England, in common with the rest of North-western Europe, was the home of Gothic architecture, instinct with the mystery and romantic spirit of the Middle Ages. Italy was the home of Classic architecture, which it had cherished since the great days of Rome. The Gothic manner was never thoroughly acquired in Italy, even in those parts which lay nearest to France and Germany, although it affected their buildings to a certain extent. The best examples of Italian Gothic hold a low rank in comparison with the masterpieces of the northern style. Classic forms were those in which the Italian designer naturally expressed himself, and it was these which he employed when that great revival of the Arts which took place in the fifteenth century, set him building. The earlier Renaissance in letters "the spring before the spring," of which the great figures are Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, heralded a great awakening of architectural energy, and Italian architects, in solving their new problems, mingled the results of a deep study of ancient examples with much of mediæval spirit and tendency. They set themselves resolutely to revive the architecture which had been one of the glories of ancient Rome; but they could not, even had they wished it, free themselves from the spirit of their own age, and the result was the development of a kind of architecture which used old forms in new ways, and which has gained the distinguishing title of the Renaissance style. But the awakening in architecture was only one manifestation of the spirit which was abroad: in painting, sculpture, and all the applied arts, as well as in literature, the same vivifying tendency was at work. With the fall of Constantinople in 1453, an event which flooded Western Europe with Greek scholars and Greek literature, a tremendous impulse was given to the new aspirations. A new world of history and poetry had been discovered, just as, forty years afterwards, a new world of fact and reality was discovered by Columbus and Cabot. The two events combined to excite men's imagination to an extraordinary degree, and their stimulating effect was visible in all branches of mental activity. There was a marvellous mingling of the old and the new. In the past there was an inexhaustible well of knowledge and suggestion; in the present a boundless opening for enterprise and fresh experiences. Just at this juncture the invention of printing was being perfected, and it came at the precise time to help the dissemination of the new ideas. The result was that great movement of the human mind known as the Renaissance, which in the space of a century altered the life of Western Europe. In politics it shattered the international fabric of the Middle Ages; in religion it brought about the momentous change which we call the Reformation; in art it wedded faultless execution with an extraordinary fecundity of design. There followed an age richer, perhaps, than any other in original