In Germany, where for a time it reigned almost exclusively, Gothic art established the cathedrals of Erfurt, of Cologne, Fribourg, and of Vienna; then it died away in the growth of the _Flamboyant_ style. In England, after having left some magnificent examples of pure inspiration, it found its decline in the attenuated meagreness and the complicated ornamentation of the style called _Perpendicular ogival_. If it penetrated also into Spain, it was to contend with difficulty against the mighty Moorish school, which had too many imposing _chefs-d’œuvre_ in the past to surrender without resistance the country of its former triumphs (Fig. 324). In Italy it clashed not only with the Latin and Byzantine schools, but also with a style that, just beginning to form itself, was soon to dispute with it the empire of taste, and to dethrone it in that very land which had been its cradle. The cathedrals of Assisi, of Siena, of Milan, are the splendid works in which its influence triumphed over local traditions and over the _Renaissance_ that was preparing to follow; yet we must not think that it succeeded even there in rendering itself absolutely the master, as it had done on the Rhenish or British territories. Sacrifices were made in its favour; but these sacrifices did not amount to an entire immolation. [Illustration: Fig. 322.--Doorways of the Hôtel de Sens, at Paris; the last remaining portion of the Hôtel Royal de Saint-Pol, built in the reign of Charles V. (Fourteenth Century.)] When we use the word _Renaissance_, we seem to be speaking of a return to an age already gone by, of the resurrection of a period that had passed away. It is not strictly in this sense that the word must be understood in the present instance. [Illustration: Fig. 323.--Belfry of Brussels (Fifteenth Century), from an engraving of the Seventeenth Century.] Inheriting from of old the artistic temperament of Greece, rather than spontaneously creating of herself any style, Italy, among all the nations of Europe, was the country which had most successfully resisted the profound [Illustration: Fig. 324.--Interior of the Palace of the Alhambra, at Granada.--(Thirteenth Century.)] darkness of barbarism, and the first on which the light of modern civilisation shone.