ARCADE (Fr. arcade, arcature, Ital. areata, Ger. Botengang), in street architecture a covered way or passage, either open at the side with a range of pilla r s, or completely-covered over. The finest arcades of this description are to be found in Paris. Some have open sides, such as those in the Rue de Rivoli, Palais Royal, and Old Place Royal; others, such as the Passages des Panaromas, Jouffroy, and de Princes, are covered passages, and form convenient thoroughfares. A few, like the Passages Choiseul and do l’Opera, are favourite lounges. They are all more or less lined with elegant shops. There are two specimens of covered passage-arcades in London, the Burlington and Lowther, but they are very inferior in style to those in Paris. The arcade which runs round three sides of the Square of St Mark at Venice is the finest of its kind. In Gothic architecture the term signifies a range of arches, supported on columns or piers, and either open or attached to a wall. The word is used in contradistinction to colonnade, -which is a range of columns carrying level entablatures. The oldest known in England is probably that of the old refectory in Westminster Abbey, the work of the Confessor (fig. 1). Examples of attached arcades may be seen at St John’s, Devizes (fig. 2), at Canterbury and Amiens, and at Notre Dame, Paris; of detached arcades, at Wells, Lucca, and Pisa; of arcades over piers and arches, at Lincoln; of arcades, the openings of which form seats or canopied stalls (which is very common in chapter-houses), at Lichfield. Arcades are found both inside and outside mediaeval buildings. If under the windows inside a building, their columns generally rest on a stone seat or bench table. Sometimes the arcades are pierced here and there to form windows. Sometimes the ...