The great Palladian chancel windows of Renaissance churches were often
much larger. Usually they were stationary, especially the central
section, although sometimes, as in Christ's Church, the two side windows
had sliding sashes. The central section of this window has ninety-six
rectangular panes with twenty-four keystone-shaped and two quarter-round
panes forming the round top. The narrow side windows have fifteen-paned
upper and twelve-paned lower sashes. The treatment of this chancel end
with heavy brick piers and pilasters, stone entablature, projecting
brick spandrels and the bust of George II, King of England, between
them, above the arch of the Palladian window, is most interesting.
The chancel window of St. Peter's Protestant Episcopal Church has one
hundred and eight rectangular panes in its central section with
twenty-eight keystone-shaped panes and a semicircular pane forming the
round top. Each side of this end of the church, with four smaller
round-headed windows ranged about the chancel window and a circular
window in the pediment above, is a superb example of symmetrical
arrangement.
Although large and more ornate, the Palladian window above the entrance
to Independence Hall on the Independence Square side is more like that
found in domestic architecture. All three of its lower sashes are
sliding. The central window consists of a twenty-four-paned lower sash
and an upper sash with twenty-one ornamental-shaped panes forming the
round top above twenty-four rectangular panes. The narrow side windows
have six-paned upper and twelve-paned lower sashes. Owing to its good
proportion, the chaste simplicity of the detail and the pleasing
combination of brick pilasters with wood trim, this has been referred to
by architects as the best Palladian window in America. The use of such a
window in the Ionic order above a Doric doorway adds another to the many
notable instances of free use of the orders by Colonial builders.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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