Bj/ the Rev. Lacres Olivier, M.A. 



97 



Tlio Basilica ol S. Paul's outside the walls/ built by Theodosius 

 the Great, about the year 3S6, must have been magnificent. It was 

 destroyed by fire in the summer of 1822, remaining thus almost to 

 our own days, the one majestic representative of the Imperial 

 Christian Basilica. The two side aisles and nave of this church 

 were each 80 feet in width, and the columns separating the nave 

 from the side aisles were joined, as at Wilton, by arches, instead of, 

 as at S. Peter's and at the church of S. Maria Maggiore, by a 

 horizontal architrave. The pillars were marble, fluted, with Corinthian 

 capitals, 33 feet in height, and taken (it is said) from Hadrian's 

 mausoleum. The extreme length of this Basilica was 411 feet — 

 very nearly as long as Salisbury Cathedral — and its width was 215 

 feet, which is wider than Salisbury, at its greatest width. It was 

 terminated by one central apse, approached by two flights of steps, 

 and richly encrusted with mosaics. 



Mr. Fergusson calls the Basilica of S. Maria Maggiore the best 

 model by which to study the merits and defects of Basilican archi- 

 tecture, and as this is now standing, though hardly in its original 

 form, many of the members of this society are probably familiar 

 with it. For those however who are not so, it will be sufficient to 

 imagine if they can, a nave twice as large as our's, flanked on each 

 side by 36 Ionic columns, all of white marble : a flat ceiling 

 elaborately carved, and gilt with the first gold brought to Europe : 

 a clerestory pierced by windows divided from one another by pilasters 

 of marble corresponding to the columns on the floor : the side aisles 

 vaulted, and so rather out of keeping with the nave : an apse with 

 pointed windows, a little raised above the level of the nave, and 

 covered — though this too again is later work — with mosaics. 



I have given instances of three churches belonging more or less 

 to the Basilican type, which I trust may be of some assistance 

 in the realization of its chief characteristics. The expanse, the 

 loftiness, the simplicity of this style of architecture remain, in my 

 humble opinion, unrivalled. Once given, those rich marble columns, 

 and I suspect our friend the Goth would gladly have had them, and 



1 " S. Paolo fuore delle mure." 

 VOL. XTIT. NO. XXXVII. 



IT 



