Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/434

figures, male on one side and female on the other, advancing in stately procession towards Our Lord and the Virgin Mother respectively, affords one of the most beautiful examples of mosaic ornamen tation to be found in any church. The design of the somewhat later and smaller church of Sfc Apollinaris in Classe, 538-549 A.D., measur ing 216 feet by 104 feet, is so similar that they must have proceeded from the same archi tect (Agincourt, pi. Ixxiii.,

No 35).

Fio. 15. Arches of St Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna.

The cathedral on the island of Torcello near Venice, ori ginally built in the 7th cen tury, but largely repaired circa 1000 A.D., deserves special attention from the fact that it preserves, in a more perfect state than can be seen elsewhere, the arrangements of the seats in the apse. The bishop s throne occupies the centre of the arc, approached by a steep flight of steps. Six rows of stone benches for the presbyters, rising one above another like the seats in a theatre, follow the curve on either side, the whole being singularly plain and almost rude. The altar stands on a platform ; the sanctuary is divided from the nave by a screen of six pillars. The walls of the apse are inlaid with plates of marble. The church is 125 feet by 75 feet. The narrow aisles are only 7 feet in width.

Fid. 16. Apse of Basilica, Torcello, with Bishop s throne and seats for the clergy. From a drawing by the late Lady Palgrave.

Another very remarkable basilica, less known than it deserves to be, is that of Parenzo in Istria, circa 542 A.D. Few basilicas have sustained so little alteration. From the annexed ground-plan it will be seen that it retains its atrium, and a baptistery, square without, octagonal within, to the west of it. Nine pillars divide each aisle from the nave, some of them borrowed from earlier buildings. The capitals are Byzantine. The choir occupies the three easternmost bays. The apse, as at Torcello, retains the bishop s throne and the bench for the presbyters apparently unaltered. The mosaics are singularly gorgeous, and the apse walls, as at Torcello, are inlaid with rich marble and niother-of-pearl. The dimensions are small, 121 feet by 82 feet. (See Kunstdenkmale des Ocsterreichischen Kaiser- ftadts, by Dr G. Ileicler and others).

In the Eastern church, though the erection of St Sophia at Constantinople introduced a new type which almost entirely superseded the old one, the basilican form, or as it was then termed dromical, from its shape being that of a race-course (dromos), was originally aa much the rule as in the West. The earliest church of which we have any clear account, that of Paulinus at Tyre, 313-322 A.D., described by Eusebius (H. E., x. 4, 37), was evidently basilican, with galleries over the aisles, and had an atrium in front. That erected by Constantine at Jerusalem, on the site of the Holy Sepulchre, 333, followed the same plan (Euseb., Vit. Const., iii. c. 29), as did the original churches of St Sophia and of the Apostles at Constantinople. Both these buildings have entirely passed away, but we have an excellent example of an Oriental basilica of the same date still standing in the church of the Nativity at Bethlehem, rebuilt by Justinian in the Gth century. Here we find an oblong atrium, a vestibule or narthex, double aisles with Corinthian columns, and. a transept, each end of which terminates in apse, in addition to that in the usual position. Beneath the centre of the tran sept is the subterranean church of the Nativity (De Vogue-, Les Eylises de la Terre Sainte, p. 46).

FIG. 17. Ground-Plan of Cathedral of Parenzo, Tstria. a, Cloistered atrium. -K Narthcx. b, Nave. c, c, Aisles. d, Chorus cantorum. t. Altar. f, Bishop s throne. ?, Baptistery. h, Belfry. f, Chapel of St Andrew.

Fl ; 18. Plan of church of , ,1 , e , T n , ,. the ISativity. Bethlehem. 1 -* ai t]iex - 2 -^ c - 8,3. Aisles.

Constantinople still preserves a basilican church of the 5th century, that of fet John Studios, 463, now a mosque. It has a nave and side aisles divided by columns supporting a hori zontal entablature, with another order supporting arches forming a gallery above. There is the usual apsidal ter mination. The chief difference between the Eastern and Roman basilicas is in the magnitude of the galleries. This is a characteristic feature of Eastern churches, the galleries being intended for women, for whom privacy was more studied than in the West (Salzenberg, Altchrist. Baudenk- male von Constantinople).

Other basilican churches in the East which deserve no

tice are those of the monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai built by Justinian, that of Dana between Antioch and Bir of the same date, St Philip at Athens, Bosrah in Arabia, Xanthus in Lycia, and the very noble church of St Demetrius at Thessalonica. Views and descriptions of most of these may be found in Texier and Pullan s Byzantine Architecture, Couchaud s Choix d Egliscs Byzan tines, and the works of the count de Vogue . We may refer to Fergusson s History of Architecture for views -and plans and description of the very interesting early minia ture Christian basilicas, some of which are probably the earliest existing Christian buildings in the Mediterranean provinces of Africa. The same work (p. C40) also gives

an account of the early French basilica, dating from the