'Tyrolese Architecture 
is expanded—perhaps cheapened—by the 
presence of foreigners ; in the other, external 
influences are put aside, the influences which 
would mollify manners and beliefs and super¬ 
stitions which still breathe the spirit of the 
middle ages. The main ridge of the Alps 
occupies but the southern portion of Switzer¬ 
land, giving a considerable lower and fertile 
area to the northward which has in places an 
almost park-like aspect. This ridge lies 
across the central part of the Tyrol and 
covers nearly its whole area. Mountains 
seem to be everywhere. They rise abruptly 
from the towns at their base carrying even 
the outlying lanes upward as they go. 
All the architecture is a mountain archi¬ 
tecture where these overpowering conditions 
of Nature are either the setting or the back¬ 
ground of every building. The few fertile 
valleys which do exist are of irregular and 
meagre area. The principal ones are those 
of the River Inn entering the country from 
the northeast and of the Adige, mounting 
higher and higher from the plains of Italy 
on the south. The Vintschgau and the 
Pusterthal extend in an easterly and westerly 
direction across the centre of the province 
and several other narrower and more pre¬ 
cipitous valleys are almost miniature prov¬ 
inces in themselves—their dialect, their 
legends and their customs so differ from one 
another. By the names of these gaps be¬ 
tween lofty ridges events and objects in the 
Tyrol are located. It is here that lords of 
troublous times reared their castles on the 
ruins of Roman watch-towers and beheld 
fertile fields bounded by processions of snow¬ 
capped summits. Here the history of the 
land has been made, and here the peculiar 
elements which have gone to make the Ty¬ 
rolese people have shown themselves by a 
certain beauty—almost a grace—in many of 
the buildings. 
The peculiarities which are found in the 
buildings of the Tyrol may be laid to racial 
as well as to geographical causes. These 
two influences have gone hand in hand. 
When Roman generals were widening the 
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