INTRODUCTION. xix 



edifices were often built by, or at the expense of, corporations, 

 ecclesiastical, social, or industrial. The guilds, which so largely reared 

 and decorated them, had grown prosperous and oligarchic. The 

 capitalism and individualism, which were sapping their foundations, 

 were forces which would have to be reckoned with in a new 

 architectural development. 



Again, though the French people is of composite origin, their 

 mediaeval architecture was, in the main, the product of the Teutonic 

 genius of the North expressing its subjective, analytic, realistic bent all, 

 in fact, that was most opposed to the classical spirit. But French 

 society was now again coming under the sway of classical thought, 

 and it was natural that the Southern or Gallo-Roman element should 

 exert a more decisive influence on the national art. This could not, 

 however, proceed from the southern provinces of France, where classical 

 culture had been a power in the twelfth century, for the life was 

 crushed out of them by the Albigensian crusades (1208-18), and they 

 had been obliged to adopt the art of the victorious North with her 

 language and political supremacy. 



Lastly, Gothic architecture was of purely native growth. Originating 

 in the lie de France, the nucleus of the later kingdom, it had spread 

 with it, and beyond it, to all western Europe. A nation cannot go on 

 indefinitely creating and exporting ideas. French art in the late 

 fifteenth century had exhausted, not indeed its skill or vigour, but its 

 stock of creative ideas. It was time that the debt should be repaid by 

 the importation of a new inspiration from abroad. 



The architecture of the future, then, would be mainly secular and 

 peaceful : it would have to house the Royal Court, the symbol of the 

 new national life, the nobility now taking their part as servants of the 

 State, and the middle classes enriched by the newly established 

 security. The chateau and hotel would be its standard, not the 

 church or the keep. It would be the product of individual genius, 

 and freed from the pre- occupation of a single structural problem. It 

 would be tinged by humanistic ideas and give expression to the 

 objective, synthetic, idealistic tendencies of classical civilisation ; and, 

 since southern France was not in a condition to supply the impulse 

 for turning the native building art into new channels, this must be 

 sought in a foreign land. 



Now Italy, and Italy alone, could supply what was lacking in 

 French architecture under the changing conditions of the times, by 

 providing it with a fresh unexploited source of inspiration. Already a 

 number of agencies were busy introducing the new influence, and 

 with others, soon to come into operation, were to continue to do so 

 for several centuries. 



Travellers are important agents in the spread of a foreign type of 



