Chapter X

. The so-called Lombard monuments belong mainly to the eleventh and twelfth centuries. They are found not only in Lombardy, but also in Venetia and the Æmilia. Milan, Pavia, Piacenza, Bologna, and Verona were important centres of development of this style. The churches were nearly all vaulted, but the plans were basilican, with such variations as resulted from efforts to meet the exigencies of vaulted construction. The nave was narrowed, and instead of rows of columns carrying a thin clearstory wall, a few massive piers of masonry, connected by broad pier-arches, supported the heavy ribs of the groined vaulting, as in S. Ambrogio, Milan (Fig. 90). To resist the thrust of the main vault, the clearstory was sometimes suppressed, the side aisle carried up in two stories forming galleries, and rows of chapels added at the sides, their

## partitions forming buttresses. The piers were often of clustered

section, the better to receive the various arches and ribs they supported. The vaulting was in square divisions or _vaulting-bays_, each embracing two pier-arches which met upon an intermediate pier lighter than the others. Thus the whole aspect of the interior was revolutionized. The lightness, spaciousness, and decorative elegance of the basilicas were here exchanged for a sombre and massive dignity severe in its plainness. The Choir was sometimes raised a few feet above the nave, to allow of a crypt and _confessio_ beneath, reached by broad flights of steps from the nave. Sta. Maria della Pieve at Arezzo (9th-11th century), +S. Michele+ at Pavia (late 11th century), the +Cathedral of Piacenza+ (1122), +S. Ambrogio+ at Milan (12th century), and +S. Zeno+ at Verona (1139) are notable monuments of this style.

+LOMBARD EXTERIORS.+ The few architectural embellishments employed on the simple exteriors of the Lombard churches were usually effective and well composed. Slender columnettes or long pilasters, blind arcades, and open arcaded galleries under the eaves gave light and shade to these exteriors. The façades were mere frontispieces with a single broad gable, the three aisles of the church being merely suggested by flat or round pilasters dividing the front (Fig 91). Gabled porches, with columns resting on the backs of lions or monsters, adorned the doorways. The carving was often of a fierce and grotesque character. Detached bell-towers or _campaniles_ adjoined many of these churches; square and simple in mass, but with well-distributed openings and well-proportioned belfries (Piacenza S. Zeno at Verona, etc.).[18]

[Footnote 18: See Appendix B.]

+THE TUSCAN ROMANESQUE.+ The churches of this style (sometimes called the +Pisan+) were less vigorous but more elegant and artistic in design than the Lombard. They were basilicas in plan, with timber ceilings and high clearstories on columnar arcades. In their decoration, both internal and external, they betray the influence of Byzantine traditions, especially in the use of white and colored marble in alternating bands or in panelled veneering. Still more striking is the external decorative application of wall-arcades, sometimes occupying the whole height of the wall and carried on flat pilasters, sometimes in superposed stages of small arches on slender columns standing free of the wall. In general the decorative element prevailed over the constructive in the design of these picturesquely beautiful churches, some of which are of noble size. The +Duomo+ (cathedral) of +Pisa+, built 1063-1118, is the finest monument of the style (Figs. 92, 93). It is 312 feet long and 118 wide, with long transepts and an elliptical dome of later date over the _crossing_ (the intersection of nave and transepts). Its richly arcaded front and banded flanks strikingly exemplify the illogical and unconstructive but highly decorative methods of the Tuscan Romanesque builders. The circular +Baptistery+ (1153), with its lofty domical central hall surrounded by an aisle, an imposing development of the type established by Constantine (p. 111), and the famous +Leaning Tower+ (1174), both designed with external arcading, combine with the Duomo to form the most remarkable group of ecclesiastical buildings in Italy, if not in Europe (Fig. 92).

[Illustration: FIG. 92.--BAPTISTERY, CATHEDRAL, AND LEANING TOWER, PISA.]

The same style appears in more flamboyant shape in some of the churches of Lucca. The cathedral +S. Martino+ (1060; façade, 1204; nave altered in fourteenth century) is the finest and largest of these; +S. Michele+ (façade, 1288) and S. Frediano (twelfth century) have the most elaborately decorated façades. The same principles of design appear in the cathedral and several other churches in Pistoia and Prato; but these belong, for the most part, to the Gothic period.

[Illustration: FIG. 93.--INTERIOR OF PISA CATHEDRAL.]

+FLORENCE.+ The church of +S. Miniato+, in the suburbs of Florence, is a beautiful example of a modification of the Pisan style. It is in plan a basilica with two piers interrupting the colonnade on each side of the nave and supporting powerful transverse arches. The interior is embellished with bands and patterns in black and white, and the woodwork of the open-timber roof is elegantly decorated with fine patterns in red, green, blue, and gold--a treatment common in early mediæval churches, as at Messina, Orvieto, etc. The exterior is adorned with wall-arches of classic design and with panelled veneering in white and dark marble, instead of the horizontal bands of the Pisan churches. This system of external decoration, a blending of Pisan and Italo-Byzantine methods, became the established practice in Florence, lasting through the whole Gothic period. The +Baptistery+ of Florence, originally the cathedral, an imposing polygonal domical edifice of the tenth century, presents externally one of the most admirable examples of this practice. Its marble veneering in black and white, with pilasters and arches of excellent design, is attributed by Vasari to Arnolfo di Cambio, but is by many considered to be much older, although restored by that architect in 1294.

Suggestions of the Pisan arcade system are found in widely scattered examples in the east and south of Italy, mingled with features of Lombard and Byzantine design. In Apulia, as at Bari, Caserta Vecchia (1100), Molfetta (1192), and in Sicily, the Byzantine influence is conspicuous in the use of domes and in many of the decorative details.

## Particularly is this the case at Palermo and Monreale, where the

churches erected after the Norman conquest--some of them domical, some basilican--show a strange but picturesque and beautiful mixture of Romanesque, Byzantine, and Arabic forms. The +Cathedral+ of +Monreale+ and the churches of the +Eremiti+ and +La Martorana+ at Palermo are the most important.

The +Italo-Byzantine+ style has already found mention in the latter part of