architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

, a tholobate (from el, θολοβάτης, tholobates, dome pedestal) or drum is the upright part of a building on which a

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

is raised. It is generally in the shape of a cylinder or a polygonal prism. Dome on the State Capitol building in Harrisburg Pennsylvania

In the earlier

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

churches, the dome rested directly on the

pendentive In architecture, a pendentive is a constructional device permitting the placing of a circular dome over a square room or of an elliptical dome over a rectangular room. The pendentives, which are triangular segments of a sphere, taper to points ...

s and the windows were pierced in the dome itself; in later examples, between the pendentive and the dome an intervening circular wall was built in which the windows were pierced. This is the type which was universally employed by the architects of the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

, of whose works the best-known example is

St. Peter's Basilica The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican ( it, Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano), or simply Saint Peter's Basilica ( la, Basilica Sancti Petri), is a church built in the Renaissance style located in Vatican City, the papal e ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. Other examples of churches of this type are

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Grad ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and the churches of the

Les Invalides The Hôtel des Invalides ( en, "house of invalids"), commonly called Les Invalides (), is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as ...

, the

Val-de-Grâce The (' or ') was a military hospital located at in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was closed as a hospital in 2016. History The church of the was built by order of Queen Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII. After the birth of h ...

, and the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. There are also secular buildings with tholobates: the

United States Capitol dome The United States Capitol features a dome situated above its rotunda. The dome is in height and in diameter. Designed by Thomas U. Walter, the fourth Architect of the Capitol, it was constructed between 1855 and 1866 at a cost of $1,047,291 (e ...

in Washington, D.C. is set on a drum, as are numerous American state capitols. The

Panthéon The Panthéon (, from the Classical Greek word , , ' empleto all the gods') is a monument in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, France. It stands in the Latin Quarter, atop the , in the centre of the , which was named after it. The edifice was b ...

in Paris is another secular building featuring a dome on a drum. St Paul's Cathedral and the Panthéon were the two inspirations for the U.S. Capitol. In contrast, the dome of the

Reichstag building The Reichstag (, ; officially: – ; en, Parliament) is a historic government building in Berlin which houses the Bundestag, the lower house of Germany's parliament. It was constructed to house the Imperial Diet (german: Reichstag) of the ...

in Berlin before its post-war restoration was a

quadrilateral In geometry a quadrilateral is a four-sided polygon, having four edges (sides) and four corners (vertices). The word is derived from the Latin words ''quadri'', a variant of four, and ''latus'', meaning "side". It is also called a tetragon, ...

, so its tholobate was square and not round.

References

{{reflist Architectural elements

See also

References