Identifier: historyofarchit02cumm (find matches)
Title: A history of architecture in Italy from the time of Constantine to the dawn of the renaissance
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Cummings, Charles Amos, 1833-1905
Subjects: Architecture
Publisher: Boston, New York, Houghton Mifflin and company
Contributing Library: PIMS - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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ches con-tinuing the line of the nave arcades, into three oblong bays, beyondwhich are three rectangular bays interposed between the transeptand the apses, connected transversely by pointed arches, and formingas at Palermo a sort of bema, extending quite across the church.(See Frontispiece.) From its three bays open the three apsidal trib-unes, that in the centre preceded by still another narrow rectangularbay. This arrangement, by which the length from the triumphalarch to the extremity of the central apse is very nearly equal to thelength of the nave, taken in connection with the unusual heightto which the choir and the central apse are carried above the roof ofthe nave and transept (the central apse is eighty-five feet high tothe crown of its vault), gives to the eastern portion of the churchan extraordinary importance compared with the western portion.There is no lantern, and none seems to have been intended. Thereis no characteristic treatment of the crossing, which, like all the
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Fig. 309. Palermo. Chiesa dei Vespri. 106 ARCHITPXTURE IN ITALY other parts of the church except the apses, is covered by an openwooden roof of low pitch, brilliantly decorated with gold and color.The roof of the crossing ends in a low gable to the east and west,and below it on three sides are small windows above the roofs ofnave and transepts. The plan of the church still includes the western porch of threearches between square angle towers, but the great atrium with itsenclosing arcades was removed in 1569 by Cardinal AlexanderFarnese. A portion of its columns were used in building an arcadeon the north flank of the church, connecting the northern tower ofthe facade with the projecting transept. Various other mutilationsand a century or two of neglect brought this noble church, at thebeginning of the nineteenth century, to a somewhat ruinous condi-tion, which was further increased by thebreaking out of a fire in 1811, which de-stroyed the roofs of the choir and its sidechapels and m

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