"The island of Cyprus was conquered in 1191 by Richard Cœur de Lion; in the following year it was ceded to Guy de Lusignan, in whose family it remained until the close of the fifteenth century. Catherine Cornaro, the widow of the last of the Lusignans, gave it in 1489 to the Venetians, who retained possession of it till its conquest by the Turks in 1571. Throughout the thirteenth century Cyprus was a refuge for successive remnants of the Christian colonies of Syria. French predominance was at its height in the fourteenth century. The religious monuments of this period are very numerous and of great variety of structure. Art had emerged from the cloister, and had ceased to be the monopoly of monastic bodies. In Cyprus we no longer find that scholastic uniformity which characterises the Latin churches of the Holy Land. The new blood of secularism had entered into Romanesque architecture and led to a fresh development of the art in Cyprus as in France Architects applied the thirteenth-century methods, fully recognising their consequences. They sacrificed to local exigencies by the substitution of flat roofs for timber ones, but this modification in nowise affected the general arrangement of their buildings. [Illustration: 80. CATHEDRAL OF ST. NICHOLAS AT FAMAGUSTA (ISLAND OF CYPRUS). FAÇADE] [Illustration: 81. CATHEDRAL OF ST. NICHOLAS AT FAMAGUSTA (ISLAND OF CYPRUS)] "The most considerable monument of the thirteenth century is the Cathedral of Nicosia, built between 1209 and 1228, and dedicated to St. Sophia (see Fig. 79). This large three-aisled church has all the characteristics of French cathedrals of the period."[26] [26] Melchior de Vogüé, _Les Églises de la Terre Sainte_.