FIGURE]

[Illustration 46]

The _vesica piscis_ (a figure formed by the developing arcs of two
equilateral triangles having a common side) which in so many cases
seems to have determined the main proportion of a cathedral plan--the
interior length and width across the transepts--appears as an aureole
around the figure of Christ in early representations, a fact which
certainly points to a relation between the two (Illustrations 42,
43). A curious little book, _The Rosicrucians_, by Hargrave Jennings,
contains an interesting diagram which well illustrates this conception
of the symbolism of a cathedral. A copy of it is here given. The apse
is seen to correspond to the head of Christ, the north transept to his
right hand, the south transept to the left hand, the nave to the body,
and the north and south towers to the right and left feet respectively
(Illustration 44).

[Illustration 47]

The cathedral builders excelled all others in the artfulness with
which they established and maintained a relation between their
architecture and the stature of a man. This is perhaps one reason why
the French and English cathedrals, even those of moderate dimensions
are more truly impressive than even the largest of the great
Renaissance structures, such as St. Peter's in Rome. A gigantic order
furnishes no true measure for the eye: its vastness is revealed
only by the accident of some human presence which forms a basis
of comparison. That architecture is not necessarily the most
awe-inspiring which gives the impression of having been built by
giants for the abode of pigmies; like the other arts, architecture is
highest when it is most human. The mediaeval builders, true to this
dictum, employed stones of a size proportionate to the strength of
a man working without unusual mechanical aids; the great piers and
columns, built up of many such stones, were commonly subdivided
into clusters, and the circumference of each shaft of such a cluster
approximated the girth of a man; by this device the moulding of the
base and the foliation of the caps were easily kept in scale. Wherever
a balustrade occurred it was proportioned not with relation to the
height of the wall or the column below, as in classic architecture,
but with relation to a man's stature.

[Illustration 48: FIGURE DIVIDED ACCORDING TO THE EGYPTIAN CANON]

It may be stated as a general rule that every work of architecture,
of whatever style, should have somewhere about it s