Descrizione

key of the arch

The key of the arch or vault is a stone worked (or “acconciata” or “ashlar“) to fulfill structural functions.

Placed at the top of an arch or a vault; closes, with its wedge shape, the series of other construction elements arranged one next to the other.

Architecture

E’ quindi uno degli elementi che scaricano il peso sostenuto dall’arco sui pilastri laterali.

The keystone is not always present.

Civilization

The Etruscans were the inventors of the keystone as the first people of the Mediterranean Sea who introduced the arch in buildings.

From them the Romans learned the technique, which they skillfully exploited in works such as the Colosseum and the aqueducts just as the key to the arch

In Roman architecture the keystone often presents a more protruding decoration on the facade, in particular on the triumphal arches.

Those of the rest of the blocks that make up the arch (generally shaped as a curvilinear architrave, or archivolt ).

It is a large shelf with an S-shaped profile and arranged vertically, on whose face there are figurative representations, often of divinities.

In a figurative sense, the “keystone” represents the central or supporting element of something, around which a system, a doctrine, a

school, or a series of events.