Palmette pillars

Chapter House of the Cathedral of Wells (. 14th century) - a seamless architectural link between the arch ribs and service templates of the pillar is not usually; usually a fighter plate is interposed.

A palmette pillar (French: palmier ), more rarely also a palmette pillar , is a centrally positioned and usually capitalless support element, over which vaulted ribs extend in all directions.

distribution

Palmette pillars are rather rare building elements in medieval architecture in Europe (Spain, France, England, southern Germany, Austria, Bohemia) and are limited to a few central buildings , hall churches and chapter halls. However, they immediately attract attention and deserve appropriate attention.

history

The association between a free-standing vertical member ( column , pillar ) and a tree is ancient. Because of the flat ceilings in early Christian basilicas and the different vault heights of the central nave and the side aisles in Romanesque churches, palmette pillars could not develop. This was only possible in hall churches or chapter halls or chapter houses , where the vaults or the vaults of the individual room parts were the same height. In addition, their appearance was linked to the presence of rib vaults, which are closely linked to the European Gothic . Romanesque palmette pillars are therefore almost unknown. No palmette pillars have been erected since the Renaissance architecture, which was again oriented towards antiquity .

architecture

Palmette pillars develop on the one hand from the Gothic bundle pillars , in which a hierarchy of ascending services is often clearly recognizable, on the other hand they are hardly imaginable without the development of multi-part vaults. Usually the vaulted ribs radiating from a palmette pillar are all equally proportioned; only in a few - mostly early - cases are the four belt arches dimensioned larger (cf. Cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada ). In the Jacobin Church in Toulouse , an alternation between wider and slimmer ribs can be seen.

photos

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  San Baudelio de Berlanga (12th century; height approx. 5 m)

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  Chapter House, Lincoln Cathedral (13th century; height approx. 10 m)

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  Jacobin Church , Toulouse (13th century; height approx. 22 m)

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  Franciscan Church , Salzburg (15th century; height approx. 18 m)

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  Cathedral, Santo Domingo de la Calzada (15th century; height approx. 15 m)

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  Church of the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos , Lisbon , (16th century; height approx. 20 m)

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  Parish church Königswiesen (16th century; height approx. 18 m)

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  Chapter House, Oseira Monastery (around 1600; height approx. 5 m)

literature

• Norbert Nussbaum, Sabine Lepsky: The Gothic vault. A story of its shape and construction. Munich / Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-422-06278-5 .