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Glossary

Tondo
A circular painting or relief.
Torus (plural: tori)
Large convex moulding usually used on a classical column base.
Touch
Soft black marble quarried near Tournai in Belgium.
Tourelle
Turret corbelled out from the wall.
Tower arch
Arch joining a church tower to the nave.
Tower block
A generic term for any very high multi-storey building.
Tower house
(Scots and Irish): Compact fortified house with the main hall raised above the ground and at least one more storey above it. The type continued well into the 17th century in its modified forms: L-plan, with a jamb or wing at one corner; Z-plan, with a jamb or wing at each diagonally opposite corner.
Trabeated
Dependent structurally on the upright (post) and beam (lintel) principle. Compare arcuated.
Tracery
Openwork pattern of masonry or timber in an opening, especially the upper part of an opening; most common in Gothic architecture. Blind tracery is applied to a solid wall. Plate tracery, the earliest form, introduced c. 1200, has shapes cut through solid masonry. Bar tracery, introduced c. 1250, has patterns are formed by intersecting moulded ribwork continuing upwards from the mullions. Bar tracery types include: curvilinear tracery, with uninterrupted flowing curves, typical of the 14th century (also called flowing tracery); geometrical tracery, typical of c.1250-c.1310, which uses simple forms, especially circles, chiefly foiled; intersecting tracery, used c. 1300, formed by interlocking mullions each branching out in two curved bars of the same radius but different centres; loop tracery (Scots), used c. 1500-45, with large uncusped loop-like forms; panel tracery, with even upright divisions made by a horizontal transom or transoms; reticulated tracery, early 14th century, with net-like patterns of ogee- (double-curved) ended lozenges; Y-tracery, used c. 1300, which branches into a Y-shape.
Trades loft
(Scots): A gallery in a church reserved for a special group. Compare laird’s loft.