ABSTRACT
The investigation on the Eastern features of Western medieval architecture has been complex and intricate since the early 1800s, when an increasing number of scholars became interested in the origins and development of Romanesque and Byzantine buildings. This is still an open issue: several hypotheses attempt to find a relationship between medieval architectures of the East and the West, as well as an explanation to their construction processes, deepening the scarce and sometimes hardly comprehensible historical and archaeological documentation, today available. More in-depth, through the specific treatment of the 19th-century French studies on the Byzantine domes, squinches and pendentives, the present contribution aims to understand how these constructive elements were analyzed by French rationalists. In this way, it will be possible to evaluate the plausibility of the statements they adopted, first to study them and then to expose them to a more erudite audience.
