SPIRAL COLUMNS AND FRENCH LATE GOTHIC ORDER. Part 2. Spiral columns in the structure of Late Gothic church
This paper is the second part of a study on the spiral columns in French Late Gothic architecture (only in church buildings). The genre of the first part of this study was defined as a historiography. That part focused on the spiral columns of Old St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and theirs dissemination in medieval Europe, because that can be considered one of the anticipated prototypes for Late Gothic spiral columns. In contrast, this article is concentrated not in the amplitude, but in the nature of this phenomenon, and also in the response of Gothic architecture to a new form. The article includes a brief overview of different ways of interpreting spiral columns in gothic architecture: as the part of “antique manner” or as a manifestation of the past study of the development of styles. The principle difference between this paper and other papers is that this would involve the spiral columns as one of the members of Gothic architecture. Saint-Severin in Paris, Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais in Gisors, Saint-Nicolas in Saint-Nicolas-de-Port (from the end of the 15th century to 1520s) have been chosen for this purpose, because in these churches spiral columns were part of the original projects, but were not integrated later. The spiral columns in these monuments were always paired and placed in intermediate spatial zones, corresponding to principles of Gothic architecture in the first century of its development. It can be concluded that the using of spiral columns is in line with the logic of Gothic architecture in aspects of an order and a structure, and its artistic decision totally fit into the Late Gothic style.