DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63447#0476
460
THE HISTORICAL PAST OF ITALY.
was used by the Greek or Pelasgic colonists about
Marseilles at a far earlier date, but this can only have
been in arches or domes constructed horizontally. These
may have suggested its use in radiating vaults, but can
hardly be said to have influenced its adoption. Had it
not been for the constructive advantages of pointed
arches, the Roman circular arch would certainly have
maintained its sway. It is possible, however, that the
Northern Franks would never have adopted it so com-
pletely as they did, had they not become familiar with it
either in Sicily or the East.” When once they had so
taken it up, they made it their own, by employing it only
as a modification of the round arched forms previously
introduced and perfected.
In Sicily the case is different; the pointed arch there
never was either a vaulting or construction expedient.
It was simply a mode of eking out, by its own taller
form, and by stilting the limited height of the Roman
pillars, which the Christians found so abundantly and
used so freely. It is the same description of arch as
that used in the construction of the Mosque El-Aksah, at
Jerusalem, in the eighth century ; “ at Cairo,1 in rebuilding
that of Amrou, in the ninth century or the tenth, in the
Azhar, and also, I believe, in the old mosque at Khairoan,
which was the immediate stepping-stone by which it
crossed to Sicily, till it became a settled canon of art,
and a usual form of Moorish architecture. As such it
was used currently in Sicily by the Moors; and in
Palermo and elsewhere it became so essential a part of the
architecture of the day that it was employed, as a matter
of course, in the churches ; but it was not introduced by
the Normans, nor was it carried by them from Sicily to
France. In fact, there is no connection, ethnographically
or architecturally, between the Sicilian pointed arch and
the French, and, beyond the accident of a broken centre,
they having nothing in common.”
We have thus been able to trace all the principal
architectural features adopted by Europe, from their first
1 Fergusson, p. 277.
THE HISTORICAL PAST OF ITALY.
was used by the Greek or Pelasgic colonists about
Marseilles at a far earlier date, but this can only have
been in arches or domes constructed horizontally. These
may have suggested its use in radiating vaults, but can
hardly be said to have influenced its adoption. Had it
not been for the constructive advantages of pointed
arches, the Roman circular arch would certainly have
maintained its sway. It is possible, however, that the
Northern Franks would never have adopted it so com-
pletely as they did, had they not become familiar with it
either in Sicily or the East.” When once they had so
taken it up, they made it their own, by employing it only
as a modification of the round arched forms previously
introduced and perfected.
In Sicily the case is different; the pointed arch there
never was either a vaulting or construction expedient.
It was simply a mode of eking out, by its own taller
form, and by stilting the limited height of the Roman
pillars, which the Christians found so abundantly and
used so freely. It is the same description of arch as
that used in the construction of the Mosque El-Aksah, at
Jerusalem, in the eighth century ; “ at Cairo,1 in rebuilding
that of Amrou, in the ninth century or the tenth, in the
Azhar, and also, I believe, in the old mosque at Khairoan,
which was the immediate stepping-stone by which it
crossed to Sicily, till it became a settled canon of art,
and a usual form of Moorish architecture. As such it
was used currently in Sicily by the Moors; and in
Palermo and elsewhere it became so essential a part of the
architecture of the day that it was employed, as a matter
of course, in the churches ; but it was not introduced by
the Normans, nor was it carried by them from Sicily to
France. In fact, there is no connection, ethnographically
or architecturally, between the Sicilian pointed arch and
the French, and, beyond the accident of a broken centre,
they having nothing in common.”
We have thus been able to trace all the principal
architectural features adopted by Europe, from their first
1 Fergusson, p. 277.