THE BUILDER AUGUST 1918
FURTHER NOTES ON THE COMACINE MASTERS

BY BRO. W. RAVENSCROFT, ENGLAND

PART II

IN order to trace a few of the leading features in which the
architecture of the East as well as other allied arts affected the
work of the Comacines, it will be desirable to give a very short
description of the larger type of church these Masters would build.
It would consist of a basilican ground plan (Fig. 3b) * having nave
and side aisles, the nave being divided from the aisles by rows of
columns or piers, the latter sometimes with, sometimes without,
capitals, and semi-circular arches generally without mouldings and
springing directly from the capitals where such occur. Some of
these capitals would be elaborately carved, others of the cushion
shape we find in our own Norman work. Clerestory windows would
occur above these arches, and the covering of the nave would
consist of a flat pitched roof of timber construction. Beyond the
nave, generally eastward, would come the presbytery having aisles
in continuation of those on either side of the nave, and each, as
well as the presbytery, ending in a semi-circular apse. The
presbytery would in many cases have the space for the choir
enclosed with a low screen and would frequently be raised several
steps, having beneath it, approached by steps, a crypt. With the
exception of the nave, the various parts of the edifice would be
sometimes vaulted with simple crossvaulting.

The High Altar would be a little away from the central apse and
placed under a baldachino.

One, sometimes two, campanili would rise either from a presbytery
aisle or from the west end of one of the nave aisles or in other
instances detached or nearly so.

The baptistery in most instances would be a separate building near
by and generally octagonal in plan, with or without a small apse on
one side.
.
* Shown on page 199, THE BUILDER, July.

Architectural details, other than those already mentioned, would
consist chiefly in the small roundarched windows deeply recessed
from the outside; small, and in some instances large circular
windows; little openings in gables in the form of a Greek Cross;
doorways semi-circular headed, generally having a lintol and
tympanum, some very plain, others more or less enriched with
columns and mouldings on arches; corbel tables under eaves and
running up gables; pilaster strips at angles, some having
semi-circular columns on their faces. these being also found on
external walls independently of pilaster strips, a kind of dentil
ornament, used sometimes as a string course with corbel tabling
beneath and sometimes under eaves and then, as ornament, the
interlaced endless knot, nearly always in Italy composed of three
strands.

Decoration internally would consist of sculpture in capitals and
other details, and of fresco painting and decorated stucco,
sometimes in low relief. The Comacine lion is a later product, but
this description above outlined would fairly well apply to a church
of the eleventh or twelfth century.

Better illustration there cannot be than is to be found in the
Church of S. Abbondio at Como, and the Baptistery at Lenno (Figs.
6 and 7). The Duomo at Modena also, originally designed as we have
already seen, by Master Lanfrancus, contains practically all the
chief characteristics of Comacine work. In the earlier work of the
Comacines ornament is sparingly used and the striking feature of
such work is its dignified solemnity.

Sig. Monneret de Villard, in a booklet entitled "I. Monumenti del
Lago di Como," (Milan), claims for the Comacine Masters
peculiarities in their work other than those already indicated in
these notes, and, differing from Merzario, holds that it is not a
matter of indifference as to whether the term "Lombard" or
"Comacine" be used in describing their work seeing there are
features of both schools so distinctive as to render any such
indifference misleading. Doubtless both were offshoots or
descendants of the Roman Collegia, but all the same he considers
they were separate offshoots.

Of course there were many features common to both, and on the other
hand it must not be supposed that even essential differences were
in every case rigidly maintained. Indeed, indications are not
wanting that the Comacine was the parent of the Lombard school.

The two outstanding features of difference according to Sig.
Monneret between the Comacine school and that which he designates
as the Lombard or Milanese school, arose out of material and
construction.

Not having stone or marble the latter used tera cotta, (in which
one supposes may be included brick,) while the other used stone and
marble.

This doubtless was a difference which would be broken down in many
instances; probably, however, rather in the more frequent use of
stone and marble than of terra cotta and the use of the vault
appears to have been a feature in the Milanese work of which the
Comacine Masters were somewhat shy.

The vault in its larger development involved its consideration even
in the laying in of foundations and the planning of the building
seeing it necessitated buttresses, piers and their contrivances to
meet its thrust.

So the Comacines, except perhaps in apses, crypts and sometimes
isles, preferred the flat roof treatment with the beams and a
direct downward thrust, and having no projections in the form of
buttresses beyond the very flat pilasters already described in
these pages.

They are also supposed to have preferred elaborately carved
capitals to the plain cushion capitals resembling our Norman ones,
but that they did also use these there is plenty of evidence. The
interlaced patterns of the Comacines Sig. Monneret considers to be
the more elaborate type, and he attributes to them the curious
figures of animals, birds, etc.

Whether he is on sure ground here is certainly doubtful, but the
Eastern influence on Comacine work might, in part, account for
this, if his opinion is correct.

One other point of difference between the two schools appears to be
that while the Lombard or Milanese covered the ends of their nave
and the aisles with a facade, unbroken and as a single front, the
Comacines, when they planned naves and aisles, marked in some way
in the facade, either by pilaster strips or more generally by
raising the central portion, the fact that behind it such existed,
which in general the Milanese did not.

Let us now see how in some respects the architecture of the
Comacines was affected by the East, and the first point must
necessarily be the influence of the Greek plan and of the dome, so
characteristically Byzantine. The Greek plan which in its simplest
form would consist of nave, presbytery and transepts, of
approximately equal lengths, and having a dome over the crossing,
was sometimes used by the Comacines, but not very often, and it
must not be forgotten that the suggestion of the dome would come
from Rome quite as well as from Byzantium, seeing that when
Constantine attracted skilled Craftsmen to his new capital, the
Pantheon at Rome had been for centuries in their view, and thus the
dome was not a new thing to them first seen in the East.

That this particular influence over the Comacines was but partial
is clear from the small number of their churches built on Greek
plan with domes and the great preponderance of those built on
basilican lines with or without campanili.

Professor Baldwin Brown says (From Schola to Cathedral, p. 135):

"In the West the tower originating in early Christian times
becomes, under the hand of the medieval builders, the feature
wherein resides especially that romantic aspiring character of
Christian architecture which finds its most perfect outcome in
Gothic while the dome is the favourite form of the builders of the
Eastern Church."

Of the influence of the Byzantine dome, however, a singularly
interesting example is found in the Duomo at Ancona.

As described by one of the clergy on the spot, the original church
was Byzantine, but basilican in form, the altar being at the west
end (the present west transept) and the entrance being from the
east end (the present east transept.) That church dated from A.D.
500. In 1150 A.D. the church was turned into a Greek Cross and the
altar placed in the new choir, which was in the north. Then it was
that the dome was formed with the shafts supporting the same and
also the nave running south.

The extension of the choir which was "renovated" in 1733 unduly
lengthens the head of the Cross, and while this is evidently
eighteenth century work as regards the interior, externally it
appears to be that of the twelfth century.

The priest who gave this information described the two styles of
work as Byzantine and Lombardic. Now, if the dome were pure
Byzantine, one would look for the pedentives (small angle arches
springing from the cardinal faces of a building square on plain and
bringing thus the square to an octagon, as better suited for a
circular or octagonal dome) by means of which circular domes were
imposed on square spaces, characteristic of that work. But instead
of this we have angle shafts and arcading filling out the space
left between a square and a circle at each corner until the shape
of the dome is perfectly circular (see frontispiece), all in
Comacine work. It would be interesting to trace in other instances
how far the Comacines got over this difficulty thus rather than in
the correct Byzantine manner.

The influence of Byzantine art on Comacine carving needs to be seen
and felt and varies so much as to elude description, but careful
examination will not fail to detect that influence when it exists.

And in this connection a good example of a real Byzantine capital,
side by side with Comacine work, is to be found in the Duomo at
Ancona where one or two of the capitals in the older part of the
church still stand and look as fresh and strong as they did many
centuries since (Fig. 8), and which are unmistakably Byzantine.

The omission of the entablature between columns and arches may not
be peculiar to Comacine work, but in Byzantine construction there
frequently appears a sort of second abacus imposed on the real one
and acting as a kind of remembrance of the entablature which, in
pure Comacine work, is absent. S. Vitale, S. Apollinare Nuovo and
S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna, afford good examples of this
super abacus.

Of the interlaced knot-work used as sculptured decoration it is
unnecessary to add to what has already been written with regard to
it, but while in its full development it is claimed as a
distinguishing feature of Comacine work, it may be pointed out that
in its simpler form it may have a Greek as well as a Roman origin.
Its development was widespread throughout Italy, chiefly of
three-stranded work, and in Rome in the Forum, the Castle of S.
Angelo and many a church, especially that of S. Sabina, the
fragments remaining are numerous.

But there is one form of this work which is so peculiar as to call
for remark. It consists in the unsatisfactory practice of carving
a knot in the shafts of columns. This treatment as carried out at
Wurzburg has already been noticed, but its appearance in various
parts of Italy suggests that at least the same motive operated in
each case. What that motive was it is impossible to say--it may
have been a sort of Gild mark, or it may have had a symbolic
signification, which is more probable. At any rate it is to be
found in the Broletto at Como, at S. Michaele Lucca, where four
columns are thus treated, on the west front of Sta. Maria della
Pieve at Arezzo,* at Valcamonica, and doubtless many other places
in Italy and elsewhere.

In Didrons Christian Iconography, vol. I, pp. 387 and 389, will be
found two illustrations of Greek crosses, each in a frame, having
supported columns twisted in this manner and dated respectively
"first ages" and "eleventh century"; this suggests certainly a
Greek origin for this distinctly Comacine detail.

It is very unconstructional in design, making the column to appear
as if it were composed of two parts with a kind of slip-knot in the
center. It can only be done in the case of clustered columns of two
or more shafts and does not appear where great weight has to be
carried.

The use of the small Greek Cross in gables and other parts has
already been shown to be of Byzantine origin.

(To be continued)

* See Fig. 9, September Issue.


There are no points of the compass on the chart of true patriotism.
--Robert C. Winthrop.

