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And that we, of thefe countries, are not in any wife indebted 
to the Norman builders for the pointed arch itfelf, cannot I think 
be very pofitively afferted, when we confider that the win- 
dows of the palace of William the conqueror at Caen were all 
pointed. So that although the pointed arch might have exifted 
in England prior to this period, yet it was not till after the Nor-- 
man conqueft that it became the prevailing fafhion. This cir- 
cumftance of the turn of the arches in the palace at Caen Dr. 
Ducarel feems to have forgot when he tells us, * page 102, that 
the pointed arches were not introduced till near the end of the 
twelfth century. Italy has long been the fchool for the fine arts, 
and as the Gothic architecture, from the teftimony of Vafari, 
feems firft to have originated’ there, it is probable, that archite@s 
bringing home with them from thence the idea of the pointed 
arch, it affumed in different countries the garb of that into which: 
it had been admitted. Thus the Gothic buildings in Germany, 
England, Spain, though they agree in the form of the arches, 
differ widely in their decorations. 
“ Tuere iffued from the hands of the mafters of thofe times,” 
fays Vafari, “ thofe fantaftical and rude things which appear, even 
“ at this day, in what remains of their works. The fame thing 
“ happened in architeCture, for ‘it being neceffary to build, and 
“ the form and good manner being entirely loft by the death of 
“ the artifts, and the deftrution of their works, they who gave 
“* themfelves up to fuch ftudies, did not build any thing which for 
“ order 
* See his Norman Antiquities. 
