chevet, the exterior of
which with its many buttresses and pinnacles presents a most impressive
appearance.

One of the finest Romanesque buildings in Europe is the Cathedral of
Tournai, Belgium, which has a flat-roofed nave of exceptional length,
picturesque lateral storied galleries, a central tower with a lofty
spire, and two supplementary towers, also with spires, flanking the
northern and southern apses. Elsewhere in Belgium are several
flat-roofed churches of basilican plan, some with ambulatories in the
French style but no apsidal chapels. In Spain, on the other hand, the
chevet is rarely absent from ecclesiastical buildings, whilst a
distinctive local feature is a low central dome or tower known as the
cimborio, which is in many cases scarcely more than a swelling of the
roof at the point of intersection of nave and transept.

Germany is especially rich in Romanesque churches, which, like those of
Belgium, are of basilican plan with flat roofs. In the Cathedral of
Trier can be studied the gradual growth of the Teutonic form of the
Romanesque style, for it was originally an early Christian Church of the
Roman type, which was converted into one of a more distinctive style in
the 11th century by additions, including a western apse, whilst the
noble vaulting of the nave dates from the 12th and the choir from the
13th century. As time went on the multiplication of apses became
characteristic of German churches, it being usual to add one at the
western end, and more rarely also on the northern and southern sides,
the beautiful tapering columns dividing them from the aisles, with the
small chapels beyond them, producing very fine effects of perspective.
Other peculiarities of German Romanesque buildings are their great
height and the noble proportions of the interiors, with the finely
balanced grouping of the cupolas, towers, and turrets of the exterior;
to which must be added the absence of the great Western doorway that
lends such distinction to French, Italian, and Belgian churches.

Very fine examples of the style in Germany are the churches of S. Maria
in Capitolo Cologne, S. Quirin in Neuss, and the cathedrals of Nuremberg
and Bamberg, but it was in those of Speier, Mainz, and Worms that it
achieved its greatest triumphs. The first, it is true, has no western
apse, but this is atoned for by a fine narthex, and in the other two the
western extension is as conspicuous as the eastern. Dignified simplicity
and se