Page:Character of Renaissance Architecture.djvu/257

Rh pediment of broken outline, ornamented with a tablet and death's-head, and flanked by finials of nondescript design. This portal is again flanked by colossal pilasters, rising from pedestals almost as high as the arch impost, and reaching to the cornice at the level of the aisle roof. Against each of these pilasters a short, fluted column, with a capital of pseudo-composite form, rises from a pedestal engaged with the pilaster pedestal. The portion of the pilaster that rises above this column is treated like a niche, with a base resting on the capital of the column, and with an ornamental canopy above that rises through the capital of the pilaster.

It is unnecessary to extend further these tiresome descriptions. The foregoing examples are enough to show how irrational was the use made of neo-classic details in the church architecture of the French Renaissance, and how they were engrafted on a Gothic structural scheme. It was in this manner that the French architects of the time sought to "reform the Gothic and bastard styles."