no, but in the east door the rectangular panels are all
filled with bas-reliefs, in which Scripture subjects are illustrated
with innumerable figures, these being probably the gates of Paradise of
which Michelangelo speaks.

The doors of the mosques in Cairo were of two kinds; those which,
externally, were cased with sheets of bronze or iron, cut out in
decorative patterns, and incised or inlaid, with bosses in relief; and
those in wood, which were framed with interlaced designs of the square
and diamond, this latter description of work being Coptic in its origin.
The doors of the palace at Palermo, which were made by Saracenic workmen
for the Normans, are fine examples and in good preservation. A somewhat
similar decorative class of door to these latter is found in Verona,
where the edges of the stiles and rails are bevelled and notched.

In the Renaissance period the Italian doors are quite simple, their
architects trusting more to the doorways for effect; but in France and
Germany the contrary is the case, the doors being elaborately carved,
especially in the Louis XIV. and Louis XV. periods, and sometimes with
architectural features such as columns and entablatures with pediment
and niches, the doorway being in plain masonry. While in Italy the
tendency was to give scale by increasing the number of panels, in France
the contrary seems to have been the rule; and one of the great doors at
Fontainebleau, which is in two leaves, is entirely carried out as if
consisting of one great panel only.

The earliest Renaissance doors in France are those of the cathedral of
St Sauveur at Aix (1503); in the lower panels there are figures 3 ft.
high in Gothic niches, and in the upper panels a double range of niches
with figures about 2 ft. high with canopies over them, all carved in
cedar. The south door of Beauvais cathedral is in some respects the
finest in France; the upper panels are carved in high relief with figure
subjects and canopies over them. The doors of the church at Gisors
(1575) are carved with figures in niches subdivided by classic pilasters
superimposed. In St Maclou at Rouen are three magnificently carved
doors; those by Jean Goujon have figures in niches on each side, and
others in a group of great beauty in the centre. The other doors,
probably about forty to fifty years later, are enriched with
bas-reliefs, landscapes, figures and elaborate interlaced borders.

In England in the 17th century the door panels