Basilica of San Marco

“ The Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, on the Esquiline Hill, near the railway station, is one of the four chief Basilicas of Rome, and well repays a visit. It gives one more the idea of what a Basilica was really meant to be than any similar edifice in Rome. The richly painted panels, the interior colonnade with its long harmonious rows of pillars, the clerestory decorated en suite with small pilasters and panels, and the beautiful panelled roof, all combine to give the building an air of lofty and noble magnificence. ”

“ Baskets of confectionery are moving about in the crowd, and groups of promenaders saunter along the well-paved and commodious piazza, which has scarcely a particle of dust to soil their beautiful dresses. There in front stands the Cathedral San Marco, now nearly eight hundred years old, with its symmetrical cupolas and façade of porphyry and other antique marbles, its scriptural figures in golden mosaic, and its four bronze horses brought from Corinth, taken to Paris by Napoleon, but afterwards restored. ”

“ Once more the young man found himself alone on the gloomy expanse of the Piazza of St. Peter’s. Not a single belated pedestrian was to be seen. There was only the lofty, livid, ghost-like obelisk, emerging between its four candelabra, from the mosaic pavement of red and serpentine porphyry. The facade of the Basilica also showed vaguely, pale as a vision, whilst from it on either side like a pair of giant arms stretched the quadruple colonnade, a thicket of stone, steeped in obscurity. The dome was but a huge roundness scarcely discernible against the moonless sky ”

“ Whatever may be the carved and nicely-wrought exterior of a cathedral, we always find beneath it, if only in a rudimentary and dormant state, the Roman basilica. It rises forever from the ground in harmony with the same law.
There are invariably two naves intersecting each other in the form of a cross, the upper end being rounded into a chancel or choir; there are always side aisles, for the processions and for chapels, a sort of lateral galleries or walks, into which the principal nave opens by means of the spaces between the columns. ”

“ San Marco itself, dream of beauty as it is, inspires less devotion than many a humble country Church without a single work of art to recommend it. Without the ineffable Presence in the Tabernacle I should have felt more piously disposed at the foot of the lonely shrine out in the Lagoon, where the Blessed Madonna’s picture smiles down from its tall tarred post on the flowers that one or other of her children brings there every day. The water laps gently at her feet, the sky arches blue overhead, and one can dream very good and happy dreams as one gazes up at her. ”

“ Let us take our stand in the Piazza di San Marco, with its glorious many-domed cathedral, its campanile pointing to the heavens, its ducal palace, clock-tower, Moorish arcades, and that vastness of proportion, whose impressiveness is heightened by the stillness so foreign to our modern life in other cities where horse and vehicular traffic create an incessant, deafening hum. ”

“ Twelve columns, brick and marble alternating, support a good Romanesque gallery under the dome. The six marble shafts came from the pagan temple. In the centre is a grand altar-pulpit, which has a stairway leading up on either side. Under the altar is an urn which at one time held the remains of S. Petronio. On the stone floor a shutter of iron covers the well that possesses miraculous properties, these having been imparted to it by the saint. The church dates from the tenth century. An iron grille in one of the walls shuts off the oldest church of all, a basilica of the fourth century. ”

“ July 10th.—My wife and I went yesterday forenoon to see the Church of San Marco, with which is connected a convent of Dominicans. . . . The interior is not less than three or four hundred years old, and is in the classic style, with a flat ceiling, gilded, and a lofty arch, supported by pillars, between the nave and choir. There are no side aisles, but ranges of shrines on both sides of the nave, each beneath its own pair of pillars and pediments. The pavement is of brick, with here and there a marble tombstone inlaid. It is not a magnificent church ”

“ The church of San Marco is one of the grandest and most wonderful structures in Italy, and I can only refrain from copying Ruskin's very fine description of it, because his account, though true in every particular, would, to one who has never seen any of the architectural glories of Italy, seem more like the attempt of a poet to depict in glowing language the vagaries of a dream, than like the description of an edifice really in existance. ”

“ The flags were still rising and falling on the breeze, unfolding their radiant colours to the declining sun; the deep-throated bell of the campanile, which has sounded so many a summons to great deeds, was solemnly tolling the hour; a Franciscan brother stepped across the pavement, bent doubtless upon an errand of mercy. The young man read a new suggestion in each of these familiar sights and sounds. He turned and looked back at San Marco, at the outline of its clustering domes, at its carvings and mosaics, gleaming in full sunshine. ”

“ Only those who have listened to a beautiful voice singing in the Lateran towards evening can understand that, in spite of the grievous disfigurements of the barocco age, and the exaggerated modern decorations of the nineteenth century, the 'Mother of all Churches,' as the Basilica is called, can still seem the most deeply and truly hallowed place of worship in Christendom. There is a mystery in it at the sunset hour which is felt by all men, though none can explain it ”

“ It consists of a nave and two aisles, formed by a line of ancient columns of various marbles: the space between each column has been built up to support the foundations of the church above.
In descending, the walls are covered with ancient fragments, and a small statue of the Good Pastor, found in making the excavations; as also the two sarcophagi and other fragments in the portico of the ancient basilica. At the entrance, on the left hand, is a painting of an ancient female figure, and a male head on the opposite wall ”

“ The daily life, if one may so call it, of the Venetian Basilica has, however, more power to charm the memory than its hours of splendid show. We like best to think of it almost empty and quite silent, its high altar seldom used, and its Lady Chapel, Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, and altar of the Crucifix quaintly propped up against the corner of the pilaster, surrounded by the few worshippers whose faithful instincts bid them haunt the same spots day after day. In the early morning, you enter the seemingly deserted church. No hum of prayer is heard; hardly a human form is in sight. ”

“ Church architecture made rapid advance as a science in the times of Constantine the Great. The earliest architectural style thus developed is found in the Christian Basilicas. Whether this was a purely original kind of building called forth by the requirements of congregational worship, or whether and how far it was based upon previously existing styles, is still a subject of discussion. In later, and especially oriental, church buildings the flat roof of the basilica was often changed into a cupola. ”

“ By consulting a good plan of Pompeii, or glancing at a plan of its basilica, any one may see that it was not cruciform, but "in the form of a long parallelogram," with a central space and side porticoes, answering to the nave and aisles of a church. The early Christians adopted the basilica form for their churches: those built in the form of a Greek or Latin cross are of much later date. Yet H. N.'s learned friend exclaims, when viewing the temple of Muttra, "Here is the cross! the basilica carried out with more correctness of order and symmetry than in Italy!" ”

“ I went the other day to the secularised Convent of San Marco, paid my franc at the profane little wicket which creaks away at the door—no less than six custodians, apparently, are needed to turn it, as if it may have a recusant conscience—passed along the bright, still cloister and paid my respects to Fra Angelico’s Crucifixion, in that dusky chamber in the basement. I looked long; one can hardly do otherwise. The fresco deals with the pathetic on the grand scale, and after taking in its beauty you feel as little at liberty to go away abruptly as you would to leave church during the sermon. ”

“ In spite of the lavishness of gold, of red, and all the varied tones of marbles, bronzes, and mosaics with which San Marco abounds, there are few churches so severe and profoundly impressive. The mystical half-light which pervades it converts what might be a tawdry blaze into harmonious poesy of color, full of the sentiment of impassioned religion. ”

“ In 1680 Cosmo III. had the treasure removed to the Imperial Palace at Florence.
In the north-eastern part of the city there are three buildings of historical interest. One is the Church of Santissima Annunziata, founded in the thirteenth century, but restored in modern times. Here will be seen sacred pictures by Andrea del Sarto, in the court, while in the cloisters is the “Madonna del Sacco.” The tomb of Benvenuto Cellini is here.
San Marco is now a repository of works of art. It was the monastery of Savonarola, and the edifice is haunted with the spirit of the zealous reformer. ”

“ The usual entrance from the street is by a side door, but the proper entrance is by a gate with a Gothic canopy of the thirteenth century, which originally formed part of the earlier basilica, thence through the atrium and quadriporticus, the only perfect ones of Rome. The aisles are formed by sixteen ancient pillars of different materials and orders. In the middle of the nave is the choir (514–22) from the earlier basilica; on each side are the ambones. The walls 228 are adorned with Christian emblems, and a monogram of Agios—Holy. ”

“ He stamped the century with the impress of a powerful personality. It is to him we owe the most splendid of Michael Angelo's and Raphael's masterpieces. The Basilica of St. Peter's, that materialized idea, which remains to symbolize the transition from the Church of the Middle Ages to the modern semi-secular supremacy of Papal Rome, was his thought. No nepotism, no loathsome sensuality, no flagrant violation of ecclesiastical justice stain his pontificate. ”

“ The principal entrance towards the Tiber is still unfinished. Before the Reformation it was under the protection of the kings of England. It is the finest of Roman churches, and the visitor cannot fail to be charmed with its beauty; it is one vast hall of marble, with eighty Corinthian pillars forming the nave, reflected in the marble pavement. The grand triumphal arch which separates the nave from the transept is a relic of the old basilica; and the mosaic, Christ blessing in the Greek manner, with the twenty-four elders, is of the fifth century, given by Placidia, sister of Honorius, in 440. ”

“ At its extremity, half Gothic, half Byzantine, rises the Basilica, under bulbous domes and tapering belfries, its arcades festooned with figures, its porches laced with light columns, its arches wainscoted with mosaics, its pavements incrusted with colored marbles, and its cupolas scintillating with gold; a strange mysterious sanctuary, a sort of Christian mosque in which cascades of light vacillate in ruddy shadows like the wings of genii within the purple, metallic walls of subterranean abodes. ”

“ It is possible that had Fra Leo, Bernard of Quintavalle and his companions succeeded in those first days of struggle, the Basilica of San Francesco might never 146 have attained its present magnificence or the art of Giotto been born in this Umbrian corner of Italy. Chi lo sa? It is a question one hardly even likes to think of. But the danger passed away, and who cares now whether the franciscans grumbled at the time, or said the church and convent with its buttresses and towers looked more like the feudal fortress of some mighty baron than the tomb of the Preacher of Poverty? ”

“ As a building San Marco has been a shrine of art; since the time that Michelozzi, with the assistance of the Medici, built the convent for Sant' Antonino, and Fra Angelico left the impress of his soul on the walls, a long line of artist monks has lived within its cloisters. With San Marco our story has now to deal, for it is impossible to write Fra Bartolommeo's life without touching on the well-known history of Savonarola. ”

“ There is an air of decay and long oblivion about the whole building that nothing can efface.
Outside, and joined to the cathedral by a cloistered walk, is the church of Sta. Fosca. Originally a basilica of the ninth century, this much dilapidated little edifice was rebuilt in 1008 in the shape of a Greek cross. A rotunda occupies the centre, inside which runs a grey pillared arcade built to support a dome that was never constructed. There are three apses; the middle one has two rows of blind arcading with ornamental brickwork above. ”

“ At our feet, as we enter the atrium by the main portal are three slabs of porphyry which mark the legendary, but not the actual, spot where the reconciliation of the Pope and the Emperor Barbarossa took place. The shafts and capitals of the columns in the atrium are among the richest in the basilica. The mosaics, designed to instruct and prepare the catechumen, illustrate Old Testament history, and for their simple beauty will repay perusal. ”