page_title: History of Medieval Arabic and Western European domes
section_title: Post-Roman areas
hierarchical_section_title: History of Medieval Arabic and Western European domes / Early Middle Ages / Post-Roman areas
caption_attribution_description: English: Mausoleum of Theodoric (Ravenna)11
context_page_description: The early domes of the Middle Ages, particularly in those areas recently under Byzantine control, were an extension of earlier Roman architecture. The domed church architecture of Italy from the sixth to the eighth centuries followed that of the Byzantine provinces and, although this influence diminishes under Charlemagne, it continued on in Venice, Southern Italy, and Sicily. Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel is a notable exception, being influenced by Byzantine models from Ravenna and Constantinople. The Dome of the Rock, an Umayyad Muslim religious shrine built in Jerusalem, was designed similarly to nearby Byzantine martyria and Christian churches. Domes were also built as part of Muslim palaces, throne halls, pavilions, and baths, and blended elements of both Byzantine and Persian architecture, using both pendentives and squinches. The origin of the crossed-arch dome type is debated, but the earliest known example is from the tenth century at the Great Mosque of Córdoba. In Egypt, a "keel" shaped dome profile was characteristic of Fatimid architecture. The use of squinches became widespread in the Islamic world by the tenth and eleventh centuries.
context_section_description: Although the chronology in uncertain for some examples, domes continued to be built in Italy throughout the Middle Ages. Dome construction appears to have stopped in the city of Rome in the middle of the 5th century, but there are dozens of Italian examples outside of Rome from the next few centuries. Continuing from late antiquity, domes in the early Middle Ages were built over centralized buildings such as baptisteries and martyria. Domed baptisteries built in 6th century Italy include Albenga Baptistery and those of Canosa di Puglia and Nocera Superiore. Other examples of domes may include the Sanctuary of San Prosdocimo in the Abbey of Santa Giustina in Padua (6th century), the Basilica of San Leucio at Canosa (6th century), the Basilica of San Salvatore in Spoleto (as early as the end of the 6th century), and the church of Sant’Ilario a Port’Aurea in Benevento (no later than the 7th century).
  The building projects of Theodoric the Great, the Ostrogothic king of Italy, largely continued existing architectural conventions. His Arian Baptistry in Ravenna (c. 500), for example, closely echoes the Baptistry of Neon built before it. The Mausoleum of Theodoric, however, was understood by contemporaries to be remarkable. Begun in 520, the 36-foot-wide (11 m) dome over the mausoleum was carved out of a single 440-ton slab of limestone and positioned some time between 522 and 526. The low saucer shape of the monolithic dome, which is estimated to be more than 230 tons of Istrian stone, may have been chosen to avoid radial cracking. The twelve brackets carved as part of the dome's exterior are thought to have been used to maneuver the piece into place. The choice of large limestone blocks for the structure is significant as the most common construction material in the West at that time was brick. It is likely that foreign artisans were brought to Ravenna to build the structure; possibly from Syria, where such stonework was used in contemporary buildings.
  The Syria and Palestine area has a long tradition of domical architecture, including wooden domes in shapes described as "conoid", or similar to pine cones. When the Arab Muslim forces conquered the region, they employed local craftsmen for their buildings and, by the end of the 7th century, the dome had begun to become an architectural symbol of Islam. The rapidity of this adoption was likely aided by the Arab religious traditions, which predate Islam, of both domed structures to cover the burial places of ancestors and the use of a round tabernacle tent with a dome-like top made of red leather for housing idols. Early versions of bulbous domes can be seen in mosaic illustrations in Syria dating to the Umayyad period. They were used to cover large buildings in Syria after the eleventh century.
caption: The Mausoleum of Theodoric.
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