| an area of wall enframed by an arch or vault |
| a sky lit central court in a contemporary building or house; a courtyard, flanked or surrounded by porticoes, in front of an early Christian church |
cartouche
in architecture, ornamentation in scroll form, applied especially to elaborate frames around tablets or coats of arms; by extension, the word is applied to any oval shape or even to a decorative shield, whether scrolled or not. The term is also used for an oval frame enclosing the hieroglyphs of the name of an Egyptian sovereign, as well as for the amulet of similar design worn in ancient Egypt as a protection against the loss of one's name (i.e., one's identity)
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