The Gothics, on the
other hand, (a Germanic tribe from somewhere in the vicinity of Wuppertal,) invented the
flying buttress…
That was a joke. There was no such tribe as the ‘Gothics’ who
hailed from Wuppertal or anywhere else in Germany. I feel
obliged to set the matter straight because I would hate to be responsible for some
American YouTube channel on 10 Little
Known Facts about European Architecture demonstrating its erudition with:
#1 How the Gothics, a tribe
from Western Germany, invented the flying
buttress.
Oh dear. They didn’t. Sorry.
There was a group called the Goths who did, as far as I
know, come from somewhere in Germany.
And if you want to read up on how an irate Italian (who didn’t like Germans
because they messed up the Roman Empire) coined the term ‘Gothic’ in a
pejorative sense – by using the aforesaid Goths as representative of ‘barbarous
bloody Germans’ – you may do so here.
He was a little prejudiced, of course. Gothic architecture
is actually both visually attractive and supremely functional, although I
confess to disliking the flying buttress. I think it looks clumpy and
inelegant, but that’s just me. Please don’t blame the Germans for my divergence
from received taste.
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