Editing Romanesque architecture (section)

==Characteristics==
The general impression given by Romanesque architecture, in both ecclesiastical and secular buildings, is one of massive solidity and strength. In contrast with both the preceding [[Roman architecture|Roman]] and later [[Gothic architecture]], in which the load-bearing structural members are, or appear to be, columns, pilasters and arches, Romanesque architecture, in common with [[Byzantine architecture]], relies upon its walls, or sections of walls called piers.<ref name=BF />

Romanesque architecture is often divided into two periods known as the "[[First Romanesque]]" style and the "Romanesque" style. The difference is chiefly a matter of the expertise with which the buildings were constructed. The First Romanesque employed rubble walls, smaller windows and unvaulted roofs. A greater refinement marks the Second Romanesque, along with increased use of the vault and dressed stone.

===Walls===
The walls of Romanesque buildings are often of massive thickness with few and comparatively small openings. They are often double shells, filled with rubble.

The building material differs greatly across Europe, depending upon the local stone and building traditions. In Italy, Poland, much of Germany and parts of the Netherlands, brick is generally used. Other areas saw extensive use of limestone, granite and flint. The building stone was often used in comparatively small and irregular pieces, bedded in thick mortar. Smooth [[ashlar]] masonry was not a distinguishing feature of the style (especially not in the earlier part of the period), but it did occur, chiefly where easily worked limestone was available.<ref name=RH>Rene Hyughe, ''Larousse Encyclopedia of Byzantine and Medieval Art''</ref>

===Buttresses===
Because of the massive nature of Romanesque walls, [[buttress]]es are not a highly significant feature, as they are in Gothic architecture. Romanesque buttresses are generally of flat square profile and do not project a great deal beyond the wall. In the case of aisled churches, barrel vaults, or half-barrel vaults over the aisles helped to buttress the nave, if it was vaulted.

In the cases where half-barrel vaults were used, they effectively became like [[flying buttress]]es. Often aisles extended through two storeys, rather than the one usual in Gothic architecture, so as to better support the weight of a vaulted nave. In the case of Durham Cathedral, flying buttresses have been employed, but are hidden inside the triforium gallery.<ref name=ACT/>

<gallery mode="packed" heights="170" widths="220" caption="Walls and buttresses">
File:Abaziasanvittorefrasassi.jpg|alt=A small church sits on a steep rise, surrounded by craggy mountains. It is basically square with three bulging projections and a castle-like tower.|The monastery of [[San Vittore alle Chiuse]], [[Genga, Italy|Genga]], Italy, of undressed stone, has a typically fortress-like appearance with small windows of early Romanesque.
File:Castle-rising-castle.JPG|alt=A large square castle keep of pinkish-grey stone, with a projecting entrance tower, has architectural details to its windows, mouldings and stonework.|[[Castle Rising Castle]], England, shows flat buttresses and reinforcing at the corners of the building typical in both castles and churches.
File:FranceNormandieCerisyLaForetAbbaye.jpg|alt= A tall church of grey stone with fine details and a crossing tower topped with a slate-covered spire rises out of rural countryside, where two mares are grazing.|[[Cerisy Abbey]], [[Normandy]], France, has a compact appearance with aisles rising through two storeys buttressing the vault.
File:StAlbansCathedral-PS01.JPG|alt=A long, low cathedral has a fine Norman brick crossing-tower rising in three stages of round-topped paired windows. The rest of the building is a conglomeration of styles in ancient brick, modern brick, ashlar and flint.|[[St Albans Cathedral]] England, demonstrates the typical alterations made to the fabric of many Romanesque buildings in different styles and materials 
</gallery>

===Arches and openings===
The arches used in Romanesque architecture are nearly always semicircular, for openings such as doors and windows, for [[vault (architecture)|vaults]] and for arcades. Wide doorways are usually surmounted by a semi-circular arch, except where a door with a [[Lintel (architecture)|lintel]] is set into a large arched recess and surmounted by a semi-circular "lunette" with decorative carving.<ref name=HG/> These doors sometimes have a carved central jamb.

Narrow doors and small windows might be surmounted by a solid stone lintel. Larger openings are nearly always arched. A characteristic feature of Romanesque architecture, both ecclesiastic and domestic, is the pairing of two arched windows or arcade openings, separated by a pillar or colonette and often set within a larger arch. Ocular windows are common in Italy, particularly in the façade gable and are also seen in Germany. Later Romanesque [[church architecture|churches]] may have wheel windows or [[rose window]]s with [[plate tracery]].

There are a very small number of buildings in the Romanesque style, such as [[Autun Cathedral]] in France and [[Monreale Cathedral]] in Sicily in which pointed arches have been used extensively, apparently for stylistic reasons. It is believed that in these cases there is a direct imitation of [[Islamic architecture]]. At other late Romanesque churches such as [[Durham Cathedral]], and [[Cefalù Cathedral]], the pointed arch was introduced as a structural device in ribbed vaulting. Its increasing application was fundamental to the development of [[Gothic architecture]].

===Arcades===
An arcade is a row of arches, supported on piers or columns. They occur in the interior of large churches, separating the nave from the aisles, and in large secular interiors spaces, such as the great hall of a castle, supporting the timbers of a roof or upper floor. Arcades also occur in cloisters and atriums, enclosing an open space.

Arcades can occur in storeys or stages. While the arcade of a cloister is typically of a single stage, the arcade that divides the nave and aisles in a church is typically of two stages, with a third stage of window openings known as the [[clerestory]] rising above them. Arcading on a large scale generally fulfils a structural purpose, but it is also used, generally on a smaller scale, as a decorative feature, both internally and externally where it is frequently "[[Blind arcade|blind arcading]]" with only a wall or a narrow passage behind it.

<gallery mode="packed" heights="240" caption="Openings and arcades">
File:Sant'Ambrogio (Milan) - Atrium.jpg|alt=The façade and forecourt of a redbrick church are composed of simple arcades. A brick tower rises up to one side.|The atrium and arcaded narthex of [[Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio|Sant'Ambrogio]], Milan, Italy, is a harmonious composition of similar arches.
File:Le Puy en Velay 03.jpg|alt=A highly ornamental church façade built in alternating courses of red and white stone.|The façade of [[Le Puy Cathedral|Notre Dame du Puy]], le Puy en Velay, France, has a more complex arrangement of diversified arches: Doors of varying widths, blind arcading, windows and open arcades.
File:Nivelles JPG00 (5) lighter sky.JPG|alt=A tall rectangular structure of grey stone and stern appearance with a jutting apse and a small octagonal belfry.|[[Collegiate Church of Saint Gertrude, Nivelles]], Belgium, uses fine shafts of Belgian marble to define alternating blind openings and windows. Upper windows are similarly separated into two openings by colonettes.
File:Detall de la Catedral de Worms sky adj.JPG|alt=The apsidal end of a tall red stone church framed by circular towers.|[[Worms Cathedral]], Germany, displays a great variety of openings and arcades including wheel and rose windows, many small simple windows, galleries and Lombard courses.
File:Abadia de Saint-Pierre de Moissac - Portalada sud.JPG|alt=A very large porch of yellowish stone, with a single enormous, slightly pointed archway, juts from the side of a building.|The south portal of the [[Abbey of Saint-Pierre, Moissac]], France, has a square door divided by an ornate doorpost, surmounted by a carved tympanum and set within a vast arched porch.
</gallery>

===Piers===
In Romanesque architecture, [[Pier (architecture)|pier]]s were often employed to support arches. They were built of masonry and square or rectangular in section, generally having a horizontal moulding representing a capital at the springing of the arch. Sometimes piers have vertical shafts attached to them, and may also have horizontal mouldings at the level of the base.

Although basically rectangular, piers can often be of highly complex form, with half-segments of large hollow-core columns on the inner surface supporting the arch, or a clustered group of smaller shafts leading into the mouldings of the arch.

Piers that occur at the intersection of two large arches, such as those under the crossing of the nave and transept, are commonly cruciform in shape, each arch having its own supporting rectangular pier at right angles to the other.<ref name=BF/><ref name=HG/>

===Columns===
Columns are an important structural feature of Romanesque architecture. Colonnettes and attached shafts are also used structurally and for decoration. Monolithic columns cut from a single piece of stone were frequently used in Italy, as they had been in Roman and Early Christian architecture.<ref name=BF/> They were also used, particularly in Germany, when they alternated between more massive piers.<ref name=Toman/> Arcades of columns cut from single pieces are also common in structures that do not bear massive weights of masonry, such as cloisters, where they are sometimes paired.<ref name=BF/>

====Salvaged columns====
In Italy, during this period, a great number of antique Roman columns were salvaged and reused in the interiors and on the porticos of churches. The most durable of these columns are of marble and have the stone horizontally bedded. The majority are vertically bedded and are sometimes of a variety of colours. They may have retained their original Roman capitals, generally of the [[Corinthian order|Corinthian]] or [[Composite order|Roman Composite]] style.<ref name=Toman/>
Some buildings, like [[Santa Maria in Cosmedin]] <small>(illustrated above)</small> and the atrium at [[Basilica di San Clemente|San Clemente]] in Rome, may have an odd assortment of columns in which large capitals are placed on short columns and small capitals are placed on taller columns to even the height. Architectural compromises of this type are seen where materials have been salvaged from a number of buildings. Salvaged columns were also used to a lesser extent in France.

====Drum columns====
In most parts of Europe, Romanesque columns were massive, as they supported thick upper walls with small windows, and sometimes heavy vaults. The most common method of construction was to build them out of stone cylinders called drums, as in the crypt at [[Speyer Cathedral]].<ref name=Toman/><ref>This technique was also used in the Classical world, notably at the [[Parthenon]].</ref>

====Hollow core columns====
Where really massive columns were called for, such as those at [[Durham Cathedral]], they were constructed of ashlar masonry and the hollow core was filled with rubble. These huge untapered columns are sometimes ornamented with incised decorations.<ref name=ACT/>

====Alternating supports====
{{main|Alternation of supports}}
A common characteristic of Romanesque buildings, occurring both in churches and in the arcades that separate large interior spaces of castles, is the alternation of piers and columns.

The most simple form that this takes is to have a column between each adjoining pier. Sometimes the columns are in multiples of two or three. At [[St. Michael's, Hildesheim]], an A B B A alternation occurs in the nave while an A B A alternation can be seen in the transepts.

At [[Jumièges]] there are tall drum columns between piers each of which has a half-column supporting the arch. There are many variations on this theme, most notably at [[Durham Cathedral]] where the mouldings and shafts of the piers are of exceptional richness and the huge masonry columns are deeply incised with geometric patterns.<ref name=Toman/>

Often the arrangement was made more complex by the complexity of the piers themselves, so that it was not piers and columns that alternated, but rather, piers of entirely different form from each other, such as those of [[Sant' Ambrogio, Milan]], where the nature of the vault dictated that the alternate piers bore a great deal more weight than the intermediate ones and are thus very much larger.<ref name=HG/>

<gallery mode="packed" heights="240" caption="Piers and columns">
File:Hildesheim St Michael alternation of arcade.jpg|St Michael's, [[Hildesheim]], shows two columns set between the piers.
File:Mainzer Dom Wandaufriss.jpg|alt=Mainz Cathedral, Germany, has rectangular piers and possibly the earliest example of an internal elevation of 3 stages. (Gothic vault)|[[Mainz Cathedral]], Germany, has rectangular piers and possibly the earliest example of an internal elevation of three stages. <small>(Gothic vault)</small>
File:MalmesburyAbbey.JPG|[[Malmesbury Abbey]], England, has hollow core columns, probably filled with rubble. <small>(Gothic vault)</small>
File:SantCompostela21.jpg|The [[cathedral of Santiago de Compostela]], Spain, has large drum columns with attached shafts supporting a barrel vault. 
File:Durham - Cathedral - panoramio crop piers and columns.jpg|[[Durham Cathedral]], England, has decorated masonry columns alternating with piers of clustered shafts.
</gallery>

====Capitals====
The foliate [[Corinthian order|Corinthian]] style provided the inspiration for many Romanesque capitals, and the accuracy with which they were carved depended very much on the availability of original models, those in Italian churches such as [[Pisa Cathedral]] or church of [[Sant'Alessandro, Lucca|Sant'Alessandro in Lucca]] and southern France being much closer to the Classical than those in England.<ref name=BF/><ref name=Toman/>

The Corinthian capital is essentially round at the bottom where it sits on a circular column and square at the top, where it supports the wall or arch. This form of capital was maintained in the general proportions and outline of the Romanesque capital. This was achieved most simply by cutting a rectangular block and taking the four lower corners off at an angle so that the block was square at the top, but octagonal at the bottom, as can be seen at St. Michael's Hildesheim.<ref name=Toman/>
This shape lent itself to a wide variety of superficial treatments, sometimes foliate in imitation of the source, but often figurative. In Northern Europe the foliate capitals generally bear far more resemblance to the intricacies of [[manuscript illumination]] than to Classical sources. In parts of France and Italy, there are strong links to the pierced capitals of [[Byzantine architecture]]. It is in the figurative capitals that the greatest originality is shown. While some are dependent on manuscripts illustrations of Biblical scenes and depictions of beasts and monsters, others are lively scenes of the legends of local saints.<ref name=OME/>

The capitals, while retaining the form of a square top and a round bottom, were often compressed into little more than a bulging cushion-shape. This is particularly the case on large masonry columns, or on large columns that alternate with piers as at Durham.<small>(See illustrated above)</small>

<gallery mode="packed" heights="185">
File:PM 33323 P Lourosa.jpg|Simple capital of a Doric form supporting a Mozarabic arch, São Pedro de Lourosa Church, Portugal
File:Capitel en la Torre de Pisa.JPG|Capital of Corinthian form with anthropomorphised details, [[Leaning Tower of Pisa|Pisa Campanile]], Italy
File:Fromista - Iglesia San Martin 20.jpg|Capital of Corinthian form with Byzantine decoration and carved dosseret, [[San Martín de Tours]], [[Frómista]], Palencia, Spain
File:San Martín de Castañeda capital1116.JPG|alt=Capital of simplified concave Corinthian form with billeted abacus, simple dosseret and pronounced annulet. Church of Santa Maria, San Martín de Castañeda, Spain|Capital of simplified concave Corinthian form with billeted abacus, simple dosseret and pronounced annulet. Church of Santa Maria, San Martín de Castañeda, Spain.
File:Herina capital crop.jpg|Capital of convex cubic form with its abacus, concave dosseret and cable decoration defined by polychrome. [[Herina]]. Capitals of this shape are often decorated with "Barbaric" carvings of foliage, and mythical creatures.
File:Abbaye de la Sauve Majeure - Interlaced Asps.JPG|Capital retaining Corinthian form decorated with intertwined beasts derived from [[Insular art|Irish manuscripts]]. [[Grande-Sauve Abbey]], France
File:Capitel románico.jpg|alt=Capital of amorphous form surmounting a cluster of shafts. The figurative carving shows a winged devil directing Herod to slaughter the Innocents. Monastery of San Juan de Duero, Soria, Spain|Capital of amorphous form surmounting a cluster of shafts. The figurative carving shows a winged devil directing Herod to slaughter the Innocents. [[Monastery of San Juan de Duero]], Soria, Spain.
</gallery>

===Vaults and roofs===
The majority of buildings have wooden roofs, generally of a simple ''truss'', ''tie beam'' or ''king post'' form. In the case of trussed rafter roofs, they are sometimes lined with wooden ceilings in three sections like those that survive at [[Ely Cathedral|Ely]] and [[Peterborough Cathedral|Peterborough]] cathedrals in England. In churches, typically the aisles are vaulted, but the nave is roofed with timber, as is the case at both Peterborough and Ely.<ref name=ACT/> In Italy where open wooden roofs are common, and tie beams frequently occur in conjunction with vaults, the timbers have often been decorated as at [[San Miniato al Monte]], Florence.<ref name=BF/>

Vaults of stone or brick took on several different forms and showed marked development during the period, evolving into the pointed ribbed arch characteristic of [[Gothic architecture]].

====Barrel vault====
The simplest type of vaulted roof is the [[barrel vault]] in which a single arched surface extends from wall to wall, the length of the space to be vaulted, for example, the nave of a church. An important example, which retains medieval paintings, is the vault of [[Abbey Church of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe|Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe]], France, of the early 12th century. However, the barrel vault generally required the support of solid walls, or walls in which the windows were very small.<ref name=Toman/>

====Groin vault====
[[Groin vault]]s occur in early Romanesque buildings, notably at [[Speyer Cathedral]] where the high vault of about 1060 is the first employment in Romanesque architecture of this type of vault for a wide nave.<ref name=Toman/> In later buildings employing ribbed vaultings, groin vaults are most frequently used for the less visible and smaller vaults, particularly in crypts and aisles. A groin vault is almost always square in plan and is constructed of two barrel vaults intersecting at right angles. Unlike a ribbed vault, the entire arch is a structural member. Groin vaults are frequently separated by [[transverse arch]]ed ribs of low profile as at Speyer and [[Santiago de Compostela]]. At [[Vézelay Abbey|Sainte Marie Madeleine, Vézelay]], the ribs are square in section, strongly projecting and polychrome.<ref name=NP>Nikolaus Pevsner, ''An Outline of European Architecture''</ref>

====Ribbed vault====
[[Ribbed vault]]s came into general use in the 12th century. In ribbed vaults, not only are there ribs spanning the vaulted area transversely, but each vaulted bay has diagonal ribs, following the same course as the groins in a groin vault. However, whereas in a groin vault, the vault itself is the structural member, in a ribbed vault, it is the ribs that are the structural members, and the spaces between them can be filled with lighter, non-structural material.<ref name =BF307>Banister Fletcher, p. 307</ref>

Because Romanesque arches are nearly always semi-circular, the structural and design problem inherent in the ribbed vault is that the diagonal span is larger and therefore higher than the transverse span.<ref name=BF307/> The Romanesque builders used a number of solutions to this problem. One was to have the centre point where the diagonal ribs met as the highest point, with the infill of all the surfaces sloping upwards towards it, in a domical manner. This solution was employed in Italy at [[San Michele, Pavia]], and [[Sant' Ambrogio, Milan]].<ref name=Toman/>

The solution employed in England was to stilt the transverse ribs, maintaining a horizontal central line to the roof like that of a barrel vault.<ref name=BF307/> The diagonal ribs could also be depressed, a solution used on the sexpartite vaults at both the Saint-Étienne, ([[Abbaye-aux-Hommes]]) and Sainte-Trinité, ([[Église de la Ste.-Trinité, Caen|Abbaye-aux-Dames]]) at Caen, France, in the late 11th and early 12th centuries.<ref name=BF307/>

====Pointed arched vault====
The problems encountered in the structure and appearance of vaults was solved late in the Romanesque period with the introduction of pointed arched ribs which allowed the height of both diagonal and transverse ribs to be varied in proportion to each other.<ref name=BF307/> Pointed ribs made their first appearance in the transverse ribs of the vaults at [[Durham Cathedral]] in northern England, dating from 1128. Durham is a cathedral of massive Romanesque proportions and appearance, yet its builders introduced several structural features that were new to architectural design and were later to be hallmark features of the Gothic style. Another Gothic structural feature employed at Durham is the [[flying buttress]]. However, these are hidden beneath the roofs of the aisles.
The earliest pointed vault in France is that of the narthex of [[Vézelay Abbey|La Madeleine, Vézelay]], dating from 1130.<ref name=RH/> They were subsequently employed with the development of the Gothic style at the east end of the [[Basilica of St Denis]] in Paris in 1140.<ref name=BF/> An early ribbed vault in the Romanesque architecture of Sicily is that of the chancel at the [[Cathedral of Cefalù]].

====Domes====
{{see also|History of medieval Arabic and Western European domes#Holy Roman Empire}}
Domes in Romanesque architecture are generally found within [[Crossing (architecture)|crossing tower]]s at the intersection of a church's [[nave]] and [[transept]], which conceal the domes externally.{{sfn|Stephenson|Hammond|Davi|2005|p=172}} Called a ''tiburio'', this tower-like structure often has a blind arcade near the roof.{{sfn|Jones|Murray|Murray|2013|p=512}} Romanesque domes are typically octagonal in plan and use corner [[squinch]]es to translate a square bay into a suitable octagonal base.<ref name=BF/> Octagonal cloister vaults appear "in connection with basilicas almost throughout Europe" between 1050 and 1100.{{sfn|Porter|1928|p=48}} The precise form differs from region to region.{{sfn|Stephenson|Hammond|Davi|2005|p=172}}

<gallery mode="packed" caption="Vaults" heights="210px">
File:Saint-Savin nef.jpg|alt=A tall narrow church interior with rounds columns in delicate pastel colours that rise without interruption from floor to vault.|The painted barrel vault at the [[Abbey Church of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe]] is supported on tall marbled columns.
File:Lisboa IMG 6823 (20933435239).jpg|The nave of [[Lisbon Cathedral]] is covered by a series of barrel vaults separated by transverse arches and has an upper, arched gallery (triforium).
File:TournusTonnengewölbe.jpg|alt= A church interior of yellow stone with arches of alternating red and cream crossing the nave to support an unusual vaulting system.|The Church of [[St Philibert, Tournus]], has a series of transverse barrel vaults supported on [[diaphragm arch]]es.
File:F08.Mozac.0191.JPG|alt=A narrow space with grey columns with ornate capitals supporting a plastered cross vault without ribs.|The aisle of the [[Mozac Abbey|Abbey Church at Mozac]] has groin vaults supported on transverse arches.
File:Peterborough south choir aisle.JPG|alt=A side aisle with masonry of massive proportions is ribbed with arches of a bold profile.|The aisles at [[Peterborough Cathedral]] have quadripartite ribbed vaults. (The nave has an ancient painted wooden ceiling.)
File:Abbaye aux hommes intérieur 03.jpeg|alt=A tall wide church of grey stone, elegantly vaulted with fine ribs.|The ribbed vaults at [[Abbaye aux Hommes|Saint-Étienne, Caen]], are sexpartite and span two bays of the nave.
File:Speyer (DerHexer) 2010-12-19 014 vertical.jpg|The crossing of [[Speyer Cathedral]], Germany, has a dome on [[squinch]]es.
</gallery>