PANEL, originally a small piece of cloth or parchment; this meaning persists only in certain legal terms, such as jury panel, so-called from the original strip of parchment on which the names were written in early days; and in Scotch law in the use of the word for an indictment or for a person or persons named in an indictment ; or in the use of the word for the cloth-stuffed lining of a saddle. In architecture and furniture, the word signifies, originally, a small piece of thin wood enclosed in a surrounding framework. Casts of charred wooden doors taken in Pompeii, as well as many ancient classic representations prove that the con struction of wooden panels was well understood by the Greeks and Romans. Moreover, numerous Italian Romanesque wooden church doors of the loth to the 12th centuries, usually of many small, nearly square panels, manifestly continue Roman types.
In much Gothic decorative work tracery forms are frequently used to divide a large surface into small recessed panels of various shapes. This decorative panelling is particularly common on tombs, screens, chancel rails and the like, in which multiplication of cusping frequently gives it great richness, especially in England. In France, panelling is used with more restraint and in simpler forms, usually confined to slim, arch-headed shapes. During the late Gothic period of the 15th and i6th centuries, decorative pan elling was used more lavishly throughout north Europe, and in the Perpendicular work of England large wall areas were often covered by a series of rectangular or Tudor arch-headed, sunk, tracery panels. Meanwhile, the use of structural wood panelling,
at first reserved for doors, cupboards, chests and similar furni ture, was spreading to wainscotting; in this development the English lead. Occasionally an applied moulding is used at the sides and top only of a panel with a chamfer at the bottom. The rich, interior, wood panelling of the Tudor and Elizabethan periods in England of ten combined with linenf old (q.v.) decora tion and sometimes with crude, classic pilasters and entablatures, is one of the most beautiful characteristics of those styles.
In the Renaissance of Italy, panelling is of importance only in furniture such as choir stalls, etc., and in the rich coffered ceil ings which cover many palace halls and church interiors. In France, on the other hand, the use of panelling grew continuously more important as the Renaissance developed, and reached a cli max in the lavish panelled interiors of the Louis styles (q.v.). In this Louis panelling, as in work of the same date in England, the development is toward greater use of large panels made by glueing together smaller pieces of wood. (T. F. H.)