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Updated: May 5, 2025
Thus the walls curve slightly inwards towards the top as do those of the apses of Mnaidra and Hagiar Kim, and the ceiling is cut to represent a roof of great blocks laid across from wall to wall with a space left open in the centre where the width would be too great for the length of the stones. The treatment of the doors and windows recalls at once that of the temples above ground.
The walls which separate the apses ran up to a tower. The vault is a transverse wagon pierced by wagon vaults at right angles. The architecture is very simple, and shows Byzantine influence, but the construction is hidden by plastering. The nave caps are debased Corinthian, with ornamented volutes and one row of flat acanthus-leaves, the abacus being square.
The lower portion is now a wine-store; the upper, reached by steps, is vaulted like a crypt, nine spans resting on four low columns. It has been modernised, but the three apses are untouched externally, crowned with a corbelled arcuated cornice, the centre one being the largest.
All the arches of the aisle arcade spring from the simple moulded capitals of piers whose section is that of four half-octagons placed together. In the clerestory are windows of one small light, in the aisles of two larger lights, and in the apses single lancets.
What had happened to the edifice in the interval between 1505 and 1547 must be briefly narrated, although it is not within the scope of this work to give a complete history of the building. Bramante's original design had been to construct the church in the form of a Greek cross, with four large semi-circular apses.
The plan carried out by Matheus took the form of a rectangular hall enclosing the central apse and the two smaller apses to the north and south, but leaving now at any rate a space between it and the side apses.
The nave and aisles terminate in semicircular apses. The nave and choir together are of five bays, with a pointed arcade on monolithic pillars. The aisles are cross-vaulted without ribs, but with pointed arches between the bays. The roof of the nave is of wood.
The two apses east of the transept are of the pattern universal in Southern Europe, being divided into three equal parts by half-shafts with capitals and crowned with an overhanging corbel table.
Mars now appeared too slow at the apses instead of too quick, so obviously some intermediate ellipse must be sought between the trial ellipse and the circle on the same axis. At this point the "long arm of coincidence" came into play.
There are the familiar, friendly little apses of the Romanesque; near them, above the east end of the north aisle, the squat tower with a modest, modern spire; and at its side, above the roof-line, is the octagon that stands over the dome. All this structure is unaffectedly simple.
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