DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1457#0007
PREFACE.
I HE want of a concise historical account of
Gothic architecture has been a just cause of
complaint: the subject is peculiarly interesting
to every Englishman, as his country contains
the best specimens of a style of building not
unequal in grace, beauty, and ornament, to
the most celebrated remains of Greece or
Rome. This style of architecture may pro-
perly be called English architecture, for if it
had not its origin in this country, it certainly
arrived at maturity here3; under the Saxon
dynasty this style of building was introduced,
Since the publication of the first edition of this work, I
am highly gratified by a note which has appeared to the
account of Durham Cathedral, which accompanies the Plans,
«.c. of that structure, published by the Antiquarian Society.
" It is much to be wished that the word Gothic should not
he used in speaking of the architecture of England, from the
thirteenth to the sixteenth century. The term tends to give
wise ideas on the subject, and originates with the Italian
writers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; who applied
we expression of ' La Maniera Gotica,' in contempt to all
the works of art of the middle ages.
" From these writers it was borrowed by Sir Christopher
Wren, the first English writer who has applied it to English
architecture. There is very little doubt that the light and
elegant style of building, whose principal and characteristic
I HE want of a concise historical account of
Gothic architecture has been a just cause of
complaint: the subject is peculiarly interesting
to every Englishman, as his country contains
the best specimens of a style of building not
unequal in grace, beauty, and ornament, to
the most celebrated remains of Greece or
Rome. This style of architecture may pro-
perly be called English architecture, for if it
had not its origin in this country, it certainly
arrived at maturity here3; under the Saxon
dynasty this style of building was introduced,
Since the publication of the first edition of this work, I
am highly gratified by a note which has appeared to the
account of Durham Cathedral, which accompanies the Plans,
«.c. of that structure, published by the Antiquarian Society.
" It is much to be wished that the word Gothic should not
he used in speaking of the architecture of England, from the
thirteenth to the sixteenth century. The term tends to give
wise ideas on the subject, and originates with the Italian
writers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; who applied
we expression of ' La Maniera Gotica,' in contempt to all
the works of art of the middle ages.
" From these writers it was borrowed by Sir Christopher
Wren, the first English writer who has applied it to English
architecture. There is very little doubt that the light and
elegant style of building, whose principal and characteristic