Having analysed the essential characteristics of the archi• Is There a Pre-Romanesque tecture of ćhe Christian West between the 8th and ćhe llth c ent«ry, the a u thor p t>ts foru'ard hi s c onviction t hat a Pre-Ro»>anesque expression is preceding the Romanesque Style in Architecture'? style. The distingt>ishing features of the Pre-Romanesque architecture are biwxiality, the absence of correspondence between the interior organization of space and that of the Dr. Vladimir P . Goss exterior u>all-surfaces, the presence of hidden inćerior t<nits undistinguishable from the outside, and spatial discontinui• Foll professor of M i chigan university, t y. The author enu»>eraćes and exarnines in d e tail t h e Ann Arbor examples from Dalmatia, Switzerland, Spain, England, and Moravia, but he finds tl>e Pre-Ro»>anesque traits parćially in the architecture of the Eastern Christianićy too. From his Original scientific paper pape>' e»>erges a picture of a s lon>, gradual and tortuous ćransition of the Medieval World from ićs childhood and youth to full maturity. As we all k n ow , t h e n a mes of m e d ieval ar t s t y les the way in c h ich the architect communicates his con• are rather arbitrary. But, while we more or less under• cepts to his public. Definitions of the Romenesque em• stand what we mean when we use the word » R omanes• phasizing the points brought up i n t h e fe w p r eceding q ue« o r » Gothic«, there does no t s eem t o b e m u c h lines have been forwarded by scholars such as Baum, a greement as t o t h e m e aning anđ scope of t h e t e r m Beokwith, Brehier, Clapham, Conant, De Truchis, Dyg• »Pre-Romanesque.« Is there such a t h ing as a P r e-Ro• gve, Enlart, Focillion, Francastel, Frankl, Pevsner, Puig m anesque style in a r t , m o r e >particularly, in a r chitec• i Cadafalch, Saalman, Salet, and they have also found ture'? Is t h ere a P r e-Romanesque Ku nstwollen, some their way i n t o s uch p o pular h a nđbooks as Mc G raw• distinctive, »Pre-Romanesque«concept of the arcitec• Hill Dictionary of Architecture or H e len Gardner's Art tural space and mass which would j u stify th e use of Through th e A g es.' I f on e ad o p ts t h e p o s i tion j u s t the wo r d »P r e-Romanesque« a s a st y l i stic category stated as a starting point, one may, as a w o r k ing hy• covering all, or at least a considerable number of in di• pothesis, postulate >that the Pre-Romanesque architec• vidual arcihtectural creations in the period » before the ture will not ćisplay the logic and clarity we attributed R omanesque?«B r iefly, is t h ere anything i n t e r m s o f to the Romanesque as its essential characteristics. Let the architectural essentials common to all those groups us try to find out if a brief consideration of some among of »before- the-Romanesque-buildings:<c — Anglo-Saxon, the Pre-Romanesque monuments may substantiate such Asturian, Carolingian, Early Croatian, Great Moravian, a >postulation. Mozarabic, Gttonian? And, if the Pre-Romanesque could be defineđ as a style, what are the distinguishing cha• racteristics between»Pre-Romanesquee and»Romanes• ' The draft for this paper was first presented in a lecture quee modes of expression? The scope of t his paper is given et th e Scerborough Collegeof the U niversity of to try to suggest some possible ansvvers to these que• Toronto in the fall, 1977, The author would like to thank stions, concentrating on t h e examples of a r c hitecture Professor Michael Gervers, my host at t h e Scerborough, and the students and the f aculty of t h e College whose of the Christian West between c. 800 and c. 1100.' comments and questions helped me rehne a n u mber of In an enquiry such as we are proposing here, the points in this paper. It is also e pleasure to acknowledge »What is the Ro• the comments I r e v i ved from Dr. Veronica Gervers-Mol• first question to r a ise is, naturally, nar, of the Royal Ontario Museum, vvho most obligingly manesque?«The research of a n u m ber of o u t standing reviewed this text and make a number of useful observe• scholars in the field indicates that the Romanesque can tions. I would also li~ke to thank Professors Anatole Sen• be characterizeđ as a style of clarity and rational orga• kevitch, Jr., and Slobodan Curcic for an inspiring debate we had during the Annual Conference of the Society of nization of s t r ucture and s t yle i n w h i c h t h e e x terior Architectural Historians in San Antonio in April, 1978. To logically echoes the i n t erior, t h e s p atial u n it s b e i ng my former students, Michael and Charlene Dunn, who clearly » p r ojeoted«o n a n đ r ef lected by t h e o r ganiza• patiently hunted for t h e d efinitionsof the Romanesque tion of b ot h t h e i n t erior an d e x terior w al l s u r f aces. style, I remain continuously grateful. The author is most indebted to,the following publishers The interior supports correspond to the exterior ones and individuals for having granted him their kind permis• and the whole system of individualized supports tightly sion to reproduce their illustrative materials in this article: b inds the 'building elements i n v e r t ical s ense, f r om For f>igures 13, 14, 17, 19, 25 and 28 to the Electa Editirce; the ground to the roof. Since the logic of the system is for figures 16 and 18 to H arcount, Brace en Jovanovich, Inc.; for figures 10, 11, 12, 20, 21, 22, 26 end 27 to Zodiaque, deliberately underlined by both architectural members and for figure 4 to Thames end Hudson, Ltd, and to Profe• and extra-architectural decoration, one also feels justi• ssor Sirarpie Dor 1Vlersessian. Figures 5, 6, 22 end 24 were fied to t al k a b out t h e c l a r ity o f e x position, meaning redrawn by Mr. Bruce McCullen, architect. 33 V. Goss: IS THERE A PRE-ROMANESQUE STYLE IN ARCHITEČTURE7 PERISTIL 25/1982. (p. 33 — 50) tLSSJEE C C IS'Đ>E S JEVEE tAESJKK A A ZAtAD TEOC ST tAESJEE E E I I '» S O»>is,St. Peter, c. 1050— 1075, gro«nđ plan and sections 2. O>nis St. P eter, faeades and t r a nsverse section [author] [author] F or a n u m ber o f y e ars i h a d b een i n t erested in a o f St. Peter at Q m i s (c . 1050 — 75). The building w as group of P r e-Romanesque monuments (109 on r ecord known to Jose Buig i Cadafalch, who consiđered it an so far) .in the Eastern Adriatic, traditionally known as offshoot of t h e » F i rst Romanesque Art.«' A superficial »Early Croatian.«' From t h i s g r o up, th e b u i l dings of examination of the exterior, characterized by the arched w hich date f ro m c . 800 t o c . 1 100, I s h ould l i k e t o corbel t ables, seems t o c o n t ir m P u i g i Ca d a f alch's select, as the first o b ject o f o u r a n alysis, the church c lassification (Figs. 1 — 3). But a n a n a lysis of t h e i n • - "The bulk of the existlng literature on the Romanesque worth, 1963, pp. 11, 13; Hans E. Kubach, Ro»>a»esq«e Ar• m akes it impossible to collect all th e definitions of t h e chitecture, New York, 1975, pp. 11, 15; Nicolaus Pevsner, style. The broad definition proposed was arrived at through An Outline of E u r opean A r chitecture, Harmondsworth, the observatIion of the Pre-Romanesque and Romanesque 1963, pp. 56 — 57; Jose Puig i C adafalch, Le p remier art in the course of the author's own research, generously com• ro>nan, Paris, 1928, I, pp. 62~3 ; H o w a rd S aalman,Me• plemented by the ideas of the outstanding scholars in the dieval Architect«re, New York, 1962, p. 30. Also, The En• field. See specifically: Julius Baum, Ro manesque Archi• cyclopedia of World Art, 15 vols., New York, 1966, XII, p. tect«re inFrance, London, 1928, pp. 23— 24; John Beckwith, 319, aInd Helen Gardner, Art Through the Ages, New York, Early Medieval Art, London, 1964, p. 153; Louis Brćhier, 5th ed., 1970, p. 303. Le style roman, Paris, 1941, p. 40; Alfred W. Clapham, Ro• Although the investigation of a stylistic relationship bet• ma»esq«e Architecture in Western Europe, Oxford, 1936, p.