Account of a Tour in Normandy, Volume 2Turner, Dawson
History
Account of a Tour in Normandy, Volume 2
Turner, Dawson
Architecture -- France -- Normandy; Normandy (France) -- Antiquities; Normandy (France) -- Description and travel
divisions rising into lofty towers, capped with octagon spires. The
towers are much ornamented: three tiers of semi-circular arches surround
the upper divisions; the arches of the first tier have no mouldings or
pillars; the upper vary in pattern, and are enriched with pillars and
bands, and some are pierced into windows.--Twelve pinnacles equally full
of arches, some pointed, others semi-circular, surround each spire.
Similar pinnacles rise from the ends of the transepts and the
choir.--The central tower, which is short and terminates in a conical
roof, was ruined by the Huguenots, who undermined it, thinking that its
fall would destroy the whole building. Fortunately, however, it only
damaged a portion of the eastern end; the reparations done to which have
occasioned a discrepancy of style, that is injurious to the general
effect. But the choir and apsis were previously of a different æra from
the rest of the edifice. They were raised by the Abbot Simon de
Trevieres, in the beginning of the fourteenth century.--I am greatly
mistaken, if a real Norman church ever extended farther eastward than
the choir.
The building is now undergoing a thorough repair, at the expence of the
town. No other revenues, at present, belong to it, except the _sous_
which are paid for chairs during mass.
A friend, who is travelling through Normandy, describes the interior in
the following manner; and, as I agree with him in his ideas, I shall
borrow his description:--"Without doubt, the architect was conversant
with Roman buildings, though he has Normanized their features, and
adopted the lines of the basilica to a _barbaric_ temple. The Coliseum
furnished the elevation of the nave;--semi-circular arches surmounted by
another tier of equal span, and springing at nearly an equal height from
the basis of the supporting pillars. The architraves connecting the
lower rows of pillars are distinctly enounced. The arches which rise
from them have plain bold mouldings. The piers between each arch are of
considerable width. In the centre of each pier is a column, which
ascends as usual to the vault. These columns are alternately simple and
compound. The latter are square pilasters, each fronted by a
cylindrical column, which of course projects farther into the nave than
the simple columns; and thus the nave is divided into bays. This system
is imitated in the gothic cathedral, at Sens. The square pilaster ceases
at about four-fifths of its height: then two cylindrical pillars rise
from it, so that, from that point, the column becomes clustered. Angular
brackets, sculptured with knots, grotesque heads, and foliage, are
affixed to the base of these derivative pillars. A bold double-billeted
moulding is continued below the clerestory, whose windows adapt
themselves to the binary arrangement of the bays. A taller arch is
flanked by a smaller one on the right or the left side, as its situation
requires. These are supported by short massy pillars: an embattled
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