96 



Remarks on Wilton Church. 



scouting* causes. Opposite the central avenue, this transept swelled 

 out into one of those semicircular recesses or terminations with a 

 ceiling rounded off like the head or conch of a niche, so frequent in 

 the later Roman buildings, called in the Greek Apsis, — and in the 

 Latin Tribuna — In this sat the magistrate — ('the Praetor 3 in the hall 

 f PrsBtorium/) with his assessors, and from this, courts of justice have 

 since been called Tribunals. Other recesses semicircular or square 

 opposite to the lateral avenues served for different purposes of con- 

 venience." Such was the building presented by the Emperor 

 Constantine to the Christians of his day for the purposes of their 

 worship, and imitated by all church architects till the time of 

 Justinian. During the fourth and fifth, centuries I believe there 

 were seven such churches erected in Rome, of which the most famous 

 were those of S. Pietro, S. Paolo, and S. Maria Maggiore : there 

 were also several, and among them that of S. Sophia, built at the 

 other seat of empire — Constantinople. 



Of the Roman Basilicas— S. Peter's— supplanted by the S. Peter's 

 now standing, in the year 1503 — tho' not as large as its successor, 

 filled an area as large as that covered by any mediaeval cathedral, 

 excepting those of Milan and Seville. It was built by Constantine 

 himself about the year 330 — and had five aisles. 



In outward form, though of course on an extremely magnified 

 scale, it must have resembled Wilton Church without its campanile, 

 without its west front, and without the windows in its apse. It had 

 indeed probably, so far as can be judged by the representation of it 

 which appears in Raphael's fresco of the coronation of Charlemagne, 

 only one apse, and its lower tiers of windows, being a subsequent 

 addition, were pointed. In the interior there were four rows of 

 columns, all I believe of marble, taken from some heathen disused 

 temple, and these columns in the centre aisle were connected by an 

 architrave, instead of, as at Wilton, by arches. In the side aisles 

 however the columns enjoyed the more common and elegant super- 

 structure of the arch. A round arch separated the nave from the 

 sacrarium, and a second lower, and also round arch, the sacrarium 

 from the apse; in which (as I have said) there were no lights owing 

 probably to their not, in the bright climate of Italy, being required. 



