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Fan Vaulting
Jan. 31st, 2020 09:39 amThe cloister at Gloucester Abbey (as it then was) is the first building anywhere to have fan vaulting. The work was done between 1351-1377 but no-one knows who came up with the design.
You know you've turned the corner from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance when artists, engineers and architects start to have names. The great medieval churches may be among the most beautiful buildings in the world but the names of their builders are mostly forgotten.
Had the inventor of the fan vault lived a couple of generations later he would be as famous as Brunelleschi.
I suppose the cloister would once have been painted in many colours- which would have been grand- bordering on psychedelic. As it is it's like an ice cave or tunnel of light.
You know you've turned the corner from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance when artists, engineers and architects start to have names. The great medieval churches may be among the most beautiful buildings in the world but the names of their builders are mostly forgotten.
Had the inventor of the fan vault lived a couple of generations later he would be as famous as Brunelleschi.
I suppose the cloister would once have been painted in many colours- which would have been grand- bordering on psychedelic. As it is it's like an ice cave or tunnel of light.
