Holy Sepulchre

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, or Anastasis (Resurrection), Jerusalem, was Emperor Constantine's most important church foundation (C4). It was essentially a domed rotunda with an inner ring of columns and piers carrying the dome and an annular ambulatory contained by a wall from which three apses projected, so was not unlike Imperial mausolea such as ‘Santa Costanza’, Rome. It contained a tiny temple-like structure encasing the tomb itself. Both church and shrine were destroyed in 1009, but rebuilt (C11) in a Byzantino-Romanesque style, the plan remaining similar. The basic form was the precedent for many cemetery-chapels, martyria, and churches (notably the round churches at Cambridge, the Temple (London), and Northampton), while the shrine inspired numerous progeny, including Alberti's Rucellai Chapel, San Pancrazio, Florence (1460–7).

Bibliography

• N. Brooks (1921)

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