There are two typical styles of Roman church art: Lombardy and Norman.
The picture shows San Ambroi Cathedral in Milan, Italy, which is a typical Lombardy style. This is the first church to reinforce the cross vault with arch ribs. Lombard-style architecture gives people a strong sense of rhythm.
Normandy-style churches are more exquisite and elegant than Lombard-style churches, the most famous of which is the Cathedral Cathedral in Durham, England.
Gothic architecture is characterized by towering spires. In the design, cross arches, flying tickets, slender columns and new frame structures are adopted to increase the strength of the supporting top, so that the whole building has a strong religious atmosphere in the church with its straight lines, majestic appearance and open space in the church, combined with long windows inlaid with colored glass. The plane of the church is basically a Latin cross, but a pair of tall towers are added on both sides of the west gate.
The structural system of Gothic church consists of stone skeleton coupons and flying buttresses. Its basic unit is to make a double-center skeleton tip coupon on the pillars at the four corners of a square or rectangular plane, one on each side and one on the diagonal, and the roof slate is supported on the coupon to form a vault. In this way, coupons with the same height can be made on different spans, and the vault is light in weight and clear in intersection, which reduces the thrust of the coupon foot and simplifies the construction.
The flying crib is issued by the pier outside the side hall to balance the lateral thrust of the arch foot in the middle hall. In order to increase stability, minarets are often built on column piers. Due to the use of pointed vouchers, pointed arches and flying buttresses, the interior space of Gothic churches is spacious, simple and unified. Ornamental details such as canopies and niches are also themed with sharp coupons, and the architectural style and structural techniques form an organic whole.
Byzantine architecture is characterized by a small difference between the horizontal and vertical lengths of the cross, and a large dome at the intersection. The dome is on a square plane. It is a great contribution to the development of European architecture to build a covered dome and put the weight on four independent pillars. Hagia Sophia is a typical Byzantine building. Its foundation is rectangular like a Roman building, but the roof of the central part is composed of a huge circular vault and a semi-circular vault at the front and back.
In terms of architecture and interior decoration, the earliest achievement was in the Christian Church, which initially followed the basilica style. But in the 5th century, they created a new architectural form, that is, centralized form. The characteristic of this shape is that the dome is supported by four or more independent columns, and the sail arch is used as the middle connection. At the same time, groups of domes can be gathered together to form a broad and diverse new spatial image. Compared with the vaults of ancient Rome, this is a great progress.