. A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance. height of fifty feet, Northcote and Brownlow, p. 229. ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY to build chapels at the entrances of the various catacombs or cemete-ries. These buildings were partly subterranean, for the reason thatit was still felt desirable that their area should include the tomb ofthe family by which they were built. But their increased size hadnaturally been aceom])anied by a corresponding increase of height,and their walls and vaults, therefore, rose above ground. At theentrance to the catacomb
. A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance. height of fifty feet, Northcote and Brownlow, p. 229. ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY to build chapels at the entrances of the various catacombs or cemete-ries. These buildings were partly subterranean, for the reason thatit was still felt desirable that their area should include the tomb ofthe family by which they were built. But their increased size hadnaturally been aceom])anied by a corresponding increase of height,and their walls and vaults, therefore, rose above ground. At theentrance to the catacomb of Pretextatus,*near the Via Appia, aretwo of the most remarkable of these chapels. (Fig. 5.) The one is a square of about twenty feet internally, with a rectan-gular recess about ten feet broad and five feet deep opening fromeach of three sides by a single round arch, — the plan thus becomingnearly a Greek cross.^ The central vault is gone and the interior isopen to the sky, but the greater part of the walls and two of thebarrel vaults of the recesses are still complete, and the masonry is.
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