Influences
increased their commerce, so that by the
II. Geological
Central Italy: Brilliant sunshine
Tuscany possessed great mineral wealth and
an abundance of stone. Various building
materials were used in Rome, including
bricks, volcanic tufa or perperino, travertine
stone from Tivoli, and marble from Carrara.
Much materials were obtained from the
ruins of classic building.
Characters
Pisa sent merchant fleets to the Holy land for
the Easter fair at Jerusalem. The Pisans
captured and defeated the Moslems in wars
and this contact with Moslems accounts for
the characteristic Pisan use of striped
marbles. During the period the Popes began
to exercise influence in Italian politics.
the basilican type of church was closely
adhered to during this period; Italians were
slow to adopt a new system of construction
and preferred to concentrate on beauty and
delicacy of ornamental detail, while the
architectural character was governed by
classic traditions.
North Italy: extremes of heat and cold
The low-lying plains of Lombardy supplied
clay for making bricks, which, used with
marble from the hills, gave a special
character to the architecture.
North Italy
> In spite of the intervening Alps, the
invaders who had occupied the valley of the
Po Kept up commercial communications
with those on the Rhine by means of the
Alpine passes.
Commerce and art were the special care of
the Venetians. Their close alliance with
Byzantium (Constantinople) greatly
end of the 11th century it extended along
Dalmatian, Croatian coasts to those of the
black sea and Western Mediterranean. They
raised glorious buildings, and brought
precious freights from the East, including
relics from the Holy Land. All the free cities
such as Mila, Pavia, Verona, and Genoa, vied
with one another in the beauty of their
public -----buildings, and this spirit of rivalry
encourage the most remarkable structural
advances in all Italy.
South Italy and Sicily: sub-tropical, flat roof
and other oriental features
the mountains of Sicily of South Italy
supplied calcareous and shelly limestone as
well as many kinds of marble. South Italy and
Sicily
In 827 the Moslems landed Sicily and
gradually overran the island. The latter part
of the 10th century was their most
properous period, but bloody religious
struggles ended in the downfall of he
Moslems dynasty
Under Moslem rule even church facades
were ornamented with geometrical
patterns, because the Moslem religion
forebade the representation of the human
figure
In consequence of the brilliant climate, while
arcades are universal, doors, and windows
are small and unimportant, with 'jambs' in
rectangular recesses or 'orders' filled in with
small shafts, crowned with semi-circular
arches in contrast with the classic architrave
North Italy. It was in Lombardy that the most
important developments took place. The
principal innovation was the development of
the ribbed vault which brought about the
adoption of many new constructive features.
The churches are basilican in type, but naves
as well as side aisles are vaulted and have
external wooden roofs. Aisles are often two
storeys in height, while thick walls between
the side chapels act as buttresses to resist
the pressure of the vaults.
The flat, severe entrance facades stretch
across the whole church, thus masking
externally the division of nave and aisles.
There is often a central projecting porch,
with columns standing on the backs of
crouching beasts and a wheel window above
to light nave.
The halt-columns on the side towards the
nave carried up as vaulting shafts, and this
was the beginning of a system which was
destined in the Gothic period to transform
the shape of piers. Roughly carved
grotesques of men and beasts occur, along
with vigorous hunting scenes and incidents
of daily life. Crouching beasts support
columns of projecting porches and of
bishop's thrones
Example of North Italian
St. Ambrogio. Milan
-founded by the great St. Ambrose in the 4th
century, raised on its present pW1 and partly
rebuilt with vault and dome in the 12th
century. The plan includes the only existing
atrium among Lombard churches, a nathex
flanked by towers, vaulted nave and aisles
With an octagon over the Crossing, triforium
gallery, raised choir over the crypt, and an
apse.
strips connected horizontally by small arches
springing from corbels. Wheel windows, are
often made of sheets of pierced marble, and
are highly elaborate.
Greater variety in columns and capitals was
brought about by changes which resulted
from the successive introduction of
Byzantine. Moslemn and Norman Art of
which the nave arcade columns and the
coupled columns in the cloisters at Monreale
are good ex- amples
In South Italy, elaborately modelled bronze
doors are characteristic externally, while
coloured mosaics add to the beauty of the
interiors of Palermo churches. Colour, in
spreading masses of geometric design was
the predominant note of internal decoration
of south Italian and most especially of
Sicilian churches, while the bronze pilasters
clearly indicate the influence of classic
tradition.
Examples of South Italy and Sicily
Cefalu Cathedral-1131-1240, founded by
Count Roger as a royal pantheon, was served
by Augustinian Canons. It is externally the
most distinctly Romanesque church in Sicily,
and has a basilican nave with groined aisle
vaults, columnar arcades a high transept and
a tri-apsidal East end with later ribbed
vaulting over presbytery and south transept.
The two Western towers of minaret
proportions, enclose a columned porch

*narthex -a long arcaded entrance porch to

a christian basilican In South italy domes
rather than vaults were adopted, but timber
roofs were the rule in Sicily under Moslem
influence and had stalactite ceilings, rich in
design and colour. Lateral walls were
occasionally decorated with flat pilaster