Excerpt from The Construction of Lombard and Gothic Vaults The desire to economize wood led to the introduction of the rib vault, not only in France, but in Lombardy as well, where, indeed, the French doubtless learned the construction. The Lombards carried the principle so far that, in certain cases, wo'od was entirely dispensed with in the edifice, various expedients being found to erect even a roof without it. In regions where wood was abundant, however, vaults were erected with centering, and in these regions the rib vault was never employed. It is evident that the Lombards used the rib yault not from any pref erence for the form, but solely because it could be constructed without centering. Rib vaults therefore were invented in Lombardy as a simple device to econo mize wood. They were adopted by the French builders for the same purpose. The same desire to dispense with temporary wooden substructures governed the development of architecture during the entire transitional period, and eventually lead to the birth of Gothic. If space permitted, it would be interesting to trace across the centuries the chronological development and growth of this principle. I Shall, however, con fine myself to a demonstration of the fact that the principle existed, beginning with a brief summary of certain known methods of vault construction used by the Roman and Byzantine builders, since these are analogous to, and partly explain, medieval constructions. I shall then take up the rib vaults of France, of which the study offers less difficulty Since there is extant an abundant series of well preserved monuments. The French principles of construction once understood, it will not be difficult to see that the Lombard methods were parallel and similar, but not identical. Without knowledge of the methods employed in France, it would be difficult to discover the Lombard methods, owing to the fact that com paratively few examples of Lombard vaulted constructions have escaped the vandalism of the barocco centuries and the equally deplorable barbarism of restorations executed during the last forty years restorations which have almost invariably destroyed what they pretended to preserve. Moreover these few examples are, in the great majority of cases, covered with plaster and intonaco, so that a study of the masonry is impossible. It is necessary therefore to leave the study of Lombard vaults for the last, even at the expense of violating strict historical sequence. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.