These Intercolumns Are Twenty-One Panels Of Figured Crimson Velvet, And Above Them Six Windows, Viz., In Each Intercolumniation Seven Panels And Two Windows, One Above The Other; At The Greatest Altitude Above All Which Is A Glory Finely Done.

The aperture north and south into the choir are (ascending up three steps of black marble) by two iron folding-doors, being, as that under the organ-gallery, &c., exquisitely wrought into divers figures, spiral branches, and other flourishes.

There are two others at the west end of the choir, the one opening into the south aisle, the other in the north, done by the celebrated artist in this way, M. Tijan.

And what contributes to the beauty of this choir are the galleries, the bishop's throne, Lord Mayor's seat, with the stalls, all which being contiguous, compose one vast body of carved work of the finest wainscot, constituting three sides of a quadrangle.

The cupola (within the church) appears erected and elevated on eight pillars of a large magnitude, adorned with pilasters, entablature, circular pediments, and arches of the Corinthian order, and each pillar enriched with a spacious festoon. Here are also as many alcoves fronted with curious ironwork, and over the arches, at a great height from the ground, is an entablature, and on the cornice an ambulatory, fronted or fenced in with handsome ironwork, extending round the inside of the cupola, above which is a range of thirty-two pilasters of the Corinthian order, where every fourth intercolumn is adorned with a niche and some enrichments; and it said that in every foot of altitude the diameter of this decreaseth one inch.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 53 of 145
Words from 14781 to 15055 of 40922