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Ecclesiastical as was the work of the guild, the Comacine of Lombard times was nevertheless a fine civil architect. He worked as willingly for the prince in palace-building and for the country in fortification, as for the Church in building monasteries and cathedrals. Indeed war of all sorts bore such a large proportion in the life of the Middle Ages that the fortress was of more importance than the home.

In civil architecture the Magistri Comacini of the seventh and eighth centuries followed much the same style as in their ecclesiastical buildings, of course adapting it to its different uses. In the Lombard palace we find on the upper floor the usual double-light windows, with the two round arches and dividing column enclosed in a larger arch of masonry.

We also find the inevitable Lombard cornice beneath the roof. In civil buildings, instead of a complete gallery with colonnettes, this becomes a row of brackets with carvings in the corbel heads. The windows of the lower floor are square orifices barred with iron, for defence in warlike times. The walls are either of the solid brickwork opus romanum, or the great smoothly hewn stones of the opus gallicum. In Lombardy there are more of the former, as clay for bricks is easily attainable. In Tuscany and southward the buildings are more frequently of stone. The Florentine Bargello, though later, offers a very fine specimen of this work, in the older portions of wall, where the smooth-cut stones fit solidly together. If the building required an inner courtyard it was of the same Lombard style as their churches—showing the round arch, and the convex capital, often sculptured.

Tosinghorum Palatium Florentiae celeberrimum in Foro Veteri situm lapide dolato comlumnisque marmoreis extructum cui Turris adjacens ulnar. 130 proceritate erigebatur.

Tracing of an old print of the Tosinghi Palace, a mediæval building once in Florence, with Laubia on the front.

See page 61.

The municipal palace only came in with the Communes after 1100. In Longobardic times, the only buildings that had any pretensions to architecture were the palaces of the dukes or kings. Luitprand's palace in Milan, which fell into disuse after the tenth century, is as graphically described by old chroniclers and in legal documents in the archives of St. Ambrose, as Theodolinda's at Monza had been by Paulus Diaconus.

Before the days of the Communes, when the Brolio or Broletta, and the Palazzo Pubblico were as yet unknown, the palace of the ruling prince was the hall of justice, the nearest Basilica being the public meeting-place. King Luitprand's palace was styled in his time Curtis ducati. In Charlemagne's reign it was Curti domum Imperatoris; in other parchments Curtis Mediolanensis. Across the front ran an open gallery, called Laubia,[49] formed, as were the galleries of the Comacine churches, of a row of arches on colonnettes. Here the placiti were held, and sentences pronounced, as in the regal and imperial public buildings, the populace being assembled in the street below. The ringhiera of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence served the same purpose in Communal times.

The Loggia, which is such a feature in all old Italian houses, is the natural descendant of the Laubia. In its private aspect, as part of a citizen's house, the Loggia was the place where the master of the house received his friends.

An ancient MS. by Landolfo tells us that the space occupied by Luitprand's palace was not very wide. It extended from the monastery of St. Ambrose to the church of St. Protasius ad Monacos (now no more), and the road leading to it was known as Strada de Civite Duce.

That King Desiderius also employed the Masonic guild in civil as well as ecclesiastical architecture seems implied by the tradition of his palace at S. Gemignano. Certain it is that a solid mediæval building with decidedly Lombard windows and Lombard arches under the machicolations, exists at S. Gemignano, but whether it was really built by and for Desiderius, I leave wiser antiquaries to judge. The style is that of the times.

As a rule, Lombard houses had small rooms. This seems to have applied even to royal and public buildings, for, as mentioned above, all public meetings had to be held in a church, or in its ante-portal. When Desiderius convoked a Diet at Pavia, each prince or bishop was assigned a house which had a church or oratory near, in which he could meet his committee.

The different methods and processes of house-building are very plainly enumerated in the laws of Luitprand, of which we have given the headings on a previous page. It would seem that since the reign of Agilulf, the Masters of the Guild had become overbearing, and by Luitprand's time required to have special legislation to limit their prices. Luitprand's code of laws regulated the strength of the external walls of a building, in regard to the different height, construction, and material.

Art. 160 speaks of two different constructions, the Roman mode, and the Gallic style. It begins—"Similiter romanense si fecerit, sic repotet sicut gallica opera." (Roman work shall be accounted of equal value to Gallic work.) This distinction of terms has caused great argumentation among commentators. Prof. Merzario[50] says that "two national terms cannot apply to any small distinction of masonry," and he takes them to mean the Roman style with the round arch, in which most Lombard churches are built, and the Gothic with the pointed arches. As, however, Charlemagne's church, the father of the Gothic, was not yet built in Luitprand's time, we should be more inclined to take the opinion of Marchese Ricci and Troya, who interpret the phrase opus gallicum to mean the style which they say was introduced into Ravenna by Theodoric and his Goths, and which they brought from Gaul. It was the most solid style imaginable, seemingly a remnant of Cyclopean building; if so it was not Gallic at all, but came from the Pelasgi through the Etruscans, and so was a natural sequence of Italian architecture; the Etruscans having taught the Romans. It consisted of hewn stones of large size and perfect fitness, still further strengthened with cement. "Mirum opus manu gothica, et quadris lapidibus," it was said of the builders of S. Oveno at Rouen. If this definition be admitted, then the other term opus romanum would mean building with flat bricks, which was equally practised by the Comacines, especially in Lombardy.

Luitprand's laws speak of the asse, tavolati,[51] scindule (Longobardic term) by which the houses were internally divided, and of a cheap species of house-building called by the Gauls pisè, probably from the same root as pigiato (pressed together). According to that method, the walls were composed of masses of earth pressed, and then bound together so as to form a solid mass. The same method is still used in Africa and Spain, and in Italy by the peasants in the subalpine regions near Alessandria (Piedmont).

In Clause II., De Muro, where they use the term si arcum volserit, it cannot refer to vaulted roofs, which were then unknown, but to the slight arch of the window or door in the thickness of the wall, often only a sloping off of stones. The roofs were supported on wooden beams, and the laws determine the size and value of these, according to whether they are scapitozzati or capitozzati, i.e. hewn or carved. They also decide the quality of the wood for beams or planking, and the cost of roofing in regard to the number of wooden slabs or tiles required in a raised roof.

Thus any Longobard who wished to build himself a house, might consult the laws of Luitprand, and count the cost beforehand.

These laws also decide the strength of the defensive walls of a city. Law IV. gives the trade price of this sort of work; for those built in massa, or per maxa, the builder shall for every sixty feet be paid in solidum unum (one soldo, a gold coin). Ricci adds—"This per maxa is the same construction which the Greeks and Romans styled implectans, i.e. conglomerate."

They had several kinds of walls, some of brick, others with a base of stone (nella base a sassi), like the walls of Milan, which have lasted till now.

Luitprand assigns different money for different kinds of work. Thus at times the Magistri Comacini were paid solidum unum for every foot of wall, sometimes solidum vestitum, a distinction of soldi which has puzzled commentators very much; some opining that vestitum refers to a coin on which the emperor is represented as regally clad, and others that it means a copper coin plated (vestito) with gold.

We find also that terra-cotta vases were much used as ornamentation in building. This style was, as we have said, called "a cacabus." Broken vases were adopted in the foundation of large buildings and houses; others, which probably were not perfect enough for household use, were built into the walls and put as ornaments between the arches. The tower of S. Giovanni e Paolo at Rome and the church of S. Eustorgio at Milan are good instances of this style.