PROGRESS OF THE ARTS. 367 



well how to exercise : or if, when they did write on 

 such subjects, they seem, instead of delivering their 

 own sound practical principles, to satisfy themselves 

 with pursuing some of the frivolous notions and 

 speculations which were then current in the world 

 of letters. 



Such appears to be the case. The earliest trea- 

 tises on Architecture come before us under the 

 form which the commentatorial spirit of the middle 

 ages inspired. They are translations of Vitruvius, 

 with annotations. In some of these, particularly 

 that of Cesare Cesariano, published at Como, in 

 1521, we see, in a very curious manner, how the 

 habit of assuming that, in every department of 

 literature, the ancients must needs be their mas- 

 ters, led these writers to subordinate the members 

 of their own architecture to the precepts of the 

 Roman author. We have Gothic shafts, mouldings, 

 and arrangements, given as parallelisms to others, 

 which profess to represent the Roman style, but 

 which are, in fact, examples of that mixed manner 

 which is called the style of the cinque cento by 

 the Italians, of the renaissance by the French, and 

 which is commonly included in our Elizabethan. 

 But in the early architectural works, besides the 

 superstitions and mistaken erudition which thus 

 choked the growth of real architectural doctrines, 

 another of the peculiar elements of the middle 

 ages comes into view ; its mysticism. The dimen- 

 sions and positions of the various parts of edifices 



