There can be little doubt that many other similar buildings belonging to this age still exist in various parts of Italy; for it is more than probable that, at a time when the city was not of sufficient importance, or the congregation so numerous as to require the more extended accommodation of the basilica, almost all the earlier churches were circular. They either, however, have perished from lapse of time, or have been so altered as to be nearly unrecognizable. We here, in consequence, come again to a break in the chain of our sequence, and when we again meet with any circular buildings in Italy, their features are so distinctly Gothic or Byzantine, that they must be classed with one or other of these modifications. The true Romanesque
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304. Tomb of Galla Placidia, Ravenna. (From Quast.) No scale.
had nearly come to an end when Alboin the Lombard had made himself master of the greater part of Italy about the year 575.
Before leaving this branch of the subject there are two small buildings at Ravenna which it is impossible to pass over, though their direct bearing on the history of this subject is not so apparent as it is in the case of other buildings just described.
The first and earliest is the tomb of Galla Placidia, now known as the church of SS. Nazario and Celso, and must have been erected before the year 450. It is singular among all the tombs of that age from the abandonment in it of the circular for a cruciform plan. Such forms, it is true, are common in the chambers of tumuli and also among the catacombs, while the church which Constantine built in Constantinople and dedicated to the Apostles, meaning it however as a sepulchral church, was something also on this plan. Notwithstanding, however, these examples, this must be considered as an exceptional form, though its diminutiveness (it being only 35 ft. by 30 internally) might perhaps account for any caprice. Its great interest to us consists in its retaining not only its original architectural form, but also its polychromatic decorations nearly in their original state of completeness.[1] The three arms of the cross forming the receptacles for the three sarcophagi is certainly a pleasing arrangement, but is only practicable on so small a scale. Were the building larger, it would lose all appropriateness as well as all effect.
Far more interesting than this—architecturally at least—is the tomb of Theodoric, the Gothic king, now known as Santa Maria Rotunda. The lower story is a decagon externally, enclosing a cruciform crypt. It is 45 ft. in diameter, each face being ornamented
- ↑ These are well illustrated in Quast, "Altchristlichen Bauwerke zu Ravenna." Also by Hubsch and others.
