een
allowed to develope itself in its own natural and proper form, in
connexion with the architectural structure of earlier schools. This
refinement and perfection had indeed its own perils, and the history of
later Italy, as she sank into pleasure and thence into corruption, would
probably have been the same whether she had ever learned again to write
pure Latin or not. Still the inquiry into the probable cause of the
enervation which might naturally have followed the highest exertion of
her energies, is a totally distinct one from that into the particular
form given to this enervation by her classical learning; and it is
matter of considerable regret to me that I cannot treat these two
subjects separately: I must be content with marking them for separation
in the mind of the reader.

Sec. XVIII. The effect, then, of the sudden enthusiasm for classical
literature, which gained strength during every hour of the fifteenth
century, was, as far as respected architecture, to do away with the
entire system of Gothic science. The pointed arch, the shadowy vault,
the clustered shaft, the heaven-pointing spire, were all swept away; and
no structure was any longer permitted but that of the plain cross-beam
from pillar to pillar, over the round arch, with square or circular
shafts, and a low-gabled roof and pediment: two elements of noble form,
which had fortunately existed in Rome, were, however, for that reason,
still permitted; the cupola, and, internally, the waggon vault.

Sec. XIX. These changes in form were all of them unfortunate; and it is
almost impossible to do justice to the occasionally exquisite
ornamentation of the fifteenth century, on account of its being placed
upon edifices of the cold and meagre Roman outline. There is, as far as
I know, only one Gothic building in Europe, the Duomo of Florence, in
which, though the ornament be of a much earlier school, it is yet so
exquisitely finished as to enable us to imagine what might have been the
effect of the perfect workmanship of the Renaissance, coming out of the
hands of men like Verrocchio and Ghiberti, had it been employed on the
magnificent framework of Gothic structure. This is the question which,
as I shall note in the concluding chapter, we ought to set ourselves
practically to solve in modern times.

Sec. XX. The changes effected in form, however, were the least part of
the evil principles of the Renaissance. As I have just said, its main
mistake, in its