Turrets, towers, and temples

In making the selections for this book, which is thought to be the realization of a new idea, it has been my endeavour to bring together descriptions of several famous buildings...

And this thought may surely dispose the reader to look with some change of temper upon the gorgeous building and wild blazonry of that shrine of St. Mark’s. He now perceives tha...

The garden completes the monument, and both unite to form this masterpiece of art. The avenues leading to the Taj are bordered with funereal yews and cypresses, which make the w...

Issuing from the gate, we find ourselves in the large court of the Kremlin, in the midst of the most bewildering conglomeration of palaces, churches, and monasteries of which th...

Thanks to the janizary, we clear this zone of fanatics, and then, by a series of little dilapidated doors, we pass into a gigantic court, a kind of melancholy desert where the g...

We stand before the largest of these works of man, which, as we know, the ancients glorified as “wonders of the world.” It is unnecessary to describe their form for everybody kn...

The church has never been finished. The apse, miserably mutilated, has been restored according to that imbecile, the Cardinal de Rohan, of the necklace fame. It is hideous. The...

The principal building in the Grand’ Place is the Hôtel de Ville, standing out with three sides visible from the Place, and probably the finest civic building in Belgium. It is...

Such is the legend of the Cathedral of Cologne. I have told it here so that the admiration of the Middle Ages for this plan, which could not be considered the work of any human...

The reader may here, perhaps, expect something like the institution of a comparison between these two great rival Cathedrals of Lincoln and York; although he will have observed...

Certainly Jacques Cœur, that citizen of humble birth, who, by his merit reached the highest dignity of state at an epoch when aristocracy reigned supreme, this man of genius, wh...

The sacristies and rooms of the Chapter in the Cathedral of Toledo have a more than royal magnificence; nothing could be more noble and picturesque than these vast halls decorat...

No idols, but a multitude of beasts, flying or crawling, familiar or chimerical, pursue each other upon the walls, and fly away from the friezes and ceiling in all attitudes of...

Everybody knows that the Basilica and the Convent of the Escurial were founded by Philip II. after the battle of San Quintino to fulfil his vow made during the war to Saint Laur...

At the entrance of the choir upon a grille which supports a crucifix, surrounded by angels in adoration, we read the following inscription framed in wood: _Attendite ad petram u...

The principal entrance to the Vatican is at the end of the right colonnade of S. Peter’s. Hence a door on the right opens upon the staircase leading to the Cortile di S. Damaso,...

Between the four enormous pilasters which form a square in the middle of the basilica, rise, to the right and left as you enter, eight marvellous columns of green _breccia_ from...

Seen from a distance, the Acropolis presents nearly the same appearance as it offered to Spartan guardsmen when they paced the ramparts of Deceleia. Nature around is unaltered....

The ruin, always open, is deserted at this hour. The idea of entering it possessed me. The two stone giants, who guard the stone court, allowed me to pass. I crossed the dark po...

We stood before the Maksura, the most complete and marvellous example of Arabian Art of the Tenth Century. There are three adjacent chapels in front of it, with vaulted ceilings...

The Black Prince, whose wife was the Fair Maid of Kent, was especially attached to Canterbury, and founded two chantries in the crypt or undercroft. These now form the entrance...

[17] The ravages committed by the Calvinists throughout nearly the whole of the towns of Normandy, and especially in the Cathedrals towards the year 1560, afford a melancholy pr...