RELATIONS OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE 635 



fifth to the ninth century Italy had nothing to do with the Orient, 

 and created on her own behalf an analogous art, whose monuments 

 are anterior to those of the Byzantine Empire. As to the Romanesque 

 epoch, M. Anthyme Saint-Paul, in opposition to the opinions of 

 Verneilh and Corroyer, has just demonstrated that the school of 

 Perigord does not go back as far as the tenth century, but only 

 about as far as the year 1100, and that Saint Front of Perigueux, 

 rebuilt later than 1120, is not its most ancient edifice. 



The Byzantine origin of this French school is denied by M. Brutails, 

 but I hope to be able to show that its models are probably Cypriote 

 edifices of from the ninth to the twelfth century. The geography and 

 the classification of the Romanesque and Gothic schools has not yet 

 been entirely cleared up, but it is in the way of being so. 



That the Gothic style originated in France is to-day universally 

 recognized. The history of its diffusion into other lands is known in 

 a general way, and has been studied in detail with regard to France, 

 Spain, Scandinavia, and the Island of Cyprus. I have recognized the 

 English origin of the "flamboyant" style, which was developed in 

 France, but whose elements found their origin in England one or two 

 centuries before their adoption with us. 



One question, however, remains in great obscurity, the origin of 

 the groined ribbed vault (croisee d'ogives}. Contrary to the opinion 

 of Quicherat, Max van Berchem has shown that the Romans did 

 not know this feature of architectural construction, and that the 

 "cancri" of the lighthouse at Alexandria were "crabs," analogous to 

 those bronze crabs of the Cleopatra's Needle now in New York in 

 the care of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The most ancient 

 groined ribbed vaults may well be those of Saint Ambrose of Milan. 

 M. Dirteni, in his fine book on Lombard art, attributes these to 

 the ninth century. Cattaneo refuted him in 1S89, but MM. Dehio, 

 Rivoira. and Moore still believe them to be of the eleventh century. 

 In support of this theory. M. Rivoira has cited a church at Monte- 

 fiascone which at the same time has this element, and bears a 

 commemorative inscription placing its construction in the eleventh 

 century. Unhappily, this inscription, embedded in a facade which 

 was rebuilt in the fifteenth century, might, and probably did. be- 

 long to an earlier church of which no other trace remains to-day. 

 This church, therefore, proves nothing. On the other hand, I have 

 demonstrated that the most ancient examples of Gothic art in 

 Italy date from the end of the twelfth and from the thirteenth 

 century, and were introduced from Burgundy by the monks of 

 Citeaux. a fact which Mr. A. L. Frothingham, Jr., announced at 

 the same time that I did. and one about which no one is any 

 longer in doubt. The attribution of the Ambrosian vaults to the 

 eleventh century does not exactly accord with this point of view. 



