ARCHITECTURE - Karatunov.net

CH. xx] FRANCEPROVENCE 65western doorway of the porch is distinctly based on Avignon,Roman example, so much so as to have led the unwarye porcto pronounce it actually Roman work. Though obviouslynot antique,it is hard to fix its date. Fergusson thinksboth the doorway and the whole church were built notlong if at all after the age of Charlemagne. He is Pointednot daunted by the pointed barrel vault of the nave for vaults;he maintains that " all the churches of Provence, from theage of Charlemagne to that of S. Louis were vaulted, andhave their vaults constructed on the principle of thepointed arch " 1 and that ; they have been assigned to alater date than the real one, by antiquaries who think thepointed arch came in with Abbot Suger at S. Denis in themiddle of the i2th century. He points out that theobject of the builders was to cover the barrel vault withsolid masonry, instead of the independent timber roof oflater times, and that the difficulty of putting a pitched orgabled roof of this kind over a round barrel vault withoutoverloading the crown naturally suggested the pointedsection, to which a gabled covering could be fitted moreclosely and lightly.It is however impossible to attributethe construction of this nave to so early a date as the9th century, and Viollet-le-Duc is probably nearer thetruth in itassigning to the end of the nth or the I2th.The doorway nevertheless may be earlier than the church,and nearer to Fergusson's date.These solid coverings of masonry, ceiling, vault, and Solid stoneroof in one, are of course ro sonly applicable to barrel vaults,toand became impossible when cross-vaulting came inraise the side walls to the level of the crown of the vaults,which obliged the roof to be raised with them, and to bemade of wood. The Byzantines got over this difficulty1Fergusson, Hist of Architecture^ vol. II. p. 45.J. A. II. S