DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29898#0470
434
BYZANTINE ARCHITECTUBE.
Paet II.
in its design whicli the Byzantines set themselves to remedy. The
first was that twice the necessary amount of materials was consumed
in its construction. The second, that the mode of lighting by a hole
in the roof, which also admitted the rain and the snow, was most
objectionable before the invention of glass. The third, that a simply
circular plan is always unrueaning and inconvenient. A fourth, that
a circular building can hardly, by any contrivance, be made to fit on
to any other buildings or apartments.
In the Minerva Medica. (Woodcut ISTo. 229) great efforts were
made, but not quite successfully, to remedy these defects. The build-
ing would not fit on to any others, ancl, though an improvement on
the clesign of the Pantheon, was still far from perfect.
The first step the Byzantines made was to carry the clome on
arches resting on eight piers enclosing an octagon a (AVoodcut No. 300) ;
this enabled them to obtain increased space, to provide nave, choir,
and transepts, and by throwing out niches on the diagonal lines,
300. Diagvam uf Byzautine Avraugement. 3U1. Diagram of Byzantine Pendentives.
virtually to obtain a square hall in the centre. The cliiference
between the octagon ancl circle is so slight, that by corbelling out
above the extrados of the arches, a circular base for the clome was
easily obtained b. The next step was to carry the dome on arches
resting on four piers, and their triumph was complete when by the
introduction of penclentives—represented by the shacled parts at D
(Wooclcut No. 301), they were enabled to place the circular dome on a
square compartment. The pendentives ancl dome thus projected formed
part of a sphere, the raclius of which was the half-diagonal of the
square compartment. Constructively it would probably have been easier
to roof the space by an intersecting vault; ancl even if of 100 or 150 ft.
span it woulcl without diificulty have been effected. The difference
between the intersecting vault ancl the clome (as shown in Woodcuts
302 ancl 303 ; the former the tomb of Galla Placidia, built 450 a.d., the
latter the chapel of St. Peter Crysologus attached to the archiepis-
copal palace of about the same clate, ancl both in Ravenna) is perhaps the
most striking contrast the history of architecture afforcls between
mechanical ancl ornamental construction. Both are capable of being
ornamented to the same extent ancl in the same manner; but the
BYZANTINE ARCHITECTUBE.
Paet II.
in its design whicli the Byzantines set themselves to remedy. The
first was that twice the necessary amount of materials was consumed
in its construction. The second, that the mode of lighting by a hole
in the roof, which also admitted the rain and the snow, was most
objectionable before the invention of glass. The third, that a simply
circular plan is always unrueaning and inconvenient. A fourth, that
a circular building can hardly, by any contrivance, be made to fit on
to any other buildings or apartments.
In the Minerva Medica. (Woodcut ISTo. 229) great efforts were
made, but not quite successfully, to remedy these defects. The build-
ing would not fit on to any others, ancl, though an improvement on
the clesign of the Pantheon, was still far from perfect.
The first step the Byzantines made was to carry the clome on
arches resting on eight piers enclosing an octagon a (AVoodcut No. 300) ;
this enabled them to obtain increased space, to provide nave, choir,
and transepts, and by throwing out niches on the diagonal lines,
300. Diagvam uf Byzautine Avraugement. 3U1. Diagram of Byzantine Pendentives.
virtually to obtain a square hall in the centre. The cliiference
between the octagon ancl circle is so slight, that by corbelling out
above the extrados of the arches, a circular base for the clome was
easily obtained b. The next step was to carry the dome on arches
resting on four piers, and their triumph was complete when by the
introduction of penclentives—represented by the shacled parts at D
(Wooclcut No. 301), they were enabled to place the circular dome on a
square compartment. The pendentives ancl dome thus projected formed
part of a sphere, the raclius of which was the half-diagonal of the
square compartment. Constructively it would probably have been easier
to roof the space by an intersecting vault; ancl even if of 100 or 150 ft.
span it woulcl without diificulty have been effected. The difference
between the intersecting vault ancl the clome (as shown in Woodcuts
302 ancl 303 ; the former the tomb of Galla Placidia, built 450 a.d., the
latter the chapel of St. Peter Crysologus attached to the archiepis-
copal palace of about the same clate, ancl both in Ravenna) is perhaps the
most striking contrast the history of architecture afforcls between
mechanical ancl ornamental construction. Both are capable of being
ornamented to the same extent ancl in the same manner; but the