Part 3

Theodoric was a great builder. We possess still his magnificent Arian Church of S. Apollinare Nuovo, which was originally called S. Martin; it was known as “de Coelo Aureo” because of its beautiful gilded roof. It is, after all these years, the noblest church in Ravenna. This church received its present name in the ninth century, when the remains of S. Apollinare were translated from the neighbouring suburb of Classis. The glorious mosaics which now adorn it probably replaced the original work of Theodoric; these mosaics we now admire were placed there as early as the sixth century, when the Arian basilica was transformed into a Christian church.

We have with us another great Arian church which he built, now called the Spirito Sancto. It was originally named S. Theodore. Very little of the original portion of this church remains.

Theodoric died in A.D. 536. Then followed a short time of confusion. Amalasuntha, Theodoric’s daughter, succeeded to her father’s power in Italy as guardian of her son Athalaric, but Athalaric died in his eighteenth year, and Amalasuntha was eventually murdered.

The great Justinian was now reigning in Constantinople, and resolved to reconquer Italy and to unite it with the Eastern Empire. This he accomplished through the instrumentality of his famous generals Belisarius, and later Narses. The Goths after two long wars were completely defeated, and Ravenna became a city of the Eastern Empire A.D. 540.

Then may be said to have commenced the _third period_ of building and adorning Ravenna. In this period, under the inspiration of Justinian, the mighty churches, still standing, of _S. Vitale_ and _S. Apollinare_ in Classe,[5] were erected, and magnificently adorned with the mosaics which we now wonderingly admire in their scarred but unspoiled loveliness.

What we term the third period of the erection of Ravennese works of art roughly lasted from A.D. 540 to A.D. 568, when Alboin the Lombard with his strange and savage hordes descended upon Italy.

Although Ravenna and a certain territory more or less adjacent to it, known as the Exarchate, for a long time remained attached to the Eastern or Byzantine Empire, we have no record of any important building or art work in the Ravenna of the Exarchs of the Eastern Empire.

The stranger pilgrim visiting Ravenna, the city of so many memories and of world-famed churches, now, alas, will not see these marvellous Basilicas of Galla Placidia, of Theodoric and Justinian, in their ancient glory. Their great age, some fourteen to fifteen centuries, desolating wars and sieges, long periods of neglect, the unskilful hand of various restorers, have sadly changed them. For the most part they have been largely rebuilt. But the exquisite Romanesque plan, the long unbroken rows of pillars, mostly of precious marbles, with the Ravennese pulvins, the great invention of Romanesque architecture, supporting the overhanging arches, thus supplanting the Greek entablature, and the beautiful Romanesque capitals are still there. In several of the churches the wonderful mosaics of the great builders and artists to this day look down on us, gleaming well-nigh as fresh and lovely as they were some fourteen hundred years back.

One singular feature must be touched upon. The _outside_ of these noble Romanesque piles is ever unadorned and strangely unattractive. This is noticeable in all Byzantine as well as in Ravennese (and Italian) Romanesque churches. The outside of S. Sophia in Constantinople, for example, is singularly disappointing, but, on the other hand, alike in Ravenna and in Constantinople, a Romanesque Basilica emphatically is “all glorious within.”

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After the Lombard conquest followed a short period of almost total darkness in the Art world of Italy and the West.

A slow renaissance of architectural art, however, soon showed itself under the influence of Queen Theodolinda, a Bavarian Christian princess who was married in succession to two Lombard kings, Autharis and Agilulf.

Then, all through the Lombard domination, a period lasting roughly 200 years, a gradual revival of church building went on. Not a few churches were built in these 200 years under the influence of the Lombard kings. We have only scanty remains of their work, but still enough to show us that the old spirit of the Ravenna school inspired the builders, and the round-arch style was generally adopted.

Of course these Lombard churches were sadly inferior to the glorious Ravennese piles of Galla Placidia, Theodoric and Justinian, but the spirit of the same school of thought evidently inspired the architects employed by the Lombard rulers, which had dwelt among the builders of the churches of Ravenna in the days of her glory.

Now who were the builders and architects of the Lombard churches which arose in these 200 years? The Lombard buildings were evidently _not_ the work of the Lombards themselves. They had no stone buildings before Alboin and his hordes crossed the Alps.

I think we can answer the question.

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In the Code of the Lombard King Rotharis, A.D. 636-652, for the first time appears the expression “Magistri Comacini.” In this Code of Laws the Magistri Comacini appear as _Master-Masons_ with unlimited powers to make contracts for building, and to enrol members in their Guild, and these Comacini are mentioned again in an official document of King Liutbrand, A.D. 712-744, which treats of architecture and carving carried out by the Comacine Guild in question.

Now this Guild cannot have sprung into existence full-grown, and as it were by magic, in the days of King Rotharis, A.D. 636. It must have been already in existence, and have been too of some importance, before Alboin’s descent on Italy, A.D. 568, which was followed by the reign of the Lombard kings. _Who_ now were these Comacini? There is little doubt that they were the successors of the Master-Masons who in the days of the vanished Empire had directed the operations of the Roman Collegia, especially devoted to building, and who had survived the barbarian invasions which were so disastrous to Italy in the years which preceded the accession of Rotharis to the Lombard throne. When Honorius migrated from Rome to Ravenna, this Guild of Masons apparently had made its head-quarters at Ravenna; had designed and carried out the magnificent Ravenna buildings; then eventually, in the general upheaval which followed the invasion of Alboin, the Guild removed to the comparatively safe asylum of Como--a district singularly fitted for the home of a building fraternity, owing to the stone and marble quarries and yards for which it was celebrated.

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Como had been long an important and a flourishing city when the Lombard hordes descended into Italy. In the days of the Empire it had held the rank of a colony, and was governed by a Prefect. Pliny the Younger had held this office, and for a time lived in the beautiful city in his Villa “Comoedia.” Catullus also made his home in Como. Indeed, Como and the Comacine islands might be considered a privileged territory.

After Alboin the Lombard--A.D. 568--had invaded and conquered Northern and much of Central Italy, the city of Como for a long time preserved its independence, and was resorted to by many of the fugitives from the Lombard raiders, as a haven of security; among these fugitives from Ravenna and other centres were included many members of the famous Guild of Roman Architects and Builders whose head-quarters had been Ravenna in the days of her prosperity and glory under the Emperor Honorius, his sister Placidia, Theodoric the Ostrogoth and the lieutenants of Justinian.

For many years Como held out against the barbarian invaders. In the end, however, it fell before the forces of the Lombard sovereign Autharis.

The Lombard conquerors, as we have seen, favoured the Guild or brotherhood of architects which they found in Como; they gave this building fraternity, the successors of the ancient Roman Guild of Architects, great privileges, as we see from the Edict of the Lombard King Rotharis, _circa_ A.D. 636, and employed them in their many and important building works.

Como continued to be the head-quarters of this trained architectural Guild, and from this city, their permanent traditional home, they derived their name, by which for long centuries they were known--the Comacine builders--_Magistri Comacini_. This expression appears first in the above quoted Edict of the Lombard King Rotharis, _circa_ A.D. 636.

It is clear that under the Lombard domination these Comacine builders possessed a legal monopoly in the Lombard sphere of influence, from the early years of the occupation of their conquerors.

This famous Comacine Guild or brotherhood continued to exist and to flourish for many centuries, indeed until the disappearance of the Lombard style of round-arch architecture, which style they had perfected, somewhere about the close of the twelfth century.[6]

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Very soon after their settlement in conquered Italy, the victorious Lombards passed under the magic spell of Italy, and became themselves lovers of art, and under the influence of the Christianity which they adopted as their religion, proceeded to build churches and even cathedrals. They made use of this Comacine Guild, and by their patronage and favour revived the fading tradition of this most ancient building and architectural fraternity and Guild. This was the beginning of the famous _Lombardic_ style we usually term Romanesque.

At first, under the Lombard kings, the Comacine artists worked with, comparatively speaking, poor art, little skill and imagination; they retained, it is true, their old traditions, but they had fallen out of practice during the period of unrest and disorder which followed the Lombard invasion, but with the new impulse given by the Lombard rulers to Art, they progressed in architectural design and ornament, and gradually transformed the old Roman and later Romanesque development into a new style still possessing many of the old round-arch features, a new style generally termed Lombardic--which is now generally known as Romanesque.

Although time (some 1300 years back), the devastation of endless wars, many restorations, and even rebuilding, have obliterated so much of the very ancient Lombardic work, there is no doubt that as early as in the days of Queen Theodolinda, the wife of King Autharis, A.D. 571-91, and later of King Agilulf, a number of churches were erected in the Lombardic dominions. Theodolinda, as we have stated, was a Bavarian princess.

This queen may fairly be reckoned as the one who rekindled in Northern and Central Italy the dying embers of fine Arts, and especially of architecture.

After the time of this Lombard queen, who among other works built the first cathedral of Monza, no sovereign, during the 200 years of Lombard rule, can be quoted who did not help to keep alive the spirit of fine art, especially the art of architecture, which seems to have been especially cultivated among the Lombard peoples from an early date after their settlement in Italy.

The learned Muratori with great force bears his testimony here, when he tells us that if more of the ancient Lombard buildings had survived, they would have presented a striking, and by no means a rough and barbaric appearance. The great scholar supports his conclusions here by a striking reference to the contemporary Lombard writer, the well-known Paulus Diaconus, whose admiration for the churches of his country was evoked by a personal knowledge of them and their distinguishing features.

Paulus Diaconus was well able to form an accurate opinion of these buildings, for he must have been very familiar with the magnificent churches of Rome and Ravenna, which in his day and time still preserved much of their original magnificence.[7]

Rivoira cites and describes the present condition of a very few of the undoubted remains of these ancient Lombard churches. Other Italian scholars, however, instance more which they think belong to this first age of Lombardic art.

We possess few remains of the earlier Comacine work; they become, however, more numerous as time went on.

The following very early churches are now generally dated as erected in the eighth century and earlier, and still remain intact, in part at least, and they fairly represent the gradual development of the Lombardic style during the period of the rule of the Lombardic kings: San Salvatore, Brescia, _circa_ A.D. 753, is the best known instance; the parish church of Arliano, near Lucca, somewhat earlier; San Pietro, Toscanella; San Giorgio in Valpolicella; S. Teuteria, Verona, are also cited by Rivoira.

After the fall of the Lombard rule, in the time of Charlemagne, A.D. 774, the Comacine Guild had the opportunity of working in a wider field, and were no doubt employed in most of the few important buildings erected by that monarch; we can trace their handiwork and the peculiar signs of their craft all through the ninth and tenth centuries, and we notice the gradual advance they made in Art, even in that dark and troubled age.

But in spite of this advance in the beauty and ornamentation of their buildings, it was not until the close of the first quarter of the eleventh century that these famous architects really recovered the lost Roman secret of _vaulting_ large churches; hitherto they had, save in rare instances, confined themselves to covering small spaces, such as the apses and crypts of churches, with vaults.

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Through those darkest of the early Middle Ages, the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth centuries, the Romanesque or round-arch style again slowly developed in Lombardy. It penetrated into Gaul, into Germany, and even to distant England.[8]

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In England, the presence of Italian (Lombardic) influences, from a very early period, is undoubted; but the remains we possess of churches erected before the Conquest are, after all, but scanty.

Some writers maintain with great probability that the few churches built shortly after the arrival of Augustine’s mission (A.D. 597) in England were the work of Italian craftsmen. The first clearly dated churches erected in England under Italian (Lombardic) influence, however, belong to a somewhat later period. They are: _S. Peter, Monkwearmouth_, built in A.D. 675 by Benedict Biscop, first Abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow, as Bede tells us, “in the Roman style.”

_S. Paul’s, Jarrow_, by Benedict Biscop, A.D. 684.

Bishop Wilfred, the energetic Roman champion, erected the _Basilica of S. Andrew_, Hexham, between A.D. 672-678; a building which in his day was famous for its size and splendour, though no doubt the contemporary eulogies here were owing to the great poverty of ecclesiastical structures in England at this time.

_S. Peter’s, Ripon_, A.D. 671-678, was also the work of Wilfred; the Crypt of his church is still with us. _S. Andrew, Corbridge_, is also reputed to have been erected by Wilfred.

Direct Italian (Lombardic) influence, however, ceased when the Archbishop’s chair at Canterbury was no longer filled by foreign ecclesiastics; and at the close of the seventh century, and from the early years of the beginning of the eighth century, for a somewhat lengthened period architecture in England pursued its own course without external aid. But the round-arch Lombardic style still remained general, though the buildings were rough and somewhat uncouth. Brixworth Church--A.D. 654--is a fair example of the churches of this disturbed period.

We have little to guide us here until the days of Alfred, A.D. 871-891, when foreign influences again were dominant in the realm of the great Anglo-Saxon king. In the days of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, _circa_ A.D. 943-988, a strong current of foreign (Italian) influence passed over England. A similar current is notable in the reign of Ethelred II (the Unready), A.D. 978-1016. This current became stronger and stronger. Under Edward the Confessor, A.D. 1041-1066, the new style of architecture--the Lombardo-Norman--made its appearance in England. We shall dwell at considerable length on this important school which produced so many world-famous works.

No doubt before the coming of the Lombardo-Norman (Romanesque) style, many of the English churches were constructed of wood. This material was plentiful, as much of the country consisted of forest land. These have disappeared. We possess, however, one remarkable example of these Anglo-Saxon timber-constructed buildings in the interesting little chapel near Aungre (Chipping Ongar), built on the occasion of the translation of the relics of S. Edmund from London, _circa_ A.D. 1013.

The first great monument of the coming of Lombardo-Norman architecture into England is undoubtedly the Abbey Church of S. Peter, known as Westminster Abbey. This famous church was built, in part at least, by Edward the Confessor, _circa_ A.D. 1051-1065. Its completion was the work of William the Conqueror.

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In Germany, until the period of Charlemagne, we have no proof that any considerable churches were built. This great conqueror and organiser erected, A.D. 796-804, at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) the famous Palace-chapel subsequently known as the cathedral, generally after the model of San Vitale at Ravenna; but it stands alone. It was not imitated, and his feeble successors, the Carolingian princes, did little to advance or to foster architecture in their broad dominions. This important building at Aachen remained, it must be confessed, as far as its influence was concerned, a solitary appearance in Germany. It is said that its great founder Charlemagne hoped this Palace-chapel at Aachen might have served as a model for other German churches, but it is clear that his influence in architecture was as ephemeral as the mighty Empire which he was unable to endow with permanent vitality.

The Sepulchral Chapel at Lorsch, A.D. 876; perhaps the Crypt and some of the remains at Quedlinburg, A.D. 936; the old Cathedral at Cologne, A.D. 781; the Church of S. Michael at Fulda, A.D. 818; the Church of Steinbach, A.D. 815; parts of the more important Church of Gernrode, S. Cyriacus, A.D. 968, are among the very few examples which can be cited of Romanesque work in Germany, until the rise of the Lombardo-Rhenish style in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Rivoira well characterises the Lombardo-Rhenish basilicas of the eleventh and twelfth centuries as the highest expression of German architecture. It was, he says, an outward and visible sign of the Imperial idea brought back to life among the Teutonic people by Otto the Great in the last half of the tenth century.

The erection of these great churches is synchronous with the mighty wave of church building which passed over Northern and Central Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. One great peculiarity in this style was the general adoption of flat ceilings (trabeated) over the wide spaces. It was not until the latter part of the twelfth century that cross vaulting over the naves and wide spaces began to be adopted in the great German churches.

In their general features, however, these imposing Rhenish churches of the eleventh and immediately following centuries, largely followed Lombardic models.

Among other notable piles, the undermentioned Lombardo-Rhenish churches rose in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In Cologne: _S. Maria im Capitol_, A.D. 1094. _S. Martin_ and the _Church of the Apostles_ and _S. Gereon_, eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Cathedral of _Spires_, eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Cathedral of _Mainz_, eleventh and twelfth centuries. _S. Castor_ of Coblenz, eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Cathedral of _Worms_, eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Minster Church of _Bonn_, twelfth century.

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But what of _Gaul_--the France of mediæval and modern days, the fairest, the richest, the most important of the provinces of the Roman rule--greater and more influential in wealth as in culture by far than any part of the dominions of the western world of Rome--equalled by none of the countries of the far or nearer East of the great Empire--second only to Italy, the mother-land of the Roman Empire?

What does this Gaul tell us of the rise and progress of Romanesque architecture? Strangely little, we reply, for many centuries. It is not by any means that this famous division of the mighty Empire was ever wanting in noble and sumptuous buildings, civil and ecclesiastical. To give a few notable historical examples as far back as the fifth and sixth centuries. Sidonius Apollinaris, Bishop of Clermont, gives us a vivid picture of a stately country house in the Auvergne of his day, one of many such lordly villa residences. Gregory of Tours describes at some length the Church of Clermont Ferrand, as it existed in the sixth century, and dwells on its forty-two windows, its seventy columns, on its walls decorated with mosaics and many coloured marbles. A still vaster and more famous ancient church was the venerable and far-famed Basilica of S. Martin at Tours, so eloquently pictured by the same historian, S. Gregory of Tours. Another stately church we know adorned the great city of Lyons. The Lyons church was erected before the period of the church building activities of Justinian which culminated in the superb S. Sophia at Constantinople--one of the wonders of the Roman world of the East. This Lyons church was a building contemporary with the noble Ravennese Basilicas of Honorius and Galla Placidia. But every vestige of all these, and of many others of later date, has disappeared. Quicherat strikingly asks, “Where are all the churches of France which were erected before the year of grace 1000?”

The most careful investigation of modern archæologists can only discover some four or five at most, poor reliquiæ of Merovingian and Carlovingian times, and these few scanty remains consist of a solitary crypt or two, or of a small and unimportant chapel, once evidently a part of some more considerable building now utterly vanished.

Something more than time, though measured by centuries, must have been at work here. Evidently a ruthless destroyer’s hand has passed over France and swept away all these monuments of religious zeal and devoted piety. Quicherat, Viollet le Duc, Guizot and Villemain, Sir James Stephen, Palgrave and other modern historians, in their picture of the story of France in the sixth and following centuries, tell us how all this havoc and destruction came about.

No country like France has suffered so deeply from hostile raids and disastrous invasions--from the seventh century onwards. As early as in the first years of the eighth century have the Saracens harried the southern districts of the fair Gallic province--the great Mediterranean Sea for a long season appeared destined to become a Moslem Lake, whose masters were Saracenic pirates. On land these Eastern depredators were even more destructive. Nothing daunted by the crushing defeat they suffered at the hands of Charles Martel near Tours, they persisted in treating Aquitaine and Provence as a country to which they had a positive claim, and they long continued to burn and plunder churches, monasteries and cities at their will.