Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

958 31. building and architecture
often galleries over the aisles, which made the nave relatively dark and
reduced the amount of wall space available for decoration, whereas in the
west the absence of galleries allowed a clerestory wall above the nave.
There is also considerable variation in the number (basically one or three;
Figs. 58, 61) and form of the sanctuary rooms: the end wall might be
straight (Fig. 42: two churches), polygonal (Fig. 58) or curved, and, if
curved, this apse might be inscribed within the outer end wall (Fig. 61) or
project beyond it (Fig. 57). Trefoil sanctuaries are also known.
Constantinopolitan churches are noted for polygonal apses and the lack of
lateral sanctuary chambers (Figs. 58–9). The congregational church architecture
in the villages of the adjacent provinces of Syria Prima and Secunda
has been compared. Churches in both groups are primarily basilical and
have a tripartite sanctuary (Fig. 42), but those in the second group have galleries,
inscribed semicircular apses, and narthexes. 67
In the west – at Rome and Milan – some basilicas of the fourth century
were provided with a transept in front of the sanctuary. Variants of this
plan reappear in the fifth century at Tarragona in Spain, as well as in the
east in pilgrimage shrines (St Demetrius at Thessalonica (Fig. 56) and St
Menas near Alexandria) and congregational churches (at Perge and Side in
Asia Minor, at Epidauros, Nea Anchialos and Corinth in Greece). In some
churches of cruciform plan – such as that of Symeon Stylites the Elder (at
Qal�at Sim�an near Antioch, c. 470) – each arm of the cross was a basilica.
Double basilicas, built side by side, were popular in late antiquity in the
west. In some Syrian basilicas strong masonry piers, widely spaced,
replaced monolithic columns as the main means of support of the nave
walls, thus opening up the space between the central nave and aisles, and
affording a more unified area comparable to that of the centralized church
(Fig. 61). The basilica could also be combined with a centralized plan, carrying
a dome on four massive piers, as in St Irene at Constantinople, or a
wooden pyramidal roof, as restored at Germia and Alahan in Asia Minor.
In both types, the central bay has lateral arcades between the four piers and
the longitudinal axis is extended to the west by two bays. Justinian’s St
John’s at Ephesus (Fig. 57) and Basilica B at Philippi in Thrace combined
elements of the transept basilica with the domed centralized building. 68
(b) The centralized church
In plan, the centralized church is based on a square formed by the internal
supports for the roof, which may be a pyramid in wood or a dome in either
wood or masonry supported on pendentives (Fig. 59a H) or squinches. In
practice, the early Byzantine centralized church is a double shell building
67 Mainstone (1988) 141; Tchalenko, Villages ii, pls. xi,xii.
68 Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, 67–213; Mango, Byzantine Architecture
154–60; Mango (1986).
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