The Basilica, as Vitruvius explains it, was a room where the ruler and his delegates administered justice. But when, after the persecutions, Christians were allowed their churches, the Basilicæ so well supplied the needs of Christian worship, that either the ancient ones were used as churches, or new buildings were erected in the same form; so that by the fourth century the word Basilica was understood to mean a church remarkable for its size, and of a set form and grandeur, with a raised tribune. The Basilicæ of Constantine were all dedicated to Saints--St. Peter, St. Paul, Beato Marcellino. The Sessorian Basilica was begun in 330, to hold the relics of the Cross, discovered by the Empress Helena. From the time of the edict of Theodosius, however, Christian architecture took a new and independent character; and this was when the Basilica became amplified and beautified. The Oriental churches, on the other hand, were derived from the antique synagogue, in which concentric forms, either circular or polygonal, predominated. In their later development four equal arms were added, and here we get the Greek Cross, in the centre of which arose the dome. In the Romanesque, or Comacine style of the ninth to the fourteenth centuries, the form becomes more complicated. We have, 1. the sanctuary or presbytery; 2. the apse for the choir; 3. the transepts; 4. the normal square or centre; 5. the elongated nave; 6. the aisles; 7. the atrium or portico. In Theodolinda's time, however, church architecture in Lombardy was wholly and purely Roman, with the influences of mediæval Christianity. Ricci tells us that the construction of the first churches followed a symbolical expression. "Hermeneutic symbolism required that the apse or choir should face the east, so that the faithful while praying had that part before them." A very usual form was the tri-apsidal church, of which many specimens still exist. S. Pietro a Grado, near Pisa, is a beautiful specimen of this. Around the apse of a Lombard church was a portico where the penitents and catechumens might stand, who were not yet admitted to the altar. On high were _loggie_ (galleries) "for the virgins and women." The tribune was elevated and often ornamented with a railing, the crypt or confessional being beneath it. The crypt signified a memory of the early Christians, when subterranean catacombs formed the church of the faithful. The altar was generally the tomb of a martyr, in fulfilment of the text--"I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held" (Rev. vi. 9). Where the original form of the Lombard church has not been altered, as in the first Monza church, all these parts may be still seen. We are expressly told by Ricci,[25] that for the building of her church at Monza, Queen Theodolinda availed herself of those _Magistri Comacini_, who, as Rotharis describes them in his laws 143 and 144, were qualified architects and builders.