nave is divided from its aisles by eleven arches on each side, and
measures about one hundred and fifty feet in length, by one hundred and
five in width. The aisle roofs are modern, but the nave still retains
its old roof, a fine example of a cusped ceiling, boarded and panelled
in small square panels. The whole of this ceiling is painted, and with
extremely good effect, though the only colours used are black, white,
and brownish yellow. Each panel is filled with a small painted hexagon
filled with tracery painted in black and white, and all the ribs and
leading lines are yellow and black. The purlines, which are arranged so
as to form the points of the cusps, are very decidedly marked with
black. Simple as the treatment is, the effect is admirable, and it
appeared to me
[Illustration: 35. DUOMO. AQUILEJA. p. 244.]
to be owing to the large amount of white in the panels. Near the west
end of the north aisle is a singular circular erection, which is said by
the cicerone to be the receptacle for the holy oil, but which without
this information I should have taken for the baptistery. It is a
perfectly plain circular mass of stonework about fifteen feet across,
with a doorway on the west side, a moulded base and cornice, and above
the latter a series of detached shafts carrying a second cornice of
marble. A square projection on the north side abuts against the aisle
wall, and seems to have been the special receptacle for the vessel which
held the oil. At present it seems to be as little used and understood by
the people of Aquileja as it would probably be if it were in some
country beyond the Roman pale; a remark by the way on old church
arrangements which one finds oneself making almost everywhere, when one
contrasts the intentions of the old builders with the uses to which more
modern ideas--reformed or deformed, whichever they may be--are in the
habit of applying them.
At Aquileja the appropriation of pagan fragments was carried so far that
we found Classic capitals doing service as holy-water stoups.
The interior of the eastern part of the church is more interesting than
that of the nave. It is all probably of the original foundation, and
retains most of the old arrangements. The floor of the choir is raised
some ten or twelve steps, with two flights of steps on each side of the
centre. At the top of these steps, projecting sideways into the
transepts, are tribunes with open balustrades which seem to have served
as ambons. The apse has two rows of seats, with the patriarch’s seat
raised in the centre, and the altar stands in front of this on the chord
of the apse. It is curious that this, which is an apse internally, is a
square projection from the transept externally.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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