Leader Scott
The Cathedral Builders
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Table of contents
PROEM
BOOK I ROMANO-LOMBARD ARCHITECTS
CHAPTER I THE GUILD OF THE COMACINE MASTERS
CHAPTER II THE COMACINES UNDER THE LONGOBARDS
CHAPTER III CIVIL ARCHITECTURE UNDER THE LONGOBARDS
CHAPTER IV COMACINE ORNAMENTATION IN THE LOMBARD ERA
CHAPTER V COMACINES UNDER CHARLEMAGNE
CHAPTER VI IN THE TROUBLOUS TIMES
BOOK II FIRST FOREIGN EMIGRATIONS OF THE COMACINES
CHAPTER I THE NORMAN LINK
CHAPTER II THE GERMAN LINK
CHAPTER III THE ORIGIN OF SAXON ARCHITECTURE (A SUGGESTION)BY THE REV. W. MILES BARNES[101]
CHAPTER IV THE TOWERS AND CROSSES OF IRELAND
BOOK III ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTS
CHAPTER I TRANSITION PERIOD
CHAPTER II THE MODENA-FERRARA LINK
CHAPTER III THE TUSCAN LINK
CHAPTER IV ROMANESQUE AND GOTHIC ORNAMENTATION
CHAPTER V CIVIL ARCHITECTURE OF THE ROMANESQUE ERA
BOOK IV ITALIAN-GOTHIC, AND RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTS
CHAPTER I THE SECESSION OF THE PAINTERS
CHAPTER II THE SIENA AND ORVIETO LODGES
CHAPTER III THE FLORENTINE LODGE
CHAPTER IV THE MILAN LODGE
CHAPTER V THE VENETIAN LINK
CHAPTER VI THE ROMAN LODGE
EPILOGUE
FOOTNOTES:
Cloister of S. John Lateran, Rome, 12th century.
PROEM
In
most histories of Italian art we are conscious of a vast hiatus of
several centuries, between the ancient classic art of Rome—which
was in its decadence when the Western Empire ceased in the fifth
century after Christ—and that early rise of art in the twelfth
century which led to the Renaissance.This
hiatus is generally supposed to be a time when Art was utterly dead
and buried, its corpse in Byzantine dress lying embalmed in its tomb
at Ravenna. But all death is nothing but the germ of new life. Art
was not a corpse, it was only a seed, laid in Italian soil to
germinate, and it bore several plants before the great reflowering
period of the Renaissance.The
seed sown by the Classic schools formed the link between them and the
Renaissance, just as the Romance Languages of Provence and Languedoc
form the link between the dying out of the classic Latin and the rise
of modern languages.Now
where are we to look for this link?In
language we find it just between the Roman and Gallic Empires.In
Art it seems also to be on that borderland—Lombardy—where the
Magistri Comacini,
a mediæval Guild of
Liberi Muratori
(Freemasons), kept alive in their traditions the seed of classic art,
slowly training it through Romanesque forms up to the Gothic, and
hence to the full Renaissance. It is a significant coincidence that
this obscure link in Art, like the link-languages, is styled by many
writers Provençal or Romance style, for the Gothic influence spread
in France even before it expanded so gloriously in Germany.I
think if we study these obscure Comacine Masters we shall find that
they form a firm, perfect, and consistent link between the old and
the new, filling completely that ugly gap in the History of Art. So
fully that all the different Italian styles, whose names are
legion—being Lombard-Byzantine at Ravenna and Venice, Romanesque at
Pisa and Lucca, Lombard-Gothic at Milan, Norman-Saracen in Sicily and
the south,—are nothing more than the different developments in
differing climates and ages, of the art of one powerful guild of
sculptor-builders, who nursed the seed of Roman art on the
border-land of the falling Roman Empire, and spread the growth in
far-off countries.We
shall see that all that was architecturally good in Italy during the
dark centuries between 500 and 1200 A.D. was due to the Comacine
Masters, or to their influence. To them can be traced the building of
those fine Lombard Basilicas of S. Ambrogio at Milan, Theodolinda's
church at Monza, S. Fedele at Como, San Michele at Pavia, and San
Vitale at Ravenna; as well as the florid cathedrals of Pisa, Lucca,
Milan, Arezzo, Brescia, etc. Their hand was in the grand Basilicas of
S. Agnese, S. Lorenzo, S. Clemente, and others in Rome, and in the
wondrous cloisters and aisles of Monreale and Palermo.Through
them architecture and sculpture were carried into foreign lands,
France, Spain, Germany, and England, and there developed into new and
varied styles according to the exigencies of the climate, and the
tone of the people. The flat roofs, horizontal architraves, and low
arches of the Romanesque, which suited a warm climate, gradually
changed as they went northward into the pointed arches and sharp
gables of the Gothic; the steep sloping lines being a necessity in a
land where snow and rain were frequent.But
however the architecture developed in after times, it was the
Comacine Masters who carried the classic germs and planted them in
foreign soils; it was the brethren of the
Liberi Muratori
who, from their head-quarters at Como, were sent by Gregory the Great
to England with Saint Augustine, to build churches for his converts;
by Gregory II. to Germany with Boniface on a similar mission; and
were by Charlemagne taken to France to build his church at
Aix-la-Chapelle, the prototype of French Gothic.How
and why such a powerful and influential guild seemed to spring from a
little island in Lake Como, and how their world-wide reputation grew,
the following scraps of history, borrowed from many an ancient
source, will, I hope, explain.It
is strange that Art historians hitherto have made so little of the
Comacine Masters. I do not think that Cattaneo mentions them at all.
Hope, although divining a universal Masonic Guild, enlarges on all
their work as Lombard; Fergusson disposes of them in a single
unimportant sentence; and Symonds is not much more diffuse; while
Marchese Ricci gives them the credit of the early Lombard work and no
more. I was led at length to a closer study of them by the two
ponderous tomes on the
Maestri Comacini[1]
by Professor Merzario, who has got together a huge amount of material
from old writers, old deeds, and old stones. But valuable as the
material is, Merzario is bewildering in his redundancy, confusing in
his arrangement, and not sufficiently clear in his deductions, his
chief aim being to show how many famous artists came from Lombardy.I
wrote to ask Signor Merzario if I might associate his name with mine
in preparing a work for the English public, in which his research
would furnish me with so much that is valuable to the history of art,
but to my regret I found he had died since the book was written, so I
never received his permission; though his publisher was very kind in
permitting me to use the book as a chief work of reference. With
Merzario I have collated many other recognized authorities on
architecture and archæology, besides archivial documents, and old
chronicles. I have tried to make some slight chronological
arrangement, and some intelligible lists of the names of the Masters
at different eras. The researches of the great archivist Milanesi in
his Documenti per la
Storia dell' Arte Senese,
and Cesare Guasti in his lately published collection of documents
relating to the building of the Duomo of Florence, have been of
immense service in throwing a light on the organization of the Lodges
and their government. All that Signor Merzario dimly guessed from the
more fragmentary earlier records of Parma, Modena, and Verona, shines
out clear and well-defined under the fuller light of these later
records, and helps us to read many a dark saying of the older times.My
thanks for much kind assistance in supplying me with facts or
authorities, are due to the Rev. Canonico Pietro Tonarelli of Parma
cathedral; the Rev. Vincenzo Rossi, Priore of Settignano;
Commendatore John Temple Leader of Florence; and to my brother, the
Rev. William Miles Barnes, Rector of Monkton, who has written the
"English link" for me. Acknowledgments are also due to
Signor Alinari and Signor Brogi of Florence, and to Signor Ongania of
Venice, for permitting the use of their photographs as illustrations.
BOOK I ROMANO-LOMBARD ARCHITECTS
CHAPTER I THE GUILD OF THE COMACINE MASTERS
In
looking back to the great church-building era,
i.e. to the
centuries between 1100 and 1500, do not the questions arise in one's
mind, "How did all these great and noble buildings spring up
simultaneously in all countries and all climates?" and "How
comes it that in all cases they were similar to each other at similar
times?"In
the twelfth century, when the Italian buildings, such as the churches
at Verona, Bergamo, Como, etc., were built with round arches, the
German Domkirchen at Bonn, Mayence, Treves, Lubeck, Freiburg, etc.;
the French churches at Aix, Tournus, Caen, Dijon, etc.; and the
English cathedrals at Canterbury, Bristol, Chichester, St.
Bartholomew's in London—in fact, all those built at the same
time—were not only round-arched, but had an almost identical style,
and that style was Lombard.In
the thirteenth century, when pointed arches mingled with the round in
Italy, the same mixture is found contemporaneously in all the other
countries.Again
in the fourteenth century, when Cologne, Strasburg, and Magdeburg
cathedrals were built in pure Gothic; then those of Westminster,
York, Salisbury, etc., arose in England; the Domes of Milan, Assisi,
and Florence in Italy; and the churches of Beauvais, Laon, and Rouen
in France. These all came, almost simultaneously, like sister
buildings with one
impronto on them
all.Is
it likely that many single architects in different countries would
have had the same ideas at the same time? Could any single architect,
indeed, have designed every detail of even one of those marvellous
complex buildings? or have executed or modelled one-tenth of the
wealth of sculpture lavished on one of those glorious cathedrals? I
think not.The
existence of one of these churches argues a plurality of workers
under one governing influence; the existence of them all argues a
huge universal brotherhood of architects and sculptors with different
branches in each country, and the same aims, technique, knowledge and
principles permeating through all, while each conforms in detail to
local influences and national taste.If
we once realize that such a Guild must have existed, and that under
the united hands of the grand brotherhood, the great age of
church-building was endowed with monuments which have been the glory
of all ages, then much that has been obscure in Art History becomes
clear; and what was before a marvel is now shown to be a natural
result.There
is another point also to be considered. The great age of
church-building flourished at a time when other arts and commerce
were but just beginning. Whence, out of the dark ages, sprang the
skill and knowledge to build such fine and sculpturesque edifices,
when other trades were in their infancy, and civic and communal life
scarcely organized?It
is indeed a subject of wonder how the artists of the early period of
the rise of Art were trained. Here we find men almost in the dark
ages, who were the most splendid architects, and at the same time
sculptors, painters, and even poets. How, for instance, did Giotto, a
boy taken from the sheep-folds, learn to be a painter, sculptor, and
architect of such rank that the city of Florence chose him to be the
builder of the Campanile? Did he learn it all from old Cimabue's
frescoes, and half Byzantine
tavole? and how did
he prove to the city that he was a qualified architect? We find him
written in the archives as
Magister Giotto,
consequently he must have passed through the school and
laborerium of some
guild where every branch of the arts was taught, and have graduated
in it as a master.All
these things will become more and more clear as we follow up the
traces of the Comacine Guild from the chrysalis state, in which Roman
art hybernated during the dark winter of the Middle Ages, through the
grub state of the Lombard period, to the glorious winged flights of
the full Gothic of the Renaissance.And
first as to the chrysalis, at little Como. The origin of the name
Comacine Masters
has caused a great deal of argument amongst Italian writers new and
old. Some think it merely a place-name referring to the island of
Comacina, in Lake Lario or Como; others take a wider significance,
and say it means not only the city of Como, but all the province,
which was once a Roman colony of great extension. Others again, among
whom is Grotius, suggest that it is not a place-name at all, but
comes from the Teutonic word
Gemachin or
house-builders. As the Longobards afterwards called them in Italian
Maestri Casarii,
which means the same thing, there is perhaps something to be said for
this hypothesis.The
first to draw attention to the name
Magistri Comacini,
was the erudite Muratori, that searcher out of ancient MSS., who
unearthed from the archives an edict, dated November 22, 643, signed
by King Rotharis, in which are included two clauses treating of the
Magistri Comacini
and their colleagues. The two clauses, Nos. 143 and 144, out of the
388 inscribed in crabbed Latin, are, when anglicized, to the
following intent—"Art.
143. Of the Magister
Comacinus. If the
Comacine Master with his
colliganti
(colleagues) shall have contracted to restore or build the house of
any person whatsoever, the contract for payment being made, and it
chances that some one shall die by the fall of the said house, or any
material or stones from it, the owner of the said house shall not be
cited by the
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