The ecclesiastical architecture of the Flemish Renaissance is almost as destitute of important monuments as is the secular. +Ste. Anne+, at Bruges, fairly illustrates the type, which is characterized in general by heaviness of detail and a cold and bare aspect internally. The Renaissance in Belgium is best exemplified, after all, by minor works and ordinary dwellings, many of which have considerable artistic grace, though they are quaint rather than monumental (Fig. 190). Stepped gables, high dormers, and volutes flanking each diminishing stage of the design, give a certain piquancy to the street architecture of the period. +HOLLAND.+ Except in the domain of realistic painting, the Dutch have never manifested pre-eminent artistic endowments, and the Renaissance produced in Holland few monuments of consequence. It began there, as in many other places, with minor works in the churches, due largely to Flemish or Italian artists. About the middle of the 16th century two native architects, _Sebastian van Noye_ and _William van Noort_, first popularized the use of carved pilasters and of gables or steep pediments adorned with carved scallop-shells, in remote imitation of the style of Francis I. The principal monuments of the age were town-halls, and, after the war of independence in which the yoke of Spain was finally broken (1566-79), local administrative buildings--mints, exchanges and the like. The +Town Hall+ of +The Hague+ (1565), with its stepped gable or great dormer, its consoles, statues, and octagonal turrets, may be said to have inaugurated the style generally followed after the war. Owing to the lack of stone, brick was almost universally employed, and stone imported by sea was only used in edifices of exceptional cost and importance. Of these the +Town Hall+ at Amsterdam holds the first place. Its façade is of about the same dimensions as the one at Antwerp, but compares unfavorably with it in its monotony and want of interest. The +Leyden Town Hall+, by the Fleming, _Lieven de Key_ (1597), the Bourse or Exchange and the Hanse House at Amsterdam, by _Hendrik de Keyser_, are also worthy of mention, though many lesser buildings, built of brick combined with enamelled terra-cotta and stone, possess quite as much artistic merit. +DENMARK.+ In Denmark the monuments of the Renaissance may almost be said to be confined to the reign of Christian IV. (1588-1648), and do not include a single church of any importance. The royal castles of the +Rosenborg+ at Copenhagen (1610) and the +Fredericksborg+ (1580-1624), the latter by a Dutch architect, are interesting and picturesque in mass, with their fanciful gables, mullioned windows and numerous turrets, but can hardly lay claim to beauty of detail or purity of style. The Exchange at Copenhagen, built of brick and stone in the same general style (1619-40), is still less interesting both in mass and detail.