BYZANTINE
94
BYZANTINE
matics to his fellow students. Father Byrne, with
indomitable energy, at first filled every office in
the school, and attended to his missionary duties as
well. His college had become very popular in Ken-
tucky when it was destroyed by fire. This set-back
seemed only to give him new energy, and he soon
had the college rebuilt. A second fire ruined a large
part of the new structure, but, nothing daunted, he
went on and again placed the institution on a firm
foundation.
It is estimated that from 1821 to 1833, during which time St. Mary's College was under his imme- diate direction, at least twelve hundred students received instruction there, and carried the benefit of their education to all parts of Kentucky, some of them establishing private schools on their return to their respective neighbourhoods. Father Byrne, after twelve years' management of the college, made a gift of it to the Society of Jesus, believing that, as he had established its success, his old friends, the Jesuits, were better qualified than he was to conduct the school. He thought of founding a new school at Nashville, where one was much needed, and, in spite of his advanced years, wrote to Bishop Flaget that all he required in leaving St. Mary's to embark on this new enterprise was his horse and ten dollars to pay his travelling expenses. Before he could carry out the plan, however, he fell a martyr to charity. An epidemic of cholera broke out in the neighbour- hood and, having gone to administer the last sacra- ments to a poor negro woman who was dying of the disease, he became infected himself, and died on the following day among the Fathers of the Society of Jesus with whom at (ieorgetown he had begun his remarkable religious life.
Spalding, Miscllnnm (Baltimore, 1S66), 729-35: Webb, Centenary of Cathtilinlii in Kentucky (Louisville, 1S84); Shea, History of the Call,,, lie Church in the V. S. (New York, 1892), IV, 600; Messsenn>r of the Sacred Heart Magazine (New York, Dec, 1S91); Irish Celts (Detroit, 1884).
Thomas F. Meehan. Byzantine Architecture, a mixed style, i. e. a style composed of Graeco-Roman and Oriental ele- ments which, in earlier centuries, cannot be clearly separated. The form of church used most in the west, a nave supported on columns and an atrium (see Basilica), appears in many examples of the fifth century in Byzantium as well as in Rome; the sixth century saw such churches erected in other regions outside of Rome, at Ravenna, in Istria and in Africa. In the West this style of building occasion- ally presents (in S. Lorenzo and S. Agnese at Rome) peculiarities which are ascribed by some authorities to Oriental origin — galleries over the side aisles, spirally channelled columns, and imposts between capitals and arches. Vaulted basilicas are to be found at an early date in Asia Minor, Syria, Africa, and also at Constantinople. But the early Etruscans and Romans were skilful in the art of constructing vaults, even before that time; for instance, the basilica of Constantine. The domical style, with barrel-vaulted side aisles and transepts is a favourite with the Orientals: many of the oldest basilicas of Asia Minor, as well as the Church of St. Irene, Con- stantinople (eighth century), carried one or more domes. This type leads naturally to the structure in a centralized — circular, octagonal, cruciform — plan. That the Orient had, and still has, a peculiar prefer- ence for such a type is well known; nevertheless, Italy also possessed ecclesiastical buildings so planned, of which the oldest examples belong to the fourth nnd fifth centuries (Sta. Costanza, a circular build- ing; and the baptist, i\ of the Later an, an octagonal building). In ancient Roman times tombs and baths had this SOrl Oi plan. The essential type of all these
buildings cannot, therefore, be regarded as purely Oriental, or even specifically Byzantine. There are similar objections in the case of subordinate archi-
- - Ife^Uir
tectural details. Thus the apse, sometimes three-
sided, sometimes polygonal, the narthex (a narrow
antechamber, or vestibule), instead of the large
rectangular atrium, the invariable facing of the
church to the east, the sharp-cut acanthus leaf of the
capitals, and similar characteristics of the Eastern
churches cannot be def-
initely ascribed to the
East alone or even to
Byzantium, nor do they
form a new architec-
tural style. Some au-
thorities, it is true, not
only go so far as to
characterize the archi-
tecture of Ravenna (ex-
emplified in the two
churches S. Apollinare
and S. Vitale) as Byz-
antine, but even
elude, without further
consideration, examples
which in other respects
recall the favourite East-
ern style, viz. the central portions of S. Lorenzo at
Milan and of the round church of S. Stefano Rotondo
at Rome. Only this much is certain: that in those
early centuries local diversities are found everywhere;
and that, even although Italy may have received the
most manifold influences from the East, and particu-
larly from Byzantium, still, on the other hand, the
language, laws, and customs of Rome prevailed in
Byzantium, or at least were strongly represented
there.
In the church, now the mosque, of St. Sophia (Hagia Sophia — "Divine Wisdom"), built by Justin- ian, all the principal forms of the early Christian churches are represented. A rotunda is enclosed in a square, and covered with a dome which is supported in the direction of the long axis of the building by half-domes over semicircular apses. In this manner a basilica, 236 feet long and 9S feet wide, and pro- vided with domes, is developed out of a great central chamber. This basilica is still more extended by the addition of smaller apses penetrating the larger apses. Then the domical church is developed to the form of a long rectangle by means of two side aisles, which, however, are deprived of their significance by the intrusion of massive piers. In front of all this, on the entrance side, are placed a wide atrium with colon- naded passages and two vestibules (the exonarthex is practically obliterated). The stupendous main dome, which is hemispherical on the interior, flatter, or saucer-shaped, on the exterior, and pierced with forty large windows over the cornice at its spring, lias 'its lateral thrust taken up by these half domes and, north and south, by arched buttresses; the vertical thrust is received by four piers 7o feet high. The ancient system of column and entablature has here only a subordinate significance, supporting the galleries which open upon the nave. Light flows in through the numerous windows of the upper and lower stories and of the domes. Bui above all, the dome, with its great span carried on piers, arches, and pendentives, constitutes one of the greatest achievements of architecture. (These pendentives are the triangular surfaces by means of which a circular dome can be supported on the summits of four arches arranged on a square plan.) In other respects the baptistery of Sta. Costanza at Home, for example, with its cylindrical drum under the dome, has the advantage that the windows are placed in the drum instead of the dome.
The architects of St. Sophia were Asiatics: An- themius of Tralles and Isodorus of Miletus. In other great basilicas, as here, local influences had great power in determining the character of the archi-
