DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29898#0013
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
During the period that has elapsed since the first edition of this work
was published,1 no important work on the History o£ Architecture has
appeared which throws any new light on either the theory or practice
of the art, and, except in India, no new buildings have been discovered
and no monographs published that materially add to our general stores
of knowledge.
The truth of the matter appears to be that the architectural pro-
ductions of all the countries mentioned in these two volumes have
been examined and described to a sufficient extent for the purposes
of the general historian. A great deal of course remains to be done
before all the information required for the student of any particular
style can be supplied, but nothing of any great importance probably
remains to be discovered in the countries of the Old World, nor any-
thing that is at all likely to alter any views or theories founded on
what we at present know.
The one exception to this satisfactory state of things is our know-
ledge, or rather want of knowledge, regarding the history of the
ancient architecture of the Hew World, treated of in the last few pages
of this work. No important addition has lately been made to the
little we knew before, and it is now to be feared that Mr. Squier’s
long-expected work on the Antiquities of Peru may never see the
light, at least not under the auspices of its author, and the Count de
Waldeck’s work adds very little, if anything, to what we knew before.
What is really wanted is that some one should make himself per-
sonally acquainted with all the various styles existing between the
upper waters of the Colorado and the desert of Atacama to such an
extent as to be able to establish the relative sequence of their dates
1 Thc first volurae was published in 1865; the second in 1867.
During the period that has elapsed since the first edition of this work
was published,1 no important work on the History o£ Architecture has
appeared which throws any new light on either the theory or practice
of the art, and, except in India, no new buildings have been discovered
and no monographs published that materially add to our general stores
of knowledge.
The truth of the matter appears to be that the architectural pro-
ductions of all the countries mentioned in these two volumes have
been examined and described to a sufficient extent for the purposes
of the general historian. A great deal of course remains to be done
before all the information required for the student of any particular
style can be supplied, but nothing of any great importance probably
remains to be discovered in the countries of the Old World, nor any-
thing that is at all likely to alter any views or theories founded on
what we at present know.
The one exception to this satisfactory state of things is our know-
ledge, or rather want of knowledge, regarding the history of the
ancient architecture of the Hew World, treated of in the last few pages
of this work. No important addition has lately been made to the
little we knew before, and it is now to be feared that Mr. Squier’s
long-expected work on the Antiquities of Peru may never see the
light, at least not under the auspices of its author, and the Count de
Waldeck’s work adds very little, if anything, to what we knew before.
What is really wanted is that some one should make himself per-
sonally acquainted with all the various styles existing between the
upper waters of the Colorado and the desert of Atacama to such an
extent as to be able to establish the relative sequence of their dates
1 Thc first volurae was published in 1865; the second in 1867.