Catenary arch

A catenary arch is a type of architectural arch that follows an inverted catenary curve. The catenary curve has been employed in buildings since ancient times. It forms an underlying principle to the overall system of vaults and buttresses in stone vaulted Gothic cathedrals and in Renaissance domes.^[1] It is not a parabolic arch, although the non-circumferential curves used in arch designs (parabola, catenary, and weighted catenary) look similar, and match at shallow profiles, so a catenary is often misclassified as a parabola^[2] (per Galileo, "the [hanging] chain fits its parabola almost perfectly"^[3]).