Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/457

* DOOR. 393 DOORWAY. overlaid with plaques of f;olil or silver. The antique doors of the Pantheon are famous. From Roman times bronze seems to have been the fa- vorite material for deeorating doors, on a wooden DOOR OF TBE VlRGrif. NOTRE DAME, PARIS. frame. But they were also elaborately inlaid ixnder the Empire. The Byzantine method of making whole bronze doors inlaid with niello enamel and silver was probably a Roman survi- val. The doors of Saint Sophia (now at Saint Mark's, Venice), of Saint Paul's at Rome, of Sant' Angelo at Monte Gargano, and several others in South Italy, are examples of this technique. An- other method was of hammering out thin bronze plaques, which were nailed together; of this primitive type are the gates of San Zeno, Verona. But soon bronze easting was revived in France, Germany, and Italy, and used for doors, as at Hildesheim, Augsburg (cathedral). Pisa (cathe- dral), Ravello (cathedral), and Monreale. Each of these doors was a mass of figured compositions in relief. The climax of doors of cast bronze was reached between the beginning of the four- teenth and the close of the sixteenth century in a series extending from the gate of Andrea Pi- sano at the baptistery of Florence, through the (ihiberti gates, those of Luca della Robbia (Flor- ence cathedral), of Pollaiuolo (Saint Peter's), and finally those by Giovanni Bologna and his contemporaries at Loreto and elsewhere, which show the decadence of art. Meanwhile doors merely of wood remained popular, and Avere often richly carved, but the perishable nature of the material has not allowed many early examples to survive. The earliest are the early Christian doors at Santa Sabine, Rome, whose reliefs of the Old and New Testa- ment are among the finest works of the age. Those at the monasterj' of Grottaferata represent Byzantine art (eleventh century). It became the custom during the Gothic period to make the dec- oration of the wooden doors consist largely of the wrought-iron hinges, which were expanded into a maze of intricate ornamentation. The doors of XOtre iJame, Paris, dating from the thirteenth century, are the finest of their class. The Renaissance of the North, in Germany and France, reverted often to elaborately carved doors, which are among the most beautiful prod- ucts of wood-sculpture. Such were the doors of Beauvais Cathedral by .lean le Pot and those of .^aint Maelon at Rouen by .Jean (ioujon. Doors iua<le entirely of marble are very few and com- paratively modern. For illustration of bronze doors, see GlllBEUTl. DOORNBOOM, dorn'b6m (Acacia horrida). One of the most common trees of the arid and steppe regions of Africa. The name dooruboom {thorn-tree), given to it by the Dutch colonists, and the botanical specific name, are due to the numlier and sharpness of its spines. It seldom much exceeds 30 feet in height. In house car- pentry, its hard, tough timber is much used. See Acacia. DOORWAY (in art). The form of the door- way is determined by the architectural style of the building in which it is placed. It quickly took an important place in architectural history. In Egj'pt it was based on the principle of the lin- tel, surmounted l>y a strongly projecting cornice and highly developed decoration. Some Eg^'ptian doors are of monumental proportions, like that of the Temple of Edfu, 74 feet high, with a lintel and cornice 23 feet thick. The portals between the great pylons are usually very impressive. They vary comparatively little from the beginning to the end of the style, being always of stone and decorated with colored sculptures. In Babylonia and Assyria, the arched doorway preAailed of brick, often decorated with faience and flanked with protecting colossi ; those of the city and palace gates must have been as impressive and more brilliantly colored than the Egyptian. The Persians largely imitated the Egyptians in their scheme of doorways, as is shown in the' palaces of Persepolis and Susa. The primitive Greeks— Pelasgians, Ach.npans, etc. — used mainly the lin- teled doorway of huge, often unwrought, stone (e.g. Lion Gate, Mycenir). but they knew also the form of the true and false arch. The historic Greeks confined themselves to the lintel, and evolved a type even more closely followed than the Egyptian, of which the famous doorway of the Erechtheum is the most perfect example, and next to it those at Pricne and Eleusis. 'The lin- tel projected beyond the jambs, its moldings forming a sort of shoulder. The Roman door- ways usually preserved the lintel, and while lack- ing in delicate perception of proportion, often liad a superb efTect from size and magnificence, as at Baalbek and Palmyra. Sometimes the arched form was used, with CTin'ing entablature. These Roman doorwa.vs reached their perfection during the second century. The triumphal and memorial arches also furnished a type of arched portal that was copied in large eivil monuments. In the Early Christian and Byzantine styles door- ways were of comparatively small artistic impor-