TWILIGHT AND DAWN FROM THE 6TH TO THE IOTH CENTURY

Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna (pL m and fig. i) was built early in
the 6th century by Theodoric, ruler of the Ostrogoths in Italy. Yet
there is nothing specifically Teutonic in it; it belongs wholly to that
universal but, in its essentials, Eastern style that goes under the name
of Early Christian. The functional elements of a Christian church
are here already so completely established that neither a Gothic nor a
present-day church has gone beyond it. The church is taken as the
visible symbol of the way of the faithful towards the mystery of the
Real Presence. The altar under the apse and the miracle of the Real
Presence are the goal. There may be a transept as a halt between nave
and apse—a rare motif incidentally, confined mainly to some major
churches of Rome built under Constantine and his immediate
successors (Old St. Peter's, S. Paolo fuori le mura, S. Giovanni in
Laterano, S. Maria Maggiore). With or without transepts, the main
axis of propelling movement is indicated by the nave with its un-
interrupted sequence of columns dividing off the aisles. It is this that
drives us irresistibly on towards the East. There is no articulation in
that long colonnade to arrest our eyes, nor in the long row of window
after window up in the clerestory; and the solemn and silent mosaic
figures of martyrs and holy virgins, with their motionless faces and
stiff garments, march with m. One monotonous mesmerising rhythm
fills the whole of the church—no secondary motifs weaken its
fanatical single-mindedness. This type of plan and spatial develop-
ment is so fitting that one feels tempted to regard it as a Christian
invention. That is, however, not so. Basilica is the name under which
such churches with nave, lower aisles and apse are known to this
day. We have met it before meaning a public hall in Rome or die

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2* POMPEII: BASILICA, r. 100 B.C.
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