Romanesque Architecture
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Romanesque Architecture
THE BASILICA AND BASILICAN CHURCHES
A great deal of conjecture has been expended on the question as to the
genesis of the Roman basilica. For present purposes it may be sufficient to
observe that the addition of aisles to the nave was so manifest a
convenience that it might not improbably have been thought of, even had
models not been at hand in the civic buildings of the Empire. The most
suitable example that can be chosen as typical of the Roman basilica of the
age of Constantine is the church of S. Maria Maggiore. And this, not merely
because, in spite of certain modern alterations, it has kept in the main its
original features, but also because it departs, to a lesser extent than any
other extant example, from the classical ideal. The lateral colonnade is
immediately surmounted by a horizontal entablature, with architrave, frieze,
and cornice all complete. The monolithic columns, with their capitals, are,
moreover, homogenous, and have been cut for their position, instead of
being like those of so many early Christian churches, the more or less
incongruous and heterogeneous spoils of older and non-Christian edifices.
Of this church, in its original form, no one however decidedly his tastes
may incline to some more highly developed system or style of architecture
will call in question the stately and majestic beauty. The general effect is
that of a vast perspective of lines of noble columns, carrying the eye
forward to the altar, which, with its civory or canopy, forms so conspicuous
an object, standing, framed, as it mere, within the arch of the terminal apse,
which forms its immediate and appropriate background.
S. Maria Maggiore is considerably smaller than were any of the other three
chief basilicas of Rome (St Peter's, St. Paul's, and the Lateran). Each of
these, in addition to a nave of greater length and breadth, was furnished (as
may still be seen in the restored St Paul's) with a double aisle. This,
however, was an advantage which was not unattended with a serious
drawback from a purely esthetic point of view. For a great space of blank
wall intervening between the top of the lateral colonnade and the clerestory
windows was of necessity required in order to give support to the
penthouse roof of the double aisle. And it is curious, to say the least, that it
should not have occurred to the builders of those three basilicas to utilize a
portion of the space thus enclosed, and at the same time to lighten the
burden of the ...
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