We have no means of knowing the exact form of the Byzantine churches of Sicily before the Arab invasion. All have either perished or are undescribed. The Saracenic remains, too, have all disappeared, the buildings generally supposed to be relics of their rule being now proved to have been erected by Mahometan workmen for their Christian masters. With the Norman sway a style arose which goes far to supply all these deficiencies, being Greek in essence, Roman in form, and Saracenic in decoration; and these elements mixed in exactly those proportions which we should expect. Nowhere do we find the square-domed plans of the Greek Church, nor any form suited to the Greek ritual. These have given place to the Roman basilica, and to an arrangement adapted to the rites of the Romish Church; but all the work was performed by Greek artists, and the Roman outline was filled up and decorated to suit the taste and conciliate the feelings of the worshippers, who were conquered Greeks or converted Moors. Their fancy, too—richer and happier than that of the ruder races of the West—was allowed full play. An Eastern exuberance in designing details and employing colours is here exhibited, cramped a little, it must be confessed, by the architectural forms and the ritual arrangements to which it is applied, but still a ruling and beautifying principle throughout. Among all these elements, those who are familiar with architectural history will hardly look for anything indicative of purely Norman taste or feelings. A mere handful of military adventurers, they conquered as soldiers of Rome and for her aggrandisement, and held the fief for her advantage: they could have brought no arts even if their country had then possessed any. They were content that their newly-acquired subjects should erect for them palaces after the beautiful fashion of the country, and that Roman priests should direct the building of churches suited to their forms, but built as the Sicilians had been accustomed to build, and decorated as they could decorate them, better than their masters and conquerors. All this, when properly understood, lends an interest to the history of this little branch of architecture, wholly independent of its artistic merit; but the art itself is so beautiful and so instructive, from its being one of the styles where polychromy was universally employed and is still preserved, that notwithstanding all that has been done, it still merits more attention.