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 question; and the frequency with which this superfluous detail was reproduced in the subsequent architecture of the Renaissance has given it wide acceptance in more recent times. Notwithstanding the intention of the designer to revive the ancient style, mediæval features are conspicuous in San Lorenzo, and something of the mediæval logic of structural adjustment occurs in some details. Not only is the dome over the crossing supported on pendentives, which, in their developed form, are mediæval features and thus foreign to classic Roman design, but the piers sustaining this dome are compound, and consist of members of different proportions adjusted in the organic mediæval manner. The members which take part in the support of the aisle arcades are necessarily short, while those which carry the great pendentive arches are lengthened to reach the higher level from which those arches spring. But all of these members have the form of fluted Corinthian pilasters (Fig. 16). Thus were classic members used in ways that are foreign to classic principles, and their proportions altered with as much disregard for the rules of Vitruvius as the mediæval builders had shown.

16.—Crossing pier of San Lorenzo.

The church of Santo Spirito, built after the architect's death, closely resembles San Lorenzo in its architectural character, though it is larger in scale. The entablature blocks occur in the arcades here also, but instead of a dome over the crossing as in San Lorenzo, there is a circular celled vault on converging ribs, like the vault of the Pazzi chapel. The interior is spacious and finely proportioned, but it presents no features that afford further illustration of the progress of neo-classic design.

The retrospective movement was carried further by the