[Illustration: Fig. XVI.]
§ XV. 1. If the group at _d3_, Fig. XIV., be taken from under its
loading, and have its centre filled up, it will become a quatrefoil; and
it will represent, in their form of most frequent occurrence, a family
of shafts, whose plans are foiled figures, trefoils, quatrefoils,
cinquefoils, &c.; of which a trefoiled example, from the Frari at
Venice, is the third in Plate II., and a quatrefoil from Salisbury the
eighth. It is rare, however, to find in Gothic architecture shafts of
this family composed of a large number of foils, because multifoiled
shafts are seldom true grouped shafts, but are rather canaliculated
conditions of massy piers. The representatives of this family may be
considered as the quatrefoil on the Gothic side of the Alps; and the
Egyptian multifoiled shaft on the south, approximating to the general
type, _b_, Fig. XVI.
§ XVI. Exactly opposed to this great family is that of shafts which have
concave curves instead of convex on each of their sides; but these are
not, properly speaking, grouped shafts at all, and their proper place is
among decorated piers; only they must be named here in order to mark
their exact opposition to the foiled system. In their simplest form,
represented by _c_, Fig. XVI., they have no representatives in good
architecture, being evidently weak and meagre; but approximations to
them exist in late Gothic, as in the vile cathedral of Orleans, and in
modern cast-iron shafts. In their fully developed form they are the
Greek Doric, _a_, Fig. XVI., and occur in caprices of the Romanesque and
Italian Gothic: _d_, Fig. XVI., is from the Duomo of Monza.
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