Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/118

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94
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE
CHAP.

that those portions which are comprised between the ribs and the piers up as high as the springing of the narrow arches which span the ends of the cells, become merely vertical walls instead of having the conoidal form. In fact, the vaulting system and the forms of the lower portions of the vaults are in the apse very much as they are in the intermediate system in sexpartite vaulting.

FIG. 50.

The apse of the Cathedral of Paris is the next one of importance, and it is among the most admirable and majestic apses in France. Its high vault is, like that of Noyon, in five cells, and its ribs intersect, in the same manner, on the transverse rib of the adjoining rectangular compartment, being abutted as before by the ribs of this compartment (Fig. 50).[1] But beyond this there is a differ-

  1. The arc of the plan of the apse is in this case more than half a circle, its centre being somewhat eastward of the point of intersection of the ribs. Two of these ribs are consequently longer than the others.