Architecture and Mosaics of Wilton Church. 



109 



ON THE 



Irrljitoto atrl 3$nsara nf Btltnn Cjntrrjj, 



By James E. Nightingale, Esq. 



In an ordinary way there would be little to connect a body of 

 Archaeologists with a newly-erected church, but in the present 

 instance we have the type of a style of architecture seldom seen in 

 the North of Europe, and scarcely at all in England, except in that 

 modified form known as the Norman style, and which preceded the 

 introduction of the pointed arch. 



Accustomed as we are to the different phases of Gothic archi- 

 tecture — the offspring of the North — comparatively little is known 

 of the Byzantine and Romanesque styles which are found in 

 Southern Europe. Now as we have in Wilton Church a well- 

 developed example of the latter style, differing so materially from 

 our Northern Gothic — although both came originally from the same 

 source — I think it will be no loss of time if we take advantage of 

 this building in the way of illustration of early Christian archi- 

 tecture, especially as it contains, besides ancient stained glass, some 

 of the old Italian mosaics, specimens of which it would be difficult, 

 if not impossible, to find elsewhere in this country. 



During the first three centuries of the Christian aera, churches 

 can scarcely be said to have existed. The ordinary places of 

 worship of the early Christians were confined to catacombs and 

 other secret places. During this same period the architecture of 

 the heathen Romans had gradually deteriorated ; and this followed 

 so regular a course that when the Emperor Constantine, in the 

 year 323, embraced the Christian faith, Roman architecture was at 

 its worst. 



An entirely new order of sacred architecture now arose. The 

 Christian ceremonies required large spaces for the assemblage of the 



