Fleuron (architectural)

A fleuron is a flower-shaped ornament, and in architecture may have a number of meanings:

# It is a collective noun for the ornamental termination at the ridge of a roof, such as a crop, finial or épi.
# It is also a form of stylised Late Gothic decoration in the form of a four-leafed square, often seen on crockets and cavetto mouldings.
# It can be the ornament in the middle of each concave face of a Corinthian abacus.
# Finally, it can be a form of anthemion, a Greek floral ornament.

Gallery

Marble akroterion MET DT259543.jpg, Ancient Greek fleuron as an ''anthemion'' (Greek word for flower), –325 BC, marble, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

Corinthian capital, AM of Epidauros, 202545.jpg, Ancient Greek Corinthian capital with a fleuron on the abacus, from the tholos at Epidaurus, said to have been designed by Polyclitus the Younger, 350 BC, stone, Archaeological Museum of Epidaurus, Greece

File:Mirror with a cover depicting the rape of Auge by Hercules (4th cent. B.C.) at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens on 16 May 2018.jpg, Ancient Greek fleuron as an ''anthemion'' on a mirror with cover, bronze, 340 BC, bronze, National Archaeological Museum, Athens

File:Capitello terme foro ostia.JPG, Roman Corinthian capital with a fleuron on the abacus of the Baths at Ostia, Ostia Antica, near modern Ostia, southwest of Rome, unknown architect, unknown date

File:Les edifices antiques de Rome 1779 (138343015).jpg, Roman Corinthian capital of the Temple of Vesta, Tivoli, Italy, with an oversized fleuron on the abacus, probably a stylized hibiscus blossom with spiral pistil, unknown architect, 1st century BC

file:Fleuron.XIIIe.siecle.2.png, Gothic fleuron with a square section of a tier of four leaves or petals developing around a prominent central bud, early 13th century, illustration from the ''Dictionary of French architecture from the 11th to the 16th century'' by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc

Fleuron.XIIIe.siecle.5.png, Gothic fleuron with two rays of foliage, mid-13th century, illustration from the ''Dictionary of French architecture from the 11th to the 16th century''

Ammortissement.XIIIe.siecle.png, Gothic fleuron, 13th century, illustration from the ''Dictionary of French architecture from the 11th to the 16th century''

Fleuron.XVe.siecle.2.png, Gothic fleuron with stripped of foliage, 15th century, illustration from the ''Dictionary of French architecture from the 11th to the 16th century''

Bust of the Virgin MET DP124049 (cropped2).jpg, Gothic fleurons on a crown of the Virgin, 1390-1395, terracotta with paint, Metropolitan Museum of Art

File:Hôtel de ville de Bruxelles - Arcades 91.JPG, Gothic fleuron on the Brussels Town Hall, Belgium, by Jean Bornoy, Jacob van Thienen or Jan van Ruysbroeck, 1401-1455

File:Fleuron Choeur-04.jpg, Gothic fleurons in the Chapelle de Condat, Libourne, unknown architect, probably the 15th century and restored in the 1860s

Fontaine Nymphe Fluviale Paris 4 (cropped).jpg, Neoclassical fleuron on the capital of a Corinthian pilaster of the Fontaines du Théâtre-Français, Paris, designed by Gabriel Davioud and sculpted by François Théophile Murgey, 1867-1874

File:Kreuzblumen Kölner Dom.jpg, Gothic Revival fleurons from the finials of Cologne Cathedral, Cologne, Germany, by Ernst Friedrich Zwirner, 1880

File:051 Col·legi de les Teresianes, pinacle i escut.JPG, Gothic Revival reinterpretation of a fleuron on the College of Saint Teresa-Ganduxer, Barcelona, Spain, by Antoni Gaudí i Cornet and Joan Baptista Pons i Trabal, 1887-1889

File:1-3 Strada Benjamin Franklin, Bucharest (22).jpg, Oversized Neoclassical fleurons on the Romanian Atheneum, Bucharest, Romania, inspired by those of the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli, by Paul Louis Albert Galeron, 1888

File:Interior of the George Severeanu Museum in Bucharest (56).jpg, Gothic Revival fleuron in the George Severeanu Museum, Bucharest, unknown architect, 1900

File:Grave of the Alexandru Costescu Family in the Bellu Cemetery in Bucharest, Romania (09).jpg, Gothic Revival fleurons on the Grave of the Alexandru Costescu Family in the Bellu Cemetery, Bucharest, unknown architect, 1900

File:Aldus leaf.svg, Typography fleurons

See also

*Flamboyant

References

{{reflist

Architectural elements
Ornaments (architecture)