The bases of columns throughout the Romanesque period were most usually founded on some traditional variety of the Attic base. The resemblance is often obscure, but in many cases very close.
| Fig. 88. | Fig. 89.—St. Stephen’s, Caen. |
Towards the end of the Romanesque period very great attention began to be paid to the sections of base mouldings, and in transitional works they are often more beautiful than at any other period. The difference between these bases and the ordinary Attic base is of the same kind which distinguishes Greek from Roman moulding. It is an extreme delicacy of curve, the substitution of elliptical sections for circular, and a wonderfully studious grouping of the hollows, rounds, and arrises, so as to produce a refined and delicate contrast and gradation of light and shade, without destroying the strength necessary to the main supporting feature. In this they showed a high appreciation of what is in all architecture a difficult problem—the uniting the conflicting claims of the lower part of a building, as on the one hand demanding the greatest strength of character as supporting the whole structure, and on the other a delicate finish, as the part open to the closest inspection.
The bases have usually one more part than a Classic base, having in most cases a projecting sub-plinth, either chamfered or moulded. In earlier instances the plinth and sub-plinth are both square in plan; and here, again, we obtain a feature of great beauty which antique architecture did not possess. I mean the beautiful leaves or bosses of foliage which spring out of the lower torus to cover the projecting angles of the plinth.
| Fig. 90.—Veselay. | Fig. 91.—Westminster. |
This projection is often reduced by making the torus overhang the square plinth in the centre of its sides, and a little projecting corbel is often put to carry this overhanging, as well as the leaf to cover the angles of the plinth.