racery,
is here employed in the windows, and extended beyond them, but the
effect is not happy. The front was designed to receive two open
tracery spires, but only one of them has been erected. It is amazingly
intricate and rich, the workmanship is very astonishing, but the
artistic effect is not half so good as that of many plain stone
spires.

Another important German church famous for an open spire is the
cathedral at Friburg. Here only one tower, standing at the middle of
the west front, was ever intended, and partly because the composition
is complete as proposed, and partly because the design of the tracery
in the spire itself is more telling, this building forms a more
effective object than Strasburg, though by no means so lofty or so
grandiose.

[Illustration: FIG. 43.--CHURCH OF ST. BARBARA AT KUTTENBERG. EAST
END. (1358-1548.)]

The Cathedral of St. Stephen at Vienna is a large and exceedingly rich
church. In this building the side aisles are carried to almost the
same height as the centre avenue--an arrangement not infrequent in
German churches having little save novelty to recommend it, and by
which the triforium, and, as a rule, the clerestory disappear, and the
church is lighted solely by large side windows. The three avenues are
covered by one wide roof, which makes a vast and rather clumsy display
externally. A lofty tower, surmounted by a fine and elaborate spire of
open tracery, stands on one side of the church--an unusual
position--and an unfinished companion tower is begun on the
corresponding side. Great churches and cathedrals are to be found in
many of the cities of Germany, but their salient points are, as a
rule, similar to those of the examples which have been already
described.

The incomplete Church of St. Barbara at Kuttenberg, in Bohemia, is one
of somewhat exceptional design. It has double aisles, but the side
walls for the greater part of the length of the church rest upon the
arcade dividing the two aisles, instead of that separating the centre
avenue from the side one; and a vault over the inner side aisle forms
in effect a kind of balcony or gallery in the nave. The illustration
(Fig. 43) which we give of the exterior does not of course indicate
this peculiarity, but it shows a very good example of a German
adaptation of the French _chevet_, and may be considered as a specimen
of German pointed architecture at its ripest stage. The church is
vaulted, as might be inferred