Merzario says[83]--

"In this darkness which extended over all Italy, only one small lamp remained alight, making a bright spark in the vast Italian necropolis.

It was from the _Magistri Comacini_. Their respective names are unknown, their individual works unspecialized, but the breath of their spirit might be felt all through those centuries, and their name collectively is legion. We may safely say that of all the works of art between A.D. 800 and 1000, the greater and better part are due to that brotherhood--always faithful and often secret--of the _Magistri Comacini_. The authority and judgment of learned men justify the a.s.sertion."

Here Prof. Merzario quotes several of these _uomini dottissimi_.

First, Quatremal de Quincy, in his _Dictionary of Architecture_, who, under the heading "Comacine," remarks that "to these men, who were both designers and executors, architects, sculptors, and mosaicists, may be attributed the renaissance of art, and its propagation in the southern countries, where it marched with Christianity. Certain it is that we owe it to them, that the heritage of antique ages was not entirely lost, and it is only by their tradition and imitation that the art of building was kept alive, producing works which we still admire, and which become surprising when we think of the utter ignorance of all science in those dark ages." Our English writer, Hope, taking their later appellative of Lombards, credits Lombardy with being the cradle of the a.s.sociations of Freemasons, "who were,"

he says, "the first after Roman times to enrich architecture with a complete and well-ordinated system, which dominated wherever the Latin Church extended its influence from the sh.o.r.es of the Baltic to those of the Mediterranean."[84] We will omit the witnesses, Kugler of Germany and Ramee of France, and take the Italian great authority, Pietro Selvatico.[85] He notes that art in Europe, from the seventh to the thirteenth century, consisted of a combination of Byzantine and Roman elements, but in the ninth century a third element mingled, which had in itself so much that was original, as to const.i.tute an independent style. "This," he goes on to say, "was the Lombard or Comacine architecture, as it is called, which is distinguished by its low-pitched roofs, its circular arches, rounded on columns, which a.s.similate to the Greek and Roman styles. This gained a certain systematic unity after the first half of the ninth century." Prof.

Selvatico seems to have ignored all the Comacine architecture under the Longobards, who were certainly the nurses of the guild, and takes it up just when it was freeing itself from the bonds of superst.i.tious tradition, _i.e._ the transition between Roman-Lombard and Romanesque.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COMACINE CAPITAL IN SAN ZENO, VERONA, EMBLEMATIZING MAN CLINGING TO CHRIST (THE PALM).

_page 111._]

No doubt the genealogy of the style was this. First, the Comacines continued Roman traditions as the Romans continued Etruscan ones; next, they orientalized their style by their connection with the East through Aquileia, and the influx of Greek exiles into the guild. Later came a different influence through the Saracens into the South, and the Italian-Gothic was born.

The Comacine art of the interregnum after Charlemagne may be judged by the church of S. Zeno at Verona. This had been rebuilt in 810 by King Pepin, whose palace was in Verona. His church fell a prey to the devastation dealt by the Huns in 924, and Bishop Rothair restored it in the tenth century, the Emperor Otho the First furnishing the funds.

There was a third restoration in 1139, when the present front and portico were added. The general form of Otho's church still remains, and shows the usual "three naves" (emblematical of the Trinity), and the circular arches supported by alternate columns and pilasters. The roof, as in all the older Lombard churches, was of wood, and not vaulted. It is not recorded whence Otho obtained his architects, but though no names are written, the Comacine mark is there. Later restorations have wiped out most of the old signs, but they have left us some capitals on the columns and the reliefs on the arches leading into the crypt under the tribune. Two of the columns are here ill.u.s.trated. In one may be seen human figures clinging to palm-branches, by which the Magister who carved it symbolized man clinging to Christ. The other is a veritable Comacine knot, formed of mystic winged creatures, with their serpent tails entwined. On the arches of the crypt are a wealth of mediaeval imaginings, mystic beasts, Christian symbols, scriptural characters and ancient myths, all mingled together as only a Freemason of the Middle Ages could mingle them. Otho's architects were certainly _Magistri_ of our guild, and probably our friend from Pontida, who called on S. Zeno to save him from the brigands, was one of them.

It is undeniable that later Comacines put the elegant facade to the church in 1139, when Magistri Nicolaus and Guglielmus carved the wonderful porch with its columns resting on lions, and its very mediaeval reliefs, in which we see Theodoric, King of the Goths, going straight to the devil in the guise of a wild huntsman. On the architraves are allegorical reliefs of the twelve months. But this front is not of the era we are now discussing, and we shall mention it again.

A work which is indubitably of the ninth century, and has all the marks of the time, is the atrium of S. Ambrogio at Milan, which was a commission to Magister Adam of the Comacines, by Anspert of Bissone, who was Archbishop of Milan from 868 to 881. The atrium of a church was anciently used for the catechumens, as they were not admitted into the body of the church till they were baptized. The atrium of S.

Ambrogio is a square s.p.a.ce surrounded by a portico composed of columns supporting round arches. The proportions are so fine and majestic that it is looked on as the best mediaeval edifice existing in Lombard style. The capitals are composed of foliage, strange ornaments, and groups of grotesque animals and monsters rudely sculptured; and yet with the imperfect chiselling there is such a freedom of design and wealth of imagination as you find in no Byzantine work, however precise its execution. We give an ill.u.s.tration of one of its capitals.

The Comacine _intreccio_ is there, but floriated and luxurious. The significance of these sculptures, though unintelligible to us, is believed to be the occult and conventional art language of the Comacines or Freemasons. On the doorway, among the foliage and symbolic animals, one may still read the name of "Adam Magister."

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAPITAL IN THE ATRIUM OF S. AMBROGIO, MILAN. BY MAGISTER ADAM.

_page 112._]

Another very important church of the ninth century is the cathedral of Grado, near Venice, which had been first built between 571-586, seemingly by Byzantine artists, though they also used old cla.s.sical capitals from former buildings. The plan of this Basilica in its older form shows very clearly the leaning to one side which we have said was a symbol of Christ's head being turned in pain on the Cross. Here not only the left aisle reaches higher up than the right, but the wall of the facade slopes considerably. In the ninth century Fortunato, Patriarch of Grado, who lived about 828, sent for _artefici Franchi_[86] to restore the Baptistery of S. Giovanni on the island which was the metropolis of maritime Venice. Now what were these _artefici Franchi_? It is clear they could not have been French, for Charlemagne himself had to get builders from Lombardy, his own country not having as yet enough skill in masonry. It is natural to suppose they were the guild from Cisalpine Gaul, which though composed of Italians had been styled "Lombards" while under the Lombard kings, and may have been "Franchi" while the Carlovingian kings ruled. They were known as "Tedeschi" when later they were under the protection of the German emperors, a term which puzzled old Vasari greatly. It is still a question whether the real interpretation would not be the literal one, Free-masons, who may well have been recalled from France where they were at work.

The wording of a phrase in the will of the Patriarch Fortunato, where he says "_feci venire magistros de Francia_," shows plainly that he referred to architects belonging to a guild in which the higher orders were called _Magistri_.

Having begun to work at Grado, the Lombards were evidently employed in other Venetian churches. Their style is said to be very evident in the Duomo of Murano, but how much they did, and whether they worked with Eastern or other architects, will, I suppose, never be precisely known.

A curious little church of this epoch is existing in almost its original form at a village called Abadia, near Sesto Calende on Lake Maggiore. It has a crypt and a portico, three naves and three apses.[87] The crypt is supported on round arches and small thin columns, the roof is of wood. The portico has three arcades resting on columns and pilasters with capitals of Lombard-Byzantine style.

We find the guild at work not only in the north, but in the south of Italy at this epoch. One of the famous buildings in South Italy with which the Comacine Masters were connected, is the celebrated monastery of Monte Ca.s.sino with its church. This monastery had been built in the first instance by a Brescian named Petronax, who made a pilgrimage to Rome to see Pope Gregory II. The Pope urged Petronax to go to Monte Ca.s.sino where St. Benedict was buried. He went and there was inspired to found a monastery.

By the beginning of the eleventh century this had been much ruined by the Saracens and others, and Desiderius its abbot, in 1066, decided to restore it. He was of the race of the Lombard Dukes of Beneventum, was a friend of Pope Gregory VII., and became his successor on the papal throne under the name of Victor III. Desiring that his church should be a very "majestic temple," he sent to call artificers from Amalfi and from Lombardy.[88] Among the Italians was a certain Andrea, from Serra di Falco, near Como, a fine worker in metal, who, with his disciples, made the bronze doors.

Some interesting baptisteries were erected in the tenth century by the Comacines. The baptistery at this time seems to have had a set form--the octagon; and a mystical significance, that figure being highly symbolical of the Trinity, being formed by a conjunction of three triangles. In the earlier days of the Romano-Lombard style, the baptistery generally had only a small arcade, or row of brackets supporting arches round the outer wall beneath the roof, and a practicable gallery round the interior. Of this shape was the Florentine Baptistery, that of Como and many others.

When the later Comacines worked in more florid Romanesque style, the Baptisteries were often covered with little galleries or rows of colonnettes like those of Pisa, Parma, Lucca, etc.

A fine specimen of Lombard work of about 1000 A.D., or a little later, which shows the approach towards a more Gothic style, may be seen in the cloister of Voltorre, a little walled town on Lake Varese. The cloister of Voltorre is thus described--"The beauty of this eleventh-century Lombard building is singular. The four sides are formed of porticoes which sustain the upper storey. The porticoes facing the open court are formed on one side of small graceful arches in brick, with friezes and reliefs sustained by elegant colonnettes, some round and some octangular, with capitals of various forms. On two other sides the colonnettes are smaller and shorter, but still graceful; they terminate in varied and bizarre capitals surmounted by a kind of bracket on which the large stones of the upper building rest. Among the sculptures of the little columns on the left as one enters the court, is incised in mediaeval characters and abbreviations the following--'_Lanfrancus magister filius Dom. Ersatii de Livurno_.'" Livurno most probably stands for Ligurno, a place a few miles from Voltorre. So our master Lanfranco Ersatti, having graduated in the Comacine Guild, set himself to embellish his native place. In 1099 Magister Lanfranco designed the Duomo of Modena, which, as will be seen hereafter, was the work of centuries, he being followed by a long series of architects.

Then came more troublous times for the Comacines in their own country.

From 1118 to 1127 A.D. the republic of Como was at fierce war with the Milanese. A long poem by a Comacine poet, quoted by Muratori, describes the workmen and artisans fighting in the streets in their working dress, and wielding any tool or weapon they could find. The masons and builders worked as sappers and miners, dug the trenches, built up barricades, and destroyed the enemy's houses and castles. One of these brave citizens, named Giovanni Buono, is especially mentioned by the ancient poet, and he is peculiarly connected with the Comacine Masters as the first of a long line of _Magisters_ of the Buono family. He forms a tangible link between the half-traditional Comacines of Lombard times, and the more clearly defined guild of the Romanesque epoch. From that to the Italian Gothic period their ident.i.ty is traceable by doc.u.ments. A warlike bishop, Guidone, was the leader of the Comacines, but after three years' war he fell ill, and on his death-bed prophesied the fall of his fatherland.

The Comacines were indeed at the end of their resources, they were exhausted of means, of food, and of warriors; and after several victories at length fell under the power of the Milanese, becoming a tributary state. But it was not till Milan had called in the aid of several other cities that brave little Como succ.u.mbed to her on August 27, 1127. She was not enslaved even then, and must have retained her political freedom, for we find her siding with Frederic Barbarossa in 1167, against the whole Lombard League, to her cost, for she was a great sufferer in the battle of Legnano on May 29, 1176.

Barbarossa tried to make some compensation, by ceding to Como the castles of Baradello and Olona. A coin exists, of the Como mint of that time, with an eagle and _Imp. Federicus_ on one side, and _c.u.ma.n.u.s populus_ on the other. Frederic had reason to cultivate the Comaschi, for they sent 200 ships to the Venetian war for him. An edict of Barbarossa's in 1159, and another dated 1175, shows that he allowed the Comacines to rebuild their walls and city at that date, _civitatem in cineres collapsam funditos re aedificavimus nos_. This occupied them a long time. The tower towards Milan bears the date of 1192. The round tower that of 1250. There were eight gates in these new walls.

FOOTNOTES:

[83] _Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. cap. ii. p. 79.

[84] Hope, _Storia dell' Architettura_, ch. xxii. p. 159 (Italian translation).

[85] _Storia estetico-critica della arti del disegno_, Lezione iv.

[86] The Act exists still, and is quoted in Sagredo's work, _Sulle consorterie delle Arti Edificative in Venezia_, p. 28.

[87] The same form is shown in the contemporary church of St. Victor at Arsago near Milan.

[88] Conductis protinus peritissimis artificibus tum amalphitanis, quam lombardis.--_Cronaca Sacri monasterii Ca.s.sinensis_, auctore Leone Cardinali Episcopo, Lib. III. cap. xxviii.

BOOK II

FIRST FOREIGN EMIGRATIONS OF THE COMACINES

CHAPTER I

THE NORMAN LINK

The great building guild of the Middle Ages had another connection with France, independently of Charlemagne, and one which perhaps left a more lasting impression on the nation than the church of Aix-la-Chapelle. It was through the Normans, who held a prominent place in the history of Romanesque art, some authors giving them the credit of its introduction into Italy.

This may be, but between the tenth and twelfth centuries architecture and sculpture underwent so many transformations and became mingled with so many different elements that its history is most difficult to disentangle. There was a maze of different influences brought together in Sicily, such as Norman, solid and heavy, from the north; Byzantine, set and precise, from the east; Saracenic, warm and fanciful, from the south--all mingling together in the temples of Monreale and Palermo, where I think we may add a fourth and Italian element, in the Comacines or Lombards.

The first consideration is: How did the Norman architecture first arise? Was it indigenous? Did the Normans about the tenth and eleventh centuries suddenly begin building round-arched and pillared churches from their own inner consciousness?--for all histories a.s.sure us there were no stone Norman-arched buildings before the tenth century, and that by 1150 the pointed style had already begun to supersede it. All the great and typical examples are crowded into the last fifty years of the eleventh century, at which time the Norman dukes were very powerful. It was a time of enterprise and excitement of all kinds, not the least of them being the rage for church-building, awakened by the early missionaries.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WEST DOOR OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW, SMITHFIELD, SHOWING THE COMACINE STYLE OF BUILDING (_opus gallic.u.m_).

(_From a photograph by Mr. Freeman Dovaston, Oswestry._) _See page 124._]

Some light may be thrown on the way the round arch first got into Normandy, by the following bits of old Norman chronicles, which show that a very important event took place in the history of the Comacines at the end of the tenth century, connecting them in a remarkable and suggestive manner with the rise of Norman architecture. We find from old chronicles that S. Guillaume, Abbot of S. Benigne in Dijon, was a Lombard, born in 961 on the island of Santa Giulia, in Lago di Orta, part of Lago Maggiore. He was the son of a certain Roberto, Lord of Volpiano; Otho the Great himself had been his G.o.dfather at the time when he besieged the island, and took prisoner Willa, wife of King Berengarius. Guillaume (William) was, as his friend and biographer, Glabrius Rodolphus, tells us, "of a keen intellect, and well instructed in the liberal arts." In his youth he travelled much in Italy, and was often at Venice, where he formed a close friendship with Orso Orseolo, Patriarch of Aquileja. The Patriarch Orso was at that time engaged in the restoration of the church of Torcello, one of the gems of architecture of the age; while his brother, the Doge Otho Orseolo, was pressing forward the works of S. Marco at Venice. It was here probably that S. Guillaume was interested in the Masonic guild, and recognizing its power as an aid to mission work, would have joined it. He founded the famous monastery of S. Benigno di Fruttuaria in Piedmont, and towards the end of the tenth century he went to France with the venerable Abbot of Cluny; here he decided to build a monastery to S. Benigne in Dijon, which he himself designed. But to effect his design he had to send to Italy, his own country, for "many people, men of letters, masters of divers arts, and others full of science."[89] The chronicler goes on to say that Guillaume displayed much wisdom in bringing these masters (_magistri conducendo_) to superintend the work (_ipsum opus dictando_). These two phrases are identical with those of Article 145 in the Edict of Rotharis, and I think might be equivalent to a proof that the Italians who built S. Benigne at Dijon were indeed of the Comacine Guild. The chroniclers further tell us that the Abbot Guillaume was invited to Normandy by Duke Richard II., to "found monasteries and erect buildings." The very phrase implies his connection with, and command of architects. He at first refused, because he had heard that the Dukes of Normandy were barbarous and truculent, and more likely to deface than to erect sacred temples; but afterwards he decided to go.

He stayed there twenty years, founding forty monasteries, and restoring old ones, which were in those days chiefly built of wood.

"He had many of his Italian monks trained to continue the work he had begun. These propagated such love and taste for art in those rude and bold Normans, that stone buildings multiplied there, and when William of Normandy conquered England, the style pa.s.sed over with him." Hope, whose judgment is unerring on all subjects connected with the Lombard style, confirms this. He says[90] that some time before the style came into England, Normandy had given remarkable models of a _tutto-sesto_ (round-arched) or Lombard style, and that the same precedence is noticeable in the pointed or composite style. Indeed, the English owe to the Normans the erection of many fine edifices of both kinds. Thus some gave the name of Norman to the Gothic buildings and others gave it to Lombard ones, and it was imagined that the pointed arch came originally from Normandy. And yet Normandy was one of the stations of pointed architecture in its pilgrimage towards us from the south. As an ill.u.s.tration and convincing proof of this pedigree of Norman style from the Lombard, we may give one of our oldest so-called Norman churches, that of St. Bartholomew the Great at Smithfield, London. The original nave has vanished, but the tribune remains, divested, it is true, of the two great piers in front of the apse, which were removed in 1410. The semi-circle of the apse has, however, been replaced in the old style; and, with its pillared arches and ambulatory, harmonizes well with the ancient part, now the nave, which is perfectly Lombard. The ambulatories below, and the women's gallery, such as we find in St. Agnes at Rome, and many Comacine churches, both have a distinctly Italian origin. Even the stilted arches in the choir only seem in their outline like magnified Lombard windows. The masonry is the true Comacine style, great square-cut blocks of stone, smoothed and fitted with exact precision; while the windows of the triforium are clearly a four-light development of the two-light Lombard window, divided by its small column; the very form of the column is identical, though it lacks the sculpture. Probably the Italian artists were few, and English a.s.sistants not yet trained. The clerestory was a reflex of a later style, being added in 1410, to replace the so-called Norman one, which no doubt had the usual round-arched windows with a column in the centre. Indeed, I think it would be worth the while of archaeologists to find out whether the whole church were not originally built by Italian architects, as Rahere, its founder, was in Rome on a pilgrimage, when he fell very ill of fever, and vowed to build a hospital if he recovered. He soon after had a vision of St.

Bartholomew, who instructed him to return to London, and build a church in the suburbs of Smithfield. He founded both the church and hospital of St. Bartholomew in about 1123. There seems to me to be such a difference between this church and other more heavy Norman contemporary buildings, that it might be suspected Rahere followed the older example of St. Wilfrid and St. Benedict Biscop, and brought over the Comacines with him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOUTH SIDE OF THE CHOIR, ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE GREAT, SMITHFIELD.

(_From a photograph by Mr. Freeman Dovaston, Oswestry._) _See page 124._]

I cannot agree with Mr. Fergusson in his a.s.sertion that the members of the early Freemason guilds were only masons, and never designed the works entrusted to them, but always worked under the guidance of some superior person, whether he were a bishop or abbot, or an accomplished layman. Certainly the architects who worked for the Longobards must also have sometimes given the design, or what do the words _opus dictando_ mean in the Edict of Rotharis? Surely Theodolinda could not have been architect enough to draw the plan for Monza. Nor do I think that the word _Magistro_ in the masonic or any other art guild, applied to mere masons or underlings, but to those who were so far masters of their craft as to direct others, and make a working plan for them. The bishop or abbot, or educated layman, might have formed his own idea about the style he wished his building to take, and have made a sketch of it; but the practical working plan would have been drawn by the Magister, who directed his workmen or _colligantes_ to put it into execution.