Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 7, 2025
It consists of a parapet with a weathered coping for the top course of stonework, so that the water might not rest upon it and percolate through the walls. Three courses below this is a simply moulded string-course, and immediately beneath is the cusped arcade supported on the course of detached moulded and shaped corbels.
Below the part just described is the earlier work of the thirteenth century. It rises as far up as to the string-course formed by the continuation of the abaci of the capitals in the two small single-light windows. These narrow and sharp-pointed windows are peculiar. The arch-moulds are different from the other work of the same date in the church.
Both sides of the large triangular pediment which formed the wall of the gable were dentelled squarely into something like steps, as low down as the string-course of the upper floor, where the rain from the roof fell to right and left of the house through the jaws of a fantastic gargoyle.
Probably the very common idea of string-course ornamentation just below the mouth or top of vases and bowls has its origin in this early and almost universal practice.
The second stage is not quite so high here in the towers as it is there, and the level of the string-course above is consequently broken. The third stage, taller than the second, reaches to the springing of the gable.
'What was no longer wanted as a necessity, he says, 'was kept up as an ornament alone. Another very simple form of ornamentation, reappearing everywhere all the world over on primitive bowls and vases, is the rope pattern, a line or string-course over the whole surface or near the mouth of the vessel.
The gargoyles are of course Decorated, and so is the string-course itself, eastwards at any rate of the second gargoyle on the north wall, for here one of the mouldings has a fillet upon it. Whether the rest of the string is Archbishop Roger's work or not, it is difficult to decide. The large windows in the south and east walls are surmounted by square labels ending in heads.
To support this additional storey, the two western buttresses were carried up, diminishing both in projection and in width, to within a few feet of the upper string-course.
In the time of Pope Paul II, the Church of the Madonna of Loreto, which was small, and had its roof immediately over brick piers of rustic work, had been refounded and brought to that size in which it may be seen at the present day, by means of the skill and genius of Giuliano da Maiano; and it had been continued from the outer string-course upwards by Sixtus IV and by others, as has been related; but finally, in the time of Clement, in the year 1526, without having previously shown the slightest sign of falling, it cracked in such a manner, that not only the arches of the tribune were in danger, but the whole church in many places, for the reason that the foundations were weak and wanting in depth.
They are covered with patterns resembling the knots so often found on ancient crosses, and are of especial interest as being possibly survivals of the church built by St. Wilfrid. It is noticeable that the first string-course is the only one which is not carried round the buttresses at this corner.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking