Architecture: Gothic and Renaissance

Gothic architecture in Italy may be considered as a foreign importation. The Italians, it is true, displayed their natural taste and artistic instinct in their use of the style,...

In England, as in France and Germany, the introduction of the Italian Renaissance was not accomplished without a period of transition. The architecture of this period is known a...

Renaissance architecture--the architecture of the classic revival--had its origin in Italy, and should be first studied in the land of its birth. There are more ways than one in...

ARCH.--A construction of wedge-shaped blocks of stone, or of bricks, of a curved outline, and spanning an open space. The principal forms of arch in use are Semicircular; Acutel...

The openings (_i.e._ doors and windows) in the walls of English Gothic buildings are occasionally covered by flat heads or lintels, but this is exceptional; ordinarily they have...

The architecture of France during the Middle Ages throws much light upon the history of the country. The features in which it differs from the work done in England at the same p...

The excellences or defects of a building are more due to the shape and size of its floor and, incidentally, of the walls and columns or piers which inclose and subdivide its flo...

The revived classic architecture came direct from Italy, and did not reach France till it had been well established in the land of its origin. It was not however received with t...

Gothic architecture had begun, before the close of the fifteenth century, to show marks of decadence, and men's minds and tastes were ripening for a change. The change, when it...

The architecture of Germany, from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, can be divided into an early, a middle, and a late period, with tolerable distinctness. Of these, the e...

The Gothic architects adhered, at any rate till the fifteenth century, to the use of very small stones in their masonry. In many buildings of large size it is hard to find any s...

By far the most important specimens of Gothic architecture are the cathedrals and large churches which were built during the prevalence of the style. They were more numerous, la...

English Gothic architecture has been usually subdivided into three periods or stages of advancement, corresponding to those enumerated on page 1; the early stage known as Early...

The architecture generally known as Gothic, but often described as Christian Pointed, prevailed throughout Europe to the exclusion of every rival for upwards of three centuries;...

with an intersecting vault occupying part of its length. No. 2 represents one of the expedients adopted for vaulting an oblong compartment before the pointed arch was introduced...

1. ITALY and SICILY. Topographical Sketch. NORTHERN ITALY. CENTRAL ITALY. SOUTHERN ITALY. Analysis of Buildings. Plans. Walls, Towers, and Columns. Openings and Arches. Roofs an...