Fig. 7.—Poitiers, Saint Hilaire.
Although not the basis of a school of Romanesque architecture, the cathedral of Le Puy was not without its influence. This is especially apparent in the large church of Saint Hilaire at Poitiers (Figs. 7, and 8), which was constructed with very broad nave and aisles,—both covered with wooden roofs,—after a disastrous fire of 1018, and dedicated in 1059. In 1130 the vaulting of this church was undertaken, the result being a most unusual edifice. As the nave was too broad to be easily covered by a vault of single span, it was subdivided by lofty and slender piers and arches into a central portion consisting of square bays,[28] and narrow rectangular bays forming veritable inner aisles on either side. These narrow bays were covered with groined vaults directly above the original clerestory windows which thus continued to light the newly formed nave. Domes were then placed over the square central bays as had been done at Le Puy, but instead of the niche-head-squinch and the practically equilateral octagonal dome, small conical trumpet arches were employed at Saint Hilaire, and the gores of the dome rising from these were much narrower than the four remaining panels. This gives the dome rather the character of a cloistered vault with its corners cut off than of a dome properly speaking. Since the clerestory is below the level of the transverse arches upon which the domes of Saint Hilaire are built, the interior has a loftier and less broken appearance than that of Notre Dame-du-Puy. But even so the effect is not remarkably pleasing.
The side aisles of Saint Hilaire [(Fig. 8)] are quite as interesting in their vaulting as the nave. A single broad aisle on either side, which apparently opened into the nave through lofty arches rising almost to the clerestory, and which probably had transverse arches with ramping walls carrying half gable roofs, was altered when it was determined to vault the church. In doing this, two arches with a solid wall above were placed under each of the original arches of the nave arcade, a slender column built up in the center of each of the original bays, and upon the pseudo-double side aisles thus formed, compound groined vaults were constructed in a manner best understood from the photograph [(Fig. 8)].
Except for those just mentioned there are but few Romanesque churches,—outside of Italy and Sicily,—in which the nave is covered by a series of domes.[29] But because of the powerful Byzantine influence, these latter
