Note 427 — Chapter IV · AMBULATORY VAULTS

If Signor Rivoira is correct in his attribution of this ambulatory to the third quarter of the eleventh century (Rivoira, I, pp. 222, 223), it affords not only an extremely early example of the straight ribbed type but an instance of a ribbed vaulted ambulatory of large size antedating that at Morienval by half a century. I am not prepared to accept this early date. The general elevation of the piers and ribs, the geographical situation of the church, the lack of any similarly vaulted ambulatories in the fifty years following its construction and the very form of the vaults, which may easily have once been of the groined type to be seen in the gallery of Santo Stefano at Verona with ribs added at a later date or reconstruction (note lower imposts of diagonal ribs and expanding soffits of transverse arches like those at Verona) together with many other details a discussion of which the limits of this paper forbids, make it seem most improbable that this ambulatory dates from 1049-1078. As a matter of fact, the date is of little importance in the present connection, since it is the type of vault employed with which this study is largely concerned.