An Illustrated Dictionary of Words used in Art and Archaeology / Explaining terms frequently used in works on architecture, arms, bronzes, Christian art, colour, costume, decoration, devices, emblems, heraldry, lace, personal ornaments, pottery, painting, sculpture, &c., with their derivations.

by John W. Mollett

Trabea, R. (lit. shaped like a trabs or beam). A rich toga, either made entirely of purple cloth or decorated with horizontal stripes of that colour. The purple toga was an attribute of the gods, and afterwards of the emperors; purple and white, or purple and saffron, of augurs; purple and white, of royalty (kings).

Trabs, R. A beam; especially a long beam supporting the joists of a ceiling.

Tracery. In architecture or decorative work, geometrical ornament, such as is inserted on the upper parts of Gothic windows, in Alhambraic architecture, &c.

Tracing-paper is made of tissue-paper soaked in oil or thin varnish.

Trajan Column, in Rome, the work of Apollodorus, A. D. 114, is 10½ feet in diameter, and 127 feet high, made of 34 blocks of white marble—23 in the shaft, 9 in the base, which is finely sculptured, and 2 in the capital and torus. The sculptures show about 2500 figures besides the horses, and represent the battles and sieges of the Dacian War. The column is a perfect handbook of the military costume of Rome and other countries of its period. (Consult the work of Alfonso G. Hispano, published at Rome, 1586, which contains 130 plates representing all the sculptures; or the more modern work of Pietro Santo Bartoli, which contains beautiful engravings of all the reliefs.) A plaster cast of the column in two pieces is in the South Kensington Museum, with a handbook by J. H. Pollen on a desk near its base, with the aid of which it can be perfectly studied at leisure.

Trama, Sp. The weft or woof; a kind of silk thread so called.

Transenna, R. and Chr. A snare for birds. It consisted of a net stretched over a circular framework. In Christian archæology, the name was given to a marble lattice placed in the catacomb chapels to protect the relics.

Transept, Arch. A transverse nave, passing in front of the choir, and crossing the longitudinal or central nave of a church. It is sometimes called the cross, and each of its parts to the right and left of the nave are called cross-aisles.

Transfluent, Her. Flowing through.

Transition Periods of Architecture. Generally speaking, all periods deserve this title, as the progressive change of the styles is continuous. Those with more precision so described are, in English Architecture, three:—from the Norman to the Early English; and then to the Decorated; and thirdly to the Perpendicular, styles.