Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in Gothic cathedrals and churches. The windows are divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery. The term rose window was not used before the 17th century and comes from the English flower name rose. The name "wheel window" is often applied to a window divided by simple spokes radiating from a central boss or opening, while the term "rose window" is reserved for those windows, sometimes of a highly complex design, which can be seen to bear similarity to a multi-petalled rose. Rose windows are also called "Catherine windows" after Saint Catherine of Alexandria, who was sentenced to be executed on a spiked breaking wheel. A circular window without tracery such as are found in many Italian churches, is referred to as an ocular window or oculus. Rose windows are particularly characteristic of Gothic architecture and may be seen in all the major Gothic cathedrals of Northern France. Their origins are much earlier than Gothic architecture, however, and rose windows may be seen in various forms throughout the Medieval period. Their popularity was revived, with other medieval features, during the Gothic revival of the 19th century, so that they are seen in Christian churches all over the world.
Style Oculi: These could be open or blind, could be glazed or filled with thin alabaster. During the late Gothic period very large ocular windows were common in Italy, being used in preference to traceried windows and being filled with elaborate pictures in stained glass designed by the most accomplished Late Medieval and Early Renaissance designers including Duccio, Donatello, Uccello and Ghiberti. Wheel Windows: These windows had a simple tracery of spokes radiating either from a central boss or from a central roundel. Popular during the Romanesque period and Gothic Italy, they are found across Europe but particularly Germany and Italy. They also occur in Romanesque Revival buildings of the 19th and 20th centuries. Plate Tracery: Rose windows with pierced openings rather than tracery occur in the transition between Romanesque and Gothic, particularly in France and most notably at Chartres. The most notable example in England is the north transept window, known as the "Dean's Eye" in Lincoln Cathedral. These windows are occasionally found in 19th-century Revival buildings. Early Gothic: Rose windows with tracery comprising overlapping arcs like flower petals, circular and square shapes. This form occurs in Northern France, notably at Laon Cathedral, Italy and England. This style of window is popular in Gothic Revival architecture for the similarity that it has to a flower and is also utilised with specific reference to Our Lady of the Rosary. Rayonnant Gothic: The rose windows are divided by mullions radiating from a central roundel, overlapping in a complex design, each light terminating in a pointed arch and often interspersed with quatrefoils and other such shapes. Many of the largest rose windows in France are of this type, notably those at Paris and in the transepts of St Denis. An example in England is that in the north transept of Westminster Abbey. This style occurs widely in Gothic churches and is also widely imitated in Gothic Revival buildings. Flamboyant Gothic: The style is marked by S-curves in the tracery causing each light to take on a flamelike or "flamboyant" shape. Many windows are composed of fairly regularly shaped lights the richness of design dependent on the multiplicity of parts. Good examples are at Beauvais Cathedral and Sainte-Chapelle, Paris. Some Late Gothic rose windows are of immense complexity of design, often using elements of the Gothic style in unexpected ways. A magnificent example is that of the façade of Amiens Cathedral. Although the design usually radiates from a central point, it may not be symmetrical about each axis. This may be seen in the Flamboyant Decorated Gothic window called the "Bishop's Eye" at Lincoln Cathedral in which the design takes the form of two ears of wheat. Renaissance: The Renaissance made a break with the Gothic style, and a return to the Classical. Plain untraceried oculi were sometimes employed, either in Classical pediments or around domes as at the Pazzi Chapel, Florence. Baroque: The Baroque style saw much greater use of ocular windows, which were not always circular, but frequently oval or of a more complex shape. They were untraceried or crossed by mullions of very simple form but were often surrounded by ornate carving. The purpose of such windows was the subtle illumination of interior spaces, without resorting to large windows offering external visibility. They rarely form a dominant visual element to either the façade or the interior as do the great Gothic windows. However, there are some notable exceptions, in particular the glorious burst of light which pours through the oval alabaster window depicting the Holy Spirit in the Reredos behind the High Altar of St. Peter's Basilica, Rome. Modern: Modern circular windows, which are most frequently of a simple ocular type, have an eclectic range of influences which includes abstract art, ship's portholes and the unglazed circular openings of Oriental architecture.
History
Origin The origin of the rose window may be found in the Roman oculus. These large circular openings let in both light and air, the best known being that at the top of the dome of the Pantheon. Geometrical patterns similar to those in rose windows occur in Roman mosaics. The German art historian Otto von Simson (1912-1993) considered that the origin of the rose window lay in a window with the six-lobed rosettes and octagon which adorned the external wall of the Umayyad palace Khirbat al-Mafjar near Jericho, built between 740 and 750 CE. This theory suggests that crusaders brought the design of this attractive window to Europe, introducing it to churches. But the decorative pattern for rose and, independently, the tracery, are very present in vestiges of the early Christian architecture, Byzantine architecture, and especially in Merovingian art, and Visigothic architecture before the Muslim conquest of Spain. Half roses are also known, as with the church of San Juan Bautista in Baños de Cerrato. The scarcity and the brittleness of the vestiges of this time does not make it possible to say that the complete rose window in tracery did not exist in the early Middle Ages.
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