Identifier: historyofarchit02cumm (find matches)
Title: A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Cummings, Charles Amos, 1833-1905
Subjects: Architecture
Publisher: Boston, New York, Houghton Mifflin and company
Contributing Library: PIMS - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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, are three plain door-ways, with square openings surmounted by round bearing arches,with decorated archivolt springing from and surmounted by gro-tesque beasts, which appear also in the side doorways and in manyof the windows. Over the central doorway is a single round-headedwindow, flanked by engaged shafts resting on lion corbels and sup-porting a simply moulded archivolt. At the base of the gable is ahorizontal arched corbel-table which iscontinued on the cornice of the clere-story and on the transept ends. Butabove the corbel-table of the faQade thegable is faced with a blind arcade ofinterlacing arches, — a feature which,as at Molfetta and Giovenazzo, whereit appears on theeast end, on thetower at Gaeta,and in several ex-amples at Ravello,betrays at once theinfluence of the Sa-racenic architectureof Sicily, where itis of common occur-rence. The massivesquare tower at thesouth angle of thefacade and the domeover the crossingare both remarka-ble features of thischurch. The tower
Text Appearing After Image:
Fig. 266. Caserta Vecchia. Transept Ends and Lantern. is in five stages, the lowest being pierced by a single great pointedarch, through which a street is carried as at Trani; the second and 44 ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY fifth are decorated by blind arcades, the upper one being carriedaround the four angle turrets which enclose the octagonal belfry.The exterior of the dome or lantern is of extreme richness.(Fig. 266.) The wall shows two stages above the roof of the church,both of which are decorated with blind interlacing arcades similar tothose of the tower. In the upper stage the wall surface betweenthe columns is a diaper of black and white marble squares, whilebetween the two stages is a frieze of square panels charged withsculpture of more or less grotesque character. Above the corniceonly the upper segment of the dome appears. AVith the lavish orna-ment of the central lantern, which was probably indeed finished ahalf century later than the rest of the church, and which speaks inevery

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