Romanesque Architecture Flashcards

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering Romanesque Architecture in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal.

Striped Marble Facings

A decorative wall and column treatment characteristic of Pisan Romanesque architecture in Central Italy, resulting from commercial and naval contacts with Moslems in the Holy Land.

Ribbed Vaulting

The principal structural innovation developed in Lombardy (North Italy), supported internally by sturdy piers faced with attached half-columns.

Pisa Campanile

A circular freestanding bell tower in Pisa measuring $19\,m$ in diameter and rising in eight storeys of encircling arcades, which began tilting during construction of its $3\text{rd}$ floor due to soft soil and a shallow foundation.

Dioti Salvi

The architect who designed the circular Baptistery at Pisa on a plan featuring a central nave surrounded by four piers and eight columns.

Pisa Baptistery

A circular Italian baptistery designed by Dioti Salvi with an $18.3\,m$ diameter central space separated by four piers and eight columns from a two-storeyed aisle, giving an overall diameter of nearly $39.3\,m$.

S. Miniato al Monte, Florence

A Florentine Romanesque church featuring rich colored marble inlays on its facade, a basilican plan with two side aisles, and a raised eastern compartment with an open crypt containing the saint's tomb.

S. Ambrogio, Milan

A North Italian church in Lombardy featuring the only existing atrium among Lombard churches, a narthex flanked by towers, a vaulted nave and aisles, an octagon over the crossing, and a raised choir over a crypt.

S. Zeno Maggiore, Verona

A North Italian church with a projecting porch supported by two free-standing columns, a wheel window, pilaster strips with corbel tables, uncarved compound pier capitals, and a detached marble and brick campanile.

Monreale Cathedral

A South Italian cathedral in Sicily featuring a western basilican plan and eastern quasi-Byzantine plan, Byzantine capitals with mosaic-encrusted dosseret-blocks, Christ figure apse mosaic, and painted Moslem-style timber roofs.

Dosseret-Blocks

Mosaic-encrusted architectural blocks positioned above Byzantine-form capitals on the nave columns of Monreale Cathedral.

Basilica of St. Nicola Bari, Apulia

An Apulian church featuring fine masonry details, a projecting porch, wheel window, nave arcade on piers and grouped columns, triforium, clearstorey, flat timber ceiling, and groined aisle vaults.

Caen Stone

A fine-grained building stone easily quarried in Normandy and widely used in Northern French Romanesque architecture.

Auvergne Pumice and Tufa

Colored volcanic stones quarried in the Auvergne region of France, utilized as local building material during the Romanesque period.

Sexpartite Vaulting

A form of ribbed vaulting divided into six compartments over square bays, commonly used in Northern French Romanesque naves.

Basilica of S. Sernin, Toulouse

A Southern French cruciform church with double aisles, round-arched barrel vaults supported by plain square ribs, and a high triforium with external windows, constructed without a clearstorey.

Notre Dame la Grande, Poitiers

An Anjou church featuring a richly sculptured west front, a conical dome over the crossing, and a barrel-vaulted interior with unmoulded transverse ribs, constructed without a triforium or clearstorey.

Abbey of Bernay

Considered the first important Norman church in France, featuring a nave of seven bays (five remaining intact) divided into an arcade, triforium, and clearstorey.

Abbey of St. Denis

A French royal burial church near Paris featuring an early instance of the pointed arch on its west facade and an eastern end recognized as probably the earliest Gothic structure.

Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela

A famous Spanish Romanesque cathedral constructed between the $11\text{th}$ and $13\text{th}$ centuries, serving as the final destination of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route and designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Portico de la Gloria

A masterpiece of medieval Romanesque sculpture located at the entrance portal of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, depicting the Last Judgement.

Basilica of San Isidoro, Leon

A Spanish church built on a Latin cross plan with three naves, a triple apse, and the Royal Pantheon below, displaying a blend of Romanesque, Gothic, and Islamic influences.

Royal Pantheon

A funeral chapel located beneath the Basilica of San Isidoro in León for the kings of León, famous for its Romanesque frescoes.