ARCHITECTURE - Karatunov.net

CH. xxiv] FRANCE NORMANDY 155is significantof the Lombard connexion that there issomething like the same proportionin the church ofS. Ambrogio at Milan, which was finished in its presentform during Lanfranc's lifetime. A somewhat similararrangement occurs nearer home in the nave at Tournaiwhere the triforium arches are actually larger than thoseof the main arcade and are surmounted by a row of smallopenings forming a second triforium (v. sup. Fig. 72, p. 23).The nave at S. Iitienne had originally, like those of allearly Norman churches, a wooden roof, but the aisleswere vaulted, and the triforium is covered with a quadrantbarrel vault like those of the Auvergne, with an underlyingtransverse arch at each bay springing from anattached pilaster on the outer wall. The Norman triforiumat Gloucester cathedral iscovered with a similarhalf-barrel vault on transverse ribs.The other foundation of the Conqueror and his wife,Abbayethe ABBAYE AUX DAMES, or La S. Trinit at Caen has Dames,been more thoroughly altered than the CaenAbbaye auxHommes, and is now mainly a I2th century building.The crypt however, which has Corinthianizing capitalslike those described above, isperhaps of the original date.The church is transeptal with a central tower and at thewest end two flanking towers, ancient below, but finishedwith an incongruous and ugly upper part. The choiris aisleless, and ends in an apse covered with a semidome,a feature which one issurprisedto encounter sofar north. Two tiers of five arches each surround theapse. They have deep soffits and are carried bydetached columns with a narrow passage behind them.The capitals are rude imitations of Corinthian, and thearches are decorated with a kind of embattled fret onthe face of the outer order in the lower storey, and with