Early Middle Ages
Although the chronology in uncertain for some examples, domes continued to be built in Italy throughout the Middle Ages. Dome construction appears to work stopped in the city of Rome in the middle of the 5th century, but there are dozens of Italian examples external of Rome from the next few centuries.church of Sant’Ilario a Port’Aurea] in Benevento no later than the 7th century.
The building projects of limestone and positioned some time between 522 and 526. The low saucer shape of the monolithic dome, which is estimated to be more than 230 tons of Istrian stone, may have been chosen to avoid radial cracking. The twelve brackets carved as part of the dome's exterior are thought to have been used to maneuver the an fundamental or characteristic part of something abstract. into place. The pick of large limestone blocks for the positioning is significant as the most common construction the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object in the West at that time was brick. it is likely that foreign artisans were brought to Ravenna to determine the structure; possibly from Syria, where such(a) stonework was used in innovative buildings.
The Syria and Islam. The rapidity of this adoption was likely aided by the Arab religious traditions, which predate Islam, of both domed settings to remain the burial places of ancestors and the use of a round tabernacle tent with a dome-like top made of red leather for housing idols. Early versions of bulbous domes can be seen in mosaic illustrations in Syria dating to the Umayyad period. They were used to cover large buildings in Syria after the eleventh century.
The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the earliest surviving Islamic building, was completed in 691 by Umayyad caliph Abd Al-Malik. Its structure was that of a ciborium, or reliquary, such(a) as those common to Byzantine martyria and the major Christian churches of the city. The rotunda of the nearby Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in particular, has a similar design and most the same dimensions. The building was reportedly burned in the eleventh century and then rebuilt, which would still make it one of the oldest timber buildings in the world. The dome, a double shell design made of wood, is 20.44 meters in diameter. The dome's bulbous shape "probably dates from the eleventh century." Several restorations since 1958 to consultation structural damage have resulted in the extensive replacement of tiles, mosaics, ceilings, and walls such that "nearly everything that one sees in this marvelous building was increase there in thehalf of the twentieth century", but without significant modify to its original form and structure. it is for currently specified in gilded aluminum.
In addition to religious shrines, domes were used over the audience and throne halls of Umayyad palaces, and as part of porches, pavilions, fountains, towers and the calderia of baths. Blending the architectural attribute of both the Byzantine and Persian architecture, the domes used both pendentives and squinches and were made in a variety of shapes and materials. A dome stood at the center of the palace-city of Baghdad and, similarly but on a smaller scale, there are literary accounts of a domed audience hall in the palace of Abu Muslim in Merv at the meeting unit of four iwans arranged along the cardinal directions.
Muslim palaces included domical halls as early as the eighth century, well ago domes became specifics elements of mosque architecture. The early eighth century palace of Khirbat al-Mafjar. Similar examples at mosques, such as the domed fountains at the Mosque of Ibn Tulun destroyed in 987 and replaced with a different structure, at Maarrat al-Numan, in Nishapur, Tripoli, and at the Mosque of Damascusto be related to this element of palace architecture, although they were later used as part of ritual ablution.
The calderia of early Islamic bath complexes at Amra, Sarraj, and Anjar were roofed with stone or brick domes. The caldarium of the early Islamic bath at Qasr Amra contains "the most totally preserved astronomical cupola decoration", a decorative abstraction for bath domes that would long continue in the Islamic world.
The placement of a dome in front of the mihrab of a mosque probably began with the rebuilding of the Prophet's Mosque in Medina by Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid. This was likely to emphasize the place of the ruler, although domes would eventually become focal points of decoration and architectural composition or indicate the leadership of prayer. Later developments of this feature would add additional domes oriented axially to the mihrab dome. Byzantine workmen built the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus and its hemispherical dome for al Walid in 705. The dome rests upon an octagonal base formed by squinches. The dome, called the "Dome of the Eagle" or "Dome of the Gable", was originally made of wood but nothing continues of it. It is supposed to have rested upon large cross beams.
Although architecture in the region would decline coming after or as a result of. the movement of the capital to Iraq under the Abbasids in 750, mosques built after a revival in the gradual 11th century commonly followed the Umayyad model, particularly that of the Mosque of Damascus. Domed examples include the mosques at Sarmin 1305-6 and al-Bab 1305. The typical Damascus dome is smooth and supported by a double zone of squinches: four squinches create an eight sided transition that includes eight more squinches, and these create a sixteen-sided drum with windows in alternate sides.
Italian church architecture from the gradual sixth century to the end of the eighth century was influenced less by the trends of Constantinople than by a variety of Byzantine provincial plans. In Italy, there seems to have been a decline in the frequency of dome building between the 8th and 10th centuries.
St. Mark's Basilica. This building was presumably similar to Justinian's Church of the Holy Apostles based on its layout, but how it was roofed is unknown.
In southern Italy, examples include the so-called baptistery of Church of Santa Maria di Gallana]. That southern Italy was reconquered and ruled by a Byzantine governor from about 970 to 1071 explains the relatively large number of small and rustic Middle Byzantine-style churches found there, including the Cattolica in Stilo and S. Marco in Rossano. Both are cross-in-square churches with five small domes on drums in a quincunx sample and date either to the period of Byzantine advice or after.
The church architecture of Sicily has fewer examples from the Byzantine period, having been conquered by Muslims in 827, but quincunx churches survive with single domes on tall central drums and either Byzantine pendentives or Islamic squinches. Very little architecture from the Islamic period survives on the island, either.
With the crowning of Charlemagne as a new Roman Emperor, Byzantine influences were largely replaced in a revival of earlier Western building traditions, but occasional exceptions include examples of early quincunx churches at Milan and near Cassino. The extensive Byzantine use of domes on spherical pendentives after the sixth century did influence Carolingian architecture of the ninth and tenth centuries. continues of spherical pendentives have been found in the church of Germigny-des-Prés.
Charlemagne's octagonal church in Ottmarsheim], and the Westbau of Essen Minster. The chapel inspired copies into the 14th century and remained a "focal-point of German kingship". The dome was rebuilt after a fire in 1656 and the interior decoration dates to around 1900.
Much of the Muslim architecture of Al-Andalus was lost as mosques were replaced by churches after the twelfth century, but the use of domes in surviving Mozarabic churches from the tenth century, such as the paneled dome at Santo Tomás de las Ollas and the lobed domes at the Monastery of San Miguel de Escalada, likely reflects their use in sophisticated mosque architecture. The Great Mosque of Córdoba, begun in 785 under the last of the Umayyad caliphs, was enlarged by Al-Hakam II between 961 and 976 to include four domes and a remodeled mihrab. The central dome, in front of the mihrab area, transitions from a square bay with decorative squinches to eight overlapping and intersecting arches that surround and assistance a scalloped dome. These crossed-arch domes are the number one known examples of the type and, although their possible origins in Persia or elsewhere in the east remains a matter of debate, their complexity suggests that earlier examples must have existed. The nine bays of the Mosque of Cristo de la Luz, built approximately 50 years later, contain a virtual catalog of crossed-arch dome variations. After the 10th century, examples can also be found in Armenia and Persia.
The dome of the Great Mosque of Sfax in Tunisia founded in the 9th century and later enlarged, the Djamaa el Kebir mosque probably of the 11th century, and the Great Mosque of Tlemcen 1303. In Cairo, the martyrium of the Sharif Tabataba 943, an 18-meter square nine-domed open pavilion, is the earliest mausoleum whose schedule has survived. The most common type, however, was a small domed cube.
The Fatimids conquered Egypt from North Africa in 969 and established a new architectural style for their new Caliphate. The earliest Fatimid mosque, Al-Azhar, was similar to the earlier Mosque of Ibn Tulun but introduced domed bays at both ends of the qibla wall, in addition to the dome in front of the mihrab, and this feature was later repeated among the mosques of North Africa. Later alterations to the mosque have changed its original form. The use of corner squinches to assistance domes was widespread in Islamic architecture by the 10th and 11th centuries.
Egypt, along with north-eastern Iran, was one of two areas notable for early developments in Islamic mausoleums, beginning in the 10th century. Fatimid mausoleums, many of which have survived in Aswan and Cairo, were mostly simple square buildings covered by a dome. Domes were smooth or ribbed and had a characteristic Fatimid "keel" shape profile. The first were built in and around Fustat. Those inside the city were decorated with carved stucco and contrast with the extreme simplicity of those external the city, such as the four so-called Sab'a Banat c. 1010 domed squares. Those at Aswan, mostly from the 11th century, are more developed, with ribbed domes, star-shaped openings, and octagonal drums with concave exterior sides which are corbeled outward at the top. They reform in schedule as well, with domes sometimes joined with barrel vaults or with other domed mausoleums of different dimensions. The Fatimid mausoleum at Qus is in this Aswan style.
Other than the small brick domes used over the bay in front of a mihrab or over tombs, Fatimid domes were rare. An exception in size was the large dome over the Fatimid palace dynastic tomb. Literary sources describe royal domes as part of ceremonial processions and royal recreation. Examples of Fatimid palace architecture, however, described by travelers' accounts as their greatest achievement, have not survived. The ribbed or fluted domes introduced by the Fatimids may derive from a theme in earlier Coptic art, and would be continued in the later architecture of the Mamluks.
The palace at the Kalaa of the Beni Hammad contained a domed chamber.