ARCHITECTURE. 167 
being saved. The new nave was built in 1422 by John Amel on the old 
foundation. It is 490 feet long, 228 feet broad, and 154 feet in the clear, 
and is one of the most beautiful structures in the Netherlands. The vault 
over the intersection of the nave and transept supports a beautiful dome 
with a wooden cap. The new choir was not commenced before 1521, when 
Charles V. laid the corner stone. The portal and the northern spire were 
finished in the year 1518, whilst the construction of the southern tower was 
interrupted as early as 1515. The northern spire is 447 feet high, with a 
cross of 15 feet in height, and is by many preferred to the spire of the 
Minster of Strasburg. The unity of style in the latter gives it, however, a 
decidedly greater merit, the upper part of the spire of Antwerp deviating 
from the pure pointed-arch construction. Upon the whole the western 
facade exhibits too much of the meretricious ornament of the 16th century to 
be ranked with the Minster of Strasburg, whose entire ornaments are purely 
constructive and therefore true. 
The ground plan of the cathedral of Antwerp is in the form of the Latin 
eross. The width of the church is divided into seven aisles, the central one 
of which is 31 feet in the clear. Its pillars are 5 feet 6 inches thick. The 
first side aisles north and south are 19 feet wide, with pillars 3 feet 74 
inches thick; the second ones are 12 feet 2 inches wide, with pillars of 5 feet. 
1 inch in diameter, on which rest also the vaults of the northernmost aisle, 
21 feet 8 inches wide, and of the southernmost aisle which is 27 feet wide. 
8. THe OCatTueprat or Notre Dame in Paris, dedicated to the Virgin | 
Mary, is one of the most remarkable edifices in France both in point of 
design and of execution. Its corner stone was laid in the year 1163 by 
Pope Alexander III., and the choir with its gallery was finished as early as 
1177. Inthe year 1183 the vaults of the main nave were closed and the 
main altar was dedicated; and three years later the choir was devoted to 
public worship. So far the church is in the Romanesque style, and the 
Romanesque pedestals for the columns in the naves and transept indicate 
that these parts were commenced by the same builders. 
At the time of St. Louis’s advent to the throne of France (1226) the nave 
and side aisle were already considerably advanced. The two towers, how- 
ever, and the middle building which they flank, belong to the last quarter of 
the 13th century. The southern portal was commenced in the year 1257, 
together with the northern and the chapels around the choir. The entire 
process of construction lasted 170 years. 
The ground plan of this cathedral is given in pl. 40, fig. 1, and jig. 40 is 
an interior view of the same. It is in the form of a Latin cross, and has 
five aisles whose vaults rest on seventy-five columns. Its length is 390 feet 
by a width of 144, and a height in the clear of 102 feet. It has two square 
towers, which are only 204 feet high, having flat roofs at the height where 
the pyramidal spires ought to have commenced. The columns in the centre 
aisles are surmounted by pointed and those of the choir by round arches, 
on which rest the upper walls of the main nave. These walls are inter- 
rupted by the arcades opening from the galleries over the inner side aisles. 
‘The windows through which the main nave is lighted are above these gal- 
167 
