File:A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance (1901) (14761062946).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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hatinteresting class ofbuildinos for eihthundred years.Through all thechanges of stylethe baptisteriesare almost invari-ably round or octa- Fig. 44. The Lateral! IJaptistery. gonal. The Tomb ofConstantia, now known as S. Costanza, has l)een more fortunate,g (,Qg. This is a circular building standing adjacent to the basilicatanza. Qf <*^ Aonosc fuori, and measurin<» about seventv-two feet in inside diameter, with an inner ring of con))led granite columns,about thirty-seven feet in diameter, with composite cai)itals, carryingdetached blocks of entablature, from which spring round arches, sup-porting a solid wall, of which the upper part is a clerestory piercedwith twelve simple round-arched windows. This is, perhaps, theearliest instance of columns coupled in a direction oj)posite to thelino of the colonnade. It is accounted for bv the weiufht of theclerestory wall, which is about four feet thick. The central spaceis covered by a hemispherical dome sixty feet high from the floor.
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KAULV CIIIMSIlAiN A IM 1111 l-CTLKfc 69 oldcM- Ikoiiiaii iMotiii- ol wliicli (ho constniction lOllows lliat ol theincuts. (Kij;. 1^.) It consists of twenty-tour stron^r vertical ril)s ofbrickwork joined by similar horizontal l)an(ls, \\\r trapezoidal spaeesbetween bein<; filled with a strong- plaster. The; external form of thedome is that of a hii;h circular wall, stirmounted by a flat (M)ne, inwhich, however, no wood is used, the spa(;e between the dome itselfand the enter snrfaees bein<^- filled in with eonerete. The eircnlaraisle, which surrounds the central space, is covered by a continuousbarrel vault, protected by a low wooden lean-to roof. Tin; mosaics ofthe central dome were removed in the seventeenth century when tliedome was repaired, but those of the aisle vault still remain in i)erfectcondition. Middleton considers these mosaics as probably the latestexample of what may be called the classi-cal style of mosaic as distingnished fromthe Byzantine style, which was first

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