riod, it is to contrast that we must trace most of the
surprising effects attained by the architecture of the Middle Ages.
The rich tracery was made richer by contrast with plain walls, the
loftiest towers appeared higher from their contrast with the long
level lines of roofs and parapets.

It is, in truth, one of the principal marks of the decadence which
began in the fifteenth century that the principle of contrast was, to
a considerable extent, abandoned, at least in the details of the
buildings if not in their great masses. Walls were at that time
panelled in imitation of the tracery of the adjoining windows, and no
longer acted as a foil to them by their solid plainness; long rows of
pinnacles, all exactly alike, followed the line of the parapets, and a
repetition of absolutely identical features became the rule for the
first time in the history of Gothic art.

There can be no doubt that had this modification run its natural
course unchecked and undisturbed by the change in taste which abruptly
brought the Gothic period to a close, it must have resulted in the
deterioration of the art.

[Illustration: {SCULPTURED ORNAMENT FROM RHEIMS CATHEDRAL.}]

[Illustration: {RENAISSANCE ORNAMENT FROM A FRIEZE.}]

RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE.

CHAPTER X.

GENERAL VIEW.

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 did take place, arose in
Italy, and was a direct consequence of that burst of modern
civilisation known as the revival of letters. All the characteristics
of the middle ages were rapidly thrown off. The strain of old Roman
blood in the modern Italians asserted itself, and almost at a bound,
literature and the arts sprang back, like a bow unstrung, into the
forms they had displayed fifteen hundred years before.

It became the rage to read the choice Greek and Latin authors, and to
write Latin with a pedantic purity. Can we wonder that in painting, in
sculpture, and in architecture, men reverted to the form, the style,
and the decorations of the antique compositions, statues, and
architectural remains? This was the more easy in Italy, as Gothic art
had never at any time taken so firm a hold upon Italians as it had
upon nations north of the Alps.

Though, however, the details and forms employed were all Roman, or
Graeco-Roman, they were applied to buildings essent