Some say the church was designed by Ansige, Abbot of Fontanelles, others give the credit to Eginhard, or Eginbertus, as his Lombard name is spelt; but as he does not claim it for himself in his writing,--indeed, we see from the above extract that he speaks quite impersonally of it,--there is certainly no documentary evidence to prove this assertion. Speaking dispassionately, it would be strange for a man of letters, private secretary to a great king, to suddenly develop into a full-fledged architect. It is much more likely that as he was a Lombard, he was interested in employing the builders whom all his countrymen had employed for centuries. D'Agincourt, who had a good deal of _amour propre_, and would, if he could, always give glory to France, says (vol. i. p. 27, 139)--"It is natural to believe that the Italian architects whom Charlemagne had brought with him, designed the buildings they made for him in France, on the lines of those of their own country." Dartein, in his _Lombard Architecture_, writes of it--"If we inspect the octagonal half-domes which terminate the centre of the cross in S. Fedele at Como, we see that they reproduce the rotunda of Aix-la-Chapelle. The form of the shafts, the outline of the wall, and the disposition of the collateral vaults are alike in both edifices. The similarity is so great as to prove imitation, especially as other churches in the Rhone district remind one of churches in the territory of Como." The fact of similitude is significant, but is it not more likely that the imitation was the other way? S. Fedele, or S. Eufemia as it was first called, was built in S. Abbondio's time, A.D. 440, before the era of the Longobards, and we are told is the only church of that time which retains its original architecture, especially in the rounded apse. The similarity would then go to prove what has been an hypothesis, that Charlemagne really brought builders as well as marble from Italy, and that the _Magistri Comacini_ were those builders. The church has also been compared to S. Vitale at Ravenna, but the Comacines were accustomed to build circular churches, such as the Rotunda at Brescia, and others. They were generally used as baptisteries or mausoleums; in fact were ceremonial churches.