Eastern Medieval Architecture: The

Building Traditions of Byzantium and

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EASTE RN M EDI EVAL
A RC H I T E C T U R E
EASTERN
MEDIEVAL
ARCHITECTURE

THE BUILDING
TRADITIONS
OF BYZANTIUM AND
NEIGHBORING LANDS

Robert G. Ousterhout

1
 1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trademark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© Oxford University Press 2019
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
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You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978–0–19–027273–9

Publication was made possible with the

generous support of the Onassis
Foundation USA.

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Quad/Graphics, Inc., Mexico
ONASSIS SERIES IN HELLENIC CULTURE
,
The Age of Titans: The Rise and Fall of the Great Hellenistic Navies
William M. Murray

Sophocles and the Language of Tragedy

Simon Goldhill

Nectar and Illusion: Nature in Byzantine Art and Literature

Henry Maguire

Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris: A Cultural History of Euripides’ Black Sea Tragedy
Edith Hall

Beauty: The Fortunes of an Ancient Greek Idea

David Konstan

Euripides and the Gods

Mary Lefkowitz

Brother-Making in Late Antiquity and Byzantium: Monks, Laymen, and Christian Ritual
Claudia Rapp

The Treasures of Alexander the Great: How One Man’s Wealth Shaped the World
Frank L. Holt

The Serpent Column: A Cultural Biography

Paul Stephenson

Anna Komnene: The Life and Work of a Medieval Historian

Leonora Neville

Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood: The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, 955 A.D. to the First Crusade
Anthony Kaldellis

Dirty Love: The Genealogy of the Ancient Greek Novel

Tim Whitmarsh

Eastern Medieval Architecture: The Building Traditions of Byzantium and Neighboring Lands
Robert G. Ousterhout
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
,
Maps xi
Author’s Preface xiii

INTRODUCTION xix
Historical Architecture East and West

PART ONE: LATE ANTIQUITY

Third to Seventh Centuries
CHAPTER ONE 3
Rome, the Domus Ecclesiae, and the Church Basilica

CHAPTER TWO 21
A Tale of Two Cities: Constantinople and Jerusalem in the Time of Constantine

CHAPTER THREE 37
Ritual Settings I: Liturgy, Initiation, Commemoration

CHAPTER FOUR 61
Ritual Settings II: Pilgrimage, Relics, and Sacred Space

CHAPTER FIVE 81
Makers, Methods, and Materials

CHAPTER SIX 101

Regional Developments, East and West

CHAPTER SEVEN 137

Secular Architecture: Cities, Houses, and Fortifications

CHAPTER EIGHT 175

Innovative Architecture

CHAPTER NINE 199

The Basilica Transformed: Hagia Sophia in Constantinople

CHAPTER TEN 219

Justinian’s Building Program and Sixth-Century Developments

vii
 PART TWO: THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD
Seventh to Ninth Centuries
CHAPTER ELEVEN 245
The Transitional Period within Byzantium

CHAPTER TWELVE 267

Transformation at the Edges of Empire

PART THREE: THE MIDDLE BYZANTINE CENTURIES

Ninth to Twelfth Centuries
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 303
New Church Architecture and the Rise of Monasticism

CHAPTER FOURTEEN 333

Secular Architecture and the Fate of the City

CHAPTER FIFTEEN 353

Constantinople as an Architectural Center

CHAPTER SIXTEEN 381

Master Builders and Their Craft

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 405

Development of Regional Styles I: Middle Byzantine Greece and Macedonia

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 431

Development of Regional Styles II: Middle Byzantine Anatolia

CHAPTER NINETEEN 455

Development of Regional Styles III: The Caucasus: Armenia and Georgia

CHAPTER TWENTY 479

Contested Lands: Architecture at the Time of the Crusades

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 507

The Exotic West: Venice, Southern Italy, and Sicily

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 531

Exporting a Culture/Importing a Culture: Bulgaria, Kievan Rus’, and Serbia

viii EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

PART FOUR: THE LATE BYZANTINE AND
POST-BYZANTINE CENTURIES
Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 561
The Difficult Thirteenth Century

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 595

Palaiologan Constantinople and a New Architectural Idiom

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 621

Old and New: Greek Cities and Landscapes

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 649

Regional Diversity: Bulgaria, Serbia, and Romania

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN 679

Rival Powers: The Ottomans and Russia

EPILOGUE 705
An Enduring Legacy

Glossary 714
Abbreviations 723
For Further Research 725
Bibliography 727
Index 757

TABLE OF CONTENTS ix
 MAPS

[Map 1] The Roman Empire, ca. 390 (Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. C. Mango, xx
2002, p. 33)
[Map 2] Justinian’s empire in 565 (Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. C. Mango, 2002, p. 52) 103
[Map 3] The Byzantine Empire in 780 (Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. C. Mango, 246
2002, p. 130)
[Map 4] The Byzantine Empire in the mid-eleventh century (Oxford History of Byzantium, 304
ed. C. Mango, 2002, p. 178)
[Map 5] The Byzantine Empire in the twelfth century (Oxford History of Byzantium, 305
ed. C. Mango, 2002, p. 188)
[Map 6] The Byzantine Empire and surrounding territories in the second half of the 596
fourteenth century (Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. C. Mango, 2002, p. 264)

xi
 AUTHOR’S PREFACE
I n many ways, this book began in 1978, with my
lecture notes from Slobodan Ćurčić’s course
“Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture” at
the University of Illinois. It was the first time he’d
taught the course, and I was in my first year as his
first PhD student. Following the approach of his
mentor, Richard Krautheimer, my mentor provided
order, structure, and clarity to a field of study I
found fascinating, although I still hadn’t made
sense of it. Under Ćurčić’s guidance, I shifted my
dissertation topic from my first interest, the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, to the Kariye
Camii in Istanbul, in effect leaping from the
fourth to the fourteenth century—that is, almost
the entire period covered in this book. For much
of my career, I’ve been filling in the millennial gap
between the two monuments.
In 1983, shortly after I’d finished my disserta-
tion, I succeeded my mentor at the University
of Illinois when he accepted a professorship at
Princeton, and for the next decades, I had the priv-
ilege and challenge of teaching “Early Christian
and Byzantine Architecture” to generations of
architecture students. Making the distant past
accessible to aspiring practitioners inspired my
1999 book, Master Builders of Byzantium, an at-
tempt to approach Byzantine architecture from the
Constantinople, Chora Monastery (Kariye Camii), inner narthex, interior looking south (author)
perspective of its builders, with a focus on the
workshops of Constantinople. When the book
appeared, many of my colleagues mistook it for a
textbook, as some of the reviews suggest. It wasn’t—
in fact, a suitable textbook on the subject did not
appear during the thirty-six years of my profes-
sional career. I’ve continued to use Krautheimer’s
Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, with
occasional nods to Cyril Mango’s Byzantine
Architecture. Both have appeared in print long
after their expiration date. More critically, neither
author appears to have liked his subject very much,
and their prejudices have trickled down into a
variety of other scholarly assessments.
In the early 1980s, Ćurčić joined forces with
Krautheimer to update Early Christian and
Byzantine Architecture. This resulted in the fourth
revised edition, which appeared in 1986, and
Ćurčić, whose interests were clearly chronologically
later than Krautheimer’s, was able to defuse some
of Krautheimer’s negative opinions. This was, how-
ever, still in the pre-computer era, and to facilitate
typesetting, the publisher specified that any altera-
tions to the text had to conform to the original
line length and page length. Accordingly, the two
eminent scholars made adjustments in pencil on
graph paper, counting the letters as they went. Not
xiii
surprisingly, beyond an enhanced and updated
bibliography, modifications were limited.
I mention this to emphasize that the textbooks
or handbooks we have been using were written in
a different era—before computers, before the
internet, before Google, before JSTOR, before
ARTSTOR, before any number of new research
tools were at our disposal. The world has changed,
and so has the way we study it. This fact has both
invigorated and intimidated me. Ten years ago,
I organized a methods course for graduate students
at the University of Pennsylvania (where I taught
from 2007 to 2017) called “How to Write a
Textbook.” We read and critiqued a variety of
books; we dissected our favorites; we wrote mock
tables of contents and introductions; we even de-
signed book covers. In the end, we came up with
all sorts of ways not to write a textbook, but not a
good single way to do it.
Ultimately, it took the persuasive powers of
Stefan Vranka at OUP, backed by the kind folks
at the Onassis Foundation, a book contract, and
a few publication subventions, to force my hand.
My decision was that if I were to undertake this
book project, it had to be engaging, evocative, and
well illustrated, with a narrative that showcases
both the monuments and the intellectual currents
behind them in a positive way. I thus alternate
chapters that are thematic with those that are
period or region focused. They are arranged
more or less chronologically, but because of the
changes in focus, some of the monuments will
crop up in several different chapters. The twenty-
seven chapters (plus introduction and epilogue)
were written following my lesson plan for a semes-
ter’s worth of lectures, but I suspect few will use
the book in the same way. It could also be used as
a handbook, from which the reader (or the in-
structor assigning readings) can pick and choose,
as the chapters are written to be self-contained
narratives. And although I am an information
junkie (as Master Builders surely indicates), I’ve
tried not to clutter the narrative with too much
data. The same goes for the footnotes. My first
readers, Leslie Brubaker and her students, insisted
they were necessary, but rather than overburden an
already-long text, I’ve limited my references to a
mix of useful recent scholarship and old standbys—
that is, where to begin to find more information,
xiv EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE
with some suggestions for further reading and re-
search at the end of the volume.
With the multiple languages represented by the
monuments, I’ve tried to reconcile the orthogra-
phy to what is most familiar, often choosing the
Latinized names rather than the Greek—thus, Sts.
Sergius and Bacchus and not HH. Sergios kai
Bakchos; Procopius and not Prokopios. I’ve left
Hagia Sophia and Hagia Eirene with their hagias
intact, since they are concepts and not people, but
in dedications to people I’ve opted for St., with the
exception of a few familiar Italian monuments,
which are better known as S. (i.e., San, Santa, or
Santo). For toponyms, I’ve usually opted for the
Anglicized historical name with the current name
in parentheses—thus, Constantinople rather than
Istanbul of Konstantinoupolis. But it’s hard to
balance common usage with consistency, and I
apologize for whatever offenses my choices might
cause. As I ventured further afield, I attempted to
follow the simplified Library of Congress system,
often with unfamiliar diacritical marks. I’ve also
attempted to codify the architectural drawings in
a consistent manner, with meter scales and north
arrows.
As the book gradually came together, beginning
in 2014, I was aided and abetted by any number
of friends, colleagues, assistants, and institutions,
as well as readers and suppliers of illustrations and
financial and moral support. Several colleagues
graciously agreed to read all or part of the book.
Mark Johnson, Vasileios Marinis, Stefan Vranka,
and Ann Marie Yasin read the whole thing and
offered a variety of valuable comments. Leslie
Brubaker and her seminar at the University of
Birmingham read and commented on the first
half of the book, which helped me immensely as
I tackled the second half. Megan Boomer, Ivan
Drpić, Derek Krueger, Christina Maranci, and
Alice Sullivan also read and commented on perti-
nent sections of the text. Engin Akyürek, Demitris
Athanasoulis, Charalambos and Demetra Bakirtzis,
Elizabeth Bolman, Suna Çağaptay, James Crow,
Sofia Georgiadou, Sarah Guérin, Anne D. and
John Hedeman, Ayşe Henry, Jane Hickman,
Michalis Kappas, Armen Kazaryan, David Kim,
Young Kim, Dale Kinney, W. Eugene Kleinbauer,
Ann Kuttner, Lynne Lancaster, Henry and
Eunice Maguire, Stavros Mamaloukos, Mikael
Muehlbauer, Robert Nelson, Rory O’Neill, Jordan
Pickett, Scott Redford, Brian Rose, Nancy
Ševčenko, Kaja Silverman, Anna Sitz, Deb Stewart,
Tasos Tanoulas, Tassos Tantsis, Ann Terry, Tolga
Uyar, and Charles K. Williams II offered advice,
bibliography, guidance, and reassurance. Ali
Harwood assisted with the illustrations; Kaelin
Jewell edited the text and prepared the bibliogra-
phy and index. Financial support and the excel-
lent libraries of the University of Illinois, the
University of Pennsylvania, and Dumbarton Oaks
have facilitated my research through several de-
cades. I also gratefully acknowledge the publica-
tion subventions provided by the Williams Fund
at Penn and the 1984 Foundation of Philadelphia,
as well as the support of the Onassis Foundation.
I am also indebted to the many institutions
and individuals who generously assisted with
illustrations, all of whom are acknowledged in the
credits. Of these, let me single out Bettina Smith
and her excellent staff at the Image Collection
and Fieldwork Archives at Dumbarton Oaks;
Michael Waters, Tayfun Öner, Nektarios Zarras,
and Elka Bakalova, who went above and beyond
the call of duty; and Danica Ćurčić, who made her
late father’s photographs and drawings available
to me.
Professor Slobodan Ćurčić—who inspired my
lifelong “church itch”—sadly passed away shortly
before my manuscript was completed, but an at-
tentive reader will find his presence throughout
its pages. I humbly dedicate this book to him—
my teacher, mentor, and friend.
RGO, March 2019
Philadelphia
AUTHOR’S PREFACE xv
EASTE RN M EDI EVAL
A RC H I T E C T U R E
 INTRODUCTION
HISTORICAL ARCHITECTURE
EAST AND WEST
T he rich and diverse medieval architectural
traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean and
adjacent regions are the subject of this book. The
focus is the Byzantine (or East Roman) Empire
(324–1453 ce), with its capital in Constantinople,
although the framework expands chronologically to
include the foundations of Christian architecture in
Late Antiquity and the legacy of Byzantine culture
after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Because
Late Antiquity has become a burgeoning field of
study in its own right, I have limited my discussions
of Western Europe to Italy and have opted to
emphasize the later developments. Geographically
broad as well, this study includes architectural
developments in areas of Italy, the Caucasus, the
Near East, the Balkans, and Russia, as well as related
developments in early Islamic architecture—that is,
areas connected culturally or politically to the
Byzantine Empire (see Map 1). The term “the East”
is used here to refer inclusively to this large and
diverse area. The title of the book, Eastern Medieval
Architecture, is intended to reflect its breadth—that
is, covering more than just the Byzantine Empire
and more than just the Eastern Mediterranean.
This book might have been titled Architecture of
the Forgotten Middle Ages, for it addresses the lesser
known and understudied monuments of the East,
which often stand in sharp contrast to their better
Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, view from the west (author)
known contemporaries in Western Europe. Viewed
through an Orientalist lens, scholars of the past two
centuries saw the East (broadly construed) as exotic,
distant, and only vaguely connected to Western civ-
ilization. Nevertheless, they often looked to the
East as a never-ending generator of architectural
ideas, which were called upon at critical moments
to invigorate and inspire European masons. Their
sweeping generalizations are usually discounted
today: the twin-towered façade, the alternating
support system, ribbed vaults, pointed arches, and
the like seem to have developed independently in
both West and East, and one doesn’t need to be
modeled on the other. And while there was certainly
cultural interchange across the Mediterranean, ar-
chitecture is most often regionally based, following
established workshop practices, and determined by
local concerns and devotional habits. But the view
of the East as a source of inspiration has encouraged
the notion that developments there must necessar-
ily precede those in the West. Still following this
outdated view, most textbooks on Western art or
architecture are unsure where to place the Byzantine
Empire: it appears either as the end of Antiquity or
as the beginning of the so-called Dark Ages.1 Later
1
See my comments, R. G. Ousterhout, “An Apologia for
Byzantine Architecture,” Gesta 35, no. 1 (1996): 21–33; and those
xix
[Map 1] The Roman Empire, ca. 390 (Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. C. Mango, 2002, p. 33)

Byzantine developments—those coeval with the
Romanesque and Gothic—are usually omitted, not
fitting into a neatly encapsulated, linear view of
European cultural history. In fact, most textbooks
stop with Hagia Sophia in Constantinople or San
Marco in Venice, and the vibrant architectural de-
velopments in the Caucasus, the Balkans, and else-
where are omitted altogether.
Recent scholarship is more willing to see the
cultures of the East as parallel and coeval to those
of the West. From this perspective, the differences
in architectural traditions stand as the cultural ex-
pressions of polities in similar stages of develop-
ment, with common concerns manifest in differ-
ent ways. That said, it is nevertheless difficult to
view Byzantine and other Eastern architectures
without preconceptions based on our greater
familiarity with Western medieval monuments.
Consequently, we expect something like a linear
pattern of evolution, new structural achievements,
and buildings on the grandest of scales. Byzantine
architecture fails to live up to such great expecta-
tions and is all too often dismissed as small, stag-
by R. S. Nelson, “The Map of Art History,” ArtB 79 (1997): 28–40.
INTRODUCTION: HISTORICAL ARCHITECTURE EAST AND WEST
FIGURE 0.1
Constantinople,
Hagia Sophia,
view from the
west (author)
nant, and dull. Rather than developing from tiny
Dark Age basilicas into the towering cathedrals of
the Gothic era, church architecture in the East
seems backward by comparison. The great Hagia
Sophia (Fig. 0.1)—taller and broader than any
Gothic structure (Fig. 0.2)—appeared already in
the sixth century, when very little was happening
in Western Europe. Subsequent centuries in the
East witnessed a significant reduction in architec-
tural scale. Indeed, most of the church buildings
in the East tend to be small, centralized, and
domed (Fig. 0.3); rather than a move toward
monumental forms and unified spaces, we find
instead increasing compartmentalization and
complexity on a small scale. Because of the dra-
matic difference in form and scale, it is easy to
forget that the two lines of development—East
and West—are contemporary.
Why did medieval architecture in the East
follow a different trajectory than that of the West?
This is a critical question and one this book at-
tempts to answer. Several suggestions have been
put forward, such as economic factors (i.e., limited
scale represents limited skill) or notions of sacred
presence, with the centrally planned memorial
xxi
 FIGURE 0.2
Beauvais,
Cathedral of
St. Peter, view
from the east
(Andrew Tallon,
courtesy of the
Archmap Project,
Columbia
University)
FIGURE 0.3
Kitta (Mani), Sts.
Sergius and
Bacchus, view
from the east
(author)
structures (martyria) guiding the developments in
the East. The differences may lie more in worship
practices: although corporate worship never dis-
appeared in Byzantium, private devotion grew in
popularity, more conveniently housed in smaller
buildings. Even the nature of monasticism dif-
fered: rather than the grand establishments of
Western Europe, with a regularized typology
(e.g., a basilica flanked by a cloister), a fixed rule
(e.g., the Order of St. Benedict), and hundreds of
monastics in residence, Byzantine monasteries
tended to be small, family-sized units, less for-
mally organized, and without an established archi-
tectural typology. Moreover, from the twelfth cen-
tury onward in Western Europe, the cathedral
dominates the architectural scene, representing a
concept of urbanism all but unknown in the East,
xxii EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE
where buildings continued to be the product of
individual patronage rather than communal effort.
Even with our vision narrowed to just monu-
ments within the Byzantine Empire, a full under-
standing of the architectural history is fraught with
challenges: to paraphrase one recent critic,
Byzantine architecture is “an elusive concept built
upon evidence that would be thrown out in any
court of law.”2 The Byzantine Empire lasted for
more than a millennium, and if we take into
consideration areas under its influence, such as
Russia, the Caucasus, and the Balkans, it can be said
to have lasted even longer (Fig. 0.4). Its geographic
scope is similarly broad, now spanning modern na-
tion-states not always friendly with one another and
not always easy for foreign scholars to access. Both
the historical languages and those of modern schol-
arship are rich and varied, and there seem to be
more than any single human being could possibly
master in a lifetime. The student of Byzantine archi-
tecture is challenged to be intrepid as a diplomat, an
explorer, an archaeologist, and a linguist, not to
mention a scholar with a discerning eye.
The study of historical architecture is full of
challenges, not the least of which is learning it
from a textbook. Buildings are three-dimensional
entities, whereas our systems of representing
them are two dimensional, and the reader is called
upon to assemble these entities in the mind’s eye,
to imagine the experience of the forms and spaces
in three dimensions. How big is it? How does the
plan relate to the elevation? How is space defined
or modulated? Does the external articulation
relate to interior space? Thinking more experien-
tially, what happens when you pass through a
door? How do the qualities of sound and light
change? How do construction materials or deco-
rative details affect our response to the building?
These are all questions that the close analysis of a
building might answer but that are harder to un-
derstand from a short description and a few select
images.
The standard approach to Byzantine architec-
ture—indeed, to most historic architectures—
begins with formal analysis, establishing the
basic typology and taxonomy of buildings, and
2
S. Melikian, “‘Byzantium Art’: A Fit-All Category Defeated by
Its Elusiveness,” International Herald Tribune (24–25 January
2009), 11.

resulting in the description of planning schemes,
formal solutions, structural features, or decorative
details. Although a variety of texts survive, build-
ings often constitute our primary surviving evi-
dence for reconstructing or re-imagining the
culture that produced them.3 We are thus obliged
to learn all we can about them, beginning with
their physical structure, closely observed—that is,
to “read” the fabric of the building with the same
insight and nuance that a philologist would apply
to the study of a text. If we are to understand
what buildings mean and how they communi-
cate, we must begin with their grammar, vocabu-
lary, and syntax.
The approach adopted in this book begins
with formal analysis as a first step toward under-
standing the cultural context: how does a build-
ing reflect the concerns of the society that produced
it, symbolically or ideologically? How does it re-
flect the social or economic situation of its day?
How was it used on a daily basis? These questions
may move us into the world of the social histo-
3
See comments by C. Mango, Byzantine Architecture (New York,
1974), 7–9.
INTRODUCTION: HISTORICAL ARCHITECTURE EAST AND WEST
FIGURE 0.4
Moscow, Cathedral
of the Virgin of the
Intercession, also
known as
St. Basil’s, seen
from the east
(author)
rian, whose concerns are often at odds with estab-
lished approaches to Byzantine art or architec-
ture. Traditional art history, for example, relies on
stylistic and iconographic analysis of visual images
and has only in recent decades become concerned
with issues of patronage, context, and social his-
tory. Because the vast majority of the surviving
architecture is religious, it is often read in reli-
gious terms only, as manifestations of the belief
system of the period, rather than as windows onto
the society that produced it. Historians of material
culture, however, tend to shy away from “high”
art and architecture that reek of elitism or religi-
osity. And yet, the churches are hard to ignore, as
they stand in sharp contrast to the paltry remains
of urban and residential architecture, which were
less carefully constructed and often built of
ephemeral materials. That is, the religious build-
ings represent the concerns that were most im-
portant to the society that built them. They have
survived for a reason.
Writing an architectural history depends on
surviving buildings, and because the majority of
them are ecclesiastical structures, medieval archi-
tecture, both East and West, is often dismissed as
xxiii
“all about churches.” As I shall argue, a church is
never just a church. It may stand as a manifestation
of piety and the spiritual aspirations of its age, and
we would be remiss not to recognize it as such. But
it is also a social construct, an emblem of power,
prestige, and identity; it represents the combined
efforts of artisans of varying backgrounds and
social statuses; it is the product of intention, a
social contract orchestrated within a hierarchy of
command, technical knowledge, and labor.
At all levels of society, Eastern medieval people
looked at, inhabited, and responded to their
architectural environment, for buildings were the
visual manifestations of human enterprise in the
world around them. They also wrote about build-
ings in texts ranging from theological exegeses to
legal documents to ekphraseis. These texts often
concentrate on the defining features of a building
at the expense of general description, but they can
inform us of what was important to the contem-
porary viewer and provide a personal, emotional
response to the experience of architecture. For ex-
ample, the Historia mystagogica, a theological
treatise attributed to the eighth-century patriarch
Germanos I of Constantinople, outlines the sym-
bolism of the church and its parts, offering many
overlapping meanings and associations:4
The church is a heaven on earth wherein the
heavenly God “dwells and walks.” It typifies the
Crucifixion, the Burial and the Resurrection of
Christ. It is glorified above Moses’s tabernacle
of testimony. . . . It was prefigured by the
Patriarchs, foretold by the Prophets, founded by
the Apostles, and adorned by the Hierarchs.
The conch is after the manner of the cave of
Bethlehem, where Christ was born, and that of
the cave where he was buried. . . . The holy table
is the place where Christ was buried, and on
which is set forth the true bread from heaven,
the mystic and bloodless sacrifice, i.e.,
Christ. . . . It is also the throne upon which God,
who is borne up by cherubin, has rested. At this
table, too, he sat down at his last supper in the
midst of his apostles and, taking bread and
wine, said unto them, “Take, eat and drink of
4
C. Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453: Sources and
Documents (Englewood Cliffs, 1972), 140–43, 185–86, 239–40, for
the texts presented here.
xxiv EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE
it: this is my body and my blood. It was
prefigured by the table of the law, on which was
the manna, which cometh down from heaven,
i.e., Christ.
The text continues to associate the ciborium
(canopy) with the Crucifixion, the presbytery
with Christ’s tomb, the bema with a footstool and
a throne, the ambo with the stone rolled away at
the Resurrection, and so on. While the symbol-
ism might seem inconsistent and might not add
up to a coherent whole, the text gives a sense of
how architecture could resonate with and rein-
force the ceremonies it housed.
A different view of architecture is provided by
the Inventory of the So-Called Palace of Botaniates,
a legal document that records the contents of an
estate in Constantinople, given to the Genoese in
1192. Its description of the palace church reads in
part,
The holy church is domed with a single apse
and four columns—one of Bithynian marble.
The frieze and the curve of the apse are revetted
with marble, along with the vaults. The
L-shaped spaces to the west are incrusted with
Nikomedian tiles, along with the cornice.
Above there are images in gold and colored
mosaic, as with the dome and the four vaults—
three with windows. The partition of the
sanctuary consists of four posts of green marble
with bronze collars, two perforated railings, a
marble entablature, and a gilded wooden
templon.
As a legal document, the text says nothing of
symbolism or sanctity but concentrates on the ex-
pensive materials and surface coverings, noting,
later in the document, where the terrace is de-
cayed and where window panes are missing.
Curiously, it says nothing of the construction or
the size of the church, and even some details of its
plan remain unclear.
A description in the form of an ekphrasis
offers yet another perspective, one that is experi-
ential and impressionistic, a rhetorical exercise
known from classical antiquity.5 More than
5
See, among others, H. Maguire, “Truth and Convention in
Byzantine Descriptions of Works of Art,” DOP 28 (1974):
simply a literary description, an ekphrasis was
a form of evocative writing, meant to conjure the
image of its subject in the mind’s eye of the reader.
The ninth-century patriarch Photios’s well-known
ekphrasis of the Pharos Church at the Great
Palace in Constantinople, for example, offers a
visual experience that is both vertiginous and
distracting:
It is as if one has entered heaven itself, with no
one barring the way from any side and was
illuminated by the beauty in all forms shining
all around like so many stars, so is one utterly
amazed. Thenceforth it seems that everything is
in ecstatic motion, and the church itself is
circling round. For the spectator, through his
whirling about in all directions and being
constantly astir, which he is forced to experience
by the variegated spectacle on all sides, imagines
that his personal condition is transferred to the
object.
As Photios describes it, movement attributed to
architectural features may be a way of suggesting
the experience of the visitor, for whom the view-
ing of the church transforms the building into an
intricate and ever-changing pattern of forms.
While he says nothing about the plan or scale of
the building, and elsewhere his description con-
centrates on selected details, he provides a sense
of a viewer’s response to a work of architecture.
We are much better informed about religious
architecture, although recent decades have seen
increased interest in secular architecture, with ar-
chaeological studies bringing a range of forms
and new building types into the discussion:
urban entities, fortification systems, fortresses,
citadels, towers, palaces, houses, public build-
ings, public baths, and water supply systems. The
state of research varies for these topics, and none
of the secular examples is as well preserved as the
churches. While archaeology has dramatically
113–49; R. Webb and L. James, “‘To Understand Ultimate Things
and Enter Secret Places’: Ekphrasis and Art in Byzantium,” AH 14
(1991): 1–17; R. Webb, “The Aesthetics of Sacred Space:
Narrative, Metaphor, and Motion in ‘Ekphraseis’ of Church
Buildings,” DOP 53 (1999): 59–74; R. G. Ousterhout, Master
Builders of Byzantium (Princeton, 1999), 33–38.
INTRODUCTION: HISTORICAL ARCHITECTURE EAST AND WEST
expanded our knowledge of aspects of daily life,
urbanism, and military technology, there is a
concomitant danger of Eastern medieval archi-
tecture becoming a subset of archaeology or of
social history. To utilize the terminology of the
Roman architectural theorist Vitruvius (first cen-
tury bce), utilitas (function) becomes our main
concern, with firmitas (structure) a distant
second and venustas (aesthetics) not at all. As the
texts often emphasize, a Byzantine viewer under-
stood a great building as a work of art and re-
sponded to it accordingly. Thus, an emphasis on
the aesthetics of architecture, an approach that
has fallen out of favor, remains valid to our dis-
cussions. At the same time, new areas of investi-
gation have considerably broadened the field of
study, and they allow a discourse on architecture
that addresses all levels of society. In short, a
more integrated approach is necessary if we are
to understand historical architecture in its many
contexts. To this end, the book includes chapters
with differing approaches, both those that dis-
cuss architectural developments by period or
region and thematic essays on topics ranging
from urbanism to ceremonies to construction
technology.
Finally, an examination of its architecture em-
phasizes that the Eastern medieval world was
neither static nor isolated. It was both fluid and
dynamic, regularly invigorated by the movement
of people and ideas. Areas of cultural interchange
are particularly instructive in this respect, as
planning types, structural solutions, and architec-
tural details were disseminated across great dis-
tances. The architecture of the Crusaders or of
Norman Sicily, for example, makes no sense with-
out an understanding of both regional and inter-
national architectural traditions. There is also the
element of time to consider. In architectural stud-
ies, we tend to focus on the moment of inception,
but most buildings have long histories, replete
with additions, modifications, changes in func-
tion, or changes in demographics. Buildings are
forever in the process of becoming. To isolate
them at a single moment in their rich histories
limits what we might learn from them. In sum,
buildings have lives of their own, and taken to-
gether, Eastern medieval architecture has a fasci-
nating story to tell.
xxv
 PART ONE

LATE ANTIQUITY
Third to Seventh Centuries
 CHAPTER ONE
ROME, THE DOMUS ECCLESIAE,
AND THE CHURCH BASILICA
L et us begin with a few words on context
and terminology: first, the period we are
considering in the first several chapters is often
called “Late Antique” (roughly the third through
seventh centuries), referring to a period of trans-
formation marked by social, political, and religious
upheaval across the Mediterranean. The same
period is also termed “Early Christian,” referring
specifically to the religious transformations of the
Roman Empire, which lie at the heart of our
study. The term “Byzantine” has also been used,
since at least the seventeenth century, to refer to
an empire with its capital in Constantinople
(formerly known as Byzantium or Byzantion),
thus spanning the epoch 324/330 ce (the
refoundation of the city by Constantine) to 1453
ce (its fall to the Ottoman Turks). This period
may be divided into early Byzantine (the fourth
through seventh centuries), the transitional
period (the seventh through ninth centuries),
middle Byzantine (the late ninth through twelfth
centuries), and late Byzantine (the thirteenth
through mid-fifteenth centuries). Like the term
“Eastern medieval,” none of these terms is very
exact, and they depend on which specific historical
events one takes as markers. In a broader perspective,
we are tracking cultural change from the classical
Rome, Capitoline Museums, marble fragments from a colossal statue of Constantine found in the Basilica
of Maxentius, early fourth century (author)
world, through the medieval, and into the early
modern.
Second, change does not happen overnight.
The Roman Empire did not suddenly become
extinct with the introduction of Christianity.
Rather, Christianity inserted itself into a well-
established framework, characterized by urbanism,
wide-scale trading networks, diverse belief sys-
tems, and—for our purposes—a thriving build-
ing industry, with large-scale construction and
established building types to serve the utilitarian
needs and pleasures of a thriving cosmopolitan
population. Thus, how Christianity found its way
into the existing Roman social and urban fabric is
a fascinating story.
Third, we must consider the nature of religion.
Participation in a religion presupposes ritual acts
of symbolic significance; architecture in the service
of religion is similarly symbolically charged. More
than simply functional (in the modernist sense),
religious buildings stand as public markers in the
landscape, signifiers of human activity at all levels.
The dramatic changes in Roman belief systems
during Late Antiquity find physical manifestations
in the architecture of the period. Designing and
planning a setting for worship demanded both
theoretical and practical considerations: for the
3
former, the nature of the divinity and the relation-
ship between divinity and worshipper; for the latter,
the existing architectural practices and building
vocabulary. Rather than being characterized by an
abrupt transition, however, the rise of Christianity
is marked by a gradual transformation of both the
society and its architecture—that is, more evolu-
tion than revolution.
Religion was practiced on several levels within
the Roman Empire. Partaking in official religion
was both a personal manifestation of belief and a
visible sign of allegiance to the state. Worship of
the Greco-Roman pantheon, including sacrifices
to the gods, was the duty of every Roman. Behind
this official veneer, however, we find a variety of
other religious practices emerging, those that
served the spiritual needs of the individual. Private
religion could take many forms, including per-
sonal devotion to a particular deity or the adoption
of a foreign cult. By the second century ce, so-
called mystery cults, often originating in the East,
gained in popularity. This is dramatically evident
from the late second century onward, with the
construction of temples dedicated to Eastern dei-
ties in the Forum Romanum and by the often-bi-
zarre religious practices of the Severan imperial
family.¹ For the lower strata of society, however,
these religions promised salvation in the next
world to a select few who followed strict guidelines
in their daily lives, professed their faith, and had
undergone initiation rites; they offered comfort
and reassurance to those living in difficult times;
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth
where moth and rust consume and where thieves
break in and steal,” instructs the Gospel according
to Matthew (6:19 NRSV), for example, encourag-
ing a shift of concern from this world to the next.
How did the church building become sacred
space? Early Christians understood two models of
sacred presence.² In the first, perhaps following
1
For the background, see, among many others, J. Curran, Pagan
City and Christian Capital: Rome in the Fourth Century (Oxford,
2000). For the bizarre religious practices, see pp. 8–17.
2
P. Corbey Finney, “Early Christian Architecture: The
Beginnings,” HTR 81, no. 3 (1988): 319–39; L. M. White, The Social
Origins of Christian Architecture (Valley Forge, 1996–97);
L. M. White, Building God’s House in the Roman World: Architectural
Adaptation among Pagans, Jews, and Christians (Baltimore, 1990);
K. Bowes, Private Worship, Public Values, and Religious Change in Late
4 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE
Late Antique Judaism, sanctity was invoked by the
congregation—the ecclesia—coming together in
common prayer, symbolically representing the
body of Christ. This form of worship was encour-
aged by the apostle Paul, among others, and was
gradually formalized into the liturgy. With the rec-
itation of prayers and reading of scripture, but no
animal sacrifice, such a spiritualized ceremony re-
quired no special setting—or rather, its setting was
not imbued with meaning. In the second model,
more in line with older, pagan attitudes, sanctity
was represented by physical presence, the sacraliza-
tion of place and space, often through relics or the
tombs of martyrs and saints. At Rome, the early
churches reflect the distinctions between these two
models: practices taking place inside the walls were
primarily liturgical, for the regular gatherings of
the ecclesia; those taking place outside the walls
were commemorative, set in relationship to the
tombs of Christian heroes and the surrounding
catacombs and cemeteries—in accordance with
Roman law, the dead were buried outside the
pomerium (city limit).³ Subsequent centuries wit-
nessed a collapsing of the two categories.
The beginning of Christian architecture is usu-
ally assigned to Constantine’s recognition of
Christianity, but the seeds for its development were
sown at least a century before the Edict of Milan in
313 ce (discussed further below). Although limited
physical evidence survives, a combination of ar-
chaeology and texts may help us to understand the
formation of architecture in service of the new reli-
gion. The domus ecclesiae, or house-church, most
often represented an adaptation of an existing Late
Antique residence to include a meeting hall and
perhaps a baptistery. Most examples are known
from texts; while there are archaeological remains of
such buildings in Rome, usually called tituli, most
early sites of Christian worship were subsequently
rebuilt and enlarged to give them a suitably public
character, thus destroying much of the physical ev-
idence of their original forms. Indeed, most of the
churches of Rome have long and complex histories,
as well as prehistories of archaeological complexity.
Antiquity (Cambridge, 2008); A. M. Yasin, Saints and Church
Spaces in the Late Antique Mediterranean: Architecture, Cult, and
Community (Cambridge, 2009).
3
J. M. C. Toynbee, Death and Burial in the Roman World (Baltimore,
1971, 1996).

Synagogues and Mithraia (shrines for the mystery
cult of the god Mithras) from the period are consid-
erably better preserved.
An exceptional area of survival has been stud-
ied at Dura Europos, on the banks of the
Euphrates in Syria (Fig. 1.1). A prosperous town
on the caravan route to the east, Dura was con-
quered by the Sasanians in 256 ce and subse-
quently abandoned, thus preserving in time cap-
sule–like fashion the basic elements of a provincial
town, which were rediscovered at the end of the
nineteenth century and excavated in the 1930s.4
In addition to the various temples at the city
center, representing official religion, assembly
halls for several unofficial cults were discov-
ered, tucked away in residential neighborhoods.
Converted from domestic complexes, they were
inconspicuous but certainly not secret. Among
4
M. I. Rostovtzeff et al., eds., The Excavations at Dura Europos
Conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions
and Letters, Preliminary Reports (New Haven, 1928–52); and
L. R. Brody and G. L Hoffman, eds., Dura Europos: Crossroads of
Antiquity (Boston, 2011), for recent bibliography.
CHAPTER ONE: ROME, THE DOMUS ECCLESIAE, AND THE CHURCH BASILICA
FIGURE 1.1
Dura Europos,
aerial view from
the south, 1932.
The Palmyrene
Gate is at the
center, left, with
the residential areas
discussed here
immediately inside
the wall, in the
shadows (Yale
University Art
Gallery, Dura
Europos
Collection)
them, the Christian House was initially built ca.
200 on a typical courtyard plan, with rooms facing
inward and a vestibule opening to the street.5
Modified ca. 230, two rooms were joined to form
a longitudinal meeting hall; another was provided
with a piscina (basin) to function as a baptistery
for Christian initiation (Figs. 1.2 and 1.3). Since
the early days of Christianity, baptism had marked
the transition of the initiate, who entered the font
of “living water” as if entering the tomb of Christ,
to be cleansed of sin and spiritually reborn. At
Dura, the rectangular basin is covered by an arched
canopy and suggests the common form of the ar-
cosolium tomb. This, along with the painting of
the Holy Women at the Tomb of Christ on the
flanking wall, indicates the symbolic association of
baptism with the death and Resurrection of Christ,
a theme further developed in monumental bap-
tisteries after the official acceptance of Christianity,
a subject discussed further in Chapter 3.
5
C. H. Kraeling, The Christian Building: The Excavations at Dura
Europos Conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of
Inscriptions and Letters, Final Report VIII, 2 (New Haven, 1967).
5
 FIGURE 1.2 hall, with an elaborated niche to indicate the di-
Dura Europos, rection of Jerusalem. Designed to hold the Torah
Christian House, scrolls, the niche was decorated with images asso-
ca. 200 and 230
ciated with the Temple. The Mithraeum was sim-
ce, isometric
ilarly located at the edge of Dura. Initially en-
cutaway (Yale
University Art
closed within a private residence, the Mithraeum
Gallery, Dura was expanded to form a long hall, destroying
Europos much of the residence.7 All three—domus eccle-
Collection) siae, synagogue, and Mithraeum—were decorated
with painted programs of scenes that address spe-
cifically the belief systems of the respective con-
gregations, who were quite possibly both familiar
and in competition with one another.
In Rome itself, remnants of tituli have been ex-
cavated beneath a variety of churches. Beneath San
Clemente, for example, Roman houses of the first
century are traditionally associated with a titulus
Clementis, and it is only in the third century that
the renovations indicate Christian usage. Similarly,
the titulus Byzantis (or Pammachii), excavated in the
nineteenth century beneath the Church of SS.
Giovanni e Paolo on the Caelian Hill, displays ad-
aptation from the late second or third century, as
the Christian community took over the entire
insula. Christian-themed paintings, with scenes of
martyrdom, were added in the fourth century.
Both of these tituli were replaced by basilicas in the
FIGURE 1.3 fifth century, but the evidence at both sites indi-
Dura Europos, cates that the domus ecclesiae phase represented
Christian House, ca. adaptation within the domestic sphere.8
200 and 230 ce, The excavations at Dura and earlier discoveries
reconstruction of the
in the East raised the tantalizing notion that
baptistery (Yale
Christian architecture had its beginnings in the
University Art Gallery,
Dura Europos
Eastern Mediterranean, just as the religion had.
Collection) But this has not been supported by archaeology.
Christianity took hold only gradually, and our
best early evidence comes from Rome, where the
religion was introduced by the apostles Peter and
Paul. The fundamental problem for the archaeol-
ogist is how to recognize an unofficial presence—
The Dura Synagogue was situated nearby, in a that is, when is a house a domus ecclesiae? Without
residential block at the edge of the city. Tucked archaeological finds of a specifically Christian
away within the insula, it was entered not directly character, it may be impossible to determine, and
from the street, but through the rear of a rarely can we make a distinction on the basis of
preexisting house (Fig. 1.4).6 Preceded by an architecture alone. At Dura, for example, the bap-
atrium, the synagogue consisted of an oblong tistery clinches the deal; without it, we might have

6
C. H. Kraeling, The Synagogue: The Excavations at Dura Europos
Conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions
7
White, Social Origins, 261–72.
and Letters, Final Report VIII, 1 (New Haven, 1956). 8
White, Social Origins, 209–42, with additional bibliography.

6 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE


overlooked the house altogether. At Rome, the
continued layers of construction above specific
domestic spaces speak to their early religious as-
sociations; without the later constructions, prob-
ably we would be in the dark there as well.
Better evidence survives for burial customs,
which were of prime concern to a religion that
promised salvation after death. Unlike Roman
polytheists, who practiced both cremation and
inhumation, Christians insisted upon inhuma-
tion because of the belief in the bodily resurrec-
tion of the dead at the end of days. In addition to
areae (sing. area: above-ground cemeteries) and
catacombs (underground cemeteries), Christians
required settings for commemorative banquets or
refrigeria (sing. refrigerium), a carryover from
pagan practices.9 The earliest Christian burials at
the Roman catacombs were situated amid those
of other religions on the main routes outside the
city walls, but by the beginning of the third cen-
tury, exclusively Christian cemeteries are known
to have existed, beginning with the Catacomb of
9
R. M. Jensen, “Dining with the Dead: From the Mensa to the
Altar in Christian Late Antiquity,” in Commemorating the Dead:
Texts and Artifacts in Context: Studies of Roman, Jewish, and Christian
Burials, eds. L. Brink and D. Green (Berlin, 2008), 107–44.
CHAPTER ONE: ROME, THE DOMUS ECCLESIAE, AND THE CHURCH BASILICA
FIGURE 1.4
Dura Europos,
synagogue, before
256 ce; plan
showing its
insertion into a
city block (Yale
University Art
Gallery, Dura
Europos
Collection)
St. Callixtus on the Via Appia, ca. 230 ce (Figs. 1.5
and 1.6).¹0 Originally well organized with a series
of parallel corridors carved into the tufa, the cata-
combs expanded and grew more labyrinthine
over the subsequent centuries. Within, the most
common form of tomb was a simple, shelf-like
loculus cut into the walls of the corridors and or-
ganized in multiple tiers (Fig. 1.7). Small cubicula
(chambers) surrounded by arcosolium tombs
provided a setting for wealthier burials and reveal
evidence of social stratification within the
Christian community. Above ground, a simple
covered structure provided a setting for the refri-
geria, such as the triclia (pergola) excavated
beneath San Sebastiano, by the entrance to the
catacombs (Fig. 1.8). Little more than a simple
picnic shelter opening onto an irregular court-
yard, its painted walls bear graffiti invocations to
10
G. B. de Rossi, Roma sottorranea (Rome, 1857); O. Marucchi, Le
catacombe romane (Rome, 1933); A. Nestori, Repertorio topografico
delle pitture delle catacombe romane (Rome, 1967); and more
recently L. Spera, “The Christianization of Space along the Via
Appia: Changing Landscape in the Suburbs of Rome,” AJA 107,
no. 1 (2003): 23–43; L. Spera, Il paesaggio suburbano di Roma
dall’antichità al Medioevo: il comprensorio tra le vie Latina e Ardeatina
dalle Mura Aureliane al III miglio (Rome, 1999).
7
 FIGURE 1.5
Rome, city plan,
showing the
cemeteries along
the major roads
leading outside the
city walls (after
L. Reekmans,
RAC, 1968; from
R. Krautheimer,
Rome: Profile of a
City, 1980, with
the author’s
modifications)

Peter and Paul—dated ca. 258, when a festival
commemorating the saints was instituted. The
nearby triconch, or cella trichora, was similar in
function and may also be pre-Constantinian (Fig.
1.9). Its triple-apsed interior repeats a common
form of a Roman triclinium, or ceremonial dining
hall, with apses to house the couches of the diners.
The development of a cult of martyrs within
the early church led to the development of com-
memorative monuments, usually called martyria
(sing. martyrium), but also referred to in texts as
tropaia (sing. tropaion: “trophies”) and heroa
(sing. heroon: “heroes’ shrines”), which accom-
modated veneration within close proximity of
the deceased.¹¹ Although inconsistent in form,
archaeological evidence abounds for simple
martyria from the period after the persecutions of
the 250s ce, ranging from expanded spaces in the
Roman catacombs (the so-called Chapel of the
Popes) to elaborate funerary installations, as in
Bonn and Salona. Among those in Rome, the
most important was the tropaion marking the
11
A. Grabar, Martyrium: Recherches sur le culte des reliques et l’art
chrétien antique, 2 vols. (Paris, 1943–46), remains fundamental;
more recently, Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces.

8 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE


tomb of St. Peter on the Vatican Hill, identified
by archaeologists in the mid-twentieth century
(Fig. 1.10A).¹² Set within an upscale necropolis
dating to ca. 120–160 on the Via Cornelia, across
the Tiber and outside the walls of the city, the
tomb of St. Peter lay in a small open area, close to
the site of his martyrdom (ca. 64) at the Stadium
of Nero. By 200, faithful Christians were visiting
the modest tropaion that marked his tomb, a sort
of table resting on colonnettes, about 1.5 meters
tall, with a niched aedicula (small shrine) above it,
set against a brick wall. A hole in its base allowed
libations to be offered by the faithful, and graffiti
prayers confirm Christian usage at least by the
third century. The tropaion must date to the late
second century. It was subsequently buried, as the
12
For a summary and assessment, see J. M. C. Toynbee and J. B. Ward
Perkins, The Shrine of St. Peter (New York–London, 1956).
CHAPTER ONE: ROME, THE DOMUS ECCLESIAE, AND THE CHURCH BASILICA
FIGURE 1.6
Rome, Catacomb
of St. Callixtus,
plan and section of
main passageway,
showing loculi
(author, redrawn
after H. Gardner,
Art through the
Ages, 1975)
site became the focus of Constantine’s monu-
mental Basilica of St. Peter, to be discussed below.
By the time of the governmental restructuring
known as the Tetrarchy, established by Diocletian
(293–313 ce), Christian buildings had become
more visible and more public, confidently an-
nouncing their presence, but without the scale
and lavishness of their official successors. In Rome,
the meeting hall of San Crisogono seems to have
been founded ca. 300 as a visible Christian mon-
ument. Similarly, in Nicomedia at the same time,
the Christian meeting hall was prominent enough
to be seen from the imperial palace and was de-
stroyed by Diocletian in 303, at the beginning
of the last great persecution of the Christians.
Clearly, the administrative structure of the church
and the basic character of Christian worship were
well established before the time of Constantine.
These early buildings laid the groundwork for
later architectural developments, housing the
9
 FIGURE 1.7
Rome, Catacomb
of Priscilla, interior
showing loculi and
view into the gallery
(G. Cargagna, De
Agostini Picture
Library, courtesy of
AKG Images)

FIGURE 1.8 basic functions that would be of prime concern

Rome, San in later centuries: communal worship, initiation
Sebastiano, into the cult, burial, and the commemoration of
reconstruction of the dead. In architectural terms, these early devel-
the triclia
opments represent the adaptation of existing
excavated beneath
structures and practices, and they find useful con-
the church, ca. 258
ce (after P. Styger,
temporary parallels in the creation of synagogues
Römische and Mithraia.
Märtyrergrüfte,
1935) ,
Diocletian’s idealistic and flawed attempt to re-
structure Roman rule across a sprawling and dis-
jointed empire came to an end when Constantine
arrived on the scene. Unlike the image of harmo-
FIGURE 1.9 nious joint leadership portrayed by the art of the
Rome, Catacomb period (such as the statue group now in Venice),
of St. Callixtus, it was a period of mistrust, suspicion, and changing
cella trichora,
allegiances.¹³ Although Constantine was raised in
fourth century (?),
the court of Diocletian in Nicomedia, he was more
view ca. 1850 (after
G. B. de Rossi,
or less a political hostage to keep his father in line.
Roma Sotteranea
III, 1877) 13
J. Bardill, Constantine: Divine Emperor of the Christian Golden Age
(Cambridge, 2015); D. Potter, Constantine the Emperor (Oxford,
2012).

10 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE


FIGURE 1.10 Rome, St. Peter’s, (A) Vatican Necropolis, Campo P
with the aedicule marking the tomb of Peter, late second century,
showing its relationship to the apse of the Constantinian basilica
(after B. M. Apollonj Ghetti et al., Esplorazioni sotto la confessione
di S. Pietro, 1951); (B) reconstruction of the fourth-century
canopy marking the tomb of St. Peter (after J. Toynbee and
J. B. Ward Perkins, The Shrine of St. Peter, 1956)
And he was regularly overlooked for advancement.
By 306 ce he had had enough, and with the death
of his father, Constantine had the army proclaim
him emperor. But his authority and his title were
questioned by Galerius, Maximian, Maxentius,
and the rest of the old guard. The subsequent de-
cades of Constantine’s career may be seen as a
gradual dismantling of the Tetrarchic system.
Constantine’s early career had been devoted to
maintaining Roman authority in the unruly prov-
inces along the northern frontier, but by 310 ce
Constantine was at war with his co-rulers. He
marked this shift religiously as well by moving
CHAPTER ONE: ROME, THE DOMUS ECCLESIAE, AND THE CHURCH BASILICA
FIGURE 1.11
Rome, Capitoline
Museums, marble
fragments from a
colossal statue of
Constantine found
in the Basilica of
Maxentius, early
fourth century
(author)
away from polytheism. By 310 he had changed
his religious allegiances to Sol Invictus as the su-
preme god—the unconquered sun, traditionally
identified with Apollo, who continues to appear
on Constantine’s coinage as late as 324 or 325.
However, legend attributes Constantine’s victory
over his rival Maxentius in the Battle of the
Milvian Bridge of 312 to the miraculous interven-
tion of the Christian God. In Constantine’s vision,
he was instructed to “delineate the heavenly sign
on the shields of his soldiers.”¹4 Placing the sign—
probably the chi–rho monogram (☧), the first two
letters of Christ’s name in Greek—on their armor,
Constantine was rewarded by a total rout, the col-
lapse of the bridge beneath the retreating army,
and the drowning of Maxentius. Shortly after-
ward, in 313, Constantine met Licinius, his co-
emperor from the east, in Milan, and they jointly
issued an edict of religious tolerance—in effect
recognizing Christianity as an accepted religion
within the Roman Empire (Fig. 1.11).
14
Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum (Oxford, 1984), 44.
11
 FIGURE 1.12
Rome, Arch of
Constantine, ca.
315 ce (author)
The foregoing is a simplified and abbreviated
history of a very complex period of political and
personal history for Constantine, which scholars
continue to debate and which we may never fully
understand. Suffice it to say, Constantine used re-
ligion as part of his political identity to distance
himself from the Tetrarchy, but his personal com-
mitment is not entirely clear. He may have con-
flated the Christian God with Sol Invictus as the
supreme deity—as we see occurring elsewhere,
such as in the famous mosaic in the Vatican
Necropolis—or perhaps he thought the solar the-
ology would be attractive to the Christians, since
it used much the same imagery. Or perhaps he
continued to make a distinction between public
and private religion as had been common in
Rome—with worship of Sol Invictus to satisfy
the needs of the state and worship of the Christian
God to address his personal, spiritual concerns.
In any case, by 314 ce at the latest, he was profess-
ing himself to be a Christian, but however he un-
derstood the religion, it was very different from
how we understand Christianity today.
12 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE
Curiously, the Arch of Constantine in Rome
(Fig. 1.12), raised by the senate in 315 ce to com-
memorate Constantine’s victory over Maxentius,
makes no mention visually or verbally of his reli-
gious conversion. Among the various spolia (reused
marble pieces) decorating the monument, the
Hadrianic roundels depict pagan sacrifices, and
the image of the sun god appears several times.¹5
The friezes that depict events from Constantine’s
campaign against Maxentius are traditional in
their themes, distinctive for the abstractness of
their style. Taken together, the sculptural decora-
tion emphasizes the emperor’s continued partici-
pation in official Roman ceremony and the grad-
ual transformation of the Roman Empire.
When Constantine accepted Christianity, he
committed himself to the patronage of buildings
meant to compete visually with the grandeur of
their pagan counterparts. In major centers like
Rome, this meant the construction of huge basili-
15
E. Marlowe, “Framing the Sun: The Arch of Constantine and
the Roman Cityscape,” ArtB 88, no. 2 (2006): 223–42.

cas, capable of holding congregations numbering
into the thousands. Although there is much vari-
ation in the building type, the basilica is essentially
a large, longitudinal assembly room, or nave, usu-
ally terminating in an apse and flanked by side
aisles, all covered by timber trussed roofs, with
the nave lit by clerestory windows in the upper
walls. Most familiar to the Roman viewer of the
fourth century were forum basilicas, like the
Basilica Ulpia at the Forum of Trajan, which
came with the stamp of imperial presence, as well
as the audience halls of the aristocracy, like that of
Junius Bassus in Rome. Although the symbolic
associations of the Christian basilica with its
Roman predecessors have been debated, it repre-
sented power and opulence in ways comparable
to well-known, imperially sponsored, public
buildings.¹6 Formally, the basilica also stood in
sharp contrast to the pagan temple, at which wor-
16
D. Kinney, “The Church Basilica,” ActaIRNorv 15 (2001): 115–
35; R. Krautheimer, “The Constantinian Basilica,” DOP 21 (1967):
115–40.
CHAPTER ONE: ROME, THE DOMUS ECCLESIAE, AND THE CHURCH BASILICA
FIGURE 1.13
Rome, Lateran
Basilica, ca. 313 ce,
isometric
reconstruction (after
H. Brandenburg,
Ancient Churches of
Rome, 2005, with the
author’s
modifications)
ship was conducted out of doors. The church ba-
silica was essentially a meeting house, not a sacred
structure; the people, not the building, comprised
the ecclesia—although the two gradually became
conflated. The Lateran Basilica, originally dedi-
cated to Christ, was begun ca. 313 ce to serve as
Rome’s cathedral (Fig. 1.13). Also known as the
Basilica Constantiniana (and now dedicated to
St. John the Baptist, St. John the Evangelist, and
Christ), it was built on the grounds of an imperial
palace, donated to be the residence of the
bishop.¹7 Huge in scale, covering an area approx-
imately 55 by 95 meters, it could have held a
congregation numbering into the thousands.
17
For the early churches of Rome, see the documentation in
R. Krautheimer et al., Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae:
The Early Christian Basilicas of Rome (IV–IX cent.), 5 vols. (Vatican
City, 1937–77); S. De Blaauw, Cultus et Décor. Liturgia e architettura
nella Roma tardoantica e medievale. Basilica Salvatoris, Sanctae
Mariae, Sancti Petri (Vatican City, 1994); H. Brandenburg, Ancient
Churches of Rome from the Fourth to the Seventh Centuries (Turnhout,
2005).
13
Organized on a five-aisled plan, covered by wooden
trussed roofs, it was entered from the east and ter-
minated in a western apse. The basilica’s tall nave
was illuminated by clerestory windows in the
upper walls, which rose above doubled side aisles.
Fifteen red stone columns supported a horizontal
entablature on either flank of the nave, while the
side aisles were divided by twenty-two smaller
green marble columns on tall bases, supporting
arcades. The side aisles terminated in low, project-
ing sacristies—sometimes mistakenly identified
as a transept. Notably, many, if not all, of the
marble pieces were spoliated, with the capitals mis-
matched, mixing Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite
orders. Within the apse were seats for the bishop
and the clergy, and before the apse, the altar was
preceded by a fastigium—a magnificent silver
façade, decorated with statues of Christ and the
apostles. Parapets marked a ceremonial route down
the center of the nave.
Much of what we know about the church
comes from either the archaeological record or the
careful scrutiny of texts, as the Lateran continued
throughout its history to be the cathedral, the ad-
ministrative seat of the Bishop of Rome—that is,
the pope—and was thus the site of repeated ar-
chitectural investment. Dramatically remodeled
in the seventeenth century, the present interior nev-
ertheless gives a sense of the scale and ostentation,
while the Liber Pontificalis (the collected biogra-
phies of early popes) enumerates the luxurious
furnishings of the early church.¹8 The exterior was
presumably plastered, covering the construction
of opus listatum (alternating courses of brick and
stone, facing on a concrete core), its plainness
contrasting dramatically with the opulence and
color of the interior.
Simple, large basilicas were also erected at
Aquileia in northern Italy (313–19 ce), at Trier in
Germany (after 326), and elsewhere during the
time of Constantine to serve as cathedrals for
their respective communities—all known from
texts or archaeology. Why was the basilica se-
lected as a building type? Perhaps most impor-
tantly because it was not a temple and could never
be mistaken for one. The basilica had no previous
religious associations but provided a flexible form
18
The Book of the Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis), trans. R. Davis
(Liverpool, 1989), 14–26; for Pope Sylvester (314–35).
14 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE
that could expand or contract according to the
functions it housed. Probably the best comparison
in terms of scale and opulence for the Lateran
Basilica is the Basilica Ulpia in the Forum of
Trajan, completed before ca. 112, which was en-
veloped by double side aisles and terminated in
exedrae. We might also consider the single-aisled
Aula Palatina at Trier, built as an audience hall
in Constantine’s residence ca. 300 (Fig. 1.14).¹9
While both were imperial constructions, it was
probably not the imperial associations of the ar-
chitectural form that led to the selection, but
rather that the building projected an image of au-
thority, power, and opulence. We should also
note that the basilica could be used for purely
utilitarian functions as well—for example, the
warehouses (horrea) at Trier.²0
In addition to congregational churches, among
which the Lateran stands at the forefront, a second
functional type of basilica appeared in Rome at
the same time, set within the cemeteries outside
the city walls, several of them associated with the
venerated graves of martyrs, providing special
places of veneration near their tombs in the cata-
combs. These cemetery basilicas (or ambulatory
basilicas) were also substantial constructions—
between 80 and 100 meters in length—indicative
of both their prestige and their popularity. San
Sebastiano on the Via Appia is the best-preserved
example (Fig. 1.15). It rose on the site of the ear-
lier triclia, in which graffiti testify to the special
veneration of Peter and Paul at the site. Although
there is some suggestion that their graves may
have been relocated here during a period of perse-
cution, later traditions suggest that their resi-
dences were here. Originally known as the Basilica
Apostolorum, it was begun ca. 312 or 313 ce. The
opus listatum construction technique corre-
sponds to buildings built by Maxentius and en-
courages an early dating, although probably not
before the Peace of the Church. Essentially a cov-
ered burial ground, the floor was paved with
graves, and the walls were lined with loculi and
enveloped by mausolea. In plan, the nave is
separated from the side aisles by heavy rectangu-
19
Kinney, “Church Basilica.”
20
G. Rickman, Roman Granaries and Storage Buildings (Cambridge,
1971), 265.
 FIGURE 1.14
Trier, Aula
Palatina, exterior
from the west
(author)

FIGURE 1.15
Rome, San
Sebastiano, ca. 312
ce, plan (after
H. Brandenburg,
Ancient Churches of
Rome, 2005)

CHAPTER ONE: ROME, THE DOMUS ECCLESIAE, AND THE CHURCH BASILICA 15
 FIGURE 1.16
Rome, SS.
Marcellino e Pietro
with the
Mausoleum of
Helena, early
fourth century,
plan and elevation
(after R. Bianchi
Bandinelli, Rome:
The Late Empire,
1971, with the
author’s
modifications)

lar piers, with a clerestory zone above the arcades,
beneath the wooden trussed roof. An altar was set
up near the center of the nave, to accommodate
eucharistic memorial liturgies, and the internal
divisions allowed services of both public and pri-
vate commemoration. Here and in the other
cemetery basilicas, the aisle continued into an
ambulatory surrounding the apse at the west end.
To the east, an atrium originally joined the basil-
ica to the Via Appia.
Among the handful of other examples, the
Basilica of SS. Pietro e Marcellino on the Via
Labicana is the most important (Fig. 1.16). Built
on land owned by Constantine’s mother, Helena,
its narthex was joined to the Mausoleum of
Helena, an enormous domed rotunda of heavy
construction that may have originally been
intended as the tomb of Constantine himself
(see Chap. 3). The complex was completed by ca.
324–26 ce, when the mausoleum was decorated.
In addition to cemetery basilicas, Constantine
also supported the construction of monumental
martyria, and these commemorations of the spe-
cial dead often intersected with standard Christian
burials. Most important in the west was St. Peter’s
Basilica in Rome, begun ca. 324 ce, originally
functioning as a combination of cemetery basilica
and martyrium, sited so that the focal point was
the marker at the tomb of Peter (Figs. 1.17 and 1.18).
The construction of the present St. Peter’s Basilica,
which began in the sixteenth century, eliminated
or obscured the evidence of the site’s first fourteen
centuries of history, but it was shaped in scale,
location, form, and meaning by its predecessor.
The tomb of the apostle was the most popular
pilgrimage destination in medieval Europe, and
correspondingly the church enshrining it was the
most important and influential work of architec-
ture, which Petrus Mallius, a twelfth-century
canon at St. Peter’s, described as “the source and
mirror of all churches.”²¹
21
Petrus Mallius, Basilicae veteris vaticanae descriptio (Rome, 1646).

16 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE


Sometime presumably before 324 ce—the
exact date is not recorded—Constantine decided
to monumentalize the site of the heroon by
adding an enormous five-aisled basilica, approxi-
mately 120 meters long, oriented with an apse
and transept in the west, so that the building was
aligned with the tomb. Larger by far than any
of the other Christian buildings in the city, the
undertaking required the destruction of the ne-
cropolis, as well as the construction of massive sub-
structures, up to 8 meters high along the south
side, and earth removal along the north, to create
CHAPTER ONE: ROME, THE DOMUS ECCLESIAE, AND THE CHURCH BASILICA
FIGURE 1.17
Rome, St. Peter’s,
reconstructed plan
and view, ca. 320
ce, showing
adjacent mausolea
and the post-
Constantinian
atrium (after
R. Krautheimer,
ECBA, 1986)
a level site. The nave followed the model estab-
lished at the Lateran, with the 90-meter-long,
23.6-meter-wide central vessel flanked by doubled
side aisles, illuminated by clerestory windows. On
either side, twenty-two closely spaced columns
supported an architrave, and another twenty-two
smaller ones separated the aisles, those raised on
pedestals and supporting an arcade. Shafts, capi-
tals, and other marbles were spoliated, with both
Corinthian and Composite capitals and shafts of
different materials and hues (including green ser-
pentine, giallo antico, and both red and gray
17
 FIGURE 1.18
Rome, St. Peter’s,
reconstructed
views of the nave,
looking west, and
the transept,
looking north
(T. Bannister,
JSAH, 1968)
granite), and significant variations in size. Wall
construction was of opus listatum, as at the
Lateran.
The transept—an unusual feature in Early
Christian churches—formed a separate space, es-
sentially a transversally positioned, single-aisled
basilica, awkwardly juxtaposed with the nave. It
also functioned separately as a martyrium, offer-
ing a special space for venerating the tomb of
the martyr, with separate entrances in its east
wall. St. Peter’s tomb monument rose on the axis
of the nave, at the entrance to the apse, covered
by an open baldachin (canopy) supported by four
spoliated columns with spiral shafts covered with
vine scrolls; two additional columns extended
the baldachin’s architrave to frame the apse (see
Fig. 1.10B). During commemorative services, an
altar could have been set up beneath the balda-
chin, and the apse could have housed the clergy.
Both clergy and congregation would have used
the transept for all rites.
As conceived in the fourth century, Constan-
tine’s church was not a normal parish church for
the regular celebration of the liturgy; it had no
permanent clergy and no congregation and possi-
bly no permanent altar. The nave functioned as a
cemetery basilica, its floor paved with tombs, and
its vast interior provided a setting for the refrige-
ria, commemorative banquets at the tombs of the
deceased, while the transept functioned as the
martyrium—that is, two distinct but connected
architectural components housed two distinct
18 EASTERN MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE
but related functions, both with the tomb of the
apostle as their visual focus.
By the end of the fourth century, church fathers
had suppressed the celebration of the refrigeria—
which apparently had become more festive than
spiritual in nature. They were celebrated in
St. Peter’s as late as 396 ce, but with the increas-
ing popularity of pilgrimage to the tomb, the
building was equipped with a permanent altar,
set above the tomb of Peter, and staffed by a per-
manent clergy. The combined focus on the altar/
tomb by both pilgrims and celebrants led to traf-
fic problems within the transept, and ca. 590,
Pope Gregory the Great reorganized the west
end, with an elevated sanctuary above a crypt, so
that pilgrims could visit the grave of the apostle
without disturbing the liturgy. While unusual
within an Early Christian context, both the
transept and the two-level sanctuary were repli-
cated in many medieval churches in Western
Europe.
Unlike most later churches, St. Peter’s had its
focal point in the west, rather than the east, fol-
lowing the standard orientation of temples—and
specifically the Temple of Jerusalem. This also fa-
cilitated access from the city, which lay to the east
of the church. A colonnaded atrium, appar-
ently not part of the original design, was added,
providing a transition from exterior to interior. In
subsequent centuries, a bronze pinecone-shaped
fountain was added to the atrium, as well as
reception rooms, oratories, a gatehouse, and a
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 in home in Paris, 220-222;
“Peacock Room,” 128-131, 209
Dieppe, 33-34
Dress, 41-42

Eden, Sir William, 267-270

England’s indifference, 47-49
Englishman’s stupidity, 16
Etchings, appreciation of a collector, 96-97;
of Haden, 96;
catalogues of, 91;
early French criticism, 60;
“French Set,” 90;
Haden collection of, 96;
his first, 88-89;
his “Venice Set,” 91;
“Thames Set,” 91;
“Twenty-six Etchings,” 91
Exhibitions, 1868, 177;
1893, 65;
at Antwerp, 263;
at Chicago, 263;
at London, 265;
at Paris, 1894, 24, 264;
at the Royal Academy, 114-119;
criticisms of, 98-101;
his catalogues, 99-101;
light and background required for his pictures, 134-139;
of etchings, 1883, 97;
of lithographs, 104;
reluctant about exhibiting, 262-264;
Society of American Artists in 1903, 284-285;
Society of British Artists, 136;
special, 120-121;
with artificial light, 135;
“Yellow and White,” 98, 132

Family, 25-28;
brothers and sisters, 32;
father, 27-28, 35;
mother, 28;
 mother’s diary, 34-35
Fine Arts Society, 121
Foreword, 7
Form, appreciation of, 203
Fort Dearborn, grandfather built, 26-27
French art, influence of, 57-60;
criticism, early, 59-60
Frith, 177;
Ruskin trial, 146
Fur Jacket,” “The, 65

Gainesborough, 249, 250

Gentle Art of Making Enemies,” “The, 32, 154-155
Glasgow and the Carlyle portrait, 124;
school, 55
Gleyre, 57, 59, 79
Gold Screen,” “The, 58
Greece, art of, 63
Grosvenor Gallery, 119

Haden, 32, 88-89, 96

Hague, The, illness at, 281-284;
letter from, 282-284
Hanging of pictures, 124-128
Harmonies, symphonies, and nocturnes, his explanation of, 178-180
“Hermes,” by Praxiteles, 261
Hogarth, 55, 249, 250
Honors and awards, 264

Impressionism, 72
Ingres, copy of painting by, 80-81
Interior decorator, 127-128
International Society, 121
Irish ancestors, 25, 47
Italian painters, influence of, 71-72

Japanese art and influence of, 55.

See Chinese and Japanese art

Khayyam, Omar, 243

Lange Leizen,” “The, 58
Leyland, F. R., 128-131
Light and background for pictures, 134-139;
as distinguished from color, 160
Lithographs, naming of, 183
Lithography, 102-104, 180. See Exhibitions, Catalogues
Lowell, 31-32

Manet, 249-250
Marines, 24, 274-275
Marriage, 219
Method. See Work
Miss Alexander, 50, 119
“Mona Lisa,” 251
Moore, “Modern Painting,” 168-172
Mother, diary of, 34-35;
portrait of, 53-54, 58, 115
Music, 176-177;
and color, 193;
and painting, 179;
and the color scale, 195-196;
range of sounds, 186-188;
the uneducated ear, 196;
“truths of sound,” 203-204

National influence, 61-78

Nature and art, 213-216;
and color, 216;
and music, 215
Naval Academy, 37
Nocturnes, 119. See Pictures
Nude, attitude towards, 50-51

Painting and music, 179;

flat tones, 212;
his manner and mode of, 231-237
Paris as an art centre, 62-63;
early days in, 86-88;
home life in, 222-224;
in 1855, 79;
Rue du Bac, 219;
 studio, 131, 132
Pastels, 106-107
“Peacock Room,” 128-131, 209;
trouble over payment, 129-130
Phidias, 253
Philadelphia, 120
Physical appearances. See Appearance and characteristics
Picture galleries, 124-128
Pictures, arrangement of, by periods, 211;
“At the Piano,” 114, 210;
Carlyle portrait, 123-124;
estimation of, 261;
exhibition of, to visitors, 133-135;
“Falling Rocket,” 140;
hanging of, a lost art, 124-128;
hanging of portrait of his mother, 115;
“Lange Leizen,” 210;
marines, 212;
naming of, 178, 183, 185;
“Nocturnes,” “Harmonies,” and “Symphonies,” 210, 211;
present prices of, 114-115;
“The Princess of the Land of Porcelain,” 58, 128, 210;
“Little Rose, Lyme Regis,” 273;
story of “The Yellow Buskin,” 119-120;
Symphonies in White, II. and III., 210;
“Thames in Ice,” 210;
“The Balcony,” 210;
“The Gold Screen,” 210;
the Japanese group, 210, 211;
“The Music Room,” 210;
“White Girl,” 59-60, 109, 210, 282;
“The Yellow Buskin,” 65.
See Portraits
Pomfret, 36
Portraits, classification of, 248;
color compositions, 258;
difference between Whistler and Velasquez, 256-258;
each one to be a masterpiece, 241-242;
his best, 261-262;
Irving as Philip II., 119;
Lady Campbell, 119;
 likeness, 258-262;
manner and mode of painting, 231-237;
Miss Gilchrist, 119;
of Lady E——, 269;
portrait-painting, 244;
sittings required, 30-31, 235;
wraith-like quality, 255
Praxiteles, 261
“Propositions” and “The Ten o’Clock,” 108
Providence, 32
Puritan element, 49-50

Racial influence, 61-78

Raphael, 253
Rembrandt, 67, 175, 244, 253, 254, 255, 256;
essentially Dutch, 67
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 247, 249, 252
Rosa Corder, 119
Rossetti, 111
Rossi, Carmen, school of, 277-281
Royal Academy, attitude towards, 114-119;
exhibitions at, etc., 114-119
Royal Society of British Artists, 217
Rue du Bac, 219
Ruskin and flat tones, 212;
attitude towards color, 158-160, 199-208;
attitude towards early criticism of Turner, 143;
color in his home, 207-208;
his limitations, 165;
suit, 140-149

Savoy Hotel, 181

Sayings. See Anecdotes and sayings
School, no American, 61-63;
of Carmen Rossi, 277-281
Sculptor and portrait busts, 245-246
Society of British Artists, exhibition of, 136
Sounds, range of musical, 186-188
Springfield, 33
St. Petersburg, 27-28, 34-35
Stonington, 32, 35
Stories. See Anecdotes and sayings
Studio, description of, 230-231;
in Paris, 229
Swinburne, 74, 177

Taylor, Tom, 146

Teacher, as a, 277-281
“Ten o’Clock,” no artistic period, 73-78
Time, dilatory habits, 37-41;
indifference to, 29-31;
never prompt, 30
Travel, dislike for, 33-34;
effect of, on artists, 69-70
Turner and color, 199;
early criticism of, 142-143;
Whistler’s appreciation of, 56

Valparaiso, trip to, 22-23

Velasquez, 60, 175, 244, 251, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257;
essentially Spanish, 68;
influence of, 71
Venice, early days in, 92-95
“Voice of a People,” 165-167

Water-color, his first, 106

Webster, Daniel, letter to, 35-36
West Point, 35-36
Westerly, 32
“White Girl,” 53, 283
“White House.” See Chelsea
Will, 240
Witticisms. See Anecdotes and sayings
Work always a pleasure, 90-91;
as a decorator, 128-135;
colors and pigments used, 72-73;
description of method, 231-237;
exhibition to visitors, 133-135;
facility in execution, 23;
his attitude towards a sitter, 238-239, 241;
painting in the dark, 213-214;
volume of, 104-105
Yellow Buskin,” “The, 119, 256

THE END

FOOTNOTES:
[1] Mr. A. Lindenkohl, now the oldest draughtsman in the department.
[2] G. W. Smalley, in the London Times.
[3] The Nation, vol. liv., pp. 280-281, April 14, 1892.
[4] New York Tribune, July 26, 1903.
[5] New York Evening Post, August 1, 1903.
[6] Fortnightly Review, June, 1888.
[7] The Independent, November 2, 1899.
[8] Major W. L. B. Jenney, in the American Architect, January 1, 1898.
[9] Wedmore, Fine Prints, p. 103.
[10] Wedmore’s Catalogue, pp. 19-20.
[11] Printed by H. Wunderlich & Co., New York.
[12] W. S. Adams, in the Springfield Republican.
[13] McClure’s Magazine, vol. vii. p. 374.
[14] Knowledge, April 5, 1883, p. 208.
[15] The Academy, February 24, 1883, p. 139.
[16] Knowledge, April 6, 1883, pp. 208, 209.
[17] Owned by Frank Gair Macomber, Esq., of Boston.
[18] Gentle Art, p. 116.
[19] Life of Carlyle, First Forty Years, vol. ii., pp. 345-6.
[20] McClure’s Magazine, vol. vii. p. 374.
[21] McClure’s Magazine, vol. vii. p. 374.
[22] G. W. Smalley, in the London Times. Reprinted in the New York Tribune, August 19,
1903.
[23] Harper’s Weekly, August 1, 1903.
[24] Library Gazette, May 14, 1842 p. 331.
[25] Athenæum, May 14, 1842, p. 433.
[26] See opening paragraph of Chapter II. of the first and second editions of the first volume
of “Modern Painters.”
[27] John Ruskin, by Spielmann, p. 34.
[28] Modern Painters, vol. iii., chap. xvii., paragraph 18.
[29] Saturday Review, March 26, 1892, p. 357.
[30] Moore, Modern Painting, p. 6.
[31] The Critic, vol. xxxviii. p. 32, January, 1901.
[32] Gentle Art, p. 126.
[33] Gentle Art, pp. 127, 128.
[34] Ibid., p. 128.
[35] Helmholtz, Sensations of Tone, p. 265.
[36] Fleming, Waves and Ripples in Water, Air, and Æther, p. 252.
[37] Physiological Optics, p. 237.
[38] Modern Painters, vol. i., part ii., sec. i., chap. v., par. 3.
[39] Modern Painters, vol. i., part ii., sec. i., chap. v., par. 8, 9.
[40] Ibid., sec. ii., chap. ii., par. 12.
[41] Modern Painters, vol. i., part ii., sec. ii., chap. ii., par. 17, 20.
[42] Gentle Art, p. 128.
[43] Gentle Art, pp. 143, 144.
[44] Gentle Art, p. 143.
[45] London Times, July 18, 1903.
[46] Gentle Art, pp. 177, 178.
[47] E. S. Crawford, in The Reader, September, 1903.
[48] See page 185.
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