Gothic Art of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (chapter 17)
The Old-New Synagogue built in the third quarter of the thirteenth century using the hall-church design, Prague’s Old- New Synagogue (Altneuschul) is the oldest functioning synagogue in Europe and one of two principal synagogues serving the Jews of Prague. Like a hall church, the vaults of the synagogue are all the same height. Unlike a basilican church, however, with its division into nave and side aisles, the Old-New Synagogue has only two aisles, each with three bays supported by the walls and two octagonal piers. Each bay has Gothic four-part ribbed vaulting to which a nonfunctional fifth rib has been added. Some say that this fifth rib was added to undermine the cross form made by the intersecting diagonal ribs. Medieval synagogues were both places of (...)
