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pendentive

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | Date: 2008

pendentive in architecture, a constructive device permitting the placing of a circular dome over a square room or an elliptical dome over a rectangular room. The pendentives, which are triangular segments of a sphere, taper to points at the bottom and spread at the top to establish the continuous circular or elliptical base needed for the dome. In masonry the pendentives thus receive the weight of the dome, concentrating it at the four corners where it can be received by the piers beneath. Prior to the pendentive's development, the device of corbeling or the use of the squinch in the corners of a room had been employed. The first attempts at pendentives were made by the Romans, but full achievement of the form was reached only by the Byzantines in Hagia Sophia at Constantinople (6th cent.). Pendentives were commonly used in Renaissance and baroque churches, with a drum often inserted between the dome and pendentives.

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Related entries from encyclopedias, dictionaries, and thesauruses

	pendentive The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology pendentive (archit.) each of the spherical triangles formed by the intersection of a hemispherical dome by two pairs of opposite arches. XVIII. — F. pendentif , f. L. pendēns , -ent- , prp. of pendēre hang; see -IVE . Read more
	pendentive Britannica Concise Encyclopedia ... to recognize the possibilities of the pendentive and fully develop it ( Hagia Sophia ... architectural inventions of all time, the pendentive became very important in the Renaissance ... As a result of Byzantine influence, pendentives are also frequent in Islamic architecture ... Read more
	squinch The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition ... octagonal or spherical dome. It was the primitive solution of this problem, the perfected one being eventually provided by the pendentive. Squinches may be formed by masonry built out from the angle in corbeled courses, by filling the corner with a vise placed ... Read more
	dome The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition ... to discover a proper handling of the pendentive —the device essential to placing a ... Roman Pantheon and of the Byzantine pendentive came to bear on the designers of the ... period were covered by masonry domes on pendentives. Between pendentive and dome a circular ... Read more
	Hagia Sophia World Encyclopedia ... –37) for the Emperor Justinian I . A supreme masterpiece of Byzantine architecture, it was the first building to use pendentives to support a central dome. A series of domes extends the lofty interior space. The interior contains columns of marble and ... Read more