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In looking back to the great church-building era, i.e. to the centuries between 1100 and 1500, do not the questions arise in one's mind, "How did all these great and noble buildings spring up simultaneously in all countries and all climates?" and "How comes it that in all cases they were similar to each other at similar times?"

In the twelfth century, when the Italian buildings, such as the churches at Verona, Bergamo, Como, etc., were built with round arches, the German Domkirchen at Bonn, Mayence, Treves, Lubeck, Freiburg, etc.; the French churches at Aix, Tournus, Caen, Dijon, etc.; and the English cathedrals at Canterbury, Bristol, Chichester, St. Bartholomew's in London—in fact, all those built at the same time—were not only round-arched, but had an almost identical style, and that style was Lombard.

In the thirteenth century, when pointed arches mingled with the round in Italy, the same mixture is found contemporaneously in all the other countries.

Again in the fourteenth century, when Cologne, Strasburg, and Magdeburg cathedrals were built in pure Gothic; then those of Westminster, York, Salisbury, etc., arose in England; the Domes of Milan, Assisi, and Florence in Italy; and the churches of Beauvais, Laon, and Rouen in France. These all came, almost simultaneously, like sister buildings with one impronto on them all.

Is it likely that many single architects in different countries would have had the same ideas at the same time? Could any single architect, indeed, have designed every detail of even one of those marvellous complex buildings? or have executed or modelled one-tenth of the wealth of sculpture lavished on one of those glorious cathedrals? I think not.

The existence of one of these churches argues a plurality of workers under one governing influence; the existence of them all argues a huge universal brotherhood of architects and sculptors with different branches in each country, and the same aims, technique, knowledge and principles permeating through all, while each conforms in detail to local influences and national taste.

If we once realize that such a Guild must have existed, and that under the united hands of the grand brotherhood, the great age of church-building was endowed with monuments which have been the glory of all ages, then much that has been obscure in Art History becomes clear; and what was before a marvel is now shown to be a natural result.

There is another point also to be considered. The great age of church-building flourished at a time when other arts and commerce were but just beginning. Whence, out of the dark ages, sprang the skill and knowledge to build such fine and sculpturesque edifices, when other trades were in their infancy, and civic and communal life scarcely organized?

It is indeed a subject of wonder how the artists of the early period of the rise of Art were trained. Here we find men almost in the dark ages, who were the most splendid architects, and at the same time sculptors, painters, and even poets. How, for instance, did Giotto, a boy taken from the sheep-folds, learn to be a painter, sculptor, and architect of such rank that the city of Florence chose him to be the builder of the Campanile? Did he learn it all from old Cimabue's frescoes, and half Byzantine tavole? and how did he prove to the city that he was a qualified architect? We find him written in the archives as Magister Giotto, consequently he must have passed through the school and laborerium of some guild where every branch of the arts was taught, and have graduated in it as a master.

All these things will become more and more clear as we follow up the traces of the Comacine Guild from the chrysalis state, in which Roman art hybernated during the dark winter of the Middle Ages, through the grub state of the Lombard period, to the glorious winged flights of the full Gothic of the Renaissance.

And first as to the chrysalis, at little Como. The origin of the name Comacine Masters has caused a great deal of argument amongst Italian writers new and old. Some think it merely a place-name referring to the island of Comacina, in Lake Lario or Como; others take a wider significance, and say it means not only the city of Como, but all the province, which was once a Roman colony of great extension. Others again, among whom is Grotius, suggest that it is not a place-name at all, but comes from the Teutonic word Gemachin or house-builders. As the Longobards afterwards called them in Italian Maestri Casarii, which means the same thing, there is perhaps something to be said for this hypothesis.

The first to draw attention to the name Magistri Comacini, was the erudite Muratori, that searcher out of ancient MSS., who unearthed from the archives an edict, dated November 22, 643, signed by King Rotharis, in which are included two clauses treating of the Magistri Comacini and their colleagues. The two clauses, Nos. 143 and 144, out of the 388 inscribed in crabbed Latin, are, when anglicized, to the following intent—

"Art. 143. Of the Magister Comacinus. If the Comacine Master with his colliganti (colleagues) shall have contracted to restore or build the house of any person whatsoever, the contract for payment being made, and it chances that some one shall die by the fall of the said house, or any material or stones from it, the owner of the said house shall not be cited by the Magister Comacinus or his brethren to compensate them for homicide or injury; because having for their own gain contracted for the payment of the building, they must sustain the risks and injuries thereof."[2]

"Art. 144. Of the engaging or hiring of Magistri. If any person has engaged or hired one or more of the Comacine Masters to design a work (conduxerit ad operam dictandum), or to daily assist his workmen in building a palace or a house, and it should happen that by reason of the house some Comacine should be killed, the owner of the house is not considered responsible; but if a pole or a stone shall kill or injure any extraneous person, the Master builder shall not bear the blame, but the person who hired him shall make compensation."[3]

These laws prove that in the seventh century the Magistri Comacini were a compact and powerful guild, capable of asserting their rights, and that the guild was properly organized, having degrees of different ranks; that the higher orders were entitled Magistri, and could "design" or "undertake" a work;—i.e. act as architects; and that the colligantes worked under, or with, them. In fact, a powerful organization altogether;—so powerful and so solid, that it speaks of a very ancient foundation.

But when and how did it originate?

Was it a surviving branch of the Roman Collegium? a decadent group of Byzantine artists stranded in Italy? or was it of older Eastern origin? A clever logician could prove it to be all three.

For the Roman theory, he could base his arguments on the Latin nomenclature of officials, and the Latin form of the churches.

For the Byzantine theory, he would have the style of certain ornamentations, and the assertions of German writers, such as Müller, and Stieglitz.

For the ancient Eastern theory, he might plead their Hebrew and Oriental symbolism.

We will take the Byzantine theory first. Müller (Archaeologie der Kunst, p. 224) says that: "From Constantinople as the centre of mechanical skill, a knowledge of art radiated to distant countries, corporations of builders of Grecian birth were permitted to exercise a judicial government among themselves according to the laws of the country to which they owed allegiance;" and Stieglitz, in his History of Architecture, records a tradition that at the time the Lombards were in possession of Northern Italy, i.e. from the sixth to the eighth century, the Byzantine builders formed themselves into guilds and associations, and that on account of having received from the Popes the privilege of living according to their own laws and ordinances, they were called Freemasons.[4] Italian and Latin writers, however, place the advent of these Greek artists at a later period; they are supposed to have been sculptors, who, rebelling against the strict Iconoclasm of Leo, the Isaurian—718 A.D. to 741—came over to Italy where art was more free, and joined the Collegia there.

But at this time most of the chief Longobardic churches were already built by the Comacine Masters, and were Roman in form, mediæval in ornamentation, and full of ancient symbolism. Herr Stieglitz must have pre-dated his tradition. Besides this I can find no sign in Italian buildings, or writers about them, of any lasting Byzantine influence. Indeed pure Byzantine architecture in Italy seems sporadic and isolated, not only in regard to site, but in regard to time. The Ravenna mosaics, a few in Rome, a little work in Venice, is all one can call absolutely Byzantine; and the influence never spread far. The Comacine ornamentation indeed has qualities utterly distinct in spirit, though in some of its forms allied to Byzantine. It is possible that some of these Eastern exiles joined the Comacine Guild, but there is quite enough in the communications of Como with the Greeks, to account for their having imbibed as much as they did of Byzantine style. Some of the Bishops who were rulers of Como before and after Lombard times were Greeks; notably Amantius the fourth, who was translated there from Thessalonica, and his successor, S. Abbondio. Also through the Patriarch of Aquileja, under whose jurisdiction they were brought later, the guild was put into contact with the Greek sculptors then at Venice, Grado, and Ravenna.