Encyclopedia
The
Latin word
basilica , was originally used to describe a
Roman public building , usually located at the centre of a Roman town . 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 rights by the
Pope. Thus the word retains two senses today, one architectural and the other ecclesiastical.
The basilica in 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 , 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 .
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 .
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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." . 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 , 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 . 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 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 , the church of St Elias at Thessalonica , 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."
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 , and later San Clemente .
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 Near East, 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."
Gradually in the early Middle Ages there emerged the massive
Romanesque churches, which still retained the fundamental plan of the basilica.
The ecclesiastic basilica
The Early Christian purpose-built basilica was the
cathedral basilica of the
bishop, on the model of the semi-public basilicas of the secular power elite, and its growth in size and importance signalled the gradual transfer of civic power into episcopal hands, under way in the fifth century. Basilicas in this sense are divided into classes, the major , and the minor basilicas, i.e. three other patriarchal - and several pontifical minor basilicas in Italy, and over 1400 lesser basilicas on all continents.
As of March 26, 2006, there were no less than 1476 basilicas, of which the majority were in Europe , many in the Americas , and fewer in Asia , Africa and Oceania .
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 and the bell , which together are carried 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 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 .
The Major Basilicas
To this class belong just four great 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.
- St John Lateran is the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome: the Pope , and hence is the only one called archbasilica .
- St Peter's Basilica, formerly Vatican City State's parish church, is symbolically assigned to the Patriarch of Constantinople,
- St Paul outside the Walls , technically also a parish church , assigned to the Patriarch of Alexandria,
- St Mary Major , technically not even a parish church, assigned to the Patriarch of Antioch.
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 basilicas. Thus after the major basilicas come the primatial churches, the metropolitan -, other cathedrals, collegiate churches etc.
Other patriarchal and pontifical minor basilicas
The four major basilicas and one other minor basilica in Rome are also called
patriarchal basilicas, seemingly as representative of the great ecclesiastical provinces of the world thus symbolically united in the heart of Christendom . The only minor one of these five is:
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 , in Italy:
- Pontifical Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii
- Pontifical Basilica of St. Nicholas of Bari
- Pontifical Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua
- Pontifical Basilica of the Holy House of Loreto
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.
Cathedral Basilica of Notre-Dame de Québec in
Quebec City was the first basilica in North America, designated by
Pope Pius IX in 1874. The
Basilica of Saint Mary in
Minneapolis,
Minnesota was the first basilica in
The United States of America.
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. A list of more recent examples would be a long one.
Oratory
A basilica should not be confused with an oratory which is a semi-private place of worship. The Oratorians have constructed several oratories, none of which are basilicas. Some oratories, though, have been raised to the status of minor basilica, such as
Saint Joseph's Oratory in
Canada.
Sources and references
Architecture
- , well illustrated.
- from Samuel Ball Platner , 1929. A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome
- Paul Veyne, ed. A History of Private Life I: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium, 1987
Ecclesiastical basilicas
- by Giga-Catholic Information
- Basilica & minor parts in other articles
- Richard Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture
See also
