Apse

Structure Christian

Although the word apse should rigorously apply only to the platform or half dome which closes the ancient basilica, is employed it today to indicate the bedside, the end of the chorus, and even the circular or polygonal vaults of the transepts or the roundabout.

One says: “apsidal chapels”, i.e. vaults girding the principal apse.

Other forms

Square apse: the cathedral of Laon, the church (old cathedral) of Fraud (Brittany), are finished by square apses, like much of small churches of the Île-de-France, of Champagne, Burgundy, Brittany and Normandy.

There exist also apses of rectangular form.

Certain churches have their pilot wheels finished by semicircular apses, such are the transepts of the cathedrals of Noyon, of Soissons, Tournai in Belgium; churches of Saint-Macaire, close to Bordeaux; of Saint Martin's day of Cologne, all churches built during the 12th century or at the beginning of the XIIIe.

Structure ancient

The apse is a volume which widens the bottom of a monument, in the shape of half-cylinder surmounted by a half-sphere (vault in Cul of furnace).

Its employment delimits inside the monument a privileged space, which attracts the glance and where one can emphasize a statue or the seat of magistrate.

The architectural innovations in the ancient Rome at the 1st century see the generalization of the apse in the public monuments, such as the Roman Thermes or the civil Basilique S.

Christian architecture regained this architectural shape by adapting the basilicas to the worship.

Vocabulary

One uses the term absidal for what refers to the apse.

One also speaks about apse for the part of a Tente without protection of ground. This part is used for to pose the luggage and clothes, to even prepare food - it thus has more or less a role of Auvent.

A absidiole is a small apse which finishes a side aisle, while the apse closes the central nave or great nave.

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