The place of the Invention of the Cross was necessarily excluded from the new church, which however was so connected with the chapel of St Helena as to afford access to it by means of a door (28) and stairs leading from the eastern aisle or "procession path," in a manner that will be fully explained as we proceed, and which indeed is shewn by the different tints of the plan.

The great eastern arch (4) of the Rotunda communicates immediately with the central lantern (43) of the choir. This lantern stands upon four noble piers, the centres of which are distant forty feet from east to west, and forty-three from north to south.

The opposite faces of the piers were distant thirtyone feet ten inches, and their height including base and capital was fifty-two feet; which, being by a singular coincidence the very dimensions of the tower-arches of Winchester and Peterborough, may at once give a correct idea of the magnitude of this church, and shew that its proportions were Romanesque. The form of these piers too was strictly Romanesque, having square pier-edges alternating with shafts in a manner that is sufficiently familiar now to the merest tyro in architecture; but seems sorely to have puzzled the draughtsmen and engravers of old, to judge from the various representations which are given of them. In Bernardino's plan the plinths only are seen. In Zuallardo's plan the

* The piers of Winchester tower are fifty-three feet in height, from the floor of the transept, and their opposite faces thirty-two feet asunder, which are also the dimensions of Peterborough. The church of S. Martin at Cologne has piers fifty-five feet high, thirty feet

apart. Thirty feet, more or less, is a very common width for large churches, and may probably be derived from the twenty cubit width of Solomon's Temple; a cubit being about eighteen inches.

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attached shafts are distinctly shewn, but not very accurately, and they appear in some of Bernardino's elevations, but not in others, evidently not being understood by the engraver. In Le Brun's interior view of the choir they are delineated as well as could be expected for that period, and his text describes them unmistakeably. By grouped columns I understand great columns composed of several smaller ones attached one to the other; or rather, one great column which seems to have others attached to its outer surface. These are alternately square and round; and some of those in question are so large that they appear made up of ten, and even as many as sixteen, of these smaller ones'." The great eastern tower-piers have actually sixteen, if we reckon shafts and square edges, proceeding in order round its circumference 2.

Upon the pointed arches of these four piers was erected a circular tambour-wall or lantern, resting on pendentives, and crowned with a cupola. The wall was ornamented with an arcade, which, as shewn in the section, consisted of sixteen arches decorated with shafts, three to each pier, and forty-eight in all, as Le Brun describes. The arches are circular, at least they so appear in Le Brun's view, (grievously distorted by his bad perspective,) as also in the model in the British Museum. They were alternately pierced for windows, and the outside of the wall had four broad pilasters opposite to the cardinal points respectively, with two of these windows between each.

Breydenbach's view also shews the ruins of a small

Le Brun, p. 289. Ed. 1714.

the four great pointed arches above them, 2 These piers still exist, as well as but the cupola was destroyed by the fire.

arched lantern on the top of the cupola. This cupola was ascended by a spiral external stair formed upon its northern surface, as Le Brun's view shews it. The altitude of the crown of the cupola from the pavement was 156 palms or 114 English feet. The great tower arches were pointed and had three orders of voussoirs as well as all the arches and windows of this part of the Church. This character, which never appears in the arches of Greek mediæval buildings, effectually identifies these portions with the Crusaders, and separates them from the Rotunda and the chapel of Helena, in which the arches are simple.

The eastern tower-arch opens to the presbytery of the cruciform structure, which is terminated by an apse. The seats of the choir are placed under the central lantern. It must be remembered that this Church was erected for the Latin service; that when it was finished a convent of Augustinian Canons was placed in possession of the whole; and that after the Latins were driven out by Saladin, the Greeks obtained this choir, and have retained it ever since. Accordingly it is now fitted in their manner with a huge Iconostasis, or screen with three doors, cutting off the apse and half the remainder of the presbytery where the high altar is placed, and having its side tables against the piers from whence the apse springs. But, apart from these characteristics, the Altar (38) stands evidently on its Latin site upon the diametral line of the apse; and the Greek choral stalls under the lantern cupola are in the very position. that the Latins would have placed them, and probably did so3.

The length of the choir and presbytery together, from the screen to the

apse wall, is ninety-eight feet, and the breadth is forty feet, more or less.

The western screen is fixed under the western arch (4) of the lantern, and divides the choir from the Rotunda, communicating on the same level with the platform which leads to the Holy Sepulchre.

In the middle of the choir, the writer in Beugnot places a lectern of marble, called le Compas, where the Epistle was read. But Sawulf tells us that the place called Compas was at the Caput, or extremity of the Round Church of the Sepulchre, and was held to be the centre of the world: an absurdity which is retained to the present day. The extremity of the Rotunda, as it stood in Sawulf's time, exactly coincides with the middle of the Crusaders' choir. This supposed centre is first mentioned by Bernardus (A.D. 870)'.

The western arch (4) which connects the Rotunda with the choir, is described by Quaresmius as having been decorated with mosaic work, of which sufficient remained to shew that above it, to the west, was a representation of the Annunciation, apparently in the spandrils of the arch, one containing the figure of the Angel, and the other that of the Virgin. The soffit itself had a mosaic of the Ascension, with inscriptions in Greek and Latin. The eastern apse and the vault of the choir were also decorated with mosaics of figures on gilt grounds.

The apse had four double pillars sustaining pointed

1 This tradition appears to originate from a strange interpretation of the following passage of the Psalms, which is quoted by the various authors on this subject. Psal. lxxiii. 12: “Deus autem Rex noster ante sæcula, operatus est salutem in medio terræ ;" or, in our version, Ps. lxxiv. 12: "For God is my King of old, working salvation in the

midst of the earth." Fabri tells an amusing story of one of his companions who paid a large sum for permission to ascend to the top of the cupola, in order to satisfy himself if he were really over the centre of the earth, by observing whether or no the sun gave him a shadow at noon.

arches and resting upon seven marble gradations, which occupied the whole semicircle like a theatre; and on their summit, at the eastern extremity, and under the eastern central arch, was placed the marble chair of the Patriarch. The pavement was of the best and most ornate workmanship, and had an altar in the midst, of elaborate construction, decorated with precious marbles and small columns, but these had been so battered by the infidels, that Quaresmius relates there were scarcely left fragments enough to shew what it had once been. A smaller Altar, after the Greek fashion (namely the Altar of Prothesis), was placed on the north side (39), near the pier in advance of the High Altar, and dedicated to the three Kings.

On each side, and against the eastern piers of the tower, were two platforms (40, 41), each ascended by four steps, and each originally intended to receive two (or, as some say, one) marble Patriarchal chair. These four chairs, according to the Greeks, were provided for the four Patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.

An aisle surrounds the presbytery and apse, communicating on each side with the transepts, and forming the usual procession-path of the Romanesque Churches. Three apsidal Chapels radiate from the aisle, and alternating with them are four doors, as shewn in the Plan2. Of the Chapels, the north-eastern (25) is dedicated to St Longinus; and here was formerly preserved a relic which was believed to be the actual title which Pilate affixed to the Cross3. The eastern Chapel (27) is called

? The chapels are marked, 25, 27, 34, and the doors 24, 26, 28, 35.

3 This relic however was removed to Rome, where it may be seen in the