Old St. Peter's, Rome, as the 4th century basilica had developed by the late 15th century, in a 19th century reconstruction
The Latin word basilica (derived from Greek,
Basiliké Stoà, Royal Stoa), was originally
used to describe a Roman public building (as in Greece,
mainly a tribunal), usually located at the center of a Roman town (forum). In Hellenistic cities, public basilicas appeared in the 2nd
century BC.
After the Roman Empire became officially Christian,
the term came by extension to refer to a large and important church that has been given special
ceremonial rites by the Pope. Thus the word retains two senses today, one architectural and the
other ecclesiastical.
Architecture
In architecture, the Roman basilica was a large roofed hall erected for transacting business and disposing of legal
matters. Such buildings usually contained interior colonnades that divided the space, giving
aisles or arcaded spaces at one or both sides, with an apse at one end (or less often at each end),
where the magistrates sat, often on a slightly raised dais. The central aisle tended to be wide and was higher than the flanking
aisles, so that light could penetrate through the clerestory windows.
The oldest known basilica, the Basilica Porcia, was built in Rome in 184 BC by Cato the Elder during the time he was censor. Other early examples include the one at Pompeii (late 2nd century
BC).
Probably the most splendid Roman basilica is the one constructed for traditional purposes during the reign of the pagan
emperor Maxentius and finished by Constantine after
313. As early as the time of Augustus, a public basilica for transacting business had been part of any settlement that considered
itself a city, used like the late medieval covered markethouses of northern Europe (where the meeting room, for lack of urban
space, was set above the arcades).
Basilicas in the Roman Forum
Palace basilicas
In the early Imperial period, a basilica for large audiences also became a feature in the palaces. In the 3rd century AD, the governing elite appeared less easily in the forums. "They now tended to dominate their
cities from opulent palaces and country villas, set a little apart from traditional centers of public life. Rather than retreats
from public life, however, these residences were the forum made private." (Peter Brown, in Paul Veyne, 1987). Seated in the
tribune of his basilica the great man would meet his dependent clientes early every morning.
A private basilica excavated at Bulla Regia (Tunisia), in the "House of the Hunt," dates
from the first half of the 4th century. Its reception or audience hall is a long rectangular
nave-like space, flanked by dependent rooms that mostly also open into one another, ending in a circular apse, with matching
transept spaces. The "crossing" of the two axes was emphasized with clustered columns.
Christianising the Roman basilica
In the 4th century, Christians were prepared to build larger and more handsome edifices
for worship than the furtive meeting places they had been using. Architectural formulas for temples were unsuitable, not simply
for their pagan associations, but because pagan cult and sacrifices occurred outdoors under the open sky in the sight of the
gods, with the temple, housing the cult figures and the treasury, as a backdrop. The usable model at hand, when Constantine
wanted to memorialize his imperial piety, was the familiar conventional architecture of the basilicas [1]. These had a center nave with one aisle at each side and an apse at one end:
on this raised platform sat the bishop and priests. Constantine built a basilica of this type in his palace complex at
Trier, later very easily adopted for use as a church. It is a long rectangle two stories high,
with ranks of arch-headed windows one above the other, without aisles (no mercantile exchange in this imperial basilica) and at
the far end, beyond a huge arch, the apse in which Constantine held state. Exchange the throne for an altar, as was done at
Trier, and you had a church. Basilicas of this type were built not only in Western Europe but in Greece, Syria, Egypt, and
Palestine. Good early examples of the architectural basilica are the Church of the
Nativity at Bethlehem (6th century), the church of St Elias at Thessalonica
(5th century), and the two great basilicas at Ravenna.
The first basilicas with transepts were built under the orders of Emperor Constantine, both in Rome and his "New Rome," Constantinople:
- "Around 380, Gregory Nazianzen, describing the
Constantinian Church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople, was the first to point out its resemblance to a cross. Because the
cult of the cross was spreading at about the same time, this comparison met with stunning
successs." (Yvon Thébert, in Veyne, 1987)
Thus a Christian symbolic theme was applied quite naturally to form borrowed from civil semi-public precedents. In the later
4th century other Christian basilicas were built in Rome: Santa Sabina, St John Lateran and
St Paul's-outside-the-Walls (4th century), and later San Clemente (6th century).
A Christian basilica of the 4th or 5th century stood behind its entirely enclosed forecourt ringed with a colonnade or arcade,
like the stoa or peristyle that was its ancestor or like the
cloister that was its descendant. This forecourt was entered from outside through a range of
buildings along the public street. This was the architectural groundplan of St Peter's
Basilica in Rome, until first the forecourt, then all of it was swept away in the 15th
century to make way for a great modern church on a new plan.
In most basilicas the central nave is taller than the aisles, forming a row of windows called a clerestory. Some basilicas in the Caucasus, particularly those of
Georgia and Armenia, have a central nave only
slightly higher than the two aisles and a single pitched roof covering all three. The result is a much darker interior. This plan
is known as the "oriental basilica."
Famous existing examples of churches constructed in the ancient basilica style include:
Gradually in the early Middle Ages there emerged the massive Romanesque
churches, which still retained the fundamental plan of the basilica.
Ecclesiastical basilica
The Early Christian purpose-built basilica was the cathedral basilica of the
bishop, on the model of the semi-public secular basilicas, and its growth in size and importance
signalled the gradual transfer of civic power into episcopal hands, underway in the fifth century. Basilicas in this sense are
divided into classes, the major ("greater"), and the minor basilicas, i.e., three other patriarchal and several pontifical minor basilicas in Italy, and over 1,400 lesser basilicas on all
continents.
As of March 26, 2006, there were no less than 1,476 basilicas,
of which the majority were in Europe (526 in Italy alone, including all those of elevated status; 166 in France, 96 in Poland, 94
in Spain, 69 in Germany, 27 in Austria, 23 in Belgium, 13 in the Czech Republic, 12 in Hungary, 11 in the Netherlands, less than
ten in many other countries), many in the Americas (58 in the U.S., 47 in Brazil, 41 in Argentina, 27 in Mexico, 25 in Colombia,
21 in Canada, 13 in Venezuela, 12 in Peru, et cetera), and fewer in Asia (14 in India, 12 in the Philippines, nine in
Israel, some other countries one or two), Africa (several countries one or two) and Oceania
(Australia 4, Guam one).
The privileges attached to the status of basilica, which is conferred by
Papal Brief, include a certain precedence before other churches, the right of the
conopaeum (a baldachin resembling an umbrella; also
called umbraculum, ombrellino, papilio, sinicchio, etc.) and the bell (tintinnabulum), which are carried side by side in procession at the head of the clergy on state
occasions, and the cappa magna which is worn by the canons
or secular members of the collegiate chapter when assisting at the Divine Office.
Churches designated as patriarchal basilicas, in particular, possess a papal throne and a
papal high altar from which no one may celebrate Mass without the pope's permission.
Numerous basilicas are notable shrines, often even receiving significant pilgrimage, especially among the many that were built above a Confession (Burial
Place of a Martyr).
Major basilicas
Papal throne at the
Basilica of Saint John Lateran, Rome
To this class belong just four great Papal churches of Rome, which among other distinctions have a special "holy door" and to which a visit is always prescribed as one of the conditions for gaining the Roman Jubilee. Pope Benedict XVI renamed these basilicas from Patriarchal to Papal.
- St. John Lateran is the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome: the
Pope and hence is the only one called archbasilica (full name: Patriachal Archbasilica of
the Most Holy Saviour, St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist at the Lateran). It is also called the Lateran
basilica.
- St. Peter's Basilica is symbolically assigned to the now abolished position of
Patriarch of the West as opposed to the Patriarch of the East that
seats in Constantinople. It is also known as the Vatican basilica.
- St. Paul outside the Walls is assigned to the
Patriarch of Alexandria. It is also known as the Ostian basilica.
- St. Mary Major is assigned to the Patriarch of Antioch. It is also called the Liberian basilica.
While the major basilicas form a class that outranks all other churches, even other papal ones, all other, so called
minor basilicas, as such do not form a single class, but belong to different classes, most of which also contain
non-basilicas of equal rank; within each diocese, the bishop's cathedral takes precedence over
all (other) basilicas. Thus after the major basilicas come the primatial churches, the metropolitan, other (e.g. suffragan)
cathedrals, collegiate churches etc.
Patriarchal basilicas in Rome
The four major basilicas above and the minor basilica of St Lawrence outside the Walls (representing the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and without a holy door) are collectively called the patriarchal
basilicas. This group of five is representative of the great ecclesiastical provinces of the world symbolically united in the
heart of Christendom (see Pentarchy). On 11th December 2006 it was announced that Pope
Benedict XVI had decided they would henceforth be officially known as the Papal Basilicas.[citation needed]
Pontifical minor basilicas in the rest of Italy
Two more Italian churches are nominally papal patriarchal basilicas:
Another is the Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of St. Mark in Venice, which has its own
patriarch.
Next in rank are four so-called pontifical basilicas (so in name also papal), in Italy:
Other minor basilicas
The lesser minor basilicas are the vast majority, including some cathedrals, many technically parish churches, some shrines,
some abbatial or conventual churches. Some oratories, semi-private places of worship
constructed by the Oratorians, have been raised to the status of minor
basilica, such as Saint Joseph's Oratory in Canada.
Cathedral Basilica of Notre-Dame de Québec in Quebec City was the first basilica in North America, designated by Pope Pius
IX in 1874. St. Adalbert's Basilica in
Buffalo, New York was the first Basilica in the
United States of America in 1907 by Pope Pius X. In Colombia, the Las
Lajas Cathedral has been a minor basilica since 1954. Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro, in Cote d'Ivoire (West
Africa) is reported slightly larger than St Peter's Basilica.
There has been a pronounced tendency of late years to add to their number. In 1960, Pope
John XXIII even declared Generalisimo Franco's grandiose tomb in the monumental
Valley of the Fallen near Madrid a basilica. In
1961, Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, in Carmel, California (USA) was designated as a Minor Basilica by Pope John XXIII.
Sources and references
Architecture
Ecclesiastical basilicas
References
External links
See also
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