By the Rev. B acres Olivier, M.A. 



99 



the form of the cross is hardly perceptible, but from the time of 

 Justinian onwards it obtained, as it deserved, more prominence. 

 Only, in Rome and the West it was distinctly the Latin and not the 

 Greek cross, the Italian of the south — and indeed of the north — being 

 decidedly conservative in regard to their Basilica and loving to pro- 

 duce in their churches wherever they built them — its feature of 

 length. 



I trust that I have now in some degree pointed out the condition 

 of church architecture in Italy at the time to which I now desire to 

 pass, the time when the Lombards arrived in the north of Italy, or 

 rather perhaps at the time when they had exchanged their character 

 of newly-come invaders for that of an established, though short-lived 

 kingdom : which can hardly, I suppose, be said to have been the 

 case before the early part of the seventh century. 



They found established as the prevalent model of the Christian 

 church, the Basilican form : they found in the west part of Italy a 

 circular church, and the Greek cross form, here and there : they found 

 also the cupola adopted as the crown, so to speak, of the cross so 

 employed, though such instances were at this time, exceedingly rare. 



And what did the Lombards import? If we speak of the 

 Lombards as Lombards, as members I mean of that vast barbarian 

 horde which overran Europe at the conclusion of the fifth century, 

 and to whom the Goths of ill fame, were nearly related, I really 

 do not know that they imported anything; the Lombards being 

 conquered by the Franks, and collapsing towards the end of the 

 eighth century, and there being strictly speaking, no one authentic 

 monument of their time, in the shape of a church existing. But if 

 by the Lombards is meant the men of that part of Italy to which 

 the name of Lombardy or something like it, is attached throughout 

 the middle ages, the men of the district of which Turin and Venice 

 form the two northern, and Viterbo, and Ancona, the two southern 

 corners, if the mediaeval architects of this glorious district formed 

 architecturally speaking, the Lombard school, why then — to these 

 Longobards, as they were formerly called, we owe the finest works 

 of art existing in the world 



But it is not so. Architecturally speaking the Lombard school 



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