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Italy,
Rome, St. Peter's Basilica
Professor Dale Kinney
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Constantine, Colossal Head, Rome, 31530 CE Marble, Museo
del Palazzo dei Conservatori, Musei Capitolini |
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The
Early Christian Basilica: Introduction
The basilica is
the most characteristic form of Christian church: a longitudinal
building with an apse
on one short side opposite the main entrance, often subdivided
into long parallel spaces: the nave
in the center, leading from entrance to apse, and narrower aisles
on either side, separated from the nave by rows of columns.
The invention of this building type is usually credited to the
architects of the Roman emperor Constantine
the Great (reigned 305–337), the first Christian emperor,
who constructed many churches around the Mediterranean world
after his legendary conversion to Christianity in 312.
Constantine
the Great, c. 315, colossal head from a seated portrait statue,
ht. 2.6 meters (original statue ht. 10 meters), marble, Palazzo
dei Conservatori, Rome
In truth it is not entirely certain that the Christian basilica
is a purely Constantinian invention. The Christian author Lactantius
indicates that there was a large church building in Nicomedia
(modern Ismit, in Turkey) already in 303 CE, which was torn
down by soldiers as the persecuting emperors Diocletian
and Galerius
watched. This church was evidently a conspicuous building, on
a high site with houses all around it. A few years later, Christians
in Rome erected another very large building outside the city
in a cemetery on the via Appia,
facing the suburban villa of the pagan emperor Maxentius,
and this one was definitely basilican. Nevertheless, it is still
safe to say that Constantine's churches were far more influential
than any Christian buildings made before him, and some of them
determined the course of monumental Christian architecture for
the next two millennia.
Bibliography
Achim Arbeiter, Alt-St. Peter in Geschichte und Wissenschaft
(Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 1988).
Turpin C. Bannister, "The Constantinian Basilica of Saint
Peter at Rome," Journal of the Society of Architectural
Historians 27 (1968) 3–32.
Jürgen Christern and Katharina Thiersch, "Der Aufriss
von Alt-St.-Peter, 2. Teil...," Römische Quartalschrift
64 (1969) 1–34.
Giacomo Grimaldi, Descrizione della Basilica antica di San Pietro
in Vaticano. Codice Barberiniano latino 2733, ed. Reto Niggl
(Vatican City, 1972).
Sible De Blaauw, Cultus et decor. Liturgia e architettura nella
Roma tardoantica e medievale, II (Vatican City, 1994).
Dale Kinney, "The Apocalypse in Early Christian Monumental
Decoration," in The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, ed.
Richard K. Emmerson and Bernard McGinn (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1992), 200–216.
Dale Kinney, "Spolia," in St. Peter's in the Vatican,
ed. William Tronzo, forthcoming.
Richard Krautheimer, "The Building Inscriptions and the
Dates of Construction of Old St. Peter's: A Reconsideration,"
Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana 25 (1989),
1–23.
Richard Krautheimer, Spencer Corbett, Wolfgang Frankl, Corpus
Basilicarum Christianarum Romae, V (Vatican City: Pontificio
Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 1977).
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