viii PREFACE 



vanishing point. Their arguments were chiefly based on the 

 fact that building accounts of the period, which are extant in an 

 admittedly incomplete state, seldom mention -the names of 

 eminent Italians, who were often paid by the grant of benefices 

 and Court sinecures, while they do include the names of obscure 

 Frenchmen, whose small daily salaries are often sufficient 

 evidence of their subordinate positions. Again they laid more 

 stress on differences of style between works in France and Italy 

 than is found to be justified if the proved versatility of Italians 

 working in other lands is taken into account. A reaction has 

 since set in, and though many questions still remain unsolved, 

 French writers of the present day are, as a rule, ready to agree 

 with the view taken in the following pages, that from the last 

 years of the fifteenth century, Italy intervenes in a decisive 

 manner in the destinies of French art. 



W. H. WARD. 



2 BKDFORD SQUARE, W.C. 

 August 1911. 



