Arcades Cornices

[Mark Knowles]

This doesn't have rounded merlons, they are square (they are brick), but it does have the kind of common indentation that occurs a little distance below the top. I think this is what was intended by the line below the top in the drawing. Sometimes the indentations are slight, and sometimes fairly deep. You can see on the edge of the VMS tower, the line angles in very slightly to indicate the indentation:

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It's hard to find towers in their original form. Many of them had roofs added in the 17th and 18th centuries. Some were made taller, also, and Ghibelline merlons became popular in the 17th century and were added to many towers and walls without the same political significance that they had in the 14th and 15th centuries.

From the drawing it appears that the roof lies above the curves not below them. I also think the reddy colour of the roof could be indicative of it being the kind of roof that has reddish tiles rather than the kind that one would walk on in the case of a military tower with battlements. In fact roofs seem to be illustrated the same way, with the odd exception, whereas the tower adjoining the "castle" possibly a "ravelin" is not illustrated this way with its blueish top. From the way these shapes are drawn they do not resemble either Ghibelline merlons or Guelph merlons.