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Discovering the Byzantine Art of Building: Lectures at the RIBA, the Royal Academy and the London Architectural Society, 1843–58
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 December 2020
Abstract
Although British architects played a major role in the rediscovery of the Byzantine monuments of Greece in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, earlier interest in the subject has remained obscure. Four lectures, read at the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Royal Academy and the London Architectural Society from 1843 to 1857, reflect a lively interest in Byzantine church architecture in the mid-nineteenth century. Delivered by Charles Robert Cockerell (1843), Edwin Nash (1847), Thomas Leverton Donaldson (1853) and John Louis Petit (1858), these lectures constitute some of the earliest attempts in England to explore both well-known monuments such as Hagia Sophia and lesser-known churches in Greece, Turkey and elsewhere. The manuscript records of these lectures show that influential British architects were not only familiar with Byzantine monuments, but were also able to look at them from the viewpoint of the designer and the builder. Emphasising the potential of Byzantine architecture to inform new design, they paved the way for the Byzantine revival, half a century later, and for the systematic investigation of Byzantine architecture from the late nineteenth century onwards.
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References
NOTES
1 For the Byzantine revival in British architecture during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, see Bullen, J. B., Byzantium Rediscovered (London, 2003), pp. 165–85Google Scholar.
2 Kotoula, Dimitra, ‘Arts and Crafts and the Byzantine: The Greek Connection’, in Byzantium/Modernism: The Byzantine as Method in Modernity, ed. Betancourt, Roland and Taroutina, Maria (Leiden and Boston, 2015), pp. 75–102Google Scholar (p. 75). See also Chlepa, Eleni-Anna Ελένη-Άννα Χλέπα, Ta Vizantina Mnimia sti Neoteri Ellada, Ideologia kai Praktiki ton Apokatastaseon 1833–1939 Τα Βυζαντινά Μνημεία στη Νεότερη Ελλάδα, Ιδεολογία και Πρακτική των Αποκαταστάσεων 1833–1939 [The Byzantine Monuments in Modern Greece, Ideology and Practice of Restoration 1833–1939] (Athens, 2011)Google Scholar, and A. G. Kakissis, ed., Byzantium and British Heritage: Byzantine Influences on the Arts and Crafts Movement (forthcoming).
3 For the Byzantine models used by Bentley, Schultz and Lethaby, see Bullen, Byzantium Rediscovered, pp. 166–74.
4 See Nelson, Robert, Hagia Sophia, 1850–1950: Holy Wisdom Modern Monument (London, 2004), pp. 29–50Google Scholar.
5 See Lewis, Michael J., The Gothic Revival (London, 2002), pp. 81–105Google Scholar.
6 See White, James F., The Cambridge Movement: The Ecclesiologists and the Gothic Revival (Cambridge, 1962), pp. 178–97Google Scholar.
7 Bullen, Byzantium Rediscovered, pp. 108, 140.
8 Nelson, Hagia Sophia, pp. 51–72.
9 Bullen, Byzantium Rediscovered, pp. 112, 117.
10 See Thomas Hope, An Historical Essay on Architecture (London 1835), pp. 121–43; Edward A. Freeman, A History of Architecture (London, 1849), pp. 164–74.
11 Bullen (Byzantium Rediscovered, pp. 110–12) notes that ‘in the early years of the nineteenth century, British understanding of Eastern Byzantium was picturesque rather than archaeological […] Outside of travel literature, there was not much discussion of Byzantine architecture.’ For a similar argument, see Nelson, Hagia Sophia, p. 51. The first scholar to challenge this notion was Chlepa, Ta Vizantina Mnimia, pp. 20–22.
12 For Cockerell's lectures at the Royal Academy, see David Watkin, The Life and Work of C. R. Cockerell (London, 1974), pp. 105–32. This study focuses on Cockerell's approach to the classical language of architecture, and does not discuss his interests in medieval architecture.
13 Watkin, Cockerell, p. xix.
14 Watkin, Cockerell, pp. 12–13.
15 Builder, 4 March 1843, pp. 44–45.
16 London, RIBA Archive, Cockerell Family Papers, Coc/1/107/5, Charles Robert Cockerell, lecture notes, ‘The History of Christian Architecture, Including References to Basilicas, the Emperors Constantine and Justinian and Greek Forms of Church Buildings’, London, 1843, pp. 1–16.
17 Anne Bordeleau, Charles Robert Cockerell: Architect in Time (Farnham, 2014), p. 21. Watkin, Cockerell, pp. 105–32
18 RIBA Archive, Coc/1/107/5, p. 5.
19 RIBA Archive, Coc/1/107/5, p. 10.
20 See ‘Romanesque and Catholick Architecture’, The Ecclesiologist, 2 (1843), pp. 5–16.
21 For the Ecclesiological Society's criticism of new church design, see White, Cambridge Movement, p. 179; Bullen, Byzantium Rediscovered, pp. 116, 138.
22 RIBA Archive, Coc/1/107/5, p. 1.
23 Bordeleau, Architect in Time, p. 2.
24 RIBA Archive, Coc/1/107/5, p. 15.
25 RIBA Archive, Coc/1/107/5, p. 10.
26 Gaspard Fossati, Aya Sofia Constantinople, as Recently Restored by Order of H.M. the Sultan Abdul Medjid (London, 1852); Wilhelm Salzenberg, Alt-christliche Baudenkmale von Constantinopel vom V. bis XII. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1854), pp. 46–110.
27 Nelson (Hagia Sophia, p. 116) mentions that Texier's drawings were never published. According to William Lethaby and Harold Swainson, these drawings were kept in the library of the RIBA. See William Lethaby and Harold Swainson, The Church of Sancta Sophia Constantinople (London, 1894), p. 10.
28 Alexandre Albert Lenoir, ‘Histoire de l'architecture byzantine’, Revue Générale de l'Architecture, 1 (1840), pp. 7–17.
29 Cockerell may also have had access to descriptions of Hagia Sophia in travel accounts such as that of Corneille Le Brun. The latter had been used by Thomas Sandby, one of Cockerell's predecessors, in his lectures for the Royal Academy. See Corneille Le Brun, Voyage au Levant (Delft, 1700), pp. 40–41. For the use of Le Brun's book in Sandby's lectures at the Royal Academy, see John Summerson, ‘The Evolution of Soane's Bank Stock Office at the Bank of England’, Architectural History, 27 (1984), pp. 135–49.
30 RIBA Archive, Coc/1/107/5, pp. 10–15.
31 For further information about the middle Byzantine, cross-in-square church, see Cyril Mango, Byzantine Architecture (Milan, 1978), p. 338.
32 André Couchaud, Choix d’églises bysantines en Grèce (Paris, 1842).
33 Lenoir published the plan of the church of Panagia Gorgoëpikoos, a typical example of the cross-in-square type. See Lenoir, ‘Histoire de l'architecture byzantine’, p. 11.
34 The Byzantine ‘tetrastyle’ church, Cockerell argued, ‘is one [type] which the learned [Wren] often employed so frequently in the City of London. Nor can it be doubted that he adopted this form on the basis of the authorities which we here find so sound and so conclusive’: RIBA Archive, Coc/1/107/5, p. 15.
35 This surprising statement occurs both in Cockerell's lecture notes and in the summary in Builder (4 March 1843, pp. 44–45). According to the summary, Cockerell traced the path through which the influence of the Byzantine domed basilica reached medieval and Renaissance Europe and, eventually, seventeenth-century London.
36 RIBA Archive, Coc/1/107/5, p. 15.
37 Further doubts about Cockerell's claims are raised by the limited information on Byzantine architecture that Wren had at his disposal. See Robin Griffith-Jones, ‘An Enrichment of Cherubims: Christopher Wren's Refurbishment of the Temple Church’, in The Temple Church in London: History, Architecture, ed. Robin Griffith-Jones and David Park (Woodbridge, 2010), pp. 135–75.
38 Cockerell's knowledge of this type seems to have been shaped by buildings he may have visited during his trips to Rome from 1815 to 1817.
39 For an excellent description of the variety of Constantinian architecture, see Richard Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture (New Haven and London, 1986), pp. 69–91.
40 Mango, Byzantine Architecture, p. 86.
41 See Antonia Brodie, Directory of British Architects 1834–1914, Vol. 2 (London, 2001), p. 241. Nash was a pupil of Samuel Robinson (1752–1833) and George Maddox (1760–1843). He also worked in the office of Sir Gilbert Scott, before setting up his own practice. Today, he is known mainly as the architect of two small Gothic revival churches in Kent: All Souls in Crockenhill and St James's in North Cray. For the former, see John Newman, The Buildings of England: West Kent and the Weald (London, 1969), p. 241. For further information about the London Architectural Society (founded in 1806), see Essays of the London Architectural Society (London, 1808).
42 RIBA Archive, LAS.4/2, Edwin Nash, lecture notes, ‘Remarks on Cupolas’, 1847.
43 Nash may have chosen this topic under the influence of Cockerell. Indeed, he refers to Cockerell and even repeats some of his ideas.
44 RIBA Archive, LAS.4/2, pp. 35–36
45 RIBA Archive, LAS.4/2, p. 42.
46 RIBA Archive, LAS.4/2, pp. 30–40.
47 RIBA Archive, LAS.4/2, p. 38.
48 See Robert G. Ousterhout, Eastern Medieval Architecture (Oxford, 2019), p. 251.
49 Auguste Choisy, L'art de bâtir chez les Byzantins (Paris, 1883).
50 RIBA Archive, LAS.4/2, p. 42. Nash probably drew this information from Lenoir. According to the French author, in the dome of San Vitale ‘ces vases enfilés les uns dans les autres, forment d'abord la base de la voûte, puis la courbe, se continuant sans interruption et en spirale, arrive ainsi au sommet de la coupole’ [‘inserted inside one another, these jars first form the base of the vault, then the curvature, continuing without interruption spirally, thus reaching the crown of the dome’]. See Lenoir, ‘Histoire de l'architecture byzantine’, p. 9. For a more recent reference to the structure of the dome of San Vitale, see Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2010), p. 229. For Soane's use of hollow jars in the Bank of England, see David Dunster and Frank Russell, John Soane (London, 1983), p. 69.
51 RIBA Archive, LAS.4/2, p. 42.
52 Alexander William Crawford Lindsay, Sketches of the History of Christian Art (London, 1847; repr. 1885), pp. 241–46.
53 For a thorough analysis of Lindsay's approach to Byzantine art, see Nelson, Hagia Sophia, pp. 54–57.
54 Bullen, Byzantium Rediscovered, p.116.
55 Lindsay, Sketches of the History of Christian Art, p. 242.
56 Robert Curzon, Visits to Monasteries in the Levant (London, 1849; repr. 1955), pp. 25–33.
57 Frank Salmon, ‘British Architects, Italian Fine Arts Academies and the Foundation of the RIBA, 1816–43’, Architectural History, 39 (1996), pp. 77–113.
58 Dieter Weidmann, ‘Through the Stable Door to Prince Albert? On Gottfried Semper's London Connections’, Journal of Art Historiography, 11 (2014), pp. 1–26.
59 RIBA Archive, MS.SP/11/10, Thomas Leverton Donaldson, ‘Some Remarks on a Certain Class of Gallo-Byzantine Churches in and near Perigueux in France’, manuscript lecture notes, 1853.
60 See Thomas Leverton Donaldson, ‘On a Certain Class of Gallo-Byzantine Churches in and near Perigueux in France’, Builder, 29 January 1853, pp. 66–68. Both Donaldson's lecture and its publication in the Builder have been discussed briefly by Bullen, Byzantium Rediscovered, p. 131.
61 Félix de Verneilh, L'architecture byzantine en France: Saint-Front de Périgueux et les églises à coupoles de l'Aquitaine (Paris, 1851), pp. 13–18.
62 Ruskin, John, The Stones of Venice (London, 1851–53)Google Scholar.
63 RIBA Archive, MS.SP/11/10, p. 8.
64 RIBA Archive, MS.SP/11/10, p. 4.
65 Donaldson also mentioned that he was asked to translate Jules Gailhabaud's Monuments anciens et modernes (Paris, 1857), which featured contributions by Lenoir.
66 Lenoir, Alexandre Albert, Architecture monastique (Paris, 1852), pp. 97–403Google Scholar.
67 Donaldson repeats Lenoir's observations of the cruciform element in the plan of Hagia Sophia, the octagonal form of the church of San Vitale, as well as the drum windows of the church of Sotera Lycodemou. See Lenoir, Architecture monastique, p. 266.
68 Texier, Charles, Description de l'Arménie, la Perse et la Mésopotamie (Paris, 1842)Google Scholar, plate 18.
69 See Donaldson, ‘On a Certain Class of Gallo-Byzantine Churches in and near Perigueux in France’, pp. 66–67. See also Stamp, Gavin, ‘In Search of the Byzantine: George Gilbert Scott's Diary of an Architectural Tour of France, 1862’, Architectural History, 46 (2003), pp. 188–228CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
70 RIBA Archive, MS.SP/13/21, Collection of papers read at general meetings 1835–1858, John Louis Petit, ‘Remarks on Byzantine Churches’, manuscript lecture notes, 1858.
71 See ‘Romanesque and Catholick Architecture’, The Ecclesiologist, 2 (1843), pp. 5–16.
72 RIBA Archive, MS.SP/13/21, p. 1
73 John Louis Petit, ‘Remarks on Byzantine Architecture’, Building News, 12 March 1858, pp. 277–79.
74 RIBA Archive, MS.SP/13/21, pp. 2–4.
75 RIBA Archive, MS.SP/13/21, p. 4
76 RIBA Archive, MS.SP/13/21, p. 8. Lenoir (Architecture monastique, p. 327) failed to define the exact geometry and structural role of the pendentive.
77 Petit's attention to geometry and structure foreshadows that of Choisy, L'art de bâtir chez les Byzantins, pp. 87–97.
78 RIBA Archive, MS.SP/13/21, pp. 14–40.
79 RIBA Archive, MS.SP/13/21, p. 33.
80 RIBA Archive, MS.SP/13/21, p. 40.
81 This church has been dated to the period between the late tenth and the eleventh century. For a discussion of this chronology and an excellent description of the building, see Panagiotis Vokotopoulos Παναγιώτης Βοκοτόπουλος, ‘Peri tin Chronologisin tou en Kerkyra naou ton Agion Iasonos kai Sosipatrou’ ‘Περί την Χρονολόγησιν του εν Κερκύρα ναού των Αγίων Ιάσωνος και Σωσιπάτρου’ [‘Regarding the Dating of the Church of Sts Jason and Sosipatros in Corfu’], Deltion tis Christianikis Archaiologikis Hetaireias Δελτίον Χριστιανικής Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρίας [Deltion of the Christian Archaeological Society], 5 (1969), pp. 149–74 (for the source for Fig. 6, see p. 152).
82 RIBA Archive, MS.SP/13/21, p. 42.
83 Petit states that ‘the Corinthian [order] is to be preferred to the […] Doric because in this order, the abacus is without support from beneath, while they bear much of the weight above’: RIBA Archive, MS.SP/13/21, p. 42.
84 Couchaud, Choix d’églises bysantines, pp. 1–16, plate 7 (for Hagioi Asomatoi), and plate 1 (for the Old Cathedral). For Barnsley's preliminary plan of the church of Hagioi Asomatoi, see Athens, Archive of the British School of Athens, BRF/01/01/01/020, Sidney Barnsley, ‘Hagioi Asomatoi’, plan (1888–90).
85 Cubitt, James, Church Design for Congregations: Its Developments and Possibilities (London, 1870), p. 30Google Scholar.
86 Cubitt, Church Design, plate 5, p. 36.
87 See ‘The Church of St Philip in Sydenham’, Building News and Engineering, 8 March 1867, pp. 174–77.