Title:  The Brochure Series Of Architectural Illustration, Vol 1, No. 2.  February 1895.  Byzantine-Romanesque Doorways in Southern Italy

Author:  Various

Release Date:  February 17, 2005 [EBook #15091]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

*** Start of this project gutenberg EBOOK architectural illustration ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Thomas Cormode and the PG Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.

[Illustration:  IX.  The Principal Doorway to the Cathedral at Trani, Italy.]

THE BROCHURE SERIES

Of architectural illustration.

Vol.  I. February, 1895.  No. 2.

* * * * *

Byzantine-Romanesque doorways in southern Italy.

The illustrations chosen for this issue are all from the Byzantine Romanesque work in the province of Apulia, that portion of Southern Italy familiar in school-boy memory as the heel of the boot.  Writers upon architecture have found it difficult to strictly classify the buildings of this neighborhood, as in fact is the case with most of the medieval architecture of Italy, although the influences which have brought about the conditions here seen are in the main plainly evident.  The traditions and surroundings, of Roman origin, were modified by trade and association with the Levant through the commerce of Venice and Pisa, resulting in a style embodying many of the characteristics of both the Romans and the builders of Byzantium.  Oftentimes these characteristics are so blended and modified by one another as to be entirely indistinguishable, while at other times features unquestionably belonging to the Romanesque or the Byzantine will be found side by side.  An illustration of the latter condition may be seen in the two views of the doorway to the cathedral of Trani. (Plates IX. and X.) On account of the intimate relations maintained during the Middle Ages between this province and Magna Grecia, and it may be partly on account of the comparative remoteness from the principal cities of the north, the Byzantine influence is here more strongly marked than in the cities of Central and Northern Italy.

According to the classification adopted by Fergusson, the church of San Miniato at Florence is one of the oldest examples and a good type of this rather mixed style.  It was built about the year 1013.  It is rectangular in plan, nearly three times as long as wide, with a semicircular apse.  Internally it is divided longitudinally into aisles, and transversely into three nearly square compartments by clustered piers, supporting two great arches which run up to the roof.  The whole of the inner compartment is occupied by a crypt or under church open to the