are generally surmounted
by a low conical roof.

The type of church which we have described influenced church
architecture in Italy down to the eleventh century, and such buildings
as the beautiful church (Fig. 155) of San Miniato, near Florence (A.D.
1013), and the renowned group of Cathedral, Baptistery, Campanile, and
Campo Santo (a kind of cloistered cemetery) at Pisa, bear a very
strong resemblance in many respects to these originals; though they
belong rather to the Romanesque than to the Basilican division of
early Christian architecture.

FOOTNOTE:

[28] 'Gothic and Renaissance Architecture,' chap. ii. p. 6.

[Illustration: FIG. 158a.--FRIEZE FROM THE MONASTERY AT FULDA.]

CHAPTER XII.

BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE.

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,[29] after his own name. Byzantium had been an ancient
place, but was almost in ruins when Constantine, probably attracted by
the unrivalled advantages of its site,[30] rebuilt it, or at least
re-established it as a city. The solemn inauguration of Constantinople
as the new capital took place A.D. 330; and when, under Theodosius,
the empire was divided, this city became the capital of the East.

With a new point of departure among a people largely of Greek race,
we might expect that a new development of the church from some other
type than the basilica might be likely to show itself. This, in fact,
is what occurred; for while the most ancient churches of Rome all
present, as we have seen, an almost slavish copy of an existing type
of building, and do not attempt the use of vaulted roofs, in Byzantium
buildings of most original design sprang up, founded, it is true, on
Roman originals, but by no means exact copies of them. In the erection
of these churches the most difficult problems of construction were
successfully encountered and solved. What may have been the course
which architecture ran during the two centuries between the refounding
of Byzantium and the building of Santa Sophia under Justinian, we can,
however, only infer from its outcome. It is doubtful if any church
older than the sixth century now remains in Constanti