Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/448

432 B1ZA2ITINE AECHITECTUEE. Part II. CHAPTER III. CIRCULAR OR DOMICAL BUILDINGS CONTENTS. Circular Churches with wooden roofs and with true domes in Syria and Thessa- lonica — Churches of St. Sergius and Bacchus and Sta. Sophia, Constantino- ple — Domestic Ai'chltecture. AS before hinted, all the churches described in the last chapter might fairly be described as Romanesque, and, if our history stopped there. Eastern Romanesque would be the proper title to apply to them. At the time of their erection, howevei-, a circular domical style was being simultaneously elaborated, which not only gave a different character to the whole style, but eventually entirely superseded the Romanesque form, and became an original and truly Byzantine art. As was the case with the rectangular buildings, those of the circular form may be divided into two distinct classes, those having wooden and those possessed of stone roofs. In this case, however, the pro- portions are reversed ; the stone-roofed circular buildings being by far the most numerous ; the wooden, on the contrary, exceptional. The typical example of the latter class is the church which Coustantine erected over what he believed to be the Holy Sepulchre of Christ in Jeru- salem. The building is now known to the Moslem world as the " Dome of the Rock " (Kubbet es Sakhra) ; by Western Christians it is called the " Mosque of Omar." In reality it is a nearly unaltered Christian building of the 4th centui-y.i As such its interest to the Christian, in marking what is to him one of the most sacred spots in the whole world, is 867. Plan of the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem. (From Catherwood and Arundale.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 hi. ' For the arguments on which this assertion is based the reader is referred to the essay on " The Ancient Topog- raphy of Jerusalem," by the Autlior, published in 1847, and to a worlc en- titled "The Holy Sepulchre and the Temple at Jerusalem." Murray, 1865.