upon the numerous radiating ribs which seem to be the very framework of the structure. They are decorative mouldings worked upon the surface of a solid stone vault, built in a single shell which extends from one to another of the great transverse arches which span the nave.
This design marks the culmination in England of that florid Gothic in which early principles have a subordinate part, while newly required elaboration and tricks of deceptive brilliancy of workmanship come to the front and absorb the interest of the beholder. No one can remain indifferent to the fantastic and yet enduring charm of such a roof. The roof of Kings College Chapel has already been mentioned as of extraordinary beauty and as forming with the vertical members which support it and the windows between them a Gothic interior as splendid as anything out of France: but its beauty is of a style which had already lost its reason for being, and its appearance of constructional dignity is in a way deceptive. The admiration we bring to such a monument is then very different from that which we give to the interiors of the great Gothic churches shown in the plates of Chapter IV, or to the many other beautiful naves and choirs of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in England, France, Spain, and Germany. At Ely and Salisbury, Bourges and Laon, Burgos and Gerona, Cologne and Vienna, the student enters a great church, whose vault was completed at any time between 1200 and 1400, with perfect certainty that the structure is as sincere and obvious as it is impressive; nor does any doubt enter his mind as to the utility of the members of the structure around him. It is only with the beginning of the florid Gothic that this wholesome frame of mind can no longer be retained.
Let us consider the church of Brou, standing close to the town of Bourg-en-Bresse, in southern Burgundy. It was not begun until about 1510: that is to say, its construction is contemporaneous with the earlier years of Henry VIII in England,
