CHAPTER I

Transcriber's Note:

Inconsistent hyphenation ligatures, diacritical marks and spelling in

the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical

errors have been corrected.

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

Characters which can't be represented in the Unicode character set

have been marked as follows:

ligatures: [AV]

double letters with arch above: [^IF]

The anchor for Footnote 11 is missing in the text. Its location has

been approximated.

The reference to Hexham church on page 157 is a possible typo.

The comma in the Roman numeral on page 204 is a possible typo.

Schmarzow on pages 230 and 405 should possibly be Schmarsow.

The index entry to Giovanni Buoni da Bissone points to entries for both

Buoni and Bono, and Bissone and Bissoni.

THE CATHEDRAL BUILDERS

[Illustration: CLOISTER OF S. JOHN LATERAN, ROME, 12TH CENTURY.

_Frontispiece_ (_From a photograph by Alinari._) _page 66._]

THE

CATHEDRAL BUILDERS

_THE STORY OF A GREAT MASONIC GUILD_

BY LEADER SCOTT

Honorary Member of the 'Accademia delle Belle Arti,' Florence

Author of 'The Renaissance of Art in Italy,' 'Handbook of

Sculpture,' 'Echoes of Old Florence,' etc.

With Eighty-three Illustrations

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

153-157 FIFTH AVENUE

1899

RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,

LONDON & BUNGAY.

PROEM

In most histories of Italian art we are conscious of a vast hiatus of

several centuries, between the ancient classic art of Rome--which was

in its decadence when the Western Empire ceased in the fifth century

after Christ--and that early rise of art in the twelfth century which

led to the Renaissance.

This hiatus is generally supposed to be a time when Art was utterly

dead and buried, its corpse in Byzantine dress lying embalmed in its

tomb at Ravenna. But all death is nothing but the germ of new life.

Art was not a corpse, it was only a seed, laid in Italian soil to

germinate, and it bore several plants before the great reflowering

period of the Renaissance.

The seed sown by the Classic schools formed the link between them and

the Renaissance, just as the Romance Languages of Provence and

Languedoc form the link between the dying out of the classic Latin and

the rise of modern languages.

Now where are we to look for this link?

In language we find it just between the Roman and Gallic Empires.

In Art it seems also to be on that borderland--Lombardy--where the

_Magistri Comacini_, a mediæval Guild of _Liberi Muratori_

(Freemasons), kept alive in their traditions the seed of classic art,

slowly training it through Romanesque forms up to the Gothic, and

hence to the full Renaissance. It is a significant coincidence that

this obscure link in Art, like the link-languages, is styled by many

writers Provençal or Romance style, for the Gothic influence spread in

France even before it expanded so gloriously in Germany.

I think if we study these obscure Comacine Masters we shall find that

they form a firm, perfect, and consistent link between the old and the

new, filling completely that ugly gap in the History of Art. So fully

that all the different Italian styles, whose names are legion--being

Lombard-Byzantine at Ravenna and Venice, Romanesque at Pisa and Lucca,

Lombard-Gothic at Milan, Norman-Saracen in Sicily and the south,--are

nothing more than the different developments in differing climates and

ages, of the art of one powerful guild of sculptor-builders, who

nursed the seed of Roman art on the border-land of the falling Roman

Empire, and spread the growth in far-off countries.

We shall see that all that was architecturally good in Italy during

the dark centuries between 500 and 1200 A.D. was due to the Comacine

Masters, or to their influence. To them can be traced the building of

those fine Lombard Basilicas of S. Ambrogio at Milan, Theodolinda's

church at Monza, S. Fedele at Como, San Michele at Pavia, and San

Vitale at Ravenna; as well as the florid cathedrals of Pisa, Lucca,

Milan, Arezzo, Brescia, etc. Their hand was in the grand Basilicas of

S. Agnese, S. Lorenzo, S. Clemente, and others in Rome, and in the

wondrous cloisters and aisles of Monreale and Palermo.

Through them architecture and sculpture were carried into foreign

lands, France, Spain, Germany, and England, and there developed into

new and varied styles according to the exigencies of the climate, and

the tone of the people. The flat roofs, horizontal architraves, and

low arches of the Romanesque, which suited a warm climate, gradually

changed as they went northward into the pointed arches and sharp

gables of the Gothic; the steep sloping lines being a necessity in a

land where snow and rain were frequent.

But however the architecture developed in after times, it was the

Comacine Masters who carried the classic germs and planted them in

foreign soils; it was the brethren of the _Liberi Muratori_ who, from

their head-quarters at Como, were sent by Gregory the Great to England

with Saint Augustine, to build churches for his converts; by Gregory

II. to Germany with Boniface on a similar mission; and were by

Charlemagne taken to France to build his church at Aix-la-Chapelle,

the prototype of French Gothic.

How and why such a powerful and influential guild seemed to spring

from a little island in Lake Como, and how their world-wide reputation

grew, the following scraps of history, borrowed from many an ancient

source, will, I hope, explain.

It is strange that Art historians hitherto have made so little of the

Comacine Masters. I do not think that Cattaneo mentions them at all.

Hope, although divining a universal Masonic Guild, enlarges on all

their work as Lombard; Fergusson disposes of them in a single

unimportant sentence; and Symonds is not much more diffuse; while

Marchese Ricci gives them the credit of the early Lombard work and no

more. I was led at length to a closer study of them by the two

ponderous tomes on the _Maestri Comacini_[1] by Professor Merzario,

who has got together a huge amount of material from old writers, old

deeds, and old stones. But valuable as the material is, Merzario is

bewildering in his redundancy, confusing in his arrangement, and not

sufficiently clear in his deductions, his chief aim being to show how

many famous artists came from Lombardy.

I wrote to ask Signor Merzario if I might associate his name with mine

in preparing a work for the English public, in which his research

would furnish me with so much that is valuable to the history of art,

but to my regret I found he had died since the book was written, so I

never received his permission; though his publisher was very kind in

permitting me to use the book as a chief work of reference. With

Merzario I have collated many other recognized authorities on

architecture and archæology, besides archivial documents, and old

chronicles. I have tried to make some slight chronological

arrangement, and some intelligible lists of the names of the Masters

at different eras. The researches of the great archivist Milanesi in

his _Documenti per la Storia dell' Arte Senese_, and Cesare Guasti in

his lately published collection of documents relating to the building

of the Duomo of Florence, have been of immense service in throwing a

light on the organization of the Lodges and their government. All that

Signor Merzario dimly guessed from the more fragmentary earlier

records of Parma, Modena, and Verona, shines out clear and

well-defined under the fuller light of these later records, and helps

us to read many a dark saying of the older times.

My thanks for much kind assistance in supplying me with facts or

authorities, are due to the Rev. Canonico Pietro Tonarelli of Parma

cathedral; the Rev. Vincenzo Rossi, Priore of Settignano; Commendatore

John Temple Leader of Florence; and to my brother, the Rev. William

Miles Barnes, Rector of Monkton, who has written the "English link"

for me. Acknowledgments are also due to Signor Alinari and Signor

Brogi of Florence, and to Signor Ongania of Venice, for permitting the

use of their photographs as illustrations.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Professor Giuseppe Merzario.--_I Maestri Comacini. Storia

Artistica di Mille duecento anni, 600-1800._ Published in 1893 by

Giacomo Agnelli, of 2, Via S. Margherita, Milan. Two vols., large

octavo. (Price 12 frcs.)

CONTENTS

PAGE

PROEM V

BOOK I

ROMANO-LOMBARD ARCHITECTS

CHAP.

I. THE GUILD OF THE COMACINE MASTERS 3

II. THE COMACINES UNDER THE LONGOBARDS 31

III. CIVIL ARCHITECTURE UNDER THE LONGOBARDS 60

IV. COMACINE ORNAMENTATION IN THE LOMBARD ERA 71

V. COMACINES UNDER CHARLEMAGNE 90

VI. IN THE TROUBLOUS TIMES 108

BOOK II

FIRST FOREIGN EMIGRATIONS OF THE COMACINES

I. THE NORMAN LINK 121

II. THE GERMAN LINK 133

III. THE ORIGIN OF SAXON ARCHITECTURE (A SUGGESTION),

BY THE REV. W. MILES BARNES 139

IV. THE TOWERS AND CROSSES OF IRELAND 161

BOOK III

ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTS

I. TRANSITION PERIOD 171

II. THE MODENA-FERRARA LINK 192

III. THE TUSCAN LINK. 1. PISA 206

2. LUCCA AND PISTOJA 225

IV. ROMANESQUE AND GOTHIC ORNAMENTATION 242

V. CIVIL ARCHITECTURE OF THE ROMANESQUE ERA 256

BOOK IV

ITALIAN-GOTHIC, AND RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTS

I. THE SECESSION OF THE PAINTERS 265

II. THE SIENA AND ORVIETO LODGES 282

III. THE FLORENTINE LODGE 308

IV. THE MILAN LODGE 345

1. THE COMACINES UNDER THE VISCONTI 349

2. THE CERTOSA OF PAVIA 372

V. THE VENETIAN LINK 383

VI. THE ROMAN LODGE 400

EPILOGUE 423

AUTHORITIES CONSULTED 427

INDEX 429

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Cloister of S. John Lateran, Rome _Frontispiece_

Comacine Panel from the Church of San Clemente,

Rome _To face page 9_

Frescoes in the Subterranean Church of San

Clemente, Rome " 10

Church of Sta. Costanza, Rome " 12

Door of the Church of S. Marcello at Capua " 13

Ancient Sculpture in Monza Cathedral " 38

Comacine Capital in San Zeno, Verona " 44

Basilica of S. Frediano at Lucca " 50

Façade of San Michele at Pavia " 52

Tracing of an old print of the Tosinghi Palace,

a mediæval building once in Florence, with

_Laubia_ on the front " 60

Tower of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Rome " 64

Byzantine Altar in the Church of S. Ambrogio,

Milan " 74

Fresco in the Spanish Chapel, S. Maria Novella,

Florence " 78

Door of the Church of San Michele, Pavia " 80

Comacine Knot on a panel at S. Ambrogio, Milan " 82

Sculpture from Sant' Abbondio, Como " 82

Pulpit in the Church of S. Ambrogio, Milan " 88

Door of a Chapel in S. Prassede, Rome " 90

Pluteus from S. Marco dei Precipazi, now in S.

Giacomo, Venice. " 90

Comacine Capitals " 96

Exterior of San Piero a Grado, Pisa " 102

Comacine Capital in San Zeno, Verona, emblematizing

Man clinging to Christ (the Palm) " 110

Capital in the Atrium of S. Ambrogio, Milan " 112

The West Door, St. Bartholomew, Smithfield " 122

South Side of the Choir, St. Bartholomew the

Great, Smithfield " 124

Palazzo del Popolo and Palazzo Comunale, Todi " 136

Fiesole Cathedral. Interior " 145

S. Clemente, Rome. Interior showing ancient screen " 146

Tower of S. Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna " 153

Tower of S. Satyrus. Milan " 154

S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna " 157

Door of the Church of S. Zeno at Verona " 166

Baptistery at Parma, designed by Benedetto da

Antelamo " 186

Façade of Ferrara Cathedral " 198

Church of S. Antonio, Padua " 200

Tomb of Can Signorio degli Scaligeri at Verona " 204

Interior of Pisa Cathedral " 212

Pulpit in the Church of S. Giovanni Fuorcivitas,

Pistoja " 222

Church of S. Michele, Lucca " 226

Cathedral of Lucca (San Martino) " 228

Pulpit in Church of S. Bartolommeo, Pistoja " 230

Church of S. Andrea, Pistoja " 234

Church of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas, Pistoja " 236

Church of S. Maria, Ancona " 242

Door of S. Giusto at Lucca " 244

Pilaster of the Door of the Cathedral of Beneventum " 246

Baptismal Font in Church of S. Frediano, Lucca " 248

Pulpit in the Church of Groppoli near Pistoja " 249

Pulpit in Siena Cathedral " 250

The Riccardi Palace, built for Lorenzo dei Medici " 252

Tomb of Mastino II. degli Scaligeri, at Verona " 254

Capital of a Column in the Ducal Palace, Venice " 256

Doorway of the Municipal Palace at Perugia " 258

Palazzo Pubblico at Perugia " 260

Court of the Bargello, Florence " 262

Tower of Palazzo Vecchio at Florence " 263

Eighth-century Wall Decoration in Subterranean

Church of S. Clemente, Rome " 266

Frescoes of the eighth century in the Subterranean

Church of S. Clemente, Rome, with portraits of

the Patron Beno di Rapizo and his Family " 268

Interior of Church of San Piero a Grado near Pisa,

with Frescoes of the ninth century " 270

Figures from paintings in Assisi by Magister

Giunta of Pisa " 272

Fresco at S. Gimignano " 278

Front of Siena Cathedral " 296

Door in Orvieto Cathedral " 300

Monument to Cardinal de Braye " 314

Palazzo Vecchio, Florence " 316

Shrine in Or San Michele, Florence " 332

Small Cloister of the Certosa of Pavia " 358

Marble Work on the Roof of Milan Cathedral " 364

Capital in Milan Cathedral " 366

North Door of Como Cathedral, sculptured by Tommaso

Rodari " 368

Renaissance Front of the Church of the Certosa at

Pavia " 378

Façade of Monza Cathedral " 380

The Cathedral and Broletta at Como " 382

The Ca d'Oro, Venice " 388

Ducal Palace at Venice. The side built by the

Buoni Family " 390

Court of the Ducal Palace at Venice " 392

Apse of the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo on the

Cœlian Hill, Rome " 404

Basilica of S. Paolo _fuori le mura_, Rome " 406

Pulpit in Church of S. Cesareo in Palatio, Rome.

Mediæval Sculpture inlaid in Mosaic " 408

Candelabrum in S. Paolo at Rome " 412

BOOK I

ROMANO-LOMBARD ARCHITECTS

THE CATHEDRAL BUILDERS

CHAPTER I

THE GUILD OF THE COMACINE MASTERS

In looking back to the great church-building era, _i.e._ to the

centuries between 1100 and 1500, do not the questions arise in one's

mind, "How did all these great and noble buildings spring up

simultaneously in all countries and all climates?" and "How comes it

that in all cases they were similar to each other at similar times?"

In the twelfth century, when the Italian buildings, such as the

churches at Verona, Bergamo, Como, etc., were built with round arches,

the German Domkirchen at Bonn, Mayence, Treves, Lubeck, Freiburg,

etc.; the French churches at Aix, Tournus, Caen, Dijon, etc.; and the

English cathedrals at Canterbury, Bristol, Chichester, St.

Bartholomew's in London--in fact, all those built at the same

time--were not only round-arched, but had an almost identical style,

and that style was Lombard.

In the thirteenth century, when pointed arches mingled with the round

in Italy, the same mixture is found contemporaneously in all the other

countries.

Again in the fourteenth century, when Cologne, Strasburg, and

Magdeburg cathedrals were built in pure Gothic; then those of

Westminster, York, Salisbury, etc., arose in England; the Domes of

Milan, Assisi, and Florence in Italy; and the churches of Beauvais,

Laon, and Rouen in France. These all came, almost simultaneously, like

sister buildings with one _impronto_ on them all.

Is it likely that many single architects in different countries would

have had the same ideas at the same time? Could any single architect,

indeed, have designed every detail of even one of those marvellous

complex buildings? or have executed or modelled one-tenth of the

wealth of sculpture lavished on one of those glorious cathedrals? I

think not.

The existence of one of these churches argues a plurality of workers

under one governing influence; the existence of them all argues a huge

universal brotherhood of architects and sculptors with different

branches in each country, and the same aims, technique, knowledge and

principles permeating through all, while each conforms in detail to

local influences and national taste.

If we once realize that such a Guild must have existed, and that under

the united hands of the grand brotherhood, the great age of

church-building was endowed with monuments which have been the glory

of all ages, then much that has been obscure in Art History becomes

clear; and what was before a marvel is now shown to be a natural

result.

There is another point also to be considered. The great age of

church-building flourished at a time when other arts and commerce were

but just beginning. Whence, out of the dark ages, sprang the skill and

knowledge to build such fine and sculpturesque edifices, when other

trades were in their infancy, and civic and communal life scarcely

organized?

It is indeed a subject of wonder how the artists of the early period

of the rise of Art were trained. Here we find men almost in the dark

ages, who were the most splendid architects, and at the same time

sculptors, painters, and even poets. How, for instance, did Giotto, a

boy taken from the sheep-folds, learn to be a painter, sculptor, and

architect of such rank that the city of Florence chose him to be the

builder of the Campanile? Did he learn it all from old Cimabue's

frescoes, and half Byzantine _tavole_? and how did he prove to the

city that he was a qualified architect? We find him written in the

archives as _Magister_ Giotto, consequently he must have passed

through the school and _laborerium_ of some guild where every branch

of the arts was taught, and have graduated in it as a master.

All these things will become more and more clear as we follow up the

traces of the Comacine Guild from the chrysalis state, in which Roman

art hybernated during the dark winter of the Middle Ages, through the

grub state of the Lombard period, to the glorious winged flights of

the full Gothic of the Renaissance.

And first as to the chrysalis, at little Como. The origin of the name

_Comacine Masters_ has caused a great deal of argument amongst Italian

writers new and old. Some think it merely a place-name referring to

the island of Comacina, in Lake Lario or Como; others take a wider

significance, and say it means not only the city of Como, but all the

province, which was once a Roman colony of great extension. Others

again, among whom is Grotius, suggest that it is not a place-name at

all, but comes from the Teutonic word _Gemachin_ or house-builders. As

the Longobards afterwards called them in Italian _Maestri Casarii_,

which means the same thing, there is perhaps something to be said for

this hypothesis.

The first to draw attention to the name _Magistri Comacini_, was the

erudite Muratori, that searcher out of ancient MSS., who unearthed

from the archives an edict, dated November 22, 643, signed by King

Rotharis, in which are included two clauses treating of the _Magistri

Comacini_ and their colleagues. The two clauses, Nos. 143 and 144, out

of the 388 inscribed in crabbed Latin, are, when anglicized, to the

following intent--

"Art. 143. Of the _Magister Comacinus_. If the Comacine Master with

his _colliganti_ (colleagues) shall have contracted to restore or

build the house of any person whatsoever, the contract for payment

being made, and it chances that some one shall die by the fall of the

said house, or any material or stones from it, the owner of the said

house shall not be cited by the _Magister Comacinus_ or his brethren

to compensate them for homicide or injury; because having for their

own gain contracted for the payment of the building, they must sustain

the risks and injuries thereof."[2]

"Art. 144. Of the engaging or hiring of _Magistri_. If any person has

engaged or hired one or more of the Comacine Masters to design a work

(_conduxerit ad operam dictandum_), or to daily assist his workmen in

building a palace or a house, and it should happen that by reason of

the house some Comacine should be killed, the owner of the house is

not considered responsible; but if a pole or a stone shall kill or

injure any extraneous person, the Master builder shall not bear the

blame, but the person who hired him shall make compensation."[3]

These laws prove that in the seventh century the _Magistri Comacini_

were a compact and powerful guild, capable of asserting their rights,

and that the guild was properly organized, having degrees of different

ranks; that the higher orders were entitled _Magistri_, and could

"design" or "undertake" a work;--_i.e._ act as architects; and that

the _colligantes_ worked under, or with, them. In fact, a powerful

organization altogether;--so powerful and so solid, that it speaks of

a very ancient foundation.

But when and how did it originate?

Was it a surviving branch of the Roman _Collegium_? a decadent group

of Byzantine artists stranded in Italy? or was it of older Eastern

origin? A clever logician could prove it to be all three.

For the Roman theory, he could base his arguments on the Latin

nomenclature of officials, and the Latin form of the churches.

For the Byzantine theory, he would have the style of certain

ornamentations, and the assertions of German writers, such as Müller,

and Stieglitz.

For the ancient Eastern theory, he might plead their Hebrew and

Oriental symbolism.

We will take the Byzantine theory first. Müller (_Archaeologie der

Kunst_, p. 224) says that: "From Constantinople as the centre of

mechanical skill, a knowledge of art radiated to distant countries,

corporations of builders of Grecian birth were permitted to exercise a

judicial government among themselves according to the laws of the

country to which they owed allegiance;" and Stieglitz, in his _History

of Architecture_, records a _tradition_ that at the time the Lombards

were in possession of Northern Italy, _i.e._ from the sixth to the

eighth century, the Byzantine builders formed themselves into guilds

and associations, and that on account of having received from the

Popes the privilege of living according to their own laws and

ordinances, they were called Freemasons.[4] Italian and Latin writers,

however, place the advent of these Greek artists at a later period;

they are supposed to have been sculptors, who, rebelling against the

strict Iconoclasm of Leo, the Isaurian--718 A.D. to 741--came over to

Italy where art was more free, and joined the _Collegia_ there.

But at this time most of the chief Longobardic churches were already

built by the Comacine Masters, and were Roman in form, mediæval in

ornamentation, and full of ancient symbolism. Herr Stieglitz must have

pre-dated his tradition. Besides this I can find no sign in Italian

buildings, or writers about them, of any lasting Byzantine influence.

Indeed pure Byzantine architecture in Italy seems sporadic and

isolated, not only in regard to site, but in regard to time. The

Ravenna mosaics, a few in Rome, a little work in Venice, is all one

can call absolutely Byzantine; and the influence never spread far. The

Comacine ornamentation indeed has qualities utterly distinct in

spirit, though in some of its forms allied to Byzantine. It is

possible that some of these Eastern exiles joined the Comacine Guild,

but there is quite enough in the communications of Como with the

Greeks, to account for their having imbibed as much as they did of

Byzantine style. Some of the Bishops who were rulers of Como before

and after Lombard times were Greeks; notably Amantius the fourth, who

was translated there from Thessalonica, and his successor, S.

Abbondio. Also through the Patriarch of Aquileja, under whose

jurisdiction they were brought later, the guild was put into contact

with the Greek sculptors then at Venice, Grado, and Ravenna.

[Illustration: COMACINE PANEL FROM THE CHURCH OF SAN CLEMENTE, ROME.

THE LATTICE-WORK IS MADE OF A SINGLE STRAND INTERLACED. DATE, 6TH

CENTURY.

_To face page 9._]

We will leave the Oriental theory aside as too vague and traditional

for proof, depending as it does on a few Oriental symbols, and certain

forms of decoration, and will look nearer home--even to Rome, with

which a connection may certainly be found, and that in a form visible

to our modern eyes.

Rome is almost as full of remains of what is now styled Comacine

architecture, as it is of classic and pagan ruins, and they are nearly

as deeply buried. Go where you will, and in the vestibules or crypts

of churches, now of gaudy Renaissance style, you will find the sign

and seal of the ancient guild. Investigate any church which has a

Lombard tower--and they are many--and you will discover that the hands

which built that many-windowed tower have left their mark on the church.

In that wonderful third-century basilica, which was discovered beneath

the thirteenth-century one of S. Clemente; in the almost subterranean

basilica of _S. Agnese fuori le mura_; in the vestibule of the florid

modern SS. Apostoli; in Santa Maria in Cosmedin; and various other

buildings, are wonderful old slabs of marble with complicated Comacine

knots on them. Our illustration is from a slab in San Clemente, which

was evidently from the buried church, though used as a panel in the

parapet of the existing choir. A marvellous piece of basket-work in

marble, which, if studied, will be found composed of a single cord,

twined and intertwined. An almost identical panel is preserved in the

wall of the staircase to S. Agnese, another has just been found

reversed, and the back of it used for the thirteenth-century mosaic

decoration of the pulpit in S. Maria in Cosmedin.

Then in the later Lombard churches of S. Lorenzo in Lucina, SS.

Giovanni e Paolo, S. John Lateran, etc., one may see the crouching

Comacine lions, now mostly minus their pillars, and shoved under

square door-lintels, or built into walls, where they remain to tell of

the ancient builders whose sign and seal they were.

And here and there we get a name.

In the vestibule of the SS. Apostoli is a red marble lion, on the base

of which in Gothic letters is the name BASSALECTI. Beneath it is an

old inscription, "Opus magister Bassalecti Marmorari Romano sec,

XIII." This same Magister's name, spelt _Vassalecti_, has lately been

discovered inscribed on the capitals of some columns in the nave of S.

John Lateran.

In the under church of S. Clemente, an ancient fresco of the eighth

century takes us further back than this. Here we see a veritable Roman

_Magister_ directing his men. He stands in magisterial toga (and

surely one may descry a masonic apron beneath it!), directing his men

in the moving of a marble column, and with the naïve simplicity of the

primitive artist each man's name is written beside him. Albertel and

Cosmaris are dragging up the column with a rope, the sons of Pute, who

are possibly novices, are helping them, while Carvoncelle is lifting

it from behind with a lever. These men are all in short jerkins, but

the master, Sisinius, is standing in his toga, directing them with

outstretched hand.

Here is the Magister of a Roman _Collegium_ embalmed and preserved for

us, that we may see him and his men at work as they were in the early

centuries after Christ. We know that Masonic _Collegia_ were still

existing in Rome in the time of Constantine and Theodosius; we know

that Constantine built the basilica of S. Agnese, afterwards restored

by Pope Symmachus; also those of S. Lorenzo--at least the round-arched

part of it--enlarged by Galla Placidia in the fifth century; S. Paolo

_fuori le Mura_, and other ancient churches. We see from remains

recently brought to light, that these were originally of the exact

plan of the churches built "in the Roman manner" at Hexham and York in

England, and of the Ravenna churches, and S. Pietro in Grado at Pisa,

also nearly contemporary. We further realize that all of these were

identical in style with the finer specimens of Lombard building some

centuries later. There is only the natural decline of art which would

have taken place in the century or two of barbarian invasion, between

the two epochs, but the traditionary forms, methods, etc., are all

reproduced in the Lombard-Comacine churches. Compare the

fourth-century door of the church of S. Marcello at Capua with the

eighth-century one of S. Michele at Pavia, and you will find precisely

the same style of art. Compare the Roman capitals of the church of

Santa Costanza, built by Constantine, with the capitals in any

Comacine church up to 1200, and you will see the same mixture of Ionic

and a species of Corinthian with upstanding volutes. Some of the

Comacine buildings have these upright volutes plain instead of

foliaged. The effect is rude, but I think these plainer capitals were

not a sign of incapacity in the architects of the guild, for one sees

richly ornate ones on the same building. It was only the stock design

of the inferior masters, when funds did not allow of payment for

richer work.

[Illustration: FRESCOES IN THE SUBTERRANEAN CHURCH OF SAN CLEMENTE,

ROME. UPPER LINE, BYZANTINE, 4TH CENTURY; UNDER ONES, COMACINE, 8TH

CENTURY.

_To face page 10._]

Therefore it may be inferred: (1) That architects of the same guild

worked in Rome and in Ravenna in the early centuries after Christ; (2)

that though the architects were Roman, the decorators up to the fourth

century were chiefly Byzantine, or had imbibed that style as their

paintings show; (3) that in the time when Rome lay a heap of ruins

under the barbarians, _the Collegium_, or _a Collegium_, I know not

which, fled to independent Como; and there in after centuries they

were employed by the Longobards, and ended in again becoming a

powerful guild.

Hope, the author of an historical Essay on Architecture, had a keen

prevision of this guild, although he had no documents or archives, but

only the testimony of old stones and buildings to prove it. After

sketching the formation of the Roman _Collegia_, and the employment

of their members as Christian architects under the early Popes, he

says "that a number of these, finding their work in Rome gone in the

times of invasion, banded together to do such work in other parts of

the world." He seems to think that the nucleus of this union was

Lombardy, where the superiority of the architecture, under the Lombard

kings, was such that the term _Magistri Comacini_ became almost a

generic name for architects. He says that builders and sculptors

formed a single grand fraternity, whose scope was to find work outside

Italy. Indeed distance and obstacles were nothing to them; they

travelled to England under Augustine, to Germany with St. Boniface, to

France with Charlemagne, and again to Germany with their brother

_magister_, Albertus Magnus; they went to the east under the Eastern

Emperors, to the south under the Lombard Dukes, and in fact are found

everywhere through many centuries. The Popes, one after another, gave

them privileges. Indeed the builders may be considered an army of

artisans working in the interest of the Popes, in all places where the

missionaries who preceded them had prepared the ground for them.

[Illustration: CHURCH OF STA. COSTANZA, ROME. BUILT IN THE 4TH

CENTURY.

(_From a photograph by Alinari._) _See page 11._]

Diplomas and papal bulls confirmed to the guild the privileges they

had obtained under their national sovereigns, and besides guaranteed

their safety in every Catholic country which they visited for the

scope of their association. They assumed the right to depend wholly

and solely on the Pope, which absolved them from the observance of all

local laws and statutes, royal edicts, and municipal regulations, and

released them from servitude, as well as all other obligations imposed

on the people of the country. They had not only the power of fixing

their own _honorarium_, but the exclusive right of regulating in their

own lodges everything that appertained to their own internal

government. Those diplomas and bulls prohibited any other artist,

extraneous to the guild, from establishing any kind of competition

with them.... Encouraged by such a special protection, the Romans

in great numbers entered the Masonic Guild, particularly when they

were destined to accompany the missionaries sent by the Pope to

countries hitherto unvisited by them. The Greeks also did not delay to

take part. The Exarchate of Ravenna, first detached from the Greek

Empire by the power of the Lombard princes, had by King Pepin been

given to the Popes.... The commercial relations and communications of

all kinds maintained with Constantinople by the many cities of

Northern Italy, daily attracted many Greeks to this city; finally, the

political turbulence of Constantinople, and chiefly the fanaticism of

the Iconoclasts, continued to associate Greek artists with Italy, and

many of these were received in the lodges, whose number constantly

increased.

[Illustration: DOOR OF THE CHURCH OF S. MARCELLO AT CAPUA, 4TH

CENTURY.

(_From a photograph by Alinari._) _To face page_ 11 or 13.]

As civilization became more diffused, the inhabitants of northern

countries, French, Germans, Belgians, and English, were admitted to

form part of these guilds. Without this concession they would probably

have had to fear a perilous competition, encouraged by the sovereigns

of other countries.... These corporations were always in league with

the Church, which in those times of war and constant struggle, of

military service and feudal slavery, was the only asylum for those who

wished to cultivate the arts of peace. Therefore we see ecclesiastics

of high rank, abbots, prelates, bishops, exalting the respect in which

the Freemasons were held, by joining the guild as members. They gave

designs for their own churches, overlooked the building, and employed

their own monks in the manual labour.

Such is broadly the substance of Hope's account of the great Lombard

Guild. It shows remarkable insight, for when he wrote, the documentary

evidences which have lately been collected were wanting.[5] It also

explains precisely the close connection with monks and the Church,

which appears in all the story of the guild, and it accounts for the

Greek influence in the ornamentation.

In all the course of the history of building we see that each country

or province had to obtain its architects from this _Collegium_ at

Rome, as Villani says all the cities of Italy did, and were obliged to

apply to the Grand Master of the whole guild. Thus the early Popes had

to beg architects for Rome from the Lombard kings; Pope Adrian had to

apply to Charlemagne for builders; and so on up to the time when all

the church-building Communes had to seek architects from some existing

lodge.

Giovanni Villani shows us the intimate connection of the Roman

_Collegium_ with Florence. He says that after Cæsar had destroyed

Fiesole he wished to build another city to be called Cesaria, but the

Senate would not permit this. The Senate, however, gave his Generals

Macrinus, Albinus, Cneus Pompey, and Martius equal power to build, and

between them they founded Florence, bringing the water from Monte

Morello by an aqueduct. Villani says the _Magistri_ came from Rome for

all these works. That was in the days when the great masonic company

had their Grand Lodge in Rome, before the martyrdom of the _Santi

Quattro_, afterwards their patron saints.

In Chapter XLII. Villani relates how when the citizens of Florence

wished to build a temple to Mars, they sent to the Senate of Rome to

beg that they would supply the most capable and clever _Magistri_ that

Rome could furnish. This was done,[6] and the Baptistery was erected

in its first form.

Again whilst Charlemagne and Pope Adrian were employing the Comacines

to rebuild the ruins of Rome, we find from Villani (lib. iii. chap. 1)

that Charlemagne sent some Romans with "all the masters there were in

Rome" (e vennero con quanti maestri n'avea in Roma per più tosto

murarla) to fortify Florence, which had appealed to him for succour

against the Fiesolans. In this manner, says Villani, "the _Magistri_

who came with the Romans began to rebuild our noble city of Florence."

As early as the fifth century Cassiodorus seems to refer to the work

of the Comacines when writing about the "public architects"--the very

expression implies a public company--and admiring the grand Italian

edifices with their "airy columns, slight as canes," he adds, "to be

called _Magister_ is an honour to be coveted, for the word always

stands for great skill."[7]

This brings us to the question of the Latin nomenclature. No really

qualified Comacine architect is ever mentioned either in sculptured

inscription, parchment deed, or in the registers of the lodges,

without the prefix _Magister_, a title which Cassiodorus, for one,

respected. It was not a term applied indiscriminately to all builders,

like _murarius_; and we find that the subordinate ranks of

stone-cutters or masons were called by the generic name of

_operarius_. I take it that the word, as applied to the higher rank of

the Comacine Guild, has the same value as the title of _Master_ in the

old trade guilds of London, _i.e._ one who has passed through the

lower rank of the schools and laborerium, and has by his completed

education risen to the stage of perfection, when he may teach others.

Morrona[8] gives the same definition. Judging from ancient

inscriptions and documents, he says that "operator" (Latin

_operarius_) is used for one who works materially; while _Magister_

signifies the architect who designs and commands. When a _Magister_

carries out his own designs, he is said to be _operator ipse

magister_, as in the case of Magister Rainaldus, who designed and

sculptured the façade of the Duomo at Pisa.

In warlike times such as the Middle Ages, the only means by which

artisans could protect their interests was by mutual protection, and

hence the necessity and origin of Trade Guilds in general. The Masonic

one appears to have been a universal fraternity with an earlier

origin; indeed many of their symbols point to a very ancient Eastern

derivation, and it is probable it was the prototype of all other

guilds.

Since I began writing this chapter a curious chance has brought into

my hands an old Italian book on the institutions, rites, and

ceremonies of the order of Freemasons.[9] Of course the anonymous

writer begins with Adoniram, the architect of Solomon's Temple, who

had so very many workmen to pay, that not being able to distinguish

them by name, he divided them into three different classes, _novices_,

_operatori_, and _magistri_, and to each class gave a secret set of

signs and passwords, so that from these their fees could be easily

fixed, and imposture avoided. It is interesting to know that precisely

the same divisions and classes existed in the Roman _Collegium_ and

the Comacine Guild--and that, as in Solomon's time, the great symbols

of the order were the endless knot, or Solomon's knot, and the "Lion

of Judah."

Our author goes on to tell of the second revival of Freemasonry, in

its present entirely spiritual significance, and he gives Oliver

Cromwell, of all people, the credit of this revival! The rites and

ceremonies he describes are the greatest tissue of mediæval

superstition, child's play, blood-curdling oaths, and mysterious

secrecy with nothing to conceal, that can be imagined. All the signs

of masonry without a figment of reality; every moral thing masquerades

under an architectural aspect, in that "Temple made without hands"

which is figured by a Freemasons' lodge in these days. But the

significant point is that all these names and masonic emblems point to

something real which existed at some long-past time, _and, as far as

regards the organization and nomenclature, we find the whole thing in

its vital and actual working form in the Comacine Guild_. Our nameless

Italian who reveals all the Masonic secrets, tells us that every lodge

has three divisions, one for the novices, one for the _operatori_ or

working brethren, and one for the masters, besides a meeting or

recreation room; and that no lodge can be established without a

minimum of two masters. Now wherever we find the Comacines at work, we

find the threefold organization of _schola_ or school for the novices,

_laborerium_ for the _operatori_, and the _Opera_ or _Fabbrica_ for

the Masters of Administration.

The anonymous one tells us that there is a _Gran Maestro_ or

_Arch-magister_ at the head of the whole order, a _Capo Maestro_ or

chief Master at the head of each lodge. Every lodge must besides be

provided with two or four _Soprastanti_, a treasurer, and a

secretary-general, besides accountants. This is precisely what we find

in the organization of the Comacine Lodges. As we follow them through

the centuries we shall see it appearing in city after city, at first

dimly shadowed where documents are wanting, but at last fully revealed

by the books of the treasurers and _Soprastanti_ themselves, in Siena,

Florence, and Milan.

Thus, though there is no certain proof that the Comacines were the

veritable stock from which the pseudo-Freemasonry of the present day

sprang, we may at least admit that they were a link between the

classic _Collegia_ and all other art and trade guilds of the Middle

Ages. They were called Freemasons because they were builders of a

privileged class, absolved from taxes and servitude, and free to

travel about in times of feudal bondage. The term was applied to them

both in England and Germany. Findel quotes two old English MSS., one

of 1212, where the words "_sculptores lapidum liberorum_" are in close

conjunction with _cœmentari_, which is the oldest Latin form for

builder; and another dated 1396, where occurs the phrase "_latomos

vocatos fremaceons_." In the rolls of the building of Exeter and

Canterbury cathedrals the word _Freimur_ is frequent, and no better

proof can be given of the way the early Masonic guild came into

England. The Italian term _liberi muratori_ went into Germany with the

Comacine Masters, who built Lombard buildings in many a German city,

before Gothic ones were known; thence it passed Teutonized as

_Freimur_ into England.[10]

Cesare Cantù (_Storia di Como_, vol. i. p. 440) thus describes the

Guild--

"Our Como architects certainly gave the name to the Masonic companies,

which, I believe, had their origin at this time, though some claim to

derive them from Solomon. These were called together in the _Loggie_

(hence Lodge) by a grand-master to treat of affairs common to the

order, to accept novices, and confer superior degrees on others. The

chief Lodge had other dependencies, and all members were instructed in

their duties to the Society, and taught to direct every action to the

glory of the Lord and His worship; to live faithful to God and the

Government; to lend themselves to the public good and fraternal

charity. In the dark times which were slowly becoming enlightened,

they communicated to each other ideas on architecture, buildings,

stone-cutting, the choice of materials and good taste in design.

Strength, force, and beauty were their symbols. Bishops, princes, men

of high rank who studied architecture fraternized with them, but the

mixture of so many different classes changed in time the spirit of the

Freemasons. The original forms of building were lost when the science

fell into the hands and caprice of venal artisans."[11]

We shall see the way in which the Comacines spread fraternity wherever

they went. When they began building in any new place, they generally

founded a lodge there, which comprised a _laborerium_ and school. Thus

we find one under the Antellami family in Parma before 1200, and not

long after one in Modena under the same masters from Campione. The

lodge is clearly defined at Orvieto and Siena. In Lucca there was a

_laborerium_ before the year 1000. In 1332 it had obtained privileges.

At Milan there was evidently another, for on February 3, 1383, the

archbishop invites the architects _Fratelli_ (brethren), and others

who understand the work, to inspect the models for the cathedral; now

these words evidently refer to a Masonic brotherhood, as does the term

_Opera Magiestatem_ so often met with in old documents.

In the Marches of Ancona is a sepulchre inscribed to the _fratres

Comacini_, and in the Abruzzi are chapels dedicated by them. In Rome

it is recorded that they met in the church of SS. Quattro Coronati.

These patron saints of the guild, the four holy crowned ones (Santi

Quattro Coronati), strike me as having a peculiar significance in

regard to their origin. We are told that during the persecutions under

Diocletian, four brethren, named Nicostratus, Claudius, Castorio, and

Superian[12] (either brothers, or more likely members of the same

_Collegium_), who were famous for their skill in building and

sculpture, refused to exercise their art for the pagan Emperor. "We

cannot," they said, "build a temple for false gods, nor shape images

in wood or stone to ensnare the souls of others." They were all

martyred in different ways: one scourged, one shut up and tortured in

an iron case, one thrown into the sea; the other was decapitated.

Their relics were in the time of St. Leo placed in four urns, and

deposited in the crypt of the church, which was built to their honour,

in the time of Honorius, by the Comacines then in Rome. It has always

been the especial church of the guild, and their meeting-place. They

had an altar dedicated to the same saints at Siena, and another at

Venice. We find from the statutes of the Sienese guild as late as the

fourteenth century, that the _fête_ of the "Quattro" was kept in a

special manner by the Masonic guild. All the Church _fêtes_ are

classed together as days when no work is to be done, but the day of

the SS. Quattro has two laws all to itself, and is kept with peculiar

ceremonies.[13]

On the altar of this church on Mount Aventine are silver busts of the

four Magister martyrs; and on the wall is an ancient inscription, as

follows--

BEATVS LEO IIII PAPA

PARITER SVB HOC SACRO ALTR̄

REC̄DENS COLLOCAVĪ CORPOR̄ SCŌ

M͞R CL[AV]DII NICOSTĪ SEMPRON̄I

CAST̄ ET SIMP̄ ET HII FR̄M SEVERI

SEVERIANI CARPOFORI ET VICTO

RINI [MA]RII AVDIFAX EABBACV̄

FELICISSIMO ET AGAPITO YPPOLT̄

OVDE CV̄ SVA FAM̄L NV̄O X ET

VIIII ACQVILINI ET PRISCI ARSEI

AQVNI NARCISI ET MARCELLI

NI FELICIS SIMETRII CANDI

DAE ATO PAVLINÆ ANASTASII

ET FELICIS APOLLIONIS

ET BENEDICTI VENANTII

ATO FELICIS DIOGENIS ET LI

BERALIS FESTI ET MARCELLI

ATO SVPERANTII PVDENTIAN̄E

ET BENEDICTI FELICIS ET BENE

DICTI NECN̄ CAPITA SANCTO

PROTI SC̄EO CECILIA E

SC͞I ALEXANDRI SC̄IO XISTI

ET SC͞I SEBASTIANI ATQ

SACRATISSIME VIRGINIS

PRAXEDIS ET ALIA MVLTA

CORPORA SANCTORVM

QVORVM NOMINA DEO

SVNT COGNITA

If I interpret the abbreviations M͞R. F͞RM and FA͞ML aright,

this inscription would imply that members of each of the three grades

of the Roman Masonic guild, Magister, Fratres, and Famuli

(apprentices), were martyred together, and their remains placed in

this church with the relics of some proto-martyrs. The _Magistri_ were

afterwards canonized, and the four I have named became the patron

saints of the guild. S. Carpophorus was held in special veneration in

Como, of which place he was probably a native, or else a Greek member

of the Comacine Lodge there.

The other side of the inscription chronicles the restoration of the

altar which was ruined and broken down, in the time of Pope Paschalis

Secundus, A.D. 1111, in the fourth Indiction.

The church of the SS. Quattro has remains of a fine atrium or portico.

In the wall of the atrium is a fragment of _intreccio_. The original

form of the church is well preserved, and is identical with that of S.

Agnese, _fuori le mura_. The gallery for the women is well preserved.

The especial veneration for the four crowned martyrs seems to point to

their Roman origin, and to specify the reason why the remnant of the

particular _Collegium_ to which they belonged fled from Rome, and took

refuge in the safe little republic of Como, so that it was not only

the Goths and Vandals from whom they fled. It explains also the

intense religion in their work, and rules; the very first principles

of which were to respect God's name, and do all to His glory.

It need not excite wonder that any guild should have fled from Rome in

these centuries. This was the time that Gregory the Great, painted so

graphically in his passionate Homily of Ezechiel, preached at Rome.

"Everywhere see we mourning, hear we laments; cities, strongholds,

villages are devastated; the earth is a desert. No busy peasants are

in the fields, few people in the cities, and these last relics of

human kind daily suffer new wounds. There is no end to the scourging

of God's judgment.... We see some carried into slavery, others cruelly

mutilated, and yet more killed. What joy, oh my brethren, is left to

us in life? If it is still dear to us we must look for wounds, and not

for pleasures. Behold Rome, once Queen of the world, to what is she

reduced?--prostrated by the sorrows and desolation of her citizens, by

the fierceness of her enemies and frequent ruin, the prophecy against

Samaria has been fulfilled in her. Here no longer have we a senate;

the people are perished, save the few who still suffer daily. Rome is

empty, and has barely escaped the flames; her buildings are thrown

down. The fate of Nineveh is already upon her...."[14]

The Longobard invaders were more merciful than the Goths, for not long

after their rule was over, another Pope wrote to Pepin--"Erat sanæ hoc

mirabile in regno Longobardorum, nulla erat violenta nulla struebantur

insidiæ. Nemo aliquem iniuste angariabat, nemo spoliabat. Non erat

furta, non latrocinia, unusquisque quodlibebat securus sine timore

pergebat."--_Histor. Franc. Scrip._ Tom. III. cap. xvi.

Whatever the moving cause, the fact remains that in the Middle Ages

the Comacine Masters had a nucleus on that strong little fortified

island of Comacina, which, together with Como itself, stood against

the Lombards in the sixth century for twenty years before being

subjugated; and in the twelfth, held its own independence for a

quarter of a century against Milan and the Lombard League, which it

refused to join.

When at length the Longobards became their rulers, they respected

their art and privileges. The guild remained free as it had been

before, and in this freedom its power must have increased fast.

The Masters worked liberally for their new lords, but it was as paid

architects, not as serfs. As a proof we may cite an edict signed by

King Luitprand on February 28, 713. It is entitled _Memoratorio_, and

is published by Troya in his _Codex Diplomaticus Longobardus_.

It fixes the prices of every kind of building. Here are the titles of

the seven clauses, referring to the payments of the _Magistri

Comacini_: _De Mercede Comacinorum_--

CLVII. Capit. i. De Sala. "Si sala fecerit, etc."

CLVIII. Capit. ii. De Muro. "Si vero murum fecerit qui usque ad pedem

unum sit grossus ... cum axes clauserit et opera gallica fecerit ...

si arcum volserit, etc."

Capit. iii. De annonam Comacinorum.

CLIX. Capit. iv. De opera.

CLX. Similiter romanense si fecerit, sic repotet sicut gallica opera.

Capit. v. De Caminata.

CLXI. Capit. vi. De marmorariis.

CLXII. Si quis axes marmoreas fecerit ... et si columnas fecerit de

pedes quaternos aut quinos ...

Capit. vii. De furnum.

CLXIII. Capit. viii. De Puteum. Si quis puteum fecerit ad pedes

centum.[15]

The Longobard rule explains why the Comacine Masters of the thirteenth

century were known as Lombards, and the architecture of that time as

the "Lombard style." In the same way they were called _Franchi_ when

Charlemagne was their king; and _Tedeschi_ when the German dynasty

conquered North Italy; if indeed the words _artefici Franchi_ do not

merely signify Freemasons, which I strongly suspect is the true

meaning.

To understand the connection of this guild of architects with little

Como we must glance backwards at the state of that province under the

Romans, when it was a colony ruled by a prefect. Junius Brutus himself

was one of these rulers, and Pliny the Younger a later one. At this

time Como was a large and flourishing city. It had in Cæsar's time a

theatre whose ruins were found near S. Fedele; a gymnasium for the

games, which was near the present church of Santa Chiara. A document

dated 1500 speaks of the Arena of Como as then still existing. The

_campus martius_ was at S. Carpoforo, where several Roman

inscriptions, urns, and medals were found. This valuable collection of

Latin inscriptions, found in and about Como, proves the successive

rule of emperors, prefects, military tribunes, naval prefects,

Decurions, etc. We have records also of Senators, Decemviri, and other

municipal magistrates. The inscriptions also show that there were

temples to Jove, Neptune, the _Dea Bona_, the Manes, the _Dea Mater_,

Silvanus, Æsculapius, Mars, Diana, Hygeia, and even Isis.

Some Cippi are dedicated to Mercury and Hercules; and one found near

S. Maria di Nullate was inscribed by order of the Comacines to

_Fortuna Obsequente_, "for the health of the citizens." To this day a

_Prato Pagano_ (pagan field) exists near Como. All these proofs,

together with Pliny's testimony, go to show that Como was in Roman

times an important centre, and as such was likely to have its own

_Collegia_ or trade guilds, to one of which probably Pliny's builder,

Mustio, belonged, and to which the Roman refugees naturally fled as

brethren.

Pliny the Younger at that time lived at Como, in his delightful villa,

_Comedia_. In his grounds, on a high hill, were the ruins of the

temple of the Eleusinian Ceres, and he determined to restore this

temple, as devotees flocked there during the Ides of September, and

had no refuge from sun or rain.[16] His letter to "Mustio," a Comacine

architect, gives the commission for this restoration, and after

explaining the form he wished the design to take, he concludes--"At

least unless you think of something better, you, whose art can always

overcome difficulties of position." For Pliny, fresh from Rome, to

give such praise to an architect at Como, shows that even at that time

good masters existed there.

Another letter of Pliny's (Lib. X. Epist. xlii.) speaks of the villa

of his friend Caninus Rufus, on the same lake, with its beautiful

porticoes and baths, etc., and of the many other villas, palaces,

temples, forums, etc., which embellished Como and its neighbourhood.

Catullus lived here when the poet Cæcilius, whose works have now

perished, invited him to leave the hills of Como, and the shores of

Lario, to join him in Verona.

Pliny seems to confirm the existence of guilds,[17] as he speaks of

the institution of a _Collegium_ of iron-workers, who wished to be

patented by the Emperor, but Trajan refused to form new guilds, for

fear of the _Hetæriæ_ or factions which might infiltrate into them.

Mommsen, in his work _De Collegiis et Sodalitiis Romanorum_, says

that under the emperors no guild was allowed to hold meetings, except

by special laws, yet though new companies were not to be formed, the

existing ones of architects and artisans were permitted to continue

after public liberty was lost. Several documents prove that the chief

scope of these unions was to promote the interests of their art, to

provide mutual assistance in the time of need, to succour the sick and

poor, and to bury the dead.

The trade guilds in London, the _Arti_ in Florence, and the town clubs

kept up in England till lately, seem to be all survivals of these

ancient classical societies.

Besides the Builders' Society, Como had, in Roman times, a nautical

guild. An inscription is extant, dedicated to C. Messius Fortunatus by

the _Collegium nautarum Comensium_. This guild sent twenty ships of

war to Venice in Barbarossa's time.

But besides having privileged societies, Como and its Comacine islands

were a privileged territory, and might almost have been called a

republic. We have, it is true, no documentary evidence of this dating

back to pre-Longobardic times, but as Otho in 962[18] confirmed the

islands in all former privileges granted by his predecessors on the

Imperial throne, we may fairly suppose the privileges dated from times

far anterior to himself.

This is an anglicized version of his decree, which was granted on the

petition of the Empress Adelaide--

"In the name of the Holy and indivisible Trinity, Otho, by the will of

God, august Emperor. If we incline to the demands of our faithful

people, much more should we lend our ear to the prayers of our beloved

consort. Know then, all ye faithful subjects of the Holy Church of

God, present and future, that the august Empress Adelaide, our wife,

invokes our clemency, that for her sake we receive under our

protection the inhabitants of the Comacine islands, and surrounding

places known as Menasie (_sic_), and we confirm all the privileges

which they have enjoyed under our predecessors, and under ourselves

before we were anointed Emperor, viz. they shall not be called on for

military service, nor have _arbergario_ (taxes on roads and bridges),

nor pay _curatura_ (tax on beasts), _terratico_ (tax on land),

_ripatico_ (on ships), or the _decimazione_ (tax on householders) of

our kingdom, neither shall they be obliged to serve in our councils,

except the general assembly at Milan, which they shall attend three

times a year. All this we concede, etc. Given on the 8th before the

calends of September, in the year of the Incarnation 962, first year

of the reign of the most pious Otho."--_Indiction V. in Como._

The hypothesis that this decree refers to a long-existing liberty is

confirmed by the history of Como in the time of Justinian I. Up to the

middle of the sixth century a certain Imperial Governor of Insubria,

named Francione, who had seen Rome sacked and his own state taken,

fled to Comacina as a free place of refuge when Alboin invaded Italy.

He helped the Comacines to hold out against the barbarians for more

than twenty years, and so secure was the place considered that the

island was by Narses and others made the depositary of infinite

treasures. With him multitudes of Romans had taken refuge there, but

finally even this fell into the hands of the Longobards. We are told

that Autharis subjugated Istria, and after a six months' siege,

possessed himself of the very strongly fortified island of Comacina on

the lake of Como, where he found immense treasures, doubtless part of

the traditional wealth amassed by Narses, and which as well as much

private property had been deposited here for security by the

neighbouring peoples.[19]

Here then, four centuries before Otho's decree, we have Comacina as a

place of refuge in troublous times, chosen because, being a free city,

it was considered more safe than other towns. We need not then

consider it improbable, if in the dark centuries when the Roman Empire

was dying out, and its glorious temples and streets falling into ruin

under the successive inroads of half-savage despoilers; when the arts

and sciences were falling into disuse or being enslaved; and when no

place was safe from persecution and warfare, the guild of the

Architects should fly for safety to almost the only free spot in

Italy; and here, though they could no longer practise their craft,

they preserved the legendary knowledge and precepts which, as history

implies, came down to them through Vitruvius from older sources, some

say from Solomon's builders themselves.

Among the treasures must have been works of Greek and Roman art, that

kept alive the old spirit among the guild of builders gathered there;

but alas! after the long generations when art was decaying, and

uncalled for, their hands lost their skill, they could no longer

reproduce the perfect works.

It was here the Longobards found them, and in their new Christian zeal

soon furnished them with work enough.

LONGOBARD KINGS

568. Alboin conquers Italy; he was poisoned by his wife Rosamund

for compelling her to drink out of her father's skull.

573. Cleoph (assassinated).

575. Autharis (poisoned).

591. Agilulf.

615. Adaloald. He was poisoned.

625. Ariold.

636. Rotharis. He married Ariold's widow, and published a code

of laws.

652. Rodoald (son), assassinated.

653. Aribert (uncle).

661. Bertharis and Godebert (sons); dethroned by--

662. Grimoald, Duke of Beneventum.

671. Bertharis (re-established).

686. Cunibert (son).

700. Luitbert; dethroned by--

701. Ragimbert.

701. Aribert II. (son).

712. Ansprand elected.

712. Luitprand (son); a great prince, favourite of the Church.

744. Hildebrand (nephew), deposed.

744. Ratchis, Duke of Friuli, elected, but afterwards became a monk.

749. Astolfo (brother).

756. Desiderius, quarrelled with Pope Adrian, who invited Charlemagne

to Italy. He defeated and dethroned Desiderius, and

put an end to the Lombard kingdom.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] "Si Magister Comacinus, cum collegis suis, domum ad restaurandum,

vel fabricandum super se placito finito de mercede susceperit, et

contigerit aliquem per ipsam domum aut materiam, aut lapide lapso

moti, aut quodlibet damnum fieri, non requiratur domino, cuius domus

fuerit, nisi Magister Comacinus cum consortibus suis ipsum homicidium

aut damnum componat, qui postquam fabulam firmatam de mercede pro suo

lucro susciperit, non immerito sustinet damnum."

[3] "Si quis Magister Comacinum unum aut plures rogaverit, aut

conduxerit ad operam dictandum, aut solatium diurnum praestandum inter

suos servos ad domum aut casam faciendam et contigerit per ipsam

casam, aliquem ex ipsis Comacinis mori non requiratur ab ipso, cuius

casa est. Nam si cadens arbor, aut lapis ex ipsa fabrica, et occiderit

aliquem extraneum, aut quodlibet damnum fecerit, non reputetur culpa

magistro, sed ille qui conduxit, ipsum damnum sustineat."--From the

_Edict of Rotharis_--edited by Troyes.

[4] Stieglitz, _Geschichte der Baukunst_, 1827, pp. 423, 424. See also

Hope's _Historical Essay on Architecture_, 1835, pp. 229-237.

[5] See Hope's _Historical Essay on Architecture_, 3rd edition, 1840,

chap. xxi. pp. 203-216.

[6] E mandaro al Senato di Roma, che mandassi loro i più sofficienti

maestri, e più sottili (subtle) che fossero in Roma: e cosi fu

fatto.--_Storia_ di G. Villani. Libro primo, cap. xlii.

[7] Cassiodorus, _Variorum_, Lib. VI. Epist. vi. _Ad Prefectum Urbis

De Architecta Publicorum_.

[8] Morrona, _Pisa illustrata nelle Arti del Disegno_, p. 160. Pisa,

1812.

[9] _Instituzioni, riti e ceremonie dell' ordine de' Francs-Maçons,

ossia Liberi Muratori._--In Venezia MDCCLXXXVIII, presso Leonardo

Bassaglia, Con Licenza de' Superiori.

[10] The Charter Richard II. for the year 1396, quoted in the _Masonic

Magazine_ (1882), has the following entry--"341 Concessimus

archiepiscopo Cantuar, quod, viginti et quatuor lathomos vocatus ffre

Maceons et viginti et quatuor lathomos vocatos ligiers ... capere ...

possit." Here then at Canterbury is the same thing as at Milan, and

all other ancient cathedral-building cities,--the master builders are

Freemasons, _i.e._ of the great and universal guild,--the underlings

who assist them have not the same rank and privilege. The Act Henry

VI., c. 12, 1444, says in queer mixed parlance--"Les gagez ascun frank

mason ou maister Carpenter nexcede pas par le jour IIIJ d. (denari)

ovesque mangier & boier ... un rough mason and mesne Carpenter ... III

d. par le jour." Here we recognize the same distinction of grades

between the master who has matriculated and the mason of lower grade.

It is interesting also to note that the master carpenter is equally a

Freemason as well as the master builder. In Italy the same peculiarity

is noticeable; the _magister lignamine_, whose work was to make

scaffoldings and roofs, is a member of the _Maestranze_, just as much

as the _magister lapidorum_, and yet a master in wood is never a

stonemason. The members seem to have been grounded in all the

branches, but only graduated in one of them. The author of the article

"Freemason" in the _New English Dictionary on Historical Principles_,

seems to be perplexed over the expression "_maestre mason de franche

peer_" ("master mason of free-stone"); but this is merely the

equivalent of the Latin _magister lapidus vivum_, from _Saxum vivum_,

free-stone, which merely means a sculptor, in distinction to an

architect, who was _magister inzignorum_.

[11] At one era in Lombard times a law was made that no marble was to

be used in building, except by royal persons--which accounts for all

the Lombard churches being sculptured in _Saxum vivum_, or free-stone.

There may have been a similar custom in England where marble was

scarce.

[12] There were other five martyrs of the Masonic guild, whose names

have been given as Carpoferus, Severus, Severanus, Victorianus, and

Symphorian. I have taken the four "Coronati" from the statutes of the

Venetian _Arte_.

[13] Mrs. Jameson finds the Santi Quattro illustrated in a predella in

Perugia Academy. In one scene they are kneeling before the Emperor

with their implements in their hands. In another they are bound to

four columns and tortured. In a third they are in an iron cage and

being thrown into the sea. In their own church they are represented as

lying in one sarcophagus with crowns on their heads. In sculpture they

also occur on the façades of several early churches; on the Arco di S.

Agostino, and lastly on Or San Michele at Florence, where Nanni di

Banco had so much trouble in squeezing the four of them into one

niche, that Donatello had to help him. These sculptures were placed by

the _Arte_ of masons and stone-cutters, and they naturally chose their

patron saints.

[14] _Gregor. Epist._ Tom. III. Epist. iv. an. 755.

[15] Pietro Giannone, an exile from Naples, contemporary of Muratori,

was the first to mention this _Memoratorio_, which he said he had seen

among the precious codices of the monks at Cava dei Tirreni; that it

contained 152 laws, seven of which were added specially for the

Comacine Masters.

[16] See _Epistola ad Mustio_, 39, lib. ix.

[17] Lib. X. Epist. xliii.

[18] Muratori, _Novus Thesaurus veterum Inscriptorum_, Vol. I. chap.

vii. p. 526.

[19] _Antiq. Long. Mil._ Tom. I. chap. i. p. 17.

CHAPTER II

THE COMACINES UNDER THE LONGOBARDS

LONGOBARD MASTERS

-----+------+-------------------------+-------------------------------

|About | |

1. | 712 |Magister Ursus | Sculptured the altar at

| | | Ferentilla, and a ciborium at

| | | S. Giorgio di Valpolicella,

| | | for King Luitprand.

| | |

2&3. | 712 |M. Ivvintino and Ivviano.| Disciples of Ursus.

| | (Joventino and |

| | Joviano) |

| | |

4. | " |Magister Giovanni | Made the tomb of S. Cumianus.

| | |

5. | 739 |M. Rodpert | Worked at Toscanella, and

| | | bought land there.

| | |

6. | 742 |M. Piccone | Architect employed by Gunduald

| | | at Lucca: he received a gift

| | | of lands in Sabine in 742.

| | |

7. | |M. Auripert | A painter patronized by King

| | | Astolph.

-----+------+-------------------------+-------------------------------

It was on April 2, 568, that the Longobards under Alboin, with their

wives and children and with all their belongings, "_colle loro mogli e

figli, e con tutte le sostanze loro_," first came down and took

Friuli. Alboin gave the government there to Gisulph, his nephew,

leaving with him many of the chief and bravest families, and a

high-bred race of horses (_generosa razza di cavalli_).

Next he took Vicenza and Verona, and in September 569 passed into

Liguria--which then extended from the Adda to the Ligurian Sea,--and

conquered Milan. To this add Emilia, and later, Ravenna and Tuscany,

and the first Lombard kingdom was complete.

From this kingdom depended the three dukedoms of Friuli, Spoleto, and

Beneventum. The last was added in the time of Autharis (575-591) when,

like Canute, he rode into the sea at Reggio in Calabria, and touching

the waves with his lance, cried--"These alone shall be the boundary of

the Longobards."[20]

This Autharis married Theodolinda, a Christian. He was an Arian, but

by her means he became Catholic. After his death, in 590, she chose

Agilulf, who reigned with her twenty-five years.[21]

Paulus Diaconus gives the following very pretty account of

Theodolinda's two betrothals--

"It was expedient for Autharis, the young King of the Lombards, to

take a wife, and an ambassador was sent to Garibald, King of Bavaria,

to propose an alliance with his daughter Theodolinda. Autharis

disguised himself as one of the suite, with the object of seeing

beforehand what his bride was like. She was sent for by her father and

bidden to hand some wine to the guests. Having served the ambassador

first, she handed the cup to Autharis, and in giving him the serviette

after drinking, he managed to press her hand. The princess blushed,

and told the incident to her nurse, who in a prophetic manner assured

her that he must be the king himself, or he would not have dared to

touch her.

"Soon after, on the Franks invading Bavaria, Theodolinda with her

brother fled to Italy, where Autharis met her near Verona, and the

marriage was solemnized on the Ides of May, A.D. 589.

"Amongst the guests were Agilulf, Duke of Turin, and with him a youth

of his suite, son of an augur; in a sudden storm a tree near them was

struck by lightning, on which the young augur said to Agilulf--'The

bride who has arrived to-day will shortly wed you.' Agilulf was so

angry at what seemed a disrespect to the king and queen, that he

threatened to cut off his page's head, who replied--'I may die, but I

cannot change destiny.' And truly, when a few years after Autharis was

poisoned at Pavia, Theodolinda's people were so attached to her, that

they offered her the kingdom if she would elect a Longobard as

husband.

"Destiny had decreed that she should choose Agilulf. The same ceremony

of offering him a cup of wine was gone through, and he kissed her hand

as she gave it. The queen blushing said--'He who has a right to the

mouth need not kiss the hand.' So Agilulf knew that he was her chosen

king.

"She was a Christian, and a favourite disciple of Gregory the Great.

Her good life and prayers were able to convert Agilulf to orthodox

Christianity, for like many Longobards of the time he had fallen into

the Arian heresy. In gratitude for this she vowed a church to St. John

Baptist, and a miraculous voice inspired her as to the site at

Modœcia, or '_oppidum moguntiaci_.'"

It was under these Christianized invaders that the Comacine Masters

became active and influential builders again, and it is here that the

actual history of the guild begins.

It is apparent that what are called Lombard buildings could not have

been the work of the Longobards themselves. Symonds realized this

difficulty, but had not solved the question as to _who_ built the

Lombard churches, when he wrote[22]--"The question of the genesis of

the Lombard style, is one of the most difficult in Italian art

history. I would not willingly be understood to speak of Lombard

architecture in any sense different from that in which it is usual to

speak of Norman. To suppose that either the Lombards or the Normans

had a style of their own, prior to their occupation of districts from

the monuments of which they learned rudely to use the decayed Roman

manner, would be incorrect. Yet it seems impossible to deny that both

Normans and Lombards, in adapting antecedent models, added something

of their own, specific to themselves as northerners. The Lombard, like

the Norman, or the Rhenish Romanesque, is the first stage in the

progressive mediæval architecture of its own district."

It appears possible, however, that the Longobards had very little to

do with the architecture of their era except as patrons. Was there

ever a stone Lombard building known out of Italy before Alboin and his

hordes crossed the Alps? or even in Italy during the reigns of Alboin

and Cleoph, their first kings?

But there were older buildings of precisely the same style, in Italy

and in Como itself, dating from the time when the Bishops ruled, long

before the Longobards came. There were the churches of S. Abbondio and

S. Fedele. The latter was built in Abbondio's own time, about 440-489,

and first dedicated to S. Euphemia. It was rebuilt later by the

Comacines under the Longobards, but its form was not changed. The

former, said to have been built by the Bishop Amantius, was first

dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, whose relics he placed here. These

two are certainly the oldest churches existing in Como.

Amantius the Byzantine ordained S. Abbondio, who was a Macedonian, as

his successor, and he too became eminent in his time, and is still

venerated as a patron Saint in all the Milanese district. Pope Leo

sent him to Constantinople as his Legate, to interview the Patriarch

Anastasius, and also deputed him to form the Council with Eusebius,

at Milan. The Greek touch in the Lombard ornamentation may be

accounted for by Greek sculptors assisting the Italian builders in the

time of these Eastern bishops.

But, to return to the Longobards:--it was only when the civilization

of Italy began to tell on them, and Christianity refined their minds,

that they commenced to patronize the Arts, and revived the fading

traditions of the builders' guild into practice, for the glorification

of their religious zeal. "Little by little," says Muratori, "the

barbarous Longobards became more polished (_andavano disrugginendo_)

by taking the customs and rites of the Italians. Many of them were

converted from Arianism to Catholicism, and they vied with the

Italians in piety and liberality towards the Church of God, building

both Hospices and Monasteries."[23]

The Comacine Masters were undoubtedly the only architects employed by

them, so we are sure that in the Lombard churches of this era, we see

the Comacine work of the first or Roman-Lombard style.

Autharis and Theodolinda were the first orthodox Christians: indeed

Theodolinda, who was baptized by Gregory the Great, and formed a

special friendship with him, became a shining light in the Church. To

them is probably due the honour of inaugurating the Renaissance of

Comacine art. Autharis, though an Arian, first employed the Masters of

the guild to build a church and monastery at Farfa on the banks of the

Adda, not far from Monza. They have long been ruined, but ancient

writers quote them as fine and rich works of architecture. Next,

Theodolinda and her second husband, Agilulf, the succeeding king,

built the cathedral at Monza, which they resolved should be worthy of

the new creed. This cathedral was the prototype of all the Lombard

churches.

Before proceeding further it may be well to define precisely the

difference between Eastern and Western forms in these centuries, while

they were as yet distinct.

As we have said, the Basilica was the type of Roman or Western

architecture, a type which passed afterwards to the East, where the

cupola was added to it.

The Comacine Guild, being a survival of the Roman _Collegium_, had of

course Roman traditions, and took naturally this Roman type of the

Basilica,[24] which form they adapted to the uses of the Christian

Church, while its ornamentation was suited to the taste of the

Longobards.

The Basilica, as Vitruvius explains it, was a room where the ruler and

his delegates administered justice. But when, after the persecutions,

Christians were allowed their churches, the Basilicæ so well supplied

the needs of Christian worship, that either the ancient ones were used

as churches, or new buildings were erected in the same form; so that

by the fourth century the word Basilica was understood to mean a

church remarkable for its size, and of a set form and grandeur, with a

raised tribune. The Basilicæ of Constantine were all dedicated to

Saints--St. Peter, St. Paul, Beato Marcellino. The Sessorian Basilica

was begun in 330, to hold the relics of the Cross, discovered by the

Empress Helena. From the time of the edict of Theodosius, however,

Christian architecture took a new and independent character; and this

was when the Basilica became amplified and beautified.

The Oriental churches, on the other hand, were derived from the

antique synagogue, in which concentric forms, either circular or

polygonal, predominated. In their later development four equal arms

were added, and here we get the Greek Cross, in the centre of which

arose the dome.

In the Romanesque, or Comacine style of the ninth to the fourteenth

centuries, the form becomes more complicated. We have, 1. the

sanctuary or presbytery; 2. the apse for the choir; 3. the transepts;

4. the normal square or centre; 5. the elongated nave; 6. the aisles;

7. the atrium or portico.

In Theodolinda's time, however, church architecture in Lombardy was

wholly and purely Roman, with the influences of mediæval Christianity.

Ricci tells us that the construction of the first churches followed a

symbolical expression. "Hermeneutic symbolism required that the apse

or choir should face the east, so that the faithful while praying had

that part before them."

A very usual form was the tri-apsidal church, of which many specimens

still exist. S. Pietro a Grado, near Pisa, is a beautiful specimen of

this.

Around the apse of a Lombard church was a portico where the penitents

and catechumens might stand, who were not yet admitted to the altar.

On high were _loggie_ (galleries) "for the virgins and women." The

tribune was elevated and often ornamented with a railing, the crypt or

confessional being beneath it. The crypt signified a memory of the

early Christians, when subterranean catacombs formed the church of the

faithful. The altar was generally the tomb of a martyr, in fulfilment

of the text--"I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain

for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held" (Rev. vi.

9).

Where the original form of the Lombard church has not been altered, as

in the first Monza church, all these parts may be still seen.

We are expressly told by Ricci,[25] that for the building of her

church at Monza, Queen Theodolinda availed herself of those _Magistri

Comacini_, who, as Rotharis describes them in his laws 143 and 144,

were qualified architects and builders.

It seems that even though all Italy was subjugated by the Longobards,

the _Magistri Comacini_ retained their freedom and privileges. They

became Longobard citizens, but were not serfs; they retained their

power of making free contracts, and receiving a fair price for their

work, and were even entitled to hold and dispose of landed

property.[26]

Therefore it was by a free contract, and not in any spirit of

servitude, that the Comacines undertook the building of Theodolinda's

church.

It is difficult to imagine what the church was in Theodolinda's time,

as its form was altered in the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Ricci

says that the antique Monza Basilica terminated at what is now the

first octagon column, on which rest the remains of the primitive

façade. Four columns supported the arched tribune, and the high altar

was raised above the level of the church. In front was the _atrium_,

supported by porticoes, and he thinks that the sculptures in the

present façade are the old ones.

[Illustration: ANCIENT SCULPTURE IN MONZA CATHEDRAL.

_See page 39._]

Cattaneo, the Italian authority on Lombard architecture, does not

believe in the present existence of even this much of Theodolinda's

church, and in disclaiming the façade, disclaims also the sculpture on

it, especially the one over the door, where Agilulf and Theodolinda

offer the diadem of the cross to St. John the Baptist, and are shown

as wearing crowns, which the early Lombard kings did not do.[27]

The figures have, it is true, the entire style of the twelfth century,

when later Comacines restored the church. Cattaneo thinks that the

only sculpture which can safely be dated from Theodolinda's own time,

is a stone which might have been an altar frontal, on which is a rude

relief of a wheel circle, emblem of Eternity, flanked by two crosses

with the letters _alpha_ and _omega_ hanging to the arms of them. It

is a significant fact that the Alpha is in the precise form of the

Freemason symbol of the compasses, and in the wheel-like circle one

sees the beginning of that symbol of Eternity, the unbroken line with

neither end nor beginning, which the Comacines in after centuries

developed into such wonderful _intrecci_ (interlaced work). The

sculpture is extremely rude; by way of enriching the relief, the

artist has covered the crosses and circles with drill-holes. Now this

is a most interesting link, connecting the debased Roman art with this

beginning of the Christian art in the West (the early Ravenna

sculptors do not count, being imported from the East). On examining

any of the late Roman cameos, or _intagli_, or even their stone

sculpture, after the fall of classical art in Hadrian's time, one may

perceive the way in which the drill is constantly made use of instead

of the chisel.

So these Comacine artists began with the only style of art they had

been educated up to, and though retaining old traditions they had

fallen out of practice, during a century or two, while invaders

ravaged their country, and had to begin again with low art, little

skill, and unused imagination. But with the new impulse given to art,

their skill increased, they gained a wider range of imagination,

greater breadth of design, going on century by century, as we shall

trace, from the first solid, heavy, little structures, to the airy

lightness of the florid Romanesque--the marriage of East and West.

Another _chiesa graziosissima_, said to have been founded by

Theodolinda, was that of Santa Maria del Tiglio, near Gravedona, on

the left bank of Lake Como, which Muratori says was already ancient in

823, when the old chronicler Aimoninus describes it (_Aimoninus de

Gestis Francorum_, iv. 3). It has been much altered since that time,

but as Prof. Merzario writes--"When one reflects that it was the work

of a thousand years ago, and when one considers the lightness of

design, the elegance of the arches, windows, columns, and colonnettes,

one must perforce confess that even at that epoch Art was blossoming

in the territory of Como, under the hands of the _Maestri Comacini_."

Theodolinda also founded the monastery of Monte Barro, near Galbiate;

the church of S. Salvatore in Barzano, a little mountain church at

Besano above Viggiu; that of S. Martino at Varenna; and the church,

baptistery, and castle of Perleda above it; in which latter it is said

she died. Queen Theodolinda was accustomed to spend the hot months of

summer on the banks of the lake, and a part of the road near Perleda

Castle is still called _Via Regina_ (the Queen's road), in memory of

her. King Cunibert, too, loved the banks of Como.

There is always some pretty, graceful reason in Theodolinda's

church-building, very different to the reasons of many of the kings.

Theirs were too often sin-offerings, built in remorse, but hers were

generally thank-offerings, built in love. For instance, the church at

Lomella, which she erected in memory of having first met her second

husband Agilulf there.

Theodolinda also built a church to S. Julia at Bonate, near Val San

Martino, in the diocese of Bergamo; but in these days not much sign is

left of it. The author of the _Antichità Long. Mil._ (Dissertation I.,

p. 120) says that Mario Lupo has published the plan and section of

the church in his _Codice diplomatico_ (_T. I._, p. 204), together

with another, still more magnificent, of almost the same date. It is

dedicated to S. Tommaso, and stands near the river Brembo, at Lemine

in the same diocese. "This church," says the monk who wrote the

_Antichità_, etc., "still exists (in 1792), and is of circular form,

with inferior and superior _porticati_ in the interior, recalling the

design of the ancient church of S. Vitale at Ravenna." Lupo describes

it even in its ruin as an "admirable temple, whose equal, whether for

size, solidity, or elegance, can scarcely be found in Lombardy. Its

perimeter," he says, "may be traced among the thorns and briars of the

surrounding woods, and its form and size may thus be perceived. The

ruins confirm the assertion of the splendour of buildings in Queen

Theodolinda's time, and show that in the beginning of the seventh

century architecture was not so rude as has been supposed, and that

besides solidity of structure, it preserved a just proportion and

harmony of parts, excepting perhaps in the extreme lightness and

inequality of the columns."

We read much in ancient authors of Queen Theodolinda's palace, with

its paintings on the walls, representing Alboin and his wild hordes of

Longobards, with their many-coloured garments, loose hosen, and long

beards. We can believe that these paintings were as rude and mediæval

as their sculpture, whether they were done by savage Longobards or

decayed Romano-Comacine artists. They prove, however, that painting

was one of the branches of art in the guild.

King Agilulf also employed the architects; but it was in a more

military style of architecture--to build castles and bridges. The

castle of Branigola dates from his reign, as does the fine bridge over

the Brembo, and another over the Breggia, between Cernobbio and

Borgovico, near Como. He is also accredited with the building of the

Palazzo della Torre at Turin, with its two octangular towers, and

mixed brick and stone solid architecture. In all these works the

builders, as in modern times, seem to have sometimes lost their lives.

So much so that King Rotharis, A.D. 636, made, as we have seen,

special laws on the subject.

Gundeberg, the daughter of Theodolinda, had a similar fate to her

mother in being the wife of two successive kings (Ariold and

Rotharis). She also imitated her in church-building. The church of S.

Giovanni in Borgo at Pavia, was erected by her.[28] It is said that

after S. Michele this was the finest building of the age. It had a

nave and two aisles, with a gallery over the arches. The apse had the

external colonnade, and practicable gallery, and the octagonal dome.

The façade, as usual, was divided into three parts, and was rich in

symbolical friezes. Half-way up the façade was an ambulatory, on six

double arches and small columns, which communicated with the internal

galleries for the women. This was reached by two spiral stairways cut

in the pilasters of the façade. (In reading this we seem to be reading

over again the description of Hexham in England.) The lower half of

the façade was of sandstone, the upper half of brick adorned "a cacabus,"

_i.e._ inlaid with various convex plates in different-coloured

smalto.[29] It is a great pity that this interesting church was

destroyed in 1811, and its symbolic reliefs and carved stones

ruthlessly used in the foundation of modern buildings. Some were,

however, saved by a nobleman of Pavia, Don Galeazzo Vitali, and are

preserved in his villa between Lodi and Pavia. Here, on May 13, 1828,

the Signori Sacchi[30] went to see them, and found many valuable

specimens of Comacine symbolical art. Here are square slabs which may

have been parts of friezes or _plutei_ (panels of marble), covered

with interlaced work, formed of entwining vines, or even serpents;

sometimes a simple cord in mystic and continuous knots, precisely

similar to the ones recently discovered in S. Agnese and S. Clemente

at Rome. There were several capitals of columns and pilasters with

significant grotesques, such as a man between two lions; a maze of

vines with a satyr in them, possibly an emblem of Christianity which

constrains and civilizes even the wildest natures; two armed warriors

on horseback meeting in battle, figuring the Church militant. (There

is a similar capital in S. Stefano at Pavia.) In one, two hippogriffs

meet at the angles; in another, two dragons with tails intertwined are

biting a man between them placed at the angle. (The same emblem of the

strife with sin is represented in S. Pietro of the "golden roof.") One

is a curious symbol which would seem to be a remnant of paganism, and

represents the fish goddess of Eastern religions. A woman, with only a

fig-leaf for dress, has a double tail instead of legs. She holds the

two ends of this dual tail, while serpents coiling into it suck her

breasts--a very mystic conception of Eve. There is a very remarkable

round mass of stone, with a toothed circle carved on each side, and in

the circles a cross. It is said by Muratori that this stone was placed

high up over the altar so that all worshippers should behold the

cross.

A singular ancient Pavian custom was connected with this church. Once

a year a kind of fair was held there, at which nothing was sold but

rings, and no one was allowed to buy them except children and

unmarried women. It is thought that the custom was begun by Gundeberg

herself in commemoration of the gift of three rings, one with a

pearl, and two with jacinth stones, from Gregory the Great.[31] His

letter of congratulation to Theodolinda on the baptism of her little

son Adaloald is still existing. He says "he sends some gifts for her

boy, and three rings for her young daughter Gundeberg." Possibly the

gift of the Pope was placed in the treasury of the church, and

commemorated at first by the sale of blessed amulets in the form of

rings, but which afterwards degenerated into a fair. The custom lasted

till 1669.

Industries of all kinds seem to have flourished under the Longobards;

and the Popes of Rome and other sovereigns made frequent use of

Lombard artificers. A letter from Gregory to Arichi, Duke of Lombardy,

dated 596, asks him to send workmen and oxen to Brescia, to cut down

and cart to Rome some trees for beams in the church of SS. Peter and

Paul, promising him in return a _dono che non sarà indegno di voi_ (a

gift not unworthy of you).[32]

In A.D. 600, Cacanus, King of the Avari (Huns), sent to Agilulf for

marine architects and workmen to build the boats with which Cacanus

took a certain island in Thrace.[33]

As for the Comacine Masters at home, they had plenty of

church-building.

The seventh and eighth centuries were times of great devotion to the

Church, and consequently a great church-building era. King Luitprand

realized this so strongly that he added to the laws of Rotharis, a

clause permitting his subjects to make legacies to the Church _pro

remedio animæ suæ_; a law, by the way, which was not always healthy in

its action; for it permitted the evil-disposed to indulge in crimes

during their lifetime, and then, by defrauding their natural heirs

of their inheritance, to secure, as they believed, their souls against

eternal punishment, by leaving funds for building a church or a

monastery.

[Illustration: COMACINE CAPITAL IN SAN ZENO, VERONA. DRAGONS,

INTERLACED.

_See page 43._]

The will of Eriprand, Duke of Cremona, dated 685, is still extant,

with a legacy to the churches of S. Maria Maggiore, and S. Michele in

Borgo, of that city. Pope Sergius I. restored the Basilica of Ostia,

and founded S. Maria in Via Lata, giving them rich gifts, and Pope

John II. repaired and endowed S. Maria in Trastevere.[34]

Bertharis and Godebert, sons of Aribert, were in 661 dethroned by

Grimoald, Duke of Beneventum; but Bertharis being re-established in

671, recalled his wife Rodelinda and son Cunibert from Beneventum,

where they had been taken as hostages, and in sign of gratitude for

their release, founded the church of S. Agatha al Monte at Pavia,[35]

while his wife Rodelinda founded that of S. Maria _fuori le mura_ in

the same city. Bertharis dedicated his church to S. Agatha because on

the eve of S. Agatha's day he was miraculously saved from being

assassinated by Grimoald, his deposer. On the façade of the church is

inscribed, "Pertharitus Longobardorum Rex Templum hoc S. Agathæ Virg.

et Mart. dicavit anno Christi DCXXVII."

The church had the usual "three naves," and the façade faced the west.

It has since been turned round. As in the Middle Ages it menaced ruin,

the central nave had to be supported by large external buttresses and

internal arches, one of which may be seen above the present doorway;

it once formed the entrance to the choir. When the nave was restored

some of the old Lombard capitals were discovered under the brickwork.

They show the same style as those at S. Michele, and S. Pietro in Ciel

d'oro at Pavia, and have all the marks of Comacine work. One has two

lions very well carved. They meet at the corner, where one head

serves for both. On another is a human figure, his hands holding two

dragons which he has conquered, but whose tails still coil round him.

A fine mediæval allegory of man's struggle with sin.

Rodelinda's round church, S. Maria foris portam (now no more), became

better known as S. Maria _delle pertiche_ (of the poles), because a

royal cemetery was there in which many Lombard kings and nobles were

buried, and according to the usage of the nation the graves were

marked by wooden poles, on the top of each of which was perched a

wooden dove (emblem of the soul), looking towards the place where the

person had died or been killed.[36]

We may account for its circular shape by the fact that it was more a

ceremonial church, than one for ordinary worship. In it Hildebrand was

crowned, or rather received the regal wand of office. It had an

interior ambulatory, an arched colonnade all round it under the roof

in true Lombard style. This colonnade was much used in circular

churches to assist the want of space on great occasions.[37] Some of

the columns were fluted, and appear to have been adapted from an

earlier Roman edifice. Two of them, shortened and with the fluting

planed down, now adorn the gate of Pavia towards Milan. The foundation

of this church has been attributed by Cattaneo to Ratchis. This cannot

be, for in 736, ten years before Ratchis was king, Luitprand became

very ill, and the Longobards met in the church of S. Maria delle

pertiche, and proclaimed Hildebrand as his successor.

To Aribert II. (701-712) is attributed the foundation of the church of

S. Salvatore, outside Porta Marengo at Pavia, where, says Malaspina,

may be noted a great improvement in style in the acute arches, and

more regular and elegant proportions.

The Basilica of S. Pietro de Dom in Brescia dated from about this

time, though it was built independently of Longobardic royal

patronage, being a thank-offering by Bishop Anastasius for the triumph

of the Church over Arianism. This was destroyed when the new Duomo was

built in the seventeenth century, but ancient writers tell us it had

all the true Lombard symbolism of form. The choir was on the west,

facing east; it had the triple nave and triple apse, and the usual

inequality of the columns, some of which are large, others small; some

long, others short, these last being lengthened, some by white marble,

others by dark. I do not understand the significance of this diversity

of column which may be seen in all the Comacine churches of this era.

If we cannot see S. Pietro de Dom, we may see in Brescia a church

equally old, the Rotonda of Santa Maria Maggiore, which the

chroniclers say was begun by the Brescian Duke Marqward, and finished

by his son Frodward, with the assistance of King Grimoald, about 665.

The plan of the church is very interesting; there are two concentric

circles, the inner one formed by eight pilasters, whose arches sustain

the dome, and form the front of the usual ambulatory above. This is

all that can be judged as belonging to the seventh-century church. The

tribune and the upper parts are later, and the crypt is earlier,

being, it is believed, the remains of an early Christian church of S.

Filastrio, though some claim it as Roman.

Cunibert is next on the list of Longobardic church-builders. He built

a church to St. George as a votive offering after his escape from the

attempt which was made to dethrone him in 691 by Alachi, Duke of

Brescia, and two citizens named Aldone and Gransone. To the church of

St. George was attached a cloister for monks, the first Longobardic

monastery founded in the diocese of Milan. Documents and diplomas,

dated 784 and 901, prove the existence of both buildings till the

latter date, but a deed of sale in 998 only speaks of the church,

which still existed in 1792.

On the king's triumphal return to Pavia, he erected at the door of S.

Giovanni, a grand tomb to the priest Zeno, who had lost his life for

him, by dressing in the royal armour and rushing from the king's tent

into the battle.

In A.D. 700 Cunibert descended to Lucca, which had then become a

Longobardic town, and interested himself in the building of a church

to the three saints, Stephen, Laurence, and Vincent; it afterwards

became S. Fredianus. The actual patron may not have been Cunibert

himself, but his majordomo Faulus, who probably was his vice-gerent

there. Two ancient deeds in the adjoining monastery of St. Vincent and

S. Fredianus, dated respectively 685 and 686, prove that Faulus

restored and richly endowed the monastery, and that Bishop Felix

afterwards conceded to the Abbot Babbinus and his monks, a diploma

confirming the munificence of Faulus. The monastery was, so say the

chroniclers, originally built by S. Frediano, Bishop of Lucca, in the

sixth century, and that, when the first unconverted Longobards came

down and drove him out and destroyed his cathedral, he fled for some

years, but on his return he built another church outside the town with

a monastery attached. In this he availed himself of the sculptured

stones and columns of the ancient Roman amphitheatre, erected in Lucca

by Vibius in the time of Trajan. This was the monastery which was

restored by Faulus. When the bones of S. Fredianus were removed to it,

in the time of the Bishop Giovanni II., the church became known as S.

Fredianus. The church built in Cunibert's time was not by any means

the fine building we see now, though, as in Monza, the form of the

old building may be perceived. The ancient apse which has been traced

in the course of some excavations, is a fifth smaller than the present

one, and it is conjectured that the old church, if turned the same

way, would have ended near where the present pulpit stands; and there

was a portico in front of it which is mentioned in some ancient MSS.

The church was certainly differently orientalized, following the

symbolic formula that the choir should face the east; for the

excavations disclosed part of the columns of the nave, buried under

the present presbytery at the back. The circular walls of the choir

were retraced in front of the present altar, and it was proved that

the wall was not continued where the semi-circle of the apse opens;

whereas if the church had been in the same direction it now takes, the

walls would have been continued to the length of the nave.

Cav. Cordero di S. Quintino, in his _Disamine su di alcuni monumenti

Lucchesi_, 1815, was the first to draw attention to the reversed plan

of the old church, which the recent excavations have proved. He states

that it was in the form of a Latin cross, had a nave, and four aisles

and transepts; that its choir was at the west end, facing east, its

façade on the east. It is a misfortune that its origin cannot be

precisely proved, as the archives of S. Fredianus must have been

burned in 1596, when the convent, with other houses, was set on fire,

even if they had survived the former sacking and burning of the

Ghibellines, under Uguccione della Faggiola in 1314.

Next comes _Hic gloriosissimus Rex_, Luitprand, who, we are told,

built many Basilicæ in honour of Christ, in the places where he had

his residences. He was to Lombard art what Lorenzo de' Medici was to

that of the Renaissance. Luitprand was a great employer of our

Comacine Masters, and very probably found them expensive luxuries,

for, as we shall see in the next chapter, he was obliged to legislate

to fix their prices. He even gave the length of his royal foot, as a

guide to measurement.

Luitprand's foot was said to have been an extra long one, and yet,

after great discussions among writers, it has at length been agreed

that Luitprand's foot, and the Roman one used before it, were of the

same length!

Very little, which is at all authentic, remains to us of Luitprand's

churches. S. Pietro[38] in Ciel d'oro (of the golden roof), at Pavia,

which was consecrated by Pope Zacharias in 743, is now a mere modern

church, containing nothing but the round form of its apse to speak of

its antiquity. This golden roof must refer to some mosaics originally

in the tribune, and is, I believe, the first instance of mosaics being

used in a Lombard church. It was built by the Christian king, "for the

better reverence of the sacred remains of that great light of the

church, St. Augustine, which were placed here by him." The corpse of

the saint was redeemed from the Saracens in Sardinia in 743, and the

relics remained in S. Pietro for ten centuries.[39] Luitprand's

church, we are told, was symmetrical and graceful (_grazioso_). The

façade was of the usual Lombard form, with a rather flat gable, and

galleries beneath the eaves; it had narrow, round-arched windows, and

a cross over the central one, cut deep in the stone, as we see in S.

Michele in Pavia.

[Illustration: BASILICA OF S. FREDIANO AT LUCCA, 7TH CENTURY.

(_From a photograph by Brogi._) _See page 49._]

The finest existing church of the Longobardic times is the Basilica

of S. Michele at Pavia, which is still intact, and may be taken as the

culminating point of the first Lombard style. It has all the

distinctive marks of Comacine work at the period. There is the Roman

form of the Latin cross with nave and two aisles divided by clustered

columns supporting round arches. The walls above the central nave

terminate in a sculptured string course, and over that a clerestory,

the double Lombard arches of which are divided by marble colonnettes

with sculptured capitals. The central nave terminates in a

semi-circular apse, surrounded with pilasters and arches; beneath it

is a crypt supported on two rows of columns whose capitals are covered

with bizarre sculptures. The crypt is now entered by steps beneath the

ones leading to the tribune, but originally it had two entrances at

the sides of the tribune as in the crypt at Torcello, and that of San

Zeno at Verona, which are also of the seventh century. Another

particularity is in the inequality of the aisles, the left wall

tending to the right, the right transept being longer and larger than

the left. This is not, we are told, an accident, but one of the many

symbolical forms used by the Comacines. Cordero and Vitet both refer

to it. The latter says--"Souvent le plan de l'église penché de gauche

à droite. Cette inclination est attribuée, comme on sait, au pieux

désirs d'imiter la position du Sauveur expirant sur la croix."[40] As

a whole the interior is grand and imposing, and as it stands now,

retains the general plan of the original church. Some parts have been

restored in the fifteenth century, especially the four principal piers

which sustain the central arch, but by the difference in the work and

in the sculptures we may easily distinguish the added parts. A Latin

inscription in the apse, without date, proves that the great central

arch of the roof and that of the choir were renewed by Bartolommeo

Negri. There was a Bartolommeo Negri who was canon in 1496, but the

antique style of the epitaph would point to an earlier restorer of the

same name (we all know how families keep the same set of Christian

names for centuries in Italy), especially as the painting in the apse

is attributed to Andrino d'Edesia, who lived about 1330. Some

interesting relics in the church are the circular slabs of black and

green marble, now in the floor of the nave. Tradition, confirmed by

Padre Romualdo, says that these were the stones on which the daïs was

placed for the coronation of the Lombard kings.

Just as the interior of S. Michele at Pavia is the most perfect

existing example of the classical form reduced by the Comacines to

Christian use and symbolism, so is the façade as perfect a specimen of

their mediæval-oriental decoration at this time as can be found. We

give an illustration of it.

The Comacines at this era were perfectly sincere and their façade was

always a true face to the church. The eaves with the airy gallery of

colonnettes beneath them followed the exact line of the low-pitched

roof. It was only when they became eclectic, and their style got mixed

and over-florid, that the false fronts such as we see at Lucca came

in. The inward division of nave and aisle is faithfully marked on the

outside by piers or pilasters. S. Michele has four pilasters dividing

it into the three portions, each one supplied with its round-arched

door. In the fifteenth century the central windows were altered and a

large ugly round orifice was placed above the three Lombard ones. But

in 1861 they had the good taste to open the original windows,

indications of whose masonry were visible in the wall, and to add the

cross, deep cut in the stone, which was a distinctive feature in

façades of this era. Indeed the church may be taken as a type, in all

its aspects, of the Romano-Lombard building. The most remarkable

part is perhaps its ornamentation, which is unique and fanciful to the

highest degree. Besides the carvings on door and window, the whole

façade is striped with lines of sculptured stones, a queer mixture of

angels, demons, saints, and monsters, that seems a nightmare dream of

mediæval superstitions, but are really a mystic Bible in stone. I

shall speak more fully of this in the chapter on Lombard

ornamentation.

[Illustration: FAÇADE OF SAN MICHELE AT PAVIA. UPPER PART RESTORED TO

ITS ORIGINAL FORM; LOWER PART ANTIQUE. 7TH CENTURY.

_See page 52._]

We must now turn for a few moments to its history, on which great

uncertainty rests. Some authors say that S. Michele at Pavia was built

by Constantine the Great as a thank-offering for the aid given him by

that Saint in his victory over the Franks in 325; but it is possible

they may have confused this church with the one which Sozomenus

asserts that Constantine erected to St. Michael on the banks of the

Hellespont. Other writers, of whom Malaspina is one, claim it as an

Ostrogoth foundation; others again, finding a suspicion of Arianism in

the sculpture of the Annunciation on the south side of the church,

assign it to Agilulf before his conversion from Arianism; while

Gabriel Rosa, author of _Storia dei feudi e dei comuni in Lombardia_,

attributes it to King Grimoald.

This last, however, is disproved by one of Paulus Diaconus' curious

stories. He says "that in A.D. 661, King Bertharis being in peril of

his life by the usurper Grimoald, was saved by his faithful servant

Unulphus, who, throwing over his royal master's shoulders a blanket

and a bearskin, drove him with ill words out of the palace, making

believe he was a drunken slave. Having thus eluded the guards, who

were in Grimoald's pay, and put the king in safety, Unulphus fled for

refuge to the Basilica of St. Michael, till the new king pardoned

him."[41] The church is again mentioned by Paulus Diaconus when he

relates how in 737, when Luitprand judged Pemmonis, Duke of Friuli,

and other noble Longobards accused of sacrilege against Callistus,

Patriarch of Aquileja, one of them named Ersemar fled for refuge to

the Basilica of St. Michael. Again in 774 a certain Trinidius, agent

of King Desiderius, left a house near the Pò at Gravenate, as a legacy

to the "Basilica beatissimi Archangeli Michaelis intra civitatem

Ticinensum pro anima sua." All these things go to prove that the

church existed before Luitprand's time, and that it was especially

venerated.

St. Michael, being a warlike saint, was the Longobards' favourite

object of reverence. When Alachi tried to depose King Cunibert, he

suddenly and mysteriously refused to fight the king, because he saw a

vision of St. Michael standing beside him; then Alachi knew the battle

would go against himself if he hazarded it.

When the Longobards went forth to war, they carried the effigy of St.

Michael before them on their standard. It was also impressed on their

coins with the inscription _S. C. S. Màhel_, or sometimes _Mihail_,

spelling in those days not being at all a fixed quantity.

But to return to our church-building king, Luitprand.

He erected the monastery of S. Abbondio at Bercela in the mountains,

and one dedicated to S. Anastasia, near his suburban villa called

_Cortelona_ (Corte di Alona). In this villa he had a private chapel,

he being the first prince who had daily mass said by priests in his

own house.[42] He had a favourite doctor named Gunduald, who, assisted

by Luitprand's royal munificence, founded the monasteries of Palazzolo

and Pitiliano near Lucca. At his intercession Luitprand, by a diploma

dated 742, gave Magister Piccone, Gunduald's architect, lands in

Sabine, which shows the value Luitprand set on the arts, and this

Magister especially.

Astolfo, a later king, was an equally liberal patron of the arts; he

gave the revenues of the church of S. Pietro at Pavia to Auripert, a

painter whom he greatly esteemed. Astolfo built the monastery of

Nonantola, of which some parts still remain, proving its fine

architecture. He seems to have been very unscrupulous in his avidity

for relics; an anonymous MS. at Salerno, speaking of his fierceness

and audacity, says that, "having taken many bodies of saints from the

neighbourhood of Rome, he had them removed to Pavia."[43] The same old

chronicler does him the justice to say that "he built both churches

and monasteries which he very largely endowed."

Next followed Ratchis, who on his brother Astolfo's death came out of

the convent to which he had retired on abdicating in 749. His reign

was of the shortest; he soon went back to his convent, for Pope

Stephen III. wrote commanding him not to oppose the election of

Desiderius, who had been Duke of Friuli and was high in favour with

the Pope.

Desiderius was a liberal patron to the Comacine Guild, and built

monasteries, churches, and palaces. Of the first we may record the

convent for nuns near Milan, known as La Maggiore, or the Greater. Its

foundation by Desiderius is mentioned in a diploma dated A.D. 1002 in

favour of the Abbot of S. Ambrogio, who was in that year appointed

spiritual guardian to the nuns. At Brescia, of which town Desiderius

was a native, he built the monastery near Leno, known as the

_Monasterio Leonense_, and the still more famous one of Santa Giulia

for nuns, which he founded in 766. Desiderius and his wife Ansa

endowed this convent with landed property which spread over all the

Lombard kingdom. It was first called S. Salvatore, but when the

remains of Santa Giulia were brought from Corsica and placed here, it

was re-dedicated to her. Its first Abbess was Desiderius' own

daughter, Anselberga, who took the vows here. Says the old

chronicler--"its opulence and the number of holy virgins who have

lived within its walls render it one of the most illustrious convents

in Italy."

Signor Odorici has exemplified the church in its Lombard form to have

been quadrilateral, divided by two peristyles of eight columns each,

into a nave and two aisles (or three naves, as Italian architects

say). The arches are _a tutto sesto_ (semi-circular), and support

walls bordered with a simple string course. There was originally a

semi-circular apse or tribune, which was probably flanked by two

smaller ones. The white marble columns are, or were, of different

proportions, the capitals being sculptured, some in marble and some in

_arenaria_.[44]

The mixture of Roman and Byzantine types in these is taken by

Ricci[45] to be a proof of its really dating from the time of

Desiderius, when the two styles got confused. Some capitals are

entirely of Byzantine design, others imitate the Corinthian. On one is

a mediæval sculpture of the martyrdom of Santa Giulia, on another is

the effigy of Queen Ansa. These two are doubtless Comacine work of the

eighth century.

Up on the slope of Monte Civate near Lake Annone, an hour's climb from

the village of Civate, is an ancient Lombard church dedicated to St.

Peter, which is almost intact. It is said to have been built as a

thank-offering by King Desiderius. His son Adelgiso was chasing a wild

boar on this mountain, and suddenly became blind. The father vowed

that if he recovered, a church to St. Peter should be built on the

spot. Adelgiso soon after recovered his eyesight, and Desiderius was

faithful to his oath. An ancient MS. said to be contemporary,[46]

minutely describes the ceremonies, when the king with all his royal

pageantry came up the mountain to lay the first stone. The plan is

similar to most other Lombard churches of its era. A great flight of

twenty-seven steps leads up to the portico, beneath which is the

principal door. This, however, does not lead immediately to the

church, but to a covered atrium, on the lateral walls of which are

sculptured in relief, hippogriffs with triple tails, _i.e._ threefold

mysteries. The entrance into the nave has two spiral columns,[47] an

unusual form for the Comacines of that era. There is a great

peculiarity in the position of the altar, which is a low table without

a reredos, standing on the tribune, to which five steps give access.

The _palio_ faces the choir, so that the priest when celebrating would

confront the people, and face the east.[48] It would be a question for

archæologists whether, considering the reverse orientalizing of

Lombard churches, in comparison to later ones, the front of the raised

tribune was not the usual position of their altars. This is the only

church which seems enough intact, to judge by. The altar was placed

beneath a canopy supported on four slight columns, whose sculptured

capitals show the symbolic animals of the four Evangelists. The canopy

has rude bas-reliefs of the Saviour and apostles, the crucifixion and

resurrection. There are remains of similar altars at Corneto Tarquinii

in the south, and at S. Piero in Grado near Pisa. The rest of the

building is entirely unadorned, excepting by some carved capitals of

columns in the crypt.

The church-building days of King Desiderius were now drawing to a

close. He thought he had strengthened his seat on the throne by

alliances with the all-powerful Charlemagne of France, whose brother

Carloman married Desiderius' daughter Gilberga; and some historians

assert that his son Adelchi espoused Gisla, the sister of Charlemagne.

Here we have the link connecting the Comacine Masters under the

Lombard rule, with Charlemagne, through whose patronage they spread

northward, developing the Gothic architecture. Politically the link

was not a strong one. In 770, Charlemagne having been menaced by Pope

Stephen III., the protector of Desiderius, revenged himself by causing

Carloman to repudiate Gilberga and send her back to her father with

her two sons. Carloman died in 771, and Pope Stephen III. did not live

long after him, for in 772 Charlemagne entered into a league with the

new Pope Adrian I. to dispossess Desiderius of his kingdom. This

unkind scheme was by Pope Adrian dignified by the name of a

"restitution to the Holy See."

The famous unequal fight at Pavia, between Desiderius and the

multitudinous hosts of France, is well known. Desiderius was

vanquished, and the Longobardic supremacy of two centuries was over.

Charlemagne vaunted himself in having released Italy from the

Longobardic yoke, but whether his own yoke were lighter is an open

question. In any case there was no "restitution to the Holy See." The

Lombard cities were no more given to the Pope by Charlemagne, than

they had been by Desiderius. On the contrary, he crowned himself _Rex

Francorum et Longobardorum_, and his son Pepin inherited the same

title.

With him begins the next era in the development of Comacine art.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] _Antiq. Long. Mil._ vol. i.; _Dissertationi_, p. 17.

[21] Their daughter Gundeberg had a similar life; she married first

Ariold, and then Rotharis.

[22] Symonds, _Renaissance of Art, Fine Arts_, chap. ii.

[23] _Annali d'Italia_, tom. iv. pp. 38, 39.

[24] The first Roman Basilica was constructed in 231 B.C., by Marcus

Portius Cato, and was called the Basilica Portia. Marcus Fulvis

Nobilior built one, called the Fulvia, in 179 B.C.; Titus Sempronius,

169 B.C. Then followed a long line of these religio-judicial

buildings, up to the Basilica Julia of Augustus, 29 B.C., and ending

with the Ulpian Basilica of Trajan, A.D. 100.--Ricci, _Arch. Ital._

chap. ii.

[25] _Dell' Architettura in Italia_, vol. i. p. 174.

[26] A document, dated 739, in the archives of Monte Amiata, speaks of

a certain Maestro Comacino, named Rodpert, who sold to Opportuno for

30 gold solidi, his property at Toscanella (then a Longobardic

territory), consisting of a house and vineyard, a cloister, cistern,

land, etc.

[27] Cattaneo, _L' Architettura in Italia_, p. 46.

[28] Gundiberga ... intra ticinensem Civitatem in honorem Beati

Joannis Baptistae construxit.--_Paul. Diac._ lib. iv. cap. 4. This

must not be confounded with the Baptistery which was built by Bishop

Damiano in the same century.

[29] Several of the Lombard towers in Rome have this peculiar

ornamentation.

[30] _Antichità Romantiche d'Italia_, da Difendente e Giuseppe Sacchi,

p. 70, _et seq._

[31] Felice quoque meæ sorori ejus tres annulos transmisi due cum

jacintis, et unum cum albula.--Gregor. _Epist. ad Teod._ lib. xiv.

[32] Paulus Diaconus, _Sto. Longo._ lib. iv. cap. 20.

[33] _Ibid._ iv. 21.

[34] Ricci, _Architettura d'Italia_, Vol. I. ch. viii. p. 221.

[35] _Paul Diac._ Lib. V. ch. xxxiv.

[36] _Antiq. Long. Milanesi_, Tom. I. Dissertation i. p. 46.

[37] There is a very good instance of this in the Baptistery at

Florence, which was also a ceremonial church.

[38] This was said to have been built by Agilulf, 591-615, and rebuilt

by Luitprand. It was again restored in 1152, when Pope Innocent II.

reconsecrated it.

[39] In the fifteenth century the fine mausoleum, known as the Arco di

S. Agostino, was erected over them by a later Comacine Master, Bonino

da Campiglione. In the eighteenth century the church, having fallen

into disuse, was turned into a hay store for the army, and the Arco

was, in 1786, moved into the modern church of Gesù, where it remained

till placed in the cathedral, where it now is.

[40] _Études sur l'histoire de l'art_, vol. ii. p. 157. Paris, 1864.

[41] Paulus Diaconus Warnefridi, _Chron. de gestis Langobardorum_,

Lib. V. cap. iii.

[42] _Antiq. Long. Mil._ Tom. I. Dissertation i. p. 68.

[43] "Prese molti corpi de' santi dai contorni di Roma, fatti poi

trasportare a Pavia."

[44] It seems probable that the sandstone capitals alone belonged to

the first eighth-century church, and the marble ones to the

eleventh-century restoration. There is now a modern church built over

the old crypt.

[45] _Dell' Architettura in Italia_, viii. 257.

[46] _See_ Sacchi, _Antichità Romantiche d'Italia_, p. 98.

[47] Ricci (_Dell' Architettura_, etc.) tells us the spiral column was

very anciently used in Asia, and that Rome did not adopt it till

Hadrian's return from the East. Under the later Cæsars it became

usual, but it fell into disuse in the rest of Italy. The Byzantines

used it in some buildings, and in these two early Longobardic

imitations of the East, we have a curious masonic link with the

ancient traditions of Solomon's Temple, which Josephus tells us was

adorned with spiral columns. It may be that they were old Roman

columns carried up the mountain from some ruin, but I should rather

take them as one of the first instances of the use of the spiral

column by the Comacines, a form to which they were devoted in later

times. There are endless instances of spiral colonnettes on the

façades of Romanesque churches of the thirteenth and fourteenth

centuries.

[48] I speak of the time when Signor Difendente Sacchi visited the

church in 1828, before writing his work.

CHAPTER III

CIVIL ARCHITECTURE UNDER THE LONGOBARDS

Ecclesiastical as was the work of the guild, the Comacine of Lombard

times was nevertheless a fine civil architect. He worked as willingly

for the prince in palace-building and for the country in

fortification, as for the Church in building monasteries and

cathedrals. Indeed war of all sorts bore such a large proportion in

the life of the Middle Ages that the fortress was of more importance

than the home.

In civil architecture the _Magistri Comacini_ of the seventh and

eighth centuries followed much the same style as in their

ecclesiastical buildings, of course adapting it to its different uses.

In the Lombard palace we find on the upper floor the usual

double-light windows, with the two round arches and dividing column

enclosed in a larger arch of masonry.

We also find the inevitable Lombard cornice beneath the roof. In civil

buildings, instead of a complete gallery with colonnettes, this

becomes a row of brackets with carvings in the corbel heads. The

windows of the lower floor are square orifices barred with iron, for

defence in warlike times. The walls are either of the solid brickwork

_opus romanum_, or the great smoothly hewn stones of the _opus

gallicum_. In Lombardy there are more of the former, as clay for

bricks is easily attainable. In Tuscany and southward the buildings

are more frequently of stone. The Florentine Bargello, though

later, offers a very fine specimen of this work, in the older portions

of wall, where the smooth-cut stones fit solidly together. If the

building required an inner courtyard it was of the same Lombard style

as their churches--showing the round arch, and the convex capital,

often sculptured.

[Illustration: TOSINGHORUM PALATIUM FLORENTIAE CELEBERRIMUM IN FORO

VETERI SITUM LAPIDE DOLATO COMLUMNISQUE MARMOREIS EXTRUCTUM CUI

TURRIS ADJACENS ULNAR. 130 PROCERITATE ERIGEBATUR.

TRACING OF AN OLD PRINT OF THE TOSINGHI PALACE, A MEDIÆVAL BUILDING

ONCE IN FLORENCE, WITH _Laubia_ ON THE FRONT.

_See page 61._]

The municipal palace only came in with the Communes after 1100. In

Longobardic times, the only buildings that had any pretensions to

architecture were the palaces of the dukes or kings. Luitprand's

palace in Milan, which fell into disuse after the tenth century, is as

graphically described by old chroniclers and in legal documents in the

archives of St. Ambrose, as Theodolinda's at Monza had been by Paulus

Diaconus.

Before the days of the Communes, when the Brolio or Broletta, and the

Palazzo Pubblico were as yet unknown, the palace of the ruling prince

was the hall of justice, the nearest Basilica being the public

meeting-place. King Luitprand's palace was styled in his time _Curtis

ducati_. In Charlemagne's reign it was _Curti domum Imperatoris_; in

other parchments _Curtis Mediolanensis_. Across the front ran an open

gallery, called _Laubia_,[49] formed, as were the galleries of the

Comacine churches, of a row of arches on colonnettes. Here the

_placiti_ were held, and sentences pronounced, as in the regal and

imperial public buildings, the populace being assembled in the street

below. The _ringhiera_ of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence served the

same purpose in Communal times.

The Loggia, which is such a feature in all old Italian houses, is the

natural descendant of the _Laubia_. In its private aspect, as part of

a citizen's house, the Loggia was the place where the master of the

house received his friends.

An ancient MS. by Landolfo tells us that the space occupied by

Luitprand's palace was not very wide. It extended from the monastery

of St. Ambrose to the church of St. Protasius ad Monacos (now no

more), and the road leading to it was known as _Strada de Civite

Duce_.

That King Desiderius also employed the Masonic guild in civil as well

as ecclesiastical architecture seems implied by the tradition of his

palace at S. Gemignano. Certain it is that a solid mediæval building

with decidedly Lombard windows and Lombard arches under the

machicolations, exists at S. Gemignano, but whether it was really

built by and for Desiderius, I leave wiser antiquaries to judge. The

style is that of the times.

As a rule, Lombard houses had small rooms. This seems to have applied

even to royal and public buildings, for, as mentioned above, all

public meetings had to be held in a church, or in its ante-portal.

When Desiderius convoked a Diet at Pavia, each prince or bishop was

assigned a house which had a church or oratory near, in which he could

meet his committee.

The different methods and processes of house-building are very plainly

enumerated in the laws of Luitprand, of which we have given the

headings on a previous page. It would seem that since the reign of

Agilulf, the Masters of the Guild had become overbearing, and by

Luitprand's time required to have special legislation to limit their

prices. Luitprand's code of laws regulated the strength of the

external walls of a building, in regard to the different height,

construction, and material.

Art. 160 speaks of two different constructions, the Roman mode, and

the Gallic style. It begins--"Similiter romanense si fecerit, sic

repotet sicut gallica opera." (Roman work shall be accounted of equal

value to Gallic work.) This distinction of terms has caused great

argumentation among commentators. Prof. Merzario[50] says that "two

national terms cannot apply to any small distinction of masonry," and

he takes them to mean the Roman style with the round arch, in which

most Lombard churches are built, and the Gothic with the pointed

arches. As, however, Charlemagne's church, the father of the Gothic,

was not yet built in Luitprand's time, we should be more inclined to

take the opinion of Marchese Ricci and Troya, who interpret the phrase

_opus gallicum_ to mean the style which they say was introduced into

Ravenna by Theodoric and his Goths, and which they brought from Gaul.

It was the most solid style imaginable, seemingly a remnant of

Cyclopean building; if so it was not Gallic at all, but came from the

Pelasgi through the Etruscans, and so was a natural sequence of

Italian architecture; the Etruscans having taught the Romans. It

consisted of hewn stones of large size and perfect fitness, still

further strengthened with cement. "Mirum opus manu gothica, et quadris

lapidibus," it was said of the builders of S. Oveno at Rouen. If this

definition be admitted, then the other term _opus romanum_ would mean

building with flat bricks, which was equally practised by the

Comacines, especially in Lombardy.

Luitprand's laws speak of the _asse_, _tavolati_,[51] _scindule_

(Longobardic term) by which the houses were internally divided, and of

a cheap species of house-building called by the Gauls _pisè_, probably

from the same root as _pigiato_ (pressed together). According to that

method, the walls were composed of masses of earth pressed, and then

bound together so as to form a solid mass. The same method is still

used in Africa and Spain, and in Italy by the peasants in the

subalpine regions near Alessandria (Piedmont).

In Clause II., _De Muro_, where they use the term _si arcum volserit_,

it cannot refer to vaulted roofs, which were then unknown, but to the

slight arch of the window or door in the thickness of the wall, often

only a sloping off of stones. The roofs were supported on wooden

beams, and the laws determine the size and value of these, according

to whether they are _scapitozzati_ or _capitozzati_, _i.e._ hewn or

carved. They also decide the quality of the wood for beams or

planking, and the cost of roofing in regard to the number of wooden

slabs or tiles required in a raised roof.

Thus any Longobard who wished to build himself a house, might consult

the laws of Luitprand, and count the cost beforehand.

These laws also decide the strength of the defensive walls of a city.

Law IV. gives the trade price of this sort of work; for those built

_in massa_, or _per maxa_, the builder shall for every sixty feet be

paid in _solidum unum_ (one soldo, a gold coin). Ricci adds--"This

_per maxa_ is the same construction which the Greeks and Romans styled

_implectans_, _i.e._ conglomerate."

They had several kinds of walls, some of brick, others with a base of

stone (_nella base a sassi_), like the walls of Milan, which have

lasted till now.

Luitprand assigns different money for different kinds of work. Thus at

times the _Magistri Comacini_ were paid _solidum unum_ for every foot

of wall, sometimes _solidum vestitum_, a distinction of soldi which

has puzzled commentators very much; some opining that _vestitum_

refers to a coin on which the emperor is represented as regally clad,

and others that it means a copper coin plated (_vestito_) with gold.

We find also that terra-cotta vases were much used as ornamentation in

building. This style was, as we have said, called "a cacabus." Broken

vases were adopted in the foundation of large buildings and houses;

others, which probably were not perfect enough for household use, were

built into the walls and put as ornaments between the arches. The

tower of S. Giovanni e Paolo at Rome and the church of S. Eustorgio at

Milan are good instances of this style.

[Illustration: TOWER OF SS. GIOVANNI E PAOLO, ROME, 12TH CENTURY.

(_From a photograph by Alinari._) _page 65._]

Here we have another link with ancient Rome. Promis instances an

amphora found in the walls of an imperial edifice in Aosta. At the

fountain of Egeria, near the Porta Tiburtina in Rome, the walls are

full of amphoræ and oil-jars.

On the whole these Masonic laws show that the principal scope of the

Longobardic architecture was to make strong and lasting buildings.

The building of convents were frequent commissions of the Comacines,

and in these, as in their churches, they had a set form. A solid

framework of walls either of hewn stone, in the Gallic manner, or of

brick in the Roman style, and a few beams and planks, were the simple

elements of which a convent was composed.

But of course a Comacine could not make any building without his

slight columns and arches, and here he disposed of them in his

cloister. This, too, was a heritage from classic Rome, recalling the

atrium. A Lombard or Romanesque cloister is a delight. Here you have a

square court more or less spacious, containing a picturesque well in

the centre, surrounded by a colonnade of small columns generally in

couples, resting on a low wall and supporting a roof on a row of

arches. It was usually on the sunny cloister that the Comacine poured

out his imagination; here are fancifully-sculptured capitals, pillars

of every variety of form and style, grotesque gargoyles between the

arches, and often delicate tracery above them. Hope[52] instances as

the more rude and early style of Lombard cloisters, those of San

Lorenzo at Rome and Santa Sabina and San Stefano at Bologna, and as

models of the more splendid style those of S. John Lateran, which are

resplendent with porphyry, serpentine, and gold enamel, inlaid in the

marble; and those of S. Zeno of Verona of every tint of marble which

the Euganean hills can afford. For the interior arrangements of a

Longobardic monastery we will take Padre Ricci's account of the first

plan of Monte Cassino which Petronax the Brescian engaged the

Comacines to build. "It had on the ground floor a _Sala_ anciently

called _caminata_, because the fire-place was there. The upper floor

was divided by wooden partitions into cells and other rooms requisite

in a cenobitic life. Although at that time houses only had one floor,

monasteries generally had two. Monte Cassino boasted of three storeys,

the upper one being only used for keeping fodder and stores. As the

chief aim was solidity of building, great attention was paid to the

proportionate thickness of the outer walls. The laws determined the

adequate value of these, which were generally of the thickness of five

feet. The inner walls were of planks or _assi_--'si cum axe

clauserit.'"

This mode of separation by wooden partitions is still usual in

convents, though it has gone out of use in houses. The convents of S.

Marco and S. Salvi at Florence both show this style of division for

the cells. The windows were protected by _abietarii_ or _cancelli_

(gratings) made of wood.

A strong point in Lombard building was the fortress, which the

_Magistri_ were past masters in erecting. Their castles and forts and

city walls stand to this day solid and strong, with towers standing up

commandingly in all directions--all the mediæval cities bristled with

them; the tower was, in fact, a weapon of war. On these, too, they set

their seal--the pillared Lombard window becoming larger and more airy

as the tower rises into the air, and the crowning cornice of bracketed

or pillared archlets.[53]

Their towers seem to have been of two forms, ecclesiastic and civil.

The ecclesiastical bell-tower, square with a straight unbroken line,

with neither buttress nor projection till the summit, where the

bracket-supported arches expand like a flower. Sometimes each storey

had a string course, with smaller arches beneath it, as in the tower

at Prato. The windows, too, as we have said, had a fixed rule; they

are smaller below, and grow larger and more airy as they ascend. You

go up from a mere orifice on the first floor to a one-arched window on

the second, a two-arched on the third, to a three or even four-arched

one near the summit.

The characteristics of civil towers at this time were their solidity

as a means of defence, and their height as a means of vigilance; they

appear to be chiefly circular, offering no corners, but a curved

surface from which missiles could easily glance off. The windows were

narrow outside, expanding wider within. If there were a double-light

window, it would be on the very high storeys, out of arrow aim. Nearly

all the ancient fortresses have round towers, but I know of very few

church towers that are so, except the one at Classe near Ravenna.

Before the thirteenth century, neither brackets nor projecting

cornices were used, and the tower rose in a single straight line from

base to battlement, so that projectiles fell straight down. It was

later that architects discovered the value of the projecting

_baluardo_. As to battlements, these too came from the antique;

Babylon and Nineveh show proofs of them, and Homer speaks of the

battlemented towers of Asia and Greece. Muratori[54] derives the

Italian term _merlo_, from _mirare_ (to take aim), the battlements

being made for the shelter of the archers, and their convenience in

shooting. When fire-arms came in, the need of battlemented towers

ceased.

The principal Longobardic military towers remaining to our day, are,

the tower of the ruined fortress of Baradello, which dominates the

road to Camerlata, and the towers, now mutilated, in the wall of Como,

one of which, erected on arches, forms the gate of the city towards

Camerlata.

The ninth-century sculptures on the altar at S. Ambrogio prove that

the Longobards had towers above their city gates. The author of the

_Ant. Longob. Milanesi_ (Dissert. iii. p. 193) says that the ancient

gates of Milan, before the enlargement of the walls, were of this

construction with towers over them. They were furnished with heavy

wooden doors covered with iron, which were suspended on chains, and

slid down in grooves in the wall, thus completely closing the

entrance--a portcullis, in fact. Livy, in his twenty-seventh book,

describes the gates of Rome as being of the same construction; some

existing examples at Rome, Tivoli, and Pompeii prove the fact. A

famous gate in the time of the Longobards was the one chronicled by

Paulus Diaconus, which King Bertharis (671-686) caused the _Magistri_

to erect beside his palace in Pavia. It was named the Porta

Palatinense, and was, says Paulus Diaconus, an admirable work (_opera

mirifica_). Some antique documents quoted by Passano,[55] prove that

this gateway was furnished with bronze gates.[56]

Some writers think that the battlemented fortress came from the East,

because ancient specimens of it are found there. In reading an Italian

translation of Procopius, _Degli edifici di Giustiniano Imperatore_, I

was struck by the many slight expressions which seem to prove that

Justinian brought his fortress-builders into Byzantium from Italy.

Procopius says that Justinian made a new style of fortress with towers

all round the walls; with stairs in the towers, and galleries

(_baluards_) round them with holes in them to throw down stones, and

that it was called _Pirgo castello_, because in the Latin tongue,

fortresses are styled _castelli_. Now this description is precisely

that of an Italian fortress, such as the Comacines knew how to build,

and built for centuries all over Italy. If it came from the East in

ancient times, why was it specified by Procopius as a new style

there?--and if its origin were Eastern, why had they no name for it,

but had to take the Latin one?

The Bishop of Salisbury, in a letter in the _Salisbury Diocesan

Gazette_ (May 1898), speaks of an inscription of the twelfth century,

preserved in the museum at Jaffa, which is in memory of Magister

Filipus, who came over with the King of England (Richard), and who had

built a portion of the wall "from gate to gate": evidently Magister

Filipus from the English Masonic Lodge, fraternized and worked with

his brethren of the Roman and Eastern Lodges.

Again, on p. 21, Procopius speaks of a town or village now known as

Eufratisia, but which was once called Comagene, because there were

Romans as well as Persians living there. Romans, of course, meant

subjects of the Italian Empire, but the name Comagene is certainly

suggestive of those Italians being the Comacine builders who made the

castles. Then Procopius's description of the rebuilding of the church

of Santa Sofia is, to say the least of it, interesting to a student of

Lombard architecture. The passage translated runs thus--"The church

then (Sta Sofia) being thus burned, was, at that time, entirely

ruined. But Justinian, a long while after, rebuilt it in such a form

that if any one in older times could have foreseen it, he would have

prayed God that the old church might be completely destroyed, so that

it may be rebuilt as it now is. Therefore the Emperor sent to call

artificers _and masters_, as many as there were in all the universal

world. And Anthemius Trallianus, the head architect, was a great

machinist, learned in all kinds of machinery, not only that of his

own time, but in all that the ancients knew, and he had the power to

regulate and organize perfectly the working of all things necessary to

building, and to the ordering and executing of his own designs and

inventions. And Isidore, another Milesian, was also a master of

machinery. The church then, was so marvellously made that it was a

beautiful thing to see; it seems supernatural to those who behold it

with their own eyes, and incredible to those who only hear of it,

because it is so high that it seems to touch the sky.... The face of

the church looks towards the rising sun, but where the secret offices

to God are performed, it is built in this manner. It is a half-round

edifice which those of this profession call _Hemiciclo_, which is to

say half a circle ... and in this there are columns planted beneath

its floor." Here we have a decided Basilica with raised tribune and

semi-circular apse; both the form and nomenclature seem to have been

imported as a new thing from Italy. "The golden dome appears suspended

from heaven, so light are the columns supporting it that it seems to

be in the air.... One can never arrive at understanding how it was

built (_apprendere l'arteficio_), but one goes away astonished at

one's inability to enough admire such a work."

Does not this seem an argument for the universality of the Masonic

Brotherhood, even in Byzantine days? Here are certainly Italian

artists, Italian basilican forms, and Italian nomenclature, among the

Greeks working at Sta Sofia. And here too are Lombard galleries and

windows with an Eastern touch added. Which way did the influence come?

Was this the origin of that characteristic Eastern mark of the Lombard

style in Italy?--or was it an importation from Italy to Byzantium,

where Procopius at least seems duly astonished by it? It is a question

for experts to solve. There is much for the archæologist to do yet in

finding the true pedigree of architecture.

FOOTNOTES:

[49] Probably the root of our word Lobby.

[50] _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. i. p. 50.

[51] The words _asse_ and _tavole_ for planks of wood still survive in

Italy.

[52] Hope, _Storia dell' Architettura_, chap. xxv. p. 179, 180.

[53] See the illustration of the church of S. Frediano, on page 48,

for a perfect specimen of Lombard tower.

[54] _Ant. med. aevi_, Tom. I. chap. ii. p. 158.

[55] _De' real palazzi_, ch. i. par. 4.

[56] That the Longobards were either metal-workers themselves, or had

Italian artificers in their pay, we know from the specimens preserved

in Monza Cathedral, and especially the crown of Agilulf, of which the

_Antichità Longobardica Milanesi_ gives an illustration.

CHAPTER IV

COMACINE ORNAMENTATION IN THE LOMBARD ERA

The Comacine Masters were distinctly sculptor-architects, and their

ornamentation was an essential part of their buildings. Yet, to them,

sculpture was by no means mere ornament. It was not a mere breaking up

of a plain surface, as a beautifying effect; nor a setting of statues

and niches for symmetry. It was an eloquent part of a primitive

language of religion and art. The very smallest tracery had a meaning;

every leaf, every rudely carved animal spoke in mystic language of

some great truth in religion. But it was a language as yet

artistically unformed, because the mediæval man had more articles of

creed than he could express in words, and his hand like his mind was

as yet unpractised.

Thus it came that, as we have said, the Comacine Masters were much

given to symbolism.

The old Italian writers class this symbolism under two heads--the

_ermetica_ (hermeneutic?), which they define as symbolism of form or

number; and _orfica_ (orphic), that of figures or representations.

Under the first head would fall the symbolical plan of their churches

to which we have referred; the form of the windows, which were

double-lighted, and emblematized the two lights of the law and the

gospel; the rounded apse, emblem of the head of Christ; the threefold

nave shadowing forth the Trinity; the octagonal form of the

baptisteries, which St. Ambrose[57] says was emblematical of the

mystic number 8, etc.

Under the head of _orphic_ would come all those mystic signs of circle

and triangle; of sacred monograms, and the mysterious Solomon's

knot;--that intricate and endless variety of the single unbroken line

of unity,--emblem of the manifold ways of the power of the one God who

has neither beginning nor end. It would also include all the curious

possible and impossible animals that abound in the Comacine work of

earlier Longobardic times; all the emblematic figures of angels and

saints; and the figurative Bible stories of the later Masters.

It has been said by Ruskin that the queer monsters sculptured on the

early Longobard churches, such as Sant' Agostino at Milan, San Fedele

at Como, and San Michele at Pavia, were the savage imaginings of the

lately civilized Longobards, as seen through the medium of the

sculptors employed by them. This is, however, proved not to be the

case; animal symbolism was in those days an outward sign of

Christianity, which, in a time when there was no literature, was to

the unlettered masses a mystical religion represented to their minds

in signs and parables. Christ Himself used this parabolic style of

teaching. And it was even more than that,--it was a sign of an older

Bible lore among the Hebrews, and other ancient peoples. As in many

early Christian ceremonies in the West (_i.e._ in Europe) we can trace

the remains of the old Latin paganism, so in the East we may trace

signs of the older Hebrew faith.

Speaking of the Longobardic mixtures of labyrinths, chimeræ, dragons,

lions, and a hundred other things, which at first sight do not seem to

be connected with Christianity, Marchese Ricci asks--"If these queer

mixtures were only the effect of the architects' caprice, whence came

the first impulse to such caprice? Not from classic Rome certainly.

Not from the Goths and Longobards, because they being barbarians had

to employ Italian artists."[58] The theory propounded by Pietro

Selvatico, in an article in the _Rivista Europea_, is suggestive of a

reply to this question. He supposes that the Byzantines originally

took their symbolism from the Hebrews, and from the traditions of

Solomon's Temple, which are also shared by the Phœnicians;[59] and

that this animal symbolism changed its character in the East, owing to

the restrictions imposed by the Emperor Leo and his successors, but

that in freer Italy it still flourished. It is difficult to say

whether the Comacines took their ornamentation direct from the

Byzantines at Ravenna in the early centuries after Christ, or whether

they got it by longer tradition, from that same Eastern source from

which the Byzantines took theirs. It is true that Como had more than

one bishop who was a Greek,[60] and that when it fell under the

government of the Patriarch of Aquileja, the Comacines were employed

by him in Venice, Grado, and Torcello, etc., where they would have

seen a good deal of Byzantine work; but their earliest employment at

Torcello was in the seventh century, and we have seen them using their

chisels for Theodolinda long before that time.

The Byzantine ornamentation became conventional after 726 A.D., when

the Emperor Leo III. (the Isaurian) promulgated his iconoclastic edict

in the Eastern Empire. Some Greeks had begun to feel that, under the

appearance of Christianity, they were only keeping up the ancient

paganism. They were taunted by the Hebrews and Mussulmen, who,

inspired by the Koran, had a great hatred of images. This sect found

a champion in Leo III., who had lived much among the Arabs, and shared

their prejudices against idols. He convoked a council, prohibited

images, and proscribed all reverence and use of them either public or

private. A figure of the Christ over his own palace fell the first

victim to his iconoclastic destruction. Several Greeks who would not

bow to this decree fled to Italy, and put themselves under the

protection of Pope Gregory II. From this time the eastern Byzantine

architectural ornamentation was entirely confined to linear and

geometric design, and vegetable forms. In pure Byzantine work one sees

no dragons or fighting monsters, only conventional doves and scrolls.

The sculptors took to imitating woven stuffs, and Oriental patterns in

marble, and to twining their capitals with conventional leaves, but

the life had gone out of their work; it was all set and precise, but

dead.

The Italian architect, not being under the power of the edict of Leo,

continued to carve his mythic animals, his symbolic birds and fishes,

and even tried his hand at the first rude revival of the human figure

in sculpture. His figures were disproportionate and mediæval in

form,--what could one expect from a man of the Middle Ages just

reawakening to the conception of art?--but they were full of fire and

life. Their mystic beasts were horrible as any nightmare could

conceive them; they were indeed conceived in the darkness of that

night of superstition, ignorance, and fierce strife. Their angels were

grotesque, not from want of imagination, but from want of models of

form and proportion; their men are full of all kinds of expression,

with their heads too large and their limbs too short; but their

attitudes are lively, their faces grotesquely keen.

As a proof of this distinctive style, compare the Byzantine altar of

S. Ambrogio at Milan, here illustrated, with the Comacine pulpit of

the same church. (_See_ page 88.)

[Illustration: BYZANTINE ALTAR IN THE CHURCH OF S. AMBROGIO, MILAN.

_page 74._]

So many students of architecture roughly class as Byzantine every kind

of intricate decorative work of the centuries before the Renaissance;

but I think that, excepting in some instances in Venice and Ravenna

(and not all the work of the era there), most of the Italian

ornamental sculpture is Comacine, and not Byzantine. Certainly if you

see a sly-faced lamb, or a placid lion with rolling eyes, peering out

from beneath the abacus of a column, or a perky bird lifting up its

claw over a vase, with an extremely lively expression of eagerness,

that work is not Byzantine, though it may be surrounded and mixed with

the most intricate possible weaving of lines or foliage. However, I

leave the question of derivation of style to wiser students than

myself, and return to the Comacine Masters and their symbolism.

It seems impossible that the Comacine sculptures on S. Michele could

have come through the Byzantine. It is true they show rude and

unskilled technical execution, but they have intense spirit, belief,

life, and spontaneity. The _Magistri_ must have got their

ornamentation as they did their architecture from an older

source,--and a traditional one. It came down like their Freemasonry

from ancient Eastern builders through pagan Rome, and ages of mystic

religions such as Gnostic and other deistic forms, till it became

incorporated in Christianity. "We might," says Sacchi,[61] "define

Christian symbolism as the representation of mysteries and religious

truths by means of forms, cyphers, and determinate images." (_La

rappresentazione di dogmi, misteri e verità religiose, per mezzo di

forme, cifre ed immagini determinate._)

An older and more authoritative testimony is given by Dionysius the

Areopagite, the associate of St. Paul, by whom he was consecrated. In

his _De angelica seu celesti Hierarchia, Epistola ad Timotheum Ephæsiæ

civitatis episcopum_, he writes--"It is necessary to teach the mind

as to the spiritual hierarchies, by means of material figures and

formal compositions, so that by comparing the most sacred forms in our

minds, we may raise before us the spiritual and unpictured beings and

similitudes on high." As he says elsewhere, "ascendere per formas

veritatim."

Again he writes to Titus--"Only by means of occult and difficult

enigmas, is it given to the fathers of science to show forth mystic

and divine truths."[62] In the second epistle to Timotheus, St.

Dionysius writes--"We must raise ourselves from ascetic facts by means

of imaginative forms, and we should not marvel as do the unknowing, if

for this end are chosen many-footed beings, or creatures with many

heads; if we figure bovine images, or lions, or eagles with curved

beaks; flying creatures with three-fold wings, celestial irradiations,

wheel-like forms, vario-tinted horses, the armed Sagittarius, and

every kind of sacred and formal symbol which has come down to us by

tradition." St. Nilus, too, writes to Olimpiodorus--"You ask me if I

think it an honourable thing that you erect temples to the memory of

martyrs as well as to that of the Redeemer--those martyrs who are

certainly among the saints, and whose pains and sufferings have borne

witness to the gospel. You also ask whether it would be wise to

decorate the walls on the right and left with animal figures, so that

we may see hares (conies) and goats, and every kind of beast flying

away, while men and dogs follow them up. Whether it would be well to

represent fish and fishermen throwing the line or the net; whether on

the calcareous stone shall be well-carved effigies of all kinds of

animals, and ornamental friezes and representations of birds, beasts,

and serpents of divers generations?" St. Nilus says later that he

quite agrees with all these things; so if the Fathers of the Church

respected them, we need not heed Mr. Ruskin's diatribes.

St. Nilus lived in the time of John XVI., 985-996, nearly 900 years

after Dionysius, but this extract from his letter shows that Christian

symbolism had not altered in all those centuries, and the church he

describes is no more or less than a Comacine church of that era. The

chase is figured forth on the façades of S. Michele and S. Stefano at

Pavia, and S. Zeno at Verona. The huntsman and his dogs are generally

used as emblems of the faithful Christian driving out heresies.[63]

The fisherman symbolizes the priesthood, fishing for souls out of the

ocean of sin. There is a beautiful example of this myth in the fresco

of the ship (the ark of the Church) on the roof of the Spanish chapel

at Santa Maria Novella in Florence, where the fisherman is casting his

line from the bank.

Seen through the medium of these early lights, we no longer look on

the façade of S. Michele as Ruskin does, as a sign of savage atrocity,

but every line of the time-worn sculptured friezes stands out as full

of meaning as an Egyptian hieroglyphic, to one who can interpret it.

On the angle to the left we have the army of the Church militant,

figured as armed soldiers, whose horses trample some quadrupeds

underfoot: symbol--the vanquishing of sins. Above this a frieze of

four animals--first, a lion; second, too much broken to be

decipherable, but from the context it is probably a man-headed

creature; third, a bull; fourth, a winged creature. Here we have the

four beasts of the Apocalypse,--emblems of the Evangelists. "And the

first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the

third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a

flying eagle" (Rev. iv. 7). The connection between the two friezes is

evident. First, the Church militant clad in the whole armour of God,

and the second emblematizing the shield of the Gospel.

In the next compartment of the façade, that on the left of the door,

we have the chase of a deer and other animals flying from fierce dogs,

which we have explained above; over this a frieze of vine-leaves.

Here, again, the connection of thought is apparent. The vine figures

Christ, the only true refuge from heresy.

High up on each side of this left door is a peacock with an olive-leaf

in its claw-symbol of the Church bringing peace. In the centre between

these is the bishop with his robes and pastoral staff--the visible

dispenser of peace in the Church. On the fourth frieze, which is above

the door, we go into the mythic animals: here is a hippogriff with the

three-fold tail; a woman with six breasts, carrying two pine-cones;

she is in a long robe with large sleeves, and veiled as an Egyptian;

two sphinxes, on each of which a man rides, and whispers in their

ears; a dragon with wings and bird's feet, on its neck a child; a

priest with vase of holy water and an asperge, who is blessing some

people; a man (Zohak) between two winged serpents which bite his head;

a sphinx to whom a man presents a little branch of a tree; two

hippogriffs, seated opposite each other with a man in the centre who

places their claws on his head. A marvellous frieze indeed, and one

which in spite of St. Dionysius speaks as much of Eastern traditions

long before Christ, as of Christianity itself. The many-breasted woman

with the pine-cones is the ancient mother goddess, Isis, Cybele, or

Cupra, according to the age and clime; here I take it the old image is

turned to new uses, and she figures Eve, the primitive mother. The

two sphinxes are obscure, but they would seem to emblematize man

wresting the secrets of knowledge of good and evil from the mystery of

the unknown, as when Adam and Eve ate the apple; the dragon, always

emblem of sin or the devil, ridden by a child, is a fine symbol of the

child Christ, the seed of Eve, who should overcome sin. Then comes the

purification by benediction, as shadowing Abel's accepted sacrifice,

and the serpent-fanged remorse of Cain, as shown in Zohak.

"There where the narrowing chasm

Rose loftier in the hill

Stood Zohak, wretched man, condemned to keep

His cave of punishment.

His was the frequent scream

Which when far off the prowling jackal heard,

He howled in terror back.

For from his shoulders grew

Two snakes of monster size

Which ever at his head

Aimed their rapacious teeth.

He, in eternal conflict, oft would seize

Their swelling necks, and in his giant grasp

Bruise them, and rend their flesh with bloody nails

And howl for agony,

Feeling the pangs he gave, for of himself

Co-sentient and inseparable parts

The snaky torturers grew."[64]

SOUTHEY, _Thalaba the Destroyer_.

Next the man giving the branch to the sphinx must shadow the

reconciliation of man with God, and the hippogriffs the final

redemption of man. The hippogriff is a combination of horse and eagle.

The horse, as St. Dionysius says, was symbol of evangelical

resignation and submission; if white, it sheds divine light. The

eagle, he tells us, is a high and regal bird, potent, keen, sober and

agile; the winged horse consequently stands for man's upward flight

to heaven through submission to God. In the fifth frieze, the

Christian virtues of strength, fortitude, sobriety, and obedience are

symbolized by bulls and horses.

[Illustration: FRESCO IN THE SPANISH CHAPEL, S. MARIA NOVELLA,

FLORENCE.

_Page 77, note._]

Around the door are sculptures of the same kind of emblems with vines

entwining--which teach that all manly strength must be used for

Christ.

In the central portion are more friezes, all symbolizing the struggle

between good and evil; the war between angels and demons; between

man's earthly nature and his heavenly soul.

Here are men fighting dragons, and struggling with serpents; winged

angels riding on heavenly horses; and over the door the grand central

idea, St. Michael triumphant over the dragon-serpent, the favourite

hero and great example of those days.

On the other side of the church we seem to get the symbolism of the

New Testament. Here, mixed still with the dragons and hippogriffs of

the time, we can see the Virgin with the Divine Child at her breast.

On the capitals of the north door, round the corner, are the entirely

Christian emblems of the man, the lamb, a winged eagle, and two doves

pecking at a vase, in which are heavenly flowers. In the lunette,

Christ is giving to St. Paul on one side a roll of parchment, and on

the other hand entrusting the keys to St. Peter; under it are the

words: _Ordino Rex istos super omnia Regna Magistros_.

The capitals in the church are carved with similar subjects; one has

the emblems of the evangelists; another Adam and Eve with the tree of

knowledge on one side, and a figure offering a lamb on the other. On

one are griffins at the corners, and Longobards with long vests,

beard, and long hair, crouching between them; on another, a virgin

martyr bearing the palm. The fourth column on the left has a curious

scene of a man dying, and an angel and a demon fighting for his

soul, which has come out of him in the form of a nude child. Two

pilasters show the sacrifice of Isaac, and Daniel in the lions' den.

[Illustration: DOOR OF THE CHURCH OF SAN MICHELE, PAVIA.

_page 80._]

So we see, that mediæval as he was at that time, the Comacine Master

of the seventh and eighth centuries, even though his execution were

low, had a high meaning in his work. As to the rudeness of the

handling, there is this to be said. We see the work after more than a

thousand years' exposure to the atmosphere, and the sculptures are not

in durable marble, but in sandstone, which has a habit of getting its

edges decayed, so we may fairly suppose the cutting looked clearer

when the ornamentations were fresh. The form of both animals and men

is, however, and naturally always was, entirely mediæval, which seems

synonymous with clumsy.

The use of marble ceased for some centuries with the fall of the Roman

Empire. Theodosius had made a law, forbidding any one below the rank

of a senator to erect a building of marble, or valuable _macigna_;

thus the Christian buildings after the fifth century were generally of

humble sandstone; and this continued till the time of St. Nilus, who

tells his friend that "in _arenaria_ he may effigy every kind of

animal, which will be a delightful spectacle" (_dilettoso spettacolo

di veduta_). It was a stone peculiarly adapted to building, as it was

easily cut, and yielded to all the imaginations of the sculptor with

very little labour. I have given an especially lengthy description of

the façade of S. Michele, because it embodies all the special marks of

the ornamentation of the Comacine under the Longobardic era. The

church of S. Fedele at Como is another instance; here, too, the

capitals of the columns, and the holy water vase, which is held up by

a dragon, are full of orphic symbolism. The left door has an

architrave with obtuse angles bearing a chimerical figure, half human,

half serpent--the gnostic symbol of Wisdom. Serpents and dragons

entwine on the lintels, and emblematize the Church's power to

overcome.

In studying the scrolls and geometrical decoration of the Comacines,

one immediately perceives that the _intreccio_, or interlaced work, is

one of their special marks. I think it would be difficult to find any

church or sacred edifice, or even altar of the Comacine work under the

Longobards, which is not signed, as it were, by some curious

interlaced knot or meander, formed of a single tortuous line.

As far as I can find from my own observations, there is this

difference between the Byzantine and Comacine mazes; the Byzantine

worked for effect, to get a surface well covered. His knots and

scrolls are beautifully finished and clearly cut with geometrical

precision, but the line is not continuous; it is a pretty pattern

repeated over and over, but has no suggestion of meaning.

The Comacine, on the contrary, believed in his mystic knot; to him it

was, as I have said, a sign of the inscrutable and infinite ways of

God, whose nature is unity. The traditional name of these interlacings

among Italians is "Solomon's knot."

I have seen a tiny ancient Lombard church, in the mountains of the

Apuan Alps, built before the tenth century, of large blocks of stone,

fitted and dovetailed into each other with a precision almost

Etruscan. High up in the northern wall is a single carved stone some

three feet long, representing a rude interlaced knot.[65] We asked a

peasant what it was.

"Oh, it's an ancient _girigogolo_," said he, by which I presume he

meant hieroglyphic.

On going to a higher fount and asking the priest, we got the

information that it was a "Solomon's knot," and that such

_intrecci_ were found on nearly all the very ancient churches. He

supposed it had some meaning--and thought it expressed eternity, as

the knots had no end and no beginning. The Italian philologist,

Sebastian Ciampi, gives these interlacings a very ancient origin. "We

may observe," he writes, "in the sculpture of the so-called barbarous

ages on capitals, or carved stones, that they used to engrave serpents

interlaced with curious convolutions. On the wall too they sculptured

that labyrinth of line which is believed to be the Gordian knot, and

other similar ornaments to which Italians give the generic name of

_meandri_. I do not think that all these representations were merely

adapted for ornament, but that they had some mystic meaning. I am not

prepared to say whether our forefathers received such emblems from the

Northern people who so frequently peregrinated in Italy, or from the

Asiatic countries. This is certain, the use of such ornamentation is

extremely antique, and we find it adopted by the Persians, and see it

in Turkish money, and carpets, and other works of Oriental art."[66]

Ciampi goes on to find the root of these emblems, both the Runic knot

and the Comacine _intreccio_, in the Cabirus of the ancient Orientals.

It is possible that the ancient serpent worship of the Druids and

other Northern nations, was in some way descended from the same root.

In any case they were transmitted to the Longobardic Comacines through

the early Christian _Collegia_ of Rome, as we see by the _plutei_ in

San Clemente, S. Agnese, etc., and by the beautiful single-cord

interweavings on the door of a chapel in S. Prassede.

[Illustration: COMACINE KNOT ON A PANEL AT S. AMBROGIO, MILAN. ONE

STRAND FORMS THE WHOLE. FROM CATTANEO'S "ARCHITETTURA."

_See page 83._]

[Illustration: SCULPTURE FROM SANT' ABBONDIO, COMO, 5TH CENTURY. (THE

CIRCLE AND CENTRE A SINGLE STRAND.)

_See page 84._]

There is a marvellous knot sculptured on a marble panel of the ninth

century from S. Ambrogio Milan, which Cattaneo has illustrated.[67]

The whole square is filled with complicated interweavings of a single

strand, forming intricate loops and circles, the spaces between which

are filled with the Christian emblems, the rose, the lily, and the

heart. Another _pluteus_, originally from San Marco dei Precipazi at

Venice, but now over the altar at S. Giacomo, is dated 829 A.D., and

is covered with what seems at first sight a geometric pattern of

circles and diamonds, but if analyzed will be found a single strand

interwoven in the most mysterious and beautiful manner. It seems that

the parapet of the tribune in all these early Basilicas was the place

chosen especially by the Roman architect of the third and fourth

centuries, and the Comacine of the eighth and ninth, to set their

secret and mysterious signs upon, and to mark their belief in God as

showing infinity in unity.

It is very curious to notice in the churches which the guild restored

in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when their tenets had

altered, and their sign changed, how they themselves removed these old

stones, but yet being careful not to destroy them, they turned them

and sculptured them again on the other side. In the excavations or

restorations in Rome many of the _intrecci_ have come to light at the

back of panels of Comatesque pulpits, recarved into altar frontals, or

used as paving-stones before the altar.

Some of the earlier and less intricate forms of knots may be seen in

the church of S. Abbondio at Como, which was built in the fifth

century and again rebuilt in the ninth. Some excavations in the last

century revealed the foundations of the fifth-century church, and also

brought to light a number of sculptured stones which had been turned

face downwards to form the pavement. We give illustrations from two of

these which have the Comacine signs plainly written on them, and show

even in this early and simple form the reverence for the line of

unity. Cattaneo thinks they may have formed the front of the gallery

above the nave in the eighth-century building.

In the museum of Verona is a precious fragment of Comacine work dating

from Luitprand's time. It was a _ciborium_ which Magister Ursus was

commissioned to make for the church of S. Giorgio di Valpolicella. It

is especially valuable as the first dated piece of sculpture of the

Longobardic era, and the first signed specimen of Comacine interlaced

work. The columns which remain support a round arch, covered with

sculptured _intrecci_. As it stands now the two halves of the arch do

not match, so it must be conjectured that the _ciborium_ had four

columns, and that the halves of the arch were originally on different

sides of the erection. The _intrecci_ are beautiful and varied,

displaying the unbroken continuity of the curved line which marks the

Comacine work of the eighth to the twelfth centuries. The capitals are

curious in form and not at all classical. Beneath the capitals of the

two columns are the following inscriptions in rough letters and dog

Latin. One runs--"IN NOMINE DNI. IESU XRISTI DE DONIS SANCTI IUHANNES

BAPTISTE. EDIFICATUS EST HANC CIVORIUM SUB TEMPORE DOMNO NOSTRO

LIOPRANDO REGE, ET VB PATERNO DOMNICO EPESCOPO, ET COSTODES EIUS,

VIDALIANO ET TANCOL, PRESBITERIS, ET REFOL GASTALDO, GONDELME INDIGNUS

DIACONUS SCRIPSI." And the other--"URSUS MAGESTER CUM DISCEPOLIS SUIS,

IVVINTINO ET IVVIANO EDIFICAVET HANC CIVORIUM, VERGONDUS TEODAL

FOSCARI."[68]

The date of Bishop Dominic's death coincides with Luitprand's

accession to the throne, so we may safely say Magister Ursus worked in

712. _Ursus Magister fecit_ is also engraved in the same style on an

ancient altar recently discovered in the abbey church of Ferentillo

near Spoleto. It is known that Luitprand went to Spoleto in 739, and

installed Hilderic in the Dukedom. In any case this inscription is of

priceless value to our argument that the Comacine Guild which worked

for the Lombard kings was really the same guild that built the latter

Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals and palaces. Here we get the exact

organization which becomes so familiar to us in the later lodges whose

archives are kept, Ursus or Orso proves his right to the title of

Magister by having disciples under him. The work is done in the time

of "Our Lord Luitprand and our Father the Bishop," who are the

presidents of the lodge, just as in later lodges the more influential

citizen or body of citizens are presidents of the _Opera_. Then there

is Refol, the _Gastaldo_ (Grand Master). The very same term is kept up

in the Lombard lodges till the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,

when the head of the Venetian _laborerium_ is styled the _Gastaldo_

instead of _capo maestro_ as in Tuscany; there is even the notary to

the guild, the unworthy scribe Gondelmus.

The work is so far inferior to the _ciborium_ at Valpolicella, that it

would seem to be, as Cattaneo remarks, by an earlier hand. The

ornamentation is not a finished sculpture, but only rudely cut into

the surface of the stone, like a first sketch. Possibly the

remuneration offered by the employer was not liberal enough to

encourage Orso to put any elaborate work into the altar, or he might

have blocked out the work, and left it unfinished either by reason of

death, or absence.

Another famous work of that time was one which Luitprand himself

caused to be sculptured by Magister Giovanni, of the Comacine Guild.

It was the covering for the tomb of S. Cumianus in the monastery of

Bobbio. It will be remembered that Agilulf and Theodolinda gave

shelter to the Irish Saint Columbanus, and assisted him to found the

convent of Bobbio. One of the monks there, another Irishman, named

Cumianus, was afterwards canonized, and Luitprand built his tomb. We

are told it was covered with precious marbles, which would seem to

indicate something in the style which the Cosmati afterwards made so

famous.

The tomb of Theodata at Pavia is a fine specimen of

Comacine-Longobardic sculpture. It is now to be seen in the cortile of

the Palazzo Malaspina with some other old sarcophagi. This has been

called a Byzantine work, but the extreme vitality and expression in

the hippogriffs and the Solomon's knots which sign it, mark the work

as Comacine; besides, we are told by the most early authors that the

Longobards never employed Greek artists. There is the usual mixture of

Christianity and Mediævalism in the sculptures on the top of the tomb.

Winged griffins with serpent tails prance on each side of a vine, from

which serpents' heads look out. Fishes are in the corner, and an

interlaced border, whose spaces are filled with grapes and mystic

circles, frames, as it were, the design. The side is entirely

Christian; and if the peacocks which drink out of a vase with a cross

in it, were less lively, it might almost pass for a Byzantine design;

but the Comacine Magister has set his mark even here, in his knots

with neither end nor beginning, his concentric circles, and roses of

Sharon; and has told us in his mystic language that Theodata was a

Christian, and though tempted, clung to the cross. Theodata, a noble

Roman dame, was one of the ladies of honour to Ermelind, King

Cunibert's Anglo-Saxon wife.[69]

One day Ermelind incautiously described the exquisite beauty of this

lady, whom she had seen in the bath, and greatly inflamed his

imagination. He brutally ruined the lovely Theodata, and afterwards

shut her up in a monastery, probably that of St. Agatha, which his

father had built. This took place in A.D. 720. The beautiful tomb was

but a poor atonement for the coarse cruelty which had spoiled her

life.

The pulpit in S. Ambrogio at Milan is a really fine specimen of

sixth-century work. It is supported on ten columns. Here is the true

Comacine variety of columns: they are all sizes and all shapes; some

round, some hexagonal; some longer, some shorter; the difference in

height being made up by the capitals and pedestals being more or less

high. One, which is peculiarly short, and whose capital is carved in

complicated Solomon's knots, has a lion placed as abacus. This is the

earliest instance I know of, of the use of the lion of Judah, in

connection with the pillar (Christ). Here the lion rests on the column

and supports the arches, instead of being the root of the pillar as it

became in the later Romanesque style. The arches are surrounded with

intricate scrolls and interlaced work; some of them clearly copied

from Byzantine designs. The spaces between the arches are enriched

with allegorical subjects. In one, the emblems of the apostles; in

another, a choir of angels, very mediæval and heavy-headed; in

another, a winged archangel. At the corner is a man in Lombard dress,

holding two animals, one in each hand. It is peculiarly suggestive of

the Etruscan deity with the two leopards, which is so frequently seen

on the black Chiusi vases, and confirms more than ever, the tendency

in mediæval Christians to cling to ancient pagan forms, giving them a

new Christian significance. The frieze above the arches which forms

the base of the marble panels of the Ambone, is peculiarly Comacine.

Here are all the mystic animals, representing the powers of

evil;--dragons, wolves, etc., bound together in a knotted scroll of

one continuous vine-branch, here and there training into foliage.

Reading the ornamentation by the light of mediæval symbolism, the

whole thing gives us lessons appropriate to a pulpit. It tells us that

Christ the pillar of the Church, descended from David the lion of

Judah, is the foundation of all Gospel; that angels and saints sing

the glory of God; and that Christ the vine can bind and subdue the

powers of evil. The fine early Christian tomb beneath the pulpit is

not necessarily connected with it. It has been called the tomb of

Stilicho, with how much reason I am not prepared to say. If so it must

date from the early part of the fifth century, as it was on October 8,

405, that Stilicho marched up to Fiesole from Florence to his victory

over Radagaisus the Goth. The Florentines had but just been converted

to Christianity at that time. The sculpture, though Christian in

subject, has many signs of debased Roman style mingled with much of

the mediæval.

[Illustration: PULPIT IN THE CHURCH OF S. AMBROGIO, MILAN, 6TH

CENTURY.

(_From a photograph by Brogi._) _See Page 88._]

There is a similar pulpit at Toscanella, in the church of S. Maria

Maggiore, a three-naved Lombard church with the choir facing east. The

pulpit, which is of the square form used before A.D. 1000, is

supported on four columns, and has sculptured parapets and arches, on

which are various interlaced designs of marvellous intricacy.[70]

FOOTNOTES:

[57] Sancti Ambrosii, _Comment. in S. Luc._ Lib. V. cap. vi.

[58] _Dell' Architettura in Italia_, cap. viii. p. 245.

[59] Would this at all explain the Runic knot in Ireland, and in

Scandinavia, where there was very early intercourse with the

Phœnicians?

[60] Amantius, the fourth Bishop of Como, was translated from the See

of Thessalonica to that of Como.

[61] _Antichità Romantiche d'Italia_, Vol. I. capo iv. p. 138.

[62] "Sophiæ patres, per quædam occulta et audacia enigmata,

manifestant divinam, et misticam et inviam immundis veritatum."--Sancti

Dionisii, _de Theologia Simbolica_, Epistola I. ad Titum Pontificem.

[63] A very pretty later instance of this myth is in the fresco of the

Spanish chapel in Santa Maria Novella, Florence, where the Dominican

monks are figured as the "dogs of the Lord" (_domini canes_--mediæval

pun), fighting and overwhelming the heretical _paterini_ whom the

monks literally fought with in the streets of Florence. The dog is

always used as emblem of fidelity--the hare treated alone is generally

used as an emblem of unchastity; when in the chase, as unfaithfulness.

[64] I am informed, by a literary Hindoo lady, that Zohak, so

graphically described by Southey as the emblem of remorse, is from an

ancient Persian legend, and not of Indian origin.

[65] The stone is evidently a remnant of the ancient architrave of the

façade, where it has been replaced by two modern slabs, and the arch

above filled in with masonry.

[66] Anglicized from Bigeri Thorlacii et Sebastiani Ciampi. "_De

septentrionalium gentium antiquitatibus, et literis runicis._"--Epistolæ

Mediolani._

[67] _Architettura d'Italia_, Fig. 119, p. 201.

[68] Cattaneo, _L' Architettura in Italia_, p. 79.

[69] Ermelind was from England, which suggests a very early

intercourse between the Lombards and Britain.

[70] Cattaneo, _L' Architettura in Italia_, p. 167.

CHAPTER V

COMACINES UNDER CHARLEMAGNE

MASTERS OF THE CARLOVINGIAN ERA

---+-------+--------------------------+-------------------------------

1. | 805 | Magister Natalis | A Lombard, employed at Lucca

| | | to build a church and make

| | | a canal.

| |

2. | 900? | M. Johannis de Menazio | Built the church of S. Giacomo

| | (and many other Masters | at Pontida.

| | from Como) |

| | |

3. | " | A "famous Magister" | Worked at S. Zeno at Verona,

| | from Como (name not | and built S. Zeno at Pontida.

| | given) |

| | |

4. | " | M. Adami | Sculptured the capitals in the

| | | atrium of S. Ambrogio at

| | | Milan.

---+-------+--------------------------+-------------------------------

We may safely say that Charlemagne, who was more a warrior than a man

of æsthetic tastes, had no influence whatever on Italian architecture;

neither the form nor the symbolism was changed by him. The Italians

were always conservative, and clung to old traditions. The Roman

basilica, and not the Eastern mosque, still continued to be the plan

of the Italian church. Ricci asserts that by the end of the eighth

century all imitation of Oriental architecture had disappeared from

Italian churches. It was not the same, however, with the

ornamentations, in which the frozen Byzantine forms became vitalized

under hands less technically skilful, but more natural.

[Illustration: DOOR OF A CHAPEL IN S. PRASSEDE, ROME.

_See page 83._]

[Illustration: PLUTEUS FROM S. MARCO DEI PRECIPAZI, NOW IN S. GIACOMO,

VENICE.

_See page 84._]

Charlemagne did not even alter the Longobardic laws, and he

certainly did not interfere with the freedom and privileges of the

Comacines or _Liberi Muratori_. In fact he ratified the Lombard code

(the laws of Rotharis and Luitprand), only adding a few others which

are known as _Capitolari_.

They do not, however, refer specially to our _Magistri_, but to

jurisprudence in general. The older laws still held good for the

Comacines, and they went on building their Basilican churches, which

were at the same time classic in form, solid in style, and fanciful in

decoration--a curious and characteristic mixture. But Charlemagne

certainly patronized the Comacines, and not only employed them

himself, but sent them to restore Roman churches for Pope Adrian, and

to fortify Florence.

The early Carlovingian churches in Italy have so much analogy with the

Longobardic ones, that it is very difficult to distinguish precisely

to which era certain churches belong.

Rumhor instances the Florentine Basilica of S. Scheraggio, which was

much used as a meeting-place for civil councils in the early days of

the Republic. This is usually said to have been a Carlovingian church;

but either it was pure Lombard, as the barbarous name _Scheraggio_

implies, or else Charlemagne employed the Lombard architects.[71]

Padre Richa, who saw the ruins of it, gives a design of the church,

which was the usual Lombard form, three naves, the central one wide,

and an apse to each. The columns and capitals were from some Roman

building.

The architecture was entirely similar to that of S. Paolo in ripa

d'Arno, close to Pisa, which has also been styled Carlovingian. The

chronicle of the monk Marco, written in 1287, preserved in the

archives of Vallombrosa, shows that although the guide-books date S.

Scheraggio as twelfth-century architecture because a papal bull of

that time refers to the name, it belonged to the Vallombrosian monks

long before, having been given to them by Countess Beatrice in

1073,[72] and was probably founded in the ninth century.

We must not omit to mention the most interesting of Comacine churches,

that of San Donato in Polenta, where Dante worshipped, and near which

Paolo and Francesca lived. It was built in the eighth century, and is

mentioned in a document of 976. It is of the usual triple-apsed form.

The columns have diverse capitals, some square, some diminished,

ornamented with foliage and interlaced work; some have grotesque

figures, and animals in low relief, with a rude technique. Here are

men like monkeys, hippogriffs, sea monsters, etc. It has been

graphically described in Sapphic verse by Carducci, as follows--

To that gaunt Byzantine there crucified,

Whose hollow eyes gaze from his livid face,

The faithful pray for blessings on their Lord,[73]

And glory to Rome.

From every capital dread shapes obtrude

And memories bring of ancient sculpturing hands

Whose works show visions weird, and horrors from

The dreadful North.

The eastern gleam from pallid altar lamps

Falls on degenerate inhuman forms,

Writhing around in many-coiled embrace

Like things of Hell.

Rude monsters spew above the kneeling flock.

Behind the very font, crouching beast

Red-haired and horned, and demonlike

Doth gaze and grin.

The original runs thus--

Al bizantino crocefisso, atroce

Ne gli occhi bianchi livida magrezza,

Chieser mercè de l'alta stirpe e de la

Gloria di Roma.

Da i capitelli orride forme intruse

A le memorie di scapelli argivi,

Sogni efferati e spasimi del bieco

Settentrione.

Imbestiati degeneratamente

Ne l'Oriente, al guizzo de le fioca

Lampade, in turpi abbracciamenti attorti,

Zolfo ed inferno.

Goffi sputavan su la prosternata

Gregge: di dietro al battistero un fulvo

Picciol cornuto diavolo guardava

E subsannava.

This church, so full of poetic and historic interest, was lately going

to be destroyed, but the priest, Don Luigi Zattini, appealed to the

Inspector of Monuments for the province of Forli, who had recourse to

the _Deputazione Storica Romagnola_. Efforts were made to save it, and

instead of being pulled down, it is now only to be restored, which may

be as fatal. The castle of Guido da Polenta, husband of Francesca da

Rimini and brother of Paolo, is now ruined, but a cypress on a plateau

of the grounds is still called Francesca's cypress.

It was about this era that the Comacines began their many emigrations,

and spread throughout Italy. The church-building Longobards, being

subjugated themselves, had no longer the power to employ them, so this

large guild had to look further afield for their work.

Hitherto they seem to have been almost exclusively employed in the

Lombard kingdom and its dukedoms, except the few who went to England

and Germany in the seventh century. But Charlemagne had a wider rule

in Italy; and good architecture was needed in other parts. Some

documents quoted by Professor Merzario[74] not only prove these

travelling days of the _Magistri_, but connect them with many of the

finest and most interesting churches in Central and South Italy. One

is a deed of gift for the weekly distribution of bread and wine to the

poor at Lucca in 805. It begins--"Ego Natalis, homo transpadanus,

magister casarius, Christo auxiliante, ædificavi Ecclesiam in honori

Dei et Mariæ et B. Petri Apostoli, intra hanc civitatem"--"I, Natalis,

a man from beyond the Pò, being a master builder, by Christ's help

have constructed within this city, a church in honour of God, of Mary,

and of the blessed apostle Peter."[75] Here we see the Comacine Master

settled as leading architect in Lucca, far from his native land beyond

the Pò, and so flourishing that he can dispense large charities. He

seems to have done some public works too; there was a canal called the

Fossa Natale, which ran through the city, and had a bridge over it.

There must have been others of the guild in Lucca, before Natalis,

working at the churches of S. Frediano and S. Michele.

The latter building was not long prior to the era of Magister Natalis.

It was founded in 764 by the Lombard Teutprandus or Iutprand, and his

wife Gumbranda. It coincides with S. Frediano in its plan of the Latin

cross. Here, however, we find no Roman capitals, as in S. Frediano,

but the twelve columns which sustain the arches of the nave are of

rough white marble, from the neighbouring mountains of Carrara. They

are of the same size upward, not narrowed at the top. The capitals are

of somewhat composite order, with a leaning to Orientalism. The eight

columns in the nave have simple arches _a sesto intero_

(semi-circular) springing from them; the four which support the

tribune are heightened by piers of a Gothic form, flanked by

pilasters, which raise the arch over the central nave. This seems to

be the first instance of an attempt to render the sanctuary of the

high altar more grand and majestic than the rest of the building. The

façade is of quite a different epoch, and has nothing to do with the

interior. It was the work of Guidectus in 1188, who also built the

cathedral of Lucca.

The windows show the same divergence of style. In S. Frediano they are

large and classical, in S. Michele narrow and Neo-Gothic.

The other document is less decisive, but has its significance. An

ancient mediæval _Memoriale_, in the monastery of Pontida,[76] has the

following entry--"Guglielmo de Longhi di Adraria built the church of

San Giacomo di Pontida, employing Magister Johanne de Menazio et

multis aliis de episcopatu comensi." This was finished in 1301, and

was consequently later than the building of S. Zeno at Pontida, of

which another MS. in the same monastery relates a fact, which the

chronicler says happened _avanti il mille_ (before the year 1000).

"A master very famous in the art of building, who came 'de regione

juxta lacum cumanum' (from the region about Lake Como), met with

robbers at Cisano, as he returned from Verona to his native place. The

which Master being struck with terror, recommended himself, calling

with all his heart on the blessed Zeno, and made a vow that if the

saint brought him safe and sound out of that deadly peril, he would

build a church in his honour. As soon as he had spoken the words, the

horse on which he was mounted took fright and galloped away, so that

the robbers could no more harm him. Thus he escaped safely with all

his belongings ('potè scampare sano con tutte le sue cose'), and

returning the following year with his workmen, he began the building

of the church of S. Zeno at Valle Ponzia (now Pontida), the people of

the neighbourhood lending him aid, both in money and in labour."

We may be excused for jumping at conclusions if we opine that as he

was returning from Verona after a long sojourn, he had been employed

there. Probably it was at the church of S. Zeno; particularly as he

felt he had a special claim on the help of that saint.

There is very little left of the first church of S. Zeno at Verona

(which was rebuilt entirely in the twelfth century), except the

curious mausoleum in the crypt, which is supposed to be King Pepin's

tomb. Our Comacine who escaped the brigands may possibly have made

that, as the era (before the year 1000) corresponds. Or he might have

been working at the church which Bishop Lothaire, aided by Bertrada,

mother of Charlemagne, built 780 A.D., and dedicated to S. Maria

Matricolare, and which the Bishop Ratoldo (802-840) chose as the

cathedral. Of this, too, little remains now, it having been rebuilt in

the twelfth century, but some indications of the old building were

found in the excavations made in 1884. At the depth of two metres, in

the Lombard cloister adjoining it, a mosaic pavement was discovered

with a design of foliage, animals, and inscriptions. There was also a

fallen column, which they were able to stand on its own base with its

capital. Cattaneo[77] thinks that these are the remains of Lothaire's

church, as the capital of the column is undoubtedly of the eighth

century. It has a rigid abacus, and the form is rudely Corinthian,

with solid straight leaves curled back, instead of the usual acanthus.

The same style is seen in S. Salvatore of Brescia, and S. Maria in

Cosmedin in Rome, both Comacine works.

[Illustration: COMACINE CAPITALS.

_See page 96._]

Another Carlovingian church in Verona is that of S. Lorenzo, said to

have been founded by Pepin. Some interesting bits of its primitive

architecture remain, and are precious relics. There is, for instance,

a little spiral stairway in the wall, which led to different divisions

of the women's gallery.[78]

At this era a change in the form of windows may be observed; they were

narrowed and heightened, a first step towards the Gothic form.

In Carlovingian times the Comacines worked much in Rome. Cattaneo[79]

says that there exist letters from Pope Adrian I. to Charlemagne,

begging him to send architects (_Magistri_) from the north of Italy,

to execute some works in Rome. Now these _Magistri_ could be no other

than the Comacine Guild of Lombardy, who with the Longobards had

lately become subjects of Charlemagne, and were without doubt the

finest builders in Italy, if not monopolists of the art. The buildings

which they designed and erected in Rome at that time were the churches

of S. Maria in Cosmedin, S. Lorenzo in Lucina, S. Saba on Mount

Aventine, and the residence of the Patriarch near S. John Lateran. The

door of a chapel in S. Prassede with its Comacine _intrecci_ is a

standing proof of their work there in the ninth century.

Anastasius, the librarian, gives an account of the rebuilding of the

church of S. Maria in Cosmedin.[80] He says that Adrian found it

absolutely beneath a pile of ruins (_sub ruinis positam_) of a former

temple to Ceres and Proserpine, which literally hung over it. As this

mass of ruin prevented the enlargement of the new church, it was

entirely demolished "by fire, and by the labours of the people." The

space being cleared, a new and spacious Basilica was erected "a

fundamentis tres absides, in ea constituens."

The writer mentions this form with three apses as being new in Rome.

We have, however, seen that in the north of Italy the Comacines had

been, for the past century or two, building Basilican churches on

precisely this plan. In fact the three round apses had become one of

the special marks of their churches. Cattaneo argues that the form

came from the East, as some of the Syrian churches of the fifth

century and the great Basilica of St. Simeon Stylites at Kaiat Senian,

erected in 500, have signs of the same conformation. Whether these

were of absolutely Oriental origin, or the result of some early

emigration of the _liberi muratori_, archæologists must judge. The two

rows of columns which divide the nave from the aisles, have solid

piers of masonry interposed between each three columns; these are

elongated above the colonnade to support the roof, and strengthen the

upper gallery.[81]

It is evident that the Comacines availed themselves of old material in

this work; the columns are of all species and styles, some fluted,

some smooth, some with antique Corinthian capitals, others of Comacine

work. One is of the same form as those we have described in S. Maria

Matricolare at Verona, with solid volutes, placed perpendicularly,

instead of the graceful acanthus. The same capital is seen in S.

Agnese fuori le mura.

There is in S. Maria in Cosmedin a very interesting fragment of the

Comacine decoration of the time when Adrian I. was the patron of the

guild. It is a bit of cornice, formed of a little colonnade of round

arches; beneath it an inscription in a curious early style, the

letters all sizes and shapes. It runs--

"DE DON IS D͠I ET S͠CE D͠I GENETRICIS MARIÆ. TEMPORIBUS

DO͞NI ADRIANI PAPE EGO GREGORIUS."

I have seen another fragment during the recent restorations. A fine

_intreccio_ on a marble slab in one of the pulpits, which had been

reversed and inlaid on the other side in thirteenth-century mosaic.

The church of S. Saba on Mount Aventine, which was also built under

Adrian I., has every mark of Comacine work, especially in the mediæval

and unclassic form of capitals. Probably the supply of ancient

capitals fell short after the building of the other churches, and the

builders had to supply them with their own chisels. They made a rude

imitation of the Ionic form, as far from the classic grace of the

original, as their plain hard volutes were from the elegance of the

Corinthian.

A better artist seems to have been placed by the Comacine Guild in S.

Lorenzo in Lucina, which was contemporary to this. The capitals of the

same form are much more clearly and firmly cut, and in a better style

of ornamentation. Here too are the Comacine lions, now built into the

wall under the square lintels of the door. Of the Comacine work in the

house of the Patriarch near S. John Lateran, _i.e._ the papal

residence of those times, not much remains to show the hand of the

Comacines, except the sculptures on the well in the cloister, the

parapet of which is adorned with two zones of reliefs, divided by an

interlaced band. The under one consists of alternate crosses and rude

palms, the upper is a row of round arches, adorned with upstanding

volutes, like vine-tendrils; under one arch is a dove with grapes in

his beak, and in the other a cross. There are also two sculptured

stones in the same cloister, one showing various interlaced patterns,

the other a cross formed by weavings of the continued line, enriched

in the groundwork of foliage.

One of the most interesting churches of the Carlovingian era is that

of San Pietro in Grado near Pisa. In the Middle Ages this was a great

shrine for pilgrimages, being, it is said, built on the spot on which

St. Peter first set foot in Italy. (_Gradus_--a step.) Legend

(supported by the assertion of a certain Archbishop Visconti, who

preached in Pisa in the thirteenth century) says that the Apostle

Peter was driven ashore at that spot, and having made an altar he

began to baptize--giving his disciples commands to build a church

there. What the first church was like is not known; the present one

was built between 600 and 800 A.D., and was decorated with frescoes

before A.D. 1000. There is a great similarity in structure between

this building and that of S. Apollinare in Ravenna; they are both of

similar brick masonry, and three-apsed, and the aisles are in about

the same proportion to the greater height of the nave. The proportions

of the short round arches on the tall classic columns of the interior

are extremely similar, as is the scheme of ornamentation, with the

difference that at Ravenna the medium is mosaic, and at S. Pietro a

Grado it is fresco. The line of Bishops in the spring of the arches in

Ravenna is reproduced at Grado by a line of Popes in medallions,

ending with Leo III., 795, which would probably mark the era of the

foundation of the church.[82]

San Pietro, however, has one very great peculiarity. It has no façade,

but is built with the usual Lombard three apses at one end, and a

single semi-circular tribune at the other. The only door is at the

side. The priest, who is naturally proud of his church, and learned in

its history, told us that by this peculiar form the builders wished to

represent a ship, and pointing out the great square pilasters that

break the line of columns at the fourth arch from the west, he showed

how the raised poop of a vessel was expressed by the greater height

and width of the four arches at the west end. Certainly the narrowing

effect being towards the chancel instead of the reverse, is most

remarkable.

I was not, however, convinced by his symbolism, and realizing the

greater proportions of the west end, where three arches with fluted

columns stretched across a tribune, now turned into an organ-loft, I

felt convinced that the present form was not the original. Either the

ancient altar once stood at the west end, and the church, like so many

Lombard ones, had formerly faced the opposite way; or else the

semi-circular tribune, which seems to be of later work, has been added

by restorers, to cover in the three arches of the ancient façade.

That, in fact, the large solid pilasters in the nave marked the

ancient wall of the interior, and the four arches on the other side of

them formed the narthex. To support the first theory, is the fact that

the altar called St. Peter's altar stands now isolated in that west

end, and the canopy in the form of an ancient Lombard _ciborium_

stands on four columns above it, carved in stone in very early style.

The opposite theory of the narthex having been at that end, may on its

side be confirmed by one of the frescoes, the last but two on the

south wall, which represents the church itself as it was prior to A.D.

1000. Here the artist has, with a curious mediæval disregard of

perspective and possibility, represented both ends of the church in

one view, and here we see plainly the three apses with their marble

perpendicular ribs on one side, and the façade of large arches with a

row of smaller ones across the building above them on the other. I

leave the question of this puzzling west tribune to wiser judges than

myself, and trust that some new Fergusson, Hope, or Street may some

day discover the truth.

The columns of the nave are all of antique marble, the ruins of a

Roman temple to Ceres at Pisa; some are of cipollino, others Oriental

granite, one is of fluted white Greek marble. The capitals are mostly

antique and classical, though a few show the hand of the early

Comacine in their straight upstanding volutes. The ingenuity of the

_Magistri_ in making use of old material is shown in the various

devices by which these columns are adapted. Where they are too short

the base is raised on two pedestals; where too small for the massive

pillar, a wide abacus is placed on the top to support the arch. One of

the columns which support the altar is made long enough by a base made

of an antique carved capital reversed beneath it. We have a distinct

sign of the Comacines in a stone let into the wall near the door, and

which evidently formed part of the ancient architrave. It is carved in

an intricate interlaced knot. I shall speak in the chapter on Comacine

painting, of the frescoes in the nave, which are unique of their kind,

and of deep interest to the Art historian.

[Illustration: EXTERIOR OF SAN PIERO A GRADO, PISA, 8TH CENTURY.

_page 101._]

These churches of the Carlovingian era in Italy cannot be documentally

proved to have been at all connected with Charlemagne himself, except

that he sent the _Magistri Comacini_ to Rome, at Pope Adrian's

request. The same cannot be said of the great church of

Aix-la-Chapelle, with which his name must be for ever united, but

which is certainly not entirely unconnected with this Lombard

Guild. Where history gives no precise information, and where

authors, ancient and modern, fail to fix the precise era of this

important work, it is of course impossible to say who was the

architect. We can only judge by the style, and by inferences drawn

from previous works of the same style. First, as to the few facts we

are able to gain: Eginbertus, a Lombard, the biographer of

Charlemagne, in his _De vita et gestis Caroli Magni_, Capit. 26, tells

us that Charlemagne "built the Basilica of Aquisgrana of wonderful

beauty, and adorned it with much gold, silver lamps, and with gates

and doors of bronze. For this construction, not being able elsewhere

to find columns and marble, he provided that they should be brought

from Rome and Ravenna." This fact, of a want of proper material in

France, would seem to imply that skilled workmen to build in stone

must have been imported with the material. It is difficult, or indeed

impossible, to prove that French workmen were equal to the occasion,

by showing other contemporary works in France. Any churches they may

have then had, have long since perished, for at that date they were

usually built of wood; another argument that France could not have

supplied accomplished architects in stone.

Some say the church was designed by Ansige, Abbot of Fontanelles,

others give the credit to Eginhard, or Eginbertus, as his Lombard name

is spelt; but as he does not claim it for himself in his

writing,--indeed, we see from the above extract that he speaks quite

impersonally of it,--there is certainly no documentary evidence to

prove this assertion. Speaking dispassionately, it would be strange

for a man of letters, private secretary to a great king, to suddenly

develop into a full-fledged architect. It is much more likely that as

he was a Lombard, he was interested in employing the builders whom all

his countrymen had employed for centuries. D'Agincourt, who had a good

deal of _amour propre_, and would, if he could, always give glory to

France, says (vol. i. p. 27, 139)--"It is natural to believe that the

Italian architects whom Charlemagne had brought with him, designed the

buildings they made for him in France, on the lines of those of their

own country." Dartein, in his _Lombard Architecture_, writes of

it--"If we inspect the octagonal half-domes which terminate the centre

of the cross in S. Fedele at Como, we see that they reproduce the

rotunda of Aix-la-Chapelle. The form of the shafts, the outline of the

wall, and the disposition of the collateral vaults are alike in both

edifices. The similarity is so great as to prove imitation, especially

as other churches in the Rhone district remind one of churches in the

territory of Como." The fact of similitude is significant, but is it

not more likely that the imitation was the other way? S. Fedele, or S.

Eufemia as it was first called, was built in S. Abbondio's time, A.D.

440, before the era of the Longobards, and we are told is the only

church of that time which retains its original architecture,

especially in the rounded apse. The similarity would then go to prove

what has been an hypothesis, that Charlemagne really brought builders

as well as marble from Italy, and that the _Magistri Comacini_ were

those builders.

The church has also been compared to S. Vitale at Ravenna, but the

Comacines were accustomed to build circular churches, such as the

Rotunda at Brescia, and others. They were generally used as

baptisteries or mausoleums; in fact were ceremonial churches.

Aix-la-Chapelle was designed as the tomb of Charlemagne, and here the

builders mingled the rotunda of the ceremonial church with the

basilica for worship. The workmanship is much more rude than that of

S. Vitale, where Greek artists were employed. It is easy to

distinguish the parts added by the Comacines, from the classical and

Byzantine imported adornments furnished by the spoils of Rome and

Ravenna. The Italians were not left entirely free in their designs,

but had to conform to a more northern climate and different national

taste; the windows were narrowed and elongated, and the pitch of the

roof raised to a sharper angle. As Pliny had said to Mustio, his

Comacine architect, seven centuries before--"You Magistri always know

how to overcome difficulties of position," and Charlemagne's

architects, in an equal degree, studied both climate and position. The

further we go south or east the roofs have a tendency to flatten, the

further we go north they have a tendency to rise into sharper gables.

The cause is this, I take it--a climatic one. Where there is much rain

or snow, the sloping roof is a necessity; therefore this first

indication of pointed architecture, as adaptable to the northern

climate, makes Charlemagne's church an interesting link between the

Romano-Lombard and Gothic in the north: just as Romano-Lombard stands

between the classic and Romanesque in the south. If Ansige suggested

these modifications to the Italian builders, he had a wider office in

the history of art than he knew; for Aix-la-Chapelle became the root

from which the French and German so-called Gothic sprang; improved in

the first instance under the hands of the _Franchi-Muratori_, who in

the succeeding generations were called to work on churches in both

countries. After all, the first step was but a slight one, being more

a raising and narrowing of the round arch than the innovation of the

pointed one. It might stand better as a first indication of the

stilted Norman arch.

Of the civil architecture of the Carlovingian era we have very few

instances remaining. The Emperor Charlemagne built no especial palace

for himself, but used that of Luitprand at Milan, which in

Charlemagne's time was known as _Curtis domum imperatoris_. An old

chronicler tells us that he fortified Verona. He says--"In the time

when King Pepin was still young, the Huns or Avars invaded Italy. When

Charlemagne heard of their approach he caused Verona to be fortified,

and walls erected all round, with towers and moats; and with _pali

fissi_ fortified the city to its very foundations, leaving there his

son Pepin." Forty-eight towers rise from these walls, of which eight

are very high, the others well raised above the walls. These must have

been what the old writer quaintly called _pali fissi_.

A diploma of Ludovic II., dated 814, proves that the walls of Piacenza

also date from this era. It is in favour of his wife Analberg, giving

her permission to incorporate a part of the walls into a monastery. It

runs--"Of our own authority, we add to the monastery and give in

perpetuity, all the _steccato_, internal and external, of the said

wall of the city, from the foundations to the battlements, as much as

extends from Porta Milano to the next postern gate; and not only this,

but also the _macie_ (rubble) which is found round the walls and

ante-walls, and the same of the towers, gates, and posterns."

The use of hospices is much connected with Carlovingian times; they

came in when the Church ruled, and pilgrimages became the fashion. The

first hospices were in monasteries. In 752 S. Anselmo founded one for

pilgrims at Nonantola, in Agro Mutinense. The council of Aquisgrana

(Aix-la-Chapelle) made decrees as to the establishment of hospices,

and Charlemagne made laws on the subject, "ut in omni regno nostro,

neque pauper perigrinus hospitia denegare audeant." To the ordinary

fine for homicide, Pepin II. added sixty soldi more if the person

killed were a pilgrim. One who denied food and shelter to a pilgrim

was fined three soldi. These humane provisions, like all such, soon

became abused; so many non-religious people travelled on pilgrims'

privileges, that at the end of Charlemagne's reign it was found

necessary to provide real pilgrims with a _Tessera trattoria_ to

prove their authenticity.

Among the earliest hospices might be mentioned the leper hospital

founded in Classis near Ravenna in S. Apollinare's time, and one in

Rome, founded by the Roman lady Fabiola for destitute or abandoned

sick and poor. In 785 a certain Datheus, arch-priest at Milan, founded

an _exonodochio_ (home for destitute children), and Queen Amalasunta

built a foundling hospital at Ravenna, in the sixth century.

Charlemagne commanded that there should be a place in the peristyle of

the churches for the reception of foundlings. The Loggia del Bigallo,

though a later building, is a beautiful specimen of such a peristyle.

FOOTNOTES:

[71] In 1410, when the street was enlarged, it was half destroyed, and

the south aisle cut off. The last remains were in 1561 incorporated in

the Uffizi by Cosimo I., when the gallery was built. Some capitals may

be seen in the wall of the Palazzo Vecchio.

[72] See Marchese Ricci, _Dell' Architettura in Italia_, Vol. I. ch.

ix. pp. 302, 342.

[73] The family of Polenta, their feudal lords.

[74] _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. ch. ii. p. 77.

[75] This is probably the church of S. Pietro Somaldi, to which a

Lombard, or rather Italian Gothic, front was added in 1203. It was

founded by a Longobard named Somualdo in the eighth century, and

restored in 1199.

[76] A place between Lecco and Brescia.

[77] Cattaneo, _Architettura Italiana_, p. 175.

[78] There is a similar stairway in the church of S. Agnese fuori le

mura, at Rome, which though originally said to have been founded by

Constantine, is not of Greek form, but preserves a perfect Basilican

plan. It was enlarged by Pope Symmachus in the fifth century, and he,

it is known, employed Italian artists. The spiral stairway (_cochlea_)

is also mentioned at Hexham in England.

[79] _L' Architettura in Italia_, ch. iii. p. 143.

[80] Anastasii, _Bibliothecarii Vitæ Romanorum Pontificum_--in

Muratori, _Sculptores Rerum Italicum_, tom. iii.

[81] S. Prassede in Rome, which was standing in the time of Pope

Symmachus, when in 477 he held a synod there, has the same

peculiarity. The elongated piers are here placed between every two

columns, and are transverse, _i.e._ the greater width across the

church. Before this time the roofs were always formed of gable-shaped

frames of wood, erected on beams resting on the side walls, but Ricci

sees in this the first advance towards the arched roof. We may see the

next step in the old Lombard church at Tournus in France, where a

succession of arches are thrown across the nave from the piers.

[82] The tower, which is in a later Lombard style, was rebuilt two

centuries later.

CHAPTER VI

IN THE TROUBLOUS TIMES

After the Carlovingian dynasty had withdrawn from Italy, the country

had two or three centuries of troublous times, in which very few

people thought of church-building, and if the Comacine Masters found

work in their own land, it was more the building of castles and

strongholds in their most solid _opera gallica_, than the sculpturing

of saints or the rearing of gorgeous basilicæ.

After the Carlovingians came the House of Berengarius, which held the

Italian throne from 888 to the intervention of Otho I. of Germany in

951. During this time there was always a military fermentation going

on; Duke Guido of Spoleto fighting Berengarius; Arnolph and his son

Sventebald fighting Guido; the Hungarians overrunning and sacking

Italy on the north, where there were battles at Brenta, Garigliano,

Firenzuola, and bloodshed generally till the murder of Berengarius.

Nor were things more peaceful in the south. Between A.D. 924 and 950

the Saracens invaded Sicily, and having established themselves there,

assaulted Rome, and marched on towards the Alps.

In Central Italy the Dukes of Burgundy, Provence, and Bavaria were

found contesting with Lothaire for the succession. At length, in 951,

Otho came down from Germany and scattered them all, restoring

comparative peace for a time, though an arbitrary one; but it did not

last long.

Next came superstitious fears; the poor battered Italians, demoralized

by fierce human foes, succumbed entirely to the moral subjugator,

superstition. They were firmly persuaded that the year 1000 should be

the end of the world, and every activity, public and private, was

paralyzed. It was only after that era had passed, and found Italy

still existing, that new life began to stir in its inhabitants. Of

course, fighting still continued, but these were holy wars--the

Crusades, of which Urban II. preached the first in 1096. Then the art

of sculpturesque architecture, which is the handmaid of religious

enthusiasm, began to revive, and the Comacine Masters again had palmy

days.

But they had not been entirely idle during these warlike times. Prof.

Merzario says[83]--

"In this darkness which extended over all Italy, only one small lamp

remained alight, making a bright spark in the vast Italian necropolis.

It was from the _Magistri Comacini_. Their respective names are

unknown, their individual works unspecialized, but the breath of their

spirit might be felt all through those centuries, and their name

collectively is legion. We may safely say that of all the works of art

between A.D. 800 and 1000, the greater and better part are due to that

brotherhood--always faithful and often secret--of the _Magistri

Comacini_. The authority and judgment of learned men justify the

assertion."

Here Prof. Merzario quotes several of these _uomini dottissimi_.

First, Quatremal de Quincy, in his _Dictionary of Architecture_, who,

under the heading "Comacine," remarks that "to these men, who were

both designers and executors, architects, sculptors, and mosaicists,

may be attributed the renaissance of art, and its propagation in the

southern countries, where it marched with Christianity. Certain it is

that we owe it to them, that the heritage of antique ages was not

entirely lost, and it is only by their tradition and imitation that

the art of building was kept alive, producing works which we still

admire, and which become surprising when we think of the utter

ignorance of all science in those dark ages." Our English writer,

Hope, taking their later appellative of Lombards, credits Lombardy

with being the cradle of the associations of Freemasons, "who were,"

he says, "the first after Roman times to enrich architecture with a

complete and well-ordinated system, which dominated wherever the Latin

Church extended its influence from the shores of the Baltic to those

of the Mediterranean."[84] We will omit the witnesses, Kugler of

Germany and Ramée of France, and take the Italian great authority,

Pietro Selvatico.[85] He notes that art in Europe, from the seventh to

the thirteenth century, consisted of a combination of Byzantine and

Roman elements, but in the ninth century a third element mingled,

which had in itself so much that was original, as to constitute an

independent style. "This," he goes on to say, "was the Lombard or

Comacine architecture, as it is called, which is distinguished by its

low-pitched roofs, its circular arches, rounded on columns, which

assimilate to the Greek and Roman styles. This gained a certain

systematic unity after the first half of the ninth century." Prof.

Selvatico seems to have ignored all the Comacine architecture under

the Longobards, who were certainly the nurses of the guild, and takes

it up just when it was freeing itself from the bonds of superstitious

tradition, _i.e._ the transition between Roman-Lombard and Romanesque.

[Illustration: COMACINE CAPITAL IN SAN ZENO, VERONA, EMBLEMATIZING

MAN CLINGING TO CHRIST (THE PALM).

_page 111._]

No doubt the genealogy of the style was this. First, the Comacines

continued Roman traditions as the Romans continued Etruscan ones;

next, they orientalized their style by their connection with the East

through Aquileia, and the influx of Greek exiles into the guild. Later

came a different influence through the Saracens into the South, and

the Italian-Gothic was born.

The Comacine art of the interregnum after Charlemagne may be judged by

the church of S. Zeno at Verona. This had been rebuilt in 810 by King

Pepin, whose palace was in Verona. His church fell a prey to the

devastation dealt by the Huns in 924, and Bishop Rothair restored it

in the tenth century, the Emperor Otho the First furnishing the funds.

There was a third restoration in 1139, when the present front and

portico were added. The general form of Otho's church still remains,

and shows the usual "three naves" (emblematical of the Trinity), and

the circular arches supported by alternate columns and pilasters. The

roof, as in all the older Lombard churches, was of wood, and not

vaulted. It is not recorded whence Otho obtained his architects, but

though no names are written, the Comacine mark is there. Later

restorations have wiped out most of the old signs, but they have left

us some capitals on the columns and the reliefs on the arches leading

into the crypt under the tribune. Two of the columns are here

illustrated. In one may be seen human figures clinging to

palm-branches, by which the Magister who carved it symbolized man

clinging to Christ. The other is a veritable Comacine knot, formed of

mystic winged creatures, with their serpent tails entwined. On the

arches of the crypt are a wealth of mediæval imaginings, mystic

beasts, Christian symbols, scriptural characters and ancient myths,

all mingled together as only a Freemason of the Middle Ages could

mingle them. Otho's architects were certainly _Magistri_ of our guild,

and probably our friend from Pontida, who called on S. Zeno to save

him from the brigands, was one of them.

It is undeniable that later Comacines put the elegant façade to the

church in 1139, when Magistri Nicolaus and Guglielmus carved the

wonderful porch with its columns resting on lions, and its very

mediæval reliefs, in which we see Theodoric, King of the Goths, going

straight to the devil in the guise of a wild huntsman. On the

architraves are allegorical reliefs of the twelve months. But this

front is not of the era we are now discussing, and we shall mention it

again.

A work which is indubitably of the ninth century, and has all the

marks of the time, is the atrium of S. Ambrogio at Milan, which was a

commission to Magister Adam of the Comacines, by Anspert of Bissone,

who was Archbishop of Milan from 868 to 881. The atrium of a church

was anciently used for the catechumens, as they were not admitted into

the body of the church till they were baptized. The atrium of S.

Ambrogio is a square space surrounded by a portico composed of columns

supporting round arches. The proportions are so fine and majestic that

it is looked on as the best mediæval edifice existing in Lombard

style. The capitals are composed of foliage, strange ornaments, and

groups of grotesque animals and monsters rudely sculptured; and yet

with the imperfect chiselling there is such a freedom of design and

wealth of imagination as you find in no Byzantine work, however

precise its execution. We give an illustration of one of its capitals.

The Comacine _intreccio_ is there, but floriated and luxurious. The

significance of these sculptures, though unintelligible to us, is

believed to be the occult and conventional art language of the

Comacines or Freemasons. On the doorway, among the foliage and

symbolic animals, one may still read the name of "Adam Magister."

[Illustration: CAPITAL IN THE ATRIUM OF S. AMBROGIO, MILAN. BY

MAGISTER ADAM.

_page 112._]

Another very important church of the ninth century is the cathedral

of Grado, near Venice, which had been first built between 571-586,

seemingly by Byzantine artists, though they also used old classical

capitals from former buildings. The plan of this Basilica in its older

form shows very clearly the leaning to one side which we have said was

a symbol of Christ's head being turned in pain on the Cross. Here not

only the left aisle reaches higher up than the right, but the wall of

the façade slopes considerably. In the ninth century Fortunato,

Patriarch of Grado, who lived about 828, sent for _artefici

Franchi_[86] to restore the Baptistery of S. Giovanni on the island

which was the metropolis of maritime Venice. Now what were these

_artefici Franchi_? It is clear they could not have been French, for

Charlemagne himself had to get builders from Lombardy, his own country

not having as yet enough skill in masonry. It is natural to suppose

they were the guild from Cisalpine Gaul, which though composed of

Italians had been styled "Lombards" while under the Lombard kings, and

may have been "Franchi" while the Carlovingian kings ruled. They were

known as "Tedeschi" when later they were under the protection of the

German emperors, a term which puzzled old Vasari greatly. It is still

a question whether the real interpretation would not be the literal

one, Free-masons, who may well have been recalled from France where

they were at work.

The wording of a phrase in the will of the Patriarch Fortunato, where

he says "_feci venire magistros de Francia_," shows plainly that he

referred to architects belonging to a guild in which the higher orders

were called _Magistri_.

Having begun to work at Grado, the Lombards were evidently employed in

other Venetian churches. Their style is said to be very evident in the

Duomo of Murano, but how much they did, and whether they worked with

Eastern or other architects, will, I suppose, never be precisely

known.

A curious little church of this epoch is existing in almost its

original form at a village called Abadia, near Sesto Calende on Lake

Maggiore. It has a crypt and a portico, three naves and three

apses.[87] The crypt is supported on round arches and small thin

columns, the roof is of wood. The portico has three arcades resting on

columns and pilasters with capitals of Lombard-Byzantine style.

We find the guild at work not only in the north, but in the south of

Italy at this epoch. One of the famous buildings in South Italy with

which the Comacine Masters were connected, is the celebrated monastery

of Monte Cassino with its church. This monastery had been built in the

first instance by a Brescian named Petronax, who made a pilgrimage to

Rome to see Pope Gregory II. The Pope urged Petronax to go to Monte

Cassino where St. Benedict was buried. He went and there was inspired

to found a monastery.

By the beginning of the eleventh century this had been much ruined by

the Saracens and others, and Desiderius its abbot, in 1066, decided to

restore it. He was of the race of the Lombard Dukes of Beneventum, was

a friend of Pope Gregory VII., and became his successor on the papal

throne under the name of Victor III. Desiring that his church should

be a very "majestic temple," he sent to call artificers from Amalfi

and from Lombardy.[88] Among the Italians was a certain Andrea, from

Serra di Falco, near Como, a fine worker in metal, who, with his

disciples, made the bronze doors.

Some interesting baptisteries were erected in the tenth century by

the Comacines. The baptistery at this time seems to have had a set

form--the octagon; and a mystical significance, that figure being

highly symbolical of the Trinity, being formed by a conjunction of

three triangles. In the earlier days of the Romano-Lombard style, the

baptistery generally had only a small arcade, or row of brackets

supporting arches round the outer wall beneath the roof, and a

practicable gallery round the interior. Of this shape was the

Florentine Baptistery, that of Como and many others.

When the later Comacines worked in more florid Romanesque style, the

Baptisteries were often covered with little galleries or rows of

colonnettes like those of Pisa, Parma, Lucca, etc.

A fine specimen of Lombard work of about 1000 A.D., or a little later,

which shows the approach towards a more Gothic style, may be seen in

the cloister of Voltorre, a little walled town on Lake Varese. The

cloister of Voltorre is thus described--"The beauty of this

eleventh-century Lombard building is singular. The four sides are

formed of porticoes which sustain the upper storey. The porticoes

facing the open court are formed on one side of small graceful arches

in brick, with friezes and reliefs sustained by elegant colonnettes,

some round and some octangular, with capitals of various forms. On two

other sides the colonnettes are smaller and shorter, but still

graceful; they terminate in varied and bizarre capitals surmounted by

a kind of bracket on which the large stones of the upper building

rest. Among the sculptures of the little columns on the left as one

enters the court, is incised in mediæval characters and abbreviations

the following--'_Lanfrancus magister filius Dom. Ersatii de

Livurno_.'" Livurno most probably stands for Ligurno, a place a few

miles from Voltorre. So our master Lanfranco Ersatti, having graduated

in the Comacine Guild, set himself to embellish his native place. In

1099 Magister Lanfranco designed the Duomo of Modena, which, as will

be seen hereafter, was the work of centuries, he being followed by a

long series of architects.

Then came more troublous times for the Comacines in their own country.

From 1118 to 1127 A.D. the republic of Como was at fierce war with the

Milanese. A long poem by a Comacine poet, quoted by Muratori,

describes the workmen and artisans fighting in the streets in their

working dress, and wielding any tool or weapon they could find. The

masons and builders worked as sappers and miners, dug the trenches,

built up barricades, and destroyed the enemy's houses and castles. One

of these brave citizens, named Giovanni Buono, is especially mentioned

by the ancient poet, and he is peculiarly connected with the Comacine

Masters as the first of a long line of _Magisters_ of the Buono

family. He forms a tangible link between the half-traditional

Comacines of Lombard times, and the more clearly defined guild of the

Romanesque epoch. From that to the Italian Gothic period their

identity is traceable by documents. A warlike bishop, Guidone, was the

leader of the Comacines, but after three years' war he fell ill, and

on his death-bed prophesied the fall of his fatherland.

The Comacines were indeed at the end of their resources, they were

exhausted of means, of food, and of warriors; and after several

victories at length fell under the power of the Milanese, becoming a

tributary state. But it was not till Milan had called in the aid of

several other cities that brave little Como succumbed to her on August

27, 1127. She was not enslaved even then, and must have retained her

political freedom, for we find her siding with Frederic Barbarossa in

1167, against the whole Lombard League, to her cost, for she was a

great sufferer in the battle of Legnano on May 29, 1176.

Barbarossa tried to make some compensation, by ceding to Como the

castles of Baradello and Olona. A coin exists, of the Como mint of

that time, with an eagle and _Imp. Federicus_ on one side, and

_Cumanus populus_ on the other. Frederic had reason to cultivate the

Comaschi, for they sent 200 ships to the Venetian war for him. An

edict of Barbarossa's in 1159, and another dated 1175, shows that he

allowed the Comacines to rebuild their walls and city at that date,

_civitatem in cineres collapsam funditos re ædificavimus nos_. This

occupied them a long time. The tower towards Milan bears the date of

1192. The round tower that of 1250. There were eight gates in these

new walls.

FOOTNOTES:

[83] _Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. cap. ii. p. 79.

[84] Hope, _Storia dell' Architettura_, ch. xxii. p. 159 (Italian

translation).

[85] _Storia estetico-critica della arti del disegno_, Lezione iv.

[86] The Act exists still, and is quoted in Sagredo's work, _Sulle

consorterie delle Arti Edificative in Venezia_, p. 28.

[87] The same form is shown in the contemporary church of St. Victor

at Arsago near Milan.

[88] Conductis protinus peritissimis artificibus tum amalphitanis,

quam lombardis.--_Cronaca Sacri monasterii Cassinensis_, auctore Leone

Cardinali Episcopo, Lib. III. cap. xxviii.

BOOK II

FIRST FOREIGN EMIGRATIONS OF THE COMACINES

CHAPTER I

THE NORMAN LINK

The great building guild of the Middle Ages had another connection

with France, independently of Charlemagne, and one which perhaps left

a more lasting impression on the nation than the church of

Aix-la-Chapelle. It was through the Normans, who held a prominent

place in the history of Romanesque art, some authors giving them the

credit of its introduction into Italy.

This may be, but between the tenth and twelfth centuries architecture

and sculpture underwent so many transformations and became mingled

with so many different elements that its history is most difficult to

disentangle. There was a maze of different influences brought together

in Sicily, such as Norman, solid and heavy, from the north; Byzantine,

set and precise, from the east; Saracenic, warm and fanciful, from the

south--all mingling together in the temples of Monreale and Palermo,

where I think we may add a fourth and Italian element, in the

Comacines or Lombards.

The first consideration is: How did the Norman architecture first

arise? Was it indigenous? Did the Normans about the tenth and eleventh

centuries suddenly begin building round-arched and pillared churches

from their own inner consciousness?--for all histories assure us there

were no stone Norman-arched buildings before the tenth century, and

that by 1150 the pointed style had already begun to supersede it. All

the great and typical examples are crowded into the last fifty years

of the eleventh century, at which time the Norman dukes were very

powerful. It was a time of enterprise and excitement of all kinds, not

the least of them being the rage for church-building, awakened by the

early missionaries.

[Illustration: THE WEST DOOR OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW, SMITHFIELD, SHOWING

THE COMACINE STYLE OF BUILDING (_opus gallicum_).

(_From a photograph by Mr. Freeman Dovaston, Oswestry._)

_See page 124._]

Some light may be thrown on the way the round arch first got into

Normandy, by the following bits of old Norman chronicles, which show

that a very important event took place in the history of the Comacines

at the end of the tenth century, connecting them in a remarkable and

suggestive manner with the rise of Norman architecture. We find from

old chronicles that S. Guillaume, Abbot of S. Benigne in Dijon, was a

Lombard, born in 961 on the island of Santa Giulia, in Lago di Orta,

part of Lago Maggiore. He was the son of a certain Roberto, Lord of

Volpiano; Otho the Great himself had been his godfather at the time

when he besieged the island, and took prisoner Willa, wife of King

Berengarius. Guillaume (William) was, as his friend and biographer,

Glabrius Rodolphus, tells us, "of a keen intellect, and well

instructed in the liberal arts." In his youth he travelled much in

Italy, and was often at Venice, where he formed a close friendship

with Orso Orseolo, Patriarch of Aquileja. The Patriarch Orso was at

that time engaged in the restoration of the church of Torcello, one of

the gems of architecture of the age; while his brother, the Doge Otho

Orseolo, was pressing forward the works of S. Marco at Venice. It was

here probably that S. Guillaume was interested in the Masonic guild,

and recognizing its power as an aid to mission work, would have joined

it. He founded the famous monastery of S. Benigno di Fruttuaria in

Piedmont, and towards the end of the tenth century he went to France

with the venerable Abbot of Cluny; here he decided to build a

monastery to S. Benigne in Dijon, which he himself designed. But to

effect his design he had to send to Italy, his own country, for

"many people, men of letters, masters of divers arts, and others full

of science."[89] The chronicler goes on to say that Guillaume

displayed much wisdom in bringing these masters (_magistri

conducendo_) to superintend the work (_ipsum opus dictando_). These

two phrases are identical with those of Article 145 in the Edict of

Rotharis, and I think might be equivalent to a proof that the Italians

who built S. Benigne at Dijon were indeed of the Comacine Guild. The

chroniclers further tell us that the Abbot Guillaume was invited to

Normandy by Duke Richard II., to "found monasteries and erect

buildings." The very phrase implies his connection with, and command

of architects. He at first refused, because he had heard that the

Dukes of Normandy were barbarous and truculent, and more likely to

deface than to erect sacred temples; but afterwards he decided to go.

He stayed there twenty years, founding forty monasteries, and

restoring old ones, which were in those days chiefly built of wood.

"He had many of his Italian monks trained to continue the work he had

begun. These propagated such love and taste for art in those rude and

bold Normans, that stone buildings multiplied there, and when William

of Normandy conquered England, the style passed over with him." Hope,

whose judgment is unerring on all subjects connected with the Lombard

style, confirms this. He says[90] that some time before the style came

into England, Normandy had given remarkable models of a _tutto-sesto_

(round-arched) or Lombard style, and that the same precedence is

noticeable in the pointed or composite style. Indeed, the English owe

to the Normans the erection of many fine edifices of both kinds. Thus

some gave the name of Norman to the Gothic buildings and others gave

it to Lombard ones, and it was imagined that the pointed arch came

originally from Normandy. And yet Normandy was one of the stations of

pointed architecture in its pilgrimage towards us from the south. As

an illustration and convincing proof of this pedigree of Norman style

from the Lombard, we may give one of our oldest so-called Norman

churches, that of St. Bartholomew the Great at Smithfield, London. The

original nave has vanished, but the tribune remains, divested, it is

true, of the two great piers in front of the apse, which were removed

in 1410. The semi-circle of the apse has, however, been replaced in

the old style; and, with its pillared arches and ambulatory,

harmonizes well with the ancient part, now the nave, which is

perfectly Lombard. The ambulatories below, and the women's gallery,

such as we find in St. Agnes at Rome, and many Comacine churches, both

have a distinctly Italian origin. Even the stilted arches in the choir

only seem in their outline like magnified Lombard windows. The masonry

is the true Comacine style, great square-cut blocks of stone, smoothed

and fitted with exact precision; while the windows of the triforium

are clearly a four-light development of the two-light Lombard window,

divided by its small column; the very form of the column is identical,

though it lacks the sculpture. Probably the Italian artists were few,

and English assistants not yet trained. The clerestory was a reflex of

a later style, being added in 1410, to replace the so-called Norman

one, which no doubt had the usual round-arched windows with a column

in the centre. Indeed, I think it would be worth the while of

archæologists to find out whether the whole church were not originally

built by Italian architects, as Rahere, its founder, was in Rome on a

pilgrimage, when he fell very ill of fever, and vowed to build a

hospital if he recovered. He soon after had a vision of St.

Bartholomew, who instructed him to return to London, and build a

church in the suburbs of Smithfield. He founded both the church and

hospital of St. Bartholomew in about 1123. There seems to me to be

such a difference between this church and other more heavy Norman

contemporary buildings, that it might be suspected Rahere followed the

older example of St. Wilfrid and St. Benedict Biscop, and brought over

the Comacines with him.

[Illustration: SOUTH SIDE OF THE CHOIR, ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE GREAT,

SMITHFIELD.

(_From a photograph by Mr. Freeman Dovaston, Oswestry._)

_See page 124._]

I cannot agree with Mr. Fergusson in his assertion that the members of

the early Freemason guilds were only masons, and never designed the

works entrusted to them, but always worked under the guidance of some

superior person, whether he were a bishop or abbot, or an accomplished

layman. Certainly the architects who worked for the Longobards must

also have sometimes given the design, or what do the words _opus

dictando_ mean in the Edict of Rotharis? Surely Theodolinda could not

have been architect enough to draw the plan for Monza. Nor do I think

that the word _Magistro_ in the masonic or any other art guild,

applied to mere masons or underlings, but to those who were so far

masters of their craft as to direct others, and make a working plan

for them. The bishop or abbot, or educated layman, might have formed

his own idea about the style he wished his building to take, and have

made a sketch of it; but the practical working plan would have been

drawn by the Magister, who directed his workmen or _colligantes_ to

put it into execution.

It is true that many ecclesiastics were, like the monks of S.

Guillaume at Dijon and other Dominicans, members of the Masonic

guilds, and were accordingly versed in the science of architecture. In

that case the monk, when he became bishop or abbot, might furnish a

plan, and very often did so. Fra Sisto and Fra Ristori built Santa

Maria Novella in Florence; but they were connected with the Florentine

lodge, so their doing so would certainly be no proof that the Masters

of the guild could not have done equally well themselves.

That the oldest churches in Normandy have a great affinity to Lombard

buildings is evident on examination. See the Lombard-shaped windows in

the towers of St. Stephen's at Caen; the exterior of the circular apse

of St. Nicholas, Caen, which still keeps its original hexagonal form,

with pilasters like slight columns running from ground to roof at each

division, and a colonnade surrounding it of perfect Lombard

double-arched form, with a small pillar in the centre of each. (_See_

Fergusson's _Architecture_.)

The local Norman developments are equally well defined in this

building; the usual little Lombard gallery beneath the roof has given

way to large, deep, circular-headed windows, and the roof has taken

the high pitch natural to the climate. Both of these are climatic

distinctions; the northerner aiming at more light, the southerner

trying to shut out the sun: the damp climate, of course, necessitated

the sloping roof.

Now, before the Normans came back to Italy they had made Italian

architecture their own, and impressed on it their own character,

rugged and robust, and it was so different to the buildings in South

Italy with which they have been accredited, that I think this theory

will have to be revised. The arts were certainly not influenced in

Sicily by the first Norman invasion in 1058 under Roger I., son of

Tancred, he being entirely a bellicose and rough warrior. It was when

the Normans had taken root there, had become more softened, and had

formed a settled government; in fact, after Roger II. had been crowned

King of Apulia and Sicily in 1130, that they began to give their minds

to artistic architecture. This was a century and a half after Abbot

Guillaume took his countrymen over to build at Dijon. The first stone

of the Duomo of Cefalù was laid in 1131, and the royal palace of

Palermo begun during the next year. Under Roger's successors the fine

churches of Martorana, and the cathedral of Monreale in 1172, the

cathedral of Palermo (1185), and the palace of Cuba arose. An Italian

writer, La Lumia, is very enthusiastic over the Duomo of

Monreale--"that visigoth (_sic_) art which had in Normandy erected the

cathedrals of Rouen, Bayeux, etc., multiplied in Monreale the ogival

forms which had been known and practised in Sicily since the sixth

century,[91] and took its upward flight in towers and bold spires. In

the mosaics and decorations the majestic Arabic art espoused Byzantine

and Christian types. The varied and multiplex association has

impressed on these works an _impront_ both singular and stupendous.

The columns show the ruins of pagan classicism, the incredible

profusion of marbles, verd-antique, and porphyry speak of a rich and

florid political state; while the solemn mystery of those sublime

arcades, profound lines and symbolic forms; the dim religious light,

the ecstatic figures of prophets and saints with the gigantic Christ

over the altar offering benediction to men, all shadow forth the

mediæval idea of Christianity--full and ingenuous faith, vivified by

conquest."

Then he goes on grandiloquently to say--"The names of the builders are

unknown to us, and we need not trouble to seek them: a generation and

era is here with all its soul made visible, with all its vigorous and

fruitful activity."

But if we cannot find the names it would at least be interesting to

know whether the Norman-Siculo architecture were entirely the work of

the Normans or not. Gravina, Boitò, and other Italian writers think

that the Normans took a similar position in Sicily to that of the

earlier Longobards in the north, _i.e._ that they were the patrons,

and employed the artists whom they found in Sicily.

Merzario,[92] giving as his authority Michele Amari,[93] brings

forward as a suggestive fact, that precisely at the time of the Norman

occupation, there was a large emigration into Sicily of members of the

Lombard or Comacine Guild. Amari thinks that the feudal government of

the Normans at that time did not allow their subjects to emigrate from

land to land (excepting of course their armies for purposes of

conquest), while in North Italy feudalism was going out, and with the

establishment of republics the movement of the inhabitants was freer.

"This," he says, "accounts for the so-called colonies of Lombards,

which came to Sicily at that time, but of which, unfortunately, we

have no reliable historical evidence."

These Lombardo-Siculan colonies, however, have been clearly traced by

an Italian writer, Lionardo Vigo, in his _Monografia critica delle

colonie Lombardo sicule_.[94] He has proved that there were four

Lombard colonies in Sicily. That the first went down with Ardoin and

Mania, between 1002, when, on Otho's death, Ardoin was elected King of

Italy, and his retirement to S. Benigno in 1013 after his long

struggle with Henry II. The second was during the Norman conquest of

Sicily in 1061; the third later in the century, at the time of the

union of the Norman and Swabian dynasties; and the fourth about 1188

under the Emperor Frederic,--this colony was led by Addo di Camerana.

The first two colonies left no lasting traces in the island, but the

third founded the town of Maniace, and the last planted a settled

colony which has left its mark, not only in the language, but in the

many Lombard place-names. Thus there are in Sicily villages named

Carona, Gagliano, Novara, Palazzolo, Padernò, Piazza, Sala, and

Scopello, all of which are names of older places in the Comacine

territory. Another name, "Sanfratelli" (the holy brethren), is very

suggestive of the patron saints of the Lombard Guild, the "Quattro

Incoronati." It is in this district precisely that Signor Vigo finds a

special language, which has no affinity with Sicilian, or central

Italian, and which he describes as a "hybrid, bastard language; a

decayed Longobardic, only intelligible to those who use it; a

frightful jargon and perfectly satanic tongue."

In the same volume of the _Archivio Storico Siciliano_ is another

collection of documents, regarding an episode of the war between the

Latin and Catalonian factions at Palermo in the time of Ludovico of

Aragon, about 1349. It shows in a list of volunteers, several names of

_Magistri_ which seem to be familiar to us. Here is Magister Nicolao

Mancusio, Magister Guillelmo, Magister Nicolao de Meraviglia, Magister

Chicco, Magister Juliano Guzù, Magister Roberto de Juncta (Giunta),

Magister Vitalis, both from the Pisan lodge, Julianus Cuccio, Salvo di

Pietro, etc. We find that Benedictus de Siri, a Lombard, was paid for

twenty soldiers for ten days. Again on July 31, 1349, among the

payments made to those who fought to defend Vicari during the siege,

we find Magister Vanni di Bologna, Paulo de Boni, Magister Gaddi,

Magister Benedicto de Lencio (Lenzo near Como), and Johanni de

Gentile, and various others, all mixed up with ordinary folks who have

no magic _Master_ before their names. This seems to imply that the

Lombard colony at that time had been long enough in Sicily to be

nationalized, and that they furnished men for the war like any other

citizens.

In some cases the payments are made to the heirs of Magister Johanne

or Vitale, thus proving them to have become possessed of property.

This was a privilege accorded to the Comacine Masters even in feudal

times, when other classes were bound and enslaved. From the example of

Magister Rodpert, the Longobard who sold his land at Toscanella many

centuries before, we judge that when the Comacine remained long in a

place, he made use of his earnings to buy land. Indeed in those days

when no banks existed, landed property was the only secure disposition

for wealth. And having bought his house and vineyards, it was but

natural that he should name the estate after his own native place in

Lombardy.

It is gratifying to find these direct proofs of the constant presence

of the Lombard Masters in Sicily during the whole Norman and Swabian

dynasties. It accounts for so much. It accounts for the so-called

Norman architecture in Sicily having so much more affinity to Italian

forms than to French-Norman; and it accounts for the Saracenic cast

which Lombard architecture took after that era. The influence was a

lasting one, and showed itself in all the subsequent work of the

guild, during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Was this influence imbibed by the Normans who are said to have caused

it? Evidently not.

Was Norman architecture proper, in the north of Europe, immediately

changed? Not at all. It remained the same through all the Norman rule

from Robert Guiscard to the fall of the line. It was not till the

thirteenth century that the elegant pointed Gothic found its way into

England--but not through Normandy--and took the place of the solid

round-arched, short-pillared buildings introduced by William the

Conqueror. We have seen that this round-arched style was first taught

the Normans by the Italian builders whom the Abbot Guillaume brought

northward with him.

But the Lombard influence in France was not confined to Normandy nor

to Aix-la-Chapelle. Hope, the English authority on Lombard

architecture, who spent eight years studying European churches, finds

many a sign of Lombard handiwork on French soil. At Tournus is an

abbey church of extremely interesting Lombard form. Fergusson[95] thus

describes it--"Its antiquity is manifested by the rudeness both of its

design and execution. The nave is separated from the aisles by plain

cylindrical columns without bases, the capitals of which are joined by

circular arches at the height of the vaults of the aisle. From the

capitals rise dwarf columns supporting arches thrown across the nave.

From one of these arches to another is thrown a tunnel vault which

runs the cross way of the building, being in fact a series of arches

like those of a bridge extending the whole length of the nave." Here

we have, I believe, the first step towards the vaulted roof of the

later Gothic buildings. The church of Ainay at Lyons, is said by

Fergusson to be very similar to this.

Then there is the cathedral of Avignon in Provence, with its octagonal

cupola, and its porch of Charlemagne's era in Romano-Lombard style. It

is not unlikely that the earliest Provençal churches were built by

Italian architects, for Avignon was closely connected with the Papacy

at that time, and the Popes as we know were the especial patrons of

the Masonic guild.

In the church of S. Trophime at Arles we have distinct signs of the

Comacines, in the lion-supported columns of the central porch, and the

frieze of sculpture above. There are three richly-sculptured porches;

the central door is divided in two like a Lombard window, by a slight

column which rests on kneeling figures, and has angels carved in the

capital. The richly ornate architrave has lions on each side of it.

The church at Cruas in Provence has three apses with Lombard archlets

round them all. Its dome is surrounded by a colonnade, and a

superimposed round turret with Lombard windows. The tower has the

usual double-arched windows.

Provence shows some beautiful specimens of Italian cloisters, at Aix,

at Arles, and at Fontifroide. The latter has a row of arches supported

by double columns of elegant slightness, and with foliaged capitals of

varied form and great freedom of design. Fergusson says that the

freedom and boldness are unrivalled. The cloister at Elne is still

more varied and unique; the capitals mix up Egyptian, classic, and

mediæval art in a manner truly unique.

As for towers, those left in Provence show a distinctly Lombard style.

The tower at Puissalicon near Beziers is perfect in every particular,

with its pillared Lombard windows increasing in width and lightness as

they ascend.

From Provence, the land of the Popes, the Comacines penetrated further

into France. The church of S. Croix at Bordeaux, attributed to William

the Good, Duke of Aquitaine, who died in 877, has its round-arched

porch, decorated with a profusion of Comacine _intrecci_ of

intertwined vines; and spiral pilasters grouped at the angles. Hope

quotes the façade of the cathedral of San Pietro at Angoulême, as the

finest Lombard one existing. There are numerous files of round arches,

on elegant little columns, statues in niches, rich bas-reliefs,

friezes, and arabesques. The nave is divided into three portions, each

with a cupola. In this we see another step forward towards the vaulted

roof. At Tournus the arches are simply thrown across the three

divisions of the nave; here they are arched into the shape of a dome.

The tower is entirely Lombard in form. There are Lombard churches at

Poictiers, Puy, Auxerre, Caen, Poissy, Compiègne, etc., in all of

which the style is perfectly distinct from the Norman, as it was then

developed; and also from the later Gothic.

FOOTNOTES:

[89] "Coeperunt ex sua patria, hoc est Italia, multi ad eum convenire.

Aliqui lyteris bene eruditi: aliqui diversorum operum magisterio

edocti: alii scientia præditi; quorum ars et ingenium huic loco

profuit plurimum."--Chron. S. Benigni Divion, quoted by D'Archery in

_Spicilegio_, vol. ii. p. 384.

[90] Thomas Hope, _Storia dell' Architettura_, ch. xxxviii. p. 263.

[91] The Saracens invaded Sicily in 832; the author must mean the

ninth century.

[92] _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. iii. p. 121.

[93] _Storia dei Mussulmani di Sicilia_, Vol. III. chap. i. p. 222,

_et seq._

[94] See _Archivio Storico Siciliano_, Nuova serie. Anno ix. 1884.

[95] Fergusson, _Handbook of Architecture_, p. 652.

CHAPTER II

THE GERMAN LINK

The heading of this chapter implies nothing that can impugn the claims

of the Teutons to the perfecting of the Gothic style, which claims are

undoubtedly fair. It only implies that the pointed Gothic architecture

was not an invention of the Germans, so much as a national development

of some earlier form; and, like all developments, must have had some

link connecting it with that earlier source. Was the Comacine Guild

that link? Legends and traditions pointing to it are many, but, as

usual, absolute proofs are few. Some proofs might be found if, with a

clue in one's hand, search could be made among the archives of the

German cities in which round-arched Lombard-style churches were built

before the pointed Gothic and composite style came in. Some German

_savant_ should sift out certain traditions, which, from want of

authorities and unfamiliarity with the language, I am not able to do.

These are--

Firstly: That St. Boniface came to Italy before proceeding on his

mission to Germany in A.D. 715, and that Pope Gregory II. gave him his

credentials, instructions, etc., and sent with him a large following

of monks, versed in the art of building, and of lay brethren who were

also architects, to assist them.[96] This is the precise method in

which St. Augustine and St. Benedict Biscop were equipped and sent to

their missions in England, and S. Guillaume to his bishopric in

Normandy. What resulted in England from the missions of St. Augustine,

St. Wilfrid, and St. Benedict? The cathedral of Canterbury, the abbeys

of Hexham, Lindisfarne and others--all distinctly Lombard buildings.

What did S. Guillaume do in Normandy? He built the churches of Caen,

Dijon, etc., also in pure Lombard style, not in the heavier Norman by

which the natives followed it. So in Germany we hear that among the

bishoprics founded by St. Boniface were Cologne, Worms, and

Spires,[97] precisely the cities which have remains of the earliest

churches in Lombard style. There are many other German churches, now

fine Gothic buildings, whose crypts and portals show remains of older

round-arched buildings.

Secondly: It is necessary to discover the precise connection of the

Emperors Charlemagne, Otho, and the German monarchs who successively

ruled in Lombardy, with the Masonic guild there. Whether, as they

employed them in the Italian part of their kingdom, they did not also

employ them across the Alps.

Thirdly: To find out whether, when Albertus Magnus went back to

Cologne from Padua, he had not become a _Magister_ in the Masonic

guild, as many monks were, and whether he propagated the tenets of the

brotherhood in Germany.

Certain proof exists that he designed the choir of the cathedral

there, if nothing more. He also wrote a book entitled _Liber

Constructionum Alberti_, which afterwards became the handbook for

Gothic work. It is probable that this was in great part borrowed from

an earlier Italian work on the construction of churches, named

_L' Arcano Magistero_. This, however, was a secret book of the guild,

and was kept most strictly in the hands of the _Magistri_ themselves.

Kügler relates that in 1090 a citizen of Utrecht killed a bishop, who

had taken _L' Arcano Magistero_ away from his son who was an architect.

I am strongly of opinion that Albertus Magnus was much connected with

the importation of Freemasons into Germany.

Fourthly: To discover whether in the cities where great buildings went

on for many years, there remains any trace of the same threefold

Masonic organization, which we find in the Italian cathedral-building

towns; and whether the administration thereof was jointly managed by

the _Magistri_ or head architects, and the patrons or civic

authorities of the city in which the buildings were carried on.

All these things can only be verified, in case the works of

contemporary chroniclers still exist, or if there remain any traces of

archives of so early a date.

As far as style in building goes to prove anything, the Lombards

certainly preceded the native Gothic architects in Germany. Hope

enumerates several churches, such as those at Spires, Worms, Zurich,

and several old ones at Cologne, built before or about the

Carlovingian era, which have every sign of Lombard influence.

The Gross Münster of Zurich was begun in 966 as a thank-offering of

the Emperor Otho for his victories in Italy, and its plan, arches,

windows, towers (excepting only the climatic addition of the pointed

roofs) are all in Lombard style. The cloister adjoining it is very

Italian, with its double columns and its sculptured capitals. Now, as

Otho granted a special charter to the Masonic guild of Lombardy, it is

natural to suppose that when he wanted a church built, he would employ

this valuable class of his new subjects. At Basle we have a distinct

sign of the Comacine Masters in the _intrecci_ and other symbols

sculptured round the _Gallus-pforte_ of the cathedral, while in the

crypt are two carved lions which were once beneath the columns of the

door. They were removed in the restoration of the cathedral, after the

earthquake of 1356. These lions are precisely the counterparts of

those in the doorways of Modena and Verona. But it is at Cologne, the

city of Albertus Magnus, that the Lombard style is unmistakable. Can

one look at the three apses of the churches of the Apostles and of St.

Martin, with the round arches encircling them, and little pillared

galleries above, or at the double-arched windows in the towers,

without at once recalling the Romanesque churches of Lucca, Arezzo,

and Pisa, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries?[98]

Santa Maria del Campidoglio at Cologne, which was founded by

Plectrude, wife of Pepin, has the same Lombard galleries running round

the apses, and Cunibert's church in its western door shows not only

pure Comacine sculpture, but the characteristic lion of Judah between

the column and the arch. S. Andrea and S. Pantaleone, both founded in

954 by Bishop Bruno, brother of Otho the Great, were in the same

style. This group of buildings all in one city, and all founded under

the Emperors who ruled in Italy, surely suggest that when Charlemagne

took over the builders for Aix-la-Chapelle, they as usual left their

school and _laborerium_ there, and that Otho and his successors in

their turn had not far to go for architects.

[Illustration: PALAZZO DEL POPOLO AND PALAZZO COMUNALE, TODI.

_See pages 137 and 257._]

If their churches are not enough, the civil architecture of that epoch

also affords proof of Lombard influence in Germany. Compare the

windows and style of the ancient dwelling-house at Cologne which

Fergusson illustrates, p. 590, with those of any Lombard building

whatsoever, from the Palace of King Desiderius in the eighth century

to the Bargello of Florence in the thirteenth, and you will find them

identical. The only German innovation is in the high gabled roof.

Again, compare St. Elizabeth's home, the Castle on the Wartburg,

with the ancient Communal Palace at Todi, or at Perugia, or other

Lombard building of the twelfth century, and its genesis will at once

be seen.[99]

Ferd. Pitou, author of the fine monograph on the Cathedral of

Strasburg, confirms the presence of Italian builders in Germany, not

only in the time of the Carlovingians and the line of Otho, but also

in the later times of the Swabian dynasty. He says, when speaking of

the works at Strasburg, that "colonies of artisans, chiefly sent from

Lombardy and other parts, where church-building was prevalent,

accompanied the monks and ecclesiastics who directed the work. These

spiritual leaders, however, had all the glory of the buildings up to

about the end of the twelfth century, when ogival architecture arose.

These Lombard colonies pushed on beyond the Rhine, to the Elbe, the

Oder, and the Vistula, and even penetrated to the forests and lands of

Sarmatia and Scythia."

There seems little doubt that the German lodges founded by the

Comacine emigrations took root, and became in time entirely national.

Traditions are many, and most of them point back to Italy. For

instance, legend says a brotherhood of stone-carvers existed in Spires

and Bamberg from the time when those cathedrals were begun. Others say

that Albertus Magnus on his return from Padua formed the first Masonic

association in Germany, making special laws and obtaining especial

privileges for the immense number of builders he collected to put into

execution his cathedral at Cologne.[100] Again, L' Abbé de Grandidier,

writing to a lady in November 1778, tells her that he has discovered

an ancient document three centuries old, which shows that the

much-boasted society of the Freemasons is nothing but a servile

imitation of an ancient and humble confraternity of real builders

whose seat was anciently in Strasburg. Hope, however, says that the

Strasburg lodge, which was the earliest acknowledged German one, was

first recognized by a legal act executed at Ratisbon in 1458, and that

the Emperor Maximilian ratified and confirmed the act by a diploma

given at Strasburg in 1498.

My theory is this, that in their early emigrations the Comacine

Masters founded the usual lodges; that the Germans entered their

schools and became masters in their turn; that in the end the German

interest outweighed the foreign element in the brotherhood, and the

Germans, wishing to nationalize an art which they had so greatly

developed, split off from the universal Masonic Association, as the

Sienese builders did in Siena in the fourteenth century, and formed a

distinct national branch: that this decisive break probably took place

at Strasburg, and that other lodges followed suit and nationalized

themselves in their turn. No doubt some German searcher into archives

may arise, who will do for Cologne and Strasburg what Milanesi has

done for Siena, and Cesare Guasti for Florence, and so throw light on

the complicated organization of patrons, architects, builders, and

sculptors which banded together under one rule, to build the multiplex

and grand old cathedrals.

FOOTNOTES:

[96] See the Letters of Pope Gregory II., and Life of St. Boniface.

[97] Milman, _Latin Christianity_, Vol. II. chap. v. p. 302, Book IV.

[98] See illustrations in Fergusson, pp. 578, 579.

[99] See illustrations in Fergusson's _Handbook of Architecture_, pp.

589, 590.

[100] Merzario, _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. x. p. 282.

CHAPTER III

THE ORIGIN OF SAXON ARCHITECTURE (A SUGGESTION)

BY THE REV. W. MILES BARNES[101]

Wherever the Romans planted colonies, there they established

_Collegia_; without its colleges Roman society was incomplete; the

_Collegium_ was an element essential to Roman life.

The _Collegium_ was a corporation or guild of persons associated in

support of a common object; there were colleges of artists, of

architects, builders, and artisans, as well as colleges associated

with the administration and government, with religion and law.

The _Collegium_ consisted of _Collegæ_ or _sodales_ (fellows, as we

should term them), with a president who was styled "_Magister_"; the

_Collegium_ was recognized by the State, which confirmed the

regulations made by the members for the government of their body,

provided they were in conformity with the laws of the land. There is

evidence that Roman _Collegia_ were established in Britain shortly

after its conquest by the Romans, and there was certainly a _Collegium

fabrorum_ in Britain in the reign of Claudius, the first Roman emperor

to whom the island was subject. Under the direction of the Roman

college, the Britons as builders reached a high degree of excellence

in their craft, "so that when the cities of the empire of Gaul and the

fortresses on the Rhine were destroyed, Constantius Chlorus, A.D. 298,

sent to Britain for and employed British architects in repairing and

re-edifying them" (_Archæologia_, vol. ix. p. 100).

Mr. Coote affirms that _Collegia_ existed here after the final

departure of the Romans from the island, and that the Saxons found

them here, and did not interfere with them. Now if _Collegia

fabrorum_, which certainly existed in Britain throughout the Roman

occupation, were still in existence during the Saxon occupation, it

needs explanation why the earliest missionaries to the Saxons had to

bring or to send abroad for workmen to build churches.

On the Continent the barbarians who overran Italy dreaded the

influence of the _Collegia_, and vigorously suppressed them,

prohibiting them everywhere under the hardest penalties; under such

circumstances we can understand that the societies in Rome could

scarcely escape observation, and we shall be prepared to hear that the

college of architects and builders in that city removed from thence

and took refuge elsewhere. According to tradition they settled at or

near Comum, where in mediæval times, under the title of Comacine

Masters, they gained fame as architects, and their services were in

much request throughout the Continent and beyond it. Had the

barbarians, however, treated the Roman colleges with the same

indifference as the Saxons are reputed to have shown towards them in

England, all guilds of artists and artisans must, for a time at least,

have ceased to exist, or have removed from Rome, where there was no

longer any appreciation of art, or demand for their services.

It is true there is no documentary evidence to prove the continuous

existence of the _Collegia_ from Roman to mediæval times, or to show

that the Roman college, which removed to Comum, was identical with the

Comacine Guild which emerged from the darkness which shrouds the

history of those early times;--there is, however, such evidence as can

be derived from the similarity of the institutions, in their aims and

constitutions. In the latter institution even the title of _Magister_

was retained, though the use of the term was no longer limited to the

president of the body, every competent and fully instructed member of

the society was admitted to the order of _Magistri_,[102]--possibly

because these members formed the governing body--and the president

became a Grand Master. The members generally were called _Liberi

muratori_--Freemasons--because they were not subject to the sumptuary

and other laws which regulated the work and pay of ordinary

workmen.[103]

Comum, which possessed all the privileges of a Roman _municipium_,

stood at the head of Lacus Larii--the Lake of Como--on the northern

shores of which, from Como to the island of Comacina, P. Strabo and C.

Scipio settled Greek colonies, which Julius Cæsar added to and

consolidated. The names of villages on these shores of the lake are

still some guide to its extent and limits. Comum was made the chief

seat of the colony.

After the fall of the Empire, this Romano-Greek colony seems to have

withstood the attacks of the barbarians, and preserved its

independence for a long time. At the time of the invasion of Italy by

the Longobards, the whole of the northern end of the lake was in the

hands of the imperial (Byzantine) party, and it was not until the year

586 that the island of Comacina fell into the hands of the Longobard

King Autharis, though the lake and country northwards of the island

seem to have still continued under imperial rule. The country around

Comum, therefore, remained in comparative quiet, and if much progress

in art was not possible, there at least it did not become altogether

degenerate.

The Greek influence was evidently strong in the colony. Even the

bishop in the latter end of the fifth century was a Greek, for S.

Abbondio, who died Bishop of Comum in 489, had previously held the

bishopric of Thessalonica; possibly other bishops of that diocese were

of the same nationality: it would be surprising if the Roman

architectural college, which took refuge there, had been altogether

unaffected by it, particularly as the Romans derived their knowledge

of architecture as well as of art from the Greeks, and Greek

architecture was at all times treated by the great Roman architects

with respect, as we learn from Vitruvius; besides, with the fall of

the Empire, all progress in Roman art had ceased, and Byzantium was

the quarter to which men looked for instruction in Christian and

secular art.[104] It could only be that the work of a Roman society of

architects in the midst of a Greek colony would show marked traces of

Byzantine influence, and none the less because in all probability

there were Byzantine societies of a similar kind beside it.

Müller says, after the fall of Rome, Constantinople was regarded as

the centre of mechanical and artistic skill, and a knowledge of art

radiated from it to distant countries.[105]

Let us turn our attention now to Britain. The Italian chroniclists

relate that Pope Gregory in A.D. 598 sent over the monk Augustine to

convert the British, and with him several of the fraternity of _Liberi

muratori_ (Freemasons), so that the converts might speedily be

provided with churches, oratories, and monasteries; also that

Augustine, in 604, despatched the priest Lorenzo and the monk Pietro

back to Rome with a letter to Pope Gregory, begging him to send more

architects and workmen, which he did.[106] We shall presently see,

that although Bede does not say in so many words that Augustine was

accompanied by architects and builders, yet that is the only inference

which can be drawn from his words, and from Pope Gregory's

instructions to Mellitus.

It was a common practice in mediæval times for missionaries, whether

bishops or monks, to have in their train builders and stone-cutters,

and they themselves were often skilful architects. St. Hugh of Lincoln

was not the only bishop who could plan a church, instruct the workmen,

and handle a hod.[107]

Even female saints appear to have included in their retinue, persons

who were capable of building churches, though the followers of St.

Modwen,[108] who, on landing in England from Ireland about A.D. 500,

left her attendants to erect a church at Streneshalen, near the

Arderne forest, while she went to visit the king, may have been only

capable of building in wattle-work or in wood, "of hewn oak covered

with reed," "after the manner of the Scots." Bede (iii. 25) describes

the church of Lindisfarne as "a church of stone," that material not

being usual amongst the Britons (iii. 4); still it is one instance

among many, of the prevalence of the custom for missionaries, whether

priests, monks, or nuns, to take in their train on their missionary

journeys workmen experienced in building, and to employ them where

necessary to build churches for their converts.

Professor Merzario states, on the authority of ancient MSS., that the

architects and builders sent were _Liberi muratori_. Now, the members

of the Comacine Society were known and are described in ancient MSS.

under that title; besides, what other guild would Gregory be likely to

invite to send members to join the mission?--were there indeed any

other building guilds existing at the time, except the Byzantine

societies. It is certainly not probable that Gregory would have

invited Greek _etairia_ to send members with the Roman mission, to

build churches "after the Roman manner," which is what the first

builders in Saxon England did, and in preference to builders belonging

to a society which was of Roman origin, and held all the traditions of

the Roman school of architecture.

But without the record of the Italian chroniclists it would have been

clear to any careful reader that architects accompanied Augustine, and

other early as well as the late missionaries to England. The first

evidence will be found in Bede (i. 26), where it is stated that after

King Ethelbert had been converted to the faith, the missioners built

churches and repaired old Romano-British churches in places whither

they came, for their converts to worship in.

And again (i. 30), Gregory instructs Mellitus not to destroy the idol

temples, but if well built to cleanse them and put altars in them, and

convert them into churches. Gregory states that he decided on this

course after mature deliberation; which shows that Gregory knew that

many of the old Roman temples were still in use, and that Mellitus had

with him architects who were qualified to carry out the necessary

repairs to them.

[Illustration: FIESOLE CATHEDRAL INTERIOR.

_To face page 145._]

Again, in 601, Pope Gregory sent Paulinus and others to assist

Augustine in his work, and by them he sent sacred vessels, ornaments

for the church, and vestments. Now experienced architects and builders

to build churches for the converts were as necessary as the ornaments

wherewith to furnish them, and it is fair to conclude that this

essential had not been overlooked, and that there were with those who

brought the ornaments, men competent to erect the churches to place

them in. Indeed it seems possible that Paulinus himself may have

graduated in the Comacine school of architecture; it is a curious fact

that he is spoken of under the title of _Magister_,[109] the title

given to fully-instructed members of that order, and we know that many

monks were amongst the enrolled members of the Comacine body.

The strongest evidence, of course, would be the evidence of his work

as a builder; unfortunately very little of that remains--though the

little we know about it is consistent with the fact that either he was

of that order, or he had Comacine Masters with him. The Whalley cross

which is attributed to him is ornamented with that peculiar convoluted

ornament which is found in early Comacine work; and he was certainly a

great builder of churches, of the precise type which the Comacines

would have built at that time. Bede relates that he built in Lincoln a

stone church of beautiful workmanship, in which he consecrated

Honorius, Bishop of Canterbury, in the place of Justus. The "beautiful

workmanship" implies an experienced architect. Bede who thus describes

it was a competent witness, and in all probability he knew the church,

which was in his time roofless. Again, King Edwin under the direction

of Paulinus built a "large and noble church of stone" at York (ii.

14). At this time the Comacine builders had not begun to build in the

style which was afterwards known as the Lombard or Romanesque style,

and of which indeed they were the authors, and this church seems to

have been an Italian Basilican church with an atrium at the west end

as was customary in churches of the period; this particular atrium

being built round the little wooden oratory which Edwin had put up

when under the instruction of the bishop, before his baptism, the

oratory being in the midst of the open court.

The Basilican church of the period has been so often described that it

will not be necessary to give a detailed description of it. It

generally consisted of a nave, with two aisles separated from the nave

by arcades; at one end (sometimes at both) the building terminated in

an apse, of which the floor was raised; this raised floor in later

times projected into the nave and was protected by a railing.[110] The

altar was in the centre of the string of the arc of the apse, and

round the arc were seats for the clergy, the bishop's throne being in

the centre, in the place which would be occupied in a Roman heathen

Basilica by the presiding magistrate. Beneath the raised floor of the

apse was the _confessio_ or crypt, in which the body or relics of the

saint to whom the church was dedicated were deposited. Plans of

several Saxon crypts still remaining in England will be found in Mr.

Micklethwaite's valuable paper in the _Archæological Journal_, New

Series, vol. iii. No. 4.

At a little later period a further change was made; on the floor of

the nave from the chancel westward a space was divided off by a low

screen, in each side of which was a _bema_ or pulpit; from which the

Gospel and Epistle were read, and the services sung by the Canonical

singers.[111] A very complete screen of a little earlier date than St.

Augustine may still be seen in the church of San Clemente, Rome; the

ancient church from which it was removed is underneath the present

church; westward of the church was the atrium, an open court

surrounded by a colonnade; the atrium seems to have been used in some

British churches for the canons, who had cells round it.

[Illustration: S. CLEMENTE, ROME. INTERIOR SHOWING ANCIENT SCREEN.

_To face page 146._]

St. Cadoc early in the sixth century built a church in Lancarvan

monastery, which monastery he rebuilt; each of the thirty-six canons

had a residence _in atrio_,[112] the residence being probably a cell

with a door opening into the atrium, such as may still be observed in

some old monastic cloisters on the Continent. There is evidence of an

atrium at the west end of Brixworth church, and the construction of

the basements of the towers at St. Mary, Deerhurst, at Monkswearmouth,

and Barton-on-Humber, seems to show that there was a similar

construction at the west end of those churches.

The church of S. Ambrogio, Milan, possesses an atrium built by the

Comacines, but it is of much later date, and would therefore afford a

general idea of an early Saxon church atrium only in plan.

Though we have little ornament of the early Saxon period, and that

little is mainly limited to the ornamentation on early Christian

crosses and fonts, it is clearly of the same character as Comacine

work. The convoluted ornament on Paulinus' cross at Whalley has been

noticed; similar work may be seen on the Kirkdale cross, Bewcastle and

Ruthwell crosses, Crowle and Yarm crosses, and others in England and

Ireland. On the Bewcastle and Ruthwell crosses there are stiff flower

convolutions with birds and beasts on the branches. Collingham cross

has interlacing monsters, and on others are panels sculptured in

representation of Scripture subjects and characters. Some of these

crosses are decorated with another and very mark-worthy ornament,

consisting of bands of interlaced work. These bands are sometimes of a

single strand, but more frequently of three strands. An interlaced

ornament of this kind was found on the Corinthian base of a column in

the church of S. Prassede in Rome. On comparing these interlaced

patterns and convolutions with the carving on the ambo in the Basilica

of S. Ambrogio, Milan, which is Comacine work, it will be seen how

nearly they correspond; whilst the ornaments and sculptured figures in

the façade and round the portals of the doors of S. Michele, Pavia, an

early Lombard church of the eighth century, show treatment similar to

Saxon work. It appears to me possible that this façade has been

rebuilt presumably about the twelfth century, but there can be little

doubt that the carvings as well as a considerable portion of the

church itself are of the earlier date.[113]

All the crosses above-mentioned bear Runic inscriptions upon them, but

on examination it will be seen that these inscriptions are generally

by another hand, and of ruder workmanship than the carving of the

crosses. Sometimes they are little more than scratches, and in one,

namely, the Yarm cross, a panel was evidently left by the carver for

the inscription, which was afterwards cut upon it, but being too

small, the last two lines had to be compressed to be got into the

space. In the Kirkdale and Lancaster crosses, the runes are certainly

inferior in workmanship, and they seem to have been an afterthought.

The borders on which they are cut do not appear as if they were

originally intended to bear them.

The date of the fragment of the Yarm cross is fixed by the

inscription, if it has been correctly read, being dedicated to Bishop

Trumberht, Bishop of Hexham, who lived towards the close of the

seventh century.

The ornament on Saxon fonts, not being so well known, would require

illustrations beyond the scope of this article, to render remarks

upon them intelligible. One instance may, however, be given of the

similarity of ornament in early Italian and Saxon carving. Both the

Saxon font in Toller Fratrum church, Dorset, and the well-head (of the

eighth century) at the office of the Ministry of Agriculture, Rome,

are decorated with precisely similar patterns. Interlacing bands in

three strands, bordered by a cable moulding, encircle the top of each.

Similar ornament will be found in Saxon MSS. of the eighth century in

the British Museum Library, as in _Evangelia Sacra Nero_, d. 4.

Besides the ornament on the ancient crosses and fonts, which clearly

belongs to the Saxon period, there are in our churches fragments of

ornament which in all probability are of that era.

The angel carved in stone, built into the north wall of Steepleton

church, near Dorchester, may have formed part of the tympanum of the

doorway of the Saxon church. Floating angels with their robes and legs

bent upward from the knee, precisely similar in treatment to the

Steepleton angel, may be seen in illuminations in Saxon MSS. in the

British Museum. I have examined them, but have mislaid my references

to the press-marks. And in the Museum of the Bargello at Florence is a

small antique carving of Christ in Glory (a _vesica piscis_ enclosing

the whole figure), and angels of this form and attitude surrounding it

with curiously drawn symbols of the four evangelists. The angels in

the east wall of Bradford-on-Avon church are of a similar character.

This seems to be an instance of Byzantine ornament adopted by the

Italian builders. The convoluted and basket-work ornament may also

have been derived from the same source.

The stiff foliage and _intrecciatura_ on Barnack church tower are rude

imitations of Comacine work.

Wherever the Comacines established themselves they founded lodges; to

each lodge a _schola_ and a _laborerium_ were attached, where the

members received instruction and training in the several branches of

their craft. The Comacines who settled with Augustine in the royal

city of Canterbury, must have established according to their custom a

lodge and a _schola_ in that city, for there Wilfrid some seventy

years later sent for architects and builders (_cœmentarii_) to

renew the Cathedral Church of York which had been built by Paulinus,

but possibly through increase of population was now inadequate. The

plan of the ancient church has been traced; it was Basilican in form,

with aisles and an apse.[114]

Wilfrid, Bishop of York for forty-three years, was, while still a

young man, sent to Rome as a companion to Biscop, a Saxon thane who

was afterwards Abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow. There, says Bede, he

spent some months in the study of ecclesiastical matters. On his way

home he remained in Gaul for three years. When he returned to Britain

at the expiration of that time, King Alfred gave him land and the

monastery of Ripon where he built a spacious church, which excited

universal astonishment and admiration; though not so large as the

church he afterwards built at Hexham, it was a noble building. The

apse with its altar was at the west end, and underneath the apse was a

_confessio_, which with its passages still exists. The round-headed

arches within the church were supported by lofty columns of polished

stone.

But beautiful as this church was, that at Hexham exceeded it. Eddius

Stephanus, precentor of York, the biographer of Wilfrid, and Richard

of Hexham, give enthusiastic descriptions of it which accord exactly

with what we know the Comacine church of the period to have been.[115]

From them we learn that St. Andrews, Hexham, built by Wilfrid, was a

Basilican church, and in one respect at least it was similar to Ripon;

the apse was at the west end, and beneath it was a crypt with passages

around it; the crypt with its passages is still to be seen. The

proportions of the church were however nobler and the details richer.

The walls were covered with square stones of divers colours and

polished; the columns were also of polished stone; the capitals of the

columns, arches, and vault of apse, and space over the apse-arch were

decorated with sculptures and histories (_i.e._ with paintings

representing sacred scenes) all very splendid and very beautiful,

according to Eddius.

As regards the sculptures, the examples we have of Saxon sculptures

show them to have been generally vigorous, and often grotesque. A

writer in _Archæologia_, vol. viii. p. 174, states that in the vaults

of Hexham there were at the time he wrote many Roman inscriptions and

grotesque carvings. The capitals of columns in Saxon as well as in

later times not infrequently bore grotesque ornament for decoration,

and it was commonly used for other purposes; not even coffins were

exempt from decorations of this nature. Reginaldus de Coldingham (de

virtutibus S. Cuthberti) describes the double coffin of St. Cuthbert,

the inner one being of black oak elaborately carved, the subject of

one of the carvings being a monk turned into a fox for stealing new

cheese.

As regards their paintings, the Comacines were rather given to

colour--it was in one of their churches, that of S. Maria del Tiglio,

built by Theodolinda, wife of King Autharis, that the Emperor Lothaire

beheld a brilliantly painted picture which adorned the vault of the

apse and represented "The three kings presenting gifts to the Child

Jesus." The picture moved the king to undertake the restoration of the

church.

The Comacines also used frescoes in Theodolinda's palace at Monza in

the fifth and sixth centuries.

From the foregoing description of Hexham church by Eddius Stephanus,

it would appear that there were galleries over the aisles to which

access was gained by spiral stairways in the wall. Similar galleries

and spiral stairway still exist in the church of S. Agnese in Rome. In

this church between the nave and the aisles there is a double arcade

of open arches one above the other; the higher arcade on each side

forms the front of the galleries--above these is a clerestory. The

church of S. Lorenzo at Verona, also a Comacine church, contains a

spiral stairway in the wall which led to the different divisions in

the women's gallery for the widows, matrons, and girls. So far I have

not heard of any ancient spiral stairways as still existing in any

other than in these Comacine churches.[116]

[Illustration: TOWER OF S. APOLLINARE NUOVO, RAVENNA.

_To face page 153._]

These galleries and arcades may be regarded as the original of the

triforium.

Eddius relates that there were also bell-towers at Hexham of

surprising height, and this suggests reflections. Hexham was built

about A.D. 674, early in the Saxon period, and these tall towers were

built wholly at that time. What were they like? The early Comacine

towers were built in several stages; the lowest generally had either

no windows or slits; the next stage above had single-light windows,

plain round-headed and straight-sided, as if cut out of the wall; in

the stages above the windows were of two or three lights divided by

colonnettes, the larger number of lights being in the windows of the

upper stages; in each stage there were commonly four windows, one

opening to each quarter of the compass. Wolstan's description of the

tower of Winchester answers very nearly to this. He says it consisted

of five storeys; in each were four windows looking towards the four

cardinal points, which were illuminated every night.

As examples of early Latin towers, the round towers of S. Apollinare

nuovo, and S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna, and perhaps the square

tower of S. Giovanni Evangelista, may be given. Take any one of them,

that of S. Apollinare nuovo, for instance. Cut off the upper stages by

holding the hand above the eyes, and regard only the lower stages with

the single-light windows, and you have a structure which might be

Roman. It looks very much older than the complete tower; and it is

the same with well-known Saxon towers in England, so that some persons

have been misled into thinking that the lowest stages with

straight-cut single-light windows are much older than the upper

portion with double or treble-light windows--which does not at all

follow, at least not from that fact, for they might be of the same

date;--and they have argued that these lower stages both in Italy and

England are older than the upper ones, notwithstanding the

improbability that the old builders would place a heavy tower on walls

originally intended to carry only a light roof.

The Saxon towers have clearly a Latin or Comacine origin. The walls

are usually of stone grouted in the old Roman manner; and when Lombard

windows, of two or more lights, with a column dividing them, are used,

they are, as a rule, in the upper and not in the lower stages.

Unfortunately we have no towers of the earliest Saxon period still

standing; but the resemblance between the later Saxon and the early

Italian towers is apparent. The same may be said of the later Comacine

towers, S. Satyrus, Milan, for instance (_see_ plate), which Cattaneo

assigns to the ninth century, and regards as the prototype of Lombard

towers; take away the little pensile arch ornament, which was

characteristic of the Comacine style known as Lombard, and you have a

tower which might be Saxon.

Whilst Wilfrid was engaged in building Hexham, his friend and

companion in travel, Biscop, was building the monastery and monastic

church of Wearmouth. Biscop was a Saxon thane of Northumberland; he

became a monk of the monastery of S. Lerino, and, according to Henry

of Huntingdon, on his return from Rome, King Egfrid gave him sixty

hides of land, on which he built the monastery of Wearmouth. Eight

years later, the king granted him more land at Jarrow, upon which he

built a monastery and church. The former was dedicated to St. Peter,

the latter to St. Paul.

[Illustration: TOWER OF S. SATYRUS, MILAN.

_To face page 154._]

On obtaining possession of the lands at Wearmouth, Biscop, according

to Bede,[117] set out for Gaul, to find builders to build the monastic

church, "juxta Romanorum quem semper amabat morem."

It might be asked, If there was at Canterbury a Comacine school of

architecture whose special function it was to build on the Roman

model, why did not Bishop Benedict send there for architects and

masons? The simple answer is, that Wilfrid had already engaged them

for his work at Hexham. Wilfrid was building both a church and

monastery there, and evidently had employment for every hand he could

obtain.

The building of Hexham was commenced in 674, and it was not till that

date that Biscop was in a position to engage workmen for Wearmouth, so

that Wilfrid was just beforehand with Biscop, who in consequence had

to look elsewhere for his architects, and he set out for Gaul to

engage them there.

Now it does not at all follow that because Biscop brought his masons

from Gaul, therefore they were not Comacines. It was as easy to find

Comacines in Gaul as in England. We find them settled there at a later

date, when they were called _artefici Franchi_. There is nothing to

show definitely, but there is presumptive evidence of a settlement of

a guild in Gaul at this time, and it was probably some of the French

Comacines that Biscop employed, for Biscop insisted on a church built

after the Roman manner, a Basilica; he would have nothing else, and no

builders could build a Basilica better than the successors to the

Roman college of architecture.[118]

It seems further probable that these Gallican architects were

Comacines, from the fact that they followed the practice of the

Comacines in establishing a _schola_ at Wearmouth, possibly amongst

the monks, for Naitan, King of the Picts, sent to Cedfrid, who

succeeded Benedict as abbot, and begged him to send architects to him

to build a church in his nation "after the Roman manner," and the

abbot complied with his request.

Mr. Micklethwaite states that "the doorway under the tower of the

church at Monkswearmouth in Durham was doubtless a part of the church

which Benedict Biscop erected there in the seventh century in

imitation of the Basilicas in Rome. The twined serpents with birds'

beaks on the right doorpost are, as we know from MSS. of that age,

singularly characteristic of the style."[119] There is a similar

design on the architrave of an ancient door in San Clemente, Rome.

The decoration of the church seems to have been in the highest style

of ecclesiastical art of the age. Even glass-makers, who might have

been Comacines, were brought from France to make glass for glazing the

windows of the church and of the cells of the monks--no glass had ever

before in Saxon times been used in England for windows--and even

paintings were brought from abroad for the decoration of the walls.

Bede, in his sermon on the anniversary of the death of Benedict,

states that he imported paintings of holy histories, which should

serve not only for the beautification of the church, but for the

instruction of those who looked upon them; vases, vestments, and

other things necessary for the service of the church, were also

brought from Gaul, and those things which could not be obtained there,

were brought "from the country of the Romans."

[Illustration: S. APOLLINARE IN CLASSE, RAVENNA.

_To face page 157._]

The church was pronounced by monkish writers to be for two centuries

the grandest and most beautiful church on this side of the Alps; even

Roman architects admitted that they who saw Hexham church might

imagine themselves amidst Roman surroundings.[120]

There is one point in connection with Saxon architecture not touched.

In much of the Saxon building now standing there are projecting ribs

of stone in the masonry which are commonly known under the name of

pilaster strips. The masonry in which it occurs is perhaps always late

Saxon work. The strips seem to be similar to the pilasters in the

front of Lombard churches; in the latter they are more ornamental in

detail, and are often in the form of shafts occasionally

decorated.[121]

The external arcading, as in Bradford-on-Avon, seems to be a

modification of late Roman work, followed in various forms in

Comacine, Lombard, Saxon, and Norman work. In its original form it may

be seen on the exterior of the Basilica of S. Apollinare in Classe,

Ravenna, where external arcadings in the masonry of the walls will be

noticed both in the walls of the aisles and in the walls of the nave

above the aisles, the arcading being carried on pilasters built into,

and forming part of, the walls; the pilasters with the arcading

serving to give rigidity to the walls, enabling them to resist the

outward thrust of the roof as buttresses were intended to do in later

times. This church was built about A.D. 300.

In Comacine or early Lombard churches there was an arcading on steps

in the gable of the west front, the steps giving access to the roof on

the outside. In later Lombard churches this arcading became simply an

ornamental detail to the front. To this type belongs the arcading on

Bradford-on-Avon church. In Norman churches it degenerated into a

corbel table, in which the shafting was omitted, the heads of the

arches being supported on corbels.

The Byzantine character of some of the ornaments in Comacine and Saxon

work is accounted for by the fact that the Comacine order found refuge

in a Romano-Greek colony in which the Greek influence was strong, and

in all probability there were Byzantine guilds working alongside of

it. That there is a trace of Oriental form in it is not surprising,

when it is remembered how much communication there was between all

parts of the Christian world notwithstanding the difficulties of

travelling. Teliau, David, and Paternus journeyed to Jerusalem. On

arriving at the Temple they were placed in three ancient stalls in the

Temple, and after expounding the Scriptures were elected by the people

and consecrated bishops (_Vita S. Teliaui Episcopi_). Columbanus, an

Irish saint, established a monastery amidst the ruins of the ancient

Roman city of Bobbio in Italy. St. Cumean, born in 592, obtained

possession of a deserted church in the same city, restored it and

served it.

According to the chronicles of Fontenelle, bishops and clergy, abbots

and monks came from all parts, even from Greece and Armenia, to visit

Richard Duke of Normandy, brother-in-law of our Saxon King Ethelred

and a great church-builder; the Oriental character of some of the

ornaments in Oxford cathedral, which Ethelred rebuilt, is attributed

to the influence of Richard and his Oriental visitors, for Ethelred

took refuge in Normandy for a time to avoid the Danes.

Some Saxons left England at the Norman Conquest and settled in

Constantinople, where they built a church for themselves and other

members of the Saxon colony there.

St. Germanus when he left Britain went to Ravenna, then the royal

city.

Asser relates that Alfred received embassies daily from foreign parts,

from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the farthest limits of Spain, and that he

had seen letters and presents which had been sent to the king by Abel,

Patriarch of Jerusalem.

Many British monks, some of whose lives and legends may still be found

in early MSS., travelled to the south and east, and all over the known

world, and being skilled in architecture, might readily have made

copies of ornaments which took their fancy when travelling in Eastern

countries, and introduced them on their return.

Let us restate the argument briefly--

1. When Italy was overrun by the barbarians, Roman _Collegia_ were

everywhere suppressed.

2. The architectural college of Rome is said to have removed from that

city to the republic of Comum.

3. In early mediæval times, one of the most important Masonic guilds

in Europe was the Society of Comacine Masters, which in its

constitution, methods, and work was essentially Roman, and seems to

have been the survival of this Roman college.

4. Italian chroniclists assert that architects and masons accompanied

Augustine to England, and later Italian and continental writers of

repute adopt that view.

5. Whether this is proved or not, it was customary for missionaries to

take in their train persons experienced in building, and if Augustine

did not do so, his practice was an exception to what seems to have

been a general rule. Besides, a band of forty monks would have been

useless to him unless some of them could follow a secular calling

useful to the mission, for they were unacquainted with the British

language, and could not act independently.

6. Masonic monks were not uncommon, and there were such monks

associated with the Comacine body; so that qualified architects were

easily found in the ranks of the religious orders.

7. From Bede's account of the settlement of Augustine's mission in

Britain, it seems clear that he must have brought Masonic architects

with him.

8. Gregory would be likely to choose architects for the mission from

the Comacine Order, which held the old Roman traditions of building,

rather than those of a Byzantine guild, and the record of their work

in Britain proves that he did.

9. In Saxon as in the earlier Comacine carvings, there are frequent

representations of fabulous monsters, symbolical birds and beasts, the

subjects of some of these carvings being suggested, apparently, by the

"Physiologus," which had a Latin origin.

10. In the writings of the Venerable Bede, and Richard, Prior of

Hagustald, we meet with phrases and words which are in the Edict of

King Rotharis of 643, and in the _Memoratorio_ of 713 of King

Luitprand, which show that these writers were familiar with certain

terms of art used by the Comacine Masters.[122]

FOOTNOTES:

[101] This chapter was written by my brother in England, with

different sources of information to the Italian ones used by myself.

It did not reach me till the first half of my work was complete, and

it was very gratifying to find our different sources of study had led

to almost identical conclusions. I have altered no fact or argument in

either. (Leader Scott.)

[102] See chapter i., Merzario, _I Maestri Comacini_.

[103] _Ibid._

[104] Care must be taken not to confuse the signification of the word

Greek, as used in two different eras. To the ancient Roman, Greek

architecture would mean the classic style of the Parthenon, etc.; to

the mediæval Italian, Greek art and architecture meant simply

Byzantine, an entirely different thing. (Leader Scott.)

[105] "According to Müller (_Archæologie der Kunst_) corporations of

builders of Grecian birth were allowed to settle in foreign countries,

and to exercise a judicial government among themselves according to

the laws of the country to which they owed allegiance; the principle

was recognized by all the legal codes of Europe, from the fall of Rome

to late in the thirteenth century. Such associations of builders were

introduced into southern Europe during the reigns of Theodoric and

Theodosius."

[106] Prof. Merzario, in his _Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. cap. ii. pp.

87, 88, gives as his reference for this Bede's _Ecclesiasticæ Historiæ

gentis Anglorum libri quinque_, "Vita S. Benedicti Biscopi Abbatis

Vuiremuthensis primi ecc." (L. S.)

[107] "Vita Sancti Hugonis Episcopi Lincolniensis."

[108] "Vita S. Moduennæ virginis Hibernicæ."

[109] Montalembert, _I Monaci dell' Occidente_, p. 152.

[110] See Plate, Interior of Fiesole cathedral.

[111] _Conc. Laodic._, c. 15.

[112] Passio S. Cadoci.

[113] See Chapter II., "The Comacines under the Longobards," which

proves Mr. Barnes' conjectures to be true.

[114] Alcuin (lib. v. 1488) describes the appointments of the Saxon

church at York, which were on a scale of great magnificence. There

were two altars covered with plates of gold and silver, and a

profusion of gems; the tapestries were of the richest, and the walls

of the sanctuary were adorned with foreign paintings.

[115] Description of the church built in the monastery of Hexham by

Saint Wilfrid, 674-680. See the Appendix to the "Life of St. Wilfrid"

in Montalembert's fine work on _The Saints of the West_.

"Igitur profunditatem ipsius ecclesiae criptis et oratoriis

subterrancis et viarum anfractibus inferius cum magna industria

fundavit.

"Parietes autem quadratis et bene politis columpnis suffultos et

tribus tabulatis distinctos immensae longitudinis et altitudinis

erexit. Ipsos etiam et capitella columpnarum quibus sustentantur et

arcum sanctuarii, historiis et ymaginibus et variis coelaturarum

figuris ex lapide prominentibus et picturarum et colorum grata

varietate mirabilique decore decoravit. Ipsum quoque corpus ecclesiae

appentitiis et porticibus nardique circumdixit quae, miro atque

inexplicibili artificio, per parietes et cocleas inferius et superius

distinxit. In ipsis vero cocleis, et super ipsas, ascensoria ex

lapide, et deambulatoria, et varios viarum anfractus, modo sursum,

modo deorsum, artificiosissime ita machinari fecit, ut innumera

hominum multitudo ibi existere et ipsum corpus ecclesiae circumdare

possit, cum a nemine tamen infra in eo existentium videri queat.

Oratoriaque quam plurima, superius et inferius, secretissima e

pulcherrima, in ipsis porticibis cum maxima diligentia et cautela

constituit, in quibus altaria in honore Beatae Dei genitricis

semperque Virginis Mariae, et Sancti Michaelis Archangeli, sanctique

Johannis Baptistae et sanctorum Apostolorum, Martyrum, Confessorum,

atque Virginum, cum eorum apparatibus, honestissime praeparari fecit.

Unde etiam, usque hodie, quaedam illorum ut turres et propugnacula,

supereminent. Atrium quoque templi magnae spissitudinis et fortitudinis

muro circumvallavit. Praeter quem in alveo lapideo aquaeductus, ad

usus officinorum, per mediam villam decurrebat."--Richardi, _Prioris

Historia Hagulstadensis Ecclesiae_, c. iii., Ap. Twysden, _Historiae

Anglicanae Scriptores decem._, et Raine's _Priory of Hexham_, p. 2.

[116] See Chap. V., "Comacines under Charlemagne."

[117] Sermo beati Bedæ in natale sancti Benedicti Abbatis.

[118] There is a much easier explanation than this. Lombardy was at

that time part of Gaul--Cisalpine Gaul. The Comacines appear to have

gone to France with Charlemagne; see Chap. V. (Leader Scott.)

[119] Dr. Raine of Durham believed, on the authority of the Chronicles

of Symeon of Durham, that the churches of Monkswearmouth and Jarrow

were rebuilt by the monks of Durham after 1075, and that the church of

Wearmouth could not have been built on the same site, because in the

account of the House at Wearmouth, 1360, the old church is mentioned

incidentally as used for a barn or storehouse (Parker's Introduction);

but allowing that to be the case, it is by no means improbable that

the old doorway was retained and removed to the new church.

[120] "Ibi œdificia minaci altitudini murorum erecta multi proprio,

sed et cœmentariorum quos ex Roma veriunt allequant ut qui

Hagulstadensem fabricam vident, ambitionem romanam se imaginari

jurent."--_Malmesbury, De Gest. Pontiff._ I. iii., f. 155.

[121] This is a decidedly Comacine form of building. All the earliest

apses of Italian churches have these perpendicular shafts. At S. Piero

in Grado they show signs of having been originally covered with

marble. (Leader Scott.)

[122] Merzario, _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. ii. pp. 87-89.

CHAPTER IV

THE TOWERS AND CROSSES OF IRELAND

The saints or early missionaries seem to be as closely connected with

the first church-building in Ireland as they were in Gaul, Normandy,

and England; only by some curious circumstance, Ireland became

christianized and built her churches some centuries earlier than

England and Normandy. It is my conviction that in casting off the

legends connected with saints, we have also cast off much real history

belonging to the early missions. Now, the preceding chapter shows that

it is precisely to these first missionaries that we are indebted for

the imported architecture of the pre-Norman date in England, and

presumably also in Ireland. This architecture has been an enigma and a

stumbling-block to archæologists for ages; because while rejecting

everything connected with the saints as legend, they also reject the

only reasonable hypothesis of the genesis of these first stone

buildings, which sprang up in a country as yet only accustomed to

build in wood or earth.

The Round Towers of Ireland, for instance, have formed a greater puzzle

to antiquaries than the churches of Hexham or Lindisfarne--partly

because of their antiquity, and partly from their unlikeness to any

local buildings of the time. The theories in regard to them are wild

beyond all probability. They have been attributed: (1) By Henry

O'Brien to the Tuatha De Danaan, a Persian colony which is supposed to

have built them for phallic worship. (2) By Vellaney to the

Phœnicians, the buildings being afterwards used by the Druids as

fire-towers. (3) By Dr. Lynch, Peter Walsh, Molyneux, etc., to the

Danes, as war-towers.

Petrie, with clearer arguments, claims them as Christian. In his Prize

Essay on the origin and uses of the Round Towers (A.D. 1820) he proves

that no buildings except these towers were known to have cement in

pre-Christian Ireland. For the Pagans and Druids have left us the

great fortresses of Dun Ængus, and Dun Connor on Aran Mor, and the

great sepulchres of Dowth and New Grange, all built without cement and

of unhewn stones. Now the Round Towers are of hewn stones closely

fitted and cemented, till they are solid as a rock, standing firm as

ever, after their fifteen centuries of existence. They are called in

Ireland by the generic name of "cloic-theack," or bell-house, and are

invariably found close to the ruins of a monastery or a church. In

some cases, like the one at Clonmacnoise, the church has entirely

disappeared, leaving only the graveyard to mark its site, and in the

graveyard a veritable Comacine cross!

It cannot be proved that the towers belong to an earlier age than the

churches attached, for we have a witness in the ruins themselves. The

masonry of the tower and the remaining walls of the church at

Kilmacduagh is identical, as are the later tower and church-porch at

Roscrea--_i.e._ good, solid _opus gallicum_.

Miss Stokes and the Rev. John Healy uphold the theory[123] of their

being towers of refuge in warlike times. They may well have been used

as such, on account of their strength, and also their proximity to the

churches, which were always, in the Middle Ages, inviolable cities of

refuge. This, however, does not affect our question as to how the

towers came into Ireland, and whence came their builders. In the

first place, where can similar towers be found dating from times

contemporary? The answer is decided: in Italy. In Ravenna and

Lombardy, from the date A.D. 300 to the fifth and sixth centuries; and

they show just that Eastern touch which distinguishes the

Byzantine-Roman architecture at Ravenna, and has caused authors to

seek the origin of the Round Towers further east than Italy.

The next question that arises is: What was the point of contact

between Ireland and Italy? As in England and Normandy we shall, I

believe, find it in the first missions. The first Irish missionary was

doubtless St. Patrick, A.D. 373-464, who has been taken as the sign

and symbol of Celticism. Yet he was not an Irishman by birth. His

father was a Christian named Calphurnius, his mother was niece to St.

Martin of Tours; he was consequently of continental origin. His

birthplace was Nempthur near Dumbarton, and while yet a boy he was

carried a prisoner to Ireland, and the heathendom there appealed so

strongly to his feelings, that after his release he was haunted by

visions foretelling his future mission to convert Ireland. Pope

Celestin I. gave him his mission in about A.D. 430, and he settled in

Armagh, where he laboured more than thirty years converting and

baptizing both kings and people. He founded schools and built

churches. Probably the first worship was conducted in the open air,

where a cross was set up, as by the English missionaries. The cross

was of the Byzantine form used at that time in Italy; but on its

adoption by the northern saint-missionaries it became known in Britain

as the Irish cross. The ancient Italian one, once in the Forum at

Rome, is of identical style, though of earlier date. St. Patrick's

influence remained and spread. Many of his followers in the ministry

made the pilgrimage to Rome which he had made, and so great was the

fame of sanctity of these Irish preaching brethren, that they were

reverenced in Italy even more than in their native land.

S. Fredianus became Bishop of Lucca, and Columban was Abbot of Bobbio.

It is to these later missionaries rather than to St. Patrick himself

that we must look, as having introduced Italian or Comacine

architecture into Ireland. That they were addicted to church-building

is evident from their at once setting to work wherever they went; S.

Fredianus building a church and monastery at Lucca; St. Columban doing

the same at Bobbio.

And what architects did they employ? Surely some members of the

Comacine Guild, or their monk colleagues. They had seen them at the

court of the Longobardic kings where they tarried and were entertained

during their journey to Rome. And seeing the beautiful churches and

towers in Italy, all made by the magic hands of this guild, is it not

most likely that the Pope, who patronized the guild as one of the most

practical instruments in christianization, should have counselled them

to take back some _Magistri_ with them to Ireland? There is, I

presume, no documentary proof of this, but there are more imperishable

witnesses in the works themselves. The only difference between the

Round Towers of Ireland and those of Italy in the first five centuries

after Christ is the conical roof, which is due entirely to exigencies

of climate. The hewing of the square stones, the close-fitting

masonry, the Roman cement, the simple arches of the windows with their

solidly cut supports, are all pure Lombard-Roman of the time when S.

Fredianus and Columban were in Italy. It is true that with this

similarity there is also a certain clumsiness of workmanship in the

Irish towers, which suggests that either the Italian architects

imported by the Irish missionaries were the less skilful men of the

guild, or, what is more probable, they were few, and had to train

native and unskilled workmen to assist them; but the style they aimed

at, and the forms they used, are the early Italian ones of from A.D.

300 to 500.

In Cormac's chapel at the Rock of Cashel we get the square tower such

as later Comacines used from the sixth to the tenth centuries, with

the double-arched window of the period; and the church beside it has

the same signs. Here are the string courses supported by the row of

little arches, the projecting apse, and the double-light windows, with

only that same northern desideratum--the high gable and sloping roof.

Cormac was an early Bishop of Cashel, who was killed in 907 A.D.

Look at the shrine of the Bell of St. Patrick, which I presume dates

from about the eighth century, _i.e._ the time of Fredianus, and you

will see a fine collection of Comacine _intrecci_ or interlaced work

in sculpture. As for the crosses of Ireland, one may trace in them the

development of Comacine work, from the early Christian Roman style to

the mediæval Lombard.

The beautifully illustrated article in the _Studio_ for Aug. 15, 1898,

by J. Romilly Allen, F.S.A., shows the whole line. In the earliest

form of Irish cross, _i.e._ that where the cross and Christian symbols

are merely cut into the face of a slab of stone, such as in the cross

at Reask, Co. Kerry, we see precisely the primitive style of art shown

in the Catacombs. The "Gurmarc" stones have their prototype in the

earliest Longobardic carving, such as the _pluteus_ of Theodolinda's

first church at Monza. The smaller of the three inscribed circles has

an even more advanced Comacine _intreccio_ enclosed within the circle,

while the cross of Honelt at Llantwit Major (Fig. 5) has a splendid

Comacine knot such as one sees on every Longobardic church, placed

beneath a very Byzantine geometrical design in which circles, crosses,

triangles, and three-fold knots are marvellously intermingled. These

are all stones merely incised, and foreshadow the predilection of the

Irish converts for the symbolism of the time, the cross of Christ

within the unending circle of eternity. The next development shown by

Mr. Romilly Allen is the upright cross slab at St. Madoes in

Perthshire, where the cross and the circle are in distinct relief and

not merely incised. Here, instead of the circle enclosing the Greek

cross, it has become subordinate, and is placed behind the arms of a

Latin cross. In fact a complete Irish cross in relief. But how is it

adorned?--with splendid Comacine _intrecci_, and all the symbolism so

familiar to us in early Italian art. Here are the coiled serpent and

the dove above, with the four mystic beasts of the Apocalypse below,

two on each side of the stem of the cross; and the workmanship and

designs are literally identical with those of the sculptures on the

façades of the first church of S. Michele at Pavia, and S. Zeno at

Verona, and that of S. Pietro at Spoleto, all of the fifth and sixth

centuries. (Spoleto church was rebuilt in 1329, but the ancient

Lombard sculptures around the doorway were preserved.)

[Illustration: DOOR OF THE CHURCH OF S. ZENO AT VERONA. A.D. 1139.

_See page 166._]

By the ninth and tenth centuries the Irish cross had reached its full

development. It was no longer a sign on a slab, but a beautiful

upright sculptured cross, with a circle crowning it like a halo, and

suggesting the eternity of the human cross of our Saviour. And here

again the art is precisely that of the Italian sculptors. There was a

cross of earlier date than either the cross of King Flami at

Clonmacnoise, King's County, A.D. 904, or the cross of Mucreadach at

Monasterboice, Co. Louth, A.D. 924, in the Roman Forum, of which the

shape and ornaments are similar to both of them. The cross of SS.

Patrick and Columban at Kells has, too, all the marks of the Comacine

work in the eighth and ninth centuries, as one sees it in the oldest

churches at Como and Verona, at Toscanella and Spoleto. All these

things being considered, I think Irish archæologists would do well to

work up the undoubted connection of the early Irish missionaries with

Italy, and the influence their travels there had, not only on the

religion, but the art of Ireland. They might discover whether St.

Columban, when King Agilulf sheltered him at Pavia, took from the

artists then at work at the wondrous front of S. Michele, any ideas

which he caused to be reproduced in the crosses placed by him to

sanctify the open-air worship of his Irish converts; or whether he

took a few monkish _Magistri_ skilled in sculpture from his monastery

at Bobbio to carve those very crosses, and to build the first stone

churches, that now lie in ruins at the feet of the rugged old towers.

FOOTNOTE:

[123] See Article on the Round Towers in _St. Peter's Magazine_ for

May 1898.

BOOK III

ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTS

CHAPTER I

TRANSITION PERIOD

THE LODGES OF BERGAMO AND CREMONA

----+----+----------------------------+----------------------------------

1. |1137| Magister Fredus or | Built S. Maria Maggiore,

| | Gufredus | Bergamo.

2. |1212| M. Adam of Arogno | Chief architect of Trent

| | | cathedral.

3. |1274| M. Jacobus Porrata of | Made the wheel window at

| | Como | Cremona.

4. |1289| M. Bonino with Guglielmo | Made the stairway on the

| | da Campione | north of Cremona cathedral.

5. |1329| M. Ugo or Ugone of | Sculptured the tomb of Longhi

| | Campione | degli Alessandri at Bergamo.

6. |1340| M. Giovanni, son of | Built the Baptistery and façade

| | Ugone | of S. Maria Maggiore at

| | | Bergamo.

7. | | M. Antonio, son of Jacopo} |

| | da Castellazzo in } | Worked under Giovanni di Ugo

| | Val d'Intelvi } | in building Bellano church.

8. | | M. Comolo, son of M. } |

| | Gufredo da Asteno } |

| | |

9. | | M. Nicolino, son of } |

| | Giovanni } |

| | } sons of } | Helped Giovanni di Ugone in

10. |1351| M. Antonio } Cattaneo } | the façade at Bergamo.

11. | | M. Giovanni } of Campione} |

| | |

12. | | M. Niccola, son of } |

| | Giovanni } | Worked at the church of St.

13. | | M. Pergandi, another } | Anthony of Padua in 1263.

| | son of Ugone } |

| | |

14. |1360| M. Giovanni, son of | Finished his father's work at

| | Giovanni da Campione | Bergamo.

----+----+----------------------------+----------------------------------

THE ANTELAMI SCHOOL.--PARMA

------+----+-------------------------+---------------------------------

1. |1178| Magister Benedetto da | Pulpit of Parma cathedral

| | Antelamo | (1178). Baptistery of Parma

| | | (1196).

2 & 3.|1181| M. Martino and M. Otto |

| | Bono |

4. |1256| M. Giorgio da Iesi | Fermo cathedral (1227). Iesi

| | | (1237). Parma (1256).

5. |1280| M. Giovanni Bono da } | Chief architect at Padua (1246),

| | Bissone } | at Parma (1280).

6. | | M. Guido } | Worked with Giovanni Bono at

| | } | Padua and Pistoja.

7. | | M. Niccolao, son of } |

| | Giovanni } | This group forms the link with

8. | | M. Bernardino } | Pistoja and the Tuscan

9. | | M. Johannes Benvenuti } | schools.

------+----+-------------------------+---------------------------------

PADUA

------+----+-------------------------+--------------------------------

1. | | Magister Graci | Employed.

2. |1263| M. Egidio, son of M. } |

| | Graci } |

3. | | M. Ubertino, son of } |

| | Lanfranco } | All worked together at the

4. | | M. Nicola, son of } | church of St. Anthony.

| | Giovanni } |

5. | | M. Pergandi, son of } |

| | Ugone of Mantua } |

| | |

6. | |{ M. Zambono, or } |

| |{ Giovanni } | Father of M. Nicola. These

|1264|{ Bono da Bissone, near} | two form the link with Parma.

| |{ Como } |

7. |1264| M. Benedetto da Verona | Worked at Padua with Zambono.

| | | At Verona he is

| | | styled Benedetto da Antelamo.

| | | Probably a descendant

| | | of the one at Parma.

------+----+-------------------------+--------------------------------

The rise of the Romanesque is the stepping-stone to the Renaissance of

Art in Italy. We need not enter at length into all the vexed questions

of how this Renaissance began, and which school was the link between

that and classic art, but a slight glance must be given to the

subject. Some make everything begin from Niccolò Pisano, as though he

suddenly sprang ancestorless out of the darkness, a full-fledged

artist. Some date the rise of art from the Byzantines in Aquileja and

Venice; others again from the union of the Normans with the Saracens

in Sicily.

First, as to Pisa. There are no records or signs of a school of art

indigenous to Pisa, before the building of the Duomo there. Both

Morrona[124] and Ridolfi, the historians of the respective cities,

have well searched the archives in both Pisa and Lucca, but can find

no single reference to any native artist before the Duomo of Pisa was

begun, or even of any Pisan who worked at that building as early as

the eleventh century. All the first architects seem to have been

imported. Morrona asserts that when the cathedral was begun "the most

famous _Masters_ (mark the word) from foreign (_stranieri_) parts,

assembled together to give their work to the building." The word

_stranieri_ is used by all old Italians not only as meaning

foreigners, but Italians from other provinces. Ridolfi, on his part,

affirms that at the beginning, the _Maestri di Como_ were the only

ones employed in building the chief churches at Lucca; adding

that--"Many of the works show certain symbols, monsters and foliage,

which were always a special characteristic of the Comacines, and a

sign of the Freemasonry founded and propagated by them."[125]

From this it may be deduced that during the eleventh and twelfth

centuries no indigenous Pisan school existed, and that the mediæval

buildings were of the Lombard type. Certainly the old church of S.

Pietro a Grado, three miles out of Pisa on the Leghorn road, which we

have described, is a standing witness to the presence of the Comacines

before this era. It still exists, the most perfect specimen extant of

a Lombard tri-apsidal church. Not a shaft, not an archlet is wanting.

As to Aquileja and Venice, Selvatico's[126] theory is that the Friuli

people, and those of Aquileja, being driven out in 450 by Attila, fled

to Grado (another Grado near Venice), thence spread to Torcello and

Murano, and then founded Venice. That they built the cathedrals on

those islands, and founded the Veneto-Oriental school. Did this native

school ever exist? asks Merzario, seeing that the church of Grado was

built by _artefici Franchi_, which might mean Freemasons, or French

builders, _i.e._ the Comacines under Charlemagne; and that those of

Santa Fosca and Murano were, judging by their style, of the same

origin?

The church of Torcello was rebuilt in the eleventh century by the

Bishop Orso Orseolo, and if it comes into the question at all, would

prove that the Lombard school had something to do with it then. In

spite of these two opposing opinions, it is certain that architecture

took a certain distinctive form in Venice; but it was a later

development which occurred after the twelfth century, and with which

the Greeks and Byzantines had little or nothing to do.

Selvatico, although the champion of the Veneto-Friuli theory, is

constrained almost in spite of his own arguments to own that the

Lombard architects had their part in early Venetian architecture,

saying--"Although the prevalent architecture of Venice from the

seventh to the thirteenth centuries consists of Byzantine and Roman

elements, yet after A.D. 1000 another element mingled with it, which

though partly the product of the two, nevertheless had in itself

elements so original as to be truly national. This is the art which

modern writers style Lombard, which, born first in Lombardy, diffused

itself over the greater part of Italy, and then crossing the Alps

expanded greatly in Northern Europe."[127]

The learned Domenico Salazari is at the head of the Siculo-Norman

theory, but the influence of the mingling of Oriental and Saracenic

architecture with the Norman and Lombard elements in Sicily are so

well known, and so fully acknowledged, that it is useless to go over

his prolix arguments.

It seems to me that each party is right as far as it goes. Venetian

architecture has Oriental elements in it; the Tuscan Renaissance truly

dates from Niccolò Pisano, and the Romanesque style was formed by the

marriage of north and south in Sicily; but none of their advocates

have got hold of the missing link in the development of each special

school from the old classical styles. And that missing link, if

anywhere, is to be looked for in the Comacines.

In the ninth century they went northward, and laid the seeds of the

round-arched Norman architecture at Dijon, under S. Guglielmo; a seed

which took root and developed. In the next century they appear to have

planted the seed of French Gothic at Aix-la-Chapelle, and of German

Gothic at Cologne and Spires, and these grew to be goodly trees. In

the eleventh century they again met their brethren of the north in

Sicily; and all worked together, adding to their own beauties those of

the rich and varied Saracenic style--and the Romanesque style was thus

formed.

The Venetian link dates about the same era. Fortunato, the Patriarch

of Aquileja, called in the Comacines about A.D. 828, and their

churches there show a groundwork of form and masonry quite

Romano-Lombard, with an ornamentation of which it is difficult to say

whether it be more Byzantine than Comacine, the two being so similar

in conception, and the distinctive difference in technical work being

at this distance of time not always distinguishable. Where the

Byzantines worked in sandstone, the sharp edges of their precise

cutting would have worn off during many centuries; and where the

Comacines worked in marble, their marvellous knots and interlacings

may look as clean-cut now as any time-worn Byzantine sculptures. In

any case the union of Lombard and Byzantine in Venice was the forging

of the link connecting Venetian art to the classic Roman.

The part the Comacines had in forging the connecting chain between the

Tuscan Renaissance and the classic Roman, and the artistic pedigree of

Niccolò Pisano, who is the first link in that branch of the threefold

chain, will be traced in a future chapter. We must now inquire how the

first Romano-Lombard style of the Comacines, from the sixth to the

tenth centuries, became changed into the florid Romanesque, in which

the same guild was building in all parts of Italy from the twelfth to

the fifteenth centuries. This development was possibly derived from

both Northern and Southern sources.

The close connection of the Comacine or Lombard architects with the

Patriarch of Aquileja in the seventh and eighth centuries brought them

in touch with the Greek artists of the earlier period, from whom they

learned much, especially in varying the plan of their circular

churches, and in richness of ornamentation. Their later emigrations to

the southern Lombard dukedoms, and their work in Sicily had a still

greater effect on them. It seemed to break up their fixed traditions

as a thaw breaks up ice. Before this time, every church must be of a

fixed plan; every apse round; every space of wall headed by a gallery

or arched brackets; every arch a pure half-circle on colonnettes. But

the varied arches of the Oriental-Saracenic style influenced their

fancy; they saw that art lay in variety, and learned that the pointed

arch was as strong as the round one, the ogival arch more graceful.

The Moorish arch never entirely took their fancy, though they

sometimes gave a slight Moorish curve to their stilted arches.

It must be remembered that the _Magistri_ of the Comacine Guild were

no longer of the same calibre as those mediæval men who built for the

Longobards. Those were the products of an age of slavery and

degeneration, who, lacking literature, clung to tradition, and could

only act according to the small portion of intellectual light

vouchsafed to the Dark Ages. They put stone and stone together,

precisely as their forefathers had taught them. In form they clung to

their ancient teacher, Vitruvius, and for their ornamentation to their

ancient pagan superstitions, grafted on a mystical Christianity. Yet,

as we have seen, they so far improved on these, as to build several

Basilican churches which might be called grand for the time, though

still holding close to traditional forms.

The Comacine after A.D. 1000 was a man beginning to feel his

intellect; the feudal system was breaking up, republics beginning to

be established, schools were opened, and man began to feel himself no

longer a vassal bound hand and foot, but a human being who might use

his own intellect for his own pleasure and good.

What wonder then, that the arts began to flourish, commerce to

increase, and riches to accrue in this joyous freedom?

And what wonder that man's thankfulness for freedom first took the

form of building churches for the glory of the God of the free?

The architects of the Masonic _loggie_ (lodges) who had held together

through the troublous times, became alive with new enthusiasms. They

compared their own buildings with others, and instead of varying the

principles of Vitruvius, to suit early Christian demands as

heretofore, they passed on to new and freer lines. Instead of solid

and rude strength, elegance of form and aspiring lines gave lightness

and beauty.

The starting-point of the change was, of course, the adoption of the

pointed arch, which at this time began to be substituted for the

circular one as giving greater strength with greater lightness.

"_Curvetur arcus ut fortior_," says an old chronicler of Subiaco.

According to their method of gradual development the Comacine Masters

did not blindly throw themselves into new forms. They went cautiously,

and first tried their acute arches in clerestories, and triforia, over

naves supported by the old Lombard arches of _sesto intiero_, as we

see in several churches of the Transition period. A little later they

mixed the two inextricably, as in Florence cathedral, where the

windows are pointed with Gothic tracery, the interior arches round and

Roman in form.

"The early Lombard architecture," said Cesare Cantù,[128] "was not an

order, nor a system, so much as a delirium. Balance and symmetry

utterly disregarded, no harmony of composition or taste, shameful

neglect in form proportion; to the perfect classic design which

satisfies the eye, they substituted incoherent and useless parts, with

frequently the weak placed to support the strong, in defiance of all

laws of statics. Columns--which used to be composed of a base, shaft,

and capital, in just proportions, supporting a well-adapted architrave

or frieze more or less fitly adorned, and a cornice which only added

beauty and strength--were exchanged for certain colonnettes, either

too short or too slight, knotted, spiral, and grouped so as to torture

the eye, and above the disproportioned and inharmonious abacus of the

capitals were placed the arches, which in a good style should rest on

the architrave. In fine, there was an endless _modanature_, ribs,

reliefs, and windows of elongated form and walls of extraordinary

height." In spite of Cantù's leanings to the classic, this tirade

shows the first indication of the change towards the Gothic, and it

only proves that the Comacine Masters did not take up new forms

borrowed entire from other nations, but assimilated what they saw in

other places, gradually developing their style.

To find the origin of the pointed arch would be difficult. Was it

evolved from the arching trees in the German forest? or was it from

the rich Arabian mosque or ancient Indian temple? or did the Comacines

find it, just as they acquired their Basilican forms, on Italian soil?

Germany, it is pretty well proved, got the seed of her glorious Gothic

from France or Italy, and nourished it right royally. But the pointed

arch is much more ancient than German Gothic. It is to be seen in the

tomb of Atreus at Mycenæ, in an Etruscan tomb at Tarquinii, and even

in the subterranean gallery at Antequere in Mexico.[129] The pointed

arches in the Mosque El Haram on Monte Morea date from Caliph Omar's

time, between 637 and 640. The Mosque of Amrou, with its curious

combination of pointed and horse-shoe arches, dates from 640.

The church of St. Francis at Assisi (1226) has generally been accepted

as the first instance in Italy, and it was soon followed in the design

for the church of S. Antonio at Padua five years later; but there are

two little churches annexed to the monastery of Subiaco on Monte

Telaso, which were built, so say the chroniclers, one in A.D. 981,

the other in 1053, in which some arches are round and others

acute.[130] Hope[131] quotes examples of this mixture of round and

acute arches in the ninth and tenth centuries at Cluny, 1093-1134; the

Abbey of Malmesbury in England, which is in Lombard style; St. Mark's

at Venice, 976-1071; Subiaco, 847, and others.

"But," as Selvatico remarks,[132] "these are isolated instances

determined by static reasons, and do not point to a system." The Arab

used the pointed arch as a decorative principle, as well as for

stability. As the style spread in Europe it got modified, some

countries keeping to the ancient type, and others changing its

proportions. So the Arab arch became in the eleventh century the germ

of the ogival arch, and in the twelfth expanded in the North into the

most glorious forms of ecclesiastical Gothic architecture.

The Comacines made their first steps towards a more florid style,

about the end of the eleventh century. The change, as in all such

growths of circumstance, was a gradual one. First, a little more

ornamentation, then a slight change in the forms of arches; next, a

less fixed ground-plan of the churches, a mingling of the Greek cross

with the square-walled Basilica. After these slight trials of their

wings, came flights of imagination, and endless variety of form and

ornamentation; that variety which could only spring from the ideas of

many minds, united in one work.

To see the earliest signs of a wider scheme of design we must go to

the region of Parma. Here in a little town called Borgo S.

Donnino--the ancient "Fidentia Julia"--about fifteen miles north of

Parma, is one of the finest early Romanesque churches in Italy. It

was a great place for pilgrimages in the Middle Ages, as it contained

the tomb of S. Domninus, who was martyred in the persecutions of

Maximian. Great miracles were worked at his shrine, and religious

fervour rose to such a height in the eleventh and twelfth centuries,

that the devotees collected money enough to build a church, which they

desired should be the finest and most majestic of those times.

The work was finished before 1195. An ancient document shows that the

_Rettori_ (civil governors) of Milan, Verona, Mantua, Modena, Brescia,

Faenza, Bologna, Reggio, Gravedone, Piacenza, and Padua, with their

suites, all met there in that year to form a league against Henry VI.,

son of Frederic Barbarossa, who seemed likely to carry on the

hostility of his father.[133] We have no documents to show who was the

architect of the fine Basilica of S. Donnino, but as the Comacines had

their _laborerium_ at Parma, and as the work is clearly and distinctly

Romanesque, we may believe the old authors who say that it arose _per

lo scarpello dei Comacini_.[134] If internal evidence is wanting, the

three lion portals of the ornate façade bear witness to the hand of

the Comacines of the Romanesque epoch.

Another of their buildings which shows a marked advance, was the

cathedral of Trent--the gate of Italy leading into Germany. This had

been built in the first Lombard style between 1124 and 1149, when it

was consecrated by the Patriarch of Aquileja. In 1207 the Bishop

Federigo Manga, Chancellor of the Emperor Otho IV., formed a design to

enlarge and almost rebuild it. He commissioned a _Magistro Comacino_

to superintend the works, as appears from an inscription in Gothic

letters on the tomb of that very _Magister_. Anglicized it would

run--"In the year of our Lord 1212, the last day of February, Master

Adam of Arogno, of the diocese and district of Como (_Magister Adam de

Arognio cumanæ diocesis et circuito_), began the work of this church

and constructed it. He with his sons and his _abbiatici_ (underlings)

built the interior and exterior of this church with its adjoining

parts. He and his sons lie below in this sepulchre. Pray for them."

Prof. Cipolla, in an article in _Arte e Storia di Firenze_, quotes a

poem written in 1309, in honour of the Duomo of Trent and of the

Comacine Master who had achieved so much with his potent and clever

hands (_Cumani Magistri qui potenti manu non inani complevit_).

The church has since then undergone several restorations, but in none

of them has its plan been materially altered. There is still the

octagonal dome, the circular apse at one end of the building, and the

narthex at the other. The façade still honestly follows the lines of

the roof, and has its little rows of pillared galleries across. The

outside of the apse shows the new tendency to Romanesque more than the

façade does; here arches and friezes in horizontal circles around it,

take the place of the perpendicular shafts, and the single row of

archlets on the top. It is more in the style of the thirteenth and

fourteenth-century Lucca churches. The arch of the north door rests on

lions, which we may take as the secret sign of Romanesque Comacine

work between the tenth and twelfth centuries, as the _intreccio_ or

Solomon's knot had been their mark in the Lombard period.

The church of S. Maria Maggiore at Bergamo is a valuable specimen not

only of this transition in its early stage, but of the culmination of

the Romanesque, two centuries later. An inscription on the arch of the

portico records that it was founded in the time of Pope Innocent II.

and King Lothair II., _i.e._ about 1135, Rogerius being then the

Bishop of Bergamo.[135] The builder's name is also recorded as

Magister Fredus, probably short for Godfredus. Magister Fredus is not

expressly said here to be of the Guild of Comacines, but as his work

was entirely in Lombard style, with a few slight indications of a

freer school, and as the architects who succeeded him were, as may be

proved by documents, Comacine Masters chiefly from Campione, we may

fairly make the hypothesis that he too was one of the guild. The

little that remains of his work is to be seen in the interior, where

the round arch still predominates, and in the exterior walls of the

apse, with its crown of arches and colonnettes.

The parts due to the later brethren of the guild are the rich

ornamentation of the two façades with their grand and characteristic

Comacine porches, and also the Baptistery. It was in 1340 that

Giovanni, son of Ugone (Big Hugh) of Campione, a _celebre scultore ed

architetto_, was commissioned to build this Baptistery. According to

the fixed laws of the Comacines he made it octagonal--the mystic sign

of the Trinity, being formed of a threefold triangle. Around it

entwine circles of arches and colonnettes, some lines having double

columns; these reach to the cornice of the roof, which cornice is

composed of reliefs allusive to the Sacrament of Baptism.

This work finished, Magister Giovanni went to Bellano on the east bank

of Lake Como, together with two of his brotherhood, the Magister

Antonio, son of the late Jacopo of Castellazzo da Peglio in the valley

of Intelvi, and Magister Comolo, son of the late Magister

Gufredo--probably a descendant of the Magister Fredus mentioned

above--of Asteno, near Porlezza, to rebuild the church there, which

had been ruined by age and repeated floods.[136] This church is in

pure Lombard style, and has a façade in black and white marble, with a

fine rose window, encircled with terra-cotta foliaged decorations.

After this Magister Giovanni of Campione was recalled to Bergamo to

adorn the façades of the church which Fredus had left in a rough state

200 years before. These two façades faced north and south. Strange to

say, the part opposite the altar has no door. In this new emprise

Giovanni brought as his assistants his son Nicolino, a relative named

Antonio (probably the one who had worked with him at Bellano), and a

certain Giovanni Cattaneo, also from Campione. Giovanni, who was head

architect, decided not to renovate the whole south façade facing the

Piazza on which he began first, but to concentrate his ornamentation

on a fine vestibule and doorway, to form a species of frontal. The

vestibule was finished in 1351, having taken only two years. On the

architrave he has himself chronicled it--"1351, m. Johannes de

Campillione C. B. (civis Bergomensis) fecit hoc opus." The whole front

seems to have taken three years more, as on the base of the horse on

which St. Alexander, patron saint of Bergamo, sits, may be

read--"Filius Ughi de Campillione fecit hoc opus 1355."

Good Master John of Campione did not long survive the execution of

this masterpiece, for on the north porch is inscribed--"1360. Magister

Johannes f. q. (filius quondam) Dom. Johannes de Campilio ...

(abrasion) fecit hoc opus in Christi nomine. Amen."

This north porch, though so nearly coeval, shows a much greater

advance in style. It is an eloquent proof of how architecture was

progressing at this time by the grafting on of different influences.

John the father, being older, kept more closely to his Lombard

traditions. John the son, being youthful and more open to conviction,

took up new ideas. He has kept the Lombard arch in his porch, the

moulding of which is extremely rich, and the lions of Judah duly

support his pillars, but he has filled in his arch with very Gothic

tracery, in trefoil arches, and over the Lombard columns of the upper

storey of the porch are arches and decorations decidedly Oriental in

appearance. It is about as good a specimen of the rich chaos of ideas

that marks a transition stage as one can get, and shows that John the

younger had been influenced by the Saracen-Norman influence in Sicily.

Fergusson, in his _Handbook of Architecture_, p. 790, gives an

illustration of this porch. The Campione family evidently came from a

race of sculptor-architects, for the church of S. Maria at Bergamo

contains a sculptural work of much merit for the time, by Ugo da

Campione, the father of Giovanni senior. It is the tomb of Cardinal

Longhi degli Alessandri, who died at Avignon in 1329. The almost

mediæval artist compares not unfavourably with a very modern master

from Como, Vincenzo Velada Ligurnetto, who in 1855 sculptured the

neighbouring tomb of Donizetti placed near it.

Coming down the valley of the Pò to Cremona, we find ourselves on a

scene of great Comacine industry. There is the Baptistery, dating

before A.D. 1000, and the Cathedral begun in 1100. These were both

works of the Lombard Masters; their style is identical, and over the

architrave of the great cathedral door may be read in the Gothic

characters used by them--

MCCLXXIIII.

Magister Jacobus Porrata.

da Cumis, fecit hanc Rotam.

_Rotam_ refers to the wheel window, which is a remarkably fine one,

and is not, as some writers think, an illiterate mis-spelling of

_portam_ (door). The rose window is prior to the one which Jacopo or

Lapo, the so-called father of Arnolfo, placed in the façade of the

Duomo of Arezzo, and is even superior to it in richness of design. To

Jacobus Porrata is also attributed the principal entrance of Cremona

cathedral, with the statues of the four prophets beside it. Over the

architrave rises a species of porch, formed of little Lombard

galleries, fringing as it were the arch. Below are the usual

lion-supported pillars, the lions being carved in fine red marble. The

vestibule above is formed of pointed arches, on each of which a lion

crouches to sustain the finishing _loggia_. The Comacine Masters seem

to have formed a school and _laborerium_ at Cremona, for among the

archives of the Duomo a deed has been found entitled _laborerio_, of

the year 1289. It was drawn up by the notary Degoldo Malatesta on

December 12 of that year, and on the part of the Revdo. P.

Cozzaconte, Bishop of Cremona, and the monk Ubertini, director and

treasurer to the works of the Duomo, making a contract with Bonino and

Guglielmo da Campione to build a stone stairway on the north of the

cathedral towards S. Nicolò, etc. etc. The stairs still exist, with

remains of some little turrets which formed part of the design.

[Illustration: BAPTISTERY AT PARMA. DESIGNED BY BENEDETTO DA ANTELAMO,

A.D. 1178.

_See page 187._]

At Parma we have also precise data, and a name carven in stone. The

cathedral was begun in 1059, four years before that of Pisa. It was

finished by 1106, when Pope Pasquale II. consecrated it, the great

Countess Matilda being present. In 1117 a part of it fell in an

earthquake, and the Bishop Bernardo apportioned the receipts of

several taxes to the rebuilding. Frederic Barbarossa in 1162 confirmed

this disposition of the taxes and the work was continued. The

_laborerium_ of the Comacines at Parma was at different times under

two of their chief sculptor-architects, Benedetto da Antelamo being

master of the lodge in 1178, and Giovanni Bono of Bissone in 1281.

Benedetto sculptured the now ancient pulpit of the cathedral, which

was supported on four columns, and to which the relief of the

Crucifixion, signed by him, belonged. It is now in the third chapel on

the right. He also designed and erected the Baptistery, which, more

than any building of the time, shows an originality of idea quite

remarkable. It is built entirely of white marble, is of course

octagonal, that is _de règle_, and is surrounded by rows of little

pillared galleries, but in these he has made his colonnettes

classical, and has left out the arches entirely, except in the upper

one, substituting a solid flat marble entablature for them. The lower

part only has a circular arch in each of the eight sides. The arches

of the doorways are very deep, and richly sculptured. One has four

dark marble pillars on each side of the door, of which the lintels and

architrave are richly carved in reliefs. The north door has a Nativity

of Christ in the lunette, and a story of John the Baptist beneath it.

The west portal shows a realistic Last Judgment above, and on the

sides the seven ages of man, and Christ performing the seven works of

mercy. On the south door is the allegory of Death from the mediæval

religious romance of _Barlaam and Josaphat_. The arches between the

doors are filled in with niches containing statues supported on black

marble Corinthian columns.

All round the building above the base is a frieze of the real old

animal myths and symbols, such as the Comacines of two or three

centuries earlier delighted in. The march of the times had now

substituted actual representations of scriptural subjects, instead of

mere symbols of dark mysteries, but the _Magister_ could not all at

once leave behind him the old emblems which had served his guild for

centuries in the way of ornamentation. The building is unique, and

shows daring independent thought at a time when independence was most

difficult.

Fergusson, however, blames the false principles of design. He says the

four upper storeys are only built to conceal a dome, which is covered

by a flat wooden roof. The roof seen from above seems to be a flat

tiled roof, and it has a pretty solid bell-turret in the centre. The

little arches forming the upper range are slightly pointed. This

Baptistery, as well as the pulpit in the Duomo, bears the signature of

the builder and sculptor, and the date 1196.

"Bis binis demptis annis de mille ducentis.

Incepit dictus opus hoc sculptor Benedictus."[137]

Val d'Antelamo, the native place of Benedictus, is a valley near Lago

Maggiore towards Laveno. It seems probable that a branch school or

lodge of the Comacines existed here, of which Benedetto was at this

epoch at the head,[138] and gave the name to his pupils. They must

have emigrated like other branches of the guild, for in the ancient

statutes of Genoa we find several mentions of experts in architecture,

called _Magistri da Antelamo_, who were called in by the city

magistrates, when any building work had to be valued or judged.[139]

As early as 1181 in the archives of S. Giorgio, one finds the names

Martino and Ottoboni, Magistri Antelami, and as late as Nov. 27, 1855,

a sentence was given at the Collegio dei Giudici at Genoa by a Maestro

Anteramo. The substitution of r for l is to this day a very common

error among Italians.

In 1161 a squadron of Masters from Lombardy was called to renovate the

cathedral of Faenza, which was much ruined. These Masters accepted,

and showed themselves most proficient. So says an old writer quoted by

Merzario, but whether these very clever architects were the same

Antelami branch who worked at Parma cannot be decided.[140] A later

Comacine Master at Parma, whose name has come down to us, is Giovanni

Bono of Bissone, a little village between Como and Lugano. The grand

vestibule of the principal door of Parma cathedral, with its

lion-supported columns, its bands of colonnettes and its rich

sculpture, was designed by him. In a Gothic inscription over the door

deciphered by Sig. Pezzana, we learn that the lions were made by

Giovanni Bono da Bissone in 1280, at the time when Guido, Niccolao,

Bernardino, and Benvenuti worked in the _laborerium_.[141]

This inscription, for which I am indebted to Canonico Pietro

Tonarelli, is especially valuable, not only in fixing the epoch of

Giovanni Buono da Bissoni's work, but as proof of the organization of

the lodge and the brotherhood of its members. The word _fratrum_

certainly implies that the _laborerium_ was in the hands of a guild.

The Canonico Tonarelli writes in a letter from Parma, that in an

estimate in the archives of the Chapter, dated 1354, the _Fabbriceria_

was denominated _Domus laborerii seu fabricæ ... majoris Ecclesiæ_,

and that the administrators were called _fratres de Laborerio_. In

Tuscany they were called _Operai_, and the office of administrator was

the _Opera del Duomo_. The four names of the _fratres_, too, have a

significance when read in the light I have since found thrown on the

organization by the archives of the _Opere_ in Siena and Florence. In

those lodges one perceives plainly that the administration of the

lodge was placed under four persons, of whom two were Masters of the

guild, and two were influential persons of the city, _i.e._ half the

council of administration gave the votes of the architects employed,

and the other half those of the patrons who employed them. That the

same rule held in this earlier lodge at Parma is confirmed by the fact

that Niccolao and Benvenuti are found working together with Giovanni

Buono at Pistoja in 1270.[142]

Sometimes a single name stands out among the file of Comacines, and

one finds several well-known buildings that have emanated from one

mind. Such a Master was Magister Giorgio of Jesi, near Como. His name

is graven in the stones of many a church. At Fermo on the Adriatic, a

"sumptuous" cathedral was built in 1227; a certain Bartolommeo

Mansionarius being the patron. On the left south door was a slab with

the inscription--"A.D. MCCXXVII Bartolomeus Mansionarius Hoc opus

fieri fecit Per Manus Magistri Georgii de Episcopatu Com".... That the

mutilated word is Como we prove by a similar inscription on the

cathedral at Jesi (the ancient Æsis where the Emperor Frederick II.,

grandson of Barbarossa, was born). The ancient cathedral of S.

Septimus, a truly Lombard building, still exists in part. Here the

inscription runs--"A.D. MCCXXXVII tempore D. Gregorii Papae domini

Federici Imperatoris, et domini Severini. episcope. æsini. Magister

Georgius de Cumo civis æsinus fecit hoc opus."

Here we get the city as well as the bishopric to which Magister

Giorgius belonged. He was a citizen of Jesi in the diocese of Como,

and a qualified member of the higher rank of the Comacine Guild. In

the little town of Penna in the same province, where the church was

ruined in an earthquake, an ancient stone was found with the following

inscription in old Latin--"In the name of God. Amen. This work was

commenced in the time of the Priest Gualtieri, and completed in that

of the Priest Grazia, by Master George of Jesi in the year 1256." By

these stones we find that Master George worked in the province of

Piceno for thirty years, between Fermo, Jesi, and Penna. To him is

attributed the ancient communal palace of Jesi which was rebuilt in

the fifteenth century by other Comacine Masters.

FOOTNOTES:

[124] _Pisa illustrata nelle Arti del Disegno._

[125] Professor Ridolfi, _L' Arte in Lucca_, p. 74, _et seq._

[126] Sull' Architettura e sulla Scultura in Venezia nel medio evo

sino ai nostri giorni. _Studi di P. Selvatico_, cap. ii. p. 48.

[127] Selvatico, _Storia della Scultura_, Lib. II. cap. ii.

[128] _Storia di Como_, vol. i. p. 537.

[129] In a work by Luigi Mazara (_Temple antédiluvien découvert dans

l'île de Calypso_, Paris 1872) there are two engravings of gateways,

one a subterranean one at Alatri in Latium, which is said to have been

the work of Saturn, and is called the Porta Sanguinaria; the other of

Cyclopean architecture was also in Latium, and called Porta Acuminata;

both of them are pointed arches. This would carry the invention back

to 2000 B.C. Many of the subterranean aqueducts of Rome have acute

arches for purposes of strength.

[130] Seroux, _Histoire de l'art par les monuments_, p. ii. Paris.

[131] Hope, _Storia dell' Architettura_, cap. xxxiii.

[132] Selvatico, _Sull' architettura e scultura in Venezia dal medio

evo_, p. 90. Venezia, 1874.

[133] Affò, _Storia di Parma_, tomo iii. p. 14.

[134] See _Borgo S. Donnino e suo Santuario_, pp. 59 and 112, by an

anonymous author.

[135] "Dicta ecclesia fundata fuit anno Dominicæ Incarnationis

millesimo centesimo III gesimo septimo sub dom Papa Innocentio II.,

sub Episcopo Rogerio, Regnante Rege Lothario, per Magistrum

Fredum."--_Storia della Città e Chièsa di Bergamo_, Tomo III. lib. x.

[136] The contract, which is preserved in the archives of Bellano, is

dated July 18, 1348--"Indictione prima in burgo Bellano, Magister

Johannes filius quondam Magistri Ugonis de Campilione, et Magister

Antonius filius quondam Jacobi de Castelatio de Pelo Vallis Intelvi,

et Magister Comolus filius quondam Magistri Gufredi de Hosteno plebis

Porleciae, qui omnes tres magistri de muro et lignamine laboraverunt

ad laborem Ecclesiæ novæ," etc.

[137] Merzario, _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. iv. p. 145.

[138] Documents exist which mention it in King Luitprand's time, A.D.

713, and in that of the Emperor Otho, 989.

[139] Arbitrio duorum magistrorum antelami seu fabricorum murariorum

eligendorum per magistratus.--Quoted by Merzario, Vol. I. chap. iv. p.

168.

[140] Merzario, _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. v. p. 171.

[141] _Storia di Parma_, tom i. Appendix, p. 43. "In mille ducto

octuago p. mo indictione, nona facti fuere leones per Magistrum ianne

bonum d. bixono et tpore fratrum guidi, nicolay, bnardini et bevenuti

di Laborerio."

[142] This Giambono or Giovanni Buono was, I believe, the founder of

the Lodge at Pistoja, or at least Master of it in about 1260. His

works in Tuscany are many and important, as will be seen when the

Tuscan link is under consideration.

CHAPTER II

THE MODENA-FERRARA LINK

THE CAMPIONESE SCHOOL AT MODENA

----+---------+----------------------------+-----------------------------

1. | 1050 | Magister Ersati di Ligorno |

| | |

2. | 1099 | M. Lanfranco, son of | Chief architect at Modena in

| | Ersati | 1099. His son Ubertino

| | | forms a link with Padua,

| | | where he worked at the

| | | church of S. Antonio in

| | | 1263.

3. | 1130 | M. Guglielmo or Vigilelmo }| Sculptors on the façades of

4. | | M. Ambroxius, his son }| Modena and Ferrara

5. | | M. Nicolaus }| cathedrals.

| | |

| | |{ Assist in the façade of

| | |{ Ferrara cathedral. There

6. | 12th | M. Meo di Cecco, and |{ was a Marco di Frixone da

7. | century | M. Antonio di Frix of Como |{ Campione at Milan a century

| | |{ later in 1300, probably a

| | |{ descendant of this one.

| | |

8. | 1209 | M. Anselmo da Campione | Sculptured the porch of

| | | Modena cathedral; was chief

| | | architect in 1181.

| | |

9. | 1244 | M. Ottaccio } Sons of | The office of head architect

| | } Anselmo da | was made hereditary in the

| | } Campione, | family.

10. | | M. Alberto } who was |

| | } also called | Jacopo is supposed to be the

11. | | M. Jacopo } Anselmo | Jacopo Tedesco, reputed

| | } Tedesco. | father of Arnolfo.

| | |

12. | " | M. Arrigo, son of M. | Arrigo was head architect in

| | Ottaccio | 1244.

| | |

13. | 1322 | M. Enrico, grandson of M. | Built the tower and

| | Arrigo | sculptured the pulpit at

| | | Modena.

----+---------+----------------------------+-----------------------------

At Modena, which was once a prosperous Roman colony, and then an

independent commune, we find a most interesting family of Comacines,

who for more than two centuries worked at the cathedral there, son

succeeding father, and nephews following their uncles as architects.

The building of a worthy church was the first thought of the

newly-made commune in 1099. In Muratori's copy of the _Acts of the

translation of the body of S. Gemignano to Modena_, we read--"So then,

in the year 1099, the inhabitants of the said city began to demand

where they could find an architect for such a work, a builder for such

a church; and at length, by the grace of God, a certain man named

Lanfranco, a marvellous architect, was found, under the counsels of

whom the foundations of the Basilica were laid."[143]

Lanfranco is a name very frequent in Lombardy, but this man, probably

from his already acquired fame, was the same Magister Lanfrancus

filius Dom. Ersatii de Livurno (Ligurno), who built the cloister of

Voltorre, near Lake Varese, in the neighbourhood of the Antelami.[144]

The fact remains that all his successors were Comacines, and from

places near Ligurno. There is also a similarity of style between the

cloister at Voltorre, and the older parts of S. Gemignano at Modena,

both showing a grafting of Gothic on the Romano-Lombard style. A

curious document exists, a kind of contract, quoted by Tiraboschi in

his _Codice Diplomatico_ in the Appendix to the historical memorials

of the building of the cathedral, long after Lanfranco's part was

done. It runs, when Anglicized--"In the name of Christ, in the year

of His nativity, 1244, in the second indiction, on the day of Mercury

(Wednesday), the last of the month of November. It has been recorded

that between Ser Alberto, once treasurer to the Opera et Fabbrica, and

the late Master Anselmo da Campione in the episcopate of Como

(_Magistrum Anselmum de Campilione, Episcopatus Cumani_), a contract

was made, by which the said Magister and his heirs _in perpetuo_

should work at the said church of Modena, and either the said Master,

or any other Master, his descendant, should receive every day, six

imperials in the days of May, June, July, and August, but five

imperials only in those of the other months, for their recompense and

their work. Ser Ubaldino, now Administrator of the said _Fabbriceria_,

seeing and considering that the said stipend or remuneration does not

seem sufficient according to the course of these and succeeding times,

has deliberated and taken counsel with the venerable Bishop Signor

Alberto, and with Ser Giovanni, Archpriest of Modena, at the instance

and petition of Magister Arrigo (Henry), son of Magister Ottaccio, who

was the son of Anselmo aforesaid; and in the presence of the

aforementioned Signori, Bishop, and Archpriest, and of the subscribing

witnesses, promises and agrees that to the said Magister Arrigo, for

himself and his sons and heirs, and for Magister Alberto and Magister

Jacopo, his paternal uncles (_patruis suis_), and the sons and heirs

of the same, shall be given over and above to them, and to their said

sons, or successors, who shall be masters in that art (_qui magistri

fuerint hujus artis_), eight imperials for each day they work, from

the calends of April to the calends of October. In the days of the

remaining months in which they shall have worked at the will of the

Administrator of the building, they should, and shall have, only six

imperials, receiving nevertheless their food from the said lodge, not

only on festal days, but on all others, as they have from the

beginning been accustomed to have. And if at the will of the said

Administrator they shall bring other competent Masters necessary to

the said works, these shall receive seven imperials for each day, from

the said calends of April to those of October, but in other months

only five imperials per diem."

This deed was drawn up in the Canonica of Modena, and duly signed by

witnesses.

Tracing the predecessors of Arrigo of Campione, father and

grandfather, back from 1244, we come very near the time of the first

Lanfranco; and following his descendants from Arrigo, head architect

in 1244, to his grandson, who finished the tower of the Dome,[145] and

made the marble pulpit in the cathedral in 1322, we get a family line

of builders lasting unbroken for nearly two hundred years. There still

exists an inscription in bad Latin on the cornice of the pulpit, which

says that Tomasino di Giovanni, treasurer of the _Fabbriceria_, S.

Gemignano, had the pulpit carved, and the tower built by Arrigo or

Enrico, the Campionese sculptor (_actibus Henrici sculptoris

campionensis_). It would be difficult now to assign his due share to

each of this long line of master-builders; but the Italian critic,

Marchese Ricci, gives Lanfranco the credit of the interior, which is

in pure Romano-Lombard style, with two aisles and a nave. The nave is

much higher than the aisles, and is supported on columns with high

Corinthian capitals from some ancient Roman temple. Lanfranco has

given a clumsier Lombard air to them by a very large abacus. The crypt

is supported on sixty columns, the capitals of which are all Lombard,

and of endless variety of form and sculpture. In the centre is the ark

(tomb) of S. Gemignano. The wall of the façade, with its little

pillared gallery, is also of Lanfranco's time.

The porch, with its knotted pillars supported on lions, is adjudged by

Ricci to be the work of Anselmo of Campione in 1209. The sculpture on

the façade by Nicolaus and Guglielmo is said to date from early in the

twelfth century, and probably belonged to Lanfranco's design before

Anselmo put this doorway. They are to our eyes most naïve Bible

stories told in rude sculpture--the one side representing the

Creation, the other the first men as far as Noah. To contemporary

eyes, however, they were great works, for an old grandiloquent low

Latin inscription on the façade says--"Inter scultores quanto sis

dignus honore Claret scultura nunc Viligelme tua." "Worthy of honour

art thou among sculptors. So shines, O William, this thy sculpture."

Marchese Ricci, from the peculiar spelling of Guglielmo, thinks that

he might have been a German, but as in the Ferrara inscription he is

spelt in the Italian way, I think the Viligelme may be only one of

those queer reversals of consonants so common in illiterate Italians.

If a poor Florentine has a son named Arturo, he will surely call him

Alturo, or if Alfredo, he will always be Arfledo. In any way we can

descry in this artist, as in many others of his age, the forerunner of

Niccolò Pisano, and see in the art of Niccolò only a link in

development, not a new art entirely. To Nicolaus and Guglielmo are

also attributed the sculptures in the choir, representing the Passion.

We shall find them again at Ferrara.

We see, then, that the family of Anselmo, hereditary sculptors and

architects of Modena, were certainly the founders of the great school

of the Campionese, which lasted some centuries, and to whose hands may

be attributed nearly all the great churches in North Italy. The

schools, _laborerium_, and _fabbricerie_ of Modena furnish another

prototype of the threefold organization, which becomes so distinct in

the Opera of Florence and the Lodges of Venice, Siena, and Orvieto.

Tiraboschi publishes a notarial Act, dated January 7, 1261, which

speaks of the _laborerium_ near the Duomo, where the stones for the

fabric were carved; and that there was a covered way between the

church and this building which must not be removed or changed.

Gerolamo Calvi, in his _Matteo de Campione, architetto e scultore_,

says that nearly all the architecture and sculpture executed in and

around Milan in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries may be

attributed to the Campionesi. He instances the Sala della Ragione at

Padua, with its enormous span of roof, its characteristic arcades and

galleries, and the Loggia degli Assi, or Loggia del Consiglio, once

the Podestà's palace; the church of S. Agostino at Bergamo, built by

Ugo da Campione and his son Giovanni, the castle of the Visconti at

Pavia, and many others. Campione, though a place of importance in

Roman times, and cited in Carlovingian documents, is now only a

village on the side of a mountain, near Val d'Intelvi, containing 500

inhabitants. Calvi writes of it that from the earliest times before

the renaissance of art,[146] the men of Campione dedicated themselves

to building and sculpture, and diffused themselves throughout the

north of Italy, working rudely at first, but gaining in style and

experience till they produced great works worthy of eternal fame.

It seems probable that in this school we have a link with Florence.

The Jacopo de Campione, who was mentioned in 1244 as uncle of the

petitioner Arrigo, is named in other documents as a Campionese, is

thought by Merzario and other authors to be that famous architect,

Jacopo il Tedesco--or the Lombard, who was for centuries taken with

certainty to be the father of Arnolfo. We shall speak of his pedigree

in another chapter.

The builders of the Duomo of Ferrara were decidedly connected with the

_laborerium_ at Modena, both lodges originating from the Campione

school. The façade has the usual three perpendicular divisions formed

by means of chiselled shafts, but each division is divided

horizontally into three levels, each one enriched with Lombard

galleries. Besides these is a wealth of ornamentation, figures,

reliefs, _trafori_ (open work), and foliage of the most fantastic

kind. This and the framework of the church are all that remain of the

Comacine work, excepting the vestibule, which has all their signs on

it. Four columns resting on four red marble lions support it; one of

them guards a lamb, and another has a serpent beneath its paw. Here we

have still the Comacine mysticism: the lion of Judah guarding the

Paschal Lamb, and one of the House of Judah crushing the serpent. Over

the porch are more sculptures, and an arched vestibule; over that a

kind of Gothic gable, and above the gable a rose window. The whole

speaks eloquently of its kinship with the churches of Verona, Parma,

and Bergamo. Tradition says the interior and façade were built not

much later than 1103. The inscription over the door runs--

"Il mille cento trempta nato. Fo questo templo a Zorzi (Giorgio)

consacrato. Fo Nicolao scultore, e Ghelmo fo lo auctore." These are

evidently the same Guglielmo and Nicolao who sculptured Lanfranco's

front at Modena. Guglielmo was the leading man, and made the design

(_auctore_); Nicolaus chiefly executed it.

But these two were not the only Comacines employed at Ferrara; a MS.

copy of an ancient inscription on some old reliefs in the front of the

church of St. George, records the names of Meo and Antonio of Como.

"Da Meo di Checco, e da Antonio di Frix. da Como."[147]

[Illustration: FAÇADE OF FERRARA CATHEDRAL, 12TH CENTURY.

_See page 198._]

Before the middle of the thirteenth century, Padua had become the

shrine of a miraculous saint. St. Anthony had come over from Lisbon in

1220, and founded at Padua a new order of monks, called _Minori

Conventuali_, under similar rules to the Franciscans. St. Anthony

attracted great crowds of people by his preaching and miracles, and at

his death in 1231 he was canonized, and his devotees desired to build

a beautiful church over his tomb. The first attempt failed from not

having means to pay a good architect, or competent builders, and in

1265 the commune set to work to remedy their mistake. They assigned

four thousand lire a year to the re-edification, until such time as

the church should be completed. By 1307 all was complete except the

cupola, which was added a century later. Vasari attributes the design

to Niccolò Pisano; but his able commentator, Milanesi, who lived all

his life studying archives, asserts that neither document,

inscription, nor tradition remain to prove Niccolò's connection with

Padua, while the style of the building is utterly unlike the edifices

known to be his.

Some documents in the archives of Padua, unearthed by Padre Gonzali,

prove that in 1263, on May 11, there were working in the church as

builders, Egidio, son of Magister Gracii; Ubertino, son of Lanfranco;

Niccola, son of Giovanni; and Pergandi, son of Ugone of Mantua; and

that, in 1264, a Zambono of Como and a Benedetto of Verona, who lived

in the district of Rovina, are recorded as builders. There is no

record of the architect who designed the church; but judging from the

Moorish innovations of style it was very probably either planned by

the monks, or designed by them. St. Anthony was a Portuguese. On his

way here he would have passed through Spain, and may have been

attracted by the Moorish architecture. He may have even brought a

drawing or two of some many-domed building, and have given them to the

Lombard architects to work from. Probably some of his monks were--like

many Franciscans and Dominicans--members of the Guild of Freemasons,

and so trained in the science of architecture.

In any case, the buildings at Padua are neither true Lombard nor true

Gothic, and not even Oriental, but a mixture of all three. The Lombard

has partly had his way in the façade, where the upper part is full of

galleries and archlets; the lover of the new Gothic arches has put his

mark on the lower part of the façade; and the monks, who remembered

the native land of their saint, have put the seven domes and minarets;

the domes, however, were beyond the Comacines of that time, and were

not placed till the fifteenth century, when it is to be imagined that

the Renaissance doorway and various pilasters and adjuncts were added.

Altogether, for a church where Como Masters undoubtedly worked, St.

Anthony of Padua is the most unlike their style. They seem to have

taken so little interest in the outlandish plan, that they did not

sanctify it by a bit of their biblical sculpture.

That monks at that era really did occupy themselves in architecture,

we have consistent proofs in the monkish builders of fine churches;

and that when they followed this branch, they were probably trained

in, and became members of, the great Masonic Guild, is also indicated

by the close connection between the _Magistri-frati_ and the secular

_Magistri_. In the transactions of the guild, monks were frequently

called into council by the _Opera_ or _Fabbriceria_; and they often

worked at their churches in conjunction with the secular members.[148]

In the church of S. Francesco at Lodi is an interesting old

painting, representing S. Bernardino directing a group of monks

engaged in building a convent. Beneath it is written--"Qualiter in

ædificatione monasterii Bernardinus fratres hortatus fuerit."[149]

[Illustration: CHURCH OF S. ANTONIO, PADUA, 13TH CENTURY.

_See page 199._]

It is through this order at Padua that the link with Germany became

strengthened. Albertus Magnus was a Dominican, born in Bavaria. He

came to Padua for his studies in theology and the exact sciences,

which evidently included the science of building. Merzario says that

up to 1223 he taught publicly in Padua, and wrote a work on

Perspective.[150]

Don Vincenzo Rossi, Prior of Settignano, however, writes to me, I

believe on the authority of Montalembert, that Albertus Magnus

attended the university at Padua, and some think also that at Pavia,

but only as a student. He held a _cattedra_ at Cologne, where St.

Thomas of Aquinas was his pupil.[151]

The name of Albertus Magnus is much connected with the Freemasonry of

Germany; and soon after his stay in Padua we find Comacine Masters

working in Germany. Some German _savant_ might work out this clue, and

see if he did not start, or aid in establishing, a lodge at Cologne,

for all authors agree that the architectural _Maestranze_ (as the

Italians called the mixed clerical and lay Masonic Guilds) passed over

the Alps from Italy, and flourished greatly in northern cities, such

as Strasburg, Zurich, Cologne, etc., etc.

In the twelfth century the beautiful church and monastery of

Chiaravalle, near Milan, were erected by the Campionese Masters, on

the commission of the noble family of Archinto of Milan. It is a fine

specimen of Italian Gothic, with the dome peculiar to that style.

The Visconti of Milan were large patrons of the Campionese school. The

fine castle at Pavia, built in the time of Galeazzo II., shows by its

style the Comacine hand. It has been assigned to Niccola Sella from

Arezzo and Bernardo of Venice, but, as Merzario shows, these men only

came to Pavia thirty years after it was finished.

The first stone was laid on March 27, 1360. The archives have been

searched in vain to find the architect's name: it is, however, proved

that Bonino da Campione was in Pavia in 1362, working at the Area di

S. Agostino, so it is probable that some of his brethren of the

Campionese school were also employed by Galeazzo. Unluckily, these are

so individually sunk in the company, that one rarely gets a prominent

name.

Merzario, quoting other writers, attributes to the Campionesi that

sepulchral monument of Beatrice della Scala, now in the church of S.

Maria at Milan; the mausoleum of Stefano Visconti in S. Eustorgio, and

that of Azzo, son of Galeazzo I.; but beyond a tradition that Bonino

da Campione sculptured the last, there is no positive proof.[152]

Great conjectures have been made as to the real author of the Arca di

Agostino at Pavia. Vasari says--"La quale è di mano _secondo che a me

pare_ di Agnolo e Agostino, scultori senesi." His expression, "As it

seems to me," is not very decisive proof, truly. Cicognara is not more

exact. He "wonders that this most grand and magnificent work is not

more famous than it is--and thinks it shows the style of the Sienese

brothers, but opines it is more likely to be by some pupil of theirs,

if it is not by Pietro Paolo and Jacobello the Venetians." This is

vague with a vengeance. Merzario, however, proves that there are no

documents to show that the Sienese brother sculptors ever came to

Pavia, and asserts that the style of the Arca is not at all Venetian.

The learned Difendente Sacchi[153] brings more logic and less

imagination to bear on the point. The inscription on the monument

proves that it was begun in 1362, placed in 1365, and that the

accessory ornamentation was finished in 1370. The books of the

administration show that the sums paid for its construction amounted

in all to seventy-two thousand _lire italiane_.

As no artist in especial is named as having received this sum, I

should myself imagine that as usual several Masters of the guild

worked at it, but that one was _capo maestro_, and drew the design.

Comparing it with the monument of Can della Scala at Verona, which is

a certified work of Bonino da Campione, Sacchi argues that he was the

designer and sculptor of this Arca. The style in both is semi-Gothic,

the arches following the same curve and resting on columns; the

friezes and ornaments are so much alike as to be in some parts

identical in design; the crown of pyramids and _cupolini_ which

finishes the monument on the top, the form of the pinnacles, and their

floriations are more than similar.

The Arca di S. Agostino is, however, the more elaborate. It has

ninety-five statues in its niches, not counting statuettes. One may

count nearly three hundred distinct works of sculpture in the

composition. (Would not this redundancy prove it the work of a school

rather than one hand?) Sacchi justly observes that if Can Scaliger

confided to Bonino the commission for his monument, it must have been

because he had seen proofs of his skill; and where could this have

been more probable than in the Arca at Milan?

A suggestive proof of the Arca di S. Agostino being the joint work of

the Comacine Guild, is suggested by Merzario.[154] Over the colonnade

of the Arca are twelve statues, but in front of these stand the

_Quattro Santi Coronati_, the four artist martyrs. One of these is

represented stooping to examine the base of a pillar; another trying

the diminution of a column with the "T" square, and a third

measures a reversed capital, and holds a scroll on which is written in

Gothic letters, _Quatuor Coronatorum_; the fourth is working with

hammer and chisel.

Now these four saints, being the special patrons of the Comacine

Guild, would have little significance to any other artists.

The sepulchre of Can Signorio de Scaliger in Verona was begun in his

lifetime, and on his own commission, and cost 10,000 gold florins. He

died in 1375, so it must date slightly prior to that. _Bonino de

Campiglione Mediolanensis_ has signed his name in marble on the

frieze. It is a fine specimen of Gothic ornamentation, at the

culmination of the Campionese school.

There were also earlier works of Bonino's at Cremona; one a sepulchre

to Folchino de Schicci, a jurisconsult, in the chapel of St. Catherine

in the Duomo, beautifully worked with friezes, etc., in bas-reliefs.

It is signed in Gothic characters--

"Hoc sepulcrum est nobilis et

Egregii militis et juris periti

D Folchini de Schiciis qui

obiit anno D,MCCCLVII

Die Julii et heredum ejus

Justitia, Temperantia Fortitudo Prudentia

Magis. Bonino de Campilione me fec."[155]

[Illustration: TOMB OF CAN SIGNORIO DEGLI SCALIGERI AT VERONA. BY

MAGISTER BONINO DA CAMPIONE, 1374.

_See page 204._]

The other one is the urn for the relics of S. Omobono, protector of

Cremona. Unfortunately the urn, which is said to have been very rich

and beautifully worked, has been ruined and dispersed. One slab

only remains, bearing the inscription, _Magister Boninus de Campilione

me fecit_, with the date, June 25, 1357. So Can Scaliger would have

had also other famous monumental works to recommend his choice of

Bonino.

FOOTNOTES:

[143] "Anno itaque MXCIX ab incolis præfatæ urbis quæstum est ubi

tanti operis designator, ubi talis structuræ edificator invenire

posset: et tandem Dei gratia inventus est vir quidam nomine Lanfrancus

mirabilis ædificator, cujus concilio indicatum est ejus basilicæ

fundamentum."--From Muratori, quoted by Merzario, _I Maestri

Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. iv. p. 168.

[144] See chapter headed "Troublous Times."

[145] This tower, which is almost as light and elegant as that of

Giotto in Florence, became historically famous in the wars between

Modena and Bologna in 1325, when the famous Secchia was hidden

there--the subject of that curious heroi-comic poem _La Secchia

rapita_.

[146] Calvi, _Notizie sulla vita e sulle opere dei principali

architetti, pittori e scultori_, etc., vol. i. p. 39.

[147] Frix is an abbreviation of Frixones, a name we find two

centuries later in an artist of the same guild, working at Milan

cathedral, Marco da Frixone a Campione. Another Frix worked at Ferrara

a century later.

[148] See chapter on "The Florentine Lodge."

[149] _Artisti Lombardi del Secolo XV_, di Micheli Caffi.

[150] _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. iv. p. 161.

[151] The silence of that learned St. Thomas was so proverbial that

his fellow-students called him the "Bue muto" (the dumb bull). Apropos

of this, Albertus Magnus made his famous witty prophecy--"Tomaso may

be a dumb bull, but the day will come when his bellowing will be heard

throughout the world."

[152] Merzario, _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. viii. p. 243.

[153] Difendente Sacchi, _L' arca di S. Agostina illustrata_, etc.

[154] Merzario, _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. viii. p. 248.

[155] V. Vairina, _I Scriptiones Cremonenses Universæ_, p. 14, N. 53.

CHAPTER III

THE TUSCAN LINK

I.--PISA

The very mention of Pisa brings to our minds Niccolò Pisano, whose

name stands in all art histories as the fountain-head of that Tuscan

development of art which led to the Renaissance. But where was Niccolò

Pisano trained and qualified for this high post of honour? A great

architect and sculptor does not suddenly become famous and obtain

important commissions without having some undeniable credentials.

In those mediæval days, when the arts protected themselves by forming

into constituted guilds, no one could call himself a Master unless he

were trained and qualified in one of these guilds and had reached the

higher grades. To trace Niccolò's place in the great chain of the

Masonic Guild, we must go back a little, and gather together the

threads of information we have been able to glean, as to the expansion

of the guild itself, and here the valuable collections of archivial

documents made by Sig. Milanesi from the books and archives of the

Opera del Duomo at Siena, and by Sig. Cesare Guasti from those of the

cathedral at Florence, will materially assist us. By studying these

and putting facts and statements together the whole organization

becomes clear, and our former glimpses into the threefold aspect of

the lodges at Modena, Parma, and other northern cities become

confirmed.

Here in Tuscany we again find the three branches. First: There is the

school where novices were trained in the three sister arts--painting,

sculpture, and architecture. When pupils were received from outside

the guild, they had to pass a very severe novitiate before being

admitted as members; but the sons and nephews of _Magistri_ were, we

learn, entitled to be members by heritage without the novitiate.[156]

The hereditary aspect of the lists of Masters certainly displays this

right of heritage very strongly. The qualified Masters were entitled

to take pupils and apprentices in their own studios. The large number

of pupils who studied under Niccolò Pisano suggests his eminent

position in the guild.

Second: There was the _laborerium_, or great workshop, where all the

hewing of stone, carving of columns, cutting up of wood-work was

done--in fact, the head-quarters of the brethren who had passed the

schools, but were not yet Masters.[157] A graphic sketch from a

Masonic _laborerium_ is given by Nanni di Banco, in the relief under

the shrine of the _Quattro Coronati_ on Or San Michele at Florence,

where the four brethren are all at work. In looking at it, one is

reminded of the old story of the block of marble from which Michael

Angelo's David was made, which had laid for many years in the stores

of the Opera del Duomo at Florence, it having been once assigned to

Agostino di Ducci, who was commissioned in 1464 to make a statue for

the front of the Duomo, which was blocked out so badly that the marble

was taken away from him, and he was expelled from the _laborerium_.[158]

Third: There was the _Opera_ or Office of Administration, which

formed the link between the guild and its patrons. The Freemasons

evidently adapted their nomenclature to the dialect of the part they

were in. In Tuscany the word for this office was _Opera_ (or Works).

There was the Opera di S. Jacopo at Pistoja as early as 1100; and the

Opera del Duomo at Pisa, Siena, and Florence. In cities of the Lombard

district, such as Modena, Parma, Padua, Milan, etc., the name is

_Fabbriceria_. The members of this Ruling Council are generally four

in number, and are called _Operai_ in Tuscany, and _Fabbricieri_ in

Lombardy. These were elected periodically, two of them being

influential citizens, who acted on the part of the patrons, and two

from the Masters themselves. Where the lodge was very small there was

only one _operaio_, as in Pistoja, when in 1250 Turrisianus was

overseer (_superstans_) for a year. Later, when the Pistoja lodge was

larger, there were two. At Milan there were more than four. Above

these was the _Superiore_, a sort of president. If there were a

reigning Prince, he was usually elected president. In the _Opera_, all

commissions were given, and contracts signed between the city and the

Masters, every contract being duly drawn up in legal manner by the

notary of the _Opera_. Here orders were given for the purchase of

materials, and estimates considered for the payment of either work or

goods. The _Opera_ had to provide the funds for the whole expenses.

Usually this was done in the first instance by appropriating to the

work the receipts of one or more taxes. In course of time people left

legacies, and the _Opera_ had a knack of growing very rich.

Between the _Opera_ and the _laborerium_ was a responsible officer

called the _Provveditore_. Judging from the entries in his private

memorandum-book, his responsibilities must have been endless, and his

occupations multitudinous.

There was also a treasurer, a secretary, and two _Probiviri_,

sometimes called _Buon uomini_, who acted as arbiters, for purposes of

appeal and verification of accounts.

The identical form of the lodges in the different cities is a strong

argument that the same ruling body governed them all. An argument

equally strong is the ubiquity of the members. We find the same man

employed in one lodge after another, as work required. Unfortunately

no documents exist of the early Lombard times, but the archives of the

_Opere_, which in most cities have been faithfully kept since the

thirteenth century, would, if thoroughly examined, prove to be

valuable stores from which to draw a history of the Masonic Guild.

We will now return to Pisa.

Sig. Merzario asserts that no school of art indigenous to Pisa existed

there before the building of the Duomo. He might almost have said

before the time of Niccolò, for so far was the half-mythical Buschetto

from being a Pisan, that the world has for eight centuries been

arguing where he came from! To arrive at Niccolò it is necessary to

start from Buschetto. Who was Buschetto? Whence came he? Vasari, in

his ignorance of monumental Latin, says, "From Dulichium," and thus

the idea was promulgated that he was a Greek. But the inscription

(given on next page) on Pisa cathedral says nothing of the kind. It is

a flowery eloquence which Cavalier Del Borgo reads as comparing him

for genius to Ulysses, Duke of Dulichium, and for skill to Dædalus.

Cicognara judges from his name that he was Italian. Most probably

Buschetto was a nickname, "little bush," given him either from a shock

head of hair, or derived from _Buscare_, to thrash or flog. It is

quite possible, though the proofs are not very strong, that he may

have been of Greek extraction, descended from some of the Byzantine

members of the guild of whom we have spoken before.

BUSKET.[159] JACE ... HIC .... INGENIOR͞U

DULICHIO ... PREVALUISSE DUCI[160]

MENIB' JLIACIS CAUTUS DEDIT ILLE RUIN͞A

HUJUS AB ARTE VIRI MENIA MIRA VIDES.

CALLIDITATE SUA NOCUIT DUX INGENIOS

UTILIS ISTE FUIT CALLIDITATE SUA.

NIGRA DOM' LABERINTUS ERAT TUA DEDALE LAUS͞E

AT SUA BUSKET͞U SPLENDIDA TEMPLA PROBANT.

N̄ HABET EXPLU NIVEO[161] DE MARMORE TEMPL͞U

QUOD FIT BUSKETI PRORSUS AB INGENIO.

RES SIBI COMISSAS TEMPLI C͞U LEDERET HOSTIS

PROVIDUS ARTE SUI FORTIOR HOSTE FUIT.

MOLISET IMMENSE PELAGI QUAS TRAXIT AB IMO

FAMA COLUMNARUM TOLLIT AD ASTRA VIRUM

EXPLENDIS A FINE DECEM DE MENSE DIEBUS

SEPTEMBRIS GAUDENS DESERIT EXILIUM.

The partisans of the Grecian theory hold much to a MS. said to be now

in the archives of the Vatican,--but which Milanesi asserts cannot be

found,--which says that the Pisans "_Buschetum ex Grecia favore

Constantinopolitani Imperatoris obtinuerunt_." Morrona also suspects

this to be apocryphal; but even if it be genuine, the Pisans may only

have asked for one of the Italian architects who were working in large

numbers in the East under the Emperors, and building Lombard churches

on Oriental ground. It was only in 1170 that Desiderius, Abbot of

Monte Cassino, begged Comnenus to send him back some architects, and

the Italian sculptor Olinto was among them.

It may well be true, as Sig. Merzario says, that no school existed at

Pisa before the Duomo was begun. But soon after that, we certainly

find the usual organization of _laborerium_ and _Opera_.

Old authors tell us that "the most famous Masters from foreign parts

vied in lending their help to the building of such an important

edifice, under the direction of Buschetto."[162] Another old MS.[163]

records that the "Opera of the Duomo was instituted in 1080, some

years after Buschetto was engaged, and that the first _operai_ of the

Council were Hildebrand, son of the Judge Uberto, son of Leo,

Signoretto Alliata, and Buschetto of Dulichium who was architect. The

head of these was Hildebrand, and the others were ministers and

officers of the Opera, as may be found in the archives of the said

Opera."[164] Here we have the full organization of the Comacine House

of Works. The dignitaries of the city as President, Treasurer, and

Ministers, the head architect also a member of the Council of the

Opera. Another old writer calls Buschetto _capo della scuola Pisana_.

Niccolò, Giovanni, and Andrea da Pisa are fine proofs that the school

at Pisa flourished and brought forth brave artists. Even as late as

the sixteenth century, when Sansovino was sculpturing the casing of

the Holy House at Loreto, we are told that thirty of the best carvers

in stone were sent from Pisa to work under the Capo Maestro, Andrea

Contucci of Monte Sansovino.[165]

Among the _Magistri_ from other parts in Buschetto's time, one of the

chief was doubtless Rainaldo, who, judging from the inscription near

the principal door of the façade, was not only a working sculptor in

the guild, but also a full-fledged Master--

HOC OPUS EXIMIUM TAM MERUM TAM PRETIOSUM:

RAINALDUS PRUDENS OPERATOR, ET IPSE MAGISTER:

COSTITVIT MIRE, SOLLERTER, ET INGENIOSE.

It is much to be deplored that this inscription bears no date, so that

we cannot tell whether Rainaldo were chief architect after Buschetto,

or whether he were only sculptor and executed the front; Buschetto

being architect, and designing the whole. Here we have several things

to suggest both these artists as Italians, (1) Their names. (2) The

Comacine form of their institutions, with the _Opera_ at the head. (3)

The concourse of Italian _Magistri_ which followed them; but as usual,

absolute proof is wanting.

Let us see if their work can throw more light on the question. Is the

Pisan church Byzantine? Decidedly not. There are no domes except the

central one, which is seen in most Lombard churches; no Oriental

arches resting on bulging capitals; but round arches supported on the

identical Romano-Lombard composite capitals one sees in every Italian

church of the time. The façade too is a very wilderness of Lombard

galleries in every direction. Instead of following the line of roof,

they cover the whole front, one below another. If Buschetto had

brought back from Byzantium an idea of more richness of ornamentation,

he certainly worked it out in Italian forms, by merely multiplying his

little pillared galleries till a network was formed over the whole

building. This was not confined to him; it became a mark of Comacine

work for the next two or three centuries, as we may see at Lucca,

Ancona, Arezzo, and other places. The style is called Romanesque, and

it stands between the heavier Lombard style of the earlier Comacines,

and the more finished Italian Gothic of the later ones, as shown in

Florence and Milan. They are all, however, only different developments

of the same guild.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF PISA CATHEDRAL, 11TH CENTURY.

_See page 212._]

The richness of ornamentation suited the temper of the Pisans at that

time. They were proud of many victories, and had brought back from

Majorca, Palermo, and other places, various spoils, such as porphyry

colonnettes, rare marble, etc. etc.[166] They desired a particularly

grand and gorgeous church, and that it should be in a style hitherto

unknown. The many antique capitals and columns among the spoils placed

at his disposal suggested, of course, arches, so by way of being very

original, Buschetto or Rainaldo, whichever of the two designed it,

made his façade with four arcades, instead of one, or two, as his

brethren in the north were accustomed to do. The colonnettes in these

four galleries are fifty-eight in number, some of _rosso antico_,

others of the black and gold-streaked Luna marble. The two large

columns at the central door are also of antique Greek work; they are

beautifully carved in foliage intertwined; the other four columns are

fluted and wreathed with foliage. The capitals also are chiefly

ancient classic work; there are Corinthian and composite ones. The

remaining capitals are Comacine work, and have their usual mixture of

animals and hieroglyphic figures. Here, too, are the lions of Judah in

juxtaposition with the pillars, but as yet they appear above the

pillar and not beneath it, as was the invariable custom a century

later.

The rude figures of saints at the extremities of the roof, both of the

aisles and nave, mark the beginning of that revival of the human

figure in sculpture, which was the forerunner of the work of Niccolò

Pisano. The tower and Baptistery are the natural results of the

Duomo, the style being identical; the same round arches in the

foundation, and the same circles of Lombard galleries covering the

super-structures.

The Baptistery was built by Magister Diotisalvi, somewhere about 1152.

We have no proofs of his origin, but his work and title prove him to

have graduated in the same guild as Buschetto and Rainaldo,[167] and

we find his son and grandsons in Siena and other lodges.

In the Baptistery, the old mystic octagonal form was abandoned, and

the circle takes its place. Diotisalvi has here made a perfect bell in

tone as well as in form. It is the most acoustic building possible, as

any one may prove by singing in rotation the notes of a chord. The

whole chord echoes on for several moments with exquisite effect. The

Baptistery was begun in August 1152, the first stone being laid in the

presence of the Consul Cocco di Tacco Grifi; and two of the _Operai_

(members of the administrative council or _Opera_) named Cinetto

Cinetti, and Arrigo Cancellieri, were appointed _soprastanti_

(overseers). Here again we have a distinct connection between the

_Opera del Duomo_ and the _laborerium_.

Some of the classic spoils of war were given to Diotisalvi for this

building. Several of the capitals on the twenty columns supporting the

foundation circle of round arches, are Corinthian; and the two pillars

at the chief portal are beautiful specimens of ancient work, similar

to those in the façade of the Duomo. Between the classic remains

incorporated into the building, and the statues and sculptures which

belong to a later century, it is difficult to distinguish which were

the absolute work of Diotisalvi himself. The sculptures on the

door-jambs--rather mediæval scenes relating to Christ and David--and

the hieroglyphics of the months were probably his own work. The

Baptism of Christ on the architrave, which has the mediæval expression

of baptism by immersion, may be his; and if so, it seems to explain

how the Greek element got into Niccolò di Pisa's work, for here is his

antecedent of a century, showing in his work signs of the same leaning

to classicism in the midst of a rude and early style. How could he

help it when he was living among classic remains of sculpture?

The other three doors have also antique spiral columns of Greek

marble. A fine piece of work, in Comacine style, is the frieze of

interlaced foliage over the west entrance. The second order is a

colonnade of fifty-eight arches with sculptured capitals. The third

consists of eighteen pilasters and twenty windows. Here are seen the

lion between the pillar and the arch, various animals and human heads

at the spring of the arches, while above each order is a complicated

cornice of pyramids, spires, and arabesques, which suggest a Southern

or Eastern influence. The interior is less ornate, but of fine solid

architecture. Twelve Corinthian columns and four large pilasters

support the arches, forming a peristyle round the building; a similar

gallery with slight columns runs above it. The columns are not all of

antique marble. Three of them are of granite brought from the Isle of

Elba, on May 4, 1155, and two from Sardinia, by Cinetti, one of the

overseers we have mentioned.[168] The first pillar was placed on

October 1, 1156. The capitals are ornate; some antique, Corinthian,

others in Comacine style with animals and _intrecci_. On one of the

pillars is engraved--"Deo-ti-salvi, magister hujus operis." Morrona

thinks the Baptistery shows a Moorish influence. This is possible, as

the whole of the three buildings show the Comacines' first great

change of style, after their works in the south at Palermo, and the

kingdom of Naples.

Old writers call the style Arabo-Tedesco; and this brings us to the

meaning of the word _Tedesco_ in Italian architecture at this epoch.

The fallacy that the Italian Gothic came from Germany, must have got

into art histories from a misconception of Vasari's term of

opprobrium, "_quei Tedeschi_." He uses it when he speaks of any

architecture which is not purely classic, even blaming buildings such

as Arnolfo's Florentine dome, the churches of Assisi, Orvieto, Lucca,

Pisa, etc.

But the writers who interpret this term as meaning the German nation,

are reasoning on a fallacy. In the first place, was there any pointed

Gothic in Germany before the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries? We

will just run over the principal Gothic cathedrals. Bruges was begun

in 1358; Cologne is modern of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries;

Lubeck was built in 1341; Attenburg in 1265-1379; Freiburg Dom Kirche

in 1484. At Freiburg in Breisgau, the older parts are of the same

style as Comacine, while the Gothic parts date from 1513; Strasburg,

the Gothic parts between 1318-1439; Magdeburg, 1363.

Before these were built we have at Cologne, S. Gereon's Kirche, with

circular arches, date 1227, and S. Pantaleon, 980, but there is not a

sign of Gothic in either. Bonn cathedral, built in 1151-1270, is also

round-arched. Coblenz is Carlovingian. Mayence, round-arched of the

tenth and eleventh centuries (the Gothic side-chapels date from 1260

to 1500). Treves, with round arches, early Romanesque of the eleventh

century; choir, later Romanesque of the twelfth century; some parts

which are pointed were of the thirteenth century. Hildesheim, a

Romanesque Basilica, built in the eleventh century. Dom Insel at

Breslau, 1170, is tripartite, on the Comacine plan, and very quaint.

Worms, 996-1016, Lombard style, with round arches; the parts with

pointed architecture are much more modern. This list proves that the

earliest churches were built by Italian Masters, or at least in the

Italian style.

Indeed Hope classes most of them as Lombard. The Germans themselves

expanded the Lombard style into the pointed, which also came up

through Italy, its first signs being seen at Assisi, next at Pisa, and

then Florence.

Milan was a later reflex of the perfected German Gothic, though

chiefly executed, as we shall see later, by the hands of Comacine

Masters.

As I have before remarked, climatic influences greatly determine the

style of a national architecture. To the sunny south belong the flat

roof; the shady colonnade; the horizontal line and frieze; the

fountained court; the smaller windows; and the solid tower. To the

north the pointed roof, that snow and rain shall not decay it; the

solid buttress to resist the greater outward pressure of the high and

aspiring sloped roof; the perpendicular tendency in design; the larger

windows for a less sunny atmosphere; and the pointed spire to carry up

the general lines.

On these lines of fitness the Germans and French perfected their

style, and imported it into England. The differences are great,

between this northern Gothic and the Italian Gothic, which is always

more or less Romanesque. Now if in the twelfth and thirteenth

centuries[169] the Germans had not begun to build their glorious

pointed minsters, what did Vasari mean by _quei Tedeschi_? I will show

from his own description. In his chapter called "_dell'

Architettura_," forming the introduction to his _Lives_, after

discussing the three classical orders, he says (I will translate

literally)--"There is another kind of work which they call _Tedesco_

(German), in which the ornamentation and proportions are very

different from the ancient or the modern. (Modern in Vasari's time

would be the Renaissance style of Michael Angelo.) This is not used by

good architects of these days, but is shunned by them as monstrous and

barbarous. Every sign of order is forgotten, it ought rather to be

called confusion and disorder. In the buildings, which are so many

that they have infected the whole world, you see the portals adorned

with thin columns twisted like a vine, and so slight that they could

not be supposed to support the weight. And then on their façades and

other places they made a cursed mass of little tabernacles (archlets)

one on the other, with many pyramids and points, and such foliage

(here Vasari evidently has his eye on Pisa Baptistery), that it seems

impossible how they clung together; they seem made of paper, rather

than of stone or marble. In these works there are many protuberances,

broken lines, brackets, and _intrecci_, quite disproportionate to the

building; and frequently, by piling one thing on another, they run up

so high that the top of a door touches the roof. (Here Vasari is

certainly thinking of the porches of San Zeno at Verona, and the

cathedral of Bergamo.) This style was invented by the Goths (does he

mean Longobards perhaps?), who having ruined the buildings, and

murdered the architects, made the ones who remained build in this way.

They arched their roofs with acute _quarti_ (vaulted roofs) and filled

all Italy with this cursed style of building.... God save any country

from coming to such ideas and orders of architecture, which, being

utterly deformed and unlike the beauty of our buildings, do not

deserve that we should speak any more of them."

Again, in the _Proemio delle Vite_, when praising the solid buildings

of the Goths in Ravenna, especially the tomb of Theodoric, with its

huge monolithic roof, he goes on to speak of the Dark Ages--"After

which," he says, "there arose new architects, who from their barbarous

nation derived the kind of buildings which we of to-day call

_tedeschi_, the which seem ridiculous to us, although to them they may

have appeared to be praiseworthy."

Here are tirades from the old chronicler of art, who swore by the

three classic orders, and worshipped Michael Angelo and the

Renaissance style! Certainly the flat pilaster, triangular pediments,

and straight unadorned lines of that art were as far removed as the

poles from the florid but meaningful sculpture-architecture of the

Comacines in Romanesque times, or its rich Norman and Gothic

developments.

However, we gather plainly from this, that when Vasari calls a master

_Tedesco_, he means merely Lombard. The reason is easy to see.

Lombardy and North Italy, down to Lucca, were from about 1170 under

the rule of the German Emperors, consequently the Comacines were no

longer Lombards, nor French as in the Carlovingian times, but Germans.

This is curiously emphasized by an episode in the building of the

cathedral at Pisa. When the Pisans wanted to endow the building fund

of the church, they wished to buy some land on the Serchio, near

Lucca, to help to form a revenue. They had, however, to send Gualando

Orlandi and Aldebrando de' Visconti as ambassadors to Germany to

obtain permission from the Emperor Henry IV., that the lands close by

Lucca might be ceded to Pisa.[170]

The tower of Pisa is too well known to need any description here. The

joint masters were Bonanno of Pisa, and a very confusing _Tedesco_. In

some authors he is called Giovanni d'Innspruck, in others Guglielmo

from Germany. On inquiry as to how Innspruck comes into the question,

we find the following perplexing passage in Morrona. After quoting

the inscription on the tower, "A.D. MCLXXIV campanile hoc fuit

fundatum mense Agusti," he continues--"We find from ancient documents

belonging to the _Opera_, that the building was begun on the vigil of

San Lorenzo, and the two above-mentioned architects (Bonanno and

Guglielmo) are precisely indicated, excepting only that instead of

_Guglielmo Tedesco_, it is written _Giovanni Onnipotente of

Germany_--a misinterpretation of the word Oenipons or Oenipontanus,

which signifies native of Innspruck."[171] The italics are my own, and

emphasize what Sig. Morrona styles a precise indication! The passage

is an astounding bit of unreason, but as neither Giovanni nor

Guglielmo is a German form of name, I do not think this theory need

trouble us. Whether the builder were German or Italian, whether named

John or William, he only carried out the general design of the two

buildings, and made a veil of Lombard archlets all over his leaning

tower.

We shall find both Bonanno and Guglielmo working at Orvieto some time

later. The tower was finished much later, when Andrea di Pisa was

Grand Master of the Pisan Lodge; the upper circle of arches belongs to

his part of the work.

At Pisa then we have an artistic sphere which might well have produced

Niccolò di Pisa, even without the influences of the south. We will, as

far as the few inscriptions and documents allow, see who were the

members of this Masonic lodge, which had painters before even the rise

of the Siena school, and whose building was the earliest model for the

Romanesque style.

Bonanno, who assisted in the building of the tower, was more famous in

the guild for his metal working than for architecture and marble

sculpture. The fame of the bronze doors of the Duomo which he cast is

now only traditionary, as they were destroyed by the fire on October

25, 1596. The antique inscription has been preserved, and proves that

in 1180 Bonanno cast the doors, which had taken him a year to model,

and that a certain "Benedict" was _operarius_ at the time.[172]

Bonanno's successor as a master in bronze was a certain Bartolommeo di

Pisa, who was, like Bonanno, sculptor, architect, and metal-worker. He

was much patronized by the Emperor Frederic, for whom he built the

palace at Foggia, and made a tomb. He seems to have been a famous

bell-caster; there are inscriptions quoted by Morrona,[173] which have

been found on bells in the leaning tower of Pisa, the bells of the

churches of St. Francis at Assisi, S. Francesco at Siena, S. Paolo a

Ripa d'Arno, and S. Cosimo at Pisa, S. Michele at Lucca, etc.

Sometimes his name stands alone; sometimes one of his sons, Lotteringo

or Andreotti, is associated with him. Later we find the sons' names

alone in independent works, and then with the distinctive title of

_Magister_.

Through this group of Pisan Masters a special connection was

established with the south, a link which might account for Pietro, the

father of Niccolò, being called Pietro da Apulia, for there certainly

was an offshoot of the Pisan lodge in that part. Bonanno of Pisa cast

the famous bronze doors of Monreale; Bartolommeo was at Foggia; and

his son, Magister Lotoringus, passed most of his life at Cefalù, where

his name appears on a bell dated A.D. 1263. The Emperor Frederic, his

father's patron, nationalized him in Cefalù, and after ten years of

residence, in 1242 he gave him permission to take a wife from

Castro-Vetere in Calabria.

Other metal-workers and bell-casters at Pisa were a Nanni, a Pardo

Nardi, and others whose names appear inscribed in the twelfth century.

I do not know whether the Angelo Rossi, whose name with the date 1173

is on a sculptured bell once in the church of S. Giovanni in Pisa (now

at Villa di Pugnano), was a fellow-pupil or scholar of Bonanno's. His

work is less artistic and masterly.

And now for the sculptors of the lodge. A famous master of the twelfth

century was Biduinus, who sculptured the façade of the ancient church

of S. Cassiano, near Pisa, the building of which was undoubtedly the

work of the Pisan Lodge. It is a round-arched church of the usual

large smooth square-cut blocks of stone, and is externally adorned by

pilasters with capitals of varied form and sculpture. Biduinus' façade

has five round arches with a simple double-light window above. The

capitals and architraves are all carved with the mystic beasts and

hippogriffs belonging to the religion of the day. The architraves show

the resurrection of Lazarus, and Christ's entry into Jerusalem. On one

of the doors is the inscription in Gothic letters--"_Hoc opus quod

cernis. Biduinus docte peregit_"; the other bears the date 1180. The

whole style of the church is similar to the Pistoja buildings of that

epoch, and recalls the school of Gruamonte. It is certain that

Biduinus as well as Gruamont worked in Lucca, for the relief of the

architrave of S. Salvatore at Lucca is signed "BIDUVINO ME FECIT HOC

OPUS."

[Illustration: PULPIT IN THE CHURCH OF S. GIOVANNI FUORCIVITAS,

PISTOJA. BY MAGISTER GUGLIELMO D'AGNELLO, 13TH CENTURY.

_See page 223._]

The next great names are Niccolò and Giovanni Pisani, the glory not

only of their own lodge, but of the universal Guild. Until the time

when his famous pulpit was sculptured, Niccolò seems to have worked

little in Pisa, though he endowed it with one of his most original

designs--the bell-tower of S. Niccolò. From the evidence of

southern influence in his style, it is probable that his father Pietro

was one of the artists whom Frederic called to South Italy, and that

Niccolò passed his novitiate with him there. In any case, by the time

he wrote _Magister_ before his name he had already attained a high

rank as sculptor and architect, and was chosen for most important

works out of Pisa, such as the Arca di S. Domenico at Bologna, and the

building of the church and convent near it. Niccolò Pisano's work in

Florence was almost exclusively architectural; he also designed the

cathedral churches of Arezzo and Cortona. His pupil, Fra Guglielmo, a

relative of the Doge dell' Agnello of Pisa who was Niccolò's assistant

in the Arca di S. Domenico at Bologna in 1272, worked in 1293 at the

reliefs in the façade of Orvieto, and in 1304 put the Romanesque front

to S. Michele in Borgo, in Pisa. The Virgin and Child over the door of

the latter is a copy of Niccolò's famous statue. Some authors give him

the credit of being the _Tedesco_ who Vasari says sculptured the fine

pulpit in S. Gio. Fuorcivitas at Pistoja, and who assisted Bonanno in

the tower of Pisa.

A sculptor named Bonaiuto must, I think, have belonged to Niccolò's

school. Two interesting sculptured doorways by him still exist in what

was once the Palazzo Sclafani at Palermo (now the barracks of S.

Trinità). The doorway is carved in _tufo_, and above it is a kind of

gable supported by two small pilasters, enclosing the arms of the

family, a pair of cranes; surmounting the gable is a carved eagle,

with a hare in its claws, standing on a kind of capital, which is

unmistakably Comacine; beneath this is a bracket inscribed, "_Bonaiuto

me fe-cit de Pisa_." Sig. Centofanti, in a private letter to Professor

Clemente Lupi, who wrote to ask for information about Bonaiuto, says

that a register of expenses of the Opera del Duomo of Pisa contains

several mentions of the name. In one dated 1315 _Bonaiutus magister

lapidum_ is noted as working at the Duomo, and receiving two soldi a

day, his companions receiving four or five, and the _capo maestro_

eight. Here it would seem he is still in the lower ranks of the

brotherhood. In 1318 he is noted as Boniautus Michaelis, and receives

four soldi a day. In 1344 he has become full _capo maestro_ of the

Duomo, and is paid nine soldi a day.[174]

From his school also sprang Arnolfo, the first of a long line of

sculptor-builders of the Florentine Lodge. From it, too, through his

son Giovanni, came the best builders of the Siena cathedral, and their

followers who worked at Orvieto.

Thus Niccolò and Giovanni are proved to be links in the old chain that

came from classic Rome through the Lombard Comacines to the

Renaissance. All the famous names that ever were, may be traced in

this universal Guild from father to son, from master to pupil. After

Giovanni Pisano went to Siena, Andrea di Pisa, his scholar, carried on

his school in Pisa. In 1299 we first hear of Andrea, the son of a

notary at Pontedera, as _famulus magistri Johannes_.[175] His first

authentic works were the bronze doors of the Florentine Baptistery,

proving that he had been trained in the many-branched fraternity at

Pisa, where metal-working ranked so high. As instances of his

sculptures in marble, we may take many of the statues which were on

the Duomo at Florence, and the second line of reliefs on Giotto's

campanile. But like all the _Magistri_, he was, above all, an

architect, and in that branch we find him as Grand Master at Orvieto

in 1347. His son Nino succeeded him in the onerous office. His other

son Tommaso was also in the guild, but did not rise to eminence in it.

He designed a palace, and painted two caskets for the Doge dell'

Agnello of Pisa.

Nino's sculptures show a greater fidelity to nature than those of his

artistic ancestors. A Madonna and two angels over the door of the

canonry of the Duomo at Florence are very charming, as are his statues

in the church of the "Spina" at Pisa. We next find Nino's son Andrea

receiving payment for a sepulchre for the Doge dell' Agnello, which

Nino did not live long enough to finish.

One among Andrea's pupils who were not his relatives rose to special

and wide-spread eminence in the guild, _i.e._ Magister Giovanni

Balducci di Pisa, whose artistic career was mostly in Milan, where the

Visconti patronized him. He sculptured several tombs, among them the

beautiful Arca of St. Peter Martyr in S. Eustorgio in 1336. The

figures of the Christian Virtues are very sweet and naturalistic. On a

sculptured pulpit at S. Casciano near Florence, of the same shape and

style as that by Guido di Como at Pistoja, but infinitely more

advanced in art, he has signed, "Hoc opus fecit Johs Balducci Magister

de Pisis." The only architectural work that is mentioned as signed by

him is the door of S. Maria in Brera at Milan.

II.--LUCCA AND PISTOJA

THE BUONI FAMILY AT PISTOJA

------+------+-----------------------------+----------------------------_

1. | 1152 | Magister Buono | Employed at Ravenna and

| | | at Naples, where he built

| | | Castel dell' Uovo and Castel

| | | Capuano. At Arezzo the

| | | palace of the Signory.

| | |

2 & 3.| 1168 | "M. Johannes and Guitto" | Made the Ciborium at

| | (Guido) | Corneto.

| | |

4. | 1196 | Magister Buono, called | Built the churches of S.

| | Gruamont | Andrea and S. Gio.

| | | Evangelista at Pistoja. This

| | | man is said by Vasari to be

| | | identical with the first

| | | Buono.

| | |

5. | | M. Adeodatus, his brother | Worked with him at Pistoja.

| | |

6. | 1206 | "Magister Bonus," or Buono | Designed Fiesole cathedral.

| | |

7. | 1264 | M. Giovanni Buono (Zambono) | Worked at S. Anthony, Padua;

| | | in 1265 built the cathedral

| | | of S. Jacopo, in Pistoja.

| | |

8. | | M. Andrea Buono, his | These brothers worked

| | brother | together at the pulpit at

| | | Corneto Tarquinia, and

| | | probably built the church.

| | | Niccolao di Rannuccio

| | | sculptured the door, inlaid

| | | in Cosmati style.

| | |

9. | 1285 | M. Alberto di Guido Buono } |

| | } | Sculptured at S. Pietro,

10. | " | M. Albertino di Enrico } | Bologna.

| | Buono } |

------+------+-----------------------------+-----------------------------

The family were leading members of the guild up to the

fifteenth century, when Bartolommeo Buono and his sons won

fame in Venice.

We have seen the long connection of the Comacines with Lucca, during

Lombard times, when they helped to build S. Frediano and other

churches there. Sig. Ridolfi, author of _L' Arte in Lucca_, proves that

not only the chief churches, but the cathedral itself, were the work

of the Lombard "Maestri Casari" who had established their schools

there, since they restored S. Frediano for the Lombard Faulone in 686,

and built the Basilica of S. Martino for Bishop Frediano in 588.

By the tenth century the church of S. Martino was very dilapidated,

which much grieved the mind of Bishop Anselmo, who sought to gather

together funds for its restoration. Two wealthy Lucchesi, Lambertus

and Blancarius, both dignitaries of the cathedral, gave large

donations towards it. Not long after this, Bishop Anselmo was elevated

to the Papal See as Pope Alexander II., and immediately began the

long-desired work of rebuilding his ex-cathedral.

[Illustration: CHURCH OF S. MICHELE, LUCCA.

_See page 228._ ]

He being a Milanese, and the Comacines his countrymen, besides their

having a long connection with Lucca, it is natural to suppose he

chose them as his architects. Every sign of the work confirms this,

although no names have come down to us. As was frequently the case,

the church was left without a façade for over a century, and at the

end of the twelfth century the Lucchesi wished to put this finishing

touch.

There was in Lucca at the time a certain Magister Guido da Como, who

had in 1187 built the church of S. Maria Corteorlandini. It was built

for the feudal Lords Rolandinga, whose palace was called Corte

Rolandinga, on the occasion of one of their family joining in the

crusades.[176] There is mention of a Comacine sculptor named Guido

before this date, at Corneto-Tarquinia, where in the church of S.

Maria di Castello is a fine Ciborium, signed "Johannes et Guitto hoc

opus fecerunt, MCLXVIII." This, being only nineteen years previous,

may have been an earlier work of this same Guido. This _Magister_

evidently had a son who followed his father's art, and was named after

himself Guido, though called Guidetto, or young Guido, to distinguish

him from his father. To these two men were confided the commission for

the front of the Duomo. Probably the elder did not live to complete

it, for although the commission was given to Maestro Guido Marmolario

(_sic_), the inscription on the façade runs--"Mille C.C.|IIII.|

condi|dit|ele|cti tam pul|chras. dextra|Guidecti."[177] Among the

sculptures is one figure with a very young face, supposed to be a

portrait of Guidetto. This façade is a perfect specimen of pure

Comacine-Romanesque, and shows that the Saracen influence under which

the Masters had been placed in the south, when employed by the Lombard

Dukes of Beneventum, had not led them to change entirely their old

style, but only to develop it into a species of Oriental richness

which (so far we may agree with old Vasari) sometimes errs against

truth and good taste. It shows also the close connection between the

Pisan and Lucchese Lodges.

The row of archlets which used to form a cornice under the roof now,

as at Pisa, run wild over the whole façade. The outlines which used to

follow honestly the shape of nave and aisles, now, for the sake of

heaping on more ornament, stretch up far beyond the roof-line, forming

a mask.

A still more glaring instance of the same fault is seen in Guidetto's

other church, S. Michele, at Lucca, where the two upper galleries are

the frontage of a mere useless wall in the air.

As an architect, young Guido left something to be desired; as a

sculptor he was marvellous. Variety seems to have been his aim. In

both S. Martino and S. Michele, among all the hundreds of colonnettes,

you can scarcely find a duplicate. They are plain, fluted, foliaged,

clustered, inlaid; black, white, red, green, yellow or parti-coloured,

in endless variety. As for capitals, you get every imaginable shape

and style, symbol and ornamentation. He outdoes his prototype

Rainaldus of Pisa, and no clearer proof of a guild, rather than a

single mind, can be furnished, than by this infinite variety of

detail, which plainly speaks of the imaginings of many minds.

[Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF LUCCA (SAN MARTINO), ERECTED 11TH CENTURY;

FAÇADE 1204. BY GUIDECTUS.

_See page 228._]

The Comacines here are still in the transition stage, though near its

end, for the sign of the lion of Judah holds its place above the

pillar, under the spring of the arch. In the Italian Gothic, their

next development, it is always beneath the column.

One of the lion-capped columns is entirely covered with sculptures

representing the genealogical tree of the Virgin. The statue above the

door, of St. Martin dividing his cloak with the beggar, is

sufficiently well modelled as to suggest its belonging to a later

century.

Signor Ridolfi, who has studied much in the archives of Lucca for his

learned work _L' Arte in Lucca_, thinks that, in 1204, Guidetto the

younger was only just beginning his career. His father must have died

about this time, for the son loses his diminutive, and becomes in his

turn Guido _Magistro_. In 1211 he was called to Prato to work at the

Duomo there (then known as S. Stefano). The contract, which still

exists, does not specify what part of the church he was to build. It

is drawn up by the Notary Hildebrand, and binds "Guido, Maestro

marmoraio" of S. Martino of Lucca, to go to Prato on fair terms, and

there to remain working, and _commanding others to work_, at the

church of S. Stefano. After this he was recalled to Lucca, to put the

above-mentioned façade to S. Michele, which Teutprand had built in the

eighth century, and which had been rebuilt, when in 1027 Beraldo de'

Rolandinghi had left a large legacy for the purpose. This façade,

which, as I have said, is precisely similar in style to that of the

Duomo, was finished in 1246.[178] Guido was then called to Pisa, to

sculpture the altar and font in the Baptistery there. Not much remains

of the altar--which appears to have been the usual edifice on four

columns--except some very ancient sculpture, and two small columns

with extremely rude statues on them. The inscription, however, is

preserved, and runs--"A.D. MCCXLVI, sub Jacobi Rectore loci--Guido

Bigarelli da Como fecit hoc opus."[179] This valuable discovery was

made by the German Schmarzow. Here we have the family name of this

busy sculptor, and of his father Guido of Como. It is one of the first

instances, for surnames only became fixed about this time.

Guido or Guidetto's last work appears to have been the pulpit in San

Bartolommeo in Pantano, at Pistoja, executed in 1250. This is

particularly interesting, as being the immediate precursor of Niccolò

Pisano's pulpit at Pisa in 1260. It has been thought that Guido,

either from death or other cause, left the work imperfect, and his

pupil Turrisianus finished it. The inscription as quoted by Cav.

Tolomei is--"Sculptor laudator qui doctus in arte probatur|Guido de

Como quem cunctis carmine promo| Anno domini 1250|Est operi sanus

superestans Turrisianus |Namque fide prova vigil K Deus indi

corona."[180]

Tolomei is puzzled by the cypher K, and Ciampi, the collector of

inscriptions, has, in reporting this one, left out the last line

altogether. He interprets it as implying that Guido having left the

work unfinished, Turrisianus finished it. Whilst I was studying lately

some old documents in the archives of S. Jacopo at Pistoja, Signor

Guido Macciò of that city, who kindly assisted me to read the crabbed

old characters, threw a new light on that inscription. He says Tolomei

has misread it; that the cypher is not a K but H C, which was plainly

legible in a rubbing he took of it, and that _superstans_ merely means

overseer; in fact, the Latin form of _operaio_. The same term

_superstans_ was used for the head of the _laborerium_ in Rome up to

the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, and survived in the later

lodges as _soprastante_. Signor Macciò interprets the inscription

thus--"The famous sculptor Guido of Como has proved himself learned in

art, and his name should be sung in verse, A.D. 1250. Turrisianus

(Torrigiani) acted as overseer to this fine work, and may God crown

him for superintending the work so well." I leave more learned

classics to say which interpretation is the true one. But as in most

of the inscriptions, documents, etc. of the guild, the name of the

head of the lodge, and often those of the councillors are put in, I

incline to think Signor Macciò may be right, and the inscription is

another proof of a Masonic lodge in which Torrigiani was, at the time,

the head of the administration.

[Illustration: PULPIT IN CHURCH OF S. BARTOLOMMEO, PISTOJA. BY GUIDO

DA COMO.

_See page 230._]

Guido's pulpit is of white marble, and in the ancient square form,

with eight panels in bas-relief. It rests on three columns; the first

stands on a lion with a dragon at its feet, the second on a lioness

suckling a cub, the third on a human figure. In this pulpit, and the

older one at Groppoli, we have a perceptible link, connecting Niccolò

Pisano with the Comacine Guild, which we shall trace more closely when

speaking of Romanesque sculpture.

There were at that epoch three lodges in the immediate neighbourhood.

One in connection with the Opera del Duomo at Pisa, one at Pistoja in

the Opera di S. Jacopo, and a third one at Lucca, where Guido and

Guidetto were chief sculptors. Besides this there was another in

Apulia, where it is thought Niccolò's father Pietro worked. Niccolò's

work, and that of Guido the younger, are so very much alike as to

warrant the suspicion that they were both pupils of one master, but

that Niccolò had in him these greater qualities which go to form an

epoch-making artist.

Little has hitherto come to light respecting the Masonic lodges of

Lucca and Pisa. The _laborerium_ at Pistoja is rather more clearly

defined, and furnishes some definite names. It existed from the

twelfth century, but I do not think the archives were kept quite so

early as that. There is the name RODOLFIN'S OP, anni 1167, carved on

the architrave of the principal entrance of the Lombard church of S.

Bartolommeo in Pantano; but as critics cannot tell whether it means

"Rodolfinus opus" or "Rodolfinus operaius" or head of the Opera, it is

not a very decisive bit of history. The reading "Rodolfinus Operaius

for the year 1167" would, like "Turrisianus, overseer in 1250," be

quite intelligible in its connection with the guild.

The façade of S. Bartolommeo is a masterpiece of Lombard work. It has

the usual three round-arched doors, whose pilasters and architraves

are rich with interlaced scrolls and foliage, and whose richly-carved

arches rest on lions more or less fiercely dominating other animals,

as emblems that divine strength is able to overcome sin. Whether all

the animal sculptures on this church are due to the twelfth-century

builder, or whether some are remains of Gundoaldo's[181] first edifice

in 767, I cannot say. The architraves are certainly of the later date.

The head, or _capo-maestro_ of the _laborerium_ of Pistoja in the

twelfth century, was evidently one of the Buono family, whose race and

school became as famous as the Antelami and Campionesi, all three

being branches of the original Lombard Guild. Like the Antelami and

the Campionesi, the school founded by the Buoni furnished several

shining lights among the Lombard _Magistri_. The name is first met

with in the poem of which we have spoken,[182] on the Ten Years' War

between Milan and the people of Como. Among the brave citizens who

threw down their tools to take arms, and distinguished themselves in

wielding them, was a certain Giovanni Buono from Vesonzo (now Bissone)

in Vall' Intelvi, who took part in the siege of the fortress of S.

Martino on Lake Lugano. The war took place in the tenth century; the

poem was written a little later than 1100. Sig. Merzario[183] opines

that the Maestro Buono of whom Vasari speaks as the "first architect

who showed a more elevated spirit, and aimed after better things, but

of whose country and family he knows nothing,"[184] was one of this

line of sculptor-architects originally from Vesonzo (Bissone) in

Inteluum (Val d'Intelvi). The name Giovanni occurs constantly in the

lists.

Certainly the head of the line, as far as regards art, was the

Magister Giovanni Buoni here mentioned by Vasari, who goes on to say

that this Buono in 1152 had been employed on buildings in Ravenna,

after which he was called to Naples, where he built the Castel dell'

Uovo and Castel Capuano; and that in the time of Doge Domenico

Morosini, _i.e._ 1154, he founded the Campanile of S. Marco at Venice,

which Vasari asserts was so well built that up to his time it had

never moved a hair (_non ha mai mosso un pelo_).

Vasari says that Giovanni Buono was in 1166 at Pistoja, where he built

the church of S. Andrea. Both Milanesi, Vasari's annotator, and

Merzario[185] complain that Vasari was very confused in these

statements. The tower of S. Marco was, Cicognara says, by a later

Bartolommeo Buono from Bergamo, who also built the Procuratie Vecchie

in the sixteenth century. It is curious how Vasari, living in the same

century, could have made such a statement; he must have known whether

the tower were being built then, or had been standing for several

centuries. The fact was that one Buono built the older tower in Venice

to which Vasari refers, and the sixteenth-century Bartolommeo Buono

was its restorer. The style is certainly antique.

Vasari's annotators agree that this Buono worked at Arezzo, where he

built the bell-tower, and the ancient palace of the Signoria of Arezzo

(_cio è un palazzo della maniera de' Goti_), _i.e._ with large hewn

stones; after which he came to Pistoja, where he built S. Andrea and

other churches.

But even here some confusion exists. It is difficult to decide whether

the builder of S. Andrea at Pistoja, and the cathedral of Lucca was

indeed named Buono or Gruamonte. There is an inscription on the

sculpture of the architrave of the façade which has been a great bone

of contention. It proves, however, beyond a doubt that the usual

organization, with the _Opera_ as the administrative branch, existed

in Pistoja in 1196. It runs--"Fecit hoc opus Gruamons magister bon(us)

et Adot ... (Adeodatus) frater ejus. Tunc erāt operarii Villanus et

Pathus filius Tignosi A.D. MCIXVI."[186] This work was done by

Gruamons, Master Buono, and Adeodatus his brother; Villanus and

Pathus, son of Tignosi, being then _operai_ (_i.e._ on the

administrative council).

In that word _bonus_ lies the difficulty. Some say it is merely placed

in encomium: Gruamons the good master; but it does not seem to me

probable that a man would habitually sign his name with a boastful

adjective; and habitual it was, because on the white stripes of the

architrave of the church of S. Giovanni Evangelista Fuorcivitas he has

again signed himself "Gruamons magister bonus fêc hoc opus." Knowing

the Italian love of nicknames from the earliest ages, I take it

that the architect was really, as Vasari says, Master Bonus or Buono,

and that either from a long neck and a stoop, or from his clever use

of a crane, he was nicknamed Gruamons, "the crane man,"[187] _grue_

being Italian for both bird and machine. That the Gruamons who carved

the Magi on the architrave of S. Andrea was one of the very early

Masters, is evident from the mediæval grossness of his work in carving

the human figure; that he may very likely be Comacine is suggested by

the style and mastery of his _ornamento_ and the life in the figures

of his animals. The capitals supporting this architrave are evidently

by one of his subordinates; they are very rough, but full of meaning,

explaining the mystery of the Annunciation and Conception; below them

the signature _Magister enricus mi fecit_. These early sculptures are

especially interesting, for they are the first efforts of the

Comacines to show Bible events and truths by actual representation

instead of by symbols, and so form the link with the development under

Niccolò Pisano. Hence the greater want of practice in the human

figures, compared to the animals and scrolls, with which the guild had

been familiar for ages.

[Illustration: CHURCH OF S. ANDREA, PISTOJA. DESIGNED BY GRUAMONS.

_See page 235._]

It is interesting to compare Gruamons' work with that of the later

sculptor of the façade of S. Bartolommeo, and note the rapid progress

that art was making towards more perfect and natural form in

sculpture. There are only twenty-two years between them, but the

sculptor of S. Bartolommeo is far in advance of Gruamons in his

representation of the human figure. It is said that Gruamons has left

his sign in a portrait of himself on the doorway of S. Andrea, where a

curiously negro-like head stands out from the middle of a column. It

seems, however, to have acquired its blackness by being used through

several centuries as a torch extinguisher at funerals.

Another of Gruamons' churches in Pistoja is that of S. Giovanni

Evangelista Fuorcivitas, which is extremely interesting as showing a

perfect specimen of the practicable Lombard gallery or outer

ambulatory, which in two orders here surrounds the church. The

building is entirely encrusted with black and white marble, mostly in

alternate lines, but in some places inlaid in chequers. This fashion,

which began in this very city of Pistoja, has an historical

significance, and was introduced as a symbol of the peace between the

factions of Bianchi and Neri, which so long harassed Pistoja. It was

taken up afterwards by Siena and Orvieto, and in Florence and Prato,

when their respective civic feuds were healed.

Gruamons, or Magister Buono, may have been the chief master of the

_laborerium_ at Pistoja with its accompanying _Opera di S. Jacopo_,

which began to keep its registers in 1145. At any rate his family name

was kept up in that lodge for more than a century. The Buoni followed

the usual custom, and sought commissions in other towns. In 1206 we

find one of them restoring and almost rebuilding the cathedral at

Fiesole, which had been built in 1028, in the time of Bishop Jacopo

Bavaro, but was menacing ruin two centuries later. On the sixth column

of the nave, on the right, is inscribed--

"MCCVI. Indict VIII Bonus Magister Restaurus.

Operarius Ecclesiæ Fesulanæ Fecit Ædificare

IIII columnas I. Allex P.P."

Here even at this early date we have the _Opera_ or administration

under the direction of the dignitaries of the cathedral. The tower was

built by a Maestro Michele in 1213. An inscription on the left of the

apse tells us that the building of the tower cost seventy _mancussi_,

a gold coin in use in the Middle Ages.[188] It is supposed that

Maestro Buono copied his church from S. Miniato near Florence. The

plan is nearly identical, and both have the same peculiarity of the

omission of the narthex, or portico, which till this time had been an

indispensable part of the ecclesiastic Basilica. It is true the

Fiesole church is built of stone, and is simple in ornament, while S.

Miniato is of marble and rich in decorations, but in plan and form the

two are identical. In each case the same use has been made of the

older buildings on the site by leaving them as crypts.

[Illustration: CHURCH OF SAN GIOVANNI FUORCIVITAS, PISTOJA. DESIGNED

BY GRUAMONS.

_See page 236._]

The first San Miniato church was built under Charlemagne, by Bishop

Hildebrand in 774; the second was endowed by the Emperor Henry the

Saint, and Saint Cunegonda his wife; both times the patrons were

accustomed to employ the Comacine Masters. In San Miniato we see one

of their masterpieces.

In the thirteenth century another distinguished scion of the Buono

race came down to join the lodge at Pistoja. We have seen Giovanni

Buono, or Zambono as he writes himself, at work at S. Antonio at Padua

in 1264, together with Egidio, son of Magister Graci; Nicola, son of

Giovanni; Ubertino, son of Lanfranco, etc. In 1265 Magister Bonus or

Buono was _capo-maestro_ and architect of the Duomo at Pistoja, and in

1266 he erected the tribune of S. Maria Nuova there, on the cornice of

which he has carved--"A.D. MCCLXVI tempore Parisii Pagni[189] et

Simones, Magister Bonus fecit hoc opus," _i.e._ A.D. 1266, in the time

when Paris Pagni and Simones were _operai_, Magister Bonus executed

this work.

In 1270 Buono was commissioned to make the façade of the church of S.

Salvatore in the same energetic little town. The inscription on the

pretty little façade is--

"Anno milleno bis centum septuageno

Hoc perfecit opus qui fertur nomine Bonus

Præstabant operi Jacobus, Scorcione vocatus

Et Benvenuti Joannes, quos Deus omnes

Salvator lenis millis velit augere penis. Amen."

Here we get the names of two _operai_ instead of one. It is evident

that the lodge has increased since Gruamons was head of the

_laborerium_, and Turrisianus head of the _Opera_. According to

custom, one was an eminent Pistojese, and the other a _Magister_. We

find Johannes Benvenuti working with Giovanni in several other cities.

The question we have now to answer is whether this Giovanni Buono, who

was in Pistoja from 1265 to 1270, was the same man who worked at Padua

in 1264, and was afterwards head of the lodge at Parma in 1280? An

indication, if not a lateral proof, is found in studying who were his

companions. At Pistoja in 1264, Nicola, son of Giovanni, was his

assistant, and in 1270 Johannes Benvenuti was with him. At Parma in

1280 we find that Guido, Nicola, Bernardino, and Benvenuto were in the

_laborerium_ when he was chief architect. Here we have at least two of

his companions, not including Guido, with him in the works of all

three cities, which would go far to prove his identity.

The Buono family form a curious connection between Corneto Tarquinia

and Pistoja. We have already spoken of the Ciborium at Corneto,

sculptured by Johannes and Guitto (Guido) in 1168. The pulpit in the

same church, and another at Alba Fucense, are both signed by Giovanni

Buono and Andrea his brother, but date a century later than the

Ciborium, _i.e._ precisely the time of our Giovanni Buono of Pistoja.

The façade of the same church at Corneto Tarquinia is full of Comacine

sculptures; and on the double-arched windows with the tesselated

columns is an epigraph saying that the "inlaid work in porphyry,

serpentine, and _giallo antico_" was done by Nicolao, son of Ranuccio.

Now this must have been the Nicolao who worked under this same

Giovanni Buono in 1280 at Parma, with a certain Guido and Johannes

Benvenuti. Guido was evidently a kinsman of Giovanni Buono, for we

find that in 1285 Albertus, son of Guido Buono, and Albertinus, son of

Enrico Buono, were employed together in the sculptures at S. Pietro at

Bologna.

In any case we have a long connection of the Buono family with the

Opera di S. Jacopo at Pistoja, and shall find them still engaged in

other important works at Pisa and Lucca, besides being chief

architects at Parma and Padua, etc. Two centuries later their

descendants were building fine Gothic works in Venice.

The Baptistery of Pistoja has been attributed to Andrea Pisano, but a

document in the archives of the Opera di S. Jacopo not only shows who

was the real architect, or rather head-master, but proves that it was

done by a Magister Cellini of the Masonic Guild from the lodge at

Siena, who became Grand Master of the lodge at Pistoja. It runs--"Et

per Magistrum Cellinum qui est caput magistrorum edificantium

Ecclesiam rotundam S. Joannis Baptistæ."[190] There also exists in the

archives the contract made between the _Opera_ (administrative

council) and Magister Cellini on July 22, 1339, for the completion and

ornamentation of the building which he had so far constructed. There

is no mention of Andrea Pisano in either deed.

The Pistojan Baptistery is not a very pleasing building. There is

something inharmonious in its proportions. It is of the usual

octagonal form, but too high for its width; the horizontal lines of

white and black marble still further detract from its beauty, and cut

up the ornamentation.

On the whole the architect who wants to study Comacine churches cannot

do so better than at Pistoja, where there is so much of the old work

left. Besides the edifices we have already mentioned, are other two

very interesting churches, S. Piero Maggiore and S. Paolo, although

nothing but the outer shell of either is now remaining.[191] The

architrave of S. Piero Maggiore has a very mediæval relief on it,

representing Christ giving a huge key to St. Peter, while the Apostles

and the Virgin stand in a row beside them. The capital of one pilaster

has a man-faced lion, whose tail forms an interlaced knot. The other

has upstanding volutes of a heavy kind of foliage. Lions lie beneath

the spring of the arch, and winged griffins and other mystic animals

are on brackets along the façade. I think the capitals and mystic

beasts must have belonged to the first Longobardic church built by

Ratpert, son of Guinichisius, in 748, as well as the lower part of the

façade, which is certainly of the most ancient _opus gallicum_, of

large smooth stones closely fitted. The architrave and the upper part,

which consists of an arcade patched on in white and black marble,

belong to Giovanni Buono's restoration in 1263. In old times a curious

ceremony used to take place in this church, which belonged to the

Convent of Benedictine nuns. When a new bishop took possession of the

see, he was espoused (spiritually of course) to the abbess of this

Order, with solemn rites and ceremonies.

S. Paolo was a priory church. This, too, had been built in 748 by the

first Comacines under the Longobards, and evidences still remain that

it was originally turned from east to west, the façade being then

where the choir is now. It was rebuilt when S. Atto was bishop of the

city in 1133, and besides a very pretty frontal, has a good specimen

of the upper external gallery surrounding the church.

I will end my chapter on Pistoja with a mention of an interesting old

MS. from the archives of the Opera di S. Jacopo, which, with Signor

Macciò's aid, we found to be the marriage contract of a certain

Maestro Jacopo Lapi. The bridegroom is named as Jacobus Dominus Lapus,

fili Turdi, di Inghilberti, who wishes to contract marriage with

Marchesana filia Sannutini, and to "live with her according to

Longobardic law." The deed then goes on to specify the lands and

possessions he bestows on his bride as a _morgincap_. This might be

interesting in art history, if it could be proved whether the Jacopo

Lapi were that pupil of Niccolò Pisano's who worked with him and

Arnolfo at Siena in 1266.

In that case it gives the Jacopo Lapi's family an added interest as of

Longobardic origin through his grandfather, Inghilbert. We further

learn by the document that his great-grandmother's name was Molto-cara

(very dear). This, taken together with the name Tordo (thrush) given

to her son, proves how the nickname outweighed the family or baptismal

name in mediæval times.

FOOTNOTES:

[156] Thomas Hope, _Historical Essay on Architecture_, chap. xxi.

[157] In the older papers and deeds of Lombard times these were

classically called _colligantes_ or _fratres_; in the later ones they

were Italianized as _fratelli_ or brethren.

[158] See _Tuscan Studies_, by Leader Scott, pp. 18, 19.

[159] Some very early Latin authors write the name Bruschettus.

[160] These two lines, which are partly effaced, have been said to

read originally thus--"Busketus iacet hic qui motibus ingeniorum

Dulichio fertur prevaluisse Duci."

[161] Dædalus was called by the ancients the Father of architecture

and statuary. He was also the inventor of many mechanical appliances.

In short a good prototype of a Comacine Magister.

[162] "Concorsero da straniere parti Maestri piú accreditati a

prestare la loro opera in si importante Edifizio, sotto la direzione

di Buschetto."

[163] Book signed with the number 38, entitled _Santuario Pisano_, in

the archives of the Riformazione, Firenze.

[164] "Ildebrando del Giudice, Uberto Leone, Signoretto Alliata e

Buschetto da Dulichio che fu Architetto; il capo di detti fu

Ildebrando e gli altri furono Ministri e Uffiziali dell' Opera, come

si trova nell' Archivio di detta Opera."

[165] Baldinucci, Dec. 4, sec. 6, p. 292.

[166] Among these were the two porphyry columns now at the door of the

Baptistery in Florence. They were taken by the Pisans 1107 from the

Saracens in Majorca, and as they were especially valuable, being

miraculous, the Florentines claimed them as the spoils of war in 1117.

They were said to guard people against treachery.

[167] There was a Diotisalvi, a Judge at Pisa in the year 1224, and a

Diotisalvi, son of Bentivenga, is mentioned in a deed executed in

1250, in the Port of Pisa. These may have been some of the architect's

distant descendants, but we have no clue as to his ancestors. The name

would seem to have been a nickname, and not his baptismal one, for in

another round church which he built in Pisa, the Knights Templars'

church of S. Sepolcro, it is engraved, "Hugius operis Fabricator

D͞STESALVET nominatur." The author of _Lettere Senesi_ derives the

name from the motto of the Petroni family in Siena.

[168] Morrona, _Pisa Illustrata_, vol. i. p. 383.

[169] Vasari, edited by Milanesi, vol. i. p. 137.

[170] Morrona, _Pisa Illustrata_, vol. i. pp. 142, 143.

[171] Morrona, _Pisa Illustrata_, vol. i. p. 407. "Si trova in antiche

scritture dell' Opera, che fu la vigilia di S. Lorenzo il giorno, in

cui fu dato principio alla fabbrica; e son precisamente indicati i due

citati Architetti, se non che in vece di Guglielmo Tedesco, si dice

Giovanni Onnipotente di Germania per la mala interpetrazione della

parola Oenipons, o Oenipontanus, che significa nativo d'Innspruck."

[172] Morrona, _Pisa Illustrata nelle arti_, vol. i. p. 170.

[173] _Ibid._ vol. ii. pp. 106-211.

[174] From "_Una scultura di Bonaiuto Pisano_," in _Archivio storico

Siciliano_, Nuova Serie, Anno IX., pp. 438-443, 1884.

[175] Ciampi, _Archivio del Duomo di Pisa_.

[176] The inscription, still preserved in the passage leading to the

sacristy of the church, runs thus--

† ANNO DN͞I MO. CO. OCTUAG͞O SEPTIMO. SEPULCRŪ.

TEPLŪ. ET. CRUC̄E. X͞PI. SARA.

CENI. CEPERUNT. PERFIDI. SUB. SALADINO.

MILITE.... ANNO. PROXIMO. SEQUENTI. DIE....

KL̄. AGOSTO. HEC. HECCLĀ. DE NOVO REFŪ

DARI. CEPIT.... SOLO. QUAE LAUDAT. DM̄. X

BEATE. MARIE. VIT̄V. BLASI͞U CONDOR

D͞IU. CERBONIU

ET ALEXIUM.

GUIDUS. MAISER, EDIFICAVIT. O....

[177] Ridolfi, _Guida di Lucca_, p. 10.

[178] Merzario, _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. vi. p. 193.

[179] _S. Martin von Lucca, und die Anfänge der Toscanischen Sculptur

im Mittelalter_, von August Schmarsow, pp. 56, 57. Breslau, 1890.

[180] Cav. F. Tolomei, _Guida di Pistoja_, p. 74. Pistoja, 1821.

[181] Doctor to King Desiderius.

[182] Reproduced in Muratori's _Rerum Italicum_, verse 636 _et seq._--

"Inteluum scandunt et amicos insimul addunt

... veniunt properantes

Artificesque, boni nimium satis ingeniosi;

Strenuus inter quosque rogatus adesse Joannes

Quinque Bonus de Vesonzo cognomine dictus."

[183] Merzario, _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. iv. pp. 161, 162.

[184] Vasari, _Life of Arnolfo di Lapo_.

[185] _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. iv. p. 162.

[186] Milanesi, quoting other experts, says that when IX. is placed

between hundreds and units it signifies 90, consequently the date is

1196.

[187] One only has to glance at the names of the well-known artists to

see how common this use of nicknames was. We have Masaccio (the bad

Thomas); Cronaca, whose real name was Pollajuolo; Domenico Bigordi,

called Ghirlandajo; the iron-worker Niccolò Grossi, called Caparra;

Antonio Allegri, called Correggio; Francesco Barbieri, known as

Guercino; Alessandro Buonvicino, called Moretto da Brescia (the dark

man from Brescia); Pietro Vanucci, Perugino; Andrea Vanucchi, del

Sarto; Michelangelo Amerighi, nicknamed Caravaggio; Domenico Zampieri,

styled Domenichino; and hundreds of others. No doubt the Buschetto

architect of Pisa was only another instance; probably he had a shock

head of hair and was nicknamed "the little bush."

[188] Marchese Ricci, _Dell' Architettura in Italia_, Vol. I. cap. ii.

p. 485, note 40.

[189] The name of this councillor of the _Opera_ still exists in

Lucca, where are more than one family of Pagni.

[190] Tolomei, _Guida di Pistoja per gli amanti delle belle arti_,

1821.--Pistoja, p. 38 (note).

[191] S. Paolo was destroyed by fire in 1896, only the outer walls

having escaped.

CHAPTER IV

ROMANESQUE AND GOTHIC ORNAMENTATION

When the romantic style of building, which the Comacine Masters had

imbibed in Sicily, came in, their serious set-by-rule building went

out. The first use they made of their new ideas was to increase the

richness of decoration, and this they did by the almost childish

expedient of multiplying their old ornaments. Instead of one little

pillared gallery on the top of a façade, they now put whole rows of

galleries, or covered the fronts all over with them, as in Lucca,

Pisa, and Arezzo. There is a very early instance of this in the church

of Santa Maria at Ancona, of which we give an illustration. Here the

network of arches are not real galleries, but only sculpturesque

simulations; each arch is simply placed on the top of the other,

without architrave or frieze. The doorway has the usual Comacine

interlaced knots and no lions, so the façade may stand as an early

sample of the transition into Romanesque, dating about the eleventh

century.

The style shows a much further advance in Magister Marchionni's façade

to the church of Santa Maria della Pieve at Arezzo, which is a fine

sample of Romanesque. It was done in 1216. The façade has four rows of

arches, one on the other, "growing small by degrees and beautifully

less" as they ascend. Of all the hundred columns which support them,

no two are alike. They are round, square, octagonal, sexagonal,

pentagonal, multi-angular, fluted, twisted, grotesque, crooked,

Byzantine, Corinthian, Ionic, Doric, Gothic, Egyptian, Babylonian,

caryatid, black, green, white, striped, or inlaid. Some have single

bases, a round on a square, or _vice versâ_, and so on _ad infinitum_.

Yet with all this variety there is a certain unity of design, which

bespeaks a multitude of Masters, each one using his own fancy in his

particular part of the work, but one chief to whose general design the

masters of the parts are subservient. Ruskin realized the beauty of

this variety of idea, though he had not perceived that it came from a

multitude of minds working together, when he said--"The more

conspicuous the irregularities are, the greater the chance of its

being a good style." And again--"The traceries, capitals, and other

ornaments must be of perpetually varied designs."

[Illustration: CHURCH OF S. MARIA, ANCONA.

_See page 242._]

The very same style and variety, showing a multiplex manufacture, is

displayed by the cathedral, and the church of San Michele at Lucca,

and the old church of San Michele in Borgo at Pisa. The two Lucca ones

are extremely enriched by friezes of the symbolic animals above each

row of arches. The cathedral and tower of Pisa show greater unity of

conception.

The next great change was, that after the eleventh century, the

interlaced work, or Solomon's knot, was no longer the secret sign of

the Comacine work. They probably found that there was a limit even to

the combinations of the interlaced line, or that it did not give

enough relief. Certain it is, that on the rise of Romanesque

architecture, the _intreccio_ faded away into mere mouldings, or got

changed into foliaged scrolls for architraves; but the mystic knot

with neither beginning nor end was no more used with special

significance. The rounded sculpture of figures was everywhere

replacing low relief, and the Comacine sign and seal of this epoch,

was the Lion of Judah. From this time forward for the 400 years that

Romanesque and Gothic architecture lasted, there is, I believe,

scarcely a church built by the great Masonic Guild in which the Lion

of Judah was not prominent.

My own observations have led me to the opinion that in Romanesque or

Transition architecture, _i.e._ between A.D. 1000 and 1200, the lion

is to be found between the columns and the arch--the arch resting upon

it. In Italian Gothic, _i.e._ from A.D. 1200 to 1500, it is placed

beneath the column. In either position its significance is evident. In

the first, it points to Christ as the door of the Church. In the

second, to Christ the pillar of faith springing from the tribe of

Judah. Thus at Lucca, Pisa, and Arezzo, where the guild worked in the

eleventh and twelfth centuries, the lion is always above the column.

In Verona, Como, Modena, and where Italian Gothic porches were added

in the thirteenth century, and in Florence, Siena, Orvieto, where the

cathedrals date from the fourteenth century, you find the lion beneath

the column. And in minor works of sculpture there is the same

difference. In the pulpit of Sant' Ambrogio at Milan, the lions are

beneath the spring of the arches; in the pulpits of Niccolò Pisano at

Siena and Guido di Como (thirteenth century) at Pistoja, they are

beneath the column.

A most beautiful instance of the transition between Lombard and

Romanesque is in the door of the church of San Giusto at Lucca, dating

from the twelfth century. The architrave is a grand _intreccio_ of oak

branches while the pilasters, which form the door-jambs, have

richly-carved capitals of mixed acanthus leaves and Ionic volutes,

with a mystic beast clinging to each. The arch superimposed on the

architrave has a rich scroll of cherubs and foliage, and it rests on

two huge lions. It is altogether a perfect Comacine design.

The next change in the sculpture of the Comacine Masters was the

humanization of their sculpture. The rude old carvings of symbolical

beasts no longer satisfied them. Christianity had now endured a

thousand years and was understood, so that it was no longer needful

to use parables and mystic signs. They still made the fronts of their

churches Bibles in stone, as they had done before; only the Bible was

in a language all could read, _i.e._ the sculptured story. From Adam

and Eve to Christ and the Virgin, and even the least of the Saints,

the Comacine put all Scripture upon his church. His Bible lay open

that all might read.

[Illustration: DOOR OF S. GIUSTO AT LUCCA, 12TH CENTURY.

_See page 244._]

The representation of the human figure was at first heavy and

disproportionate, but as the centuries passed on, it grew in grace;

and sculptors were able to express their conceptions more completely.

The animal symbolism did not, however, entirely disappear. It is seen

in every quaint fancy of the Gothic artist of the north, in every

naïve bit of church ornamentation in the south; but it is no longer

the object and end of design. It had become subservient; the human

figure now took the first place.

In the earlier transition stage, even this actual representation was

more or less allegorical. As an interesting instance of the

allegorical nature of Comacine sculpture, we may take the relief of

the Crucifixion in the cathedral at Parma (third chapel on the right),

carved by Benedetto da Antelamo in 1178. In this almost mediæval

relief, the artist has managed to put a symbolical history of the

greatest events of his own times--the defeat of Barbarossa, the fall

of Victor Antipope, the triumph of Pope Alexander III., the cessation

of schism, and the gleams of coming peace on Italy. Around the cross

where Christ hangs, he represents the Church as a symbolic personage

waving the flag of victory; and the schismatic enemy with his banner

broken. Every figure in the composition has its meaning, and the whole

displays a thinking mind, even though the hand be still a little heavy

and mediæval. That this is a veritable Comacine work the sculptor

himself has chronicled. On the top of the relief is written in the

Lombard Gothic characters--

"Anno milleno centeno septuageno

Octavo scultor patravit M͠se secundo

Antelami dictus scultor fuit, hic Benedictus."

An old chronicler of the sixteenth century tells us that this relief

once ornamented an ambone or pulpit supported on four columns, which

was destroyed in 1566.

Another very interesting work is the font for immersion in S. Frediano

at Lucca, sculptured by Maestro Roberto in the twelfth century. The

figures which surround it are as usual full of meaning but grotesque

in proportion; though one can see in the draperies a foreshadowing of

that return to classicality which Niccolò Pisano afterwards advanced

towards perfection. We have here a queer representation of Adam and

Eve, both clad in classical garments and standing by a conventional

fig tree, out of which looks the head of the Eternal Father in a cloud

like a medallion. Eve is clutching the tail of a monstrous serpent. In

the next compartment the four Evangelists carry their emblems on their

shoulders. St. Mark, with his lion, sits in a curule chair, and looks

like a Roman Prefect, mediævalized. St. John has his eagle standing on

a Roman altar beside him, while St. Matthew carries the child on his

shoulder like a St. Christopher. As the work of a forerunner of

Niccolò Pisano in the same brotherhood, the font is intensely

interesting.

The cathedral at Beneventum (one of the Lombard dukedoms) has some

beautiful Comacine arabesques on the pilasters of the great door. We

give an illustration from one of them. The interlaced maze is formed

by a conventional vine, in the branches of which are symbolical

animals. Here is the Lamb of God, signed as divine and eternal by

numberless circles all over it. The eagle, symbol of faith, is

strangling sin in the form of a serpent; above, is a calf, emblem of

the Christian, overcoming evil in the form of a bird of prey. In

meaning, the intention is the same as the old sculptures on San

Michele, executed six centuries previously; but speaking

technically, sculpture as an art has advanced greatly. There is rich

and clear relief, and intelligibility of design in this work.

[Illustration: PILASTER OF THE DOOR OF THE CATHEDRAL OF BENEVENTUM,

12TH CENTURY.

_See page 246._]

Symonds,[192] speaking of this stage of art, says--"The so-called

Romanesque and Byzantine styles were but the dotage of second

childhood (it was a childhood which grew and developed into virility,

however), fumbling with the methods and materials of an irrevocable

past. It is true indeed that unknown mediæval carvers had shown an

instinct for the beautiful, as well as great fertility of grotesque

invention. The façades of Lombard churches are covered with fanciful

and sometimes forcibly dramatic groups of animals and men in contest;

and contemporaneously with Niccolò Pisano, many Gothic sculptors of

the north were adorning the façades and porches of cathedrals with

statuary unrivalled in one style of loveliness. Yet the founder of a

line of progressive artists had not arisen, and except in Italy the

conditions were still wanting under which alone the plastic arts could

attain independence." Here Symonds goes on to speak of Niccolò Pisano,

as the fountain-head of sculpture.

And now we can no longer evade the knotty question of who and what

Niccolò was, where did he arise from, and where was he trained in art?

There are always those conflicting documents which Milanesi found to

be reconciled. The first, in the archives of the Opera di S. Jacopo at

Pistoja, dated July 11, 1272, which runs--_Magister Nichola pisanus,

filius Petri de_--(here is an illegible word which Ciampi reads as

_Senis_[193]). He chose this reading because another document dated

November 13, 1272, styles "Niccolò" Magister Nichola, quondam Petri de

(Senis) Ser Blasii pisa ... (_hiatus_).

Milanesi, however, who found at Siena the contract for Niccolò's

pulpit there, dated October 5, 1266, says the word _Senis_ should be

read _Sancti_, for in the Sienese contract the words are

plainly--_Magister Niccolus de parroccia ecclesie sancti Blasii de

ponte de Pisis, etc. etc._ In another document also at Siena, in which

Niccolò is commanded to send for his pupil Arnolfo to work with him,

we get _Magistrum Nicholam de Apulia_. In two others of the next year,

_Magister Niccholus olim Petri lapidum de Pisis_. Now all this is very

puzzling, and yet being documentary it must all be true. We will put

Siena entirely out of the question, the word proving to be a

misreading of _Sancti_, so that instead of the second document meaning

Niccolò son of the late Peter son of Ser Blasius or Biagio of Siena,

it must read Niccolò son of Peter of the parish of St. Blasius at

Pisa. We have then the two different nationalities of his father

Pietro--Pisa and Apulia--to account for. Milanesi suggests that Apulia

means a little place near Lucca called Puglia.

The further light we have found thrown on the peregrinations of

_Magistri_ of the guild may assist us to reconcile the conflicting

statements. It is certain, as we said before, that Niccolò Pisano was

a _Magister_ of the guild, and being a man of genius he became one of

its most important members. His membership was moreover hereditary;

his father had been also a _Magister lapidum_. Now the Comacines had a

lodge in Apulia, from the time of the Longobards, and traces of it

still remained after 1100, in a small colony in the valley of Æterno,

which preserved as a kind of monopoly the art of building.[194]

[Illustration: BAPTISMAL FONT IN CHURCH OF S. FREDIANO, LUCCA. BY

MAGISTER ROBERTO, 12TH CENTURY.

_See page 246._]

The church of S. Sofia at Beneventum, A.D. 788, and the monastery of

S. Pietro were built by them, as well as the later cathedrals of

Trani, Bari, and Ruvo. The latter still retains its ancient Lombard

façade covered with figures of animals, the portal being flanked by

columns surmounted by a fine rose window. When the Normans succeeded

the Longobards and Saracens in Apulia, the Masonic Guild was

still more busy there, and it was very probable that Pietro the

sculptor worked in Apulia under the Norman dynasty, with many of his

brethren. I am told that there is in Bari cathedral a pulpit of the

same form as that by Niccolò, but of an earlier date. This is a

significant proof of Niccolò's early training in Apulia, probably

under his own father, as was the custom of the guild. It would also

account for the Saracenic touch in his arches and ornamentation. The

lions under the columns were used by the Masonic Guild a century

before Niccolò's time, so it is evident they were not, as Ruskin and

others suppose, borrowed from the Saracens by Niccolò. There is a most

interesting pulpit of the older square form at Groppoli near Pistoja,

dated 1194, with lions beneath the pillars. It offers one of the very

early specimens of the sculptured scriptural story. The panels

represent the "Nativity of Christ" and the "Flight into Egypt," both

most naïvely designed. The square pulpit of Guido da Como in S.

Bartolommeo at Pistoja is dated A.D. 1250, and shows the immense

improvement art had made in those sixty years. In some ways Guido da

Como quite equals Niccolò. He does not strain after the classic, but

there is great and simple dignity, and even grace in his figures, some

of which are almost worthy of Fra Angelico. It was ten years after

Guido's lion-pillared pulpit was finished, that we find Niccolò--who

had for some years been working at Pisa, where he was then

domiciled--sculpturing his famous pulpit there, and though altering

the form from square to octagon, using the same symbolism, and in many

ways the same treatment of his subject, as Guido had done before him.

It would be a suggestive proof of the same influence in training, to

compare the panels representing the Nativity, in the three pulpits.

The Lombard one at Groppoli, Guido da Como's at Pistoja, and Niccolò's

at Pisa, and one might add a fourth, _i.e._ Giovanni Pisano's pulpit

in S. Andrea at Pistoja, which is in some respects an advance on his

father's design, although it is evidently not only inspired, but

almost copied from it. There are in all four, the same kind of

_lectis_ for bed, the same cows, out of perspective, high up in the

background, and in the two last the same treatment of drapery. In some

ways, however, Niccolò has passed far beyond Guido. While Guido

followed his forefathers' traditions, Niccolò had been first revelling

in the richness of Saracenic types in Apulia, and then living among

the classic spoils of Pisa, where Diotisalvi had worked before him.

[Illustration: PULPIT IN THE CHURCH OF GROPPOLI NEAR PISTOJA. A.D.

1194.

_See page 249._]

His school at Pisa inaugurated a revival which was to change art for

all the world. Yet it was only a step and not a sudden leap. He was no

ancestorless genius springing from darkness and chaos, but a link in

the chain of art from which in him a new strand departed, leading

towards Donatello and Ghiberti. He took the forms of his sect, but

improved and freed them; he held to the traditional symbolism of his

guild, but classicized and enriched it. His greatest advance was in

the modelling of the human figure, and here his classic models helped

him. One suspects that he depended much on those models, for where he

had no antique to copy from, he degenerated into the mediævalism of

his fraternity. The mixture of the two styles is very apparent in the

different panels of his pulpit, some of which look as if they had come

from Antonine's column, while others are heavier and less graceful by

far than Guido da Como's simple natural figures. The fact was, that in

his time the whole guild was developing under the freer conditions of

art, and Niccolò was one of its leading masters, and endowed with

especial talent.

With him the Romanesque period closes, and the Italian Gothic begins.

Led by him the Comacines in Tuscany left the rude, distorted images

and meaningless monsters behind, and marched on towards the perfection

of sculpture of the human form as shown by Donatello and Michael

Angelo.

[Illustration: PULPIT IN SIENA CATHEDRAL. BY NICCOLÒ PISANO. A.D.

1266.

_See page 250._]

Among the Comacines in Lombardy the same change was in progress.

Jacopo Porrata, working at nearly the same time, carved the life-like

prophets and bas-relief on the façade of the cathedral of Cremona,

which bears the legend, "Magister Jacobus Porrata de Cumis fecit hanc

rotam MCCLXXIIII."

Antonio de Frix of Como, working in concert with Meo di Checco, carved

the beautiful roof of the Duomo at Ferrara, while other Masters were

sculpturing sacred stories on pulpits and doorways, vestibules and

decorations in many a church which their forerunners had built.

With the development of the Gothic, the guild again changed the style

of their ornamentation.

The pointed gable over the circular arch was one of the first signs of

this change. You see it in Siena, Orvieto, Florence, and the

fourteenth-century porches in Lombardy.

The gable gave an opening for statuary, floriated crockets, and ornate

pinnacles; the pointed arch opened a way to beautiful tracery; the

upward shaft and pilaster afforded space for the ornate tabernacle or

saint-filled niche; for the sculptor-architect never let an inch go

plain which could be effectively sculptured.

Between the solid Lombard round arch and the pointed traceried one

stands the cusping of the circular arch. Ruskin credits Niccolò Pisano

also with this; saying grandiloquently that "in the five cusped arches

of Niccolò's pulpit you see the first Gothic Christian architecture

... the change, in a word, for all Europe, from the Parthenon to

Amiens cathedral. For Italy it means the rise of her Gothic

dynasty--it means the Duomo of Milan instead of the Temple of

Paestum."[195] This is very poetic, but it will not bear analysis.

The cusps of Niccolò's arches were by no means the first to be seen in

Italy; we find them in several churches of the twelfth century; and as

for Amiens cathedral, that was nearly completed when Niccolò's pulpit

was carved.

The cusping of the round arch came up from the south; it was suggested

to the Comacines by the Saracenic architecture, as a variety on their

usual twin archlets under a round arch, and was used some time before

they adopted the pointed arch.

The first real Italian step to the pointed Gothic began at Assisi, in

the hands of Jacopo il Tedesco, and his fellow-countryman, Fra Filippo

di Campello, or Campiglione. Jacopo stands to Italian Gothic

architecture in the same place as Niccolò Pisano stands to Renaissance

sculpture. In Italy, the land of classic Rome, true Gothic never

developed in the form in which we see it further north. Her finest

buildings retained in parts the older forms, and with the humanism of

the classic revival of literature, a classic revival of architecture

also took place. The Gothic style in Italy was strangled in its

infancy by Bramante and Michael Angelo. Even Milan, though a glorious

Gothic building, was masked and disfigured by a Renaissance front,

with its straight lines and geometric pediments.

The Germans and French, taking the germ from Italy, developed it

magnificently; and it is fortunate that they had broken the bonds of

the old Masonic brotherhood, and nationalized themselves and their art

in time to keep their Gothic forms pure.

If we should attempt to particularize examples of Italian Gothic

ornamentation, volumes would not be enough. We will be content with a

few instances of sculpture by the Lombard guild at this epoch.

[Illustration: THE RICCARDI PALACE, BUILT FOR LORENZO DEI MEDICI.

(_From a photograph by Giannini, Florence._) _See page 258._]

Some beautiful illustrations of their allegorical style are to be

seen in studying the capitals of the colonnade of the Ducal Palace at

Venice, some of which were by Bartolommeo Buono, son of the

fifteenth-century Zambono or Giovanni Buono. We give an illustration

of one with allegorical representations of the classical goddesses,

Venus, Minerva, and Juno, throned in acanthus leaves. Minerva looks

like a mediæval school-mistress as she teaches Hebe and the Loves,

from a ponderous tome. The famous Adam and Eve capital, of which

Ruskin writes so eloquently, was probably by the same hand.

Bartolommeo's best carving was in his "Porta della Carta," the door of

the Grand Ducal Palace, next San Marco, which is rich in the extreme,

and is signed on the architrave "Opus Bartolommei."

Bartolommeo's father, Giovanni Buono, was the head architect of the

beautiful "Ca' d'oro," and here the richness of decorative sculpture

under florid Gothic forms reaches its height.

The family Buono came from Campione, and I think it probable that this

was the same Bartolommeo da Campione whose name is on several of the

Gothic capitals of Milan cathedral. We give an illustration of one of

them, which is extremely rich in statues and pinnacles.

The rapid march from the early pointed towards florid Gothic

sculpture, is evidenced in a remarkable manner by the tombs of the

Scaligers in Verona. The monument to Mastino II., who died in 1351, by

Magister Porino or Perino, is only a quarter of a century previous to

that of Can Grande, who died in 1375, which was by Bonino da

Campione.[196] Yet between the two there lies an immense development

of style. In Perino's work there are the seeds of all the forms in

Bonino's, but in one the Gothic style is undeveloped, in the other it

is in full flower.

Perino has his columns; his cusped pointed arches with high gables

above them; his tabernacles, pinnacles, and pyramidal roof, with an

equestrian statue on the summit; but his lines are simple, direct, and

unbroken, though enriched here and there with reliefs and figures. In

Bonino's the columns are richly carved, the arches lavishly cusped,

the tympanum filled with sculptured medallions. The tabernacles are

richer and more emphatically Gothic in their lengthened lines and

multiplied pinnacles. The figures even have grown into more true

proportions, and are elongated into gracefulness. Every inch of the

whole design is foliated and rich to a degree--as beautiful a bit of

Gothic sculpture as any German or English cathedral can show, but yet

the work of pure Italians, and men of the Comacine Guild.

The sepulchral monument of Gian Galeazzo Visconti in the Certosa of

Pavia is of an entirely different style to those of the Scaligers. It

is principally the work of Gio. Antonio Amedeo, and has the same

ornate Renaissance style as the façade of the Certosa in which he

assisted. An arched base contains the sarcophagus, on which rests the

beautiful and dignified figure of the Duke, guarded at head and foot

by classic angels. Above this is a statue of the Virgin and Child in a

central niche, flanked by reliefs of scenes from the life of the Duke.

The whole surface of the marble is covered with sculpture, but of a

style removed as far as the poles from the work of the Comacine Guild,

800 years back. There all was life and _naïveté_, here all is

classical decorum and convention. Pilasters covered with armour and

coats of mail like a Roman trophy, friezes of set garlands and shields

like a Roman pediment, vases with conventional plants rising stiffly

out of them. The severe architectural lines are straight and unbroken;

here are no Gothic pinnacles and graceful shrines, no ornamental

gables or pyramids, only the plain arch and pediment classically

set and correct. The Italians had revived the Roman; and the

Renaissance style was the result. Comacine art began with true Roman,

and ended with a return to a false classicism, that with rule and line

crushed out the life of the rich Gothic floriation.

[Illustration: TOMB OF MASTINO II. DEGLI SCALIGERI, AT VERONA.

SCULPTURED BY MAGISTER PERINO, OF THE MILAN LODGE.

_See page 253._]

FOOTNOTES:

[192] Symonds, _The Renaissance, etc. Fine Arts_, chap. iii. p. 77.

[193] Ciampi, _Notizie inedite della Sagrestia Pistojese_. Firenze.

[194] Merzario, _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. v. p. 177.

[195] Ruskin, _Val d'Arno_, p. 17.

[196] This must have been another scion of the Buoni family, probably

a small man, and therefore called "Little Buono."

CHAPTER V

CIVIL ARCHITECTURE OF THE ROMANESQUE ERA

The Comacines were always fine fortress builders from the early times,

when they fortified not only their own island and city against the

Goths, and against their civil foes at Milan, etc., but also other

cities which had foes to keep off. Their towers and forts were so

solid and strong that their builders were taken by Justinian to the

East to build castles there, with the strong battlemented walls which

aroused Procopius's admiration, and which he confesses were called

_Castelli_, because that was the Italian name for them.

After the eleventh century, when the Communes were formed, the

building of the fortress was less frequent, and the Communal Palace

took its place. The guild was always gradual in its adoption of new

styles, and the palace of the Podestà or the "Signoria" differed only

in form, and not in style, from the older castle. There is the same

solid masonry--either _opus Gallicum_ of smoothly-hewn stones fitted

with nicety, or _opus Romanum_ of flat wide bricks welded together

with cement till they are strong as a Roman wall. There are the same

battlements and cornice of arches supported on brackets; and wherever

a window is needed, high enough to be safe without an iron grating, it

is invariably of the old Lombard form, with its two round arches

enclosed in a larger one. There was the same pillared courtyard with

its flight of steps to the upper floor. Jacopo Tedesco's Bargello

at Florence, his Castle at Poppi, and his Palazzo Pubblico at Arezzo

are the most beautiful examples of this style.

[Illustration: CAPITAL OF A COLUMN IN THE DUCAL PALACE, VENICE.

_See page 253._]

Arnolfo's Palazzo Vecchio, the Palazzo of the Commune at Siena, and

the Palazzo Pubblico at Pistoja show the next step towards a less

military style. There still remains much of the fortress, in the

solidity and rigidity of the masonry below, and the battlemented lines

above, but the tower is no longer a solid weapon of war; it becomes an

airy ornamental shrine for a peaceful civic bell, that rings for the

joys and sorrows of the people.

These buildings may stand as the fair examples of the work of the

Masonic Guild for the thirteenth century; in the fourteenth and

fifteenth the style changed gradually towards less rigid lines. The

windows were widened and cusped, and the arches over the archlets of

the windows became pointed; a gable with crockets placed above the

windows still further lightened the effect, and emphasized the new

Gothic influence. The ancient Palace of the Priors and Palazzo del

Popolo, which stand close together at Todi, of which we give an

illustration, show this progress in a very marked degree. There is

just the difference between the two buildings that there lies between

the palace of King Desiderius at S. Gemignano, and the Palazzo Vecchio

of Florence. The Palazzo Pubblico, at Perugia, with its noble

Ringhiera and Loggia, might be taken as the culminating point of

Romanesque civil building. Its principal doorway is a masterpiece of

Comacine work. The Masters have set their sign of the lion beneath the

column, but both lion and pillar are secularized; instead of the

ecclesiastic column, here is a square pilaster with niches containing

graceful figures of the civic virtues--justice, mercy, fortitude,

charity, etc. In the tympanum of the arch stand three bishops, and

over the architrave two other lions on brackets mark the spring of the

arch. The door is surrounded with course upon course of beautiful

mouldings, arabesques, and spirals rich in the extreme. Though

exceptionally beautiful, yet if one compares this Palazzo Pubblico of

Perugia with other public edifices of its time in Italy, the

similarities are such that one cannot deny that a single influence

must have dominated them all.

In the Palazzo Pubblico at Udine, which was later, being built in the

fifteenth century by Giovanni Fontana of Melide (Master of Palladio)

and Matteo his son, we get the link between these Romanesque civil

buildings and the Venetian Gothic. The upper windows have still the

Lombard columns, but the little arches are more ornately cusped and

gothicized. The colonnade forming the Ringhiera is formed of decidedly

pointed arches. There is in this a marked affinity to the Venetian

architecture, and its origin accounts for it. The Fontanas were much

employed at Venice, and worked with the Lombardi, to whom Venice is

indebted for so much of her beautiful Gothic civil architecture. In

_cinquecento_ times there was a great call on the Masonic Guild for

palaces. The republics had begun to fade into principalities, wealth

and aristocracy again got the upper hand. The great churches were

already built, and so to employ the many great Masters of architecture

and sculpture whose families had for generations beautified Italian

cities, the dominant families in them vied with each other in palace

building.

[Illustration: DOORWAY OF THE MUNICIPAL PALACE AT PERUGIA (1340).

_See page 257._]

In Florence the Medici led the way, the Strozzi following them close.

Then all the other old families, Guicciardini, Rinuccini, Antinori,

Borghini, etc., also called in the masters of the Florentine Guild to

make them palaces. Cronaca, Sangallo, Baccio d'Agnolo, all names whose

ancestors were well known at either Siena, Orvieto, or in Lombardy,

made the plans and directed the works. And one who compares these

palaces one with another, cannot but confess that different as were

the hands that fashioned them, one type and one style shows through

them all, which is to say that the architects were all brethren of the

same guild, and had received the same training. The Florentine palace

bore on its face the imprint of its race; you can trace it gradually

from the Brolio of Lombard times, through the mediæval fortress, and

the republican public palace. Here in the Riccardi and Strozzi, the

Pitti and Guadagni Palaces, is the same solidity of architecture; but

instead of the smooth hewn blocks, the huge stones are left rough,

_alla rustica_.[197] Here are the same shaped windows, enlarged and

beautified with tracery and mullion in place of the ancient column,

but directly derived from the older form. Here is the ancient crown of

Lombard archlets diminished into a rich cornice; it is only in the

older buildings that the battlements are seen above, as in the Palazzo

Ferroni.

In the interior the cortile, with its arched and pillared _loggie_

around it, holds its own in the centre of the building. There is

little change of form between the Court of the Palazzo Vecchio in 1299

and the Riccardi, Strozzi, and a score of other private palaces of the

fifteenth century. The _loggia_, which was such an important feature

in the private house of the Republic, is now either relegated to the

garden front or the upper storey, where it is a delight to the family

itself, and is no longer the public meeting-place. This is a

difference entirely depending on a changed state of society.

As in Florence, so it was in Milan, Venice, and other cities where

Masonic lodges were established in the great church-building era. The

nobles employed the builders whose hands were craving for work. And

what palaces they built, and what a wealth of rich Gothic decoration

they lavished on them! We are indebted for most of the Venetian Gothic

palaces to the Buoni and Lombardi families, whose course we have

traced in the chapter on Venice. The Renaissance buildings belong

chiefly to the members of the Florentine Lodge, such as Sansovino and

San Michele, who went to Venice in the sixteenth century.

At Rome, where the Pope's rule was absolute, there was less

palace-building, but the Lombard Guild was employed greatly in their

old branch of fortress and bridge building. The Masters Bartolommeo

and Bertrando of Como were engaged by Pope Pius II. to strengthen the

fortifications of S. Angelo. Maestro Antonio of Como built the Ponte

Lucano, Maestro Antonio da Castiglione the Ponte Mammolo and Ponte

Molle. Maestro Manfredo da Como was commissioned by Pius II. to build

a new fortress on the heights of Tivoli to defend the valley of the

Anio from incursions on the Abruzzi side. The following entries from

the registers prove Maestro Manfredo's employment there--

"1461. August 12. Twenty-five ducats given to the treasurer by command

of his Holiness, to be paid to Maestro Manfred the Lombard, to begin

the castle of Tivoli (_roccha di Tiboli_)."

"1462. May 14. To Maestro Manfredino, builder, 200 gold florins on

account of the works at the fortress of Tivoli."

"1462. October 6. 400 _ducats di camera_ to Master Manfredino the

Lombard, who works at the castle of Tivoli."[198]

[Illustration: PALAZZO PUBBLICO AT PERUGIA.

_See page 257._]

Master Manfred with Paolo da Campagnano, both Comacines, built the

Ponte Sisto, which has been erroneously attributed to Baccio Pontelli.

Pope Sixtus IV. employed Giovanni di Dolci to build the citadel of

Civita Vecchia, which Baccio Pontelli finished after Giovanni's death.

Antonio di Giovanni da Canobbio built the fort at Zolfanella in the

same reign, while Francesco di Pietro da Triviago, Francesco da Como,

and Giorgio Lombardo were joint architects of the castle at Santa

Marmella. So we see that nearly all the papal forts were the work of

Lombards connected with the Roman Lodge. In their own native hills the

Lombards were doing similar works.

[Illustration: COURT OF THE BARGELLO, FLORENCE. BUILT BY JACOPO

"TEDESCO."

_See page 257._]

[Illustration: TOWER OF PALAZZO VECCHIO AT FLORENCE. DESIGNED BY

MAGISTER ARNOLFO.

_See page 257._]

In A.D. 1500 Maestro Jacopo Dagurro da Bissone, who was a most able

engineer, constructed a splendid viaduct, forty-eight metres long,

over the Natisone, among the rocks and beetling cliffs of Civitale in

Friuli.

FOOTNOTES:

[197] This rustic style is carried to an eccentric excess in some

buildings of the seventeenth century, such as the Parliament House

(Palazzo Monte Citorio) at Rome, and Zucchari's house in Florence. In

Monte Citorio the window-sills are hewn and shaped smoothly for half

their length, the other half being left in the rough. Zucchari has

done the same with his door-lintels and window-panels. The effect is

an incongruity, not pleasing to the eye.

[198] Merzario, _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. II. ch. xxxviii. p. 420.

BOOK IV

ITALIAN-GOTHIC, AND RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTS

CHAPTER I

THE SECESSION OF THE PAINTERS

Painting is not generally supposed to be connected in any great degree

with architecture: indeed it has now become a distinctly independent

art. In the Middle Ages I believe the case was different. The great

primitive Comacine Guild seems to have embraced all the decorative

arts, though especially sculpture, as integral branches of

architecture. There are indisputable proofs of the many-sided nature

of the training in a Comacine _laborerium_. There were _Magistri

insigneriorum_, or Master architects; _Magistri lapidum_, or

sculptors, and _Magistri lignorum_, or master carpenters. These latter

seem in old times to have been the designers of scaffoldings and

makers of beams for roofing; wood-carvers and inlayers were called

_Maestri d'intaglio_. Then there were certainly ironworkers and

masters in metal, and fresco-painters, who also attained to the rank

of Master. But no one branch was entirely separate from the others,

until the fourteenth century, when the painters' companies were

founded. We find the same man building, designing, sculpturing,

painting, and even working in gold or iron, and seeming equally good

in all styles, so that the training of the _laborerium_ must have been

especially comprehensive.

The reason appears to be that all the fine arts--painting, sculpture

and metal-working--were considered by the Comacines as indispensable

handmaids to architecture, and no builder was in their eyes fit to be

a Master till he could not only erect his edifice, but adorn it. Their

symbolic church was to them a kind of Bible, figuring all the points

of creeds, but the building itself was but the paper and binding of

the Bible; the sculptor put the frontispiece which explained its inner

meaning, and the mosaicist and fresco-painter added as it were the

letter-press and illustrations. The churches of Ravenna show how full

and rich was this inner illustration, how Christ and the Apostles,

angels and prophets, saints and martyrs, have shone on those walls, a

beautiful Bible picture-book for ages. That this was the light in

which the early Christians regarded their churches is plain from many

passages in the early Fathers. St. Basil (A.D. 379) in preaching,

says--"Rise up, now, I pray you, ye celebrated painters of the good

deeds of this army. Make glorious by your art the mutilated images of

their leader. With colours laid on by your cunning, make illustrious

the crowned martyr, by me too feebly pictured. I retire vanquished

before you in your painting of the excellences of the martyr, etc.

etc."[199]

[Illustration: EIGHTH-CENTURY WALL DECORATION IN SUBTERRANEAN CHURCH

OF S. CLEMENTE, ROME.

_See pages 10 and 268._]

Here is the description of a Christian shrine by St. Gregory of Nyssa

(fourth century)--"Whoso cometh unto some spot like this, where there

is a monument of the just and a holy relic, his soul is gladdened by

the magnificence of what he beholds, seeing a house as God's temple

elaborated most gloriously, both in the magnitude of the structure,

and the beauty of the surrounding ornament. There the artificer has

fashioned wood into the shape of animals; and the stone-cutter has

polished the slabs to the smoothness of silver; and the painter has

introduced the flowers of his art, depicting and imaging the constancy

of the martyrs, their resistance, their torments, the savage forms

of their tyrants, their outrages, the blazing furnace and the most

blessed end of the champion; the representation of Christ in human

form presiding over the contest--all these things as it were in a book

gifted with speech; shaping for us by means of colours, has he

cunningly discoursed to us of the martyr's struggles, has made this

temple glorious as some brilliant fertile mead. For the silent tracery

on the walls has the art to discourse, and to aid most powerfully. And

he who has arranged the mosaics has made this pavement on which we

tread equal to a history." (From Father Mulroody's translation, in

_San Clemente_, pp. 34, 35. St. Gregory wrote before A.D. 395.[200])

No doubt the richness of colour in these Byzantine mosaics inspired

the taste for pictorial embellishment in the interiors of buildings,

and the Comacines, not having Greek mosaicists at command, found an

easier and quicker method of writing their scriptures on their

walls--_i.e._ fresco. The first mention of frescoes is of those in the

palace of Theodolinda, where her Lombards were portrayed on the walls.

Several Lombard churches also retain signs of having been frescoed.

But if one desires to see what the early Christian Comacine could do

in fresco, let him go to that interesting Roman church of San

Clemente, where some excavations made in 1857 revealed the ancient

fourth-century Basilica, almost complete under the present one, which

dates from about the twelfth century. This ancient church was built by

St. Clement, the third bishop of Rome, and in it Gregory the Great

read his thirty-second and thirty-eighth homilies. From the

subterranean remains, with their grand ancient marble pillars and the

huge semi-circle of the tribune, masked and built in though they are

by the foundations of the upper church, we judge that it was a far

finer building than the one above. Its walls were moreover covered

with frescoes, some of which are precisely similar in style to the

ones at S. Piero a Grado, also said to date before the tenth century.

The frescoes, which have been discovered on the subterranean walls,

are, as will be seen by our illustrations of them, in three rows,

which appear to be of three different eras--two certainly. The upper

band of saints and martyrs are distinctly Byzantine in style, drawing,

and colouring. They show the usual rows of immobile saints and martyrs

in set robes with jewelled borders, which are seen in the mosaics of

the Ravenna churches. These would, I believe, date from the

fourth-century church, when the Roman builders were employing

Byzantine decoration. The second row beneath this is of the more

naturalistic Comacine school, and would probably date from Pope

Hadrian's restoration in the eighth century. In these and the frescoes

of S. Piero a Grado one gets the veritable link between the

conventional Byzantine school and the naturalistic Renaissance in

Tuscany. Here are no longer icons or abstract images of saints; the

people are no longer rigid and set, but are full of action and

expression, though both are imperfectly expressed. They are, in fact,

real persons and their stories. The life of St. Clement is all told in

scenes. There are even portraits of living people, such as Beno di

Rapizo and his wife Maria, who "for love of the blessed Clement"

caused the frescoes to be painted. Nor are their children, the boy

Clement (_puerulus Clemens_) and little Atilia his sister, forgotten.

They are veritable portraits, for the face of Beno in two different

scenes is identical. The colouring, too, is unlike the Byzantine

saints above. Those are rich with solid heavy tints; these are

lighter, and more in the style of the early Sienese or Tuscan ones.

Beneath this row of scenes are ornamental friezes, in which one

recognizes Roman classical forms naturalized into floriated scrolls,

and under these a line of panelling in fresco. One panel appears to be

copied from the mosaic of the ceiling at the circular church of Sta.

Costanza; another is suggestive of the emblematic circles and signs of

the Catacombs. A third, the most interesting of all, is the one

commemorating the building of the church to which we have before

referred. Here stands Sisinius, and whether he be the hero of St.

Clement's miracle, as Father Mulroody asserts, or not, he is certainly

a Master architect standing in his toga, and wearing a Freemason's

apron under it, directing his men, Albertus, Cosma, and Carvoncelle,

in the moving of a column. The figures in this are so much more rude

and out of drawing than the ones above, that they scarcely would seem

to be by the same hands. I account for it by the fact that in

representing a natural sketch from real life, the artist had no

traditionary models to guide him, as he had for his saints and

virgins, and consequently he found it difficult to depict his

fellow-workmen in complicated attitudes. The art of the Catacombs has

no affinity with these frescoes, which are of a more free and natural

style, and the true ancestors of the Tuscan school of fresco-painting.

[Illustration: FRESCOES OF THE 8TH CENTURY IN THE SUBTERRANEAN CHURCH

OF S. CLEMENTE, ROME, WITH PORTRAITS OF THE PATRON BENO DI RAPIZO AND

HIS FAMILY.

_See pages 10 and 268._]

We might place these as the earliest revival of nature after the

Byzantine conventional influence was withdrawn; the next link is to be

seen in the church of S. Piero a Grado, three miles from Pisa, where

are extant by far the finest specimens of Comacine fresco-painting.

The church, which I have described in the chapter on the Carlovingian

era, was built soon after the time of Pope Leo III. (795-816). The

frescoes are said to date before A.D. 1000. Like those of St. Clement

they are not Byzantine, and yet, though full of life and action, they

have an Eastern air; they are not like the later Tuscan art, the

colouring being lighter and the drawing of the figures different. The

prevailing tint is a beautiful ethereal pale green, which is like

nothing in Tuscan art, though Peruzzi produced a tint something like

it in the sixteenth century. Standing at one end of the church and

looking down the nave, one could imagine a Ravenna church, with its

mosaics softened and toned down into frescoes. They are a valuable

proof that among the Comacine Masters pictorial decoration was

considered an integral part of a building. They told the articles of

their creed in their sculptures outside, but they wrote the history of

the church on the walls inside. The story of the church in the

abstract is told in the line of popes above the arches, ending at Leo

III.; the story of this church in particular is told in large scenes

above them. Here is the church as it looked when built, and here is

the ship of St. Peter cast ashore at Grado, and his preaching and

baptizing, imprisonment, etc. In fact all his life still glows, though

fading out on the south wall. The north wall is given to his death and

miracles. Here is his crucifixion, near an obelisk on the Janicular

Hill, and the beheading of his fellow-martyr St. Paul at the Tre

Fontane, with the mysterious blood-red bird that drank his blood.

Another scene shows the Pope Symmachus (A.D. 498) disinterring the

bodies of the two Saints, and his vow of building S. John Lateran, and

the last scene shows his consecration of that church. It is

interesting to mark the Comacine influence in the drawing. The towers

are Lombard towers, and the buildings all have round apses. The people