[ noun ] a style of architecture developed in Italy and western Europe between the Roman and the Gothic styles after 1000 AD; characterized by round arches and vaults and by the substitution of piers for columns and profuse ornament and arcades <noun.cognition>
Romanesque \Ro`man*esque"\, n. Romanesque style.
Romanesque \Ro`man*esque"\, a. [F. romanesque; cf. It. romanesco.] 1. (Arch.) Somewhat resembling the Roman; -- applied sometimes to the debased style of the later Roman empire, but esp. to the more developed architecture prevailing from the 8th century to the 12th.
2. Of or pertaining to romance or fable; fanciful.
{Romanesque style} (Arch.), that which grew up from the attempts of barbarous people to copy Roman architecture and apply it to their own purposes. This term is loosely applied to all the styles of Western Europe, from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the appearance of Gothic architecture.
Most French people are unaware of the plight of their Romanesque and Gothic masterpieces, which are visited, free of charge, by around 100 million visitors every year.
Its towers are faintly Romanesque.
First heard on Good Friday 264 years ago, it is performed today by the Neubeuern Choral Society and the Bach Collegium in the Romanesque church of Alpirsbach.
During the war, the objects were removed from the Romanesque cathedral to a mine shaft to keep them safe from Allied bombing. They disappeared in 1945.