Ars: časopis Ústavu Dejín Umenia Slovenskej Akadémie Vied (43.2010)

70. Chy'/M, MEcrl EL A ^^7/vry, 7%7í*Ect 7<?^A 7T?ř MvtV
P^oL.* IX P. Gč<v.

nounces itself as a City, a Fotttess of the Lord. It
will také time and Martin Luther to remind Europe
that only the Lord is a fortihed city, not pièces of
rock or brick piled up by the hands of the sinning
mortais. In the meantime, however, the tower, the

western massif, evidently hred up the imagination
of both the Imperiál and the borderland princes.
In architecturally most interesting frontier areas,
Asturias and Croatia, the result was a hard, massive
and powerful architecture; an architecture of an early
"will-to-vault", which in itself led in Asturias to the
hrst inklings of the Romanesque structuralization,
and in Croatia to vaulting rather large buildings while
strictly staying within the Pre-Romanesque esthetics.
And then, toward the end of the 1 (H Century, in those
same Mediterranean lands, from Dalmatia to Catalo-
nia, there emerged a new art of sturdy buildings in
durable materials, experimenting both with vaulting
and decorating of external faces of the walls — the
so-called "First Romanesque" of the Mediterranean
circle. But this is another story.
If the key theme of the "Carolingian Revival" is
harking back, i.e., "reviving" earlier styles, imperial
styles — Early Christian, Early Byzantine -, then the
less innovative forms of Carolingian architecture are
truly (the monumental rotunda, the basili-
ca with a western transept, or, "won? Twwwo" and "won?
oo^E^Ev<y?o//f^vo"). The innovative aspect of the
Carolingian architecture, the one which would hâve
a profound impact on the architecture of the next
half a millennium, the westwork, the western massif,
is in fact "anti-Carolingian", or at least "un-Caroling-
ian"! I do admire Carol Heitz's wonderfui analysis of
the westwork at Centula, and his conclusions that
the westwork is ltnked to the Holy Sepulcher ("won?
^Eroto^wE^o"), yet the Holy Sepulcher was not a
tower but a rotunda. The westwork, as Hietz correctly
remarks, is a centralized structure, but what a différ-
ence between the E/nA at Centula or Corvey, and
the Early Christian and Early Byzantine rotundasA
Thus, the most innovative, the most revolutionary

The reader is certainly aware of the fact that westwork is a
vast area of research with an equaliy vast bibliography, so our
observations will remain fragmentary, centering on what is
recognized as crucial. In my opinion, C. HEITZ's profound
study, Eřr jwr Lr E
4 (Paris 1963), expanded by the same
author's book EhrEiLfWr^ (Paris 1980), remains
one of the crucial bases for any study of the westwork issue.
Heitz's reasoning (i.e., in a nutshell, westwork — area reserved
for the liturgy of the Savior, the model being the Holy Sep-
ulcher atjerusalem, see pp. 77 ff., 91 ff., 102-106 ff., 121 ff.)
is best applicable to the central lands of the Empire (see

also GOSS, V. P: ELFy CroLE% ArtELrWn?. London 1987,
pp. 74-75). Germanie scholars paid more attention to the
westwork as the "Kaiserkirche", claiming that the frequent
dedication to the Savior is a conséquence of the merging of
the cuits of the Savior and the Emperor. The contentions
are not mutually exclusive, as Heitz allows for the role of
the ruler in the westwork iconography, whereas the Ger-
man thesis recognizes the importance of the liturgy of the
Savior. In those terms, especially useful are FUCHS, A.: DL
ITkVMwA Ar TGwEAvA/?
Paderborn 1929; FUCHS, A.: Enstehung und Zweck-
bestimmung der Westwerke. In: UTryLAsvA ZřAiAy/7, 100,

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