Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/577

 Bk. II. Ch. IX. FRENCH GOTHIC CATHEDRALS. 545 These defects, moreover, were considerably increased by the late period at whiih the greater part of the cathedral was built. The south transept was commenced only in 1500 ; the northern one thirty years later, and was only finished in 1537 ; but even tliis hardly gives V 1 I ,<is:^f wm 397. Doorway, South Transept, Beauvais. (From Chapuy.) the date of the details, for in 1555 the architects of the building, being seized with a desire of rivalling the dome of St. Peter's at Rome, which was then the object of universal admiration, undertook the construction of a spire on the intersection of the transepts, M'hich VOL. I. — 35