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Above her, through the apertures in the tiled roof, she could see the sky aglow with lurid crimson, and the smell of burning wood and of charred stuffs filled her nostrils with their pungent odour. "Death to the Cæsar! Death!" The cry seemed almost at her door. Only the Palace of Tiberius, with its great empty halls and basilicas stood between her and the rallying-point of the rebels.
With all that we saw that day, churches, basilicas, mosaics, statues, mausoleums, I will not burden these pages; but I will set down is enough to give you the local color, and to recall some of the most interesting passages in Christian history in this out- of-the-way city on the Adriatic. Our first pilgrimage was to the Church of St.
The larger temples of ancient Rome were certainly similar piles, upheld by the same precious columns, with walls covered with the same polychromatic marbles and vaulted ceilings having the same gilded panels. And his feeling was destined to become yet more acute after his visits to the other basilicas, which could but reveal the truth to him.
Constantine the Great, who by establishing the Christian religion had encouraged the erection of basilicas for Christian worship in Rome and Italy, effected a great political change, and one destined to exert a marked influence upon Christian architecture, when he removed the seat of empire from Rome to Byzantium, and called the new capital Constantinople, after his own name.
Not even the basilicas and mosaics of Rome, nor those of Palermo and Monreale, are equal for historical interest to those of Ravenna. Yet there is not one single church which remains entirely unaltered and unspoiled.
Peter's only that fell, but all Rome basilicas, palaces, and entire districts which collapsed amidst a supreme rending, and covered the seven hills with a chaos of ruins.
The equilateral triangle used in conjunction with the circle and the square was employed by the Romans in determining the proportions of triumphal arches, basilicas and baths.
Among the Celts this was unknown, with them a church took its name after its founder, and the founder of a church dedicated it by a partial fast of forty days, and prayer and vigil on the spot. The early basilicas of Rome also took their titles from the families that surrendered their halls for Christian worship.
The fora one of which, the "Roman Forum," between the Capitoline and the Palatine, was the great center of Roman life were open places paved, and surrounded with noble buildings, temples, and basilicas, or halls of justice. The fora were either places for the transaction of public business, or they served the purpose of modern market-places.
Less massive than the gloomily grand basilicas of Rome and Ravenna, surpassed in single features by other churches, as, for instance, the Cathedral of Salerno, it contains, nevertheless, such perfect specimens of Christian Art in its various phases, that this one small building seems a hand-book in itself.
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