the Papacy, the revival of classical learning had already effected what it was long in achieving elsewhere. It had imbued all classes with a love of architectural forms which were certainly more congenial to them than those which they beheld in the great churches of Assisi, Vercelli, or Milan. The shell of the building might continue to be Gothic, but the ornamentation must be borrowed from the gifted people over whose recovered lore they hung with rapt attention. At first, however, there was an honest effort to adhere to the truthful construction of the medieval architects; and so long as they did so, the return to classical forms was no subject for regret. At no time was the Italian filled with a real love for clustered shafts and groined vaulting. Still less had he any genuine apprehension of the principles which determined the course of Northern architecture. He was utterly unable to see in what way Westminster Abbey differed from the minsters of Peterborough or St. Albans, or to determine the stages in the art which are marked severally by the cathedrals of Salisbury, Amiens, and Cologne. The employment of Northern architects was a natural consequence of this inherent distaste for an art which was alien to his soil. The magnificence of the great Northern churches inspired a wish to see buildings not wholly unlike them at Vercelli or Milan; but when the Italian took to building Gothic himself, the result was seen in such structures as the church of Santa Maria della Spina at Pisa. It was better to discard outright a system of decoration which, in his hand, issued in a series of fantastic vagaries; and the few examples which exist of the truthful application of classical forms serve at least to show that a genuine architecture might have been matured, if its growth had not been arrested by obstacles which it was almost impossible to avoid. Yet, if ever so real a style had been produced in Italy, we may at once confess, and Mr. Fergusson's admissions will furnish ample grounds for concluding, that the style so invented could never have fulfilled all the conditions of a national style for the countries north of the Alps.

But in reality the genuine Renaissance was so evanescent that it must be regarded more as a sign than an accomplishment of a genuine architectural reformation even in Italy. The Christian styles had come into existence by casting aside the entablature from all disengaged columns: for the Italian of

This essential distinction between Christian styles and the earlier Roman architecture is clearly laid down in Mr. Okely's valuable work on Christian Architecture in Italy.' (Introduction, p. 3.)

the fifteenth century there was an irresistible temptation to return to it. In England, as in France and Germany, the true growth of the art had produced a system of ornamentation which was at once constructively truthful and boundless in its resources. The Italian, for whom the exterior of the early basilicas furnished no decorative features whatever, could only repeat on his walls the columns and entablatures which graced the temples of ancient Rome. In other words, the architecture of the North arose by discarding from the genuine forms of Roman construction the ornamentation which had been absurdly borrowed from Greek art. The Italian Renaissance reverted almost immediately to the bondage with which Rome voluntarily cramped and fettered her own enormous constructive powers.

Hence, as the Renaissance ceased, almost at the outset, to exhibit the working of a living principle applicable to all buildings, whether ecclesiastical, military, or domestic, the history of modern styles resolves itself into little more than the history of modern architects.* The system of Inigo Jones, Wren, or

Mr. Fergusson has, however, greatly overstated his position in saying that no names of medieval architects have come down to us. Even if we had no records, we should not be justified in concluding that 'probably nobody knew even then who the architects were, more 'than we know now who designed the "Warrior." But there is no such dearth of records, and it is unfair to write as though we had never heard of Geoffrey de Noyers at Lincoln, or seen the sketch book of Wilars de Honcourt, which also contains some of his original designs. These drawings illustrate most forcibly the great distinction between the constructive decoration of the medieval builders and the superficial ornamentation of modern architects. A glance at the sketches of Wilars shows at once of what building they are the designs; but we receive from them a general notion of the form and proportions of the edifice, and nothing more. Probably not one single ornamental detail in the sketch accurately represents the actual details of the building; but neither architect nor builder needed such exact drawings. The edifice literally grew under their hands; the modern architect has his building ready dressed on paper at the shortest notice. Nothing can be more detrimental to genuine architecture than the pictorial character it has acquired from the elevations or designs on flat surfaces relied on by modern architects. Hence the notion has sprung up that the ugliest conceivable form can be beautified by the addition of superficial ornament. But for such a notion we should never have seen a design for improving buildings so utterly wanting in every condition of architectural beauty as the South Kensington galleries. The most lavish decoration could not hide their real character, while it would probably render the absence of all the true principles of art still more apparent.

Vanbrugh, does not exhibit the same sequence from that of Brunelleschi or Bramante, which marks the growth of the Continuous or Flamboyant from the earlier stages of Gothic architecture. We are concerned, therefore, not so much with the developement of particular principles, as with the works of particular men; and we are at once thrown back in our criticisms on certain canons of taste, which may be made subjects of controversy. If it is impossible to avoid this when we compare the works of any one style with those of another, the difficulty is increased when one of these is a true and the other a copying style. We may be at a loss to determine whether the Presbytery of Ely is more beautiful than the Chapel of King's College, Cambridge; but we can at once say whether they are or are not inconsistent with the laws of construction and decoration which regulate their respective styles. It is quite another thing, if we compare the Temple of Theseus with the Minster of Beverley, or even the details of the one with the details of the other: nor do such comparisons appear likely to lead to any ultimate agreement. When San Gallo made his designs for St. Peter's at Rome, he was deliberately applying a system of ornamentation to uses for which it was not primarily intended. But the clustered shafts and continuous lines which seem to give infinity to the nave of Winchester, are the direct result of principles involved in that massive Romanesque construction which these clustered shafts do but encircle. When, therefore, Mr. Fergusson says, that 'with the simpler lines and more elegant details of classic art, a far more pure and majestic building would' (with a slight alteration of San Gallo's dome) have been the result than any 'Gothic cathedral we have yet seen' (p. 57.), he seems to us to beg not one question only, but three or four. It is very possible that he may be right, and they who differ from him wrong; but there is little profit in a debate on the abstract beauty of a Corinthian or a Gothic capital.

But there is indisputably both beauty and grandeur in many Renaissance buildings; and it becomes a subject of no slight interest to determine how that grandeur and beauty was obtained. Mr. Fergusson has approached, as nearly as any writer, to that impartiality in the examination of all styles, without which a real knowledge of any style becomes impossible. And if his criticism tells little in favour of the principles which have guided the Renaissance architects, they furnish but slender consolation for those whom he delights to set down as Gothic purists. If the former have not invented any genuine style, the latter seem scarcely on the road to do so now. In copying

the cathedrals of Wells or Ely, we may be imitating the works of our forefathers, but we are no more producing anything of our own than if we build a fac-simile of the Erechtheion. And if, while doing the former, we anathematise the latter as involving the essence of heathenism, we show our absurdity not less than our bigotry. Mr. Fergusson has an honest horror of all copying; and if he seems to think that to masquerade in a classical dress is less absurd than to masquerade in a Gothic garb, this has not withheld him from rating at their true value the achievements of Renaissance architects. When he proves that their whole apparatus for the exterior and internal treatment of buildings was confined to the classical.order with its entablature and pediment, and that these were almost always misapplied, his censure is as severe as any that could be pronounced by the most partial lovers of Gothic architecture.

But the irresistible tendency of the Renaissance to absolute copying is still more forcibly brought out by the fact, that of the greatest Renaissance structures many are classical in their details alone, while their forms are reproductions of early Christian basilicas or of Gothic or Byzantine buildings. Mr. Fergusson has carefully noted the facts; it may be regretted that he has not as prominently set forth the inference which must be drawn from them. In the hands of the Greek architect the column was a strictly constructive feature. However scientific may have been the rules which determined the length of the shaft or the swell of the entasis, it remained the representative of the wooden post thrust into the ground to support the roof which was raised above it. By an utter departure from its original purpose it became in Roman hands the appendage of a wall where it supported nothing. The Renaissance architects followed eagerly the example thus set them, and from the use of semi-detached columns went on to employ pilasters, one of 'the most useless as well as least constructive modes of orna'mentation that could be adopted,' which, in Mr. Fergusson's judgment, not only gave a character of unreality to the style, but betrayed that continual striving after imitative forms, 'which is its bane' (p. 9.). From the employment of such columns and pilasters on useless porticoes, the step was inevitable which led to their employment on the walls of houses, where they give no support whatever. This was, in Mr. Fergusson's words, a further step in the wrong direction; it was employing ' ornament for ornament's sake, without reference to construction or the actual purpose of the building; and, once it was admitted that any class of ornament could be employed, other ' than ornamental construction, or which had any other aim

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6 than to express - while it beautified the prosaic exigencies ' of the design, there was an end of all that was truthful, or that can lead to perfection in architectural art' (p. 26.). Thus the columns, which ought always to be independent supports, and which, even if engaged, should suggest the idea of buttresses, served at length simply to indicate internal arrangement, and were separated into distinct layers by large entablatures which utterly preclude all real unity of design. More than any other cause, probably, this want of connexion between the parts led to that exaggeration of the orders, which, as Mr. Fergusson rightly asserts, marks the worst stage of Renaissance architecture. It would be invidious to depreciate the graceful beauty or the solemn grandeur of many of the palaces in Venice or Florence; but it is impossible to view the fronts of the Riccardi (p. 84.), the Rucellai (p. 86.), and Guadagni (p. 88.) palaces in the latter, or the Grimani palace (p. 27.) in the former (if these may be regarded as Renaissance buildings), without feeling that there is no reason why, instead of having three or four stages, they should not have either less or more, and that the design would not be essentially affected by the change. It is true, indeed, that some of them exhibit no orders, or, it might almost be said, no classical details at all, and make no pretension to classical uniformity of arrangement, while others show more of Gothic than of classical feeling. The extent of this Gothic feeling in the courtyard of the Doge's Palace (p. 91.), is attested not only by the presence of pointed arches in the second tier, but by banded shafts and arches springing straight from the capitals (without the intervention of an entablature) in all the stages. But here, after the somewhat oracular fashion which in a treatise on copying styles is perhaps unavoidable, we are told that this use of the pointed arch is not happy, as in itself it is not a pleasing feature, and, when nakedly used, always unpleasing. We will not further complicate the subject by giving any judgment of our own.

On the whole, it is not easy to determine precisely what was gained, when Brunelleschi designed the Church of the Holy Spirit at Florence, or Bramante built the church at Lodi. In the former, the classical details are used, to adopt Mr. Fergusson's words, with singular elegance and purity' (p. 42.). But the design is in fact a return to the simplest form of the Basilican church. The windows are mere round-headed apertures, while the clerestory is separated from the pier-arches by what is practically nothing more than an exaggerated stringcourse. Were it not for the presence of a single feature, it might fairly be classed among buildings of the Basilican age; but that feature