to the roof. The next consequence of this arrangement was a changed form of the pillar with its buttress, both growing broader towards the axe of the church, in order not to obstruct the side-aisles. The Gothic pillars of the dome rest on square plinths with chamfered edges; the bases are jointed; in the middle aisle we find them below the floor, which has been raised. The pillars have no capitals; they are set round with vaulting-shafts, to which a piriform profile is given by added pillars on the front side. The arches of the rib vaulting are equilateral, which is also a common characteristic of the Cracow development of Gothic style. The middle aisle gains much beauty from the niches which interrupt the lines of the vaultingshafts; they are surmounted by gracefully carved canopies, and contain wooden statues of the Fathers of the Church, of which three are from the workshop of the famous Vitus Stoss, of Nuremberg.
The vaulting is, in most parts, a cross-vault with ribs; above the high altar, however, we find a network vaulting in the form of a half-star—as in St. Mary's Chapel—produced by two arcades in the eastern wall of the choir.
One of the chief characteristics of the dome is the variety of decorative architectonic forms employed in the walls of the upper story, in spite of their small height as compared with buildings in the West of Europe; this proves the high artistic sense of the builder. There was no room here for a complete triforium; the architect had to replace it by something else, and did so by creating a combination of window and triforium: in the upper part of the middle window-like niche he made a window, which he divided by mullions into three parts, and adorned with tracery. The lower part of the niche remained intact, was walled up, the mullions made to join into pointed arches at the top, and a parapet placed above them as a bar between the niche and the window. The old stained glazing was destroyed in the early nineteenth century.
No report has been preserved either of the architect or of the masonic lodge that acted in the building of the cathedral;
