File:Willis Remarks 1835 Plate 06.png

English: Plate 6 from: Willis, Robert (1835) Remarks on the architecture of the middle ages, especially of Italy, Cambridge: J & J.J. Deighton . Caption: Plate VI.

One compartment of the nave of S. Petronio at Bologna. This possesses in a high degree the various peculiarities which characterize the arrangements of the Italian Gothic, such as the wide and low pier-arches whose span equals the breadth of the nave, the absence of the triforium and of the clerestory string, the great empty circles which occupy the space of the clerestory, the excessive doming of the vaults, the shallowness of the side aisles, the heavy capitals which surround the piers and half-piers like a band of leaves, and the squareness of the piers with their nook-shafts; all these serve to make a wide distinction between this example and those of the genuine Gothic; and they are rarely found so completely united even in Italian churches. It will be seen that each compartment of the side aisle has two arches which open into shallow chapels. The profile of the diagonal ribs both of the nave and side aisles differs from that of the shaft ; the former having hollow chamfers and edge-beads, while the latter are plain circular; so that their impost

is not strictly that which I have called a banded impost.