This is a picture of the Ancient Roman Building of the Temple of Castor and Pollux. Most of all the Ancient Roman buildings have the Corinthian Order columns. This was a traditional formation of the buildings and they were all built for a particular reason, for example this building being built in the memory of the Gemini Twins which is basis of the name. These buildings were built with blinding white veneer (marble at times) made of concrete and brick. They were all built very close to one another and in the same area and built with the idea of political propaganda in mind supporting public use. An example of public use is explained with the Temple of Vesta being used for the legal wills and documents of Roman Senators and cult objects. All of these are circular buildings unlike the bulk of other Roman architectural structures that are built in squares and some long and rectangular. Many of the sculptures made by the Ancient Romans were used for propaganda as well, but were mainly focused on a message or an idea. The Ancient Romans took on the similar architectural type of the Greeks, but they did begin to create their own types of structures, such as the arch and vaults, which continued on in the later years of Roman architecture.
This is a picture of the Church of San Vitale. This is a perfect example of the architectural structure of the early Christian churches. They have claristory windows, which are windows at the highest level of the building. These windows are used to allow light in from the upper level giving the whole church a heavenly lighting set. The buildings are usually darker on the upper level and then lighter on the lower levels, so the church is even brighter as the light makes its way down to the lower level. I personally believe that is what gives it a more heavenly feel. The ceiling is a high vaulted one, which adds to the depth of the lighting because that allows the light to come into the building and rise and then down into the lower level making it look like it is coming straight from the sky. There are mainly two types of building types: longitudinal building plan and central plan buildings. This church is a central building plan that is used to commemorate the death of a saint or as a baptistery. These central plan buildings are very tall being made sturdy on the inside by Corinthian columns leading to an altar in a long nave, which is roofed with a dome. The dome is believed to be the weakest part of these types of buildings because the windows are what’s holding them up. The two types of domes are domes on pendentives and domes on squinches, and this particular church is a dome on squindels. That allows for a different lighting and the reason for the look of having so much space.
These two are very similar type architectural structures. They both have buildings that are both longitudinal and central plan building types. They also both have some scenes in buildings and churches that symbolize similar types of scenes. One example of that is when we see the first baths of the emperors in Roman architectural art and the first bath of Christ in the early Christian architectural art. This is also seen with the Ancient Roman art we saw with the emperor and his followers in an organized fashion with all of their togas on and the emperor being the one in the middle with his hood on, and in early Christian art we see Emperor Justinian and his Attendants, which is in the Church of Vitale (above) and is so similar to the art I just explained from Ancient Rome. Another reason that they are similar is because of the fact that they both were inspired by the empires that came before them, Ancient Roman architecture was inspired by the Ancient Greeks and the early Christian architecture was inspired by the Ancient Romans. When one is inspired by the other, they basically take on that same exact style, but make it fit with the past and present of their particular empire. An example of this being the Ancient Romans giving their own flavor to the Ancient Greeks architecture by creating vaults and arches, and then following that the early Christian architectural structures adopting that and creating domes that have arches to hold them up and vaulted ceilings in the central plan building churches. This is just something that they all naturally do and it is really proven with the Ancient Romans and the early Christians.
