LOMBARDIC ARCHITECTURE—AND AFTER.* COMMENDATORE RIVOIRA'S great work, which is here
pre- sented to the world in an English dress, has for some time been familiar to all serious students of the evolution of archi- tectural styles, since the first volume of the Italian edition appeared in 1901 and the second in 1907. It is now brought within reach of a wider public, who are either ignorant of the Italian tongue or read it only with difficulty, and to them we commend it most heartily. No more serious or successful effort has ever been made to bridge the gap of the Dark Ages • Lombardia Archttecture its Origin, Development, and Derivatives. By G. T. Rivoira. Translated by G. MeN. Rushfortb, M.A. With over BOO Illustration& 2 vols. London : W. Heinemann. [53 3e.] which intervenes between the colossal constructions of ancient Rome and the church-building of the early mediaeval period, and to trace the continuity of architectural development. The main thesis of the book has not been, and will not be, accepted without question; the" Orientalists" (of whom more will presently be said) have not yet laid down their arms. But whatever the result of the conflict, we may at least say of Commendatore Rivoira's work, pwiLiorrai Tit pjikAOY Ciilgieercu. Few indeed of his critics will rival the undaunted persist- ency in the pursuit of truth which led him to visit all the important sites of ancient and mediaeval architecture in person instead of "travelling on paper " ; nor will many of them, we suspect, have the patience to make so exhaustive a study of the documentary evidence as that of which the results are garnered in these volumes. For the strength of Commendatore Rivoira's position lies in this,—that he has pursued each branch of study, whether of the monuments or of the documents, with constant reference to the other. He is both architect and scholar; and without this happy combination of gifts the problem before him could not have been solved.
The title of the book will convey but a poor idea of its contents to those who may be led to think that it deals primarily with the basilicas of Northern Italy. The Lom- bardic style proper is here traced to its origin in that of the later Roman Empire ; and its derivatives embrace all the varieties of Romanesque. Commendatore Rivoira eschews this latter term, which (as he considers) might as well be applied to Byzantine architecture, itself an offshoot of the Roman stock, and prefers to describe the various Northern schools by such compound names as "Lombardo-Norman" and " Lombardo-Rhenish " in order to emphasise the con- tinuity of development which leads from the North Italian style of the early Middle Ages to those of Northern Europe.
Probably the object which was nearest to the author's heart in writing this book was the proof of his fundamental pro- position with regard to the originality of Roman Imperial architecture and the survival of its traditions in later times. In the strife which is summed up by the title of Strzygowski's work, Orient oder Eons? his trumpet blows with no uncertain sound. He will not allow that the static principles of the dome and the vault were derived from the East, nor that the applications thereof embodied in Byzantine buildings were due to a school working on independent lines and inspired by Oriental traditions. No doubt this view will be hotly assailed by the students of ecclesiastical architecture in Asia Minor and the Nearer East; but we venture to prophesy that it is destined to prevail. The remains of the great Thermae of Rome, the Villa of Hadrian at Tivoli, and other monuments of the early Empire are by reason of their ruinous condition less easy of comprehension than such a masterpiece as Santa Sophia ; we need the services of the skilled engineer and architect to expound their meaning, which is fully revealed to his eye and to no other. It is here that Commendatore Rivoira's work is of the highest value. He shows us, for instance, how the constructive scheme of Santa Sophia is implied in that of the Therma,e of Diocletian. The English edition incorporates a valuable section on the buildings erected in or near Rome under the personal superintendence of Hadrian, that many-sided genius, whom Commendatore Rivoira, considers to have been (amongst other things) a master in the art of vault and dome construction. The only pity is that in order to find this we have to search the chapter on ecclesiastical architecture in Normandy in the eleventh -century, just as in that which deals with the churches of Burgundy are embedded important passages on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem and the Basilica del Crocefisso at Spoleto. Not content with the evidence of extant remains, Commendatore Rivoira has searched the sketch-books of Renaissance architects, in which are stored the designs and plans of many tombs and villas, long since destroyed, in Rome and its neighbourhood; and several links in the chain are thus supplied. May we remind him that the drawings reproduced in Vol. I., figs. 28 and 29, from the celebrated Codex of Fulvio Orsini in the Vatican library have been shown by Mr. Wace (Papers of the British School at Rome, Vol. IV., p. 252 f.) to belong to a triumphal monument probably of M. Aurelius ? The same , writer, it may be added, has adduced weighty reasons for the „ The belief that the base of the obelisk of Theodos7us the Great weigau. London: W. Blackwood and Bono. [10s. 6d. net.2 in the Atmeidan (fig. 14) was originally sculptured in the time of Constantine (.rown. Hell. Stud., 1909, p. 63 f) If
this be correct, the absence of impost-blocks on the columns which support the arch surmounting the Imperial tribune loses something of its force as a proof of their late introduc-
tion in the East. These pulvini, however, or "pulvins," as the
translator renders the term, were precisely one of those inventions of which the germ is to be found in classical
Roman architecture. Commendatore Rivoira, who has done-
so much to trace the origins of the pendentive, and has dis- covered the prototype of the compound pier upon which the Lombardic system of vaulting is based in the arcades of the Basilica Julia, does not notice the fact (so favourable to hi& general theory) that we find them in the market of Timgad.
Roman architecture in the provinces—for example, in Southern Gaul—may perhaps have suggested more to mediaeval builders than we are yet aware of. Commendatore Rivoira mentions the Porta Nigra at Trier: it dates, how- ever, from the time of Grallienus rather than from that of Valentinian I., as von Doma,szewski has shown.
To many English readers the second volume, in which the spread and triumph of Lombardic principles in the North of Europe are traced, will be the more interesting. Having demonstrated (in Vol. I.) the originality and creative power of Italian builders by an analysis of such typical examples of the system of vaulting in evolution as the churches of San Babila at Milan, San Flaviano at Montefiascone, and SS. Mariae Sigismondo at Rivolta d'Adda, which lead up to the culmination of the Lombardic style in S. Ambrogio, Com- mendatore Rivoira shows how the influence of William of Volpiano, an Italian born, though Abbot of Saint Benigne at Dijon, is to be seen in the planning of the churches of Berney, Mont St. Michel, Cerisy-le-Foret, and Jumieges ; while in the following generation another Italian, Lanfranc of Pavia, is responsible for the church of St. Etienne at Caen, from which other examples of the Lombardo-Norman style are descended. To Englishmen, however, Lanfranc, whom Commendatore Rivoira describes with justice as " the most important figure in the ecclesiastical world of the eleventh century with the exception of Hildebrand," is above all to be remembered as the founder of a school of architecture whose imperishable monuments survive in our great Cathedrals. And not the- least interesting suggestion in the book is that the ribber/ cross-vaulting and transverse arches of the nave at Durham, which mark an epoch in the history of Norman architecture, may owe their existence to a visit paid by William of St. Carilef to Montefiascone (a regular halting-place on the road to Rome), where this system was already exemplified in San Flaviano in the year 1032.
It is impossible within the limits of a review to touch upon a tithe of the matters with which this book is concerned ; there is not a chapter but contains the seed and suggestion of volumes yet to be written. We sincerely hope that Commen- datore Rivoira, who may still look forward to many years of work at his life-study, will develop some of these. The Eastern question in architecture might well occupy his atten- tion. Though convinced of the independence of the West,. he is ready to recognise Oriental influence in its due measure,. as at Pisa (Vol. I., p. 243) and Germigny-des-Pres (Vol. IL,. p. 58), and we could wish for no greater intellectual treat than to hear him on the Thousand and One Churches upon which. attention has recently been focussed.
It remains to say that Commendatore Rivoira has been fortunate in his translator. Mr. Rushforth's rendering is.
clear and idiomatic ; we dissent from him only with reference
to the employment of certain forms, such as " pulvin "- (v. supra) and " lesena " (for the strip-work familiar to.
students of Anglo-Saxon architecture), where the English tongue needs not to confess poverty. From Vol. I., p. 231,_ onwards " Symphorosa " takes the place of the Italian form " Sinforosa" previously used. Lastly, the illustrations are. lavish, and do credit both to author and publisher. We should have liked to see the Baptistery of Novara represented_ (Vol. I., p. 180).
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