Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/715

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WINDOW


653


WINDOWS


gation of Hermcsianism began at Rome he was one of the German scholars directed to draw up opinions. The first part of his report w;is sent to Rome in June, 1834, the second part in March, 1835; the Herme- sians consequently attributed to Windischmann a large share in the condemnation of their views.

In his earlier years Windischmann's pliilosophy, as shown in his work, "Ideen zur Physik" (I, Wiirzburg and Bamberg, 1805), was a pantheistic mysticism entirely under the influence of Schelling's philosophy of nature. He beheved, however, that he could unite it with Christianity. But gradually he worked his way into a positive Christian philosophy. In his chief work, "Die Philosophic im Fortgang der Welt- geschichte",he planned to present the history of philos- ophy in connexion with a positive Christian philoso- phy of history, although this latter, it must be said, was influenced by Hegel. But the work was not finished; its four volumes (Borm, 1827-34) only treated China and Japan. Among his other writings are: "Untersuchungen iiber Astrologie, Alchimie und Magie" (Frankfort, 1813); "Uebcr Etw;is, das der Heilkunft Noth thut" (Leipzig, 1824), in which he opposed the materialistic tendency in medical science, and sovight to combine the science with Christian philosophy; "Das Gerieht des Herrn iiber Europa. Blicke in Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft" (Frankfort, 1814); "Ueber den Begriff der christl. Philosophie" (Bonn, 1823). He wrote supplemen- tary treatises for Leiber's translation ("Abendstunden zu St. Petersburg", Frankfort, 1824) of De Maistre. His last work was the editing of Friedrich von Schlegel's " Philosophische Vorlesungen" (Bonn, 1836-37).

Windischmann's biography was written by his son Friedrich Windischmann, Aus dem Leben eines Kalholiken in Histor. polit. Blnuer, V (1840). 257-269, 343-365; Lauchert in Allyemeine Deutsche Biographic, XL, 420-422; Werner, Gesch. der kathol. Theologic (Munich, 1866). 413-14. 436-40.

Friedrich Ladchert.

Window, Rose. — A circular window, with mullions and tr;iceries generally radiating from the centre, and filled with stained glasses. The term is suggested by the fancied resem- blance of the win- dow with its tra- ceries to the rose and its petals. The rose window is one of the most beau- tiful and character- istic features of medieval architec- ture, especially of the French Gothic, in which it achieved its most perfect de- velopment. Its origin is to be found in the Ro- man oculus. Dur- ing the Roman- esque period the oculus became a window, and from about the middle of the twelfth century its dimensions began to increase with the de- velopment of Gothic architecture. By the middle of the thirteenth century it had attained the greatest possible size — the entire width of the nave. Its splendour continued in France until the misfortunes of the Later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries pre- vented the con.struction of large churches. The most beautiful examples of rose windows are to be found in the He de France and the adjoining provinces, Picardy and Champagne. The earliest important examples are the we.st rose of t he (Cathedral of .Mantes (c. 1200); the we.st rose of Notre Dame of Paris (c. 1220), the most beautiful of all, and those of Laon


and Chartres. In all these cases the rose was put under a circular arch. The next important step was to put it under a pointed arch, as was done in the beautiful rose windows of the Cathedral of Reims, (1230), as well in the transepts as in the later roses of the facade. Thereupon the rose was inscribed in square, with pierced spandrils as in the transepts of Notre Dame of Paris (1257). The last step was to place the rose in a tier of lower windows, in which case it became the centre of a vast window compo- sition, covering the whole end of the transepts, as in Rouen Cathedral.

In England the use of the rose window was usually confined to the transepts, although roses of great span were constructed in Byland Abbey and in the east front of Old St. Paul's, London. In Germany it was more frequently used as well in the Romanesque as in the Gothic period; a fine example is in the fagade of the Cathedral of Strassburg. In Italy it was particu- larly used by the Lombard architects, as in San Zeno, Verona, and in the Cathedral of Modena, and in the Tuscan Gothic churches like the Cathedrals of Siena and Orvieto. These roses were always filled with stained glasses of great beauty, adding not a little to the picturesque effect of the interior of the cathe- dral.

ViOLLET-LE-Doc, Dict. raisonni d' architecture francaise, VIII, 8. v., Rose.

G. Kriehn.

Windows in Church Architecture. — From the beginning Christian churches, in contrast to the ancient temples, were intended to be places for the assem- bling of the faithful. The temperament of the people of the East and of the South where Christian houses of worship first appeared, required the admission of much light by large openings in the walls, that is, by windows. As a matter of fact the early Christian basilicas were richly provided with large windows, placed partly in the central nave, that was raised for this puri)0se, partly in the side aisles and fagade. In \\'estern Europe, or rather in the countries under Roman influence, the places where the windows existed on the side aisles can no longer be identified with absolute certainty, owing to the chapels and additions that were later frequently built. In the East, however, where it was customary to select isolated sites for church buildings large windows were the rule. The place of the window was deter- mined by the architectural membering of the basil- ica, the distance between two columns generally indicating the position of a window. However, there were endless exceptions to this rule in the East; thus at Bakusa in Syria the windows are close together as well as over the columns; at Kalat-Seman each intercolumnar space contained two windows. In general two or three windows united in a group, as was later the rule in Roman architecture, were even then of frequent occurrence in the early Christian architecture of Asia Minor. The form of the window is nearly everywhere the same; a rectangle that usu- ally has a rounded top, and but seldom a straight lintel. When the latter is used it is generally balanced by a seniicirculararch of wedge-shaped stones. Orna- mentation of the windows was hardly po.s,sible in the basilicas of Western Eurojjc, which were generally built of brick, while the Syrian stone churches, and as an exception.al ca.se those of the school of Spoleto, displajed rich contours and ribbon-like ornamenta- tion. Of that troublous period which extended to the time of Charlemagne and later until the begin- ning of Romanesque art, few monuments remain that give a clear conception of the window architec- ture then in vogue. According to Haupt's researches, the windows of the earliest Germanic churches had a round arch above, which was generally a hollowed stone. Towards the bottom these windows, strange to say, were frequently somewhat broader than above.