Abbé Marc-Antoine Laugier
(1713–69).French Jesuit, he became one of the earliest and most important theorists of Neo-Classicism. His Essai sur l'Architecture (1753) was profoundly influential, setting out a rational ...
abuse
1 Violation of established uses in Classical architecture.2 Corruption of form. Abuses according to Palladio included brackets, consoles, or modillions supporting (or seeming to support) a major ...
aedicule
(pl. aedicules, aediculae).1 Shrine or sacellum within a temple cella, either a large niche or a pedestal supporting two or more columns carrying an entablature and pediment thus forming a frame or ...
alette
1 Ala or wing of a building.2 Jamb or piedroit.3 In Classical architecture the visible parts of a pier flanking engaged columns or pilasters, and usually forming the abutment of arches.4 Semivisible ...
Alexander Stoddart
(1959– ).Scots sculptor. He is included here because he is one of the few UK sculptors working at the beginning of C21 who can design and make sculpture fully integrated with architecture. His heroic ...
Alonso Cano
(bapt. Granada, 19 Mar. 1601; d Granada, 3 Sept. 1667).Spanish sculptor, painter, architect, and draughtsman, sometimes called ‘the Spanish Michelangelo’ because of the diversity of his talents. He ...
anta
A pilaster terminating the wall of a building, whose base and capital may not conform with the order used elsewhere on the building.At first placed at the ends of ...
antepagment
(pl. ante-pagments, antepagmenta).1 Face of a jamb of an aperture, or a moulded architrave. Its top horizontal part, supercilium or antepagmentum superius is really a moulding over the lintel, and ...
anteris
(pl. anterides).1 Buttress, counter-fort, erisma, sperone, or spur supporting or strengthening a wall.2 Type of anta or pilaster, called sperone, more like a lesene than in Classical architecture.
arcade
1 Series of arches on the same plane, supported by colonnettes, columns, piers, or pilasters. Varieties of arcade include:alternating:with arches springing from the ends of two-column colonnades, ...
art and architecture: Byzantine
1. Early Byzantine (c.500–843)2. Middle Byzantine (843–1261)3. Late Byzantine (1261–1453)1. Early Byzantine (c.500–843)2. Middle Byzantine (843–1261)3. Late Byzantine (1261–1453)1. Early ...
art and architecture: Merovingian
The cultural productions of the Frankish tribes settling in parts of what are now modern France, Belgium, and western Germany between the 5th and 8th centuries. Surviving examples of elaborate ...
assemblage of Orders
Arrangement of Orders on a Classical façade of several storeys, set one above the other and defining the storeys, with the vertical axes of the columns coinciding and lining up: this is called ...
Attic Order
Subordinate Order, perhaps of pilasters, adorning the front of an Attic storey over the main entablature, and lining up with the Orders used below.
Baldassare Peruzzi
(1481–1536).Italian uomo universale of the High Renaissance, influenced by Bramante and Raphael. His first great building was the Palazzo della Farnesina, Rome (1505–11), an exquisite house ...
base
[from the Greek basis, ‘that on which one stands’]The lower portion of any structure or architectural feature. Also the lower part of an heraldic shield. See chief.
Beer family
Celebrated family working mostly in South Germany and Switzerland, which created some of the finest Baroque churches in the German-speaking lands. Although there was a Georg Beer (1527–1600) working ...
Bernardo Buontalenti
(1531–1608) Italian architect, engineer, and sculptor.As well as being a competent designer of military architecture, Buontalenti had a varied career, designing very inventive grottoes (at the ...
block
1 Piece of stone, terracotta, etc., prepared for building and bigger than a brick.2 Rectangular plain element at the bottom of a door-architrave, also stopping the skirt or plinth in Classical ...
