Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/223

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structural principles of France. Nor, in a style in which there is so little either of original invention or of local modification, do we need to consider in particular the forms of fa9ades or of towers and spires. These, in so far as they belong to the original constructions, are little different from similar features in France. The west front of the Cathedral of Burgos, for example, exhibits the French scheme up as high as the foundations of the spires, except that the wall of the ground-story is unbroken by buttresses, and that above this story the wall is set back at some distance, so that the top of the lower wall forms a ledge from which, flush with its outer face, the tower buttresses rise. The spires are of later date; and are of the German open-work design like that of the spires of Freiburg and Cologne.