Doors, p113

Willis (1835) p.113:

The Italian Enriched doorways appear to me to be by far the best specimens of their Middle Age work, and they are, fortunately, extremely well preserved. Every other part of the building is liable to transformation, and frequently suffers more or less from the intrusion of new ornaments, or the destruction of old. The interiors especially may be found with every gradation of change, from the mere alteration of a few capitals to the complete mask of plaster-work, which transforms the Gothic cathedral into the pseudo-classical hall. Even the windows may have their tracery removed, but the doorways seem to have been always respected and allowed to remain; even when the original building has been taken down from behind them, and an entirely new one erected. In the list of churches in the Appendix scarcely one will be found without its original doorway, and a great number have little else left. The same fortune has always attended our doorways. How often, for example, the Norman doorway is found encrusted in the Early English façade of our own country.

[Version 0.05: May 2008]