The Cathedral Builders Part 40

NAPLES BRANCH OF THE ROMAN LODGE

-------+-----------+--------------------------+---------------------------- 1. 1470 Magister Pietro di C.M. and designer of the Martino Lombardo (from triumphal arch at Castel Milan). Nuovo.

2. M. Isaja da Pisa } } 3. M. Antonio da Pisa } } 4. M. Domenico di } Sculptors and architects Montemignano } employed by Pietro di } Martino in the work of the 5. M. Francesco Arzara } arch.

} 6. M. Paolo Romano } } 7. M. Domenico Lombardo } di Sumalvito } 8. 1484 M. Tomaso da Como Sculptured monuments in Monte Oliveto.

9. 1509 M. Giovanni di Tomaso Built the crypt of S.

(his son) Gennaro at Naples.

Mention has been made, in the second chapter, of the early Christian Basilicas erected under Constantine, and the forty-six churches of the same era, which Genseric destroyed, and how the three Basilicas which were then saved--_i.e._ S. Agnese, San Lorenzo, and S. Maria in Cosmedin--have, during subsequent restoration, revealed, in the parts of the original buildings discovered, a style precisely a.n.a.logous to the Basilicas which sprang up in the north of Italy in the time of the Lombards. The only difference between the fourth-century Roman churches and the seventh-century Lombard ones is not in form or style, but merely a deterioration in workmanship. This may easily be accounted for by the two or three centuries of decadence between the destruction of Rome by Genseric and his successors, in about A.D. 460, when it is supposed the remnants of the _Collegio_ of architects fled to Como, and their revival under the Longobardic kings. During those centuries, no great buildings, or even restoration of edifices, took place. The Eternal City seemed, even when free of invaders, to be perishing in the clutches of time. Charlemagne led the way by rebuilding one or two ancient temples and palaces, and he established several schools, one of which was for Lombards--a proof that he was interested in those architects, and that they still had a seat in Rome, where the church of their four Patron Saints had stood, from the far-off time of Pope Melchiades--A.D. 311.

Pope Adrian I. followed the example of his imperial ally, by restoring several churches, to do which he had to ask Charlemagne for the builders of the guild under his protection; a proof that no _Collegio_ existed in Rome at that time. Among these churches, one of the most interesting was that of S. Agnese fuori le Mura, a beautiful round-arched Basilica, built by Constantine in 324. As it now stands, it is so far below the level of the ground that there is a long descent of forty-five wide marble steps, to reach the vestibule of the church. The Basilica itself is extremely interesting, as it remains in its original eighth-century form, as Pope Adrian I.

restored it in 775. The plan is a pure and simple Comacine Basilica, with its nave and two aisles, circular tribune and an upper gallery, with the _cochleus_ or spiral staircase leading to it all complete.

The columns of the nave seem to have been taken from an ancient Roman building. The capitals are all cla.s.sical except the four nearest the tribune, which are quite Comacine, with their simple upright volutes.

But the building s.p.a.ce being limited, the extremely tall columns had to be placed in such close juxtaposition, that the round arches between them are diminished out of all harmonic proportion. The triforium gallery, having shorter columns, gives a more pleasing effect.

The spiral staircase leading to this is cut in the thickness of a pilaster. The mosaics in the tribune are the original ones of Pope Honorius' time, and of Byzantine style; the decorative paintings over the whole church are mere modern frescoes.

But that the sculpturesque decorations were done by the Comacines, and not by the Greek mosaicists, is suggested by several remains of the ancient decorations of the church, which are preserved on the walls of the stairway descending to it. Here is a _pluteus_, or stone panel, probably from the front of the ancient tribune, and it is a beautiful _intreccio_ precisely like the ones at S. Clemente. Two other panels of the same parapet are of Roman design. One might imagine that the Lombard architect copied them from the inner roof of the Arch of t.i.tus. Probably the guild, being of Roman origin, kept all these cla.s.sical decorative designs in its _laborerium_.

Now and then, in the ages following Adrian, we find a large-minded Pope, who gave his thoughts to restoring the beauties of Rome: such as Leo III. (796), Leo IV. (845), Innocent III. (1178), Nicholas III.

(1277), and Boniface VIII. (1294). This latter was the Pope who consecrated the Duomo of Florence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: APSE OF THE CHURCH OF SS. GIOVANNI E PAOLO, ON THE CLIAN HILL, ROME.

(_From a photograph by Alinari._) _See page 405._]

The great Lombard Masonic Guild being under the especial protection of the Popes, we should expect to see its members employed in the mediaeval buildings of Rome. And truly, after Adrian's time, here they are. Hope, Schmarzow, Ricci, and Boito, besides other writers, have all decided that the ancient cloisters of San Lorenzo--built under Honorius III. in the beginning of the thirteenth century--as well as the primitive churches of St. Peter, S. John Lateran, and S. Lorenzo, were all early Comacine work; and that the exquisite cloister of S.

John Lateran, and the churches of S. Paolo fuori le Mura, Ara Cli, San Giovanni e Paolo, S. Maria sopra Minerva, etc., are all equally Lombard churches of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Several friezes and inscriptions go to prove the truth of this, besides those eloquent lions that crouch beneath the columns in the cloister of S.

John Lateran and other places.

As this is not an architectural dissertation, but merely a tracing of the work of this great guild, I will keep more to the inscriptions relative to _Magistri_, than to a description of their works, which has been done by so many writers.

In the old times before the painters and sculptors, and after them the metal-workers, split off and formed companies of their own, every kind of decoration was practised by the Masters. A church was not complete unless it were adorned in its whole height and breadth with either sculpture, mosaic, or paintings, and this from the very early times of Constantine and his Byzantine mosaicists, and of Queen Theodolinda and her fresco-painters, up to the revival of mosaics by the Cosmati, and the fresco-painting in the Tuscan schools. But never were those arts entirely lost.

The ideas which the Lombard architects brought up from Sicily, when working there under the Normans, were the seeds of re-vivification, and caused a tremendous evolution in the art of the guild. They saw the decorative value of mosaic as it was used in the twisted Saracenic columns, and they were charmed by the rich use of sculpture in the graceful arches. From that time, every lodge throughout the land seemed to invent a new style peculiar to itself.

The Romans, with their traditions of cla.s.sic mosaics, revived the art in Saracenic style as a means of decoration. The Tuscans, with their wealth of coloured marbles, enlarged chromatic decoration into chromatic architecture, and their airy towers and arched churches were all more or less polychrome. The Lombards, having no marbles at hand, took from these same Saracens their rich traceries and cuspings, which they produced in the plastic clay, throwing a veil of ruddy beauty over the facades and arches of their buildings.

The name of the Cosmati family has become generic for the peculiar chromatic sculpture of Rome in the twelfth century; the family were complete masters of the art. But though they may have taken the idea of its revival as a decorative aid to sculpture, it was by no means their invention, or even their monopoly. If you look at a Cosmati pillar or panel, and then at the floor of any Roman church, you will see that Cosmatesque decoration is but an adaptation of the old Roman _opus Alexandrinum_. And we have plenty of proof of the fact that other _Magistri_ of the guild also practised it. The ambone in S.

Cesareo in Palatio at Rome, of which we give an ill.u.s.tration, is earlier than any of Cosimo's family.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BASILICA OF S. PAOLO _fuori le mura_, ROME.

_See page 405._]

There exists at Florence (in S. Leonardo) the ancient pulpit from S.

Piero Scheraggio, and which was said to have been brought there from Fiesole. Its date is supposed to be before 1000 A.D. Though of a ruder style, we have the Cosmatesque inlaying of gla.s.s and marble, as a setting to sculptures distinctly Comacine, and of almost Longobardic antiquity. In Sta. Maria in Cosmedin are two fine pulpits, on one of which is a beautiful candlestick formed of a twisted column, inlaid in the same style. The Comacine lion crouches beneath it, and on the base is the inscription in Gothic letters, telling us that the worthy and learned man Paschalis (called Rita), with great study made this candlestick.[290] Then we have Nicolao di Rannuncio, whose name is inscribed on the door of inlaid marble in the church of S. Maria at Toscanella,[291] and a whole family whose names are inscribed on the ciborium of S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura:[292] where it is written--"John, Peter, Angelo, and Sa.s.so, sons of Paul the sculptor, Magisters of this Opera. I, the humble Abbot Hugh, had this work executed"[293] (Johs, Petrus, Ange?s, et. Sa.s.so. Filii. Pauli. Marmor. Huj'. Opis.

Magister Fuer. Ann d. M. CXLVIII. Ego. Hugo. Humilis. Abbs. Hoc. Opus.

Fieri Feci.). The tabernacle is of the usual four-pillared form; the columns are ancient porphyry ones adapted; the capitals the usual Comacine mixture of cla.s.sic and mediaeval--acanthus leaves and cornucopiae with the mystic beasts climbing among them.

Angelo, the third son of Magister Paulus, had a son named Niccol, and the two together made the candelabrum of S. Paolo; a quaint mediaeval piece of sculpture, of the style of Magister Roberto's font, but with some marvellously beautiful interlaced work. There is also Arnolfo with his partner Peter (Arnolfus c.u.m suo socio Petro), who made the inlaid and sculptured tabernacle in S. Paolo fuori le Mura in 1285.

Merzario says that we must not confuse this Arnolfo with the Florentine architect. Camille Boito, however, opines that he is the same. Arnolfo had certainly a taste for the polychrome in architecture, which may or may not have been imbibed in Rome, while working at that lodge with Peter--whom Cavalcaselle considers was one of the Cosmati, and who certainly did the ciborium at S. Paolo, though Arnolfo's name is absent in that work. I have found some other members of the Roman Lodge inscribed above a bronze door in S. John Lateran.

On the archivolt is written--"Hui opis Ubert et Petr: [^Fr]s.

Magistri Lausenen. Fece[[^ru]nt." Over another bronze door in the sacristy they are written as--"Ubert Magister, et Petrus. Ei: Fr. Placentini Fecerunt Hoc. op.," and the date A.D. 1196.

Boito[294] sees nothing in this but a perplexing contradiction, that in one place the brothers say they are from Lausanne, and in another from Piacenza. It is to me plain enough. They are natives of Lausanne, and consequently Lombards: they are also brethren of the lodge of Piacenza, where they had most likely worked while the cathedral and other buildings were being erected.

The date of the Baptistery door, and the connection of its maker with the guild, are verified by the inscription on the other panel of the bronze door, which says it was done in the fifth year of the pontificate of Pope Celestine III. (_i.e._ 1196), and that Father Giovanni, Cardinal of S. Lucia, the _Jubente_, or _camerarius_ of the _Opera_, had it made.[295]

This door had engraved on it the design of the ancient facade of S.

John Lateran--a perfectly Lombard front consisting of two round-arched arcades, with a little pillared gallery above.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PULPIT IN CHURCH OF S. CESAREO IN PALATIO, ROME.

MEDIaeVAL SCULPTURE INLAID IN MOSAIC.

(_From a photograph by Alinari._) _See page 406._]

The door of the Sacristy must have been cast before that of the Baptistery, as in the first work Uberto is ent.i.tled _Magister_, and Petrus only named as his brother, whereas in the second the younger brother must have also graduated, and has in his turn attained to the dignity of _Magister_.

We trace the same gradual progress through the ranks of the Guild in the Cosmati family, whose connection with the Roman lodge we must now trace. Several generations of them were _Magistri_--

Lorenzo Jacopo (some works, 1205-1210) Cosimo, 1210-1277 +------------+------+------+------------+ Luca Jacopo Adeodatus Giovanni 1231-1235 1231-1293 1294 1296-1303

To Lorenzo belong the facades of Santa Maria in Falleri, and the Duomo in Civita Castellana, besides the pulpit in Ara Cli at Rome. In all these works his son Jacopo worked with him.

Jacopo alone, with the t.i.tle of _Magister_, sculptured the smaller doors in the facade of the Duomo at Civita Castellana, and the door of San Saba at Rome in 1205; also the inlaid columns at S. Alessio in Rome, and the Cloister of Santa Scolastica at Subiaco. In Civita Castellana, above the magnificent portal, is inscribed "Laurentius c.u.m Jacobo Filio suo, Magistri doctissimi Romani H(oc) opus fecerunt."

This proves my a.s.sertion that they had graduated in the Roman Lodge, and if further proof is required, this portal bears the universal mark of the Comacine Masters at this era--its columns rest on lions.

Similar inscriptions are on the ambone of Ara Cli, and the doorway at Falleri. The inscription on the door of San Saba, dated 1205, is--"Ad honorem domini nostri I?HU [^XP]I Anno VII. Pontificatus domini Innocentii III. PP Hoc opus domino Johanne, Abbate Jubente[296] factum est per ma.n.u.s magistri Jacobi." Up to this time we have no proof that the family was of Roman origin; they are merely given as members of the Roman Lodge, which we have seen was of Lombard origin. They were afterwards made Roman citizens.

After these works we find Cosmato, the son of Jacopo, old enough to a.s.sist him. That same frontal of the Duomo at Civita Castellana has on the cornice over the portico these words inlaid in letters of gold--"Magister Jacobus civis Roma.n.u.s c.u.m Cosma filio suo, Fieri fecit hoc opus A. D?NI. MCCX." Cosmato's name is also inscribed as a.s.sisting his father in the door of the church of San Tommaso in Formis at Rome. Next, in 1224, we find young Cosmato a full-fledged _Magister_, working at the cathedral of Anagni, which was in those days an important city, and the residence and birthplace of several Popes. The whole pavement there is a beautiful work of inlaid marbles, and bears an inscription saying that the Venerable Lord Bishop Albert had the pavement made; Magister Rainaldo, Canon of Anagni to Pope Honorius III., and the honourable sub-deacon and chaplain a.s.sisting in the expense, which was a hundred gold _oboli_; Magister Cosmato executing the work.[297] Magister Rainaldo, the Canon, must have been one of the ecclesiastic members of the guild, and showed so much respect for the privilege that he preferred the t.i.tle of _Magister_ to the grander one of _Venerabilis_, to which his office of Canon would have given him right.

After this time, Cosmato is always written as Magister; his name appears on the altar of the crypt of S. Magnus in the cathedral of Anagni, which was also a commission of Bishop Alberto in 1230. Next, we perceive that Cosmato has married and has a goodly family of sons, who, according to ancient custom, are all educated in the guild.

Luca and Jacobo, the two eldest, helped him in the mosaic pavement of the crypt at Anagni, and in the cloister of Santa Scolastica at Subiaco. This is a most beautiful work in transition style. The columns are alternately single and double, the single ones with a wide projecting abacus. Some are slight and straight, others spiral and beautifully inlaid between the sculptured ribs. The arches resting on these fanciful columns are on two sides round, but on the other sides are slightly pointed. Above the arches is a sculptured cornice and a frieze of mosaic. It is altogether very beautiful.

In 1277 Cosmato was employed by Pope Nicholas III. to restore the chapel "Sancta Sanctorum" in the Basilica of S. John Lateran, the altar of which was reserved for the Popes alone. Luca appears to have died young, but Jacopo at eighty years of age was a master builder at the cathedral of Orvieto, where in 1293 he is written in the books as "Maestro de' Muratori Jacopo di Cosma Romano."

The third son, Adeodatus, or Deodatus, rose high in the guild. In the pavement of S. Jacopo alla Lungara, before it was destroyed, the following epigraph was inlaid, which was copied by Crescimbeni--"Deodatus filius Cosmati, et Jacobus fecerunt hoc opus." In a later work, the ciborium once in S. John Lateran, now in the cloister, we find that Deodatus has risen to the rank of _Magister_. It was a commission from the Colonna family, whose arms are sculptured on it. The ciborium in S. Maria in Cosmedin, ordered by Cardinal Gaetani, nephew of Pope Boniface VII., must have been earlier than this, for he has merely signed "Deodat. me fec."

Cosmato's fourth son, Giovanni, first appears in an independent work in 1296, when, on the elegant sepulchre of Bishop Durante, he signs--"Jo?hs filius Magri Cosmati fec hoc op." Similar epigraphs are on the tomb of Cardinal Gonsalvo in S. Maria Maggiore, and a monument to Stefano de' Surdi in Santa Balbina.

In all these works of the Cosmati, Camille Boito finds signs of Lombard principles, and traces in the development of style from father to son the same gradual movement from older forms towards the Gothic, which we notice between Jacopo Tedesco and Arnolfo, and between Niccol Pisano and his son Giovanni. Living in Rome, however, the Cosmati never really took up the Gothic style, as it developed further north; but always kept nearer to cla.s.sical forms, and so prepared Rome for the Renaissance style, which arose from the humanist movement in the Cinque-cento epoch.

The next great patron of the Lombard Guild in Rome was Pope Nicholas V. (Thomas of Sarzana), of whom Gregorovius said--"This man had only two pa.s.sions--collecting books and building." His dominating idea was the directing of a new Renaissance. According to him, "Rome ought to become the imperishable monument of the Church, or rather the Papacy, and re-arise in admirable magnificence before the eyes of all people."[298] Nicholas V. had the first idea of the rebuilding of St.

Peter's, and the Vatican, but one man's life was not long enough for such great works. He, however, restored the Campidoglio, Castel S.

Angelo, San Todaro, S. Stefano Rotondo, the palace of S. Maria Maggiore, the fountain of Trevi, the walls of Rome, and several of the State fortresses.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CANDELABRUM IN S. PAOLO AT ROME, 12TH CENTURY.

_See page 407._]