THE CATHEDRAL BUILDERS
Cloister of S. John Lateran, Rome, 12th century.
(From a photograph by Alinari.)
Frontispiece
See page 66.
THE
CATHEDRAL BUILDERS
THE STORY OF A GREAT MASONIC GUILD
BY LEADER SCOTT
Honorary Member of the 'Accademia delle Belle Arti,' Florence
Author of 'The Renaissance of Art in Italy,' 'Handbook of Sculpture,' 'Echoes of Old Florence,' etc.
With Eighty-three Illustrations
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
153-157 Fifth Avenue
1899
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
London & Bungay.
PROEM
In most histories of Italian art we are conscious of a vast hiatus of several centuries, between the ancient classic art of Rome—which was in its decadence when the Western Empire ceased in the fifth century after Christ—and that early rise of art in the twelfth century which led to the Renaissance.
This hiatus is generally supposed to be a time when Art was utterly dead and buried, its corpse in Byzantine dress lying embalmed in its tomb at Ravenna. But all death is nothing but the germ of new life. Art was not a corpse, it was only a seed, laid in Italian soil to germinate, and it bore several plants before the great reflowering period of the Renaissance.
The seed sown by the Classic schools formed the link between them and the Renaissance, just as the Romance Languages of Provence and Languedoc form the link between the dying out of the classic Latin and the rise of modern languages.
Now where are we to look for this link?
In language we find it just between the Roman and Gallic Empires.
In Art it seems also to be on that borderland—Lombardy—where the Magistri Comacini, a mediæval Guild of Liberi Muratori (Freemasons), kept alive in their traditions the seed of classic art, slowly training it through Romanesque forms up to the Gothic, and hence to the full Renaissance. It is a significant coincidence that this obscure link in Art, like the link-languages, is styled by many writers Provençal or Romance style, for the Gothic influence spread in France even before it expanded so gloriously in Germany.
I think if we study these obscure Comacine Masters we shall find that they form a firm, perfect, and consistent link between the old and the new, filling completely that ugly gap in the History of Art. So fully that all the different Italian styles, whose names are legion—being Lombard-Byzantine at Ravenna and Venice, Romanesque at Pisa and Lucca, Lombard-Gothic at Milan, Norman-Saracen in Sicily and the south,—are nothing more than the different developments in differing climates and ages, of the art of one powerful guild of sculptor-builders, who nursed the seed of Roman art on the border-land of the falling Roman Empire, and spread the growth in far-off countries.
We shall see that all that was architecturally good in Italy during the dark centuries between 500 and 1200 A.D. was due to the Comacine Masters, or to their influence. To them can be traced the building of those fine Lombard Basilicas of S. Ambrogio at Milan, Theodolinda's church at Monza, S. Fedele at Como, San Michele at Pavia, and San Vitale at Ravenna; as well as the florid cathedrals of Pisa, Lucca, Milan, Arezzo, Brescia, etc. Their hand was in the grand Basilicas of S. Agnese, S. Lorenzo, S. Clemente, and others in Rome, and in the wondrous cloisters and aisles of Monreale and Palermo.
Through them architecture and sculpture were carried into foreign lands, France, Spain, Germany, and England, and there developed into new and varied styles according to the exigencies of the climate, and the tone of the people. The flat roofs, horizontal architraves, and low arches of the Romanesque, which suited a warm climate, gradually changed as they went northward into the pointed arches and sharp gables of the Gothic; the steep sloping lines being a necessity in a land where snow and rain were frequent.
But however the architecture developed in after times, it was the Comacine Masters who carried the classic germs and planted them in foreign soils; it was the brethren of the Liberi Muratori who, from their head-quarters at Como, were sent by Gregory the Great to England with Saint Augustine, to build churches for his converts; by Gregory II. to Germany with Boniface on a similar mission; and were by Charlemagne taken to France to build his church at Aix-la-Chapelle, the prototype of French Gothic.
How and why such a powerful and influential guild seemed to spring from a little island in Lake Como, and how their world-wide reputation grew, the following scraps of history, borrowed from many an ancient source, will, I hope, explain.
It is strange that Art historians hitherto have made so little of the Comacine Masters. I do not think that Cattaneo mentions them at all. Hope, although divining a universal Masonic Guild, enlarges on all their work as Lombard; Fergusson disposes of them in a single unimportant sentence; and Symonds is not much more diffuse; while Marchese Ricci gives them the credit of the early Lombard work and no more. I was led at length to a closer study of them by the two ponderous tomes on the Maestri Comacini[1] by Professor Merzario, who has got together a huge amount of material from old writers, old deeds, and old stones. But valuable as the material is, Merzario is bewildering in his redundancy, confusing in his arrangement, and not sufficiently clear in his deductions, his chief aim being to show how many famous artists came from Lombardy.
I wrote to ask Signor Merzario if I might associate his name with mine in preparing a work for the English public, in which his research would furnish me with so much that is valuable to the history of art, but to my regret I found he had died since the book was written, so I never received his permission; though his publisher was very kind in permitting me to use the book as a chief work of reference. With Merzario I have collated many other recognized authorities on architecture and archæology, besides archivial documents, and old chronicles. I have tried to make some slight chronological arrangement, and some intelligible lists of the names of the Masters at different eras. The researches of the great archivist Milanesi in his Documenti per la Storia dell' Arte Senese, and Cesare Guasti in his lately published collection of documents relating to the building of the Duomo of Florence, have been of immense service in throwing a light on the organization of the Lodges and their government. All that Signor Merzario dimly guessed from the more fragmentary earlier records of Parma, Modena, and Verona, shines out clear and well-defined under the fuller light of these later records, and helps us to read many a dark saying of the older
My thanks for much kind assistance in supplying me with facts or authorities, are due to the Rev. Canonico Pietro Tonarelli of Parma cathedral; the Rev. Vincenzo Rossi, Priore of Settignano; Commendatore John Temple Leader of Florence; and to my brother, the Rev. William Miles Barnes, Rector of Monkton, who has written the "English link" for me. Acknowledgments are also due to Signor Alinari and Signor Brogi of Florence, and to Signor Ongania of Venice, for permitting the use of their photographs as illustrations.
CONTENTS
PAGE PROEM v BOOK IROMANO-LOMBARD ARCHITECTS CHAP. I. THE GUILD OF THE COMACINE MASTERS 3 II. THE COMACINES UNDER THE LONGOBARDS 31 III. CIVIL ARCHITECTURE UNDER THE LONGOBARDS 60 IV. COMACINE ORNAMENTATION IN THE LOMBARD ERA 71 V. COMACINES UNDER CHARLEMAGNE 90 VI. IN THE TROUBLOUS TIMES 108 BOOK II
FIRST FOREIGN EMIGRATIONS OF THE COMACINES I. THE NORMAN LINK 121 II. THE GERMAN LINK 133 III. THE ORIGIN OF SAXON ARCHITECTURE (A SUGGESTION), BY THE REV. W. MILES BARNES 139 IV. THE TOWERS AND CROSSES OF IRELAND 161 BOOK III
ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTS I. TRANSITION PERIOD 171 II. THE MODENA-FERRARA LINK 192 III. THE TUSCAN LINK. 1. PISA 206 2. LUCCA AND PISTOJA 225 IV. ROMANESQUE AND GOTHIC ORNAMENTATION 242 V. CIVIL ARCHITECTURE OF THE ROMANESQUE ERA 256 BOOK IV
ITALIAN-GOTHIC, AND RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTS I. THE SECESSION OF THE PAINTERS 265 II. THE SIENA AND ORVIETO LODGES 282 III. THE FLORENTINE LODGE 308 IV. THE MILAN LODGE 345 1. THE COMACINES UNDER THE VISCONTI 349 2. THE CERTOSA OF PAVIA 372 V. THE VENETIAN LINK 383 VI. THE ROMAN LODGE 400 EPILOGUE 423 AUTHORITIES CONSULTED 427 INDEX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Cloister of S. John Lateran, Rome Frontispiece Comacine Panel from the Church of San Clemente, Rome To face page 9 Frescoes in the Subterranean Church of San Clemente, Rome " 10 Church of Sta. Costanza, Rome " 12 Door of the Church of S. Marcello at Capua " 13 Ancient Sculpture in Monza Cathedral " 38 Comacine Capital in San Zeno, Verona " 44 Basilica of S. Frediano at Lucca " 50 Façade of San Michele at Pavia " 52 Tracing of an old print of the Tosinghi Palace, a mediæval building once in Florence, with Laubia on the front " 60 Tower of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Rome " 64 Byzantine Altar in the Church of S. Ambrogio, Milan " 74 Fresco in the Spanish Chapel, S. Maria Novella, Florence " 78 Door of the Church of San Michele, Pavia " 80 Comacine Knot on a panel at S. Ambrogio, Milan " 82 Sculpture from Sant' Abbondio, Como " 82 Pulpit in the Church of S. Ambrogio, Milan " 88 Door of a Chapel in S. Prassede, Rome " 90 Pluteus from S. Marco dei Precipazi, now in S. Giacomo, Venice. " 90 Comacine Capitals " 96 Exterior of San Piero a Grado, Pisa " 102 Comacine Capital in San Zeno, Verona, emblematizing Man clinging to Christ (the Palm) " 110 Capital in the Atrium of S. Ambrogio, Milan " 112 The West Door, St. Bartholomew, Smithfield " 122 South Side of the Choir, St. Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield " 124 Palazzo del Popolo and Palazzo Comunale, Todi " 136 Fiesole Cathedral. Interior " 145 S. Clemente, Rome. Interior showing ancient screen " 146 Tower of S. Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna " 153 Tower of S. Satyrus. Milan "BOOK I
ROMANO-LOMBARD ARCHITECTS
THE CATHEDRAL BUILDERS
CHAPTER I
THE GUILD OF THE COMACINE MASTERS
In looking back to the great church-building era, i.e. to the centuries between 1100 and 1500, do not the questions arise in one's mind, "How did all these great and noble buildings spring up simultaneously in all countries and all climates?" and "How comes it that in all cases they were similar to each other at similar times?"
In the twelfth century, when the Italian buildings, such as the churches at Verona, Bergamo, Como, etc., were built with round arches, the German Domkirchen at Bonn, Mayence, Treves, Lubeck, Freiburg, etc.; the French churches at Aix, Tournus, Caen, Dijon, etc.; and the English cathedrals at Canterbury, Bristol, Chichester, St. Bartholomew's in London—in fact, all those built at the same time—were not only round-arched, but had an almost identical style, and that style was Lombard.
In the thirteenth century, when pointed arches mingled with the round in Italy, the same mixture is found contemporaneously in all the other countries.
Again in the fourteenth century, when Cologne, Strasburg, and Magdeburg cathedrals were built in pure Gothic; then those of Westminster, York, Salisbury, etc., arose in England; the Domes of Milan, Assisi, and Florence in Italy; and the churches of Beauvais, Laon, and Rouen in France. These all came, almost simultaneously, like sister buildings with one impronto on them all.
Is it likely that many single architects in different countries would have had the same ideas at the same time? Could any single architect, indeed, have designed every detail of even one of those marvellous complex buildings? or have executed or modelled one-tenth of the wealth of sculpture lavished on one of those glorious cathedrals? I think not.
The existence of one of these churches argues a plurality of workers under one governing influence; the existence of them all argues a huge universal brotherhood of architects and sculptors with different branches in each country, and the same aims, technique, knowledge and principles permeating through all, while each conforms in detail to local influences and national taste.
If we once realize that such a Guild must have existed, and that under the united hands of the grand brotherhood, the great age of church-building was endowed with monuments which have been the glory of all ages, then much that has been obscure in Art History becomes clear; and what was before a marvel is now shown to be a natural result.
There is another point also to be considered. The great age of church-building flourished at a time when other arts and commerce were but just beginning. Whence, out of the dark ages, sprang the skill and knowledge to build such fine and sculpturesque edifices, when other trades were in their infancy, and civic and communal life scarcely organized?
It is indeed a subject of wonder how the artists of the early period of the rise of Art were trained. Here we find men almost in the dark ages, who
All these things will become more and more clear as we follow up the traces of the Comacine Guild from the chrysalis state, in which Roman art hybernated during the dark winter of the Middle Ages, through the grub state of the Lombard period, to the glorious winged flights of the full Gothic of the Renaissance.
And first as to the chrysalis, at little Como. The origin of the name Comacine Masters has caused a great deal of argument amongst Italian writers new and old. Some think it merely a place-name referring to the island of Comacina, in Lake Lario or Como; others take a wider significance, and say it means not only the city of Como, but all the province, which was once a Roman colony of great extension. Others again, among whom is Grotius, suggest that it is not a place-name at all, but comes from the Teutonic word Gemachin or house-builders. As the Longobards afterwards called them in Italian Maestri Casarii, which means the same thing, there is perhaps something to be said for this hypothesis.
The first to draw attention to the name Magistri Comacini, was the erudite Muratori, that searcher out of ancient MSS., who unearthed from the archives an edict, dated November 22, 643, signed by King Rotharis, in which are included two clauses treating of the Magistri Comacini and their colleagues. The two clauses, Nos. 143 and 144, out of the 388 inscribed in crabbed Latin, are, when anglicized, to the following intent—
"Art. 143. Of the Magister Comacinus. If the Comacine Master with his colliganti (colleagues) shall have contracted to restore or build the house of any person whatsoever, the contract for payment being made, and it chances that some one shall die by the fall of the said house, or any material or stones from it, the owner of the said house shall not be cited by the Magister Comacinus or his brethren to compensate them for homicide or injury; because having for their own gain contracted for the payment of the building, they must sustain the risks and injuries thereof."[2]
"Art. 144. Of the engaging or hiring of Magistri. If any person has engaged or hired one or more of the Comacine Masters to design a work (conduxerit ad operam dictandum), or to daily assist his workmen in building a palace or a house, and it should happen that by reason of the house some Comacine should be killed, the owner of the house is not considered responsible; but if a pole or a stone shall kill or injure any extraneous person, the Master builder shall not bear the blame, but the person who hired him shall make compensation."[3]
These laws prove that in the seventh century the Magistri Comacini were a compact and powerful guild, capable of asserting their rights, and that the guild was properly organized, having degrees of different ranks; that the higher orders were entitled Magistri, and could "design" or "undertake" a work;—i.e. act as architects; and that the colligantes worked under, or with, them. In fact, a powerful organization altogether;—so powerful and so solid, that it speaks of a very ancient foundation.
But when and how did it originate?
Was it a surviving branch of the Roman Collegium? a decadent group of Byzantine artists stranded in Italy? or was it of older Eastern origin? A clever logician could prove it to be all three.
For the Roman theory, he could base his arguments on the Latin nomenclature of officials, and the Latin form of the churches.
For the Byzantine theory, he would have the style of certain ornamentations, and the assertions of German writers, such as Müller, and Stieglitz.
For the ancient Eastern theory, he might plead their Hebrew and Oriental symbolism.
We will take the Byzantine theory first. Müller (Archaeologie der Kunst, p. 224) says that: "From Constantinople as the centre of mechanical skill, a knowledge of art radiated to distant countries, corporations of builders of Grecian birth were permitted to exercise a judicial government among themselves according to the laws of the country to which they owed allegiance;" and Stieglitz, in his History of Architecture, records a tradition that at the time the Lombards were in possession of Northern Italy, i.e. from the sixth to the eighth century, the Byzantine builders formed themselves into guilds and associations, and that on account of having received from the Popes the privilege of living according to their own laws and ordinances, they were called Freemasons.[4] Italian and Latin writers, however, place the advent of these Greek artists at a later period; they are supposed to have been sculptors, who, rebelling against the strict Iconoclasm of Leo, the Isaurian—718 A.D. to 741—came over to Italy where art was more free, and joined the Collegia there.
But at this time most of the chief Longobardic churches were already built by the Comacine Masters, and were Roman in form, mediæval in ornamentation, and full of ancient symbolism. Herr Stieglitz must have pre-dated his tradition. Besides this I can find no sign in Italian buildings, or writers about them, of any lasting Byzantine influence. Indeed pure Byzantine architecture in Italy seems sporadic and isolated, not only in regard to site, but in regard to time. The Ravenna mosaics, a few in Rome, a little work in Venice, is all one can call absolutely Byzantine; and the influence never spread far. The Comacine ornamentation indeed has qualities utterly distinct in spirit, though in some of its forms allied to Byzantine. It is possible that some of these Eastern exiles joined the Comacine Guild, but there is quite enough in the communications of Como with the Greeks, to account for their having imbibed as much as they did of Byzantine style. Some of the Bishops who were rulers of Como before and after Lombard times were Greeks; notably Amantius the fourth, who was translated there from Thessalonica, and his successor, S. Abbondio. Also through the Patriarch of Aquileja, under whose jurisdiction they were brought later, the guild was put into contact with the Greek sculptors then at Venice, Grado, and Ravenna.