Histoire de l'art par les monuments...

016

The Church of St. Clement at Rome. The best preserved model of the arrangement of the primitive church. Fifth century


The Church of St. Clement at Rome.

1. General plan of the church, on which may be seen all the parts of which the ancient Christian churches were composed, indicated under the following numbers.

2. Ante-portico, or porch.

3. Atrium, or court; under which the penitent, and those who had fallen away from the faith, demanded the prayers of the passers by.

4. One of the side aisles, in which were the men, the catachumens, and the newly converted.

5. Aisles on the right for the women, narrower than the other.

6. Space enclosed with a low wall of marble, within which were the acolytes, the exorcists, and other functionaries of the minor orders.

7. Sanctuary terminated in a semicircle, round which is the bench for the priests with the episcopal seat; in the center an isolated altar, and in front the Confession.

8. General section of the Church of St. Clement.

9. Part of the low wall or dado forming the enclosure of the choir of St. Clement.

10. Another portion of the same.

11. Details of the interlacings and other ornaments of the dado. Montfaucon gives a view of it.

12. Profile of the marble pulpit for the reading of the Epistle.

13. Front of the Ambon, detined for the reading of the Gospel, accompanied by the column on which was, and still is, placed the paschal candle.

14. Monogram five times repeated amongst the ornaments of the dado, believed to have been of one of the popes who restored this church in the ninth century--Nicholas I., or John Vii., according to Vignoli, who in the Recueil des Monnoies pontificales, gives several medals with the same monogram.

15. Interior view of the Church of St. Clement, where are seen united the tabernacle, or cilorium, which covers the altar; the marble dado round the choir; the ambons and their pulpits; and the columns serving as caldelabra for the paschal candle.






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