the Taj Mahal, both exceptionally beautiful, in which the
Saracenic style may justly be said to have reached its culmination,
nothing that can be compared with them having been since produced either
in India or elsewhere. The Taj Mahal, built by the Emperor as a tomb for
himself and his favourite wife, is indeed of dream-like and ethereal
charm, with its well-proportioned domes and minarets, cased, as is the
rest of the exterior, in white marble, and its interior enriched with
mosaics of precious stones.

CHAPTER VI

ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE

The term Romanesque is given to the period between the beginning of the
9th and the middle of the 12th century, but there was no real break in
the continuity of the evolution of Christian architecture in Europe from
the time when that art first freed itself from Pagan influence till it
reached its noblest development in the Gothic style.

[Illustration: Simple Intersecting Vaulting]

From first to last the keynote of structure was the use of the arch for
vaulting and for the spanning of piers and columns, and its form is, as
a general rule, indicative of the phase of development to which it
belongs. Although, however, it may be said that the semicircular arch is
characteristic of Romanesque buildings, the lintel is occasionally used
simultaneously with it in interiors, and the chief entrances are in many
cases spanned by horizontal beams or courses of stone that are, however,
as a general rule surmounted by arches. Moreover in late Romanesque work
the pointed arch is now and then introduced shadowing forth the
approaching change.

It was not in the invention of new forms of vaulting but in the
adaptation and improvement of those already in existence that Romanesque
architects chiefly displayed their skill. The earliest Romanesque vaults
were simple intersecting arches similar to those which had long been in
use, but as time went on these were superseded by what is known as
ribbed vaulting; that is to say by roofs divided into bays by a
framework of diagonal ribs supporting fillings in of thin stone called
severes, which in their turn gradually developed into the complex and
ornate system of Gothic vaulting. To counteract the thrust of arched and
ribbed vaulting the device of buttresses was hit upon. These buttresses
consisted at first of a series of supports introduced beneath the roof
of the aisles and extending from the back of the nave to the aisle wall,
which wer