Its contemporary, the Cathedral of Laon, has four towers, terminating in octagonal belfries, the angles of which are flanked by two-storied openwork pinnacles; on the second of these stories are placed colossal bulls, the effect of which is very striking.
The towers of Rheims, which date from the second half of the thirteenth century, are of secondary importance in the splendid façade; but they are marked by a feature which was a novelty at the time. The interior of the belfry is built with a cage to allow free play to the bells, and space for the timbers by which they are supported, while the exterior forms an octagonal tower flanked by important pinnacles.
Rheims may be said to mark in Gothic architecture the boundary which separated its period of perfection from that of exaggeration and mannerism. The mania for lightness and the desire to dazzle and astound soon seduced its artists into a dangerous path which led inevitably to decadence. Such effects first manifested themselves more especially in the provinces of the German frontier, and the spire of Strasburg, built in the fourteenth century, is a famous example of these mistaken tendencies.
Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries towers adhered to the plan and general arrangement adopted by the later architects of the thirteenth century, diverging chiefly in the marvellous profusion of detail and of sculpture, and in the excessive lightness of design. The points of support were attenuated, and the mass of ornament seemed designed to conceal them as far as possible. In France the misfortunes of the times tended largely to perpetuate these dangerous foibles; for a number of churches which were founded at the close of the thirteenth century remained unfinished till the fifteenth and sixteenth, when Gothic art was in full decadence.
90. CHURCH OF ST. PIERRE AT CAEN. TOWER
But we must not pass over unmentioned certain buildings famous for boldness of construction and magnificence of decoration, if not for purity of style. The following are perhaps the most important:—In France the tower of St. Pierre at Caen, which shows strong traces of that analogy, or family likeness, so to speak, uniting Norman edifices; and the tower of St. Michel at Bordeaux, the spire of which was destroyed by a hurricane in 1768, and has lately been restored to its primitive height of 365 feet; in Austria the tower of St. Stephen, one of the most important of such buildings in that country, finished in 1433; the tower of the Cathedral of Freiburg-im-Breisgau (grand-duchy of Baden), one of the most beautiful and important examples. It was mainly constructed towards the close of the fourteenth century, but the openwork spire was added about the middle of the following century.
91. CHURCH OF ST. MICHEL AT BORDEAUX. TOWER
The Cathedral of Antwerp in Belgium was begun in the middle of the fourteenth century; the nave and the four side aisles were not completed till a century later. The façade is said to have been begun in 1406 by a Boulognese master-mason, one Pierre Amel; but of the two belfry towers only that on the north was completed in 1518. Its principal merit lies in its boldness of construction and its unusual height of 410 feet, rather than in purity of style or beauty of detail, the latter being a conglomerate made up from every period of Gothic.