular tribune, which seems to be of later work, has been added by restorers, to cover in the three arches of the ancient façade. That, in fact, the large solid pilasters in the nave marked the ancient wall of the interior, and the four arches on the other side of them formed the narthex. To support the first theory, is the fact that the altar called St. Peter's altar stands now isolated in that west end, and the canopy in the form of an ancient Lombard _ciborium_ stands on four columns above it, carved in stone in very early style. The opposite theory of the narthex having been at that end, may on its side be confirmed by one of the frescoes, the last but two on the south wall, which represents the church itself as it was prior to A.D. 1000. Here the artist has, with a curious mediæval disregard of perspective and possibility, represented both ends of the church in one view, and here we see plainly the three apses with their marble perpendicular ribs on one side, and the façade of large arches with a row of smaller ones across the building above them on the other. I leave the question of this puzzling west tribune to wiser judges than myself, and trust that some new Fergusson, Hope, or Street may some day discover the truth.

The columns of the nave are all of antique marble, the ruins of a Roman temple to Ceres at Pisa; some are of cipollino, others Oriental granite, one is of fluted white Greek marble. The capitals are mostly antique and classical, though a few show the hand of the early Comacine in their straight upstanding volutes. The ingenuity of the _Magistri_ in making use of old material is shown in the various devices by which these columns are adapted. Where they are too short the base is raised on two pedestals; where too small for the massive pillar, a wide abacus is placed on the top to support the arch. One of the columns which support the altar is made long enough by a base made of an antique carved capital reversed beneath it. We have a distinct sign of the Comacines in a stone let into the wall near the door, and which evidently formed part of the ancient architrave. It is carved in an intricate interlaced knot. I shall speak in the chapter on Comacine painting, of the frescoes in the nave, which are unique of their kind, and of deep interest to the Art historian.

These churches of the Carlovingian era in Italy cannot be documentally proved to have been at all connected with Charlemagne himself, except that he sent the _Magistri Comacini_ to Rome, at Pope Adrian's request. The same cannot be said of the great church of Aix-la-Chapelle, with which his name must be for ever united, but which is certainly not entirely unconnected with this Lombard Guild. Where history gives no precise information, and where authors, ancient and modern, fail to fix the precise era of this important work, it is of course impossible to say who was the architect. We can only judge by the style, and by inferences drawn from previous works of the same style. First, as to the few facts we are able to gain: Eginbertus, a Lombard, the biographer of Charlemagne, in his _De vita et gestis Caroli Magni_, Capit. 26, tells us that Charlemagne "built the Basilica of Aquisgrana of wonderful beauty, and adorned it with much gold, silver lamps, and with gates and doors of bronze. For this construction, not being able elsewhere to find columns and marble, he provided that they should be brought from Rome and Ravenna." This fact, of a want of proper material in France, would seem to imply that skilled workmen to build in stone must have been imported with the material. It is difficult, or indeed impossible, to prove that French workmen were equal to the occasion, by showing other contemporary works in France. Any churches they may have then had, have long since perished, for at that date they were usually built of wood; another argument that France could not have supplied accomplished architects in stone.

Some say the church was designed by Ansige, Abbot of Fontanelles, others give the credit to Eginhard, or Eginbertus, as his Lombard name is spelt; but as he does not claim it for himself in his writing,--indeed, we see from the above extract that he speaks quite impersonally of it,--there is certainly no documentary evidence to prove this assertion. Speaking dispassionately, it would be strange for a man of letters, private secretary to a great king, to suddenly develop into a full-fledged architect. It is much more likely that as he was a Lombard, he was interested in employing the builders whom all his countrymen had employed for centuries. D'Agincourt, who had a good deal of _amour propre_, and would, if he could, always give glory to France, says (vol. i. p. 27, 139)--"It is natural to believe that the Italian architects whom Charlemagne had brought with him, designed the buildings they made for him in France, on the lines of those of their own country." Dartein, in his _Lombard Architecture_, writes of it--"If we inspect the octagonal half-domes which terminate the centre of the cross in S. Fedele at Como, we see that they reproduce the rotunda of Aix-la-Chapelle. The form of the shafts, the outline of the wall, and the disposition of the collateral vaults are alike in both edifices. The similarity is so great as to prove imitation, especially as other churches in the Rhone district remind one of churches in the territory of Como." The fact of similitude is significant, but is it not more likely that the imitation was the other way? S. Fedele, or S. Eufemia as it was first called, was built in S. Abbondio's time, A.D. 440, before the era of the Longobards, and we are told is the only church of that time which retains its original architecture, especially in the rounded apse. The similarity would then go to prove what has been an hypothesis, that Charlemagne really brought builders as well as marble from Italy, and that the _Magistri Comacini_ were those builders.

The church has also been compared to S. Vitale at Ravenna, but the Comacines were accustomed to build circular churches, such as the Rotunda at Brescia, and others. They were generally used as baptisteries or mausoleums; in fact were ceremonial churches.

Aix-la-Chapelle was designed as the tomb of Charlemagne, and here the builders mingled the rotunda of the ceremonial church with the basilica for worship. The workmanship is much more rude than that of S. Vitale, where Greek artists were employed. It is easy to distinguish the parts added by the Comacines, from the classical and Byzantine imported adornments furnished by the spoils of Rome and Ravenna. The Italians were not left entirely free in their designs, but had to conform to a more northern climate and different national taste; the windows were narrowed and elongated, and the pitch of the roof raised to a sharper angle. As Pliny had said to Mustio, his Comacine architect, seven centuries before--"You Magistri always know how to overcome difficulties of position," and Charlemagne's architects, in an equal degree, studied both climate and position. The further we go south or east the roofs have a tendency to flatten, the further we go north they have a tendency to rise into sharper gables. The cause is this, I take it--a climatic one. Where there is much rain or snow, the sloping roof is a necessity; therefore this first indication of pointed architecture, as adaptable to the northern climate, makes Charlemagne's church an interesting link between the Romano-Lombard and Gothic in the north: just as Romano-Lombard stands between the classic and Romanesque in the south. If Ansige suggested these modifications to the Italian builders, he had a wider office in the history of art than he knew; for Aix-la-Chapelle became the root from which the French and German so-called Gothic sprang; improved in the first instance under the hands of the _Franchi-Muratori_, who in the succeeding generations were called to work on churches in both countries. After all, the first step was but a slight one, being more a raising and narrowing of the round arch than the innovation of the pointed one. It might stand better as a first indication of the stilted Norman arch.

Of the civil architecture of the Carlovingian era we have very few instances remaining. The Emperor Charlemagne built no especial palace for himself, but used that of Luitprand at Milan, which in Charlemagne's time was known as _Curtis domum imperatoris_. An old chronicler tells us that he fortified Verona. He says--"In the time when King Pepin was still young, the Huns or Avars invaded Italy. When Charlemagne heard of their approach he caused Verona to be fortified, and walls erected all round, with towers and moats; and with _pali fissi_ fortified the city to its very foundations, leaving there his son Pepin." Forty-eight towers rise from these walls, of which eight are very high, the others well raised above the walls. These must have been what the old writer quaintly called _pali fissi_.

A diploma of Ludovic II., dated 814, proves that the walls of Piacenza also date from this era. It is in favour of his wife Analberg, giving her permission to incorporate a part of the walls into a monastery. It runs--"Of our own authority, we add to the monastery and give in perpetuity, all the _steccato_, internal and external, of the said wall of the city, from the foundations to the battlements, as much as extends from Porta Milano to the next postern gate; and not only this, but also the _macie_ (rubble) which is found round the walls and ante-walls, and the same of the towers, gates, and posterns."

The use of hospices is much connected with Carlovingian times; they came in when the Church ruled, and pilgrimages became the fashion. The first hospices were in monasteries. In 752 S. Anselmo founded one for pilgrims at Nonantola, in Agro Mutinense. The council of Aquisgrana (Aix-la-Chapelle) made decrees as to the establishment of hospices, and Charlemagne made laws on the subject, "ut in omni regno nostro, neque pauper perigrinus hospitia denegare audeant." To the ordinary fine for homicide, Pepin II. added sixty soldi more if the person killed were a pilgrim. One who denied food and shelter to a pilgrim was fined three soldi. These humane provisions, like all such, soon became abused; so many non-religious people travelled on pilgrims' privileges, that at the end of Charlemagne's reign it was found necessary to provide real pilgrims with a _Tessera trattoria_ to prove their authenticity.

Among the earliest hospices might be mentioned the leper hospital founded in Classis near Ravenna in S. Apollinare's time, and one in Rome, founded by the Roman lady Fabiola for destitute or abandoned sick and poor. In 785 a certain Datheus, arch-priest at Milan, founded an _exonodochio_ (home for destitute children), and Queen Amalasunta built a foundling hospital at Ravenna, in the sixth century. Charlemagne commanded that there should be a place in the peristyle of the churches for the reception of foundlings. The Loggia del Bigallo, though a later building, is a beautiful specimen of such a peristyle.

FOOTNOTES:

[71] In 1410, when the street was enlarged, it was half destroyed, and the south aisle cut off. The last remains were in 1561 incorporated in the Uffizi by Cosimo I., when the gallery was built. Some capitals may be seen in the wall of the Palazzo Vecchio.

[72] See Marchese Ricci, _Dell' Architettura in Italia_, Vol. I. ch. ix. pp. 302, 342.

[73] The family of Polenta, their feudal lords.

[74] _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. ch. ii. p. 77.

[75] This is probably the church of S. Pietro Somaldi, to which a Lombard, or rather Italian Gothic, front was added in 1203. It was founded by a Longobard named Somualdo in the eighth century, and restored in 1199.

[76] A place between Lecco and Brescia.

[77] Cattaneo, _Architettura Italiana_, p. 175.

[78] There is a similar stairway in the church of S. Agnese fuori le mura, at Rome, which though originally said to have been founded by Constantine, is not of Greek form, but preserves a perfect Basilican plan. It was enlarged by Pope Symmachus in the fifth century, and he, it is known, employed Italian artists. The spiral stairway (_cochlea_) is also mentioned at Hexham in England.

[79] _L' Architettura in Italia_, ch. iii. p. 143.

[80] Anastasii, _Bibliothecarii Vitæ Romanorum Pontificum_--in Muratori, _Sculptores Rerum Italicum_, tom. iii.

[81] S. Prassede in Rome, which was standing in the time of Pope Symmachus, when in 477 he held a synod there, has the same peculiarity. The elongated piers are here placed between every two columns, and are transverse, _i.e._ the greater width across the church. Before this time the roofs were always formed of gable-shaped frames of wood, erected on beams resting on the side walls, but Ricci sees in this the first advance towards the arched roof. We may see the next step in the old Lombard church at Tournus in France, where a succession of arches are thrown across the nave from the piers.

[82] The tower, which is in a later Lombard style, was rebuilt two centuries later.