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12th century circular Baptistery, that has considerably later additions, and the famous Leaning Tower, the three buildings forming one of the finest architectural groups in the world. Certain very marked characteristics distinguish the buildings of Sicily from those of contemporary date on the mainland of Italy, the Romanesque style, as is very clearly seen in the Cathedral of Monreale, having been there considerably modified alike by Saracenic and Norman influences. The pointed arch was adopted long before it came into use elsewhere in Europe, having been, it is suggested, a modification of the horse-shoe form so characteristic of Moorish mosques. In France, Romanesque ecclesiastical architecture followed, in the main, the same lines as in Italy, with, in many cases, one notable addition, that of the chevet, a circlet of chapels round the eastern apse, which gradually grew out of what was known as an ambulatory, that is to say, a space in which perambulation was possible, obtained by the extension of the aisles behind the choir. In early examples of the ambulatory the circle was continuous, as in the church of S. Saturnin, Auvergne, but as time went on, small semicircular chapels were introduced, with windows between them, that gradually developed into the chevet, the chapels increasing in number and in size, and in some cases extending westwards along the aisles. The churches and cathedrals of Southern France differ in several respects from those of the North, the aisleless basilica plan with barrel, intersecting, or domed vaulting being of frequent occurrence in the former, whilst in the latter the beautiful arcaded aisles and steeply pitched roof presage the approach of the Gothic style with its pointed arches, groined roofs, flying buttresses, and tapering pinnacles. The five-domed S. Front in Perigueux, though it has rudimentary aisles only, is a good example of an early French Romanesque building, in which Oriental influence is very perceptible, it being in some of its features a copy of S. Marco, Venice, whilst in the later Cathedral of Angouleme of cruciform plan with apsidal chapels, that of Le Puy with a triple entrance porch, the church of S. Hilaire, Poitiers, with its irregular domes, the uncompleted S. Ours, Loche, with its pyramidal octagonal spires, S. Saturnin, Toulouse, with its central many-storied tapering tower, the 12th century churches of Vezelay and Avallon; the cathedral and church of
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