of their edifices were modern; the parts were copied from antique models.
A want of organic unity and structural sincerity is always the result of
those necessities under which a secondary and adapted style must labour;
and thus the pseudo-Roman buildings even of the best Renaissance period
display faults similar to those of the Italian Gothic. While they are
remarkable for grandeur of effect in all that concerns the distribution of
light and shade, the covering and enclosing of space, and the disposition
of masses, they show at best but a superficial correspondence between the
borrowed forms and the construction these are used to mask.[28] The
edifices of this period abound in more or less successful shams, in
surface decoration more or less pleasing to the eye; their real greatness,
meanwhile, consists in the feeling for spatial proportions and for linear
harmonies possessed by their architects.

Three periods in the development of Renaissance architecture may be
roughly marked.[29] The first, extending from 1420 to 1500, is the age of
experiment and of luxuriant inventiveness. The second embraces the first
forty years of the sixteenth century. The most perfect buildings of the
Italian Renaissance were produced within this short space of time. The
third, again comprising about forty years, from 1540 to 1580, leads onward
to the reign of mannerism and exaggeration, called by the Italians
_barocco_. In itself the third period is distinguished by a scrupulous
purism bordering upon pedantry, strict adherence to theoretical rules, and
sacrifice of inventive qualities to established canons. To do more than
briefly indicate the masterpieces of these three periods, would be
impossible in a work that does not pretend to treat of architecture
exhaustively: and yet to omit all notice of the builders of this age and
of their styles, would be to neglect the most important art-phase of the
time I have undertaken to illustrate.