of a Saxon home with a fortified burh; a square keep was built on the
most commanding position, perhaps on the mound, and a large walled
enclosure was made, defended on the west, south and east sides by a
lake and by a deep ditch across the north front. Somewhat on the west
side of this was formed the inner ward a rectangular enclosure, nearly
one and one-half acres in area, the north-east corner of which was
occupied by Clinton’s keep. This is a plain late Norman edifice with a
forebuilding on the west side, and containing a vaulted basement and
one upper floor only, the former being entirely filled with earth. The
main floor formed one immense room thirty-four feet by sixty-four and
about forty feet high. The forebuilding contained the staircase of
approach to the entrance doorway, and above was a room, possibly an
oratory. Large corner turrets, three containing mural chambers and one
large spiral stair, cap the angles of the keep, the walls of which are
of immense thickness. There is no evidence as to what was the nature
of the Norman buildings in this ward, since they have been replaced
by the work of the Earls of Lancaster, and of John of Gaunt, and are
called by their name. West from the keep are the ruined kitchens,
showing a huge fireplace and baking ovens. At the north-west angle
is the Strong Tower, of three stages, which was, perhaps, used as a
prison for persons of consequence. Adjoining this is the Hall, a pure
Perpendicular building, due to John of Gaunt, beyond which was the
white hall, and next the State rooms, which are connected with a large
garderobe tower. Then at the south-east corner comes the range to which
the name of Leicester’s Buildings has been given, and the east face to
the keep is made up by the site of Dudley’s Lobby and Henry VIII.’s
lodgings, but all this has perished.
The outer ward is a large oblong enclosure, 270 yards long from east
to west by 174; at its east end were domestic offices, the entrances
and the chapel. Originally this ward was divided by a ditch seventy
feet wide running north and south with a bridge for access to the
inner ward, part of it remaining in front of Leicester’s buildings,
and the rest having probably been filled in by Dudley after the visit
of Elizabeth. This outer ward contains about nine acres, having a
circumference of 750 yards; it is formed by a strong curtain wall
embracing six important buildings; namely, the octagon Swan Tower on
the north-west, Mortimer’s Tower, or the gatehouse, at the head of
the dam across the lake, called either after Lord Mortimer of Wigmore
(temp. Edward III.), or from Sir John Mortimer, imprisoned here in the
reign of Henry V. Then towards the east came the Warden’s Tower, and
next the Water Tower at the south-east corner, a complete mural bastion
of Early Decorated style; whence the curtain runs to Lunn’s Tower at
the north-east angle, a round building thirty-six feet in diameter and
forty high. At the back of this part of the wall is a long range of
stabling and farm buildings, with an upper half-timbered storey, said
to have been built by the great Earl Thomas of Lancaster, in the reign
of Edward II., but some part is Late Perpendicular. Next to this is
the chapel. West of Lunn’s Tower is the building called Leicester’s
Gatehouse, built in 1570, a rectangular tower with octangular corner
turrets. On the north side of the great ditch, which is cut through the
rock and forms the north defence, is Clinton’s green, where are still
banks of earth, probably survivals of the great siege by Henry III.
In front of Mortimer’s Tower is the dam, eighty yards long, across the
valley, having at its further end the remains of a flood-gate and outer
gatehouse, or the gallery tower, with a drawbridge here over the outer
ditch. This was the point at which Queen Elizabeth made her entry.
Beyond it was called the Brayz, where tournaments were held, as they
also were on the dam itself. On both sides of the dam extended a lake,
half a mile long on the west, and some twelve feet deep, upon which the
attack by ships was made by Henry III. Finally, beyond the Brayz was a
great curved outwork forming a tête-du-pont in front of the entrance.
The keep, or Clinton’s Tower was perhaps built between 1170 and 1180.
Lunn’s Tower may be the work of King John. Henry III. expended large
sums at Kenilworth, and to him is ascribed the great dam, the Water and
Warden’s Towers, and much of the curtain on the south and east. Robert
Dudley, Earl of Leicester, altered the keep into Tudor Style, and
besides the buildings called by his name, added the Gallery Tower and
the gatehouse at the north-east, “a very fine example of a declining
period in English architecture.” John of Gaunt certainly built the
great Hall (circ. 1390), “one of the most beautiful examples of Early
Perpendicular work in the kingdom,” and he is said to have built the
portion called Lancaster’s Buildings, between Cæsar’s Tower and the
hill. It was at Kenilworth, during one of her visits in August, 1572,
while out hunting, that Queen Elizabeth read, as she rode, the terrible
news of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew.
SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE
JOHN RUSKIN
“SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE,” Our Lady of Health, or of Safety, would be
a more literal translation, yet not perhaps fully expressing the force
of the Italian word in this case. The church was built between 1630
and 1680, in acknowledgment of the cessation of the plague:--of course
to the Virgin, to whom the modern Italian has recourse in all his
principal distresses, and who receives his gratitude for all principal
deliverances.
The hasty traveller is usually enthusiastic in his admiration of this
building; but there is a notable lesson to be derived from it, which
is not often read. On the opposite side of the broad canal of the
Guidecca is a small church, celebrated among Renaissance architects as
of Palladian design, but which would hardly attract the notice of the
general observer, unless on account of the pictures by John Bellini
which it contains, in order to see which the traveller may perhaps
remember having been taken across the Guidecca to the Church of the
“Redentore.” But he ought carefully to compare these two buildings with
each other, the one built “to the Virgin,” the other “to the Redeemer”
(also a votive offering after the cessation of the plague of 1576): the
one, the most conspicuous church in Venice, its dome, the principal one
by which she is first discerned, rising out of the distant sea; the
other, small and contemptible, on a suburban island, and only becoming
an object of interest, because it contains three small pictures! For
in relative magnitude and conspicuousness of these two buildings, we
have an accurate index of the relative importance of the ideas of the
Madonna and of Christ in the modern Italian mind.
[Illustration: SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE, ITALY.]
The Church of Santa Maria della Salute on the Grand Canal, one of
the earliest buildings of the Grotesque Renaissance, is rendered
impressive by its position, size, and general proportions. These latter
are exceedingly good; the grace of the whole building being chiefly
dependent on the inequality of size in its cupolas, and pretty grouping
of the two campaniles behind them. It is to be generally observed that
the proportions of buildings have nothing whatever to do with the style
or general merits of their architecture. An architect trained in the
worst schools, and utterly devoid of all meaning or purpose in his
work, may yet have such a natural gift of massing and grouping as will
render all his structures effective when seen from a distance: such a
gift is very general with the late Italian builders, so that many of
the most contemptible edifices in the country have good stage effect so
long as we do not approach them. The Church of the Salute is farther
assisted by the beautiful flight of steps in front of it down to the
Canal; and its façade is rich and beautiful of its kind, and was chosen
by Turner for the principal object in his well-known view of the Grand
Canal. The principal faults of the building are the meagre windows in
the sides of the cupola, and the ridiculous disguise of the buttresses
under the form of colossal scrolls; the buttresses themselves being
originally a hypocrisy, for the cupola is stated by Lazari to be
of timber, and therefore needs none. The sacristy contains several
precious pictures: the three on its roof by Titian, much vaunted, are
indeed as feeble as they are monstrous; but the small Titian, “St.
Mark, with Sts. Cosmo and Damian,” was, when I first saw it, to my
judgment, by far the first work of Titian’s in Venice. It has since
been restored by the Academy, and it seemed to me entirely destroyed,
but I had not time to examine it carefully.
At the end of the larger sacristy is the lunette which once decorated
the tomb of the Doge Francesco Dandolo; and at the side of it, one of
the most highly finished Tintorets in Venice, namely _The Marriage
in Cana_, an immense picture, some twenty-five feet long by fifteen
feet high, and said by Lazari to be one of the few which Tintoret
signed with his name.
[Illustration: THE RAMPARTS OF CARCASSONNE, FRANCE.]
THE RAMPARTS OF CARCASSONNE
A. MOLINIER
To what race shall we attribute the foundation of the city of
Carcassonne? We cannot say exactly, so many races having occupied this
part of the valley of the Aude in turn; the first in point of time
was that of the Iberians, that mysterious people, who had colonized
Southern Europe long before the coming of the Aryan race. Without
taking any more account than is necessary regarding the hypothesis of
the etymologists, we may recall the fact that the celebrated William
von Humboldt attaches the vocable _Carcaso_, as well as many
others from the south of Gaul and the north of Spain, to the Iberic
language.
Erected into a Latin colony by Cæsar himself, or by his adopted
son, Augustus, Carcassonne vegetated obscurely for three centuries
until the day when the invasion by the Barbarians and the civil
wars brought about the ruin of the Empire. At this moment she was
shorn of her ancient glory; and from a Latin colony, she became a
simple _castrum_, which many manuscripts of the _Notitia
dignitatum_, written about the year 400, do not even mention. But
if the old city lost her importance with regard to civil life, she
gained it in military life. At the moment the Germans, those hereditary
enemies of Rome, spread over the whole of Gaul, the cities repaired
their too long neglected fortifications in great haste; open spaces
they surrounded with high walls; the ancient citadels were reinforced;
and in their haste, just as happened later during the Hundred Years’
War, many sumptuous buildings erected by Latin architects, were
sacrificed to make the defences. Carcassonne is now furnished with
a strong enclosure, the honour of which many archæologists, among
them Viollet-le-Duc, wish to give to the Visigoths; but it seems more
prudent to attribute them to the last engineers of the expiring Empire.
This enclosure, of which some parts still exist to-day, is composed of
curtains of medium height, surmounted by a parapet without projections
and flanked at intervals with semicircular towers opened at the gorge,
or closed by a flat wall.
The towers were bare up to the level of the circling road, higher they
comprised two or three stories. Viollet-le-Duc supposes that they were
covered with a roof, and restored one according to this hypothesis.
Much more elevated than the curtain, these Gallo-Roman towers commanded
it from above, and on each of their flanks the curtain is interrupted
by a gap connected by a narrow bridge, which was easy to destroy in
case of an attack.
One must imagine the city of Carcassonne, with this enclosure composed
of high curtains with parapets and turrets, and, at intervals, high
towers, dominating the country and commanding the neighbouring
defences. Such she was at the end of the Empire and such she remained
for several centuries. Occupied by the Visigoths, vainly besieged
several times by Clovis and by the successors of that prince, she was
not forced before the Eighth Century. At this date, she fell into the
hands of the Arabs, with all of the surrounding country. The domination
of the Mussulmans, however, was very ephemeral; occupied by them about
720, Carcassonne again became Christian thirty years later, in 759.
Carcassonne became an important town. The city remains a fortress of
the first order, almost impregnable, with its towers, its curtains
and its vast _château_; but around it, on the slopes and at
the base of the hill between the Aude and the city, extensive and
flourishing boroughs are forming. These _bourgs_ are mentioned
in 1067; more recent discoveries tell us that the two principal ones
were Saint-Vincent and Saint-Michel. The latter was a commercial town
inhabited by common people and workmen whose turbulent character caused
great embarrassment to the viscounts during the Twelfth Century. From
the beginning of that century, the notables of Carcassonne took the
side of the enemy of their legitimate master, the Count of Barcelona,
gave him their oath, and on two different occasions the Viscount,
Bernard Aton, was chased by them from his capital. When he returned, in
1125, he took rigorous measures to assure his rule in the future. Each
tower on the wall was confided to the care of a faithful noble who had
to live in it with his family and his men, to do what was called _le
service d’estage_. The feudal acts have preserved for us the name of
several towers, the _turris monetaria vetus_, for example, but it
would be difficult to state precisely to which of the existing towers
the old names were given.
To the same viscount, Bernard Aton, is attributed the construction of
a great part of the present wall of the city, and almost the entire
_château_; from the reign of the same prince dates also the old
part of the church Saint-Nazaire. Let us begin with the _château_.
An act of the year 1034 already mentions the residence of the Counts of
Carcassonne, and the _sala_, in which the Bishop of Gerona, Pierre
Roger, lived; it speaks of the kitchens, the chambers, the stables
and the chapel Saint-Marcel. Later, the _castellum Carcassonne_
is always carefully distinguished from the citadel; the acts, in
mentioning a _camera rotunda_, speak of the elm that ornamented
the court and under which the feudal lords rendered justice, as Saint
Louis did later at Vincennes. But these give very meagre information
which the study of this building will happily permit us to complete.
The ordinary residence of the suzerain, the _Château de
Carcassonne_, like the donjons of the North, was designed to
protect him against all attacks that came from outside as well as from
within the town. A last refuge for faithful defenders, it had to be a
shelter during a regular siege, or a personal attack, and to protect
the suzerain against enemies without and traitors within. Therefore,
a special wall was erected against the town and against the country.
The _Château de Carcassonne_ was no exception to the general
rule. Supported by the exterior wall on the side of the town, it is
defended by a wide moat and by a circular barbican over the end of
a bridge that was thrown over the moat; it forms a parallelogram,
flanked by towers and high curtains. The masonry is the same and
is composed of yellowish stones placed in regular layers of from
fifteen to twenty centimetres in height. The domes have the form of
hemispherical caps, with regular arches and are unornamented. The
bays are semicircular without mouldings, or projections; nowhere is
there any sacrifice to decoration, with the exception of certain upper
openings that are inaccessible to attack, and these have received a
few ornaments,--mouldings and little columns of marble that garnish
the corners of the windows. The principal entrance towards the city
was defended by two portcullises and two successive gates; after
having passed these obstacles, you find yourself in a large court of
honour which was flanked on one side by the walls of the city, and
on the other by dwellings, shops, and light wooden buildings, that
have disappeared to-day, or have been restored in the style of the
Thirteenth Century. A few halls of the Twelfth Century have, however,
survived; they are not very attractive, with their surbased vaults and
their narrow openings.
Let us now turn our back on the _château_ and enter the
_lices_, for this is what they called the space circumscribed by
the two walls of the City. We have seen above that from 1240 the town
had a double wall, but the first, probably much damaged by the lords of
Trencavel, was doubtless reconstructed in, and appears to date almost
entirely from, the reign of St. Louis. It is composed of curtains
elevated upon the rock and which never could have been of a great
height: since the ground of the _lices_ was made, it has gained in
height. Sometimes the two curtains were quite far apart, sometimes, on
the contrary, they are close together, and the straight passage between
them was formerly closed by walls with battlements and solid gates.
Most of the towers which flank the exterior wall are very simple and
are quite low; as a rule, they are composed of two storeys and their
platform is covered with a pointed roof covered with slate.
The interior enclosure, which is much stronger and better preserved
than the exterior, dates only in part from the Thirteenth Century, but
if the royal architects have respected the work of their predecessors
as scrupulously as possible, they have never hesitated to transform
the defective or insufficient portions, whenever they felt it
practical. This second enclosure is at once higher and stronger than
its neighbour, the towers are closer together and better arranged for
defence. The elevated and spacious curtains still carry traces of the
_hourds_ which surmounted them in times of war; in many of those
near the _château_, the base dates from the time of a remote
epoch,--perhaps the time of the Romans, but the tops were remodelled in
the Thirteenth Century by Saint-Louis, or Philip the Bold. Moreover,
these princes made no other changes in the whole wall that extends from
the _château_ to the Tower of the Inquisition; you particularly
notice the Tower of Justice, a beautiful building with four stories
of the feudal period, and the Visigoth Tower, cleverly restored, too
cleverly perhaps, by Viollet-le-Duc, but an interesting example of the
military system of the Gallo-Romans of the Decadence.
The Tower of the Inquisition appears to date from the reign of Philip
the Bold. It is a beautiful building of four storeys which in the
Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, sheltered the ecclesiastical
tribunal the name of which it bears.
Before the Revolution, the city was deserted; in 1744, the bishop
followed the general example and left his old palace of the Thirteenth
Century. The new _régime_ was not equally just. For a long time,
the city remained a military post, mutilated by military genius, on the
pretext of maintaining and improving it; a great number of towers were
razed and transformed into low curtains, absurd defences which could
not have held out two hours against a strong attack. This admirable
collection of mediæval military art was exposed to the greatest
danger; let us thank the archæologists who interested the State in
the preservation of these venerable remains. Restored to-day with a
reverent care, the old citadel is assured a long life. As for the City
herself, she can never become what she was in the Thirteenth Century,
a rich and populous town, but she will certainly remain forever an
admirable museum, where everyone who is interested in national history
will come to study the military art of old France.
THE CATHEDRAL OF MODENA
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
The student of the Romanesque who transports himself suddenly from the
Arno and the Apenines to the river-basin of the Po will find himself
spirited away into a new architectural world. Let him flit from Pisa
to Modena. Pistoia, a city of high interest on other grounds, will not
long detain him. A single noble campanile is attached to a basilican
_duomo_ which would hold a third or fourth-rate place at Lucca,
and which at Pisa no one would think of mentioning at all. But at
Modena his halt must be longer. The church of Pisa and the church of
Modena are contemporary buildings, and the Great Countess is honoured
as a benefactress by both; but they are as unlike one another as any
two buildings of the same date and general style well can be. At Modena
we get our first glimpse of the genuine Lombard form of the Italian
Romanesque, a form wholly unlike either the domical or basilican
type, and which makes a far nearer approach to the Romanesque of the
lands beyond the Alps. The approach is indeed only an approach; the
_duomo_ of Modena is Italian, and not English, French, or German;
still it is a form of Italian far less widely removed from English,
French, or German work than the style of Pisa or St. Vital. As at Pisa,
the architect seems to have halted between two opinions. The church
is cruciform, but the transepts have no projection on the ground-plan;
there are real lantern-arches, not obscured as they are at Pisa, but
they do not bear up any central dome or tower. The lantern-arches are
pointed; but here, as at Pisa, the pointed form is more likely to
be Saracenic than Gothic. Without, three eastern apses, rising from
between pinnacles of quite Northern character, group boldly with one
of the noblest campaniles of Italy, which is certainly not improved by
the later addition of a spire. The great doorways rest on lions; the
west front has a noble wheel window; the greater part of the outside is
lavishly arcaded, but the arcading is of a different type from the long
rows of single arcades at Lucca and Pisa; the favourite form at Modena
is that of several small arches grouped under a containing arch.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL OE MODENA, ITALY.]
With such an outside, we are not surprised to find, on entering the
church, an elevation more nearly after the Northern type than anything
which we have yet seen in Italy. At Pisa we saw an arcade, triforium,
and clerestory; but the triforium was not so much the Northern type
itself as the Northern type translated into Italian language. But at
Modena we find as genuine a triforium as in any minster of England or
Normandy. Its form indeed seems somewhat rude and awkward, as if the
containing arch had been crushed by the lofty clerestory above. And
eyes familiar with Norman detail may possibly be amazed at the sight of
mid-wall shafts, and those of a somewhat rough type, showing themselves
in such a position. But the mid-wall shaft is constructively as
much in its place in a triforium as it is in a belfry window, and in
the whole elevation there is nothing lacking. There is pier-arch,
triforium, and clerestory, and the deep splay of the highest range
hinders the presence of any continuous blank spaces such as we have
seen in the Basilican churches. The capitals are a strange mixture of
classical and barbaric forms, and in the alternate piers, supporting
the arches which span the nave, we find huge half-columns, which form
a marked contrast to the tall slender shafts commonly used in like
positions in Northern churches. Altogether the Cathedral of Modena is
strictly an Italian church, yet the approaches to Northern forms are
very marked, and they are of a kind which suggests the direct imitation
of Northern forms or the employment of Northern architects.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS, FRANCE.]
THE CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS
LOUIS GONSE
The basilica of Rheims is the ideal type of a great Gothic cathedral.
Everything has been gathered together here to enchant the eye and touch
the mind.
From the outside, with its eight spires, and the lace-work of its
bell-towers, and its galleries boldly mounting to the sky, with the
breadth of its arrangement, the splendid development of its cruciform
plan, with its two cloisters and its magnificent dependencies, it
appears as the sublime expression of western genius and the culminating
point of the Christian idea.