of some of the stone vaulting and pendants of the period. The ceilings will be referred to later, but it may here be said that most of them are derived from the wood-ribbed ceilings of Late Gothic work, and that only in the small room called Wolsey's Closet does the design decidedly follow Italian models. It will thus be seen that Hampton Court is essentially Gothic in style, and that only in its susceptible places has it been affected by the foreign fashion. What happened at Hampton Court happened elsewhere, and in all the examples which have come down to us the same thing is to be seen--a Gothic structure with more or less of Italian ornament: more in such places as Sutton Court and Layer Marney Tower, less at Compton Winyates and Hengrave. There was, however, one building, which has not come down to us, in which the Italian manner must have been much more in evidence, judging by such accounts as we have of the place. This was the palace of Nonesuch, in Surrey. It was built by Henry VIII. as a retreat, according to Paul Hentzner, the tutor of a young German nobleman who visited England in 1598.[4] It was in "a very healthful situation," he says, "chosen by King Henry VIII. for his pleasure and retirement, and built by him with an excess of magnificence and elegance, even to ostentation; one would imagine that everything that architecture can perform to have been employed in this one work; there are everywhere so many statues that seem to breathe, so many miracles of consummate art, so many casts that rival even the perfection of Roman antiquity, that it may well claim and justify its name of Nonesuch." The site was acquired by the king in 1538,[5] and as he died in 1547, he must have begun to build almost immediately. According to a statement in Braun's _Civitates_ (1582), he "procured many excellent artificers, architects, sculptors, and statuaries, as well Italians, French, and Dutch as natives, who all applied to the ornament of this mansion the finest and most curious skill they possessed in these several arts, embellishing it within and without with many magnificent statues, some of which vividly represent the antiquities of Rome, and some surpass them."[6] About eight years after Henry's death the house was alienated from the Crown to the Earl of Arundel, and was thereby saved from the destruction contemplated by Queen Mary, who found it too costly to finish. The Earl, however, "for the love and honour he bare to his old master," completed the building and left it to his son-in-law, Lord Lumley, who added a second court. In 1591 it again came into possession of the Crown, and so continued until it was presented by Charles II. to his favourite, Barbara, Countess of Castlemaine, who pulled it down to help towards paying her debts. A few years before this happened Evelyn notes in his diary under date 3rd January, 1666: "I supp'd in Nonesuch House, whither the office of the Exchequer was transferr'd