Chap. TV. PRINCIPLES OF PROPORTION.

1037
The Xorlh Rose Jflnilow nt Ainitns, 37 feet S inches in diamotor, is a magtilficeilt example
of the application of tlie pentagon, with 5 isosceles triangles around it.
Tiiis window, prohahly
executed in the fourteenth
century, has a great resem-
blance to the last
described
;
the fan tracery, of which
we have early specimens in
the cloisters at Gloucester,
required the same know-
lodge ofgeometry to perfect
their design. In 1482
Euclid was first jirinted at
Venice from the Greek
text; hutgeometry had been
studied in England from the
time that Adlielard, in 1 1
30,
had introduced a transla-
tion of tiiat author from
the Arabic versions which
he met with during liis tra-
vels in Spain. In 1256
Campanns of Navarre
translated Euclid, who
seems to have been com-
mented upon by several
eminent writers, and no
doubt it was the text-book
of the freemasons, who dili-
gLMitly applied the problems
it contained to every pur-
pose of their art. In 1486
t!ic Editio I'rinceps of
X'itruvius
appeared, and
I hj commentariesof
Ca;sare
Cavsariano
followed in
1521
; the latter author
published three plates of
the Catliedral at IMilaii,
covered with c<iuila(eral
tiiangles, wiiich have not
been described so as to be
useful
or understood.
The compartments which
have the flat sides of the original pentagon for their base, and parallel sides throughout till
tiiey terminate in the pointed arch, have their mullions proportioned to their opening, tlie
larger being double the size of tlie smaller, whilst the latter are equal to half the ojjon snace
between them : the muilions in these examples, which divide two spaces, 6 inches in
width, are usually 3 inches in thickness, and the others are in the same proportion. 'I'iie
next sized mullion is
4
J inches, with a bead of
1^
inch diameter, which runs round the
whole pattern of the figure, the centre of which may be called the master line, by which
all the rest are set out ; the several mullions are all twice as much in depth as in widti).
Bajitistenj
af
Pisa. The internal diameter of this circular building is 100 feet, and the
thickness of its outer walls and columns 10 feet G inches
; its external diameter is 121 fert,
the area of which is 11,499 superficial feet, that of the interior being
7854; if we
deduct from it what is occupied by the four piers and eight columns, or 188 feet, we
liave 7666 feet for the void, exactly two-thirds of the entire area. To find these pro-
portions in an edifice commenced about the middle of the twilfih century in Italy, is
a
curious corroboration of the opinions already advanced, the same rules as those
described
for the Chapter Mouse at Wells being apparently followed: the conical brick dome was the
work of an after period, and may have been the prototype for that of St. Paul's at London;
the pointed architecture belonging to the exterior of this edifice, of the same character as
that which adorns the crosses of Q,neen Eleanor in England, was added in the fourteenth
century.
The section shows how trie equilateral triangle governs the jiroportions of this celebrated
building; the extreme diameter is tlie base, and its apex the level on which the
Fig. 1294.
AMIENS; ROSE WINUOW.