St. Mark's Basilica

“ St Mark then became the patron saint of Venice in place of St Theodore, This church was burned in 976 along with the ducal palace in the insurrection against the Doge Candiano IV. Pietro Orseolo and his successors rebuilt the church on a larger scale in the form .of a basilica. with three eastern apses and no transept, and Byzantine workmen were employed. As the state grew in wealth and importance the church grew with it. About the year 1063 the Doge Contarini resolved to remodel St Mark’s. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ Shaggy, undersized horses were wading in the water, nipping off the thin spears of grass. Close to the church is a rickety farmhouse. If I lived there, I would as lief be a fish as a horse.
The interior of this primitive old basilica is lofty and imposing, with twenty-four handsome columns of the gray Cippolino marble, and an elevated high altar and tribune, decorated with splendid mosaics of the sixth century,—biblical subjects, in all the stiff faithfulness of the holy old times. The marble floor is green and damp and slippery. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was the marble, it was the walls themselves praying, seized by that shudder of universal woe which penetrated even the world's stones. And, at last, the prayers ascended yet higher, still higher, soared aloft from the radiant Basilica, which was humming and buzzing above him, full as it now was of a frantic multitude, whose mighty voice, bursting into a canticle of hope, he fancied he could hear through the flagstones of the nave. ”

“ Meanwhile the head of the procession has long since reached the grand portals of the Basilica. From the door to the central line of the transept is about four hundred feet, and the nave of the church is about ninety-five feet wide. All this space is crowded with people standing so jammed together that there is not room to kneel, if one wished. Back on either side, under the broad arches, and into the side aisles, the vast mass of humanity extends. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We have already arrived at the fourteenth century without finding record of any effort made by the clergy of St. Mary’s to maintain their influence by restoring or beautifying their basilica; which is the only point at present of importance to us. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ It is like many other old cathedrals in other countries—a monument of the nation of the past, and not of the present. So St. Mark's is a symbol of old Venice as it was, and of which we read in history and romance; and as we stand upon its pavement, uneven in marble billows, we look for solemn, long-bearded doges, priests in their vestments, with swinging censers, moving amid the pillars; or a group of crusaders around the octagon pulpit, with a Maltese cross in its panel, instead of a few modern dressed tourists in the midst of its dim-lighted splendor. ”

“ Only when one comes near to them does he discover how the tooth of Time has gnawed into and marred their exquisite shape. The outline of the eastern front is yet so complete that it could be “restored” by the addition of a few great stones. Long rows of other fluted columns, not far off, are the remains of a structure to which the name Basilica is given for want of a better. ”

“ 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 children are on the look-out for chance visitors, and ready to point out the road; and sell copper coins and tesseræ of mosaic at a price which lowers remarkably as the basilica is approached. It is to be feared that they come from the great mosaic, which is necessarily unguarded. The basilica consists of nave and aisles, separated apparently by six columns on each side, with a single apse, which seems to have had external buttresses, but there is no trace of the usual internal bench. The total length approaches 150 ft., the nave is 39 ft. ”

“ But to return, I cannot too strongly impress on the minds of my readers that the very vitals of Catholic architecture are assailed by the opponents of screens.
Those who complain of not being able to see in a Pointed church should have assisted at an ancient service in a Roman basilica; the altar surrounded by pillars sustaining veils and curtains, and covered by a ciborium, was placed in front of the celebrant, of whom nothing could be discerned by the congregation except an occasional glimpse of his head ”

“ 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. ”

“ All this, and the air of raree-show that exhibits so many spots where somebody or other stood, destroy any{134} lingering credulity of which a man may still find himself capable; they make one rather ashamed, and glad to escape. But the nave is mighty in its simplicity, and no less mighty in its wealth of historical association. It is a great severe oblong basilica, with four rows of massive pillars giving double aisles. Old glass and old mosaics add their appropriate wealth of sombre beauty. The rafters, replacing Constantine’s beams of cedar from Lebanon, are the gift of Philip of Burgundy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whilst crossing the Place du Rosaire, Pierre and Marie glanced at the Esplanade, the public walk with its long central lawn skirted by broad parallel paths and extending as far as the new bridge. Here, with face turned towards the Basilica, was the great crowned statue of the Virgin. All the sufferers crossed themselves as they went by. And still passionately chanting its canticle, the fearful cortege rolled on, through nature in festive array. ”

“ This sure identification lends to the edifice a special significance; it is without doubt the oldest example that we have of an important architectural type whose origin is lost in obscurity, but of which the derivative forms may still be recognized in the architecture of to-day. What the temple developed by the Greeks was to pagan antiquity, that the basilica became to the Christian Church—a type dominating a system of religious architecture. Pagan worship was individual,—a narrow chamber sufficed for the image of the god and the requirements of religious service ”

“ On the opposite side of the peristyle is a large throne-room, the walls of which were adorned with rows of pavonazzetto and giallo columns and large marble niches, in which were colossal statues of porphyry and basalt; at one side of this is the basilica, with central nave and apse and narrow aisles, over which were galleries. The apse, in which was the emperor's throne, is screened off by open marble cancelli, a part of which still exists. It is of great interest as showing the origin of the Christian basilica (see Basilica) . ”

“ 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!" ”

“ Six rows of stone benches for the presbyters, rising one above another like the seats in a theatre, follow the curve on either side—the whole being singularly plain and almost rude. The altar stands on a platform; the sanctuary is divided from the nave by a screen of six pillars. The walls of the apse are inlaid with plates of marble. The church is 125 ft. by 75 ft. The narrow aisles are only 7 ft. in width.
Another very remarkable basilica, less known than it deserves to be, is that of Parenzo in Istria, c. A.D. 542. Few basilicas have sustained so little alteration. ”