E In the Church at St. Ouen at Rouen, we have a very different arrangement, and by no means so solid a form. Winchester Cathedral. - One division of the nave has been selected to show the peculiar style practised at the latter end of the fourteenth century, and also the skill exhibited in The plan, changing the form of a Saxon edifice, and giving it its present character. fig. 1303. is that of the pillar, as well as of the mouldings and walls of the tri- When William of Wykeham effected the changes If we examine the area of one severy On the section, shown at fig. 1304., the west, and the clear width between the plinths about two-thirds of that dimension, and this is the case with many examples. The Section through the Nave of Winchester Cathedral is highly deserving of our attention: the clear width of the side aisles is 13 feet 1 inch, and that of the nave 32 feet 5 inches; the clear width of the building between the outer walls is 80 feet, the thickness of the walls 16 feet 10 inches, the projection of the buttress 6 feet, and the thickness of the piers 10 feet 8 inches, making for the entire width from north to south 102 feet 8 inches. The width between the walls forms the base of an equilateral triangle, the apex of which determines the height of the vaulting of the nave; a semicircle struck upon this base, with a radius of 52 feet, determines the intrados of the arches of the flying buttresses on each side, which are admirably placed to resist the thrust opposed to them. On this section we have endeavoured to apply the principles of Cesare Cesariano, before referred to, to the measurement of mass and void by a method far more simple than that usually adopted. By covering the design with equilateral triangles we see the number occupied by the solids, and can draw a comparison with those that cover the voids: to prevent confusion in the diagram a portion only of three of the triangles has been subdivided, to show with what facility the quantities of the entire figure might be measured, if the several large equilaterals were subdivided throughout in a similar manner. The band which extends from the face of the outer buttress to the centre of the section contains 36 small equilateral triangles, six of which cover the pier; consequently it occupies on the section one-sixth of that quantity; no further calculation is requisite to find the proportion it bears to the whole: in like manner the other parts of the section may be compared. Such was the use of equilateral triangles in the middle ages for ascertaining quantity. The two equilateral triangles which occupy the nave and a portion of the piers are comprised within the figure called a Vesica Piscis; if the horizontal line drawn at half the height, uniting the base of the upper and lower triangles, be taken as a radius, and its extremities as centres, it will be evident that parts of circles may be struck, comprising the two triangles within them. Euclid has shown that a perpendicular may be raised or let fall from a given line by a similar method, the space between the segments being called afterwards a nimbus; and there can be no doubt that from time immemorial all builders have used it: the bee adopts for its honied cell a figure composed of six equilateral triangles, and this is proved to be the most economical method of construction; the sides of each hexagon Are all common to two cells, and no space is lost by their junction. The nearer the boundary line of a figure approaches the circle, the more it will contain in proportion to it, but circles could not be placed above and under each other, or side by side, without interstices occurring, and the equilateral triangle, or a figure compounded of it, is the only form that will admit of it being so arranged. The interior and exterior division of the choir at Winchester exhibits two styles; the latter is a fine example of the decorated elegance to which architecture had arrived at the commencement of the sixteenth century. |