vault of the westernmost bay is quadripartite on an oblong plan. In the choir of Noyon all the vaults are, as we have seen, quadripartite in oblong compartments, and they are the same in the choir of St. Germain des Pres. The idea that the sexpartite vault was developed first and was gradually superseded by the quadripartite form does not seem correct. [1]
Of the greater cathedrals the one in which the Gothic principles are first distinctly and systematically manifest is that of Paris. And this wonderful monument, notwithstanding all that it has suffered from violence and so-called restoration, exists to-day in almost complete constructive integrity. [2] Here is a vast central aisle so admirably roofed with stone that the construction has lasted intact [3] for seven hundred years, and will probably, if not injured by violence, last for centuries to come. These vaults are of the sexpartite form, and those of the choir, being about contemporaneous with those which originally covered the nave of Noyon, doubtless in the main show us what these were. The transverse ribs are pointed, the longitudinal ribs are pointed (here they differ from the vaults of the nave of Noyon, whose longitudinal ribs appear to have been round arched), and the diagonal ribs are semicircular. The intersection of the diagonal ribs is at a higher level than the crowns of the transverse ribs, which, in turn, are higher than the crowns of the longitudinal ribs. The vaults have thus a distinctly domed form which, at this period, was almost universal. All these ribs are independent arches which determine the forms of, and actually sustain, the vault shells. In vaults of this form the lateral cells are, as I have already remarked, necessarily oblique to the axis of the nave, and their surfaces assume forms which are difficult to define. Indeed, more or less obliquity and irregularity of surface is a constant and necessary characteristic of true Gothic vaults, even of those which are quadripartite. Gothic vaults are never simple
- ↑ Viollet-le-Duc, s.v. Construction, p. 103, refers to sexpartite vaults as constructed "suivant la méthode des premiers constructeurs Gothiques."
- ↑ Notre-Dame of Paris not only remains structurally in comparative perfection, but also retains a large part of its original sculpture. Within the building everything above the ground-story is the genuine untouched work of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and of the exterior the sculptures of the tympanums, the archivolts, and large portions of the jambs of the great portals remain as originally executed.
- ↑ The vaults of the choir are absolutely perfect; those of the nave have had to undergo some slight repairs since their partial reconstruction early in the thirteenth century.
