Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/196

Rh also are pointed, and the piers are square, with edge shafts answering in form to the moulding of the archivolt. The triforium space is a vast surface of plain wall without openings, and there is no string-course to mark the division between the triforium and the clerestory. Externally the clerestory has neither buttresses nor pilaster strips, and the windows of both aisles and clerestory are small, plain, and round arched. In plan this church, also, retains features that are almost peculiar to the German-Romanesque, namely, an apse at each end, so that the main entrance is at the side.

In the Cathedral of Magdeburg, begun in 1212, the pointed arch replaces the round arch throughout. This building has been considered as the first German imitation of the Gothic of France; but its likeness to French design is rather apparent than real, though its apse, in plan and elevation, bears some marked points of resemblance to the French type. The vaults of the nave are constructed on Gothic principles so far as concerns their rib systems; they are quadripartite in oblong compartments, though the piers and the transverse ribs are on the alternate principle—that is to say, they are alternately massive and slender. The building would thus seem to have been originally intended for sexpartite vaulting, or perhaps rather—since the intermediate pier has no connection with the vaulting—for quadripartite vaults in square compartments, in accordance with the usual German form. The main pier has a