File:A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance (1901) (14780886461).jpg

Identifier: historyofarchit01cumm (find matches)
Title: A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Cummings, Charles Amos, 1833-1905
Subjects: Architecture
Publisher: Boston, New York, Houghton Mifflin and company
Contributing Library: PIMS - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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of the ninth, tenth, and eleventhcenturies in North Italy. It is not. liowever, to be inferred that the eruciforni phm had as yet any symbolicsignificance. The recesses by which the plan took that form were simply the most obvi-ous and convenient preparation for the ponderous sarcophagi which inclosed the bodiesof the dead. KAKI.V CllinsriAM AUCillTKCTLKK A notahlc oxainplc! ol tlic liui^cr hmial chaiuluMH, wliioh iiuiy ormay not have served as a plaee of worHliip, is that known jih Theapo»-the apostolic? tlypt, adjoining; the eatacronih of St. (.alixtiiH. to»«ypt(Figs. () and 7.) In plan it is an irrcj^ndar scMirKircle, or rath«a- nionjthan a SiMuicirclc, about thirty-two fe(;t in diauHiter, with a ran<;e ofarcosolia extend ins;- (putt; around the perii)hery. The ehandjer ishigh and vaulted. It derives especial interest, as well as its familiarname, from having been the ))laee of tem))orary deposit of the bodyof St. Peter, which was originally laid in the Vatican catacomb. But
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Fig.. 6. Plan of the Apostolic Crypt. when the Emperor Heliogabalus was about to make a circus forracing elephants on that spot, the Christians, fearful that the bodyof the saint might be disturbed, removed it to this crypt on theAppian Way, whence, after an interval of forty years or so, it wastransferred to its original and final resting place. In the years which followed the recognition of Christianity by Con^stantine many small churches and chapels were built over or nearthe entrances to the various catacombs, in honor of the martyrs thereburied, as well as to mark and dignify the new entrances. Of theseby far the greater number have long since disappeared, but many 8 AiiClllTECTURE IN ITALY remains of such buildings have been brought to light during the moreor less systematic explorations of the past half century. The mostimportant of these are two chapels over the cemetery of Calixtus, alittle to the west of the Via Appia, discovered by Marchi about 1845,and of which the plans a

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