Italian Gothic Timber Roof

Example of italian gothic architecture verdon 1994.

Italian gothic timber roof.

The building is 84 70 m high and 14 45 m wide with a square base richly covered with white red and green. Rafters have a tendency to flatten under gravity thrusting outwards on the walls. It is a gothic version of a basilican church with widely spaced columns and open timber roof. It is distinctive by its pronounced exaggeration of many italian renaissance characteristics.

A timber roof truss is a structural framework of timbers designed to bridge the space above a room and to provide support for a roof trusses usually occur at regular intervals linked by longitudinal timbers such as purlins the space between each truss is known as a bay. Decoration on the italianate exterior was no less fanciful. The pitched gothic timber roof was a distinctive feature pof the style both in religious and domestic architecture. Emphatic eaves supported by corbels low pitched roofs barely discernible from the ground or even flat roofs with a wide projection.

The nave roofs of italian churches continued to be constructed of wood with flat ceilings till the thirteenth century. Pastexperience inthe use ofthe gothic roof has shown the difficultyinbuildinga roof of thistype insuch a way thatitwillwithstand the loads imposed upon itwithout sag ging. Nevertheless itispossible tomake a curved rafterto conformlauch more closelyto the ideal shape whichwillcarry the dead loadswithout producinga bendingmoment in the rafter. The gothic notre dame de paris was built with a peaked timber roof red protecting its masonry nave vault blue.

Advances in technology made the production of decorative cast iron ornament easier and cheaper so it shows up frequently on balconies and porches as well as in fences and roof cresting whether in rounded italian designs or in gothic or classical ones. The town s famous gray and white basalt and travertine cathedral with an exposed timber roof dominates the surrounding countryside. A tower is often incorporated hinting at the italian belvedere or even campanile tower. It had to be able to resist rain snow and high winds of the english climate and to preserve the integrity of the structure.

Plain groined vaults of small span were common and divided into compartments s by flat bands a practice which was continued into the gothic period. Cross section of the dome of st. 1294 1442 one of the largest churches in europe was designed by arnolfo di cambio and contains numerous monuments to celebrated italians.