'This church was built under Atabeg Spassalar; year 700.': 276, 277.

=

1251."-pp.

M. Brosset devotes many pages to the antiquities of this ruined city. To the cathedral he assigns the date of A.D. 1006: the name of its architect was Trdat.

The other church at Ani, described by Mr. Neale, is thus mentioned by M. Khanykof, whose report is appended to M. Brosset's :

"Le premier édifice que nous rencontrâmes dans la ville même était une magnifique église; ses corniches étaient ornées d'arabesques, et son portique élégant réposait avec légèreté sur une colonne en porphyre, dans le style Oriental. On distinguait sur la porte la figure du Sauveur, d'un côté duquel est représentée la descente de la croix, et de l'autre une vision que je ne puis m'expliquer la sainte Vierge est figurée debout, devant un homme endormi, et plus haut trois anges planent dans les airs. Il est possible que ce soit la vision que donna l'idée d'ériger cet édifice. Il était étrange de voir sur l'arcade extérieure, soutenue par une colonne rouge, un reste de peinture représentant des femmes nues, entrelacées de serpents, probablement des furies, mais il est difficile d'expliquer comment ces symboles mythologiques ont trouvé place à l'entrée d'un sanctuaire Chrétien. Je suis entrée dans l'Eglise, et j'ai été étonné d'y trouver une disposition intérieure et des peintures conformes en tout aux règlements de l'Eglise grecque; en face on voyait l'image de la sainte Vierge de Blaquernes, avec le Sauveur enfant dans ses bras; plus bas, on a peint Notre-Seigneur offrant la communion aux apôtres; au dessous se voient les figures de divers saints, parmi lesquels j'ai pu déchiffrer les noms grecs de Nicolas, Léontius et Aristagès, fils de Grégoire-le-Grand; sur les murs latéraux on a peint l'entrée de Notre-Seigneur à Jérusalem et l'Assomption de la sainte Vierge. Il est à remarquer que toutes les inscriptions sont en grec et en géorgien, et qu'il n'y en a pas une seule Arménienne; ce fait serait assez étrange dans une capitale de l'Arménie, s'il n'était expliqué par l'inscription gravée sur la face extérieure du mur de l'autel, ou y lit: cet église a été construite sous l'Atabeg-Spasalar, Chahinchah, l'an 700 e. a. (1254 a.d.) donc à une époque où Ani était au pouvoir des rois de Georgie."

We learn from M. Brosset that there remains also a dodecagonal church at Ani, under the invocation of S. Gregory, (this was built by Gagic the First: it has a cupola and three doors;) and on the general plan of the ruined city, by M. Abick, appended to the book, there are laid down an icosagonal and an octagonal church.

Mr. Neale concludes this chapter with the following general notice of the Servian style :—

"Lastly, it will be proper to speak of the Servian churches of the fourteenth century. Servia was then, as we have seen, a powerful empire, electing and consecrating its own Patriarch. Situated on the borders of the Western Church, yet thoroughly Oriental in its faith, it was in a peculiarly happy position for the developement of Byzantine art. At first, as in the grand church of STUDENITZA, (A.D. 1190,) which is of white marble, and Vrdnik in the Frusca Gora, the forms of Constantinople were strictly followed; but, in the reign of S. Stephen Dushan, polygonal towers with low polygonal cappings began to be substituted for domes; the windows became narrow and long, and with all the effect of lancets; marigolds were occasionally used; square pyramidal-headed turrets occasionally occurred; clerestories were frequent. The chapel of SS. JOACHIM and ANNA, built by King Stephen Urosh, that of ZHICHKA GICHA, that in the palace of Kruskevitsk, but, above all, that of Ravenitza, built by S. Knies Lasar in 1380, are all eminent examples; and

near Ravenitza are no fewer than thirty-five churches, of a similar style, and of the fourteenth century, now mostly in ruins. The material was usually brick, arranged in various coloured patterns.

"On looking at one of these buildings, it is clear that a great normal developement was all but gained; the old forms in a considerable degree remained; but a new spirit was infused into them. We may regard them as we should have regarded the choir of Canterbury, or the nave of Lincoln, had English art been swept away by infidel conquerors on their completion. Nor could the Eastern architect, desirous of a Byzantine developement, have a better preparatory study than the churches of the fourteenth century in Servia."pp. 278, 279.

The fourth and last period of Byzantine ecclesiology, beginning with A.D. 1453, is melancholy enough. We must not abbreviate Mr. Neale's own vivid description:

"The fall of Constantinople produced the same effect on Eastern, that the Reformation, a century later, wrought on Western ecclesiology. But there was one great difference: Western architecture, after arriving through three stages at relative perfection, had a slow decadence of a hundred and seventy years, before it was finally extinguished: Eastern art, on the contrary, had attained, in its Servian developement, its highest standard of perfection, but a very few years before it was overwhelmed. Therein its course closely resembled the fate of Italy, where Middle-Pointed was at once succeeded by Renaissance.

"In the further East, almost all traces of Christianity, except in the immediate Patriarchate of Jerusalem, had perished: the Bishops, where the succession still continued, had deserted their sees; the wretched congregations of Lycia or Bithynia, of the provinces that once bowed to the Throne of Antioch, assembled where and how they might, glad if the meanness of their churches, or the privacy of their assemblies, might elude or disappoint the rapacity of the Turks.

"In Greece, again, and the Islands, the most conflicting influences were at work. Venetian and Genoese empire, the petty sovereignties of the Frank despots of the Isles, the expiring art of the Byzantine mind, the rising glories of mosques and minarets, made the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in those regions a perfect Babel of ecclesiology. Persecution was rife, apostacy frequent, yet still churches were built, and in some rare instances, monasteries founded; but the general effect in the unreality and grotesqueness of architecture at that period, resembles nothing so much as the extraordinary condition of Bosnia, where renegade chiefs introduced the turban and the yatagan into their feudal castles, and made their prostrations towards Mecca by the tombs of their knightly ancestors.

"Russia indeed, already marked out by Divine Providence as the future stay of the Eastern Church, might, under other circumstances, have kept alive and developed its architecture, but she was now groaning under the yoke of the Tartars; and though her Church proved the one great national bond of union, and preserved her from splitting up into a variety of petty provinces, the long domination of the Mongols impressed a Tartaric similitude on Russian ecclesiology. The tent of these nomad tribes was the normal principle of all their architecture; the tent became therefore the prototype of the cathedrals of the Kremlin, and retained its ascendancy well nigh down to the time of the autocrat Peter. Of this developement more presently.

"Georgia, though suffering severely from Turkish and Persian incursions, still held her own; and in the middle of the fifteenth century the Exarchal church of Mtskètha was refounded with a dignity that would not have disgraced an earlier and a better age."-pp. 280, 281.

This period is illustrated by a ground-plan of the present patriarchal church in Constantinople; and a view-which we have borrowed-of the famous church, or rather group of churches, of S. Basil at Moscow.

"Its general plan is a slightly oblong square, with lofty central octagonal spire; eight domes stand round it, and an additional one at the north-east. The domes are painted in the brightest colours, and all different from each other; some are gold, fretty green, some of dazzling red, with spiral stripes of white, some are simply gilded. The effect of a summer sun shining on these spires, domes, globes, crosses, and chains, is almost magical. It is usual at Moscow to bequeath money for painting the outside of the Pokrovski. At the east end is a small detached pyramidal spire. The principal entrances are at the north and south, by covered staircases, surmounted by spires that glitter with green tiles."-p. 284.

A Byzantine revival has lately manifested itself in Russia; the Holy Governing Synod has issued 'model' plans, and the emperor, by an oukaz, has commanded the adoption of the Byzantine style throughout his dominions.

Finally there is a ground-plan, designed for the Greek Church in London, by M. Cantanzagli, of Athens, which unfortunately was superseded by a very inferior design by an English architect.

We must defer our notice of the chapter which treats of Armenian ecclesiology till another occasion. Here we shall derive still more help from M. Brosset's Reports.

THE BISHOP OF EXETER ON MURAL PAINTINGS IN CHURCHES.

[We put on record in our pages, the following very important judg ment of the Bishop of Exeter on the subject of the mural paintings of the chancel of S. Mary, Shevioke, Cornwall: protesting only against being supposed to believe that a kneeling attitude in the angel of the Annunciation of necessity implies adoration, any more than the same posture in the presence of an earthly sovereign.-ED.]

"I have read, with much attention, the clear, the able, and impartial report made by the rural dean, having had, in his inquiry, the aid of his two immediate predecessors in that office, on the painting now in progress in the chancel of Shevioke church. In forming my judgment on the case reported, I deem it my duty to dismiss altogether those parts of it, which have not a direct bearing on the matter specially complained of, but which nevertheless I here briefly recount. On the one hand, a very great majority of the communicants (chiefly, I believe, of the poorer classes), forty-nine out of fifty-nine (though of these one is stated to be blind, two bed-ridden, and one who had become a communicant only during sickness, in which he has since died), warmly approved, and have addressed a memorial to me in favour of the paintings. On the other hand, a vote, condemning the paintings, and praying me to use my authority to require that what is already done be effaced, and what is further intended to be done, be abandoned, was passed at a meeting of the vestry, called for the purpose, with only one dissentient voice, the rector's; the meeting itself, however, consisting, as has been stated to me, of seven persons only. Again, of four parishioners who attended the rural dean after due warning, as complainants, three are not now communicants. These are particulars which the rural dean has done most properly in reporting, but which I deem it right to dismiss altogether from consideration in deciding on the matter now before me. That matter, I must not forget, involves a question of right, the right of the rector to adorn the walls of the chancel at his own discretion, subject to be controlled by the bishop, if he place there any ornament of a character in itself open to just censure, whether as superstitious, or indecorous, or otherwise improper. I have no hesitation in saying, that I recognize that right of the rector, and disclaim, as bishop, all authority which is not consistent with it. Looking at the question thus, I find very little which demands my interference in the partially executed designs for ornamenting the chancel of the church at Shevioke—or in what is further intended. The north wall only is, as yet, at all dealt with. It is covered with a diapered ground of red and white, the white being intended to be gilt. On this ground are five circular spaces, or medallions,' each of about 2 feet 6 inches in diameter. Within these circles are delineated, in water colours-1. The Annunciation. 2. Our LORD in Majesty,' seated on a rainbow. 3. Our LORD being led to execution. 4. Our LORD with Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. 5. The First Miracle in

Cana of Galilee. These representations are stated to be all taken from Overbeck. They are all scriptural subjects, and in design seem to be unobjectionable, with a single exception. In the Annunciation the Angel is kneeling to the Virgin Mary. This is open to censure, as implying that the Blessed Virgin is an object of adoration; and this objection is not removed by the fact (in itself satisfactory) of the Virgin being also kneeling, with uplifted hands, as in prayer to God. I direct that the scandal of representing the angel as kneeling to the Virgin, be removed; and if this be done, there appears to be no part of the work hitherto executed which I have any just authority to forbid. There is not at present any other painting begun, except on a part of the east wall, where a blue ground is prepared for the first Table of the Ten Commandments, which are to be inscribed in golden letters. This space seems to be not much larger than one of the medallions on the north wall; and as the chancel is somewhat darkened by the stained glass of the windows, the requirement of the 82d Canon, that 'the Ten Commandments be placed on the east end of every church, that the people may see the same,' will hardly be satisfied, unless the scale be enlarged. I direct, therefore, that this be duly attended to. It is proposed to place on other parts of the east wall the symbols of the four Evangelists. To this I have no right to object. On the south side it is stated that nothing yet has been done. But an untinted sketch of what is intended has been sent to me. The principal subject there delineated is a copy of a painting of The Last Judgment,' in the Academy of the Fine Arts at Florence. So far as I can judge from the sketch, there is nothing in it with which I ought to interfere. There is also proposed a painting of our LORD bearing the Cross, after sculpture at Nuremberg, and four smaller pieces, two from illuminations, and two from Overbeck, viz., The Ascension,' The Walk to Emmaus,' 'Noli me tangere,' 'The Resurrection.' All these I deem it to be within the lawful discretion of the rector to adopt as ornaments of his chancel walls, as well as an intended window of stained glass, containing figures of Saint Stephen and Saint Alban. Having thus gone in detail through the report made to me by the dean rural, I think it right to add, that I not only recognize the right of the rector to ornament his chancel, but also respect the holy feeling which has prompted him to do this, at an expenditure which must be very considerable, and with the aid of an able artist, who will secure the execution of it to be such as shall become the sacred building on which he is employed. In an age when no decoration is deemed too costly for the dwellings of the opulent among us, of all orders, it is surely a matter of just praise, rather than of reasonable censure, that a not opulent clergyman, modest and unpretending in his own house, devotes whatever means he can command to the somewhat sumptuous, it may be, yet sober and reverential adorning the house of God.

"Bishopstowe, Dec. 6," (1851.)

"H. EXETER.