triforium

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triforium a gallery or arcade above the arches of the nave, choir, and transepts of a church. The Anglo-Latin term is found first in the chronicle of Gervase of Canterbury, c.1185, and originally referred only to Canterbury Cathedral; it was mentioned by Viollet-le-Duc in his Dictionnaire d'Architecture (1868) as having been introduced into architectural nomenclature by the English archaeologists, and from the 19th century was extended as a general term. The origin of the word is unknown.

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