xvi INTRODUCTION. 



in European civilisation that no aspect of its own civilisation can fail 

 to be of importance for its neighbours. 



All Renaissance architecture must in some degree be of a hybrid 

 character, the resultant of an endeavour to clothe structures adapted to 

 the requirements of a later age in a code of forms and proportions 

 derived from the architecture of classical antiquity to recast a national 

 style in a classical mould. The character of the outcome of such a 

 process of assimilation naturally varies in proportion to the force of 

 resistance exerted by the national style. But it is not less interesting 

 or valuable to study it when, as in the case of France, that resistance is 

 strong, than when, as in the case of Italy, it hardly existed. 



In Italy the distance traversed by the national styles from the 

 common classical starting point was but small. And nothing is more 

 striking in her mediaeval architecture than the persistence in it of 

 classical traditions of wall and space composition, of horizontality and 

 dead-weight construction, as well as of detail and features, and the 

 influence they exerted upon exotic styles of diverse origin imported into 

 the peninsula from time to time. At first, in Tuscany at least, the 

 difference between the later Romanesque buildings and those affected 

 by that study of ancient monuments which Brunelleschi revived, is 

 principally manifested by a closer systematisation of design and 

 increased refinement of detail. 



In France, where the national style had reached a stage of 

 development which constituted the almost direct antithesis of its 

 remote classical origin, the fusion was effected with far less ease ; and, 

 if for that reason its results but seldom rival the best works of the 

 Italian Renaissance in ideal charm, they yet possess a haunting interest, 

 and offer perhaps even more suggestion for the modern world by 

 reason of the traces of struggle which they bear upon them. 



Gaul had been almost as thoroughly permeated with Latin 

 civilisation as Italy herself, but the proportion of the northern invaders 

 Visigoths, Burgundians, Franks, and Northmen to the Romanised 

 population had been greater, and the influence of Germanic institutions 

 more powerful. In the new state which emerged there after centuries 

 of obscure conflicts, the civilisation of mediaeval Europe reached its 

 fullest, its most characteristic, expression. From the twelfth to the 

 fourteenth century, and especially in the reigns of Philip Augustus and 

 Saint Louis, this state was gaining in consistency, power, and territory, 

 and France took a leading part not only in the political, but also in the 

 spiritual, intellectual, and artistic life of Europe. This was the heroic 

 age of crusading and chivalry, of the religious orders and the guilds, 

 of scholastic theology and cathedral building. It was followed by one 

 of growing prosperity and refinement, but declining vigour, which ended 

 in the disasters of the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453). 



