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the Taj Mahal, both exceptionally beautiful, in which the Saracenic style may justly be said to have reached its culmination, nothing that can be compared with them having been since produced either in India or elsewhere. The Taj Mahal, built by the Emperor as a tomb for himself and his favourite wife, is indeed of dream-like and ethereal charm, with its well-proportioned domes and minarets, cased, as is the rest of the exterior, in white marble, and its interior enriched with mosaics of precious stones. CHAPTER VI ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE The term Romanesque is given to the period between the beginning of the 9th and the middle of the 12th century, but there was no real break in the continuity of the evolution of Christian architecture in Europe from the time when that art first freed itself from Pagan influence till it reached its noblest development in the Gothic style. [Illustration: Simple Intersecting Vaulting] From first to last the keynote of structure was the use of the arch for vaulting and for the spanning of piers and columns, and its form is, as a general rule, indicative of the phase of development to which it belongs. Although, however, it may be said that the semicircular arch is characteristic of Romanesque buildings, the lintel is occasionally used simultaneously with it in interiors, and the chief entrances are in many cases spanned by horizontal beams or courses of stone that are, however, as a general rule surmounted by arches. Moreover in late Romanesque work the pointed arch is now and then introduced shadowing forth the approaching change. It was not in the invention of new forms of vaulting but in the adaptation and improvement of those already in existence that Romanesque architects chiefly displayed their skill. The earliest Romanesque vaults were simple intersecting arches similar to those which had long been in use, but as time went on these were superseded by what is known as ribbed vaulting; that is to say by roofs divided into bays by a framework of diagonal ribs supporting fillings in of thin stone called severes, which in their turn gradually developed into the complex and ornate system of Gothic vaulting. To counteract the thrust of arched and ribbed vaulting the device of buttresses was hit upon. These buttresses consisted at first of a series of supports introduced beneath the roof of the aisles and extending from the back of the nave to the aisle wall, which wer
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