# The New International Encyclopædia/Basilica (building)

Edition of 1905. See also Basilica on Wikipedia; and the disclaimer.
​BASILICA (Lat. from Gk. βασιλική, basilikē, royal, scil. στοά, stoa, porch). The large colonnaded building used by the Romans as part of their forums for the transaction of business and legal affairs; also the common type of the early Christian churches. The name seems to be Greek, but the earliest known examples are Roman. Vitruvius (q.v.) says: "Basilicas ought to be built in the warmest quarters of the marketplaces, in order that, in winter, the merchants assembling there may not be inconvenienced by bad weather;" and elsewhere he speaks of the tribunal projected like a hemicycle from the main building, so "that those who stand near the magistrates may not be disturbed by those doing business in the basilica." These buildings varied in proportions and arrangement. Vitruvius, who built one himself at Fanum, says that they should be oblong, their width being between one-third and one-half of their length, and divided into three parts by two rows of columns, the central part being three times as wide as the two sides, which are called porticoes. A second story is made over the porticoes by a second series of shorter columns forming a gallery with a marble parapet, which usually extends also across the short ends, and was used for promenaders and spectators. At one of the short ends a tribunal projects in the form of a semicircular or square apse. Here sits the judge, or prætor, surrounded by his assessors or jurymen; it is often partly screened off from the main body of the building by smaller columns, and is on a higher level. On either side of it is a small room connected with it — cabinets or robing-rooms. There are many variations from the three-aisled type described by Vitruvius. Some are halls with a single nave, without porticoes or galleries, as at Aquino and Palestrina; others—and these the most splendid—have as many as five aisles, with four rows of columns; e.g. the Basilicas Julia and Ulpia; others have two hemicycles, one at each end, as Trajan's Basilica Ulpia; others are virtually square in form, as at Otricoli; others—and these are the majority —have no upper galleries; others, finally, have heavy piers and vaults in place of colonnades and wooden roof, as the colossal Basilica of Constantine. The tribunal end appears to have had a solid wall, but on the other three sides the building was open, with either a simple colonnade (Ulpia) or a mixed arcade with engaged columns and architrave (Julia) such as we are familiar with in the Coliseum. Some, however, were inclosed by walls on all sides; this was the case at Pompeii. For five hundred years the Romans built basilicas (c.200 B.C. to A.D. 300) as one of their most characteristic and sumptuous monumental expressions, alongside of their memorial arches, aqueducts and thermæ. Until B.C. 184 their commercial and judicial business had been mostly transacted in the open forum. But in that year the Basilica Porcia was built (burned in B.C. 52); in 179 the Fulvia; in 169 the Sempronia; in 121 the Opimia; in 46 the Julia. Pliny calls the Æmilia and the Julia two of the four most superb monuments of Rome. They flanked the Forum on opposite sides and their ruins are recently being studied with great care. Everywhere that Roman colonies were established under the late Republic and the Empire, basilicas were built in connection with the forums. They were the necessary outward sign of the Roman law, the seat of justice, as well as of trade. The earliest basilica in good preservation is that at Pompeii, which has excited the greater interest because it may represent the original Greek type: it has an open porch, five doors, three naves, a portico across both ends, and a well-preserved, raised, oblong tribunal at one end. Other examples exist: in the Orient, at Palmyra; in Germany, at Treves. In Rome itself the two most famous examples built under the Empire were the Ulpia, erected by Trajan in his forum, and that begun by Maxentius and finished by Constantine, unique for its immense vaulting of tunnel and groin vaults; for all other known basilicas appear to have had wooden roofs. It is a common error to suppose that they were not roofed at all over the central space, but only over their side aisles or porticoes.
The Roman public basilica was therefore a sort of covered forum. The term was, however, extended to other colonnaded halls and porticoes ​ BASILICA ST. PAUL'S WITHOUT THE WALLS, ROME ​of similar plan, but connected with theatres, baths, temples, and even palaces and villas. The largest room in sumptuous houses, with a higher roofed central section with windows and two rows of columns forming lower side-aisles, frequently served wealthy converts to Christianity in the earliest times as a place of worship. As the only type of covered structure suitable for large gatherings was known as a basilica, it was natural that this name should be adopted for Christian churches. The arrangements suited the requirements of the Christian liturgy. The hemicycle became the apse; the bishop and presbyters sat where the judge and his assessors had been: the congregation could conveniently be arranged along the side porticoes or aisles, men on one side, women on the other (or, in the East, men below and women in the galleries). The type of Roman basilica, which was walled in on all sides, was selected, not that with open arcades. The main change was the omission of the cross-galleries across the short ends. In the article Church, the different types and names used for the Christian place of worship are given. It is customary to call all churches built before the Gothic period ‘basilicas,’ except certain Byzantine domical churches, built in a shape altogether different—squarer than that of the basilicas. Then, when the mediæval builders of the north of Europe developed the transept and the choir, the prevailing type was no longer the basilical. Only in Italy do we find the primitive type preserved as late as the Twelfth and Thirteenth centuries in certain provinces, especially that around Rome and in Tuscany. There was greater uniformity in Christian basilical churches than there had been in Roman basilicas. The oblong plan gave almost always a length equal to one and one-half widths or a little over; File:NIE 1905 Basilica of Saint Clements's, Rome.png BASILICA OF SAINT CLEMENT'S, ROME (RESTORATION). the two (or four) rows of columns (or very seldom square piers) dividing the nave from the aisles supported sometimes a straight architrave, sometimes a row of narrow arches; the walls were thin, supporting only wooden roofs, with the rafters and frame showing; sometimes there was a narthex or portico at the entrance, and at the opposite end, in the largest basilicas, a cross-nave intervened in front of the apse, in the centre of which stood the altar. The early basilicas had but a single apse, but by the Sixth Century a smaller apse was often added on either side, developed from the two side-chambers of the ancient basilica, which had become sacristy and treasury in the earliest churches. In the East, the gallery over the aisles was preserved and used for the women, according to the Eastern custom, which required the most rigid separation of the sexes. In Italy, it was thought sufficient to put them in different aisles, so galleries went out of use as unnecessary. Until the Sixth Century the basilical form ruled everywhere; then the Orient adopted Byzantine models. The best examples of this early period are: Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Sabina, Santa Agnese, all at Rome; Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem; Sant' Apollinare Nuovo, Sant' Apollinare in Classe, San Francesco, and San Vittore at Ravenna; Saint John at Constantinople; Saint Demetrius at Salonica, the Crocifisso at Spoleto; the cathedrals at Parenzo, Triest, and Grado. In Central Syria, where there are remarkable ruined Christian towns, deserted ever since the Mohammedan invasion in the Seventh Century, there are important basilicas at Shakka, Tafka, Kennawat, Sueideh, Kerbet-Hass, El-Barah, Babuda, Rueiha, Der-Seta, Bakuza, Kalb-Luzeh, Turmanin, Behioh, Kalat-Seman, etc. With a very limited territory, restricted to southern Europe, the second period of basilical architecture opened in the Seventh Century, with its centre more than ever in Rome, and depending for its spread upon monasticism and missionary work. In Gaul, Germany, England, and Scandinavia, the form of the basilical church was spread or introduced; but the decadence of architectural form made the churches erected up to the Eleventh Century of little moment, except in good Roman examples, such as Santa Prassede. Then, when the revival came, the old basilical plan, so perfectly and artistically represented by Santa Maria in Trastevere and San Lorenzo in Rome, San Miniato in Florence, and many others in Central and Southern Italy, was modified so decidedly in most schools as to take the structure out of the class of basilical churches.