Clermont-Ferrand Cathedral
Clermont-Ferrand Cathedral is a Gothic cathedral, and French national monument, located in the town of Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne. It is the seat of the Archbishops of Clermont and it is built entirely in black lava stone, which makes it highly distinctive, and visible from a great distance. Its twin spires are 108 metres tall, and tower above the towns rooftops, in the 5th century, bishop Namatius laid the foundations of the citys first cathedral, allowing the Christian community to leave its ghetto, the vicus christianorum. He dedicated the building to Saints Vitalis and Agricola, whose relics he brought from Bologna and it was 43 metres long and on a basilica plan, as is known by the account of Gregory of Tours. It was ornamented in marble, with a nave, two aisles, a transept and 70 columns. It was destroyed in 760 by Pepin the Short who, repenting of this act, gave a sum to bishop Haddebert to finance his reconstruction work. This second structure was destroyed, this time by the Normans.
Bishop Stephen II built a third Roman cathedral, which was consecrated in 946, this building probably served as the model and prototype for many churches in the Auvergne. The present crypt dates back to this 10th century church, in 1248, inspired by a visit on Sainte-Chapelle on a trip to Paris, bishop Hugues de la Tour decided to launch work on a new cathedral. Constructing a church in the prestigious Northern Gothic style would thus allow him to assert his supremacy over a city that had put back into its bishops power just some decades earlier. Notre-Dame-du-Port, that had inspired the cathedral of Stephen II, would again be surpassed. The main originality of the structure is the used, the rock from Volvic that gives the building its dark colour. Jean Deschamps was entrusted with the work and he had already worked on the cathedrals at Narbonne and Limoges. Jean worked from 1248 to 1287 on the choir, in which Louis IX came to marry his son to Isabella of Aragon, the king financed part of the stained glass windows that appear to be from the same workshop as those in Sainte-Chapelle.
The choir, the transept and the start of the nave were finished about 1295, pierre Deschamps took over from his father up to 1325, pushing the works beyond the transept crossing. From 1325 to 1340, the towers of the arms were raised by an anonymous master. One of them is familiar, the de la Bayette. During the years followed, the chapter was satisfied to have him sculpt a new doorjamb for the door of its sacristy
Westminster Abbey
It is one of the United Kingdoms most notable religious buildings and the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English and, British monarchs. Between 1540 and 1556, the abbey had the status of a cathedral, since 1560, the building is no longer an abbey nor a cathedral, having instead the status of a Church of England Royal Peculiar—a church responsible directly to the sovereign. The building itself is the abbey church. According to a tradition first reported by Sulcard in about 1080, a church was founded at the site in the 7th century, at the time of Mellitus, construction of the present church began in 1245, on the orders of King Henry III. Since the coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066, all coronations of English and British monarchs have held in Westminster Abbey. There have been at least 16 royal weddings at the abbey since 1100, two were of reigning monarchs, before 1919, there had been none for some 500 years. The first reports of the abbey are based on a tradition claiming that a young fisherman called Aldrich on the River Thames saw a vision of Saint Peter near the site.
This seems to be quoted to justify the gifts of salmon from Thames fishermen that the abbey received in years, in the present was, the Fishmongers Company still gives a salmon every year. The proven origins are that in the 960s or early 970s, Saint Dunstan, assisted by King Edgar, between 1042 and 1052, King Edward the Confessor began rebuilding St Peters Abbey to provide himself with a royal burial church. It was the first church in England built in the Romanesque style, the building was completed around 1090 and was consecrated on 28 December 1065, only a week before Edwards death on 5 January 1066. A week later, he was buried in the church, nine years and his successor, Harold II, was probably crowned in the abbey, although the first documented coronation is that of William the Conqueror the same year. The only extant depiction of Edwards abbey, together with the adjacent Palace of Westminster, is in the Bayeux Tapestry, construction of the present church was begun in 1245 by Henry III who selected the site for his burial.
The abbot and monks, in proximity to the royal Palace of Westminster, the abbot often was employed on royal service and in due course took his place in the House of Lords as of right. The abbey built shops and dwellings on the west side, encroaching upon the sanctuary, the abbey became the coronation site of Norman kings. The Confessors shrine subsequently played a part in his canonisation. The work continued between 1245 and 1517 and was finished by the architect Henry Yevele in the reign of Richard II. Henry III commissioned the unique Cosmati pavement in front of the High Altar, Henry VII added a Perpendicular style chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1503. Much of the came from Caen, in France, the Isle of Portland
Laon Cathedral
Laon Cathedral is a Catholic church located in Laon, France. The cathedral is the seat of the Bishop of Laon and it has been listed among the Monuments Historiques since 1840. The current cathedral is built on the site of an earlier edifice commenced under the episcopacy of Gerfrid and that Carolingian cathedral was consecrated on 6 September 800 in the presence of the emperor himself. The Carolingian building was replaced under Bishop Élinand, the present new building was inaugurated with the second coronation of the future King Philip I. This cathedral was torched during the Easter Insurrection on 25 April 1112, during the revolt Laons unpopular Bishop Waldric was killed, despite taking the precaution of hiding in a barrel in the cellar of the episcopal palace. The cathedral was not destroyed and after a repair programme lasting two years it was rededicated in 1114 under Bishop Barthélemy de Jur. The present Laon Cathedral dates from the 12th and early 13th centuries, built half a century after the first example of Gothic architecture, the Abbey Church of St.
Denis, was erected. The former cathedral was burned out and damaged during the insurrection in 1112. The present reconstruction began with a choir in about 1160 and was finished as far as the east side of the transept by 1174, in a second campaign, which started about 1180, the nave was built, and completed after 1205. Then the choir was replaced by the greatly lengthened present choir in 1215, the building is cruciform, and the choir terminates in a straight wall instead of in an apse. There are two towers, one at each end of the transept, and a square central crossing tower that forms a lantern illuminating the crossing. If all seven towers were completed, at the time of construction, Laon would have more towers than any other cathedral built at the time. The ambition of the planners of Laon Cathedral gave some insight on what cathedral planners of the time were aiming for - a new take on space. The west front, with three porches, the centre one surmounted by a rose window of 1210, ranks next to that of Notre Dame de Paris in the purity of its Gothic style.
Because of the use of stone in the interior, however. The cathedral has stained glass of the 13th century and a screen of the 18th century. Although the cathedral suffered damage during the French Revolution and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. On June 25,1940, Laon Cathedral was visited by Adolf Hitler, the famous medieval artist Villard de Honnecourt made detailed drawings of one of the towers of Laon, ca
Rose window
The name “rose window” was not used before the 17th century and according to the Oxford English Dictionary, among other authorities, comes from the English flower name rose. Rose windows are called Natalie windows after Saint Natalie of Lu who was sentenced to be executed on a spiked wheel, a circular window without tracery such as are found in many Italian churches, is referred to as an ocular window or oculus. Rose windows are particularly characteristic of Gothic architecture and may be seen in all the major Gothic Cathedrals of Northern France and their origins are much earlier and rose windows may be seen in various forms throughout the Medieval period. Their popularity was revived, with other features, during the Gothic revival of the 19th century so that they are seen in Christian churches all over the world. The origin of the window may be found in the Roman oculus. These large circular openings let in light and air, the best known being that at the top of the dome of the Pantheon. Windows with stone tracery make their emergence in Antiquity, but they arrived to us.
Geometrical patterns of roses are very developed and common in Roman mosaic, in Early Christian and Byzantine architecture, there are examples of the use of circular oculi. A window of the 8th century, now located in Venice, many semicircular windows with pierced tracery exist from the 6th to the 8th century, and in Greece. This theory suggests that crusaders brought the design of this window to Europe. But of the halves editing roses are known, as with the church of San Juan Bautista in Baños de Cerrato, the scarcity and the brittleness of the vestiges of this time does not make it possible to say that complet rose window in tracery did not exist before. In another of these churches, San Miguel de Lillo, is the earliest known example of an axially placed oculus with tracery, several such windows of different sizes exist, and decoration of both Greek Cross and scalloped petal-like form occur, prefiguring both wheel and rose windows. In Germany, Worms Cathedral, has windows in the pedimental ends of its nave and gables.
The apsidal western end has a wheel window with smaller oculi in each face. The Church of the Apostles, Cologne has an array of both ocular and lobed windows forming decorative features in the gables and beneath the Rhenish helm spire, the octagonal dome has a ring of oculi with two in each of the curved faces. Oculi were used in the drums supporting domes and as upper lights in octagonal baptisteries such as that at Cremona. Romanesque facades with oculi include San Miniato al Monte, Florence, 11th century, San Michele, Pavia, c. As the windows increased in size in the Romanesque period, wheel windows became a feature of which there are fine examples at San Zeno Maggiore, Verona
Trefoil
Trefoil is a graphic form composed of the outline of three overlapping rings used in architecture and Christian symbolism. The term is applied to other symbols of three-fold shape. One of the earliest examples is in the tracery at Winchester. The fourfold version of an architectural trefoil is a quatrefoil, two forms of this are shown below, A dove, symbolic of the Holy Spirit, is sometimes depicted within the outlined form of the trefoil combined with a triangle. In architecture and archaeology, trefoil describes a layout or floorplan consisting of three apses in clover-leaf shape, as for example in the Megalithic temples of Malta, particularly in church architecture, such a layout may be called a triconchos. The heraldic trefoil is a stylized clover and it should not be confused with the figure named in French heraldry tiercefeuille, which is a stylized flower with three petals. It differs from the heraldic trefoil in being not slipped and it could be translated as threefoil. Symmetrical Trefoils are particularly popular as warning and informational symbols, easily stenciled symbols are favored.
While the green trefoil is considered by many to be the symbol of Ireland, shamrocks generally do not appear on Irish coins or postage stamps. A trefoil is part of the logo for Adidas Originals, a trefoil formation is a cross-sectional arrangement of electrical cables that minimises electrodynamic forces during fault conditions. Also, the field of each phase conductor in a 3-phase system is negated when the other two phase conductors are nearby to form a trefoil. Fleur-de-Lys Foil Trefoil domain Trefoil arch Trefoil knot Torus knot Quatrefoil Explanation of Christian symbolism of Trefoil
Window
A window is an opening in a wall, roof or vehicle that allows the passage of light and, if not closed or sealed and sound by using sheet glass. Modern windows are glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent material. Windows are held in place by frames, many glazed windows may be opened, to allow ventilation, or closed, to exclude inclement weather. Windows often have a latch or similar mechanism to lock the window shut, the Romans were the first known to use glass for windows, a technology likely first produced in Roman Egypt, in Alexandria ca.100 AD. Paper windows were economical and widely used in ancient China, Korea, in England, glass became common in the windows of ordinary homes only in the early 17th century whereas windows made up of panes of flattened animal horn were used as early as the 14th century. In the 19th century American west, greased paper windows came to be used by itinerant groups, modern-style floor-to-ceiling windows became possible only after the industrial plate glass making processes were perfected.
The English language-word window originates from the Old Norse vindauga, from vindr – wind and auga – eye, the Danish word is pronounced fairly similarly to window. Window is first recorded in the early 13th century, and originally referred to a hole in a roof. Window replaced the Old English eagþyrl, which literally means eye-hole, many Germanic languages however adopted the Latin word fenestra to describe a window with glass, such as standard Swedish fönster, or German Fenster. The use of window in English is probably because of the Scandinavian influence on the English language by means of loanwords during the Viking Age, in English the word fenester was used as a parallel until the mid-18th century. Fenestration is still used to describe the arrangement of windows within a façade, as well as defenestration, in the 13th century, the earliest windows were unglazed openings cut in a roof to admit light during the day. Later, windows were covered with animal hide, cloth, or wood, shutters that could be opened and closed came next.
Over time, windows were built that both protected the inhabitants from the elements and transmitted light, using small pieces of translucent material set in frameworks of wood. In the Far East, paper was used to fill windows, the Romans were the first known to use glass for windows, a technology likely first produced in Roman Egypt. It would be over a millennium before a window glass became transparent enough to see through clearly, over the centuries techniques were developed to shear through one side of a blown glass cylinder and produce thinner rectangular window panes from the same amount of glass material. This gave rise to tall narrow windows, usually separated by a vertical support called a mullion, mullioned glass windows were the windows of choice among European well-to-do, whereas paper windows were economical and widely used in ancient China and Japan. In England, glass became common in the windows of homes only in the early 17th century whereas windows made up of panes of flattened animal horn were used as early as the 14th century.
Modern-style floor-to-ceiling windows became possible only after the plate glass making processes were perfected
Wells Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of Saint Andrew, commonly known as Wells Cathedral, is an Anglican cathedral in Wells, Somerset. The cathedral, dedicated to St Andrew the Apostle, is the seat of the Bishop of Bath and it is the mother church of the diocese and contains the bishops throne. It was built between 1175 and 1490, replacing a church built on the same site in 705. It is moderately sized among the cathedrals of England, between those of massive proportion such as Lincoln and York and the smaller cathedrals in Oxford. With its broad west front and large central tower, it is the dominant feature of its cathedral city. Wells has been described as one of the most beautiful. The cathedrals architecture presents a whole which is entirely Gothic and mostly in the Early English style of the late 12th. In this respect Wells differs from most other English medieval cathedrals, work commenced in about 1175 at the east end with the building of the choir. The historian John Harvey considers it to be the first truly Gothic structure in Europe, the stonework of its pointed arcades and fluted piers is enriched by the complexity of pronounced mouldings and the vitality of its carved capitals in a foliate style known as stiff leaf.
Its exterior has an Early English façade displaying more than 300 sculpted figures, the east end retains much ancient stained glass, which is rare in England. The cathedral is a Grade I listed building, the earliest remains of a building on the site are of a late-Roman mausoleum, identified during excavations in 1980. An abbey church was built in Wells in 705 by Aldhelm and it was dedicated to Saint Andrew and stood at the site of the cathedrals cloisters, where some excavated remains can be seen. The font in the south transept is from this church and is the oldest part of the present building. In 766 Cynewulf, King of Wessex, signed a charter endowing the church with eleven hides of land, in 909 the seat of the diocese was moved from Sherborne to Wells. The first Bishop of Wells was Athelm, who crowned King Æthelstan and his nephew Dunstan both became Archbishops of Canterbury. During this period a choir of boys was established to sing the liturgy, Wells Cathedral School, which was established to educate these choirboys, dates its foundation to this point.
There is, some controversy over this, following the Norman Conquest, Bishop John de Villula moved the seat of the bishop from Wells to Bath in 1090. The church at Wells, no longer a cathedral, had a college of secular clergy, the cathedral is thought to have been conceived and commenced in about 1175 by Bishop Reginald Fitz Jocelin, who died in 1191
Chapter house
A chapter house or chapterhouse is a building or room that is part of a cathedral, monastery or collegiate church in which larger meetings are held. When attached to a cathedral, the cathedral chapter meets there, in monasteries, the whole community often met there on a daily basis for readings and to hear the abbot or senior monks talk. When attached to a church, the dean, prebendaries. The rooms may be used for meetings of various sorts, in medieval times monarchs on tour in their territory would often take them over for their meetings. Synods, ecclesiastical courts and similar meetings often took place in chapter houses, when part of a monastery, the chapter house is generally located on the eastern wing of the cloister, which is next to the church. Since many cathedrals in England were originally monastic foundations, this is a common arrangement there also, elsewhere it may be a separate building. The chapter house comprises a space, in order to hold all the monks of the monastery. Typically there is seating around, often built into, all the walls of the room, often in stone, the seats for the senior members are often larger than the others, and may be raised on a dais.
Usually there is one doorway, and though the room is well-lit where the location allows. Many larger chapter houses are designed with vestibules for attendants and those waiting to be called, there is often a fireplace, and altars are found in some examples, sometimes added later. Many medieval rooms use stone vaulting supported by columns in the centre of the space, the shape of the room is usually designed to allow good audibility for speakers from all parts of the room. It may be rectangular, tending towards the square, but octagonal and other near-circular plans are an English speciality, like those at Wells Cathedral, Lichfield Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and Lacock Abbey have a single central column, from which the high roof vaulting spreads. York Minster has a roof and no central column. Many have elaborate benched arcades round the wall, with crocketed frames for the seats, in some Romanesque or Gothic monasteries, the entrance to the chapter house has an elaborate façade with a door surrounded by highly decorated archivolts, especially when it is a separate building.
Many chapterhouses feature elaborate carving or frescos, which include some masterpieces of religious art, in modern settings, the chapterhouse may simply be or use an ordinary office boardroom or meeting room. When it is a building, this often consists of just the single main room. The first meeting place in the morning, after the church services of Prime or Terce. The monks might sit along the length of the walls in strict age-order, but the chapter house is mentioned in the proceedings of the Council of Aachen in 816
Glass
Glass is a non-crystalline amorphous solid that is often transparent and has widespread practical and decorative usage in, for example, window panes and optoelectronics. The most familiar, and historically the oldest, types of glass are silicate glasses based on the chemical compound silica, the primary constituent of sand. The term glass, in usage, is often used to refer only to this type of material. Many applications of silicate glasses derive from their optical transparency, giving rise to their use as window panes. Glass can be coloured by adding metallic salts, and can be painted and printed with vitreous enamels and these qualities have led to the extensive use of glass in the manufacture of art objects and in particular, stained glass windows. Although brittle, silicate glass is extremely durable, and many examples of glass fragments exist from early glass-making cultures, because glass can be formed or moulded into any shape, it has been traditionally used for vessels, vases, bottles and drinking glasses.
In its most solid forms it has used for paperweights, marbles. Some objects historically were so commonly made of glass that they are simply called by the name of the material, such as drinking glasses. Porcelains and many polymer thermoplastics familiar from everyday use are glasses and these sorts of glasses can be made of quite different kinds of materials than silica, metallic alloys, ionic melts, aqueous solutions, molecular liquids, and polymers. For many applications, like glass bottles or eyewear, polymer glasses are a lighter alternative than traditional glass, silica is a common fundamental constituent of glass. In nature, vitrification of quartz occurs when lightning strikes sand, forming hollow, fused quartz is a glass made from chemically-pure SiO2. It has excellent resistance to shock, being able to survive immersion in water while red hot. However, its high melting-temperature and viscosity make it difficult to work with, other substances are added to simplify processing. One is sodium carbonate, which lowers the transition temperature.
The soda makes the glass water-soluble, which is undesirable, so lime, some magnesium oxide. The resulting glass contains about 70 to 74% silica by weight and is called a soda-lime glass, soda-lime glasses account for about 90% of manufactured glass. Most common glass contains other ingredients to change its properties, lead glass or flint glass is more brilliant because the increased refractive index causes noticeably more specular reflection and increased optical dispersion. Adding barium increases the refractive index, iron can be incorporated into glass to absorb infrared energy, for example in heat absorbing filters for movie projectors, while cerium oxide can be used for glass that absorbs UV wavelengths
Openwork
Such techniques have been very widely used in a great number of cultures. Equally techniques such as casting using moulds create the design in a single stage. Though much openwork relies for its effect on the viewer seeing right through the object, techniques or styles that normally use openwork include all the family of lace and cutwork types in textiles, including broderie anglaise and many others. Fretwork in wood is used for types of objects. There has always been great use of openwork in jewellery, not least to save on expensive materials, for example, opus interrasile is a type of decoration used in Ancient Roman and Byzantine jewellery, piercing thin strips of gold with punches. Other techniques used casting with moulds, or built up the design with wire or small strips of metal. Essentially flat objects are straightforward to cast using moulds of clay or other materials, on a larger scale in metal, wrought iron and cast iron decoration more often than not has involved openwork. Scythian metalwork, which was worn on the person, or at least carried about by wagon.
Sukashibori is the Japanese term covering a number of openwork techniques, there was little use of it in European ceramics before the 18th century, when designs, mostly using lattice panels, were popular in rococo ceramic baskets, and in English silver trays. Openwork sections can be either by cutting into a conventional solid body before firing, or by building up using strips of clay. In glass openwork is rather common, but the spectacular Ancient Roman cage cups use it for a decorative outer layer. For exterior screens openwork designs allow looking out, but not looking in, for gates and other types of screens, security is required, but visibility may be wanted. In architecture openwork takes many forms, including tracery and parapets, a variety of screen types especially common in the Islamic world include stone jali and equivalents in wood such as mashrabiya. Belfries and bell-towers normally include open or semi-open elements to allow the sound to be heard at distance, in Gothic architecture some entire spires are openwork.
The of the two spires on the West Front of Chartres Cathedral is very largely openwork, as well as stone and wood the range of materials includes brick, which may be used for windows, normally unglazed, and screens. Constructions such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris are described as openwork, here an openwork structure was crucial for the engineering, reducing not only weight but wind resistance. The 18 openwork spires of Antoni Gaudis Sagrada Família in Barcelona represent an outgrowth of this Gothic tendency and begun by Gaudi in 1884, they remained incomplete into the 21st century
Transept
A transept is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the edifice. In churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a building within the Romanesque. Each half of a transept is known as a semitransept, the transept of a church separates the nave from the sanctuary, choir, presbytery or chancel. The transepts cross the nave at the crossing, which belongs equally to the main nave axis, upon its four piers, the crossing may support a spire, a central tower or a crossing dome. Since the altar is located at the east end of a church. The north and south end walls often hold decorated windows of stained glass, such as rose windows, the basilicas and the church and cathedral planning that descended from them were built without transepts, sometimes the transepts were reduced to matched chapels. More often, the transepts extended well beyond the sides of the rest of the building, forming the shape of a cross and this design is called a Latin cross ground plan, and these extensions are known as the arms of the transept.
A Greek cross ground plan, with all four extensions the same length, when churches have only one transept, as at Pershore Abbey, there is generally a historical disaster, war or funding problem, to explain the anomaly. At Beauvais only the chevet and transepts stand, the nave of the cathedral was never completed after a collapse of the daring high vaulting in 1284. At St. Vitus Cathedral, only the choir, in a metro station or similar construction, a transept is a space over the platforms and tracks of a station with side platforms, containing the bridge between the platforms. Placing the bridge in a rather than an enclosed tunnel allows passengers to see the platforms. Aisle Apse Cathedral architecture Cathedral diagram Glossary of the Catholic Church Transom
Armature (sculpture)
In sculpture, an armature is a framework around which the sculpture is built. This framework provides structure and stability, especially when a material such as wax. When sculpting the human figure, the armature is analogous to the skeleton and has essentially the same purpose. An armature is often made of heavy, dark aluminium wire which is stiff, the wire is affixed to a base which is usually made of wood. The artist begins fleshing out the sculpture by adding wax or clay over the wire, depending on the material and technique, the armature may be left buried within the sculpture but, if the sculpture is to be hollowed out for firing, it must1 be removed. Large representational sculptures meant for display are typically fashioned of bronze or other types of sheet metal. For example, a large armature designed by Gustave Eiffel holds up the Statue of Liberty, the armature can be seen from below by visitors to the base of the sculptures interior. An armature used in animation is an articulated metal, wire or even wooden figure covered with material to build the character.
Lost wax Skeletal animation ^1 For this reason, much work for firing begins with a simple paper and/or wood armature. These materials can be removed relatively easily from finished piece while it is still fairly plastic, any paper left behind will burn out in the kiln. A metal armature would expand in the heat and burst the piece
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). 