medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Does this fit your definition:
SS. Maria e Donato, Murano 7th C/1000 on the upper level of the external
apse
http://www.ac-versailles.fr/etabliss/europe-zola-igny/Igny/Voyage/Murano/ori
ginal/DSC00300.JPG
Paired columns supported the arches across the piano nobile of Ca' Farsetti
in Venice, originally all open, now windows filled in & two floors added
above. I can't find a good picture of this on-line.
DW
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Dillon" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2005 2:54 PM
Subject: Re: [M-R] Trani columns
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Dear All,
>
> Theresa had asked for parallels to the use of paired columns ("colonne
> binate") as rib supports in the nave of Trani cathedral. Similar
> structures (not, however, supporting tribunes as at Trani) were cited
> from late antique Christian buildings of cylindrical plan: the
> fourth-century Mausoleum of Constantina ("Santa Costanza") at Rome and
> the sixth-century baptistery (a.k.a. "La Rotonda") adjacent to the
> church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Nocera Superiore (SA).
>
> According to the Campania Felix page on the latter monument
>
http://www.campaniafelix.it/cf_viaggi/i%20luoghi%20dell'arte/battistero_di_s
__maria_maggiore.htm
> TinyURL for this: http://tinyurl.com/d8h8a
> , this use of paired columns is typical of fifth and sixth-century
> Christian basilicas from Africa. An example would be the Christian
> church in the Forum Vetus at Leptis Magna, described here in English
> translation:
>
http://mediatel.it/liberliber/biblioteca/testiinhtml/riviste/spolia/spoliain
glese/archeo1i/02i/lepcis.htm
> TinyURL for this: http://tinyurl.com/782u9
> esp. this:
> "The nave is divided into five spans. The central one is larger than the
> others and may have been covered with barrel vaults, supported by
> transversal ribs, which rested on colomns arranged in pairs."
>
> But for Trani we need not venture so far afield. Excavations under the
> floor of the Mary crypt have revealed that the predecessor church of the
> BVM was indeed a late antique, three-nave basilica as shown in the plan
> superimposing its outline over an unshaded one of the two crypts:
> http://www.mondimedievali.net/Edifici/Puglia/tran10.jpg
> This plan, reproduced on p. 34 of Ronchi's _La cattedrale di Trani_,
> where it is illustration 13, identified as "Icnografia della chiesa di
> Santa Maria" ["Groundplan of the church of Saint Mary"], is apparently
> that of the original excavator, Riccardo Mola, whose discoveries Ronchi
> summarizes and praises on pp. 19-20. Mola's original report is his
> "Scavi e richerche sotto la cattedrale di Trani. Notizie dei
> ritrovamenti", _Vetera Christianorum_ 9 (1972), 361-86.
>
> These excavations uncovered plinths showing an identical arrangement of
> paired columns right beneath those of the nave of the successor church
> dedicated to Nick the Pilgrim. It is these plinths, and not the
> twelfth-century reinforcements described by Ronchi (op. cit., pp. 55,
> 63-64), that are represented by the dark transverse bars of the plan;
> presumably, these are shown as single units because each is of a size
> and shape suitable for carrying two adjacent columns. Ronchi (p. 61)
> agrees that the new church's motif of paired columns was adopted from
> its predecessor.
>
> I would have had this sooner were I not misled by Ronchi's account
> (pp. 55-56) of the demolition of the church of the BVM (which coin finds
> suggest was a late fourth- / early fifth-century structure); this
> disagrees with what Ronchi himself has to say on pp. 63-64 about the
> form of that early church, is unsupported by argument or external
> reference, and was, one hopes, an unintended contradiction.
>
> In any event, the answer to Theresa's question is that double columns
> along the nave were a feature of this cathedral's late antique
> predecessor and their memory was retained in its construction.
>
> Best again,
> John Dillon
>
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