The regional characteristics of European cathedrals are those characteristic architectural features which define the local cathedrals (and other great churches) of any given region, and often transcend period and style.
History
The earliest large churches date from the Roman Empire. As Christianity and the construction of churches and cathedral spread throughout the world, their manner of building was dependent upon local materials and local techniques. Different styles of architecture developed and their fashion spread, carried by the establishment of monastic orders, by the posting of bishops from one region to another and by the travelling of master stonemasons who served as architects.John Harvey, The Gothic World. The styles of the great church buildings are successively known as Early Christian, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, various Revival styles of the late 18th to early 20th centuries and Modern.Sir Banister Fletcher, History of Architecture on the Comparative Method. Overlaid on each of the academic styles are the regional characteristics. Some of these characteristics are so typical of a particular country or region that they appear, regardless of style, in the architecture of cathedrals designed many centuries apart.
Regional examples Note- The lists which follow aim to give, in point form, those characteristics of each selected example which typify the architecture of the region. This section does not aim to give a detailed description of each building.
Each list deals with plan, eastern end, crossing, emphasis, special features, sunlight and shadow, decoration, narrative features and things that make the building distinct from those of another region. For more detail, look up the particular building on List of Cathedrals. The method of comparison used here is based upon the descriptions of regional "architectural character" by Banister Fletcher.
Italy
The cathedral or Duomo of Pisa with the complex of buildings that surrounds it in the Piazza dei Miracoli is the epitome of the Italian Cathedral. It is a building of the Romanesque Style, built mostly between 1063 and 1092 with some Gothic additions. Many of the features that characterise this building as Italian continued to be employed right through to the Baroque period. Sir Banister Fletcher describes this cathedral as "one of the finest of the Romanesque period" with "marked individuality" and "beauty and delicacy of ornamental features".
Note- This list presents a brief analysis of regional characteristics found in the particular building. For a complete description follow the link to the web page.
The plan is a simple well-defined Latin cross. The eastern end of the building and the terminals of the transept have semi-circular apses with no surrounding ambulatory. The crossing is surmounted by a dome which, in this instance, is unusual in being oval, thus prefiguring the flexible use of architectural form of the Baroque period. The various parts of the building are well defined by projection and delineation. The ornamentation serves to define separate architectural units, rather than to merge them, e.g. the vertical stages are separated by horizontal courses, the horizontal bays are defined externally by attached shafts, internally the arcade is separated from the clerestorey level by a cornice. Various functions of the cathedral are isolated in separate buildings. The famous free-standing Campanile demonstrates why this was often the case in Italy- the soft soil of river valleys causes subsidence, while Italy also has a greater frequency of seismic movement than other parts of Western Europe. The Baptistry is an enormous free-standing building with a central space surrounded by a two-storey gallery. The arcade is the dominant decorative feature, running in bands around the cathedral, the baptistry and, most notably, the campanile where it defines each of the eight levels. In the bright sunlight and high sun angle of southern Europe, the effect is to cast horizontal definition across the surface of the building. Architectural details draw upon the Roman art, with capitals of a Corinthian type. Polychrome decoration in stripes of white marble alternating with green, grey or red gives a richness to the surface of the building. The media used for figurative story-telling includes mosaic, sculpture in defined rectangular panels such as the sides of an octagonal marble pulpit and the panels of the bronze doors.
Section references: Banister Fletcher, Larousse.Larousse Encyclopedia of Byzantine and Medieval Art
Examples of Cathedrals in Italy:
France Amiens Cathedral is a Gothic building, 1220–1288, which typifies the cathedrals of northern France. Wim Swaan writes "In the nave of Amiens, Gothic structure and the treatment of the classic, three-stage interior elevation established at Chartres, achieved perfection."Wim Swaan, The Gothic Cathedral
Note- This list presents a brief analysis of regional characteristics found in the particular building. For a complete description follow the link to the web page.
The plan is cruciform but the transepts do not project beyond the aisles, giving the church a compact appearance. The eastern end of the building has an apse surrounded by a cluster of lower radiating chapels called a chevet. There is an emphasis on verticality. The vault is supported by flying buttresses. The crossing is surmounted by a delicate open-work spire called a flèche. The various parts of the building are united by architectural features and decoration which emphasise a verticality of design, e.g. there are shafts attached to the columns which commence at the floor and carry upwards through all the vertical stages (arcade, triforium and clerestory) to become the ribs of the vault. The West Front is a very significant feature having three enormous decorated portals, two towers and a rose window. There is an arbitrary quality about the proportions and the towers are of different heights. The façade is divided by vertical buttresses and horizontal courses into a grid of decoration which causes the shadow to fall both vertically and horizontally. The dominant decorative feature is the lace-like stonework which screens the front, decorates the parapets and fills the windows with tracery. The flying buttresses and their pinnacles form a structural lacework which surrounds the exterior. The media used for story-telling are the stained-glass windows and the architectural statuary that surrounds the doors and fills the stone screens of the façade.
Section references: Banister Fletcher, Larousse, Swaan.
Examples of Cathedrals in France:
England
Lincoln Cathedral is typically English in both style and diversity having been commenced in 1074 and not reaching its final state until the 1540s. Alec Clifton-Taylor described it as: "Probably, all things considered, the finest of English Cathedrals".Alec Clifton-Taylor, The Cathedrals of England
Note- This list presents a brief analysis of regional characteristics found in the particular building. For a complete description follow the link to the web page.
The plan is a double cross with a large boldly projecting transept and a secondary transept with apsidal chapels towards the eastern end. It has a separate cloister and a decagonal chapter house with enormous flying buttresses. The eastern end is square and is filled by an enormous Gothic window with Geometric tracery. Internally, there is an emphasis upon length and horizontality. The vertical divisions of arcade, triforium and clerestorey are defined by strong horizontal courses. There is a very heavy ridge-rib which runs the length of the Gothic vaulting, carrying the eye along the nave. The crossing of the large transept is surmounted by a 270 ft tower, which for three hundred years supported a spire. The West Front has a sense of disharmonious grandeur, its gable and two tall towers rising in two building stages, Norman and Gothic, behind a vast Gothic screen with niches for hundreds of statues, which terminates in two polygonal pinnacles, each large enough to make a sizable church tower. At the centre three enormous arches frame the windows and the Norman portal. The towers have a very strong vertical emphasis with massive polygonal buttress which cast vertical shadows in the slanting sun. The deeply recessed archways have the same effect, while the sculpture screen is opposingly horizontal. The dominant decorative features internally are the contrast of the dark marble mouldings and ribs against the pale masonry, the regular repetition of arcading and the multiplicity of rib vaults. The effect of regular repetition of simple forms is seen externally on the screen and in the arrangement of windows. The media used for story telling were the stained-glass windows and the carvings. Unfortunately, these were devastated during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
Section references: Banister Fletcher, Larousse, Clifton-Taylor.
Examples of Cathedrals in the United Kingdom:
Germany Worms Cathedral dates from 1110 to 1181. With the Cathedrals of Speyer and Mainz it represents a pinnacle of German Romanesque and has spatial qualities and what Banister Fletcher describes as "a picturesque character" which were later skillfully adapted in the many German Baroque churches.
Note- This list presents a brief analysis of regional characteristics found in the particular building. For a complete description follow the link to the web page.
The plan is that of a modified Latin cross with slight projection of the transept. The entrance is through a southern porch. The eastern end has an apse, without ambulatory, and the western end has second lower apse, typical of German Romanesque and possibly derived from a free-standing baptistry. Above the crossing and at the western end are short octagonal towers. There are two taller towers flanking the building at either end. Each has a steeply pointed roof, either conical or octagonal. The various sections of the building are massive, clearly defined units, neatly assembled into a harmonious whole as if built from a child's set of building blocks. There is the sense that the building could be disassembled and rearranged. The massing together of the various parts emphasises the geometric three-dimensionality of each part. The entrance is an ornate Gothic porch, sandwiched between two chapels in a way that emphasises the integrity of each unit. There is no west front, no façade. The building requires looking at as a three-dimensional object. The sunlight falls over surfaces that are alternately broad and flat or circular. The details are minimal and the structure of the building is emphasised rather than its features. Externally, it is very simply decorated by flat pilasters and several courses of judiciously placed blind arcading in the manner of Pisa. Internally space and clarity take precedence over decoration, with the exception of the altarpiece. The media used for story-telling here is the riotous Baroque altarpiece which bursts out of the eastern apse with swathes and cherubs and statues.
Section references: Banister Fletcher, Larousse, Toman.Rolf Toman, editor, Romanesque- Architecture, Sculpture, Painting
Examples of Cathedrals in Germany:
Spain
Burgos Cathedral, commenced in 1221, represents many of the characteristics and is described by Banister Fletcher as "the most poetic of Spanish cathedrals." Note- This list presents a brief analysis of regional characteristics found in the particular building. For a complete description follow the link to the web page.
Its ground plan is a Latin cross, with comparatively wide transept. But the plan is made complex and is visually disguised from the exterior by the accretion of numerous side chapels which cluster around it at different angles, and the abutment of the large Bishop's Palace to the south.