Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/955

 VILLAS IN VARIOUS STYLES. 931 fig. 1620, as a centre. In addition to the ordinary shape of windows, the builders of this period now adopted various forms of circular, Catherine wheel, or rose window : of such, fig. 1 620 is properly an example ; as is also that composition of which fig. 1621 shows a fourth part. Fig. 1622 is another variety of the same, sketched in outline, without its tracery. Triangular lights were also among the results of the exuberajit fancy and taste of the day. Fig. 1 623 is copied from one out of many examples of these. Of the composition of windows belonging to the period now under notice, it may be remarked that the earlier works exhibit a great profusion of that kind of design which is founded upon geometrical diagrams ; in which the prevailing outlines are either curvilinear, as in figs. 1619, 1620, and 1623 ; or angular, as in fig. 1622. As, however, the resources of regular geometrical figures became exhausted, the artists of the time began to indulge in the use of compound curves, as in fig. 1621 ; and at length to design many of their window heads on such principles as those explained by fig. 1624, in which a disposition of parts takes place similar to that of leaves upon a stem. Besides the deco- rations of windows (the composition of which includes the elements of all the principal features of the style), those of doors became, during this period, much more elaborate and varied. A very common form of finish for the door head was that of the pyramidal label, or hood moulding (see outline, fig. 1625), which was enriched with crockets (such ornaments of foliage as those on the pinnacle top, fig. 1626), and sustained at the springing line by busts, masks, or knots ; the space between the lines of the arch and those of the label being filled with compartments of tracery, &c. But- tresses also assumed a more decorative character, being frequently gi'aduated, or diminished in their projection upwards, bj' the use of little gables, as shown in fig. 1627, which were often finished with crockets, &c. Pinnacles, too, as the terminations to buttresses, began now to exhibit the enriched aspect described by fig. 1626, springing from gables, and dis- playing much elegance and variety in their crockets and finials (the finial being that part of fig. 162G cut off by the band of moulding at a). Embattled and perforated parapets afforded an elegant decoration to works of this period ; and, without entering into a more 1624 1625