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Basilica   Listen
noun
Basilica  n.  (pl. basilicas; sometimes basilicae)  
1.
Originally, the palace of a king; but afterward, an apartment provided in the houses of persons of importance, where assemblies were held for dispensing justice; and hence, any large hall used for this purpose.
2.
(Arch.)
(a)
A building used by the Romans as a place of public meeting, with court rooms, etc., attached.
(b)
A church building of the earlier centuries of Christianity, the plan of which was taken from the basilica of the Romans. The name is still applied to some churches by way of honorary distinction.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Basilica" Quotes from Famous Books



... the Basilica of Constantine existed no longer, while that of Michael Angelo, the masterpiece of thirty popes, which cost the labour of three centuries and the expense of two hundred and sixty millions, existed not yet. The ancient edifice, which had lasted for eleven hundred and forty-five years, had been threatening ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... immensely purposeless. Religion failed to touch her state—religion, that is, in the only form accessible. The interior of some frowning Gothic church of old Castile, or, from another angle, of some mellow Latin basilica, might have found the required mystic word to say to her. But Protestantism, even in its mild Anglican form, shuts the door on its dead children with a heavy hand.—And she suffered this religious coldness, although any idea that death of the body implies extinction ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... gratulations were completed, Silently coram me each one stood still, So incandescent it o'ercame my sight. Smiling thereafterwards, said Beatrice: "Spirit august, by whom the benefactions Of our Basilica have been described, [30] Make Hope reverberate in this altitude; Thou knowest as oft thou dost personify it As Jesus to the three gave greater light,"— [33] "Lift up thy head, and make thyself assured; [34] ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... hand; then he pleaded the impossibility of taking any step whatsoever without the sense of religious duty. The King naturally grew weary, and interpreted the equivocal dealing as a denial. Cornelius again in 1833, when the new Basilica of St. Boniface needed decoration, once more proposed that his fellow-labourer in Rome should settle in Munich, but with no avail; the King evidently had little cordiality for the artist, and so employed others on the plea, not wholly tenable, that Overbeck was better in ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson

... And so in the blankest dearth of fancy that ever befel architect or builder they imagined human beings bigger than the human beings of experience; and by means of these, carved in stone and inlaid in mosaic, they set up a relation of their own. The basilica was related to the colossal figure (as a church more wisely measured would have been to living man), and so ceased to be large; and nothing more important was finally achieved than transposal of the whole work into another scale of proportions—a scale in which the body of man ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell

... of architecture, make first word a word descriptive of the kind of building: Temple of Mars; Cathedral of Notre Dame; Basilica of S. Paolo. ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana

... definitely fixed. As regards the little hours—Prime, Terce, Sext, None and Compline—the freedom of the competent ecclesiastical authorities was as yet unconfined by canonical restrictions. Chrodegang (766) was first to follow the usages of the Benedictines of the Roman Basilica, in prescribing for secular clergy the celebration at Prime of the officium Capituli (i.e., the reunion in the chapter for reading the rule or, on certain days, the writings and homilies of the Fathers). The rest of the chapter—i.e., all that follows the confiteor in Prime as a preparation ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley

... emperors. In process of time, the emperor Constantine gave the place to the pope, and from that period it continued to be the residence of the successive pontiffs for a thousand years. A church was built upon the ground, called the Basilica of St. John of Lateran, where many ancient councils were held, known in ecclesiastical history as the councils of the Lateran. This church is still used for some of the ceremonies connected with the inauguration of the pope, but the palace is now uninhabited. It presents, however, in its ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... buildings called basilicas. These were porticoes or promenades, with the space in the center covered by a great roof. They were used as places for public meetings. One of them had one hundred and eight pillars arranged in a double row around the sides and ends of this central space. The name basilica is Greek and means "royal." Some of these basilicas were used as Christian churches when the Romans accepted the Christian religion. The central space was then called the "nave," and the spaces between the columns ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton

... Empire. It adapted, not merely its architecture, but its very buildings, to its worship. The Roman Basilica became the Christian church; a noble form of building enough, though one in which was neither darkness, solitude, nor silence, but crowded congregations, clapping—or otherwise—the popular preacher; or fighting about the election of a bishop or a ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... halls and porticoes for the different schools, which had the reputation of being the finest university in all Italy, and past the rising walls of the new Duomo which Lodovico was building on the site of the ruined basilica of Charlemagne's time. A few months before, the renowned Sienese architect, Francesco Martini, had arrived at Pavia on horseback to give his advice as to the cupola of the new cathedral, accompanied ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright

... on November 7, after our solemn Consecration to the Sacred Heart in the Basilica of Montmartre.[8] Each compartment of the train was named after a Saint, and the selection was made in honour of some Priest occupying it—his own patron or that of his parish being chosen. But in the presence of all the pilgrims our compartment was named after St. Martin! My Father, deeply ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)

... [Basilica is a name given to a digest of laws commenced by the Emperor Basilius in the year 867, and completed by his son Leo the philosopher in the year 880, the former having carried the work as far as forty books, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various

... fried fish stalls, and shooting galleries half hidden in clumps of verdure, from which arose staves bearing the tricolor; and farther away, in a bluish haze, a line of tree tops marked the location of a road. To the right she could see Saint-Denis and the towering basilica; at her left, above a line of houses that were becoming indistinct, the sun was setting over Saint-Ouen in a disk of cherry-colored flame, and projecting upon the gray horizon shafts of light like red pillars ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... end of his life, Innocent held a general council in the basilica of St. John Lateran. A vast gathering of bishops heads of orders, and secular dignitaries gave brilliancy to the gathering and enhanced the glory of the Pontiff. Enthroned over more than four hundred bishops, the Pope proudly declared the law to the world. "Two ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... a whirlwind, as a storm, as a fire, as war or death passes; but the basilica of Peter rules till now, from the Vatican heights, the city, ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... of troubling him with more particulars respecting her than the above, save to mention that, having industriously and successfully completed the greater portion of her task in the churches within the city, she had determined to make her first visit to the strange old Basilica of St. Apollinare in Classe, on that same Ash Wednesday morning. She did not purpose beginning her task there on that day; but intended merely to reconnoitre the ground, look to the needful preparations that had been made for her ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... Christian church is not affected by them. The interior arrangement, the logical order of the parts, is still the same. Whatever may be the carved and nicely-wrought exterior of a cathedral, we always find beneath it, if only in a rudimentary and dormant state, the Roman basilica. It rises forever from the ground in harmony with ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... hominem, mitto in Comitium; Qui mendacem et gloriosum, apud Cluasinae sacrum; Dites, damnosos maritos, sub basilica quaerito," &c. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... amply provide for them. If each individual among the faithful were to give a halfpenny per annum, the head of the Church would have something like L300,000 to spend upon his wax tapers and his incense, his choristers and his sacristans, and the repairs of the basilica of St. Peter's. No Roman Catholic would think of refusing his quota, because the Holy Father, entirely separated from worldly interests, would not be in a position to offend anybody. This small tax would, therefore, restore independence to the Romans without diminishing the independence ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... of Germany which lies between the Neckar and the Maine,[16] and is nowadays called the Odenwald by those who live in and about it. And here having built, according to my capacity and resources, not only houses and permanent dwellings, but also a basilica fitted for the performance of divine service and of no mean style of construction, I began to think to what saint or martyr I could best dedicate it. A good deal of time had passed while my thoughts fluctuated about this matter, when it happened that a certain deacon of the Roman Church, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... failed to supply her with sufficient quantities of virgin- wax and crown-pieces. St. Gibbosine groaned, trembled, and tottered on her pedestal, and allowed herself to be carried away without resistance, out of the basilica to which, from time immemorial, she had drawn ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France

... Greeks used it as a mystic symbol in some of their sacred festivals, and the Romans introduced the custom of hanging an umbrella in the basilican churches as a part of the insignia of office of the judge sitting in the basilica. It is said that on the judgment hall being turned into a church the umbrella remained, and in fact occupied the place of the canopy over thrones and the like; and Beatian, an Italian herald, says that ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... the south-eastern corner, too, but at a lower level, another pavement, which still exists under the Corn Exchange, may have been part of a bath. There are no remnants of a church or a temple, but some antiquaries fancied they saw relics of a Roman basilica, or judgment hall, among the fragments of masonry removed for the station. There were no burials within the walls, but they begin, even among the pavements and villas, just outside the limits marked ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various

... had never been defeated by the enemy, was defeated by her own King. She had said once that all she feared for her cause was treachery. It had struck its first blow now. She hung up her white armor in the royal basilica of St. Denis, and went and asked the King to relieve her of her functions and let her go home. As usual, she was wise. Grand combinations, far-reaching great military moves were at an end, now; for the future, when the truce should end, the war would be merely a war of random and idle skirmishes, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... house were pasted old newspapers, and calendars hung there such as the manufacturers of farm implements or grain merchants scatter abroad, and also prints of a religious character; a representation in crudest colour and almost innocent of perspective of the basilica at Ste. Anne de Beaupre—, a likeness of Pope Pius X.; a chromo where the palely-smiling Virgin Mary disclosed her bleeding heart encircled with ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... no remains of a pre-mediaeval time have been discovered at Squillace, there is still standing at Roccella the shell of a splendid basilica, of which Mr. Evans has taken some plans and sketches, but which seems to have strangely escaped the notice of most preceding travellers. The total length of this building is 94 paces, the width of the nave 30, the extreme width of the transept 54. It has three fine apses at ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... of the ruined Coliseum, and the skeletons of the aqueduct, and the miasma of the Campagna, and the fragments of the marble baths, and the useless piers of the bridge Triumphalis, and the silenced forum, and the Mamertine dungeon, holding no more apostolic prisoners; and the arch of Titus, and Basilica of Constantine, and the Pantheon, lift up a nightly chorus of "Dead! dead!" Dead, after Horace, and Virgil, and Tacitus, and Livy, and Cicero; after Horatius of the bridge, and Cincinnatus, the farmer ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... [146] The Basilica of St. Paul stood south of the city, outside the Porta Ostiensis which is still called ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius

... being deprived of a long-anticipated spectacle. This state of things lasted for two days, when, upon the Sunday morning precisely a week before the wedding, all Rome was surprised by receiving an imposing invitation, setting forth that the marriage would be solemnised in the Basilica of the Santi Apostoli, and that it would be followed by a state reception at the Palazzo Saracinesca. It was soon known that the ceremony would be performed by the Cardinal Archpriest of St Peter's, that the united choirs of St Peter's and of the Sixtine Chapel would sing the High Mass, and that ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford



Words linked to "Basilica" :   narthex, vena basilica, church



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