Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/513

PART III. SARACENIC AND ANCIENT AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. SARACENIC ARCHITECTITRE IN CHRISTIAN COUNTRIES; OR, BYZANTINE SARACENIC. Note. — In consequence of the re-arrangement of the work, as explained above, by which all the Indian chapters are taken out of it and put together in a separate volume by themselves, the third part of the original work is reduced to very lim- ited dimensions. It consists in the first place of those styles of Saracenic art which are in any way connected with the European styles, and which consequent- ly must be studied together with them in order to be understood. But all the Indian developments of the same style are omitted; fii-st, because they have no real or direct connection with the Western styles; and, secondly, because their atfinities are much more intimate with the local styles of Hindostan than with those of Europe. When, however, this great branch is cut off, the Saracenic styles west of the Indus do not occupy a very important place in a general history of architecture — nothing that can compare with the great Christian or classical styles, and hardly even with those of Assyria or Egypt. As the Indian styles necessarily include the Cambodian, Chinese, .Japanese, etc., the only styles that remain to be described are those of the New World. Their connection with other styles is at present so hazy and indefinite that they may be arranged anywhere ; but in order to avoid any appearance of prejudging any hypothesis, it may be as well to place them in this part of the work, in juxta- position with a style with which they cannot be suspected of having any connec- tion. INTRODUCTION. rpHE first century of the Hejira forms a chapter in the history of X mankind as startling from the brilliancy of its events as it is as- tonishing from the permanence of its results. Whether we consider the first outburst of Mahomedanism as a conquest of one of the most extensive empires of the world by a small and previously unknown people, or as the propagation of a new religion, or as both these events VOL. II. — 32