Chapter L: De Fourcaud (3)

You can gather this history around the Kutb: four old Hindu forts, still quite recognizable, once surrounded a large city and some Buddhist temples where the monks in yellow robes with shaven heads walked about peacefully; there remains a large iron post charged with some Sanskrit inscriptions. About the year 1000, over the wall of the Himalayas overflowed the first hordes of the Mussulmans. The city was razed and from the stones of the great temple a mosque was built, the ruins of which now lie around us. Here is a triple colonnade where you recognize the old Buddhist pillars, and the patient, complicated, confused work of the poor Hindu workman, with all of its childish indecency. They are deeply worked, overcharged with chisellings that time has made almost illegible; here and there, figures of a symbolical obscenity appear, a few mutilated by the moral superiority of the conqueror. Little by little, you accustom yourself to read what the eaten away stone has to say, the lines form themselves afresh. You recognize processions of gods surrounded by guards and faithful followers, animals, tigers, lewd monkeys and elephants, which, from a very early period, occupy the Hindu mind. These thousands of stones, which ought to be arranged in irregular chapels and leafy roofs, the Mussulmans have erected into columns, rectangular galleries, or in geometrical and simple rows. Upon the great bare walls, cabalistic numbers and letters that look like the tracks of birds are directed against the unbelievers. Above all, dominating the immense cemetery-like plain, inviolate through time, the Kutb throws its straight rocket of red stone and white marble, two hundred and fifty feet into the sky. Six centuries ago, from its top the sharp chant of the Muezzin broke the silence of the great plain when the sun dropped behind the horizon.

KENILWORTH CASTLE

SIR JAMES D. MACKENZIE

Apart from the great historical interest attaching to these magnificent ruins, they deserve, architecturally, the closest examination and study, containing, as they do, elaborate specimens of the best constructions, in both military and domestic branches, during the different periods of the art in this country. We find first the massive square Norman keep, which had its protecting moat. This was the work of the original grantee, Geoffrey de Clinton, the treasurer and chamberlain of Henry I. Next comes an era, from 1180 to 1187, when we find entries for building and repairs to walls and fortifications; and again, from 1212 to 1216, the castle being then in the hands of King John, vast sums were expended upon the outer line of walls, with their flanking defences of Lunn’s Tower and the Water Tower, and upon a chamber and other accommodation for the King, most of which still remains, though the timber constructions inside and against the walls have, of course, not survived. The next development is in the Late Decorated or Perpendicular style including the ruins of the great Hall and some other buildings at the west end of the inner court still called Lancaster’s Buildings, of the Fourteenth Century, rather late in the reign of Edward III., being some of the additions made by John of Gaunt, after he obtained Kenilworth by his first wife.

After this portion come the various alterations and insertions of the Elizabethan period, the beautiful gatehouse on the north side, and the towers and works added by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and called the Leicester Buildings. Here are, therefore, examples of four different periods in each of which the particular work is capable of proof by existing documents, showing the gradations and changes which these buildings underwent, according to the requirements of the different ages, in passing from the barbarism of a military despotism to the comforts and splendour of later civilization. It is a magnificent specimen, and one easy of access. As we have said, the Manor of Kenilworth was bestowed by Henry I. upon Geoffrey de Clinton, who founded here a castle and a monastery; deriving, doubtless, from a Norman follower of Duke William, he must have been of worth and eminence among the barons, since besides the Royal posts which he occupied, the King appointed him to the Chief Justiceship of England. He was succeeded by his son Geoffrey, married to Agnes, daughter of Roger, Earl of Warwick, whose son, Henry, parted with Kenilworth, most probably on compulsion, to King John, who made it a Royal residence. One of the rebellious sons of Henry II. had taken possession of it, and held it for a time. Henry III., on his sister, the Princess Eleanor, marrying Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, settled Kenilworth on her for life but in 1254 it was granted for the joint lives of the Earl and Countess of Leicester, and they made their home here. During the Baron’s War which followed, this castle was made the base of operations by de Montfort, who provided it with warlike engines of defence not then known in England, and stores of all sorts, and after the battle of Lewis, Richard, King of the Romans, Henry’s brother, with his youngest son, Edmund, was sent prisoner to Kenilworth, under the care of Leicester’s second son Simon. In 1265, after effecting his escape from the custody of the barons at Hereford, Prince Edward, by a daring night attack, beat up the quarters of young de Montfort at Kenilworth, and took temporary possession of the place, making prisoners thirteen knights bannerets, with their followers, who were unguardedly sleeping in houses around the castle perhaps for the sake of an early bath. Young de Montfort and his pages narrowly escaped capture and only did so by a headlong race “some stark naked, some in breeches or drawers, some in shirts and many with their clothes under their arms.” Departing thence Prince Edward rapidly effected a junction with his friends in the West, and overwhelmed and slaughtered the Earl of Leicester at the battle of Evesham. After this the Royal forces returned to Kenilworth which still held out manfully under the Earl’s second son Simon and underwent a close siege that lasted for six months.

Trenches were cut on the land side of the castle and huge wooden towers, holding slingers and archers, were advanced against the wall, while barges, transported overland from Chester maintained the attack across the castle lake; but the garrison which numbered 1,200 men, met these assaults with the mangonels and other engines of de Montfort, and only gave in when reduced by famine, when, with the surrender of Kenilworth, the Civil War came to an end in December, 1265.

Having thus recovered possession of the fortress, King Henry bestowed it and the manor upon his youngest son Edmund, whom he created, two years later, Earl of Lancaster. In 1279, under the encouragement of that martial prince, Edward I., a very magnificent tournament was held at Kenilworth, under Mortimer, Earl of March, for the space of three days, at which, besides the sports of tilting and the barriers, the new military game of the Round Table was introduced. King Edward II., after his flight and capture, was brought a prisoner here to meet the commission appointed by Parliament, from whose lips he received the announcement of his deposition in favour of his son, at hearing which he fell senseless to the ground. Of the presence chamber, where this mournful scene was enacted, little remains but fragments of walls and two large bay windows festooned with ivy. The unfortunate King was shortly after, on December 5, removed hence to his hideous doom at Berkeley Castle on January 25. On the accession of Edward III., the castle again became the seat of baronial splendour under the Earls of Lancaster, the third of whom, Henry, was created Duke of Lancaster, but dying s. p. male (35 Edward III.), his two daughters became heirs to his great estates: Blanche, the younger, inheriting Kenilworth and bringing it, and afterwards, on her sister’s death the whole property of her father, in marriage to John of Gaunt, fourth son of Edward III., who shortly after revived in him the title of Duke of Lancaster. The wealth thus obtained from his father enabled in great measure the duke’s son and heir, Henry of Bolingbroke, in later days to oust his cousin, Richard II., from the throne, and to take his place thereon as King Henry IV., being greatly driven thereto by the King’s treatment of him in regard to Kenilworth.

The range called Lancaster Buildings was caused to be erected by John of Gaunt between his accession to the property and his death in 1399. They lie on the south side of the inner quadrangle and there is a tower with three stories of arches adjoining the hall on the north, also of this date; the same origin is given to the Strong, or Mervin’s Tower, as it is called by Sir Walter Scott. The ancient garden of the castle was situated near the north-east angle of the outer wall, where the Swan Tower meets the lake and wet ditch on the north.

Of course on Henry IV. succeeding, the crown resumed the ownership of the fortress, and thus it continued, often enlivened by the visits of royalty, until the days of Elizabeth, who bestowed it on her favourite, Robert Dudley, fifth son of the Duke of Northumberland, with all the royalties thereto belonging. Without enlarging on the history of this courtier, it is enough to say that he seems to have expended the enormous emoluments derived from the many dignities with which Elizabeth overwhelmed him in his lavish outlay upon Kenilworth. The additions and alterations made there by this Dudley involved an expenditure of £60,000--an incredible sum in those days. He erected the great gatehouse on the north, also the mass of square rooms from the north-east angle of the upper court, the buildings, called after him, and the gallery and lower gatehouse towers, together with a great range of stabling. He removed the Norman windows from the keep, replacing them by more modern ones; and it is evident that the great object of his outlay was to provide magnificent accommodation for the entertainment of his Queen and her Court.

This reception took place in July, 1575, and the festivities were continued for seventeen days during which every sort of prodigal extravagance possible at that age was indulged in. It cost Leicester £1,000 a day. At his death he bequeathed the castle to his brother Ambrose, Earl of Warwick, for life, and afterwards to his own son Sir Robert Dudley, upon whose birth and legitimacy the father (who is certainly one of the dark characters in English history) chose to throw doubts.

This seems to have incited that greedy monarch, James I., to refuse the succession to Sir Robert, whom he forced to consent to a nominal sale of the property to Henry, Prince of Wales, at one-third of its value, and even that was never paid. Dudley, in disgust, withdrew from England, and lived in much honour at Florence, when he died about the year 1650.

When the place fell into the hands of Oliver Cromwell, a sort of commission of army officers was sent to Kenilworth to divide and share the property between them, and they, caring nothing for historical associations, the splendour of the structure, or the richness of the furniture and plenishing (it was but seventy-five years after the entertainment of Elizabeth there) proceeded to strip the place, to cut the timber, kill the deer, and even to sell the walls and roofing, for the value of the bare materials.

At the restoration, Charles II. granted the reversion of the manor to Lawrence, Lord Hyde, second son of Chancellor Clarendon, whom he created Baron Kenilworth and Earl of Rochester. His grandson leaving only a daughter, the lands and ruins came by marriage to the Essex family and, afterwards, by marriage to Thomas Villiers, the second son of the Earl of Jersey, created, in 1756, Baron Hyde, in whose family they still continue.

At Kenilworth was immured Eleanor Cobham, the wife of Humphrey, Earl of Gloucester, after the performance of her penance on a charge of practicing witchcraft against Henry VI. and here she ended her days.

As in most other cases the Norman baron founded his castle on the site of a Saxon home with a fortified burh; a square keep was built on the most commanding position, perhaps on the mound, and a large walled enclosure was made, defended on the west, south and east sides by a lake and by a deep ditch across the north front. Somewhat on the west side of this was formed the inner ward a rectangular enclosure, nearly one and one-half acres in area, the north-east corner of which was occupied by Clinton’s keep. This is a plain late Norman edifice with a forebuilding on the west side, and containing a vaulted basement and one upper floor only, the former being entirely filled with earth. The main floor formed one immense room thirty-four feet by sixty-four and about forty feet high. The forebuilding contained the staircase of approach to the entrance doorway, and above was a room, possibly an oratory. Large corner turrets, three containing mural chambers and one large spiral stair, cap the angles of the keep, the walls of which are of immense thickness. There is no evidence as to what was the nature of the Norman buildings in this ward, since they have been replaced by the work of the Earls of Lancaster, and of John of Gaunt, and are called by their name. West from the keep are the ruined kitchens, showing a huge fireplace and baking ovens. At the north-west angle is the Strong Tower, of three stages, which was, perhaps, used as a prison for persons of consequence. Adjoining this is the Hall, a pure Perpendicular building, due to John of Gaunt, beyond which was the white hall, and next the State rooms, which are connected with a large garderobe tower. Then at the south-east corner comes the range to which the name of Leicester’s Buildings has been given, and the east face to the keep is made up by the site of Dudley’s Lobby and Henry VIII.’s lodgings, but all this has perished.

The outer ward is a large oblong enclosure, 270 yards long from east to west by 174; at its east end were domestic offices, the entrances and the chapel. Originally this ward was divided by a ditch seventy feet wide running north and south with a bridge for access to the inner ward, part of it remaining in front of Leicester’s buildings, and the rest having probably been filled in by Dudley after the visit of Elizabeth. This outer ward contains about nine acres, having a circumference of 750 yards; it is formed by a strong curtain wall embracing six important buildings; namely, the octagon Swan Tower on the north-west, Mortimer’s Tower, or the gatehouse, at the head of the dam across the lake, called either after Lord Mortimer of Wigmore (temp. Edward III.), or from Sir John Mortimer, imprisoned here in the reign of Henry V. Then towards the east came the Warden’s Tower, and next the Water Tower at the south-east corner, a complete mural bastion of Early Decorated style; whence the curtain runs to Lunn’s Tower at the north-east angle, a round building thirty-six feet in diameter and forty high. At the back of this part of the wall is a long range of stabling and farm buildings, with an upper half-timbered storey, said to have been built by the great Earl Thomas of Lancaster, in the reign of Edward II., but some part is Late Perpendicular. Next to this is the chapel. West of Lunn’s Tower is the building called Leicester’s Gatehouse, built in 1570, a rectangular tower with octangular corner turrets. On the north side of the great ditch, which is cut through the rock and forms the north defence, is Clinton’s green, where are still banks of earth, probably survivals of the great siege by Henry III.

In front of Mortimer’s Tower is the dam, eighty yards long, across the valley, having at its further end the remains of a flood-gate and outer gatehouse, or the gallery tower, with a drawbridge here over the outer ditch. This was the point at which Queen Elizabeth made her entry. Beyond it was called the Brayz, where tournaments were held, as they also were on the dam itself. On both sides of the dam extended a lake, half a mile long on the west, and some twelve feet deep, upon which the attack by ships was made by Henry III. Finally, beyond the Brayz was a great curved outwork forming a tête-du-pont in front of the entrance.

The keep, or Clinton’s Tower was perhaps built between 1170 and 1180. Lunn’s Tower may be the work of King John. Henry III. expended large sums at Kenilworth, and to him is ascribed the great dam, the Water and Warden’s Towers, and much of the curtain on the south and east. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, altered the keep into Tudor Style, and besides the buildings called by his name, added the Gallery Tower and the gatehouse at the north-east, “a very fine example of a declining period in English architecture.” John of Gaunt certainly built the great Hall (circ. 1390), “one of the most beautiful examples of Early Perpendicular work in the kingdom,” and he is said to have built the portion called Lancaster’s Buildings, between Cæsar’s Tower and the hill. It was at Kenilworth, during one of her visits in August, 1572, while out hunting, that Queen Elizabeth read, as she rode, the terrible news of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew.

SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE

JOHN RUSKIN

“SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE,” Our Lady of Health, or of Safety, would be a more literal translation, yet not perhaps fully expressing the force of the Italian word in this case. The church was built between 1630 and 1680, in acknowledgment of the cessation of the plague:--of course to the Virgin, to whom the modern Italian has recourse in all his principal distresses, and who receives his gratitude for all principal deliverances.

The hasty traveller is usually enthusiastic in his admiration of this building; but there is a notable lesson to be derived from it, which is not often read. On the opposite side of the broad canal of the Guidecca is a small church, celebrated among Renaissance architects as of Palladian design, but which would hardly attract the notice of the general observer, unless on account of the pictures by John Bellini which it contains, in order to see which the traveller may perhaps remember having been taken across the Guidecca to the Church of the “Redentore.” But he ought carefully to compare these two buildings with each other, the one built “to the Virgin,” the other “to the Redeemer” (also a votive offering after the cessation of the plague of 1576): the one, the most conspicuous church in Venice, its dome, the principal one by which she is first discerned, rising out of the distant sea; the other, small and contemptible, on a suburban island, and only becoming an object of interest, because it contains three small pictures! For in relative magnitude and conspicuousness of these two buildings, we have an accurate index of the relative importance of the ideas of the Madonna and of Christ in the modern Italian mind.

The Church of Santa Maria della Salute on the Grand Canal, one of the earliest buildings of the Grotesque Renaissance, is rendered impressive by its position, size, and general proportions. These latter are exceedingly good; the grace of the whole building being chiefly dependent on the inequality of size in its cupolas, and pretty grouping of the two campaniles behind them. It is to be generally observed that the proportions of buildings have nothing whatever to do with the style or general merits of their architecture. An architect trained in the worst schools, and utterly devoid of all meaning or purpose in his work, may yet have such a natural gift of massing and grouping as will render all his structures effective when seen from a distance: such a gift is very general with the late Italian builders, so that many of the most contemptible edifices in the country have good stage effect so long as we do not approach them. The Church of the Salute is farther assisted by the beautiful flight of steps in front of it down to the Canal; and its façade is rich and beautiful of its kind, and was chosen by Turner for the principal object in his well-known view of the Grand Canal. The principal faults of the building are the meagre windows in the sides of the cupola, and the ridiculous disguise of the buttresses under the form of colossal scrolls; the buttresses themselves being originally a hypocrisy, for the cupola is stated by Lazari to be of timber, and therefore needs none. The sacristy contains several precious pictures: the three on its roof by Titian, much vaunted, are indeed as feeble as they are monstrous; but the small Titian, “St. Mark, with Sts. Cosmo and Damian,” was, when I first saw it, to my judgment, by far the first work of Titian’s in Venice. It has since been restored by the Academy, and it seemed to me entirely destroyed, but I had not time to examine it carefully.

At the end of the larger sacristy is the lunette which once decorated the tomb of the Doge Francesco Dandolo; and at the side of it, one of the most highly finished Tintorets in Venice, namely _The Marriage in Cana_, an immense picture, some twenty-five feet long by fifteen feet high, and said by Lazari to be one of the few which Tintoret signed with his name.

THE RAMPARTS OF CARCASSONNE

A. MOLINIER

To what race shall we attribute the foundation of the city of Carcassonne? We cannot say exactly, so many races having occupied this part of the valley of the Aude in turn; the first in point of time was that of the Iberians, that mysterious people, who had colonized Southern Europe long before the coming of the Aryan race. Without taking any more account than is necessary regarding the hypothesis of the etymologists, we may recall the fact that the celebrated William von Humboldt attaches the vocable _Carcaso_, as well as many others from the south of Gaul and the north of Spain, to the Iberic language.

Erected into a Latin colony by Cæsar himself, or by his adopted son, Augustus, Carcassonne vegetated obscurely for three centuries until the day when the invasion by the Barbarians and the civil wars brought about the ruin of the Empire. At this moment she was shorn of her ancient glory; and from a Latin colony, she became a simple _castrum_, which many manuscripts of the _Notitia dignitatum_, written about the year 400, do not even mention. But if the old city lost her importance with regard to civil life, she gained it in military life. At the moment the Germans, those hereditary enemies of Rome, spread over the whole of Gaul, the cities repaired their too long neglected fortifications in great haste; open spaces they surrounded with high walls; the ancient citadels were reinforced; and in their haste, just as happened later during the Hundred Years’ War, many sumptuous buildings erected by Latin architects, were sacrificed to make the defences. Carcassonne is now furnished with a strong enclosure, the honour of which many archæologists, among them Viollet-le-Duc, wish to give to the Visigoths; but it seems more prudent to attribute them to the last engineers of the expiring Empire. This enclosure, of which some parts still exist to-day, is composed of curtains of medium height, surmounted by a parapet without projections and flanked at intervals with semicircular towers opened at the gorge, or closed by a flat wall.

The towers were bare up to the level of the circling road, higher they comprised two or three stories. Viollet-le-Duc supposes that they were covered with a roof, and restored one according to this hypothesis. Much more elevated than the curtain, these Gallo-Roman towers commanded it from above, and on each of their flanks the curtain is interrupted by a gap connected by a narrow bridge, which was easy to destroy in case of an attack.

One must imagine the city of Carcassonne, with this enclosure composed of high curtains with parapets and turrets, and, at intervals, high towers, dominating the country and commanding the neighbouring defences. Such she was at the end of the Empire and such she remained for several centuries. Occupied by the Visigoths, vainly besieged several times by Clovis and by the successors of that prince, she was not forced before the Eighth Century. At this date, she fell into the hands of the Arabs, with all of the surrounding country. The domination of the Mussulmans, however, was very ephemeral; occupied by them about 720, Carcassonne again became Christian thirty years later, in 759.

Carcassonne became an important town. The city remains a fortress of the first order, almost impregnable, with its towers, its curtains and its vast _château_; but around it, on the slopes and at the base of the hill between the Aude and the city, extensive and flourishing boroughs are forming. These _bourgs_ are mentioned in 1067; more recent discoveries tell us that the two principal ones were Saint-Vincent and Saint-Michel. The latter was a commercial town inhabited by common people and workmen whose turbulent character caused great embarrassment to the viscounts during the Twelfth Century. From the beginning of that century, the notables of Carcassonne took the side of the enemy of their legitimate master, the Count of Barcelona, gave him their oath, and on two different occasions the Viscount, Bernard Aton, was chased by them from his capital. When he returned, in 1125, he took rigorous measures to assure his rule in the future. Each tower on the wall was confided to the care of a faithful noble who had to live in it with his family and his men, to do what was called _le service d’estage_. The feudal acts have preserved for us the name of several towers, the _turris monetaria vetus_, for example, but it would be difficult to state precisely to which of the existing towers the old names were given.

To the same viscount, Bernard Aton, is attributed the construction of a great part of the present wall of the city, and almost the entire _château_; from the reign of the same prince dates also the old part of the church Saint-Nazaire. Let us begin with the _château_. An act of the year 1034 already mentions the residence of the Counts of Carcassonne, and the _sala_, in which the Bishop of Gerona, Pierre Roger, lived; it speaks of the kitchens, the chambers, the stables and the chapel Saint-Marcel. Later, the _castellum Carcassonne_ is always carefully distinguished from the citadel; the acts, in mentioning a _camera rotunda_, speak of the elm that ornamented the court and under which the feudal lords rendered justice, as Saint Louis did later at Vincennes. But these give very meagre information which the study of this building will happily permit us to complete.

The ordinary residence of the suzerain, the _Château de Carcassonne_, like the donjons of the North, was designed to protect him against all attacks that came from outside as well as from within the town. A last refuge for faithful defenders, it had to be a shelter during a regular siege, or a personal attack, and to protect the suzerain against enemies without and traitors within. Therefore, a special wall was erected against the town and against the country. The _Château de Carcassonne_ was no exception to the general rule. Supported by the exterior wall on the side of the town, it is defended by a wide moat and by a circular barbican over the end of a bridge that was thrown over the moat; it forms a parallelogram, flanked by towers and high curtains. The masonry is the same and is composed of yellowish stones placed in regular layers of from fifteen to twenty centimetres in height. The domes have the form of hemispherical caps, with regular arches and are unornamented. The bays are semicircular without mouldings, or projections; nowhere is there any sacrifice to decoration, with the exception of certain upper openings that are inaccessible to attack, and these have received a few ornaments,--mouldings and little columns of marble that garnish the corners of the windows. The principal entrance towards the city was defended by two portcullises and two successive gates; after having passed these obstacles, you find yourself in a large court of honour which was flanked on one side by the walls of the city, and on the other by dwellings, shops, and light wooden buildings, that have disappeared to-day, or have been restored in the style of the Thirteenth Century. A few halls of the Twelfth Century have, however, survived; they are not very attractive, with their surbased vaults and their narrow openings.

Let us now turn our back on the _château_ and enter the _lices_, for this is what they called the space circumscribed by the two walls of the City. We have seen above that from 1240 the town had a double wall, but the first, probably much damaged by the lords of Trencavel, was doubtless reconstructed in, and appears to date almost entirely from, the reign of St. Louis. It is composed of curtains elevated upon the rock and which never could have been of a great height: since the ground of the _lices_ was made, it has gained in height. Sometimes the two curtains were quite far apart, sometimes, on the contrary, they are close together, and the straight passage between them was formerly closed by walls with battlements and solid gates. Most of the towers which flank the exterior wall are very simple and are quite low; as a rule, they are composed of two storeys and their platform is covered with a pointed roof covered with slate.

The interior enclosure, which is much stronger and better preserved than the exterior, dates only in part from the Thirteenth Century, but if the royal architects have respected the work of their predecessors as scrupulously as possible, they have never hesitated to transform the defective or insufficient portions, whenever they felt it practical. This second enclosure is at once higher and stronger than its neighbour, the towers are closer together and better arranged for defence. The elevated and spacious curtains still carry traces of the _hourds_ which surmounted them in times of war; in many of those near the _château_, the base dates from the time of a remote epoch,--perhaps the time of the Romans, but the tops were remodelled in the Thirteenth Century by Saint-Louis, or Philip the Bold. Moreover, these princes made no other changes in the whole wall that extends from the _château_ to the Tower of the Inquisition; you particularly notice the Tower of Justice, a beautiful building with four stories of the feudal period, and the Visigoth Tower, cleverly restored, too cleverly perhaps, by Viollet-le-Duc, but an interesting example of the military system of the Gallo-Romans of the Decadence.

The Tower of the Inquisition appears to date from the reign of Philip the Bold. It is a beautiful building of four storeys which in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, sheltered the ecclesiastical tribunal the name of which it bears.

Before the Revolution, the city was deserted; in 1744, the bishop followed the general example and left his old palace of the Thirteenth Century. The new _régime_ was not equally just. For a long time, the city remained a military post, mutilated by military genius, on the pretext of maintaining and improving it; a great number of towers were razed and transformed into low curtains, absurd defences which could not have held out two hours against a strong attack. This admirable collection of mediæval military art was exposed to the greatest danger; let us thank the archæologists who interested the State in the preservation of these venerable remains. Restored to-day with a reverent care, the old citadel is assured a long life. As for the City herself, she can never become what she was in the Thirteenth Century, a rich and populous town, but she will certainly remain forever an admirable museum, where everyone who is interested in national history will come to study the military art of old France.

THE CATHEDRAL OF MODENA

EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN

The student of the Romanesque who transports himself suddenly from the Arno and the Apenines to the river-basin of the Po will find himself spirited away into a new architectural world. Let him flit from Pisa to Modena. Pistoia, a city of high interest on other grounds, will not long detain him. A single noble campanile is attached to a basilican _duomo_ which would hold a third or fourth-rate place at Lucca, and which at Pisa no one would think of mentioning at all. But at Modena his halt must be longer. The church of Pisa and the church of Modena are contemporary buildings, and the Great Countess is honoured as a benefactress by both; but they are as unlike one another as any two buildings of the same date and general style well can be. At Modena we get our first glimpse of the genuine Lombard form of the Italian Romanesque, a form wholly unlike either the domical or basilican type, and which makes a far nearer approach to the Romanesque of the lands beyond the Alps. The approach is indeed only an approach; the _duomo_ of Modena is Italian, and not English, French, or German; still it is a form of Italian far less widely removed from English, French, or German work than the style of Pisa or St. Vital. As at Pisa, the architect seems to have halted between two opinions. The church is cruciform, but the transepts have no projection on the ground-plan; there are real lantern-arches, not obscured as they are at Pisa, but they do not bear up any central dome or tower. The lantern-arches are pointed; but here, as at Pisa, the pointed form is more likely to be Saracenic than Gothic. Without, three eastern apses, rising from between pinnacles of quite Northern character, group boldly with one of the noblest campaniles of Italy, which is certainly not improved by the later addition of a spire. The great doorways rest on lions; the west front has a noble wheel window; the greater part of the outside is lavishly arcaded, but the arcading is of a different type from the long rows of single arcades at Lucca and Pisa; the favourite form at Modena is that of several small arches grouped under a containing arch.

With such an outside, we are not surprised to find, on entering the church, an elevation more nearly after the Northern type than anything which we have yet seen in Italy. At Pisa we saw an arcade, triforium, and clerestory; but the triforium was not so much the Northern type itself as the Northern type translated into Italian language. But at Modena we find as genuine a triforium as in any minster of England or Normandy. Its form indeed seems somewhat rude and awkward, as if the containing arch had been crushed by the lofty clerestory above. And eyes familiar with Norman detail may possibly be amazed at the sight of mid-wall shafts, and those of a somewhat rough type, showing themselves in such a position. But the mid-wall shaft is constructively as much in its place in a triforium as it is in a belfry window, and in the whole elevation there is nothing lacking. There is pier-arch, triforium, and clerestory, and the deep splay of the highest range hinders the presence of any continuous blank spaces such as we have seen in the Basilican churches. The capitals are a strange mixture of classical and barbaric forms, and in the alternate piers, supporting the arches which span the nave, we find huge half-columns, which form a marked contrast to the tall slender shafts commonly used in like positions in Northern churches. Altogether the Cathedral of Modena is strictly an Italian church, yet the approaches to Northern forms are very marked, and they are of a kind which suggests the direct imitation of Northern forms or the employment of Northern architects.

THE CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS

LOUIS GONSE

The basilica of Rheims is the ideal type of a great Gothic cathedral. Everything has been gathered together here to enchant the eye and touch the mind.

From the outside, with its eight spires, and the lace-work of its bell-towers, and its galleries boldly mounting to the sky, with the breadth of its arrangement, the splendid development of its cruciform plan, with its two cloisters and its magnificent dependencies, it appears as the sublime expression of western genius and the culminating point of the Christian idea.

Within, it is dazzling. All the resources of decoration have been prodigally employed. Indeed, the eye does not know which of the marvels to select, and if this stupendous whole has been preserved to us by a miracle, nothing in the world can be compared to it. The brilliant series of windows, one of the most complete and beautiful in existence; the pavement, with its labyrinth and countless mortuary tombs; the rich altars and chapel paintings; the tomb of St. Nicaise; the pulpit of St. Remi; the rood-screen, a master work by Colard de Givry, made in 1417; the railings of the choir, with precious hangings and stalls; the high altar charged with relics, and presents from the Kings of France; its golden retable and its splendid ciborium of the Thirteenth Century, in silver gilt; the sacrarium, the fonts, and the sepulchres;--form a great mass of treasure.

And how greatly is the feeling increased by memories when you reconstruct the public life of Notre-Dame of Rheims, and the events of which she was the theatre during the long course of centuries; when you dream of all the coronations, councils, and meetings that have taken place beneath its vaults! No edifice, in truth, is, in this respect, more worthy of our honour and admiration.

Notre-Dame of Rheims measures in round numbers one hundred and thirty-nine metres long and thirty-eight metres high beneath the vault; it is not surpassed in length by the Cathedral of Mans, thanks to the unusual dimensions of its absidal chapel, nor in height by Beauvais, Cologne, Metz, Amiens, or Saint-Quentin. The great divisions of the whole, founded upon a triple scale, in height and breadth, are clearly accentuated. From the lower part of the nave the view is one of striking grandeur and harmony; the dazzled glance loses itself in these vast depths, under the luminous sheets of light which spread out from the lateral bays, while the large vault, clouded in the mysterious penumbra of the high windows, ornamented with their glass, invites you to meditation. No cathedral offers so powerful an opposition to light. The arrangement of the great piers cantoned by four half-columns bound together also increases the fleeting perspective.

Of the whole building, I have only to criticize the composition of the triforium, which is truly not of the first order; it demands more elegance and firmness; the arches of that gallery, the decorative function of which is so important in a Gothic church, seem heavy and as if crushed between the robust piers of the ground-floor and the large bays of the upper story.

In all that belongs to the Thirteenth Century, the execution bears witness to an extreme care and luxury. The Cathedral of Rheims, principally in its interior work, is a model that has never been surpassed from the point of view of technique, of show and of the judicious use of material. The carving is of the first order. The capitals of Rheims are celebrated, and very justly. The independence of the _Style champenois_ has introduced some elements of life and fantasy which give them a character of their own. Some of the most beautiful, notably the capital of the _Vendanges_ (The Vintages), have been made popular by the mouldings in the Musée of the Trocadéro; but all of them are remarkable on account of the variety of the motives that decorate them. Viollet-le-Duc has justly observed that the capitals of Rheims present a decisive progress in the union of the capital of the principal column with the capitals of the connected columns: a very great difficulty which Gothic architects did not solve until after numerous groupings. Here the monotony has been avoided by a division of the bound columns into two segments, separated by an astragal. The effect of this division is most happy and constitutes one of the most striking peculiarities of the Cathedral of Rheims.

The choir is unanimously admired. However, it has not the breadth nor the spring of the great choirs of Bourges, Amiens and Mans; but it derives its originality from its depth and its radiating chapels; and to the preservation of its most exquisite windows it owes a poetic charm that very few interiors can equal. The windows of Rheims are, in reality, the most perfect we have seen after those of Chartres, Bourges, Mans and Auxerre. In purity of expression they surpass the windows of Soissons, Troyes, and Châlons. The windows in the apsis are masterpieces; their sweet intensity, in the scale of blue, is truly enchanting. They were executed from 1227 to 1240 under the episcopate of Henri de Braisne, whose figure appears in the principal window, in the centre of nine large, high windows, between the twelve suffragans of Rheims, arranged in order, according to their rank in the province: Soissons, Laon, Beauvais, Noyon, Senlis, Tournai, Cambrai, Châlons, Thérouanne, Amiens, etc., each having at his side a Gothic cathedral.

These figures of bishops of gigantic proportions have a majesty that cannot be described. But in the midst of these splendours, it is the rose of the western window which is perhaps the most worthy of everything to hold your attention. Composition, brilliancy, harmony and elegance of position,--it possesses all these qualities. It would be difficult to find a more admirable witness of the decorative sense of the old glass-workers. When across the network of the immense surface, the light from the setting sun is thrown, the whole interior of the church is illuminated as if by a conflagration. The preservation of this masterpiece is unfortunately greatly compromised by the crack like a sabre cut which crosses the façade near the rose. The high windows in the nave represent the Kings, just as in the Cathedral of Sacres; they are still more beautiful, however, of deep rich colours, but of a less careful execution than the great rose and the windows in the choir.

All these marvels, however, pale before the carved decoration that surrounds on the inside the lower part of the three doors of the façade, a kind of drapery in relief, as unique by the character of its invention as by the perfection of its workmanship.

This extraordinary decoration envelops up to their summits the three ogival windows that open upon the porch. It goes up as high as the triforium, by a succession of seven rows of niches closed by trefoil arches, and separated from them by panels and corner-pieces of leaves borrowed from the flora of the country and divinely carved. You see in turn: the laurel, the vine, the pear, the apple, the holly, the oak, the ivy, the water-lily, the bulrush, the peony, the clover, the chestnut, the liverwort, and the olive. A hundred and twenty-two statues of incomparable beauty, rivalling the most beautiful productions of sculpture of former times, occupy the niches, and, deliciously set off by the floral decoration of the plain surfaces, stand out like living personages from the dark background of the niches.

Each one of these figures is a most precious work, studied from nature with a sovereign knowledge of drapery and movement. Here is a priest officiating in his chasuble and holding the Eucharist; there, is a warrior in coat-of-mail, who seems to have just returned from the Crusades; moreover, there are some prophets of heroic mien, noble virgins with trailing robes, and martyrs, illuminated with ecstasy. All this mural decoration was made in the spirit of the architecture, intended to complete the iconography of the great door and to amplify still further the cyclic character,--the general theme being the history of Christ and the glorification of the Virgin, with the accessory scenes that belong to it.

Let us cross the threshold: we are outside, before the façade. We must walk farther away in order to embrace all the lines and take in the masterly idea of the whole. It is most celebrated, that is well-known; for a long time, its richness has been a synonym of beauty in mediæval art. I have already said that the general conception is of the highest order, the upward movement is magnificent, the statues blossom with a bewildering luxuriance, and the infinite multiplication of the details, which--miraculous fact--do not obliterate the majestic section of the lower stages, so happily cut by the tall bays scattered in the bell-towers. Nevertheless, when you come nearer, you are surprised at finding so much uncertainty in the conduct of this terrible enterprise! How much weakness and lassitude in the highest parts! You perceive both haste and economy there. All that dates from the end of the Fourteenth and the beginning of the Fifteenth Century is mediocre; the sculpture, cut in bad materials that are injured by the frost, is coarse and flabby: the nobility of the contours is lost beneath the excessive ornamentation, and the absence of the spires deprives this aërial building of its necessary finish.

To be satisfied, the eye must rest below the row of Kings made during the reign of Charles V.

While the upper stories have been made of soft stone of a bad quality, the lower parts, built of hard stone, have acquired in the course of time the hues of Florentine bronze. It is here that the Champagne sculptor has lavishly exhibited the treasures of his spirit, his audacity and his genius. When the great statues of the portals of Rheims are mentioned, everybody is of one accord.

The Queen of the basilica, the Virgin, is the soul of this cosmos, the centre from which everything radiates.

She is crowned by Christ beneath the daïs of the great gable, and this composition, which is still brightened by the remains of the gold background from which it stands out, is one of the most exquisite creations of Christian Art; the Virgin is also on the pier; she is directly or indirectly in every scene of the life of Jesus. Her memory, her legend, her poetry are everywhere: she is at once the culminating point and the humble pretext of all this magnificence. At Paris, at Bourges and at Amiens, it is Christ; here, it is the Virgin; and around this admirable theme a powerful thought has quickened into being a race of statues, a people in whom life, movement and fantasy circulate, beneath the compassionate gaze of the Mother of God and under the influence of her adorable grace. Charm is really the special characteristic of the sculpture at Rheims,--a special charm that is always evident, a charm carried to the point of _morbidezza_ which in certain figures has been compared, and not without reason, to the mysterious charm of Leonardo da Vinci.

All these personages of high stature, blackened and polished by time, possess an indescribable grace, smiling and familiar, an indescribable and eloquent gravity that puts them into communion with the spectator; they are indeed of our country and of our race; their idealism, always youthful despite the centuries, is not too far removed from earth to respond even now to the secret aspirations of our souls; they are the glory of the portals of Rheims, the glory of French sculpture.

Beautiful as these figures are, they must not let us forget the population of two thousand five hundred statues that make the Cathedral of Rheims a unique monument of decorative and monumental sculpture. All the images of this old basilica deserve attentive study. An entire volume would scarcely suffice to enumerate them. It is necessary to take a trip to the roof to measure fully this incredible wealth: giants of stone, angels with spread wings, apostles, saints and royal figures, fantastic animals, more than forty metres high, which occupy the pinnacles of the buttresses, are lined along the galleries of the transepts or fortify the balustrade of the roof; figures full of vitality that project from the corners, the springs of the arches, the junction of curves, as crowns, supports, caryatides, mascarons, and gargoyles; capricious, expressive and energetic figures, to execute which the Champagne chisel, the freest and most supple of Gothic chisels, has given itself full scope, with an exuberant joy.

Despite the devastations of the rococo period, to which was added that of the Revolutionary period, the Cathedral of Rheims has not been entirely stripped of her incomparable artistic treasures. She has preserved a great portion of her tapestry hangings, and her Treasury is still one of the richest in France.

The tapestries of Rheims have been very learnedly described by M. Ch. Loriquet. Before the Revolution the collection was unique. Hincmar, Hérivée, Regnault de Chartres, Juvénal des Ursins, Robert de Lenoncourt, the great Cardinal of Lorraine, the Cardinal of Guise, Henri de Lorraine, the Kings of France and the Chapter were the principal donators.

These tapestries were used to decorate the cathedral on days of special solemnity. Of the magnificent collection there only remain the fifteen pieces by Lenoncourt, two of the six tapestries of the _Grand Roi Clovis_, given by the Cardinal of Lorraine, fifteen tapestries executed by Pepersack, at the order of Henri de Lorraine, the four pieces ordered from Lombart d’ Aubusson by the Chapter, four tapestries called the _Cantiques_ and two Gobelins after Raphael’s Cartoons.

The most remarkable are certainly those by Lenoncourt and those of the Clovis set. The first were offered to the cathedral by the Archbishop Robert de Lenoncourt; one of them bears the dedication of 1530. They represent the _Life of the Virgin_. They are of Flemish origin and of a very fine execution. The composition is rich, spirited and of an extremely graceful style. Some of them have not lost the freshness of their colours and can still be counted among the best specimens of the art of tapestry at the beginning of the Sixteenth Century. These precious hangings occupy the wall surfaces of the side-aisles of the nave, where they produce a sumptuous effect.

THE CASTLE OF S. ANGELO

AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE

The Ponte S. Angelo is the Pons Elius of Hadrian, built as an approach to his mausoleum, and only intended for this, as another public bridge existed close by, at the time of its construction. It is almost entirely ancient, except the parapets. The statues of St. Peter and St. Paul, at the extremity, were erected by Clement VII., in the place of two chapels, in 1530, and the angels, by Clement IX., in 1688. The pedestal of the third angel on the right is a relic of the siege of Rome in 1849, and bears the impress of a cannon-ball.

These angels, which have been called the “breezy maniacs” of Bernini, are only from his designs. The two angels which he executed himself, and intended for this bridge, are now at S. Andrea della Fratte. The idea of Clement IX. was a fine one, that “an avenue of the heavenly host should be assembled to welcome the pilgrim to the shrine of the great apostle.”

From the Ponte S. Angelo, when the Tiber is low, are visible the remains of the bridge by which the ancient Via Triumphalis crossed the river. Close by, where Santo Spirito now stands, was the Porta Triumphalis, by which victors entered the city in triumph.

Facing the bridge, is the famous Castle of S. Angelo, built by the Emperor Hadrian as his family tomb, because the last niche in the imperial mausoleum of Augustus was filled when the ashes of Nerva were laid there. The first funeral here was that of Elius Verus, the first adopted son of Hadrian, who died before him. The Emperor himself died at Baiæ, but his remains were transported hither from a temporary tomb at Pozzuoli by his successor Antoninus Pius, by whom the mausoleum was completed in A.D., 140. Here also were buried, Antoninus Pius, A.D., 161; Marcus Aurelius, 180; Commodus, 192; and Septimius Severus, in an urn of gold, enclosed in one of alabaster, A.D., 211; Caracalla, in 217, was the last Emperor interred here. The well-known lines of Byron:

“Turn to the mole which Hadrian rear’d on high,
Imperial mimic of old Egypt’s piles,
Colossal copyist of deformity,
Whose travell’d phantasy from the far Nile’s
Enormous model, doom’d the artist’s toils
To build for giants, and for his vain earth,
His shrunken ashes, raise this dome! How smiles
The gazer’s eye with philosophic mirth,
To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth,

seem rather applicable to the Pyramid of Caius Cestius than to this mausoleum.