Architectural Masterpieces of Antiquity and the Middle Ages
The Colosseum
The Colosseum is a monumental building designed to accommodate about 50,000 spectators. It was built by Nero in the Domus Aurea and was originally called the Coliseum, because beside an artificial lake that connected to the gate of the forums had a statue of Nero (portrayed as the God Helio) of colossal dimensions. It has an onion-shaped structure, with different sections of arches used to support the different heights of the stands. The arches are intercolumnar, and the columns are of the Tuscan, Ionic, Corinthian, and composite orders. Half of the facade remains, and although the facade is dropped, the stands would be maintained through the arches (onion). The facades would probably have had sculptures.
Pantheon
The architect of the Pantheon is unknown, but it is believed to have been Apollodorus of Damascus, who also developed the gold project and the construction of Trajan’s market.
This temple was built under the rule of Hadrian, who loved the arts and Hellenic culture. He decided to build this temple to inaugurate a period of peace and settlement that would be witnessed in a building dedicated to all the gods and sacred to Rome, of course, himself.
The Octástilo portal presents a fairly conventional pronaos developed with Corinthian columns of marble and granite, and different capitals. It presents an entablature with architrave, frieze (epigraphic decoration), and a rather large pediment tympanum (perhaps had decoration). It is not known why the inscription on the frieze. This is a circular building (symbolic intuition, Agrippa was the favorite of the people) which has a dome. Portico with highly developed pronaos octástila. Mixed architecture, architrave, and lintel system. The columns have a role in sustaining rather than decorating. The pronaos is divided into three parts, the largest in the middle. It is circular, the cylinder is composed of a base of character columns architraved chapels. The weight of the dome piers supporting it, but not columns. The dome is of gilt bronze. Lucy in the sky over Rome and could be seen from anywhere in the city. The material was held marble in different colors, such as porcilio, brought from Egypt to the ground. The building is lit by an oculus of 9 feet in diameter. The columns alternate with a gazebo decorated with gods of the Roman pantheon. The columns appear to support the dome, but the supporting buttresses. On the original entablature, a second body that appears forming a sort of window balconies (feeling of being abroad.) The dome is gigantic, represents the celestial sphere. To lighten this great monument caementicium opus is used and built to compact a coffered dome of the building (recreation of the sky, eswtrellas). The building is made of a perfect sphere of 43’5 feet. The square represents the earthly form, and the circle represents the perfect form, no end, represents the divine.
Portico de la Gloria
This gate represents the heavenly Jerusalem. It involves the transition from Romanesque to Gothic sculpture. Some people considered the last work Spanish Romanesque, Gothic and others first. It was created by Master Mateo in the twelfth century between the years 1168-1188 approximately.
The Gateway serves three vain that corresponds to the character of the church basilica, the central nave taller and wider than the side.
The nave has a huge decorative drum supported by a mullion with four columns. The decoration of the eardrum responds to a special decorative program in it are represented with the serene face of Christ, is surrounded by the tetramorfos, the evangelists appear carved at the time of writing his book, we see Luke with the bull with Mark Lion and John with the eagle, Matthew is the only one who appears with his usual command it would not be resting on one person to write the Gospel, and a chest that is used as a reference to his former tax collector’s office. Back and sides of the head of Jesus there are two angels. The archivolt the eardrum is decorated with the kings musicians are all in high relief, are closer to the Gothic to the Romanesque.
Below the figure of Jesus, attached to the mullion with four columns is the seated statue of the apostle, put a hand on the stick and the other is a scroll with the inscription, the sculpture is almost in the round, the Apostle tells us to get Temple entrance. The chair on which rests the Apostle rests on the marble capital, this is represented the Holy Trinity.
On the jambs are attached to the column, the sculptures of the apostles. The attitude of the characters is completely new, there are very expressive and very natural. The feet make a zig-zag composition, the sculptures were polychrome technique used to procure a greater resemblance to reality. On the other jamb find four statues of the prophets Moses holding the tablets, Isaiah with a cap on his head, Daniel and Jeremiah smiling face with a long beard.
The two side arches carry figures with scenes of paradise, Adam and Eve, and the captivity of the tribes of Israel, on the other, scenes of Judgement.
It is clear that a work of this size could not be done by one man but by a workshop led by the master himself Mateo. Perceived quality differences in many of its parts. If the Pantocrator or figures of the column statues have been attributed to the master Matthew, the angels and the evangelists of the tympanum seem to be the work of disciples of the workshop.
Matthew’s own portrait on the porch, his sculpture is found kneeling facing the altar of the Cathedral.
The Portico de la Gloria and the style of Master Mateo, influenced the move towards naturalism in the Spanish Romanesque of the XII and XIII S.