File:A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance (1901) (14783790192).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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our an^d«S of a s))rea<lingand niouhled abacus, the wings of the birds nieetin<; in th<; (centre ofeach face. The sollits of the nave arches are decorated with scpiarepanels ench)sing various delicate designs in relief, moulded in stucco,mostly geometrical, but including also peacocks, swans, eagles, andother symbolic birds. The apse of this church ofiPers a splendid example of the mostcharacteristic wall decoration of the Byzantines. The bishops thronein the centre of I- the semicircle,and the marblebench of thepresbyters fol-lowing the wallon either sideof it, are stillpreserved, thebench finishingat each endwith a stand-ard, also ofmarble, shapedinto a dolphin.Above the seatsthe walls arelined with agorgeous dado of marbles and porphyries, which has no parallel at Ravenna, butslightly resembles some mural decoration existing at S. Sabina atRome. The materials are porphyry, serpentine, opaque glass, whiteonyx like that from Algiers, burnt clay of various colors, and mother
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Fig. 167. Arch Head, Cattaro. was modified in its approach to the more developed abacus is seen in S. Giacorao dalOrio at Venice, founded late in the sixth century, but substantially rebuilt in the twelfth.In this instance the stilt-block, which surmounts a capital varying- but little from theCorinthian type, has shrunk to a form scarcely more pronounced than a strong abacus.In the cloisters of Monreale we see groups of capitals taking arches of which the foot ismuch too larg-e for the abacus. At an earlier day the stilt-block would have been em-ployed. Yet in S. Dominico at Palermo, a Norman church of the twelfth century, thecapitals in the cloisters have stilt-blocks, though different in character from those of theNorth. 230 ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY of pearl, which is used not onl)^ in mosaic, but in discs made ofwhole shells, which reflect a brilliant opalescent light. There areeight varieties of i)attern in the panels, and these are arranged sym-metrically in pairs on the opposite si

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