Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/533

Rh GLOSSARY.] little from these last, except that they are often lighter in effect ; the buttresses, too, are set angularly ; the parapets are also fre quently embattled, or perforated in elegant designs, and these generally have pinnacles. The spires, also, now generally arise at once from the octagon, and are not broach spires ; those that are of this latter character have the haunchings much smaller. There is a fine example of a Decorated tower and spire at Ellington, in Huntingdonshire. Most Perpendicular towers are very line, particularly the great central towers, as at Canterbury and Gloucester. They are generally richly panelled throughout; the buttresses project boldly, and are sometimes set anglewise, and sometimes square, not close to each other, but showing a small portion of the angle of the tower where they otherwise would have intersected. The pinnacles are often richly canopied and the battlements panelled, and often perforated ; sometimes a pinnacle, and sometimes a canopied niche, is placed in the middle of the parapet. At Boston, and in several other places, there are fine lanterns at the tops of the towers. Taunton, Evesham, Louth, Magdalene College, Oxford, and very many other places, have very line Perpendicular towers. In the north of Italy, and in Rome, they are generally tall, square shafts in four to six stages, without buttresses, with couplets or triplets of semicircular windows in each stage, generally crenellated at top, and covered with a low pyramidal roof. The well-known hanging tower at Pisa is cylindrical, in five stones of arcaded colonnades. In Ireland there are in some of the churchyards very curious round towers. TRACERY, the ornamental filling in of the heads of windows, panels, circular windows, &c., which has given such characteristic beauty to the architecture of the 14th century. lake almost everything connected with mediaeval architecture, this elegant and some times fairy-like decoration seems to have sprung from the smallest beginnings. The circular-headed window of the Normans gra dually gave way to the narrow-pointed lancets of the Early English period, and as less light was afforded by the latter system than by the former, it was necessary to have a greater number of windows ; and it was found convenient to group them together in couplets, triplets, &c. When these couplets were assembled under one label, a sort of vacant space or spandril was formed over the lancets and under the label. To relieve this, the first attempts Were simply to perforate this flat spandril, first by a simple lozenge-shaped or circular opening, and afterwards by a quatrefoil. By piercing the whole of the vacant spaces in the window head, carrying mouldings round the tracery, and adding cusps to it, the formation of tracery was complete, and its earliest result was the beautiful geometrical work such as is found at AVest- minster Abbey. When this style had reached perfection the usual decline followed ; nnd the architects of the Decorated period designed tracery, beautiful in itself, but which wants the vigour of the geometrical, and appears more as if the stonework had been twisted than if it had been cut out of the solid. Never theless, however fanciful the design may bo, the whole element is really geometrical that is, it is formed of portions of circles, the centres of which fall on the intersections of certain geometrical figures. The great east window at Carlisle is composed of 86 distinct pieces of stone, and is struck from 263 centres ; and the glorious west window at York is probably produced from a still greater number. Probably as a reaction against the weakness of the Decorated, the flowing tracery gradually admitted upright straight lines into its element.. This change was perhaps made to afford, as it were, rectilineal frames to suit the glass painter, the foliages and medallions of the preceding styles having given way to single figures, standing on pedestals under rich canopies. Be this as it may, these have given a name to the style of the 15th and 16th centuries. The mullions then, as at King s College Chapel, at St John s, Oxford, and in several other examples, had more How, and fewer perpendicular lines, till at last plain, upright, and transverse bars took th^ir place, and held casement lights, which were at last superseded by our modern sash windows. On the Continent, the windows of the first period, or ogivale primitive, were very much like our own Early English. So in like manner those of the early part of the ogivale secondaire Avere very much like our own Geometrical Decorated. Later, however, in France and Germany, two styles prevailed, the Rayonnant and Flamboyant, the one having tracery assuming the character of stars or rays, and after this another coeval with our Perpendicular, resembling ilames of fire. TRACHELIUM (Gr. rpdx-nos, the neck). In Doric and Ionic columns there is generally a short space intervening between the hypotra- chelium and the mass of the capital, which may be called the trachelhim or neck. TKANSEFT (Med. Lat, crux, Fr. transept, Ital. crodata, Ger. Kreuz- gang), that portion of a church which passes transversely between the nave and choir at right angles, and so forms a cross on plan. TRANSOM (Fr. traverse, Ital. traversa, Ger. Querbalken), the horizontal construction which divides a window into heights or stages. Transoms are sometimes simple pieces of mullions n placed 475 transversely as cress-bars, and in later times are richly decorated with cuspings, &c. TRAYLE. See VIGNETTE. TREFOIL (Lat. trifolium), a cusping, the outline of which is derived from a three-leaved flower or leaf, as the quatrefoil and dnquefoil are from those with four and five. TRIFORIUM, the arcaded story between the lower range of piers and arches and the clerestory. The name has been supposed to be derived from tres and fores three doors or openings that being a frequent number of arches in each bay. Professor Willis, however, believed that the word is to be traced to a monkish latinisation of &quot;thoroughfare.&quot; TRIGLYPH (Gr. rpeis, three, and yv^, an incision or carving). The vertically channelled tablets of the Doric frieze are called triglyphs, because of the three angular channels in them, two perfect and one divided, the two chamfered angles or hemi- glyphs being reckoned as one. The square sunk spaces between the triglyphs on a frieze are called metopes. TUDOR FLOWER, or CRESTING, an ornament much used in the Tudor period on the tops of the cornices of screen work, &c., instead of battlements. It is a sort of stiff, flat, upright leaf standing&quot; on stems. TURRET (Fr. tourclh), a small tower, especially at the angles of larger buildings, sometimes overhanging and built on corbels, and sometimes rising from the ground. TYMPANUM (Gr. Tvpiravov), the triangular recessed space enclosed by the cornice which bounds a pediment. The Greeks often placed sculptures representing subjects connected with the pur poses of the edifice in the tympana of temples, as at the Parthenon and jEgina. UNDER-CROFT, a vaulted chamber under ground. VALURE, VAMURE. See ALURE. VANE (Fr. girouctte, Ital. landeruola, Ger. JFctterfahne), the weathercock on a steeple. They seem in early times to have been of various forms, as dragons, &c. ; but in the Tudor period, the favourite design was a beast or bird sitting on a slender pedestal, and carrying tm upright rod, on which a thin plate of metal is hung like a Hag, ornamented in various ways. VAULT (from Ital. voltato, turned over), an arched ceiling or roof. A vuult is, indeed, a laterally conjoined series of arches. The arch of a bridge is, strictly speaking, a vault. Intersecting vaults are said to be groined. (Soe GROINED VAULTING.) VAULTING SHAFT, a small column or series of clustered shafts, rising from above the capitals of the pillars of an arcade, and generally supported on a corbel, and thence rising and finishing with a capital, from which the various groin ribs spring. VERGE, the edge of the tiling projecting over the gable of a roof; that on the horizontal portion being called, caves. VERGE BOAI;P, often corrupted into 13arge Board, the board under the verge of gables, sometimes moulded, and often very richly carved, perforated, and cusped, and frequently having pendents and sometimes finials at the apex. VESICA PISCIS (Fr. arnande mystique), panels, windows, and other ornaments of the form of a species of oval with pointed end, but in reality struck from two centres, and forming part of two circles cutting each other. VESTRY. See SACRISTY. VIGNETTE, a running ornament, representing, as its name imports, a little vine, with branches, leaves, and grapes. It is common in the Tudor period, and runs or roves in a large hollow or case ment. It is also called Trayle. VOLUTE (Lat. volutum, from volvo, to roll up or over), the convolved or spiral ornament which forms the characteristic of the Ionic capital. The common English term is SCROLL, q.v. Volute, scroll, helix, and cauliculus, are used indifferently for the angular horns of the Corinthian capital. VOUSSOIR, a name in common use for the various wedge-shaped stones of an arch. WAGGON-CEILING, a boarded roof of the Tudor time, either of semicircular or polygonal section. It is boarded with thin oak, and ornamented with mouldings forming panels, and with loops at the intersections. (See PANEL.) WARD, a name for the inner courts of a fortified place. At Windsor Castle they are called the upper and lower wards. (See BAILEY, BASE COURT, ENCEINTE, &c.) WEATHERING, a slight fall on the top of cornices, window sills, &c., to throw off the rain. WICKET (Fr. guichct, Ital. portello), a small door opening in a larger. They are common in mediaeval doors, and were intended to admit single persons, and guard against sudden surprises. WIND BRACES, diagonal braces to tie the rafters of a roof together and prevent racking. In the better sort of mediaeval roofs they are arched, and run from the principal rafters to catch the purlins. ZOOPHORUS (Gr. (MOV, an animal, and &amp;lt;pfpu, to bear). This term is used in the same sense as frieze, and is so called because -that part of the entablature frequently bore sculptures representing various animals.