The columns stand less than their diameter apart, and theabaci are so broad that they nearly touch.
Still less can the temple have ever been overlaid with stucco; but that it was intended to do so, we may infer from the fact that the abaci of the capitals have projecting points probably for the purpose of holding the plaster.
The finely carved capitals carry square abaci in the side aisles and circular ones in the nave.
Both abaci and bases have been placed at right angles to the arches they support.
You will have noted in this connection the bold abaci of the piers of the nave and the peculiar elongated, round-headed arches of the choir arcade.
The abaci are in one stone, but the bases of the shafts are separate and rest upon a low dwarf-wall, and square piers are carried up at intervals to strengthen the arcade.
The apse has three round-headed windows, and there is a noble north door, similar in design to those of San Millan, and with the abaci and labels richly carved.
The abaci of the capitals are either square or octagonal in plan.
There are string-courses under each window, and the abaci are also carried round the steeple as string-courses of inferior scale.
The capitals of the nave arcades have their abaciplanned with re-entering angles, so as exactly to fit the plan of the two square orders of the archivolt.
The abaci are very richly carved with animals and foliage, and the capitals are all sculptured with subjects under canopies.
The abaci are carved throughout with conventional foliage, well arranged and delicately cut.
The groining is simple quadripartite, and the ribs are well moulded; many of the capitals are carved with great vigour, and some of their abaci are covered also with stories admirably rendered.
Take, for instance, this story of the Cat and the Rats, which I sketched on one of the abaci of the southern walk of the cloister.
The abaci and capitals are carved, but everywhere the carving is overlaid with whitewash so thickly as to be not very intelligible.
The bases and abaci of the capitals are all square.
The arcades of six pointed arches dividing the nave from either aisle are very light, and supported on delicate marble columns, whose capitals, with square abaci and foliage of Classical character, hardly look like Gothic work.
The capitals here are very close imitations of Classical work, with the abacifrequently concave on plan.
The arcading throughout rests on massive piers and circular columns, with square bases and abaci (incised at the angles) and low cushioned capitals, ornamented with a simple scallop.
The capitals of the columns are all set in the direction of the arches and ribs they carry, and their abaci and bases are all square in plan.
But for a few square abaci which are used, and for the appearance of early tracery in the side windows, it might pass as a purely Lancet building.
First each capital has a square abacus of some depth, then comes a large flat circle, one for each three caps, and at the top a star-shaped moulding of hollow curves, the points projecting beyond the middle of the square abaci below.
Each window has three very slender white marble shafts, with capitals and with abaci moulded on each side.
The capitals which are rather tall are carved with rather shallow leaves, but the most noticeable features are the huge square moulded abaci which are so large as to be more like those of the romanesque cloisters at Moissac or of Sta.
They are carved with more elaborate foliage and gilt, and the abaci follow more exactly the line of the caps below and are carved and gilded in the same way.
These two spring from strange square abaci resting on the carved capitals of round shafts, two on each side.
It therefore forms their abaci only; and in order to mark the diminished importance of its function, it ceases to receive, as the abacus of the capital, the decoration which it received as the string course of the wall.
There one poor abacus stretched itself out to do all the work: here there are idle abaci getting up into corners and doing none.
There is, however, evident sacrifice of sound principle in this system, the smaller abaci being of no use.
In fact, when the groups of shafts became excessively complicated, the expansion of their small abaci was of no use: it was dispensed with altogether, and the mouldings of pier and jamb ran up continuously into the arches.
By its various distribution on their centres or edges, the slope of their bells and thickness of abaci will be affected also; so that he has countless expedients at his command for the various treatment of his design.
Each of the four sides is pierced by two groups of coupled openings under superior arches, the several moulded members of which rise in four receding orders from the square abaci of the capitals of the angle shafts.
It rises as far up as to the string-course formed by the continuation of the abaci of the capitals in the two small single-light windows.
Above them may be seen the square abaci which are so much used in all the later work in the cathedral.
The abacito the capitals are square; but now there are no shafts or bases in the jambs.
But the abaci of its capitals run from the jambs across to the buttresses, as is the case with those of the doorway.
The restored abaci of the capitals, like the originals, are some of them square, others irregular octagons.
It shows, too, in the second bay, the level of the old abaci which ran across from each capital in the window jambs and stopped against the sides of the buttresses.
The windows in the second, third, and fourth bays differ in size and shape from each other; that in the second bay has a pointed arch and no tracery, squareabaci and the remains of carved capitals.
The next is a continuation of the abaci of the capitals.
The abaci are new, and the angle-shafts and bases as well, but the capitals are old, though decayed.
The windows have label-moulds over them, and the abaci of the capitals are carried across the buttresses on either side as a string-course.
The arches of the two side windows cut through string courses which run eastwards on both sides of the presbytery, being, in fact, continuations of the abaci proper of the half-capitals at that end of the choir.
The windows were filled with glass, and between them were abaci of peacock-marble, supported on the gilded wings of Cupids, and of griffins which looked in opposite directions.
Jackson's explanation of the addition of the heavy abaci seems quite reasonable--viz.
The narthex has three thick antique pillars, part granite and part marble, with heavy early Christian Corinthian caps and super-abaci with crosses upon them.
The style of the caps of the nave arcade, the irregularity in their size, and in that of the plain super-abaci above them, also point to the same period.
There appears to have been a restoration in the sixth century, probably under Narses; the use of super-abaci and the caps in the transept suggest this.
The super-abaci are of Greek marble, with a circular plaque bearing the monogram of Euphrasius.
At this time the nave arcade was made pointed, and some of the super-abaci carved with Gothic foliage.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "abaci" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
