28 EFFECT OF ARCHITECTURAL TREATISES 



the new style either through books or by foreign travel or both. 

 They rendered themselves familiar with classic detail, and were 

 thus enabled to give the desired character to the buildings under 

 their charge. They gradually became more and more re- 

 sponsible for design in the various branches of the building 

 trades, and thus grew to be architects as well as surveyors. 

 The inevitable tendency was for architectural design to become 

 more personal, and for its results to become less like a spon- 

 taneous growth of the land. 



The number of architectural books published was not in 

 reality very great ; they were mostly of foreign production, and 

 probably few copies found their way into England. The earliest 

 were printed in Italy during the closing years of the fifteenth 

 century. By the middle of the sixteenth century there were, 

 perhaps, half a score in existence, some in Italian, some in French. 

 These were obviously of no use to unlettered workmen, but they 

 were appreciated by men of learning, and were studied by some 

 of the surveyors of the time. One or two Englishmen had 

 produced treatises on architecture by the end of the century, 

 but their direct effect on English design can hardly be traced. 

 It is, indeed, unwise to look to any of the books of the time for 

 direct and immediate influence ; their effect seems to have been 

 gradual. As may be supposed, it would be the illustrations 

 which would have the greatest weight, for they would be 

 intelligible to men unacquainted with the language of the text. 

 The more important treatises confined themselves largely to 

 drawings of the orders, but a few smaller books, published by 

 Germans and Dutchmen, gave many illustrations of particular 

 features such as doorways, windows, and so forth, and these 

 appear to have appealed more powerfully to English workmen 

 and to have influenced in some degree the appearance which 

 they imparted to their details. 



In another and different direction some of the French books 

 would seem to have had an interesting effect. Philibert de 

 I'Orme and Androuet du Cerceau had published remarkably 

 fine illustrations of the more important buildings then recently 

 erected in France. It is certain that John Thorpe, who was 

 the most accomplished and ingenious of the English surveyors 

 of his time, had studied du Cerceau's books, and it is quite 

 conceivable that, fired by such an example, he may himself 

 have contemplated a similar production for England, and that 



