m

OF RIBBED VAULTS.

of architecture: “ Ye Grecian builders, Gothicscience is no more. Ye Gothic builders, this Chapelis alive.”

From the foregoing examination of pointed vaulting,having particular regard to the continued key-stoneand parts separating the opposing ribs, it will haveappeared evident that, had the tangent at the ver-tices been horizontal, that is, if the curves of thevaults had always been round-headed, the rib andpannel vaulting could not have been practised, norwould the anomaly of a barbarous age, surpassing allancient and modern architecture, have served tolessen an enthusiasm for the one, and excite doubtsof the success of the other.

The elegance and practical benefits of this latterkind of vaulting had not escaped the observation ofSir Christopher Wren . In the Parentalia is a frag-ment of a paper on vaulting, with a view to justifyhis adoption of the eastern mode of vaulting byhemispheres, in preference to the foregoing: theobject of the paper, its incomplete state, the unfairadmission required in the comparison, leave somedoubts in the reader, whether Sir Christopher Wren really felt convinced of the superiority of the easternway of vaulting by hemispheres, which he endeavoursto enforce, and has adopted in St. Paul’s Cathedral .

A reference to the plan of the Cathedral of St.Paul’s will show the contrivance by which the but-tresses to the vaultings of the nave are concealed;and the section * through the nave will make it mani-fest, that the pointed is the most proper kind of vaultfor a Cathedral, especially in the ailes. Who that

* See the 18th vol. of the Archaeologia, page 336'.