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The Latin word basilica (derived from Greek , '' Basiliké Stoà '', Royal '' Stoa ''), was originally used to describe a Roman public building (as in Greece , mainly a Tribunal ), usually located at the center of a Roman town ( Forum ). In Hellenistic cities, public basilicas appeared in the 2nd Century BC . After the Roman Empire became officially Christian , the term came by extension to refer to a large and important Church that has been given special ceremonial rites by the Pope . Thus the word retains two senses today, one architectural and the other ecclesiastical. ARCHITECTURE , Rome.]] In architecture, the Roman basilica was a large roofed hall erected for transacting business and disposing of legal matters. Such buildings usually contained interior Colonnade s that divided the space, giving aisles or arcaded spaces at one or both sides, with an Apse at one end (or less often at each end), where the magistrates sat, often on a slightly raised dais. The central aisle tended to be wide and was higher than the flanking aisles, so that light could penetrate through the Clerestory windows. The oldest known basilica, the Basilica Porcia , was built in Rome in 184 BC by Cato The Elder during the time he was Censor . Other early examples include the one at Pompeii (late 2nd Century BC ). Probably the most splendid Roman basilica is the one constructed for traditional purposes during the reign of the pagan emperor Maxentius and finished by Constantine after 313. As early as the time of Augustus, a public basilica for transacting business had been part of any settlement that considered itself a city, used like the late medieval covered markethouses of northern Europe (where the meeting room, for lack of urban space, was set ''above'' the arcades). Basilicas in the Roman Forum
Palace basilicas In the early Imperial period, a basilica for large audiences also became a feature in the palaces. In the 3rd Century AD, the governing elite appeared less easily in the forums. "They now tended to dominate their cities from opulent palaces and country villas, set a little apart from traditional centers of public life. Rather than retreats from public life, however, these residences were the forum made private." (Peter Brown, in Paul Veyne, 1987). Seated in the tribune of his basilica the great man would meet his dependent ''clientes'' early every morning. A private basilica excavated at Bulla Regia (Tunisia), in the "House of the Hunt," dates from the first half of the 4th Century . Its reception or audience hall is a long rectangular nave-like space, flanked by dependent rooms that mostly also open into one another, ending in a circular apse, with matching transept spaces. The "crossing" of the two axes was emphasized with clustered columns. Christianising the Roman basilica , Dyersville , Iowa . This is one of only a handful of basilicas in the United States outside of a major metropolitan area.]] In the , later very easily adopted for use as a church. It is a long rectangle two stories high, with ranks of arch-headed windows one above the other, without aisles (no mercantile exchange in this imperial basilica) and at the far end, beyond a huge arch, the apse in which Constantine held state. Exchange the throne for an altar, as was done at Trier, and you had a church. Basilicas of this type were built not only in Western Europe but in Greece, Syria, Egypt, and Palestine. Good early examples of the architectural basilica are the Church Of The Nativity at Bethlehem ( 6th Century ), the church of St Elias at Thessalonica ( 5th Century ), and the two great basilicas at Ravenna . The first basilicas with Transept s were built under the orders of Emperor Constantine , both in Rome and his "New Rome," Constantinople: :"Around 380 , Gregory Nazianzen , describing the Constantinian Church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople, was the first to point out its resemblance to a cross. Because the cult of the Cross was spreading at about the same time, this comparison met with stunning successs." (Yvon Thébert, in Veyne, 1987) in Quebec was the first church in North America to be elevated to the rank of minor Basilica]] Thus a Christian symbolic theme was applied quite naturally to form borrowed from civil semi-public precedents. In the later 4th century other Christian basilicas were built in Rome: Santa Sabina , St John Lateran and St Paul's-outside-the-Walls (4th century), and later San Clemente ( 6th Century ). A Christian basilica of the 4th or 5th century stood behind its entirely enclosed forecourt ringed with a colonnade or arcade, like the Stoa or Peristyle that was its ancestor or like the Cloister that was its descendant. This forecourt was entered from outside through a range of buildings along the public street. This was the architectural groundplan of St Peter's Basilica in Rome, until first the forecourt, then all of it was swept away in the 15th Century to make way for a great modern church on a new plan. In most basilicas the central nave is taller than the aisles, forming a row of windows called a Clerestory . Some basilicas in the Near East, particularly those of Georgia and Armenia , have a central nave only slightly higher than the two aisles and a single pitched roof covering all three. The result is a much darker interior. This plan is known as the "oriental basilica." Famous existing examples of churches constructed in the ancient basilica style include:
Gradually in the early Middle Ages there emerged the massive Romanesque churches, which still retained the fundamental plan of the basilica. ECCLESIASTICAL BASILICA , Budapest ]]
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