File:Medieval architecture, its origins and development, with lists of monuments and bibliographies (1912) (14803883563).jpg

Identifier: medievalarchitec01port (find matches)
Title: Medieval architecture, its origins and development, with lists of monuments and bibliographies
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Porter, Arthur Kingsley, 1883-1933
Subjects: Architecture, Medieval Architecture, Medieval Architecture
Publisher: New Haven, Yale University Press
Contributing Library: University of Connecticut Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Connecticut Libraries

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shed in size or elim-inated altogether. In the meanwhile, the stilt-block was a con-venient, if homely, makeshift.^ Such were the humble structural innovations introduced inthe Early Christian basilica. For the rest its design was simple:no vaults, no dome, no complex questions of thrusts and but-tressing. Except for the modest half-dome of the apse, theentire structure was simply roofed in timber. The plan of the basilica, on the other hand, showed a num-ber of new and important features, many of which were des-tined to endure throughout the Middle Ages and to modifysensibly the destinies of Western art. One of these was the intro- An actual example of this constuction occurs in the baptistery of S. Giovanni in Laterano,Rome. This construction is also common in Syria, but almost always, I believe, over the Untelof a doorway or window, as in 111. 34. ^ The stilt-block was also found useful in equalizing the awkward discrepancies in heightbetween various pilfered columns. 52 rtiii^Rifv
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III. 35. — Plan of old S. Iietro, Home ORIENTATION duction of a definite system of orientation. This was, again,not an entirely new idea. Greek temples, with rare exceptions,had been constructed with the principal front facing the east,so that the light of the rising sun penetrated the great doorsand bathed the sanctuary in light. Similarly, the Persiansun-worshipers always faced the east, and the Jewish syna-gogue was generally, although not always, orientated towardsthe Holy of Holies at Jerusalem, as the later Mohammedanmosque was orientated towards Mecca. But the Romans attachedno value to this idea. Their temples were turned as often in onedirection as in the other. It is consequently curious to findthat in Rome, as throughout the western half of the Empire,the earliest churches seem to have been orientated on the prin-ciple of a Greek temple, with the principal entrance toward theeast, the sanctuary towards the west. Nissen has attempted toprove (not altogether convincingly) t

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