A Romanesque church
A basilica of the eleventh and twelfth centuries: round arches, thick walls, vaults or a timber roof, crossing tower, apses and a towered west end.
The rules it illustrates
The Latin cross: nave, aisles, transept, apse. Lay out the church as an Early Christian basilica (a tall nave lit from above, lower aisles on either side, a sanctuary ending in an apse to the east) and cross it with a transept, so that the plan becomes a Latin cross with a tower over the crossing.
The crossing square as module. Let the square of the crossing set the measure of the whole church: the nave and transept arms are multiples of it, each nave bay is a square of the same size, and each aisle bay a square one quarter its area.
Strong and weak supports alternate. Where one nave vault spans two bays of the arcade, give the principal piers, which receive the vault, a heavier compound section with shafts running up the wall, and make the intermediate supports lighter: columns or simpler piers.
Apses in echelon. Multiply altars at the east end by opening apses off the transept arms and the choir, stepped back from the main apse in echelon, each with its own small semidome and roof.
Lombard bands and pilaster strips. Articulate plain rubble walls outside with shallow vertical strips (lesenes) linked at the top by a frieze of small round arches on corbels: the Lombard band.
The westwork. Mark the west end with a massive, towered block containing an entrance hall below and a chapel or gallery above, rising higher than the nave: a church in front of the church.
Where it appears in the book
In the styles Romanesque.
In the chapters Romanesque and Gothic.