trefoil arch

{{Short description|Arch incorporating the outline of a trefoil}}

File:Trepassbåge.png

A trefoil arch, or three-foiled cusped arch (occasionally trilobite arch, no connection to an actual trilobite), is an arch incorporating the shape or outline of a trefoil – three overlapping circles.{{Cite book|last=Hourihane|first=Colum|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FtlMAgAAQBAJ&dq=trefoil+arch+gothic+architecture&pg=PA132|title=The Grove Encyclopedia of Medieval Art and Architecture|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2012|isbn=978-0-19-539536-5|volume=2|language=en}} It has been widely used for its symbolic significance in Christian architecture.{{Citation needed|date=November 2021}} Trefoil arches are common in Gothic architecture for portals and decoration. Trefoil or "trilobed" arches are also a characteristic feature of decorated portals in late Fatimid architecture and Mamluk architecture in Egypt, from approximately the 12th to 16th centuries.{{Cite book|last=Graves|first=Margaret S.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wWBmDwAAQBAJ&dq=polylobed+arch+fatimid&pg=PA191|title=Arts of Allusion: Object, Ornament, and Architecture in Medieval Islam|date=2018-07-31|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-069592-7|language=en}}{{Rp|page=191}}{{Cite book|last=Behrens-Abouseif|first=Doris|title=Cairo of the Mamluks: A History of Architecture and its Culture|publisher=The American University in Cairo Press|year=2007|isbn=9789774160776}}{{Rp|page=89}}

File:Rampillon Saint-Éliphe 491.JPG|Trefoil arch in the choir of the parish Church of Saint-Eliphe (13th century), Rampillon, Seine-et-Marne (Ile-de-France)

File:Normandie Calvados Bayeux4 tango7174.jpg|Trefoil arches at the Bayeux Cathedral (11th century), Calvados, Normandy, France