e later supplemented by the external buttresses known as
flying, that were to be so distinctive a feature of Gothic architecture.

[Illustration: Ribbed Vaulting]

[Illustration: Ribbed Vaulting]

Other characteristics of Romanesque architecture are the slenderness of
the columns as compared with those of earlier buildings, the disuse of
classic capitals, and the substitution for them of what is known as the
basket form, that is to say, semicircular mouldings enclosing floral
designs, later replaced by a great variety of forms, such as flowers,
leaves, human and animals' heads. The grouping of columns in clusters
also came into use, the general tendency being towards the production of
an effect of grace and lightness rather than of strength and solidity.
Arched cornices were introduced to relieve the monotony of the walls
above the pillars of the nave, whilst an even more marked change took
place in the windows, which, though small and few in early Renaissance
buildings, gradually increased in number, in size, and in the beauty of
their tracery. At the eastern end of churches several windows were in
some cases grouped together, divided only by slender pilasters, and
above the western entrance large circular windows known as the rose or
wheel--according to certain peculiarities of their tracery--were
introduced, whilst the walls were pierced by rows of complex windows,
each with a number of different lights.

In Romanesque churches the beautiful colonnaded narthex of the early
Christian basilica is replaced in Northern and occasionally in Southern
Italy by a projecting, and elsewhere by a simple, porch; but to make up
for the loss of what was a very effective feature, the whole of the
western facade, including the recessed doorway giving access to the
nave, is generally most richly decorated with sculpture and carving,
figures in niches, grotesque animal forms of symbolic meaning, with
floral and geometrical designs of great variety and beauty adorning
every portion.

[Illustration: Clustered Column]

[Illustration: Buttress]

[Illustration: Buttress]

On either side of the west front of many Romanesque buildings, more
rarely also from the point of junction of the transepts and nave, rise
lofty square or octagonal towers, the earlier with flat, the later with
more or less steeply pitched roofs, that gradually developed into the
tapering spires so characteristic of the Gothic style. Occasionally the
eastern apse