None of these castles have much pretension to interest or magnificence as fortifications,—a circumstance which gives an idea of more peaceful times and more settled security than we could quite expect in that age, especially as we find in the period of the pointed style so many and such splendid fortifications crowning every eminence along the banks of the Rhine, and indeed in every corner of the land. These last may, in some instances, have been rebuildings of castles of this date, but I am not aware of any having been ascertained to be so. There is no want of specimens of conventual buildings and cloisters in Germany of this age; but every one is singularly deficient both in design as a whole and in the elegance of its parts. The beautiful arcades of the palaces we have just been describing nowhere reappear in conventual buildings. Why this should be so it is difficult to understand, but such certainly is the fact. The most elegant that is known to exist is probably the cloister to the cathedral at Zurich. It is nearly square, from 60 to 70 ft. each way. Every side is divided into five bays by piers supporting bold semicircular arches, and these are again subdivided into three smaller arches supported by two slender pillars. The arrangement will be understood from the woodcut (No. 735). This cloister is superior in design to many in France and elsewhere of the same age; its great beauty consists in the details of the capitals and string-courses, which are all different, most of them with figures singularly well executed, but many merely with conventional foliage, not unlike the honeysuckle of the Greeks, and not unworthy of the comparison as far as the mere design is concerned, though the execution is rude. The same is the case with the sculptures of the portal; for though they display even less classical feeling, they show an exuberance of fancy and a boldness of handling which we miss entirely in the succeeding ages, when the art yielded to make way for mere architectural mouldings, as if the two could not exist together. The example of Greece forbids us to believe that such is necessarily the case, but in the Middle Ages it certainly was, that as the one advanced nearer to perfection, the other declined in almost an equal degree. [Illustration: 735. Cloister at Zurich. (From Chapuy, ‘Moyen-Âge Monumental.’)]