the Lombards or the Normans had a style of their own, prior to their occupation of districts from the monuments of which they learned rudely to use the decayed Roman manner, would be incorrect. Yet it seems impossible to deny that both Normans and Lombards, in adapting antecedent models, added something of their own, specific to themselves as northerners. The Lombard, like the Norman, or the Rhenish Romanesque, is the first stage in the progressive mediæval architecture of its own district."
It appears possible, however, that the Longobards had very little to do with the architecture of their era except as patrons. Was there ever a stone Lombard building known out of Italy before Alboin and his hordes crossed the Alps? or even in Italy during the reigns of Alboin and Cleoph, their first kings?
But there were older buildings of precisely the same style, in Italy and in Como itself, dating from the time when the Bishops ruled, long before the Longobards came. There were the churches of S. Abbondio and S. Fedele. The latter was built in Abbondio's own time, about 440-489, and first dedicated to S. Euphemia. It was rebuilt later by the Comacines under the Longobards, but its form was not changed. The former, said to have been built by the Bishop Amantius, was first dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, whose relics he placed here. These two are certainly the oldest churches existing in Como.
Amantius the Byzantine ordained S. Abbondio, who was a Macedonian, as his successor, and he too became eminent in his time, and is still venerated as a patron Saint in all the Milanese district. Pope Leo sent him to Constantinople as his Legate, to interview the Patriarch Anastasius, and also deputed him to form the Council with Eusebius, at Milan. The Greek touch in the Lombard ornamentation may be accounted for by Greek sculptors assisting the Italian builders in the time of these Eastern bishops.
But, to return to the Longobards:—it was only when the civilization of Italy began to tell on them, and Christianity refined their minds, that they commenced to patronize the Arts, and revived the fading traditions of the builders' guild into practice, for the glorification of their religious zeal. "Little by little," says Muratori, "the barbarous Longobards became more polished (andavano disrugginendo) by taking the customs and rites of the Italians. Many of them were converted from Arianism to Catholicism, and they vied with the Italians in piety and liberality towards the Church of God, building both Hospices and Monasteries."[23]
The Comacine Masters were undoubtedly the only architects employed by them, so we are sure that in the Lombard churches of this era, we see the Comacine work of the first or Roman-Lombard style.
Autharis and Theodolinda were the first orthodox Christians: indeed Theodolinda, who was baptized by Gregory the Great, and formed a special friendship with him, became a shining light in the Church. To them is probably due the honour of inaugurating the Renaissance of Comacine art. Autharis, though an Arian, first employed the Masters of the guild to build a church and monastery at Farfa on the banks of the Adda, not far from Monza. They have long been ruined, but ancient writers quote them as fine and rich works of architecture. Next, Theodolinda and her second husband, Agilulf, the succeeding king, built the cathedral at Monza, which they resolved should be worthy of the new creed. This cathedral was the prototype of all the Lombard churches.
Before proceeding further it may be well to define precisely the difference between Eastern and Western forms in these centuries, while they were as yet distinct.
As we have said, the Basilica was the type of Roman or Western architecture, a type which passed afterwards to the East, where the cupola was added to it.
The Comacine Guild, being a survival of the Roman Collegium, had of course Roman traditions, and took naturally this Roman type of the Basilica,[24] which form they adapted to the uses of the Christian Church, while its ornamentation was suited to the taste of the Longobards.
The Basilica, as Vitruvius explains it, was a room where the ruler and his delegates administered justice. But when, after the persecutions, Christians were allowed their churches, the Basilicæ so well supplied the needs of Christian worship, that either the ancient ones were used as churches, or new buildings were erected in the same form; so that by the fourth century the word Basilica was understood to mean a church remarkable for its size, and of a set form and grandeur, with a raised tribune. The Basilicæ of Constantine were all dedicated to Saints—St. Peter, St. Paul, Beato Marcellino. The Sessorian Basilica was begun in 330, to hold the relics of the Cross, discovered by the Empress Helena. From the time of the edict of Theodosius, however, Christian architecture took a new and independent character; and this was when the Basilica became amplified and beautified.
The Oriental churches, on the other hand, were derived from the antique synagogue, in which concentric forms, either circular or polygonal, predominated. In their later development four equal arms were added, and here we get the Greek Cross, in the centre of which arose the dome.
In the Romanesque, or Comacine style of the ninth to the fourteenth centuries, the form becomes more complicated. We have, 1. the sanctuary or presbytery; 2. the apse for the choir; 3. the transepts; 4. the normal square or centre; 5. the elongated nave; 6. the aisles; 7. the atrium or portico.
In Theodolinda's time, however, church architecture in Lombardy was wholly and purely Roman, with the influences of mediæval Christianity. Ricci tells us that the construction of the first churches followed a symbolical expression. "Hermeneutic symbolism required that the apse or choir should face the east, so that the faithful while praying had that part before them."
A very usual form was the tri-apsidal church, of which many specimens still exist. S. Pietro a Grado, near Pisa, is a beautiful specimen of this.
Around the apse of a Lombard church was a portico where the penitents and catechumens might stand, who were not yet admitted to the altar. On high were loggie (galleries) "for the virgins and women." The tribune was elevated and often ornamented with a railing, the crypt or confessional being beneath it. The crypt signified a memory of the early Christians, when subterranean catacombs formed the church of the faithful. The altar was generally the tomb of a martyr, in fulfilment of the text—"I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held" (Rev. vi. 9).
Where the original form of the Lombard church has not been altered, as in the first Monza church, all these parts may be still seen.
We are expressly told by Ricci,[25] that for the building of her church at Monza, Queen Theodolinda availed herself of those Magistri Comacini, who, as Rotharis describes them in his laws 143 and 144, were qualified architects and builders.
It seems that even though all Italy was subjugated by the Longobards, the Magistri Comacini retained their freedom and privileges. They became Longobard citizens, but were not serfs; they retained their power of making free contracts, and receiving a fair price for their work, and were even entitled to hold and dispose of landed property.[26]
Therefore it was by a free contract, and not in any spirit of servitude, that the Comacines undertook the building of Theodolinda's church.
It is difficult to imagine what the church was in Theodolinda's time, as its form was altered in the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Ricci says that the antique Monza Basilica terminated at what is now the first octagon column, on which rest the remains of the primitive façade. Four columns supported the arched tribune, and the high altar was raised above the level of the church. In front was the atrium, supported by porticoes, and he thinks that the sculptures in the present façade are the old ones.
Ancient Sculpture in Monza Cathedral.
Cattaneo, the Italian authority on Lombard architecture, does not believe in the present existence of even this much of Theodolinda's church, and in disclaiming the façade, disclaims also the sculpture on it, especially the one over the door, where Agilulf and Theodolinda offer the diadem of the cross to St. John the Baptist, and are shown as wearing crowns, which the early Lombard kings did