The Italian style stole imperceptibly into France, its fame,
perhaps, inciting French ironworkers long before they were actu-
ally aware of the peculiarities of its construction. On the other
hand, geometric design, the basis of Gothic architecture, was
already beginning to be applied to ironwork in France, and the
Italian work, perhaps, merely gave it an impulse.
The choir aisle gates from Rouen Cathedral, now in the Rouen



100 IRON.
Museum, show one of its earliest introductions in grillework.
Each door is formed of half-round iron bars crossing diagonally,
with other bars intersecting the spaces at right angles, and stamped
at the ends into leafy terminations. Every triangle thus formed
contains a looped scroll, finishing alternately in stamped heads
and rosettes, with a simple tracery in the eye of the loop.
