ECCLESIASTICAL
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ECCLESIASTICAL
chrelims iusqu'ti nos jours (Paris. 1895 — ); Lowrie. Christian Art
and Archeology (New York. 1901): Gradmann, Geschichte der
chrisllichen Kunsl (Stuttgart, 1902); BeRKNER, Geschichte der
ckristlichen Kunst (Freiburg. 1903); Perate, L' archiologie chr(-
tienne (Paris. 1892); De Rossi, Roma Sotterranea Crisliana
(Rome, 1864-1897); Garhucci. Storia delt' arte cristiana
(Prato, 1873); Schultze, Archiiologie der altchristlichen Kunst
(Munich, 1895); Grisar, Geschichte Rome und der Papste (Frei-
burg, 1901); Strzvgowski, Orient oder Rom (Leipzig, 1901);
Idem, Kleinasien ein Neuland derKunstgeschichte (Leipzig, 1903 t ;
VEsrvHl, Storia dell' arte Haliana (Milan, 1901 — ); Bertaux.
Vart dans V Italic mcridiotutle (Paris. 1904); Wickhoff, Roman
Art, tr. (London, 1900); Die Wiener Genesis (Vienna, 18951;
WiLPERT, Die Katacombengemalde (Freiburg, 1892); Ficker,
Studien zum christlichen Altertum und Mitlelalter (Leipzig, 1895) ;
Lanciani. Pagan and Christian Rome (London, 1892); Maruc-
CHi, Le ca(acom6e romaHe (Rome, 1903); Idem, Elements d' arche-
ologie chretienne (Paris, 1899-1902); Seroux d'Agincourt,
Histoire de Vart par les monuments (Paris, 1823); Courajod,
Lecons professees (I I'ecote du LouiTe (Paris, 1899); Kondakov,
Histoire de Vart bysantin (Paris, 1886-1891); Clausse, Les mo-
numents du christianisme au moyen-age {PaTis, 1893); RoHAULT
DE Fleury. La messe (Paris, 1876); Idem, Les saints de la messe
(Paris, 1891); Millet, Le monast;:re de Daphni (Paris, 1899);
Stokes, Early Chri«lian Art in Ireland (London, 1875); Weis
AND LlEBERSDcin , f'l < / ' ,■- - ', / A rn. ', f'n',', r f Freiburg. 1902);
Lindsay, Th, I! ■' ' ' ' ' 1 ' \--'>r,t; Brown. The
Arts in Early h' ': ' I ^ i , 1/ nintal Christianity
(New York, IS'.iJ : Ho i i- a- ' ;,,,,,.., , i miMmh, 1902); Hulme, Symbolism in Chn.-^tian Art (l^on.lon. IMHfi; Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art (London, 1890); Brinton, The Renaissance in Italian Art (London, 1898); Burckhardt, Le cicerone (Paris, 1885); Frizzoni, Arte italiana del Renascimento (Milan, 1891); SoLVAY, Uart espagnol (Paris, 1887); Kugler, Hand-Book of Painting (London, 1900); Morelli, Italian Painters (London, 1892); KlNGSLEY, History of French Art (London, 1899); Rio, De Vart chrctien (Paris, 1874); Church. Some Minor Arts (Lon- don. 1894); Bell. The Saints in Christian Art (1901); Horsin- Deon, Histoire de Vart (Paris. 1891); Muther. The History of Modern Painting (London, 1895); Scott, The RenaissaTice of Art in Italy (London. 1883); Springer, Kunsthandbuch fur Deutschland (Berlin, 1883).
The works of Lanzi and Vasari may be studied either in Italian or English editions. Of the Italian edition of Lanzi there is a convenient one in six vols. (1S09), and both Lanzi and Vasari are to be obtained in English in Bohn's Libraries. Blashfield prepared an annotated edition of Vasari's Lives (New Y'ork, 1897); Havard, Dict.de VameubUment et de la deco- ration (Paris, 188i). George Charles Williamson.
Ecclesiastical Architecture. — The best defini- tion of architecture that has ever been given is like- wise the shortest. It is " the art of building " ( Viollet- le-Duc, Diet., I, 116). The art, be it observed, and not merely the act of building. And when we say the art of building, the term must be held to imply the giving to buildings of whatever beauty is consistent with their primary purpose and with the resources that may be available. As a recent wTiter has said: "It can hardly be held that there is one art of making things well, and another of making them badly. . . . Good architecture is . . . the art of building beautifully and expressively; and bad architecture is the reverse. But arcliitecture is the art of building in general" (Bond, Gothic Architecture in England, 1). Since, however, the word building is apt to suggest, primar- ily, " the actual putting together of . . . materials by manual labour and machinery ", it may be desirable to amend or restrict the definition given above by saying that architecture is the art of planning, designing, and drawing buildings, and of directing the execution thereof (Bond, op. cit., 2). And in this art as in all others, including that of Ufe itself, the fundamental principle should always be that of subordinating means to ends and secondary to primary ends. Where this principle is or has been abandoned or lost sight of, the result may indeed be, or may have been, a building which pleases the eye, but it must needs be also one which offends that sense of the fitness of things, which is the criterion of the highest kind of beauty. Now a church is, primarily, a building intended for the pur- po.se of public worship; and in all sound ecclesiastical architecture this purpose should be altogether para- mount. To build a church for the admiration of " the man in the street ", who sees it from outside, or of the tourist who pays it a passing visit, or of the artist, or of anyone else whatsoever except that of the faithful who use the church for prayer, the hearing of Mass. and the reception of the sacraments, is to commit a solecism in V.-17
the noblest of all the material arts. Even the needs of
the liturgy itself are in a sense subsidiary to the needs
of the faithful. Sacramenta propter homines is an old
and sound saying. But, on the other hand, among
the needs of the faithful must be reckoned, under nor-
mal circumstances, the adequate carrying out of the
liturgj'. It is, of course, perfectly true to say that a
church is not only a building in which we worship God,
but also itself the expression of an act of worshipful
homage. This, however, it ceases to be, at least in
the highest degree, unless, as has been said, the aes-
thetic qualities of the building have been entirely sub-
ordinated to its primary purpose. It only needs a little
reflection to see that these preliminary remarks have a
very practical bearing on modern church-building.
There is always a danger lest we should be dominated
by technical terms and conventional opinions about
the merits of this or that style of architecture, derived
from times and circumstances that have passed away ;
lest we should be led by sentiment or fashion, or mere
lack of originality, to copy from the buildings of a by-
gone age without stopping to consider whether or how
far the needs of our own day are those of the days
when those buildings were raised. And the chief use
of the study of the history of ecclesiastical architecture
is not that it directs attention to a number of buildings
more or less beautiful in themselves, but that it cannot
fail to bring home to us that all true architectural de-
velopment was inspired, primarily, by the desire to
find a solution of some problem of practical utility.
Roughly speaking, all ecclesiastical architecture may be said to have been evolved from two distinct germ-cells, the oblong and the circular chamber. From the simple oblong chamber to the perfect Gothic cathedral the steps can be plainly indicated and admit of being abundantly illustrated from the actual course of architectural development in Western Eiu-ope (Brown, "From Schola to Cathedral", passim), while the links which connect the simple circular chamber with a gigantic cruciform domed church, like St. Peter's in Rome or St. Paul's in London, are still more obvious, though the actual course of development in the case of domed chm'ches has been far less continuous and regular.
The Origins of Ecclesiastical Architecture.^ That the first places set apart for Christian worship were rooms in private dwellings is admitted on all hands; and, although it is at least doubtful whether all the texts from the Xew Testament which have been alleged in support of the statement will bear the inter- pretation that has been put upon them, the statement itself hardly needs proof (Messmer in " Zeitschr. f. christl. Arch.", 1859, 212 sqq.; corrected by Lange, "Hausu. Halle", 273 sqq.). It may be assumed, fur- ther, that such rooms would for the most part have a simple oblong form, with a door in one of the narrower sides. From the first, however, there must have been some kind of division between the portion of the room occupied by the officiating clergy (the dvaiacrTripiov, sanctuary, or presbytery) and the space ;dlotted to the faithful; and this division, we may feel sure, was from a very early date marked by at least a breast-high bar- rier, analogous to that which still survives in the an- cient canceHi of S. Clemente, Rome, and also by a cur- tain which veiled the altar from view during certain portions of the Liturgy. And here we find the sugges- tion of a first step in the development of a distinctively ecclesiastical architecture. When the first churches or chapels were erected as independent structures, an obvious economy would suggest that, especially in the case of smaller edifices, the sanctuary need not be built so broad or so high as what may already be called the nave; and an equally obvious regard for stability would suggest that the division should be marked by an arch, supporting the ^able wall at the further end of the nave (Scott, English Church .-Vrchitecture, 3). Moreover, both structural and liturgical needs would
