RELATIONS OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE TO THE STUDY 

 OF OTHER PERIODS OF THE ART 



BY CAMILLE ENLART 

 (Translated from the French by Mr. F. P. Keppel, of Columbia University) 



[Camille Enlart, Professor of Comparative History of Architecture, University 

 of Paris; and Director of the Collection of the Trocadero.] 



I SHALL endeavor to present a rapid review of the evolution of the 

 study of the architectural history of the Middle Ages and of the 

 present condition of this study, so far as it relates to France. It is 

 essentially a modern science: Nothing, however, is so modern as not 

 to have its roots in the past, and from the sixteenth century on, there 

 were those who were interested in the monuments of the Middle Ages: 

 in particular, their beauties had appealed to two scholarly architects, 

 Philibert de 1'Orme, who recommended the work of the old masters 

 in architecture as models of construction; and Jacques Androuet 

 du Cerceau, who made a collection of rcleves "of the most excellent 

 buildings of France." However, the whole point of view of the artists 

 of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries rendered the Middle Ages 

 utterly unintelligible to them: the historians alone studied the period, 

 and in their study, so far as the records show us, the fine arts played 

 but a small part. Two celebrated scholars. Peiresc, who died in 1637, 

 and Gaiguieres, who died in 1715, made collections of drawings of 

 those monuments which relate to the history of France; and from 

 1729 to 1733 the Benedictine Convent of Montfaucon published 

 a series of engravings of the same kind of subjects under the title, 

 Monuments of the French Monarchy. This work is, however, very 

 imperfect. 



It would seem that the Abbe Le Boeuf. the historian of the Diocese 

 of Paris, who died in 1760, regarded our monuments with less scorn 

 and with more just appreciation than did his contemporaries. His 

 opinions regarding them were sufficiently definite to warrant him in 

 assigning exact dates to the buildings, but no one took the trouble to 

 rather together his lectures or his manuscript notes. 



To this unjust neglect of the art of the Middle Ages the Revolution 

 added actual hate. Until then the buildings had been spared because 

 of religious associations or out of respect for the ancient territorial 

 families, but now these memories became odious, and acts of vandal- 

 ism became matters of principle. However, there were two men, 

 more thoughtful than their contemporaries, who interested them- 

 selves in the monuments at this period: Alexandre Lenoir obtained 

 permission from the Convention to create a museum of French 



