Part 17 (2/2)
At Parma we have also precise data, and a name carven in stone. The cathedral was begun in 1059, four years before that of Pisa. It was finished by 1106, when Pope Pasquale II. consecrated it, the great Countess Matilda being present. In 1117 a part of it fell in an earthquake, and the Bishop Bernardo apportioned the receipts of several taxes to the rebuilding. Frederic Barbarossa in 1162 confirmed this disposition of the taxes and the work was continued. The _laborerium_ of the Comacines at Parma was at different times under two of their chief sculptor-architects, Benedetto da Antelamo being master of the lodge in 1178, and Giovanni Bono of Bissone in 1281.
Benedetto sculptured the now ancient pulpit of the cathedral, which was supported on four columns, and to which the relief of the Crucifixion, signed by him, belonged. It is now in the third chapel on the right. He also designed and erected the Baptistery, which, more than any building of the time, shows an originality of idea quite remarkable. It is built entirely of white marble, is of course octagonal, that is _de regle_, and is surrounded by rows of little pillared galleries, but in these he has made his colonnettes cla.s.sical, and has left out the arches entirely, except in the upper one, subst.i.tuting a solid flat marble entablature for them. The lower part only has a circular arch in each of the eight sides. The arches of the doorways are very deep, and richly sculptured. One has four dark marble pillars on each side of the door, of which the lintels and architrave are richly carved in reliefs. The north door has a Nativity of Christ in the lunette, and a story of John the Baptist beneath it.
The west portal shows a realistic Last Judgment above, and on the sides the seven ages of man, and Christ performing the seven works of mercy. On the south door is the allegory of Death from the mediaeval religious romance of _Barlaam and Josaphat_. The arches between the doors are filled in with niches containing statues supported on black marble Corinthian columns.
All round the building above the base is a frieze of the real old animal myths and symbols, such as the Comacines of two or three centuries earlier delighted in. The march of the times had now subst.i.tuted actual representations of scriptural subjects, instead of mere symbols of dark mysteries, but the _Magister_ could not all at once leave behind him the old emblems which had served his guild for centuries in the way of ornamentation. The building is unique, and shows daring independent thought at a time when independence was most difficult.
Fergusson, however, blames the false principles of design. He says the four upper storeys are only built to conceal a dome, which is covered by a flat wooden roof. The roof seen from above seems to be a flat tiled roof, and it has a pretty solid bell-turret in the centre. The little arches forming the upper range are slightly pointed. This Baptistery, as well as the pulpit in the Duomo, bears the signature of the builder and sculptor, and the date 1196.
”Bis binis demptis annis de mille ducentis.
Incepit dictus opus hoc sculptor Benedictus.”[137]
Val d'Antelamo, the native place of Benedictus, is a valley near Lago Maggiore towards Laveno. It seems probable that a branch school or lodge of the Comacines existed here, of which Benedetto was at this epoch at the head,[138] and gave the name to his pupils. They must have emigrated like other branches of the guild, for in the ancient statutes of Genoa we find several mentions of experts in architecture, called _Magistri da Antelamo_, who were called in by the city magistrates, when any building work had to be valued or judged.[139]
As early as 1181 in the archives of S. Giorgio, one finds the names Martino and Ottoboni, Magistri Antelami, and as late as Nov. 27, 1855, a sentence was given at the Collegio dei Giudici at Genoa by a Maestro Anteramo. The subst.i.tution of r for l is to this day a very common error among Italians.
In 1161 a squadron of Masters from Lombardy was called to renovate the cathedral of Faenza, which was much ruined. These Masters accepted, and showed themselves most proficient. So says an old writer quoted by Merzario, but whether these very clever architects were the same Antelami branch who worked at Parma cannot be decided.[140] A later Comacine Master at Parma, whose name has come down to us, is Giovanni Bono of Bissone, a little village between Como and Lugano. The grand vestibule of the princ.i.p.al door of Parma cathedral, with its lion-supported columns, its bands of colonnettes and its rich sculpture, was designed by him. In a Gothic inscription over the door deciphered by Sig. Pezzana, we learn that the lions were made by Giovanni Bono da Bissone in 1280, at the time when Guido, Niccolao, Bernardino, and Benvenuti worked in the _laborerium_.[141]
This inscription, for which I am indebted to Canonico Pietro Tonarelli, is especially valuable, not only in fixing the epoch of Giovanni Buono da Bissoni's work, but as proof of the organization of the lodge and the brotherhood of its members. The word _fratrum_ certainly implies that the _laborerium_ was in the hands of a guild.
The Canonico Tonarelli writes in a letter from Parma, that in an estimate in the archives of the Chapter, dated 1354, the _Fabbriceria_ was denominated _Domus laborerii seu fabricae ... majoris Ecclesiae_, and that the administrators were called _fratres de Laborerio_. In Tuscany they were called _Operai_, and the office of administrator was the _Opera del Duomo_. The four names of the _fratres_, too, have a significance when read in the light I have since found thrown on the organization by the archives of the _Opere_ in Siena and Florence. In those lodges one perceives plainly that the administration of the lodge was placed under four persons, of whom two were Masters of the guild, and two were influential persons of the city, _i.e._ half the council of administration gave the votes of the architects employed, and the other half those of the patrons who employed them. That the same rule held in this earlier lodge at Parma is confirmed by the fact that Niccolao and Benvenuti are found working together with Giovanni Buono at Pistoja in 1270.[142]
Sometimes a single name stands out among the file of Comacines, and one finds several well-known buildings that have emanated from one mind. Such a Master was Magister Giorgio of Jesi, near Como. His name is graven in the stones of many a church. At Fermo on the Adriatic, a ”sumptuous” cathedral was built in 1227; a certain Bartolommeo Mansionarius being the patron. On the left south door was a slab with the inscription--”A.D. MCCXXVII Bartolomeus Mansionarius Hoc opus fieri fecit Per Ma.n.u.s Magistri Georgii de Episcopatu Com”.... That the mutilated word is Como we prove by a similar inscription on the cathedral at Jesi (the ancient aesis where the Emperor Frederick II., grandson of Barbarossa, was born). The ancient cathedral of S.
Septimus, a truly Lombard building, still exists in part. Here the inscription runs--”A.D. MCCx.x.xVII tempore D. Gregorii Papae domini Federici Imperatoris, et domini Severini. episcope. aesini. Magister Georgius de c.u.mo civis aesinus fecit hoc opus.”
Here we get the city as well as the bishopric to which Magister Giorgius belonged. He was a citizen of Jesi in the diocese of Como, and a qualified member of the higher rank of the Comacine Guild. In the little town of Penna in the same province, where the church was ruined in an earthquake, an ancient stone was found with the following inscription in old Latin--”In the name of G.o.d. Amen. This work was commenced in the time of the Priest Gualtieri, and completed in that of the Priest Grazia, by Master George of Jesi in the year 1256.” By these stones we find that Master George worked in the province of Piceno for thirty years, between Fermo, Jesi, and Penna. To him is attributed the ancient communal palace of Jesi which was rebuilt in the fifteenth century by other Comacine Masters.
FOOTNOTES:
[124] _Pisa ill.u.s.trata nelle Arti del Disegno._
[125] Professor Ridolfi, _L' Arte in Lucca_, p. 74, _et seq._
[126] Sull' Architettura e sulla Scultura in Venezia nel medio evo sino ai nostri giorni. _Studi di P. Selvatico_, cap. ii. p. 48.
[127] Selvatico, _Storia della Scultura_, Lib. II. cap. ii.
[128] _Storia di Como_, vol. i. p. 537.
[129] In a work by Luigi Mazara (_Temple antediluvien decouvert dans l'ile de Calypso_, Paris 1872) there are two engravings of gateways, one a subterranean one at Alatri in Latium, which is said to have been the work of Saturn, and is called the Porta Sanguinaria; the other of Cyclopean architecture was also in Latium, and called Porta Ac.u.minata; both of them are pointed arches. This would carry the invention back to 2000 B.C. Many of the subterranean aqueducts of Rome have acute arches for purposes of strength.
[130] Seroux, _Histoire de l'art par les monuments_, p. ii. Paris.
[131] Hope, _Storia dell' Architettura_, cap. x.x.xiii.
[132] Selvatico, _Sull' architettura e scultura in Venezia dal medio evo_, p. 90. Venezia, 1874.
[133] Aff, _Storia di Parma_, tomo iii. p. 14.
[134] See _Borgo S. Donnino e suo Santuario_, pp. 59 and 112, by an anonymous author.
[135] ”Dicta ecclesia fundata fuit anno Dominicae Incarnationis millesimo centesimo III gesimo septimo sub dom Papa Innocentio II., sub Episcopo Rogerio, Regnante Rege Lothario, per Magistrum Fredum.”--_Storia della Citta e Chiesa di Bergamo_, Tomo III. lib. x.
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