THE BUILDER SEPTEMBER 1918

FURTHER NOTES ON THE COMACINE MASTERS
BY BRO. W. RAVENSCROFT, ENGLAND

PART III

PERHAPS the most distinguishing feature of Comacine work is the
campanile, and of all parts of their churches their towers retain
more than any their individual character. They abound in Italy, but
not elsewhere, these campanili of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries and earlier, for in these remarks are not included the
large number of much diversified form built in later times. At
first plain, without corbel tables, pilaster strips or strings, and
having a single opening at the top, afterwards adorned with two,
three, sometimes four, round-arched openings, supported on shafts,
much as some of our Saxon belfry windows are treated, they soar in
many cases to quite a considerable height, and form the landmarks
for miles around as well as being real belfries and not merely
places of refuge or defense, such as church towers are often found
to be further east.

They abound, as may be expected, around the Italian lakes, but also
are plentiful in Rome and in fact are everywhere in Italy as has
been already noticed.

As a type of all the rest and remarkable for its beauty and
situation, is the campanile of the ruined church of sta. Maria
close to Bellagio (see frontispiece.)

On the influence of Byzantine over Comacine art, one word may be
allowed in connection with the sculptured and pictorial work of the
two schools. While the former developed a spiritual side associated
with mystery, the latter, where unaffected by this, manifested a
grosser conception of the human body, and as in the eleventh
century it came more under the influence of the Byzantine, so its
pictorial and sculptured art became refined. This is well
illustrated in the church of St. Pietro al Monte di civate, already
referred to. (1)

Thus far, as to the relation between the two schools we have had
under consideration, and it only remains to remark how strangely in
many instances Greek, Roman and Comacine details appear to be
jumbled together. At the church of S. Prassede Rome there is a
doorway consisting of a Byzantine cornice, Roman egg and dart
enrichment, dentils, chevrons and interlaced knot-work, while the
capitals of the columns are after a debased Ionic treatment. A
similar conglomeration appears in the vestibule of S. Mark's at
Venice but without the interlaced work.

Merzario (I. Maestri Comacini) claims that the forerunners of the
Comacines on leaving Rome took with them Roman art, but worked out
their own style chiefly on basilican forms, and that it was only by
degrees they came under Byzantine influence as they worked
eastward.

That the Comacines were everywhere in Italy we have already seen,
and now have to consider point number six: "They spread their
influence over all Western Europe and even to our own shores."

Edgecumbe Staley, writing on the Gilds of Florence, states that the
Comacines were consolidated by A. D. 590 and influenced the
architecture of the whole of Italy but had no governing lodge,
saying in the words of their motto that their Temple "was one made
without hands."

Merzario writes (2) (I. Maestri Comacini, vol. I, p. 78):

"The Comacines remained still alive and went about scattered
through many cities and provinces to exercise their art even after
the fall of the Lombards, and that as the artists of Greece kept
behind (followed) the long steps of Alexander in the countries
captured by him in Asia and Egypt, and those of Rome behind the
victorious Caesar upon the Rhone and the Rhine, so they followed
closely upon the traces of the Conqueror of Desiderius, of the
dominator of the Saxons and the Normans.

"Thus became cast the first seeds of that art which was altogether
unknown and there rose on the surface of the earth and elevated
itself in Germany and Gaul, with the physiognomy of the fathers,
named in common Comacines, or Lombards, who had given birth to it
or taught it."

Further on he continues (p. 80):

"The Frenchman, Quatremere de Quincy, in his Historical Dictionary
of Architecture writes thus:

"'The Comacines, (as they called themselves in the Middle Ages,)
that company of builders who, from the borders of the lakes of
Como, of Lugano and Maggiore, with usage not yet interrupted
scattered themselves through Europe to build edifices, some sacred,
some profane, and in the Lombard laws with the name of Magistri
Comacini, were honored by special privileges.

"'To these artificers--architects, sculptors, mosaicists or workmen
who idealized and executed, is attributed the resurrection of art
and its propagation in the Northern countries where it was
introduced and propagated with Christianity. Certainly we owe to
them that the heredity of the ancient age was not altogether
derelict, and that at least by tradition and by imitation the
practice of the constructor remained alive and produced works which
even at this time are admired and recognized as more surprising in
contrast with the ignorance of science in those obscure
centuries.'" 

One makes no apology for translating Merzario's quotations from
other authorities, because they give a weight of added testimony
not otherwise available.

Thus he continues (vol. I, p. 81) after mentioning the German
Kugler and the Frenchman Ramee as most competent men in the history
of art, and as holding similar views:

"We will add the opinion of other of our authoritative writers. The
lamented Pietro Selvatico notes that the architecture which held
sway from the eighth to the thirteenth century in Europe consisted
of Byzantine and Roman elements conjoined, but in 800 became mixed
with another which, in part produced from those, had nevertheless
in itself elements so original as to construct an independent art.
This, he says, is the Lombard or Comacine architecture call it
which you like, which is distinguished by the low pitched roofs, by
the always semi-circular arches rising from the columns in the
facade resembling the Greek and Roman; it was indeed not enlarged
in Italy quickly after being born, but taking root little by
little, resulted in a sure, systematic unity after the first half
of the ninth century.

"This, it cannot be denied, was the product of the union of the
Masters of Como with the Romans and of their connection with
Aquileja towards the Levant.

"Caimi, in the first page of a valuable work of his, writes:

"'Toward the beginning of the ninth century architecture, which in
Italy presented a mixture of Roman and Byzantine elements,
commenced to develop under a more original and characteristic form
and, without repudiating the origin of its being, took normal and
special rule, from which came to be constructed that manner or
architectonic style which, from the country, was called Lombard.
That style spread rapidly, not in the country of Italy alone, but
in many regions of Northern Europe especially through the works of
those associations or companies of Freemasons who were better known
under the name of Comacine Masters.

"Professor Camille Boito makes to stand out more clearly still the
figure and merit of our Masters, 'The Comacine Masters.' He writes:

"'Some have wished to demonstrate a secret society having the
monopoly of the architectural arts for the space of several
centuries while others have wished to make them out ignorant masons
or but little more called here and there in Italy and in foreign
countries to manual labour. It is certain that in every case they
had great importance and that Como would not cede to other
provinces the ancient merit of having been the cradle of a new art,
wise and beautiful in its own time, from which art was born after
a series of transformations the pointed arch styles which found so
much favour in Germany, France and England, and also the ways of
our art of the thirteenth century, so rich in artistic variety, so
free, so refined, of the art in fact which at length, renewed,
beautified, civilized, was able to become perhaps the base of the
Italian art of the future."'

On page 91 Merzario writes:

"From the declaration of an almost contemporary author it appears
quite clearly that the Lombard artificers had, after the dispersion
of the Lombards, a school in Rome--a quarter to themselves near
that of the Franks and Saxons, who were protected by Charlemagne
and his successors. From this school must have derived that
community and brotherhood which we see extended between the Lombard
and German artists with the faculty for the Lombards to go into
Germany, where they found fellow-disciples and friends, and the
name 'Tedeschi' given in successive periods to the Lombard
artificers, who in great part were Comacines." 

Merzario traces the footsteps of the Comacines as following the
Lombards in their descent upon Sicily where they came in contact
with the Normans, also into Germany where their mark is seen in the
Cathedral of Spires, Worms, Magdeburg and other cities but enough
has been quoted from this author for our purpose here. Comacine
influence on the Norrnans was in two directions, northward and
southward, and in evidence of the former a few references may here
be permitted.

Paul the Deacon (De gestis Longobardorum, book 3, ch. 6) states
that at the beginning of the seventh century Pope Gregory "the
great" sent certain "religious" to England, who, following in the
footsteps of the blessed Augustine, of Melitus, John and others,
were directed to visit and bring under obedience the divided
Britons of the world ("divisos orbe Britannos") who had only once
seen the face of the Romans. These brought with them certain
artificers who were to raise up the temples of the faith and who,
coming from Italy, most probably belonged to those Craftsmen, which
had the use and privilege of such construction.

The Venerable Bede tells us how S. Benedict Abbott of Wearmouth, in
A. D. 674, wishing to build his church went into France to collect
masons who could erect it after the manner of the Romans, and when
these had completed their work in order to the furnishings of the
church he had recourse to the country of the Romans for things he
could not procure in France or England.

Richard, Prior of Hagustald, narrates how S. Wilfred, about 674,
made pilgrimage to Rome and became enamored of the beautiful
churches and buildings there, and that having in mind to build a
church in honour of S. Andrew of Hagustald near to York, he brought
together in Italy and France and in other countries as many
builders and industrious artificers as he could find and conducted
them into England.

It is said that in these writings of Bede and the Prior words and
phrases are to be found which were in the edict of King Rothrares
(A.D. 643) and in the "Memoratorio" of Liutprand (A. D. 713) thus
connecting the work of S. Benedict and S. Wilfred with the
Comacines.

W.S. Calverley, writing of Stephens, says ("Notes on the Early
Scriptured crosses, etc., in the Diocese of Carlisle" 1899, p. 44):

"According to his view the latter part of the seventh century was
a period of great artistic energy under Wilfreth and other
Romanizing leaders, and at that date these scrolls and interlacings
were learnt from Lombardy and not from Ireland. For example, the
tomb of the Irish Saint Columbanus at Bobbio, which one would
expect to find ornamented with the so-called Irish art, is
decorated merely with the patterns then in vogue in Rome, while in
Lombardy--not in Ireland--interlaced scrolls were used early in the
seventh century."

Dr. Colley, F. S. A., in a paper read before the Dorset Natural
History and Antiquarian Field Club, published in 1913, says:

"The three decorative interlacements (on a font at stone, near
Aylesbury,) may indicate a Byzantine influence. Such designs had
much vogue in Italy during the eighth century and were brought to
the north of Europe by Italian monks. The intreccio that runs round
the rim of the font is threefold and represents the Trinity in
Unity, that on the (heraldic) right having neither beginning nor
end means eternity, while the other, an endless band interlacing a
circle, teaches that Infinity is controlled by a Unity."

S. Ninian, it is known, was a great friend of S. Martin of Tours
and from him obtained masons skilled to work in stone.

A little book published by Talbot, London, entitled "Lives of the
Saints" says (p. 216):

"Both the churches of Ripon and Hexham were built after the Roman
manner--that is the basilican type with the altar in a chord of a
western apse by which the celebrant faced the east when saying
mass."

Mr. George Coffey, in his guide to Celtic antiquities in the Dublin
National Museum, notes that while the intreeeia of Italy were
almost universally three stranded, those of Greece and Central
Syria, as well as Ireland, consisted mainly of two strands.
Certainly those in England are rarely of three strands, but
generally of two or one only. Mr. Coffey seems to think the Lombard
pattern was derived from both Roman and Greek sources. Whatever the
origin of the Comacine intreccia may be, it would seem to be pretty
clear that the three-stranded form was their particular one, and
may be taken generally as indicative of their work.

Interlaced patterns in these islands are chiefly found on crosses,
fonts, and other such details and of these crosses especially there
remain a great number.

There is no doubt that intercourse between Italy and our Western
shores in the early Middle Ages was fairly intimate, and since the
pagan Saxon hold on England would prevent it being overland,
especially in regard to church matters, such intercourse was
necessarily by sea. Hence the association of the Irish Round Towers
with those of Italy gets confirmation, and indeed seems to be
increasingly held (see Arch. Review fol October, 1908, and
following numbers).

A comparison of other details found in Italy and England will give
some interesting results.

Some of the oldest Comacine capitals, side by side with richly
carved ones, are massive cushion capitals, such as are to be found
in the Crypt of S. Vincenzio at Gravedona.

The illustration of the capital of a column in S. Giaeomo di Como
(Fig. 11) should be compared with the Norman capital from
Winchester (Fig. 12), and one from the Como Museum with that from
Milford Hants, and another from Selham Sussex (Figs. 13, 14 and
15).

Outside the apse of S. Sisto Viterbo (a roundarched church) an
arcade occurs in which the interlaced pattern is alternated with
the dog-tooth of almost Early English type (Fig. 16) . At S. Pietro
Ancona a similar arcade is notched with an early dogtooth ornament
while at the same church another arcade is surmounted with a
chevron and running ornament of what we should call Norman
character (Figs. 17 and 18).

On the west front of S. Paolo Pisa (a generally round-arched
church) occur two pointed arches in the arcading having chevron
treatment as at Wimborne Minster Dorset.

The lion excavated at Corstopitum near Hexham, already mentioned,
(3) is obviously of the same family as those of the Comacines in
Italy and its proximity to Hexham gives added reason for regarding
it in this light.

The use of pilaster strips, common to the Italian campanile and the
Saxon or early Norman Tower, suggests a relationship between the
two and as regards plan there is not wanting good evidence of the
Comacine influence on English work.

Not long since discoveries were made in connection with Abbot
Wulfric's round church at S. Augustines Canterbury and, writing
thereon in the Times, Mr. G. McN. Rushforth, F. S. A., mentions
several round churches as having existed in England, saying it was
about 68 A. D. that Wilfrid built the round church of S. Mary at
Hexham, while Riviora points out that all these circular plans are
derived directly or indirectly from Roman models, and that in
choosing this form for the church of the Holy Sepulchre,
Constantine did but follow the pattern of a typical Roman Mausoleum
on the grand scale.


The plan of Canterbury Cathedral as it existed before 1076 carries
out the Comacine idea, even to the two apses, one at each end and
the campanili flanking the aisles, north and south.

Comment on all this is surely superfluous. It speaks for itself,
and indeed it would appear that most authorities are agreed that
from North Italy English architecture received both its inspiration
and realization in its earlier days. That it was through the
Comacines rather than through the Milanese or Lombard school (if
indeed there were two distinct schools) one would submit is
practically demonstrated in the foregoing comparison of the chief
peculiarities of the two schools. (4)

That the Comacines merged into the great Masonic Gilds of the
Middle Ages, and that as these declined, forms and ceremonies held
and practiced by them were to a great extent preserved in the
speculative Masonry of the present day, particularly that practiced
under the English and American Constitutions, is still doubted by
some and denied by one or two.

Merzario would have us believe that the Comacines, from whom he
appears to derive a large number of other schools of medieval
architecture, could be traced down to 1800 A. D., but such opinion
would want a great deal of evidence to make it acceptable.

Sig. Monneret de Villard, who takes the view that they were a
school distinct from other contemporary ones, holds that as an
organized body they ceased to exist after the twelfth century.

A good illustration of the way in which symbols were transmitted
even from the Temple of Solomon to the medieval Craftsmen and
thence to our speculative Masonry, is to be found in the two
pillars at Wurzburg Cathedral already mentioned. It has been
pointed out that they were originally situated on either side of
the porch but are now in the body of the Cathedral (their relative
positions reversed), and that these shafts are interlaced in a
manner already referred to in these pages.

One has thought it worth while to make some careful inquiries with
regard to these pillars and hence before the commencement of the
present war I was able to ascertain, on what I have reason to
believe to be competent authority, that these pillars originally
supported three archways of a porchway or entrance just within the
nave, having over them a gallery approached by a staircase. In this
position they would correspond to the arrangement of the porch at
S. Pietro al Monte di civate, and they are said to be of the same
date (Fig. 3a).

To get the knot effect they had to be clustered shafts, and like
those at Arlezo (see Fig. 9) one appears to have more of these
shafts in number than the other. This is significant, but what is
more so is the fact that one capital bears on it the word B.....
and the other the word J..... If these words were added at some
recent time there would be nothing much in the argument, but as one
is told as the result of expert examination the writing is of the
same date as the columns, viz., before the end of the twelfth
century, then it would seem to be a fair and reasonable conclusion
that the Medieval Gilds had traditions of King Solomon's Temple,
and also that our speculative system did take over signs and
symbols, etc., from the operative lodges. The position of the
pillars and their inscriptions admit of no other conclusion.

One wonders whether this particular form of knot rather than the
intreccia of the Comacines is not that which is still named in
Italy as Solomon's knot. If so, this would be yet another
association worthy of notice.

The carving of working tools in connection with the Gild work of
the Middle Ages is not without significance. The representation of
a square or a plumbrule in the Catacombs, such as may be seen in
the Lateran Museum, probably merely indicated the trade of the
person commemorated, but when as in the representation of the
Quatuor Coronati at Or S. Michele at Florence, are found the
compasses, the level, the plumb-rule and the square, and in
addition to these one of the four masons describing on the reversed
capital of a column, a circle, at the same time that he applies a
square, the conclusion is obvious that they have a deeper
signification.

Again, at Assisi, on the Comacine Lodge, as well as on the Castle,
the open compasses containing a rose are to be seen, and in the
Castle work also a mason's square. Other working tools are also
depicted in the well-known Isabella Missal in the British Museum.

And as regards the Four Crowned Martyrs themselves, while not
pressing too far from this connection any conclusion, it is well to
call to mind a few, outstanding facts.

Sarcophagi are claimed as theirs in their church in Rome, founded
in their honour, and in connection with which a Gild of Marble
Cutters to the present time celebrate mass on the last Sunday of
the month. Over the door of their chapel (S. Sylvestro, A. D. 1198-
1215) there is a fresco of the four with the inscription
"statuariorum et Lapicidarum Corpus Anno MDLXX."

Edward Condor, in his paper contributed to "Ars Quatuor
Coronatorum," (vol. 27, part 2), not only shows the strong
obligation placed upon the Craft generally in London to attend mass
on the 8th November, the festival of the Quatuor Coronati, as set
forth in the ordinances and regulations of the body, A. D. 1841,
but adds:

"The legend of the Four Crowned Martyrs (5) is purely Italian in
its inception and spread with the Craft into Germany, Gaul and
Britain. There is evidence of the legend in MSS of the seventh
century A. D., and a church was built in their honour at
Winchester, in the eighth 'century. (6)

"The festival was fixed for November 8th in the Sarum Missal of the
eleventh century and from that date to the Reformation in the
sixteenth century the day was regularly honoured in the English
Church."

To this, be added, that the Masonic Lodge having perhaps the widest
association in the world, viz., the Quatuor Coronati Lodge, in
London, significantly associates its name with these martyrs.

The Masonic association with the two Saints, John the Baptist and
John the Evangelist, finds some counterpart in the same association
of these Saints with the Comacines illustrated in the frequent
dedication of many of their churches to one or the other of these,
as well as the dedication of the Island of Comacina to st. John the
Baptist, whose annual festival, with much religious ceremony and
high pageant, is still attended on the Island on Midsummer Day, by
people from far and near.

Once more, and finally, from Merzario (page 93):

"It is at that time and to that movement of thought of studies and
of persons particularly set on foot by the Comacines that certain
writers make to rise the institution of Masonic unions or lodges,
and of the primitive Masonry. Troya says that the curious or secret
societies of the Comacines which under the Lombards had been
circumscribed, although public, and lived without mysteries and
without arrogance, began after Charlemagne to restrict themselves
into more compact societies, to form their secret statutes, to have
private rights and occult language, and to look forward to a
proselytism international and almost European."

Hope has written:

"Lombardy was the cradle of the Association of Freemasons, and it
is from these Societies or Gilds initiated by the Comacine Masters
that he and various historians, Italian and not Italian, derive the
Companies of Freemasons which diffused themselves from Italy to
England, in Scotland, in Germany, in Switzerland, in Provence and
Spain, and were the origin of the Freemasons lodges composed at
first of architects, constructors and their colleagues only."

Taking together all these items of evidence, what conclusion can be
reached other than that link by link we have a chain extending from
the Roman Collegia through the Comacines to the Medieval Gilds of
the Middle Ages, and our speculative lodges of today, with
traditions and associations clearly handed on unbroken.

As a frontispiece to the July issue of THE BUILDER is reproduced an
old print, now in the Como Museum, showing the Island of Como as it
was supposed to be in the day of its strength.

(1) See page 198, THE BUILDER, July.
(2) Peculiarity of some of the expressions in the transcripts made
in these pages from Merzario is probably due to the translation
from Italian to English being somewhat literal.
(3) See page 196, THE BUILDER, July.
(4) Notwithstanding the two views of Merzario and Monneret it is
not unreasonable to point the probability of the derivation of the
Milanese from the Comacine school, seeing that in the early days of
the Lombards when they required artificers they sent for the
Comacines, having none of their own.
(5) For an interesting article on the Church of the Quatuor
Coronati, Rome, having special reference to its recently restored
cloister, by Professor Forbes, see Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, vol.
27, part I.
(6) There may be a little mistake here since a church was built to
the honour of the Quatuor Coronati, in Canterbury, early in the
seventh century. Possibly there was another at Winchester, but
evidence is wanting.


THE LYRIC ARGUMENT

I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers,
Of April, May, of June, and July flowers; 
I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, 
Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes. 
I write of Youth, of Love, and have access 
By these, to sing of cleanly wantonness; 
I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by piece, 
Of balm, of oil, of spice, and ambergris; 
I sing of times trans-shifting, and I write 
How roses first came red, and lilies white; 
I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing 
The Court of Mab, and of the Fairy King. 
I write of Hell; I sing and ever shall 
Of Heaven, and hope to have it after all.
--Robert Herrick, 1591-1674.

FLOWERS

Spread golden flowers on my life, 
And do it very often; 
I'll need them in my daily strife 
But not upon my coffin.
--John A. Joyce.
