INTRODUCTION. xxiii 



focussed upon the rebuilding of St Peter's, made Rome a centre 

 of widespread architectural influence. But a decline soon set in, 

 hastened by the sack of Rome (1527) and the political misfortunes 

 of Italy, and, in the Silver Age which followed, architecture split into 

 two schools, tending respectively to a strict and a free interpretation of 

 antiquity. On the one hand men of strong personal genius like San 

 Gallo, San Michele, or Peruzzi began to be succeeded by others less 

 original in their conceptions, such as Serlio, Vignola, and Palladio, who 

 magnified the authority of Vitruvius and based their work on an ever 

 minuter study of antiquity. They displayed great literary activity and 

 reduced construction and composition to an exact science, with detailed 

 rules, not merely for the proportions of the Orders, but for designing 

 every kind of edifice. Thus architecture passed into scholasticism, 

 though still capable of works of considerable grandeur, dignity, and 

 even charm. 



On the other hand, Michael Angelo, who succeeded in 1542 to the 

 charge of St Peter's, headed a revolt against classical purism and the 

 dead hand in architecture. His titanic genius, disdainful of rule, 

 made arbitrary use of architectural forms to produce an imposing 

 setting for sculpture, and as a means of magnificent display. His 

 love of strong contrasts, violent effects, and exaggerated scale were 

 insufficiently tempered by attention to structural appropriateness. 

 The school which followed him developed the Barocco and Jesuit 

 styles of the seventeenth century, culminating in Bernini and 

 Borromini. It resorted to various theatrical devices and employed 

 classical features in strange perversions, or replaced architectural by 

 sculptural forms ; its detail was often coarse and its general character 

 emphatic and pretentious, but these defects are often redeemed by 

 a true, if over sumptuous, decorative and plastic instinct, and a vigour 

 of conception, not devoid of impressiveness, picturesqueness, or even 

 poetry. The close of the seventeenth century witnessed the rise of the 

 Rococo style, an offshoot of the Barocco. It is marked by an almost 

 exclusive use of curved lines, both in plan and elevation, and is seen at 

 its best in a type of internal decoration, often of great elegance and 

 daintiness, consisting principally in a capricious collocation of scrolls. 



The strict classic school meanwhile, though thrown into the shade, 

 was not without its devotees or influence. About 1730 the pendulum 

 began to swing back once more towards classical purism, largely helped 

 by the impression produced by newly discovered remains of antiquity ; 

 and architecture began to assume a more archaeological character than 

 at any previous time. 



During the three and a half centuries of French architectural history, 

 with which this volume deals, foreign influences were not confined to 

 c 



