Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/98

Rh and octagonal columns with engaged round shafts. The main vaulting column has no capital, but is simply banded by the abacus moulding, as in the westernmost pier of Paris. The great abacus is in form like that of St. Leu, except that over the main vaulting shaft it assumes the curve of the band just mentioned. Five vaulting shafts, instead of three, as at St. Leu, rise from this abacus, the shaft of the longitudinal rib descending with the rest to this level. These shafts are in three magnitudes corresponding with the magnitudes of ribs, which they respectively carry. The great compound pier capitals are admirably proportioned; and the arrangements and proportions throughout—those of the vaults, the piers, the ground-story arcade, the triforium, and the clerestory make up a whole which is perhaps the most harmonious that had been devised up to its date, and one that was hardly ever surpassed, notwithstanding its comparatively massive construction.

In the Cathedral of Reims, the lower portions of which, with exception of the westernmost bays, are contemporaneous with Chartres,  the structural system is again substantially the same, though the proportions and the general style of the details differ considerably. The narrow arches of the vaults are stilted in the same manner, the vaulting shafts vary functionally in magnitude, and they all descend to the capitals of the lower piers, which piers are of the type of Paris, St. Leu, and Chartres. The great compound capitals are, however, not so well composed as those of Chartres, since the smaller members are of equal height with the central ones. As in Paris and Chartres, the main vaulting shaft has no capital, though it has much the appearance of possessing one in consequence of the carved ornament with which it is banded.

We now come to the building in which the greatest perfections of the Gothic system are realised—the nave of the Cathedral of Amiens, which was begun in the year 1220. Not only is this nave the grandest in scale of any in France—being in height forty-two metres from the pavement to the crown of the vault, and in width nearly fifteen metres from centre to centre of its piers, but its design may justly be considered as the crowning glory of Gothic art, and the