Chapel

CHAPEL. - It is a small sacred building, either free-standing or placed inside buildings of different purpose such as public and private palaces, castles, institutions of communities of various kinds, hospitals, prisons, etc., or architecturally differentiated but communicating with the broader space of a church. Its name derives from the chapel in which the cloak (cappa) of St. Martin was kept and venerated at Tours. If the name is of Western origin, this does not mean that similar arrangements were unknown in the East. There they took the name of martyria and were small shrines, likewise differentiated from the church and variously situated, in which the relics of some martyr were kept. Recent studies have especially emphasized these chapels of Christian antiquity in the East, which were true self-contained dependencies of basilical buildings and had cruciform or rectangular plans. For further details on this matter v. MARTYRUM. Nor are examples of this kind lacking in the West: the so-called mausoleum of Galla Placidia at Ravenna was a dependency of the basilica of S. Croce, while S. Lorenzo in Milan and the Lateran baptistery still show examples of chapels connected also with buildings of centralized plan. However, while in the East the development of the martyrion had notable consequences in the history of architecture, in the West the transfer of relics into the basilicas, and the consequent fusion of the eucharistic synaxis and the cult of the martyrs, brought about the almost total disappearance of these dependencies within the architectural organism of the basilicas.

[Chapels were still built, such as that of St. Venantius at the Lateran baptistery (mid-7th century) or the shrine of John VII near St. Peter's, when there were special reasons. In the basilica there are chapels placed at the middle of the central nave, with a funerary or martyrion purpose, at S. Prassede and at the SS. Quattro Coronati (9th century) or at S. Benedetto in Piscinula (11th century), but generally still in the Romanesque age the basilica remains as a rule devoid of architecturally differentiated appendages. The multiplication of altars and the greater growth of the cult of the saints, the development of the joint patronage of families or communities, which desire to have in the common church a reserved place of worship or burial, favors in the Gothic age the development of chapels which, especially in constructions beyond the Alps, are arranged radially around the apse ambulatory and constitute the outermost buttress of the complex system of equilibrium of the presbyterial zones. In churches of Cistercian origin with a cruciform plan of the immissa type, the high altar takes its place in the largest c. facing the central nave, and the minor ones, of square plan and covered with a vault, are aligned with it. While the type of the transalpine cathedrals was only partially accepted in Italy (the cathedral of Milan, S. Lorenzo in Naples, etc.), the Cistercian ground plan enjoyed wide success there; side c. arranged along the nave begin to appear in the lower church of St. Francis and were subsequently destined for ever greater development. Among the free-standing c. of this period, the Ste-Chapelle of Paris, founded in the early 13th century, deserves special mention, and among those attached to public buildings, the c. of the Palazzo of Siena. The c. arranged along the minor naves then take on a monumental character in S. Petronio in Bologna and are raised to a very important motif of the entire composition.

The principle is by now established everywhere, and with Brunelleschi's new architecture the c. of S. Lorenzo in Florence are a rhythmic correspondence of the arcades that divide the naves. With Alberti in S. Andrea in Mantua they are also introduced into the single-nave church and differ from one another in the alternation of large spaces opening onto the main space and small recesses hollowed out within the piers. The most celebrated c., however architecturally simple, among those included in palaces is at this time the Sistine one of the Vatican, while among those of a funerary character, conceived as an isolated organism, the typical example for the 15th century is the Colleoni one in Bergamo. At the beginning of the following century the tempietto of S. Pietro in Montorio in Rome reduces to the small proportions of a c. a complete architectural organism covered by a dome. The decoration of the "Santa Casa" of Loreto likewise dates to the 16th century. The singular c. with its splendid architectural and sculptural revetment offers an example of a free-standing building enclosed within another larger one, a fact repeated in the course of the same century for the little chapel of the Porziuncola in S. Maria degli Angeli near Assisi, decorated instead with paintings in the early 19th century. The new sacristy of S. Lorenzo in Florence is the most distinguished c. adjacent to a church, yet spatially independent, and having a funerary destination. Instead the example of Bramante's chapel in S. Pietro in Montorio had an immediate reflection in the Chigi c. of S. Maria del Popolo in Rome, where Raphael boldly breaks the sequence of the 15th-century semi-polygonal c. open on the flanks of the church and places the two spaces, which have a structural physiognomy of their own, in communication through the wide entrance arch. The example would be susceptible of the most varied consequences, since in the innumerable additions to pre-existing buildings each would assume, despite the relationship of spatial dependence, an independent structure. During the 16th century the c. frequently open onto the flanks of churches, whether with three naves or one: the vaunted merit of Vignola for having adopted such a system before others in the Gesù in Rome therefore has no substance.

Here indeed the c. maintain a certain spatial autonomy because of the not very wide access arches, an autonomy that the early Baroque would progressively diminish to the point of totally absorbing their constructive rhythm into the very broad breath of the nave already achieved at S. Andrea della Valle. In concentric constructions the c. assume complex forms from Michelangelo's projects for S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini onward and are also received in elliptical buildings, often with a gradation of the openings that is related to the desire to emphasize or not the transverse or diagonal axes. The Sacro Monte of Varallo offers the example of c. in series, which would be repeated in more modest forms in the road leading from Bologna to the Madonna di S. Luca. C. with a spatial physiognomy of their own, communicating with churches through simple doors, assume a rectangular plan and are sometimes covered by an elliptical vault, like the Caetani one in S. Pudentiana in Rome. One, likewise free-standing, of octagonal plan with a dome and having a funerary destination, is that of the Princes near S. Lorenzo in Florence. The Baroque knows all the different types of c.; it even accentuates their individuality by means of particular systems of lighting, as in Bernini's Raimondi c. in S. Pietro in Montorio; but the masterpiece of the genre remains, for singularity of structure and complex liveliness of movement, that of the S. Sindone in Turin; also notable for its monumentality is that of S. Gennaro in Naples. In the 18th century the Corsini c. in S. Giovanni in Laterano brings the c. back toward an organic constructive clarity that has abandoned every illusory dilation of spaces. The theme has since undergone no profound innovations and has settled upon pre-existing schemes according to individual preferences or the reminiscences of the past predominant in the buildings of which they form part. Noteworthy in the late 19th century are certain c. that repeat in small proportions the basilical schemes, such as the c. of S. Benedetto in S. Paolo fuori le mura or the other of the Crocifisso in SS. Apostoli in Rome.

For the liturgical prescriptions, v. ORATORIO.

Guglielmo Matthi