Torcello Cathedral
The Church of Santa Maria Assunta (''basilica di Santa Maria Assunta'') is a basilica church on the island of Torcello, Venice, northern Italy. It is a notable example of Late Paleochristian architecture, one of the most ancient religious edifices in the Veneto, and containing the earliest mosaics in the area of Venice. History According to an ancient inscription, it was founded by the exarch Isaac of Ravenna in 639, when Torcello was still a rival to the young nearby settlement at Venice. The original church is believed to have had a nave with one aisle on each side and a single apse on the eastern wall of the cathedral. It's difficult to tell what the original church was like because very little of it survived the subsequent renovations. Much of the plan of the original church survives as its present form is very similar to the original but the only physical parts that survive are the central apse wall and part of the baptistery that survives as part of the façade of the cur ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

Basilica Di Santa Maria Assunta, Torcello (cropped)
In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name to the architectural form of the basilica. Originally, a basilica was an ancient Roman public building, where courts were held, as well as serving other official and public functions. Basilicas are typically rectangular buildings with a central nave flanked by two or more longitudinal aisles, with the roof at two levels, being higher in the centre over the nave to admit a clerestory and lower over the side-aisles. An apse at one end, or less frequently at both ends or on the side, usually contained the raised tribunal occupied by the Roman magistrates. The basilica was centrally located in every Roman town, usually adjacent to the forum and often opposite a temple in imperial-era forums. Basilicas were also built in private residences and i ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]