Basilica

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 in the forum of a Roman town. In Hellenistic cities, public basilicas appeared in the 2nd century BC.

Basilicas were also used for religious purposes. The remains of a large subterranean Neopythagorean basilica, dating from the 1st century, were found near the Porta Maggiore in 1915; the stuccoes on the interior vaulting have survived, though their exact interpretation remains a matter for debate. The groundplan of Christian basilicas in the 4th century were similar to that of this Neopythagorean basilica, which had three naves, and an apse.

After the Roman Empire became officially Christian, the term came by extension to specifically 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.

Basilica 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 (see below) is the one constructed for traditional purposes during the reign of the pagan emperor Maxentius and finished by Constantine I 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:

• Basilica Porcia: first basilica built in Rome (184 BC), erected on the personal initiative and financing of the censor Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Elder) as an official building for the tribunes of the plebs
• Aemilian Basilica, built by the censor Aemilius Lepidus in 179 BC
• Julian Basilica, completed by Augustus
• Basilica Opimia, erected probably by the consul Lucius Opimius in 121 BC, at the same time that he restored the temple of Concord (Platner, Ashby 1929)
• Basilica Sempronia, built by the censor Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus in 169 BC
• Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine (308 - after 313)

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.

Christianization of the Roman basilica:

Floor plan of a Christian cathedral. Transept is the colored area.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. 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 success." (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:

• The church at Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai
• The Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna.

Gradually in the early Middle Ages there emerged the massive Romanesque churches, which still retained the fundamental plan of the basilica.

Ecclesiastical basilicas:

Tintinabulum and conopaeum, one of the privileges granted to a 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 December 31, 2007, there were 1,524 basilicas (well up from 1,476 in March 26, 2006), of which the majority are in Europe (532 in Italy alone, including all those of elevated status; 167 in France; 105 in Poland; 101 in Spain; 69 in Germany; 29 in Austria; 26 in Belgium; 15 in the Czech Republic; 13 in Hungary; 12 in Switzerland; 20 in the Netherlands; 8 on Malta; 7 each in Croatia and Slovakia; 6 each in Portugal and Slovenia; 5 in Lithuania; and fewer in many other countries), many in the Americas (62 in the United States; 50 in Brazil; 43 in Argentina; 27 in Mexico; 25 in Colombia; 21 in Canada; 14 in Venezuela; 12 in Peru; 9 in Chile; 8 in Bolivia; 5 in Uruguay; 4 in El Salvador and smaller numbers elsewhere), and fewer in Asia (15 in India; 12 in the Philippines; nine in the Holy Land (Israel/Palestine); and smaller numbers elsewhere), 16 in Africa (several countries have one or two) and Australasia (five in Australia and one in Guam).

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 pilgrimages, especially among the many that were built above a Confession.

References

1. Basilica Plan Churches
2. Basilica Papale di San Giovanni in Laterano - Arcibasilica del SS.mo Salvatore e dei Santi Giovanni Battista ed Evangelista al Laterano - Cattedrale di Roma (Annuario Pontificio 2007, ISBN 98-88-209-7908-9, p. 1332
3. Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano (Annuario Pontificio 2007, ISBN 98-88-209-7908-9, p. 1330)
4. Basilica Papale di San Paolo fuori le mura (Annuario Pontificio 2007, ISBN 98-88-209-7908-9, p. 1333)
5. Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore (Annuario Pontificio 2007, ISBN 98-88-209-7908-9, p. 1334)
6. Wikipedia.org

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