Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/205

Rh or square, as at Limburg and Cologne. They present no peculiarities of structure that call for particular remark.

German west towers of pointed design differ in no important structural points from French towers, except that the earlier examples, like those of St. Elizabeth, retain larger wall spaces, and are hence more largely Romanesque.

The characteristic German spire was of very late development. It is not a roof at all, but is a mere skeleton of fanciful open stonework, as at Strasburg, Freiburg, and Cologne. Earlier stone spires in Germany are often, if not always, ill adjusted to the towers from which they rise, as at Breslau (Fig. 99), where the base is square, while the section becomes octagonal at a short distance above the base, the transition being managed as in a chamfer. Moreover, the square of the spire is too small for that of the tower, and the cornice and parapet which surmount the tower break that continuity which is essential to Gothic structure and expression. Still more unsatisfactory is the adjustment of the spires of St. Elizabeth of Marburg (Fig. 100), where the square tower is surmounted by a truncated octagonal pyramid with unequal sides, crowned by a parapet within which—its base not nearly covering the area on which it rests—rises an octagonal spire, whose sides are all set obliquely to the sides of the substructure. The pinnacles on the angles of the tower do not agree in form with the buttresses which they surmount, and the whole arrangement is thus conspicuous for abrupt transitions which are objectionable, both from a structural and from an artistic point of view.

During the twelfth century Gothic architecture had no marked influence upon Italy. The Church of S. Andrea of Vercelli, which is said to have been begun in 1219, gives evidence, in its Gothic vaulting system, of transalpine influence; but it is an exceptional instance, and it was not before the middle of the thirteenth century that Italy began really to yield, in some measure, to the taste for pointed design which had become so general in the north of Europe. The monastic orders in Italy continued to take a prominent part in building for a much longer time than