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166-679: The original cathedral was built between 1019 and 1500 in Romanesque and Gothic styles. The late Romanesque building, destroyed by the 1356 Basel earthquake , was rebuilt by Johannes Gmünd , who was at the same time employed for building the Freiburg Münster . Ulrich von Ensingen , architect of the towers at the Ulm Minster and the Strasbourg Cathedral , extended the building from 1421. Hans Nußdorf completed

332-480: A dromos entry. The inclusion of domes, however, represents a wider sense of the word vault. The distinction between the two is that a vault is essentially an arch which is extruded into the third dimension , whereas a dome is an arch revolved around its vertical axis . Pitched-brick vaults are named for their construction, the bricks are installed vertically (not radially) and are leaning (pitched) at an angle: This allows their construction to be completed without

498-432: A transept was built. The western facade was finished sometime in the latter part of the 13th century. A third storey was added to northern Georgsturm, and the southern Martinsturm was started. Even though supported by massive pillars , an earthquake in 1356 destroyed five towers, the choir and various vaults . Johannes Gmünd , who was also the architect of Freiburg Minster, rebuilt the damaged cathedral and in 1363

664-459: A carved central jamb. Narrow doors and small windows might be surmounted by a solid stone lintel. Larger openings are nearly always arched. A characteristic feature of Romanesque architecture, both ecclesiastic and domestic, is the pairing of two arched windows or arcade openings, separated by a pillar or colonette and often set within a larger arch. Ocular windows are common in Italy, particularly in

830-605: A cathedral before the 9th century. Built on the old foundations of the Haito Minster some time after the turn of the first millennium a new building in the early Romanesque style of the Ottonian period was built by order of Bishop Adalberto II ( c.  999 –1025). Sometimes called “Adalberto Cathedral”, the three-nave cathedral is actually named after its patron Emperor Henry II , in German “Heinrich”. The cathedral

996-589: A common rule, living in a mutually dependent community, rather than as a group of hermits living in proximity but essentially separate, was established by the monk Benedict in the 6th century. The Benedictine monasteries spread from Italy throughout Europe, being always by far the most numerous in England. They were followed by the Cluniac order, the Cistercians , Carthusians and Augustinian Canons . During

1162-465: A gorgeous finial was put on top of the Martinsturm. By using the steep spiral stairs in the southern steeple it is possible to see the old church clock from 1883. The belfry is situated in between the two steeples which are connected through a gallery. Georgturm and Martinsturm can both be accessed by 242 stairs. From there one can get an overwhelming view of the city of Basel and the foothills of

1328-582: A great number of antique Roman columns were salvaged and reused in the interiors and on the porticos of churches. The most durable of these columns are of marble and have the stone horizontally bedded. The majority are vertically bedded and are sometimes of a variety of colours. They may have retained their original Roman capitals, generally of the Corinthian or Roman Composite style. Some buildings, like Santa Maria in Cosmedin (illustrated above) and

1494-509: A half-column supporting the arch. There are many variations on this theme, most notably at Durham Cathedral where the mouldings and shafts of the piers are of exceptional richness and the huge masonry columns are deeply incised with geometric patterns. Often the arrangement was made more complex by the complexity of the piers themselves, so that it was not piers and columns that alternated, but rather, piers of entirely different form from each other, such as those of Sant' Ambrogio, Milan , where

1660-399: A hemispherical dome is cut by four vertical planes, the intersection gives four semicircular arches; if cut in addition by a horizontal plane tangent to the top of these arches, it describes a circle; that portion of the sphere which is below this circle and between the arches, forming a spherical spandrel , is the pendentive , and its radius is equal to the diagonal of the square on which

1826-413: A horizontal moulding representing a capital at the springing of the arch. Sometimes piers have vertical shafts attached to them, and may also have horizontal mouldings at the level of the base. Although basically rectangular, piers can often be of highly complex form, with half-segments of large hollow-core columns on the inner surface supporting the arch, or a clustered group of smaller shafts leading into

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1992-621: A lack of living space within the walls, and resulted in a style of town house that was tall and narrow, often surrounding communal courtyards, as at San Gimignano in Tuscany and Bologna and Pavia in Lombardy . In Germany, the Holy Roman Emperors built a number of residences, fortified, but essentially palaces rather than castles, at strategic points and on trade routes. The Imperial Palace of Goslar (heavily restored in

2158-643: A large number remain either substantially intact or sympathetically restored, demonstrating the form, character and decoration of Romanesque church architecture. Romanesque architecture was the first distinctive style to spread across Europe since the Roman Empire . With the decline of Rome, Roman building methods survived to an extent in Western Europe, where successive Merovingian , Carolingian and Ottonian architects continued to build large stone buildings such as monastery churches and palaces. In

2324-418: A monastic complex, with all its various monastic buildings and their functions labelled. The largest building is the church, the plan of which is distinctly Germanic, having an apse at both ends, an arrangement not generally seen elsewhere. Another feature of the church is its regular proportion, the square plan of the crossing tower providing a module for the rest of the plan. These features can both be seen at

2490-446: A peculiar twisting of the web, where the springing of the wall rib is at K: to these twisted surfaces the term ploughshare vaulting is given. One of the earliest examples of the introduction of the intermediate rib is found in the nave of Lincoln Cathedral , and there the ridge rib is not carried to the wall rib. It was soon found, however, that the construction of the web was much facilitated by additional ribs, and consequently there

2656-515: A series of domes carried on pendentives covered over the nave, the chief peculiarities of these domes being the fact that the arches carrying them form part of the pendentives, which are all built in horizontal courses. The intersecting and groined vault of the Romans was employed in the early Christian churches in Rome, but only over the aisles, which were comparatively of small span, but in these there

2822-520: A single piece of stone were frequently used in Italy, as they had been in Roman and Early Christian architecture. They were also used, particularly in Germany, when they alternated between more massive piers. Arcades of columns cut from single pieces are also common in structures that do not bear massive weights of masonry, such as cloisters, where they are sometimes paired. In Italy, during this period,

2988-481: A slight rise in the centre, so as to increase its strength; this enabled the French masons to dispense with the intermediate rib, which was not introduced by them till the 15th century, and then more as a decorative than a constructive feature, as the domical form given to the French web rendered unnecessary the ridge rib, which, with some few exceptions, exists only in England. In both English and French vaulting centering

3154-554: A span of 80 feet (24 m), more than twice that of an English cathedral , so that its construction both from the statical and economical point of view was of the greatest importance. The researches of M. Choisy ( L'Art de bâtir chez les Romains ), based on a minute examination of those portions of the vaults which still remain in situ , have shown that, on a comparatively slight centering, consisting of trusses placed about 10 feet (3.0 m) apart and covered with planks laid from truss to truss, were laid – to begin with – two layers of

3320-573: A supplementary rib across the church and between the transverse ribs. This resulted in what is known as a sexpartite, or six-celled vault , of which one of the earliest examples is found in the Abbaye-aux-Hommes at Caen . This church, built by William the Conqueror, was originally constructed to carry a timber roof only, but nearly a century later the upper part of the nave walls were partly rebuilt, in order that it might be covered with

3486-499: A third stage of window openings known as the clerestory rising above them. Arcading on a large scale generally fulfils a structural purpose, but it is also used, generally on a smaller scale, as a decorative feature, both internally and externally where it is frequently " blind arcading " with only a wall or a narrow passage behind it. In Romanesque architecture, piers were often employed to support arches. They were built of masonry and square or rectangular in section, generally having

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3652-425: A vault. The immense size, however, of the square vault over the nave necessitated some additional support, so that an intermediate rib was thrown across the church, dividing the square compartment into six cells, and called the sexpartite vault The intermediate rib, however, had the disadvantage of partially obscuring one side of the clerestory windows, and it threw unequal weights on the alternate piers, so that in

3818-417: Is a direct imitation of Islamic architecture . At other late Romanesque churches such as Durham Cathedral , and Cefalù Cathedral , the pointed arch was introduced as a structural device in ribbed vaulting. Its increasing application was fundamental to the development of Gothic architecture . An arcade is a row of arches, supported on piers or columns. They occur in the interior of large churches, separating

3984-521: Is a form of vaulting common in Islamic architecture . The 20th century saw great advances in reinforced concrete design. The advent of shell construction and the better mathematical understanding of hyperbolic paraboloids allowed very thin, strong vaults to be constructed with previously unseen shapes. The vaults in the Church of Saint Sava are made of prefabricated concrete boxes. They were built on

4150-626: Is an architectural style of medieval Europe that was predominant in the 11th and 12th centuries. The style eventually developed into the Gothic style with the shape of the arches providing a simple distinction: the Romanesque is characterized by semicircular arches , while the Gothic is marked by the pointed arches . The Romanesque emerged nearly simultaneously in multiple countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain); its examples can be found across

4316-508: Is another dome, (the dome that one sees from the inside), but of plaster supported by a wood frame. From the inside, one can easily assume that one is looking at the same vault that one sees from the outside. There are two distinctive "other ribbed vaults" (called "Karbandi" in Persian) in India which form no part of the development of European vaults, but have some unusual features; one carries

4482-479: Is claimed to be Justinianus (343–346 AD). The bishop's see was relocated from Augusta Raurica (today Kaiseraugst) to Minster hill during the Early Middle Ages. According to the archeologist Hans Rudolf Sennhauser this transfer presumably took place at the beginning of the 7th century under bishop Ragnacharius , a former monk of monastery Luxeuil . There is no historical evidence for the existence of

4648-455: Is dedicated to Henry II and his wife Kunigunde . The prince-bishop governed the city as representative of the Emperor who gained possession of Basel in 1006. Excavations from 1973 to 1974 prove that the crypt of this building, consecrated in 1019, had not been expanded. At the end of the 11th century a tower made of light-colored limestone and molasse was erected on the western side of

4814-470: Is due to the Romans . When two semicircular barrel vaults of the same diameter cross one another their intersection (a true ellipse) is known as a groin vault , down which the thrust of the vault is carried to the cross walls; if a series of two or more barrel vaults intersect one another, the weight is carried on to the piers at their intersection and the thrust is transmitted to the outer cross walls; thus in

4980-527: Is known as a squinch . There is one other remarkable vault, also built by Justinian, in the Church of the Saints Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople. The central area of this church was octagonal on plan, and the dome is divided into sixteen compartments; of these eight consist of broad flat bands rising from the centre of each of the walls, and the alternate eight are concave cells over

5146-682: Is often divided into two periods known as the " First Romanesque " style and the "Romanesque" style. The difference is chiefly a matter of the expertise with which the buildings were constructed. The First Romanesque employed rubble walls, smaller windows and unvaulted roofs. A greater refinement marks the Second Romanesque, along with increased use of the vault and dressed stone. The walls of Romanesque buildings are often of massive thickness with few and comparatively small openings. They are often double shells, filled with rubble. The building material differs greatly across Europe, depending upon

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5312-409: Is one in which all of the groins are covered by ribs or diagonal ribs in the form of segmental arches. Their curvatures are defined by the bounding arches. Whilst the transverse arches retain the same semi-circular profile as their groin-vaulted counterparts, the longitudinal arches are pointed with both arcs having their centres on the impost line . This allows the latter to correspond more closely to

5478-460: Is one of simplicity when compared with the Gothic buildings that were to follow. The style can be identified right across Europe, despite regional characteristics and different materials. Many castles were built during this period, but they are greatly outnumbered by churches. The most significant are the great abbey churches, many of which are still standing, more or less complete and frequently in use. The enormous quantity of churches built in

5644-648: Is surmised that to the top of the pendentives they were built in horizontal courses of brick, projecting one over the other, the projecting angles being cut off afterwards and covered with stucco in which the mosaics were embedded; this was the method employed in the erection of the Périgordian domes, to which we shall return; these, however, were of less diameter than those of the Hagia Sophia, being only about 40 to 60 feet (18 m) instead of 107 feet (33 m) The apotheosis of Byzantine architecture , in fact,

5810-540: Is typical of the churches that were founded on the pilgrim route. The general impression given by Romanesque architecture, in both ecclesiastical and secular buildings, is one of massive solidity and strength. In contrast with both the preceding Roman and later Gothic architecture , in which the load-bearing structural members are, or appear to be, columns, pilasters and arches, Romanesque architecture, in common with Byzantine architecture , relies upon its walls, or sections of walls called piers. Romanesque architecture

5976-544: The Black Forest and the Jura Mountains . Both of the steeples consist of three lower, undivided storeys and several Freigeschosse . The two lower storeys are simple and block-like. The steeples’ upper storeys soar up the tracery gallery. As those were not constructed simultaneously, they differ slightly in their outer appearance. In contrast to the southern steeple, the octagonally cross-sectioned steeple and

6142-708: The Crusades , the military orders of the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar were founded. The monasteries, which sometimes also functioned as cathedrals, and the cathedrals that had bodies of secular clergy often living in community, were a major source of power in Europe. Bishops and the abbots of important monasteries lived and functioned like princes. The monasteries were the major seats of learning of all sorts. Benedict had ordered that all

6308-715: The Kingdom of Germany giving rise to the Holy Roman Empire . The invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy , in 1066, saw the building of both castles and churches that reinforced the Norman presence. Several significant churches that were built at this time were founded by rulers as seats of temporal and religious power, or places of coronation and burial. These include the Abbaye-Saint-Denis , Speyer Cathedral and Westminster Abbey (where little of

6474-509: The Pyrenees and converged into a single stream to traverse north-western Spain. Along the route they were urged on by those pilgrims returning from the journey. On each of the routes abbeys such as those at Moissac , Toulouse , Roncesvalles , Conques , Limoges and Burgos catered for the flow of people and grew wealthy from the passing trade. Saint-Benoît-du-Sault , in the Berry province,

6640-654: The Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence , built by Filippo Brunelleschi , and Ferguson cites as an example the great dome of the church at Mousta in Malta , erected in the first half of the 19th century, which was built entirely without centering of any kind. It is important to note that whereas Roman vaults, like that of the Pantheon , and Byzantine vaults, like that at Hagia Sophia , were not protected from above (i.e.

6806-568: The Sumerians , possibly under the ziggurat at Nippur in Babylonia , which was built of fired bricks cemented with clay mortar . The earliest barrel vaults in ancient Egypt are thought to be those in the granaries built by the 19th dynasty Pharaoh Ramesses II , the ruins of which are behind the Ramesseum , at Thebes . The span was 12 feet (3.7 m) and the lower part of

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6972-674: The Twelve Apostles . Santiago de Compostela , located in the Kingdom of Galicia (present day Galicia , Spain) became one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in Europe. Most of the pilgrims travelled the Way of St. James on foot, many of them barefooted as a sign of penance. They moved along one of the four main routes that passed through France, congregating for the journey at Jumièges , Paris, Vézelay , Cluny , Arles and St. Gall in Switzerland. They crossed two passes in

7138-624: The canons of the cathedral chapter were part of the Minster. From the 12th century onwards, the canons lived in their own private homes in the vicinity of the cathedral. On 9 February 1529, all religious images were removed from the cathedral and the Minster became the main congregation in the city of the Swiss Reformed Church , which has been the sole owner of the building ever since the separation of church and state. The City of Basel , however, still contributes three quarters of

7304-432: The keystone , is positioned, the vault is not self-supporting. Where timber is easily obtained, this temporary support is provided by centering consisting of a framed truss with a semicircular or segmental head, which supports the voussoirs until the ring of the whole arch is completed. Corbelled vaults, also called false vaults, with horizontally joined layers of stone have been documented since prehistoric times; in

7470-498: The tepidaria of the Thermae and in the basilica of Constantine , in order to bring the thrust well within the walls, the main barrel vault of the hall was brought forward on each side and rested on detached columns, which constituted the principal architectural decoration. In cases where the cross vaults intersecting were not of the same span as those of the main vault, the arches were either stilted so that their soffits might be of

7636-469: The "Cluny II" rebuilding of 963 onwards has completely vanished, but we have a good idea of the design of "Cluny III" from 1088 to 1130, which until the Renaissance remained the largest building in Europe. However, the church of St. Sernin at Toulouse , 1080–1120, has remained intact and demonstrates the regularity of Romanesque design with its modular form, its massive appearance and the repetition of

7802-585: The 14th century BC from Mycenae. They were built regionally until modern times. The real vault construction with radially joined stones was already known to the Egyptians and Assyrians and was introduced into the building practice of the West by the Etruscans. The Romans in particular developed vault construction further and built barrel, cross and dome vaults. Some outstanding examples have survived in Rome, e.g.

7968-513: The 19th century) was built in the early 11th century by Otto III and Henry III, while the ruined Palace at Gelnhausen was received by Frederick Barbarossa prior to 1170. The movement of people and armies also brought about the building of bridges, some of which have survived, including the 12th-century bridge at Besalú , Catalonia , the 11th-century Puente de la Reina, Navarre and the Pont-Saint-Bénézet, Avignon . Across Europe,

8134-718: The 6th-century octagonal Byzantine Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna being the inspiration for the greatest building of the Early Middle Ages in Europe, the Emperor Charlemagne 's Palatine Chapel, Aachen , Germany, built around the year AD 800. Dating shortly after the Palatine Chapel is a remarkable 9th-century Swiss manuscript known as the Plan of Saint Gall and showing a very detailed plan of

8300-623: The 8th and the 10th centuries in the Iberian Peninsula while " First Romanesque " is applied to buildings in north of Italy and Spain and parts of France that have Romanesque features but pre-date the influence of the Abbey of Cluny . The Romanesque style in England and Sicily is still referred to as Norman architecture . A "dazzling" style developed in Pisa in the mid-11th century is called " Pisan Romanesque ". Eric Fernie writes that by

8466-561: The Alps, a very important group of large city churches survived largely intact. As monasticism spread across Europe, Romanesque churches sprang up in Scotland, Scandinavia, Poland, Hungary, Sicily, Serbia and Tunisia. Several important Romanesque churches were built in the Crusader kingdoms . The system of monasticism in which the religious become members of an order, with common ties and

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8632-468: The Classical than those in England. Vault (architecture) In architecture , a vault (French voûte , from Italian volta ) is a self-supporting arched form, usually of stone or brick, serving to cover a space with a ceiling or roof. As in building an arch, a temporary support is needed while rings of voussoirs are constructed and the rings placed in position. Until the topmost voussoir,

8798-479: The Crusades could be suitably commemorated by their family in a work of stone and mortar. The Crusades resulted in the transfer of, among other things, a great number of Holy Relics of saints and apostles . Many churches, like Saint-Front, Périgueux , had their own home grown saint while others, most notably Santiago de Compostela , claimed the remains and the patronage of a powerful saint, in this case one of

8964-557: The Last Judgement. Both were destroyed during the Reformation Era. In contrast, the curvatures depicting prophets and kings, roses, dancing angels and Abraham have been preserved. The benefactors Henry II and his wife, Empress Kunigunde, are portrayed left of the main porch. In the portrait, the emperor, depicted as a surprisingly young and beardless man, is carrying a church model in his arms, which identifies him as

9130-443: The Minster is located today was a Celtic fortified city in the late Celtic Era in first century BC. The Gallic wall of this city was uncovered during archeological excavations in 1970. Both, the gate site and the historical run of the street, can be partly retraced. This road parted at today's position of the Minster where it is presumed there was a small temple that later was replaced by a Roman fort . The first bishop of Basel

9296-500: The Nimrud sculptures, the chief difference being that, constructed in rubble stone and cemented with mortar, they still exist, though probably abandoned on the Islamic invasion in the 7th century. A groin vault is formed by the intersection of two or more barrel vaults, resulting in the formation of angles or groins along the lines of transition between the webs. In these bays the longer transverse arches are semi-circular, as are

9462-631: The Pantheon and the Basilica of Maxentius. Brick vaults have been used in Egypt since the early 3rd millennium BC. widely used and from the end of the 8th century B.C. Keystone vaults were built. However, monumental temple buildings of the pharaonic culture in the Nile Valley did not use vaults, since even the huge portals with widths of more than 7 meters were spanned with cut stone beams. Amongst

9628-521: The Pre-Conquest church now remains). At a time when the remaining architectural structures of the Roman Empire were falling into decay and much of its learning and technology lost, the building of masonry domes and the carving of decorative architectural details continued unabated, though greatly evolved in style since the fall of Rome, in the enduring Byzantine Empire . The domed churches of Constantinople and Eastern Europe were to greatly affect

9794-548: The Proto-Romanesque St. Michael's Church, Hildesheim , 1001–1030. Architecture of a Romanesque style also developed simultaneously in the north of Italy, parts of France and in the Iberian Peninsula in the 10th century and prior to the later influence of the Abbey of Cluny . The style, sometimes called First Romanesque or Lombard Romanesque , is characterised by thick walls, lack of sculpture and

9960-422: The Roman brick (measuring nearly 2 feet (0.61 m) square and 2 in. thick); on these and on the trusses transverse rings of brick were built with longitudinal ties at intervals; on the brick layers and embedding the rings and cross ties concrete was thrown in horizontal layers, the haunches being filled in solid, and the surface sloped on either side and covered over with a tile roof of low pitch laid direct on

10126-542: The Roman reservoir at Baiae , known as the Piscina Mirabilis , a series of five aisles with semicircular barrel vaults are intersected by twelve cross aisles, the vaults being carried on 48 piers and thick external walls. The width of these aisles being only about 13 feet (4.0 m) there was no great difficulty in the construction of these vaults, but in the Roman Baths of Caracalla the tepidarium had

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10292-433: The Romanesque period was succeeded by the still busier period of Gothic architecture, which partly or entirely rebuilt most Romanesque churches in prosperous areas like England and Portugal. The largest groups of Romanesque survivors are in areas that were less prosperous in subsequent periods, including parts of southern France , rural Spain and rural Italy. Survivals of unfortified Romanesque secular houses and palaces, and

10458-591: The Romans already replaced by small cupolas or domes. These domes, however, are of small dimensions when compared with that projected and carried out by Justinian in the Hagia Sophia . Previous to this the greatest dome was that of the Pantheon at Rome, but this was carried on an immense wall 20 feet (6.1 m) thick, and with the exception of small niches or recesses in the thickness of the wall could not be extended, so that Justinian apparently instructed his architect to provide an immense hemicycle or apse at

10624-399: The aisles helped to buttress the nave, if it was vaulted. In the cases where half-barrel vaults were used, they effectively became like flying buttresses . Often aisles extended through two storeys, rather than the one usual in Gothic architecture, so as to better support the weight of a vaulted nave. In the case of Durham Cathedral, flying buttresses have been employed, but are hidden inside

10790-414: The aisles, and the other two partly by smaller arches in the apse, the thrust being carried to the outer walls, and to a certain extent by the side walls which were built under the arches. From the description given by Procopius we gather that the centering employed for the great arches consisted of a wall erected to support them during their erection. The construction of the pendentives is not known, but it

10956-550: The aisles, which had only half the span of the nave ; of this there is an interesting example in the Chapel of Saint John in the Tower of London – and sometimes by half-barrel vaults. The great thickness of the walls, however, required in such constructions would seem to have led to another solution of the problem of roofing over churches with incombustible material, viz. that which is found throughout Périgord and La Charente , where

11122-460: The angles of the octagon, which externally and internally give to the roof the appearance of an umbrella. Although the dome constitutes the principal characteristic of the Byzantine church, throughout Asia Minor are numerous examples in which the naves are vaulted with the semicircular barrel vault, and this is the type of vault found throughout the south of France in the 11th and 12th centuries,

11288-422: The angles, as in the Mosque of Damascus , which was built by Byzantine workmen for the Al-Walid I in CE 705; these gave an octagonal base on which the hemispherical dome rested; or again, as in the Sassanian palaces of Sarvestan and Firouzabad of the 4th and 5th century, when a series of concentric arch rings, projecting one in front of the other, were built, giving also an octagonal base; each of these pendentives

11454-451: The arcades that separate large interior spaces of castles, is the alternation of piers and columns. The most simple form that this takes is to have a column between each adjoining pier. Sometimes the columns are in multiples of two or three. At St. Michael's, Hildesheim , an A B B A alternation occurs in the nave while an A B A alternation can be seen in the transepts. At Jumièges there are tall drum columns between piers each of which has

11620-404: The arch was built in horizontal courses, up to about one-third of the height, and the rings above were inclined back at a slight angle, so that the bricks of each ring, laid flatwise, adhered till the ring was completed, no centering of any kind being required; the vault thus formed was elliptic in section, arising from the method of its construction. A similar system of construction was employed for

11786-400: The architectural style which flourished across Europe from the 11th to the 13th century, and is distinguished from the Gothic style that followed by semi-circular arches and more massive forms. The development of vaults from barrel and groin vaults to ribbed vaults was the main structural innovation of this period. The distinction between the style of architecture now known as Romanesque, and

11952-474: The architecture of certain towns, particularly through trade and through the Crusades . The most notable single building that demonstrates this is St Mark's Basilica , Venice , but there are many lesser-known examples, particularly in France, such as the church of Saint-Front , Périgueux and Angoulême Cathedral . Much of Europe was affected by feudalism in which peasants held tenure from local rulers over

12118-422: The arts were to be taught and practiced in the monasteries. Within the monasteries books were transcribed by hand, and few people outside the monasteries could read or write. In France, Burgundy was the centre of monasticism. The enormous and powerful monastery at Cluny was to have lasting effect on the layout of other monasteries and the design of their churches. Very little of the abbey church at Cluny remains;

12284-551: The atrium at San Clemente in Rome, may have an odd assortment of columns in which large capitals are placed on short columns and small capitals are placed on taller columns to even the height. Architectural compromises of this type are seen where materials have been salvaged from a number of buildings. Salvaged columns were also used to a lesser extent in France. In most parts of Europe, Romanesque columns were massive, as they supported thick upper walls with small windows, and sometimes heavy vaults. The most common method of construction

12450-472: The bays into square compartments. In the 12th century the first attempts were made to vault over the naves, which were twice the width of the aisles, so it became necessary to include two bays of the aisles to form one rectangular bay in the nave (although this is often mistaken as square). It followed that every alternate pier served no purpose, so far as the support of the nave vault was concerned, and this would seem to have suggested an alternative to provide

12616-407: The beginning of the 21st century there is "something like agreement" on the characteristics of the Romanesque style. Some researchers argue that due to an "astonishing diversity" of the Romanesque buildings, a unanimous definition is impossible: "[n]o single model, no single rule, ever seems adequate to prevail", and the Romanesque should be treated as a "collection of trends". Despite disagreement,

12782-399: The benefactor. Only after the renovation of the exterior (1880 – 1980), the empress was given a cross as another symbol of identification. Originally, she was carrying gloves. On the right one can see the pictures of a seducer (“Prince of this World") and a misguided virgin. While the virgin smiles and starts to undress, toads and snakes crawl in the back of the seducer. They should embody

12948-569: The building of castles at strategic points, many of them being constructed as strongholds of the Normans, descendants of the Vikings who invaded northern France under Rollo in 911. Political struggles also resulted in the fortification of many towns, or the rebuilding and strengthening of walls that remained from the Roman period. One of the most notable surviving fortifications is that of the city of Carcassonne . The enclosure of towns brought about

13114-514: The building's maintenance costs. Currently the congregations of the Gellert Church and St. James Church , two other churches in Basel, also make up part of the congregation of the Minster. Regular services and special musical events take place in the church throughout the year. The church also hosts many concerts of the church choir, choral society and various other church organisations. In

13280-421: The building. This historic structure remains forming the bottom part of the north tower ( Georgsturm ) today. Heinrich Minster did not possess a tower on the south side. The building as it stands today dates back for the most part to the late Romanesque building constructed in the last third of the 12th century and completed around 1225. On the foundations of the previous buildings a church with three naves and

13446-459: The cathedral of Soissons (1205) a quadripartite or four-celled vault was introduced, the width of each bay being half the span of the nave, and corresponding therefore with the aisle piers. To this there are some exceptions, in Sant' Ambrogio, Milan, and San Michele, Pavia (the original vault), and in the cathedrals of Speyer , Mainz and Worms , where the quadripartite vaults are nearly square,

13612-478: The central dome of the Jumma Musjid at Bijapur (A.D. 1559), and the other is Gol Gumbaz , the tomb of Muhammad Adil Shah II (1626–1660) in the same town. The vault of the latter was constructed over a hall 135 feet (41 m) square, to carry a hemispherical dome. The ribs, instead of being carried across the angles only, thus giving an octagonal base for the dome, are carried across to the further pier of

13778-410: The choir aisles of the abbey of Saint-Denis, near Paris , built by the abbot Suger in 1135. It was in the church at Vezelay (1140) that it was extended to the square bay of the porch . As has been pointed out, the aisles had already in the early Christian churches been covered over with groined vaults, the only advance made in the later developments being the introduction of transverse ribs' dividing

13944-635: The choir passage is the sarcophagus of Queen Anne of Habsburg and her son Charles. She had married in 1254 as Gertrude of Hohenberg the future King Rudolf of Habsburg and died in 1281 in Vienna. From there, her body was transferred to Basel. The bones found in her grave (a woman, a child, a man) were transferred in 1770 to Saint Blaise Abbey, Black Forest ; later on to Saint Paul's Abbey, Lavanttal . 47°33′24″N 7°35′32″E  /  47.55667°N 7.59222°E  / 47.55667; 7.59222 Romanesque architecture Romanesque architecture

14110-426: The churches in Basel, some of them by armed force in order to demolish religious paintings and statues. Huldrych Zwingli , an influential church reformer, condemned the worship of God in the form of pictures as idolatry . A group of 40 armed men is said to have ascended to the minster from the crowded market place at approximately 1 pm on 9 February 1529. After a first attack on the church, during which an altarpiece

14276-600: The closure of the pontifical university, citizens made an effort to establish a new university. The council’s secretary, Pope Pius II , made it possible to enact the papal bull and to open the Basel University as an independent university on 4 April 1460. During the iconoclasm of the Protestant Reformation , many valuable pieces of art belonging to the city of Basel and the minster were destroyed in 1528 and 1529. Numerous citizens stormed many of

14442-421: The concrete had set, not only made the concrete as solid as the rock itself, but to a certain extent neutralized the thrust of the vaults, which formed shells equivalent to that of a metal lid; the Romans, however, do not seem to have recognized the value of this pozzolana mixture, for they otherwise provided amply for the counteracting of any thrust which might exist by the erection of cross walls and buttresses. In

14608-403: The concrete. The rings relieved the centering from the weight imposed, and the two layers of bricks carried the concrete till it had set. As the walls carrying these vaults were also built in concrete with occasional bond courses of brick, the whole structure was homogeneous. One of the important ingredients of the mortar was a volcanic deposit found near Rome, known as pozzolana , which, when

14774-406: The construction of vaults reverted to the geometrical surfaces of the Romans, without, however, always that economy in centering to which they had attached so much importance, and more especially in small structures. In large vaults, where it constituted an important expense, the chief boast of some of the most eminent architects has been that centering was dispensed with, as in the case of the dome of

14940-569: The continent, making it the first pan-European architectural style since Imperial Roman architecture . Similarly to Gothic, the name of the style was transferred onto the contemporary Romanesque art . Combining features of ancient Roman and Byzantine buildings and other local traditions, Romanesque architecture is known by its massive quality, thick walls, round arches, sturdy pillars , barrel vaults , large towers and decorative arcading . Each building has clearly defined forms, frequently of very regular, symmetrical plan. The overall appearance

15106-438: The courses dipped towards the former, and at the apex of the vault were cut to fit one another. In the early English Gothic period, in consequence of the great span of the vault and the very slight rise or curvature of the web, it was thought better to simplify the construction of the web by introducing intermediate ribs between the wall rib and the diagonal rib and between the diagonal and the transverse ribs; and in order to meet

15272-626: The curvatures of the diagonal ribs, producing a straight tunnel running from east to west. Reference has been made to the rib vault in Roman work, where the intersecting barrel vaults were not of the same diameter. Their construction must at all times have been somewhat difficult, but where the barrel vaulting was carried round over the choir aisle and was intersected (as in St Bartholomew-the-Great in Smithfield, London ) by semicones instead of cylinders, it became worse and

15438-419: The development of the modern English meaning of the word involved primarily two steps: The French term " romane " was first used in the architectural sense by archaeologist Charles de Gerville in a letter of 18 December 1818 to Auguste Le Prévost to describe what Gerville sees as a debased Roman architecture . In an 1823 public lecture (published in 1824) Gerville's friend Arcisse de Caumont adopted

15604-401: The difficulty, however, of working the ribs separately led to two other important changes: (1) the lower part of the transverse diagonal and wall ribs were all worked out of one stone; and (2) the lower horizontal, constituting what is known as the tas-de-charge or solid springer . The tas-de-charge, or solid springer, had two advantages: (1) it enabled the stone courses to run straight through

15770-542: The domestic quarters of monasteries are far rarer, but these used and adapted the features found in church buildings, on a domestic scale. The French term " romane " or the English Romanesque , meaning "in the manner of Romans", has been used to describe the architectural style of the Mediaeval era, preceding the more easily recognizable Gothic architecture, since early in the 19th century. It describes

15936-574: The earliest known examples of any form of vaulting is to be found in the neolithic village of Khirokitia on Cyprus . Dating from c.  6000 BCE , the circular buildings supported beehive shaped corbel domed vaults of unfired mud-bricks and also represent the first evidence for settlements with an upper floor. Similar beehive tombs , called tholoi , exist in Crete and Northern Iraq . Their construction differs from that at Khirokitia in that most appear partially buried and make provision for

16102-405: The eastern end, a similar apse at the western end, and great arches on either side, the walls under which would be pierced with windows. Unlike the Pantheon dome, the upper portions of which are made of concrete, Byzantine domes were made of brick, which were lighter and thinner, but more vulnerable to the forces exerted onto them. The diagram shows the outlines of the solution of the problem. If

16268-417: The employment of centerings of one curve for all the ribs, instead of having separate centerings for the transverse, diagonal wall and intermediate ribs; it was facilitated also by the introduction of the four-centred arch, because the lower portion of the arch formed part of the fan, or conoid, and the upper part could be extended at pleasure with a greater radius across the vault. These ribs were often cut from

16434-630: The evil. The image dates back to roughly 1280. The statues and brickwork of the cathedral consist of red sandstone which was found in Wiesental and Degerfelden . Until the Reformation, Basel Minster was the church of the bishop and the main church of the Diocese of Basel , whose metropolitan bishop was the Archbishop of Besançon . The bishop’s residence and the original living quarters for

16600-420: The famous abbeys of Aux Dames and Les Hommes at Caen and Mont Saint-Michel date from this period, as well as the abbeys of the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela . Many cathedrals owe their foundation to this date, with others beginning as abbey churches, and later becoming cathedrals. In England, of the cathedrals of ancient foundation, all were begun in this period with the exception of Salisbury, where

16766-458: The façade gable and are also seen in Germany. Later Romanesque churches may have wheel windows or rose windows with plate tracery . There are a very small number of buildings in the Romanesque style, such as Autun Cathedral in France and Monreale Cathedral in Sicily in which pointed arches have been used extensively, apparently for stylistic reasons. It is believed that in these cases there

16932-404: The four arches rest. Having obtained a circle for the base of the dome, it is not necessary that the upper portion of the dome should spring from the same level as the arches, or that its domical surface should be a continuation of that of the pendentive. The first and second dome of the Hagia Sophia apparently fell down, so that Justinian determined to raise it, possibly to give greater lightness to

17098-596: The great advance in the science of vaulting shown in this church owed something to the eastern tradition of dome vaulting seen in the Assyrian domes, which are known to us only by the representations in the bas-relief from Nimrud, because in the great water cisterns in Istanbul, known as the Basilica Cistern and Bin bir direk (cistern with a thousand and one columns), we find the intersecting groin vaults of

17264-523: The great dimensions of the vault, it was found necessary to introduce transverse ribs, which were required to give greater strength. Similar transverse ribs are found in Henry VII 's chapel and in the Divinity School at Oxford , where a new development presented itself. One of the defects of the fan vault at Gloucester is the appearance it gives of being half sunk in the wall; to remedy this, in

17430-399: The groins more complicated. This would seem to have led to a change of system and to the introduction of a new feature, which completely revolutionized the construction of the vault. Hitherto the intersecting features were geometrical surfaces, of which the diagonal groins were the intersections, elliptical in form, generally weak in construction and often twisting. The medieval builder reversed

17596-600: The inner is structural. Baltasar Neumann , in his baroque churches, perfected light-weight plaster vaults supported by wooden frames. These vaults, which exerted no lateral pressures, were perfectly suited for elaborate ceiling frescoes. In St Paul's Cathedral in London there is a highly complex system of vaults and faux-vaults. The dome that one sees from the outside is not a vault, but a relatively light-weight wooden-framed structure resting on an invisible – and for its age highly original – catenary vault of brick, below which

17762-402: The intermediate piers of the aisles being of much smaller dimensions. In England sexpartite vaults exist at Canterbury (1175) (set out by William of Sens ), Rochester (1200), Lincoln (1215), Durham (east transept ), and St. Faith's chapel , Westminster Abbey . In the earlier stage of rib vaulting, the arched ribs consisted of independent or separate voussoirs down to the springing;

17928-411: The introduction of the pointed arch for the transverse and wall ribs – the pointed arch had long been known and employed, on account of its much greater strength and of the less thrust it exerted on the walls. When employed for the ribs of a vault, however narrow the span might be, by adopting a pointed arch, its summit could be made to range in height with the diagonal rib; and, moreover, when utilized for

18094-540: The knights. Copies of both saints are portrayed by corresponding equestrian sculptures next to the main entrance upon high pilasters below the particular towers. The statue of Holy Martin originated from the year 1340; today, the archetype can be found in the Klingentalmuseum . A mechanic clock and a sundial are located above the archetype. It is remarkable that the sundial of the Basler Münster shows

18260-448: The label " roman " to describe the "degraded" European architecture from the 5th to the 13th centuries, in his Essai sur l'architecture religieuse du moyen-âge, particulièrement en Normandie , at a time when the actual dates of many of the buildings so described had not been ascertained: "The name Roman (esque) we give to this architecture, which should be universal as it is the same everywhere with slight local differences, also has

18426-432: The land that they farmed in exchange for military service . The result of this was that they could be called upon, not only for local and regional spats, but to follow their lord to travel across Europe to the Crusades, if they were required to do so. The Crusades , 1095–1270, brought about a very large movement of people and, with them, ideas and trade skills, particularly those involved in the building of fortifications and

18592-571: The late 11th and 12th centuries saw an unprecedented growth in the number of churches. A great number of these buildings, both large and small, remain, some almost intact and in others altered almost beyond recognition in later centuries. They include many very well known churches such as Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome, the Baptistery in Florence and San Zeno Maggiore in Verona. In France,

18758-429: The late Romanesque architecture and to reverse some modifications made in the 1850s. Additionally, the floor was returned to its original level in 1975 and the crypt reopened. A workshop dedicated to taking care of the increasingly deteriorating sandstone exterior was set up in 1985. In 1424, Pope Martin V informed Basel’s government that their city has been chosen to be the site of the next council. The main goal of

18924-524: The late vaulting of the entrance gateways to the colleges. Fan vaulting is peculiar to England, the only example approaching it in France being the pendant of the Lady-chapel at Caudebec-en-Caux , in Normandy. In France, Germany, and Spain the multiplication of ribs in the 15th century led to decorative vaults of various kinds, but with some singular modifications. Thus, in Germany, recognizing that

19090-525: The level of the transverse arches and of the wall ribs, and thus gave the appearance of a dome to the vault, such as may be seen in the nave of Sant'Ambrogio, Florence . To meet this, at first the transverse and wall ribs were stilted, or the upper part of their arches was raised, as in the Abbaye-aux-Hommes at Caen , and the Abbey of Lessay , in Normandy . The problem was ultimately solved by

19256-464: The local stone and building traditions. In Italy, Poland, much of Germany and parts of the Netherlands, brick is generally used. Other areas saw extensive use of limestone, granite and flint. The building stone was often used in comparatively small and irregular pieces, bedded in thick mortar. Smooth ashlar masonry was not a distinguishing feature of the style (especially not in the earlier part of

19422-455: The main altar was consecrated. In 1421 Ulrich von Ensingen , who constructed the towers of the minsters in Ulm and Strasbourg , began the extension of the northern tower ( Georgsturm ). This phase ended in 1429. The southern tower ( Martinsturm ) was completed by Hans Nussdorf on 23 July 1500. This date marks the official architectural completion of the minster. In the 15th century the major and

19588-511: The main ribs, and were employed chiefly as decorative features, as, for instance, in the Liebfrauenkirche (1482) of Mühlacker , Germany. One of the best examples of Lierne ribs exists in the vault of the oriel window of Crosby Hall, London . The tendency to increase the number of ribs led to singular results in some cases, as in the choir of Gloucester Cathedral , where the ordinary diagonal ribs become mere ornamental mouldings on

19754-447: The meetings held by Basel’s council between 1431 and 1449 was to implement a church reform. Following the orders of Pope Eugene IV , president of the council at that time, Julian Cesarini , left Basel in 1438. One year later, on 24 July 1440, Felix V was elected as a counter pope at Basel’s Münsterplatz . The German Emperor, Frederick III , arranged for the dissolution of the council in Basel because Felix V could not prevail. After

19920-469: The merit of indicating its origin and is not new since it is used already to describe the language of the same period. Romance language is degenerated Latin language. Romanesque architecture is debased Roman architecture." The term " Pre-romanesque " is sometimes applied to architecture in Germany of the Carolingian and Ottonian periods and Visigothic , Mozarab and Asturian constructions between

20086-491: The metal working needed for the provision of arms, which was also applied to the fitting and decoration of buildings. The continual movement of people, rulers, nobles, bishops, abbots, craftsmen and peasants, was an important factor in creating a homogeneity in building methods and a recognizable Romanesque style , despite regional differences. Life became generally less secure after the Carolingian period. This resulted in

20252-635: The minor cloisters were added. The minster served as a bishop’s see until 1529 during the Reformation . Today's congregation forms part of the Evangelical-Reformed Church of the Canton Basel-Stadt . In the 19th century two major restorations took place. From 1852 until 1857 the rood screen was moved and the crypt on the western side was closed. In the 20th century the main aim of renovations has been to emphasize

20418-483: The minster was saved and remained complete until the Canton of Basel was split into "half-cantons" in 1833. In the 1850s new stained glass windows by Franz Xaver Eggert have been installed. The main front which points at the west is bestrided by two towers. The northern tower is called Georgsturm (64.2 m) and the southern tower is called Martinsturm (62.7 m). The towers are named after Georg and Martin , saints of

20584-455: The monks relocated from the Norman church at Old Sarum , and several, such as Canterbury , which were rebuilt on the site of Saxon churches. In Spain, the most famous church of the period is Santiago de Compostela . In Germany, the Rhine and its tributaries were the location of many Romanesque abbeys, notably Mainz , Worms , Speyer and Bamberg . In Cologne , then the largest city north of

20750-790: The more northern countries, Roman building styles and techniques had never been adopted except for official buildings, while in Scandinavia they were unknown. Although the round arch continued in use, the engineering skills required to vault large spaces and build large domes were lost. There was a loss of stylistic continuity, particularly apparent in the decline of the formal vocabulary of the Classical Orders . In Rome several great Constantinian basilicas continued in use as an inspiration to later builders. Some traditions of Roman architecture also survived in Byzantine architecture with

20916-624: The most rare, with only a handful of survivors in the United Kingdom, several clusters in France, isolated buildings across Europe and by far the largest number, often unidentified and altered over the centuries, in Italy. Many castles exist, the foundations of which date from the Romanesque period. Most have been substantially altered, and many are in ruins. By far the greatest number of surviving Romanesque buildings are churches. These range from tiny chapels to large cathedrals . Although many have been extended and altered in different styles,

21082-444: The mouldings of the arch. Piers that occur at the intersection of two large arches, such as those under the crossing of the nave and transept, are commonly cruciform in shape, each arch having its own supporting rectangular pier at right angles to the other. Columns are an important structural feature of Romanesque architecture. Colonnettes and attached shafts are also used structurally and for decoration. Monolithic columns cut from

21248-577: The nature of the vault dictated that the alternate piers bore a great deal more weight than the intermediate ones and are thus very much larger. The foliate Corinthian style provided the inspiration for many Romanesque capitals, and the accuracy with which they were carved depended very much on the availability of original models, those in Italian churches such as Pisa Cathedral or church of Sant'Alessandro in Lucca and southern France being much closer to

21414-413: The nave from the aisles, and in large secular interiors spaces, such as the great hall of a castle, supporting the timbers of a roof or upper floor. Arcades also occur in cloisters and atriums, enclosing an open space. Arcades can occur in storeys or stages. While the arcade of a cloister is typically of a single stage, the arcade that divides the nave and aisles in a church is typically of two stages, with

21580-403: The octagon and consequently intersect one another, reducing the central opening to 97 feet (30 m) in diameter, and, by the weight of the masonry they carry, serving as counterpoise to the thrust of the dome, which is set back so as to leave a passage about 12 feet (3.7 m) wide round the interior. The internal diameter of the dome is 124 feet (38 m), its height 175 feet (53 m) and

21746-427: The only change being the occasional substitution of the pointed barrel vault, adopted not only on account of its exerting a less thrust, but because, as pointed out by Fergusson (vol. ii. p. 46), the roofing tiles were laid directly on the vault and a less amount of filling in at the top was required. The continuous thrust of the barrel vault in these cases was met either by semicircular or pointed barrel vaults on

21912-406: The period), but it did occur, chiefly where easily worked limestone was available. Because of the massive nature of Romanesque walls, buttresses are not a highly significant feature, as they are in Gothic architecture. Romanesque buttresses are generally of flat square profile and do not project a great deal beyond the wall. In the case of aisled churches, barrel vaults, or half-barrel vaults over

22078-443: The pointed arch rib took place at Cefalù Cathedral and pre-dated the abbey of Saint-Denis . Whilst the pointed rib-arch is often seen as an identifier for Gothic architecture, Cefalù is a Romanesque cathedral whose masons experimented with the possibility of Gothic rib-arches before it was widely adopted by western church architecture. Besides Cefalù Cathedral, the introduction of the pointed arch rib would seem to have taken place in

22244-493: The presence of rhythmic ornamental arches known as a Lombard band . Charlemagne was crowned by Pope Leo III in Old St. Peter's Basilica on Christmas Day of 800, with an aim to re-establishing the old Roman Empire . Charlemagne's political successors continued to rule much of Europe, with a gradual emergence of the separate political states that were eventually to become welded into nations, either by allegiance or defeat, into

22410-420: The process, and set up the diagonal ribs first, which were utilized as permanent centres, and on these he carried his vault or web, which henceforward took its shape from the ribs. Instead of the elliptical curve which was given by the intersection of two semicircular barrel vaults, or cylinders, he employed the semicircular arch for the diagonal ribs; this, however, raised the centre of the square bay vaulted above

22576-594: The reign of king Sennacherib they were used to construct aqueducts, such as those at Jerwan . In the provincial city Dūr-Katlimmu they were used to created vaulted platforms. The tradition of their erection, however, would seem to have been handed down to their successors in Mesopotamia , viz. to the Sassanians , who in their palaces in Sarvestan and Firouzabad built domes of similar form to those shown in

22742-488: The rib was no longer a necessary constructive feature, they cut it off abruptly, leaving a stump only; in France, on the other hand, they gave still more importance to the rib, by making it of greater depth, piercing it with tracery and hanging pendants from it, and the web became a horizontal stone paving laid on the top of these decorated vertical webs. This is the characteristic of the great Renaissance work in France and Spain; but it soon gave way to Italian influence, when

22908-442: The ribs of the annular vault , as in the aisle round the apsidal termination of the choir, it was not necessary that the half ribs on the outer side should be in the same plane as those of the inner side; for when the opposite ribs met in the centre of the annular vault, the thrust was equally transmitted from one to the other, and being already a broken arch the change of its direction was not noticeable. The first introduction of

23074-425: The ribs struck from four centres have their springing 57 feet (17 m) from the floor of the hall. The Jumma Musjid dome was of smaller dimensions, on a square of 70 feet (21 m) with a diameter of 57 feet (17 m), and was carried on piers only instead of immensely thick walls as in the tomb; but any thrust which might exist was counteracted by its transmission across aisles to the outer wall. The Muqarnas

23240-398: The same height, or they formed smaller intersections in the lower part of the vault; in both of these cases, however, the intersections or groins were twisted, for which it was very difficult to form a centering, and, moreover, they were of disagreeable effect: though every attempt was made to mask this in the decoration of the vault by panels and reliefs modelled in stucco . A rib vault

23406-477: The same stones as the webs, with the entire vault being treated as a single jointed surface covered in interlocking tracery. The earliest example is perhaps the east walk of the cloister at Gloucester , with its surface consisting of intricately decorated panels of stonework forming conical structures that rise from the springers of the vault. In later examples, as in King's College Chapel , Cambridge, on account of

23572-469: The shorter longitudinal arches. The curvatures of these bounding arches were apparently used as the basis for the web centrings , which was created in the form of two intersecting tunnels as though each web was an arch projected horizontally in three dimensions. The earliest example is thought to be over a small hall at Pergamum , in Asia Minor , but its first employment over halls of great dimensions

23738-527: The simple arched window motif. One of the effects of the Crusades , which were intended to wrest the Holy Places of the Levant from Islamic control, was to excite a great deal of religious fervour, which in turn inspired great building programs. The Nobility of Europe, upon safe return, thanked God by the building of a new church or the enhancement of an old one. Likewise, those who did not return from

23904-507: The southern Martinstower (after St.Martin ) in 1500. One of the main landmarks and tourist attractions of Basel, it adds definition to the cityscape with its red sandstone architecture and coloured roof tiles, its two slim towers and the cross-shaped intersection of the main roof. The Swiss inventory of cultural property of national and regional significance lists the Münster as a heritage site of national significance. The hill on which

24070-530: The steeple topping attach only over a rectangle storey at the northern steeple. Comparable to the Freiburger Münster, lank Fialentürme project at the corners of the octagons. An empty column, which originally carried a statue of the Virgin Mary, is situated between the doors of the main porch . As it is typical of many other Gothic church porches, the tympanum above is likely to have depicted

24236-437: The structure, but mainly in order to obtain increased light for the interior of the church. This was effected by piercing it with forty windows – the effect of which, as the light streaming through these windows, gave the dome the appearance of being suspended in the air. The pendentive which carried the dome rested on four great arches, the thrust of those crossing the church being counteracted by immense buttresses which traversed

24402-509: The style preceding Gothic was not recognized as a whole, and was instead, just like Gothic at the time, treated as a multitude of styles: Giorgio Vasari and Christopher Wren were writing about "Tuscan", "Saxon", or "Norman" architectures. The word Romanesque ("in the manner of Romans" ) appeared in English by 1666, and was used to designate what are now called Romance languages . Definition of Romanesque architecture changed over time;

24568-594: The succeeding style of Gothic architecture was recognised as early as the 15th century, as demonstrated by some artworks of that period. Robert Campin clearly presented the division in his Marriage of the Virgin ; on the left side, representing the Old Testament , the building is in the Romanesque style, while that on the right, representing the New Testament , is Gothic. Until the 19th century, however,

24734-399: The surface of an intersected pointed barrel vault, and again in the cloisters, where the introduction of the fan vault , forming a concave-sided conoid , returned to the principles of the Roman geometrical vault. This is further shown in the construction of these fan vaults, for although in the earliest examples each of the ribs above the tas-de-charge was an independent feature, eventually it

24900-457: The term became a "common currency", and is universally accepted at least for convenience. Buildings of every type were constructed in the Romanesque style, with evidence remaining of simple domestic buildings, elegant town houses, grand palaces, commercial premises, civic buildings, castles, city walls, bridges, village churches, abbey churches, abbey complexes and large cathedrals. Of these types of buildings, domestic and commercial buildings are

25066-404: The thrust of these intermediate ribs a ridge rib was required, and the prolongation of this rib to the wall rib hid the junction of the web at the summit, which was not always very sightly, and constituted the ridge rib. In France, on the other hand, the web courses were always laid horizontally, and they are therefore of unequal height, increasing towards the diagonal rib. Each course also was given

25232-615: The traditional image of a roof took precedence over the vault. The separation between interior and exterior – and between structure and image – was to be developed very purposefully in the Renaissance and beyond, especially once the dome became reinstated in the Western tradition as a key element in church design. Michelangelo 's dome for St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, as redesigned between 1585 and 1590 by Giacomo della Porta , for example, consists of two domes of which, however, only

25398-399: The triforium gallery. The arches used in Romanesque architecture are nearly always semicircular, for openings such as doors and windows, for vaults and for arcades. Wide doorways are usually surmounted by a semi-circular arch, except where a door with a lintel is set into a large arched recess and surmounted by a semi-circular "lunette" with decorative carving. These doors sometimes have

25564-517: The two buildings just quoted, the complete conoid is detached and treated as a pendant . The vault of the Basilica of Maxentius , completed by Constantine, was the last great work carried out in Rome before its fall, and two centuries pass before the next important development is found in the Church of the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) at Constantinople . It is probable that the realization of

25730-491: The use of centering. Examples have been found in archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia dating to the 2nd and 3rd millennium BCE, which were set in gypsum mortar . A barrel vault is the simplest form of a vault and resembles a barrel or tunnel cut lengthwise in half. The effect is that of a structure composed of continuous semicircular or pointed sections. The earliest known examples of barrel vaults were built by

25896-540: The vault from the inside was the same that one saw from the outside), the European architects of the Middle Ages protected their vaults with wooden roofs. In other words, one will not see a Gothic vault from the outside. The reasons for this development are hypothetical, but the fact that the roofed basilica form preceded the era when vaults begin to be made is certainly to be taken into consideration. In other words,

26062-434: The vault over the great hall at Ctesiphon , where the material employed was fired bricks or tiles of great dimensions, cemented with mortar; but the span was close upon 83 feet (25 m), and the thickness of the vault was nearly 5 feet (1.5 m) at the top, there being four rings of brickwork . Assyrian palaces used pitched-brick vaults, made with sun-dried mudbricks, for gates, subterranean graves and drains. During

26228-411: The wall, so as to bond the whole together much better; and (2) it lessened the span of the vault, which then required a centering of smaller dimensions. As soon as the ribs were completed, the web or stone shell of the vault was laid on them. In some English work each course of stone was of uniform height from one side to the other; but, as the diagonal rib was longer than either the transverse or wall rib,

26394-593: The “wrong time” due to the Basler Zeit . Below the Georgsturm a monumental picture (1372) can be found which shows knight Georg fighting against a remarkably small dragon. After a heavy earthquake in 1356 the Münster, which originally had five steeples , was reconstructed with only two steeples remaining. At the older Georgsturm, the lower brighter part that has remained untouched, can still be seen. In 1500

26560-455: Was a tendency to increase their number, so that in the nave of Exeter Cathedral three intermediate ribs were provided between the wall rib and the diagonal rib. In order to mask the junction of the various ribs, their intersections were ornamented with richly carved bosses, and this practice increased on the introduction of another short rib, known as the lierne, a term in France given to the ridge rib. Lierne ribs are short ribs crossing between

26726-499: Was a tendency to raise the centres of these vaults, which became slightly domical; in all these cases centering was employed. One good example of the fan vault is that over the staircase leading to the hall of Christ Church, Oxford , where the complete conoid is displayed in its centre carried on a central column. This vault, not built until 1640, is an example of traditional workmanship, probably in Oxford transmitted in consequence of

26892-424: Was found easier to carve them and the web out of the solid stone, so that the rib and web were purely decorative and had no constructional or independent functions. This form of vaulting is found in English late Gothic in which the vault is constructed as a single surface of dressed stones, with the resulting conoid forming an ornamental network of blind tracery. The fan vault would seem to have owed its origin to

27058-411: Was rarely required for the building of the web, a template (Fr. cerce ) being employed to support the stones of each ring until it was complete. In Italy, Germany and Spain the French method of building the web was adopted, with horizontal courses and a domical form. Sometimes, in the case of comparatively narrow compartments, and more especially in clerestories , the wall rib was stilted, and this caused

27224-432: Was reached in Hagia Sophia, for although it formed the model on which all subsequent Byzantine churches were based, so far as their plan was concerned, no domes approaching the former in dimensions were even attempted. The principal difference in some later examples is that which took place in the form of the pendentive on which the dome was carried. Instead of the spherical spandril of Hagia Sophia, large niches were formed in

27390-450: Was tipped over and smashed, they departed for reinforcements. The chaplains took the opportunity to lock the gates of the minster. The returning mob of 200 loud and rowdy men assaulted and finally smashed through the barrier. Once inside the church they destroyed altars, crucifixes , and images of the Virgin Mary and saints. In the course of the afternoon the iconoclasm extended to other churches in Basel as well. The impressive treasure of

27556-430: Was to build them out of stone cylinders called drums, as in the crypt at Speyer Cathedral . Where really massive columns were called for, such as those at Durham Cathedral , they were constructed of ashlar masonry and the hollow core was filled with rubble. These huge untapered columns are sometimes ornamented with incised decorations. A common characteristic of Romanesque buildings, occurring both in churches and in

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