ARCHITECTURE - Karatunov.net

Toumai22 GERMAN ROMANESQUE [CH. xvmflanking towers attach it to the style of the greatRhenish churches, and if the Romanesque choir were, asno doubt it was, apsidal too, the plan would have beenThelike that of the three trilobate churches of Cologne.nave on the other hand has more affinity with the churchesof Normandy, so that Tournai serves as a link betweenthe Romanesque styles of northern France and Germany.The nave The nave (Fig. 72) was dedicated in 1066, but someof the details are hardly consistent with so early a date.It has the large open-arched triforium of the NormanBothchurches, here quite as largeas the arcade below.of these storeys are vaulted, and above them is a realtriforium under the aisle roof with small plain openingsunder a colonnaded arcade towards the nave.The nave piers have half-columns on all four sidesand between them in reveals are detached octagonalshafts. Each shaft of the group carries its own order inthe orthodox style.The capitals are richly carved, thosein the lower arcade of a convex form, with interlacingfoliage, grotesque animals, knots and twists of variouskinds, much elaborated and highly finished. Those of theupper galleries have the concave outline and angle volutesof a more advanced kind than one would expect from soearly a date.There are however some like them at thecontemporary churches of William the Conqueror at Caen.Thetran- The apsidal transepts are later than the nave andsepswere built about 1146. They have a diameter of 32ft.and are surrounded by ambulatory aisles parted fromthem by cylindrical columns 2' 1 1" in diameter carryinground arches of two orders. The semi-dome issupportedby converging ribs from the piers between the windows.These transepts are as fine as Ianything know inRomanesque architecture.