A cornice is an architectural feature, consisting of a molded projection from a wall or pillar. As the term is used in the Society, it refers specifically to the molded frame of a decorative window; the period heraldic example, the arms of de Bolonia, mid-15th C. [Triv 64; cf. BSB 270:185, c.1550] depicts a four-lobed quadrate frame consistent with Gothic tracery. See also edifice, foil.
Lyonnette Cheneval bears: Gules, a four lobed quadrate cornice Or.
Alienor de Montserrat bears: Sable, a lily within a four lobed quadrate cornice argent.
Christian Jorgensen af Helsingør bears as a badge: A four-lobed quadrate cornice gules.
Edifices are usually made of stone, and may be drawn as masoned even when this is not explicitly blazoned. (For that reason, it needn’t be blazoned.) There was tremendous variation in the period depiction of edifices: a given emblazon might be blazoned in several ways, and a given blazon rendered with equal looseness. As a rule of thumb, those edifices with doors tended to have the door facing the viewer by default.
Some edifices, particularly castles and towers, may have special roofs which must be blazoned: a “spired tower” has a conical roof, a “domed tower” a hemispherical roof. (Sometimes the latter is drawn “onion-domed”, as found on mosques.)
