Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/117

Rh been constant in Romanesque design. Its high vault (plan, Fig. 49) is in five cells, whose ribs intersect upon the first transverse rib of the choir, and are abutted by the diagonal ribs of the first rectangular compartment. In order to effect the abutment this compartment is made tripartite—that is, its diagonal ribs, instead of each consisting of two branches abutting in the centre of the compartment, and thus, in plan,

FIG. 49.

following the diagonals of the rectangle, consist of but one branch which runs to the centre of the eastern transverse rib. These branches are abutted, however, by the first two ribs respectively of the apse compartment; and hence the two compartments together may be considered as forming one octopartite vault.

In elevation each bay of the apse is like a single bay of the straight part of the edifice, except that it is narrower and is on a curved plan; its vault cells also are substantially like the lateral cells of the rectangular compartments, except