Romanesque secular and domestic architecture

Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

Europe characterised by semi-circular arch

Arch

An arch is a structure that spans a space and supports a load. Arches appeared as early as the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamian brick architecture and their systematic use started with the Ancient Romans who were the first to apply the technique to a wide range of structures.-Technical aspects:The...

es. The term "Romanesque" is usually used for the period from the 10th to the 12th century with "Pre-Romanesque" and "First Romanesque

First Romanesque

First Romanesque is the name due to Josep Puig i Cadafalch to refer to the Romanesque art developed in Catalonia since the late 10th century....

" being applied to earlier buildings with Romanesque characteristics. Romanesque architecture can be found across the continent, diversified by regional materials and characteristics, but with an overall consistency that makes it the first pan-European architectural style since Imperial Roman Architecture

Roman architecture

Ancient Roman architecture adopted certain aspects of Ancient Greek architecture, creating a new architectural style. The Romans were indebted to their Etruscan neighbors and forefathers who supplied them with a wealth of knowledge essential for future architectural solutions, such as hydraulics...

. The Romanesque style in England is traditionally referred to as Norman architecture

Norman architecture

About|Romanesque architecture, primarily English|other buildings in Normandy|Architecture of Normandy.File:Durham Cathedral. Nave by James Valentine c.1890.jpg|thumb|200px|The nave of Durham Cathedral demonstrates the characteristic round arched style, though use of shallow pointed arches above the...

.

The commonest surviving Romanesque buildings are churches, of which many are still standing, more or less intact and frequently in use. Many of these churches were built as abbeys, to serve religious communities; the living quarters and other monastic buildings constitute a significant part of the remaining domestic architecture of the Romanesque period.

The second most common type of surviving Romanesque building is the castle

Castle

A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...

, of which the great majority are in ruins, as a result of war, or the practice of dismantling castles that might later be used in uprisings. A number of ruined or much altered imperial palaces, some of them within castle walls, others unfortified, have survived in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

and Alsace

Alsace

Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

.

Examples of purely domestic architecture include the great hall

Great hall

A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, nobleman's castle or a large manor house in the Middle Ages, and in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries. At that time the word great simply meant big, and had not acquired its modern connotations of excellence...

of a fortified manor in England, and a small number of large town houses in France and Germany and several palazzos in Venice. A great many more small houses are spread across Europe, often greatly altered by the insertion of later windows, and sometimes with their antiquity unrecognised and unrecorded.

History

The following is a summary of essential points from the section History in the article cited above.

Origins

Romanesque architecture was the first distinctive style to spread across Europe since the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

. Architecture of a Romanesque style developed simultaneously in the north of Italy, parts of France and in the Iberian Peninsula

Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...

in the 10th century.

Politics and religion

The Romanesque period was a time of frequent conflict. Much of Europe was affected by feudalism

Feudalism

Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...

in which peasants held tenure from local rulers over the land that they farmed in exchange for military service

Military service

Military service, in its simplest sense, is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, whether as a chosen job or as a result of an involuntary draft . Some nations require a specific amount of military service from every citizen...

and employment on building projects. This resulted in the building of castles at strategic points, many of them being constructed as strongholds of the Normans, descendants of the Vikings who invaded northern France in 911. The invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy, in 1066, saw the building of both castles and abbeys which reinforced the Norman presence. Political struggles also resulted in the fortification of many towns, or the rebuilding and strengthening of walls that remained from the Roman period. One of the most notable surviving fortifications is that of the city of Carcassonne

Carcassonne

Carcassonne is a fortified French town in the Aude department, of which it is the prefecture, in the former province of Languedoc.It is divided into the fortified Cité de Carcassonne and the more expansive lower city, the ville basse. Carcassone was founded by the Visigoths in the fifth century,...

. The enclosure of towns brought about a lack of living space within the walls, and resulted in a style of town house that was tall and narrow, often surrounding communal courtyards, as at San Gimignano

San Gimignano

San Gimignano is a small walled medieval hill town in the province of Siena, Tuscany, north-central Italy. It is mainly famous for its medieval architecture, especially its towers, which may be seen from several kilometres outside the town....

in Tuscany

Tuscany

Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....

.

In Germany, the Holy Roman Emperor

Holy Roman Emperor

The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...

s built a number of residences both castles and palaces, at strategic points and on trade routes. The Imperial Palace of Goslar

Goslar

Goslar is a historic town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the district of Goslar and located on the northwestern slopes of the Harz mountain range. The Old Town of Goslar and the Mines of Rammelsberg are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.-Geography:Goslar is situated at the...

(heavily restored in the 19th century) was built in the early 11th century by Otto III and Henry III, while the ruined Palace at Gelnhausen

Gelnhausen

Gelnhausen is a town and the capital of the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located approx. 40 kilometers east of Frankfurt am Main, between the Vogelsberg mountains and the Spessart range at the river Kinzig...

was received by Frederick Barbarossa prior to 1170. The movement of people and armies also brought about the building of bridges, some of which have survived, including the 12 century bridge at Besalú

Besalú

Besalú is a town in the comarca of Garrotxa, in Catalonia, Spain.The town's importance was greater in the early Middle Ages, as capital of the county of Besalú, whose territory was roughly the same size as the current comarca of Garrotxa but sometime extended as far as Corbières, Aude, in France....

, Catalonia

Catalonia

Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...

, the 11th century Puente de la Reina, Navarre

Navarre

Navarre , officially the Chartered Community of Navarre is an autonomous community in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Country, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and Aquitaine in France...

and the Pont-Saint-Bénézet, Avignon

Avignon

Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...

.

The system of monasticism in which the religious become members of an order, with common ties and a common rule, living in a mutually dependent community, rather than as a group of hermits living in proximity but essentially separate, was established by the monk Benedict

Benedict of Nursia

Saint Benedict of Nursia is a Christian saint, honored by the Roman Catholic Church as the patron saint of Europe and students.Benedict founded twelve communities for monks at Subiaco, about to the east of Rome, before moving to Monte Cassino in the mountains of southern Italy. There is no...

in the 6th century. From this time onwards, monasteries were established across Europe, bringing about not only the construction of large churches, but also cloisters, domestic quarters and other buildings associated with community living such as hospitals, barns, and forges.

The Crusades

Crusades

The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...

, 1095–1270, which were intended to wrest the Holy Places of Palestine from Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

ic control, resulted in the building of castles in Syria and Palestine. The Crusades brought about a very large movement of people and, with them, ideas and trade skills, particularly those involved in the building of fortifications and the metal working needed for the provision of arms, which was also applied to the fitting and decoration of buildings. The continual movement of people, rulers, nobles, bishops, abbots, craftsmen and peasants, was an important factor in creating a homogeneity in building methods and a recognizable Romanesque style, despite regional differences.

Walls and materials

Most domestic buildings of the Romanesque period were built of wood, or partly of wood. In Scandinavian countries, buildings were often entirely of wood, while in other parts of Europe, buildings were "half-timbered", constructed with timber frames, the spaces filled with rubble, wattle and daub, or other materials which were then plastered over. Stone was often used for basements. The building material differs greatly across Europe, depending upon the local stone and building traditions.

While in most countries stone is the usual material for substantial buildings such as castles and palaces, in much of Poland, Germany, northern Italy and the Netherlands, brick is more commonly used. Where stone has been used for domestic buildings, it is often in comparatively small and irregular pieces, bedded in thick mortar. Smooth ashlar

Ashlar

Ashlar is prepared stone work of any type of stone. Masonry using such stones laid in parallel courses is known as ashlar masonry, whereas masonry using irregularly shaped stones is known as rubble masonry. Ashlar blocks are rectangular cuboid blocks that are masonry sculpted to have square edges...

masonry was used where easily-worked limestone was available. For defensive buildings such as castles, the walls are massively thick. In all Romanesque architecture, the windows tend to be small. The general impression of Romanesque architecture is of solidity and strength.

Arches, arcades, piers and columns

Arches in domestic architecture across Europe during this period are always semi-circular, with the only exceptions occurring in palatial buildings in Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

where Norman architecture

Norman architecture

was influenced by the Islamic style

Islamic architecture

Islamic architecture encompasses a wide range of both secular and religious styles from the foundation of Islam to the present day, influencing the design and construction of buildings and structures in Islamic culture....

. Arcades (rows of arches) occur in the interior of large buildings such as the great hall of a castle, supporting the timbers of a roof or upper floor. Arcades are also used to create cloisters and loggias. Arcading on a large scale generally fulfils a structural purpose, but it is also used on a smaller scale, as a decorative feature, both internally and externally.

In Romanesque domestic architecture, arcades were most often supported on pier

Pier (architecture)

In architecture, a pier is an upright support for a superstructure, such as an arch or bridge. Sections of wall between openings function as piers. The simplest cross section of the pier is square, or rectangular, although other shapes are also common, such as the richly articulated piers of Donato...

s. They were built of masonry and are of square or rectangular section, generally having a horizontal moulding representing a capital at the springing of the arch. Columns were also used to support arcades and vaults, but are a feature of palace, civic and monastic architecture, rather than smaller houses. Colonnettes and attached shafts are also used structurally and for decoration. The capital on top of a column is usually cut so that it is round at the bottom, where it sits on the column, and square at the top where it support the arch. A capital might be undecorated, or else have foliate or figurative carving.

Vaults and roofs

Timber was used extensively in building. The majority of buildings have open wooden roofs. When building have stone undercrofts, or basements, this lower floor may be vaulted, with a barrel or groin vault. Vaulted domestic spaces are particularly found in monastic buildings, castles and palaces where skilled master masons were employed. Towards the end of the period, vaulted spaces in monastic buildings employed the ribbed vault, as it was used in abbey churches.

Doors and windows

Narrow doors and small windows are often square topped, being bridged by a solid stone lintel which may be supported on projecting brackets. Some stone buildings have retained wooden lintels. Larger doorways and windows are topped with semi-circular arches, as are arcades and vaults. Large doorways in more elaborate dwellings are often set within three archivolt

Archivolt

An archivolt is an ornamental molding or band following the curve on the underside of an arch. It is composed of bands of ornamental moldings surrounding an arched opening, corresponding to the architrave in the case of a rectangular opening...

s or mouldings and may also have corbels or colonnettes and capitals, as at the Jew's house at Lincoln. Square-topped windows are often set in groups, with two or three beneath a single lintel. Round-topped windows are often paired under a wide arch, and separated by stone mullion

Mullion

A mullion is a vertical structural element which divides adjacent window units. The primary purpose of the mullion is as a structural support to an arch or lintel above the window opening. Its secondary purpose may be as a rigid support to the glazing of the window...

s or colonnettes.
In Sicily there are a number of palaces and churches where the pointed arch is used during this period, apparently adopted from Islamic architecture

Islamic architecture

Architectural embellishment and sculpture

Stone buildings are often ornamented with projecting courses which may be flat fillets or rounded mouldings. These are sometimes carved with patterns, particularly chevrons. An arched doorway that is set into a thick wall may be deeply recessed, and have three or more bands of moulding around it. Doorways sometimes have colonnettes with small capitals, as are also found on the transoms that divide paired windows. Sometimes capitals and corbels are carved with floral motifs or figures.

Arcading is a significant decorative feature of Romanesque architecture, occurring most often in domestic architecture as a Lombard band

Lombard band

A Lombard band is a decorative blind arcade, usually exterior, often used during the Romanesque and Gothic periods of architecture.Lombard bands are believed to have been first used during the First Romanesque Period of the early 11th Century. At that time, they were the most common architectural...

which is a row of small arches that appear to support a roofline.

Colour

Colour was used in a variety of ways to enhance buildings during this period. Rendered walls could be coloured, with different fashions prevailing in different regions. Stone buildings sometimes had external details picked out in colour. In Italy buildings were often constructed with alternating bands of brick and stone. In Venice, the palaces of wealthy families had veneers of marble which contrasted with the painted stucco.
Internally, the large wall surfaces and plain, curving vaults of the Romanesque period lent themselves to mural decoration and traces of them have been found in castles and wealthy homes. However, most of these paintings, like the buildings themselves have been destroyed by war, neglect and changing fashion.

Monastic buildings

Within the Catholic tradition, communal monasticism

Monasticism

Monasticism is a religious way of life characterized by the practice of renouncing worldly pursuits to fully devote one's self to spiritual work...

was established by St Benedict

Benedict of Nursia

at Monte Cassino

Monte Cassino

Monte Cassino is a rocky hill about southeast of Rome, Italy, c. to the west of the town of Cassino and altitude. St. Benedict of Nursia established his first monastery, the source of the Benedictine Order, here around 529. It was the site of Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944...

around 529. It was encouraged by Charlemagne

Charlemagne

Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

with an increasing number of monasteries being founded across Europe in the late Middle Ages. The most influential orders during that period were the Benedictines, the Cluniacs founded at Cluny in 910, and then the Cistercians founded in 1098. Bernard of Clairvaux

Bernard of Clairvaux

Bernard of Clairvaux, O.Cist was a French abbot and the primary builder of the reforming Cistercian order.After the death of his mother, Bernard sought admission into the Cistercian order. Three years later, he was sent to found a new abbey at an isolated clearing in a glen known as the Val...

entered the Cistercian Order in 1113 and, as its leader, founded more than five hundred monasteries of austere design and often in remote locations.

The Carolingian Plan of St. Gall dating from the early 9th century is a detailed draught of an abbey church and its accompanying monastic buildings, the oldest such architectural plan to exist since Roman times. It shows an idealised arrangement with individual cells for monks, workshops, amenities, gardens, stables and a school. It constitutes a living space for a completely self-sufficient community. Natural constraints such as the building site, the close proximity of town buildings, and lack of funds meant that in practice few monasteries were so lavishly constructed during the Romanesque period. From the 10th century, the great Abbey of Cluny

Cluny

Cluny or Clungy is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne in eastern France. It is 20 km northwest of Mâcon.The town grew up around the Benedictine Cluny Abbey, founded by Duke William I of Aquitaine in 910...

set a standard of building and amenities that was to be emulated by others.

The surviving domestic and utility buildings of monastic complexes are in general set apart from the surviving dwellings of the common laity by the quality of both structure and detail. Although built for the communal living of lives vowed to poverty and simplicity, monastic buildings are in general solidly constructed and finely finished with vaulted ceilings, mouldings, columns and carvings that are directly related to the forms found in monastic churches, while the cloisters that formed the nucleus of monastic life are frequently masterpieces of Romanesque construction, style and ornament.

Types of buildings

In general, the main living and working quarters of any monastery were the cloister

Cloister

A cloister is a rectangular open space surrounded by covered walks or open galleries, with open arcades on the inner side, running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth...

s, four arcaded passages that surrounded a courtyard and were located, wherever possible, adjacent to and on the southern (sunniest) side of the church. The arcades at ground level were the monk's working and general living space, containing carrels for study and writing, and often along one range, a "lavatorium" where the monks could wash their hands and faces before eating. Above the arcades ran long dormitories where the monks slept. Where such buildings still exist from the Romanesque period, they are built of stone, although at the majority of early monasteries, they were probably of wooden construction. Monastic buildings generally became increasingly comfortable and more robust over time, with stone replacing wood, open arcades being glazed against the wind and open dormitories being fitted with wooden screens for warmth and privacy.

A number of buildings surrounded and abutted the cloister. The chapter house was the most significant, as the meeting place of the governing body of the abbey. It generally projected from the eastern side of the cloister, and might have near it a narrow passage or "slype" that led to a burial ground near the eastern end of the church.

Also off the cloister arcade was a calefactory or "warming room" where a fire burnt during the winter. It was generally located under part of the dormitory. A staircase often descended from the dormitory directly into a transept of the church, and was used by the monks at night. Projecting from the dormitory was the "necessarium" or toilet block, with a drain running beneath the toilets. An important building of which a number of examples have survived was the refectory

Refectory

A refectory is a dining room, especially in monasteries, boarding schools and academic institutions. One of the places the term is most often used today is in graduate seminaries...

or dining hall. Adjacent to the refectory were the monastic kitchens, with their proximity to the cloister being determined by whether the cooking was done by the brethren of the monastery or by lay employees.

Set apart from the cloister was the infirmary

Hospital

A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....

for the treatment of the sick, and where elderly frail members of the monastic community could be cared for. This was generally a large hall but might constitute a whole separate complex with its own chapel, kitchen and courtyard. A separate dining chamber known as the "misericord" was often attached to the infirmary, so that sick and infirm aged brothers could benefit by eating red meat, something not permitted in the refectory.

Early in the establishment of monasteries, it was expected that the abbot or prior would live in the dormitory, in communion with the other monks. As the role of abbot became increasingly that of a business manager and entrepreneur, this humble living style was abandoned, and separate houses were built, outside the cloister. Other buildings commonly occurring within monastic precinct include bakehouses, breweries, granaries, well houses, forges, barns and dovecotes. Guest houses were often built for travellers, and alms houses for the care of the poor. Schools were also found in association with monasteries. Many monasteries had a gatehouse where a member of the laity lived and guarded the monastic precinct.

Examples

Monastic complexes often developed over several centuries, with buildings of different dates abutting each other, and individual buildings being enlarged and altered in later architectural periods. Apart from churches (which are dealt with in a separate article), large Romanesque buildings are rare, even within the context of ancient monasteries. However, a number of fine examples exist, scattered across Europe, with Sénanque Abbey

Sénanque Abbey

Sénanque Abbey is a Cistercian abbey near the village of Gordes in the département of the Vaucluse in Provence, France.-First foundation:...

, consecrated in 1178, being a rare survival that has retained many of its original Romanesque buildings intact, including the church, cloister, dormitory, calefactory and chapter house. The monastery of St Martin-du-Canigou

Martin-du-Canigou

Martin-du-Canigou is a monastery built in 1009 in the Pyrenees on Canigou mountain in present day southern France near the Spanish border.-Location:...

, founded 1005, has also retained its original form and some of its original domestic buildings, although damaged, both by earthquake and over-zealous restoration. At Maulbronn

Maulbronn

Maulbronn is a city in the district of Enz in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany.-History:Founded in 1838, it emerged from a settlement, built around a monastery, which belonged to the Neckar Community in the Kingdom of Württemberg. In 1886, Maulbronn officially became a German town and was an...

in Germany the medieval monastery has remained virtually intact, but typically the buildings vary in date, with the earliest being Romanesque of the late 12th century. The Abbey of Fontenay

Abbey of Fontenay

The Abbey of Fontenay is a former Cistercian abbey located in the commune of Marmagne, near Montbard, in the département of Côte-d'Or in France. It was founded by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in 1118, and built in the Romanesque style...

has retained a number of important buildings including the monks' dormitory, the monks' hall, the scriptorium

Scriptorium

Scriptorium, literally "a place for writing", is commonly used to refer to a room in medieval European monasteries devoted to the copying of manuscripts by monastic scribes...

and a large forge

Forge

A forge is a hearth used for forging. The term "forge" can also refer to the workplace of a smith or a blacksmith, although the term smithy is then more commonly used.The basic smithy contains a forge, also known as a hearth, for heating metals...

.

At Lorsch

Lorsch

Lorsch is a town in the Bergstraße district in Hesse, Germany, 60 km south of Frankfurt. Lorsch is well known for the Lorsch Abbey, which has been named a World Heritage Site.-Location:...

in Germany and at Bury St Edmunds in England remain two impressive gatehouses of very different styles. The Lorsch Abbey gatehouse led into a complex the form of which can now only be determined by archaeology. The gatehouse itself dates from 774 and combines a number of features from Classical Antiquity such as Corinthian

Corinthian order

The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order...

columns and the triumphal arch

Triumphal arch

A triumphal arch is a monumental structure in the shape of an archway with one or more arched passageways, often designed to span a road. In its simplest form a triumphal arch consists of two massive piers connected by an arch, crowned with a flat entablature or attic on which a statue might be...

motif with Northern European vernacular in the triangulation of the "arches" of the upper story and the steeply pitched roof, and Byzantine ornament in the polychrome surface decoration. The Norman Tower at Bury St Edmunds was built by Abbott Anselm in the second quarter of the 11th century as the main entrance to the monastery from the town. It rises in four stages of different heights, with a single arched portal and groups of three openings of varied design on the upper levels, between flattened corner buttresses.

Romanesque cloisters remain at many ancient monasteries, particularly in France, Spain and Italy. They vary from simple structures with wooden trussed roofs or groin vaults and arcades supported on stout piers as at St Milchael's, Hildesheim, to elegant ribbed-vaults and arcades filled with plate tracery like those at the Cathedral of Tarragona, Spain, and supported on highly decorated paired columns with figurative capitals like those at St Pierre, Moissac, France and St John Laterano, Rome. The cloisters sometimes retain an upper arcade which gave access to dormitories or cells, as at the Cathedral St. Léonce and the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos in Burgos

Burgos

Burgos is a city of northern Spain, historic capital of Castile. It is situated at the edge of the central plateau, with about 178,966 inhabitants in the city proper and another 20,000 in its suburbs. It is the capital of the province of Burgos, in the autonomous community of Castile and León...

.

Of the various chambers that abutted the cloisters, those on the ground floor often had groin or ribbed vaults like those found in the scriptorium at Fontenay. Where large buildings such as the forge at Fontenay have survived, they take the form of barn-like halls with flattened buttresses and small round-headed windows.

Cloisters often contained a well. At Unser Lieben Frauen in Magdeburg, Germany, there is an elaborate well-house in the cloister, while a ruined example exists at Mellifont Abbey.

Fortified buildings

The castle represents, overwhelmingly, the type of domestic architecture for which there is the greatest number of surviving examples in the Romanesque style. There also exist a range of domestic buildings associated with monastic precincts, palaces, civic buildings and town houses.

Keeps

Castles developed from wooden palisades, built for defense, or from motte

Motte

Motte may be:*Motte-and-bailey, a type of construction used in castles*Isaac Motte, an 18th century American statesman*La Motte , various places with this name-See also:* Mote * Mott...

s where an earth mound, usually artificial, was surmounted by a tall wooden structure and often surrounded by ditches. This latter system of defense was further developed with the addition of outer palisades enclosing a bailey

Bailey

-Fictional Characters:* Beetle Bailey, a comic strip created by Mort Walker* Bailey Pickett, a character on The Suite Life on Deck* Miranda Bailey, a character Grey's Anatomy...

in which domestic buildings were constructed. From about 1000 onwards the wooden building on the motte was replaced with a stone keep

Keep

A keep is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word keep, but usually consider it to refer to large towers in castles that were fortified residences, used as a refuge of last resort should the rest of the...

, or "donjon", the earliest of which is believed to have been at Doue-la-Fontaine

Doué-la-Fontaine

Doué-la-Fontaine is a commune in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France.It is located in the heart of Anjou, a few kilometres from the great châteaux of the Loire Valley.-Sights:...

, Maine-et-Loire

Maine-et-Loire

Maine-et-Loire is a department in west-central France, in the Pays de la Loire region.- History :Maine-et-Loire is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. Originally it was called Mayenne-et-Loire, but its name was changed to Maine-et-Loire in 1791....

, France, built in about 950.

Judging from the size of the openings to be found in the lower stories, the earliest tall stone buildings appear to have served chiefly as residences. However, with necessity, they developed an increasing number of defensive features.
Many such castles were to be erected by the Norman invaders of England. Although a number of 12th century keeps such as those of Houdan

Houdan

Houdan is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France.-Geography:Houdan is west of Paris in the Yvelines département. It is linked by SNCF Alençon and Paris .-History:...

and Provins

Provins

Provins is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France.Provins, a town of medieval fairs, became a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site in 2001.-Administration:...

castles in France were circular or polygonal in plan, square keeps predominated in England. Examples of square keeps in include the White Tower

White Tower (Tower of London)

The White Tower is a central tower, the old keep, at the Tower of London.-History:The castle which later became known as the Tower of London was built by William the Conqueror in 1066. It began as a timber fortification enclosed by a palisade. In the next decade work began on the White Tower, the...

(the Tower of London

Tower of London

Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...

), Castle Hedingham

Castle Hedingham

Castle Hedingham is a small village in northeast Essex, England, located four miles west of Halstead and is situated in the Colne Valley on the ancient road from Colchester, Essex, to Cambridge....

in Essex and Rochester Castle

Rochester Castle

Rochester Castle stands on the east bank of the River Medway in Rochester, Kent, England. The 12th-century keep or stone tower, which is the castle's most prominent feature, is one of the best preserved in England or France. Located along the River Medway and Watling Street, Rochester was a...

in Kent. After 1150, there were a greater number of polygonal keeps, which were harder to mine. Examples include those at Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle is a medieval castle and royal residence in Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, notable for its long association with the British royal family and its architecture. The original castle was built after the Norman invasion by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I it...

, Conisborough and Orford

Orford Castle

Orford Castle is a castle in the village of Orford, Suffolk, England, located 12 miles northeast of Ipswich, with views over the Orford Ness. It was built between 1165 and 1173 by Henry II of England to consolidate royal power in the region. The well-preserved keep, described by historian R...

castles.

These castles of rectangular plan are “hall-keeps”, with their primary purpose being as the dwelling of a ruler, the “hall” being the main living chamber, generally on the first floor. In some such keeps the basement level has columns supporting a vault. The floors above this are of wood, supported on long timber beams of which plenty could be cut from the forests at that date. Within a large keep like that at Rochester, the main spaces could be divided by a stone wall or tier of arcades rising through several storeys. Many castles had projecting turrets at the corners which contained spiral staircases, while the thick walls of the upper storeys contained passages. Rochester has retained a fireplace set into a wall within a decorated arch. Upper floors of Romanesque keeps sometimes have differentiated windows marking the private rooms of the lord and lady. There may also be a chapel such as the Chapel of St John set into corner turret of the White Tower, and the oldest place of Christian worship in London.

In mountainous regions, castles often take highly irregular forms, adapting the plan to the site in varied ways. Castles have often developed over the centuries and typically have had additional encircling walls added. Between 1072 and 1080 Sancho el Mayor built Loarre Castle

Loarre castle

Loarre Castle is a fortress in Loarre, Spain. The complex was built largely during the 11th and 12th centuries, when its position on the frontier between Christian and Muslim lands gave it strategic importance. The first of the two major building programs began ca. 1020, when Sancho el Mayor ...

on a high rocky ridge in the foothills of the Pyrenees, as a commitment to the Reconquista

Reconquista

The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...

. The castle was further fortified in the 13th century by an outer wall with ten towers. Although outwardly of austere appearance, Castle Loarre has living quarters of comparative comfort, and a chapel ornamented with fine carvings.

Walled castles and palaces

Other castles begun in the 11th century were built on elevated sites that took advantage of the steep slopes for defense, rather than on moats. The central tower became a last bastion of defence, while the main domestic quarters were built against the walls around the perimeter, allowing plenty of room for a variety of functions. Conisborough Castle is an English example, with the shell keep

Shell keep

A shell keep is a style of medieval fortification, best described as a stone structure circling the top of a motte.In English castle morphology, shell keeps are perceived as the successors to motte-and-bailey castles, with the wooden fence around the top of the motte replaced by a stone wall...

rising on the earlier motte, and a wall with the residential and service quarters built into it, enclosing the bailey. The ruins within the bailey show remains of a great hall

Great hall

with central fireplace, a kitchen and a two storeyed residential block with adjacent latrines. The keep itself contains a room for the lord, complete with a hooded fireplace, while a small vaulted chapel was built into the thick outer wall of the keep. Ludlow Castle

Ludlow Castle

Ludlow Castle is a large, partly ruined, non-inhabited castle which dominates the town of Ludlow in Shropshire, England. It stands on a high point overlooking the River Teme...

, Shropshire

Shropshire

Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...

begun in the 11th century, was lived in by a number of members of the Tudor royal family and had both its fortifications and living quarters improved over several centuries.

The Hohenstaufen

Hohenstaufen

The House of Hohenstaufen was a dynasty of German kings in the High Middle Ages, lasting from 1138 to 1254. Three of these kings were also crowned Holy Roman Emperor. In 1194 the Hohenstaufens also became Kings of Sicily...

Castle St Ulrich at Ribeauville

Ribeauville

Ribeauville is a commune in the Aisne department in Picardy in northern France....

, Alsace

Alsace

, and Castle Trifel at Annweiler are examples of this type of castles with comfortable living quarters. Münzenberg Castle

Münzenberg castle

Münzenberg is a ruined castle close to the town of the same name in Germany, dating from the 12th century. It is one of the best preserved castles from the High Middle Ages in Germany.-Architecture:...

is remarkable in having two tall keeps. It has a two encircling walls, with an ornate palace built into the wall of the upper ward, with galleries of mullioned windows looking out over the valley.

Other less fortified dwellings, such as the Palaces of Kaiserwerth

Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth

Kaiserswerth is one of the oldest parts of the City of Düsseldorf. It is in the north of the city and next to the river Rhine. It houses the Deaconess's Institute of Kaiserswerth where Florence Nightingale studied....

, Gelnhausen

Gelnhausen

, Landsberg

Landsberg

Landsberg may refer to:* Landsberg , Bavaria, Germany* Landsberg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany* the Margraviate of Landsberg, Holy Roman Empire* Landsberg am Lech, Bavaria, Germany* Landsberg an der Warthe, German name of Gorzów Wielkopolski, Poland...

and Goslar

Goslar

, were constructed on more accessible sites, and were in regular use by the imperial court or officials. They have large halls, atriums, colonnaded balconies and courtyards surrounded by arcades, similar to monastic cloisters. These complexes, where they have survived without the over-zealous Romantic restoration of the 19th century seen at Goslar, are buildings of great architectural refinement.

Many town walls, monastic precincts and palaces had gatehouses built with a guardroom or living quarters above a large archway. One of the earliest is the gateway of Lorsch Abbey, the lower part of which has three openings like a Roman triumphal arch, while the upper part, of polychrome brick, has detailing resembling half-timbered house, the effect enhanced by the large steeply pitched slate roof. By contrast the gatehouse of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds resembles a church tower. Many Romanesque gates are set into the walls of Italian cities. These are invariably of fine masonry and battlemented but otherwise without ornamentation.

Characteristics

Few houses of the Romanesque period have survived across Europe. One reason is that many of them were built of wooden or half timbered construction. A number of half timbered houses in Germany at Esslingen, Bad Wimpfen and Swabisch Hall have been shown to date from this period. The houses that are still standing are mostly of stone, like the house at Bad Munstereifel

Bad Münstereifel

Bad Münstereifel is a historical spa town in the district of Euskirchen, Germany, with about 19,000 inhabitants, situated in the far south of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia...

in Germany, the houses in Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...

, England, and the houses of the village of Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, Languedoc-Roussillon

Languedoc-Roussillon

Languedoc-Roussillon is one of the 27 regions of France. It comprises five departments, and borders the other French regions of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Rhône-Alpes, Auvergne, Midi-Pyrénées on the one side, and Spain, Andorra and the Mediterranean sea on the other side.-Geography:The region is...

, France.

One of the simplest types of Romanesque house was the "long house". These were typically built of wood and thatch, were of a single story and housed both the family and the livestock. The long house had doors in either side, making a passage dividing the living quarters of the family from that of the animals. The living room had a central hearth, with smoke holes in the gable. There is a extant stone long house of this plan at Bad Kösen

Bad Kösen

' is a spa town in Germany, on the Saale river in the small German wine-growing region of Saale-Unstrut. It is a former municipality in the Burgenlandkreis district, in Saxony-Anhalt...

, Germany
A substantial stone-built Romanesque house, like the Romanesque castle keep, usually had the main living space on the first floor, elevated above an undercroft. This undercroft might take two forms, either an enclosed cellar-like basement, or an open loggia. It might serve for storage, as a stable or for commercial purposes, depending on the location and owners of the house. This arrangement is apparent at the Manor House at Boothby Pagnell

Boothby Pagnell

Boothby Pagnell is a village and civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England.-Parish:The local authority, and the Ordnance Survey, spell the village Boothby Pagnell. The Diocese of Lincoln spells the PCC as Boothby Pagnall. The ecclesiastical parish is part of The North...

, and St Mary's Guild, both in Lincolnshire, England.

The living space on the first floor was, in the simpler houses, a single room, with access by an external staircase of stone or wood. Early houses might have an open stone hearth and a smoke hole in the roof. The interiors of houses developed with separate chambers and partitions of stone or wood. Additional rooms might be accessed from an external wooden gallery, cantilevered from holes and corbels along the walls, as seen the 13th century house at Poreč

Porec

Poreč is a town and municipality on the western coast of the Istrian peninsula, in Istria County, Croatia. Its major landmark is the 6th century Euphrasian Basilica, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997....

, Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

.

Doorways might have a stone or wooden lintel, but were often arched, and in finer houses had mouldings, decorative carvings and perhaps colonnettes and carved capitals around the doors. A common form of doorway in Italy had shaped corbels projecting inward to support a stone transom, above which rose an open arch. This form continued into the Gothic period and evolved into the fanlight

Fanlight

A fanlight is a window, semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open fan, It is placed over another window or a doorway. and is sometimes hinged to a transom. The bars in the fixed glazed window spread out in the manner a sunburst...

The simplest window were narrow and round-topped. Windows into important rooms were often paired arched openings, divided by a colonnette or mullion

Mullion

. Some houses have paired mullioned windows set under lintels rather than arches, while in France there are a number of houses which have rows of square topped windows divided by mullions and piers, set within the framework of a horizontal course, and forming a gallery.

City houses and tower houses

Houses built within medieval cities were restricted in space, often by the fact that the town was encircled by walls. As a response to this, houses in cities were usually multi-storeyed. The simplest of these buildings were extremely cramped for space, having just a single room on each floor, accessible only by steep ladder-like stairs. In some cases exterior staircases gave onto wooden balconies which served the upper floors of a whole row of tall narrow houses, as is evidenced by the rows of holes and supporting corbels that are found in the walls of a great many Italian medieval buildings. Likewise, small inner courts which provided light and air were communal spaces for surrounding buildings. They also provided for the collection of rainwater. Narrow multi-storeyed houses of the Romanesque period have survived in a number of cities, with the greatest number occurring in Italy, where they are generally built of stone or brick and have often been extended at later dates, or had their Romanesque openings altered, making them indistinguishable from later medieval buildings. Casa Dante, thought to have been the home of Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri

Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...

, in Florence, is a good surviving example. In Germany the Baumburg Tower in Regensburg

Regensburg

Regensburg is a city in Bavaria, Germany, located at the confluence of the Danube and Regen rivers, at the northernmost bend in the Danube. To the east lies the Bavarian Forest. Regensburg is the capital of the Bavarian administrative region Upper Palatinate...

is an elegant late 13th century example showing elements that are transitional between Romanesque and Gothic in its decorative window openings which are different on each floor, and contrast with the smoothly stuccoed walls. Another house, at Karden, has similar features but in form combines a tower house and a hall. The extremes of tall city housing are found in San Gimignano

San Gimignano

and Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

where families rivaled each other in the construction of very tall tower houses. In Bologna only the Torre Garisenda, (1100), 130 ft and the Torre Asinelli, (1109), 225 ft, have survived, but the much smaller walled hill-town of San Gimignano contains fourteen tower and the stumps of very many more, having once bristled with them. It has been suggested that the tall houses of this city served the practical purpose of suspending bolts of cloth for drying, in the shade rather than in the sun.

Town houses

In France there are a number of locations at which clusters of Romanesque houses have survived. A group exists in the village of Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, near the ancient monastery. There are a significant number in Cluny

Cluny

, including plastered timber-framed examples. The finest Romanesque town-house is at St-Antonin-Noble-Val, Tarn-et-Garonne

Tarn-et-Garonne

Tarn-et-Garonne is a French department in the southwest of France. It is traversed by the Rivers Tarn and Garonne, from which it takes its name.-History:...

, France, built by the Granolhet family in the early 12th century. This substantial house of three storeys has a broad street front, braced on one side by projecting bell tower with typical paired mullioned windows. The ground floor is an open loggia, with an arcade on piers. Across the first floor is a long window or recessed gallery with delicate colonnettes all framed between two continuous horizontal mouldings. On the upper floor is a row of three mullioned windows.

In Italy, a significant building of this time is the 12th or 13th century Rector’s Palace in San Gimignano. This modestly sized building, fronting onto a square, has a symmetrical façade, a low gable that retains the appearance of a Classical pediment, and a portal that has a semi-circular arch raised above a broad lintel supported on corbels, a common feature of medieval Italian domestic architecture and also seen at the House of Dante. This house has a doorway, also with arch and lintel, between the two mullioned windows of its upper floor that once led out onto a balcony, like the one that has been restored on a 13th century house at Poreč

Porec

in Istria, Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

.

The house at Poreč typifies the nature of the few stone houses remaining of this period in that the main living quarters were on the first floor, elevated above a basement or "undercroft", and accessed by an external stone staircase. The house at Poreč has another feature also seen in England, an external chimney breast projects from the upper storey directly above a doorway.

On a the aptly named Steep Street that leads up to Lincoln Cathedral (once a great Norman church but almost entirely rebuilt in the Gothic style) are two merchant’s houses which are known as “the Jew’s House” and “Aaron the Jew’s House”, (c. 1170). Both houses have been much altered and have been fitted with sash windows and shop fronts, but both retain their doorways and both originally had a fireplace to an upper room directly above it, with arches supporting the chimney and framing the door. The details of the mouldings of the arches over the doors and upper windows are of fine craftsmanship.

In Italy a complex of medieval buildings has been restored at the Castle of Monselice

Monselice

Monselice is a town and municipality located in northeastern Italy, in the Veneto region, in the province of Padua.It is about 20 km southeast of the city of Padua, at the southern edge of the Euganean Hills .-History:...

(Castello Cini) which includes houses from the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. The oldest, known as Casa Romanica has two large arches making a loggia at the ground floor, above which rises a plain facade broken only by small windows and a jutting chimney breast. The loggia leads into a large kitchen with rough-hewn wooden columns standing on stone bases and spreading the weight of the wide beams of the upper floor on projecting horizontal brackets. The upper floor has a "great hall" and a smaller room over the loggia with a groin vault. The 12th century "Castelletto" and 13th century Ezzolino's Tower have both retained Romanesque characteristics, with the later being built of brick and having more ornate features such as paired mullioned windows on its upper floor.

Merchant palaces and commercial buildings

Merchant palaces are essentially city buildings, of initially modest scale but growing in by the 13th century, where wealthy trading families both lived and carried out there business. In Venice a number of these buildings remain, with their open basement loggias stretching along the main waterway, the Grand Canal and the principal rooms of the piano nobile

Piano nobile

The piano nobile is the principal floor of a large house, usually built in one of the styles of classical renaissance architecture...

opening onto an arcaded balcony overlooking the view. The round-headed arches are often stilted, and the opening of the upper floors are grouped in patterns that have some differentiation in grouping to either side of the building. The details are handled with a lightness and delicacy that typifies Venetian medieval architecture. While the structures are brick, the favoured material for architectural decoration was marble, which is elaborately carved into intricate details, or laid on the surface as patterened veneers. Like St Mark's Basilica

St Mark's Basilica

The Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of Saint Mark is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Venice, northern Italy. It is the most famous of the city's churches and one of the best known examples of Byzantine architecture...

, the architecture shows a Byzantine

Byzantine art

Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....

influence. They include the Ca' Farsetti

Ca' Farsetti

Ca' Farsetti is a palace in Venice, northern Italy. It is located in the sestiere of San Marco, and faces the Canal Grande, not far from the Ponte di Rialto....

, Ca' da Mosto

Ca' da Mosto

The Ca' da Mosto is a thirteenth-century palace in Venice, northern Italy, the oldest building on the Grand Canal. It is in the Veneto-Byzantine style, with high narrow arches and distinctive capitals.-History:...

, Ca' Loredan

Ca' Loredan

Ca' Loerdan is a palace in Venice, northern Italy. It is located in the sestiere of San Marco, and faces the Canal Grande, not far from the Ponte di Rialto. Together with the annexed Ca' Farsetti, it is currently home to the city's municipal council....

, and the Fondaco dei Turchi

Fondaco dei Turchi

The Fondaco dei Turchi is a Veneto-Byzantine style palazzo on the Grand Canal of Venice, northeast Italy.-Early history:...

.

Fondaco dei Turchi

Fondaco dei Turchi

The Fondaco dei Turchi is a Veneto-Byzantine style palazzo on the Grand Canal of Venice, northeast Italy.-Early history:...

, like the other palaces, although built as a private palace for the wealthy Pesaro family, was designed to facilitate business, with its long arcade stretching along Venice's main waterway, the Grand Canal. It was one of the most imposing buildings in Venice during the late Medieval period, and was used by the Senate to accommodate visiting dignitaries. It was later leased to Turkish traders. Although heavily restored during the 19th century, the building demonstrates typical features of Venetian Romanesque: the stilted, round-topped arches of the arcade, the pavilions at each end of the building, the upper gallery, the crenellations and patera

Patera

A patera was a broad, shallow dish used for drinking, primarily in a ritual context such as a libation. These paterae were often used in Rome....

, marble roundels or foliate ornaments applied to the exterior walls.

The Northern European version of the merchant house can be seen at the Overstolzenhaus, in Cologne, with six stories of windows and crow-stepped gables. While the open loggias of houses were used for trade and those of town halls were widely used for markets, (see below) other commercial buildings were purpose-built, sometimes by city authorities, to facilitate trade, with an important example of a extant commercial building being the "Spijker" or Old Corn Warehouse in Ghent, Belgium, which is close by the quay and has a wide front with two rows of openings to facilitate the handling and stacking of bags of grain.

Civic buildings

In Italy a number of important Romanesque civic buildings have remained largely intact and have continued in use. It is characteristic of Italian Medieval architecture that there is no clear break between the Romanesque and Gothic styles. Groin vaults, rounded arches, paired windows, horizontal courses and other such features continued in use from the 11th century to the early 15th century. Often, in secular architecture, only the shape of the heads of windows indicate a late 13th or 14th century date rather than 12th or early 13th century. Many of Italy's finest Romanesque buildings, such as the Palazzo della Ragione, Mantua

Mantua

Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...

(begun 1250), were constructed many years after the Gothic style was already well established.

The open ground-floor loggia that is found in some Romanesque town houses also occurs in Italy at a number of buildings that served civic or communal purposes. In the cities of Mantua, Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

and Padua

Padua

Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...

the Palazzo della Ragione

Palazzo della Ragione

The Palazzo della Ragione is a Medieval town hall building in Padua, in the Veneto region of ItalyThe building, with its great hall on the upper floor, is reputed to have the largest roof unsupported by columns in Europe; the hall is nearly rectangular, its length 81.5m, its breadth 27m, and its...

(“place of reason”) and in Como the Broletto served as a town hall and centre of local government. These buildings spread their vast facades across large city squares which contrasted with the cramped medieval living quarters of most townsfolk. The loggia provided a covered communal space, and at Padua has been extended to form the city’s major market. The Palazzo in Milan, also known as the Broletto Nuovo, (“New Court House”) is a red brick structure with stone piers and rendered upper floor. It window arches are polychrome in the Italian style. The Broletto in Como is faced with polychrome marble.

The Tuscan hill town of Massa Marittima

Massa Marittima

Massa Marittima is a town and comune of the province of Grosseto, southern Tuscany, Italy, 49 km NNW of Grosseto.There are mineral springs, mines of iron, mercury, lignite and copper, with foundries, ironworks and olive-oil mills...

has two Romanesque civic buildings which typify the character of medieval architecture of Tuscany as against that found in the north. The Palazzo del Podestà and Palazzo del Comune of Massa Marittima represent a type of Romanesque civic building that continued in the Gothic style in other hill towns such as Volterra

Volterra

Volterra, known to the ancient Etruscans as Velathri, to the Romans as Volaterrae, is a town and comune in the Tuscany region of Italy.-History:...

and reached its grandest expression in late the 13th century Bargello

Bargello

The Bargello, also known as the Bargello Palace or Palazzo del Popolo is a former barracks and prison, now an art museum, in Florence, Italy.-Terminology:...

and early 14h century Palazzo Vecchio

Palazzo Vecchio

The Palazzo Vecchio is the town hall of Florence, Italy. This massive, Romanesque, crenellated fortress-palace is among the most impressive town halls of Tuscany...

of Florence, and the Palazzo Pubblico

Palazzo Pubblico

The Palazzo Pubblico is a palace in Siena, Tuscany, central Italy. Construction began in 1297 and its original purpose was to house the republican government, consisting of the Podestà and Council of Nine....

of Siena.

Romanesque Revival

During the 19th century, when Gothic Revival architecture

Gothic Revival architecture

The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...

was fashionable, buildings were occasionally designed in the Romanesque style. There are a number of Romanesque Revival churches, dating from as early as the 1830s and continuing into the 20th century where the massive and "brutal" quality of the Romanesque style was appreciated and designed in brick.
The Natural History Museum, London designed by Alfred Waterhouse

Alfred Waterhouse

Alfred Waterhouse was a British architect, particularly associated with the Victorian Gothic Revival architecture. He is perhaps best known for his design for the Natural History Museum in London, and Manchester Town Hall, although he also built a wide variety of other buildings throughout the...

, 1879, on the other hand, is a Romanesque revival building which makes full use of the decorative potential of Romanesque arcading and architectural sculpture. The Romanesque appearance has been achieved while freely adapting an overall style to suit the function of the building. The columns of the foyer, for example, give an impression of incised geometric design similar to those of Durham Cathedral. However, the sources of the incised patterns are the trunks of palms, cycads and tropical tree ferns. The animal motifs, of which there are many, include rare and exotic species.
The type of modern buildings for which the Romanesque style was most frequently adapted was the warehouse, where a lack of large windows and an appearance of great strength and stability were desirable features. These buildings, generally of brick, frequently have flattened buttresses rising to wide arches at the upper levels after the manner of some Italian Romanesque facades. This style was adapted to suit commercial buildings by opening the spaces between the arches into large windows, the brick walls becoming a shell to a building that was essentially of modern steel-frame construction, the architect Henry Hobson Richardson

Henry Hobson Richardson

Henry Hobson Richardson was a prominent American architect who designed buildings in Albany, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and other cities. The style he popularized is named for him: Richardsonian Romanesque...

giving his name to the style, Richardsonian Romanesque

Richardsonian Romanesque

Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after architect Henry Hobson Richardson, whose masterpiece is Trinity Church, Boston , designated a National Historic Landmark...

. Good examples of the style are Marshall Fields store, Chicago by H.H.Richardson, 1885, and the Chadwick Lead Works in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

USA by William Preston

William G. Preston

William G. Preston was an American architect. He was active in Boston and Georgia, where he designed the De Soto Hotel and the Savannah Volunteer Guards Armory...

, 1887. The style also lent itself to the building of cloth mills, steelworks and powerstations.