Lantern, in Italian or modern architecture, a small structure on the top of a dome, for the purpose of admitting light, for promoting ventilation, and for ornament. The name is also given to any such projection, even if it has no such openings and serves merely for decoration. Examples: the Karlskirche (church of St. Charles Borromeo), Vienna; chapel of Montepulciano, Italy; St. Peter’s, Rome; St. Paul’s, London; St. Isaac’s cathedral, St. Petersburg; Sta Maria della Salute, Venice; Sta Maria del Fiore, Florence; the Frauenkirche, Dresden; church of the Val de Grace, Paris; St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, London; Sta Maria di Monte Santo, Rome; Madonna della Steccata, Parma; St. Augustine’s, Paris; chapel of the Little Well, Guadalupe, Mexico; church of the Oratory, London; church at Loyola, Biscay, Spain; La Superga, Turin; Sta Maria di Carignano, Genoa; Palermo cathedral.
Topical Architecture: Ecclesiastical Domes (Boston, 1904;) Parker, Glossary of Architecture, I, 222.
Thomas H. Poole.