Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 4.djvu/33



is highly probable that much valuable information may still remain unnoticed amongst ancient records, such more especially as the fabric rolls preserved with the muniments of cathedral or collegiate foundations, which would throw a new and important light on the technical practices of medieval architects, the rules and terms of art, or the mechanical contrivances by which their operations were facilitated. Much may be anticipated from the intelligent research which in recent times has been bestowed upon these subjects, more particularly in Germany. A valuable specimen of the evidences serving to illustrate the practice and rules of design, observed by architects in the middle ages, has recently been brought forward in that country, to which, as connected with the subject of Mr. Rickman's enquiries in the preceding paper, we would take this occasion to call the attention of our readers. It is a treatise on the construction of "Fialen," or pinnacles, written, about the year 1486, by Mathias Roriczer, an architect of Ratisbon, in the peculiar local dialect familiar to him, and recently reprinted in its original obsolete language, as also in the form of a modernized version.

This little essay is extremely interesting and valuable, from the period at which it was written and published, whilst Gothic Architecture was still flourishing, proving as it does the strictly geometrical principles on which the architects of that period constructed their working drawings; and as the traditions of the two previous centuries could scarcely then have been lost, we may fairly presume that the freemasons of an earlier age were equally well acquainted with geometry, both in theory and practice. So precise and minute are the instructions here given, from the first drawing of the simple square block through every stage. of the process, till we have