Although the employment of tracery continued long after the
classic revival, the examples generally are poor in design, and even in
those that are more elaborate (as those of the period of Henry II.
in the church at Le Grand Andely) the introduction of classic details
in the ordinary and rose windows was of too capricious a character
to make them worthy of much attention. The early Renaissance
architects in France in some cases, and notably in the apsidal chapels
of St Pierre at Caen (1520), seemed to feel that the stained glass was
too much cut up by the tracery and mullions, and omitted them
altogether, trusting to the iron stanchions and cross-bars to carry
their glass, so that a return was made to the simple semicircular-headed
window of Roman times, retaining only the mouldings of the
late Flamboyant period for the jambs and arch-moulds. Windows
of this description, however, would be out of place in domestic
architecture, so that the mullion window was there retained with
two or three transoms, all moulded and with square heads; in the
Tudor period cusping was introduced in the upper lights and occasionally in those below, and this custom lingered for a long time in the
collegiate buildings of Oxford and Cambridge and in various houses
throughout England. In France, square-headed windows were
almost always employed, owing to the earlier introduction there of
the Renaissance style, when the decoration of the mullions, generally
consisting of classic pilasters, required some kind of architrave,
frieze and cornice, to render the order complete; eventually the
mullion and transom disappear, and in the earlier work of the Louvre
the windows are simple rectangular openings, fitted with wooden
framework, and, like those in Rome, Milan and Genoa, depend for
their architectural effect on the moulded classic jambs, and the lintel,
frieze and small cornice over; and in cases where more importance
was required, with small semicircular columns or pilasters carrying
the usual entablature, with small pediments sometimes angular and
sometimes semicircular, repeating in fact an ancient Roman design,
of which almost the only examples known are the blank windows
and niches which decorated some of the enclosure walls of the Roman
thermae. In Florence and Siena the early windows of the Renaissance
often had semicircular heads and were coupled together, there
being two lights to the window divided by shafts, thus continuing
the tradition of those of the earlier Tuscan palaces; the same
treatment was followed in Venice, Verona and other towns in the
north-east, where the Gothic influence of the palaces in Venice
created a transition; thus the mouldings of the windows of the
Vendramini and Corner Spinelli palaces follow closely those of the
Ducal Palace, but the arches are semicircular instead of being
either pointed or ogee in form. Another type peculiar to Venice is a
lofty window with semicircular head enclosed in a rectangular panel
and crowned with a small entablature and pediment.
The only new combination of the l6th century in Italy, which was largely adopted in England by Inigo Jones and his followers in the 17th and l8th centuries, is the so-called Venetian or Palladian window, the finest example of which is that found in the Sala della Ragione or the basilica at Vicenza; it is true that it was here employed by Palladio to light an open gallery, but the composition was so generally approved that it led to its constant adoption for a window of more importance than the ordinary simple rectangular form. It consists of a central light with semicircular arch over, carried on an impost consisting of a small entablature, under which, and enclosing two other lights, one on each side, are pilasters. In the library at Venice, Sansovino varied the design by substituting columns for the two inner pilasters. The Palladian window was introduced by Inigo Jones in the centre of the garden front at Wilton, by Lord Burlington in the centres of the wings of the Royal Academy, and good examples exist in Holkham House, Norfolk, by Kent, and in Worcester College, Oxford. There do not seem to be any examples in either Germany, France or Spain. Circular and oval windows, lighting a mezzanine or the upper part of a hall, are found in Italy, France and England, sometimes over ordinary rectangular windows when the main front is decorated with semidetached columns as in Hampton Court Palace. (R. P. S.)
WINDOW CORNICE, an ornamental framework of wood or composition to which window curtains are attached by rods with rings or hooks. Cornices are often gilded and of elaborate design, but they are less fashionable in the 20th century than before it had been discovered that elaborate draperies harbour dust and microbes. Like other pieces of furniture, they have reflected taste as it passed, and many of the carefully constructed examples of the latter part of the 18th century are still in use in the rooms for which they were made. Chippendale provided a famous series still in situ for the gallery at Harewood House, the valances of which are, like the cornices themselves, of carved and painted wood.
WINDOW SEAT, a miniature sofa without a back, intended to fill the recess of a window. In the latter part of the 18th century, when tall narrow sash windows were almost universal, the window seat was in high favour, and was no doubt in keeping with the formalism of Georgian interiors. It differed much in decorative detail, but little in form. It stood as high from the floor as a chair; the two ends were identical, with a roll-over curve, more or less pronounced. The seats and ends were usually upholstered in rich fabrics which in many cases have remained intact. The legs followed the fashion in chairs and were square and tapered or, somewhat later, round and reeded. Hepplewhite and the brothers Adam designed many graceful window seats, but they were produced by all the cabinet-makers of the period.
WINDOW TAX, a tax first levied in England in the year 1697 for the purpose of defraying the expenses and making up the deficiency arising from clipped and defaced coin in the recoinage of silver during the reign of William III. It was an assessed tax on the rental value of the house, levied according to the number of windows and openings on houses having more than six windows and worth more than £5 per annum. Owing to the method of assessment the tax fell with peculiar hardship on the middle classes, and to this day traces of the endeavours to lighten its burden may be seen in numerous bricked-up windows.
The revenue derived from the tax in the first year of its levy amounted to £1,200,000. The tax was increased no fewer than six times between 1747 and 1808, but was reduced in 1823. There was a strong agitation in favour of the abolition of the tax during the winter of 1850–1851, and it was accordingly repealed on the 24th of July 1851, and a tax on inhabited houses substituted. The tax contributed £1,856,000 to the imperial revenue the year before its repeal. There were in England in that year about 6000 houses having fifty windows and upwards about 275,000 having ten windows and upwards, and about 725,000 having seven windows or less.
In France there is still a tax on doors and windows, and this forms an appreciable amount of the revenue.
WINDPIPE, the trachea (Gr. τραχεῖα, sc. ἀρτηρία, literally, rough artery), the air tube which leads from the larynx to the bronchi and lungs (see Respiratory System).
WINDSOR, a city and port of entry of Essex county, Ontario, Canada, on the left bank of the Detroit river, opposite the city of Detroit. Pop. (1901) 12,153. It is on the Grand Trunk, Canadian Pacific, Pere Marquette and Michigan Central railways, which connect at this point with the railways of the United States by means of large and powerful car-ferries. It is the centre of an important agricultural and fruit-growing district, in which tobacco is also produced. Salt works, flour mills, canning factories, and the manufacture of type-setting machines are the principal industries. During the season of navigation it is the centre of a large coasting trade on the Great Lakes.
WINDSOR, a township of Hartford county, Connecticut, U.S.A., on the Connecticut and Farmington rivers, adjoining the city of Hartford on the N. Pop. (1890) 2954; (1900) 3614, 596 being foreign-born; (1910) 4178. Area about 27 sq. m. It is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway and by electric lines to Hartford and to Springfield, Massachusetts. Among the buildings are the Congregational Church, built in 1794 (the church itself was organized in 1630 in England), the Protestant Episcopal Church (1864) and the Roger Ludlow School. In Windsor are the Campbell School (for girls) and a public library (1888). The Loomis Institute (incorporated 1874 and 1905) for the gratuitous education of persons between 12 and 20 years of age has been heavily endowed by gifts of the Loomis family. Tobacco and market vegetables are raised in Windsor, and among its manufactures are paper, canned goods, knit and woollen goods, cigars and electrical supplies.[1]
In 1633 Captain William Holmes, of the Plymouth Colony, established near the mouth of the Farmington river a trading post, the first settlement by Englishmen in Connecticut; a more important and a permanent settlement (until 1637 called New Dorchester) was made in 1635 by immigrants from Dorchester, Massachusetts, led by the Rev. John Wareham, Roger Ludlow and others. In 1639 representatives from Windsor, with those from Wethersfield and Hartford, organized the Connecticut Colony. Among the original land-holders were Matthew Grant and Thomas Dewey, ancestors respectively of General
- ↑ In the township of Windsor Locks (pop. 1910, 3715), immediately north, cotton yarn and thread, silk, paper, steel and machinery are manufactured.
