Cons/rudion.—Among these well-preserved groups of buildings two quite different schools may be distinguished. The most southern of these is located in the Hauran, where there is no timber; here the struc tures are roofed in the most original manner with arches which cross the room diagonally, the spaces between them being ceiled with stone beams whose span is diminished by corbels. Both secular buildings and Chris tian churches are roofed in this wise, as the basilica at Tafkha, the two churches at QunawAt, and the five-aisled basilica at Sueideh, which has porticoes with mouldings, a three-aisled choir, a principal apse, and two lateral apses. These latter are somewhat richer and more recent, and were erected under the influence of the completed basilica style. The northern of the two groups alluded to, in which a richer display of details is the consequence of more favorable materials, consists of columned basilicas of the fourth and fifth centuries at Rherbet-Hass and El-Barah, which are also to be noted for the rich details of their exteriors.
Churches of lire Fourth will now return to some slightly later plans, that we may consider and properly appreciate these in con nection with other interesting efforts in church-architecture. Therefore we will now trace the development of other regions.
In Germany, Trevcs was one of the earliest seats of Christianity, and the plan of its cathedral is ascribed to St. Helena, the mother of Con stantine.
The Tomb of Helena in the Campagna, about two miles outside Rome, is a circular domed structure having in its walls eight niches above which are eight windows; it is now known as the Torre Pig nattara, from the pignatte, or amphora:, built into the concrete dome to lighten it.
The Tomb of Sta. Costansa, Constantine's daughter, built about the middle of the fourth century, is a circular building in the interior of which are twelve coupled columns bearing entablatures and connected by semicircular arches. Above these rises a superstructure pierced by win dows; it has a domed ceiling, and the circular surrounding aisle, or ambu latory, has a tunnel-vault and niches in the wall.
Near the Lateran Basilica exists an octangular baptistery in which an interior range of columns separates the higher central space from the lower circular aisle. The columns, taken from older structures, have porphyry shafts with Ionic and Corinthian capitals united by an architrave, above which rises a second shorter range of columns. The central part is covered by a dome (pl. 15, fig. 9).
Sta. 2110;g/ore at Rome, a grand basilica with a nave and two aisles, is a work of the fourth century; it was built by Pope Liberius (352-366). The upper wall of the nave is borne by Ionic columns and architraves.
S. Paolo Aori le Afura (St. Paul's outside-the-walls) was built in 386 at Rome by Theodosius (345-395), the last real emperor and a strong supporter of the Church. This edifice was completed 40o A. D. , and, with
the exception of the ceiling, existed until 1823, when it was burned, but has since been rebuilt. The modern basilica is in shape similar to the older edifice, of which in other respects it is but an erroneous imitation. Figures 2 and 3 (p/. 14) give an interior view and ground-plan, the former according to Hilbsch's restoration.
Sta. Maria Rotondo at Nocera de' Pagani belongs to the close of the fourth century; it is circular, with a double row of columns, and serves as a baptistery. The dome rests immediately on the columns without an intervening ring of walling.
San Lorenzo at Milan is another building of the close of the fourth century, when that city was the imperial residence. In the sixteenth century this church was rebuilt; yet its ground-plan (pi. 15, fig. II) and previous architecture can be made out.
The Fall of Rome.—We must now speak of political history, which in the course of a century entirely changed the stage upon which the devel opment of art proceeded. Theodosius at his death, in 395, divided his empire into an Eastern and a Western. The seat of the latter was in 404 removed from Milan to Ravenna. In 408 the Visigoth Alaric stormed and plundered Rome; in 455 it was again sacked by the Vandals under Gen seric, and in 473 by the Visigoth Ricimer, who as Roman marshal had made and unmade several emperors. Ocloacer, King of the Hertili, in 476 removed the last shadow of an emperor, Romulus Augustulns. The Western empire had ceased to be; the German barbarians had parcelled it among themselves. Rome itself, a heap o( ruins, its political importance lost, remained only the metropolis of the Church. Among the barbarians who spread themselves over Italy the Ostrogoths had won the chief place, and in 493 they made Ravenna their capital.
Churches of the Fifth Italian buildings were executed in the fifth century belong almost exclusively to ecclesiastical architecture. While Rome was plundered and its monuments overthrown, new churches were everywhere set up through the zeal of the bishops. Early in the fifth century Bishop Paulinus was active at Nola, iu Cam pania, and built, besides several small structures—monumental churches in honor of St. Felix—a large and fine basilica the wall of whose nave was carried upon an arcade. The nave had a flat panelled ceiling, and in the aisles were separate chapels. A transept with a principal and two side apses formed the east end. A baptistery and some other buildings were connected with the basilica; so that the whole group, according to Pauli nus's own saying, looked like a little city. The richly-painted decora tion which the poet gave to his building, together with a wealth of poetical inscriptions, has been preserved to us in his letters and poems.